EU breaks deadlock (by caving in to Hungary and Poland ?) on budget, coronavirus recovery fund

European Union leaders on Thursday reached agreement on a long-term budget and coronavirus recovery package, after weeks of resistance from Poland and Hungary, according to EU Council President Charles Michel.

"Now we can start with the implementation and build back our economies. Our landmark recovery package will drive forward our green and digital transitions,'' Michel said in a tweet.

No details of the agreement were immediately available, however ahead of the summit, EU diplomats and officials said there would likely be a declaration that the rule of law mechanism would only be used after a ruling from the European Court of Justice — a process that could take a year.

Read more at: EU breaks deadlock on budget, coronavirus recovery fund | News | DW | 10.12.2020

EU: Poland may have to leave EU, Supreme Court warns

Polish government has already been referred to the European Court of Justice over rules for judges.

Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50828516

EU says Churhes are not above the law: EU court demands 'equal treatment' for church workers - by Andrew Rettman

The European Court of Justice has struck a second blow against churches' rights to hire and fire people based on their beliefs.

The EU court said in a judgement on Tuesday (11 September) that the German Catholic Church was wrong to sack a man who managed one of its clinics on grounds that he had divorced and remarried in violation of its belief that marriage was "sacred and indissoluble".

Read more: EU court demands 'equal treatment' for church workers

Head Scarfs - Top European court upholds France′s headscarf ban

The Strasbourg-based international court's ruling upholds a ban on employees in the public sector wearing headscarves and other religious symbols. In 2000, Muslim social worker Christiane Ebrahimian, who worked in the psychiatric department of a hospital in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre.

When she learned that her contract would not be renewed because she refused to take off her headscarf despite complaints from patients and colleagues, she decided to sue the hospital, taking her case all the way to the European Court of Justice.

The Strasbourg judges argued that the ban did not violate freedom of religion in a country where secularism and strict religious neutrality is enshrined in the constitution.

Religious freedom, they stressed, did not mean a right to express their religious views in the workplace.

Note EU-Digest:-Does not belong in secular nations - as long as this ban does not only single out Islamic head scarfs, but also includes those from other religions,  including:  Anglican, Buddhist, Christian, Catholic, Jewish,, Orthodox, and Sikh

Read more: Top European court upholds France′s headscarf ban | News | DW.COM | 26.11.2015

EU Visa Requirements: Top EU court rules against Britain in visa dispute

The European Court of Justice has found the British visa system for family members of EU citizens to be illegal. Current visa regulations breach EU laws on free movement, European judges have ruled.

The European Union's court said that Britain would no longer require entry visas for non-EU persons who were family members of EU citizens and held a residence permit from an EU member state.

In the case of Helena Patricia McCarthy Rodriguez, a Colombian who holds a Spanish residence permit and is married to a British-Irish national, authorities would have no right to insist on a visa before she went to Britain, the EU supreme court ruled.

"The directive on free movement of union citizens does not allow measures which ... preclude family members from entering the territory of a member state without a visa," said the Luxemburg based court on Thursday.

According to the court's statement, Britain's concern about a high number of identity fraud cases did not justify imposing a visa requirement on a whole group of people. However, Britain could refuse the right to visa-free entry on a case to case basis.

Read more: Top EU court rules against Britain in visa dispute | News | DW.DE | 18.12.2014

Google Censorship:: Google Reinstates European Links to Articles From The Guardian - by Mark Scott

Google’s efforts to carry out a European court order on the “right to be forgotten” took another twist on Friday as the company restored search-engine links to several newspaper articles from The Guardian whose delinking had stirred a public furor only a day earlier.

As Google once again declined to explain its decision-making, the episode underscored the potentially bewildering complexities of trying to remove information from the Internet when people request it.

Analysts and public officials, many critical of the way Google is carrying out the court order, say the tumult could have far wider implications.

That is because the order, issued in May by the European Court of Justice, dealt with a right to be forgotten that would be much more broadly interpreted in a sweeping digital privacy law that is now the subject of discussions involving the European Parliament, the European Commission and leaders of the 28 member countries of the European Union.

Critics said the episode highlighted a lack of transparency about how Google is carrying out the court order as it works through requests it has received for removing information, a number that has reached 70,000 and continues to grow.

Raegan MacDonald, the European policy manager in Brussels for the digital rights advocacy group Access, said Friday that it should not be Google’s role to decide what information is relevant.

The recent court decision relates solely relate to search services like Google and Bing, which is run by Microsoft.

But the European privacy legislation would affect any company or website that holds European customers’ digital information. The turmoil surrounding Google’s response to the European court decision could be multiplied and magnified when other companies other than search engines — including social media providers and e-commerce sites — are compelled to respond to people’s requests that their digital data be expunged.

“The scope of the new regulation will be much wider,” said Peter Church, an associate at the law firm Linklaters in London.

The court’s ruling “only applies to people’s names in search results,” he said, adding, “The new rules apply to more than just search engines.

Read more: Google Reinstates European Links to Articles From The Guardian - NYTimes.com

Prtivacy Laws v Freedom of Speech: US v Europe - a cultural gap on the right to be forgotten

The reverberations from this week's landmark European Court of Justice ruling on the right to be forgotten continue to be felt. 

Legions of lawyers are still trying to work out what it will mean for the search engines, and for millions of EU citizens who may want to force them to remove links to their past online lives. And the cultural divide between Europe and the US appears wider than ever, with two very different views of how we should live our lives online.

On the one hand there is what you might call the web utopian view, held by the US internet giants and some in Europe who look to Silicon Valley for inspiration. This sees the ECJ ruling as unworkable, illiberal and just out of touch.

The Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, who divides his time between London and the US, explains to me why something like it could never happen across the Atlantic because of the constitutional guarantee of free speech: "This is not a debate the United States is even capable of entering into.

You'd have to repeal the First Amendment - and that's like a religious artefact - so that's never going to happen."

So a battle between two views of freedom - the US belief that free speech trumps everything, and the European view that individuals should have some control over what the world knows about them. But there is something else in play here, a growing unease about the power wielded by what are nearly always US web giants over our lives.

Note EU-Digest:  US Corporations, including Facebook, Yahoo and Google are comparing apples with Pears. The European Court of Justice decision is the right one because there is a distinct difference between Personal Privacy Laws and Freedom of Speech. Storing private information and selling that information to third parties without pernission is in no way linked to Freedom of Speech.

Congratulations to the European Court of Justice for a job well done. 

Read more: BBC News - US v Europe - a cultural gap on the right to be forgotten