*UPDATED* Members-only EU COVID-19 Updates

The European Commission and the European Space Agency (ESA) announced the launch of a new platform to monitor green and sustainable recovery. Developed by the Commission in collaboration with the ESA, the platform uses Earth observation satellite data to measure the impact of the coronavirus lockdown and monitor post-lockdown recovery, at local, regional, and global scale. The tool notably monitors key environmental parameters such as air and water quality changes, economic and human activities including industry, shipping, construction, traffic, as well as agricultural productivity.

The Galileo Green Lane app, developed by the European GNSS Agency (GSA) in collaboration with the European Commission, is a key tool in the EU’s COVID-19 pandemic response. The app was downloaded by over 2,500 drivers since it was launched at the start of May. The Galileo Green Lane app uses the positioning services of Galileo – Europe’s Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) – to monitor and facilitate the free movement of freight, making it possible to reduce waiting times at the EU’s internal land borders and facilitate the transport of goods.

European Space Agency (ESA) wrote that, thanks to the Italian national delegation to ESA, €10 million is now available for proposals to use space to improve healthcare and distance learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The funds will be used to support projects in education and distance learning, social care, support for medical operations, monitoring and security, telemedicine, and epidemiology and resource planning.

EU Telecommunications Ministers held an informal videoconference to discuss the use of mobile applications and mobility data in relation to COVID-19 and stressed the need for a coordinated approach at EU level, underlining that such applications will be important for the gradual relaxation of measures. Ministers also reflected on the role of the digital sector in the post COVID-19 recovery as well as on measures to incentivise investment in the deployment of new digital infrastructure.

The European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency (GSA) announced that, together with the European Commission, it is working on an app to facilitate the movement of goods and freight within the EU in the framework of the COVID-19 pandemic response. The “Galileo Green Lane” app will aim to ease the flow of freight through borders and enable the efficient transit of critical goods. It will provide border control authorities with a real-time visualisation of the overall border situation between a country and its neighbours. It will also provide drivers with a real-time visualisation of borders of interest to them, through an EU-wide map indicating Green Lane border crossing times. The app is already in its final development stage. The first pilot is starting next week in some selected border points; a simultaneous activity for drivers will be launched soon with key transport companies from the International Road Union (IRU).

The European Commission issued a recommendation on a common Union toolbox to be developed by 15 April 2020 by the Member States, together with the Commissionand in association with the European Data Protection Board (EDPB), for the use of technology and data to combat and exit from the COVID-19 crisis, in particular concerning mobile applications and the use of anonymised mobility data. The envisaged toolbox would focus on two dimensions: (i) a pan-European coordinated approach for the use of mobile applications for empowering citizens to take effective and more targeted social distancing measures and for warning, preventing and contact tracing; and (ii) a common approach for modelling and predicting the evolution of the virus through anonymised and aggregated mobile location data.

The European Commission launched the European Research Area (ERA) corona platform on the funding and tenders portal. This dedicated space provides information regarding related research and innovation actions, but also updates regarding the extension of certain call deadlines due to the outbreak. Information regarding project implementation and management during the pandemic are also available.

The European Data Protection Board (EDPB), during its 20th plenary session , assigned concrete mandates to its expert subgroups to develop guidance on several aspects of data processing in the fight against COVID-19, namely: (i) on geolocation and other tracing tools in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak – a mandate was given to the technology expert subgroup for leading this work; and (ii) on the processing of health data for research purposes in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak – a mandate was given to the compliance, e-government and health expert subgroup for leading this work.

The European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) published a press release noting that the current developments in the EU on the use of smartphone data to understand and contain the spread of COVID-19 need to comply with data protection and privacy rules. The Chair of LIBE Committee, Juan Fernando López Aguilar (S&D, ES), highlighted that, according to the European Data Protection Supervisor and the European Data Protection Board, as long as the information shared with national authorities is anonymised and does not allow for individuals to be identified in any way, it can be used. He added that the EU’s data protection principles, namely the General Data Protection Rules (GDPR) and the e-Privacy Directive, must continue to apply and be respected even in these exceptional times.

