Institutional Affairs of the EU
A European Federation of the Trifles Recently, around the time of the tragic accident near the Italian island of Lampedusa, the European Commission was subjected to a relentless attack of questions during one of the regular press briefings in Brussels. An Italian colleague was persistently asking a spokesperson whether, indeed ...
PRISM Significantly Changed EU Attitudes for Personal Data In January 2012, the European Commission proposed a radical reform of the European legislation on data protection so that it can be in line with the evolution of the online environment. Among the main changes the Commission proposed were common rules for personal data protection valid for the en ...
UK: Should I Stay Or Should I Go!? As the tradition goes, the partnership between the EU and UK is exceptional, literally - from one exception to another, from one opt-out to another. In the past year, the trend of opt-outs is returning in full blossom in the relations between Brussels and London as the culmination is expected in ...
Barroso: EU Is Not the Enemy in National Beds. It's the Governments European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso chose an unusual way to bid farewell to MEPs, the member states and citizens. During his traditional address about the state of the union the former Portuguese prime minister, who is nearing the end of his second term in office marking an entire deca ...
European Prosecution - a Hope for European Taxpayers "The criminals who take advantage of the flaws in legislation to embezzle money of the taxpayers should not be left unpunished because we do not have the appropriate tools to indict them", said Viviane Reding, vice president of the European Commission and commissioner for justice, on the occasio ...
A Controversial Start of Discussions on the European Prosecutor's Office Do you remember the SAPARD trial? There is no way that you can forget it because it was a trans-European case of fraud with pre-accession funds for Bulgaria in which the German accomplices got effective prison sentences in Germany, while their Bulgarian partners were fully acquitted in Bulgaria, ...
Gambling and Vote Buying To Be Included in the Fight with Organised Crime at EU Level On September 17th, the temporary committee of the European Parliament has completed its work, after almost 15 months, on Salvatore Lacolino's report (EPP, Italy) via which the committee recommends legislative measures to counteract crime, money laundering and corruption. The last proposed amendm ...
The Rule of Law Mechanism Should Be Without Anti-Eastern Bias In his state of the union address this year European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso mentioned the rule of law as one of the fundamental European values that is growingly under threat. It is not his first time to point out to that problem - in his last year's address he, too, said that ...
Barroso's Last Autumn? A very dramatic European political season is looming up, marking the beginning of, may be, the first in EU's history common European pre-election campaign or, at least, these are the ambitions. In the end of May there will be not simply elections for MEPs that will take place almost simulta ...
Enrico Letta: Europe Needs a New Rationale How should the EU continue its development in the future is an issue which has been discussed for several months now, confirming the perception that the Union is at crossroads. The debate already joined together or individually some of the founding members of the EU - Germany, France, The Nether ...
Adelina Marini 
