Pierrakakis said the EU had to create a real energy union that would allow energy to flow easily across borders to lower electricity prices across the single market of 450 million people

International News via Reuters:

A European energy union is a prerequisite to other reforms that the European Union is planning to stay competitive against the U.S. and China, Kyriakos Pierrakakis, the chairman of the euro zone’s finance ministers’ group, said on Thursday.

Speaking at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, Pierrakakis said the EU had to create a real energy union that would allow energy to flow easily across borders to lower electricity prices across the single market of 450 million people.

European energy prices are two to three times higher than in the U.S. or China, putting the 27-nation EU at a big competitive disadvantage to global competitors.

“Advancing the energy union in Europe … will have a direct … positive impact, both energy-wise, but I would say competitiveness-wise. We need that … to be able to implement the whole vision of the Draghi and Letta reports,” Pierrakakis told a seminar during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings in Washington.

In 2024 two former Italian prime ministers – Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta – prepared reports on how to boost Europe’s competitiveness and make the EU’s single market work better, recommending dozens of reforms.

Among them are efforts to consolidate the EU’s 27 national capital markets into a single one, introduce a special legal regime for pan-European companies that would be the same across the bloc, and launch a digital euro that would be a European-controlled means of online payments. 

“But without the deployment of a full-scale energy union, we won’t be able to generate the necessary conditions to be able to achieve these previous elements of policy,” Pierrakakis said.

The EU’s energy union is a project that has been running since 2015 to coordinate national energy policies and create a single, integrated market for power and gas, allowing electricity from one part of the continent to be easily sold and transferred to another.

Progress requires large investment in modernizing and connecting national European electricity networks, joint purchasing and storage, as well as overcoming vested interests of national energy sectors and other political obstacles.

The plan has become all the more urgent after the energy crisis of 2022 caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and, more recently, by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the gateway for a fifth of the world’s oil and gas, as a result of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.

Reporting by Jan Strupczewski; Editing by Paul Simao

Following Australia’s groundbreaking social media ban for children launched last year, a growing number of European nations are weighing their own restrictions

International News via Reuters:

French President Emmanuel Macron urged high school pupils on Thursday to switch off their phones and read, pushing for one “no screens day” per month for all, and a blanket social media ban for those under 15 years of age.

Following Australia’s groundbreaking social media ban for children launched last year, a growing number of European nations are weighing their own restrictions as concerns mount over social media’s impact on the health and safety of minors.

“We left you in this jungle and it robbed you of your attention,” Macron told high school kids, speaking of the lack of rules on social media. “We need to slow down and help you become adults, and above all citizens.”

“That’s why what we want to do is say that before 15 years old, no more social media. And we’d like, one day a month, to have an offline day … to show it’s possible,” he said, adding that this day could be used to read aloud, do theatre or other activities.

BANNING ACCESS?

In France, a draft bill is going through parliament with the aim to establish a ban for those under 15. But while the lower house has voted for a blanket ban, senators want to block access only ​for platforms that are ​considered harmful for ⁠children. This means Macron’s aim to have the new legislation in place for the start of the new academic year in September may not be met.    

So far, at least a dozen European countries, including non-EU nations Britain and Norway, have enacted or are considering legislation setting minimum age limits – typically between 13 and 16 years – for social media usage. And the EU is readying an age verification app.

Cyprus was the latest to announce plans to establish a ban, with President Nikos Christodoulides saying on Thursday that his country would set the age of 15 as the minimum for creating and using an account on social media platforms.

Later in the day, Macron will host a ​video call with other ‌EU leaders ​to push for a ​coordinated approach. The conference is focused on creating a “digital majority” in Europe, limiting access for children below a defined age and requiring age verification, officials said.

MIXED FEELINGS

In Villers-Cotterets, in northern France, where Macron laid out some of his plans, high school students had mixed feelings about a ban.

“I think it’s rather up to parents to check up on their children,” said 12-year-old Erdem Duran. Fabien Andronic, aged 15, also disagreed with a ban. “I like social networks, we learn a lot there,” he said. 

But Manel Zerouali, also aged 15, agreed with a ban for those under 15, so they can be protected. “On social network there is cyberbullying,” she stressed.

One thing all agreed on was that most youngsters would find a way around a ban.

Australia has seen a huge spike in downloads of virtual private networks (VPNs) since it introduced its social media ban, as users seek to bypass the measure to access restricted platforms.

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY

Meanwhile, in Britain, Prime Minister Keir Starmer told social media companies on Thursday to take responsibility for children’s safety on their platforms and meet parents’ demands for credible protection rather than “tweaks around the edges”.

He said he wanted to hear what actions the platforms were going to take because “right now, social media is putting our children at risk” at the start of a meeting with executives from Meta, Snap, Google, TikTok and X.

Britain is consulting until next month on whether to restrict children’s access to social media, including a possible ban for under-16s, as well as curfews, app time limits and curbs on what it described as addictive design features.

Reporting by Michaela Cabrera in Villers-Cotterets, Michel Rose in Paris, Sam Tabahriti, Muvija M in London, Daria Sito-Sucic in Sarajevo; Additional reporting by Ingrid Melander, Gianluca Lo Nostro, David Latona; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Toby Chopra

The ECB kept its key interest rate at 2% at the March 18-19 meeting and policymakers are inclined to do so again this month

International News via Reuters:

European Central Bank policymakers were wary of raising interest rates prematurely when they met last month amid growing fears of a new energy-driven surge in euro zone inflation, accounts of the gathering showed on Thursday.

The ECB kept its key interest rate at 2% at the March 18-19 meeting and policymakers are inclined to do so again this month, judging they don’t have enough evidence to conclude that the Iran war would durably raise inflation in the bloc.

The central bank’s baseline projections, published at the time of the March meeting, assumed the hit from the Iran war would be short-lived. But they were accompanied by adverse and severe scenarios that incorporate a sharper increase in energy prices, greater uncertainty and international spillover.

“Incoming data could then be monitored to assess which scenario seemed to be crystallising, thereby facilitating swift policy action if necessary,” the ECB said in its account of the meeting.

“At the same time, it was important not to act prematurely on the basis of adverse or severe scenarios, unless incoming data suggested that they were becoming increasingly likely.”

ING’s global head of macro Carsten Brzeski said the accounts showed the ECB had turned “hawkish” – minded to raise rates – but “in no hurry to react”.

APRIL MAY BE TOO EARLY

Policymakers hoped they would have more information about the duration and extent of the war at their following April 29-30 meeting but acknowledged it may still be too early to draw conclusions about the implications for inflation.

They said they would monitor inflation expectations, selling prices, companies’ profits, labour market data, underlying inflation figures and supply chain disruptions among key factors.

“All of this would help to assess whether developments were moving in line with the baseline outlook or one of the scenarios, even though it might still be difficult to judge whether there was a threat to the price stability objective,” the ECB said.

ECB President Christine Lagarde has since said the central bank would respond in a forceful or persistent way if inflation looked set to sit well above its 2% target for an extended period, but even a more modest overshoot could call for a “measured” rate move.

Reporting by Francesco CanepaEditing by Peter Graff