October 2013 Update

EUROPEAN UNION
REGION | FORUM | COMMISSION | COURT | COUNCIL | MAP

~October 2013 Update~

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Nations: 152
World Assembly Delegate: Occoron

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Commission elections are currently in progress. This is how the Commission was formed before the elections of the beginning of November.

Premier: Peter Montfort, Angleter (UEC)
Forgein Affairs: Augustus Barrington, Inimicus (UEC)
Defence and Peacekeeping: Karolinasz Jaedala, Os Corelia (ALDGE)
Economics: Marie Rivas, Northern Caesarea (S&D)
Internal Affairs: Blair von Schroeder, Red Croatia (UEC)

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Chief Justice: Joe Beaver, Gun-Toting Animals
Justice: William Hague, Davishire
Justice: Concordia Ferro, Pax Aurea
Justice: Lars Josef Knudsen, North Europa
Justice: Gergely Stjepanic, New Romulan Empire

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Speaker of the European Council: Acwellan Lir Devoy am Harrison, Duxburian Union (ECL)

Socialist Workers Party (SWP): Communist, Socialist, Anti-Capitalist
Party of European Socialists and Democrats (S&D): Social Democrat, Integrationist
Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for a Green Europe (ALDGE): Social Liberal, Environmentalist
European Classical Liberals (ECL): Classical Liberal, Pragmatic
Union of European Conservatives (UEC): Conservative, Christian Democrat
European National Party (ENP): Fascist, National Socialist

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• Commission Elections are currently in progress. Nominations end on 2nd of November, and so far Dr. William Roebuck from Gun-Toting Animals has nominated himself as well as a fairly unkown candidate named Darwin Cutter from Qvait. Other potential nominees are the incumbent commissioners Augustus Barrington, Inimicus; Peter Montfort, Angleter and Blair von Schroeder, Red Croatia. A delegate from Halsberg is considering to nomitate himself, too.
• Foreign Affairs Commissioner Augustus Barrington has started to carry out the Cultural Ambassador Programme. This programme was designed by Colleen Bennet, who was the former Foreign Affairs Commissioner, but who sadly passed away last September. The programme replaces the Foreign Affairs Commissioner as ambassador to other regions. Individual nations are now seperating the burden which was once placed solely on the Commissioner.
• Premier Commissioner Peter Montfort has proposed a "Committee Reform Act" to the European Council. This Act intends to standardise and increase accountability in the organisation of Council committees. The prosposal was met with constructive criticism and an amendment by the councillor from Gun-Toting Animals. The debate was extended by Speaker Devoy, and will likely face voting at the beginning of November.
• Despite a loss of members, the European Union has managed to keep its head above water. The recruiting programme set up by Colleen Bennet has been passed on to Augustus Barrington and his recruiters, who have managed to keep the EU relatively stable even though the member count has declined slightly.

• There is no new news from The European Court of Justice for the month of October.

• The prosposed Committee Reform Act is being debated on the Council floor. It is the purpose of the Act to "standardise and increase accountability in the organisation of Council committees.". The Premier has used all his available knowledge to come up with a firm prosposal, which includes the following:

Each committee shall be led by a Director, who shall serve for a non-renewable term of six months. The Director must be a European Councillor elected by the European Council by the Alternative Vote system, with the exception of the Director of the EBCWA (European Biological and Chemical Weapons Association), who must not be a European Councillor, nor a representative of any single member-state, and shall be appointed by the Commissioner for Defence and Peacekeeping.

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I share the concerns of the ever-eloquent Dr Roebuck who rightfully points out that it is counter-productive to keep councillors to only one-committee due to the small number of active participants.

