▼

Wednesday, 5 January 2022

POLITICO

POLITICO

Poland’s President Andrzej Duda tests positive for COVID-19

Posted: 05 Jan 2022 05:31 AM PST

Polish President Andrzej Duda has tested positive for COVID-19 and is self-isolating, his chief of staff Paweł Szrot announced Wednesday.

“The president is fine, has no severe symptoms and is under constant medical care,” Szrot wrote on Twitter.

According to Szrot, Duda has received three coronavirus vaccine doses, with his booster shot taking place on December 17.

Duda was previously infected with COVID-19 back in October 2020.

Google first Big Tech firm subject to new German competition rules

Posted: 05 Jan 2022 02:30 AM PST

The German competition authority has earmarked Google as the first tech platform to come under new antitrust rules for the digital economy.

In a decision published today, the German Cartel Office said the U.S. tech giant will be subject to "extended abuse control rules” outlined in the German Competition Act reform, which entered into force in January last year.

"In less than a year, we have now taken the first official decision based on this provision and determined that Google is of paramount significance across markets," Andreas Mundt, president of the German Cartel Office, said today.

"The Bundeskartellamt can now take action against specific anti-competitive practices by Google."

The new rules allow the Bonn-based regulator to intervene swiftly in competition abuses in the digital economy and prohibit certain practices by companies of "paramount significance for competition across markets."

The reform's prohibitions include self-preferencing and certain data processing practices that impede competition.

The German regulator has already launched several investigations into the company under the rules, covering the company's data processing terms, as well as the contestability of the Google news service.

A spokesperson for the German cartel office confirmed today that Apple, Amazon and Meta (parent company of Facebook), were also being examined.

For its part, Google struck a conciliatory tone. "We will continue to work constructively with the German Cartel Office to find solutions that enable people and businesses in Germany to continue to use our products," a spokesperson said.

UK Labour leader Keir Starmer tests positive for COVID-19

Posted: 05 Jan 2022 02:19 AM PST

U.K. Labour leader Keir Starmer has tested positive for COVID-19.

Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner will stand in for him at Wednesday afternoon’s Prime Minister’s Questions in parliament.

The positive test marks the sixth time Starmer has had to self-isolate since the start of the pandemic.

White House embraces a manage-not-contain Omicron game plan

Posted: 05 Jan 2022 02:15 AM PST

WASHINGTON — When U.S. President Joe Biden took office last January amid a winter COVID-19 surge, he vowed an all-out federal assault aimed at vanquishing the virus.

A year later, with the country facing unprecedented levels of disease once again, his administration is now hoping to fight it to a draw.

Besieged by the fast-spreading Omicron variant, the White House is racing to limit the fallout from record cases swamping the nation — an explosion that's strained hospitals, snarled travel and raised the specter of widespread economic disruptions. The administration has fast-tracked COVID-19 treatments to hard-hit states and pledged emergency personnel to medical centers shorthanded by the waves of infection sweeping through their staffs. They've done it all while juggling immense political pressure from fellow Democrats to maintain some semblance of social normalcy lest the party be hit even further by pandemic fatigue among voters.

The new reality has further darkened the mood among White House aides already frustrated by the lack of progress toward ending a pandemic many initially believed could be dispatched within a year. It's also accelerated the administration's pivot toward preparing people to live with the virus indefinitely. In interviews, officials described the next few weeks as a triage operation focused on containing the reverberations of the surge well enough to avert breakdowns in essential services, mass school closures and overrun hospitals.

On Tuesday, Biden pleaded with Americans to get vaccinated and boosted to protect themselves against Omicron's rise, arguing the U.S. is well-equipped to weather the crisis.

"We have the tools to protect people from severe illness from Omicron — if people choose to use the tools," he said. "For God's sake, please take advantage of what's available."

Yet even as the president sought to project calm, he conceded there was widespread confusion among Americans about the virus’s spread. And health officials inside and outside his administration privately acknowledge that there's little new left for the federal government to do but hold on and hope the worst is over soon.

"We're going to have another two-and-a-half, three weeks, maybe four weeks of this viral blizzard where we'll see one challenge after another," said Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota who advised the Biden transition. "There's nothing at the federal level that's going to change that."

