Unions fear ‘political’ EU court opinion could unpick rules on posting workers

Trade unions fear that a “political” opinion from the European Court of Justice could lead to the overhaul the rules on the posting of workers employed with companies that hire out temporary staff and the single market.

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Briefing – EU-UK relations: Difficulties in implementing the Northern Ireland Protocol – 09-07-2021

On 3 March 2021, the United Kingdom (UK) Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Brandon Lewis, announced in a written statement to the UK Parliament, and without consulting the European Union (EU) in advance, that the grace period on border controls on a series of food and live products shipped from Great Britain to Northern Ireland would be extended. This meant that products of animal origin, composite products, food and feed of non-animal origin and plants and plant products could continue being shipped from Great Britain to Northern Ireland without the official certification, such as health and phytosanitary certificates, required by the Protocol on Ireland / Northern Ireland (the Protocol) of the Withdrawal Agreement (WA). In response to the UK’s decision, the EU launched legal action against the UK for breaching the provisions of the Protocol, as well as the good faith obligation under the WA. According to the Protocol, the UK must establish border controls on goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland according to EU law. The application of EU law to Northern Ireland, together with the conduct of border controls within the UK, was designed to prevent the establishment of physical border controls (a ‘hard border’) on the island of Ireland, so as to safeguard the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement which brought peace in Northern Ireland, while preserving the integrity of the EU’s single market. The grace period on border controls was agreed by the EU and the UK in December 2020 as a temporary solution to problems raised by the UK. The UK government has reiterated that it intends to implement the Protocol, but that the border controls are causing trade disruption between Great Britain and Northern Ireland and require time to be resolved. It has also mentioned other issues involving areas as diverse as medicinal supplies and parcel shipments, as well as the complexity of customs systems and implementation of exchange of information between the EU and the UK. On 30 June 2021, the EU and the UK reached an agreement on some solutions, including the extension of the grace period on meat products, conditional on tight controls.

Source : © European Union, 2021 – EP

Highlights – WTO negotiations, Trade and Sustainable Development: committee debates – Committee on International Trade

Abbreviation WTO
The Committee on International Trade will discuss the preparations for the upcoming WTO negotiations, including with respect to the proposed waiver for COVID-19 vaccines intellectual property rights under the TRIPS agreement and the fisheries subsidies negotiations. The Committee will also discuss the review of the 15-point action plan on the effective implementation and enforcement of the Trade and Sustainable Development Chapters (TSD) in trade agreements. The meeting will be held on 13 July.

Source : © European Union, 2021 – EP

Highlights – Adding gender-based violence as new ‘eurocrime’: committee vote – Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs – Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality

Stop violence against women
The Committees on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, and on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality will vote on the report on identifying gender-based violence as a new area of ‘eurocrime’, on 14 July. This legislative initiative requests the Commission to propose a Council decision to consider gender-based violence as an area of crime that meets the criteria established under Article 83(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).

Source : © European Union, 2021 – EP

Briefing – European Union data challenge – 28-07-2021

The exponential growth and importance of data generated in industrial settings have attracted the attention of policymakers aiming to create a suitable legal framework for its use. While the term ‘industrial data’ has no clear definition, such data possess certain distinctive characteristics: they are a subset of big data collected in a structured manner and within industrial settings; they are frequently proprietary and contain various types of sensitive data. The GDPR rules remain of great relevance for such data, as personal data is difficult to be filtered out from mixed datasets and anonymisation techniques are not always effective. The current and planned rules relevant for B2B sharing of industrial data exhibit many shortcomings. They lack clarity on key issues (e.g. mixed datasets), increase the administrative burden for companies, yet not always provide the data protection that businesses need. They do not provide an additional value proposition for B2B data sharing and hinder it in some cases. While this situation warrants policy intervention, both the instrument and its content should be carefully considered. Instead of a legal instrument, soft law could clarify the existing rules; model terms and conditions could be developed and promoted and data standardisation and interoperability efforts supported.

Source : © European Union, 2021 – EP

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