Новости за 21.12.2016

The EU is rolling out plans to improve a large police database in an effort to avoid repeats of allowing terrorists, like Paris attacker Salah Abdeslam, from slipping by police due to poor data quality.

The Commission is hoping that Trump, the incoming US president, will back down in a potential visa war, but terrorist attacks in Europe could make that less likely.

Neelie Kroes, a commission member from 2004 to 2014, received a "reprimand" fro failing to declare off-shore company and income while receiving an EU allowance.

National governments cannot order the blanket collection and retention of data on electronic communications, the bloc's top court ruled. It could serve a blow to the UK's mass surveillance programme.

EU executive said it would be "fair" to give Poland two more months to answer allegations, but started considering a sanction procedure.

Contrary to received digital strategy wisdom, sometimes boring is better when it comes to leaders' communication.

The European Commission has delayed making a decision on whether to block visa-free travel for Americans - a move it is duty-bound to make because the US imposes visa requirements on Bulgarians, Croats, Cypriots, Poles and Romanians. The commission said it wanted to talk to the new US administration before taking a decision, and promised it would publish a report on the issue in June.

A trade deal with Singapore must be ratified by all EU parliaments, a top lawyer at the EU court says, raising potential problems with other deals.

EU countries must ratify the EU-Singapore trade deal because it oversteps the exclusive powers of the bloc, the European Court of Justice's advocate general has said in an opinion. She said issues such as government procurement and intellectual property were shared competences. If the subsequent court ruling agrees, it could mean trade deals, including a possible one with the UK, will have to be ratified by all EU parliaments.

Deals between the EU and Morocco do not apply to Western Sahara, the European Court of Justice has ruled. The judges dismissed the case brought by Polisario, the Western Sahara independence movement, which wanted the EU-Morocco deals to be invalidated. Instead, judges said Western Sahara must be regarded as a third party to any deal, and could only be included with the people's expressed consent.

The UK government's "general and indiscriminate" retention of personal data is not permitted under EU law, the EU's Court of Justice has ruled. UK Brexit secretary David Davis initially launched the case when he was a backbench MP in 2014, challenging a law that allowed spies to intercept and store data relating to phone calls and online messages.

The leader of Poland's ruling Law and Justice has called on opposition MPs to "respect the law" and end their blockade of parliament. Jaroslaw Kaczynski said the sit-in was against Poland's criminal code, adding: "We are reaching out a hand to the opposition". Opposition MPs demand a rerun of Friday's vote on the 2017 budget bill to end their protest, but Law and Justice ruled this out.

A Macedonian court ordered on Tuesday a re-run of parliamentary elections in two polling stations because of irregularities. The repeat votes will take place on 25 December. The conservative VMRO-DPMNE won two more MPs than the Social Democrats (SDSM) in the 11 December election. The re-run could in theory alter that balance of power.

Spain announced Tuesday it had formed a task force of the Bank of Spain, the Spanish Stock Markets agency (CNMV), and the economy ministry to attract London-based financial firms looking to relocate after Brexit. A group of EU cities including Paris, Dublin, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Berlin were already competing to attract some the estimated 5,500 financial companies based in Britain that might lose rights to sell services across the EU.

A majority of Dutch senators will support the deal on the EU-Ukraine treaty that PM Rutte brought home last week from an EU summit, Dutch state broadcaster NOS reported on Tuesday. Rutte needs a majority in both houses of parliament to ratify the treaty after a referendum in April. The centrist-liberal D66 party and Greens have announced they will support him, securing a majority in the lower house.

Istanbul’s new 5.4 km Eurasia Tunnel under the Bosphorus Strait has officially opened, with president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and prime minister Binali Yildirim driving through it at an opening ceremony on Tuesday. The tunnel will ease traffic congestion in Istanbul. Over 100,000 vehicles are expected to pass through it daily.

Ukraine’s parliament approved the country's budget for 2017 on Wednesday in the hope of triggering more aid from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The budget deficit will be kept at 3 percent of gross domestic product, in line with IMF requirements, but without required pension reforms and without an end to a moratorium on the sale of private land.

Theresa May labels Scottish proposals to remain part of Europe's trade area after Brexit as "impractical" and says they rely on assumptions about Scotland that cannot be accepted.

Unknown numbers of refugee children are being detained in prison-like conditions in Bosnia in violation of international law.

The EU Commission could ask member states to impose sanctions against Poland for its breach of the rule of law in a crucial meeting, though experts say the country is unlikely to be punished.