The European Commission will examine whether the big tech companies are preventing developers from steering customers away from controlled app stores, which could be anti-competitive.

The investigation comes under powers introduced in the Digital Markets Act (DMA) which was a landmark piece of legislation aimed at curbing the power of big tech and the commission is accusing companies of non-compliance with the act and a failure to provide a fairer and more open digital space for European citizens and businesses.

Should the investigation conclude that there is lack of full compliance with the DMA, gatekeeper companies could face heavy fines.

Designated as ‘gatekeepers’ by the DMA, Google owner Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, TikTok owner ByteDance, Meta and Microsoft have special responsibilities because of their dominance of key mobile technologies.

These companies are accused of steering developers away from competitor platforms and imposing various restrictions and limitations on their use.

The big tech companies are facing a growing legal backlash and last month Apple was fined over its iOS ecosystem and business practices by the EU.

Whether this case succeeds of not, it’s interesting to note the growing willingness of the authorities to take these tech giants to court.

About time, according to some critics.

Source: New Electronic

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The U.S. and British governments on Monday announced sanctions against a company and two people linked to the Chinese government over a string of malicious cyberactivity targeting the U.K.’s election watchdog and lawmakers in both countries.

Officials said those sanctioned are responsible for a hack that may have gained access to information on tens of millions of U.K. voters held by the Electoral Commission, as well as for cyberespionage targeting lawmakers who have been outspoken about the China threat.

The Foreign Office said the hack of the election registers “has not had an impact on electoral processes, has not affected the rights or access to the democratic process of any individual, nor has it affected electoral registration.”

The Electoral Commission said in August that it identified a breach of its system in October 2022, though it added that “hostile actors” had first been able to access its servers since 2021.

At the time, the watchdog said the data included the names and addresses of registered voters. But it said that much of the information was already in the public domain.

In Washington, the Treasury Department said it sanctioned Wuhan Xiaoruizhi Science and Technology Company Ltd., which it calls a Chinese Ministry of State Security front company that has “served as cover for multiple malicious cyberoperations.”

It named two Chinese nationals, Zhao Guangzong and Ni Gaobin, affiliated with the Wuhan company, for cyberoperations that targeted U.S. critical infrastructure sectors, “directly endangering U.S. national security.”

Zhao, Ni and five other Chinese nationals were hit with federal charges Monday. An indictment brought by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn alleges that the seven men were Chinese intelligence officers who engaged in a yearslong campaign targeting top White House officials, U.S. senators and the spouses of high-ranking members of the Justice Department, among others. 

The suspects are accused of sending tracking emails purported to be from prominent U.S. journalists, which contained legitimate news articles from publications like CNN and VOX. The emails also contained embedded hyperlinks that, when opened, would transmit information about the recipients to a server controlled by the suspects, the indictment says.

One of the group’s alleged campaigns took place from June to September 2018 when they sent more than 10,000 messages to a wide range of targets including Democratic and Republican senators from more than 10 states and the spouses of various government administrators including a high-ranking Department of Justice official, high-ranking White House officials and multiple United States senators.

“These allegations pull back the curtain on China’s vast illegal hacking operation that targeted sensitive data from U.S. elected and government officials, journalists and academics; valuable information from American companies; and political dissidents in America and abroad,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement.

Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said her government “firmly opposes and cracks down on all forms of cyberattacks in accordance with law.”

“Without valid evidence, the U.S. jumped to an unwarranted conclusion and made groundless accusations against China,” Liu added. “It is extremely irresponsible and is a complete distortion of facts.”

Separately, British cybersecurity officials said that Chinese government-affiliated hackers “conducted reconnaissance activity” against British parliamentarians who are critical of Beijing in 2021. They said no parliamentary accounts were successfully compromised.

Three lawmakers, including former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith, told reporters Monday they have been “subjected to harassment, impersonation and attempted hacking from China for some time.” Duncan Smith said in one example, hackers impersonating him used fake email addresses to write to his contacts.

