California Follows European Union In Banning 24 Toxic Chemicals From Being Used In Cosmetics

Sterling falls after Brexit bill opposed by EU passes UK parliament

LONDON: Sterling fell on Wednesday after Britain’s lower house of parliament approved legislation on Tuesday that gives ministers the power to break its divorce agreement with the European Union.

The UK Internal Market Bill, which ministers acknowledge breaks international law, was approved by 340 votes to 256 in the House of Commons and now passes to the House of Lords for debate.

Sterling’s decline was small; the bill’s passage was expected and market participants have increased their expectations of a Brexit deal.

“A deal conquers all in regards to the Brexit negotiations,” said Neil Jones, head of European hedge fund sales at Mizuho.

“The Internal Market Bill passing through the House of Commons was business as expected. So far, it has gone according to market expectations. What has put the bill on the side temporarily is the expectations of a deal between the EU and the UK.”

When the Internal Market Bill was initially proposed it coincided with high chances of a no-deal Brexit. Now that those fears have diminished, so did the worries around the harmful effects of the bill on the Withdrawal Agreement.

The government says clauses in the bill which override the Withdrawal Agreement will only be used if talks on a border solution with the EU fail. If a deal can be reached on the Irish border, the powers may not be needed.

A resurgence in COVID-19 cases also drew attention away from the bill.

“When you factor the impact on market, sometimes what was previously a major factor falls to second stage,” said Jones.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will hold a news conference on COVID-19 on Wednesday as he grapples with a second wave of the novel coronavirus outbreak.

Britain, which has the worst official death toll in Europe, reported 7,143 new cases of coronavirus on Tuesday, the highest single figure to date, and 71 deaths, the worst daily toll since July.

Brexit negotiations continue this week in what is so far the last leg of talks before an EU summit next month.

Meanwhile, Norway and Britain have reached a bilateral agreement on fisheries, the Norwegian government said on Wednesday, before Britain leaves the EU at the end of the year.

The British pound was last trading down 0.3% versus the U.S. dollar at $1.2817, after reaching earlier its lowest since Monday. Versus the euro, sterling fell 0.2% at 91.55 pence. – Reuters

Germany welcomes China climate goal, sees need for EU action

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EU criticises Poland, Hungary in first democracy report

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union’s executive criticised judiciary overhauls by the nationalist governments in Poland and Hungary as a “major source of controversy” and “serious concern” in its first report on Wednesday about failings in the rule of law in the bloc.

Seen by Reuters ahead of official release on Wednesday, the report also focused on challenges to media independence and fighting corruption, saying the coronavirus pandemic served as a “stress test” of democratic resilience of the 27 EU states.

The report comes as the bloc is looking to link access to EU money, including a new 750 billion euro coronavirus recovery fund, to respecting the rule of law.

“Poland’s justice reforms since 2015 have been a major source of controversy,” the report said, adding that Hungary was also among member states where “the direction of change has given rise to serious concern about the impact of reforms on judicial independence.”

Warsaw and Budapest are locked in long-running battles with the EU over undercutting democratic checks and balances through putting courts, media, NGOs and academics under more state control.

“The European Union was created also as an antidote to … authoritarian tendencies,” said the EU’s top democracy official, Commissioner for Values and Transparency, Vera Jourova, who co-wrote the report.

“The rule of law is not about being right-wing or left-wing; it is about being right or wrong.”

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban this week called for Jourova to be dismissed after she said his vision of “illiberal democracy” was in fact spearheading the creation of an “ailing democracy” in Hungary.

The Commission rejected Orban’s request.

Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and Slovakia were also criticised in the report for shortcomings in ensuring judiciary independence. The Commission noted corruption scandals in Bulgaria, Slovakia, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Malta.

The report also said some governments’ emergency measures to tackle coronavirus went too far in restraining the media and civil society’s scrutiny of public decisions.

Finnish PM to stand-in for Swedish colleague at EU Summit

HELSINKI (AP) — Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven won’t take part in a European Union meeting in Brussels starting on Thursday since he is attending his mother’s funeral and will be represented by his counterpart from neighboring Finland.

Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin will represent the Swedish government at the Oct. 1-2 summit where only heads of state and government participate, Lofven told Sweden’s TT news agency. Sweden’s EU affairs minister Hans Dahlgren also will be present in Brussels, the agency added.