The Omicron variant hit the U.S. faster than anticipated, further exposing the shortcomings in the administration's COVID strategy to date. A vaccination campaign at the center of the pandemic response has yet to win over tens of millions of skeptical Americans.

And despite directing tens of millions of dollars in funding to address the problem, the government still lacks the testing and tracing capabilities needed to closely track the virus's spread — leaving officials scrambling to catch up as infections soar beyond the 1 million-per-day mark.

Well past the point of averting Omicron’s surge, top officials have instead tried to publicly calm fears while ramping up efforts to vaccinate more people and limiting the potential for catastrophic health and economic damage.

“You can get through a couple weeks. It’s hard to get through a couple months,” Bob Wachter, chair of the University of California, San Francisco’s department of medicine, said of Omicron’s spread. “The key question is how long this all lasts.”

Privately, the administration has clung to data in foreign countries that suggest Omicron could burn itself out just as quickly as it arrived, meaning case counts could begin dropping off as early as February in early-hit parts of the country.

Health officials have also highlighted research showing the variant is less severe than its predecessors, making it less likely to drive a similarly astronomical spike in hospitalizations and deaths even as infections rise. In one particularly encouraging indication circulated within the administration, COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes have remained relatively level over the last several weeks.

Hoping those data points hold — and fearing that a return to unpopular lockdowns would be politically ruinous for Biden — the administration has shifted toward trying to blunt Omicron's impact on everyday life and the economy rather than to completely contain it.

"The message is to get vaccinated, to get boosted and many of us have done so," said one person familiar with the approach. "But folks who are not susceptible to that call, they're going to remain resistant to it."

The manage-not-contain approach has been visible across agencies. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in late December shortened its recommended isolation guidelines for COVID-positive people from 10 to five days provided the person leaving quarantine continues to mask. It was a move that two people with knowledge of the matter said they hoped would help avert the potential for staff shortages among fire, police and medical services.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, meanwhile, has ramped up his messaging in recent days that schools should remain open, arguing that state officials should do whatever possible to keep kids in classrooms.

The White House itself has largely backed off of publicly pressuring governors to implement specific policies like mask requirements — a shift that comes as blue state leaders have splintered over how to manage the pandemic, with some like Colorado Gov. Jared Polis declaring that the availability of vaccines means "the emergency is over."

The administration has remained in daily contact with governors, advising them to follow CDC guidelines and briefing them on latest developments, officials said. They’ve spent much of the past few weeks ramping up efforts to support state-level responses, including sending emergency response teams to dozens of states and expanding testing and vaccination capacity.

Biden and his top aides have simultaneously called for Americans to get booster shots and wear masks where required, emphasizing the far greater danger Omicron poses to the unvaccinated. And after acknowledging that the speed of the surge caught them off guard and unprepared to handle the spike in demand for tests, the White House has since taken steps to build out its testing system and bolster access to treatments, including a pledge to buy and distribute 500 million free COVID-19 rapid tests and a doubling of its order of Pfizer's antiviral pill.

Still, Biden has struggled to escape a COVID malaise that's dragged down his approval ratings since the fall — a period complicated by messaging hiccups that have caused confusion and fueled criticism.

In the most recent episode, the CDC faced swift backlash for shortening its isolation guidelines without requiring a negative test, after top health officials had difficulty demonstrating the scientific evidence behind it. Administration officials have since insisted that the change is grounded in science, though two people with knowledge of the matter said the turbulent rollout touched off a fresh round of finger-pointing over who was responsible for the garbled messaging.

Democrats privately acknowledge that those missteps — along with the canceled flights that stranded thousands over the holiday — mean that even absent harsh restrictions and school shutdowns, Omicron's spread could continue to undercut a midterm strategy once predicated on a clean defeat of the virus.

Fearful of what that portends for November, other Democrats have pushed for Biden to take an even more prominent role in messaging through the crisis. Nearly two years into the pandemic, "there is an enormous opportunity for the administration to make the grit, resilience and strength of the American people the central story of the pandemic," said Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist who has written extensively on the White House and politics of the pandemic.

"The president can use his powerful ability to connect with struggle and trauma to acknowledge our struggle with the virus and praise the American people's can-do spirit in helping get to the other side of this thing," Rosenberg said. "The story of the pandemic here in the U.S. is not about scientists, vaccines, the government — it is about all the courageous steps we've all taken every day to get ourselves and our families through an extraordinary collective trauma and disruptions.”

