European Union

Depesme and Kerrou
Freedom of movement for persons
Advocate General Wathelet considers that a child in a reconstituted family may be regarded as the child of the stepparent for the purposes of a cross-frontier social advantage

Depesme and Kerrou
Freedom of movement for persons
Advocate General Wathelet considers that a child in a reconstituted family may be regarded as the child of the stepparent for the purposes of a cross-frontier social advantage

Depesme and Kerrou
Freedom of movement for persons
Advocate General Wathelet considers that a child in a reconstituted family may be regarded as the child of the stepparent for the purposes of a cross-frontier social advantage

Pesce and Others
Agriculture and fisheries
The Commission may require Member States to remove all plants capable of being infected by the Xylella fastidiosa bacterium, even when there are no symptoms of infection, when such plants are in the vicinity of plants already affected by that bacterium

Pesce and Others
Agriculture and fisheries
The Commission may require Member States to remove all plants capable of being infected by the Xylella fastidiosa bacterium, even when there are no symptoms of infection, when such plants are in the vicinity of plants already affected by that bacterium

Pesce and Others
Agriculture and fisheries
The Commission may require Member States to remove all plants capable of being infected by the Xylella fastidiosa bacterium, even when there are no symptoms of infection, when such plants are in the vicinity of plants already affected by that bacterium

EGEDA and Others
Approximation of laws
The copyright directive precludes fair compensation due to authors for private copying of their works from being financed by a budgetary scheme such as that established in Spain

EGEDA and Others
Approximation of laws
The copyright directive precludes fair compensation due to authors for private copying of their works from being financed by a budgetary scheme such as that established in Spain

EGEDA and Others
Approximation of laws
The copyright directive precludes fair compensation due to authors for private copying of their works from being financed by a budgetary scheme such as that established in Spain

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EU Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs meet in Luxembourg on 9-10 June 2016 to discuss the supply of digital content and the regulation on a European public prosecutor's office. They are also to reach a political agreement on regulations on matrimonial property regimes and property consequences of registered partnerships. Issues related to criminal justice in cyberspace are also being discussed. In the Home Affairs session, The Council is discussing several security and migration-related issues. It is also addressing visa liberalisation.

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Looking around in these final weeks before the 23 June vote, there hasn’t much reason to feel that the EU referendum has come to occupy a central place in the lives of the British public. While the papers and the news programmes have been full of stories and arguments, this hasn’t seemed to fully translate into a public debate.

Let’s take a couple of markers of this.

Firstly, for all their ambivalent headline findings, the opinion polls do seem to have been pretty consistent on the volume of don’t knows. As NumberCruncherPolitics’ helpful site shows, this has hovered around the 10-15% mark since September. last year While it has drifted down since March it hasn’t moved at a rate that suggests a deep penetration of either side’s arguments, particularly if we also consider the broad stability of the polls: people don’t appear to be changing their minds very much.

Secondly, my work on social media that I’ve been blogging about each Friday has also shown that online campaigns have yet to show any big pick-up, in either followers or sharing of content. While this needs to be contextualised by the broader social media debate, it does, once again, suggest that both camps have yet to make a strong connection with the electorate.

All of which makes this week’s developments the more interesting.

Tuesday’s technical failings on the electoral roll registration website, and yesterday’s decision to extend the deadline to midnight (Thursday), was in many ways a classic piece of political ex-temporisation (i.e. making it up as you go along) and a reflection on the extent to which we still have to deal with the unexpected.*

On the other hand, it does mark one of the first instances where the public appear to have got active (albeit a skewed cross-section, not tucked up in bed of a Tuesday night): the spike easily exceeded that for last May’s general election, although in part that was down to the much greater volume of calls to register by government, media and activists.

Whatever the reasons, this mobilisation will matter.

For one thing, it means a not-insignificant number of voters will be now more likely to vote, after the drama of registering: a paradox of making it harder/more uncertain that they could vote at all is likely to be that they will now vote, as it has more value to them.

In addition, this influx will benefit the Remain campaign more, given the strong age gradient in late registrations. If there is a close outcome in a fortnight, then expect some re-visiting of this episode.

Finally, it matters because it’s given both sides a way into broader issues about the democratic life of the country. Tellingly, while Leave might have suffered from more young (more pro-EU) voters getting registered, they have been generally happy to extend the deadline. Of course, when a key part of your argument is that ‘we, the people’ need to take back control, it’s hard to then say ‘no, not you people’. Even the more wild and conspiratorial fringes have been quite constrained in their cries of a plot, at least so far.

The big challenge though is to now keep that interest and mobilisation. the TV debates might help, but if they follow the pattern established by the two to date (on Sky and ITV), then they will be more a case of not messsing up, rather than making the case. As I’ve observed elsewhere, good TV isn’t the same as good public debate and if the public doesn’t feel it’s got a voice or a role in the clash of politicians, then it’s likely to switch off, both literally and metaphorically.

Right now we stand on the cusp of matters. Which way we go from here is open. But if we want to find a more lasting settlement, then we all need to try and make the most of this time.

