The Robert Schuman Centre at the Robert Schuman House together with the Centre for Research at the University of Caen and the CVCE of Luxembourg are organising a seminar entitled "The elective principle in the European Union" on 5th and 6th June at the Robert Schuman House in Scy-Chazelles. Thierry Chopin Studies Director at the Robert Schuman Foundation will be taking part in work and debate. It is obligatory to enrol.

Look at the results of how the European Parliament will be set out in the 8th legislature on our "Elections" site - as well as the results in the 28 Member States. The political groups will start to fall into place this week.

On 27th May the OECD published international merchandise trade figures for the first quarter of 2014. It emerges that merchandise trade has declined in the major OECD economies: hence "merchandise export in all of the G7 countries and the BRICS has decreased by 2.6% over the first quarter of 2014, in comparison with the previous quarter." "Import for their part have stagnated with growth at only 0.1% over the same period (mainly due to continuous import of crude oil and fuels).

The informal dinner of EU heads of State and government took place on 27th May 2014 following the European elections. Over dinner the group discussed the election results and the fact that the European Council should provide clear guidance to the Union. Mr Van Rompuy will consult the leaders of the Parliament's political groups about the future President of the European Commission. He repeated the importance of settling the financial crisis, maintaining growth, competitiveness and employment, and also of facing the challenge of climate change. The heads of State also discussed the Ukrainian situation acknowledging that the elections went off smoothly on 25th May with Mr Poroshenko emerging as the victor. They all expressed their willingness to work with him.

on 27th May 2014 the European Commission published the Innobarometer 2014 survey to understand the views and attitudes of EU enterprises towards the role of public support in the marketing of innovations. The survey highlighted that the main hurdle to the marketing of innovative goods or services is the lack of financial resources. The results of the Innobarometer are in line with the Innovation Union Scoreboard 2014 which confirmed that the EU is still lagging behind global leaders.

The Council of the European Union agreed on 28th May 2014 to renew the restrictive measures against the Syrian regime, on the basis of a review of the original decision taken on 31st May 2013. The measures will apply until 1st June 2015 and include a number of export and import bans, e.g. an oil embargo, as well as restrictions on investments, financial activity and the transport sector. Two people and one entity have been removed from the original list of people and entities subject to the restrictive measures. This leaves 179 people associated with the violent repression in Syria targeted with an asset freeze and a travel ban.

Euro area financial system stress has remained moderate over the last half-year, according to the European Central Bank's (ECB) new Financial Stability Review released on 28th May 2014. Investor concerns regarding the global financial crisis have continued to diminish, amid on-going action to address "legacy" risks of past crises for both banks and sovereign funds. Euro area banks have accelerated the clean-up and strengthened of their balance sheets since the third quarter of 2013, when discussions about the ECB's comprehensive assessment intensified. Sovereign risk has improved with the implementation of fiscal consolidation and structural reforms, although progress has been uneven.

On 29th May 2014, Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council, received the International Charlemagne Prize in Aachen. This award is given to individuals working for European unification. In his speech, Van Rompuy stressed that citizens see Europe as a reason for why they feel powerless whilst the Union was conceived to make them stronger. Everything has been done from the beginning to remove the borders in all areas to create a large common area. But Europe has not been seen as a shelter, he said, hence the current problems. The Danish travel project "Our Europe" won the Charlemagne Youth Prize. The team spent one year travelling across 24 EU countries. They stayed in European youth hostels and made long interviews about living conditions, education and work. Films, interviews and photos are available on their site.

On 26th May 2014 Elio Di Rupo, Belgian Prime Minister, presented the resignation of his government to King Philip after the parliamentary elections that saw victory for the Flemish nationalists in Flanders. On 27th May 2014, the king asked Bart de Wever, leader of the Flemish separatist party N-VA, to look into how a government might be formed quickly which the latter accepted. He will report back to the King on progress made on 3rd June 2014. Winner of the elections of 25th May in Belgium, Bart de Wever finds himself in the position of being a point of contact and at the same time he has started a series talks to establish a Flemish government.

King Juan Carlos of Spain abdicated on 2nd June 2014 39 years after he came to the throne. Prince Felipe, aged 46, is due to succeed him. The abdication was announced by the head of government Mariano Rajoy who declared that a succession process was to be started. In this sense an organic law has to be approved he said. An exceptional council of ministers was convened on 3rd June.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who won in the most recent European elections has called on the EU to address reform of which it is said Italy is the leader, and not to get lost in disputes over power. "Before debating names, let's agree on a programme," he declared in an interview granted to several major European newspapers including La Stampa on 31st May 2014. Interviewed about European Commission candidate Juncker Matteo Renzi declared that the labour market interested him more than positions of power. Renzi said that Italy would follow the reforms set within the EU, adding that his country had already started work.