Macron toughens line on the unvaccinated, wants to ‘piss them off’

Posted: 05 Jan 2022 12:31 AM PST

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron's brash, vulgar comments that he wants to make life difficult for the unvaccinated have sparked a furor amid already-heated debate in the French parliament about introducing a vaccine pass.

"The unvaccinated, I really want to piss them off. And so, we're going to continue doing so, until the end. That's the strategy," Macron told Le Parisien newspaper in an interview published late Tuesday. 

Currently, French people have to present a COVID-19 immunity passport — including proof of vaccination or of a negative test — to enter restaurants, cafés, museums and other public spaces. The government is seeking to harden conditions for the unvaccinated by no longer making a negative test an option to get the immunity passport. In effect the new, ramped-up pass means banning the unvaccinated from many public venues.

The measure is currently going through the National Assembly, where the debate ran aground for the second consecutive day in the early hours of Wednesday morning as a result of Macron’s comments.

France is currently battling a fresh wave of COVID-19 infections, with daily cases reaching record highs due to the Omicron variant.

Macron made clear that his aim was to hassle a minority who don't want to take the jab.

"It's only a very small minority of people who is against [the vaccine]. How do you tackle them? You do so, I'm sorry to say, by pissing them off," he said in the interview with Le Parisien.

"I don’t want to piss the French off. I complain all day against the administration when it puts hurdles in their way. But the unvaccinated, I really want to piss them off," he said, adding that the government was going to tell them "you can't go to the restaurant, you can't go for a drink, you can't have a coffee … "

Opposition parties lash out

Macron was quickly accused of lacking presidential decorum. He used the slang word “emmerder,” a common word meaning to make life difficult, but that is not used in polite discourse.

"It's not up to the president of the Republique to sift the good citizens from the bad," said Valérie Pécresse, his conservative rival in April's presidential election. "We do not need to divide France, divide the French. We need to reconcile this country."

Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen condemned the remarks "of unprecedented vulgarity and violence from a President of the Republic."

On the other end of the political spectrum, left-wing presidential contender Jean-Luc Mélenchon tweeted: "Astonishing admission of #Macron. It is clear the #PassVaccinal [vaccine pass] is a collective punishment against individual freedom."

The remarks have sparked an intense debate in France over the dignity of the president and the divisive nature of his approach.

But with only four months to go before the election, Macron is also seen as calculatedly going on the offensive, using the management of the COVID-19 pandemic to put his opponents on the back foot. In recent months, opposition parties have struggled to make a mark on the issue, appearing either muddled or in agreement with the government.

With polls saying that a majority of the French are in favor of introducing a vaccine pass, many supporters of the president bank that his comments will chime with the feelings of ordinary French people who want to get back to normality.  

"90 percent of the French are vaccinated, it's a majority that is exasperated with the restrictions," said a close adviser to Macron in comments to Playbook Paris. "There's a big difference between what's on Twitter and real life and what people really think."

Another government adviser thought Macron was taking a leaf from the playbook of far-right presidential candidate Eric Zemmour, who is viewed as saying what real people think at home "sitting on their sofas."

Scoring political victories

Debates on the vaccine pass are expected to resume Wednesday, behind the original schedule set by the government. And the comments from Macron will not make things any smoother.

On Monday, debates were abruptly halted when opposition MPs decided to vote against prolonging proceedings beyond midnight, usually a formality when important draft legislation is being discussed.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Jean Castex, a usually sanguine figure, lambasted what was seen as a minor victory for the conservatives.

"It's not responsible, it's not responsible … The virus is galloping, and you are pulling on the hand break," he said in the chamber. "What will our follow countrymen think of these shenanigans?"

Macron is no stranger to taking political gambles. And on this topic, a majority will agree with him that the unvaccinated should be encouraged to take the jab as cases in France spiral.

In the same interview which could come back to haunt him, Macron also said antivaxxers were "undermining the solidity of the nation" and that their irresponsibility meant "they were no longer citizens."

Pauline de Saint Remy contributed reporting.

