The European Commission published today its proposal for an EU-US agreement on conformity assessment for industrial products, in line with its commitment to enhanced transparency in trade negotiations.
A product exported between the two sides often has to undergo an assessment to demonstrate that it complies with the technical and safety requirements of the importing party, a so-called ‘conformity assessment’. This often means additional costs for exporters, which is especially burdensome for smaller companies, who often decide not to export at all because of those costs and complexities.
The EU proposal seeks an agreement under which the EU and the US would accept the conformity assessment results of each other’s assessment bodies, certifying products against the legal requirement of the other side. This would enable exporters to seek certification of their products in their originating country.
The proposal covers all relevant industrial sectors where third-party conformity assessment is required by either side. In addition, the EU proposal addresses the difficulties faced by EU exporters of machinery and electric and electronic equipment in the certification of products sold in the US market.
This would make trade quicker, easier and cheaper, while maintaining a high level of consumer safety. The economic benefits are significant: EU-US trade in goods amounted to €674 billion in 2018, with many products being subject to third-party conformity assessment.
This is an area where we can achieve meaningful results quickly. The EU is ready to conclude an agreement as early as next year.
Background
Conformity assessment is the process of verifying that a product meets all the legislative requirements in order to be sold in a given country. It ensures that the product is safe and complies with relevant regulations.
The joint EU-US work on conformity assessment was one of the actions agreed under the EU-US Joint Statement of 25 July 2018. On 15 April 2019, the EU Council adopted a decision authorizing the launch of negotiations for an agreement with the United States on conformity assessment.
Compliments of the European Commission

The European Parliament will vote on Ursula von der Leyen’s college of Commissioners next Wednesday 27 November, paving the way for the new Commission to start work on 1 December.
The vote will take place during the Plenary session in Strasbourg, following the approval by the Council of the list of 27 Commissioners on Friday 22 November. The UK has declined to nominate a Commissioner before the general election on Thursday 12 December, despite having agreed to do so as part of a deal that postponed the Brexit deadline to 31 January.
Ms von der Leyen’s college suffered a month-long delay when three of her nominees failed to gain the approval of the European Parliament. The three replacement nominees – French (Thierry Breton/Internal Market), Romanian (Adina Vălean/Transport) and Hungarian (Olivér Várhelyi/Neighbourhood and Enlargement) – received parliamentary approval after submitting written answers and going through the committee hearing process.
Although there was uncertainty initially over whether MEPs would approve of Thierry Breton for the Internal Market portfolio based on his previous work with IT services company Atos, he was approved by a two-third majority of party coordinators despite a number of MEPs from the left continuing to have reservations
In his hearing, Mr. Breton stressed to MEPs that he had entirely devolved of his business ties to Atos and would personally recuse himself from any potential future legislative files that may directly impact upon his former employer.
It is expected that Ms von der Leyen will present the new College of Commissioners and their programme before the vote takes place.
Compliments of Vulcan Consulting, a Member of the EACCNY

As in the rest of the world, European trade and manufacturing have weakened. There are some signs that this slowdown is spreading into the rest of the economy. While services and consumption have remained relatively resilient in line with strong labor markets, investment is starting to lose steam.
These developments have slowed economic activity in the region, especially in advanced Europe, according to the IMF’s latest health check of Europe’s economy.
The report predicts growth will moderate from 2.3 percent in 2018 to 1.4 percent in 2019, its lowest rate since 2013. In 2020, growth is projected to recover modestly to 1.8 percent as international trade is expected to rebound. But several risks to the outlook remain.
Here are six charts that tell the story of Europe’s economic health and its prospects.
European trade and industry have weakened, slowing growth. Following global trends, trade and manufacturing in Europe have weakened considerably. This weakness is primarily driven by machinery and transport equipment—sectors that are particularly relevant for Europe. As a result, economic activity in Europe has slowed, especially in advanced economies. Emerging European economies outside of Russia and Turkey were a bright spot, with growth remaining strong
Some signs of spillovers, but still relatively limited. The weakening trade and manufacturing—along with subdued business confidence and elevated trade uncertainty—have started to spill over into investment, especially in many advanced European countries. While the services sector has been relatively buoyant, it too has started to soften. Private consumption, however, has stayed relatively robust.
