Alfred Miato finance expert

EU Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act explained

Parliament adopted two major pieces of legislation that will change the digital landscape: find out about the Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act.

The landmark digital rules, adopted on 5 July 2022, will create a safer, fairer and more transparent online environment.

The power of digital platforms

Over the last two decades, digital platforms have become an integral part of our lives - it’s hard to imagine doing anything online without Amazon, Google or Facebook.

While the benefits of this transformation are evident, the dominant position gained by some of these platforms gives them significant advantages over competitors, but also undue influence over democracy, fundamental rights, societies and the economy. They often determine future innovations or consumer choice and serve as so-called gatekeepers between businesses and internet users.

To address this imbalance, the EU is upgrading the current rules governing digital services by introducing the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA), which will create a single set of rules applicable across the EU.

Parliament calls for action to protect mental health

Preventing work-related mental health issues

The resolution calls on the EU institutions and countries to recognise the high level of work-related mental health problems and to find ways to help prevent mental health problems. It also underlines the need to eradicate violence, discrimination and harassment at work.

The committee also calls for legislation establishing minimum requirements for telework across the EU, without undermining the working conditions of teleworkers. It could cover working conditions, such as ensuring it is voluntary and that the rights, work-life balance, workload and performance standards of teleworkers are equivalent to those in the place of work.

It also calls for flexible work hours to help mitigate work-related stress, education on mental health and training for employers. Parliament proposes that 2023 is the EU Year of Good Mental Health to highlight the issue.

The latest report underlines the Parliament's concern with mental health. In a resolution resolution on the EU’s public health strategy post Covid-19 adopted in July 2020, Parliament recognised mental health as a fundamental human right and called for an EU action plan on mental health.

Passenger rights: travelling in the EU without any worries

As you set off on your summer holiday, it is good to know that EU passenger rights protect you, should anything go wrong while travelling.

EU rules ensure a minimum level of protection for passengers, irrespective of the mode of transport: flight, train, bus, coach or ship.

One thing could disrupt even the perfect holiday - getting there. Journeys can be tricky - with unexpected delays, cancellations and lost luggage. This is why MEPs helped to introduce EU rules obliging transport companies to provide travellers with meals, accommodation, reimbursement and compensation if something happens.

And transport companies in the EU can no longer charge more for tickets based on nationality and location of the purchase.

EU law also guarantees special attention to passengers with reduced mobility who have the right to free assistance services.

Air passenger rights

Air passenger rights apply under certain circumstances, for example if the flight is within the EU or if it departs from the EU to a non-EU country.

If you are denied boarding, airlines should provide assistance free of charge that can include refreshments, food and accommodation. The airline must also offer you a choice between reimbursement and re-routing. In addition, passengers denied boarding are entitled to up to €600 in compensation. The amount of the compensation depends on the distance of the scheduled flight.

Why cybersecurity in the EU should matter to you

The damage caused by cyberattacks goes beyond the economy and finance, affecting the very democratic foundations of the EU and threatening the basic functioning of society.

Essential services and critical sectors such as transport, energy, health and finance, have become increasingly dependent on digital technologies. This, together with the increase in physical objects connected to the Internet of things, can have direct consequences, including making cybersecurity a matter of life and death.

From cyberattacks on hospitals, causing them to postpone urgent medical procedures, to attacks on power grids and water supply - attackers are threatening the supply of essential services. And as cars and homes become increasingly connected, they could be threatened or exploited in unforeseen ways.

Cyberattacks, deployed with for example disinformation, economic pressure and conventional armed attacks, are testing the resilience of democratic states and institutions, directly targeting peace and security in the EU.

Cybersecurity in the EU
Businesses and organisations in the EU spend significantly less on cybersecurity than their US counterparts. The European Union has been working to strengthen cybersecurity. In May 2022 Parliament and Council negotiators reached an agreement on the NIS2 Directive, which are comprehensive rules to strengthen EU-wide resilience.

"We need to act and make our businesses, governments and society more resilient to hostile cyber operations,” said Bart Groothuis (Renew, the Netherlands), the MEP responsible for steering the new rules through Parliament.

