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Ton van den Brink* (Utrecht University) Will Geert Wilders’ victory in the Dutch election on 22 November put the country in the reactionary camp of extreme-right leaders, ending a long history of openness to the outside world, commitment to the Rule of law and constructive contribution to the EU? The signs are not hopeful. His…

Havva Yesil (Dublin City University) On 15th November, the Supreme Court of the UK ruled that Rwanda is not a safe third country where asylum applicants can be sent by the government. In its ruling of 15th November, the court concluded that domestic legislation, namely the Human Rights Act of 1998, as well as various…

Antoni Abat I Ninet & Jorge Piñera Álvarez (Institut d’Estudis Europeus, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) After months of political negotiations between the Socialist party and the secessionist parties of Catalonia (Junts Per Catalunya and Esquerra), Pedro Sánchez obtained the necessary support to be proclaimed Prime Minister and to form a new government. These negotiations included…

Niall Moran* (Dublin City University) This article assesses where we stand in the joined cases Ireland and Apple v Commission in the aftermath of AG Pitruzella’s recent opinion. In 2014, the European Commission opened investigations into decisions of the tax authorities in Ireland, The Netherlands and Luxembourg relating to corporate income tax to be paid…

Johannes Müller* (European University Institute) Intro In 2009, in an amendment to the German Basic Law (Grundgesetz), the so-called debt brake (Schuldenbremse) was introduced. This should prevent the German State from taking on excessive debt. As it is a constitutional provision, the German Federal Constitutional Court has the final say over its interpretation and application.…

Simon Usherwood (Open University)* Monday’s major reshuffle in the UK was simultaneously not a shock and completely unexpected. Suella Braverman’s riling of PM Rishi Sunak has been weeks in the making and the events around Armistice Sunday were simply the icing on the sacking cake as far as Number 10 was concerned: the damage of…

Havva Yesil (Dublin City University) On Thursday 9th November 2023, the DCU Brexit Institute hosted an online event on “The future of UK and EU migration law after Brexit”. The event took place from 4pm to 5.30pm (IST). In light of ongoing migration reform within the European Union, the appeal made by the UK government…

Gary Simpson (Queen’s University Belfast)* Everyone seems to be talking about the prospect of a deeper UK/EU trading relationship. It is evident the Labour Party is keen to re-establish EU links, in what the shadow foreign secretary has described as a ‘rebuilding’ of the UK’s relationship with the EU. Even Rishi Sunak’s Government appear anxious…

Magdalena Góra (Jagiellonian University)* On 15th of October 2023 Poles massively went to vote and gave victory to the three democratic opposition parties. The electoral turnout of 74,38% was the highest since the June 1989 elections which ended Communist rule in the country (all results from the Polish Electoral Committee website, pkw.gov.pl). The mobilization of…

Jacob Öberg  (University of Southern Denmark)* After Hamas’ disastrous surprise attack on Israeli territory commencing Saturday on 7th of October, the European Union has been asked to reconsider and analyse its current aid commitment aid to the Palestinian State. Without assessing the political merits of suspending aid programmes to Palestine (or questions of whether the…

John Bell, LLM (Queen Mary University of London)* Introduction With cries of vive le roi! on the streets of Paris and a sumptuous banquet at Versailles, King Charles III and Queen Camilla recently brought a touch of ancien régime to the UK’s partner in the entente cordiale. After the Windsor Framework and UK-EU agreement on…

Elettra Bargellini (DCU) On September 28th and 29th, 2023, the DCU Brexit Institute organized an online conference, serving as the preliminary book workshop for the upcoming publication titled “The Law & Politics of Brexit. Volume 5. The Trade and Cooperation Agreement,” edited by Federico Fabbrini and scheduled for release by Oxford University Press next spring.…

Benjamin Martill (University of Edinburgh) and Tobias Wille (Goethe University Frankfurt) Trust and Cooperation Cooperation is near impossible to achieve without a basic level of underlying trust. If would-be partners expect each other to abrogate agreements or engage in non-cooperative behaviour, then the risks of cooperation will appear too high to them. By reducing uncertainty to…

Elettra Bargellini (DCU Ph.D. student, School of Law & Government) and Ian Cooper (DCU Brexit Institute) On Thursday, September 14, 2023, the first event of the academic year took place, addressing the theme “What has the EU ever done for us?”. This event was jointly organized by the DCU Brexit Institute and Friends of Europe,…

John O’Brennan (Maynooth University) After many years of stagnation, the EU enlargement process has experienced a significant revival in 2023. As a result, the October European Council summit meeting in Grenada, Spain, is expected to produce consequential decisions on the EU’s relationship with the Western Balkan countries, Moldova and Ukraine. The next meeting of the…

Andrew Duff (European Policy Centre) “We have seen the birth of a geopolitical Union”, she said. Ursula von der Leyen’s claim at the start of her annual State of the Union address to the European Parliament on 13 September was startling. How did she substantiate it? She recorded achievements: supporting Ukraine, standing up to Russia,…

Cleo Davies (University of Warwick) On 7 September 2023, the European Commission and the UK Prime Minister announced that the UK would be associated to Horizon Europe. It becomes the seventeenth non-EU member-state country to be associated to the EU’s flagship funding programme for research and innovation, alongside countries like Israel, Norway, Türkiye, Tunisia and Ukraine. And…

Valeriana Forlenza (University of Pisa)* On June 14, 2023 the European Parliament adopted its version of the draft Artificial Intelligence Act («AI Act»). While the final approval is expected by the end of the year, there remain some legal loopholes in relation to the banking sector that do not seem, as yet, to have been…

Janine Silga (Dublin City University) At its meeting on 8-9 June 2023, the Justice and Home Affairs Council defined its ‘general approach’ on two future key instruments of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS): The Proposal for a Regulation on asylum and migration management (‘Asylum and Migration Management Regulation’ – AMMR – proposal) and the…

Pier Mario Lupinu (University of Luxembourg–Roma Tre University) The European Union (EU) legislators announced on 27 June 2023 that the Council (under the Swedish Presidency) and the European Parliament reached an interim agreement on the finalisation of the implementation of the ‘remaining’ Basel III rules at the level of the EU, which will translate in…