On 25-27 February 2020, EU Ambassador to the U.S. Stavros Lambrinidis visited northern California.
Upon his arrival to San Francisco, Ambassador Lambrinidis was greeted by European Consuls General at the German Residence — German Consul General Hans-Ulrich Südbeck currently serves as EU Local Chair. There are now twelve European Consulates in San Francisco since the opening of an Estonian Consulate a few weeks ago. 
Ambassador Lambrinidis was then received by Governor Gavin Newsom in Sacramento. During their meeting, they discussed the close partnership between California and the European Union on a wide range of common priorities, from climate action and the digital economy to science and the future of mobility. The European Union recently welcomed Governor Newsom’s decision to order a moratorium on the death penalty.
He also met with San Francisco Mayor London Breed and praised the city for its leading role in technology and sustainability. San Francisco is home to many Europeans who contribute to the city’s prosperity and unique way of life.
In Silicon Valley, Ambassador Lambrinidis met with European and American tech entrepreneurs. EU trade and investment in California create 750 thousand jobs (see infographic here).
Ambassador Lambrinidis finally joined Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis on stage at UC Berkeley to discuss “California, the EU and the Future of the Transatlantic Relationship” (see here).
EU officials will be back in California on April 6 for the California-EU Energy Efficiency Forum (register for the webcast here). And Executive Vice President – A Europe Fit for the Digital Age Margrethe Vestager will speak at CODE CONFERENCE 2020 in Los Angeles (May 26-28). 
Compliments of the Delegation of the European Union to the United States

On the occasion of the World Wildlife Day, the European Commission launched today in Monaco a new global coalition for biodiversity. With this communication campaign, the Commission is calling for stronger mobilisation in raising awareness about the need to protect biodiversity.
Ahead of the crucial CoP 15 meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity in October 2020, the Commission is turning to all national parks, aquariums, botanic gardens, zoos, science and natural history museums to join forces and boost public awareness about the nature crisis.
European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries Virginijus Sinkevičius said: “Biodiversity crisis is an important part in climate change. Protection and restoration of biodiversity would not only save the nature for future generations, but also help to tackle climate change, and avoid negative consequences on our food, health and economy. We urgently need to take global action, otherwise, our only chance of seeing nature is in the zoos and botanical gardens. That would be a failure of the humankind.”
With their collections, education and conservation programmes, national parks, aquariums, botanic gardens, zoos, science and natural history museums are the best ambassadors to raise public awareness about the dramatic effects of the biodiversity crisis. The Commission also encourages national, regional and local authorities, non-governmental organisations, businesses, scientists and individual citizens to play their part in raising awareness ahead of the United Nations Biodiversity Summit (CoP 15).
During CoP 15, the 196 Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity are expected to adopt a new global framework to protect and restore nature, as much-needed as the Paris Agreement focusing on the climate urgency. Following the Summit, the focus of the coalition for biodiversity will be on coordinated actions with tangible impact aimed at bending the curve of biodiversity loss. This initiative is consistent and fully in line with other initiatives and coalitions, such as the High Ambition Coalition led by Costa Rica.
Background
The Global coalition for biodiversity will complement the highly successful coalition of “World aquariums #ReadyToChange to #BeatPlasticPollution” launched in 2017 which gathered more than 200 aquariums in 41 countries to raise global awareness about marine litter.
The Oceanographic Museum of Monaco today hosted a ceremony to mark both this launch and the handover of direction of the Aquariums coalition from the European Commission to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) under the Clean Seas campaign.
Later this month, the European Commission will announce the new EU Biodiversity Strategy to protect and restore nature in Europe, detailing the EU’s ambition for the Biodiversity CoP15. A major public engagement event, EU Green Week, will also aim to mobilise society for nature and biodiversity from 1-5 June 2020, with dozens of events across Europe, and a conference in Lisbon and Brussels.
A 2019 Report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services IPBES shows that nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history. The rate of species extinctions is accelerating, with up to a million species facing extinction, and with likely serious impacts on people around the world. This means ecosystems would no longer be able to support humanity by providing water, food, clean air and timber, and their services of pollination, climate regulation, soil formation and regulation of floods would be seriously affected.
Compliments of the European Commission