Global tipping points: Climate change and the coronavirus

Posted: 04 Jan 2022 07:00 PM PST

Emil J. Bergholtz is a professor of theoretical physics at Stockholm University. Nele Brusselaers is an associate professor of clinical epidemiology at Karolinska Institute. Andrew G. Ewing is a professor of chemistry and molecular biology at the University of Gothenburg and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science.

An increasing number of experts are saying, "We have to learn to live with COVID-19." However, as scientists, we see this is a fundamentally flawed idea — and one we have not chosen to follow with other similarly dangerous pathogens.

Similar arguments have been successful in the past, like claims that we must learn to “live with climate change.” And the COVID-19 debate is going in the same direction to those surrounding climate, albeit much more quickly.

Both these approaches have the same components: They sound reasonable and realistic at first, but they obfuscate that there is an alternative, and they do not account for nonlinear feedback loops — meaning further changes that are driven by the change itself, exponentially perpetuating a chain of cause and effect — thus the resulting assumptions are far too simplistic.

Economists often embrace such short-term ideas. For example, William Nordhaus, the 2018 Economics Nobel winner, had suggested that an increase of the Earth's temperature by 3.5 degrees Celsius until the year 2100 would be optimal — the right balance between economic growth and climate protection — and based on this, he worked against climate action, which he finds too costly.

However, climate scientists have since shown Nordhaus' estimate to be completely incorrect. Nordhaus' calculations were linear, whereas passing tipping points like melted glaciers, changed ocean currents and deforestation, and their compounding effects, the amplifying feedback loops associated with each, would make it ultimately impossible to bring Earth back to normalcy. A 3.5-degree increase in global temperature might threaten our entire existence.

And just like the process of climate change, COVID-19 also has tipping points, in terms of the emergence of new, more transmissible virus variants, each of which lead to qualitatively fiercer challenges to humanity.

The recent appearance of the Omicron variant represents a new tipping point, with an R value significantly higher than the Delta variant and — equally worrying — signs of a lost political will to stop it. Underlying this is an assumption that the disease is not as severe. But this "linear" way of thinking is intellectually flawed, as it ignores the risk of other new variants, new tipping points and further feedback loops. Other variants that could cause more serious disease but do not spread as fast as Omicron can circulate at the same time — mutual immunity is not certain. But one thing does seem certain: Letting large amounts of infection circulate is like opening Pandora’s box. We should expect more unpleasant surprises to come. We have hardly seen the last variant.

When it comes to COVID-19, the issue of feedback loops emerge as the virus mutates due to random mistakes in the viral protein. The global mutation rate is dependent on the number of infections, and more infections result in more virus replication — hence a greater chance of mutation. And although mutations are mostly random, those new viruses that can propagate faster or are not as effectively cleared by the immune system — from vaccination or from previous infection — compete better, eventually taking over the population infection.

An irreversible tipping point we now face regarding COVID-19 is that, owing to more contagious variants like Omicron, sustainable non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as physical distancing or wearing face masks, are no longer enough to halt the pandemic. An even more serious tipping point would be a variant that is more virulent as well as more infectious. For example, a combination of the more infectious Omicron with the more virulent Delta could be catastrophic. 

Thus, the way forward is to suppress the virus to manageable levels while there is still time. Many in the West believe that almost everyone will get COVID-19, that there is no other option, despite several Eastern countries demonstrating that suppression does work. In fact, it has been convincingly shown that an elimination strategy entails superior outcomes in all respects: for health, the economy and civil liberties. Had all countries followed this strategy, we would have fared better and, with large certainty, ended the pandemic altogether by now. But with each tipping point, it’s getting harder to follow the elimination strategy, and herd immunity, a red herring underpinning the "flatten the curve" approach, remains a fata morgana — a mirage.

The other alternative is to wait for potentially better vaccines. But if we are to wait for vaccines, it must be the whole world or nothing. The first round of vaccines was developed and produced in record time; however, the concept of rapidly vaccinating the entire world before the vaccines wane has clearly proven impractical. And the race between vaccine development and virus mutation will become increasingly difficult to win. Giving vaccines that don't completely stop infection to only part of the world will only allow new variants to emerge, and is likely to push us past a final tipping point, where it’s pointless to do something, where it makes sense to give up. But we are not there yet.

