How can the EU respond to its skilled labour shortage?
To remain competitive, the European Union needs a skilled workforce. A shortage of this is therefore a problem, and the Commission and the European Parliament have recently renewed efforts to tackle it.
"Four in five businesses struggle to find the workers that they need with the right skill set. There are more than 40 occupations with EU wide shortages, especially in important sectors like construction, trades, transport and some healthcare professions", Roxana Mînzatu, European Commission Vice-President responsible for social rights, skills and quality employment, told the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
This shortage of skilled labour is due to problems of supply and demand and a mismatch between the qualifications of workers and the needs of employers, as Ilias Livanos, an expert on skills and the labour market at the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop), told Euronews:
"There could be pressures because of the demand. And clearly for the ICT professions, given that they keep developing so rapidly, we don't really know what the demand will be in 5 or 10 years. So how we can prepare for this specific knowledge ? And clearly the systems, education systems are not prepared for this."
This shortage is likely to get worse because of demographic factors and the digital and ecological transitions.
"Firstly, demographics. The EU is going to lose 1 million workers every year until 2050," Peter Bosch, senior research associate at the Egmont Institute, told Euronews.
"Secondly, there is a rapid change in the type of skills that will be needed because of robotisation, because of artificial intelligence, because of what is happening in different sectors," he explained, adding:
"The third reason is Europe's economic recovery, with many Member States and the European Union making large amounts of money available."
The European rearmament plan proposed by the European Commission, which contains a €800 billion budget, and the massive investment plan in defence and infrastructure presented by the likely future German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will require recruitment in many sectors, according to Peter Bosch.
The education system, but also companies, have important roles to play here, as, after all: "The skill system has no single owner".
While the formal education system has an important part to play in developing skills, continuing training is also "the responsibility of individuals and employers," according to Livanos.
The EU's new roadmap has set the course: On 5 March, the European executive launched a new initiative - the Skills Union - to boost training and therefore European competitiveness.
This approach is based on four pillars. It recommends investing in education and training, promoting professional retraining, encouraging the mobility of students and workers, and making the EU more attractive to foreign workers.
In concrete terms, the Commission wants to launch "skills guarantees", for example, to "help companies hire or train people at risk of losing their jobs", Roxana Mînzatu expained.
Another flagship project called "Choose Europe" aims to attract skilled workers from third countries to the EU.
The European executive also wants to support visas for foreign students, strengthen the skills pact to support the upgrading and retraining of workers, and make the 'Erasmus+' exchange programme more accessible.
But the EU is not the only one in the race, warns Peter Bosch.
"The European Union is going to need people, but so will China and India and Arab countries, and Arab countries are offering huge salaries for people to come to work in their countries," says the researcher. The European Union is waking up, but it needs to do so very quickly.
The Trump administration has threatened to permanently end federal funding to Columbia University, unless the New York institution hands over control of one of its international studies departments.
The ultimatum comes a week after the US government announced that it was pulling $400m (€367m) in federal funding from the university — and reviewing $5bn (€4.6bn) in additional grants — over its perceived failure to root out antisemitism on campus.
In a letter sent by the federal authorities on Thursday night, Columbia was warned that talks on its financial future would only take place if it places its Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department under 'academic receivership for a minimum of five years'.
Before any 'formal negotiations' can be held, the Ivy League institution must also take other actions, including adopting 'a new definition of antisemitism' and reforming its admissions process, it added.
'We expect your immediate compliance with these critical next steps,' officials from the Department of Education, General Services Administration and Department of Health and Human Services wrote.
The development is a dramatic escalation in US President Donald Trump's attempts to reshape how universities across the country operate.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has targeted Columbia over the pro-Palestinian student protests that took place there last year.
Over the weekend, Mahmoud Khalil, who graduated from the university in December with a Master's in international studies, was arrested in New York over his role as a student spokesperson during the protests. He is currently being held at a detention centre in Louisiana.
Khalil's lawyers argue that it is unconstitutional for the US government to deport activists, something Trump and his officials have vowed to do.
Responding to the government's actions against Columbia, Joseph Howley, a classics professor at the institution, said: 'Half of this stuff you can't just do and the other half is insane.'
