European Union

General : We all love to travel, but do you know what to do if things go wrong? When there is an emergency, your flight gets cancelled or you lose your passport? There are EU rules in place to make travellers' lives easier. Here are a few key points to remember.

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

General : We all love to travel, but do you know what to do if things go wrong? When there is an emergency, your flight gets cancelled or you lose your passport? There are EU rules in place to make travellers' lives easier. Here are a few key points to remember.

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

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EU Ministers of Foreign and European Affairs meet in Brussels on 20 July 2015 to discuss the latest events in Tunisia, and to try and revive the Middle East peace process.

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ESM chief Klaus Regling, right, with German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble

Now that eurozone finance ministers have approved reopening bailout talks with Greece, the long slog to negotiating a €86bn deal begins. And one of the remaining unanswered questions is just how Greece’s bailout creditors plan to pay for it.

Klaus Regling, who heads the eurozone’s €500bn rescue fund, told German television this week that his European Stability Mechanism was preparing a loan of “perhaps €50bn” for Greece’s third bailout. That would leave as much as €36bn to scrape together from other sources.

The second largest source of bailout funding throughout the Greek crisis has always been the International Monetary Fund, which is still in the middle of a five-year €28bn rescue. That IMF programme has distributed €11.6bn so far, leaving €16.4bn that the new bailout could tap.

But the recent update of the IMF’s debt sustainability analysis, published by the Fund on Tuesday, makes clear that they are in no mood to disburse any of those funds unless there is a full-scale debt restructuring – which Germany and other eurozone creditor countries have fiercely resisted.

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Plenary sessions : While the conflict in Ukraine continues, the country and the EU ratified a bilateral association agreement on 16 September 2014. Read up on all the latest developments in Ukraine with the help of our timeline, from the Euromaidan movement to the historic vote in the two parliaments in September and the parliamentary elections in Ukraine in October.

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

Plenary sessions : While the conflict in Ukraine continues, the country and the EU ratified a bilateral association agreement on 16 September 2014. Read up on all the latest developments in Ukraine with the help of our timeline, from the Euromaidan movement to the historic vote in the two parliaments in September and the parliamentary elections in Ukraine in October.

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

The priorities of Luxembourg EU Council Presidency will be outlined to the various parliamentary committees by Luxembourg ministers in a series of meetings to be held during this week.
Committee on International Trade
Committee on Development
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Committee on Budgets
Committee on Budgetary Control
Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs
Committee on Legal Affairs
Committee on Culture and Education
Committee on Constitutional Affairs
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs
Committee on Petitions
Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality
Subcommittee on Human Rights
Special Committee on Tax Rulings and Other Measures Similar in Nature or Effect
Subcommittee on Security and Defence
Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety
Committee on Employment and Social Affairs
Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection
Committee on Industry, Research and Energy
Committee on Regional Development
Committee on Transport and Tourism
Committee on Fisheries
Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

The priorities of Luxembourg EU Council Presidency will be outlined to the various parliamentary committees by Luxembourg ministers in a series of meetings to be held during this week.
Committee on International Trade
Committee on Development
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Committee on Budgets
Committee on Budgetary Control
Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs
Committee on Legal Affairs
Committee on Culture and Education
Committee on Constitutional Affairs
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs
Committee on Petitions
Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality
Subcommittee on Human Rights
Special Committee on Tax Rulings and Other Measures Similar in Nature or Effect
Subcommittee on Security and Defence
Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety
Committee on Employment and Social Affairs
Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection
Committee on Industry, Research and Energy
Committee on Regional Development
Committee on Transport and Tourism
Committee on Fisheries
Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

The priorities of Luxembourg EU Council Presidency will be outlined to the various parliamentary committees by Luxembourg ministers in a series of meetings to be held during this week.
Committee on International Trade
Committee on Development
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Committee on Budgets
Committee on Budgetary Control
Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs
Committee on Legal Affairs
Committee on Culture and Education
Committee on Constitutional Affairs
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs
Committee on Petitions
Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality
Subcommittee on Human Rights
Special Committee on Tax Rulings and Other Measures Similar in Nature or Effect
Subcommittee on Security and Defence
Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety
Committee on Employment and Social Affairs
Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection
Committee on Industry, Research and Energy
Committee on Regional Development
Committee on Transport and Tourism
Committee on Fisheries
Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

The priorities of Luxembourg EU Council Presidency will be outlined to the various parliamentary committees by Luxembourg ministers in a series of meetings to be held during this week.
Committee on International Trade
Committee on Development
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Committee on Budgets
Committee on Budgetary Control
Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs
Committee on Legal Affairs
Committee on Culture and Education
Committee on Constitutional Affairs
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs
Committee on Petitions
Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality
Subcommittee on Human Rights
Special Committee on Tax Rulings and Other Measures Similar in Nature or Effect
Subcommittee on Security and Defence
Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety
Committee on Employment and Social Affairs
Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection
Committee on Industry, Research and Energy
Committee on Regional Development
Committee on Transport and Tourism
Committee on Fisheries
Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

Delegations

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

Donald Tusk, the European Council president, listens to a question during Thursday's interview

After spending much of the six-month standoff between Greece and its eurozone creditors on the sidelines, Donald Tusk, the former Polish prime minister who is now European Council president, became the central actor in the Greek drama over the weekend when a summit he chaired became the scene of 17-hour marathon talks that finally led to a deal on Monday morning.

In a 90 minute interview with the Financial Times and six European newspapers, Tusk gave a behind-the-scenes account of how the deal was brokered – but he also gave voice to fears that the standoff has given new energy to radical political forces in Europe that has made 2015 resemble 1968. Our full write-up of the interview, focusing on his concerns about renewed radicalisation can be read here.

But as is our practice at the Brussels Blog, we’re providing a transcript of the interview below. It is slightly edited to eliminate occasionally long-winded questions and topics not directly related to the Greek crisis.

The interview started with a question on Germany and whether Tusk agreed with some commentators that Berlin’s standing in Europe has been hurt by perceptions Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, bullied Greece and its leader, Alexis Tsipras, into a deal on her terms.

I think the position in Germany today, after this negotiation, is maybe not weaker, but for sure not more powerful. It was one of my main aims in these negotiations, to avoid this risk that someone is a loser and someone is a winner, especially because as you noticed, for sure, the discussion during this economic negotiation was also about things like dignity, humiliation, trust. From history, we know very well that we can’t ignore such values, or such feelings or emotions like dignity, humiliation and trust, especially when we go back to German history. The discussion about dignity and humiliation could recall the most dangerous time in Europe, and this is why I think it’s very important to avoid this dimension in discussions and in negotiation because for sure what we needed was to have no losers and no winners in this context.

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BiH is a potential candidate country for EU accession following the Thessaloniki European Council, June 2003. On 16 June 2008, the Parties signed the Stabilization and Association Agreement.

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