-
ECJ Official: US-EU Data Protection Deal Is Invalid
September 24, 2015
Advocate General at the Court of Justice of the EU ("ECJ") Yves Bot, whose decisions are not final but tend to be followed by the ECJ, has found that the data protection agreement between the US and the EU is invalid because it does too little to protect Europeans' privacy, casting doubt upon online data transfers between the US and EU.
-
EU Leaders Adopt Mandatory Resettlement Plan
September 23, 2015
The Washington Post reports that national officials from EU member countries, overriding the dissent of four Central and Eastern European countries, have agreed to implement a mandatory system to resettle 120,000 asylum seekers throughout the bloc.
-
Ministers Call for Minimum EU Corporate Tax Rate
September 23, 2015
Politico reports that at a recent European Parliament hearing, a group of finance ministers from the largest eurozone economies - Germany, France, Italy, and Spain - called for a minimum EU corporate tax rate and the mandatory exchange of tax information among countries to prevent tax avoidance in the bloc.
-
ECtHR: Sharia Law Incompatible with Democracy
September 22, 2015
In the context of the recent debate regarding the compatibility of Sharia law with democracy, in 2003, in the case of Refah Partisi v. Turkey, the European Court of Human Rights ("ECtHR") determined that the establishment of sharia law by a political party would be incompatible with democracy and upheld Turkey's dissolution of a political party advocating sharia law.
-
Visegrad Group Objects to EU Mandatory Resettlement Proposals
September 22, 2015
The countries of the Visegrad Group - the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia - have issued a statement calling on the EU to preserve voluntary measures coordinating the resettlement of migrants from North Africa and the Middle East and labeling proposals for mandatory resettlement quotas as "unacceptable."