Both the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change are global in nature. Both are examples of the tragedy of the commons, with naive local and short-term optimization leading to a disastrous common outcome. But the obstacles are political, not scientific. Both can be managed with a coherent and science-based approach, yet this becomes more difficult with each tipping point passed.

For COVID-19, as for climate, we must realize that the current approach is not sustainable. In each case, the challenge is nonlinear in nature, and passing a point beyond which the situation becomes qualitatively irreversible could be disastrous to current and future generations. 

At least for climate, we think we know some of the targets and dates where we will pass the tipping point of such irreversible change. For COVID-19 though, the tipping points are passed at random by the laws of evolution, thus they can occur at any time and place, with a probability proportional to the amount of virus circulating.

Though it may yet prove to be less virulent, the emergence of the Omicron variant, so close in time to Delta, is at best a strong warning that decisive action and elimination is needed. It is not yet time to give up. We need coordinated efforts across borders, and in addition to vaccination, we need to fully accept COVID-19 is an airborne disease and a plan to suppress transmission with clean air as previously done for clean water — with masks, ventilation and filters, as well as monitoring, testing and quarantine.

For both the pandemic and global climate change the question remains: Will we choose to act, or will we remain passive as we pass a final tipping point?

NATO calls extraordinary meeting to discuss Russia

Posted: 04 Jan 2022 12:23 PM PST

NATO will hold an extraordinary meeting of foreign ministers on Friday to talk about the Russian military build-up on the border with Ukraine, the alliance said in a statement Tuesday.

On a video call, the ministers will discuss Russia and “broader European security issues,” the statement said. The meeting will take place a few days before a NATO-Russia Council, in which Russian officials will take part, on January 12, a meeting announced by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg last month.

Tensions between Moscow and the West have soared in recent months and U.S officials have warned that Moscow could be planning a full-scale invasion of its neighbor after amassing more than 100,000 troops at the frontier.

The EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell is currently in Ukraine for a two-day visit that includes a trip to the eastern front, where Russian-backed separatists are fighting Ukrainian government forces.

The two NATO meetings are linked, said an alliance official. Friday’s NATO foreign ministers teleconference “is part of continuing coordination among NATO allies on security in Europe resulting from Russia's military build-up in and around Ukraine. The meeting is also an opportunity to address the upcoming sequence of engagements with Russia, including in the NATO-Russia Council on 12 January.”

Moscow, concerned by what it says is the West’s re-arming of Ukraine, has said it wants legally-binding guarantees from NATO over its weapons deployment and eastern expansion.

There are a string of other meetings planned between Western powers and Russia to try to defuse tensions.

Moscow will hold talks with Ukraine, Germany and France on Thursday under the so-called Normandy format, Russian state-run news agency Interfax reported Monday. U.S. and Russian officials will also hold security talks on Monday in Geneva.

January 12 is the NATO-Russia Council before a broader meeting on January 13 involving the Vienna-based Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which includes the U.S and its NATO allies as well as Russia, Ukraine, Georgia and other former Soviet states.

America’s new moonshot: Getting Europe to sign up to its space rules

Posted: 04 Jan 2022 10:06 AM PST

The U.S. is pulling allies firmly into its orbit when it comes to drawing up new rules governing who can do what on the moon — but France and Germany are yet to get on board.

The text, dubbed the Artemis Accords, sets out Washington’s preferred principles for a new era of space exploration. It aims to set accepted standards on everything from the exploitation of natural resources on the moon, comets and asteroids to governments’ ability to protect access to lunar bases or mining zones.

The lobbying comes amid a new space race with China, which is moving quickly on its own national program and has outlined embryonic plans for a moon base with Russia. Both countries have made clear they aren’t interested in signing up to the U.S.-led effort.

While the 18-page accords aren’t legally binding, countries are expected to sign up if they want access to NASA’s broader Artemis program targeted at returning astronauts to the moon this decade. Since the text was first published in October 2020, Italy, the U.K., Poland and Luxembourg (a big promoter of asteroid mining) have signed, alongside eight other countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan and South Korea.

But while many of America’s biggest allies moved quickly to join, France and Germany aren’t yet convinced.

During a visit to Paris in November, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said French President Emmanuel Macron intended to sign but Paris hasn’t yet done so. "We are continuing our discussions with the United States, in constant cooperation with our European partners," said an Élysée spokesperson.

