Monday
23rd Apr 2018
By EUOBSERVER
The number of jobless people in Spain fell to 4.3 million, or 18.9%, in the July-to-September quarter, its National Statistics Institute said Thursday. Figures are down from a peak of 6 million in 2013 and below 20% for the first time in six years. Growth came from the tourism sector, as Europeans shunned Middle East and north Africa due to security fears, but new jobs were mostly short-term contracts.
Former and current members of the parliamentary assembly, including Spain's current state secretary for defence, broke codes of conduct, according to a damning new report.
French lawmakers are cracking down on asylum seekers in a bid to send those rejected back home. Controversial measures they passed over the weekend will now be debated in the French senate in June.
Years of heavy-duty and expensive lobbying, including of a European commissioner for health, has not opened the way for mouth tobacco sales in the EU. The EU court in Luxembourg last week refused to lift the ban.
The European Commission will present proposals to protect whistleblowers, combat fake news and organise the digital single market. The international community will gather in Brussels to discuss how to help Syrians in the current war and after.
MEPs are using so-called 'friendship groups' to cater to foreign governments without oversight and little public scrutiny. Initially set up to promote cultural exchanges, some have become lobbying platforms to push state views from governments with poor human rights records.
France and Germany have pledged to forge a joint position on euro reform by June, despite German reluctance on deeper monetary union.