The European Commission welcomes the Council’s decision today, as expected, to authorise the opening of the future partnership negotiations with the UK.  
The negotiating directives adopted today are based on the draft recommendation put forward by the Commission on 3 February 2020. They fully respect existing European Council guidelines and conclusions, as well as the Political Declaration agreed between the EU and the United Kingdom in October 2019.
The comprehensive negotiating directives define the scope and terms of the future partnership that the European Union envisages with the United Kingdom. These directives cover all areas of interest for the negotiations, including trade and economic cooperation, law enforcement and judicial cooperation in criminal matters, foreign policy, security and defence, participation in Union programmes and other thematic areas of cooperation. A dedicated chapter on governance provides an outline for an overall governance framework covering all areas of economic and security cooperation.
President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen said:“We are now ready to start negotiations with the United Kingdom. We want to build a close, ambitious future partnership, as this is in the best interest of people on both sides of the Channel. I would like to thank the European Parliament and all Member States for their continued trust in our negotiating team. We will work as hard as we can to achieve the best possible result.”
Michel Barnier, the European Commission’s Chief Negotiator, said: “We are determined to reach a deal that protects EU interests. We will work hand-in-hand with the European Parliament and all Member States and will continue to be fully transparent throughout this process.”
As Union negotiator, the Commission intends to continue work in close coordination with the Council and its preparatory bodies, as well as with the European Parliament, as was the case during the negotiations for the Withdrawal Agreement.
 

The Council today adopted a decision authorising the opening of negotiations for a new partnership with the UK, and formally nominating the Commission as EU negotiator. The Council also adopted negotiating directives which constitute a mandate to the Commission for the negotiations.

The Council has adopted a clear and strong mandate for our negotiator, Michel Barnier. This confirms our readiness to offer an ambitious, wide-ranging and balanced partnership to the UK for the benefit of both sides. The EU is now ready to start negotiations.
Andreja Metelko-Zgombić, Croatian State Secretary for European Affairs

Infographic – EU-UK negotiations
See full infographic
The EU wishes to establish an ambitious, wide-ranging and balanced economic partnership with the UK. The mandate stresses that the future partnership should be underpinned by robust commitments to ensure a level playing field for open and fair competition, given the EU and the UK’s geographic proximity and economic interdependence.
The EU intends to establish a free trade agreement with the UK which ensures that zero tariffs and quotas apply to trade in goods. This agreement should provide for cooperation on customs and regulatory aspects. It should also include effective management and supervision, dispute settlement and enforcement arrangements.
On fisheries, the mandate outlines that the future partnership should uphold the existing reciprocal access to waters as well as stable quota shares. The agreement on fisheries should be established by 1 July 2020, to give time for determining fishing opportunities after the end of the transition period.
The mandate also contains provisions for future cooperation in areas such as digital trade, intellectual property, public procurement, mobility, transport, and energy.
The EU will seek to establish a comprehensive security partnership with the UK. The partnership should comprise law enforcement and judicial cooperation in criminal matters, as well as foreign policy, security and defence. The mandate foresees that the future partnership should be embedded in an overall governance framework covering all areas of cooperation.
Council decision authorising the opening of negotiations, 25 February 2020
Negotiating directives
Next steps
The Commission will agree with the UK the dates for the first negotiating sessions. The first formal meeting between the EU and the UK negotiators is expected to take place in early March.
Background
The Council decision and the negotiating directives are based on a recommendation presented by the Commission on 3 February 2020. They build on the political declaration agreed by the EU and the UK in October 2019, as well as on the European Council (Art. 50) guidelines on the future EU-UK relationship of March 2018 and April 2017.
On 13 December 2019, EU27 leaders reconfirmed their aim of establishing as close as possible a future relationship with the UK. They invited the Commission to submit to the Council a draft negotiating mandate for a future relationship with the UK immediately after its departure. 
The entry into force of the withdrawal agreement marked the end of the period under Article 50 TEU and the start of a transition period until 31 December 2020. During the transition period, the UK will continue to apply Union law but it will no longer be represented in the EU institutions.
Compliments of the European Commission

