Fundamental Rights as the Cornerstone of Schengen

Although the Schengen Border Code (SBC) explicitly obliges Member States to apply the Schengen rules in full compliance with the fundamental rights, Member States’ adherence to this obligation can be questioned in light of recurrent and reliable reports about fundamental rights violations at the EU’s external borders. This contribution will examine why, apart from the deficiencies in the SCHE-VAL mechanism, the current response towards fundamental rights violations at the border is ineffective. First, it will analyse the legal framework, including the implementing rules, to see if additional guidance is needed. Second, the enforcement mechanisms will be examined: how are violations being addressed at the national level, and how does the EU Commission perceive and fulfills its role regarding enforcement of compliance? As the Commission has often referred to the monitoring mechanism as proposed in the draft Screening Regulation, the contribution will examine to what extent this New Pact file will help to resolve the current impunity. Finally, the article will analyse the role of Frontex regarding human rights violations by Member States. What is their responsibility, how do they perform it, and who is enforcing compliance by Frontex?

The European Approach to Building AI Policy and Governance: A Haven for Bureaucrats or Innovators?

Disruptive technologies and the domination of digital platforms have challenged the global economy players twice — first, to get a hand on them, then to mitigate the possible risks. It is beyond doubt that reliable artificial intelligence (AI) can bring many benefits at the European level, such as better health care, safer and cleaner transport, more efficient manufacturing, and sustainable energy. But regulating the unknown requires considerable effort on how to attract investors using clear rules while keeping human control over the algorithms as a priority. In April 2021, the EU Commission published a holistic proposal to regulate the use of AI, which promises to put trust first and ensure that facial recognition and big data operators will never abuse fundamental human rights. Although the proposal is likely to be amended during EU-wide discussions, the new approach to AI will clearly give citizens the reassurance to adopt these technologies while encouraging companies to develop them. Hence, this article aims to map the core challenges for the EU policy on the use of AI, as well as the milestones of developing the holistic legislative proposal, and clarify if the afore-mentioned proposal indeed solves all the AI-related risks for future generations.

Hybrid AI Framework for Legal Analysis of the EU Legislation Corrigenda

This paper presents an AI use-case developed in the project “Study on legislation in the era of artificial intelligence and digitization” promoted by the EU Commission Directorate-General for Informatics. We propose a hybrid technical framework where AI techniques, Data Analytics, Semantic Web approaches and LegalXML modelisation produce benefits in legal drafting activity. This paper aims to classify the corrigenda of the EU legislation with the goal to detect some criteria that could prevent errors during the drafting or during the publication process. We use a pipeline of different techniques combining AI, NLP, Data Analytics, Semantic annotation and LegalXML instruments for enriching the non-symbolic AI tools with legal knowledge interpretation to offer to the legal experts.

