European Parliament - EPRS Policy podcasts European Parliament

The EU adopts restrictive measures – mostly in the form of travel bans and asset freezes – against individuals and organisations responsible for some of the worst human rights violations. Until now, the EU has mostly adopted sanctions targeted at individual countries. However, the EU is now shifting to a more thematic approach, under which sanctions focus on a particular type of problem rather than a country.

The EU climate target plan proposes to increase the 2030 target from a 40 % emissions reduction to a 55 % net emissions reduction, compared with 1990 levels.

The EU has unveiled an ambitious plan to regulate online platforms, and the European Commission is proposing to introduce ex ante regulation to ensure that markets characterised by large platforms acting as digital gatekeepers remain fair and competitive for innovators, businesses, and new market entrants.

Listen to Madeleine Albright, the first ever female United States Secretary of State from 1997 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton, give her opinion about the current state of democracy in the West as well as global international relations.

The marked political shift towards greater technological sovereignty and strategic autonomy within the EU has been given further impetus with the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, which disrupted global value chains and highlighted the case for a more self-sufficient EU model. Important projects of common European interest may be useful tools for creating complex new value chains that have the potential to ensure the EU's long-term competitiveness and economic growth.

Covering nearly one third of the land surface of the globe, forests make a wide range of direct and indirect contributions to human well-being. Home to most of the world's terrestrial biodiversity, they also play an essential role in climate change mitigation, removing about a quarter of the CO2 that human activities add to the atmosphere. Worldwide, millions of hectares of forests and other types of vegetation burn every year. Fire dynamics are shaped by a complex set of factors, including human activity and climate.