From 24 to 28 February 2020, the first European Cooperation week of the year gets underway at EUIPO. This important forum brings together IP experts from all over the EU with the common goal of implementing the European Cooperation Programmes within the current Strategic Plan 2020 at EUIPO.
Experts from the European Union Intellectual Property Network (EUIPN) will meet for the 8th European Cooperation Projects (ECP) working group meetings, the EUIPN Point of Contacts (PoCs) meeting and the Classification working group meeting on trade marks and designs.
The meetings are a key driver of the development and sustainability of the ECP outcomes. They gather more than 170 experts from intellectual property offices of the EU, EUIPO and user associations, together with observers from the European Patent Office (EPO) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
The 8th ECP working groups will be reviewing the progress made on five different European Cooperation projects, including the ECP3 New Tools project on Decision Desktop, ECP4 Shared Services and Practices (CP11 and CP12), ECP5 European Network of Authenticities, and ECP2 major improvements to TMView and DesignView.
Participation and engagement in the working groups has increased over the past years, thus reinforcing the exchange of knowledge. The working group members play a decisive role in shaping the outcome of each project, all of which combine to strengthen and develop the IP system across the EU. For example, experts will be invited to validated the last updates to the new TMview version planned to go live in April (the beta version was launched in late 2019), while progress in the drafting of common practices in the Convergence Programme on new types of practices will be sought.
The EUIPN Point of Contacts meeting gathers members of the EU Intellectual Property Network (EUIPN), with the aim of facilitating a collaborative approach with EUIPO and building an interconnected, efficient and reliable IP system, through continuous cooperation and consultations, for the benefit of users. The meeting will serve to highlight the importance of efficient implementation of the new cooperation model, as well as preparing for the assessment of interest for participation in ECPs during the last part of 2020 and 2021 by the national and regional intellectual property offices of the EU.
The Classification Working group meetings, in cooperation with the Digital Transformation Department (DTD) of EUIPO, will be dealing with two different work streams, designs and trade marks, bringing together classification experts from EU IP offices as well as WIPO and User Associations.
Work stream “Designs” will be focusing on the discussion of issues related to the maintenance of the Harmonised Database of Product Indications (HDBPI) and improvements to enhance the use and quality of the database. This will be the first time a maintenance meeting is held for DesignClass. It will take place twice a year, with the next one planned for September 2020.
Similarly, work stream “trade marks” will focus on the discussion of issues related to the classification of Goods and Services, such as the content and operational issues of the Harmonised Database (HDB), Taxonomy and Nice updates.
The European Cooperation week will pave the way for future actions across the different projects, including technical acknowledgement in the March Liaison meeting or adoption of common practices in the June Management Board and Budget Committee meetings. As usual, a second European Cooperation week will be planned for the end of September 2020.
Compliments of the European Union Intellectual Property Office

