Latest news with #Cohen-Hadria
Ya Biladi
13 hours ago
- Politics
- Ya Biladi
Europe can no longer afford to ignore Morocco-Algeria tensions, analysis warns
The European Union is «caught in an unsustainable balancing act», attempting to maintain strong bilateral ties with both Morocco and Algeria, whose diplomatic relations have been severed since 2021. This is the key takeaway from a recent analysis published by International Politics and Society (IPS), a journal of political analysis published by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES). Ignoring the «rivalry» between the two North African neighbors risks undermining Europe's own security, energy, and migration interests, warns Emmanuel Cohen-Hadria, Executive Board member of Diplomeds, a cross-Mediterranean policy group, and co-editor of a study exploring paths to cooperation between Morocco and Algeria. The solution, he argues, lies in adopting a more proactive stance on conflict resolution between Rabat and Algiers. «The EU has for too long treated the Algeria-Morocco dispute as a manageable issue», Cohen-Hadria notes. But recent regional crises have highlighted the risks of such complacency. «If the EU truly aspires to be a credible security provider, it must prioritize conflict resolution where its interests lie», he said. He urges Brussels to go beyond rhetoric by supporting discreet «track II» dialogue initiatives involving Moroccan and Algerian civil society, academics, and business leaders, aimed at gradually rebuilding trust. These initiatives refer to informal diplomacy efforts in which non-state actors engage in dialogue to reduce tensions and foster mutual understanding. The Union for the Mediterranean, an intergovernmental organization uniting 43 countries from Europe and the Mediterranean Basin, could also play a role by facilitating practical, low-profile cooperation between the two countries, even on technical matters where formal diplomatic recognition is absent.
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
OpenAI says to host some customers' data in Europe
ChatGPT developer OpenAI said Thursday that it would allow some European customers to store and process data from conversations with its chatbots within the European Union, rather than on its infrastructure in the United States or elsewhere. The move underscores the impact of EU regulations on what major digital platforms, including artificial intelligence developers, can do with data originating from the bloc. OpenAI said companies and educational institutions that pay for employees or students to use its chatbots would be offered the option to store data from those interactions in Europe. Developers using the company's models as a foundation to develop their own AI-powered apps will also be able to opt for users' queries to be processed within the EU. "This helps organisations operating in Europe meet local data sovereignty requirements," OpenAI said. The move comes as AI developers based largely in the United States, such as OpenAI, Facebook parent Meta, Google and Microsoft, are racing to invest tens of billions in the data centre infrastructure needed for large-scale use of systems like chatbots and image generators. Tech giants have often slammed Europe's array of regulations on issues like personal data and AI as brakes on business. European regulators have slapped Meta with billions of euros in fines for violations of data protection and antitrust rules in the past few years. One bugbear is the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which stipulates that organisations holding data give it the same protection if they store it outside the bloc as it would have under EU law. OpenAI's new policy is likely aimed at offering its clients a way around such compliance headaches, said digital law expert Yael Cohen-Hadria, of consultancy EY. European customers "will prefer players based here, even if they're originally from abroad... with infrastructure, offices and legal chains of responsibility here," Cohen-Hadria told AFP. The move also potentially positions OpenAI to bid for public-sector contracts in the EU that require strict data protection guarantees, she added. OpenAI has made Europe a priority in its expansion of physical offices around the world, with sites in Paris, Brussels and Dublin -- a hub for EU data protection as many US tech giants have footholds there. German authorities announced later Thursday that OpenAI would open its first office in the country, in Munich. German economic newspaper Handelsblatt said the new office would open later this year. The California-based company also has offices in New York and Singapore. tgb/jhb/bc/js