The politicians are members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, an international pressure group focused on countering Beijing’s growing influence and calling out alleged rights abuses by the Chinese government.

Ahead of that announcement, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reiterated that China is “behaving in an increasingly assertive way abroad” and is “the greatest state-based threat to our economic security.”

“It’s right that we take measures to protect ourselves, which is what we are doing,” he said, without providing details.

China critics including Duncan Smith have long called for Sunak to take a tougher stance on China and label the country a threat — rather than a “challenge” — to the U.K., but the government has refrained from using such critical language.

Responding to the reports, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said countries should base their claims on evidence rather than “smear” others without factual basis.

“Cybersecurity issues should not be politicized,” ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said. “We hope all parties will stop spreading false information, take a responsible attitude, and work together to maintain peace and security in cyberspace.”

Source: NBC News

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“Today, the Commission has opened non-compliance investigations under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) into Alphabet’s rules on steering in Google Play and self-preferencing on Google Search, Apple’s rules on steering in the App Store and the choice screen for Safari and Meta’s ‘pay or consent model,’” the European Commission said in a statement.

The first two probes focus on Alphabet and Apple and relate to so-called anti-steering rules. Under the DMA, tech firms are not allowed to block businesses from telling their users about cheaper options for their products or about subscriptions outside of an app store.

“The way that Apple and Alphabet’s implemented the DMA rules on anti-steering seems to be at odds with the letter of the law. Apple and Alphabet will still charge various recurring fees, and still limit steering,” the E.U.’s competition chief, Margrethe Vestager, said Monday at a news conference.

Apple has already fallen foul of the E.U.’s rules. This month, the company was fined 1.8 billion euros ($1.95 billion) after the European Commission said it found that Apple had applied restrictions on app developers that prevented them from informing iOS users about alternative and cheaper music subscription services available outside of the app.

In a third inquiry, the commission said it is investigating whether Apple has complied with its DMA obligations to ensure that users can easily uninstall apps on iOS and change default settings. The probe also focuses on whether Apple is actively prompting users with choices to allow them to change default services on iOS, such as for the web browser or search engine.

The commission said that it is “concerned that Apple’s measures, including the design of the web browser choice screen, may be preventing users from truly exercising their choice of services within the Apple ecosystem.”

Apple said it believes it is in compliance with the DMA.

“We’re confident our plan complies with the DMA, and we’ll continue to constructively engage with the European Commission as they conduct their investigations. Teams across Apple have created a wide range of new developer capabilities, features, and tools to comply with the regulation,” an Apple spokesperson told CNBC on Monday.

The fourth probe targets Alphabet, as the European Commission looks into whether the firm’s display of Google search results “may lead to self-preferencing in relation to Google’s,” other services such as Google Shopping, over similar rival offerings.

“To comply with the Digital Markets Act, we have made significant changes to the way our services operate in Europe,” Oliver Bethell, director of competition at Alphabet, said in a statement.

“We have engaged with the European Commission, stakeholders and third parties in dozens of events over the past year to receive and respond to feedback, and to balance conflicting needs within the ecosystem. We will continue to defend our approach in the coming months.”

Alphabet pointed to a blog post from earlier this month, wherein the company outlined some of those changes — including giving Android phone users the option to easily change their default search engine and browser, as well as making it easier for people to see comparison sites in areas like shopping or flights in Google searches.

Meta investigation

The fifth and final investigation focuses on Meta and its so-called pay and consent model. Last year, Meta introduced an ad-free subscription model for Facebook and Instagram in Europe. The commission is looking into whether offering the subscription model without ads or making users consent to terms and conditions for the free service is in violation of the DMA.

“The Commission is concerned that the binary choice imposed by Meta’s ‘pay or consent’ model may not provide a real alternative in case users do not consent, thereby not achieving the objective of preventing the accumulation of personal data by gatekeepers.”

Thierry Breton, the E.U.’s internal market commissioner, said during the news conference that there should be “free alternative options” offered by Meta for its services that are “less personalized.”

“Gatekeepers” is a label for large tech firms that are required to comply with the DMA in the E.U.

