European Union

Last spring marked 40 years since Czechoslovakian astronaut Vladimir Remek's flight to space and this year marks another anniversary. In November, the Czech Republic celebrated ten years since joining the European Space Agency (ESA). EURACTIV Czech Republic's media partner Aktuálně.cz reports.

Twitter shares fell almost 7 percent on Monday after the company said it was investigating unusual traffic that might be from state-sponsored hackers and, in what appeared to be an unrelated issue, a security firm said hackers used the platform to try to steal user data.

Unprecedented protests against Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban's "illiberal" style mark a rare united front of opposition parties, amid new violence against opposition MPs.

Stakeholders gather today to exchange on the future use of Level(s), a European voluntary reporting framework to improve the sustainability of buildings.  Level(s) could be the basis for a future European construction-sector policy, where energy regulations could be extended to cover other environmental and social criteria.

UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on Monday evening proposed a motion of no confidence in prime minister Theresa May over her handling of Brexit. However, it was not a motion against the government, making the move symbolic rather than a bid for new elections. Smaller opposition parties, including the Scottish National Party, have urged Corbyn to support a full-on motion of no confidence, with Brexit 101 days away.

The EU's Court of Justice confirmed on Monday an earlier order to suspend a Polish law on the retirement age of the country's Supreme Court judges, pending a ruling. Under the bill, Polish judges over 65 were forced to retire unless they received consent from Poland's president. Monday's decision confirmed "the urgency of the interim measures". Also on Monday, Poland's president signed a bill which reinstated those forced-out judges.

France will introduce a new tax on 1 January 2019 which will hit big tech companies Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon, it announced on Monday. The move means that France no longer wants to wait for an EU-wide taxing initiative, which hit a roadblock from four member states earlier this month. Economy minister Bruno Le Maire said the French tax was expected to raise around €500m in 2019.

Negotiators from the European Parliament, national governments, and the European Commission decided on Monday a compromise by which cars should emit 37.5 percent less CO2 in 2030, compared to 2021. Vans should emit 31 percent less. Austrian environment minister Elisabeth Kostinger called it a "great success for climate protection in Europe", but NGO Transport & Environment called the compromise "progress but it's not fast enough to hit our climate goals".

The United States said Monday (17 December) it was no longer seeking to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad but renewed warnings it would not fund reconstruction unless the regime is "fundamentally different."

Poland on Monday (17 December) bowed to a ruling by the EU’s top court ordering it to suspend a law that had lowered the retirement age of its Supreme Court judges amid concerns about judicial independence. The European Court of Justice (ECJ)...

Democratic Republic of Congo goes to the polls this week in elections which could see the country emerge from 17 years of conflict-ridden rule under controversial President Joseph Kabila.

The reduction of gender disparities in the workplace continues to progress slowly, with the current rate suggesting that it would take 202 years to reach economic parity between men and women, according to a study from the World Economic Forum.

Sometimes in chess, a sacrifice brings victory. Theresa May should pay heed to the example of Slovakia's premier, Iveta Radicova, who sacrificed her job in order to get difficult euro bailout legislation through the Bratislava parliament.

New methods of genetic engineering promise precise interventions, without side effects. However, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) wants tight regulation. The judgement is being fiercely debated. EURACTIV Germany reports.

Prime Minister Theresa May said on Monday (17 December) she would bring her Brexit deal back to parliament for a mid-January vote, pledging to get assurances from the European Union before then to break a deadlock over Britain's fraught efforts to quit the bloc.

France is to join a growing list of member states setting out their own plans for a digital tax, after the country's Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire announced on Monday (17 December) that new French laws for the taxation of digital giants would come into effect from 1 January 2019.

EU negotiators on Monday evening (17 December) agreed on CO2 emission rules for cars and vans, as the Austrian presidency of the EU defied expectations and brokered a compromise.

Main agenda items, approximate timing, public sessions and press opportunities.

What is the point of building more and more grid, if we are not able to fully use what we have? Nothing is for free. Consumers are now paying the bill for all market inefficiencies, including transmission expansion beyond their reasonable needs, according to Poland's transmission system operator.

Written by Joanna Apap and Ionel Zamfir,

© nito / Fotolia

These figures are expected to grow for a number of reasons, including population growth, conflicts,increasing connectivity, trade, rising inequality, demographic imbalances and climate change. Migration provides immense opportunity and benefits – for the migrants, host communities and communities of origin. However, when poorly regulated it can create significant challenges. These challenges include overwhelming social infrastructures with the unexpected arrival of large numbers of people and the deaths of migrants undertaking dangerous journeys.

Today, over 258 million persons around the world live outside their country of birth. In 2017, high-income countries hosted 64 %, or nearly 165 million, of the total number of international migrants worldwide. Moreover, most of the growth in the global population of international migrants is due to movements toward high-income countries, which host 64 million of the 85 million migrants added since 2000.

The large-scale migratory flows affecting several regions in the world in the last several years have brought the plight of persons who are forced to flee their homes due to war, insecurity or persecution more forcefully than ever to the world’s attention. They have also exposed how ill-prepared the international community has been to deal with this challenge and how disproportionate the distribution of the burden of caring for such people has been among countries.