Today, the Commission unveils its ideas and actions for a digital transformation that works for all, reflecting the best of Europe: open, fair, diverse, democratic and confident. It presents a European society powered by digital solutions that put people first, opens up new opportunities for businesses, and boosts the development of trustworthy technology to foster an open and democratic society and a vibrant and sustainable economy. Digital is a key enabler to fighting climate change and achieving the green transition. The European data strategy and the policy options to ensure the human-centric development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) presented today are the first steps towards achieving these goals.
The President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said: “Today we are presenting our ambition to shape Europe’s digital future. It covers everything from cybersecurity to critical infrastructures, digital education to skills, democracy to media. I want that digital Europe reflects the best of Europe – open, fair, diverse, democratic, and confident.”
Executive Vice-President for A Europe Fit for the Digital Age, Margrethe Vestager, said: “We want every citizen, every employee, every business to stand a fair chance to reap the benefits of digitalisation. Whether that means driving more safely or polluting less thanks to connected cars; or even saving lives with AI-driven medical imagery that allows doctors to detect diseases earlier than ever before.”
Commissioner for Internal Market,Thierry Breton, said: “Our society is generating a huge wave of industrial and public data, which will transform the way we produce, consume and live. I want European businesses and our many SMEs to access this data and create value for Europeans – including by developing Artificial Intelligence applications. Europe has everything it takes to lead the ‘big data’ race, and preserve its technological sovereignty, industrial leadership and economic competitiveness to the benefit of European consumers.”
Europe as a trusted digital leader
Digital technologies, if used with purpose, will benefit citizens and businesses in many ways. Over the next five years, the Commission will focus on three key objectives in digital:
·     Technology that works for people;
·     A fair and competitive economy; and
·     An open, democratic and sustainable society.
Europe will build on its long history of technology, research, innovation and ingenuity, and on its strong protection of rights and fundamental values. New policies and frameworks will enable Europe to deploy cutting-edge digital technologies and strengthen its cybersecurity capacities. Europe will continue to preserve its open, democratic and sustainable society and digital tools can support these principles. It will develop and pursue its own path to become a globally competitive, value-based and inclusive digital economy and society, while continuing to be an open but rules-based market, and to work closely with its international partners.
Europe as a leader in trustworthy Artificial Intelligence
Europe has all it needs to become a world leader in Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems that can be safely used and applied. We have excellent research centres, secure digital systems and a robust position in robotics as well as competitive manufacturing and services sectors, spanning from automotive to energy, from healthcare to agriculture. 
In its White Paper presented today, the Commission envisages a framework for trustworthy Artificial Intelligence, based on excellence and trust. In partnership with the private and the public sector, the aim is to mobilise resources along the entire value chain and to create the right incentives to accelerate deployment of AI, including by smaller and medium-sized enterprises. This includes working with Member States and the research community, to attract and keep talent. As AI systems can be complex and bear significant risks in certain contexts, building trust is essential. Clear rules need to address high-risk AI systems without putting too much burden on less risky ones. Strict EU rules for consumer protection, to address unfair commercial practices and to protect personal data and privacy, continue to apply.
For high-risk cases, such as in health, policing, or transport, AI systems should be transparent, traceable and guarantee human oversight. Authorities should be able to test and certify the data used by algorithms as they check cosmetics, cars or toys. Unbiased data is needed to train high-risk systems to perform properly, and to ensure respect of fundamental rights, in particular non-discrimination. While today, the use of facial recognition for remote biometric identification is generally prohibited and can only be used in exceptional, duly justified and proportionate cases, subject to safeguards and based of EU or national law, the Commission wants to launch a broad debate about which circumstances, if any, might justify such exceptions.
For lower risk AI applications, the Commission envisages a voluntary labelling scheme if they apply higher standards.
All AI applications are welcome in the European market as long as they comply with EU rules.
Europe as a leader in the data economy
The amount of data generated by businesses and public bodies is constantly growing. The next wave of industrial data will deeply transform the way we produce, consume and live. But most of its potential remains unfulfilled. Europe has everything it takes to become a leader in this new data economy: the strongest industrial base of the world, with SMEs being a vital part of the industrial fabric; the technologies; the skills; and now also a clear vision.
The objective of the European data strategy is to make sure the EU becomes a role model and a leader for a society empowered by data. For this, it aims at setting up a true European data space, a single market for data, to unlock unused data, allowing it to flow freely within the European Union and across sectors for the benefit of businesses, researchers and public administrations. Citizens, businesses and organisations should be empowered to make better decisions based on insights gleaned from non-personal data. That data should be available to all, whether public or private, start-up or giant.
To achieve this, the Commission will first propose to establish the right regulatory framework regarding data governance, access and reuse between businesses, between businesses and government, and within administrations. This entails creating incentives for data sharing, establishing practical, fair and clear rules on data access and use, which comply with European values and rights such as personal data protection, consumer protection and competition rules. It also means to make public sector data more widely available by opening up high-value datasets across the EU and allowing their reuse to innovate on top.
Second, the Commission aims at supporting the development of the technological systems and the next generation of infrastructures, which will enable the EU and all the actors to grasp the opportunities of the data economy. It will contribute to investments in European High Impact projects on European data spaces and trustworthy and energy efficient cloud infrastructures.
Finally, it will launch sectoral specific actions, to build European data spaces in for instance industrial manufacturing, the green deal, mobility or health.
The Commission will also work to further narrow the digital skills gap among Europeans, and explore how to give citizens better control over who can access their machine-generated data.
Next Steps
As set out in the strategy presented today, the Commission will present later this year a Digital Services Act and a European Democracy Action Plan, propose a review of the eIDAS regulation, and strengthen cybersecurity by developing a Joint Cyber Unit. Europe will also continue to build alliances with global partners, leveraging its regulatory power, capacity building, diplomacy and finance to promote the European digitalisation model.
The White Paper on Artificial Intelligence is now open for public consultation until 19 May 2020. The Commission is also gathering feedback on its data strategy. In light of the input received, the Commission will take further action to support the development of trustworthy AI and the data economy
Background
Since 2014, the Commission has taken a number of steps to facilitate the development of a data-agile economy such as the Regulation on the free flow of non-personal data, the Cybersecurity Act, the Open Data Directive and the General Data Protection Regulation.
In 2018, the Commission presented for the first time an AI strategy, and agreed a coordinated plan with Member States. The framework for AI presented today also builds on the work carried out by the High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence, which presented their Ethics Guidelines on trustworthy AI in April 2019.
In her Political Guidelines, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stressed the need to lead the transition to a healthy planet and a new digital world. In that context, she announced to kick-start the debate on human and ethical Artificial Intelligence and the use of big data to create wealth for societies and businesses during her first 100 days in office.
Compliments of the European Commission