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• Commissioner for Internal Affairs Blair von Schroeder has chaired a "Council of Six", which included the five conflicting generals in the New Romulan Empire. Von Schroeder let each general tell their side of the story, after which she prosposed to form the country into a Confederated Parliamentary Republic and be separated into five dominions, each ruled by one person and have the overall country's parliament consist of 200 members, 40 from each Dominion, Supreme Court made out of one of each dominion's Chief of Justice and a circumstantial re-election for the leader of each Dominion.
  However, one of the generals, Sabinos Loukianos, vehemently disagreed with the posposal, so he walked out of the meeting. Therefore, the remaining four leaders signed a treaty which puts the Republic in place, but with four dominions instead of five.
• Internal problems in Inimicus have escalated to the point where its Prime Minister, Wilfred Cocx, declared martial law. It all started when Robert Husky, a renowned film producer, released a production on Inimicus's Emperor. Opposing extremists brutally murdered the film producer, after which riots erupted throughout the country. Meanwhile, in Parliament, the Green Party refused to denounce the killer and the rioters, instead it kept its mouth completely shut and its MPs didn't attend any parliament sessions since. And the chaos got worse. Green terrorists raided a research centre and stole smallpox vaccines, which they used to infect a large part of the Inimician population. In response to the crisis, the PM announced the abolishment of the Green Party and martial law to be declared for an indefinite period of time.
• William Hughs, the Councillor to the EU for Davishire, consulted the Council on whether or not the Davishirian police should be armed with guns. Two thirds of the Council said guns were part of police life. For example, the Inimician councillor Ralph Jaevons stated "Policemen with guns look more impressive than officers without, and if a situation gets truly dire, policemen can always use the guns to take out a possible threat. Therefore, I say 'yes' to firearms for policemen.", and the Rechroation councillor agreed with him: "Having been used to fire arms, which majority of the country reckognized as a tool that would be useful upon dealing with criminals, the police force and the absolutist queen of the time have agreed to allow them as a part of police equipment, and it has come in quite in handy when it came to enforcing law."
• Deputy Foreign Minister Mary Beth Collie from the Confederacy of Gun-Toting Animals visited Davishire this month to discuss Nuclear Weapons Security. Davishire has attempted to get a license for nuclear weapons at the European Nuclear Arms Association (ENAA) but was rejected. The decision was followed by a crisis in Davishire, which refused to accept the ENAA's decision. Davishire is looking to bolster its application and the Davishirian delegate asked the Foreign Minister on various subjects concerning nuclear weapons, for example: "How does Gun-Toting Animals see it that nuclear weapons should be secured, and how would Gun-Toting Animals be able to support Davishire in this effort? We have had nuclear protection troops ready for nearly 4 months, but how should we deploy and train them and how can you support us in this?"
• The Os Corelian Ministers are becoming mystified by a series of closed door talks between Os Corelia and the Grossdeutches Reich. The talks have only been attended by top level Corelian diplomats including the Viscount and Vice-President who both haven't attended parliament for the past few weeks. The Diplomatic suite on the 5th floor of the parliament building has restricted access with Ministers being left having to use a press conference room as a make shift cabinet office.
• The Os Corelian electoral college is currently busy preparing for the Euro Ballot as Nominations were opened for the commission in Europolis yesterday. This will see the end of Karolinasz Jaedala's term as Defence and Peacekeeping Commissioner which is widely seen as successful with a look at her consultations on security and LGBT service people's treatments. She has also been praised for her work with the Davishirian government.
• The Socialists & Democrats europarty have gathered for a conference. The main event was a speech by Malak Kayrooz, Prime Minister of Northern Caesarea. A couple of excerpts from the speech: "The European Union maintains that one of its main objectives is to make Europe a safest place, giving priority to pacific solutions to conflicts and acknowledging fundamental rights to all european citizens. Unfortunately, a single glance to European newspapers or web pages, shows us that something is going wrong.", "Right-wing and even far right wing options are more and more popular in our nations. As we have just seen here, in Northern Caesarea, populism and the mirage of easy and undemocratic solutions to complex problems are on the rise. The right wing is now strong and united in Europe. Progressive options are divided and fighting about names or political labels" and "Because we believe in a strong welfare state, we are against the "every man for himself" neoliberal approach defended by the conservatives. Because we believe in a strong Europe, we are against the transformation of the European Union in a useless organization, where pseudo-democracies and openly admitted dictatorships have the same respectability than true democracies."