On Tuesday, Argentine political leaders, workers, students, and social activists will march to the Congress in Buenos Aires to demand compliance with the University Financing Law and urge the Chamber of Deputies to reject Decree of Necessity and Urgency (DNU) 70/23. The gathering is scheduled to take place in front of Parliament, where demands regarding the Land Law and the Rental Law will also be voiced.
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The mobilization will bring together faculty, non-teaching staff, students, university officials, labor confederations, tenants’ organizations, Malvinas war veterans, and political leaders. Participants will call on the government to implement the University Financing Law and on the Chamber of Deputies to repeal DNU 70/23, which has already been rejected by the Senate.
The protest was decided upon weeks ago, following strikes and public teaching sessions organized by faculty and non-teaching staff unions. The organizations maintain that the law must guarantee the sustainability of national universities and demand that the Executive branch comply with existing regulations.
The Buenos Aires University (UBA) issued a message supporting the call to action: “Let us not normalize non-compliance with the law. Laws must be obeyed. Always.” The university called for participation in the fifth Federal University March to demand adherence to the law and to defend public higher education.
#Argentina | A federal court struck down President Javier Milei’s decree blocking the University Financing Law and ordered the government to immediately release funds for public universities.
— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) October 7, 2026
The ruling follows more than a year of disputes over university funding.#Education… pic.twitter.com/SbD2Nswu3P
These demands were also voiced last week at the Palacio Pizzurno, the headquarters of the Secretariat of Education. There, student unions from the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area staged a sit-in and asked the Secretary of Education, Carlos Torrendell, to increase scholarships in accordance with the University Financing Law.
According to the statement regarding the event, the meeting lasted three minutes before authorities forcibly removed the students from the building. Later, the Ministry of Human Capital announced it would file a formal complaint regarding the incident. Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof confirmed he would participate in the march.
During an event marking the 150th anniversary of the implementation of Law 988 on Common Education, he stated that the national government does not respect the law and maintained that its representatives would be “in the streets on the 15th, defending public universities.” Kicillof also noted that the 26 national universities located within the province are the responsibility of the federal government.
Meanwhile, students will march in groups organized by student unions or independently, just as they did during the four previous mobilizations. Some university faculties are preparing measures to support the protest. At the UBA’s Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, an assembly voted to occupy the building at Puan 480 from 7:00 PM on Tuesday until Thursday, the day of the mobilization.
Emergency Decree (DNU) 70/23 and the legislative debate
The march also aims to pressure the Chamber of Deputies to reject Emergency Decree (DNU) 70/23, signed by President Javier Milei. The lower house is scheduled to debate the decree, although achieving a quorum to hold the session remains uncertain.
The legislative debate was called after the Supreme Court overturned a ruling that had declared Article 154 of the decree—which concerned the repeal of the Land Law—unconstitutional. As of this writing, that law remains in effect. Nevertheless, the organizers are proceeding with the mobilization, maintaining that the protest should not depend on judicial decisions.
The La Plata Center for Malvinas War Veterans (Cecim), which had filed the legal challenge, confirmed it would be present at Plaza de los Dos Congresos, stating: “The homeland is not for sale. We are marching on the 15th regardless, because DNU 70 is a crime against the people.”
The two CTA labor confederations also announced their participation. The CTA Autónoma announced it would return to the streets to demand that the Chamber of Deputies repeal the decree and move forward with declaring it unconstitutional.
"El decreto 70/23 no es ni más ni menos una forma de LIQUIDAR SOBERANÍA NACIONAL, no hay forma de verlo desde otro lugar"
— 💛🇦🇷 🅟🅐🅜🅟🅐 🇦🇷💙 (@Pampa139) October 11, 2026
Hay que impedir que vendan el país entero, porque dejaron en claro que no les importa pic.twitter.com/je4wq44qQD
Emergency Decree (DNU) 70/23 repealed the Rental Law, which had mandated three-year contracts and six-monthly rent adjustments. Consequently, tenants’ organizations will join the march to demand the decree’s rejection. The group Organized Tenants (Inquilinos Agrupados) called for a gathering outside Congress, declaring: “Down with Decree 70. We will have a rental law.”
