Policies in place throughout the world: action by the European Union

The EU Response to COVID-19: From Reactive Policies to Strategic Decision-Making.

Disharmonization in the Regulation of Transgenic Plants in Europe

Biological weapons are not just topics for contemporary novelists but found their way into classical literature long ago. Shakespeare has Hamlet's father's ghost describe, ‘Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole, with juice of cursed hebona in a vial, and in the porches of my ears did pour the leprous distillment.’ (Act 1, Scene 5) Indeed, neither the act nor the accusation is new. Jews in Europe were accused of poisoning wells to cause plague in the Middle Ages. Japanese planes in World War II dropped plague‐infested fleas over Chinese cities and villages. Murder or terrorism with biological or chemical agents is not a far‐fetched scenario—it has been used before. Criminal cases in the USA include various uses of biological agents in the last decades. The Rajneesh Foundation used Salmonella bacteria in 1984 to poison ten restaurant salad bars in the city of The Dalles, OR, hoping it would influence an election in its favour. A separatist group calling itself ‘Republic of Texas’ used Botulinum , HIV and rabies in 1998 and 1999 to threaten judges. Three members were later charged with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and the eldest, Johnnie Wise, was sentenced to 24 years in prison. In 1977, Diane Thompson, a nurse from Texas, was sentenced to 20 years for intentionally contaminating doughnuts with Shigella dysenteriae in order to achieve personal revenge. > In 1998 and 1999, a separatist group from Texas used Botulinum, HIV and rabies to threaten judges The particular risk of biological agents, when used as weapons, is their extreme uncontrollableness. An infectious agent can easily spread from the original victim to relatives or colleagues. Particularly at risk are the medical personnel who treat victims without knowing what kind of infection they are dealing with. More unpredictable are the number of people and …

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Commentary

Barcoding animal species

Since the development of well-established chemical and biological warfare programs by state entities dating from World War I, there has been a growing concern that terrorists and terrorist organizations will start using these agents. The use of chemical and biological agents by terrorists has been documented to occur as far back as 1946; however, the total incidences are few and the successes of these attacks have been limited. Very few attempts have reached fruition and the efficacy of these attacks to cause fear and economic damage are generally not equal to the damage that could have been achieved with conventional weapons on a per unit cost analysis. However, dissemination of technological information and expertise has increased the threat of chemical and biological terrorism. In this text the generally well-known chemical and biological agents are reviewed along with the weaponization and delivery methods used by states. An overview of chemical and biological terrorism in the past century is also examined and used to extrapolate what could be expected from terrorists in the future. It is found that chemical and biological terrorism are likely to be a rare event and those that will occur should have limited success. However, state-funded terrorism, weapons supplied through criminal organizations, and competent lone wolves bent on world destruction are threats that may have the most significant impact in the future.

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Editorial: Governing the EU's climate and energy transition through the 2030 Framework

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Be Prepared

Problem setting. The European Parliament is one of the main EU institutions and the only representative body of the European Union. The importance of this supranational body necessitates its smooth functioning. However, in practice, a number of issues arise that significantly complicate its work and therefore require immediate resolution. In particular, there is a practical lack of interest of EU citizens in elections to the European Parliament due to the ‘democratic deficit’. There is also the issue of the distribution of seats in the European Parliament in connection with the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, and most importantly, how the seats will be distributed in the future with the accession of new member states, since the current form of the EU Treaty limits the number of European Parliament members to a maximum of 751. An equally important issue is the reform of the existing decision-making procedure; the principle of consensus is currently too slow in the process of making crucial decisions and this needs to be addressed immediately. Analysis of recent researches and publications. Certain aspects of this problem were considered in their works by such scientists as: G.V. Hrybnyk [1] and A. V. Kulabukhova [2] highlighted the turnout statistics at the elections to the European Parliament. Among foreign scientists, Nicolai von Ondarza and Felix Schenuit studied in their work the options for the development of events after the withdrawal of Great Britain from the European Union and the consequences that this would have for the elections to the European Parliament [3]. Ukrainian scientists V. D. Demetskyi and G. I. Lobodyuk in their work revealed the issue of the future number of representatives in connection with the future entry of Ukraine and other countries into the EU [4]. And also VV Fesenko, who drew attention to the problems of applying the principle of consensus in today’s realities [5], etc. The selected topic requires additional research in connection with Ukraine’s European integration intentions, therefore we have analyzed the above-mentioned works and outlined the main problems in the European Parliament that may cause certain consequences in the near future. A certain recalculation of the number of required seats has been carried out, taking into account all factors (such as Brexit, the entry of new member states). They also noted the consequences of not making changes to the modern decision-making procedure unanimity, and indicated one of the possible ways to solve this problem, which in the aggregate is a novelty in the specified topic. Purpose of the research is to examine the problematic issues which the European Parliament faces in today’s realities and to identify the ways of their solution or the consequences of their neglect in the near future. Article’s main body. The article is devoted to topical issues related to changes, problems and reforms of such an institution of the European Union (EU) as the European Parliament (EP). Particular attention is paid to the factors which influenced the previous results of the elections to this representative body. The analysis shows that the main factors behind the relatively low turnout in the elections were the presence of certain distrust and scepticism of EU citizens in 2004 and 2014, which is associated with the priority of national interests over European ones in general, and the “democratic deficit” which prevented residents of EU member states from fully influencing the content of political decisions. The author outlines a number of actions taken by the EU to remedy this situation and indicates the impact of these innovations on the results of the 2019 elections. Despite some positive changes, the problems, including the “democracy deficit”, have not been fully resolved. Therefore, the authors point out that the issue of reforming the European Parliament is a permanent part of the debate on EU institutional reform. It is formulated that the opportunity to act in this direction begins after Brexit, which necessitated the redistribution of seats in the Parliament and the introduction of comprehensive reforms. After the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, the number of MPs was 705, and the author establishes that the Council of the European Union has changed the number of MPs to 720 and determines how this will affect the distribution of mandates among the EU member states. Conclusions and prospects for the development. The author provides some data indicating positive changes regarding the upcoming elections to the European Parliament in 2024. Attention is focused on the rather controversial aspect of Ukraine’s accession to the EU and the redistribution of seats in the European Parliament in this regard. The next problem identified by the authors is the need to reform the decision-making procedure in the EP on exceptional issues. The author presents the opinions of individual politicians and points out that changes in this area are necessary to improve efficiency and effectiveness while preserving democracy.

Index

Protection of constitutional identity in light of the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Poland – a comparative study