Fourth European Forum for In-House Counsel : 23-24 April 2009 Brussels : Academy of European Law : European Company Lawyers Association (ECLA/AEJE)

The 4th EUROPEAN FORUM FOR IN-HOUSE COUNSEL, sponsored by the Academy of European Law (ERA, Europäische Rechtsakademie, Académie de Droit Européen, Accademia di Diritto Europeo) and by the European Company Lawyers Association (ECLA/AEJE) will take place in Brussels, Belgium on Thursday and Friday, 23-24 April 2009. As written at the ERA website:

"For the fourth consecutive year, ERA and ECLA are organising the European Forum for In-House Counsel, combining the pragmatism of an in-house lawyer association with the expertise of a first-class European training institute.

The European Forum for In-House Counsel provides a forum for the exchange of practical experience, knowledge and views between all in-house counsel and other lawyers involved in business affairs.

The aim is to provide in-house counsel, through expert input, with a comprehensive overview of and a practical insight into issues of European Community law with which in-house counsel are confronted. The latest developments and the recent relevant case law of the Community courts in areas such as European competition law, European company law, European private law will be analysed during the forum.

Interaction among participants will be encouraged through periods of discussion and case studies.
Early registration discounts
10% before 31 March 2009"

This is a heavyweight European legal outfit, as one can tell from their board members, which provide a bit of the flavor of the leading edge of the European law community. Significantly, there are no representatives from Latvia, so that, of course, I am available:

GOVERNING BOARD

"President: Dr Jacques Santer
Former Prime Minister of Luxembourg, former President of the European Commission, former Member of the European Parliament, Representing Luxembourg

Vice-President: Joachim Mertes
President of the Parliament of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate, Representing Rhineland-Palatinate

Members:

Elish Angiolini QC, The Lord Advocate, Representing Scotland

Patricia Barbadillo (tbc), Director of the Centre for Legal Studies at the Ministry of Justice, Representing Spain

Emmanuel Barbe, Head of the European and International Department, Ministry of Justice, Representing France

Tomás Bocek, Deputy Minister for International Relations, Representing the Czech Republic

Dr Tonio Borg, Minister for Justice and Home Affairs, Representing Malta

Petros Clerides, Attorney General of the Republic of Cyprus, Representing Cyprus

Professor Ingolf Deubel, Minister of Finance of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate, Special representative of the host State

Dr Tibor Draskovics, Minister of Justice, Representing Hungary

Paul Jenkins, The Treasury Solicitor, Representing the United Kingdom

Klaus Jensen, Mayor of the City of Trier, Representing the City of Trier

Professor Ioannis Karakostas, University of Athens, Representing Greece

Kari Kiesiläinen, Director General, Ministry of Justice, Representing Finland

Professor Janez Kranjc, University of Ljubljana, Representing Slovenia

Horst Langes, Former State Secretary, Honorary Member of the European Parliament, Representing the Association for the Promotion of the Academy of European Law

Dr Georg Lienbacher, Head, Constitutional Department, Federal Chancellery, Representing Austria

Roswitha Müller-Piepenkötter, Minister of Justice of the State of North-Rhine-Westphalia, Representing the German Federal States

Deirbhle Murphy, Parliamentary Counsel, Office of the Attorney General, Representing Ireland

Arkadiusz Plucinski, Director, European Law Department, Office of the Committee for European Integration, Representing Poland

Catalin Predoiu, Minister of Justice, Representing Romania

Professor Anabela Miranda Rodrigues, Director of the Centre for Judicial Studies, Representing Portugal

Professor Vassilios Skouris, President of the Court of Justice of the European Communities, Representing the Court of Justice

Erik van den Emster, President, Raad voor de Rechtspraak, Representing the Netherlands

Anna Vitteková, State Secretary of the Ministry of Justice, Representing the Slovak Republic

Diana Wallis, Vice-President, European Parliament, Representing the European Parliament

Tora Wigstrand, Director, Division for European Union Affairs, Ministry of Justice, Representing Sweden