Peronist and leftist leaders also confirmed their participation. Gabriel Solano—a former Buenos Aires City legislator representing the Workers’ Party (Partido Obrero) within the Left and Workers’ Front-Unity (FIT-U)—called for intensified mobilization to reject the decree and secure an increase in the university budget.
The rally will thus bring together demands for higher education funding and opposition to the repeals enacted by the decree regarding land and rental regulations. The outcome of the debate on the decree will rest with the deputies, while protesters seek to voice their grievances outside Congress.
Kyiv just cleared the important roadblock for Budapest, which stood between Kyiv and EU membership talks. Ukraine’s parliament has passed a bill on schooling in minority languages, meant to finally lift Hungary’s block on the country’s path toward EU membership, with 266 of the 450 lawmakers voting in favor, UNIAN reports.
Hungary has been the lone EU member blocking the opening of four of Ukraine’s negotiating clusters, stages of the membership process, over how Kyiv treats the Hungarian minority in Ukraine's Zakarpattia region. Roughly 80,000 ethnic Hungarians live in it, and Budapest had tied Ukraine’s entire EU course to their language rights.
Lawmakers have instructed the parliament’s speaker to sign the law without delay and send it to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The bill keeps Ukrainian as the main language of education, but guarantees classes in minority languages where they exist. Minorities may study in the official languages of EU member states alongside Ukrainian, and pupils may use their language in other forms of communication on school grounds.
A school can gain the status of a national-minority institution if more than half of its pupils study in that minority language, provided that language is an official EU language. Parents of at least two-thirds of a minority class can also ask the school to expand the list of subjects taught in Ukrainian.
Ukraine’s 2017 education law and 2019 language law narrowed minority-language schooling and required more Ukrainian in secondary grades, which then-Hungarian leader Viktor Orban treated as an attack on the Hungarians of Zakarpattia, blocking Kyiv’s NATO and EU steps for years, EUalive reports. Kyiv’s position was that the laws applied to all minorities and excluded Russian.
Hungary’s newer government, in office since spring 2026, inherited the veto. Budapest lifted it on the first cluster, which the EU opened in June, Ukraine’s first since gaining candidate status in 2022, but made the rest conditional on this law.
With the bill passed, Hungary is set to allow the EU to open two more clusters, on the internal market and competitiveness, at a Council meeting in Luxembourg on 13 October. Kyiv aims to open all its clusters by year’s end.
Montenegro and Albania are preparing for another round of European Union accession negotiations this week, with meetings in Luxembourg scheduled to advance their membership bids as Brussels considers substantial changes to the conditions under which future countries will join the bloc.
Montenegro’s 29th accession conference will take place on Monday, 12 October, followed by Albania’s tenth conference on Tuesday. The meetings come less than a week after the European Commission presented a package of proposals intended to prepare the EU for enlargement while strengthening its ability to respond to breaches of democratic standards by newly admitted members.
For Montenegro, the immediate objective is to continue closing negotiating chapters after years of institutional and legal reforms. Albania’s meeting has a more precisely defined agenda: the provisional closure of Chapter 20, covering enterprise and industrial policy.
Both countries have made progress towards membership, but the Commission’s latest proposals indicate that the terms of accession could become more demanding as the EU considers admitting several new members.
Montenegro is widely regarded as the most advanced candidate among the Western Balkan countries.
Accession negotiations began in 2012, and all 33 negotiating chapters have been opened. Progress towards closure has accelerated as the government seeks to complete the process and secure an accession treaty.
At the end of 2025, Montenegro provisionally closed five chapters covering services, capital movements, company law, agriculture and fisheries.
As EU Today reported following that conference, the agreements brought the number of provisionally closed chapters to twelve at that stage, while the EU continued to emphasise the importance of judicial reform and sustained implementation.
Subsequent accession conferences have continued the negotiating process, with the 29th conference scheduled for 12 October.
The Commission has identified Montenegro as a country capable of concluding accession negotiations by the end of 2026, provided sufficient progress is maintained.
That objective does not mean membership would follow automatically. A completed negotiation must still lead to an accession treaty, which requires approval by all existing member states and ratification under their constitutional procedures.
Outstanding questions include the independence of the judiciary, enforcement of anti-corruption legislation and the capacity of state institutions to apply EU law consistently.