Labor markets hold the key to the resilience of services and consumption. As long as employment and wage growth remain robust, consumption spending and hence the demand for services will remain buoyant. Labor markets in Europe are still strong—unemployment rates are at or below precrisis levels and wage growth has generally held up. However, signs of a slowdown are also emerging in labor markets. For example, job openings—a measure of labor demand—are not only falling in the manufacturing sector, but vacancy growth for the overall economy has also slowed since the beginning of the year.
Europe’s economic outlook. On balance, Europe’s growth is projected to decline from 2.3 percent in 2018 to 1.4 percent in 2019. A modest and precarious recovery is forecast for 2020 due to an expected rebound in external demand that would limit emerging spillovers into investment and services. This projection, broadly unchanged from the April 2019 World Economic Outlook, masks significant differences between advanced and emerging Europe.
Growth in advanced Europe has been revised down by 0.1 percentage point to 1.3 percent in 2019, while growth in emerging Europe has been revised up by 0.5 percentage point to 1.8 percent. Amid high uncertainty, there are several risks to the outlook, including Brexit-related disruptions, intensifications of protectionism and related uncertainty, abrupt declines in risk appetite, and rising geopolitical tensions.
Policies. Monetary policy in many European countries should remain accommodative given subdued inflationary pressures and slowing economic activity. At the same time, keeping interest rates low for long can create financial sector vulnerabilities, which need to be carefully monitored.
With low levels of unemployment in most countries, fiscal policy should be anchored by medium-term objectives, while allowing automatic stabilizers (that is, spending and revenue that adjust to the ups and downs of the economy) to work fully. Given elevated risks, countries should have contingency plans ready to be implemented in case of a severe downturn.
Structural reforms—such as policies to improve competitiveness and increase labor force participation—remain vital to boost productivity and incomes.
Compliments of the International Monetary Fund

The results of a special Eurobarometer survey published today by the European Commission show that 60% of Europeans feel that they personally benefit from international trade, 16 percentage points more than 10 years ago at the time of the previous poll. The survey also revealed that 71% of respondents believe that the EU is more effective in defending their countries’ trade interests than these countries acting on their own.
Commissioner for Trade, Cecilia Malmström said: ”When I took office five years ago, there was a lot of criticism against international trade and how the Commission conducted trade negotiations. We therefore decided to reform the way we do trade policy. Through increased transparency, we wanted to create trust. This Eurobarometer survey proves that we were successful. Citizens feel more positive about trade today than ten years ago. A majority of citizens considers that trade benefits them directly, and that the commission is transparent in its negotiations. This is very positive in times of growing protectionism and trade conflicts around the globe!”
Today’s report covers a whole range of aspects related to awareness, perceptions and attitudes of European citizens towards international trade, among others:
Objectives and priorities for EU trade policy: 54% of respondents suggest that the main priority of the EU trade policy should be to create jobs in the EU. Defending EU environment and health standards has also become important to Europeans, half of the respondents consider it a priority. This is 20 percentage points more than in 2010. More than half of Europeans recognise at the same time that the EU trade policy has already been taking into account the social, environmental and human rights impacts within the EU and worldwide.
Need for international trade rules: Three quarters of Europeans agree we need international trade rules.
Trust and transparency: Six in ten say that they trust the EU to conduct its trade policy in an open and transparent manner.
Benefits of trade: 54% of those considering international trade beneficial for them put it on awider choice of products, while 36% sees price reduction as the most important advantage. These benefits seem to be more tangible for younger respondents and those with a higher level of education and income.
Fairness in international trade: one third of those questioned think that it is naïve to expect that other countries will follow trade rules. More than half of the respondents think that the EU should increase import duties on non-EU countries or businesses that do not play by international trade rules.