Brigitte Zypries, Federal Minister of Justice, Representing Germany

Co-opted: Peter Schmidhuber, former Member of the European Commission"

EXECUTIVE BOARD

"Chairperson: Klaus-Heiner Lehne, Member of the European Parliament

Members:

Dr. Heinz Georg Bamberger, Minister of Justice of the State of Rhineland Palatinate

Giuseppe Gargani, Member of the European Parliament and Chairman of the Legal Affairs Committee"

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

"The Board of Trustees

The Board of Trustees advises the Executive Board and Management Board particularly with regard to the planning of the programme of events. It is composed of individuals who are closely involved with European law in the institutions of the European Union and within legal and economic circles, particularly in the Member States.

Chairman: Judge John Toulmin CMG QC, High Court of Justice, the Technology and Construction Court, London

Deputy chairman: Dr Josef Azizi, Member of the Court of First Instance of the European Communities

Persons from the Institutions of the European Union

Representatives from the Member States

Persons from the legal professions, social partners and academia
a/ Legal professions
b/ Business and Society
c/ Academia

Honorary members

Persons from the institutions of the European Union and other European and international institutions

Ivan Bizjak, Director General of Justice and Home Affairs at the Council of the European Union

Professor Klaus Dieter Borchardt, Deputy Head of Cabinet to the Commissioner for Agriculture, European Commission

Vítor Manuel da Silva Caldeira, President of the Court of Auditors of the European Communities

Marc Jaeger, President of the Court of First Instance of the European Communities

Sarah Jund, Legal Secretary, Court of Justice of the European Communities

Professor Koenraad Lenaerts, member of the Court of Justice of the European Communities

José Luís Lopes da Mota, President of Eurojust

Paul Maier, President of the Boards of Appeal, Office of Harmonization for the Internal Market

Christian Pennera, Jurisconsult of the European Parliament

Jean-Claude Piris, Director General of the Legal Service, Council of the European Union

Sir Konrad Schiemann, member of the Court of Justice of the European Communities

Wolfgang Schomburg, Judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

Representatives from the Member States

Austria: Dr Josef Azizi, Member of the Court of First Instance of the European Communities

Cyprus: Dr Constantinos Lycourgos, Head of the EU Section for the Attorney General of the Republic, Nicosia

Czech Republic: JUDr Jana Wurstová, former Head of the International Department, Czech Bar Association, Prague

Finland: The Hon. Mr Justice Niilo Jääskinen, Supreme Administrative Court, Helsinki

France: N.N.

Germany: Lutz Diwell, State Secretary, Ministry of Justice, Berlin

Greece: N.N.

Hungary: Dr Judit Lévayné Fazekas, Deputy State Secretary, Ministry of Justice, Budapest

Ireland: Justice Nial Fennelly, Supreme Court of Ireland, Dublin

Italy: Professor Remo Caponi, University of Florence

Luxembourg: N.N.

The Netherlands: Derk Roemers, Raad van State, The Hague

Poland: Dr Maciej Szpunar, University of Silesia

Portugal: Professor Fausto de Quadros, Law Faculty, University of Lisbon

Romania: Tudor Chiuariu, State Counsellor, Adviser to the Prime Minister, Bucharest

Scotland: N.N.

Slovakia: JUDr Petr Hulla, Director of the Judicial Academy, Pezinok

Slovenia: Dr Janez Cebulj, former President of the Constitutional Court, Ljubljana

Spain: N.N.

Sweden: Kristina Holmgren, Director, Division for European Affairs, Ministry of Justice, Stockholm

United Kingdom: Lord Jonathan Mance, The House of Lords, London

Persons from the legal professions, social partners and academia

a/ Legal professions:

Professor Massimo Benedettelli, Partner, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Milan; University of Bari

Jean-Marie Burguburu, former Bâtonnier of the Paris Bar; Partner, Gide Loyrette Nouel, Paris

Paul de Jonge, Secretary General of the European Company Lawyers Association (ECLA), Brussels

Victor Hall, Secretary General, European Judicial Training Network, Brussels

Dr Hans-Jürgen Hellwig, Attorney at law, former President of CCBE, Partner, Hengeler Müller, Frankfurt am Main