On Sept. 18, Lofven said his mother, Iris Melander, died at 90. The cause of her death was not given.

Lofven and Marin are the Social Democratic Party leaders in their respective countries. Marin, 34, became Finland’s prime minister in December.

The summit in Brussels, originally scheduled for September, was postponed to October as European Council President Charles Michel was in quarantine. The former Belgian premier has since ended his self-quarantine after testing negative for COVID-19 for a second time.

Leaders’ stand-in arrangements at EU summits have happened before. In December, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson asked Michel to represent him at an EU summit due to a coinciding general election in Britain.

EU leaders at the summit are scheduled to discuss foreign affairs, in particular relations with Turkey and the situation in the eastern Mediterranean between Turkey and Greece. The leaders are also expected to address relations with China, the political upheaval in Belarus and the poisoning of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny.

              Copyright © 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.

President Erdogan sends letter to EU leaders ahead of EU Summit on Turkey

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a new letter to European leaders – except PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Cypriot President Nikos Anastasiadis – on the eve of the EU Summit, during which Turkish provocations in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Mediterranean at large will be discussed.

According to Turkish newspaper SABAH, the Turkish president stressed that lately Euro-Turkish relations are being tested due to the tension in the Eastern Mediterranean.

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“With this letter, Turkey wants to convey its proposals for resolving the problem,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan reportedly wrote in the letter, as the paper reports.

It is the second letter the Turkish President sent to the EU leaders following his first one before the scheduled EU Summit on Turkey, which was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In that letter, which, according to the Cypriot newspaper “Phileleftheros”, was not sent to the leaders of Greece and Cyprus, Erdogan presents his well-known Turkish narrative about the Eastern Mediterranean and claims that the tension is caused by Greece and Cyprus, citing in the actions of Nicosia since 2003 (demarcation, licensing, drilling).

Britain offers EU fishing concession as part of Brexit sweetener

Britain has offered a three-year transition period for European fishing fleets to allow them to prepare for the post-Brexit changes as part of an 11th-hour deal sweetener.

The catches of EU fishermen would be “phased down” between 2021 and 2024 to offer time for European coastal communities to adapt to the changes.

The lengthy transition period is contained in a new negotiating paper tabled ahead of the current round of negotiations in Brussels between the teams respectively led by the UK’s chief negotiator, David Frost, and his EU counterpart, Michel Barnier.

The idea of a phase-down period had been floated previously but details had not been provided until recent days.

“We have a long way to go but if the other problematic issues can be sorted, it doesn’t look like fisheries will stand in the way of an agreement”, said one senior EU diplomat.

Ireland’s foreign minister, Simon Coveney, said during a visit to Washington on Tuesday night that he believed there was a good chance of a trade deal. “The obstacles are not insurmountable,” he said. “We should be able to get this deal done.”

However, UK fisheries leaders warned the government not to sell them out. Barrie Deas, the head of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, said: “What we wouldn’t agree to is surrendering fishing rights in order to have a trade deal.

“There is no expectation within the UK fishing industry that the UK will back down on fisheries. If anything, the commitments that have been made to the industry are stronger now than when the negotiations started. We’ve been given clear and unequivocal commitments.”

The UK remains fixed on replacing the common fisheries policy with a system of “zonal attachment” that would offer a significant increase in catches for British fishing fleets.

Currently, Britain’s economic zone is part of common EU waters. The UK receives a fixed share based on how much stock its fishermen caught during a reference period between 1973 and 1978.

Under the new system proposed by the UK, the two sides would agree on what percentage of shared stocks are attached to each of their European economic zones each year. Catch quotas would be organised in line with that percentage.

<

p class=”css-38z03z”>A failure to agree annually on catches could lead to EU fleets being locked out of British waters. France is particularly concerned by the impact on its fishing communities and has taken a “maximalist” position that the status quo should be protected.

<

p class=”css-38z03z”>While the policy would deliver the extra catches promised as a Brexit bonus, it is understood the government is also making new commitments on maintaining EU sustainability standards and cooperation on the collection of data.

The offer was part of five new draft negotiating documents submitted by the government, including legal texts on fisheries, the “level playing field”, law enforcement and judicial cooperation, civil nuclear cooperation and social security coordination.

An EU official said: “We can confirm that we received additional documents from the UK. We are studying them.”