 

 

* Although as one academic who works a lot with online data collection told me yesterday, anyone who can’t cope with 500,000 queries, especially after having trailed the looming deadline so much, needs to take a long, hard look at themselves and their processes.

The post Registering your interest? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

History is full of great projects left half finished – the Sagrada Família cathedral in Barcelona, the Beach Boys’ Smile album, the last Tintin book … could the euro area’s banking union join them?

Forged at the height of the debt crisis as a way to restore trust in the financial sector, the banking union remains very much a work in progress, and it’s increasingly unclear whether its architects are all working off the same plans.

While the European Central Bank is firmly installed as the currency bloc’s banking supervisor (something examined in-depth in this new study by Bruegel,) and new rules on handling financial crises are on the statute books, discussions are becoming bogged down over the banking union’s third pillar – a centralized scheme for guaranteeing bank deposits. That plan, known as EDIS, is loathed in Berlin while strongly supported by the ECB and governments in southern Europe.

The row between national capitals over EDIS is only part of a larger, and extremely complex negotiation – one that is hampering efforts by Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister, to sign off his country’s EU’s presidency by getting a deal on a banking union workplan. The split is likely to be a topic of discussion among policymakers at today’s Brussels Economic Forum.

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The Jean Monnet Center of Excellence and the UNESCO Chair at the University of Macedonia (Thessaloniki – Greece), headed by Assistant Professor Dr. Despoina Anagnostopoulou (EU Institutions & Policies – Univ. Macedonia) offer two excellent opportunities for International Summer Schools conducted in English, during July 2016, at the beautiful Pelion in Greece – APPLY NOW:

08-11 July 2016 (Application deadline 5 July 2016), International Summer School in the EU Area of Freedom, Security & Justice, organized by the Jean Monnet Center of Excellence. The School aims at advancing “understanding of the law, policies, challenges and dynamics in the integration process of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (ASFJ).” It has 5 Cycles:

• Cycle 1: Structure/institutional evolution of AFSJ
• Cycle 2: EU Citizenship, Schengen/Free movement,
• Cycle 3: EU Migration/Asylum Policy,
• Cycle 4: EU Internal-External Security,
• Cycle 5: EU Civil/Criminal Justice,

Faculty teaching:

• Assistant Prof. Despoina Anangnostopoulou (Univ. Macedonia)
• Associate Prof. Michalis Chrysomallis (Democritus Univ. Thrace)
• Assistant Prof. Ioannis Papageorgiou (Aritstotle Univ. Thessaloniki)
• Assistant Prof. Foteini Bellou (Univ. Macedonia)
• Prof. Miguel G. Santiago (Autonomous Univ. Barcelona)
• PhD cand./Research Assist. Niovi Vavoula (Queen Mary Univ. London).

14-19 July 2016 (Application Deadline: 10 July 2016), 1st International Summer School in European Studies and Human Rights Law: Protection of Human Rights in Europe, organized by the UNESCO Chair. The School aims at advancing “understanding of the significance of human rights protection at the international and the European level.” It has 5 Cycles:

• Cycle 1: Universal/Regional Mechanisms for Protection of Human Rights
• Cycle 2: ECHR,
• Cycle 3: EU Fundamental Rights & Personal Data Protection,
• Cycle 4: Non-discrimination (emphasis on LGBT),
• Cycle 5: Refugees, Minorities, Cultural Rights,

Faculty teaching:

• Assistant Prof. Despoina Anangnostopoulou (Univ. Macedonia)
• Associate Prof. Lina Papadopoulou (Aristotle Univ. Thessaloniki)
• Prof. Eugenia Alexandropoulou-Egyptiadou (Univ. Macedonia)
• Associate Prof. Alina Tryfonidou (Univ. Reading)
• Assistant Prof. Ioannis Papadopoulos (Univ. Macedonia)
• Former Prof. Paroula Naskou Perraki (Univ. Macedonia)
• Assistant Prof. Ioanna Papavasiliou-Alexiou (Univ. Macedonia)
• Dr. Nikos Gaitenidis, Head of the Constitutional Values of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence (Univ. Macedonia)
• Ms. Dagmara Rajska, Council of Europe expert

For both Summer Schools, certificates of attendance to all, and graduation certificates after passing a multiple choice exam, will be awarded.

Visit the Jean Monnet University website

For more information email: danag@uom.gr or call: +30 2310891 442 or +30 6979 348008.

The post Jean Monnet Center of Excellence & UNESCO Chair International Summer Schools – University of Macedonia appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Plenary sessions : The Turkish parliament’s decision to lift the immunity from prosecution of 138 of its members was criticized by MEPs on Wednesday. In a debate with EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn, they described it as an attempt by Turkey’s President Erdoğan to silence the opposition and grab more powers. This decision undermines the rule of law and freedom of expression and might harm EU-Turkey relations, they added.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Plenary sessions : The Turkish parliament’s decision to lift the immunity from prosecution of 138 of its members was criticized by MEPs on Wednesday. In a debate with EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn, they described it as an attempt by Turkey’s President Erdoğan to silence the opposition and grab more powers. This decision undermines the rule of law and freedom of expression and might harm EU-Turkey relations, they added.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP