Eu Financial News

BRUSSELS—Apple has long kept a tight grip on its iPhone ecosystem. In Europe, its hold is starting to weaken. “Fortnite" maker Epic Games on Friday said it is launching an alternative app store for iPhone users in Europe.

Immigration tops the list of issues that Britons consider most important for the first time since 2016 — when Britain voted to leave the European Union — following riots this month targeting Muslims and migrants, pollster Ipsos said on Friday. Just over a third of Britons (34%) named immigration as the biggest issue, ahead of healthcare, on 30%, the economy on 29%, crime on 25% and inflation on 20%, the August edition of the monthly Ipsos Issues Index showed. For 11% of those polled race relations was the top issue.

India-EU trade mustn’t stumble on digital sovereignty "The EU is advocating for stronger intellectual property protections, which India is cautious about due to concerns over generic medicines. Additionally, the EU is pressing for sustainability and labour standards in the agreement, but India is worried about their impact on its domestic regulations and industries," said trade analyst Ajay Srivastava, who is the founder of Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI), a think tank.

It might sound improbable, but Europe is still importing Russian natural gas through pipelines in Ukraine

Bavarian Nordic said Thursday it was ready to produce up to 10 million doses of its vaccine targeting mpox by 2025 after the World Health Organization declared a surge in the virus in Africa a global public health emergency. Alarmed by a rise in cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the spread of mpox to nearby countries, WHO experts said Wednesday that the «situation constitutes a public health emergency of international concern». «We have additional manufacturing capacity of two million doses for 2024 and (a total of) 10 million doses by 2025,» Rolf Sass Sorensen, vice-president of Bavarian Nordic, told AFP.

Spotify will update its app on Apple devices in the European Union on Wednesday to include prices of its various plans and services, more than three months after the iPhone maker rejected such a move. That rejection was due to Spotify not accepting Apple's Music Streaming Services Entitlement, newly introduced terms governing how music streaming apps in the European Economic Area inform users of other ways to make purchases. The Swedish audio streaming company said while it is now accepting those terms, its iOS app will not give users an external link to make purchases as it does not want to pay Apple a commission on such transactions.

Veronika Rinecker is based in Germany, studied international journalism and media management. She specializes in politics and regulation, energy, blockchain, and fintech. Since 2017, she has been...

Poland has tightened its visa rules for international students. This action comes after Poland's «student visa scandal» that broke out in May. Poland's Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, announced a significant change in the country's visa policy, declaring that student visas will no longer be issued to foreigners without high school diplomas. The decision aims to prevent misuse of student visas by individuals seeking to work in the European Union illegally. This move comes after a scandal exposed by the Polish daily Dziennik Gazeta Prawna revealed that some foreign nationals were obtaining student visas despite not meeting university admission requirements in their home countries. These individuals often failed to attend the universities they were registered at, instead using their student visas to work within the Schengen Area.

The UK’s image as a multicultural country is the obvious loser from the far-right violence of the past fortnight, but in time these tragic events may have wider implications for the policing of social media everywhere. The role of X in disseminating often-false information and lionizing rabble-rousers, as well as X owner Elon Musk’s provocative tweets and irresponsible retweets, are all under the microscope.

Mint Quick Edit | Google's search monopoly ruling: Error 404? By locking more users into its ecosystem of services such as Gmail, Google Maps and YouTube, the company gains access to more user data, which in turn lets it develop newer services and better artificial intelligence technology. The court noted that Google accounts for 90% of global web searches, which denies other companies the opportunity to grow and compete with it. Google has inflated ad prices above free-market levels, it said, giving it the power to pay billions for default status and maintain its monopoly.

Roznov pod Radhostem was best known for its rum-drizzled sweet pies and an open-air museum showing off historical wooden houses. Then came an announcement that stirred the sleepy backwater. US chipmaker ON Semiconductor Corp. picked Roznov for a new $2 billion manufacturing hub in June. The past few weeks have seen a flurry of visits by property developers, the head of a local university and government officials followed around by television crews. The interest isn’t surprising given the investment will be the biggest by a foreign company in the Czech Republic for three decades. But it also reflects how there’s more riding on the plan to make a new generation of microchips than the prospects of a corner of central Europe.

SEOUL—The uproar over a Mercedes-Benz electric vehicle that burst into flames in South Korea this month wasn’t only about fire safety. Outrage emerged over the lesser-known Chinese battery maker, Farasis Energy. Now South Korea has a fresh proposal to ease public anxiety: Advising carmakers to voluntarily divulge what brand of battery sits inside their EVs.

European vacations are gaining traction among Indians. As per a report by the European Commission, Schengen visa applications from Indian nationals surged by 43 per cent in 2023 as compared to 2022. India maintained the third position in Schengen visa applications for 2023, with a total of 9,66,687 filings. The European Commission last month introduced a new visa «cascade» regime for Indian nationals seeking Schengen visas, allowing for more straightforward access to multiple entry visas with extended validity periods.

Veronika Rinecker is based in Germany, studied international journalism and media management. She specializes in politics and regulation, energy, blockchain, and fintech. Since 2017, she has been...

The Chinese government has filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization over European Union tariffs on electric vehicles made in China

Auto sales in China faltered in July, falling 5% from a year earlier, although exports jumped about 20% from a year earlier as makers of electric vehicles expanded into global markets

Prime Minister Donald Tusk has accused Poland’s previous government of illegally spending 100 billion Polish zlotys or $25 billion as he announced a government effort to try to recover the money

Residents of a tiny village in western Serbia don’t care if their government has agreed with the European Union to open a lithium mine in their sprawling valley: They say it is never going to happen

India is the country among major global economies that experienced the fastest growth in intangible investment from 2011 to 2020, according to a recent report. The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) said in its report that India recorded the fastest growth in intangible investments, exceeding countries like Sweden and the US — the two most intensive economies in terms of intangible investment as a share of GDP.

Social network X has suspended its much-criticised harvesting of European users' personal data to train its artificial intelligence program, Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) said Friday. The DPC, which acts on behalf of the European Union, said in a statement that it «welcomes X's agreement to suspend its processing of the personal data contained in the public posts of X's EU/EEA users which it processed between 7 May 2024 and 1 August 2024, for the purpose of training its AI 'Grok'.» The DPC, which is working in collaboration with European regulators, has made an urgent High Court application for violation of EU rules on data protection (GDPR).

Germany's proposed Low Emission Steel Standard (LESS) is expected to pose new challenges to Indian industry which is already reeling with lower exports, higher imports and Europe's carbon tax, think tank GTRI said on Friday. India's steel exports have dropped by 31.2 per cent from USD 31.7 billion in 2021-22 to USD 21.8 billion in 2023-24, while imports have increased by 37 per cent, from USD 17.3 billion to USD 23.7 billion, making India a net importer, it said. The Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) said that the Indian steel industry is not legally bound to follow the new German steel standard, but ignoring it could hurt domestic exports.