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In that time, the EU was forced to pay less attention to other problems among its member states. Problems that present a far greater long-term threat to the European project than Brexit ever could.

For the EU is being undermined by nations within its ranks ignoring the rule of EU law, deviating from Europe's high standards on human rights and laughing in the face of freedom of expression.

The court's words might be a little dramatic. The proposed reforms, which would allow the government to punish judges for engaging in political activity, ignore the EU's requirement that courts act independently of government. But that doesn't mean Poland is going to get kicked out of the EU.

First, you cannot officially expel an EU member state. It's possible to suspend a nation's voting rights under Article 7 of the treaty of the European Union, designed to punish nations that disobey the EU's founding principles. But they are officially still a member state. It would require unanimous agreement among the other member states to even have a vote on doing so. And no one who understands EU politics thinks there is any chance of this happening.

"Article 7 was never designed to deal with a situation where there was more than one delinquent state," says Ronan McCrea, professor of European Law at University College London.

Right now, there are several delinquent states causing havoc in Brussels. About 340 miles south of Warsaw, Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban has spent the past decade presiding over assaults on his nation's courts, academic institutions, central bank and press.

These are merely the most egregious examples of member states undermining the EU's core principles.

Croatia's government is under pressure for failing to reform existing laws enough to protect journalists from facing legal suits for doing their job. There are similar criticisms of tight press control in Greece and Bulgaria. Bluntly, the old continent is hurtling towards a crisis in mutual trust on values and law. And trust is arguably the central pillar of European unity and stability.

Agata Gostyska-Jakubowska, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, explains that the "backtracking on the rule of law in any member states" creates "a challenge to the whole mutual trust. That is a founding principle for crucial projects such as the single market or justice."

The problem is that members of the EU are overseen by the European Court of Justice. National courts are expected to respect European law. McCrea explains that "the web of rules under which members states automatically recognize each others' decisions is threatened by undermining the rule of law. The EU is a very small bureaucracy. It largely depends on national judges and national civil servants to implement the law."

With so many European nations terrified at the prospect of the EU juggernaut taking a closer look at their alleged indiscretions, there is no way that as a bloc, the member states would give a green light to Brussels singling out one member. So Article 7 is a non-starter.

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Brexit was a distraction. Now Europe is facing a hellish 2020 - CNN

On 11 November 2019, the Council adopted Decision (CFSP) 2019/1893[1] concerning restrictive measures in view of the situation in Venezuela.

The Council has decided that the restrictive measures should be renewed for a further period of 12 months, until 14 November 2020. The Council also decided to amend the statement of reasons for eight persons listed in Annex I to Decision (CFSP) 2017/2074.

The Candidate Countries Republic of North Macedonia* and Albania*, and the EFTA countries Iceland and Liechtenstein, members of the European Economic Area, as well as Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, Armenia and Georgia align themselves with this decision.

They will ensure that their national policies conform to this Council Decision.

The European Union takes note of this commitment and welcomes it.

[1] Published on 12.11.2019 in the Official Journal of the European Union L 291/42.

*Republic of North Macedonia and Albania continue to be part of the Stabilisation and Association Process.

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Declaration by the High Representative on behalf of the EU on the alignment of certain countries with Council Decision concerning restrictive measures...

The Conservative Party secured an incredible victory in Thursdays general election, capturing 364 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons. It was one of the biggest shifts in British political allegiances for decades and it marked a personal triumph for Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is now the most successful Tory leader since Margaret Thatcher. The win means Britain will almost certainly leave the EU in January 2020 as, just like the Prime Minister said, "no one can now refute" his "stonking mandate" to deliver Brexit.

The era of uncertainty has therefore ended as the general election result broke the Brexit deadlock created by Theresa Mays disastrous 2017 campaign.

As MPs prepare to vote on the withdrawal agreement on Friday, unearthed reports reveal how remarkably similar Greenland's exit from the EEC the precursor to the EU is to the UKs Brexit saga.

Greenland became the first and only country to leave the bloc after a referendum was held in 1982.

As part of the Danish Kingdom, Greenland joined the bloc in 1973 but, not long after its entry, the country started fighting for independence.

Soon after the 2016 Brexit referendum, former Greenland Prime Minister Lars-Emil Johansen, recalled that quitting the forerunner to today's EU in 1985 had provoked a political storm in his country and that the process took three lengthy years.

However, the storm was soon followed by economic growth once Greenland was free of Brussels.