EUROCONTROL announced that EUROCONTROL Member States agreed to delay payments of up to €1.1 billion due for air navigation services in February through to May this year. The number of flights operating daily in European airspace has declined by 90% as a result of the COVID-1P outbreak. Airlines had sought the support of EUROCONTROL to help them deal with their significant cash flow crisis.

The European Space Agency (ESA) , together with the Italian minister for innovation and digitalisation, launched Space in response to COVID-19 outbreak funding to support projects in the field of healthcare and education. ESA is inviting companies to submit their ideas for deploying and demonstrating services to respond to the emergency that Europe, and especially Italy, is facing during the COVID-19 crisis.

The European Commission published guidelines on the flexible use of the EU public procurement framework in the current coronavirus pandemic.

The European Environment Agency (EEA) announced it had developed a tool to monitor how the lockdown and related restrictive measures implemented by many European countries to stop the spread of the Covid-19 virus outbreak had led to a sudden decrease or interruption of many economic activities, with the result of a drop in road traffic in many cities.

The European Commission announced it is supporting EU Code Week and the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalitions to help keep teachers, organisations and individuals across the EU to adapt to new requirements across member states as a result of COVID-19 to work remotely in order to keep each other safe.

The European Commission announced in the context of the EU’s fight against the COVID-19 outbreak, the adoption of an updated 2020 Work Programme of Horizon 2020 to allocate increased funding to its priorities, including research projects for Coronavirus. The update includes €47.5 million in funding for the emergency call announced in early March to fight the coronavirus outbreak that led to the launch of 17 projects .

In addition to the €47.5 million emergency coronavirus call, the updated 2020 Work Programme dedicates over €350 million under the EIC pilot to SMEs with breakthrough innovations addressing one or several Green Deal objectives. SMEs can apply for grant financing of up to €2.5 million each and an additional equity investment of up to €15 million.

The European Commissioner for Internal Market , Thierry Breton,  held a video conference with CEOs of European telecommunication companies and GSMA to discuss network resilience and the sharing of anonymised metadata for modelling and predicting the propagation of the virus.

The discussion also covered the need to collect anonymised mobile metadata to help analysing the patterns of diffusion of the coronavirus, in a way that is fully compliant with the GDPR and ePrivacy legislation. Furthermore, both sides highlighted the importance of protecting the networks against cyber-attacks.

The European Commission published today a communication on the implementation of the Green Lanes under the Guidelines for border management measures to protect health and ensure the availability of goods and essential services. The new practical guidance will advise on how to implement the Guidelines for border management in order to keep freight moving across the EU during the current COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the communication, the “green lane” border crossings should be open to all freight vehicles carrying any type of goods. Crossing the border, including any checks and health screening, should not take more than 15 minutes. Member States should act immediately to temporarily suspend all types of road access restrictions in their territory for road freight transport and for the necessary free movement of transport workers.

Adina Vălean, EU Commissioner for Transport, commented “The EU’s transport network connects the whole of the EU. Our guidance document is intended to protect the EU’s supply chains in these difficult circumstances, and to make sure both goods and transport workers are able to travel to wherever they are needed – without delay. “

European Data Protection Board statement on the processing of personal data in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak.

The Research Executive Agency (REA) issued a press release with regards to the operational disruptions caused by COVID-19, saying that like the other European Commission services, the majority of its staff has been working remotely since the beginning of the week. In this context and in line with the recent decisions taken by the Commission, REA pointed out that its research activities, namely calls for project proposals, evaluations and grant management will continue to take place, but some delays may occur.

The Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA) published information on certain aspects relevant to those who are Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) beneficiaries (with the exception of WiFi4EU beneficiaries), including with regards to: (i) Communication with INEA; (ii) reporting (ASR and final reports); and (iii) ongoing payments. The full document is available here .

The European Commission announced that extensions will be applied to Horizon 2020 calls with original deadlines from today, March 17, until April 15. However, no extensions will apply to the IMI and EIC pilot calls.