“We will continue to use all available tools, should any gatekeeper try to circumvent or undermine the obligations of the DMA,” Vestager said.

Meta said subscriptions are a common business model across various industries.

“Subscriptions as an alternative to advertising are a well-established business model across many industries, and we designed Subscription for No Ads to address several overlapping regulatory obligations, including the DMA. We will continue to engage constructively with the Commission,” a Meta spokesperson told CNBC on Monday.

Tech giants at risk of fines

The commission said it intends to conclude its probes within 12 months, but Vestager and Breton during the Monday briefing stressed that the DMA does not dictate a hard deadline for the timeline of the inquiry. The regulators will inform the companies of their preliminary findings and explain measures they are taking or the gatekeepers should take in order to address the commission’s concerns.

If any company is found to have infringed the DMA, the commission can impose fines of up to 10% of the tech firms’ total worldwide turnover. These penalties can increase to 20% in case of repeated infringement.

The commission said it is also looking for facts and information to clarify whether Amazon may be preferencing its own brand products on its e-commerce platform over rivals. The commission is further studying Apple’s new fee structure and other terms and conditions for alternative app stores.

This month, the tech giant announced that users in the E.U. would be able to download apps from websites rather than through its proprietary App Store — a change that Apple has resisted for years.

The E.U.’s research into Apple and Amazon does not comprise official investigations.

Source: NBC News

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Assessing tail risks to the euro area economy

In Chavleishvili, Kremer and Lund-Thomsen (2023), we develop a novel approach to gauge the potential short- to medium-term costs and benefits of alternative policy actions when monetary policy faces trade-offs between financial and macroeconomic stability. The structural quantile vector autoregressive (QVAR) model – introduced by Chavleishvili and Manganelli (2023) – provides a flexible way of estimating the dynamic interactions between our main variables of interest: real GDP growth, inflation, short-term interest rates and financial stability conditions.^[2] The “flexible” attribute refers to the fact that the estimated interactions can be weaker or stronger in the centre and in the tails of the “joint probability distributions” of the model variables. Financial stability conditions are captured by two summary indicators measuring financial imbalances and system-wide financial stress, respectively. Using quantile regression allows us to uncover non-linearities in the dynamics of the model variables like in the seminal “growth-at-risk” paper by Adrian et al. (2019), which documents a much stronger impact of financial distress on the left tail of the growth distribution. By considering the entire probability distribution of our variables of interest, we can evaluate policy options not just in terms of their most likely outcomes, but also in terms of the tail risks associated with particularly undesirable states such as systemic crises. The quantification of tail risks thus lends itself to a risk management perspective on financial stability considerations in monetary policy (see Kilian and Manganelli, 2008), a perspective that focuses on the balance of upside and downside risks to inflation and economic activity rather than on the mean forecasts of both variables.

To operationalise financial stability, our model includes two measures widely used in ECB analysis. The first one is the Systemic Risk Indicator (SRI), which measures the financial cycle and, by extension, system-wide financial imbalances (see Lang et al., 2019). The second is the Composite Indicator of Systemic Stress (CISS), which quantifies systemic stress in the financial system (see Holló et al., 2012, and Chavleishvili and Kremer, 2023). Conceptually, one may think of the former as systemic risk ex ante, i.e. the risk of a future financial crisis, and of the latter as systemic risk ex post, i.e. materialised systemic risk. A typical financial boom-bust cycle would then see an elevated level of the SRI followed by a steep rise in the CISS as the bubble bursts and the system deleverages, with the Great Financial Crisis being a prominent example. The risk of such a boom-bust pattern poses an intertemporal financial stability trade-off for monetary policy: it can try to curb the financial boom by keeping interest rates higher than they would otherwise be, at the cost of weaker economic growth over the short run and at the benefit of a financial crisis being less likely and less severe over the medium term. In this article, however, we focus on another: the intratemporal financial stability trade-off for monetary policy, in which monetary policy itself may trigger more immediate financial instability.