The number of international migrants includes 26 million refugees or asylum seekers, or about 10 % of the total number of migrants in the world. At the end of 2017, almost 20 million were recognised as refugees under the UNHCR mandate – a figure the UN agency considers a record.

Although a majority of the world’s international migrants live in high-income countries, low- and middle-income countries host nearly 22 million, or 84 %, of all refugees and asylum seekers. While critical voices have pointed to the lack of political will in developed countries as an explanation for this state of affairs, the causes are more complex and nuanced. Most often, refugees tend to move to neighbouring countries for practical reasons.

Moreover, there are huge discrepancies not only in the number of refugees hosted in the world across regions and countries, but also in the quality of protection offered. Many of the countries that host refugees, particularly developing countries in Africa and Asia, have either not ratified the Geneva Convention or do not comply with all their obligations. They hold refugees in camps, do not grant them the right to move freely and to work and rely largely on international solidarity to fulfil their basic needs. They do not provide a path to integration and naturalisation, generating protracted refugee situations. This encourages secondary movements of refugees, who try to reach countries offering more adequate protection and integration prospects, such as in Europe. These imbalances among countries and regions have clearly exposed the need for fairer burden sharing and more solidarity across countries.

To meet these growing challenges, the international community has adopted two distinct legally non-binding compacts on refugees and migration, respectively. The latter has received a lot of public attention and been the focus of much political controversy, while the first has been quietly adopted. As some commentators have failed to adequately distinguish between the two,it is important to highlight their distinct scope and role. Refugees are persons fleeing persecution in their home countries, as defined in the Geneva Refugee Convention. Persons who may face torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment if returned to their countries of origin and thus deserve international protection are treated similarly to refugees under international law. For migrants, on the other hand, there is no international legal definition. The countries that have ratified the Geneva Convention – and this is the case for all EU countries – have clearly defined legal obligations with respect to refugees. This is not the case with migrants, although states are bound to respect general international human rights obligations towards any person on their territory, including migrants – such as the prohibition of arbitrary detention.

The drafting process was initiated in September 2016, when all 193 UN member states adopted the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, paving the way for two non-binding international compacts on refugees, and migration. Two global compacts were prepared and negotiated during two years, a Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and a Global Compact on Refugees. The Global Compact on Migration was prepared by the International Organization on Migration (IOM) through broad consultations with UN member states and stakeholders. This was endorsed by oral acclamation in Marrakech by164 UN member states after two years of negotiations. The compact on refugees was, on the other hand, drafted by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which also underwent a similar rigorous consultations process. The Global Compact on Refugees was endorsed by the UN General Assembly on 17 December 2018.Conversely, the EU was both supportive and involved in the UN-launched process for the preparation of both global compacts.

The Global Compact on Migration, comprising of 23 objectives for better managing migration at local, national, regional and global levels, is the first ever UN global agreement on a common approach to international migration in all its dimensions. The global compact is non-legally binding. It is grounded in values of state sovereignty, responsibility-sharing, non-discrimination, and human rights, and recognises that a cooperative approach is needed to optimise the overall benefits of migration, while addressing its risks and challenges for individuals and communities in countries of origin, transit and destination. It will therefore be up to the Member States to implement it in full respect of their sovereignty. The EU has shared competence with Member States with regards to migration, and migration policy is a matter of domestic law.

Addressing issues such as a fairer distribution of refugees(e.g. through broader voluntary participation in UNHCR led-resettlement),better integration of refugees in their host society as well as supporting appropriate conditions for return to their home countries, are among the main objectives of the Global Compact on Refugees. The Global Compact on Refugees also encourages the involvement not only of state actors but also of other stakeholders, such as local authorities and private entities in responding to refugee crises. However, with regard to refugees, the Compact does not include any new commitments compared to the Geneva Conventions, but only practical solutions about how to implement these. The Compact explicitly states that it is non-binding. It also envisages involving refugees themselves and host communities in designing the appropriate policy responses. The Global Compact on Refugees proposes a global refugee forum at ministerial level, which, according to the third draft,will convene every four years from 2019. It will provide participating states with the opportunity to make pledges in various forms, such as providing financial, material and technical assistance to host countries; and providing resettlement places and complementary pathways for admission. The Refugees Compact includes a programme of action, which outlines a threefold set of solutions to end refugee crises, based on voluntary repatriation when conditions allow,integration into the host society and resettlement to third countries.

EU Member States, however, are bound by the EU Treaties to respect human rights and uphold the values of the Union as well as respect UN norms (Articles 2 and 3 TEU). The European Court of Justice and European Court of Human Rights will always have a role should a Member State fail to fulfil its obligations with respect to the EU treaties and,respectively, its human rights obligations. The UN universal periodic review is a further mechanism of oversight as to how well UN member states respect UN norms and values.

To read more on these two compacts, see our forthcoming EPRS briefings:

• A global compact on migration: Placing human rights at the heart of migration management by Joanna Apap
• A global compact : Strengthening international cooperation to ease the plight of refugees in the world by Ionel Zamfir