Juan Gálvez Galisteo (PhD Candidate, University of Seville)

1. The context: election system of the governing body of judges in Spain and the request for an Opinion from the Venice Commission

On 13 October 2025, the European Commission for Democracy through Law (known as the Venice Commission) of the Council of Europe made public its Advisory Opinion No. 1248/2025, adopted at its 144^th Plenary Session, in which it responds to the request submitted by the General Council of the Judiciary – the governing body of judges in Spain – concerning the reform proposals included in its February report and their possible alignment with European standards on judicial independence. The request was submitted with the intention of determining whether the proposed reforms could be adjusted to the European standards that institutions of the European Union and the Council of Europe – such as the Venice Commission – have been establishing through their soft-law instruments in recent years.

Advisory Opinion No. 1248/2025 was adopted on 9 and 10 October, approximately one month after the rapporteurs visited Spain and met with authorities and stakeholders involved in the General Council of the Judiciary and its renewal process. To properly contextualise and understand the Commission’s document, it is necessary to briefly outline its most recent background. In the summer of 2024, the governing body of judges in Spain was finally renewed after nearly six years of an unprecedented deadlock, given that this constitutional institution – which must be renewed every five years – had remained in an interim situation since 2018, when its renewal should have taken place.

João Pedro Sousa (master’s student in European Union Law at the School of Law of the University of Minho) 

I.

The digital transformation has reconfigured the foundations of modern society, multiplying channels of communication, accelerating economic innovation, and redefining the exercise of citizenship.  However, the same technological developments that sustain progress have also created new vulnerabilities, giving rise to a new domain of criminality: cybercrime.  Within the European Union (EU), the protection of the digital sphere has thus become a constitutional concern, lying at the intersection of security policy, protection of fundamental rights, and market regulation.[1][2]

The concept of digital citizenship within the EU captures the recognition and protection of citizens’ rights and obligations in cyberspace, including privacy, freedom of speech and safe access to digital technologies.[3]  Cybercrime threatens these rights, ranging from data breaches to large-scale attacks on critical infrastructure, undermining citizen’s confidence in the Union’s capacity to ensure safety and accountability online.[4]  In this context, the 2024 Report on the State of Cybersecurity in the Union by the EU Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA)[5][6][7] exposes a worrying rise in cyber incidents,[8] particularly ransomware, phishing, and artificial-intelligence-related crimes, accentuating the urgent need for coordinated legislative and operational responses at the Union level.[9]

Bruno Saraiva [master’s student in European Union Law and Digital Citizenship & Technological Sustainability (CitDig) scholarship holder])

Why the EU’s approach to AI development differs from that of the U.S. or China is a question that spans philosophy, sociology, geopolitics, and economics. But the simplest answer may be the following: they are different. Each polity carries distinct priorities, institutions, and constraints – and these differences translate into divergent AI trajectories.

In Europe, this divergence goes beyond regulation and economics; it extends to the very technical models being developed. While the U.S. and China pursue scale through ever-larger general-purpose systems, the EU has signaled a regulatory preference for limited models – special-purpose systems trained with curated data.

This post explores the methodological virtues of that approach. In a world where large models struggle with trust, reliability, and compliance with rights-based law, the EU’s strategy offers an alternative: models designed to minimise hallucinations, resist “model collapse”, and reduce opacity. By embedding rigor into training practices, the EU may not only advance trustworthy AI but also begin addressing its competitiveness woes, as underscored by the Draghi Report.[1]

Beatriz da Silva Pereira (master’s in European Union Law at the School of Law of University of Minho)

“Make fast fashion out of fashion” is the most recent slogan adopted by the European Commission to promote its new campaign to engage the Europeans in the battle against fast fashion and to raise public awareness about the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles.[1]

The EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles arises within the scope of the much-quoted European Green Deal[2] launched in 2018, which marks the beginning of a new age in the environment protection across the EU and imposes a new perspective on the old principle of sustainability, which requires that all political and economic measures undertaken by the EU must consider the impacts and effects that those policies may have on the long run: on the economy, society and the climate.