The Turkish Constitutional Court deemed on 29th May 2014 that the decision to block YouTube had infringed user rights and freedom of expression. The Turkish Constitutional Court assessed three different appeals regarding the ban imposed by the government on 27th March. One of the appeals was lodged by the company itself whilst the others were lodged by the leader of the Lawyers Union of Turkey (TBB) Metin Feyzioglu.

Former Hungarian Justice Minister Tibor Navracsics was appointed Foreign Minister on 29th May 2014 by Prime Minister Viktor Orban - who was re-elected for a four year mandate after the general election on 6th April. Tibor Navracsics will replace Janos Martonyi, who had been Foreign Minister since 2010. Mr Navracsics will also take over the External Economic Affairs portfolio. He has been replaced in his position as Justice Minister by Laszlo Trocsanyi, former Ambassador to Hungary in France. Former government spokesperson, Hanos Lazar has been promoted to run the Prime Minister's office. This entirely male government comprises 9 ministers. This is a regression. The only woman member of the previous government Zsuzsanna Nemeth gave up her Development portfolio to Miklos Sesztak. Hungarian President Janos Ader is due to approve this government, which will then be presented to the Hungarian parliament on 6th June.

The campaign for the referendum on independence for Scotland officially started on 30th May 2014 just 16 weeks before the historic vote over the region's future and that of the UK. The official launch set specific rules notably regarding the amount of money spent on the campaign - with neither side allowed to go beyond £1.5 million. Whilst the campaign for the "yes" seems to have caught up since the spring the most recent polls show slight progress for the "no".

Slovenians will be voting on 13th July to elect a new parliament. This decision was taken by President Borut Pahor on 1st June 2014 - and was made necessary by the resignation in May of Prime Minister Alenka Bratusek. Mr Pahor formally dissolved the National Assembly elected at the end of 2011, and hope that a government will be formed towards mid-September thereby avoiding a long period of political paralysis. The Slovenian economy is convalescing after the country only just avoided having to turn to international aid last winter. Alenka Bratusek, head of the coalition that came to office in March 2013 gave up on 5th May after having lost the leadership of the Slovenia Positive party (PS) to the benefit of Zoran Jankovic, the party's founder and Mayor of Lubljana. The latter previously had to leave the party amid accusations of tax fraud and corruption.

Pyotr Poroshenko won the presidential election organised on 25th May in Ukraine and he has set it a priority to bring the war with the separatist East to an end in which the election barely took place and to take his country towards European integration. He will be sworn in on 7th June next. He gave details of the first steps he will take as Head of State: he will travel to the regions of Donbass which are in the grip of a pro-Russian armed rebellion "bring peace to Ukraine" and convene early general elections this year. He maintains that he will never acknowledge the referendum undertaken in March in Crimea. World boxing champion, Vitaly Klichko, who was one of the leaders of the pro-Western uprising, was elected Mayor of Kiev. At the same time the interim government announced the continued anti-terrorist operation in the east, notably concerning the retaking of the airport of Donetsk. The battle still rages.

The Council of Europe's Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has condemned Hungary for the dismissal of the President of the Supreme Court of Hungary. The complainant Mr Baka was dismissed from office on January 1st 2012, three and a half years before the end of his mandate. Mr Baka could not appeal against this decision, which in his opinion, was due to the criticism he had made about the constitutional reforms undertaken in Hungary.

In his paper published in May 2014 René Lasserre addresses vocational training in Germany and assesses its "socio-economic and ability to adapt". Beyond recurrent economic indicators, Germany's competitiveness and economic performance is based on a pillar of its social system: dual vocational training. Indeed training in Germany comprises a theoretical part and the acquisition of practical experience within a company. The dual system now faces two major challenges. The first is demographic due to the low birth rate in Germany. The second challenge is sociological: longer, university courses are increasingly the preference of young people.

Armand Colin publishing have released a book written under the management of Pierre Bréchon and Fréderic Gonthier entitled "Les Valeurs des Européens - évolutions et clivages". Based on the idea that "globalisation will lead to a uniformisation of values" and that "countries will be increasingly interdependent, forced to adopt the same ways of living and thinking" all of this supported by European integration "will erase specific features inherited from the past" - the authors have explored this idea and show that these claims are false. In their opinion since 1981 "we have not seen any mass rapprochement: differences are still great between the north and the south, and also between the east and the west of Europe." Beyond this the authors stress that "the map of values is not frozen though" because "everywhere we can see the rise of values of individualisation."

Lucretia Borgia is back at the Comédie Française from 24th May to 20th July 2014. Lucretia - the incestuous, poisoner, the monster is haunting the theatre once more. There have been no less than four successive productions with stars in the leading role - one of the most flamboyant in the repertoire: after Marina Hands (under the management of Lucie Berelowitsch) and Nathalie Richard (under the management of Jean-Louis Benoît) and before Béatrice Dalle who will be playing at the castle of Grignan in a production by David Bobée, Guillaume Gallienne is playing at the Comédie Française at present.