Eutropius, to be seen in KHM. For 99 € a year, one can get a yearly ticket (Bundesmussencard) for 8 federal museums allowing to visit him whenever you want.

NSFW (Nikolaus’ Song For the Week)

This week’s song is from Branko Galoić. It’s my first reference to Balkan-Pop, I believe, here; some call his style world music, others balkan blues; whatever it is, it’s nice.

If you like it, you might also like

There’s a - nice - YouTube video of this song on YouTube that stands, as I write this, at 44 (!) viws after 3 years of appearance there. How can that be?

Retrospect

Messenger Surveillance

The review period for the draft law on messenger surveillance ended on Tuesday, June 3rd. More than 140 statements were sent, many of them very substantial. I wrote one as well.

My view on the draft is critical, in line with many others with a technical or data protection perspective. People and institutions with a purely legal background tend to have a more positive view. There’s also some UNIVIE-internal academic debate here, with statements from my UNIVIE-colleagues Susanne Reindl-Krauskopf and Ingeborg Zerbes who are much more positive than me in their assessment. I am, however, in the same team with their colleague Robert Kert from WU who raises concerns rather similar to mine in his statement written together with Dr. Raphaela Bauer-Raschhofer.

The issue was quite intensely debated and I was happy to have the privilege to contribute a little further, with a report in Kleine Zeitung and an radio interview in Mittagsjournal.

There will be more on this next week, including a TV-interview for ORF-Report that is scheduled for Friday and will be on air (hopefully) next Tuesday. I am currently reading a lot about the matter under German and French law for this and am quite stuck that the case 1 BvR 180/23 is still pending at the Constitutional Court (for several years now) - the decision is now finally scheduled for (later in) 2025.

Data Protection Day

Monday brought me into the ministry of Justice (that is currently under heavy renovation [the building, not the institution]) for to the Data Protection Day that had been postponed from January.

Minister Dr. Anna Sporrer and Head of the (newly founded) Parliamentarian Data Protection Committee Prof. Dr. Eva Souhrada-Kirchmayr delivered speeches on data protection in parliamentary processes.

I learned, inter alia, that all 5 of the 5 members of the committee have a legal background whichh goes way beyond the minimum legal requirements of 50 % (§ 35b section 2 DSG).

UNESCO and AI

Dr. Yannick Duller, introduced by Roberto Schille, gave an excellent presentation on Ethics of AI & AI Policy - Current work of the UNESCO at the TeamID Breakfast Lecture on Wednesday.

Starting with the UNESCO-principles on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, he described vividly how complex multinantional on-the-ground-enforcement of the AI-act within the EU can be without losing his positive attitude.

AI Advisory Board

The AI Advisory Board had an internal meeting with State Secretary Pröll in “Haus der Digitalisierung” in Tulln.

It was very difficult to get there as the area around Franz Josefs Bahnhof is a huge construction site with no bicycles to be used or parked anywhere around. I coined a new marketing claim in one of the coffebreaks: “Make Tulln great again.” as its Roman predecessor Comagena (or Comagenis) had been a strategically important fort and village.

Prospect

Ars Iuris Yearly Conference

Our law school’s doctoral school’s yearly conference will take place in Juridicum’s top floor on Tuesday, June 10th.

It’s an excellent opportnity to get a profound overview about some of the very best written PHD-thesises currently written at the law school.

Free entry, no stream, registration requested.

GDPR Reform

Prof. Niko Härting will be at the department next Friday, June 13th.

He is just brilliant. And his topic is (as always) just on point.

Free entry, registration requested, no stream.

#arsboni

Two sessions are ahead of us. One is, again, from our friends from the Vienna Legal Literacy Project on Tuesday at 19.00.

The episode is on the meaning and consequences on sales contracts, together with Mag. Lisa Artner.

The second is on one of the many groundbreaking ideas my friend and role model Prof. Dr. Thomas Hoeren once had and that has deveoped remarkably well and on a global scale since then: the art law clinics. This is a very demanding and useful teaching format with law students advising art students, more on the concept, is, for example, available on UNIVIE’s art law clinic website.

Hande Özkayagan Prändl (UNIVIE), Sergi Jorbenadze (IVANE JAVAKHISHVILI TBILISI STATE UNIVERSITY, Georgia), Thomas Hoeren (University of Muenster, Germany) Lukas Faymann (UNIVIE) and Genevieve Rousseau (Stellenbosch University, South Africa) will join. We will discuss what an art law clinic is, and what their purpose in (legal) education can be.

Look and Feel

Donaukanal

Running has become more challenging than ever in recent months. What a good excuse it is then to take snapshots of all the new street art at Donaukanal.

City Lights

I saw City Lights with live music in Konzerthaus and it was wonderful

The storytelling is brilliant, as well as the music that was written by Chaplin and conducted by Timothy Brook.

https://www.timothybrock.com/scores/city-lights

I didn’t find a legal full version with acceptable quality of th efilm online, bute here’s at least one of the funniest scenes:

The evening ended with a nice view on St. Stephen's Cathedral from Sky Bar.

Emiliana Torrini

is in Vienna next Wednesday, together with Bernhard Eder and tickets are still available!

She provided, as you might remember, the NSFW of Week 16/2025.

Daisy

can carry a really long stick like a snorkel in water.

This is her in Marchfeldkanal, very close to Strebersdorf and Stammersdorf, where she finally managed to get into the water after patiently waiting under the table for us spending a wonderful Sunday afternoon at Buschenschank Knizak. If you are looking for a nice and authentic Viennese Buschenschank (which is the purest version of a Heuriger), look no further, this is the right place to go.

Have a wonderful week!

Kind regards

Nikolaus (Forgó)