Paris — traditionally Europe’s space powerhouse with a hulking domestic aerospace industry — has had strained diplomatic relations with Washington since a new Indo-Pacific partnership derailed a French nuclear submarine deal with Australia in the fall. The relationship improved in November when Harris visited Paris, and the two countries pledged to cooperate more on space.

But even if the accords don’t yet constitute international law, some question whether Europe should be agreeing to America’s space ambitions.

The U.S. text aims to flesh out the 1967 U.N. Outer Space Treaty — the main set of laws covering the moon and other celestial objects. That treaty stipulates that no country can claim sovereignty or property rights on the lunar surface and bans the installation of weapons of mass destruction in orbit.

The U.S.-sponsored text changes that equation, asking countries to agree that the “extraction of space resources does not inherently constitute national appropriation,” a signal for countries and companies to start planning.

“So far, France has defended a conservative interpretation of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty considering that the exploitation of space resources, at least with current technologies and current state of international law, should be regarded as a forbidden form of national appropriation,” said Jérôme Barbier, head of space issues at the Paris Peace Forum — a yearly initiative launched by Macron in 2017 and attended this year by Harris.

Those signing the Artemis Accords reckon space resources are fair game within the confines of the 1967 treaty, a potential game-changer at a time when demand is booming for rare earth metals which are used in tech devices and can be found in massive amounts in space.

Lunar stand-off

Space mining isn’t the only issue up for debate.

The U.S. proposal to designate so-called safety zones is interpreted by some lawyers as giving countries a green light to claim exclusive access to certain areas which also clashes with the general interpretation of the 1967 treaty, said Arthur Sauzay, an expert on space policy at the Paris-based think-tank Institute Montaigne.

“You would have expected Europe to have a different position on what's in the accords,” he said. “It's quite striking to see some countries signing.”

While the French government insists it’s working with other European countries on the issue, Germany also hasn’t yet signed the accords. The new government in Berlin instead wants to boost the role of the Paris-based European Space Agency (ESA).

"The question in the room is who's going to bring the first astronauts to the Gateway [a planned orbital lunar space station] and maybe to the moon,” said one senior space diplomat from a European country that hasn’t signed up. "Right now, every country is trying to do this by itself.”

The European Commission — which launched its own space and defense department in 2019 — says ESA, a non-EU institution in which the U.K. is still a member, runs exploration projects. The agency’s Director General Josef Aschbacher said ESA could be a "coordinating body" for new space rules but added that countries were free to carry out bilateral talks.

There are also nascent efforts to legislate at an EU level. Niklas Nienaß, a Green MEP who works on space issues and was involved in negotiating the new German coalition agreement, says he’s going to push for a “space law” in the European Parliament that would also include standards for resource exploitation.

“The problem is that Luxembourg, Italy and Poland have joined the Artemis Accords and it is therefore difficult to imagine a European solution if some EU and ESA member states are already bound,” said French space expert Barbier.

Clear for launch

The broader Artemis space program — launched by the Trump administration in 2017 and named after a Greek goddess — aims to return the U.S. space program to its 1960s zenith by establishing a permanent presence on the moon.

Early next year, NASA plans to launch an unmanned test flight with the Orion spacecraft, for which European contractors built the service module. In 2024, a manned test flight looping the moon is planned and the first mission to land on the lunar surface is scheduled for the second half of the decade.

A decision on which astronauts will land on the moon is only expected to be taken after the first test flight, according to NASA spokesperson Kathryn Hambleton. Four are expected to make the cut and NASA has already said it plans to fly the first woman and person of color to the moon, but hasn’t confirmed whether a non-American will be included.

"The Europeans are pretty deep into the Artemis program because they are building the service module," said Sauzay. "If it's just money speaking then it would make sense that the first non-American would be European."

A barter contract for developing the Orion service module means Europe already has three tickets to ride to the Gateway orbital space station one day. Any future deal on sending a European astronaut to the lunar surface would depend on a separate intergovernmental agreement, one diplomat said, with the nationality of the person picked likely to hang on which country provides critical tech for the mission, such as a lunar lander.

Still, cozying up to the U.S. on its accords won’t harm the chances of securing a seat on the prestigious first moon mission, and there are some strong European candidates.

