#eu affairs

[qaumisafeer]

پاکستان میں خدمات دینے والی افغان خاتون ڈاکٹر کے چرچے

پاکستان میں اس وقت اگرچہ 30 لاکھ سے زائد افغان مہاجرین رہائش پذیر ہیں جن میں سے 15 لاکھ مہاجرین حکومت کے پاس رجسٹرڈ ہیں جب کہ اتنے ہی مہاجرین غیر رجسٹرڈ بھی ملک میں موجود ہیں۔

اس وقت کورونا وائرس کی وجہ سے جہاں عام پاکستانی شہری بھی متاثر ہیں، وہیں یہاں رہنے والے افغان مہاجرین بھی متاثر ہوئے ہیں اور ملک بھر میں مہاجرین کی کیمپس میں مسائل سر اٹھانے لگے ہیں۔

پاکستان بھر میں تقریبا افغان مہاجرین کے…

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[riyadhvision]

London seeks “deep security partnership” with EU after Brexit

London seeks “deep security partnership” with EU after Brexit

Michel Barnier and David Davis.

:: Britain wants to have closer defense cooperation with the European Union after Brexit than other countries outside the union, according to a document that sets out a vision of “a deep security partnership” aimed at nudging talks forward.

Britain wants to contribute its military assets to EU operations after it leaves the bloc, the government will say on Tuesday…

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[teandscones]

Orbán looks at the EU commitments to avoid responsibility in his own law

His biggest challenge will be to maintain the calm while saving the Union's economy, and himself, from critics 

Just started in his presidency of the EU, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán is already in the eye of the storm. At the same time that his country took place over the Council of Ministers six-month rotating presidency on January 1, a new media law started working domestically in Hungary. The text allows government regulatory bodies to judge and penalise publishers and editors for any stories published within the national territory.

The response in the EU has been quick and hard: On Wednesday 19 January, MEPs pointed out that the law was made to prevent balanced information and that will hinder especially foreign media and investigative journalism, and so seriously endanger freedom. The Social and Democrats (S&D), the Liberals (ALDE) and the Greens have requested Orbán to drop the law, with only the prime minister's party in the Parliament (the centre-right EPP) supporting the leader.

European Commission President José Manuel Barroso has also expressed objections and asked for further clarifications in a letter sent to the Hungarian president later last month. Before the law got passed, the European Newspaper Publishers' Association (ENPA) and the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), also sent a petition to the Hungarian government asking for a step back in its decision to apply the new law. So far, Mr Orbán has only said that if the investigation carried by the European Commission found problems or conflicts with the EU's rules, it would be changed.

In the meanwhile, Hungary has declared its priorities for this semester: Economy, Energy and the enlargement of the EU. With the Euro as the star-topic in the last December summit, Viktor Orbán has stated his intention of nailing the set up of the permanent bailout fund, a mechanism for Member States in difficulty. This step will include terms like concluding the economic governance package and reviewing stability mechanisms. 

Although the Hungarian prime minister has declared his capacity to deal with any future financial crisis, some MEPs have warned that all Member States must adapt to the Parliament's position at early stage in order to conclude the governance package. Apart from coordinating all Members economies, its presidency will need a "rapid and limited" amend to the Lisbon treaty.

Nevertheless, Energy will be on the stage this month since Hungary hopes for agreements on new energy infrastructures to facilitate gas across the borders.

Immigration and widening the borders of the Union is the other big topic ranking the agenda of Orbán's commitments. This has been divided in two main points: First, getting the access of Bulgaria and Romania to the Schengen area of border-free travel; and second, concluding the accession talks for Croatia to join the EU. Orbán will need to meet the technical requirements to fight France and Germany, who has already expressed disagreement with the two countries' incorporation to the Schengen area, and concluding negotiations with Croatia.Abetter managing of migration flows, an efficient asylum system and a fight against organized crime and terrorism are also on the list. 

The inclusion and active involvement of the Roma community is one of the highest issues on the president's social agenda. But with the anti-discrimination directive currently blocked in the Council, to publish a European strategy on the Roma situation would be a difficult task. 

Among the Roma situation, the president has mention his commitment to: fighting poverty, especially child one, unemployment; getting a better housing, education and access to the EU funds. 

[teandscones]

Human trafficking in the EU, a buried problem

Together with drugs dealing, human trafficking is the most growing crime in the European Union. That is more than 140,000 victims suffering from human trafficking in Europe, according to the last report carried out by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and released in 2010. 

One of the main problems to tackle organized crime in the EU is the dominant freedom within markets and borders, especially in the Schengen area. The absence of physical border controls not only makes it difficult to intercept criminals and identify victims, but it also gives to small or mid-level groups and individuals the opportunity of operating in more than one country. 

Lib-Dem Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the English region of East Midlands, Bill Newton Dunn, states the necessity of joining forces, especially in the police service. "Incredibly, there is not even a telephone directory in existence for police forces across Europe to find each other's names", he says. And Newton Dunn clarifies that "the authorities of the 27 should be working much more closely together and learn to trust each other, which they do not at the moment.”

