France - Tourism: visitors to France complain unable to pay with local credit card at most French toll roads

French toll roads not user friendly for tourists

If you are touring France by car, you could be in for a big surprise, specially when using one of their overpriced toll roads, and need to pay for the toll.

The shock will not only come for the high cost of the toll, but also when you want to use your  "home bank" credit card to pay  for the toll, and finding out it won't work. 

Basically the French want you to pay with cash, which is quite inconvenient, because it requires you to carry a large amount of cash with you, which in general is not always a safe thing to do. 

France is quite different in that respect to most other countries in Europe were foreign credit cards are widely accepted with  the exception of the Netherlands, where non-European credit cards are also often frowned upon.

EU-Digest

EU-US Safe Harbor Pact. European court invalidates EU-US Safe Harbor pact - by Peter Sayer

The Safe Harbor agreement on which many businesses rely for the transatlantic transfer of personal data is invalid, the Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled

While the decision will affect companies like Facebook and Google, it is bad news for small and medium-size companies transferring data from the EU to the U.S., said Mike Weston, CEO of data science consultancy Profusion.

"American companies are going to have to restructure how they manage, store and use data in Europe and this will take a lot of time and money," he said.

The CJEU  provided a summary of the ruling, the full text of which will be published later.

Note EU-Digest: Good move - but the obvious question is what will the US do with all the information they have already collected about and on EU Citizens ?

Read more: European court invalidates EU-US Safe Harbor pact | Computerworld

Syria: NATO rejects Russia explanation on Turkish air space - but what is really behind this?

NATO on Tuesday rejected Moscow's explanation that its warplanes had violated alliance member Turkey's air space by mistake and said Russia was sending more ground troops to Syria and building up its naval presence.

With Russia extending its air strikes to include the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he was losing patience with Russian violations of his country's air space.

"An attack on Turkey means an attack on NATO," Erdogan warned at a Brussels news conference.

Note EU-Digest: This all is starting to look like a prepared scenario. Act one: Netanyahu goes to Russia and has meetings with Putin : Act two: Putin goes to UN and on the sidelines has a one on one meeting with Obama.. Act three: Russia starts bombing targets in Syria. The only unknown in this scenario is President Erdogan of Turkey - but in reality he is probably being used as a sideline "prop" by the powers in play, who have all come to the conclusion that Erdogan's idea of toppling Assad is destabilizing the Middle East even further, but except for Russia,  can not say so openly.

Given the actual political developments in Turkey it also seems likely the US does not see Turkey as a reliable partner anymore unless Erdogan is toppled in the upcoming election and replaced by a more secure and less autocratic democratic regime.  


Read more: NATO rejects Russia explanation on Turkish air space | Reuters

Refugee Crises: EU, Turkey agree on refugee action plan

Brussels and Ankara have set up an action plan on regulating the flow of refugees to Europe, according to media reports. New camps and coordinated border controls are the cornerstones of the plan

Read more: EU, Turkey agree on refugee action plan: reports | News | DW.COM | 04.10.2015

EU Privacy Laws: Top EU court backs student in landmark Facebook privacy case

Europe's highest court has ruled in favor of an Austrian law student who claims a trans-Atlantic data protection agreement doesn't adequately protect consumers.

The case, which cites data Facebook allegedly provides to US intelligence agencies, has far-reaching implications for tech companies doing business in Europe.

Read more: Europe - Top EU court backs student in landmark Facebook privacy case - France 24

Dutch love democracy, dislike politics - by Graeme Kidd

Roughly 93 percent of the Netherlands thinks that democracy is the best possible form of government, and 95 percent think it is important to live in a democratically governed nation, a new survey from the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP) revealed. Released on Friday, the report also found that 73 percent of people living in the country have a negative view of politics there.

“The main reasons put forward for dissatisfaction were that politicians do not listen and simply do what they want, that citizens have too little say and that politicians talk too much and act too little; or else they were dissatisfied with current policy at the time of the survey,” the research noted. Citizens are wanting to have a greater say through more public debate and the collection of public opinion information about democracy itself.

The SCP quoted one 30-year-old man as saying, “Generally Democracy as a state form works well, it is unfortunately the politicians that make a mess of it.”

Some 22 percent support more direct democracy where people vote on many referenda as oppose to representative politics, with 45 percent wanting to vote on a selection of referenda chosen by elected representatives. “This would seem to suggest that at least a proportion of the Dutch public see direct democracy mainly as a way of adding to or improving representative democracy rather than as an alternative to it,” the report noted.

The research was carried out by Dr. Diana den Ridder and Prof. Paul Dekker, and published under the title, “More Democracy, Less Politics?” The report was commissioned by the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relation to gauge the perception of the Dutch public into democracy and politics.

They also found that while people in the Netherlands deeply value equal treatment by the courts, opinion is divided about whether or not that exists. At the same time, 90 percent value both a free press and freedom to oppose government, with 70 percent saying they are satisfied with both.

Read more: Dutch love democracy, dislike politics - NL Times

Spain: Catalans among the pigeons - 51.7% of Catalans voted “no” to independence

Catalonia's election proved a personal triumph for regional president Artur Mas, whose separatist Together for Yes platform was a clear winner though it fell short of an absolute majority in Barcelona‘s parliament.

Barring last minute warfare amongst the component parts of a platform that included his centre-right Catalan Democratic Convergence party, the left-wing Catalan Republican Left and a varied array of independent separatists, Mr Mas will continue to head the regional government of this wealthy corner of north-east Spain.

That was the easy part. Watched intently by other fervent separatist movements around Europe, Mr Mas now plans to follow the “roadmap” to independence that brought this disparate group together for the election—a poll that he billed as a plebiscite on separation from Spain. With the backing of the far-left Popular Unity Candidacy, the separatists have a comfortable parliamentary majority.

But Catalonia's unequal voting system, which favours less-populated rural areas, means this majority was won with fewer than 50% of votes. When looked at as a plebiscite, the result changes. In fact, 51.7% of Catalans voted “no” to independence.

That will make life tricky for Mr Mas as he bids for international support. The roadmap foresees negotiations with Madrid that could prevent a unilateral declaration of independence scheduled for Spring 2017. But Spain must conduct a general election before the end of the year. Only then will we know how Madrid plans to handle the situation

Read more: Daily chart: Catalans among the pigeons | The Economist