The findings of the survey confirm therefore a good match between the priorities formulated by EU citizens and those set out in the EU “Trade for All” strategy followed over the last five years. Over that period, the EU has seen 16 new trade agreements enter into force, including major ones with Canada and Japan. International trade supports today 36 million EU jobs, 5 million more than in 2014. There has been an increased focus on transparency and sustainable development, with environment and labour rights becoming a cornerstone of EU trade policy. Unilateral protectionist measures increased the need for the EU to step up and defend Europeans against unfair and illegal trade measures by others. Currently more than 130 EU trade defence measures are in force, which help protecting 343,000 European jobs.
The data presented in the report will also serve as an important basis for definition of objectives and trade policy practices for the years to come.
Compliments of the European Commission

British taxpayers face paying out for a large fine after the EU launched a legal action against Boris Johnson’s government over his failure to abide by the law and nominate a candidate for the new European commission.
Despite knowing for weeks that the UK would remain in the EU beyond 31 October, when a new EU executive had been due to be in place, Downing Street failed to put someone forward to join the bloc’s 28-strong top team.
Johnson instead belatedly claimed in a letter sent on Wednesday evening that he had been unable to make an international appointment due to purdah rules ahead of the general election on 12 December.
A spokeswoman for the European commission said the UK had breached its legal obligations despite the prime minister’s repeated claims in public that he would not defy the law.
The move could ultimately see the UK government dragged to answer for itself at the European court of justice, where judges have the power to issue large fines on member states that fail to live up to EU law.
The commission spokeswoman said the UK had until 22 November “at the latest to provide their views” on its formal infringement notice.
The incoming European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, plans to have the EU executive team in place by 1 December.
In the commission’s response to the UK government’s letter, a spokeswoman said officials had “analysed this reply and considers that the UK is in breach of its EU treaty obligations”.
“The European commission recalls that, in accordance with established EU case law, a member state may not invoke provisions prevailing in its domestic legal system to justify failure to observe obligations arising under Union law”, the commission said.
For the European commission to be legally constituted, it needs all 28 member states to have a representative. A former ambassador to Ireland and France, Sir Julian King, is the current commissioner from the UK.
The move towards an infringement procedure by the commission suggests that, despite the earlier rejection of other nominations made by France, Hungary and Romania, 1 December remains a realisable target for the new commission to be up and running.
The formation of the new commission headed by the former German defence minister has already been delayed by a month owing to the European parliament’s rejection of nominees from three member states.
France’s commission candidate, Thierry Breton, was belatedly confirmed in his post as commissioner for the single market on Thursday despite only narrowly passing an examination of his financial declarations by the European parliament’s legal affairs committee earlier in the week.
Breton, a former chief executive at the software firm Atos, managed to assuage MEPs’ concerns during a grilling on Thursday over a potential conflict of interest between his links to tech companies and him being the next single market and industry commissioner.
Compliments of The Guardian

On Tuesday afternoon the European Council President urged the United Kingdom to ‘please make the best use of this time’ as it officially entered the first day of the 2019 General Election. The outcome of the upcoming election remains unpredictable at best, as the disruptive force of Brexit continues to plague British politics.
The Conservatives have been eager to call an election for months as they are threatened by the Brexit Party and fear that the longer leaving the European Union is delayed and compromised the stronger Nigel Farage’s Party will become. They are already ahead in the polls, with an 11 point lead over Labour. However, Johnson currently has no majority in the House of Commons, which means the Prime Minister will have to win seats in this highly unstable period in British Politics. The Conservative Campaign got off to a rocky start this week as the Secretary of State for Wales resigned from Cabinet, following claims that he knew of his former aide’s role in sabotaging a rape trial. Jacob Rees-Mogg was forced to apologise over comments he made on the victims of the Grenfell Fire, while the formers Commons speaker John Bercow came out as saying that Brexit was the ‘biggest foreign policy mistake in the post-war period’.The Conservative Party will attempt to unite all Brexit voters by setting up a people vs. parliament election and will aim to focus on Brexit as the key campaign issue. They have written off a number of seats in Scotland and London, while they aim to win seats from traditionally Labour voting constituencies in Northern England. While many of these Northern voters are disillusioned with the Labour Party, their historic dislike of the Conservative Party remains strong, meaning that the Brexit Party have a strong chance of making gains in these areas if they launch an aggressive campaign. However, despite announcing that they will run candidates in every constituency, the Brexit Party have been notably muted over the past few weeks. The Brexit Party will likely be a disruptive force in this election, splitting the Tory vote in many constituencies.While Labour are currently behind the Tories in the opinion polls, the 2017 General Election shows that they are strong campaigners, and their support is expected to rise. In the first week of the official campaign alone, the Conservative lead over Labour dropped two percentage points. The Labour Party’s strategy will be to speak about Brexit as little as possible, focusing instead on policies and messages that they think will resonate with the people including health care, housing and the environment. However, the party remains plagued by poor leadership, with Jeremy Corbyn the least popular opposition leader in British history. The resignation of the Deputy Head of the Labour Party, Tom Watson, on Wednesday casts further doubts on the credibility of the party.
