What measures can the EU take if there are irregularities in EU parliament elections in a member state? There are reports of EU citizens denied their voting rights in the UK during the 2019 European Parliament election in the UK. I assume there are ways to report them in the UK. But what can the EU do in such a case? Can it e.g. force a member state to rerun the elections?
Based on the Electoral Procedures of the pdf linked below Arrangements subject to National Procedures H : Validation of results, ... the answer would be nothing. A short list, grouped by countries and methods, shows how it should be done UK (as one of many): through courts This is confirmed by a tagesschau.de summary of questions on how the European elections work in Germany through the Bundeswahlleiter and the text of the Bundeswahlleiter that the election to the European Parliament is not done by a common procedure, but by National election laws Link to pdf of The European Parliament Electoral Procedures Bundeswahlleiter (in German)
Jan Böhmermann faces prosecution in Germany for violating their penal code section 103 as discussed here. Lèse-majesté is not a crime in the UK, though apparently it was a common law crime in Scotland until 2010 (though not prosecuted since 1715). Though there is always the possibility of a defamation lawsuit, depending on what you say.
Any member of parliament can move a bill. A member of the public can't, for example, mail a bill in to the Speaker's office and say 'here you go, get them to vote on that.' A member of one of the houses of parliament has to put it on the notice paper. Normally it is the Government of the day that introduces bills. Ordinarily it would be a Minister who would do this after receiving approval from Cabinet. When someone other than a Minister introduces a bill, it is called a 'private member's bill'. A Minister would not introduce a bill without Cabinet approval (that would make the Government look bad). A non-Minister Government MP (backbencher) may introduce a private member's bill and this could be a genuinely independent effort or it could be a way for the Government to distance itself from something controversial. The Government may control the business of the chamber in question (particularly if that is the House of Commons), and may be able to defer consideration of a private member's bill indefinitely if they really want to. See also Wikipedia. In terms of drafting, there are public servants who draft Government bills. It is up to the Government to decide whether to allow other members of parliament to have access to these resources. A private member's bill may be drafted by the member personally, by a lobbyist or by anyone with a word processor.
However, if a website is based in the US and the terms of service say that the law governing the terms is US law, how can GDPR have any affect? It is unlikely that the EU will be able to enforce financial penalties against a company with no presence in the EU. But they could for example block your website in the EU, depriving you of your EU user base. The actual measures that they could or would take against such a company are still unclear, since the GDPR is quite new, and there has been no action under the GDPR against foreign companies. I'm not a lawyer, but I've signed many contracts in my life and nearly all of them have some form of "governing law" clause. The governing law clause in a contract identifies the law that will be used to interpret the contract and to resolve any disputes arising from the contract. The law identified in the clause does not become the sole law governing every aspect of the relationship between the parties, however. For example, a business in New Jersey could have a contract with a client in New York with a clause specifying New Jersey law as the governing law of the contract. But that does not mean that New York's consumer protection law doesn't apply to the transaction.
When personal data is transferred between the EU and UK, this is an “international transfer” (also called “restricted transfer” in ICO guidance). Transfers of personal data from the UK to the EU/EEA are easy since the UK has granted an adequacy decision to the EU (see Art 45 GDPR). Nevertheless, this must be disclosed to data subjects per Art 13(1)(f) GDPR. Transfers of personal data from the EU to the UK are different. An adequacy decision is still under negotiation, but is not guaranteed. As an interim measure, the Brexit trade deal says that transfers of personal data into the UK are temporarily not considered international transfers, so that no legal basis such as an adequacy decision is needed. This interim measure will expire after April, but will likely be extended to expire after June. If this temporary measures expires before an adequacy decision is in place, alternative transfer mechanisms such as standard contractual clauses (SCCs) have to be used. In a way, the temporary measure allows an extended transition period for putting SCCs into place.
"Explanations relating to the Charter of Fundamental Rights" on the website you linked to is very clear that the Charter of Fundamental Rights only means the EU institutions can't discriminate based on age, and that EU law is not allowed to be age discriminatory. It doesn't mean that individual acts of age discrimination are illegal: In contrast, the provision in Article 21(1) does not create any power to enact anti-discrimination laws in these areas of Member State or private action, nor does it lay down a sweeping ban of discrimination in such wide-ranging areas. Instead, it only addresses discriminations by the institutions and bodies of the Union themselves, when exercising powers conferred under the Treaties, and by Member States only when they are implementing Union law. The practice of youth and senior discounts is older than the charter of fundamental rights. The charter will be interpreted in the light of continuity, it definitely wasn't the intention to outlaw price discrimination. There are specific laws that make price discrimination based on certain principles legal, e.g. UK equality act: Age discrimination - when discrimination is allowed in the provision of goods or services
Is it GDPR compliant that I can't access the account that I created and the personal data that I shared because "I haven't completed their internal pre-qualification process"? Article 15 defines a “Right of access to the data subject” but it's difficult to see how this could be construed as a right to log into a specific website. Common sense suggests this would be a very bad idea. If they are willing to provide the data through another means (say a report or data dump of some sort), the obligation would seem to be met. In fact, article 15(3) even states that data controllers should merely provide the information in a “commonly used electronic form” (i.e. not necessarily through access to their systems or whatever form they are using internally for the processing). Have you asked for that and would you be satisfied by that resolution? Is it GDPR compliant that their answer to my deletion request is "We will delete the data..." The text of article 17 (right to erasure) explicitly specifies that such a request must be honored without “undue delay”. Article 12, which defines some of the modalities for the rights to access, rectification or erasure by the data subject, also provides that controllers shall “provide information on action taken on a request […] without undue delay and in any event within one month of receipt of the request”. You haven't provided any time frame and I don't think there is anything wrong with acknowledging the request by promising they “will” do it but in light of article 12, it seems you would indeed be entitled to know once they have actually taken further action. However, you implied you might want to access the data first and it's not clear to me whether you explicitly invoked the GDPR in earlier communications. So I would clarify and reiterate my request (access or erasure) and ask them for explicit confirmation once it has been satisfied.
In the broad sense encoded in EU law, there is no right to be forgotten in the US. Certain rights recognized in the Constitution, in particular in the Bill of Rights, which prohibit various government actions. The Constitution also gives Congress the specific power to regulate interstate commerce, which has been used to limit individual freedoms (such as the right to grow wheat). In deciding if a law limiting freedom is constitutional, the courts will apply the standard known as strict scrutiny in deciding, when a law restricts a fundamental right (such as the right to free speech). The requirement for passing such scrutiny are that the law is needed for a compelling state interest, it is narrowly tailored, and uses the least restrictive means to do this. There is no such law encoding a supposed "right to be forgotten", although in certain circumstances one might sue for damages over an invasion of privacy, usually broken down into intrusion of solitude, appropriation of name or likeness, public disclosure of private fact and false light. A requirement to delete a person's posts or posts about a person, or records of transactions would not fall under these categories. The simplest answer to the question is, there is no such law, and it is hard to see what law could be constructed that is consistent with US Constitutional protections of individual freedoms.