In addition, police forces face more prepared criminals, abroad-trained and confidently positioned inside the EU. The last report on Organized Crime released by the Global Agenda Council in the last economic forum of Davos states that "the popular imagination of organized crime -of Sicilian mafia groups confined to certain cities and a handful of criminal markets is seriously out of date." The modern image of criminal networks today is a multimillion dollar enterprise. The verdict from the network of Global Agenda Councils is that markets and governments are being corrupted by these forces, as a product of the global society. 

The European Police Office (Europol) is the agency responsible for organising the co-operation between the competent authorities of each member state to prevent and combat international organized crime. But as a collaborative agency, not every national government has the duty of working with them. "Europol is only an information-gathering organization", says Newton Dunn, "with no powers to go onto the streets and arrest the criminals". 

Most of the criminals work outside the European law. Not only a large number of them are reported to be based in the EU, but some others operate outside the communitarian borders. "Our weak external-border controls makes it easy for many networks to establish their operation area outside the EU", explains Newton Dunn. 

Asia, Africa and South-America are the main subterfuges for many European-based criminals to operate. Often not only origin countries of the networks are receptors of the profits, but also those were the traffic is done or based. It has come along with a new form of investment which involves companies and enterprises. In 2008, Hungarian authorities investigated a trafficking network that exploited local prostitutes in night clubs in Hungary and Germany between 2001 and 2007. They also revealed that the benefits were put into legal enterprises and companies, in a new sophisticated way of investing a profit that was worth 98 million euros and seized six million euros from the main suspect.

As most of this criminality is hidden, EU forces face another handicap: the lack of reporting. Europol describes as a tough task the collection of data because of the infrequent investigational activity inside the EU. The lack of standardized guidelines at a communitarian level with significant gaps does not help member states to approach the problem. Therefore, the agency warns that partially informed reports can be part of the big picture. Corruption, a weak judiciary, insufficient victim protection and minimal sentencing for offenders are among the main causes that the NGO Human Rights Watch denounces to happen within European frontiers.

With one in five victims, the most risky collective of Human Trafficking are children. Those who have been deprived of a family environment are the most likely to end up in a human trafficking network. Street crime offences and the involvement of trafficked children in the production, manufacture and supply of controlled drugs are the most frequent activities involving abuse of children according to Europol. 

The agency says that "at the present time, Europol’s priority is to combat the sexual exploitation of children.” Its most significant outcome so far has been the identification of children who have been saved from further abuse. As an example, in 2001 an Analytical Work File (AWF) was created to support "the participating member states in preventing and combating the activities of criminal networks involved in the production, sale or distribution of child pornography.” According to the last Europol report published about child abuse, the above mentioned AWF has led so far to the identification of nearly 1,000 suspects. All the networks were involved in offences close to the distribution of child abuse material on the internet. 

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) considers itself a regional organization following United Nations guidelines, acting as an observer in their Assembly. Its oldest institution is the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), established in 1991 and currently based in Warsaw (Poland). Human rights are considered one of its active fields along with election observation, democratic development, tolerance and non-discrimination, rule of law, and Roma and Sinti issues.

Many experts believe that the current financial climate would not help to reduce exploitation in the EU. MEP Newton Dunn thinks that increasing national budgets is difficult in these hard financial times and that a massive pressure from the public opinion on the finance ministers is needed. He also states that public awareness should be raised by national governments and not by the OSCE, which has been repeatedly criticised by other members because of an excess of bureaucracy and inefficacy in raising public opinion. 

Others say that serious commitments are needed to achieve a better inter-member co-operation. According to Human Rights Watch, states should take appropriate measures to prevent trafficking of children: "correct identification of unaccompanied children, monitoring of their whereabouts and passing appropriate legislation" are some of the basic policies that the NGO suggests to introduce. Their last report also reveals the necessity of basic protection for trafficked victims, especially minors. "Children who are victims of trafficking must be given access to the asylum procedure and the standards for protection should include grounds that protect them", reveals their report of December 2010, according to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (arts. 20, 34-36). 

But the Lisbon Treaty has certainly led to strengthen the criminal law area in the EU lately. The Council, in its first agreement with the Parliament, passed a Directive in December that looks for a better prevention of crime and protection of victims. Although the Directive focuses on penalising harder to the traffickers, it will imply a list of requirements to follow by all state members within two years: witness protection to victims, accommodation, and medical and legal assistance. It also officially recognises different forms of trafficking: sexual exploitation, forced labour, begging, removal of organs, illegal adoption and forced marriages. Regardless, the United Kingdom and Denmark have decided not to include the Directive into their legislation. 

Klára Skřivánková, trafficking programme coordinator of the NGO Anti-Slavery, finds both countries' position contrary to the aim of the Directive of "creating standards in dealing with trafficking across the whole of the EU, especially in the criminal justice system". "If one state does not participate, the message to those who commit the crime is that they are not collaborating enough to try to dismantle the crime”, states Skřivánková.  

For people more exigent, like MEP Newton Dunn, there is another way to reduce human trafficking dramatically: to create “an FBI for Europe and strengthen our external borders, to the east and to the south". It is granted that it would take more than two years to put in practice.