Pauliine Koskelo, President of the Supreme Court, Helsinki

Péter Köves, President of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE), Brussels

Vincent Lamanda, First President of the Court of Cassation, Paris

Vito Monetti, President of the association Magistrats Européens pour la Démocratie et les Libertés (MEDEL), Rome

Professor Philippe-Emmanuel Partsch, Partner, Arendt & Medernach, Luxembourg

Jean-François Thony, Director of the French Ecole Nationale de la Magistrature, Bordeaux

Virgilijus Valancius, President of the European Judges Association, Vilnius

Denis Waelbroeck, Partner, Ashurst, Brussels

Tomasz Wardynski, President, Wardynski & Partners, Warsaw

Dr Heinrich Zens, President of the Association of European Administrative Judges, Vienna

b/ Business and Society

Philippe de Buck, Secretary General, Business Europe, Brussels

Sir Thomas Macpherson, former President of Eurochambres, London

John Monks, Secretary General of the European Trade Union Confederation, Brussels

Jettie Van Caenegem, Director General, Foundation against Cancer, Brussels

c/ Academia

Professor Peter Axer, Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of Trier

Professor Wladyslaw Czaplinski, University of Warsaw

Professor Paul Demaret, Rector of the College of Europe, Bruges

Professor Catherine Kessedjian, University of Paris-II Panthéon Assas

Professor Ludwig Krämer, University of Bremen

Professor Yves Mény, President of the European University Institute, Florence

Professor Peter-Christian Müller-Graff, Director of the Institute for German and European Social and Economic Law, Heidelberg

Professor Torsten Stein, Director of the Europa Institute of the University of the Saarland, Saarbrücken

Professor Walter van Gerven, Universities of Louvain and Maastricht, former Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Communities

Honorary Members

Francesco de Angelis, former Director at the European Commission

Professor Sir David A. O. Edward, former member of the Court of Justice of the European Communities, Edinburgh, See external website "The Judge David Edward Oral History"

Dr. Charles Elsen, former Director General of Justice and Home Affairs at the Council of the European Union, Luxembourg

Professor Gregorio Garzón Clariana, former Jurisconsulte of the European Parliament

Willi Rothley, former Member of the European Parliament, Rockenhausen"

Relaunch of Europeana : The European Union Digital Cultural Resource Project Appears in Improved From with over 4 Million Digital Items

We were informed by email today that Europeana, the digital cultural resource project of the European Union, currently presenting access to over 4 million digital items at museums and libraries throughout the EU, has relaunched again after a problematic start in November.

Europeana explains what it is about, and provides to us a list of the partner organizations that make materials available to Europeana.

That same "about us" page provides us with an overview of Europeana as follows:

"The [European] Commission has been working for a number of years on projects to boost the digital economy. These prepared the ground for an online service that would bring together Europe's cultural heritage.

The idea for Europeana came from a letter to the Presidency of Council and to the Commission on 28 April 2005. Six Heads of State and Government suggested the creation of a virtual European library, aiming to make Europe's cultural and scientific resources accessible for all.

On 30 September 2005 the European Commission published the i2010: communication on digital libraries, where it announced its strategy to promote and support the creation of a European digital library, as a strategic goal within the European Information Society i2010 Initiative, which aims to foster growth and jobs in the information society and media industries. The European Commission's goal for Europeana is to make European information resources easier to use in an online environment. It will build on Europe's rich heritage, combining multicultural and multilingual environments with technological advances and new business models.

The Europeana prototype is the result of a 2-year project that began in July 2007. Europeana.eu went live on 20 November 2008, launched by Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Information Society and Media.

Europeana is a Thematic Network funded by the European Commission under the eContentplus programme, as part of the i2010 policy. Originally known as the European digital library network – EDLnet – it is a partnership of 100 representatives of heritage and knowledge organisations and IT experts from throughout Europe. They contribute to the Work Packages that are solving the technical and usability issues.

The project is run by a core team based in the national library of the Netherlands, the Koninklijke Bibliotheek. It builds on the project management and technical expertise developed by The European Library, which is a service of the Conference of European National Librarians.