The intratemporal financial stability trade-off in 2022

The circumstances prevailing in 2022 in the euro area and in many other places in the world, marked a stark turning point in the monetary policy stance. At the time, surging inflation called for a sharp tightening of monetary policy, even though economic growth was slowing after the post-pandemic rebound and financial stress was increasing on the back of the Russian aggression in Ukraine. In addition, the financial system at the time was vulnerable to a policy reversal because after a decade of accommodative monetary policy, the yield curve was flat and risk premia were at historically low levels, implying elevated risks to the profitability of banks and other financial intermediaries from a sharp rise in short-term interest rates.

To quantify the intratemporal financial stability trade-off in the euro area, we forecast the full distribution of our model variables over a period of four years, starting with the fourth quarter of 2022 (Q4 2022). In the baseline scenario, we fix the path of interest rates to the expected short-term market rates from the September 2022 Survey of Monetary Analysts (SMA) conducted by the ECB. In the baseline, we also require the mean forecast of real GDP growth, HICP inflation and commodity prices between Q4 2022 and Q4 2024 to reflect the ECB’s publicly available macroeconomic projections. This approach allows us to replicate the context in which policymakers were deciding on the path forward at the time while still considering macro-financial tail risks.

In addition to the baseline scenario, we also consider two alternative policy scenarios with different paths of short-term interest rates. The first one is “front-loading”, whereby policy rates are hiked more quickly. This helps prevent inflation from becoming entrenched, but it can also hurt systemically relevant banks and other financial intermediaries that have become particularly vulnerable to interest rate risk. The March 2023 banking turmoil in the United States and elsewhere provides a clear example of how monetary tightening may induce, or expose, financial fragility (see, e.g., Jiang et al., 2023, and Acharya et al., 2023). The second scenario considers a gradual monetary tightening. This may alleviate strains on financial stability, but at the cost of making high inflation more persistent, thereby creating the risk of long-term inflation expectations becoming de-anchored from the ECB’s 2% target. All three interest rate paths are illustrated in Chart 1.

Chart 1

Counterfactual paths for short-term interest rates in the euro area

Chart 2 plots the projected paths of the mean as well as the 10^th and 90^th percentiles of the forecast density of real GDP growth and the CISS using the three interest rate paths above. As previously noted, in the case of real GDP growth, the dotted line is restricted to meet the ECB’s growth projections at the time. The 10^th and the 90^th conditional percentiles represent the downside and the upside tail risks around these mean projections, respectively.^[3] Looking at the chart, we see that downside risks to real GDP growth (blue lines, left chart), as well as upside risks to systemic stress (red lines, right chart) are amplified by the interest rate front-loading in the short term compared to the baseline, and that the effects are larger compared to the respective opposite tails. Tightening monetary policy above market expectations increases the probability of realising a high level of systemic stress, in turn feeding into downside risks to growth. In contrast, a more gradual tightening has the opposite effects.

Chart 2

Forecast distributions of euro area real GDP (left) growth and the CISS (right) in the three policy scenarios

Overall, when comparing the short- to medium-term costs and benefits of the scenarios vis-à-vis the baseline forecast, the results generally do not support a more aggressive tightening path than what was expected by market participants in the autumn of 2022. The elevated downside risks to growth may outweigh the only modest gains in lower predicted inflation. That said, a policymaker who is particularly concerned about inflation expectations becoming de-anchored from target inflation may still be inclined to favour tighter policy. On the other hand, if policymakers were more concerned about the risk of causing severe financial distress by front-loading policy, the scenario could be modified to resemble, for example, the so-called “taper tantrum”, an episode of severe financial stress that occurred in 2013 when the Federal Reserve hinted at tapering its bond-buying programme.

Another consideration is that we have modelled monetary policy rather simplistically, with short-term rates being the only instrument. Today, monetary policymakers have several tools available, some of which can be used to separately target price and financial stability concerns, potentially mitigating the intratemporal financial stability trade-off. Still, a policymaker may prefer to avoid sparking financial stress to begin with, even if it can be contained with the right combination of tools.