REQUIREMENTS FOR CREATING CONDITIONS FOR KEEPING ANIMALS ON DAIRY FARMS

The purpose of the research is – to develop requirements for creating comfortable conditions for keeping farm animals, taking into account EU standards, during milk production on farms. Research methods. During the development of requirements for the creation of comfortable conditions for keeping farm animals, taking into account EU standards, in the process of milk production on farms used the following basic regulations: Council Directive 98/58/EU, Council Directive 91/629/EU, Council Directive 92/46/EU, Commission Directive 89/362/EC. Requirements in the field of milk production, adapted to EU standards, are systematized by the following components: keeping, feeding, watering animals, milking cows, milk cooling, manure removal, creating a microclimate, veterinary care. Research results. In practice, during milk production it is necessary to create free, comfortable conditions for keeping cattle. Convenient access of service personnel to the place of calving of cows should be provided. In the conditions of the maternity ward, the technological areas should be 8-10 m² per cow. Young cattle, including calves, should be provided with a clean and dry rest area, protected from drafts. According to EU regulations, calves up to eight weeks of age can be kept in individual cages or in group cages. According to EU Council Directive 97/2, calves older than 8 weeks of age are kept only in group cages. In accordance with the EU Directive 97/2 technological areas for keeping young cattle with a live weight of up to 150 kg - must be at least 1,5 m² / head., Live weight 150 - 220 kg – 1,7 m² / head., Live weight 220 kg and more – 1,8 m² / goal. Technological areas for keeping animals with a live weight of 200 to 500 kg - from 2,7 to 4,7 m² / goal. The feeding front for young cattle with a live weight of 200 to 500 kg is from 0,4 to 0,6 m / goal. The technological area in the section per cow must be at least 6 m² / head. Rational sizes of boxes for rest of cows: width 1,2 m, length (near a wall) - 2,6 m, length (in paired boxes) - 2,45 m, height of a protection of a box - 1,1 ± 0,05 m, an inclination boxing floor towards the manure passage 5 ± 1%, the height of the boxing floor above the level of the manure passage 0,2 – 0,25 m. The width of the rest area of cows must be at least 6 m. In accordance with EU Council Directive 98/58 must be provided free access of animals to feeders and feed. EU Commission Decision 97/182 states that priority should be given to the feeding of whole milk substitutes when feeding calves. A feeding front for cows must be provided – 0,7 ± 0,05 m. In accordance with EU Council Directive 98/58, free access of animals to drinking troughs and water must be ensured. According to European standards, the total bacterial contamination of milk should be - ≤ 300 thousand KUO / cm³, the number of somatic cells in milk - ≤ 400 thousand /cm³. Drainage of wastewater from milking parlors, household premises of the farm is carried out using a separate from the manure removal system - sewer system. The bactericidal phase of fresh milk is 4 hours, no later than this period you need to start processing milk into dairy products. The depth of the manure channel in the livestock building should be 8 - 20 cm, the sides of which are located at right angles to the surface of the channel. The minimum width of the manure passage for cows should be 2,7 m. An acceptable level of air temperature for cows during the year from minus 10 °C to + 25 °C at a relative humidity of up to 80 %. Periodically carry out preventive veterinary measures, weighing animals, trimming the hooves of limbs in cows 2-4 times a year, monthly examination of cows for mastitis using mastitis detectors. Conclusions. For the first time in Ukraine, requirements have been developed to create comfortable conditions for keeping farm animals, taking into account EU standards, during milk production on farms. Requirements adapted to EU standards in the field of milk production are systematized by the following components: keeping, feeding, watering dairy cattle, milking cows, cooling milk, manure removal, creating a microclimate, veterinary care.

Consumer study of Indonesian coffee leaves tea as traditional drinks

Coffee leaf tea is a traditional drink obtained by processing coffee leaves and served as tea. Coffee leaf tea is often found in West Sumatra, known as kawa daun. However, coffee leaves have not been widely known in the general public so that coffee leaf tea consumers are rarely encountered. In this study, an analysis was carried out to see consumer preferences for coffee leaf tea. Coffee leaves as a by-product have been declared as a novel food by EU Commission in 2020. Thus, coffee leaf tea products have potential economic value that can be promoted. To determine consumer preferences of Indonesian coffee leaf tea, a descriptive analysis of the consumer using online questionnaire was conducted, followed by conjoint analysis and one-way ANOVA test. As resulted from conjoint analysis, the preferences of Indonesian coffee leaves tea consumer were sequentially driven by level of sweetness, darkness of the colour, and the strength of fragrant. It was observed that gender strongly affected the preference on coffee leaves tea (p-value<0.05).

Hidden Continuities?: The Avatars of “Judicial Lustration” in Post-Communist Romania

This Article grapples with the instrumentalization of the past in Romania, in the specific context of “judicial lustration” measures. It argues that decommunization and lustration policies, which could not be pursued in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of state socialism in 1989, were weaponized much later and used in order to advance other purposes. In 2006, an expedited judicial vetting procedure, in the context of the EU-driven fight against corruption, was repurposed by the center-right as a lustration instrument. In the same year, the dismantling of an intelligence service created after 1991 in the Justice Ministry (SIPA) to monitor ‘vulnerabilities’ in the justice system has set in motion a long series of failed attempts to bring closure to the question regarding the service’s archives, fomenting continuities of suspicion until today. More recently, in 2018, a form of ‘mock-judicial lustration’ has been used by the political left to deflect or at least delegitimize repressive anti-corruption policies. The new “lustration procedure” implicitly equated the recent cooperation between prosecutors and intelligence officers, in the context of the fight against corruption, with past practices of collusion between the members of the judiciary and the communist Securitate. These three episodes of ‘dealing with the past’ are reviewed in order to showcase path-dependencies. Such path-dependencies are not linked only with carryovers from or throwbacks to the communist past. Rather, pre- and post-communist deficiencies of modernization, combined more recently with gaps in post-accession monitoring by the EU Commission, create continuities of peripheral instrumentalism. Various narratives, such as decommunization, the fight against graft, judicial reform and the rule of law are used to legitimize short-term consequentialism, evincing a resilient, structural resistance to legislative and legal normativity.