This means that any initiative taken in order to satisfy a current need of the Europeans must be long-sighted and take in consideration the potential effect it may cause on the economic wealth of the Europeans, ideally resulting in economic growth, increasing monetary resources, in social peace, addressing inequalities, fostering the feeling of belonging and promoting an overall wellbeing to each and every individual, as well as a conscious impact on the environment, preserving ecosystems,  and repairing the damage already caused.

José Vegar Velho [Guest Lecturer at the School of Law of the University of Minho | Commissioner at the Portuguese Data Protection Authority (Comissão Nacional de Proteção de Dados – CNPD)]

On the 25th of March 2024, the Portuguese DPA – CNPD – issued a decision to temporarily limit the processing of biometric data relating to the processing operation for the collection of iris, eye, and face data in Portugal, that was being performed by a globally established private company, which, at the time, already had a direct impact on about 300,000 persons in said national territory.[1]

Such data was claimed to be the basis of a universal ID, to be used as proof of personhood and human condition, that is, establishing whether an individual is both human and unique – a digital ID.

This ID was presented as a global digital passport that guarantees people a way to preserve their privacy to authenticate themselves as humans online, in a world where intelligence is no longer a discriminator between people and AI.

Bruno Reynaud Sousa (Professor at School of Law of the University of Minho | JusGov Researcher in Space Law and Policy)

Introduction

During the 18th and 19th centuries, Great Britain’s undisputed dominance of the seas under Pax Britannica not only secured its economic and naval supremacy but also enabled it to export its legal norms worldwide.^[1] British admiralty courts and jurists, backed by the Royal Navy’s enforcement power, set precedents in maritime law that other nations gradually adopted.^[2] A notable example concerns landmark rulings by British courts in the late 18th century that established principles regarding neutral shipping rights and contraband, influencing international agreements such as the Declaration of Paris of 1856.^[3] Indeed, the Declaration of Paris, recognised as the first multilateral law-making treaty, was a compromise in which Britain conceded wider neutral rights in exchange for the abolition of privateering. At the time, as privateering was central to U.S. naval strategy in the event of conflict with the former colonial power, Britain secured a diplomatic victory by pushing for the closure of most global ports to privateers, effectively ending the practice.^[4]

In 1898, the Spanish-American War sparked a shift that eventually dethroned the Royal Navy’s supremacy and established the U.S. as the leading maritime power.^[5] America’s quick victory and subsequent naval expansion – symbolised by steel battleships and the global cruise of the Great White Fleet^[6] – transformed industrial might into blue-water reach and began a decades-long, peaceful transition from British to American dominance.^[7]

Fernando Mario Milano (Professor of Integration Law at the National University of Rosario and University of Buenos Aires, Argentina)

With both blocs concluding negotiations on the EU-Mercosur Trade Agreement, it is pertinent to conduct a cursory study on the potential implications of some of the issues linked to the entry into force of its trade pillar, something that, as we will see later, is still far from happening. Of course, this critical analysis should not lead to the interpretation that our position is completely contrary to the provisions of the agreement; it should only serve to highlight those aspects on which there are considerable disagreements between both blocs, which may even render it inapplicable in practice.

As is well known, after 20 years of negotiations, on 28 June 2019, the European Union (“EU”) and Mercosur reached an agreement “in principle” for a “strategic” partnership. This agreement includes not only economic and trade aspects, but also political and cooperation aspects. It consists of three pillars: political dialogue, trade and cooperation.^[1]

In view of the disagreements that have arisen between the EU and Mercosur on certain sensitive matters – such as deforestation for agricultural production in the territories of Mercosur countries (particularly in relation to Brazil)^[2] – at the request of the EU, an amendment was made to the agreement reached in 2019. In this amendment, in relation to chapter 14 of the trade pillar, a series of parameters to be met for environmental protection were established, in line with the 2015 United Nations (“UN”) Paris Agreement on climate change, duly signed by all Mercosur and EU member countries.^[3]