Monetary policy from a risk manager’s perspective

In this article, we sketched a novel empirical approach to quantify the macroeconomic costs and benefits of monetary policies which take financial stability considerations explicitly into account. The approach has the distinct advantage that financial stability considerations are not introduced ad hoc or as pure “side effects” of monetary policy. In contrast, financial stability trade-offs enter the policy calculus through their direct effects on future inflation and economic activity. Our approach allows monetary policymakers to adopt a risk management perspective when confronted with elevated macroeconomic tails risks associated with certain risks to financial stability.

Source: ECB Europa

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Source: France 24

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Chris Packham has filed a High Court legal challenge against the UK government’s decision to weaken climate policies.

The environmental campaigner and broadcaster has applied for a judicial review of the government’s decision to ditch the timetable for a number of green policies.

These include plans for phasing out petrol and diesel cars and vans, gas boilers, off-grid fossil fuel domestic heating, and minimum energy ratings for homes.

The measures and their timetable were set out in the Carbon Budget Delivery Plan, put before parliament in March, but in September Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a number of delays.

He pushed back the ban on selling new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 to 2035, and said 20% of households will be exempt from a new gas boiler ban, saying he doesn’t want to ‘burden ordinary people with the costs’.

Chris Packham wrote to Mr Sunak as well as the energy and transport secretaries to challenge the decision, saying the prime minister doesn’t have the legal right to change the timeline of the pledges, as actioning the plan is governed by statute.

But he says he didn’t receive a satisfactory response and has therefore filed a judicial review at the High Court.

The legal challenge cites the requirement to have plans in place to meet the budgets if the proposals and policies within them are altered.

Chris also says the grounds for his judicial review include obligations under the Climate Change Act, and alleges there was a failure to consult on the changes to the Carbon Budget Delivery Plan.

He said: ‘We are in a crisis which threatens the whole world, everything living is in danger, including all of us.

‘We have the potential to reduce that threat, we have the solutions and we have plans and targets. We must not divert from these.

‘To do so on a whim for short term political gain is reckless and betrays a disregard for the future security of the planet.’

Chris argued the emissions reductions from the vehicle and gas boiler policies were ‘intrinsically important to the UK’s ability to reach somewhere near its net zero commitments’.

He added: ‘They should not have been changed without proper process and consultation. I believe that action was unlawful.’

Rowan Smith, a solicitor at Leigh Day, said: ‘If the government’s lawyers are correct, then the secretary of state would have carte blanche to rip up climate change policy at the drop of the hat, without any repercussions whatsoever.

‘Chris and his supporters believe that would be an acute abuse of process, made even worse at the time of climate and ecological breakdown.

‘That’s why this legal challenge is so important: if successful, it will mean that the secretary of state has to keep to their promises to have in place policies that will enable carbon budgets to be met.’

Leigh Day said it has instructed barristers David Wolfe KC, Catherine Dobson and Toby Fisher for the legal challenge.

It comes after a successful legal challenge by Friends of the Earth that the 2021 sixth carbon budget did not include sufficient detail in order to demonstrate how the UK would reach net zero by 2050 as the Climate Change Act 2008 says it must.

Source : Metro UK

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Türkiye cannot accept Israel’s policy of depopulating the Gaza Strip, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday, reiterating that Israel is a “terror state.”

“We cannot and will not tolerate the policy of the State of Israel, which has grown by constantly occupying, seizing land and massacring the oppressed, to render Gaza uninhabited,” Erdogan said at the Algeria-Türkiye Business Forum.

Erdogan paid a one-day visit to the capital Algiers to meet with his Algerian counterpart Abdelmadjid Tebboune and to attend the second meeting of the Türkiye-Algeria High-Level Cooperation Council, where the presidents also discussed Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza.

“The attacks, in which more than 13,000 of our Palestinian brothers were martyred, have once again revealed the true face, intention and purpose of Israel and its supporters.

“In this regard, it is very important that the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Israeli rulers are not left without sanctions,” Erdogan said.

