European Union

A young man from Mali saved a child from falling from the fourth floor of a Paris building with a spectacular climb. President Macron now wants to reward the undocumented immigrant for his brave act by granting him French citizenship. Commentators question whether this gesture would be fair.

In the Czech Republic the grades of this year's school leavers are worse than ever before. In Czech and maths in particular, many failed the exam altogether. Commentators express concern for the state of the education system as a whole, noting that a negative trend has been noticeable for years.

Reducing ammonia emissions from agriculture is a crucial issue in Europe. What practical measures could be put in place to support sustainable European farming?

Almost one in five working age Romanians (19.7%) lived in another EU country in 2017, new Eurostat figures show. Second largest shares were recorded in Lithuania (15.0%), Croatia (14.0%), Portugal (13.9%), Latvia (12.9%) and Bulgaria (12.5%). Germans were the least mobile Europeans, with only 1 percent living abroad followed by the UK (1.1%), Sweden and France (both on 1.3%).

On Tuesday in Strasbourg, the inaugural prize for journalists and whistleblowers in honour of Daphne Caruana Galizia will be awarded. Caruana Galizia was murdered in a car bomb attack in 2017, after exposing corruption in Malta.

Plenary - Strasbourg

Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

Kreuziger
Freedom of movement for persons
Advocate General Bot proposes that the Court of Justice should hold that the mere fact that a worker did not apply for leave cannot automatically entail the loss of the right to an allowance in lieu of untaken leave at the end of the employment relationship

Bauer
DFON
Advocate General Bot proposes that the Court of Justice rule that EU law precludes national legislation which prevents the heirs of a deceased worker from claiming an allowance in lieu of outstanding leave

Liga van Moskeeën en Islamitische Organisaties Provincie Antwerpen and Others
Agriculture and fisheries
The Court confirms that ritual slaughter without stunning may take place only in an approved slaughterhouse

On 23 May, EDA hosted a technical workshop on ‘Graphene in Defence’ which brought together some 50 experts from European Ministries of Defence, industry, SMEs, academia and research and technology organisations. With the graphene workstrand, EDA is entering unchartered but promising territory as it is the first time that this high-potential material is the subject of European collaboration in the defence domain.

The workshop is part of EDA’s ongoing ‘Impact of Graphene in Defence’ project run by a consortium led by Tecnalia R&I Innovation.   The ambition of this project is to evaluate the possibility of establishing a European Graphene Roadmap in Defence, through the assessment of graphene’s impact and potential application in eight defence-related domains:  

• (Opto)electronic materials and devices
• Flexible Systems
• Energy Devices
• Multifunctional materials
• Camouflage and signature management
• Membranes and filters
• Biomedical applications
• Sensors

The workshop was attended by representatives of the European Commission (DG CONNECT) who presented the ‘Graphene Flagship’, one of Future and Emerging Technology Flagships initiated by the Commission bringing together academic and industrial researchers to take graphene from the realm of academic laboratories into European society and industry.   Experts from industry, academia and MoDs also provided their insight and expertise with a view to identifying a possible timeline and the required investments to develop the 8 afore-mentioned defence applications in the air, land and domains as well as in other cross-cutting areas.

 

More information:

• EDA study to assess graphene potential for defence (EDA webnews, December 2017)

 

Libyan leaders meet in Paris on Tuesday for a summit, hosted by French president Emmanuel Macron, in order to unify rivals in the former Italian colony which descended into chaos after the death of dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011. Representatives from around 20 countries involved in the Libya crisis have been invited to discuss a political roadmap committing all parties to hold parliamentary and presidential elections this year.

Croatia ranks lowest in terms of perceived judicial independence among it citizens, with just over 20 percent seeing independence of courts and judges as being good or fairly good, according to the 2018 EU Justice Scoreboard published Monday. Among southeast European EU countries, Romanians showed the highest confidence in the independence of their judiciary, while Denmark topped the ranking with close to 90 percent trusting their courts and judges.

The far-right political group, Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF), was Monday evening asked by the European Parliament's bureau, headed by president, Antonio Tajani, to file comments on allegations made by the budgetary control committee that they misspent more than € 427,000. The group on charge includes French National Front, Italy's League, co-governing Austrian conservative FPO and the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) of Geert Wilders.

Following Ireland's abortion referendum last Friday, pressure is growing for Northern Irish women to gain the same right. Northern Ireland has blocked all efforts from London to liberalise its abortion law. More than 160 UK MPs, including some Conservatives, have written to prime minister Theresa May demanding a referendum on relaxing the abortion laws in Northern Ireland, but her Northern Irish DUP party allies are opposed.