European Union

Dominic Cummings, special advisor to British prime minister Boris Johnson and a zealous advocate of Brexit, benefitted from EU agriculture subsidies via a farm that he co-owned with his relatives, British newspaper The Observer reported on Sunday. The farm in Durham, northern England, received about €250,000 of EU funds over 20 years, records showed. The news exposed Cummings' "sheer hypocrisy", a spokeswoman for the British opposition Liberal Party said.

About 800,000 British people have spent €4.3bn stockpiling food, drinks, and medicine in case a no-deal Brexit on 31 October causes supply problems, according to data from British financial firm Premium Credit. "The British would be the big losers," in a hard Brexit, outgoing European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker also said in Tiroler Tageszeitung, an Austrian newspaper, on Saturday. "We [the EU] are well prepared [for no-deal Brexit]," he added.

Lega chief Matteo Salvini's call for snap Italian elections after he turned on his own coalition partner faced mounting resistance on Sunday (11 August), with both his former 5-Star ally and the centre-left opposition seeking to put the brakes on.

The EU border deal will not be up for discussion when Irish leader Leo Varadkar meets British prime minister Boris Johnson in Dublin in early September, the Irish government has said. "The withdrawal agreement and the backstop are not up for negotiation," it said on Sunday, referring to "backstop" plans, hated by Johnson, to keep Britain in the EU customs union in order to maintain an open border with Ireland.

The EU needs to properly classify which economic activities help the environment to help direct public funding and private investment toward climate-friendly sectors, EU financial services commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis has told the Financial Times newspaper. "In this way you avoid greenwashing, you provide clarity," he said. The European Commission proposed a new classification scheme last year, but capitals are wary of giving Brussels more power on dividing up joint funds.

The Finnish EU presidency has defended its deal with German car maker BMW to provide 100 vehicles free of charge to ferry VIPs back and forth from events in Helsinki. BMW got the job after "an EU-wide call for tenders" and BMW executives did "not have opportunities to meet" with politicians, Anja Laisi, a presidency spokeswoman, told the Yle news agency. BMW provided no fuel or drivers, she added.

Norwegian police are treating a mosque attack on Saturday as a potential act of far-right terrorism amid reports the attacker held anti-immigrant views and had published online praise of a massacre of Muslims in New Zealand, which took place earlier this year. Saturday's attempted murder was due to "long-lasting hate of Muslims that has been allowed to spread in Norway", the Islamic Council Norway, an NGO, said.

John Bolton, US President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, arrived in London on the weekend for talks at which he is expected to urge Britain to toughen its stance on Iran and Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has accepted an offer to meet Irish leader Leo Varadkar to discuss Brexit and the Northern Irish backstop, the Sunday Telegraph said citing UK government sources.

A no-deal Brexit would hurt Britain more than the rest of Europe no matter how much Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government pretends otherwise, outgoing European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said in remarks published on Saturday (10 August).

The power of the European Parliament

The only directly elected European Union (EU) institution; the European Parliament’s (EP) power and influence in pursuit of citizens’ interests have evolved significantly, transforming it into a full-fledged legislative body and forum of discussion and engagement at the heart of representative democracy, whose influence is felt in virtually all areas of EU activity.
What are then the European Parliament’s main powers?

What difference does the Parliament’s work make to how Europeans live their lives? This series highlights some practical examples of EP impact during the 2014-2019 legislative term.

The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the EU and Canada entered into force on a provisional basis on 21 September 2017, and most of the agreement now applies. The ratification process is still ongoing at the Member State level.

CETA aims to increase trade in goods and services, as well as investment between the EU and Canada. Among other things, it improves EU companies’ public tendering opportunities in Canada, provides a framework for the mutual recognition of qualifications in certain professions in the EU and Canada (for example architects or crane operators) and removes customs duties on 98 % of tariff lines of products traded with Canada, except for certain sensitive agricultural products such as poultry and eggs. Statistics from the first period of provisional application of CETA (October 2017 to June 2018) showed that EU exports to Canada were up by over 7 % compared to the previous year.