All “conscientious” countries, along with the Islamic World, have a responsibility to ensure that Israel does not attempt “similar atrocities” again, he said, stressing: “We need to know this once and for all. Israel is a terrorist state. There is no need to hesitate to say this. This is the truth we know. This is the case.”

Israel and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC), the tribunal based in The Hague, Erdogan said.

“Netanyahu is a goner. Even the Israeli people no longer support Netanyahu,” he said, adding Türkiye will not allow the issue of nuclear weapons and atomic bombs, whose existence is denied by Israeli ministers, to be forgotten.

“Israel, tell whether you have an atomic bomb or not. (It) Can’t say. But look, we say it. Israel, you have the atomic bomb

“We will take initiatives both before the UN Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on this issue, which threatens the security of the entire region, including Türkiye,” Erdogan added.

Israel has launched relentless air and ground attacks in the Gaza Strip following a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7.

Thousands of buildings, including hospitals, mosques and churches, have been damaged or destroyed in the Israeli offensive.

An Israeli blockade has also cut off Gaza from fuel, electricity and water supplies and reduced aid deliveries to a trickle.

– Bilateral ties with Algeria

Erdogan said recently accelerated contacts and visits are adding significant momentum to bilateral relations between Türkiye and Algeria.

The bilateral trade volume reached a record $5.3 billion in 2022, he said, adding: “Hopefully, we will reach the $6 billion level by the end of the year.”

Around 1,400 companies with Turkish partners operating in Algeria provide employment to approximately 5,000 Algerians, he noted.

“The market value of our companies’ investments has approached $6 billion. With these figures, Türkiye is the country that makes the most investments and provides the most employment in Algeria, excluding oil and natural gas,” Erdogan said.

Türkiye is also pleased with the Algerian investments in the country, he added, stressing that Ankara will continue to provide the necessary facilities for Algerians to increase their investments in Türkiye.

Source : AA

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Olly sold her tourism business in Botswana after Covid-19 struck and paid almost £8,000 for visas and flights to take a job as a carer in the UK. The work was stressful enough, involving long miles between clients around rural Somerset in an unfamiliar manual car.

But in August, just weeks after her family joined her, her employer folded. She swiftly found another job in a care home willing to sponsor her visa, but is only allowed to work part-time while the Home Office processes the paperwork — and risks deportation from next week if the delay continues. “It is very difficult financially, because the savings I had got finished,” Olly said. “Right now we don’t know . . . if the Home Office will tell us to pack our bags and go.” Olly is one of hundreds of migrant care workers who have sought help over the past year from Unison, the largest UK union, after the job they had pinned their hopes on left them in acute difficulties. 

This is the group of workers ministers have in their sights as they seek ways to cut record immigration. Home secretary James Cleverly, under pressure from the right wing of the Conservative party, is reviewing options to reduce work-related migration that include higher salary thresholds and limits on the number of dependants care workers can bring.  Immigration through all channels — study, work-related and humanitarian — has surged since the pandemic, partly reflecting international trends that affect many advanced economies, and partly because of the design of the UK’s post-Brexit visa system. 

Other inflows are now slowing, but visa applications for care workers are still rocketing; more than 100,000 were granted in the year to September, according to official data, almost half the total of all skilled worker visas.  Unions and employers, however, argue that a clampdown on migrants and their families will achieve nothing and that ministers need to boost funding so that the care sector can pay enough to recruit and retain UK workers.  “The care system would implode without migrant care staff,” said Christina McAnea, Unison’s general secretary. “The government needs to reform immigration rules, not make them more draconian.” In a report published on Tuesday, the union detailed the experience of many other migrant workers who had taken care jobs in the UK only to find themselves underpaid, overworked, charged thousands in dubious fees, or stranded with big debts as their employer went bust. 

“We didn’t expect this kind of work. It is far better in my country,” said Nimesha, who sold her house in Sri Lanka and spent £12,000 on agents’ fees, visas and flights to come to the UK, with a further £2,000 loan for the car needed to cover the long distances between clients. The reality of the job has been crushing: she leaves home at 7am and is often on the road until 11pm, stumbling around in the dark trying to find the homes of clients for late-night calls. UK staff at the same agency work on much more flexible terms, she noted, and rarely at night. 