France’s Thomas Pesquet recently returned from his second trip to the International Space Station, and Italy's Samantha Cristoforetti is set to take command of the outpost next year. The U.K.'s Tim Peake and Germany’s Alexander Gerst are also experienced astronauts.

And it isn’t only Europe looking to hitch a ride to the moon. On November 19, Japan’s space agency JAXA started recruiting astronauts promising the missions could include a “trip to the lunar base” in the future.

The question roiling some capitals is whether signing up to the accords sucks away Europe’s negotiating power when it comes to regulating space.

“To achieve this goal of being the first European on the Gateway, or the first European on the moon, there the national interests are becoming so big that [capitals] are maybe not careful enough to look at all the consequences," said the senior space diplomat.

Rym Momtaz contributed reporting.

This article is part of POLITICO's premium policy service: Pro Mobility. From the digitization of the automotive sector to aviation policy, logistics and more, our specialized journalists keep you on top of the topics driving the Mobility policy agenda. Email pro@politico.eu for a complimentary trial.

European Commission defends Ireland tech watchdog amid criticism of privacy record

Posted: 04 Jan 2022 10:03 AM PST

Brussels … to the rescue.

Amid mounting criticism of Ireland’s privacy watchdog, top European Commission official Didier Reynders has come to Dublin’s defense, brushing off calls to penalize the country over claims it has failed to uphold Europeans’ privacy rights.

The defense, in a letter to MEPs obtained by POLITICO, comes after lawmakers including Sophie in 't Veld and Tineke Strik from the Netherlands and Cornelia Ernst and Birgit Sippel from Germany urged the EU executive to open a disciplinary procedure against Dublin.

Such a so-called infringement procedure would have pressed Dublin to devote greater resources to enforcing Europe’s privacy rulebook, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), or face the threat of eventual financial penalties from Brussels.

But Reynders, a Belgian former finance minister who’s now in charge of overseeing the GDPR, dismissed their arguments saying that Dublin was right to proceed cautiously in a number of cases, including a major one targeting Facebook.

“The question [of] which data can be processed on the basis of contract is a complex matter, which is now subject to two ongoing preliminary rulings proceedings at the CJEU,” the Belgian politician wrote, in reference to intense criticism of the Irish position in a draft decision that Facebook can use the “performance of a contract” legal basis to use data for ads, rather than relying on consent.

Reynders’ letter, first reported by mLex, brings a rare measure of comfort to an Irish tech regulator that has faced withering criticism in past months amid claims it’s failing to uphold Europeans’ privacy rights and going too easy on Facebook, Google and other tech giants in its jurisdiction.

The latest upheaval followed revelations that the regulator, the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), had pushed to allow social media networks to target users with personalized advertising without obtaining consent, based on the performance of a contract. Other European data protection agencies shot down this attempt, with one saying that the Irish interpretation "undermines the system and spirit” of the GDPR.

‘A complex matter’

Reynders’ view is seemingly at odds with other European data protection regulators.

In an official objection to Ireland’s draft decision in the Facebook case, Norway’s data protection agency said the Irish position would render European data protection law "pointless," echoing the barrage of criticism from other EU regulators regarding the Irish position on the contract legal basis.

But the EU executive may have a point. Austria’s top court referred a Facebook case to the EU’s top court after a lower Austrian court also backed Facebook’s view that the social media platform can rely on contract for ads rather than consent.

“There are different views and approaches expressed concerning this matter … the Commission would like to stress in this context that the six legal bases for the processing of personal data under the GDPR are equally valid and protective,” Reynders went on.

There are six legal bases, including consent and contract, that can be used to process personal data under the GDPR, but not all can be used in every situation.

He added that “the very purpose” of the European Data Protection Board, the grouping of EU privacy watchdogs which produced the guidelines on using the contract legal basis, was “to allow for an open discussion and transparent and honest exchange of different points of view on how the GDPR should be interpreted.”

“It is however not for the Commission to comment on the exchanges of views in the context of the EDPB, and certainly not to launch infringement proceedings against a Member State for the views expressed by its data protection authority in this context, irrespective of whether the Commission agrees or disagrees with it,” Reynders wrote.

