European Union

General : Antonio Tajani made the case for European unity in his first speech as Parliament President at the start of a Council summit. “Today more than ever we can see how important European unity is,” he told political leaders at the summit in Brussels on 9 March. “Europe needs to be changed not weakened. All the institutions need to work harder to find the answers which ordinary Europeans are looking to us to provide.”

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

General : Antonio Tajani made the case for European unity in his first speech as Parliament President at the start of a Council summit. “Today more than ever we can see how important European unity is,” he told political leaders at the summit in Brussels on 9 March. “Europe needs to be changed not weakened. All the institutions need to work harder to find the answers which ordinary Europeans are looking to us to provide.”

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

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Disclaimer : The interpretation of debates serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic record of proceedings. Only the original speech or the revised written translation is authentic.
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

DRAFT OPINION on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a Union Resettlement Framework and amending Regulation (EU) No 516/2014 of the European Parliament and the Council
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Laima Liucija Andrikienė

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Speaking at another Brexit-themed talk in Antwerp this week, I found myself once again noting the matter of issue discovery.

Despite being over 8 months after the referendum, which itself was confirmed as happening in May 2015, and with years of debate beforehand, we still find ourselves in a position where new elements keep on being discovered.

Sometimes, that’s something really mundane – like Marmite price-hikes – or it’s something surprisingly big – like Gibraltar. Equally, we still find that things we thought were clear, are not: WTO schedules springs to mind as a recent example or a thing that was originally seen as very easy, then very complex and now a bit complex.

What we need is a nice big list of all the things that need to be considered in Brexit.

Of course, such a list is not an easy task to undertake, for several reasons.

Firstly, there is an issue of determining what is an impact of Brexit and what is an impact of something else. Probably one has to differentiate between first- and second-order effects.

First-order effects would be those that are directly and unambiguously the result of leaving the EU. Examples here would be any part of public policy where legislation is at the EU-level (agriculture, for example), or where there is a reliance on EU principles (e.g. free movement across the Irish-Northern Irish border).

Second-order effects occur where the first-order effects change related situations. The Marmite thing is a handy example: the shift in the exchange rate following the referendum has led to higher import prices, which causes price inflation for a variety of goods and, ultimately, impacts on consumer spending and confidence, as well as patterns of industrial production. Kind-of Brexit-y, but also clearly informed by other factors of economic activity.

If the first-order effects are hard enough to pin down, then the second-order stuff is harder still. At some point, everything is Brexit.

The second big issue is that effects don’t just land on the UK government. Clearly there are effects on other EU member states, but also on British society, in ways that are beyond the control of Whitehall or Westminster. To pick a non-random example, the changes in public attitudes towards immigrants since the referendum is something that many EU nationals have noted, but the extent to which the government is willing or able to articulate a reaffirmation of the value of immigrants in society is highly debatable.

Likewise, that Brexit will have major repercussions on Ireland is seemingly beyond the scope of London’s direct concerns, even as there is a realisation that it does have a direct impact on the conduct of Article 50 negotiations.

Finally, to list is to prioritise and the British government appears congenitally unwilling to express anything prior to Article 50 notification that might denote a set of priorities. The White Paper is a list of things that strike Number 10 as important parts of Britain’s future, rather than a comprehensive list of what needs to be dealt with.

Of course, there are lists out there.

The UK government did conduct its Review of the Balance of Competences under the coalition government, completing in 2014. This sought to understand where and how the EU impacted on areas of public policy. Ultimately, that concluded that things were generally pretty good and the balance generally appropriate. However, the Review was driven by this notion of balance, rather than impact, so its utility as a checklist is limited.

The Commission has also worked through its list of points to discuss under Article 50, but this too is limited – by necessity – to matters of EU acquis, which is not as all-encompassing as one might think.

All of this matters for very obvious reasons.

As we all know, Article 50 negotiations are limited to two years, so discovering another pile of things to discuss isn’t a good way to reach an agreement within that timeframe. For a British government that hasn’t yet demonstrated that it is in control of the issues, further surprises cannot help its image and standing.

