At the signing ceremony in Amman, Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn said: “The EU has been a strong supporter of Jordan’s justice reforms over a number of years, because, as His Majesty King Abdullah II has said, the rule of law is the guarantor of any individual and public rights, providing the effective framework for an efficient public administration and the basis for a safe and fair society. This €50 million programme takes EU support to Jordan since 2011 to nearly €2 billion of total financial support. The EU remains committed to keep supporting Jordan and its ambitious reforms at this difficult time“. 

Background

The programme will contribute to enhance the independence, accountability and specialisation of the judicial power; support the improvement of caseflow management, effectiveness and information efficiency in the criminal justice chain; and contribute to improve the management and public service delivery in the Justice Sector.

This action is part of the EU’s Annual Action Programme for Jordan that also includes actions in the field of trade, institutional capacity-building and social protection. Through this newly signed programme, the EU will support the Justice Reform Sector Strategy 2017-2021 in which the Government of Jordan has outlined actions to enhance independence, accountability and specialisation of the judicial power and improve the capacity and effectiveness of the judiciary administration.

The EU’s action will build upon the existing programme with a continuous legislative and policy reform dialogue. It will provide up to €40 million in budgetary support of the sector reform from 2019 until 2022. An additional €10 million will support the implementation of measures by international development cooperation agencies (including the French AFD, the German GIZ and the Spanish AECID) to reinforce capacity-building arrangements, improve access to justice through enhancing the legal aid system and enhance legal cooperation.

This brings the total EU support to Jordan to nearly €2 billion of total financial support since the start of the Syrian crisis in 2011. This includes bilateral cooperation programmes aiming at enhancing Jordan’s social and economic development, strengthening the rule of law, upgrading border management and preventing violent extremism. It also includes additional EU assistance mobilised to help Jordan institutions, host communities and Syrian refugees in Jordan to cope with the consequences of the Syrian crisis.

Jordan remains an essential partner for the EU at the global, regional and bilateral levels, in particular due to its important role in promoting stability in the region. 

More info

EU Relations with Jordan

EU – Jordan cooperation

Factograph

Factsheet: “Responding to the Syrian crisis – EU support to resilience in Jordan”

The news:

On 25 October, Commissioner for Education, Youth, Culture and Sport, Tibor Navracsics, will unveil a new tool the Commission has developed to help all schools in the EU, Russia, Georgia and Serbia assess how they use digital technologies for teaching and learning. In the EU alone, the tool called will be offered to 76.7 million students and teachers in 250,000 schools on a voluntary basis. It is being launched in 24 EU languages with more language versions to follow.

The background:

SELFIE (Self-reflection on Effective Learning by Fostering the use of Innovative Educational Technologies) is one of the 11 initiatives of the Digital Education Action Plan presented by the Commission in January this year. The Action Plan aims to boost digital skills in Europe and support the innovative use of digital technologies in teaching and learning.

The Commission has worked in partnership with ministries of education and a community of experts on digital education from across Europe to develop the SELFIE tool. Partner institutions include the European Training Foundation, the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP) and UNESCO’s Institute for Information Technologies in Education.

An early version of the tool was tested last year with 650 schools in 14 countries. This pilot produced 67,000 comments on how to further simplify and improve the tool – feedback that was integrated into the version launched now.

The event:

The launch is taking place today at a secondary school in Warsaw where the Commissioner is also attending the eTwinning annual conference. The Commissioner and the Polish Minister of Education, Anna Zalewska,are visiting the school to meet students and teachers and see how the school is embedding technology in learning.

The seminar can be followed on Europe by Satellite here.

The sources:

A press release in all EU languages and a factsheet will be available online at 12.00 on 25 October.

SELFIE website

After almost three weeks, facts are finally emerging, confirming that Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in the premises of the Consulate General of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul on 2 October 2018.

The European Union expresses its deepest condolences to his family and friends and pays tribute to the memory of this respected journalist who was in direct contact for his work with many European institutions and organisations. We reaffirm our commitment to the freedom of the press and the protection of journalists across the world.

The emerging circumstances of Jamal Khashoggi’s death are deeply troubling, including the shocking violation of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and particularly its Article 55. 

Therefore the European Union, like its partners, insists on the need for continued thorough, credible and transparent investigation, shedding proper clarity on the circumstances of the killing and ensuring full accountability of all those responsible for it. The memory of Jamal Khashoggi, the family of the journalist as well as his friends deserve justice.

Download as pdf

It was with deep sadness that I learnt of the passing of Wim Kok, former Prime Minister of the Netherlands and my close friend.

Wim Kok was an extraordinarily skilful statesman. Throughout his long political career he achieved important social reforms and was a devoted European who fought for equality and civil rights in a way I truly admire. As Prime Ministers, we worked together on the launch of our single currency, the euro, and for a more social Europe.

My thoughts are with his wife Rita, his children, his grandchildren and all those who were close to him. He will be greatly missed.

Your request will be handled by the Press Office of the General Secretariat of the Council in accordance with the provisions of Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by the Community institutions and bodies and on the free movement of such data.

Your data will be stored in the database until you unsubscribe from the service.

Certain data (name, e-mail address, preferred language, media name, media type) may be disclosed to the press offices of the European institutions, the Permanent Representations of the Member States and to European Union agencies, under the conditions laid down in Articles 7 and 8 of Regulation 45/2001.

If there is data which you would not like to be stored, please let us know at: [email protected]