European Institutions

EU Council Rolls out Budget Plans in Case of No-Deal Brexit

July 17, 2019

The Council of the EU has adopted a contingency plan for the funding of a 2019 EU budget in case the UK leaves the bloc without a withdrawal deal, supplementing extensive planning by British and EU authorities to blunt the economic and other impacts of a “no-deal Brexit.”
ECtHR: Belgium Failed to Properly Review Spanish Arrest Warrant

July 17, 2019

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has held that Belgian courts failed to properly scrutinize the risks of a human rights violation in deciding to reject a European arrest warrant from Spain seeking the surrender of a murder suspect.
ECJ Develops Standard for State Notifications to Commission

July 17, 2019

The Court of Justice of the EU (ECJ) has interpreted EU treaties to require the bloc’s member states to provide “sufficiently clear and precise information” describing to European Commission authorities how they are transposing into their national law directives imposed on them by the EU institutions.
ECJ Permits Lithuania to Make TV Station Pay-per-View

July 17, 2019

The Court of Justice of the EU (ECJ) has upheld a decision by Lithuanian authorities to require broadcasters to charge customers a fee to watch a Russian-language television station due to that station’s broadcast of material that constitutes “incitement to hostility to and hatred of the Baltic States on grounds of nationality.”
EU Falters in Effort to Counter Disinformation

July 17, 2019

The New York Times reports that critics of the EU’s “Rapid Alert System,” established to deter Russian propaganda and alert Europeans about online disinformation campaigns, has become powerless due to concerns of political backlash and threats to free speech.