Mr Johansen said: It was a huge deal for domestic politics in Greenland.

The doomsday prophets said that Greenland could never get an exit deal that would be as beneficial as the conditions under EEC membership.

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"We had to do a lot of waiting."

The politician added that a massive political row erupted after two years of exit negotiations, as his government's deal came under attack "by a broad part of the population who thought we sold ourselves too cheaply on our fishing rights.

As a result, Greenland's government was toppled as a no-confidence vote triggered an election in 1984.

However, similarly to Mr Johnson's triumph, Mr Johansens Siumut party was re-elected with a big majority and the island successfully left the EU in 1985.

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Mr Johansen noted that it was only after Greenland had left the bloc that the economy expanded and opponents were proved wrong.

Since then, Greenland's leaders have consistently said that they are satisfied with the decision to leave.

In a 2013 interview with the BBC, former Prime Minister of Greenland Kuupik Kleist said life outside the EU was good and that, after a successful negotiation with the bloc, the country was left significantly better off.

He claimed Greenland had free access to the European markets for his exports but, when asked about other exported goods, he answered with a laugh.

He said: "We don't export anything else but the fish.

"We have regular meetings with the [European] Parliament, and the European Union is one of our international partners an important partner, and important for trade.

"But at the moment, there's no serious consideration for rejoining the European Union."

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Incredible link between UK's Brexit saga and Greenland's withdrawal from bloc exposed - Express

Written by Amitabh Sinha | Pune | Updated: December 21, 2019 8:04:10 am European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at a session to present the Green Deal plan, in European Parliament in Brussels last week. Reuters

The annual climate talks ended in Madrid last week with a disappointing outcome. The talks were unable to define the rules of a new carbon market to be set up under the Paris Agreement, the only major agenda before it. Nor were they able to persuade countries to commit to increase the scale of climate actions by next year, a demand being made again and again in view of scientific assessments that show that current efforts to tackle climate change were not enough.

While the meeting was still on, the European Union, whose 28 member countries are together the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world after China and the United States, came up with an announcement on additional measures it would on climate change. Called the European Green Deal, the EU announcement was hailed as a major step forward, even though it needs complementary efforts from other countries to make a significant impact.

Two major decisions are at the heart of the European Green Deal. One is about achieving climate neutrality. The EU has promised to bring a law, binding on all member countries, to ensure it becomes climate neutral by 2050. Climate neutrality, sometimes also expressed as a state of net-zero emissions, is achieved when a countrys emissions are balanced by absorptions and removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Absorption can be increased by creating more carbon sinks like forests, while removal involves technologies like carbon capture and storage.

Over the last few months, there had been a growing demand for countries to commit to net-zero emissions by 2050. The UN Secretary-General had convened a special meeting on the sidelines of the General Assembly session in September to persuade countries to commit to this target. Over 60 countries had agreed to scale up their climate actions, or to the 2050 target, but these were all relatively small emitters. The EU is now the first major emitter to agree to the 2050 climate neutrality target. It has said it would bring a proposal by March next year on a European law to enshrine this target.

The second decision pertains to an increase in its 2030 emission reduction target. In its climate action plan declared under the Paris Agreement, the EU was committed to making a 40 per cent reduction in its emissions by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. It is now promising to increase this reduction to at least 50 per cent and work towards 55 per cent.

Even at 40 per cent, the European Union had the most ambitious emission reduction targets among the developed countries. The US, for example, had agreed to cut emissions by 26-28 per cent by 2030 from 2005 levels, but having withdrawn from the Paris Agreement, it is under no obligation to fulfill even that target.

The EU also happens to be only one among major emitters to retain the 1990 baseline for emission cuts, originally mandated under the Kyoto Protocol for all developed countries. Most other countries have shifted their baselines to 2005 or even later under the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The Green Deal includes sectoral plans to achieve these two overall targets, and proposals for the policy changes that would be required. For example, it has proposals for making the steel industry carbon-free by 2030, new strategies for transport and energy sectors, a revision of managements of railway and shipping to make them more efficient, and more stringent air pollution emission standards for vehicles.

The European Union, as a whole, has been doing better than other developed countries on reducing emissions. In 2010, the EU had pledged to reduce its emissions by at least 25 per cent by 2020 from 1990 levels. By 2018, it claimed to have achieved 23 per cent reduction in emissions. In terms of emission reductions, it probably is on track to meet the 2020 target, unlike any developed country outside the EU.

