21 Nov
French ambassador on nuclear energy: We want to help Slovakia with both fuel and reactorsFrance offers an alternative to the fuel currently produced in Russia and cooperation in building new reactors. "We want to involve Slovak companies in the supply chain for nuclear fuel and we are also communicating about a repository of the used-up waste," French Ambassador PASCAL LE DEUNFF says in an interview. Read more |
European union Member states have scrapped a Commission's plan to establish a system to tax internet giants like Google or Facebook. In a bid to break a deadlock, EU executive arm have called for a move to a qualified majority voting on tax issues. The V4 countries, however, clearly reject to kill national vetoes on tax policy. Their governments are now likely to bring in their own national digital tax laws.
As we approach the European Parliamentary elections, Eurosceptic political rhetoric in Hungary and Poland is once again rising. It is hardly surprising given the critical view the governing parties and their leaders, Viktor Orbán and Jaroslaw Kaczyński share towards the European Union and some of its policies.
Although the Visegrad Group’s members are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the collapse of communist dictatorships this year, multilevel EU procedures are ongoing against Hungary and Poland for rule of law deficiencies. According to the assessment of global democracy indexes, the quality of democratic governance fell considerably in the most eminent students of the democratic transition, while political and civil rights have also been restricted.
Member states, the European Parliament and the Commission successfully finished almost three years of negotiation on a copyright reform. The clashes were concerned primary to articles 11 and 13. Stances of the states differed a lot and the Visegrad countries were not an exception.