European Union

General : The Lux Prize not only gives recognition to some of the best European films, but also serves as an opportunity to show them to cinema lovers across the EU. Join the conversation on social media, enjoy the films and learn more about the Lux Prize and the people whose creativity and passion brought us this year's finalists: Mediterranea, Mustang and The Lesson.

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

REPORT on the role of the EU within the UN - how to better achieve EU foreign policy goals
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Paavo Väyrynen

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

General : Martin Schulz called for a comprehensive and long-term migration policy in cooperation with African countries in order to tackle the refugee crisis. The EP President made the plea on 10 November at the Maltese Parliament ahead of the Valletta summit on migration taking place today and tomorrow. Schulz said: “As long as war continues, people will continue to flee and won’t be able to return home.”

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

General : Martin Schulz called for a comprehensive and long-term migration policy in cooperation with African countries in order to tackle the refugee crisis. The EP President made the plea on 10 November at the Maltese Parliament ahead of the Valletta summit on migration taking place today and tomorrow. Schulz said: “As long as war continues, people will continue to flee and won’t be able to return home.”

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

Plenary sessions : Aviation is a key driver of economic growth and jobs, but in order to ensure safety and let European companies maintain their competitiveness, current EU rules need to be updated. The European Commission is working on proposals now, but MEPs have already adopted a resolution on what they would like to see in the aviation package to be announced by the end of the year. Check out our infographic about the EU's largest airports.

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

Plenary sessions : Aviation is a key driver of economic growth and jobs, but in order to ensure safety and let European companies maintain their competitiveness, current EU rules need to be updated. The European Commission is working on proposals now, but MEPs have already adopted a resolution on what they would like to see in the aviation package to be announced by the end of the year. Check out our infographic about the EU's largest airports.

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

Dyson v Commission
Energy
Dyson’s action for annulment of the regulation on energy labelling of vacuum cleaners is unsuccessful

Pujante Rivera
SOPO
The termination of an employment contract following the worker’s refusal to accept a significant unilateral change to essential elements of the contract which operates to his detriment constitutes a redundancy for the purpose of the directive on collective redundancies

Tecom Mican and Arias Domínguez
Area of Freedom, Security and Justice
The Court defines for the first time the concept of extrajudicial documents of which the formal transmission to addressees residing in another Member State is necessary

Length of video : 134'
You may manually download this video in WMV (1.5Gb) format

Disclaimer : The interpretation of debates serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic record of proceedings. Only the original speech or the revised written translation is authentic.
Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

‘Mein Europa’ – ‘My Europe’ – the book published by Helmut Schmidt only two years ago, was not a new monograph, but a collection of different publications and speeches on European integration. It spans a lifetime – from his very first article about cooperation in a not yet existing community dating from June 1948 to his editorials about the crisis-ridden Union of the 21st century published in Die Zeit.

‘His Europe’ was not a love affair. With the pragmatic realism that the Germans automatically identify with his beloved city Hamburg and therefore refer to as ‘hanseatic’, he often pointed out that there was no need to be a ‘European idealist’. For him it was perfectly sufficient to see just how much it has always been and still is in the ‘strategic interest’ of the Federal Republic of Germany to remain a staunch defender of European integration. He had a deep intellectual and personal admiration for Jean Monnet, and he shared the Frenchman’s belief in the ‘essential rationality of people’. Asked for a wish at the occasion of his 95th anniversary last year, he said ‘My wish is that the Germans understand that the European Union must be completed – rather than putting ourselves above it’.

He also never forgot what the young Federal Republic owed to Europe’s founding fathers: ‘In 1950, the Schuman Plan appeared to me as an undeserved stroke of luck for Germany’, he wrote in his 2008 memoirs entitled ‘Off duty’. While he had, as an anglophile from Northern Germany, much greater cultural affinity with Britain and the English language than with his French neighbours, he never tired of reminding his successors to keep in mind that they should do ‘nothing without France!’ And he cultivated, over almost half a century, a somewhat surprising friendship with Valéry Giscard d’Estaing based on mutual esteem and trust, despite their obvious differences in temper and upbringing.

Like his friend, with whom he institutionalised the European Council and introduced the European Monetary System, he was always tempted to criticise the lack of leadership in today’s EU. But he recognised of course that an EEC of nine member states, which had already been sufficiently difficult to manage, was a piece of cake compared to today’s Union of 28. With the freedom of thought of the elder statesman he repeatedly called for a ‘Putsch’ of the European Parliament in order to shake up an institutional framework he considered no longer appropriate.

Helmut Schmidt was the first German chancellor I voted for in 1980. Some of the convictions he represented at that time have been a guidance ever since. The firm belief that the greatest accomplishment of post-war Europe is the welfare state, for instance. Or the will not to put his sharp intelligence in the service of an ideology or party line, but to find strong ethical foundations in a few non-negotiable, fundamental values: ‘freedom’, ‘justice’ and ‘solidarity’, as he summed them up in his own lexical update of the French revolution’s legacy.