What does all of this mean for Brexit? Calling an election was undoubtedly a huge personal and political gamble for the Prime Minister. If he loses not only will he become the shortest serving Prime Minister for a hundred years, but the whole Brexit project will be thrown into doubt. An outright victory for the Tory party remains the only way to guarantee Brexit following the election. The Conservatives will have to win an overall majority in order to continue in government as they have no natural coalition partners, particularly as they can no longer rely on DUP support.
Labour are promising a second referendum, which will include a remain option on the ballot. The Labour leave option promises to negotiate a softer Brexit, including remaining in the Customs Union. While the Labour Brexit stance has been ambiguous at best over the past two years, the key certainty that Labour can offer voters is their staunch opposition to a no-deal. The Lib Dem’s will seek to unite all remain voters, announcing an electoral pact with Plaid Cymru and the Green Party on Thursday, by which they will not field candidates against each other for Parliamentary seats across England and Wales. However, the Lib Dems have categorically ruled out propping up a Corbyn-led Labour government in the event of a hung-parliament. At the launch of their election campaign, Lib Dem Leader Jo Swinson said she was “absolutely categorically ruling out’ using the party’s votes to help the Labour Leader become Prime Minister, saying he is ‘not fit for the job’. When voting Lib Dem would most likely lead to a hung Parliament, the key questions remains whether voters would willingly vote for this uncertain outcome.
This election will be historically difficult to predict, with the Brexit question continuing to cause electoral disarray. National surveys are no longer an accurate predictor of election results since the Brexit vote, as different constituencies have swung in wildly different directions. In the 2017 General Election, the Tories gained ground in Leave areas, while slipping behind in constituencies that voted to remain. Complicating election predictions further is the UK’s first past the post system. For instance, UKIP received some 3 million votes in the 2015 General Election yet did not receive a single seat in Parliament. Brexit has guaranteed that the only certainty that can be expected in British Politics over the course of the campaign remains uncertainty.
Compliments of Vulcan Consulting
 

Climate change induced natural disasters are growing in frequency and intensity. Social and economic impacts are already being felt across the globe today. Thus, increasing resilience and adapting to the worst effects of climate change is a critical priority for both the European Union (EU) and the U.S. Climate Alliance, which can also bring world class expertise and solutions to address those challenges.  
By hosting a forum in Washington, DC on 8 November 2019 where practitioners can share experiences and identify opportunities for further collaboration, the EU seeks to improve overall resilience and decrease the cost of response to climate impacts. This workshop explores deepened cooperation with the U.S. Climate Alliance to build resilience through dialogue and technical exchange. It will also highlight individual strengths and expertise and propose next steps.  
Participants include the Secretariat of the Alliance and representatives of Alliance Member States; the European Commission (DG CLIMA, Joint Research Centre); the European Environment Agency; the European Investment Bank; the Delegation of the EU to the U.S.; EU Member States officials; and representatives from the Strategic Partnerships for the Implementation of the Paris Agreement (SPIPA) EU project.
The U.S. Climate Alliance
The United States Climate Alliance (link is external) is a bipartisan coalition of governors committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement.
