EU News in February 2018

What happened in the European Union in February?

3-4 times a year, the leaders of the EU countries gather to decide what to do next. So this is one of the most powerful organisations in the EU, because Presidents and Prime Ministers go to the meeting or 'summit'. This time, it was on 23 February and all the official information is here.

Of course, journalists write about the meetings. One important topic was how to select the president of the European Commission (the 'EU government'). Now, each political group proposes a candidate to become the next president. That candidate is called 'Spitzenkandidat' in the EU's special language.

The president of the Council (left) and Parliament (right) © EU

The EU parliament said before the summit it only wanted to have as the Commission's president one of those proposed Spitzenkandidaten. But, the leaders disagreed at the meeting: they want to keep the power to propose any candidate to become the president. Even if it was not one of those candidates. And in no way this procedure should be automatic. Read more articles here and here.

On the summit, the leaders also agreed that the budget should focus on security and migration (article).

Who's on top of the European administration? It's an important job: there's over 30 000 people working at the European Commission. The job is called Secretary General and there's a new one: Martin Selmayr. He used to be working for the Commission's President. And the way he got the job, was very fast and not so transparent. 

French President Macron wants to create a new party in the European Parliament, just like he did in France. However, he will have to find a lot of friends to be significant (article).

How corrupt is each EU country? Transparency International made an interesting report, check it out here. Denmark is seen as the least corrupt EU country, and Bulgaria as the most (article).

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