Three decisions to be stepped up

June’s issue of Europe Infos is available on the COMECE website, (www.comece.eu), with updates on the work of European institutions and on the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community. The editorial "The Bishop of Rome as a European", dedicated to Pope Francis, is by COMECE Secretary Patrick Daly (click here).How to attract new brains? "The EU is losing competitiveness in its ability to attract talent" said COMECE Secretary José Luis Bazán. The classical competition from the United States, Canada, New Zealand or Australia has not diminished, and Asian powers, such as Singapore, China or India, have entered the competition. In the twenty-seven member states, a little over 10% of graduates are non-citizens of the country of graduation: (in Australia and New Zealand non-nationals account for around one third of all graduates). The UK is an exception, with its share of registered foreign graduates standing at 22 %. According to the OECD study Education at a Glance, the factors that attract students are the language of instruction (as a critical factor); tuition fees and cost of living; immigration policy; academic reputation and the flexibility of particular institutions or programmes; subsequent recognition of qualifications, future job opportunities … The articulated proposal of directive "aims to improve the migration conditions for the talented, especially university students and researchers" and "promote intra-EU mobility of international students and researchers". The presence of extra-EU students is contribution to the economy and competitiveness of Europe (off-campus expenditure is estimated at 2.7 billion Euros), But not less important, "they encourage mutual enrichment between different actors and better familiarity among cultures". Sexual violence is not a weapon of war. "Sexual violence in armed conflict represents one of the most serious forms of the abuse of International humanitarian and human rights law". The G8 Ministers thus decided to take new initiatives to prevent it. Stephen N. Rooney (JESC, Jesuit European Social Centre) made known that a year ago the British government launched an initiative on prevention of sexual violence in armed conflicts and is keen to raise the prominence of this issue on the International political agenda, announcing that the British Presidency of the G8 in 2013 would be used for a diplomatic campaign. The UK Foreign Secretary William Hague, unveiled a Declaration to recognize sexual violence and rapes in conflict areas as war crimes, constituting a breach of the Geneva Convention; an International Protocol on the Investigation and Documentation of rape and sexual violence in conflict will be created; no amnesty will be granted within peace treaties for such crimes; the training of national and international police and security forces will be reviewed and adapted; international experts will be deployed to help build up the judicial, investigative and legal capacity of other countries in this area (to pursue this fifth aim, the UK has already created a team of more than 70 experts including doctors, forensic scientists, police and gender experts. This team has deployed to Bosnia, the Syrian border and to Libya. Further deployments to the borders of Syria, and to Bosnia, South Sudan, Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo will be carried out later in 2013. An increase in funding is being sought. To date, £23million has been pledged, of which £10million has been contributed by the UK Government.Trasparency in extractive industries. In the coming months the EU will adopt a directive obliging European companies to disclose all payments above €100,000 paid to the governments of the countries in which they operate, in the oil, gas and forestry sectors. "This is a major step forward in the fight against corruption, but on the other it is only a tiny advance in the fight against tax evasion", said Kwinja Nako Muhaya (JESC). The EU could be more demanding and extend the transparency standard to other key areas that are prone to corruption (the transport and export sectors, the construction sector, the telecommunications sector insofar as it relates to "conflict minerals" and the banking services sector). Inclusion of the latter three sectors was voted for in 2012 by the "European Parliament Committee on Legal Affairs", but they have been kept out of the European legislation. The European threshold of €100,000 is considered "excessively high". The relevance threshold should take account of the relatively modest sums that are often quite significant for local authority budgets (NGOs consider €15,000 the ideal threshold). "Disclosure of payments is essential but is not sufficient to ensure that companies pay their fair share of taxes. The extension of this disclosure obligation to include other sectors is essential for fighting more effectively against tax evasion, illicit flows of money and misappropriation of funds, all of which deprive the governments of commodity-rich developing countries of the means to combat poverty".