According to Brussels sources, the UK’s paper on state aid, still the most contentious of the outstanding issues, offered to lay out a series of “principles” on controlling domestic subsidies.

The EU said the paper offered hope that the UK would build on provisions in the recently signed UK-Japan deal. The trade deal with Tokyo prevents either side from indefinitely guaranteeing the debts of struggling companies or providing open-ended bailouts without approved restructuring plans.

But the paper failed to offer appropriate “governance” proposals that would allow Brussels to keep the UK to its pledges, EU sources said.

The EU wanted to ensure that any commitments were seen through and that in the event of a breach, parts of the trade deal could be immediately suspended.

EU diplomats also said any agreement on such a method of regulating state aid would need to be taken “at the highest level”, as it would represent a significant divergence from Brussels’ proposal.

The EU has pushed for the UK to accept the bloc’s state aid rules, which do not allow unfair subsidies to be granted. The UK’s position would instead offer recourse in the event of trade being distorted.

<

p class=”css-38z03z”>“The UK-Japan deal is obviously now the basis but it isn’t yet enough and we need to have bite,” said one diplomatic source. A second source added that the proposal was as yet “more of the same” but that it was hoped that the week’s negotiation would flesh it out. “That is what matters,” the source said.

EU drafts rules to force big tech companies to share data – FT

(Reuters) – The European Union (EU) is preparing to force big technology companies to share their customer data with smaller rivals, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing an early draft of its landmark ‘Digital Services Act’ regulations.

“The likes of Amazon and Google shall not use data collected on the platform . . . for (their) own commercial activities . . . unless they (make it) accessible to business users active in the same commercial activities,” the FT reported, quoting the draft.

EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager would announce by the end of this year tough new rules under the Act, aimed to increase social media companies’ responsibilities and liability for content on their platforms.

The draft suggests that technology giants may be banned from preferential treatment of their own services on their sites or platforms, to the detriment of rivals, according to the report.

Companies should not be allowed to pre-install their own applications on hardware devices, such as laptops or phones, or force other companies to exclusively pre-install their software, it added.

European Parliament Vice-President condemns Azerbaijan’s hostilities against civilians

Deputy Speaker of the European Parliament Fabio Massimo Castaldo has expressed concern over the armed clashes in Nagorno-Karabakh.

“This conflict may destabilize the South Caucasus. I strictly condemn Azerbaijan’s hostilities against civilians, in full violation of humanitarian law.

I also strictly condemn the rhetoric through which [President of Turkey Recep] Erdogan is actively supporting Azerbaijan’s actions. I hope for the compact interference of the European Union before the situation explodes,” he tweeted.

                </span>

Ireland is the battleground for the EU-US tussle over the internet

Nick Clegg, the UK’s former deputy prime minister and current vice-president of global affairs for Facebook, has spent the past week trying to dispel the rumour that Facebook would soon be forced to stop offering its services in the EU.

                                                    <p class="no_name">Facebook had attempted to persuade a Dublin judge that a ruling by the Irish Data Protection Commissioner would make it difficult for the company to keep operating anywhere in Europe. This was reported more widely as a threat to leave Europe.</p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">Although a lot of it can be overlooked as posturing in court documents, it is still a dramatic situation to find ourselves in, with a service used daily by the majority of adults in the country at risk from a court decision.</p>
                                                    <blockquote class="inline__content inline__content--pullquote">

If the US is not a safe place for European data, and internet companies cannot move data seamlessly between the US and EU, it will reshape the global internet

Understanding how we got here gives a great insight into the shifting sands of global data regulation, the future of the internet and how Ireland has found itself at the centre of it all.

                                                    <p class="no_name">This affair escalated dramatically in July when, after a string of court cases, international frameworks and EU directives, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that the United States was not a safe place for companies to send the private data of EU citizens.</p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">There are some really big implications from that ruling. If the US is not a safe place for European data, and internet companies cannot move data seamlessly between the US and EU, it will reshape the global internet as we know it. It poses big questions for US tech companies such as Google, Amazon and Facebook that offer their services in Europe: how do they operate if they cannot transfer user data back to headquarters for processing?</p>

                                                    <p class="no_name">As most of their European operations are in Ireland, the responsibility fell to the Irish Data Protection Commissioner to enforce this ruling, which she did against Facebook in early September. Facebook has since challenged the action and the Irish High Court has paused it until November.</p>
                                                    <blockquote class="inline__content inline__content--pullquote">

To think about the GDPR with terms such as “individual privacy” and “data rights” is quite an American way to look at it

Ireland is playing host to this dramatic battle over the future of the internet, which could see the emergence of a global set of rules for the treatment of data at best, or at worst, a breakdown in how the modern internet works.

