Archive

Year: 2015

  • The rain in Spain stays mainly… uncontained

    December 22, 2015

    Since Sunday night, Spaniards in Brussels must feel a little bit more at home. Following the announcement of electoral results, Spain follows the “Belgian example” meaning entering a period of what appears to be complex coalition negotiations in order to form a government. Yesterday’s elections did not produce an outright winner. Rather, results highlighted the political impact of the European crisis. Prime Minister Rajoy’s People’s Party (PP) won just 29% of the vote or (123...

  • COP21: It’s all about the signal

    December 18, 2015

    The Paris COP21 climate conference was interesting in that it managed to produce a deal which was considered as historic to some and yet disappointing to others. The latter will argue that the following make for a weak deal. The agreement does not make INDCs binding, the aggregated INDCs put the world on track to over 3°C temperature increase, and there isn’t nearly enough money in the pot to compensate poor countries or help them...

  • Circular Economy 2.0: We’ve mapped all 54 actions for you

    December 17, 2015

    The new Circular Economy package includes no fewer than 54 legislative and non-legislative actions to be completed in the next years with a view to "close the loop" of product lifecycles and bring benefits for both the environment and the economy. To help you understand how the actions interact and their impact on business, we have mapped all of them for you. Time will tell us whether the EU can actually deliver on Circular Economy...

  • The power of the visual: FleishmanHillard at COP21

    December 17, 2015

    I’ll begin with a confession. This blog should have been finished weeks ago. If my first 3 months working for FleishmanHillard have taught me anything, it is that when you’re working full time, things will always get in the way. This is hopefully the first blog of many and I’ll be writing about a range of things regarding communications, public affairs and how they overlap. But enough about me. This blog isn’t about my life...

  • Endocrine Disrupters (ED): The Court has ruled and the Commission has lost

    December 16, 2015

    Companies and organisations hoping that the European Commission’s impact assessment on ED criteria will drive evidence-based policy with appropriate consideration of all costs and benefits should take warning of today’s ruling from the General Court of the European Union (Judgment in Case T-521/14 Sweden v Commission). You may remember that in July 2014 Sweden decided to bring the European Commission before the Court for being late on delivering criteria to identify endocrine disrupting substances (ED...

  • The EU Aviation Strategy has landed

    December 8, 2015

    On Monday 7 December, the European Commission (EC) released its long-term strategy for the European aviation sector. The document touches on many elements including connectivity, competitiveness, safety and security. The package is wide-ranging, despite the fact that the only legislative proposal contained is a revision of the Regulation on the powers of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). It would in fact seem to be less a “package” of legislative measures, as the Commission had...

  • FH Analysis: The EU Aviation Strategy has landed

    December 8, 2015

    FleishmanHillard has analysed the EU Aviation Strategy which was released today, 7 December 2015, by Vice-President Šefčovič and Transport Commissioner Bulc. The strategy is a wide-ranging initiative which aims to reposition the EU aviation sector in an international sense and, at the same time, strengthen the internal aviation market in Europe. Read our analysis of the strategy here and for more information please contact: Robert Anger | Senior Vice President & Partner | Manufacturing & Industrials [email protected]...

  • Danish referendum: why should Brussels care?

    December 4, 2015

    Yesterday, the Danes voted no in their latest EU referendum on whether or not to change the current situation, where Denmark is not participating in the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) cooperation in the EU. It was rejected! But let’s start with a little bit of background. A referendum on the ‘justice-opt-out’ has been planned for a while now. The opt-out, along with 3 others, was created as a response to the Danes initially rejecting...

  • The Cybersecurity directive vs. “Less and better regulation”?    

    December 3, 2015

    Will EU Institutions next Monday (7 December), as it gives birth to a network and information security (NIS) directive, run the risk of fragmentation and adding more red tape in an effort to help build minimum resilience capabilities and common rules for incident reporting? Cybersecurity is a comprehensive concept that encompasses several different dimensions of information security. It spans from consumer education to information sharing and even more complex issues such as critical information infrastructure...

  • A circle has no end: The Commission’s second go at the Circular Economy package

    December 2, 2015

    Here it comes! The European Commission today will publish its long awaited Circular Economy package. If you have been following this saga, you will know that a Circular Economy package first appeared in July 2014, when Commissioner Potočnik led on environmental policy. Soon after however, winds changed in Brussels. The package became a victim of the Better Regulation agenda and was withdrawn with Commission Vice-President Timmermans’ promise to “replace [it] by [a] new, more ambitious...