But with rent of £1,000 a month for a house shared with another family, it will take her years to earn enough to repay her debts and return home. Like the other workers interviewed by the Financial Times, she spoke under an assumed name because she could not risk antagonising her employer. The government’s Migration Advisory Committee recommended opening up entry-level care jobs to migrants in 2022 only reluctantly. It worried that workers in effect tied to their employer by the terms of their visa would be vulnerable to this type of exploitation.  Last month, MAC chair Brian Bell told ministers he was “increasingly concerned about the serious exploitation issues being reported within the care sector”. But he said employers should retain the ability to hire overseas for now, because the government had not addressed the underfunding that made it impossible to recruit at home.  Sir Julian Hartley, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents health organisations across England, said the latest migration data showed how urgent it was to fund a plan to resolve the workforce crisis. 

An understaffed care system could not “keep relying on international recruitment to plug these huge gaps”, he said — but at present, overseas staff were essential “to keep it going”.  If ministers pressed ahead with proposals designed to cut migrant numbers — in particular, restrictions on bringing family — they would make workers’ lives harder without solving the sector’s problems, Unison said.  The union said their priority should be to vet recruitment agencies more effectively and make it easier for care workers to move job if their employer is exploitative or goes out of business. Those made redundant have just 60 days to find a new visa sponsor, and can only work 20 hours a week while they are waiting for an application to go through. 

Many migrant workers recently made redundant by another provider are keeping afloat only because they came to the UK with a partner who can also work, according to Patricia. The senior care assistant from the Philippines, whose earnings help her father pay for the medication he needs at home, also lost her job when her employer went into liquidation this month. She said her work began smoothly in 2021 but worsened over time, with staff often underpaid and asked to travel farther.  “I love domiciliary care, having conversations with clients . . . but I am traumatised now,” she said, describing 12-hour days in which she often drove more than 100 miles. She hopes a new job, with clients closer to home, will work out, if the Home Office approves the visa.  “I am lucky I found this company, because they care also about the carers, Without carers, who is doing the care?”

Source : Financial Times

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BRUSSELS — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is threatening to block all European Union aid for Ukraine, as well as the country’s future accession to the bloc, unless EU leaders agree to review their entire strategy of support for Kyiv, according to a letter seen by POLITICO.

In the letter, addressed to European Council chief Charles Michel, the Hungarian leader says that no decision on funding for Ukraine, the opening of accession talks to the EU, or further sanctions against Russia can be taken until this “strategic discussion” happens when leaders gather in Brussels in mid-December.

“The European Council should take stock of the implementation and effectiveness of our current policies towards Ukraine including various assistance programs,” Orban writes in the letter, which is undated but bears the stamp of his office.

He also asks why Europe should continue to support Ukraine at a time when the United States, which has provided the bulk of military aid for Kyiv, may not be able to continue funding due to partisan deadlock over future support.

“The European Council must have a frank and open discussion on the feasibility of the EU’s strategic objectives in Ukraine,” the letter states.

“Do we still regard these objectives realistically attainable? Is this strategy sustainable without robust support from the United States? Can we take continuing support from the United States for granted? How do we conceive the security architecture of Europe after the war,” it goes on.

It adds that “the European Council is not in a position to make key decisions on the proposed security guarantees or additional financial support for Ukraine, endorse further strengthening of the EU sanctions regime or agree on the future of the enlargement process unless a consensus on our future strategy towards Ukraine is found.”

Working around Hungary

Orbán’s letter raises the stakes in a long-running standoff between Budapest and Brussels, which is holding back €13 billion in EU funds for Hungary over concerns that the country is falling afoul of the EU’s standards on rule-of-law.

Without saying so directly, the letter suggests that Budapest could use its veto power to block the disbursement of a planned €50 billion in aid for Ukraine — money that’s needed to fund the Ukrainian government while its armed forces fight back against a full-scale Russian invasion.

