European Union

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The EU established bilateral relations with the GCC countries through a Cooperation Agreement signed in 1988. It forsees the establishment of an annual Joint Council/Ministerial Meeting.

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The European Criminal Records Information System (ECRIS), which EU countries use to exchange information on the criminal convictions of EU citizens, should be extended to include non-EU nationals, Civil Liberties Committee MEPs said on Monday. MEPs also want the system to be used to check the criminal records of people seeking to work with children.
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

The European Criminal Records Information System (ECRIS), which EU countries use to exchange information on the criminal convictions of EU citizens, should be extended to include non-EU nationals, Civil Liberties Committee MEPs said on Monday. MEPs also want the system to be used to check the criminal records of people seeking to work with children.
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

The Commission's proposal for a standard EU travel document, to speed up the process of returning non-EU nationals who stay "irregularly" in EU member states without valid passports or identity cards, was endorsed by Civil Liberties Committee MEPs on Monday. Members highlight that many EU countries are currently facing serious difficulties in returning these residents to their home countries in a safe and lawful way.
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

The Commission's proposal for a standard EU travel document, to speed up the process of returning non-EU nationals who stay "irregularly" in EU member states without valid passports or identity cards, was endorsed by Civil Liberties Committee MEPs on Monday. Members highlight that many EU countries are currently facing serious difficulties in returning these residents to their home countries in a safe and lawful way.
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Plans to set up an integrated EU border management system, with a flagship European Border and Coast Guard agency, bringing together Frontex and national border management authorities, were backed by the Civil Liberties Committee on Monday. They would enable extra border guard teams to be rapidly deployed to EU countries whose external borders are under pressure. National authorities would still manage their borders on a day-to-day basis, but could seek help from the new agency in a crisis.
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Plans to set up an integrated EU border management system, with a flagship European Border and Coast Guard agency, bringing together Frontex and national border management authorities, were backed by the Civil Liberties Committee on Monday. They would enable extra border guard teams to be rapidly deployed to EU countries whose external borders are under pressure. National authorities would still manage their borders on a day-to-day basis, but could seek help from the new agency in a crisis.
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Dear President Joseph Daul, dear friends,

People celebrate anniversaries in order to remember. What should we, Christian Democrats, remember when we celebrate the fortieth anniversary of our political community? First and foremost, we should remember why we are together, and what the real reason behind creating a one-party family was. Today we often refer to ourselves as a party of results, not a party of ideology but this is too little to survive in good shape for the next forty years. The need for a deeper reflection of a historical, ideological and political nature is obvious. Proud as we are of our pragmatism, we must also remember that pragmatism itself does not constitute the foundations of our community. 

Today, I want to tell you about the three, to my mind, most important challenges currently facing the European People's Party. First, we must redefine our fundamental catalogue of values, the minimum of Christian democracy, so to speak. And by this I do not mean the need for some ideological inventions, but rather a conscious and very seriously taken return to our roots. 

It has been forty years exactly since I started my studies at the University of Gdańsk. It was precisely at the same time when the communists once again brutally crushed workers' protests and strikes in several Polish cities. In reaction to those events, a small group of Warsaw intellectuals and dissidents established the so-called KOR, the Workers' Defense Committee, an initiative to help the imprisoned, the injured and those thrown out of work. Illegal students' committees were also being set up at some universities. We didn't know at the time that four years later the great 10-million-strong Solidarity movement would come to life. 

When I set up such an underground student committee at my University in 1977, I was not thinking about politics as an art of achieving results. It was difficult to call that activity pragmatic, as it was strictly connected with taking a risk. On the other hand, however, it was an exciting experience, if not mystical. And that's because in those days ethics came before politics, or, to put it differently, political engagement was a result of exclusively ethical motives. Paradoxically, this is precisely what in the longer-term perspective became a source of strength and effectiveness. 

