You are absolutely right, that the European Parliament (EP), does not write legislation alone.
Though the "nothing will happen" is at best pessimistic outlook, at worst obfuscates the relationship dynamics in between the European Parliament and the Commission.
EP's resolution are a strong signal taken by the European Commission in the legislative framework. The stronger the margin of the vote at the EP with more Political Groups, the more likely the item enters legislative drafting/amending queue at the Commission.
Your problem:
- you are a part of a self organising body,
- the body pays to all staff a daily allowance based on presence and attendance,
- on work days everybody signs in,
- majority of you agree that there must be some accountability,
- everybody wants to avoid embarrassment and losing face,
- most agree that there must not be a physical presence that would authenticate people at the sign-in, so no individuals delegated to make the assessment on the spot (see the previous point).
You have already tired (a) paper forms and determined that they are fraudulently sign in, (b) named RFID badges and determined that individuals with other names check in.
Next step - hide the security authenticating people inside a small machine that would do the work of a paid security official at the sign-in desk.
Based my first hand account - there are very timid attempts to open source some libraries - mostly used in between the EU institutions. Code given as a zip, no access to a repo.
There is plenty of anxieties around the subject still, so work does not take place in the open.
Supporting Open Source projects that are used internally are still deep in the woods, ironically thought one could find reference in documentation to “helping out the community” as a stated benefit of using Open Source...
Portuguese are following a path of decriminalisation, which in a legal sense if a long shot away from the legalisation that the state of Luxembourg has just announced...
Production and sale are still criminalised in Portugal, and possession is still considered illegal, but with no penalties to first time offenders and considered a health issue for repeated offenders.
The major difference - Decriminalisation complies with their international obligations as per signed international treaties, Legalisation does not.
State of Luxembourg thinks they will get away with that, and I would bet this has been thoroughly vetted with their international partners.
Truth be told, the press release is somewhat misleading. European Parliament is calling on European Commission to take a closer look at own Directive from 2001 (3 years before the countries in question joined the club).
The European Parliament has run this file through a non-legislative procedure, which explains why the press release says "urge the Commission" and places the time limit for action in quotes.
While it is a clear indication of what Members of the European Parliament stand for, there is no immediate legal implications of it - political yes... The European Parliament is a curious legal construct.
There is a plenty of wiggle room to avoid any direct action by the European Commission.
IMO, one of the major EU-related things that people are not aware of is that the European Parliament doesn't possess legislative initiative. EU laws are initiated by the European Commission (or) at the request of one or more member states.
Sad faith - get super bloated, kill all the live in vicinity, then shrink to a shadow of former self for the remainder of the life time of the universe.
NO, supernova would be so much more spectacular. At least it might give a standard candle for others observing this galaxy, become a measuring stick for the universe, and spill some heavier elements for whatever comes next.
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Should privacy laws end where atmosphere of our planet ends?
If the Outer Space take of Bundesnachrichtendienst is true, we would be for an overhaul of quite few laws once more humans get beyond law earth orbit.
Tax unification - would in fact start with Fiscal Harmonisation.. That is to say - tax rates can be different, but the underlying calculations how to calculate income and expenses would be harmonised across the Member States of EU.
We are generations away from Tax Unification, if it ever happens...
Fiscal Harmonisation - more like it, though save some global seismic event - still a generation into the future.
I believe this is the political calculation the EU is making. Further EU integration is unpopular right now, but not as unpopular as large corporate tax dodgers.
This is partly about showing how only a big powerful EU can stand up to companies like Apple, whereas small countries like Ireland have to beg for tax.
Agreed - the title is bombastic fluff, however, some interesting points are made. Though the strongest one just paraphrases of the opening paragraph of the EC press release (http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-2923_en.htm).
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The biggest problem I have with Tim Cook's position is the sovereignty argument. I would stay away from it for now, and let the interested parties pick it up.
Tim Cook: "This would strike a devastating blow to the sovereignty of EU member states over their own tax matters, and to the principle of certainty of law in Europe".
While it is a feel good story - that's also a remarkable reminder of how little do we know. Sure, we most likely have few full instances of Tasmanian Devil's DNA (accounting for reading errors that is). This just tells me how far off we are from actual understanding how this machinery adjusted to the external threat.
Drawing a parallel with software stack -> we invented it and there are very few of us (sure as hell not me) that would understand a full stack of the browser and its environment I am currently using. Now faced with a large trove of DNA data - we know it works. Stationary we could show how a particular part affects a particular protein production. The full on rolling in-vivo interactions are way beyond the reach - reverse engineering them proves quite a challenge.
Would life be akin to running a code that keeps data and states in the code itself, continuing running itself though the changed code?
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Anybody here is cracking an interesting biotechnological problem with a fancy software stack - one that could be shared for a good story?
When I read it the first time if blew my mind. In principle - traumatic memories developed in presence of a particular scent triggered responses in subsequent generations - without the generations entering into social contact (a case of a female mouse to its offspring). Don't know how well established is statistics in this study though and how well replicated was the study.
It suggests a storage of the information beyond central nervous system - in mammalian sperm.
Can you say that for certain in this case? In particular, any time you sequence a population, you see a large number of "novel" SNPs (or collections of SNPs), where the mutations were introduced in the germline of the parent and inherited, but weren't present in the parent's somatic cell line. And that's exactly what they saw in this paper. So I'm not certain you can claim that the DNA didn't adjust (rather, that natural mutations didn't contribute to the survivor's higher reproduction rate).
Though the "nothing will happen" is at best pessimistic outlook, at worst obfuscates the relationship dynamics in between the European Parliament and the Commission.
EP's resolution are a strong signal taken by the European Commission in the legislative framework. The stronger the margin of the vote at the EP with more Political Groups, the more likely the item enters legislative drafting/amending queue at the Commission.