Overseeing the project is the EDL Foundation, which includes key European cultural heritage associations from the four domains. The Foundation’s statutes commit members to:

• Providing access to Europe’s cultural and scientific heritage though a cross-domain portal
• Co-operating in the delivery and sustainability of the joint portal
• Stimulating initiatives to bring together existing digital content
• Supporting digitisation of Europe’s cultural and scientific heritage"

European Union Court of First Instance finds EU Senior Position Job Vacancy Adverts are Discriminatory if Published Only in English, French and German

The translators in Europe will be happy about a decision of the Court of First Instance of the European Union, just handed down in case in which the suit was brought by Italy, as joined by Spain and Latvia.

The court decision nullified a European Commission policy, adopted in the year 2004, to publish job vacancy notices for senior positions in English, French and German languages only. The court held that such a selective language policy is discriminatory.

Read the details at EU Law Blog.

Europeana Crashes on Launch Day to Return in December in a Better More Improved Version

Not everything is as easy as it looks. On November 20, 2008 the European Union Digital Libraries Initiative launched Europeana, a multimillion-euro digital library intended as a friendly and cooperative European competitor to things like Google Book Search.

As written by Leigh Phillips at EUobserver, here is the idea:

"Websurfers can access some 2 million books, maps, recordings, photographs, archival documents, paintings and films from national libraries and cultural institutions of the EU's 27 member states.

"Europeana is much more than a library, it is a veritable dynamo to inspire 21st century Europeans to emulate the creativity of innovative forbears like the drivers of the Renaissance," said commission president Jose Manuel Barroso at the launch."

But the launch hit a serious snag, again as Leigh Phillips writes at EUobserver:

"Going live on Thursday (20 November), the site was instantly overwhelmed by the 10 million visitors per hour it was receiving and crashed mid-morning, requiring a quick doubling of the number of servers supporting the library. It crashed again in the early evening."

When one now goes to the Europeana website, one is greeted with the following message - our scan of the current page there:
(CLICK HERE FOR THAT SUBSEQUENT LINK TO FURTHER INFORMATION)
__________


__________

Rome was not built in a day.

Update:
The New York Times Stephen Castle reports in
Europeana Goes Online and Is Then Overwhelmed

EQLS : The Second European Quality of Life Survey – First Findings viz. Deuxième enquête européenne sur la qualité de vie - Premiers résultats

Via EUobserver.com we have learned of the 2nd EQLS (European Quality of Life Survey) by Eurofound (European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions).

The EQLS Survey will be published in full only in the year 2009, but as of November 18, 2008 we do now already have the first results of that survey in an English-language .pdf and a French-language .pdf, respectively titled Second European Quality of Life Survey – First Findings viz. Deuxième enquête européenne sur la qualité de vie - Premiers résultats.

The results confirm the sentiment of the Bob Hope cinema film of the year 1965 whose title I'll take Sweden might just as well represent the primarily Nordic winners of this Eurofound survey, as the Nordic nations dominate in "happiness", as shown by the following graphics from the EQLS First Results:

EQLS Second European Quality Of Life Survey - First Results - Figures 1 and 2

The Life Satisfaction and Happiness Index for the European Union Member States and Candidate Countries gives the following rankings, from most happy and satisfied to least happy and least satisfied:

1. Denmark
2. Sweden
3. Finland
4. Norway
5. Netherlands
6. Luxembourg
7. Ireland
8. Malta
9. Belgium
10. United Kingdom
11. France
12. Spain
13. Germany
14. Cyprus
15. Poland
16. Austria
17. Slovakia
18. Estonia
19. Czech Republic
20. Greece
21. Italy
22. Romania
23. Croatia
24. Lithuania
25. Portugal
26. Turkey
27. Latvia
28. Hungary
29. FYR Macedonia
30. Bulgaria

The First Findings of the Survey cover:

Life Satisfaction
- General parameters
- Optimism
- Subjective well-being

Income and Deprivation
- Household essentials and deprivation
- Dealing with lack of income