Smart, coordinated state action can ensure that the United States continues to contribute to the global effort to address climate change. U.S. Climate Alliance states are committed to taking real, on the ground action that urgently addresses the climate challenge. 25 States and territories are part of the Alliance, which represents 55% of the U.S. population and an $11.7 trillion economy.
How the EU supports climate action by U.S. subnational actors
The EU has been at the forefront of global climate action, negotiating an inclusive international framework to respond to this challenge, while acting domestically with unity, speed and decisiveness. The EU has put concrete actions behind its Paris Agreement commitments, in line with the priority of establishing an Energy Union with a forward-looking climate change policy. A recent report (link is external) showed that the EU’s CO2 emissions had reduced by -22% since 1990 (while EU GDP has increased by 61%), when U.S. emissions have increased by 4%. In 2018, EU emissions decreased by -2%, while U.S. emissions increased by +3% (reversing the decreases seen since 2015).
Despite the official notification of the upcoming withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, made on 4 November 2019, the EU believes that the Paris Agreement has strong foundations and is here to stay. Its door remains open and we hope that the U.S. will decide to join it again one day.
Meanwhile, the EU will continue to support climate action at the U.S. subnational level, including through:
the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, which is co-chaired by the European Union and Mike Bloomberg
direct cooperation with U.S. States, through the U.S. Climate Alliance or States individually. In September 2018, the EU and the State of California for instance agreed to cooperate on carbon markets
study tours of U.S. climate and sustainability leaders to Europe
research, including through an ongoing Jean Monnet project managed by the George Washington University
public diplomacy programs, such as the recent event on cities of the future at the House of Sweden
Compliments of the European External Action Service

Ambassador Stavros Lambrinidis represents the interests of the European Union in Washington, DC.
Ambassador Lambrinidis has held previous positions as the EU Special Representative for Human Rights, the Greek Foreign Minister, and Vice-President of the European Parliament. In our discussion, Ambassador Lambrinidis provides insights into the EU’s relationship with the US, the positive contributions of the EU to European prosperity, and some of the challenges of “dual citizenship” within EU member states.
Click here for the video:A Conversation with EU Ambassador to the US Stavros Lambrinidis
Dig DeeperTake a look at some of our favorite articles that we came across while researching this topic:
Delegation of the European Union to the United States, EU
The European Union: Ongoing Challenges and Future Prospects, Congressional Research Service
The European Union: A Guide for Americans, Delegation of the European Union to the United States

Women in the European Union still earn on average 16% less than men, a slight improvement from last year’s 16.2%. This year the European Equal Pay Day falls on 4 November. It marks the day when women symbolically stop getting paid compared to their male colleagues for the same job.
Ahead of this symbolic day, First Vice-President Frans Timmermans, Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility Marianne Thyssen and Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality Věra Jourová stated:
“It is 60 years since the equal pay principle was written into the European Treaties, and yet women across Europe still don’t see the laws matching the reality of their daily lives. European women still work for two months for free compared to their male colleagues and the progress is too slow.
While we have made some steps in the right direction in the past five years, more needs to be done and faster. Our citizens expect us to do better.
Nine out of ten Europeans – women and men – think that it is unacceptable that women are paid less than men for the same job.
Knowledge is power, and therefore, the more we can improve transparency around the underlying causes of the pay gap, the better we will be able to tackle it. The pay transparency is important, so we can detect cases of pay discrimination and the employees and customers can draw their own conclusions and take action. In fact, 64% of Europeans have stated that they are in favour of the publication of average wages by job type and gender at their company.
Pay transparency, combined with other solutions such as an equal distribution of caring responsibilities between women and men – enabled by new EU Directive on parental and carers’ leave – would help us tackle the root causes of the gender pay gap.
We therefore welcome the announcement of President-elect von der Leyen to table measures introducing binding pay transparency in the first 100 days of the new mandate.
We must continue to fight the gender pay gap, for a more effective workforce and for a more just society.”
Background
The factors behind the pay gap are multiple: women more often work part-time, they are confronted with the corporate glass-ceiling, they work in lower paid sectors or often have to take the primary responsibility for care of their families. One way to address these factors is to improve the work-life balance of working parents and carers. The Commission made a proposal to that end in April 2017, which was adopted by the European Parliament and the Council in January 2019.
