Latest blog articles

  • SMECC stands for School, Minimum standard, Education, Child-friendly policy and care-Continuum. Imagine SMECC as a flat drawing of a house. The regulatory backstop is the minimum standard in family litigation for competent parenthood – far on the horizon, however, a necessary fundament of human...

  • Asylum seekers usually do not cross borders with a bag of documents. They have lost their personal belongings or have been confiscated by smugglers. Oral statements are therefore the only proof of origin. (Dutch only) 

  • Bulgaria’s zero refugee integration policy and beyond

    It has to be different?!

    On 8 September 2015 State Secretary for Justice and Security Klaas Dijkhoff announced that from now on only refugees who have applied for asylum in a safe place outside the EU would be accepted in the Netherlands. The government wants to put an end to asylum-seekers placing their fate in the hands...

  • An older post, but still up-to-date.

    The long-debated exit of Greece from the Eurozone as a consequence of the current financial crisis has re-emerged in January 2015 when German finance minister Schäuble indicated that a so-called ‘Grexit’ would be a scenario no longer unimaginable for the other...

  • The Nikolova case (C-83/14), currently pending before the Court of Justice (CoJ), constitutes an interesting and unique example of a practice alleged to have discriminatory effects on a large group of persons defined by reference to their Roma ethnic origin. The case sheds light on the role that EU...

  • The European Commission, on behalf of the European Union (EU), monitors and checks on the transposition of EU legislation by Member States. Member States often have to report on the steps they have taken to comply with specific EU legislation and the Commission even occasionally initiates...

  • Last November the Court of Justice ruled in Dano   that EU member states may exclude from entitlement to social assistance nationals of other member states who have arrived in their territory and who have no intentions of finding a job. While the ruling and the Court’s reasoning has triggered much...