📌Brexit: MEPs stress importance of a clear solution for the IRL/NIR border 🇮🇪🚪📣
📌MEPs address shortcomings in gig economy concerning workers’ rights 🚴📈👮
📌Border control: MEPs vote to ease information exchange when tackling migration 🛂💻🌍
📌DiscoverEU: 12,000 additional free tickets available for 18-year-olds to discover Europe🗺️🚆🚸

Brexit: MEPs stress importance of a clear solution for the IRL/NIR border 🇮🇪🚪📣
➡️While the EP Brexit Steering Committee insists that the Withdrawal Agreement must include a workable, legally operational safety-net for the Ireland/Northern Ireland border, it was difficult for Council members to find anything new to tell journalists about the negotiations. Meanwhile, former British politicians published their joint opinion piece in seven European newspapers, asking for a second Brexit vote and more time. The article appears in papers in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Poland, Belgium and Switzerland.
🔜The next EU Brexit summit is scheduled for November 17-18.

MEPs address shortcomings in gig economy concerning workers’ rights 🚴📈👮
➡️EU rules to protect precarious workers, including on-demand, voucher-based and platform workers were approved by the Employment Committee. Proposals include more information on contractual terms, making work schedules more predictable, length of probationary periods and cost-free training. It aims at addressing recent digital developments that led to the so-called Gig economy and the rise of new forms of employment connected to it.
🔜Now, it will be negotiated by Parliament and Council in order to hammer out the final shape of the rules.

Border control: MEPs vote to ease information exchange when tackling migration 🛂💻🌍
➡️ The Civil Liberties Committee voted on two legislative proposals that aim to make information exchange and data sharing between the various EU information systems more efficient. The main elements approved are a European search portal allowing simultaneous searches in different systems; shared biometric matching service for cross-matching fingerprints and facial images from several systems; a common identity repository providing biographical information of non-EU citizens for more reliable identification; and multiple identity detectors, detecting whether a person is registered under multiple identities in different databases.
🔜 As soon as the whole of Parliament gives the green light, informal talks with the Council can start.

DiscoverEU: 12,000 additional free tickets available for 18-year-olds to discover Europe🗺️🚆🚸
➡️ All 18-year-olds in the EU will have until 11 December 2018 to apply for a free ticket, giving them the opportunity to travel around Europe between 15 April and 31 October 2019. Applicants must be 18 years old on 31 December 2018 and be prepared to travel between 15 April and 31 October 2019 for a maximum period of 30 days. Applications via the European Youth Portal. The European Commission has proposed €700 million for the initiative under the future Erasmus programme in the EU's next long-term budget after 2020. If the European Parliament and the Council agree to the proposal, an additional 1.5 million 18-year-olds will be able to travel between 2021 and 2027.
🔜 Applicants will be notified about the selection results mid-January 2019.