'If the federal government can show up and demand a university department be shut down or restructured, then we don't have universities in this country,' he added.
On Thursday, Columbia announced that it had sanctioned students over the pro-Palestinian protests, which involved the occupation of Hamilton Hall last spring.
It said in a statement that punishments included 'multi-year suspensions, temporary degree revocations and expulsions'.
In a separate development, the Education Department said it was investigating more than 50 US universities over alleged racial discrimination.
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Euronews
2 hours ago
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Can the EU lower the cap on Russian oil without the US?
The European Union is readying a new round of sanctions against Russia to pile extra pressure on the Kremlin and pressure it to agree to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire in Ukraine, a step that Western allies consider indispensable for serious peace negotiations. Ursula von der Leyen has already provided an outline of what that package, the 18th since February 2022, is supposed to target: Russia's financial sector, the "shadow fleet" and the Nord Stream pipelines, which are currently non-operational. On top of that, the president of the European Commission has pitched a downward revision of the price cap on Russian oil to further squeeze profits from worldwide sales, a crucial cash flow to sustain the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. "We need a real ceasefire, we need Russia at the negotiating table, and we need to end this war. Pressure works, as the Kremlin understands nothing else," von der Leyen said earlier this week after meeting with US Senator Lindsey Graham. But there's a catch: unlike other sanctions the bloc has imposed on Russia, such as the multiple export and import bans, the price cap has a political and practical dimension that exceeds the institutional sphere of Brussels and stretches across the ocean. More specifically, to Washington, DC. The price cap on Russian oil was introduced in December 2022 by the Group of Seven (G7) under the initiative of the Joe Biden administration. It was hailed as an ingenious, ground-breaking mechanism to mobilise the collective power of Western allies and cripple Russia's high-intensity war machine. As part of the plan, the G7, together with Australia, passed laws prohibiting their domestic companies from providing services, such as insurance, financing and flagging, to Russian tankers that sold seaborne crude oil above a predetermined price. The secret lay in market power: for decades, Western firms, particularly British ones, have dominated the sector of Protection and Indemnity (P&I), a type of insurance that gives shipowners broad protection and allows them to cover potentially huge costs from any accidental harm caused to the crew, their property or the environment. Due to the inherent risks of moving oil in high waters, P&I is today considered the norm in maritime trade and a must-have to be accepted in a foreign port. By leveraging their leading firms, the G7 intended to create an extraterritorial effect that would cap the price of Russian oil not only within their jurisdictions but all around the world. Following intense behind-the-scenes talks, the cap was set at $60 per barrel, a compromise between hard-line and cautious member states. The strategy only worked up to a point however. Although the price of Russian Urals oil gradually decreased, it consistently remained above the $60 mark, often exceeding the $70 threshold. The blatant circumvention was attributed to the "shadow fleet" that Russia deployed at high sea. These tankers are so old and poorly kept that they fall outside P&I standards and rely on alternative, obscure insurance systems that escape G7 surveillance. By the time the cap entered into force, Moscow "had spent months building a 'shadow fleet' of tankers, finding new buyers like India and China, and creating new payment systems, to the point that its oil does not need to be greatly discounted to sell," Luis Caricano, a professor at the London School of Economics, wrote in a recent analysis. "What should have been a blow became a manageable problem," Caricano said. With few sectors in the Russian economy left to sanction, Brussels has turned its sight to the cap as a means to tighten the screws on the Kremlin and secure a ceasefire in Ukraine. The Commission has reportedly pitched a revision between $50 and $45 per barrel, which the UK and Canada are believed to support. However, the US has so far refrained from endorsing a lower price cap, raising the stakes ahead of crunch talks at the G7 summit in Alberta, scheduled for mid-June. Now, a tough question emerges: