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Standards, such as EN 71-1 (safety of toys) and EN 62115 (safety of electric toys), provide manufacturers with instructions for the construction of toys and how certain aspects can be met. Standards also provide consumers with confidence that a toy will be safe if it complies with their requirements. In order to guarantee the safety…

Sustainable development must be at the heart of the future of Europe. If we want to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, we need to act now. The time for reflection is over, urges the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) in its recent opinion on the Commission’s Reflection Paper “Towards a Sustainable…

The use of e-cigarettes spreads rapidly. The EU “Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks (SCHEER) identified e-cigarettes as one of the “emerging health and environmental issues” in 2018. By contrast, the regulatory framework is not fit for the purpose and is hardly in the position to protect users (“vapers”). The EU Tobacco…

Why it matters to consumers Consumers are increasingly using connected devices in their daily lives. Already today, Europeans can remotely switch on the lights in their house, turn on their washing machine or open their door lock with their smartphone. This ongoing digitalisation requires that consumers’ devices are protected against cyberattacks. While the number…

  Following a call from the European Commission and EU consumer authorities, five industry leaders, Avis, Europcar, Enterprise, Hertz and Sixt, have changed the way they present car rental prices, making them fully transparent to consumers. The companies concerned had not fully implemented some of their commitments in order for the European Commission and EU…

This article was published on Horizon – The EU Research and Innovation Magazine on 7 October 2019 The radiation emitted by 5G will largely be the same as previous networks, except that it will be exposing us to something called milimetre waves for the first time. The fifth generation of mobile internet is fast approaching. Countries…

In the latest edition of the Future of Jobs Report, the World Economic Forum (WEF), once more tapped into the collective knowledge of the frontlines who are in the best position to observe the dynamics of workforces – Executives, especially Chief Human Resources Officers, of some of the world’s largest employers. They were asked to…

CEDEFOP – The skills that job providers want! 65% of children entering primary school today may ultimately end up working in completely new types of job that do not yet exist. Scott McLeod and Karl Fisch advanced this hypothesis several years ago in their widely discussed Shift happens analysis. While such  findings may be…

ANEC and BEUC Position paper In recent years, consumers’ daily lives have become increasingly connected and digitalised. With the Internet of Things (IoT), the number of connected devices and services skyrocketed and interconnectivity between products reached all sectors of society (transport, health, banking, energy, etc.). According to recent estimations from the European Commission, there…