MEPs underlined that Parliament will only give its consent to a budget that meets the European Union’s ambitions, in a debate on EU funding for 2021-2027.

Talking about the budget means talking about the EU’s future, MEPs said in a key plenary debate with Nikolina Brnjac, Croatian State Secretary for Foreign and European Affairs, representing the Council, and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
The debate on Wednesday came ahead of a special EU summit starting on 20 February, where member states will try to agree on a common position on the next multiannual financial framework (MFF).
Most MEPs insisted that sufficient funding is key to achieve common ambitions such as fighting climate change, the digital and ecological transformation, dealing with the social consequences of the latter, and continuing to support regions and cities, farmers, young people, researchers or entrepreneurs. Implementing the Green Deal with a reduced budget, for example, would mean cutting successful EU programmes elsewhere, MEPs highlighted. Some said that certain EU policies need to be assessed more thoroughly, and that more spending discipline is needed.
In addition, introducing new sources of revenue (“Own Resources”) for the EU and linking the EU budget to the respect of rule of law are key for MEPs.
Compliments of the European Parliament

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published seven opinions on position limits  regarding commodity derivatives under the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive and Regulation (MiFID II/MIFIR) today.

ESMA’s opinions agree with the proposed position limits regarding:
ICE Endex Dutch TTF Gas contracts
EEX Phelix DE Base Power contracts
EEX Capesize TC5 Freight contracts
EEX Spanish Power Base contracts
MEFFPOWER  Baseload contracts
ESMA found that the proposed position limits are consistent with the objectives established in MiFID II and with the methodology developed for setting those limits.
In addition to the five opinions above, ESMA published two opinions on the proposed position limits regarding the OMIP SPEL Base contracts. The first opinion relates to the position limits initially notified by Comissão do Mercado de Valores Mobiliários (CMVM ) which ESMA did not find consistent with the objectives established in MiFID II. In such circumstances, Article 57(5) of MiFID II requires the competent authority concerned  to modify the position limits in accordance with ESMA’s opinions or provide ESMA with justification why the change is considered to be unnecessary. In December 2019, CMVM accordingly notified ESMA of revised position limits for the OMIP SPEL base contracts. ESMA agreed with those revised position limits in a subsequent opinion which also has been published today.
ESMA will continue to assess the notifications received and issue opinions in order to ensure that the position limits are set in accordance with the MiFID II framework.
Compliments of the European Commission