Family

Work-life balance

Health and health care
- Mental health
- Health care services

Housing, environment and quality of society
- Quality of housing
- Local environment

Quality of society
- Trust in other people and Institutions
- Tension between societal groups

Methodology"

For further information we refer to the contact data found at the end of the First Findings publication:

Teresa Renehan, Information Liaison Officer:
ter@eurofound.europa.eu
European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working
Conditions
Wyattville Road, Loughlinstown, Dublin 18, Ireland
Telephone: (+353 1) 204 31 00
Email: postmaster@eurofound.europa.eu
Website: http://www.eurofound.europa.eu

Crossposted to LawPundit.

What Do Europeans Care About? Google Searches as Measured in the Individual Member Countries by the EU Observer Monthly Top 10

EU Observer has a new feature by which they produce a monthly EU Observer list via Google Zeitgeist of the Top 10 percentage spikes in Google searches in the EU, which, as the EU Observer writes, "allows small countries such as Finland and Austria to figure in the results, if an event prompted a sudden surge in interest."

The top ten so weighted searches in October, 2008 in the EU were:

October

1. HALLOWEEN: American style "trick or treating" swept Europe on 31 October.
2. VAALIKONE: Finns searched election website in municipal elections on 26 October.
3. ICESAVE: UK subsidiary of Iceland's Landisbanki declared bankruptcy.
4. SUPRENALOTTO: Italy's lottery site swept when Sicilian suburb won €100 million.
5. KENZA FARAH: The French R&B singer was hurt in a car accident on 13 October.
6. FALLOUT 3: This nuclear simulation game was launched on 16 October.
7. PES 2009: The Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 video game was released.
8. X FACTOR: The UK's hit reality show drew record audiences in October.
9. AC DC: The Australian band released its new album Black Ice on 20 October.
10. MAM TALENT: The Polish version of the television show "I Have Talent!".
    

Take a look. There IS a big world out there, beyond our own neighborhoods. Stay informed.

Crossposted to LawPundit.

Paris Summit Approves the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) as composed of EU Member States and Mediterranean States

Here is an interesting geopolitical question. What country in Africa, NOT located on the Mediterranean, is a part of the just approved Union for the Mediterranean (UfM)? See UfM map. This country is geographically larger than either France, Germany or Spain, more than twice as large geographically as Iraq, nearly six times the geographic size of Syria, and also larger geographically than either Egypt or Turkey. The answer is: Mauritania. (See world map).

On July 13, 2008 Barcelona Process : Union for the Mediterranean (Union pour la Méditerranée) was approved at the Paris Summit of the leaders of the member countries. The organization, though in somewhat different form, was originally the brainchild of French President Nicolas Sarkozy "who said its aim was to ensure the region's people could love each other instead of making war."

The Union for the Mediterranean is a 43-member community, encompassing 750 million people (ca. 25% from Arab States), and comprised of the Member States of the European Union plus the "states" bordering on the Mediterranean Sea and participating in the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (the so-called "Barcelona Process").

The goal of the Union for the Mediterranean is to improve relations between the EU, North Africa and the Middle East and to tackle common problems such as immigration, pollution and political unrest.

But already one day after approval of the Union there are signs that the leadership of the non-EU countries will have to struggle to muster up the maturity and the discipline needed to carry out such an ambitious project, which has been cautiously supported by the USA in the hopes of "spurring on Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations."

There is also negative opinion that the Union for the Mediterranean could serve to accelerate general devolution in the European Union.

Nevertheless, in spite of the obvious political problems involved, main areas of focus of the Union for the Mediterranean will be:

• improving energy supply
• fighting pollution in the Mediterranean
• strengthening the surveillance of maritime traffic and "civil security cooperation"
• setting up a Mediterranean Erasmus exchange programme for students, and
• creating a scientific community between Europe and its southern neighbours.

For an interactive map (in French) relating to details about the UfM (Union for the Mediterranean), see Making Mediterranean waves at the blog of MESH, Middle East Strategy at Harvard, a project of the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

Crossposted from LawPundit.