European Union

Georgia's jailed opposition leader and ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili, who has been on hunger strike for weeks, is in a critical condition and lacks proper medical care, doctors said Wednesday (17 November).

Belarus said Wednesday (17 November) that President Alexander Lukashenko and German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed in a telephone call that Minsk and the EU should discuss the migrant crisis on the Belarusian-Polish border.

While there are reasons for the European tourism sector to be optimistic after a good summer season, there is still a long way until full recovery, speakers at the European Tourism Forum agreed in Brdo pri Kranju on Wednesday, noting...

The Estonian government summoned 1,700 reserve soldiers on Wednesday (17 November) for an unannounced exercise which will include installing a razor-wire barrier along 40 km of its border with Russia, as the migration crisis in nearby Belarus intensifies. The EU...

The European Union's soil strategy has outlined plans for a soil health law by 2023 to bring soil on the same legal footing as air and water, and EU lawmakers have warned this must be a hard deadline.

Representatives of EU countries endorsed a key piece of digital legislation, the Digital Services Act, on Wednesday, confirming proposals for a 24-hour deadline for removal of illegal content, liability provisions for online marketplaces and centralised enforcement for very large online platforms.

Written by Anita Orav.

The European Asylum Support Office (EASO) is a European Union agency that provides tools to help the EU Member States prepare for an influx of asylum applicants and implement EU legislation on the ground. The Malta-based agency was established in 2010 as an impartial centre of expertise, with the objective of developing practical cooperation between the Member States, offering support in the event of particular asylum-related pressures and providing evidence for EU policy-making.

In 2016, EASO played a major role in implementing the immediate actions outlined in the European agenda on migration, which focused on strengthening the EU’s emergency response to the migration crisis. The European Commission has also called for a strengthened role for EASO in other related areas. To enable the agency to fulfil its new tasks, build up staff, and deliver operational and technical support to Member States, EASO’s budget has seen a nearly tenfold increase over the past seven years, from €14.6 million in 2014 to close to €140 million in 2021.

However, concerns have been voiced regarding the way EASO’s mandate has expanded in practice, without the necessary legal basis, and regarding the lack of transparency or appropriate monitoring mechanisms vis à vis its activities. In 2016, as a response to the shortcomings revealed in the EU’s migration management, the Commission presented a proposal to amend and expand EASO’s mandate, also changing its name to the European Union agency for asylum to reflect its stronger powers. As part of the asylum reform package, the proposal was put on hold, but was then relaunched as part of the new pact on asylum and migration in September 2020. On 29 June 2021, the European Parliament and the Council reached a political agreement on the agency. To enter into force, the agreement now needs to be endorsed formally by the co-legislators. The text agreed was debated in plenary session on 7 October 2021, and the Parliament is expected to vote on it during November 2021.

Read the complete briefing on ‘Introducing the European Union agency for asylum‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Listen to policy podcast ‘Introducing the European Union agency for asylum’ on YouTube.

Evolution of EASO appropriations

Ministers at the Council of Europe, an international human rights body, adopted the second Additional Protocol to the Budapest Convention on Wednesday (17 November) to tackle the current surge in cybercrime.

The EU's drugs agency EMA has started evaluating an application for conditional marketing authorisation for US biotech firm Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine, Nuvaxovid. If granted, this will be the fifth vaccine authorised in the European Union.

This could also be titled 'Perhaps the last big tent party', as the German conservatives grapple with the inevitable fall-out of their decline and defeat in September.

In an exclusive interview, the Minister of Trade and Integration of Kazakhstan Bakhyt Sultanov discussed the upcoming WTO ministerial under the chairmanship of his country, EU-Kazakhstan economic relation, and carbon border tax.

The European Commission put forward new rules on Wednesday (17 November) to crack down on the illegal shipment of waste to foreign countries, while easing procedures to trade recycled materials within the EU's borders.

The European Commission tabled its plan on Wednesday (17 November) to introduce mandatory due diligence for products sold on the EU market to make sure they are not linked to deforestation or forest degradation.

Marking the 32nd anniversary of the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, we look at how far we have come to realise the rights of all children in Europe and whether the commitment still stands the test of time.

A new report by the Danish think tank Justitia calls for embedding content moderation in an international human rights framework to ensure common international standards. Yet, critics warn that this voluntary approach is too weak to tackle the ‘Infodemic’.

The start-up of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea, which was completed in September, has been delayed after Germany's Federal Network Agency suspended its certification on the grounds that the operator of the pipeline must be "organised in a legal form under German law". Europe's press is divided: is this a mere formality, or is Berlin using the situation to make a U-turn?