Can the EU dare, and afford, to go it alone? In the strictest legalistic sense, the EU could, indeed, establish a lower price cap on its own. After all, the G7, as an organisation, lacks regulatory powers: each ally amends its laws individually to fulfil a collective mission. In this case, the EU introduced new legislation to prohibit EU companies – rather than, say, American or British companies – from servicing Russian tankers that bypassed the $60-per-barrel cap. Similarly, the bloc could now change the text to adjust that prohibition to a tighter price without waiting for other allies to reciprocate. Here appears the first roadblock: any change to sanctions must be approved by a unanimous vote among member states. It is highly unlikely that all 27 countries would choose to move forward with a lower cap without having an explicit guarantee that Washington will follow suit. Hungary, in particular, has fully aligned itself with the Trump administration and could veto any proposal opposed by the White House. Even if the bloc managed to overcome internal differences and agreed to a lower cap on its own, more formidable obstacles could impede its success. The bloc's revised cap would have to co-exist with America's existing cap. This means that one side of the Atlantic Ocean would apply a $50-per-barrel limit while the other side would apply a $60-per-barrel limit, creating a cacophony for all actors involved. "Different price caps across G7 countries could confuse maritime service providers and weaken overall enforcement," Petras Katinas, an energy analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), told Euronews. "A solo move by the EU could cause friction within the Price Cap Coalition, damaging trust and coordination, both of which are crucial for keeping pressure on Russian oil revenues," Katinas added, warning the project could be rendered "largely symbolic". The legislative chaos would immediately benefit the Kremlin, which has long sought to exploit loopholes to evade and undermine international sanctions. Moscow, though, would also face hurdles: the continued crackdown on "shadow fleet" vessels has forced the country to increase its reliance on G7 insurance, which, in theory, could make it easier for the EU to apply the revised measure. "If the EU alone decides to tighten the screws on the cap, it's an additional constraint on Russia's oil exports but not as tight as with a whole of G7 approach," said Elisabetta Cornago, a senior researcher at the Centre for European Reform (CER). Besides practical snags and legal matters, there is geopolitics to consider. One of the reasons why the G7 initiative has fallen short of expectations is that, as the name suggests, it has remained a G7-exclusive plan. Countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa have refused to play along and join the coalition. China and India openly buy Russian crude oil, sometimes to refine it and resell it under a different label. Having the EU and the US go separate ways would further destabilise the Western alliance and create the impression of a transatlantic break-up. But for many, that is already a reality: the "Coalition of the Willing", born after Donald Trump unilaterally launched negotiations with Vladimir Putin, bears testament to the political divide. "The price cap was a G7 + EU initiative, and so in its current form, I do not see any pathway in which the EU could adjust the cap without the support of the broader coalition, including the US," said Ben McWilliams, an affiliate fellow with Bruegel. "That said, the EU is free to implement whatever measures it wants on its own domestic ships and insurance companies, which it could likely encourage the UK to join," McWilliams added. "So the EU can still move ahead – it would just need to be under a different institutional format than currently exists." 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The result marks a blow for Prime Minister Donald Tusk who has called for a vote of confidence in his government early next week. Nawrocki's rhetoric — emphasizing national sovereignty, anti-migrant policies, and a rejection of 'Brussels diktats' — has alarmed Europhiles. However, his nationalist platform resonated with a rather divided electorate. "He's not very presidential", Dorota Bawolek told the panel adding that history shows Poles prefer an 'ordinary guy'. Finally, the panel discuss the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez' diplomatic setback after the EU Council rejected his proposal to make Catalan, Basque, and Galician official EU languages. The move, promised to Catalan separatists in exchange for political support, was rejected by member states over fears of a domino effect involving other regional languages. Watch the full episode in the player above.