                                                    <p class="no_name">The first three decades of the internet have been shaped by US norms and values. Every government is now trying to mould the global internet in its own image. The trick here is to push hard to apply your own world view, to shape the internet to your own cultural norms and legal frameworks, but not so hard that you effectively splinter the internet in your part of the world, as China has done with its “Great Firewall”.</p>
                                                                                                        <aside class="related-articles--instream has-3"/><h4 class="crosshead">Landmark legislation</h4><p class="no_name">The European Union has two landmark pieces of legislation aimed at making the internet distinctly more European – the General Data Protection Regulation, which came into effect in 2018, and the ePrivacy Regulation, which is still in the works.</p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">To fully understand the EU’s vision for a more European internet, we first have to make sure we are viewing it through a European lens, not an American one.</p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">To think about the GDPR with terms such as “individual privacy” and “data rights” is quite an American way to look at it. The European framing of this issue is instead to think in terms of “corporate responsibility” and the “environment within which my data is handled”.</p>

                                                    <blockquote class="inline__content inline__content--pullquote">

We want people informed and empowered, but when was the last time you read 20 pages of ‘terms and conditions’ before downloading an app?

To illustrate this with an analogy, let’s look at how you could apply those two frames to a different area: food production.

                                                    <p class="no_name">The American approach would ask questions such as “How do we empower individuals to make smart choices about the foods they eat?” When we ask questions such as this about foods, we end up with solutions such as nutrition labels on food packaging – standardised, clear, concise ways that citizens can engage with food providers from an informed and empowered position.</p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">I’m a big fan of nutrition labels, but there are limitations to this approach. I’m not a food expert.</p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">So smart regulation also sets standards. The European Union cares about the processes by which our food is produced. We make rules about the hormone levels in our beef and the chemicals on our crops. This is a good thing and does much more of the heavy lifting to improve the quality of our foods than information alone could accomplish.</p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">The same analogy applies to data. We want people informed and empowered, but when was the last time you read 20 pages of “terms and conditions” before downloading an app?</p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">That’s where legislation such as GDPR comes in. The “nutritional information” is a part of it, but the much bigger and more substantial changes are on the corporate responsibility side.</p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">The EU cares that farms and food-processing plants operate responsibly, and likewise they care about how companies behave with our data. Huge amounts of GDPR is focused on processes and procedures to make companies less sloppy when they handle our private data.</p>
                                                    <h4 class="crosshead">Problem with US</h4><p class="no_name">As the Brexit negotiations remind us, the EU also cares about the high-level agricultural policies and practices in the countries we import food from, and likewise it cares about the data protection and security policies of the countries our data is sent to.</p>

                                                    <p class="no_name">The EU has always had problems with the way that the US does beef, and now it has beef with the way the US manages data.</p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">Edward Snowden, a CIA contractor turned whistleblower, brought to light the fact that the US government regularly monitors the private data passing through the servers of US companies. Since GDPR came into effect, many companies have put agreements in place saying, in effect, “we will transfer your data to the US, but we will ensure the same level of safeguards required under GDPR”.</p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">Max Schrems, an Austrian citizen and privacy advocate, challenged one of these companies, Facebook Ireland, saying it can’t make such a promise because once it sends his private data to Facebook US, it can’t stop the US government from snooping on it. Keeping that promise is outside of Facebook’s control.</p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">The European courts agreed, and so here we are, with the Irish Data Protection Commissioner trying to enforce this with Facebook Ireland, with wider implications for every other tech company to follow.</p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">GDPR has been a success in making the internet more European, with most large global tech companies changing the way they handle private data inside and outside the EU. The next big test, which we will see play out here, is if GDPR can change the way the US government treats the private data of non-US citizens, or maybe just EU citizens.</p>
                                                    <p class="no_name"><em>Peter Tanham is a digital strategist who writes a weekly newsletter about tech policy in Ireland</em></p>