Image by Ben Beiske via Flickr On the 1st of January a new era will dawn on Hungary. It will take over the Presidency of European Council for the first time and a new law on media freedom will come into effect. While the first thing is something for Hungarians to celebrate, the law on the other hand is not. It has been criticised by the OSCE Media freedom representative who wrote in a report that “Regulating print media...
Image via Wikipedia Michael Heaver is reporting that 11 members of the European Conservatives and Reformists, those MEPs of the Polish Law and Justice, are set to leave the ECR and join the Europe of Freedom and Democracy grouping in the Parliament. This casts the survival of the the grouping into doubt as for a group to exist it must have 25 MEPs from across seven member states to be a grouping. If the Polish MEPs leave that would...
Image via Wikipedia Here is an interesting Press Release I got today from Maltese MEP Simon Busuttil of the European People’s Party. European Union Border Guard System proposed. Simon Busuttil MEP “Europe can no longer look on powerless at emergency situations because it is unable to muster resources or pool assets.” Simon Busuttil MEP Simon Busuttil MEP is proposing the establishment of a European Union Border Guard System that would bolster the EU’s external border agency, Frontex. Busuttil presented...
Image via Wikipedia A meeting of the EU-Croatia Joint Parliamentary Committee has concluded that, “Croatian Accession negotiations can be concluded in the first half of 2011 provided that Croatia meets all the outstanding closing benchmarks in the remaining chapters.” Swedish EPP MEP, who co-chairs the EU-Croatia Joint Parliamentary Committee stressed the importance to the Balkans of Croatia joining the EU. “Both for the EU and for the region, it is important that the conditionality linked to a credible EU...
Image via Wikipedia The European Commission has decided to add Montenegro to the list of Candidate Countries. In an opinion issued on the 9th of November the Commission stated: On Montenegro, the Commission concluded that Montenegro is ready to become a candidate country to EU membership, while further reforms are needed in a number of key areas, as set out in the opinion, before the country is ready to start accession negotiations. Montenegro still has criteria to meet under...
Image via Wikipedia I meant to post this during the week. I received this via email from the Centre for the Study of Wider Europe in NUI Maynooth, during the week and some readers may find this interesting. To coincide with the visit to Dublin of Mr Egemen Bağiş, Turkey’s Chief Negotiator with the European Union, The Centre for the Study of Wider Europe (www.widereurope.ie ) at the National University of Ireland Maynooth is to host a one day...
Image via Wikipedia Irish Minister for Europe, Dick Roche, has been re-elected as one of the Vice-Presidents of the European Liberal Democratic and Reform Party at its recent congress in Helsinki. He was originally elected last November at the ELDR’s congress in Barcelona. He was elected with 67% of the vote. The other Vice Presidents Elected were Graham Watson, of the UK Liberal Democrats, former leader of the ALDE grouping of the European Parliament and Vesna Pusic of the...
Something on the European Movement Ireland page twigged my interest towards the end of last week. On Wednesday the Catherine Ashton, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs announced 27 new Heads of EU Delegation and 1 Deputy Head of EU Delegation. Of these 3 were Irish. That was the second highest number awarded to any country in this rotation. The full break down was as follows: Spain 5 Ireland 3 France 3 Germany 2 Netherlands Italy 2 Poland 2...
The Spanish Presidency of the European Union on Wednesday will begin an Intergovernmental Conference to amend the Governing Treaties of the European Union to allow 18 MEPs to take their seats in the European Parliament under the Lisbon Treaty as elections took place under Nice Treaty rules. This new treaty will not greatly effect Ireland unless they decide to go changing other things. The following countries will gain MEP’s under the new Treaty: * Bulgaria 1 * Netherlands 1...
The European Year of the Volunteer 2011
2011 has been designated the European Year of the Volunteer by the European Union. This is following a campaign led by Marian Harkin MEP (Ireland/ALDE). She worked with the unofficial “EP Volunteering Interest Group” to lobby the Parliament, the Council and the Commission on this initiative. Volunteering is very important in many Member States. Across the EU 92 to 94 million adults are involved in volunteering in the EU. That is 23% of all Europeans over 15 years of...
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