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Annual Report on the execution of the European Court's judgments and decisions

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The Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Alain Berset, has called for further efforts to implement judgments from the European Court of Human Rights. Commenting on the  annual report for 2024  on the execution of the Court’s rulings, published today, the Secretary General said: “ This report shows what a concrete, positive impact judgments from the European Court of Human Rights have on the daily lives of the people of Europe. While a lot has been achieved, more needs to be done. The efficient execution of the Court's judgments is essential for the rule of law and democratic accountability in Europe .” The annual report from the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers shows that 992 cases were transferred from the European Court of Human Rights to Committee, which supervises their implementation by member states, in 2024. Of those 992 new cases, 194 were “leading” cases – often requiring action to be taken by states to prevent the same violations happ...
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Prison overcrowding remains a problem in Europe: Council of Europe’s annual penal statistics for 2023

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Prison overcrowding continues to be an acute and persistent problem in a significant number of European prison administrations, according to the Council of Europe’s Annual Penal Statistics on Prison Populations ( SPACE I ) for 2023. In countries with over 500,000 inhabitants, twelve prison administrations reported having more inmates than places available in January 2023. Overall, in Europe, the number of prisoners per 100 places available grew by 2% from 31 January 2022 to 31 January 2023 (from 91.7 to 93.5 inmates). Seven prison administrations reported a prison density of more than 105 inmates per 100 places available, indicating severe overcrowding: Cyprus (166 inmates per 100 places), Romania (120), France (119), Belgium (115), Hungary (112), Italy (109) and Slovenia (107). Five prison administrations reported very high prison density: Greece (103), Sweden (102), North Macedonia (101), Croatia (101) and Türkiye (100). Other administrations reported a prison density...
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Ombudsman inquiry on Commission President’s text messages is a wake-up call for EU

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The European Ombudsman inquiry into the Commission’s handling of a request for text messages between its President and the CEO of a pharmaceutical company is a wake-up call for all EU institutions about ensuring accountability in an era of instant messaging. One year after the initial request by a journalist, the Commission has still not clarified whether messages reported to concern major vaccine procurement deals exist and whether the public is entitled to see them. The Ombudsman had asked the Commission, in a finding of maladministration in January, to conduct a more thorough search for the text messages. The Commission’s recent response failed to say whether it had looked directly and correctly for the text messages and if not, why not. While the response recognised that work-related text messages can be EU documents, it reiterated that the Commission’s internal policy is, in effect, not to register text messages. The Ombudsman has closed  the inquiry  and upheld...
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The Delivery Delay Clause in Residential Construction Contracts: Consumer Protection in Cyprus and Europe

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By Giorgos Kazoleas, LL.M., Lawyer, Managing Partner at Legal Experts Cyprus The purchase or construction of a new residence is one of the most significant financial and personal decisions a consumer can make. Residential construction contracts or agreements for the sale of property under construction are a crucial and defining element of the entire process, as certain terms they may contain can be detrimental to the buyer. One of the most critical aspects is the contractual delivery time of the project and the provision for delay, through the so-called delivery delay clause. The Delivery Delay Clause: Its Role and Legal Nature The delivery delay clause (also known as a penalty clause in the event of default) is a term usually included in the contract that specifies a predetermined compensation amount that the contractor or seller must pay to the buyer for every day, week, or month of delay beyond the agreed delivery date. The purpose of the clause is twofold: -Compensatory: ...
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Moving between Member States without an identity card or passport - A fine amounting to 20% of the amount of the offender’s average net monthly income, is not proportionate to the seriousness of the offence

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In its Judgment in Case C-35/20 (6.10.2021) , the European Court of Justice ruled that a Member State may require its nationals to carry a valid identity card or passport when travelling to another Member State, irrespective of the means of transport used and the itinerary, subject to sanctions. While EU law does not preclude the imposition of a criminal penalty, it does preclude disproportionate penalties, such as a fine amounting to 20% of the offender's average net monthly income. A, a Finnish national, made a round trip between Finland and Estonia in August 2015 on a pleasure boat. During that trip, he crossed the international waters between Finland and Estonia. He was the holder of a valid Finnish passport, but did not have it with him during that trip. As a result, during a border check in Helsinki on his return, A was unable to produce his passport or any other travel document, although his identity could be established on the basis of his driving licence. The syyttäjä ...
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Cancellation of a flight: The refund of the airline ticket price must include the commission collected by an intermediary at the time of purchase (CJEU)

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Judgment of the Court in Case C-45/24 (15.1.2026)- Verein für Konsumenteninformation : Cancellation of a flight: the refund of the airline ticket price must include the commission collected by an intermediary at the time of purchase. It is not necessary for the airline to know the exact amount of that commission. Several travellers purchased airline tickets on the booking portal of the Opodo travel agency [1] for a KLM return flight from Vienna (Austria) to Lima (Peru). Since the flights were cancelled, KLM reimbursed the amount they had paid, minus approximately € 95 that Opodo had charged them as agency commission. The air passengers concerned assigned their potential rights to reimbursement to a consumer protection association. That association contends, before the Austrian courts, that the reimbursement of the cost of the airline tickets by the airline in question should include the agency commission charged to passengers, as in the present case, by a travel agency acting as that a...
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Swiss franc loans and borrowers’ rights in the light of 4 important judgments of the European Court of Justice

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By George Kazoleas, Lawyer LL.M. The EU Court of Justice has issued important decisions in recent years on the issue of bank foreign currency loans, essentially in Swiss francs, which has created significant case law useful for defending the interests of borrowers who have been “trapped” by credit institutions in contracts with abusive currency risk clauses resulting in undue overchargings. In summing up this case-law, the European Court of Justice has reached the following main conclusions: 1.The loan agreement must set out in a transparent manner the exact functioning of the foreign currency conversion mechanism and the exchange rate clause so that the consumer can assess the financial consequences of this mechanism. 2.The borrower must be clearly informed by the bank that, by concluding a loan agreement in a foreign currency, he / she is exposed to a certain foreign exchange risk that he / she may find it difficult to cope with in the event of a devaluation of the currency a...
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