FEPS Weekly Newsletter 17 June 2022

FEPS Weekly Newsletter Share Tweet Share Share Preview 📅 DataTalks, AI, rural areas, Western Balkans, […]

17/06/2022
FEPS Weekly Newsletter
Preview
📅 DataTalks, AI, rural areas, Western Balkans, energy & more
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Upcoming Events
Events
The (im) possibility of an island?
21 June, Barcelona

We will investigate the EU’s approach to ethical AI. Can it work in an international context that some call an ‘AI Cold War’? And will the EU’s and other countries’ plans to regulate AI be successful, or will they ‘kill innovation’ as is often heard? This panel will bust some myths.

We will also look beyond regulation. The field of AI is centralised, with a handful of global firms determining the shape of tech development. What would facilitate the emergence of an ecosystem of AI firms and NGOs that are aligned with the public interest?

Among the speakers: Pieter Verdegem, who will share a critical perspective on AI; Brando Benifei, EP Co-Rapporteur on the AI Act; Helena Malikova, Member of the Chief Economist Team of the EC DG for Competition; Jesús Herrero Poza, Head of Cabinet of the Spanish State Secretary for Digitalisation and AI; and Montse Guardia Güell, Co-founder and CEO of Big Onion Tech.

FEPS #DataTalks II: Data-sharing for sustainability purposes
In cooperation with Miapetra Kumpula-Natri
30 June, Brussels


In this second #DataTalks policy breakfast, we will discuss data-sharing for sustainability purposes, with specific attention to data-sharing requirements between businesses. New data governance frameworks can hold great potential for an ecological transformation of our economy, by supporting sustainable production and consumption patterns. But will the Data Act and other upcoming EU laws deliver on this?

Based on FEPS paper ‘Sustainable Digital Market Design’, which will be published next week, Philipp Staab and Dominik Piétron, respectively Professor and Research Associate at the Humboldt University Berlin, will kick off the discussion. Then, Luc Hendrickx, Director at SMEunited, will sketch to what extent the B2B provisions of the proposed Data Act correspond with the imperative of a circular economy.
We discussed data transfers from businesses to public authorities. Right now, the Data Act limits these transfers to exceptional situations, but is that framing appropriate for an economy in which data takes a central role and where the achievement of many goals in the general interest relies on its general availability?

Among the speakers: MEP Miapetra Kumpula-Natri, EP shadow-rapporteur on the Data Act and co-organiser of this event; Francesca Bria, the President of the Italian National Innovation Fund and former CTO of Barcelona; and Paul Keller, from the Open Future Foundation.
14 June, Brussels

Over 70 stakeholders of the platform economy gathered this week in Brussels in this in-person meeting organised by FEPS, the FES Competence Centre on the Future of Work and ETUC.

The event included the launch of the study on online platforms and platform work, by FES; and a keynote from Oxford Professor Vili Lehdonvirta.
Roundtable discussions included speakers, such as Jeremias Adams-Prassl, Sacha Garben, Joanna Bronowicka and Niels van Doorn.
POLICY BRIEF
Just Transition & Revitalisation – A New EU Strategy for Rural Areas

by Cristina Vaquero Piñeiro, Robin Huguenot-Noël

How can the EU support the revitalisation of rural areas and remote areas and put them at the centre stage of the just transition?

After reviewing some of the potential risks facing the EU’s strategy for rural areas as it stands, the authors
put forward concrete policy and governance recommendations to make rural development in the EU both environmentally and socially sustainable.

It also identifies ‘best practices’ that can be scaled up and replicated in order to:
➡️ bolster sustainable agriculture & champion the energy transition
➡️ attract investment
➡️ nurture innovation systems
➡️ promote community ownership
➡️ boost social vitality
First meeting of the ‘Friends of the Western Balkans’ network

Sarajevo is hosting this week the first meeting of the ‘Friends of the Western Balkans’, a newly established network of social-democratic Members of Parliaments and Members of the European Parliament from across Europe, aiming to revitalise the EU Enlargement to the Western Balkans.

In this two-day meeting, MPs and MEPs are exchanging a multitude of opinions, attitudes, and approaches to what the future of the enlargement process should be like – with the hope of establishing a common perspective on how to advocate for it.
FEPS launches its new website!

After months of work, FEPS’s new website is now online! This new platform offers a new and innovative way of presenting all the different kinds of content FEPS produces: publications, articles, events, videos, podcasts, news…And it allows a complex interconnection between all these materials and the people behind them.

Some of the main aims of this tool are to increase the visibility and accessibility of FEPS work and members and human network and structure deliverables around FEPS’s main objectives.

🆕 Discover the new website!

Russia’s war against Ukraine has disrupted energy markets and impacted the geopolitics of energy. As a consequence, oil and gas prices have reached their highest levels in a decade and have forced many countries to reshuffle their energy supplies.

The war can be described as a hydrocarbon war, as the money coming from the export of fossil fuels over the past years and even today is financing Putin’s invasion.
By ending its dependence on Russian fossil fuels, Europe could inflict serious damage on the economic model that has underpinned Putin’s aggression.
Read More
The EU Fit for 55 package is a comprehensive attempt to make the transition to a zero-carbon society in measurable incremental steps. It is a welcome development in terms of policy. And if fully implemented, it can be transformative. Read More
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Brazil’s Lula survives Bolsonaro scare, safeguarding EU democratic ally on climate and trade

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Франција е Франција – но Франција е и Европа

by Racin.mk 21/10/2026
“France is France – but France is also Europe.” In an opinion piece for Racin.mk, László Andor, Secretary General of FEPS, argues that France’s youth protests, set against a latent budget crisis and growing precarity (schools, housing), risk benefiting Marine Le Pen, and that France, despite bending the EU’s fiscal rules, has also propped up European growth.

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