European Union

The Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel Prize in Literature, has been hit by a major crisis: in the aftermath of a corruption and harassment scandal involving the husband of Academy member Katarina Frostenson, three of the other members who are elected for life have walked out. Not only Swedish commentators are wondering what this means for the Academy's future.

The conservative Hungarian daily Magyar Nemzet will be published for the last time today, Wednesday. Its owner, Lajos Simicska, an oligarch and former Fidesz supporter who now fiercely opposes Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, announced the newspaper's closure on Tuesday. Journalism must not be sacrificed for the sake of personal interests, commentators admonish.

Eight years after the plane crash that killed then Polish president Lech Kaczyński and over 80 dignitaries near the Russian city of Smolensk, the government in Warsaw has unveiled a memorial to the victims in Warsaw. What meaning does the monument have for the ruling PiS and Poland as a nation?

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EU Ministers of Foreign and European Affairs meet on 12 April 2018 in Luxembourg to discuss the future of Cohesion Policy post-2020. They are being informed on action taken to strengthen the communication of cohesion policy and are adopting conclusions on delivery and implementation of cohesion policy post-2020.

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The informal meeting of EU Environment Ministers is held in Sofia on 10 and 11 April 2018 and focuses on three important issues: ambient air quality, better regulation and climate change.

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will take place on 25 -26 April 2018 in Brussels.

Organisations or interest groups who wish to apply for access to the European Parliament will find the relevant information below.

Further information
watch the meeting live
Access rights for interest group representatives
Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA): EU policy options in case of U.S. decertification
Further information
Programme
Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

Are we done yet?

Long time no see. At this particular moment a lot is going on around the EU. We are slowly preparing ourselves for an EU budget proposal beyond 2020 at the beginning of May. This exercise highlights main policy areas of Member State’s interest. The EU budget currently funds some of the most well-known and important EU programmes: Erasmus+, European Solidarity Corps, Horizon 2020, Galileo and the Cohesion policy. Although, if you go on any street in Europe and ask some random people about those programmes, they will not be able to say almost anything about them. OK, except for Erasmus. I think we all agree that the Erasmus takes it all. Unfortunately, the EU success story cannot always tell us very nice stories about studying abroad. It needs some new fuel. 

Close circle

What strikes me right now, in our debate about the EU is the failure of courage to protect this great project. This is in fact the biggest international cooperation on a global scale. Do not get me wrong, all pro-EU initiatives are super important (go and visit WhyEurope – super good initiative!!), but living in a heart of Europe, in Brussels, make me even more aware of the fact that our activities are somehow “blocked” for the public.

Part of my work here includes my presence at different conferences and seminars. The main aim is to grasp (yes, very unequal level of events) crucial and important information about the EU activities. A lot about EU policies, programmes and projects, initiatives, opinions, results, research, innovative ideas… Endless pages of notes. Hundreds emails. No one reads my report since it contains more than 170 words. You see how big words change your thinking, but not the reality around. When I hear “dissemination” in the EU context, I am ready to run as far as possible… I know that this means sending out information without any specific strategy and target group. As a result, it is rather a spamming exercise with a limited patient on the other side.

Even closer circle

I am still waiting for any EU campaign which will rock our minds. I strongly believe it is possible, but a nice animation is not the key element for that. You have to be less formal, less correct, less naive… People remember emotions, so get to their emotions. The best thing is that I know a lot of people working in the European Commission, which good ideas are immediately cut at the lowest level by the top people, who do not understand or are too bored already to be involved and let some fresh air into the room. What happens now is of your own making. Nothing great in this world happened, because someone was following blindly existing at that point in time rules. The same story with the EU. Some courage was needed to foreseen this kind of project.

Therefore, as long as the EC (since this institution represents the EU voice in its pure definition) does not let some people out of the box (desks), we will not see any change in the process. Currently, it is difficult to deny the fact that the EU is too far from its citizens to be understood.

The post Where is the EU? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

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President Tusk receives the Honorary Lifetime Membership of the University College Dublin Law Society, on 10 April 2018, in Dublin.

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Uber France
Approximation of laws
Member States may prohibit and punish, as a matter of criminal law, the illegal exercise of transport activities in the context of the UberPop service, without notifying the Commission in advance of the draft legislation laying down criminal penalties for the exercise of such activities

Banger
Citizenship of the Union
Advocate General Bobek: where an EU citizen returns to his Member State of origin, that Member State must facilitate the entry and residence of the citizen’s non-EU partner with whom he has created or strengthened family ties in another Member State

Pisciotti
DISC
A Member State is not required to extend a prohibition on the extradition of its own nationals to the United States to every EU citizen travelling in its territory