Best Efforts in the Taxonomy of Obligation – The Case of the EU Vaccine Contracts

The purchase of Covid-19 vaccines by the EU Commission as agent for the Member States has caused substantial political discussion, including a lawsuit against the producer AstraZeneca in Brussels in 2021. The article looks at these purchase contracts as examples for a problematic use of “best efforts“ clauses in commercial contracting, considering some key jurisdictions. The clauses are discussed from a drafting perspective, including their function and their theoretical background in comparative law. It concludes with a primer for the drafting process, looking at some basic contracting schemes for softening or intensifying obligations.

Анализ сертификационных требований к организации-разработчику изделий гражданской и государственной авиации

Certification of developers, manufacturers and aviation equipment for civil aviation is carried out by the State Aviation Administration of Ukraine in accordance with the requirements of the Aviation Regulations APU-21 (Part-21). Certification of developers, manufacturers and aviation equipment for state aviation is carried out by the Department for Regulation of State Aviation of Ukraine in accordance with the requirements of the certification rules of Part-21B. Part-21B certification rules use the principles of EASA Part-21, EU Commission Regulation N 748/2012, as well as the European Military Airworthiness Requirements EMAR 21, approved by the Military Airworthiness Forum under the auspices of the European Defense Agency. The article presents the results of a comparative analysis of certification requirements for state aviation in accordance with Part-21B and for civil aviation in accordance with APU-21 (Part-21). Such an analysis makes it possible to identify differences that must be taken into account in quality management procedures in order for the enterprise to obtain developer, manufacturer and type certificates for both civil aviation equipment and state aviation equipment. The degree of coincidence of the requirements in Part-21B and in APU-21 (Part-21) is classified as follows: identical, overlapping, conflicting, completely different, the absence in one of the rules. When registering the analysis results, a graphical form was selected for visualizing numerical information in the form of a "Radar" diagram. It was concluded that the results of comparing the requirements in the field of obtaining a certificate of the development organization in accordance with Chapter J, type certification in accordance with Chapter B, approval of changes in the design of aviation equipment in accordance with Chapter D show that the requirements of the certification rules of Part-21B and the Aviation rules of the APU- 21 (Part-21) for the most part do not contradict each other and have few differences. This allows the enterprise to have a limited amount of differing evidentiary documentation to meet the certification needs of a developer, manufacturer and aircraft for civil and state aviation.

The AI Methods, Capabilities and Criticality Grid

Many artificial intelligence (AI) technologies developed over the past decades have reached market maturity and are now being commercially distributed in digital products and services. Therefore, national and international AI standards are currently being developed in order to achieve technical interoperability as well as reliability and transparency. To this end, we propose to classify AI applications in terms of the algorithmic methods used, the capabilities to be achieved and the level of criticality. The resulting three-dimensional classification scheme, termed the AI Methods, Capabilities and Criticality (AI-$$\hbox {MC}^2$$ MC 2 ) Grid, combines current recommendations of the EU Commission with an ethical dimension proposed by the Data Ethics Commission of the German Federal Government (Datenethikkommission der Bundesregierung: Gutachten. Berlin, 2019). As a whole, the AI-$$\hbox {MC}^2$$ MC 2 Grid allows not only to gain an overview of the implications of a given AI application as well as to compare efficiently different AI applications within a given market or implemented by different AI technologies. It is designed as a core tool to define and manage norms, standards and compliance of AI applications, but helps to manage AI solutions in general as well.