In addition to the €50 billion, Orban is threatening to block €500 million in planned military aid for Ukraine, as well as the opening of formal negotiations for Kyiv to join the 27-member union, which leaders were hoping to approve at the next gathering of the European Council on December 14 and 15.

According to one EU diplomat who was granted anonymity to discuss confidential deliberations, Orbán has “booby-trapped” the entire EU decision-making process on Ukraine as part of a strategy to raise pressure on the European Commission to release the €13 billion to Hungary.

The diplomat went on to say that while on other occasions, Budapest has abstained on key votes and allowed the EU to slap sanctions on Russia, on this occasion, “I don’t see that happening.”

“It’s not a matter of neutrality for Hungary,” said the envoy. “It’s about leverage.”

Orbán’s threat comes at a particularly sensitive time for Ukraine, as Kyiv’s armed forces struggle to make gains against invading Russian troops and just after United States National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has warned that the “window is closing” on U.S. aid for Ukraine.

With Hungary ramping up tensions and threatening to hijack the December summit of EU leaders, some countries are already contemplating ways to work around Budapest and keep aid flowing to Kyiv.

One such workaround could see EU countries sending financial aid to Ukraine via bilateral arrangements rather than via EU structures such as the European Peace Facility, which coordinates EU military aid for Kyiv — effectively freezing out Budapest.

But that approach wouldn’t work when it comes to opening formal negotiations for Kyiv to join the EU, as Hungary would have to be part of that process. As a result, and to preserve EU unity, the same diplomat said it wasn’t a good idea to freeze out Hungary quite yet.

“I understand where they are coming from,” the diplomat said with regard to those calling for a Hungary workaround on military aid. “But doing that [circumventing the EPF] would basically undermine the one European mechanism we have for support to Ukraine.”

“It’s the one thing we can show where the EU as a bloc is supporting Ukraine, which shows unity to Russia and also to the United States,” the diplomat continued.

In the event of a Hungarian veto, another option for the EU is simply to let the clock keep running and push key decisions on Ukraine policy to early next year, as Kyiv won’t reach a budget cliff-edge until March.

By deferring a decision on unfreezing EU funds for Budapest, the European Commission could turn the tables by tightening the financial screws on Budapest and forcing compliance on Ukraine.

“It’s arm-wrestling,” added the diplomat, who said the European Commission had so far shown great skill in defusing potential explosions with Budapest.

Source : Politico

The post Hungary’s Viktor Orbán Threatens to Blow Up EU’s Ukraine Policy appeared first on Policy Print.

Ukraine’s Defence Minister Rustem Umierov has signed an order approving the Military Personnel Policy Concept through to 2028, which focuses on meeting the human resources needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU).

Quote: “The document defines a strategic vision for developing military personnel policy in defence over the next five years, both during martial law and peacetime.

The main emphasis of the concept is to ensure that the needs of the AFU in personnel are met during a full-scale war, integration into the Euro-Atlantic security space, and interoperability of the AFU with the armed forces of NATO member states.”

Details: The Ukrainian Defence Ministry expects the following effects:

The AFU will switch to contract military service. Conscript military service will be replaced by intensive military training for citizens of draft age;

Ukraine will have an effective system of recruiting professional and motivated personnel for the AFU;

A human-centred approach to career management of military personnel, taking into account their education;

Professional development, and gender equality. Equal opportunities for men and women in the AFU;

Improved electronic military registration system;

Automated and digitalised personnel management processes;

Expanded cooperation between Ukrainian higher education institutions and those of NATO and EU member states;

An effective and transparent system of financial support for servicemen and women and provision of housing;

Improved psychological support;

A new style of relations between commanders and subordinates;

Proper conditions for transitioning from military career to civilian life for service members subject to discharge from military service.

Source : Yahoo

The post “Recruitment Instead of Conscription”: Ukraine’s Defence Minister Approves New Military Staffing Policy Concept appeared first on Policy Print.