It is a sad coincidence that Helmut Schmidt, a lifelong friend of Britain and promotor of the UK’s role in the European Union, passed away on the same day when the British prime minister defiantly throws his four-point letter on the table. At the same time there is also some ironical comfort in the fact that Cameron’s letter and speech were entirely eclipsed in the German news by the memories of a great statesman. It’s a good lesson: the ones you remember fondly are those who stand up and defend their beliefs in adversity, those who contribute to daring undertakings rather than sulk in their corner. One of my favourites quotes in class when I speak about the creation of the European Union is the one from Shakespeare’s Julius Cesar with which Helmut Schmidt concluded his elegant speech at the Labour conference of November 1974 in Brighton:

There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune ;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full tide are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

His Europe was one that took the current when it served, rather than losing its ventures.

Albrecht Sonntag, EU-Asia Institute,
ESSCA School of Management.
@Essca_Eu_Asia

The post His Europe appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The EU referendum campaign is going to get ‘nasty’, promised those pushing for Britain to leave the EU.

In a taste of what’s to come, two Eurosceptic students interrupted a speech by Prime Minister, David Cameron, at a CBI conference yesterday, yelling, “CBI! Voice of Brussels”.

The Daily Telegraph reported that the ‘Vote Leave’ campaign is “now gearing up for 12 months of protest, including disrupting the meetings of pro-EU companies and organisations.”

Their campaign director, Dominic Cummings, was reported to say:

“You think it’s nasty – you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

He promised a “guerrilla-style war” against pro-EU bodies and companies and said, “These guys have failed the country, they are going to be under the magnifying glass. Tough s**t.”

The two students who disrupted the Prime Minister’s speech obtained passes to the conference by setting up a fake company and website, reported The Telegraph.

The CBI has repeatedly been a target of Eurosceptics because they undertake paid research for the European Union.

In a Parliamentary debate earlier this year, Eurosceptic Tory MP, Bernard Jenkin, claimed that the CBI received funds from the European Union, “presumably to promote the EU.”

Added Eurosceptic Tory MP, Jacob Rees-Mogg: “We know that the CBI is in part funded by Europe. It is therefore under an obligation either to return that money or to support the objectives of the European Union.”

But the CBI robustly rejected the allegations.

Their Director of Campaigns, Andy Bagnall, told me, “We strongly refute these misleading claims. The EU debate has a long way to go and both sides must base their arguments on the facts if they are to have any value at all.”

Rain Newton-Smith, the CBI’s Director of Economics, added that the organisation competitively tenders to provide the EU with economic data and that this represented just 0.6% of the CBI’s total annual income.

She told me, “The CBI is under no obligation to promote the EU. We speak on behalf of our 190,000 members who employ nearly 7 million people and while the majority wish to remain within a reformed EU, we do not shy away from criticising aspects of European legislation where necessary.

And Ken Clarke, former Justice Secretary and a co-President of British Influence, wrote to say:

“It is really absurd for hard-line Eurosceptics to argue that the CBI is being bribed by Brussels to support British membership of the EU. Anyone who knows any number of senior businessmen knows that the vast majority strongly believe in the benefits of membership.”

According to the latest opinion polls, Britain is split right down the middle on whether the country should remain a member of the European Union or leave. A poll by Survation for the Daily Mail this autumn revealed that the electorate was 51/49 against Britain’s continued membership of the EU.

The poll revealed a stark difference to a poll by Ipso Mori at the beginning of the summer, which claimed that 75% of British people were in favour of Britain’s continued membership of the EU, with only 25% wanting to leave.

That’s all now changed, according to some commentators, because of Europe’s mishandling of the refugee crisis.

The new poll revealed that if the “current migration crisis gets worse”, 22% of those wanting Britain to ‘Remain’ in the EU might switch to the ‘Leave’ campaign.

So there is everything to play for by both sides of the campaign. If the new poll is right, neither side currently has enough support for a decisive win, so both sides will have to work harder. No wonder things are getting desperate.

But is ‘getting nasty’ the way to win hearts and minds, and most importantly, votes? Wouldn’t a more calm, considered and edifying debate, where both sides listen carefully and politely to both sides of the argument, be in the best interests of the country?

After all, whether Britain remains in the EU or leaves, we’ll all still have to live with each other after the referendum result is announced.

So wouldn’t it be better for the referendum campaign to be civil, rather than to become a civil war?

*Join the discussion about this article on Facebook.

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Related stories by Jon Danzig:

• Many most affected by the EU referendum will have no vote
• The rich who want Britain out of Europe
• There must be 50 ways to leave your party

To receive regular updates on this and other ongoing stories, please click the ‘Like’ button on my new Facebook page: Jon Danzig Writes

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The post EU Referendum: ‘It’s going to get nasty’ appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

AMENDMENTS 1 - 255 - Draft report on the Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World 2014 and the European Union’s policy on the matter
Committee on Foreign Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP