Social – European Affairs Magazine

The ENS launches his new report

The ENS – European Network on statelessness (European Network for the Statelessness) is launching in these last hours its new report “No child should be stateless”, which is an integral part of its campaign to put an end to childhood statelessness in Europe.

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The entity is a charity under english law, London based, and is obviously a non-governmental body, which is always looking for partnerships with universities, international organizations, and experts in the asylum and immigration issues.

The report provides a summary of research studies conducted by membersof the ENS, in eight European countries, as well as analysis of national laws in all 47 states of the Council of Europe (which as we can remember, is neither the European Council nor the Council of the European Union, as we have explained on europeanaffairs.media, but an international organization which also includes non-EU countries, whose main objective is the preservation of human rights). The document explains why many of children continue to grow without citizenship, because of gaps in European laws or because of bureaucratic obstacles that sometimes prevent the regular birth registration. The report reveals that even if a lot of countries acceded to the international conventions, more than a half have not yet given proper effect to its obligations, to ensure that children acquire a nationality. The ENS’ reasearch also sheds light on new and emerging cases of statelessness child and focuses just on the risk run by those who are adopted or recognized by same-sex couples or children who are born from refugees and migrants or through surrogacy.

According to the speakers, whose work quo be downloaded here , statelessness childhood – which inevitably generates considerable difficulties in access to rights and services – can be a problem completely solved: the report concludes with a series of recommendations to guide action to face in a more effectively way the phenomenon in Europe.

We point also out that the topic is the subject of a hashtag on Twitter, #StetelessKids, and that a discussion on this social campaign was launched between 16.00 and 18.00 (CET) on Monday 21st September. This matter was also focused by Nils Muižnieks, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, with a statement which we will return on. The UNHCR also participated in the event and the discussions, with a campaign called #IBelong, which aims at eradicating statelessness within a decade.

The ENS motto? “Everyone has the right to a nationality”

Domenico Martinelli

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Data Protection in EU

7 Settembre 2015 Europe/Innovation/Policy/Social di

Data Protectione in Europe travels on two main channels: the juridical-legislative one and more operational one, which normally takes effects in Internal Affairs.

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In facts, Brussels has been looking for a long time to regulate the delicate topic, which clearly founds large difficulties, due to the large differences between the legal systems of the Members States. As we already mentioned on europeanaffairs.media, Europe legislates under a procedure known as co-decision, jointly divided, although with different tasks, between the EU Council and the European Parliament.

Two legisltative instruments are being studied in the Council: a Directive and a Regulation. As known, one commits Member States to a result and, at most, within specified timelines, leaving some margin of discretion to the countries concerned on how to achieve the goal. The other tool, however, binds in detail all EU states.

At the table of the Council Group dealing with the matter, called DAPIX (Data Protection Information Exchange) and its subgroups, sit – for almost all member states – representatives of the judiciary and the Privacy Authorities, that interface from time by time on the various chapters and articles of the texts in question, and that relate to their Countries on ongoing proceedings. In certain subgroups, also representatives frome the Police Forces of the Member States, who are directly involved in the use of databases for purposes of investigation and prosecution, have the task to intervene and to converse on the effectively outcomes produced by specific legislation of the sector, such as the c. d. Prüm Decisions.

Recent rumors portend that the approval of the the two pieces of legislation – the one with general characteristics and the other laying down more stringent ones – it’s pretty close and that the current Presidency, currently assigned to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, wants to remove all possible obstacles. On the sidelines of the legislative process in place, we must mention the presence of a major European institution: the EDPS, the European Data Protection Supervisor.

Since the European institutions deal with collection, recording, store or use of the information related to the data of EU citizens, one of the main tasks of the European Institution is, of course, to act as a checker on compliance with current privacy laws. But this form of control is also reflected in the handling of complaints from citizens who call upon its intervention and the management of related disputes, or in the surveillance of new technologies that in any way may affect data protection. Last but not least, an advisory function to the institutions and bodies on all aspects related to the processing of personal data and related policies and legislation is ensured. The Role of European Supervisor is currently governed by the Italian magistrate Giovanni Buttarelli.

The adoption of common rules on protection of personal data, which deserves a lot of volumes of discussion, is a complex and sensitive area that will produce inevitable effects even in enterprise security and the economic system of the Member States. Consider, for example, the establishment of the post of Privacy Officer, who will become a key figure in the decision making of enterprises and that will assist the Security Manager in the management of the security of logic and digital information.

Domenico Martinelli

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