Europäische Union

Council approves an agreement reached with the United Kingdom which secures the fishing rights of EU fishers in the Atlantic and the North Sea for 2026.

Council agrees on a mandate to begin negotiations with the European Parliament on new rules for plant reproductive material.

Press briefing ahead of the upcoming Foreign Affairs Council will take place on 12 December 2025 at 14.30.

The Council endorsed the consolidated list of Global Gateway flagship projects for 2026, now including 256 initiatives.

Main agenda items, approximate timing, public sessions and press opportunities.

Der Online-Sexshop-Gründer Alan Frei wollte mit den Philippinen im Curling an die Olympischen Spiele fahren. Jetzt muss der 43-Jährige diesen Traum zumindest vorerst begraben.

The new rules, provisionally agreed by EU co-legislators, seek to reinforce support and protection measures for victims and their rights in criminal proceedings.
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

The new rules, provisionally agreed by EU co-legislators, seek to reinforce support and protection measures for victims and their rights in criminal proceedings.
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2025 - EP

The step follows calls from several member states for the Council of Europe’s court to give them wider scope to manage migration and security

Several women accused the PSOE's leadership of having “dismissed” their formal complaints, an issue the party now attributes to a “computer error”

Not a single indicator improved this year, and three actually worsened

The European Parliament’s communication campaign for the 2024 European elections has been awarded one of Europe’s major creative industry awards.

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

15th Statistical Report of the European Biogas Association underscores the strategic importance of biogases for Europe’s energy independence and defossilisation pathway, while warning that persistent regulatory uncertainty is slowing the sector’s growth at a decisive moment.

Bus rapid transit (BRT) has been widely adopted in emerging economies for its affordability and incremental implementation potential. Yet, many cities are now starting to implement urban rail as a higher-quality mass-transit alternative. This raises the question of the role of existing BRT networks once rail arrives, particularly regarding their land-value effects. This paper examines how BRT-related land value uplift (LVU) evolves after rail begins operation, using Jakarta as a case study. The study analyses residential land values around Transjakarta BRT and MRT Jakarta stations for 2017 (pre-rail) and 2021 (post-rail) using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR). The findings reveal that (1) proximity to Transjakarta stations was associated with uplift in 2017, particularly in South Jakarta; (2) by 2021, BRT proximity penalties were reported citywide, especially in the north and east, but also in Central Jakarta; and (3) proximity to MRT Jakarta stations was associated with consistent uplift in 2021, with strongest effects at upgraded interchange nodes in South Jakarta. The timing and spatial coherence of these patterns are consistent with a rail-led substitution mechanism in which urban policy attention and developer actions concentrate willingness-to-pay near rail, while stand-alone BRT corridors increasingly reflect proximity penalties in prices. Policy recommendations include strategic co-location and integration of BRT-MRT stations, mitigating BRT proximity effects with context-sensitive station design, and timely transit-oriented development (TOD) and land value capture (LVC) at integrated hubs to harness value where market signals are strongest.

Nationally minded grid planning is being blamed for the EU’s widening cross-border cable gap

In Mexico, tax expenditures refer to all fiscal measures that reduce public revenue by granting preferential tax treatment relative to the benchmark system. These include deductions, exemptions, tax credits, differentiated rates and tax incentives (SHCP, 2024b).
While tax incentives are conceptually equivalent to tax expenditures, in Mexico the former are a component of the latter, as per the structure of the SHCP’s tax expenditures document. As such, tax incentives constitute a specific subset of tax expenditures and are typically created by presidential decree, unlike other benefits which are incorporated directly into tax legislation (SHCP, 2024b).
Transparency: Mexico fell from 42nd to 51st place in the Global Tax Expenditures Transparency Index (GTETI)’s 2024 ranking, reflecting a decline in the availability, quality and clarity of information pertaining to tax expenditures. While the country still meets the minimum standards for publication of tax expenditure information (as regards such things as estimates, methodology, legal basis and beneficiary analysis), there is still significant room for improvement, particularly when it comes to defining the benchmark, incorporating assessments and strengthening the role of Mexico’s parliament, the Congress of the Union. With publication of the tax expenditures document (Documento de Renuncias Recaudatorias) having resumed in 2024, there is now an opportunity to make up lost ground in terms of tax transparency and promote more proactive oversight by the legislative branch and civil society.
Complex fiscal landscape: tax expenditures amounted to some MXN 1.42 trillion in 2024, which equates to 4.2% of gross domestic product (GDP) and 19.4% of tax revenue. The primary tax expenditures pertain to the 0% value added tax (VAT) rate and the income tax system. Additionally, tax incentives, most of which are granted by presidential decree, account for approximately 25% of total tax expenditure. These measures have different objectives, legal foundations and timeframes, reflecting a Mexican tax expenditure system that is fragmented and inconsistent in design.
Evaluation challenges: despite advances in incidence analysis and disaggregation by tax type, there is no systematic model in place to evaluate compliance with the objectives of this public policy. In the absence of ex-ante and ex-post evaluations and performance indicators, it is difficult to determine the effectiveness and relevance of the different tax expenditures. At the same time, a time lag between publication of tax decrees and the tax expenditures document limits assessment of the impact of these expenditures.
Fiscal sustainability: tax expenditures account for almost 20% of tax revenue. Their scale poses a challenge to the sustainability of public finances. Against the backdrop of the energy transition, demographic transition and structural pressure on welfare spending and public investment, it is essential to review the permanence and effectiveness of these tax expenditures to prevent them from becoming a structural source of inefficiency and regression.

