By Min Wu

The European Parliament approved amendments to a telecommunications legislation package that would solidify net neutrality, according to Wired. The legislation still needs the approval of the Council of the European Union to become the law. 

Net neutrality is the notion that all traffic on the Internet should be treated equally by network service providers, without discrimination. The amendments prevent companies from arbitrarily defining services as “specialized services” to evade the net neutrality requirement. In the United States, net neutrality rules adopted by the Federal Communications Commission were struck down earlier this year.

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April 07, 2014

By Phillip Yu

The European Union has promised Ukraine $693 million a year of trade relief to compensate for bankruptcy and the deployment of Russian troops in Crimea. This trade relief is part of a larger E.U. aid package which could total over 11 billion euros over the next seven years. The Crimea crisis itself has prompted the EU to suspend visa and trade talks with Russia and threaten sanctions against Russian officials. For the relief to take effect by June, the E.U. Parliament must act quickly and approve no later than the week of April 14.

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March 13, 2014

By Sam Obenhaus

European finance ministers are meeting this week in an attempt to resolve long-running differences over the establishment of the European Union’s bank bailout mechanism.  The heart of the debate revolves around the design of the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM) for handling failing European banks and ensuring that they are efficiently wound-down with minimal taxpayer assistance.

The finance ministers will be working towards their second agreement on the subject.  The E.U. Parliament criticized the finance ministers’ previous SRM agreement as being too unwieldy to implement.  Both the national governments and the E.U. Parliament must approve the SRM’s design before it can come into effect.

The familiar north-south dynamic present in most E.U. financial debates is an additional point of intrigue.  Greece currently holds the E.U. presidency while Germany remains extremely skeptical of any plan to pool bailout resources.

For more on this story visit Bloomberg BNA.

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February 18, 2014

By Min Wu

The European Parliament passed a new directive regulating the practice of authors handing their right to collect copyright licensing fees over to collective management organizations, according to IP-Watch. 

Under the new directive, the authors will be given the right to choose from different collective management organizations. The directive also sets clear deadlines for payment of the fees to the authors. Importantly, collective management organizations have to open up for alternative licenses such as Creative Commons. A European Union directive is a legislative act of the European Union, requiring the implementation by individual countries to achieve certain results.

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February 14, 2014

By Sam Obenhaus

On Wednesday, November 20, the European Central Bank took a major step towards integrating the euro zone’s financial markets when it nominated Danièle Nouy to serve as the first “Single Supervisor” for major banks across the continent. If confirmed by the European Parliament, she will lead one of the world’s most important start-ups.  The Single Supervisor’s office is still in the process of hiring staff and it does not gain the legal authority to start regulating banks until the end of next year.

The task facing Nouy is hugely important for the future of the euro zone.  One of the chief criticisms of the zone is that oversight of its banking system remains balkanized.  The hope is that installation of a Single Supervisor, along with the first set of stress tests that subject the zone’s banks to the same set of standards, will address this persistent criticism.

The New York Times has more on this story.

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November 26, 2013