KNOWING ABOUT THIS..

NOVEMBER 29: What do you know about ADVENT and the traditional ADVENT WREATH used in Denmark and Germany ?   As most people know Advent in the Western Christian church is the period from the 4 th Sunday before the birth of Jesus. You talk about the 1 st , the 2 nd , the 3 rd and the 4 th Sunday of Advent. The word advent comes from Latin:  Adventum, which means Coming .  The coming of Jesus. The first Sunday in Advent is also the start of the new church year. The traditional colour of Advent is purple . It is a symbol of fast, which in a way is also part of the Advent period. This colour is also the royal colour. Perhaps originally with reference to the arrival of the king Jesus. In the Orthodox church you do not celebrate Advent in the same way. You talk instead about Nativity Fast , fast before the arrival of Jesus. It starts some days before Advent. And it is not the start of the church year. The so-called Advent Wreath ( see photo ) started in Ger...

NOVEMBER 24: This is the day! The day when president Trump finally three weeks after the American elections de facto accepts that Joe Biden has won the elections.   And won by a big margin.   So, now US is coming back to the world.   The nominations president-elect Biden is doing shows that he is choosing experienced and professional people, who know what they will be responsible for.   This is also great news for Europe.    The European-American relations will now come back on the track – as real allies, not as sort of adversaries, as Trump preferred to see them.   EU president Charles Michel yesterday congratulated Biden with his victory and invited him to a summit meeting with EU in Brussels next year, after he has taken over in January. The EU with its 448 mio. inhabitants and the US with 328 mio. have a lot in common.   Their mutual trade is huge. In 2019 it was 720 billion dollars – which is about one third of all international trade. ...

NOVEMBER 19: Tonight the European Council ( the EU Summit of heads and state and government ) will meet by video conference. One of the topics to be discussed will, of course, be the fight against the corona pandemy and what to do in the future. I make every day a short overview of the corona situation in Europe – based on public information.   See below. OBS:   If you want to be on my mailing list and get the updated overview every day, please, let me know. CORONA DEVELOPMENT Short daily overview based on official figures ( Inf.=infected; Dea= deaths ) DATE:           EU- 27           EU-27                    DK INF.        DK   DEATH              B INF.         B   DEATH   ...

NOVEMBER 17: One of the many questions I often have is: What has the EU done to improve the environment over the years? It is evident that densely populated and highly industrialised countries like the member states of the European Union do not only have an interest in protecting the environment, but that they also will do something about it.   Programmes to protect the environment started in different countries at different times. And from the mid 1960ies joint initiatives were also taken at EU level. In 1967 it started with a directive on labelling of dangerous chemicals. But it was only from November 1973 that EU activities really started in this important area.   At that moment the first EU Action programme for protection of the environment was adopted and put into action.   It happened as a follow-up to the United Nations environment conference in Stockholm the year before. And it was during the first Danish EU presidency that the programme was adopted. From ...

NOVEMBER 16: What is the EIB, European Investment Bank ? And what is it doing? EIB is the long-term loan institution of the European Union. You can say that it is the bank of the EU. It was created in 1958 by the Treaty of Rome.   It has its headquarters in Luxembourg. Its shareholders are the member states of the EU. The purpose of EIB is to give long-term loans, which promote European integration and social cohesion. Its priority areas for its loans are today projects on innovation and skills, small and medium-sized companies, infrastructure,   climate and environment. The Bank gives loans to projects in EU’s member states, in applicant countries, in other countries in the neighbourhood of EU and in developing countries all over the world. EIB is the world’s biggest lending institutions. It has during its 60 years of existence supported altogether 11.900 projects in 162 countries. And the total amount of its loans is 1,1 trillion €.   It is able to get its m...

NOVEMBER 15: What is the European Regional Fund?   What has it done? Following the first enlargement of the EU in 1973 ( with the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark ) it was soon decided to mobilise EU funds to stimulate the development of less developed regions in the EU.   This was part of the policy of solidarity between all parts of the EU, which is an essential value in Europe.   And it was also done with the knowledge that if you accelerate the economic development in areas left behind it will have a clear positive effect for everybody in the EU.   Most member states had already national programmes to stimulate development in less developed regions.   But in 1975 the EU started the European Development and Regional Fund, often just called the EU Regional Fund.   Its first political boss was the British commissioner George Thomson from Scotland. The principle for the Fund was and still is that it particularly supports investments in certain prio...

NOVEMBER 14: European citizenship: what does that give you in addition to your national citizenship? If you are a citizens in one of the member states of the EU you also enjoy the rights of having a European Citizenship.   What does that mean ?      The EU decided in its Maastricht Treaty from 1993 that all citizens in its member states in addition to the rights being a citizen in their own countries would from then on enjoy a number of additional rights, freedoms and protections. And these rights are automatic and valid permanently.   You do not have to apply for them.   You simply have them, when you are a citizen of a member state in the European Union.   What are these European citizen rights then ?   ·        You enjoy free movement in all member states. You can go anywhere at anytime ·        You are free to settle down in all member state where you want...

  NOVEMBER 13: One of the important topics discussed in Europe these days is how we can and should improve our joint effort to defend our continent.   We are living in an un-certain world with Putin, the Chinese, an unstable Middle East and a US in trouble finding itself.   So many European leaders with Macron and Merkel in the lead want Europe to do more and do better when defense is concerned.   This is also why even the Danes are discussing, if time has come to abolish its position outside the European defense activities. Already in the beginning of the 1950ies initiatives were taken to start a special defense cooperation in Europe.   NATO started in 1949. But with the aggressive behaviour of the Soviet Union and of Stalin everybody agreed that more had to be done, and that the disarmed West Germany had to contribute to it too.   A way and a structure had to be found, so that re-armament of West Germany would be acceptable to all. The first initiativ...

NOVEMBER 12: A few days ago the German medical company BIONTECH and the American company PHIZER announced that they together had developed an efficient vaccine against the corona virus. They claim that it is 90 % efficient, and that it is ready for approval by the authorities. When the EU is concerned the European Commission yesterday bought 300 million doses of the vaccine – for distribution to all member states. In the meantime the European Medicines Agency ( EMA ) in Amsterdam will examine the vaccine according to European rules and regulations.   EMA is a scientific, decentralised agency under of the EU.   It has existed since 1995, and its task is to control and approve all medical products to be made available in all the 27 EU member states + in the three associated EEA countries Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein. When it has given its green light the product may be sold in all the 30 countries.   To do this process together saves time and money.   The EMA...