On April 27, the European Parliament adopted a strengthened EU legal framework for civil protection, in response to the unprecedented experience of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The mechanism aims to ensure the EU and its member states will be better prepared to respond to large-scale disasters, especially when these affect several countries simultaneously.

In order to deploy crisis relief more swiftly, the Commission will be able to acquire directly, under specific conditions, the necessary resources via the rescEU reserve.

1.263 billion EUR will be allocated to the Mechanism for 2021-2027, supplemented by 2.056 billion EUR from the EU Recovery Instrument (approximately five times more than the previous seven-year budget).

During the plenary debate on Monday, April 27, MEPs acknowledged the key role the civil protection mechanism played during the COVID-19 pandemic, and its position as a symbol of EU solidarity. They underlined that the adjustments approved in Plenary will bring more flexibility, better coordination and more resources channelled towards tackling future large-scale emergencies.

The Commission proposes today new rules and actions aiming to turn Europe into the global hub for trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (AI). The combination of the first-ever legal framework on AI and a new Coordinated Plan with Member States will guarantee the safety and fundamental rights of people and businesses, while strengthening AI uptake, investment and innovation across the EU. New rules on Machinery will complement this approach by adapting safety rules to increase users' trust in the new, versatile generation of products.

“AI is a means, not an end. It has been around for decades but has reached new capacities fueled by computing power. This offers immense potential in areas as diverse as health, transport, energy, agriculture, tourism or cyber security. It also presents a number of risks. Today's proposals aim to strengthen Europe's position as a global hub of excellence in AI from the lab to the market, ensure that AI in Europe respects our values and rules, and harness the potential of AI for industrial use," said Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton.

The new AI regulation will make sure that Europeans can trust what AI has to offer. Proportionate and flexible rules will address the specific risks posed by AI systems and set the highest standard worldwide. The Coordinated Plan outlines the necessary policy changes and investment at Member States level to strengthen Europe's leading position in the development of human-centric, sustainable, secure, inclusive and trustworthy AI.

The European approach to trustworthy AI

The new rules will be applied directly in the same way across all Member States based on a future-proof definition of AI. They follow a risk-based approach:

Unacceptable risk: AI systems considered a clear threat to the safety, livelihoods and rights of people will be banned. This includes AI systems or applications that manipulate human behaviour to circumvent users' free will (e.g. toys using voice assistance encouraging dangerous behaviour of minors) and systems that allow ‘social scoring' by governments.

High-risk: AI systems identified as high-risk include AI technology used in:

• Critical infrastructures (e.g. transport), that could put the life and health of citizens at risk;
• Educational or vocational training, that may determine the access to education and professional course of someone's life (e.g. scoring of exams);
• Safety components of products (e.g. AI application in robot-assisted surgery);
• Employment, workers management and access to self-employment (e.g. CV-sorting software for recruitment procedures);
• Essential private and public services (e.g. credit scoring denying citizens opportunity to obtain a loan);
• Law enforcement that may interfere with people's fundamental rights (e.g. evaluation of the reliability of evidence);
• Migration, asylum and border control management (e.g. verification of authenticity of travel documents);
• Administration of justice and democratic processes (e.g. applying the law to a concrete set of facts).

High-risk AI systems will be subject to strict obligations before they can be put on the market:

• Adequate risk assessment and mitigation systems;
• High quality of the datasets feeding the system to minimise risks and discriminatory outcomes;
• Logging of activity to ensure traceability of results;
• Detailed documentation providing all information necessary on the system and its purpose for authorities to assess its compliance;
• Clear and adequate information to the user;
• Appropriate human oversight measures to minimise risk;
• High level of robustness, security and accuracy.

On April 19, the Council adopted its first reading position on the proposed regulation establishing the EU space programme for the years 2021 to 2027. This follows up on a deal reached last December with the European Parliament that paves the way for the swift adoption of the draft regulation at second reading.

"The EU relies on space activities as drivers of sustainable economic growth and security. Our new EU space programme will enable us to remain competitive in the New Space economy and to preserve the EU’s space sovereignty. It will boost our economic recovery from the pandemic and our transition towards a green and digital economic model," said Manuel Heitor, Portuguese Minister for Science and Technology and Higher Education on behalf of the Council.

The new space programme will maximise the socio-economic benefits of Galileo and EGNOS, while contributing to Union’s strategic autonomy, particularly in sensitive sectors and in the area of safety and security, the use of the services provided by EGNOS and Galileo in other Union policies should be promoted also by regulatory means where that is justified and beneficial. Measures to encourage the use of those services in all Member States are also an important part of the process, the Council stated.

The regulation will ensure:

• high-quality, up-to-date and secure space-related data and services;
• greater socio-economic benefits from the use of such data and services, such as increased growth and job creation in the EU;
• enhanced security and autonomy of the EU;
• a stronger role for the EU as a leading actor in the space sector.

It will achieve this by:

• simplifying and streamlining the existing EU legal framework on space policy;
• providing the EU with an adequate space budget to continue and improve on existing space flagship programmes such as EGNOS, Galileo and Copernicus, as well as monitor space hazards under the ‘space situational awareness' component (SSA) and cater for access to secure satellite communications for national authorities (GOVSATCOM);
• establishing the rules for governance of the EU space programme;
• standardising the security framework of the space programme.

Next steps

In line with the political agreement reached last December between the co-legislators, the European Parliament is expected to approve the Council’s position at first reading in April 2021. The regulation will then be deemed to have been formally adopted. It will apply retroactively from 1 January 2021.

Public Safety Communication Europe (PSCE) and the European Space Agency (ESA) have signed a Memorandum of Intent (MoI) to support the utilisation of satellite applications for Public Safety.

ESA and PSCE will work together under the new MoI towards establishing interoperable public safety communications systems.
The MoI will support the emergence of space-based applications in the Public Safety domain such as public safety services relying on secure mobile broadband communication solutions. These include applications within disaster preparedness, response and resilience, situational awareness, assessments of damages, navigation-based services for tracking and coordinating rescue forces on-site and for emergency vehicles.

"ESA Space Solutions and the 4S Strategic Programme Line will support through this agreement the emergence of solutions making use of secure satellite communications for institutional Public Safety user communities. This can be achieved as of today through existing satellite telecommunications infrastructures. In the future it will be possible to make use of new and innovative infrastructures with enhanced capabilities. Early pilots and demonstrations will showcase the unique benefits granted by satellites to the user communities and early adopters", says Rita Rinaldo, ESA

"The cooperation with ESA will help to explore complementary solutions that will contribute to cover capability gaps and needs for public safety. It is of extreme importance to improve public safety communication systems with cutting-edge and rapidly deployable solutions that will facilitate PPDR missions", explains Marie-Christine Bonnamour, PSCE.

The cooperation between ESA and PSCE will be activated as a first step through PSCE participation in the ongoing user studies on "Satellite Applications for Public Safety".

PSCE will contribute to the identification of the needs of public safety stakeholders such as emergency services, fire brigades and law enforcement.

You may download the full press release here.