Pay differences also depend on gender stereotypes and discrimination. The relative weights of these causes cannot be known without more pay transparency.
At EU-level, different initiatives have been taken during the past 5 years of the Juncker Commission. In 2014, the Commission adopted a Recommendation on strengthening the principle of equal pay between men and women through promoting concrete pay transparency measures, including the right to information, pay audit, pay reporting inclusion of equal pay issues in collective bargaining. The 2017 Report on the implementation of the Recommendation found insufficient implementation and effectiveness of the measures.
In November 2017, the Commission launched an EU Action Plan to tackle the Gender Pay Gap. The Action Plan takes a holistic approach and addresses all the different root causes of the gender pay gap, including by improving pay transparency.
Until now, €14.2 million of funding has been granted to projects combatting stereotypes, regard to career guidance and career choices, on women in decision-making and work-life balance, on closing gender gaps over the course of one’s life and on how to address the gap in employment, pay and pensions.
In 2018, the Commission launched an evaluation of the equal pay measures and is currently finalising the evaluation. EPSCO Council Conclusions from June 2019 call on the European Commission to actively follow up on the ongoing evaluation.
From January to April 2019, the European Commission conducted a public consultation to gather input from a broad range of stakeholders on the functioning and implementation of EU equal pay laws. The summary of the results is available online. The European Commission is now working on the evaluation of the ‘equal pay’ principle, as outlined as one of the deliverables in the Action Plan.
Moreover, the European Commission is publishing today an overview of national and European case law and good practices on equal pay, which are deliverables of the Action Plan under alerting and informing about the gender pay gap. They provide insights about functioning of the equal pay but also point to the shortcomings to the enforcement of equal pay principle in practice.
For more information
Webpage on the Gender pay gap, including:
Factsheet on gender pay gap
Factsheet on pay transparency
Report:  National cases and good practices on equal pay
Guide on European Court of Justice case-law on equal pay
Compliments of the European Commission

Freedom of expression, in all its forms, is the very essence of democracy. Only with a thriving, free and independent media landscape, we can hold governments, businesses and society at large accountable. And precisely for this fundamental right, far too often, journalists and media workers are attacked, persecuted, harassed, or intimidated for carrying out their work. Most journalists are not wounded in the heat of war coverage, but suffer violence in our immediate surroundings. In 2018 alone, 94 journalists and media staff were killed in work-related incidents as reported by the International Federation of Journalists. Hundreds more have been subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention without ever having been tried in a court.
Time and again, governments fail to protect journalists, hesitate to prosecute perpetrators or even perpetrate the crimes themselves. Impunity for these crimes multiplies their impact and erodes democratic societies by fuelling fear, mistrust, and anxiety.
Only last month we remembered the killing of Saudi national Jamal Khashoggi, whose case still awaits court handling, and the murder of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in the midst of Europe, proving that no region of the world is immune to such crimes. On this day we reiterate our commitment to combat impunity for crimes against journalists and to continue using all appropriate means possible to respect and protect freedom of expression and to ensure the safety of journalists and media workers.
The EU provides support and legal assistance via the EU-funded mechanism for Human Rights Defenders, a network that delivers fast response to human rights defenders under threat, including journalists. The EU also funds the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom (CMPF) and its important Media Pluralism Monitor that continues to measure threats to media pluralism in the EU and in neighbouring countries and informs our policy-making processes. In 2019, the European Commission has earmarked a budget of more than €8 million to support projects geared at promoting quality journalism, cross-border cooperation between media professionals and self-regulatory bodies, as well as funding cross-border investigative journalism and protecting journalists under threat​. In many countries, we provide financial and expert support to foster protection of journalists, bloggers and media workers.
On this day dedicated to the end of impunity for crimes against journalists, we pay tribute to all those who lost their lives and suffered attacks in the exercise of their freedom of expression online and offline and stand by all those who have the courage to speak up for all of us.
Compliments of European Council