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Data: 02/04/2014
• Towards a European agreement on the status of interns?
As wide-European problem and under the impulse of organized civil society at national as much as European level, namely the European Youth Forum, both EU institutions and Member States have decided to find solutions to the precarious situation interns find themselves in. To tackle the problem of status and interns in the general frame of youth unemployment, the Council recently adopted a general Quality framework for traineeships, recommending the conclusion of a written traineeship agreement, setting learning and training objectives, determining trainees working conditions and limiting the duration of the traineeship. If this is a declarative step forward, the EYF regrets the Council's lack of courage, taking too little account of the recommendations provided by the youth associations Charter “Towards quality internships and apprenticeships”. Read more...
• European Parliament and Council back Commission proposal on right of citizens to a basic bank account, one of the key proposals of Commissioner Barnier responsible of the Internal Market. This initiative was also one of his elements of arguments developed in the Citizen’s Dialogue. A positive step forward. Read more...
• The Commission launches an online consultation in controversial TTIP
After already two years of an opaque discussion between US and EU representatives, the Commission now wants these talks to be as open and transparent, and launches a public consultation on the investor protection and investor-to-state dispute settlement, to help define the EU’s approach to this issue and correct the apparent weaknesses in existing investment agreements. Read more...
• On 19th March, the Commission responded to ECI Right2Water, however, the organisators of the initiative regret its lack of ambition. Read more...
European Elections 2014
• European Elections 2014 and the next Commission President
And European Politics become faces… By changing the procedure to name the next EU Commission president in accordance with results obtained in EU Parliament elections, and then asking that EU commissioners be chosen from the elected members of Parliament, a positive step is taken for the democratic Europe we have hoped for. However, these new procedures are a translation of what happens at national level. The consequences are double, both negative and positive. Indeed, if the progress is evident in terms of EU democracy where one can distinguish the light of a European parliamentary system, by addressing European citizens in a language they know from national procedures, are we not taking the risk of scaring them by enhancing the belief that the European Union is gradually becoming a supranational State? And is that what the EU is about? The final decision has yet not been made, but a priori, if the EU is to develop into anything that goes beyond minimal intergovernmentalism, it is in a Federation rather than a State. The debate organised by Eurovision between the candidates nominated by the EU Parliament political groups on 15th May will have to be closely followed: reactions of the audience will enable us to assess the future perhaps more than the content of the debate itself.
Find out more about each candidate here...
Agenda
• 15/04/2014. European Citizens Initiative Day. The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) in partnership with the Committee of the Regions (CoR), the European Citizen Action Service (ECAS), Democracy International, the Initiative and Referendum Institute Europe, The ECI Campaign, EurActiv and Euronews, are organising the conference, to discuss the best practices and set up recommendations to raise efficiency of the new instrument of civic participation. Hopefully, forces will be joined with the European Ombudsman’s office, who was collecting comments in order to establish the proper functioning of the ECI procedure and the Commission's role and responsibility in this regard. Read more...
Pagina precedente
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