Albania’s accession process has also gained momentum, supported by renewed EU interest in incorporating the Western Balkans into European political and economic structures.
The conference scheduled for 13 October is expected to provisionally close Chapter 20, which covers enterprise and industrial policy.
The chapter concerns the legal and institutional environment in which businesses operate, including industrial competitiveness, entrepreneurship and policies supporting small and medium-sized enterprises.
Provisional closure would represent further progress in Albania’s alignment with EU legislation and policy, although it would not constitute a final agreement on accession.
As with Montenegro, the negotiating framework requires sustained progress on the fundamentals of membership, notably judicial independence, fundamental rights, corruption and organised crime.
The latest accession conferences follow the European Commission’s proposals of 6 October, which address the institutional consequences of admitting new countries.
The Commission argues that enlargement can be accommodated within the existing treaties, but that the EU will need additional safeguards and improvements to decision-making.
Among the most consequential proposals is the possibility of suspending a new member state’s voting rights in the Council if it commits serious breaches of the Union’s fundamental values or the principle of sincere cooperation.
Such provisions would be incorporated into future accession arrangements, making some membership conditions enforceable after a country has joined.
The proposal reflects concerns that the EU’s existing mechanisms for responding to democratic backsliding can be slow and politically difficult to apply.
In June, EU Today reported on proposals advanced by five member states seeking stronger protections against governments that might undermine common decisions after accession.
The Commission’s October package develops that argument into a broader programme of institutional preparation.
The debate extends to Ukraine and Moldova, whose membership applications have acquired greater strategic importance following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The Commission is examining how candidate countries can progressively participate in EU policies and programmes before obtaining full membership.
These arrangements could include greater integration in energy, transport, defence and selected areas of the single market, subject to the implementation of relevant reforms.
Brussels is also considering transitional arrangements affecting agricultural support, financial transfers and sensitive sectors of the economy.
The political challenge is to provide candidate countries with credible membership prospects while reassuring existing members that enlargement will not weaken common decision-making or create unsustainable budget commitments.
For Montenegro and Albania, the October conferences therefore take place at a pivotal point in the accession process.
Both governments are moving through the technical stages of membership negotiations while the EU is still determining how its next enlargement will operate.
The outcome will depend not only on their progress towards meeting accession conditions, but also on whether the existing 27 member states can agree on the institutional changes required for a larger Union.
The EU’s annual rule of law report, tackling advancements in corruption and fundamental rights, shares overly optimistic improvement that is far from the reality on the ground, a civil liberties group revealed.
Presented on a sweltering Friday in July, the EU commission’s 2026 rule of law report failed to avoid scrutiny, with NGO Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties) observing a gap between professed achievements in member states and the reality of a significant lack of implementation of Brussels’ recommendations.
“This year’s Report shows continued positive progress across many Member States. And that is precisely why our Rule of Law Report matters. It has become a reference point, helping to shape national debates and drive reforms across our Union,” EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said back then in a statement.
But of all recommendations in the July report, Liberties’ Gap analysis report revealed that only four percent had been fully implemented, while 54 percent show limited to no progress.
“The Commission’s Rule of Law Report has the potential to be one of the EU’s strongest tools for preventing democratic backsliding,” said Kersty McCourt, Liberties’ rule of law expert. “But when recommendations are repeatedly issued without being implemented, and new threats are not identified early enough, the system loses its power”.
The report, published on Monday (12 October) and shared in advance with EUobserver, found that almost all recommendations issued in 2026 were regurgitations of those given in previous years, with only seven new recommendations being introduced this year.
The commission’s annual report “fails to unpack why some problems remain so entrenched,” Liberties said.
In its own study, the Berlin-based NGO suggested the reasons for slow movement to be bound from a lack of willingness from member states, a vacuum in the EU’s enforcement mechanisms, or issues becoming “so entrenched that progress is effectively impossible.”
This reduces the function of the report as a warning system for identifying early signs of democratic backsliding, since recommendations on emerging issues remain unaddressed and even if are formally adopted, often don’t translate into effective implementation.
Liberties observed this to be evident in the example of Nordic countries, which have grown to be exempt from scrutiny due to their traditionally strong reputations.
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