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The European Union (EU) presented its new and ambitious programme at the end of 2019—the European Green Deal (EGD), which should align its economy to reach the goal of climate neutrality in 2050. A vital part of the deal aims for the energy sector within the leitmotif of supplying clean, affordable and secure energy. Because energy-related Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions accounted in 2020 for three-quarters of all GHG emissions of the EU, the most important pillar for the EGD to succeed is the energy sector. The deal does not function within a vacuum as it will impact other countries, including those with vast conventional energy resources and close ties to the EU, like nations from the region of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This article assesses the deal's impacts on MENA countries and includes recommendations concerning various aspects of low-carbon transition that could be applied. The EGD programme will be used as a reference scenario for those recommendations because of its universal character. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2006 the European Union (EU) adopted a directive which imposed on telecommunication operators an obligation to store all the telecommunication data (data retention) and provide access to retained data to state authorities in order to combat serious crime. The new legislation had to been implemented by all EU Member States. Immediately after the directive was issued, it triggered controversy. Substantial reservations against this measure had been confirmed by five European constitutional courts already within the first eight years since its introduction. In 2014 the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) also acknowledged those reservations. Since then, further European constitutional courts invalidated domestic legislation on data retention. This jurisprudence posed a unique research opportunity to verify whether a genuine judicial dialogue within the varied legal systems occurred in the EU. In this article we analyze jurisprudence of constitutional courts, CJEU, and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on data retention. We identify interactions between domestic and international standards of privacy protection. The main method employed is a comparative study of all the judgments (following their translation) along with a simultaneous analysis of the common EU regulatory framework that all of those judgments challenged. A pivotal finding was an identification of three basic models clearly describing approaches taken by the constitutional courts involved. As the basis for our models, we used the approach of constitutional courts to two pan-European courts: ECtHR and CJEU. We claim that the analyzed jurisprudence constituted an important building block in the construction of a constitutional tradition relating to the protection of privacy based on the European Convention of Human Rights. Existence of this tradition led to the 2014 CJEU judgment (and to subsequent judgments of national constitutional courts). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid expansion of settlements and related infrastructures is a global trend that comes with severe environmental, economic, and social costs. Steering urbanization toward well-balanced compactness is thus acknowledged as an important strategic orientation in UN Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG-11) via the SDG-indicator "Ratio of land consumption rate to population growth rate." The EU's simultaneous commitment to being "a frontrunner in implementing [...] the SDGs" and to striving for "no net land take until 2050" calls for relating the concepts of land consumption and land take to each other. Drawing on an EU-centred questionnaire study, a focus group and a literature review, we scrutinize definitions of land consumption and land take, seeking to show how they are interrelated, and questioning the comparability of respective indicators. We argue that conceptual clarifications and a bridging of the two notions are much needed, and that the precision required for definitions and applications is context-dependent. While approximate understandings may suffice for general communication and dissemination objectives, accurate and consistent interpretations of the discussed concepts seem indispensable for monitoring and reporting purposes. We propose ways of addressing existing ambiguities and suggest prioritizing the term land take in the EU context. Thereby, we aim to enhance conceptual clarity around land consumption and land take—a precondition for solidly informing respective policies and decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]