Euronews
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Brussels, my love? Poles choose 'ordinary man' for President
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The result marks a blow for Prime Minister Donald Tusk who has called for a vote of confidence in his government early next week. Nawrocki's rhetoric — emphasizing national sovereignty, anti-migrant policies, and a rejection of 'Brussels diktats' — has alarmed Europhiles. However, his nationalist platform resonated with a rather divided electorate. "He's not very presidential", Dorota Bawolek told the panel adding that history shows Poles prefer an 'ordinary guy'. Finally, the panel discuss the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez' diplomatic setback after the EU Council rejected his proposal to make Catalan, Basque, and Galician official EU languages. The move, promised to Catalan separatists in exchange for political support, was rejected by member states over fears of a domino effect involving other regional languages. Watch the full episode in the player above. Italians will begin voting on Sunday in a referendum on whether to relax citizenship laws, but there are fears that turnout will be so low that it will invalidate the result. The two-day referendum, ending on Monday, will also ask voters if they agree with reversing a decade-old liberalisation of the labour market. The labour market questions aim to make it more difficult to dismiss some employees and increase compensation for workers who are made redundant by small businesses, reversing a law passed by a Democratic Party (PD) government around a decade ago. But it's the question about citizenship which has attracted the most attention among Italian voters. Concerns about the scale of immigration helped push Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's far-right Brothers of Italy party to power in 2022. Italians will be asked if they support the idea of reducing the period of residence required to apply for Italian citizenship from 10 years to five. Organisers of the referendum say that, if passed, it could affect around 2.5 million foreign nationals in Italy. Italy's birth rate is in steep decline, and economists say the country needs more foreigners to boost its stagnant economy. For foreigners in Italy, the primary channel to citizenship is through naturalisation, which can occur after 10 years of continuous residence in the country. The applicant must also demonstrate that they have integrated into society, possess a minimum income, have a clean criminal record, and can speak Italian adequately. The residence prerequisite is considerably shorter for citizens of other EU member states, who have to wait just four years to apply. Riccardo Magi, secretary of the liberal Più Europa party, supports decreasing the length of time required to apply for citizenship. He calls the current rules "old and unjust" and says they have only been in force for so long because successive governments have lacked the political will for change. Magi thinks the referendum proposal is reasonable because it only reduces the residence time requirement while leaving the other requirements unchanged. He says the current law "forces hundreds of thousands of girls and boys born or raised in Italy to live as foreigners in what is also their country." Magi also believes the amendment would have indirect positive effects on many of these minors born or resident in Italy, to whom citizenship would be passed on by at least one New Italian parent. "Those are who are rooted, work, pay taxes, study... must be able to vote and participate in public votes. This is the liberal idea of citizenship," he said. But the Noi Moderati party has said its position on the referendum is a resounding no, the centrist party's vice-president Maria Chiara Fazio told Euronews. "Citizenship is the deepest link between the state and the individual," Fazio stressed. "It cannot be the subject of a referendum simplification: it is a topic that requires in-depth study, mutual listening and a serious parliamentary debate." Fazio defended the structure of the current law, but acknowledged some bureaucratic aspects need to be tightened up as they leave many candidates in limbo. But the Noi Moderati's position on the referendum is not unusual. The leaders of two of the coalition parties, Antonio Tajani of Forza Italia and Matteo Salvini of Lega or the League, have both said they will not vote on Sunday. Meloni will attend a polling station but will also not cast a ballot. That indifference to the referendum appears to have trickled down to regular voters too. A Demopolis institute poll carried out in May estimated turnout to be between 31% and 39%, well short of the threshold required to make the result binding.
LeMonde
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Rare earths: China's magnet war threatens global industry
The problem took a few weeks to show up on production lines. In early April, China imposed restrictions on the export of certain strategic metals – specifically, heavy rare earths and the magnets made from them. This has created a bottleneck for many industries worldwide that depend on these materials. The automotive sector has already begun to feel the impact. Japanese automaker Suzuki was forced to suspend production of its Swift model on May 26 due to a shortage of certain components – rare earth derivatives, according to the business daily Nikkei. At the end of May, Ford halted production of its Explorer SUV for a week after a supplier ran out of magnets made from rare earth alloys. Meanwhile, one of India's leading manufacturers, Bajaj, stated that if nothing changes, the shortage caused by China would "heavily impact" its production of electric vehicles in July. On Wednesday, June 4, the European automotive industry also revealed its exposure to this risk. Without citing specific cases, the European Association of Automotive Suppliers, Clepa, stated that "these restrictions have led to the closure of several production lines and factories in Europe, and the impact will continue to grow in the coming weeks as stocks are depleted." BMW confirmed that some of its suppliers had been affected. "We have shifted to crisis management," said Sylvain Broux, president of the Comité de liaison des industries fournisseurs de l'automobile (CLIFA) in France, while Jean-Louis Pech, president of the Fédération des industries des équipements pour véhicules, described an "economic war in which Europe also has arguments to put forward."