It was also then that we were discovering forbidden words and ideas: liberty, democracy, freedom of religion and expression, the rule of law, free market and private property. It is not a feeling of nostalgia that makes me go back to the old times, but a deep conviction that those values are still relevant in the Christian democratic minimum. Do they sound old-fashioned and banal? They do. But this is where their strength lies. We do not need further constructivist and progressive ideologies. Socialists are much better at this. Let us again believe in those ideas which are rooted in our tradition of freedom, in the Decalogue, in our hearts and experiences. What we lack today is a new energy and genuine determination to defend them. 

Second, persistent in our commitment to fundamental principles, we must be guided in our political projects by common sense and a good sense of timing. It is us who today are responsible for confronting reality with all kinds of utopias. A utopia of Europe without nation states, a utopia of Europe without conflicting interests and ambitions, a utopia of Europe imposing its own values on the external world. A utopia of a Euro-Asian unity. 

Obsessed with the idea of instant and total integration, we failed to notice that ordinary people, the citizens of Europe do not share our Euro-enthusiasm. Disillusioned with the great visions of the future, they demand that we cope with the present reality better than we have been doing until now. Today, Euro-scepticism, or even Euro-pessimism have become an alternative to those illusions. And increasingly louder are those who question the very principle of a united Europe. The spectre of a break-up is haunting Europe and a vision of a federation doesn't seem to me like the best answer to it. We need to understand the necessity of the historical moment. As the President of the European Council I want to start an honest and open debate on the subject. The sixtieth anniversary of the Treaty of Rome provides a good background for such a debate. 

The third challenge concerns ourselves. Let me be absolutely blunt when I tell you what I think about the internal situation in the EPP, in our political party. Before I start, however, I want to make an important declaration: I am terribly proud to be in the same party with such people as Joseph Daul and Angela Merkel, as Viktor Orban and Manfred Weber, as Jean-Claude Juncker and Boyko Borissov. That they are different from each other is clear. Just look at Boyko and Jean-Claude. But differences should not mean conflicts. There is space in the EPP for different sensitivities and different tactics as long as we share the same values and a common strategy. When you look at it objectively, there is no conflict between the idea of strict respect for the rules, e.g. Schengen, and solidarity with the refugees. In addition to that, Europe needs a wise synthesis of those two values. If we succeed in building it, people will believe that we are able to cope with this or another crisis. Speaking openly, we will either understand that the views of Angela and Viktor are compatible with each other and only together can they provide a full answer, or people will search for other radical and brutal recipes for how to solve the crisis. We have to look for what we share, and not underline our differences. That is why let us refrain from exaggerated rhetoric, because exaggeration, in whichever direction, is a heavy sin in politics.

If we want a united Europe, a Europe of Solidarity, we must start with ourselves. One of the great moral authorities, John Paul the Second said that Solidarity is never one against the other. Solidarity is always one with the other, together. When one is a Christian Democrat, it is sometimes worth listening to the Pope.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

OPINION on implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities with special regard to the Concluding Observations of the UN CRPD Committee
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Richard Howitt

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

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Conclusions adopted by the Council on developing media literacy and critical thinking through education and training acknowledge the many benefits and opportunities that the Internet and social media can bring, but also highlight the potential threats and dangers they can present. The conclusions stress the fundamental role of education and training in helping young people to become media-literate and responsible citizens of the future.

Read the full text of the Council conclusion on developing media literacy and critical thinking through education and training

General : Plans to set up an EU Border and Coast Guard are to be put to a vote in Parliament's civil liberties committee this week. MEPs also vote on proposals to introduce a standard European travel document for non-EU nationals and to expand the exchange of criminal records between member states. At a hearing in the human rights subcommittee members discuss the plight of minority groups caught up in Syria's civil war and in ISIS atrocities. Preparations also take place for next week's plenary session.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

General : Plans to set up an EU Border and Coast Guard are to be put to a vote in Parliament's civil liberties committee this week. MEPs also vote on proposals to introduce a standard European travel document for non-EU nationals and to expand the exchange of criminal records between member states. At a hearing in the human rights subcommittee members discuss the plight of minority groups caught up in Syria's civil war and in ISIS atrocities. Preparations also take place for next week's plenary session.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

The International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) was born 33 years ago, when 11 regulators from North and South America got together as markets were beginning to look global.  Today, there are 126 securities regulators from across all continents, who are members of IOSCO. IOSCO’s raison d’etre is to set global standards for securities regulation. It meets every year to review priorities; however, the annual AGM in Lima, Peru, earlier this month, was a bit different.