The CETA negotiations started in May 2009, shortly before the Treaty of Lisbon extended the European Parliament’s competences in trade to require its approval of trade agreements. CETA became one of the early negotiations where the Parliament exercised its stronger monitoring function, tracking the talks actively and voicing its concerns throughout the process.

In June 2011, the European Parliament adopted a resolution setting out its position on key chapters of the CETA negotiations, including investment disputes, the right to regulate, regulatory differences and agriculture. The Parliament was particularly concerned about the investment protection provisions under CETA. With mounting opposition to the investor-state-dispute-settlement (ISDS) system, the Parliament maintained in its resolution that ‘a state-to-state dispute settlement mechanism and the use of local judicial remedies are the most appropriate tools to address investment disputes’, given the highly developed legal systems on both sides. In its resolution of July 2015, in the context of the negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the European Parliament went a step further and asked for the replacement of the ISDS system with a new system that would be more transparent, with independent judges, and respecting the jurisdiction of EU courts. In a letter to European Commissioner for Trade, Cecilia Malmström, in November 2015, Parliament’s International Trade Committee Chair, Bernd Lange (Germany, S&D), welcomed the fact that the Parliament’s concerns were taken on board in the Commission’s new Investment Court System (ICS) proposal, while suggesting some further changes to the system. In part thanks to the European Parliament’s demands, even after the conclusion of the CETA negotiations, the controversial ISDS system was replaced with a permanent, transparent and institutionalised ICS. The Parliament went on to approve CETA in February 2017.

In its resolution of July 2016, the European Parliament also reiterated the need for a multilateral solution to investment disputes and considered CETA’s ICS as a stepping-stone to this end. Today, this process has been taken even further and active negotiations for the establishment of a Multilateral Investment Court (MIC) are ongoing. CETA also contains a commitment of both the EU and Canada to work towards the creation of the MIC.

Law-making powers

a mapping of EP powers

Together with the Council, the Parliament participates in the shaping of European laws in what may be seen as a bicameral legislature at EU level. The nature of the Parliament’s involvement depends on the area in question and may mean Parliament being consulted (consultation procedure), giving its consent (consent procedure), or legislating on an equal footing with the Council (the ordinary legislative procedure, or co-decision).

The latter procedure consists of the joint adoption of an act by the European Parliament and the Council on the basis of a proposal by the Commission. Here, both legislators need to agree on an identical text before it becomes law, which may take up to three readings in each of the two institutions. On average, it takes about 22 months for legislators to agree on a legislative file, starting from the Commission proposal until the signature of the final act.

The number of areas in which the Parliament co-legislates has expanded greatly over time and now includes the EU internal market, environment, consumer protection, food safety, regional development, agriculture, transport, energy and many others. Indeed, most legislative acts are now adopted following the ordinary legislative procedure.

Besides the power of consent with regard to legislative acts, the Parliament’s consent is required in many other instances not related to legislative acts in the strict sense. For example, it is needed before any new country joins the EU (Article 49, Treaty on European Union, TEU), but also before any withdrawal treaty can be concluded when a country decides to leave it (Article 50 TEU). The Parliament’s consent is also required before concluding agreements with third countries, for example association agreements, as well as before the Council determines that an EU Member State is breaching – or is about to breach – EU values (Article 7 TEU).

Read the complete study on ‘The power of the European Parliament: Examples of EP impact during the 2014-19 legislative term‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Downing Street has ordered government special advisors to cancel summer holidays, or breaks in the time running up to the Brexit date of 31 October, according to an email seen by The Guardian - prompting renewed speculation about prime minister Boris Johnson calling a snap general election in the autumn. The government's majority is currently one with support from the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland.

A European financial regulatory body set up after the financial crisis is at loggerheads with the European Commission over whether to carry out a transparency review of certain financial products. The reason: Brexit.

Today the Council appointed Johann Sattler as EU Special Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He will also take over the role of the Head of the European Union's Delegation in Sarajevo.

The EU reiterates its strong commitment to promote and fight for indigenous languages and cultures.

The IPCC is warning in its new report about food scarcity caused by global warming. It calls for a total overhaul of land use, particularly in agriculture and forestry. The alarming report prompts commentators to think about how Europe can overcome obstacles in the fight against climate change.