Today, the European Commission put forward a proposal to drive forward the EU accession process, by making it more credible, with a stronger political steer, more dynamic and predictable.
Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, Olivér Várhelyi, commented: “The European Union enlargement to the Western Balkans is a top priority for the Commission. We are working on three tracks: Firstly, today we propose concrete steps on how to enhance the accession process. While we are strengthening and improving the process, the goal remains accession and full EU membership. Secondly, and in parallel, the Commission stands firmly by its recommendations to open accession negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania and will soon provide an update on the progress made by these two countries. Thirdly, in preparation of the EU-Western Balkans Summit in Zagreb in May, the Commission will come forward with an economic and investment development plan for the region.”
Enhancing the accession process – A credible EU perspective for the Western Balkans
A more credible process: The accession process needs to build on trust, mutual confidence and clear commitments by the European Union and the Western Balkans. Credibility should be reinforced through an even stronger focus on fundamental reforms, starting with the rule of law, the functioning of democratic institutions and public administration as well as the economy of the candidate countries. When partner countries meet the objective criteria, the Member States shall agree to move forward to the next stage of the process, respecting the merits-based approach.
A stronger political steer: The political nature of the accession process requires a stronger political steer and engagement at the highest levels. The Commission proposes to increase the opportunities for high level political and policy dialogue, through regular EU-Western Balkans summits and intensified ministerial contacts. Moreover, Member States should be involved more systematically in monitoring and reviewing the process. All bodies under Stabilisation and Association Agreement will focus much more on the key political issues and reforms, while Inter-Governmental Conferences will provide stronger political steering for the negotiations.
A more dynamic process: To inject further dynamism into the negotiating process, the Commission proposes to group the negotiating chapters in six thematic clusters: fundamentals; internal market; competitiveness and inclusive growth; green agenda and sustainable connectivity; resources, agriculture and cohesion; external relations. Negotiations on each cluster will be open as a whole – after fulfilling the opening benchmarks – rather than on an individual chapter basis. Negotiations on the fundamentals will be open first and closed last and the progress on these will determine the overall pace of negotiations. The timeframe between opening a cluster and closing the individual chapters should be limited, preferably within a year fully dependant on the progress of the reforms.
A more predictable process: The Commission will provide greater clarity on what the EU expects of enlargement countries at the different stages of the process. It will make clearer what the positive consequences progress on reforms can bring, and what will the negative consequences will be when there is no progress.
To encourage demanding reforms, the Commission will better define the conditions set for candidates to progress and will provide clear and tangible incentives of direct interest to citizens. Incentives could include accelerated integration and “phasing-in” to individual EU policies, the EU market and EU programmes – while ensuring a level playing field – as well as increased funding and investments. The more candidates advance in their reforms, the more they will advance in the process. Equally, the Commission proposes more decisive measures proportionally sanctioning any serious or prolonged stagnation or backsliding in reform implementation and meeting the requirements of accession process. Negotiations could be put on hold in certain areas, or in the most serious cases, suspended overall, and already closed chapters could be re-opened; benefits of closer integration, like access to EU programmes, could be paused or withdrawn, and the scope and intensity of EU funding could be adjusted downward.
Next steps
The Commission hopes the Member States will endorse the proposal, in parallel with the opening of accession negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania, ahead of the European Union-Western Balkans Summit in Zagreb on 6-7 May. For the summit the Commission will consider how to bring forward investment, socio- economic integration and the rule of law for the Western Balkans region.
Compliments of the European Commission

Josep Borrell, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission (HR/VP), will travel to the United States on 6 and 7 February. This will be the first visit of Josep Borrell to the United States in his capacity as HR/VP.
During his stay in Washington DC, he will meet with United States Secretary of State, Michael R. Pompeo, with the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, with National Security Advisor, Robert O’Brien, and with Senior Advisor to the President, Jared Kushner. These meetings will provide an opportunity to advance the foreign policy dialogue between the EU and US and should focus specifically on ways to enhance transatlantic relations. In the meetings, High Representative Borrell will discuss current foreign policy issues and seek joint solutions based on a commitment to multilateralism and the rules-based international order.
Audiovisual coverage of the visit will be provided by Europe by Satellite. 
Compliments of the Delegation of the European Union to the United States