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Europe Daily Bulletin No. 12679

17 March 2021
Contents Publication in full By article 3 / 36
EU RESPONSE TO COVID-19 / Social
SURE instrument, European Commission pays out €9 billion to seven Member States
Brussels, 16/03/2021 (Agence Europe)

On Tuesday 16 March, the European Commission announced the payment of €9 billion to seven Member States under the fifth financial tranche of the SURE instrument to support national short-time working schemes in response to the coronavirus.

The Czech Republic received for the first time €1 billion (out of a total of €2 billion expected), Spain €2.87 billion (out of €21.3), Croatia €510 million (of €1 billion), Italy €3.87 billion (of €27.4bn), Lithuania €302 million (of...

Contents

EU RESPONSE TO COVID-19
HEALTH: Pfizer-BioNTech ready to deliver 10 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine ahead of schedule
ECONOMY: Member States support Commission’s move to freeze EU fiscal rules 
SOCIAL: SURE instrument, European Commission pays out €9 billion to seven Member States
ECONOMY - FINANCE - BUSINESS
TAXATION: EU remains cautious in its work on digital taxation so as not to jeopardise OECD negotiations
FINANCE: Mairead McGuinness confident of sealing EU/UK deal by end of March
COMPETITION: state-owned PPC suspected of abusive behaviour on Greek wholesale electricity market
COMPETITION: European Commission establishes a multilateral working group on mergers in pharmaceutical sector
SECTORAL POLICIES
FISHERIES: EU, Norway and UK reach trilateral agreements on 2021 North Sea quotas
FISHERIES: European Commission considering unilateral quotas for 2021 if no agreement is reached with UK by end of March
COHESION: MEPs divided over distribution key for proposed Brexit adjustment reserve fund
HEALTH: EU ministers take stock of current key issues
CONSUMERS: EU ministers reach consensus to implement New Consumer Agenda 2021-2025
ENVIRONMENT: EU environment ministers to discuss greening the ‘European Semester’ and adapting to climate change
CLIMATE: European Commission endorses new benchmarks for free allocation of emissions allowances under ETS
MIGRATION: Ylva Johansson faces some criticism in European Parliament for her work on how Frontex agency operates
MIGRATION: Dunja Mijatović does not feel acceptance of human rights violations can be part of EU migration policy
JUSTICE: electronic evidence, EU co-legislators will soon address difficult issue of notification
TRANSPORT: deployment of European rail traffic management system remains “slow and patchy”, says Ms Bilbao
ENERGY: importance of electrification of energy sector again highlighted by a CERRE report
EXTERNAL ACTION
GEORGIA: Mr Garibashvili wants to strengthen his country’s relations with EU
IRAN: Grossi warns of increasingly aggressive Iranian nuclear programme
SECURITY - DEFENCE
NATO: eleven Alliance countries spent at least 2% of their national GDP on defence in 2020
FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS - SOCIETAL ISSUES
RULE OF LAW: MEPs lose hope over EU Council and Commission inaction regarding Poland
MEDIA: EU Council expected to support European Action Plan on recovery and transformation of media sector
DEMOGRAPHY: EU Council calls on Member States to take account of ageing populations in their public policies
SOCIAL AFFAIRS
SOCIAL: Portuguese Presidency of EU Council officially confirms launch of platform for tackling homelessness
COURT OF JUSTICE OF THE EU
CONSUMERS: Advocate General clarifies concept of ‘extraordinary circumstances’ that release an airline from its obligation to compensate passengers
STATE AID: Court of Justice validates conformity with EU law of Hungarian and Polish progressive turnover taxes
NEWS BRIEFS
PATENTS: health sector was main driver of European patent applications in 2020, according to EPO
COHESION: MEPs greenlight interinstitutional agreements on umbrella regulation and ERDF
ENERGY/CLIMATE: Ursula von der Leyen reaffirms importance of European Green Deal to give up fossil energies
ENVIRONMENT/CLIMATE: EU Council endorses European Parliament/Council agreement on LIFE 2021-2027 programme
JUSTICE: EUIPO and Eurojust join forces to fight intellectual property crime.
DIGITAL: EU Council validates Digital Europe 2021-2027 programme
FISHERIES: economic performance of EU fleets declined in 2018, says EU scientific committee
TERRORISM: formal adoption of regulation to remove terrorist content online within 1 hour