Fair minimum wages: action for decent living conditions in the EU

Will all EU countries have the same minimum wage?

No. Each country will set the level of the minimum wage based on socio-economic conditions, purchasing power, productivity levels and national developments.

Countries in which salaries are set exclusively through collective agreements - see below - will not be obliged to introduce a statutory minimum wage.

Why is a law on a minimum wage needed at EU level?

The minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employees should receive for their work. Even though all EU countries have some form of minimum wage, in most member states this remuneration often does not cover all living costs. About seven out of ten minimum wage workers in the EU found it difficult to make ends meet in 2018.

Asylum and migration in the EU: facts and figures

Restrictions put in place because of the coronavirus pandemic led to a reduction in migration, but numbers started rising again in 2021. Recent increases are due in part to Russia's war in Ukraine. Climate change could also have an impact in the future.

The flaws in the EU's asylum system exposed by the arrival of more than one million asylum seekers and migrants in 2015 remain. In September 2020, the European Comission presented the Asylum and Migration Pact while Parliament has been working on proposals to create a fairer, more effective European asylum policy.

Below you will find all the relevant data about migration in Europe, who migrants are, what the EU is doing to get to grips with the situation, and what financial implications there have been.

Definitions: what is a refugee? What is an asylum seeker?

Asylum seekers are people who make a formal request for asylum in another country because they fear their life is at risk in their home country. Currently people from outside the EU must apply for protection in the first EU country they enter. Filing a claim means that they become asylum applicants or asylum seekers. They receive refugee status or a different form of international protection only once a positive decision has been made by national authorities.

Refugees are people with a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, politics or membership of a particular social group who have been accepted and recognised as such in their host country. In the EU, the qualification directive sets guidelines for assigning international protection to those who need it. In March 2022, Parliament backed the activation of the Temporary Protection Directive for the first time since it entered into force in 2001 to grant immediate protection to people fleeing the war in Ukraine.

Find out more about the causes of migration

Asylum decisions in the EU

In 2021, there were 632,315 applications for asylum in the EU, 33.8% more than in 2020. This represents a return to pre-pandemic numbers. In 2019, there were 744,810 applications, significantly lower than the more than one million applications registered in 2015 and 2016.

Particularly large increases were seen in Bulgaria (212%), Poland (180%) and Austria (170%) in 2021. Numbers were down in Hungary (65%), Malta (39%), Greece (30%), Spain (26%), Finland (21%) and Sweden (14%).

First-time asylum seekers in 2021 were mainly from Syria (more than 98,800 people or 18% of the total), Afghanistan (83,700 or 16%) and Iraq (about 26,000 or 5%).

What is carbon neutrality?
Carbon neutrality means having a balance between emitting carbon and absorbing carbon from the atmosphere in carbon sinks. Removing carbon oxide from the atmosphere and then storing it is known as carbon sequestration. In order to achieve net zero emissions, all worldwide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will have to be counterbalanced by carbon sequestration.

Carbon sink is any system that absorbs more carbon than it emits. The main natural carbon sinks are soil, forests and oceans. According to estimates, natural sinks remove between 9.5 and 11 Gt of CO2 per year. Annual global CO2 emissions reached 36.0 Gt in 2020.

To date, no artificial carbon sinks are able to remove carbon from the atmosphere on the necessary scale to fight global warming.

The carbon stored in natural sinks such as forests is released into the atmosphere through forest fires, changes in land use or logging. This is why it is essential to reduce carbon emissions in order to reach climate neutrality.

Carbon offsetting

Another way to reduce emissions and to pursue carbon neutrality is to offset emissions made in one sector by reducing them somewhere else. This can be done through investment in renewable energy, energy efficiency or other clean, low-carbon technologies. The EU’s emissions trading system (ETS) is an example of a carbon offsetting system.

Another example of an initiative to reduce emissions is the carbon border adjustment mechanism, which would apply carbon prices on imported goods from less climate ambitious countries. This should help discourage companies moving production from the EU to somewhere with less stringent greenhouse gas emissions rules. The Commission should propose this carbon levy in 2021.