DEFIS

The adoption of the new decision on working time and hybrid working reflects our new way of working – one more digital and flexible.
The new decision includes updates to working hours, teleworking, and info on the right to disconnect.

DG DEFIS is establishing a Secure Connectivity Task Force which will be active as of today, 1 April for an initial period until end of June 2022.

Its main mission is to prepare the invitation to tender for the development, deployment and exploitation of the Secure Connectivity infrastructure.

Jeremie Godet will coordinate the work of the Task Force.

It is our pleasure to present you the 17^th episode of Question Box!

Watch our colleague Johannes Bertram as he takes random and mostly non work-related questions, allowing us to get to know each another in a more casual manner.

Officially launched on 30 March in an online public event, Destination Earth (DestinE) is a new EU initiative that will develop a highly accurate digital model, a digital twin, of the Earth to monitor and simulate natural and human activity in order to develop and test scenarios, as well as anticipate environmental disasters and their impact for an evidence-based policy and decision-making.

Following a competitive tender process as well as an extensive technical analysis phase, Airbus has selected Avio Aero from Italy to power the Eurodrone unmanned aerial system with its engine and propeller solution, dubbed Catalyst.

The Space Science Workshop took place on Thursday 31 March, gathering over 200 participants, including many representatives from industry and research institutions.

Its main objective was to provide an overview of the European Commission’s activities and support initiatives for space science; gather relevant insights from experts and the space community; and draw perspectives on future trends and the EU’s way forward in the field of space science.

The Copernicus component of the EU Space programme supports the tourism industry by providing useful applications which serve, assess and plan seasonal activities.

Whether it be snow, sun, pollution, rain or fire, tourists can make use of climate impact and environmental indicators when deciding where to go on holiday.

The European Union's higher investment in defence, as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, will need to be reflected in EU's fiscal rules and possibly require funds at EU level, European Economic Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni said on Tuesday.

The first capacity building workshop for investment fund managers, organised jointly by the Commission, the European Investment Fund, EUSPA and ESA, took place in Prague on Monday 28 March. It brought together approximately 200 investors at a hybrid event.

On Tuesday, DG DEFIS participated in a conference dedicated to the future of defence innovation in Europe, together with research and technology organisations and EDA representatives.

At the IRIS France & Ares Group Conference on Defence Innovation, DG DEFIS stressed that the European Defence Fund, with an annual budget of nearly EUR 1 billion, is a game-changer, which already provides strong support to collaborative European defence research and innovation.

After receiving more than 200 applications, 43 projects have been selected for their potential to bring disruptive, space-based solutions onto the European market.

The shortlisted teams are working on a range of novel solutions, new technologies, mobile apps and hardware.

This Monday, DG DEFIS spoke at the Conference titled “How to build Europe’s resilience in power-competition geopolitics (“La resilience de l’Europe face au retour de la puissance”), organised by the Universite Paris 1 – Pantheon Sorbonne.

Elise Pütz (25) is Dutch. She holds a LLM in Public International Law – Human Rights specialization. She works in Unit A3 under the lead of Eleftheria Nearchou. She describes her BBT experience as, so far, “enjoyable, confusing, enlightening”. Her hidden talent: doing flips on a balance bean (she is a former competitive gymnast). Welcome to DG DEFIS Elise!

Here's the new Clean Aviation report! It contains a summary of the European technological innovations developed to reduce the environmental impact of aviation in CleanSky2. Did you know that the European Commission supports Clean Aviation with € 1.7 billion?

The 25^th edition of the inter-DG football tournament, the Schuman Trophy, will take place from 4 to 6 June 2022 (Pentecost weekend) in Rosières.

The format is a series of games 7 vs 7 across the width of the pitch. There will be two half times of 10 or 15 minutes. The teams can include men and women. There is also a specific trophy for teams composed of women only.

Are you planning a hybrid meeting one of these days? With the transition to flexible working some of us are in the office on a day when other colleagues work from home.

This means that the way in which we meet will vary, with a mix of fully online, in person or hybrid meetings in our calendars.

On 29 March, Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton held a roundtable with EU telecom operators and European and Ukrainian regulators to make international calls and roaming affordable for Ukrainians escaping the war.

“Staying in touch with relatives is crucial for millions of Ukrainian refugees”, declared Commissioner Breton.

Reduce, repair, recycle! On Wednesday, the Commission presented a package of European Green Deal proposals to make sustainable products the norm in the EU, boost circular business models and empower consumers for the green transition.

On Thursday, Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton hosted two distinguished visitors from the US.

He first received the Chair of the American Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Ms Lina Khan.

Last week-end, the Conference on the Future of Europe held a fifth Plenary in Strasbourg, which paves the way to the final phase of the work.
The Plenary, (in which citizens, EU and national parliamentarians, the Council, the Commission, social partners, civil society and representatives of local and regional authorities participated), as well as the nine Working Groups started working on the Conference’s final proposals.

Since 24 February 2022 the European security infrastructure has been in flux. Hybrid threats and the spread of disinformation have played a great role in the Euro-Atlantic security landscape and international relations for years, but the war in Ukraine has only emphasised how effective and dangerous hybrid threats, including disinformation, can be.

EUSPA mobilises the EU Space innovation community and provides solutions to enhance humanitarian support for the Ukrainian people. EUSPA is creating a platform to match the innovators with the NGOs and other helpers.

With the Chips Act, the Commission proposed a comprehensive set of measures to ensure the EU's security of supply, resilience and technological leadership in semiconductor technologies and applications.

The purpose of this Call for Expression of Interest is to gather feasible experiments that could be considered for in-orbit demonstration and/or in-orbit validation (IOD/IOV) actions that cover aggregation, if needed, launch services and operations.

IOD/IOV experiments are defined as innovative technologies, products, concepts, architectures, and operations techniques that require in-orbit demonstration/validation.