Steve Peers

Iceland locks in on date for EU referendum | Euractiv As a member of the European Economic Area, Iceland is already aligned with much of the bloc's legislation

The Iceland referendum on EU accession is now slated for 29 August this year.

Note: The referendum will first only be on restarting the negotiations, but clearly a sign of shifting geopolitical thinking.

I meant the Telegraph headline about asylum-seeker employment, sorry I should have been clear, not a criticism of your post

2/ Anyway it's obvious that the plan is to wait and see what happens with the imminent elections. But they might not be imminent enough for Ukrainian funding needs.

There isn't. As the article says it's possible to suspend voting rights but there's no sign of the necessary support to do that. In fact even the lower threshold just to send HU a warning re human rights has not been met, although some funding has been reduced on those grounds. 1/

The House of Lords Digital & Communications Committee just published their report on AI, copyright & the creative industries, and their conclusions could not be clearer.

🧵 1/5

Appropriately enough, a wildly misleading and inflammatory headline there

Badenough still going on about the Chinese mega-embassy in London - perhaps forgetting that the Tory Govt approved it back in 2018...

NEWS: Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) has dropped out of his primary runoff after admitting to an affair with an aide who later died by suicide and amid a House Ethics probe. His exit makes Brandon Herrera the GOP nominee in Texas’ 23rd District.

Absolutely right

Again, as with Guardian article, Mahmood's reliance on false/deliberately misleading claims about her "earned settlement" proposals suggests that she knows she can't defend them on the merits, in principle or in practice.

America might have stopped being the world's policeman, but it's now the world's drunk – staggering around wildly at closing time, taking a swing at whoever comes near.

Axel Springer poised to buy Telegraph in £500mn deal German media group has gatecrashed a proposed acquisition by the owner of the Daily Mail

Media group Axel Springer is poised to agree a £500mn deal for the Telegraph in a move that will scupper the proposed acquisition of the UK newspaper group by the Daily Mail - FT scoop by @danielthomasldn.bsky.social @arashmassoudi.ft.com James Fontanella Khan www.ft.com/content/e5cb...

Oh

Commission suspends visa-free travel for Georgian holders of diplomatic, service or official passports under the revised Visa Suspension Mechanism Today, the European Commission is suspending visa-free travel for holders of Georgian diplomatic, service, and official passports. They are now required to be in possession of a visa when entering the

EU Commission decision to require visas for holders of Georgian official passports, as a sanction for human rights concerns - ec.europa.eu/commission/p...
First application of recent EU law on visa waiver suspension, which I discussed here - eulawanalysis.blogspot.com/2025/06/carr...

Chief Advisor for Vibes-Based Foreign Policy Operations and Faith-Based Evidentiary Standards

Council agrees position on EU law to protect vulnerable adults The Council set its position on a Regulation protecting adults unable to safeguard their interests in cross-border situations.

EU Member States agree negotiation position on EU law on cross-border protection of vulnerable adults www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/pre...
Will now be negotiated with European Parliament

I'm God-Emperor of the Lost Arks of British Universities

alpha male update /s

Surprise! The Home Secretary has told another falsehood about her immigration plans

On the voting point, *if* there are 100 Labour MPs voting against, then the govt possibly *would* need Tory votes...

Also from CJEU next week
Hearing on Monday - do chatbots breach copyright law?
Opinion on Thurs - extent of EU/Member State powers to sign aviation treaties
judgment on Thurs - EU free movement law for workers who become unemployed
opinions on Thurs - have HU/CZ breached EU law on access to lawyer

Info Contexte - La France et l’Espagne échouent à inscrire le bannissement des systèmes d’IA de nudification dans l’omnibus IA - Contexte L’info en profondeur.

New: Paris and Madrid failed to convince other EU capitals to add in the tech omnibus a ban of AI generated nudity content without consent (hey Grok).

Still some whispers MEPs will try to push for a ban for the trilogues. But it is very uncertain.

www.contexte.com/fr/actualite...

Reply of @ec.europa.eu to my letter of March '25 (!) Re transatlantic data transfers. It is crystal clear that even at this stage of transatlantic relations, the Commission flatly refuses to ensure protection of European citizens’ rights, but relies instead on the “pretence of compliance” policy

Travel advisory: the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry "recommends that Ukrainian citizens refrain from travelling to Hungary due to the impossibility of guaranteeing their safety against the backdrop of the arbitrary actions of the Hungarian authorities".

This is excellent - the best thing I've seen on the supposed "sectarianism" of the Gorton & Denton by-election. (Unfortunately not posted until after I wrote my own blog touching briefly on a few of the issues, or I would have referred to it there.)

The EU’s plan to stop new members from becoming Hungary 2.0 Montenegro, the front-runner for EU membership, could join under stricter conditions. Here’s what that means.

The EU’s plan to stop new members from becoming Hungary 2.0

Montenegro, the front-runner for EU membership, could join under stricter conditions. Here’s what that means.

spoiler: they won’t be in Switzerland

The voters: “we don’t like your rightward shift”

Starmer: “fuck you”

What I will never understand is....Twitter was *never* a good gauge of public opinion! I genuinely cannot understand the people who have clearly been using it as a measure of something other than 'internal leadership contests' (where it was genuinely useful' or 'ways to discover cool links'.

As George Orwell once said, "This, my sweet, is a letter from my solicitor telling you that your husband has filed a petition for divorce. Happy Christmas, Ange."

"Demand is so great that programs to mentor attorneys to file habeas cases are emerging...

“I’m on all these listservs where people are saying, who can help me in Arizona, who can help me in Mississippi, and people are stepping up and helping each other...”

www.motherjones.com/politics/202...