The Role of National Parliaments in European Decision-Making

National parliaments can be considered as victims of the European integration process. National parliaments ceded legislative powers to the EU and often lost leverage over their national executive branch, which continued to play a central role in EU decision-making. Different domestic parliamentary scrutiny systems have been established to enhance parliamentary involvement and control over EU affairs. In 2006 the Barroso Commission provided an additional impetus for parliaments to get involved, by offering to transmit its policy proposals directly to national parliaments with an open invitation to comment on them. The Lisbon Treaty foresees the possibility that national parliaments carry out subsidiarity checks on policy proposals. This paper argues that the different national and European provisions for parliamentary involvement do not amount to much. However, if we consider the combined effect of the different avenues in a dynamic perspective, they might jointly trigger a reassertion of national parliamentary influence in the European policy process

Reliable channel-adapted error correction: Bacon-Shor code recovery from amplitude damping

We construct two simple error correction schemes adapted to amplitude damping noise for Bacon-Shor codes and investigate their prospects for fault-tolerant implementation. Both consist solely of Clifford gates and require far fewer qubits, relative to the standard method, to achieve correction to a desired order in the damping rate. The first, employing one-bit teleportation and single-qubit measurements, needs only one fourth as many physical qubits, while the second, using just stabilizer measurements and Pauli corrections, needs only half. We show that existing fault-tolerance methods can be employed for the latter, while the former can be made to avoid potential catastrophic errors and can easily cope with damping faults in ancilla qubits.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figur

On the feasibility of noncontact ECG measurements

“© © 2017 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.”The article by Kranjec et al. [1], “Novel methods of noncontact heart rate measurement: A feasibility study” is interesting and informative as it compares different contactless methods for heart rate detection. Nevertheless, the use of the term “capacitively coupled ECG” (CCECG) in the article is confusing and may mislead readers. That article studies the feasibility of four noncontact methods for heart rate measurement, which are classified in two groups: “the methods measuring electromagnetic energy generated by the bioelectrical activity within the cardiac muscle (referred to as direct methods), and the methods measuring displacement of a part of the subject’s body caused by the periodic physical contractions of the heart (referred to as indirect methods). The first group is represented by a measuring device which detects changes in surrounding electric field...” [sic]. Later on, this device is described in [1] as being based on “capacitively coupled electrodes” and hence termed “CCECG Measuring Device.” The electrodes are two 48-cm2 metal plates placed side by side (see [1, Fig. 3]) placed at distances from 5 to 60 cm from the chest.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Quatre breus inscripcions onomàstiques gregues d’Oxirrinc (campanyes 2007-2010)

Entre d’altres inscripcions més extenses, la Missió Arqueològica d’Oxirrinc ha trobat unes inscripcions únicament onomàstiques que presentem per primera vegada. Formen part de conjunts de tombes romanes egípcies, són escrites en grec i tenen tot un context arqueològic molt important. Formen part d’una llarga col·lecció d’inscripcions gregues trobades in situ que publiquem seguint, com a criteri, l’any de trobada, sense buscar les més vistoses, sinó seguint un criteri d’exhaustivitat.Among other larger inscriptions, the Archaeological Mission of Oxyrhynchus has found some inscriptions onomastic only presented for the first time. They belong to groups of Roman Egyptian tombs, are also written in Greek and have a very important archaelogocial context. Moreover, they also belong to a long collection of Greek inscriptions found in situ that we are publishing on a basis of year of discovery, without looking the most eye-catching but with an exhaustive criterion and meticulousness

EU Democratic Legitimacy and National Parliaments. CEPS Essay No. 7, 25 November 2013

The role of national parliaments in the EU has been at the centre of a long debate. Since the Maastricht treaty, new powers to the EU level have been accompanied not only by an increasing role of the European Parliament (EP) in the legislative process, but also by a number of declarations and protocols to ensure that national parliaments received the information and documents required to effectively monitor their governments in EU affairs. The Lisbon Treaty extended the guarantees and also included new modes of direct participation. The proper use of the mechanisms in place, namely, the subsidiarity checks, the political dialogue with the Commission and the inter-parliamentary cooperation with the European Parliament, has become of vital importance in view of recent developments in EU economic policy and beyond. The choice for increasing inter-governmentalism in decision-making and the centralisation of the implementing and supervisory powers in the Commission and the Central Bank have raised questions about political accountability and the appropriate involvement of parliaments. However, the extent to which national parliaments should be more involved is also rather controversial. This essay examines the difficulty of defining and addressing the question of the democratic legitimacy in the EU. It examines the role of the national parliaments in the treaties and explores ways in which they can contribute to improving that legitimacy

Who calls the shots in the committees of the new European Parliament? CEPS Special Report No. 97, 21 November 2014

This CEPS Special Report analyses the composition of the 20 committees in the new European Parliament and how representative they are of the 28 member states, identifying which policy areas or committees are of particular interest to MEPs from certain countries. It also examines the allocation of committee chairs and party coordinator positions to assess whether the country of origin matters and if so, why. The study reveals that in general the countries’ share of representatives in the committees is very similar in most of the cases to their representation in Parliament. Still, some policy areas have a special relevance for some countries and attract their MEPs in larger numbers. Due to the procedure used in the allocation of the committee chairs, which favours the largest political groups and the largest national parties within them, MEPs from larger member states tend to hold most of these coveted positions. The internal process followed by the political groups in appointing their coordinators in the respective committees is predisposed towards MEPs with seniority, experience and good connections. All in all, the strategic relevance that national parties attach to these positions makes a difference

A new balance of power in the Council? Yes, but not yet… CEPS Commentary, 19 December 2014

On the 1st of November, the double majority system established by the Lisbon Treaty for qualified majority voting (QMV) in the Council entered into force. The shift in the balance of power, however, will not be effective before April 2017, given the possibility for member states to invoke the Nice rules until that date. While acknowledging that the new voting system in the Council promises to do away with the difficult negotiations of the past among member states to reallocate voting weights, this commentary finds that it is questionable whether it will achieve its ultimate aim to substantially improve democratic legitimacy and efficiency

Cent anys de millora genètica del bestiar a Catalunya

En aquest article es recullen les activitats de millora genètica animal a Catalunya des del temps de la Mancomunitat fins als nostres dies. El veterinari Pere Màrtir Rossell i Vilà es presenta com a figura destacada de la zootècnia i la genètica del bestiar, a l'inici del segle xx. En temps més recents, en particular durant els últims vint-i-cinc anys, la millora genètica a Catalunya ha experimentat un importantíssim impuls gràcies a les activitats sinèrgiques d'empreses de millora ramadera, associacions de ramaders i institucions acadèmiques i de recerca, entre les quals podem destacar l'Escola Tècnica Superior d'Enginyers Agrònoms de Lleida, la Facultat de Veterinària de Barcelona i l'Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentàries.En este artículo se recogen las actividades de mejora genética animal en Cataluña desde los tiempos de la Mancomunidad hasta nuestros días. El veterinario Pere Màrtir Rossell i Vilà se presenta como figura destacada de la zootecnia y de la genética del ganado, en los inicios del siglo xx. En tiempos más recientes, en particular durante los últimos veinticinco años, la mejora genética ha experimentado un importantísimo impulso en Cataluña gracias a las actividades sinérgicas de empresas de mejora ganadera, asociaciones de ganaderos e instituciones académicas y de investigación; entre ellas, podemos destacar la Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Agrónomos de Lleida, la Facultad de Veterinaria de Barcelona y el Instituto de Investigación y Tecnología Agroalimentarias