European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust) in Den Haag

5 February 2026 | Author/Destination: | Category: General, EU blog post series, European Union Reading Time:  12 minutes

© Eurojust

© Eurojust

The European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust) is an agency of the European Union (EU) dealing with judicial co-operation in criminal matters among agencies of the member states. It is seated in The Hague, the Netherlands. Established in 2002, it was created to improve handling of serious cross-border and organised crime by stimulating investigative and prosecutorial co-ordination.   read more…

Suwa?ki Gap

10 September 2025 | Author/Destination: | Category: General, European Union Reading Time:  6 minutes

Suwa?ki gap © Szmenderowiecki/cc-by-sa-4.0

Suwa?ki Gap © Szmenderowiecki/cc-by-sa-4.0

The Suwa?ki Gap, also known as the Suwa?ki corridor, is a sparsely populated area around the border between Lithuania and Poland, and centres on the shortest path between Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast on the Polish side of the border. Named after the Polish town of Suwa?ki, this choke point has become of great strategic and military importance since Poland and the Baltic states joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).   read more…

Portrait: Charlemagne, the Father of Europe

22 January 2025 | Author/Destination: | Category: General, European Union, Portrait Reading Time:  7 minutes

Karlsschrein (Shrine of Charlemagne) in Aachen Cathedral © Beckstet/cc-by-sa-3.0

Karlsschrein (Shrine of Charlemagne) in Aachen Cathedral © Beckstet/cc-by-sa-3.0

Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and Emperor of what is now known as the Carolingian Empire from 800, holding these titles until his death in 814. He united most of Western and Central Europe, and was the first recognised emperor to rule from the west after the fall of the Western Roman Empire approximately three centuries earlier. Charlemagne’s reign was marked by political and social changes that had lasting influence on Europe throughout the Middle Ages.   read more…

Chemnitz in Saxony

13 January 2025 | Author/Destination: | Category: General, European Union, European Capital of Culture Reading Time:  8 minutes

Historic center © Kora27/cc-by-sa-3.0

Historic center © Kora27/cc-by-sa-3.0

Chemnitz (from 1953 to 1990: Karl-Marx-Stadt, (lit.: Karl Marx City); Upper Sorbian: Kamjenica; Czech: Saská Kamenice; Polish: Kamienica Saska) is the third-largest city in the German state of Saxony after Leipzig and Dresden, and the fourth-largest city in the area of former East Germany after (East) Berlin, Leipzig, and Dresden.   read more…

Nova Gorica in Slovenia

4 January 2025 | Author/Destination: | Category: General, European Union, European Capital of Culture Reading Time:  6 minutes

Franciscan Monastery of Kostanjevica © Julien Maury

Franciscan Monastery of Kostanjevica © Julien Maury

Nova Gorica is a town in western Slovenia, on the border with Italy. It is the seat of the Municipality of Nova Gorica. Nova Gorica is a planned town, built according to the principles of modernist architecture after 1947, when the Paris Peace Treaty established a new border between Yugoslavia and Italy, leaving nearby Gorizia outside the borders of Yugoslavia and thus cutting off the So?a Valley, the Vipava Valley, the Gorizia Hills and the northwestern Karst Plateau from their traditional regional urban centre. Since 1948, Nova Gorica has replaced Gorizia as the principal urban center of the Gorizia region (Slovene: Goriška), as the northern part of the Slovenian Littoral has been traditionally called.   read more…

Portrait: Simone Veil, first President of the European Parliament and Holocaust survivor

25 December 2024 | Author/Destination: | Category: General, European Union, Portrait Reading Time:  7 minutes

in 1982 © European Union

in 1982 © European Union

Simone Veil was a French magistrate, Holocaust survivor, and politician who served as Health Minister in several governments and was President of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1982, the first woman to hold that office. As health minister, she is best remembered for advancing women’s rights in France, in particular for the 1975 law that legalized abortion, today known as the Veil Act (French: Loi Veil). From 1998 to 2007, she was a member of the Constitutional Council, France’s highest legal authority.   read more…

The European Union: The Anthem of Europe, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 ‘Ode to Joy’

4 May 2024 | Author/Destination: | Category: General, EU blog post series, European Union, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  5 minutes

Flag Of Europe The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, is a choral symphony, the final complete symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven, composed between 1822 and 1824. It was first performed in Vienna on 7 May 1824. The symphony is regarded by many critics and musicologists as a masterpiece of Western classical music and one of the supreme achievements in the history of music. One of the best-known works in common practice music, it stands as one of the most frequently performed symphonies in the world.   read more…

Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), predecessor organization to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

31 December 2023 | Author/Destination: | Category: General, EU blog post series, European Union Reading Time:  4 minutes

OSS pin © flickr.com - The Central Intelligence Agency

OSS pin © flickr.com – The Central Intelligence Agency

The Second World War era Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the forerunner of today’s CIA. During the war the organisation planned and executed thousands of covert operations behind enemy lines from North Africa to Europe to Asia.   read more…

Germany’s integration into the West

30 December 2023 | Author/Destination: | Category: General, EU blog post series, European Union Reading Time:  7 minutes

Federal Republic of Germany map -  January 1957 - October 1990 © TUBS/cc-by-sa-3.0

Federal Republic of Germany map – January 1957 – October 1990 © TUBS/cc-by-sa-3.0

Western integration, also known as western ties, is understood to mean the inclusion of the Federal Republic, founded in 1949 as a western German state, in treaties with western states. These were used to make foreign, security and economic policy decisions. The Western powers combined two goals with Germany’s integration into the West. On the one hand, the integration of Germany was intended to serve the security of the Western European states from Germany, which had posed a threat to its neighboring states in the past. On the other hand, West Germany should make a contribution to the security of the Western European states from the Soviet Union, whose troops were stationed on the Elbe due to the Warsaw Pact. With the Paris Agreements in 1955, the Federal Republic was finally integrated into the Western community of states and the Atlantic security community. This marked the first conclusion, which on the German side was influenced by the policies of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. Because of Adenauer’s policy of ties to the West, the Federal Republic integrated itself into the political, economic and military alliances of the West after 1949.   read more…

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