European Union

A bill to liberalise Poland's abortion law - one of Prime Minister Donald Tusk's key election promises - has failed in parliament: 215 deputies voted in favour and 218 against, with two abstentions and 23 absences. The governing coalition of liberals, moderates, conservatives and leftists is split over the legislation. Tuesday saw angry protests by the Women's Strike movement in front of the Sejm.

Mobile phones have already been banished, to varying degrees, from everyday school life in Italy, France, the Netherlands and the UK. Other countries are also considering such bans.

The German Ministry of the Interior has banned the Islamic Centre Hamburg (IZH) mosque association on the grounds the organisation pursues anti-constitutional goals and spreads aggressive antisemitism and the ideology of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Tehran summoned the German ambassador to Iran over the issue. Is the ban long overdue?

Vice President Kamala Harris has yet to be officially nominated as the Democratic candidate after Joe Biden's withdrawal from the US presidential campaign, but for many prominent party colleagues and Democratic voters, as well as Europe's press, this is a mere formality. Her chances against Trump and above all her record as former attorney general of California are now the subject of heated debate.

Two of the European Parliament's committees have set up a joint working group to monitor the implementation of the AI Act.

The idea of having an EU budget, including for agriculture, based on political conditions and milestones, as is the case with the bloc’s post-pandemic recovery fund, is "unacceptable," the outgoing Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski told Euractiv.

The constitutive meetings of the European Parliament's standing committees and subcommittees took place in Brussels on 23 July 2024, following the appointments of their members in the plenary sitting of 16-19 July 2024. During the constitutive meetings, each committee and subcommittee is electing its respective bureau, made up of a Chair and Vice-Chairs, for a two-and-a-half year mandate. The newly set up committees then starts holding their regular meetings during the same week following their constitutive meeting.

The SEDE constitutive meeting took place on Tuesday, 23 July 2024 from 13.00 to 13.30hrs in room József Antall 4Q2 (Brussels). The meeting was webstreamed.

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SEDE missions 2023:

• India - 17-21 December 2023
• Israel and OPT - 8-10 December 2023
  
• Germany and Poland - 24-26 July 2023
  
• Armenia - 19-22 June 2023
  
• Romania and Moldova - 15-18 May 2023
  
• Djibouti and Somalia - 1-4 April 2023
  
• Bosnia and Herzegovina - 20-23 February 2023
  

AFET-DROI-SEDE calendar of meetings - 2nd half of 2024
SEDE meetings' calendar 2024
EP calendar 2024
Source : © European Union, 2024 - EP

Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz defended the country's newly acquired hawkish stance on defence against internal critics and "populists" on Wednesday, saying that times are calling for stronger deterrence rather than arms control.

Olympic swimming and triathlon events can now take place in the Seine, which now meets European bathing water standards, an NGO controlling water quality confirmed, following massive cleaning efforts by the French authorities and a spell of dry weather.

Italy will host an event in the autumn to present a network to transport hydrogen from the southern Mediterranean to northern Europe, its energy minister told Reuters on Wednesday, saying Switzerland could also be involved.