For even artificial geopolitical entities tend to develop power centres and structures that benefit from maintaining the status quo – if only because that power would disappear if their entity would be subsumed by a neighbouring one.
(via bigthink)
“Recently I was asked by a Finnish foundation to write an article aiming to explain to artists what it would mean not to fly to their residencies, called Slow Travel – A Privilege Not A Sacrifice, describing a 3-day journey from rural France to the Saari Residence in Finland, using trains, electric scooters and ships. Within weeks of it being published, artists were either unable to travel to residencies or were stuck in the ones that they were in, because of the restrictions of movement caused by COVID 19. It seems ironic in hindsight that one of the conclusions I drew was “that having travelled by rail and ship many times in one year, I’m also beginning to question the need to travel at all. Slow travel doesn’t mean just substituting a train for a plane, it means changing an entire mindset.” I go on to ask the question “why travel at all?”. Little did I know. Now we have ‘home artists residencies’ and are bewildered by an online melée of endless virtual meetings, remote cocktail parties and non-stop media consumption, what will happen in Europe when we finally get let out?“
(via Makery)
This regional breakdown is what the EU uses to distribute its “catch-up funds,” which is used to fund a subset of a country’s projects in transportation infrastructure, schools, and hospitals, as well as development of small firms, investments in a low-carbon economy, environmental projects, and training and education. The least developed regions get a bigger share of the 50 billion euros distributed annually and, as a result, have to cofund less of total project costs. More developed regions receive less money and pay more toward project costs. Yet how does the EU decide whether a region is less developed? Where are the lines drawn?
The rules governing when a piece of creative content enters the public domain may seem initially straightforward, but determining whether something is truly in the public domain can result in a swamp of obscure rules, strange regulations, legal complexity, and varying interpretations of exceptions.
In most countries, copyright term is based on the life of the author plus an additional set duration of protection — usually from 50 to 70 years beyond the death of the creator. In Mexico, copyright protection lasts for 100 years after the death of the author. Within Europe there have been attempts to harmonise copyright terms across the Member States for about 25 years now. In theory, the copyright duration has been harmonised to 70 years after the death of the last surviving author. In practice however, each Member State has different public domain regulations.
The European parliament is to review a proposal for an associate EU citizenship open to nationals of a country that has left the union but who want to stay part of the European project and retain some of their EU rights. The plan, tabled by a liberal MEP from Luxembourg, could mean British citizens who opt for the new status would be able to continue to travel freely and live on the continent – rights that may no longer be automatic after Brexit. “It’s clear the UK is divided, and many people want to remain part of Europe,” said Charles Goerens, who proposed amendment 882 to a draft report by the parliament’s constitutional affairs committee on possible changes to “the current institutional set-up” of the European Union.
Come on, Europe. Take Europeans seriously. Let them speak. Why educate the masses if they are not allowed to talk? Look at Ireland, the most innovative democracy in Europe. Just weeks ago, a random sample of a hundred Irish citizens, drafted by lot, was brought together to form a Citizens’ Assembly. This is a country that trusts its citizens, rather than fearing them. Over the next year, they will discuss five topics, including abortion, referendums, and climate change. They will invite all the experts they want to hear. This Assembly is the second of its kind. In 2013 and 2014, a similar procedure asked Irish citizens to make policy recommendations about a range of topics including marriage equality. Their proposal for constitutional reform was later voted on in a national referendum. It was the first time in modern history that a constitution was altered after deliberation with a random sample of citizens. Now, these are ways of doing democracy in the 21st century. In South Australia earlier this year, 350 citizens were drafted by lot to decide whether the state should store nuclear waste from around the world in its desert. The topic was too technical for a referendum and too touchy for party politics. By pulling in random citizens, a much more informed policy proposal was made. (The panel decided against.) What if you were to call for a similar Citizens’ Assembly in the European Union? Every European member state could bring together a random sample of a hundred citizens. They would then meet on four occasions, over a period of several months, in order to answer one big question: How do we make the EU more democratic by 2020? From Portugal to Estonia, participants would get the same amount of time and materials. Every country would formulate ten recommendations. Then a selection of delegates from each national convention, again drafted by lot, would come together in Brussels to finalize a list of 25 shared priorities for future EU policy.
The Atomium, a Brussels landmark, has a Twitter account and engages in copyright and more specifically Freedom of Panorama discussions. In the end it agreed that fixing copyright would make its life easier but admitted that it doesn’t fully understand the rules.