The top EU official also questioned some of the claims made by the MEPs in their letter.

He said that the claim that the Irish DPC has failed to send draft decisions to the other data protection authorities in 98 percent of 164 major EU-wide cases “appears to be a misinterpretation” of official statistics, since not all the cases submitted to the EDPB’s shared IT platform qualify as cross-border investigations.

The Irish DPC has also previously disputed the figure of 98 percent of unresolved cases, which originates from a report by the Irish Council of Civil Liberties in September 2021. “The statistics included within this report are simply inaccurate,” a DPC spokesperson noted at the time. According to the regulator, it has resolved over 50 percent of cross-border cases it has been forwarded.

Reynders went on to highlight enforcement action against Big Tech by the Irish DPC, noting that it has submitted seven cases to the EDPB, including a case that resulted in a €225 million fine for WhatsApp.

“These high-level cases against big techs are only part of the activity of the Irish DPC,” he said. “We have not so far identified issues with the Irish data protection rules or have evidence that these rules have not been respected.”

The Irish regulator has refuted claims it represents tech industry interests as being "absolutely incorrect."

"The DPC regrets the baseless allegations of bad faith made against it," it said.

Want more analysis from POLITICO? POLITICO Pro is our premium intelligence service for professionals. From financial services to trade, technology, cybersecurity and more, Pro delivers real time intelligence, deep insight and breaking scoops you need to keep one step ahead. Email pro@politico.eu to request a complimentary trial.

Polish coal miners demand more pay

Posted: 04 Jan 2022 08:27 AM PST

WARSAW — Soaring energy prices are boosting demand for coal, and that's a problem for Polish coal miners.

On Tuesday miners launched a two-day blockade of coal shipments from state-owned mining company PGG to protest what they say is inadequate pay for extra work.

"For several months now, due to an ongoing energy crisis across Europe and a shortage of energy resources, miners have been working overtime and on weekends to avoid interruptions in the supply of energy and heat," the Solidarity trade union said in a Facebook post on Tuesday morning.

The miners also want their wages boosted to account for fast-rising inflation, which shot up to a 20-year high of 7.8 percent in November and is predicted to rise even higher next year.

"Miners are hated because they're once again demanding something," Bogusław Hutek, chief of the Solidarity mining union, told reporters on Tuesday. "We're not demanding anything, we want someone to value our hard work."

PGG spokesperson Tomasz Głogowski said the company will start talks once a mediator is appointed.

Miners staged a protest between December 21 and 23, complaining about a failure of talks with PGG. They are particularly outraged because reviving economies are increasing demand for power, leading to higher coal sales, but they’re not getting more cash.

Poland's reserves of mined coal have dropped from 6.4 million tons last year to 2.5 million tons now — with many mine stockpiles falling below minimum legal requirements.

“Any disruption to coal deliveries could harm the rebuilding of reserves of fuel crucial to the stable functioning of several national generating stations,” Beata Jarosz-Dziekanowska, spokesperson for national grid operator PSE, told the PAP news agency.

PGG said last year it won't be able to boost pay because Poland is waiting for the European Commission’s approval of public aid for the mining sector.

The government aims to spend 30 billion złoty (€6.5 billion) to keep Polish coal mines operating through the end of the decade. The long-term plan is to phase out coal mining by 2049, only a year before the EU has committed to becoming climate neutral.

The legislature is working on the scheme, and it’s due to be sent to the Commission later this month.

Poland uses coal to generate about 70 percent of its electricity, the highest level in the EU.

Although there is an upsurge in demand for coal, the fuel is doomed by the EU's decarbonization drive and by increasing prices on the EU Emissions Trading System. Emission permits are over €80 per ton of carbon dioxide, nearly tripling over the past year and shooting up more than 15-fold over the previous five years.

A recent report by the Jagiellonian Institute and the Polish Academy of Sciences said the country could begin accumulating a massive oversupply of coal as soon as 2025 due to a steady shift to other sources of energy like offshore wind and nuclear power.

This article is part of POLITICO's premium policy service: Pro Energy and Climate. From climate change, emissions targets, alternative fuels and more, our specialized journalists keep you on top of the topics driving the Energy and Climate policy agenda. Email pro@politico.eu for a complimentary trial.

at

No comments:

Post a Comment