Events to look out for
Circular Economy Stakeholder Conference: Delivering on the Circular Economy - What's next? – 20-21 February, Brussels (BE). Two years after the adoption of the EU Circular Economy Package in December 2015, more than half of the initiatives included in the Action Plan have been delivered. The event will discuss upcoming deliverables, explore new areas of action, and share the first achievements of the European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform
Second European Industry Day – 22-23 February, Brussels (BE). The event will update stakeholders on the European Commission's strategic approach to industrial policy and actions to develop industrial competitiveness in Europe. It will also serve as a forum where stakeholders can showcase their activities, learn from each other, discuss cross-cutting issues and develop joint visions for the future.
Funding available
First social finance transaction in Denmark to provide EUR 27 million for social enterprises. The European Investment Fund (EIF) and Merkur Cooperative Bank (Merkur) have signed the first Social Entrepreneurship guarantee agreement in Denmark. This new guarantee agreement allows Merkur to provide a total of EUR 27 million to social entrepreneurs over the next 5 years.
Over EUR 130 million of loans for cultural and creative SMEs in France and across Europe. The EIF and the French Institut pour le Financement du Cinéma et des Industries Culturelles (IFCIC) have signed two guarantee agreements in France. The agreement is a direct guarantee which allows IFCIC to substantially increase its loan volumes to support French SMEs in the cultural and creative sectors.
EU policies for better business
European Commission welcomes the entry into force of new rules to prevent tax evasion and money laundering. As of 1 January 2018, national tax authorities will have direct access to information on the beneficial owners of companies, trusts and other entities, as well as customer due diligence records of companies. The new arrangements should give a major boost to tax authorities in the fight against money laundering in the EU.
European Commission proposes to invest EUR 1 billion in world-class European supercomputers. Last week, Commissioners Carlos Moedas and Mariya Gabriel announced the Commission's plan to invest (jointly with the Member States) in building a world-class European supercomputing infrastructure. This new legal and funding structure – the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking – shall acquire, build and deploy across Europe a world-class High-Performance Computing (HPC) infrastructure. It will also support a research and innovation programme to develop the technologies and machines (hardware) as well as the applications (software) that would run on these supercomputers.
Get involved
The future of EU finances: have your say on the EU budget after 2020. All EU citizens are invited to say where they think the EU has the most value added and where it should focus its investment to maximise the impact of each euro invested. The public consultations are open until 8 March 2018.