 New Leadership

Ex-US FINRA Paul Andrews had just succeeded long standing EU Commission servant David Wright as Secretary General, Hong Kong SFC Ashley Alder was elected as new chair of the IOSCO Board, replacing Australia’s ASSIC’s chair Greg Medcraft, and JP Servais provided the dose of Europe in the new IOSCO leadership, coming in as Vice-Chair.

New Agenda

While much of the focus was on market liquidity and the opportunities and threats of FinTech on securities markets, there were also some new items on the agenda:

• New powers granted to IOSCO members to more effectively deter cross-border misconduct and fraud in markets;
• New mandates relating to retail investors: to review industry practices on investor vulnerability; to apply insights from behavioral economics to investor initiatives; and to run a pilot world investor week in 2017;
• New working group on infrastructure finance;
• New mechanisms for securities regulators to gather and share information on cyber risk/security issues; and
• New ways for the financing of SMEs

New Challenges & Opportunities

• Award-winning costume designer Ed Stevenson once said: “Standards only move in one direction. At the beginning of the world, standards were established and they’ve been slipping ever since.”By contrast , IOSCO’s standards have got better and better over the years. Witness the recent EU negotiations on Benchmarks regulation, where the majority of public and private sector actors involved praised IOSCO’s work in that space (i.e its Principles for Financial Benchmarks and for Price Reporting Agencies). Will this be the new “benchmark” by which IOSCO standards are judged going forward?

• Not only does the EU Benchmarks legislation, adopted last month, reproduce (word for word at times) most of the IOSCO principles, it also places, for the first time in EU Regulation history, compliance with such principles at the heart of the Third-Country regime (i.e the ability for non-EU benchmarks to be used in the EU). Will IOSCO seek to promote this precedent in other areas? And could the fact that IOSCO standards increasingly gain the force of law through national/regional copy and pasting impact the dynamics within IOSCO?

• Certain provisions of the Benchmarks legislation were markedly influenced by central banks, given the potential financial stability implications of a benchmark (in particular a critical one) ceasing to exist. Central banks are also driving the global initiative to improve conduct in FX trading, which one might have expected to be classic securities regulators’ territory. It is of course, but it is also seen as a source of systemic risk. And so is market liquidity, the rise of electronic and algorithmic trading, bond funds redemptions, and many other traditional securities regulators’ topics. This year’s motto for the IOSCO AGM in Lima was “Strengthening global bridges for financial development”. Could next year’s be “Strengthening global bridges with central bankers?”.

• One final new challenge, coming from Europe at least, is the growing call for “democratic accountability”. Recall French ALDE MEP Sylvie Goulard’s recent own-initiative report on the EU in international fora, calling all global standard setters to be more transparent and establish a transparency register similar to what Brussels has, but also now taken on by Paris and Dublin. If Europe’s flexibility to develop its own rules is diminished as a result of an increased recognition of global standards agreed “upstairs”, is this a sacrifice worth making for international standard setters, and might this impact the future quality of their standards?

Ed Stevenson’s numerous film and television credits included Citizen Kane (1942), which is often cited as being among the greatest films of all time. FleihmanHillard is honoured to host Citizen Andrews, new IOSCO Secretary General, at a Roundtable in Brussels on 31st May, where we will hear Paul’s thoughts on some of the issues and questions listed above, as well as his priorities and broader vision for IOSCO going forward.

By Bertrand Huet, Senior Vice President & Partner.

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The Informal meeting of EU Ministers for Urban Matters takes place on 30 May 2016 in Amsterdam.

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