Canada, which walked out of the Kyoto Protocol, reported last year that its emissions were down 4 per cent from 2005 levels, but compared to 1990, this was an addition of about 16 per cent. Japan, another country to have abandoned the Kyoto Protocol, said its emissions for the year ending March 31, 2018 had come to about 8 per cent below the 2013 baseline it has chosen for itself. But this is a miniscule decrease compared to 1990 levels.

Even the EU, however, has not been fulfilling all its climate obligations. The Kyoto Protocol required the rich and developed countries to provide finance and technology to the developing countries to help them fight climate change. In those respects, there has been little climate money flowing out of the EU, especially for adaptation needs of developing countries, and transfer of new climate-friendly technologies has been mired in patent and ownership complications.

This is the reason why developing countries, like India and China, have been repeatedly raising the issue of unfulfilled obligations of developed countries in the pre-2020 period, that is covered by the Kyoto Protocol.

The Green Deal is important but inadequate in itself to achieve the emission reductions that scientific assessments say would be required to save the world from catastrophic and irreversible impacts of climate change. There has been no signal from other big emitters, including large developing countries like China and India, that they were considering immediate scaling up of their climate actions.

While announcing the deal, the EU urged other countries to raise the ambition of their actions as well. As long as many international partners do not share the same ambition as the EU, there is a risk of carbon leakage, either because production is transferred from the EU to other countries with lower ambition for emission reduction, or because EU products are replaced by more carbon-intensive imports. If this risk materializes, there will be no reduction in global emissions, and this will frustrate the efforts of EU and its industries to meet the global climate objectives of the Paris Agreement.

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Explained: Why EU Green Deal matters - The Indian Express

Garrett Epps: Dont let the First Amendment forget DeRay Mckesson

This is a theory of liability unknown to the First Amendment. In an important case arising from the civil-rights movement, the Court held in 1982 that protest leaders cant be sued for the violent actions of others unless the plaintiffs can show that the leaders themselves either engaged in violence or incited or directed the violence. Doe alleged incitement, but made no real attempt to show it.

Garrett Epps: Dont let the First Amendment forget DeRay Mckesson

The First Amendment and civil-liberties communities were shocked by the Fifth Circuits original decision, issued in April, which brushed aside the First Amendment with the breezy bromide that the First Amendment does not protect violence. The decision was unanimousWillett was on the panel, but the opinion was written by Judge E. Grady Jolly. (Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod was the third member.) That opinion was a dagger pointed at the heart of the treasured American right to protest against government action. If protest organizers can be sued, and possibly ruined, by lawsuits if anyone at their protest (even, say, an undercover police officer) turns violent, no ordinary citizen would dare organize protests.

Mckessons lawyers asked the Fifth Circuit to rehear the case en banc (as a full court); in response, the same panel withdrew its original opinion and substituted a new one that said, in legal verbiage, We agree with ourselves and by golly, we are right.

The case landed in the Supreme Courts inbox on December 6. Mckessons petition for the Court to hear the case, written by lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union, pointed out that the Fifth Circuit panel decision flatly defied the Courts own precedent in a landmark case called NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware. Advocates of free speech were holding their collective breath waiting to see whether this Court, which preens as a First Amendment champion when the rights of corporations or the rich are at issue, would call out the wayward panel or silently ratify its radical change in the law.

The latter course just got harder. Willett, a Trump appointee and former Texas Supreme Court justice, has now changed his vote and issued a full-throated defense of the idea that free speech covers even unruly protest.

I have had a judicial change of heart, Willett wrote. Admittedly, judges arent naturals at backtracking or about-facing. But I do so forthrightly. Consistency is a cardinal judicial virtue, but not the only virtue. In my judgment, earnest rethinking should underscore, rather than undermine, faith in the judicial process. As Justice Frankfurter elegantly put it 70 years ago, Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late.

The words are true, and the practice of judicial self-examination is, while not unheard-of, regrettably rare. In this case, reexamination led Willett to see two gaping holes in the majoritys case. First, he pointed out, despite the panels earlier decision, its not clear that even Louisiana tort law would support a lawsuit against Mckesson. To reach that conclusion, the panel had to, in essence, make new Louisiana state law. Every second-year law student knows that is a practice courts of appeals are supposed to avoidespecially when doing so creates a federal constitutional issue.

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A Stunning Vote Reversal in a Controversial First Amendment Case - The Atlantic