U.S., E.U. agree on data-transfer pact

 

The European Union and the United States have agreed on changes to an important data-transfer agreement. The pact includes  stricter rules for companies holding information on Europeans and clearer limits on U.S. surveillance.

E.U. member nations are expected to vote on the  revised E.U.-U.S. Privacy Shield in early July.

Reuters reported that “Cross-border data transfers by businesses include payroll and human resources information as well as lucrative data used for targeted online advertising….”

However, revelations of mass U.S. surveillance practices three years ago  intensified distrust of such huge big U.S. tech companies  as Facebook, Google and Apple.

“Brussels and Washington rushed to hammer out the data pact after the E.U.’s highest court last year struck down the previous system, Safe Harbor, on concerns about mass U.S. surveillance practices, threatening data flows that are key to billions of dollars of business,” Reuters reported.

“For 15 years Safe Harbor allowed both U.S. and European firms to get around tough E.U. data transferral rules by stating they complied with European privacy standards when storing information on U.S. servers.”

To read the Reuters article, please hit this link.

Firm calls Europe a leader in cybersecurity enforcement

 

An ABI Research press release says:

“Europe is emerging as a global leader in national cybersecurity enforcement. The European Union (EU) and countries connected to the Council of Europe and the European Economic Area, including Norway and Switzerland, have been most successful in implementing binding legal instruments in the area of cybercrime and cybersecurity. With impending EU legislation in place to mandate the protection of critical infrastructure, Europe will spend $35 billion in cybersecurity in this space by 2021, forecasts ABI Research.

“The new Network and Information Security (NIS) Directive demands that critical infrastructure operators—including agriculture, energy, transport, pharmaceuticals, and even water and waste management—address cybersecurity, and will push them toward allocating budget to protect their infrastructure. Non-compliers will face significant financial repercussions.

Europe remains a lucrative target, as it is a prosperous and highly-connected region,” says Michela Menting, Research Director at ABI Research. “The new directive will force operators to tackle cybersecurity issues in operational technologies, and notably in industrial settings, which is a huge step for many organizations.”

To read the whole statement, please hit this link.

 

Blame European leaders for Brexit’s popularity

Blame European leaders for Brexit’s popularity

(June 21st, 2016) Clive Crook writes that if the British vote on June 23 to leave the European Union, much of the blame can be put on Europe’s leaders for not doing enough to help “stay’’ backer Prime Minister David Cameron make his case.

1200x-1

Mr. Crook writes:

“Europe’s other leaders could and should have helped him. They should have recognized him as an ally — and in doing so would have strengthened the European project. Certainly … they recognize their interest in keeping Britain in. And they surely understand that Europe as a whole needs to change – that anti-EU sentiment is on the rise in many other countries.

“Yet they sent Cameron away from his vaunted renegotiation with too little. And the tone of their response was even more damaging than the lack of substance. The message came through loud and clear: It isn’t Britain’s place to tell Europe how to change.’’

To read Mr. Crook’s column, please hit this link.

Turkey misses deadline for E.U. travel deal

 

Amidst fears about Islamist mass-murderers getting into the European Union via Turkey, that nation has missed a E.U. deadline that if Turkey had met it would have  allowed its citizens  visa-free travel through most of Europe.

E.U. leaders had conditionally promised the Turkish government that 79 million Turks would get access to Europe’s 26-country border-free Schengen travel zone by this month, as part of a controversial bargain on migration. But that depended on Turkey meeting 72 E.U. conditions on border security and fundamental human rights, including changes to increasingly authoritarian Turkey’s tough anti-terrorism laws.

Intensifying European worries is that Islamist terrorists can sometimes make their way from Syria and Iraq across Turkey and then into Europe.

Still, E.U. officials are expected to approve the opening of negotiations on one part of Turkish E.U. membership talks, which some people call a charade.

For the full story, please hit this link.

Merkel: Implementing Minsk Agreement would end sanctions against Russia

Merkel: Implementing Minsk Agreement would end sanctions against Russia

(June 13th, 2016) German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on June 10 that implementing the Minsk Agreement to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine would end sanctions imposed against Russia  for  its seizure of Crimea from Ukraine and its ongoing attacks on the latter nation’s east.

1444645619_9285

Mrs. Merkel also said that in the long term, the European Union should aim for a vast common economic zone with Russia extending from Russia’s Pacific coast to Portugal.

“We should move gradually towards this goal,” she said.

The Boston Global Forum last December named Chancellor Merkel a “World Leader for Peace, Security and Development’’.

Hit this link for more details.

Cohen: Collapse of the E.U. would be a catastrophe

 

Roger Cohen warns in The New York Times of the perils that lie just ahead with what he sees as the terrifying possibility that the European Union could collapse if the United Kingdom decides to leave the E.U.

Mr. Cohen implied that would make Russian President /Dictator Vladimir Putin and would-be tyrants in central Europe very happy.

Mr. Cohen concluded:

….I listened the other evening at the American Academy in Berlin as Henry Kissinger, the personification of realpolitik, insisted that the “necessity of the coherence of the Atlantic world” had become ‘even greater.’ With him was the American ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, the recipient of this year’s Kissinger Prize — and long the personification of liberal interventionist idealism. In many ways they formed a strange duo. But their togetherness was also a statement: That, until now, America’s postwar European and internationalist commitment has held across the foreign policy spectrum.

“Realpolitik and idealism meet in the unity of Europe. The unthinkable, on both sides of the Atlantic, must be resisted before it is too late.’’

For the full column, hit this link.