New EU rules on maritime surveillance: will they stop the deaths and push-backs in the Mediterranean?

Steve PeersIntroductionA new EU Regulation, published today in the EU’s Official Journal, sets out new rules on maritime surveillance and rescue operations coordinated by Frontex, the EU’s borders agency. What effect will these rules have on reducing the tragic death toll of migrants in the Mediterranean? And what will happen to the asylum claims of those rescued or intercepted in the high seas? These new rules are a response to the continued argument...

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Unaccompanied minor asylum-seekers: a step in the right direction?

Steve PeersThe EU’s Dublin system on the allocation of responsibility for asylum-seekers, which sets out rules determining which single Member State has responsibility for considering an asylum-seeker’s application, has long been decried as unworkable and an infringement of human rights. These broader arguments will be addressed in a future post on this blog, but for the moment it’s a good time to have a look at yesterday’s proposal from the Commission...

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The CJEU ensures basic democratic and judicial accountability of the EU’s foreign policy

 Steve PeersIn today’s judgment in European Parliament v Council, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has ensured that a minimum degree of democratic and judicial scrutiny applies to the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The European Parliament (EP) was challenging the Council’s decision to sign and conclude (ie, ratify) a treaty between the EU and Mauritius, relating to the EU’s military operation as regards pirates...

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Pregnant workers and EU citizens’ free movement rights

Steve PeersJessy Saint Prix, a young French woman, came to live in Britain in 2006, in order to embark on a career as a school teacher. In the event, she has learned rather more than she probably anticipated about EU law and the English legal system. Having worked for a year in the UK as a teaching assistant, she started a PGCE course, which would qualify her to be a teacher. In the midst of that course, she became pregnant.  So she dropped...

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Europe v Facebook: the beginning of the end for NSA spying on EU citizens?

Steve PeersSince the revelations about the extent of spying by the American National Security Agency (NSA) revealed by Edward Snowden, doubts have increased about the adequacy of the data protection regime in the United States, in particular as regards its impact on EU citizens, who are subject to the more favourable regime established by the Data Protection Directive. One aspect of these doubts concerns the ability of the NSA to examine the content...

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The new guidelines for the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice: some critical comments

Emilio De CapitaniIn the coming days the European Council will debate and adopt the long awaited Guidelines which will shape the future of the EU's Area of Freedom, Security and Justice for forthcoming years. These guidelines follow the end of the current Stockholm Programme (2009-2014) and come near the end of the last transitional period for the measures adopted before the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty on police and judicial cooperation...

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