
Poland imposes anti-abortion law amid EU concern
Poland is bringing a divisive anti-abortion law into force, amid escalating EU doubt on the legality of its court system.
Thursday
28th Jan 2021
Poland is bringing a divisive anti-abortion law into force, amid escalating EU doubt on the legality of its court system.
The Kamiano food distribution centre in Brussels is expecting 20 people every half hour on Christmas Day. For many, Kamiano is also more than that - a support system for those made homeless or impoverished.
EU tribunal said Hungary's legislation made it "virtually impossible" to make an asylum application. Restricting access to international protection procedure is a violation of EU rules.
The Belgian and Bulgarian prosecutors who were appointed had also not been the experts' first choice. Belgian prosecutor Jean-Michel Verelst has challenged the council's decision at the European Court of Justice.
Frontex has pledged to create a searchable central document management system by the end of the year, while Europol has agreed to be more proactive.
Leading centre-right and liberal MEPs have called on Lisbon to clarify the appointment of José Guerra as its EU public prosecutor, amid efforts to depoliticise the new anti-fraud body.
Portuguese justice minister Francisca Van Dunem, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, argued that the Lisbon government was only following the advice of the country's magistrates when pushing for its candidate.
The European Commission has not ruled out allowing police access to encrypted services. Instead, it says a balance needs to be found to protect rights while at the same time offering some leeway to law enforcement.
With Brexit talks intensifying, MEPs are pressing negotiators to cut UK access to the EU's Schengen Information System, a database used by police and border guards.
"How well I'm screwed," was the then Maltese prime minister Joseph Muscat's first thought on 16 October 2017, when he found out his country's best-known journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia, had just been murdered by a car bomb.
Belgium revoked residency rights of 16,563 EU nationals between 2008 and 2019, according to Liège University migration scholar Jean-Michel Lafleur.
More than 60 NGOs and media, including EUobserver, have signed a call for an EU-wide law to stop the rich and powerful from silencing critics with malicious litigation.
The EU border agency Frontex's annual budget for 2020 is €460m. Now they are launching court proceedings against two pro-transparency campaigners for not paying them €24,000 in legal fees after losing a case last year.
The EU recently signed a huge contract for a US anti-corona drug which, the WHO says, might not work, but there's little transparency on how the deal was made.
The European Commission has urged Poland not to abandon a treaty against domestic violence, as Warsaw continues to drift further from EU norms.
The European Commission exchanged 24 letters with Bulgaria, Cyprus and Malta over their 'Golden Passports' schemes between October 2019 and October 2020. Malta took 67 days to respond to the commission's first letter, followed by Cyprus (42) then Bulgaria.
You hear voices already calling for the European Council to give in to the Hungarian and Polish demands, by coming up with supposedly 'technical' solutions allowing them to veto any corruption case or breaches of the rule of law .
The fate of Jonathan Taylor, a British whistleblower stuck in legal limbo in Croatia, is a test of European laws designed to protect those who put themselves at risk for the common good.
At the very moment when an incumbent president across the Atlantic was carrying out staggering attacks on the foundations of democracy, the European Parliament obtained a historic agreement to protect the rule of law in Europe.
Migrants ought to learn EU languages and "integrate" their children, while encrypted messaging apps should give keys to authorities to combat terrorism, EU ministers are preparing to say.
Plans to reform the EU free-travel zone were already announced in September by the European Commission. On Friday, it re-stated those intentions following demands by the French president for a major overhaul.
French president Emmanuel Macron has pledged deep reform of free movement in the EU in the wake of recent terrorist attacks.
More than half a million people protested in Poland over the weekend against a recent court ruling that effectively bans abortion.
EU leaders have urged other nations to stop inciting hatred after a Tunisian migrant murdered three people in France on Thursday.
Feminists disrupted church services in Poland on Sunday in a fourth day of "revolution" against new anti-abortion laws and the ruling party's right-wing vision.
Cyprus and Malta are breaking EU law and facilitating crime by selling 'golden passports' to wealthy foreigners, the European Commission has said.
French people have held rallies in outrage over the murder of a history teacher by an Islamist extremist.
Spain's socialist-led coalition has proposed changing how members of the country's top judicial body, the General Council of the Judiciary, are appointed - triggering a political and judicial storm about the independence, and drawing 'double standards' complaints from Poland.
Cyprus has earned some €7bn from the sale of EU citizenship since 2013. Now it says it will scrap its scheme from next month, in the wake of an investigation by Al Jazeera news.
The German EU presidency is striving to sort a political agreement on the migration and asylum pact before the end of the year. In reality, it means two months when factoring Christmas holidays.
While the leaders of Greece's Golden Dawn facing lengthy jail terms, the atmosphere remains tense in Athens and some other parts of Greece. Depending on the exact sentencing, further clashes between anarchist-leftists and remnants of the extreme-right may ensue.
The European Commission claims that it evaluates all member states objectively. In that regard, its new rule-of-law report is a manifest failure.
The inaugural annual rule of law review highlighted shortcomings in member states - but will not lead to concrete action.