#eu-policy

#eu-policy

The environmental impacts of meat consumption could be rapidly and cheaply reduced if governments applied full VAT on products such as beef, pork, lamb and chicken, a study has shown. Depending on how the additional tax revenues were redistributed, such a change could cost households as little as 26 (23) a year, while cutting ecological destruction by between 3% and 6%, the paper found.

A draft of the measure, released in October, urged "the establishment of a harmonised European digital age limit of 16 years old as the default threshold under which access to online social media platforms should not be allowed unless parents or guardians have authorised their children otherwise." They also recommended setting a harmonised EU digital age limit of 13, under which no minor would be permitted to access social media. The same minimum age would apply to video-sharing platforms and so-called "AI companions," whose popularity among adolescents has raised concerns in several EU states.

Women across the EU symbolically begin "working for free" from today, as the bloc marks the point in the calendar when pay inequality means women, on average, stop earning relative to men. With the EU gender pay gap standing at 12%, 22 November represents the date after which women's work is, in effect, unpaid compared with their male colleagues. The European Commission used the occasion to warn that progress on closing the gap remains painfully slow and could take decades at the current pace.

"ça me fait ni chaud ni froid" (I'm neither hot nor cold - or more precisely 'I don't care').

At a summit of auto industry leaders in Brussels on Friday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU would fast-track its planned review of a 2035 internal combustion ban in light of the current difficulties facing the European car industry. In 2022, it was decided that no new cars with internal combustion engines would be registered in the EU from 2035, with the goal of reducing emissions.

"I believe that the Franco-German tandem is now perfectly coordinated to create a stronger Europe in the areas of economy, trade and currency,"

The Tobacco Taxation Directive overhaul, stalled by Big Tobacco lobbying, is crucial for harmonizing tax regimes and curbing youth uptake of new tobacco products.