The first Convention prepared the Charter of Fungamental Rights of the European Union, and it was solemnly adopted as politically binding at the European Council in Nice, in December 2000. Later it was incorporated into the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, as Part II, and published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) 16.12.2004 C 310. When the ratification processes ...

Britain's membership of the European Union is "vital for millions of jobs and millions of families", David Cameron has said as he urged MPs to vote against a motion calling for an in or out referendum on Europe.

Is the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU or OJ for short) in need of improvement? It started with a blog post by Julien Frisch over at: Julien’s article was called Decision on the legal nature of the electronic version of the Official Journal of the European Union, and it referred to an official document discussing technical options. He went on to invite a comment from me. While m...

The European Parliament has had some early discussions today of a super new project to promote voting in the European election in June. The idea discussed at a meeting this morning is to put hi-tech booths in city squares all over the European Union's 27 countries so citizens can "send a message to Brussels". When I heard about the idea I didn't know whether to laugh at the inevitable ou...

New rules to give shoppers across the European Union uniform rights wherever they make purchases in the 27-country bloc, have been unveiled in Brussels

The Commission is moving on the so called Brussels I Regulation, officially Council Regulation (EC) No 44/2001 of 22 December 2000 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters, published in the Official Journal of the European Communities (OJEC) 16.1.2001 L 12/1. The latest consolidated version is of 4 December 2008. Report on Brussels I Regulati...

Close coordination of economic policies and a single monetary policy, including a single currency, the euro, promote the aims of the European Union.We advance from the current Treaty establishing the European Community to the Treaty of Lisbon. ***Article 4 of the Treaty establishing the European Community (TEC) is found in the latest consolidated version, published in the Official Journal of the E...

Nothing dramatic about this, since the contents of the 2009 budget of the European Union (and preparatory documents) have been available for a long time. For students, teachers, researchers and others who prefer exact and official references the publication of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2009 in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) offers exactly th...

A campaign by a Member of the European Parliament aimed at scrapping Strasbourg as the second official seat of the European Parliament has not reached the 393 signatures required to reach a parliamentary majority. Only 268 of the assembly’s 785 MEPs signed a written declaration calling for an end to the 'travelling circus', which sees MEPs moving from Brussels to a second seat in S...

Social policy has been a contested area of European Community (European Union) policy at times. We look at social objectives among the general EU and EC aims before we present the objectives in the Title on social policy. *** European Union objectives Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) first mentions the objectives to promote economic and social progress and a high level of employment...