Tunisia. Supervising Tunisian Elections by civil society: How to improve it? Arab Citizenship Review No. 7. January 2015

Introduction. On October 26, 2014, Tunisia held its second democratic legislative elections. Participation among more than 5 million registered voters was at about 60%, a relatively good turnout for the country, compared to the 52% voters in 2011. Preliminary results for the 33 constituencies (27 within the country and 6 for expatriates) reveal that secular frontrunner Nidaa Tounes (Call of Tunisia) won around 37% percent of votes while moderate Islamist party Ennahdha, winner of the 2011 elections and leader of Tunisia’s post-revolution government, received 27% of votes. Other parties with notable percentages are the Free Patriotic Union (French: UPL) with 4.4% and the leftist party, Popular Front, with 3.7%. Legislative were immediately followed by two round presidential elections the first one held on November 23, the second one after one month. Conversely to what was expected, people were more attracted by presidential elections even though president has notably less prerogatives than the parliament: representing the state, he is mainly responsible for determining the general state policies in the domains of defense, foreign relations and national security (article 76.) This paradox is ascribed to national imaginary more confident in a “Zaïm” (leader) rather than a collective institution such as a parliament. The turnout was at about 64% within the national 27 constituencies. Out of 70 candidates (including 5 female), 27 (with only one female) met the legal requirements to run for the presidency. The result confirms the legislative trend and Beji Caid Essebsi, leader of Nidaa, was proclaimed the third President of Tunisia. He gained 39.46% of the votes at the first round elections. Essebsi was followed by Moncef Marzouki who received an unexpected score (33.43%) at the first round, thanks to the support of Ennahdha audience and to an active and insistent campaign focused on the idea that revolution is threatened by old regime guard “come-back.” Rewarded for his long militant live, the extreme leftist Hamma Hammami in a new look gained 7,8% of the votes while the new comer Slim Riahi received 5,5% despite rumors circulating on his personal reputation. Notably, Kalthoum Kennou gained 0,55% (18.287 votes) but listed eleventh out of 27.

Can Schengen survive? CEPS Commentary, 14 December 2015

Against the background of Europe's refugee crisis, not to mention last month's terrorist attacks in Paris, Daniel Gros acknowledges in this Commentary that the core principle of a "Europe without borders" has come under serious attack. He exhorts member states to realise that they can be more secure without sacrificing liberty if they create a common institution to guard the external borders and reinforce the existing framework for internal security.

What is happening to the Schengen borders? CEPS Liberty and Security in Europe No. 86, December 2015

What is happening to the Schengen borders? Is Schengen in ‘crisis’? This paper examines the state of play in the Schengen system in light of the developments during 2015. It critically examines the assertion that Schengen is ‘in crisis’ and seeks to set the record straight on what has been happening to the intra-Schengen border-free and common external borders system. The paper argues that Schengen is here to stay and that reports about the reintroduction of internal border checks are exaggerated as they are in full compliance with the EU rule of law model laid down in the Schengen Borders Code and subject to scrutiny by the European Commission. It also examines the legal challenges inherent to police checks within the internal border areas as having an equivalent effect to border checks as well as the newly adopted proposal for a European Border and Coast Guard system. The analysis shows that the most far-reaching challenge to the current and future configurations of EU border policies relates to ensuring that they are in full compliance with fundamental human rights obligations to refugees, effective accountability and independent monitoring of the implementation of EU legal standards. This should be accompanied by a transparent and informed discussion on which ‘Schengen’ and which 'common European Border and Coast Guard Agency' we exactly want within current democratic rule of law and fundamental rights remits.

Sustainability and solidarity – basic ideas of new financial structures. Policy Brief #2012/07

Federal financial structures which include fiscal equalization between the states are and will remain to be indispensable. Such structures are required to equalize the significant regional economic differences which exist within the federal republic and to ensure sufficient funding for the responsibilities of the public sector across the nation. The current federal financial structures have a number of structural flaws which regard both the criteria for tax distribution, the design of the debt brake and the role of municipalities. The financial structures will have to be revised beginning in 2020. The objective is to consolidate in the long term the budgets of federation, state and municipal governments and to safe-guard a modern welfare state.

Procedural steps towards Brexit. CEPS Commentary, 13 July 2016

Introduction. With the dust barely settled on the Brexit referendum, a messy legal picture has emerged. Among the many challenges are what, when and how exactly the UK’s withdrawal from the EU should be negotiated. In truth, the way the divorce procedure has been regulated under Article 50 TEU leaves much to be desired. Gaps left by the EU legislator will have to be filled rather swiftly by political elites and lawyers. To the EU and its member states, only the rudimentary aspects of withdrawal are clear. In the UK, however, even the staunchest proponents of Vote Leave seem to have been caught off-guard, with no actionable plan for how to handle Brexit – only visions of alternatives to EU membership that are unlikely to be acceptable to the EU27. The fact that alternatives to membership had not been considered seriously prior to the referendum is perplexing, and underlines the impression that the entire exercise was a stroke of irresponsible political chutzpah.

GTInspector: A Moldable Domain-Aware Object Inspector

Understanding the run-time behaviour of object-oriented applications entails the comprehension of run-time objects. Traditional object inspectors favor generic views that focus on the low-level details of the state of single objects. While universally applicable, this generic approach does not take into account the varying needs of developers that could benefit from tailored views and exploration possibilities. GTInspector is a novel moldable object inspector that provides different high-level ways to visualize and explore objects, adapted to both the object and the current developer need.

Null Check Analysis

Null dereferencing is one of the most frequent bugs in Java systems causing programs to crash due to the uncaught NullPointerException. Developers often fix this bug by introducing a guard (i.e., null check) on the potentially-null objects before using them. In this paper we investigate the null checks in 717 open-source Java systems to understand when and why developers introduce null checks. We find that 35 of the if-statements are null checks. A deeper investigation shows that 71 of the checked-for-null objects are returned from method calls. This indicates that null checks have a serious impact on performance and that developers introduce null checks when they use methods that return null.

Beautiful butterflies of the tropics, how to collect them,

Each plate accompanied by guard sheet with descriptive letterpress.

Fielding Yost with former players Donald Green, Maurice Crumpacker and Denny Clark at Portland, OR alumni event April 1923

[Alumnus caption: "A Reunion of the Old Guard The Coach with Three Old Pupils, Donald W. Green, '11; M.E. Crumpacker, '09 W. D. Clark, '07]

Le travail en Amérique avant et après Colomb,

Plates accompanied by guard sheets with descriptive letterpress.

Proceedings of the public meeting to review the status of the inexhaustible energy resources study.

Public meeting held at National Guard Heritage Gallery Auditorium, in Washington, D.C., May 18, 1977.

Investigation of extreme weather oil pollution response capabilities /

Prepared by Seaward International, Inc., under contract no. DOT-CG-80372-A.

Educational alternatives for boating safety programs /

Final report; May 1978.

Turkey,

Frontispiece accompanied by guard sheet with descriptive letterpress.

American waterfowl; their present situation and the outlook for their future,

Each plate accompanied by guard sheet with descriptive letterpress.