European Social Observatory

Gaseous water exhibits significantly greater spatiotemporal variability than other major greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane. Consequently, satellite-based global monitoring of atmospheric water vapour is an essential methodology for elucidating its climate impacts at regional and global scales over timescales ranging from short to multidecadal. To track water vapour, total column measurements are derived from satellite observations of reflected solar radiation within the UV-VIS spectral region centred at 440 nm. This water vapour absorption band is an alternative to the conventional NIR band centred at 648 nm. The advantage of this band is that it is detectable across all European Sentinel platforms and their predecessor instruments, such as GOME on ERS-2, SCIAMACHY on Envisat and GOME-2 on MetOp-A/B/C, as well as future instruments, e.g. CO2M.This work presents recent advancements in the application of differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS) to geostationary Sentinel-4 and polar-orbiting Sentinel-5P observations. This work serves as preparatory research for future implementations with the polar-orbiting Sentinel-5 mission.The retrieval methodology has several advantages over existing sensing techniques: (1) optimal sensitivity and coverage characteristics across both terrestrial and oceanic domains; (2) enhanced spatial resolution and temporal sampling frequency, particularly for European observations via Sentinel-4, which improves weather forecasting, scientific product development, air quality assessment and environmental policy applications; and (3) the continuous extension of long-term datasets starting with GOME-type sensors, which is crucial for regional and global climate modelling. This naturally introduces the possibility of creating a homogeneous climate data record since 1995.

ABSTRACTThis contribution analyses how EU social objectives and policy co-ordination have been integrated into the Union’s post-crisis governance architecture. It argues that between 2011 and 2016, there was a partial but progressive ‘socialization’ of the ‘European Semester’ of policy co-ordination, in terms of increasing emphasis on social objectives in its priorities and key messages, including the Country-Specific Recommendations; intensified social monitoring and review of national reforms; and an enhanced decision-making role for EU social and employment actors. In explaining these developments, the contribution highlights the contribution of strategic agency, reflexive learning and creative adaptation by social and employment actors to the new institutional conditions of the Semester, building on recent theoretical work on ‘actor-centred constructivism’ and the ‘usages of Europe’.

The negotiations on the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the European Commission and the US government led to massive protests both in the US and in Europe over the last few years.While supporters argue that an increase in free trade would result in economic growth and more jobs, critics claim that TTIP endangers environmental and consumer standards and that it is an assault on democracy itself.Pia Eberhardt, works for the Corporate Europe Observatory and is one of the spokespersons of the anti-TTIP movement.

Now that the Directive on the application of patients’ rights in cross-border health care has been finally adopted after more than 12 years of debate, the discussion can start as to its importance and impact. In some ways, it reminds us of the discussion that was triggered right after the first seminal rulings of the European Court of Justice on the cases Decker and Kohll back in 1998. The question then was to know whether these judgments were to be considered a revolution or rather an evolution in the slow but steady process of EU integration in the field of health care. Where it was generally held that the classification of health services as ‘economic’, falling under the scope of free movement principles, was a logical step from a legal point of view, it took Member States and stakeholders a long time to more or less come to terms with the implications of this characterization.1 As a result, the ambit of the Directive was gradually narrowed to only include cross-border health care, i.e. ‘healthcare provided or prescribed in a Member State other than the State of affiliation’ (Article 3.e). The Directive explicitly mentions that it ‘shall not affect laws and regulations in Member States relating to the organization and financing of healthcare in situations not related to cross-border healthcare’ (Article 1.4). That also includes the freedom of each Member State to decide what type of health care it considers appropriate (recital 5a) and wishes to reimburse (recital 11). Moreover, the Directive did finally not clarify as to the wider effects of internal market and competition rules on health care and health systems.2 Perhaps the revolutionary nature of this Directive does not lie so much in what Delnoij and Sauter are calling the ‘old’ patients’ rights, i.e. the social …