Many sub-Saharan African countries are increasingly adopting national health insurance policies to improve access to essential services. Informal sector workers, however, often lack coverage because their earnings are typically not low enough to qualify for government subsidies but insufficient to cover insurance premiums, resulting in a phenomenon known as "missing middle". This paper examined socioeconomic inequalities in national health insurance enrolment and determinants of participation among informal sector workers in Kenya. We used nationally representative cross-sectional household survey data (n = 5168) collected from informal sector workers in Kenya in December 2020. First, we examined levels of national health insurance enrolment among informal sector workers. Second, we examined socioeconomic inequalities in national health insurance enrolment using concentration curves and the Wagstaff index. Third, we employed a three-level mixed effects logistic regression model to assess the determinants of national health insurance enrolment. Overall, 21.75% (95% Confidence Interval 20.63–22.89) of informal sector workers in Kenya were enrolled in the national health insurance scheme. We observed pro-rich inequalities in national health insurance enrolment, with a concentration index of 0.35 (95% CI 0.30–0.41). Older age (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 1.66, 95% CI 1.31–2.10), employment in the non-agricultural sector (AOR = 1.96, 95% CI 1.60–2.39), microfinance institutional membership (AOR = 1.44, 95% CI 1.23–1.69), higher education level (AOR = 2.49, 95% CI 1.99–3.11), household’s prior positive experience with healthcare (AOR = 1.45, 95% CI 1.22–1.72), and higher socioeconomic status based on the wealth asset index (AOR = 3.87, 95% CI 2.97–5.05) were all significantly positively associated with national health insurance enrolment. Larger households had lower odds of enrollment (AOR = 0.76, 95% CI 0.60–0.96). Our findings suggest that enrollment rates among informal sector workers remain low, and important pro-rich inequalities prevail. Economic factors, education, and prior experience with healthcare services were key drivers of national health insurance enrollment. Further policies are needed to increase enrollment among informal sector workers, including differential premium levels, reliance on expanded targeted subsidies, and enhanced awareness campaigns. Our findings are also applicable to other low-resource settings experiencing conditions similar to those in Kenya as they transition toward national health insurance policies, with the goal of achieving universal health coverage.

The following extraordinary SEDE meetings will take place:

• Thursday, 11 December 2025 from 12:00 - 13:00 in Brussels;
• Monday, 15 December 2025 from 19:45 - 22:30 in Strasbourg,
  including SEDE/ENVI/ITRE Committees meeting from 19:45 - 20:00 and SEDE/IMCO Committees meeting from 20:00 - 20:30.

The next ordinary meeting of the Committee on Security and Defence (SEDE) is scheduled to take place on Thursday, 15 January 2026 from 9.00 - 12.30 a in Brussels (room SPINELLI 5G3).
Further information about the SEDE meetings can be found here.

_______________________

SEDE missions 2025:

• Djibouti - 27-29 October 2025
  
• Greenland - 15-19 September 2025
  
• Norway - 27-30 May 2025
• Moldova and Ukraine - 14-17 April 2025
  
• Bosnia and Herzegovina - 24-27 February 2025
• Israel and Palestine - 5-8 February 2025

SEDE missions 2024:

• United Kingdom - 28-30 October 2024
• Ukraine - 25-26 October 2024

SEDE Committee meetings' calendar 2025
SEDE Committee meetings' calendar 2026
EP calendar 2025
EP calendar 2026
Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

The Council and the Parliament have reached a provisional agreement to amend the climate law by setting a 90% emissions reduction target for 2040, with flexibilities for member states and the EU during the transition.