Dealing with the legacy of 2016, 2017 started off as a very uncertain year. Adding to this, four of the founding countries of the European Union will have to go through general, presidential and federal elections. As the optimistic predictions on Brexit and the US went terribly wrong, it is now time to consider what could happen if populism won.
READ MOREThe elephant in the room is now too big to be ignored and too obvious to be buried in mumblings.
READ MOREAmid the substantial increase in child marriage as a negative coping strategy to the humanitarian crisis in Syria, European nations are scrambling to find sustainable response to the influx of child brides. Recent cases involving de-facto or de-jure recognition of child marriage in Member States that ban such unions have not only triggered concern on the lack of protective measures for child brides, but also demonstrated that addressing child marriage is not at all a straightforward endeavor.
READ MOREThe Kingdom of Morocco worked very hard to attain an advanced status within the EU. A status abounding with opportunities for an emerging country and its economy, culminated in 2013 when negotiations for a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) started.
READ MOREThe European Commission and the US have just come to a deal to replace Safe Harbour, which ensured a blanket allowance for EU-US data transfers before its invalidation by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The newly-baptised Privacy Shield is supposed to set a framework for transatlantic data flows ensuring compliance with the EU Data Protection Directive. However, except for a fancy new name and a couple of nice declarations of intention, there is – at this time – no sign that it will offer better guarantees regarding EU citizens’ rights to privacy and data protection.
READ MOREOn 2 December 2015, the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties (LIBE) Committee endorsed a directive on “the use of passenger name record (PNR) data for the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of terrorist offences and serious crime” (EU-PNR). It seems, therefore, that the long journey of the EU-PNR directive – initially proposed in 2011 – is coming to its end, as the European Parliament (EP) is expected to hold a final vote in February 2016. However, this directive still seems strongly contestable – and contested – on the grounds that it jeopardizes EU citizens’ fundamental rights to privacy and data protection (Art. 7 and 8), while its effectiveness in fighting terrorism remains unclear
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