We are currently in a democratic and transparent parliamentary process. I have proposed 26 candidates, 23 of whom have now been accepted. Three candidates did not obtain majority support for varied reasons. Therefore, the nominations for Hungary, Romania and France are still open.

This afternoon I met the Presidents of the EPP, S&D and Renew Europe groups in the European Parliament to discuss the situation. I also met with the President of the European Parliament.

We must not lose sight of what is at stake: the next five years will be decisive for Europe in a difficult global environment. Europe must deal with Brexit, trade issues and conflicts in its immediate neighbourhood. We must also face up to major challenges such as climate change, digitisation and migratory flows.

With so much at stake, it is now necessary, together with Parliament, to speed up the process so that Europe can act swiftly. At the same time, all involved in the process need sufficient time to approach the next steps with care. This must be a common objective.

October 10, 2019 European Trade Mark and Design Network

Consultation on CP11 – New Types of Trade Mark

The draft Common Practice of the project CP11 ‘New Types of Trade Mark – Examination of formal requirements and absolute grounds for refusal and invalidity’ has been made available in English for comments.

The CP11 Working Group, composed of representatives from nine intellectual property offices of the EU, four user associations and the EUIPO, made significant progress on developing the Common Practice during the course of three Working Group meetings and a workshop in which the representatives shared best practices and expertise to establish the common principles of the CP11 project.

As a result, the draft of the CP11 Common Practice is now available for review by all stakeholders. The Working Group members have included several sections in the document that are still under discussion, where it would be very appreciated to receive input or feedback.

In particular, the Working Group would like to gather input regarding consumer perception of each of the new types of trade mark in order to develop an individual rationale for each type (sound, motion, multimedia and hologram mark). For this reason, the receipt of information on consumer perception would be highly appreciated (case-law, surveys, scientific articles, etc.) with regard to any of the new types of mark in order to further elaborate these sections of the Common Practice.

The EUIPO welcomes your comments, which should be addressed to CommonPractices@euipo.europa.eu by Thursday, 14 November 2019.

The CP11 project is part of the European Cooperation Projects under the heading ECP4 Shared Services and Practices.

The address focused on ​Building the EU Capital Markets Union while fostering global financial markets ​covering topics such as sustainable finance, cryptocurrencies and EU markets supervision, while also focusing on equivalence, ESMA’s new supervisory powers over EU entities and third country responsibilities. 

Thank you Mister Minister.

First of all, I would like to express my sincere condolences to the families and friends of the victims of horrendous attacks in Halle on Yom Kippur day. Such violence and antisemitism have no place in Europe and I firmly condemn it.

Moving to today’s meeting, first of all, l welcome yesterday’s agreement on the Budget Instrument for Convergence and Competitiveness.

This is an important step forward.

The instrument will support much needed structural reform and investment packages.

It also has some limited but useful counter-cyclical features.

Like the possibility to modulate the national co-financing rate based on a trigger related to severe economic circumstances, as defined in the Stability and Growth Pact.

There will be a dedicated instrument for non-euro area Member States, or – alternatively –  special financial arrangements to be implemented in the context of the MFF negotiations. 

Today I presented the Commission’s proposal for the governance of the BICC, respecting the Euro Summit’s decision to agree on autonomy of decision-making for the euro-area Member States.

Going forward, we will have to increase the level of ambition on deepening our Economic and Monetary Union.

And clearly, we need to raise our level of ambition to give a new boost to the Capital Markets Union.

I welcome the strong political support that many Member States are giving to this project.

And I also believe that it is a necessity to have a wider public discussion to collect new ideas for developing our capital markets.

This is why I have pleasure to announce that today the Commission is launching a call for applications for a High-Level Forum to reflect on future CMU actions.

We want to bring together high-caliber experts from public authorities, industry and civil society to reflect on long-term trends that will have an impact on the development and integration of EU capital markets. These trends include digitalisation, sustainability but also the impacts of Brexit. And capital markets are also clearly important to strengthen the international role of the euro and European economic sovereignty.

The Forum should identify specific areas where further action is needed. These could include the creation of an ecosystem for access to finance for companies and the development of integrated and efficient capital market infrastructure. We should also think about ways to promote greater retail investor participation in capital markets.

Last but not least, we had a substantial discussion on fight against money laundering and terrorist financing.

Together with Commissioner Jourova and I presented four reports containing a wealth of findings on money laundering and terrorist financing risks, on the work of Financial Intelligence Units, interconnection of our data systems as well as post mortem analysis on recent money laundering cases in European financial institutions.

On the latter, we had identified a number of  shortcomings, such as banks not having adequate AML protection in place, lack of cooperation between supervisors in the cases of cross-border groups or asymmetry of information sharing.

So we clearly need to step up our action at EU level.

If we have the strongest AML rules in Europe, yet they are not applied evenly in all countries.   

I welcome the intention of Ministers to issue a further guidance for the policy action in December. 

Regarding today’s debate, I would like to stress three takeaways in particular:

First, we need to make sure that AML 4 and AML 5 directives are properly implemented and effects of the rules should be properly assessed.

 Second, several countries spoke out in favour of more harmonisation and powers at EU level, including direct supervisory powers, without creating more red tape. I will launch an in-depth evaluation and propose the solution that works best: either creating a new AML agency or consolidating fresh powers within an existing Union body.

Third, many agreed that much higher degree of coordination between Financial Intelligence Units is needed, also because money laundering goes beyond financial system and touches on other sectors such as real estate, or gaming for example.

We have made the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing a priority, it is going to be a priority also in my next mandate. We will work closely together with Member States and the European Parliament to tackle this complex problem.

Thank you.

On Wednesday evening, MEPs also held a debate with the European Commission on the authorisation process for GMO imports, the shortcomings of which have been regularly pointed out by Parliament.

These authorisations cover the import of products containing or consisting of GMOs Maize MZHG0JG, Maize MON 89034 and soybean A2704-12.

These GMOs have been made tolerant to glyphosate-based and glufosinate ammonium-based herbicides. MEPs say that a number of studies show that such GM crops result in a higher use of weed killers. The crop may be exposed to repeated doses, which potentially lead to higher quantity of residues in the harvest, they say.

Concerning the imports of GM soybean, MEPs also highlight that soya production is a key driver of deforestation in South America. The European Union is the world’s second largest soya importer and the majority of the soya imported into the European Union is for animal feed. Analysis by the Commission found that soya has historically been the EU’s number one contributor to global deforestation.

Moreover, a recent pan-European Union survey found that almost 90 % of respondents think that new laws are needed to ensure that products sold in the EU do not contribute to global deforestation, say MEPs.

Lack of qualified majority among member states

MEPs also point out that since the current GM authorisation process came into force, every GM authorisation decision has been taken by the Commission without the support of a qualified majority of EU member states. In effect, this turns what should be the exception into the norm.

The non-binding resolutions were adopted with 436 votes to 208 and 16 abstentions (maize MZHG0JG), 435 votes to 207 and 18 abstentions (maize MON 89034) and 426 votes to 208 and 20 abstentions (soybean A2704-12).

Background

A separate EU law that would enable any EU member state to restrict or prohibit the sale and use of EU-approved GMO food or feed on its territory was opposed by Parliament in October 2015. MEPs are concerned that this law might prove unworkable or that it could lead to the reintroduction of border checks between pro- and anti-GMO countries. They called on the Commission to table a new proposal.