Moreover, once negotiations begin, the introduction of new elements is likely to make matters more difficult to resolve. Even on a minimal Article 50 package, there are a lot of elements, each pulling in different directions, resulting in what is likely to be a fairly small win-set. Structurally, there needs to be good sight of all the elements from the beginning if that win-set is to be realised.

Brexit is important. It matters in a way that not many other public policy decisions have mattered. To then find that we don’t even have a good sense of the range of issues that Brexit – even in the narrow sense of Article 50 negotiations – might cover should be something of concern to us all, whatever our political standpoint. Public policy works best when it is informed and considered, not when it is being made on the run.

As the clock ticks down to notification, the opportunity to get a firm footing grows ever smaller.

The post Issue discovery and Brexit: How will we know what all the points of impact might be? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Piringer
SERV
Member States may reserve to notaries the power to authenticate signatures appended to the documents necessary for the creation or transfer of rights to real property

Zulfikarpašić
Area of Freedom, Security and Justice
Notaries in Croatia, acting in enforcement proceedings on the basis of an ‘authentic document’, cannot be deemed to be ‘courts’ either within the meaning of the Regulation on the European Enforcement Order or for the purposes of the application of the Regulation on the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters

Manni
Approximation of laws
The Court considers that there is no right to be forgotten in respect of personal data in the companies register

Samsung SDI and Others v Commission
Competition
The Court upholds the fines imposed on Samsung SDI and Samsung SDI (Malaysia) for their participation in the cartel on the market for tubes for television sets and for computer monitors

The fightback against Brexit should not only be about saving the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union, it should also be about the country being more involved in Europe to get the most out of its membership. Two ways that the UK could get more from its membership of the EU would be joining the euro and Schengen.

Tony Blair was correct to criticize Brexit in a recent speech, but unfinished business from his own time in office as Prime Minister may have contributed to the leave result in the referendum of 23rd June 2016. This unfinished business was the United Kingdom’s failure to join the euro, and failure to bring the country into the Schengen area. In 2003 Mr Blair committed the UK to fighting a war in Iraq, which distracted him and the country from making real progress with the European project. Without the Iraq war it is very likely the British public would have voted to join the euro in a referendum if it had taken place, which would have strengthened Britain’s links with the Continent: not only economically but also culturally and socially.

If the UK had joined the euro, the country could have increased its local trade in coastal regions, as more visitors from other EU countries were encouraged to come to the UK for weekend visits, because they no longer needed to change their currency. If the UK had joined the Schengen area: it would have made journeys between Britain and the Continent quicker, because passport controls would have been removed for people entering the UK from another EU member state, rather like within the UK there is no passport control on the Isle of Wight for people arriving there from Portsmouth, Southampton and Lymington. Also passport controls would have been removed for people travelling from the UK to another EU member state. Travelling by Eurostar from London to Paris would have been no different to travelling by train from London to Birmingham. However, Schengen can only work if it is protected by border forces that protect the EU’s external borders.

Removing internal borders within the Schengen area, but protecting the external borders of the area would have allowed for EU citizens and those who had entered Europe by legal means to move around the Continent freely, while keeping out illegal immigrants. The problem of recent mass influx of migrants into Europe, has not been because there is too much Europe, but rather not enough Europe. Europe can only coordinate the protection of its external borders: if it becomes a big country or one nation made up of its member states. Therefore a European Union which is a european federal superstate should be welcomed as a natural progression of history, just as there is a United States of America.

In his speech to Open Britain, Tony Blair mentioned the hostility of parts of the media towards Europe when he said: “There is an effective cartel of media on the right, which built the ramp for pro-Brexit propaganda during the campaign; is now equally savage in its efforts to say it is all going to be ‘great’ and anyone who says otherwise is a traitor or moaner; and who make it very clear to the PM that she has their adulation for exactly as long as she delivers Brexit.”

That hostility from the media “cartel” made it so difficult for Tony Blair to commit Britain to Europe during his own time in office. If there had been better coverage of Europe in the media in 2002 and 2003, which had shown the British public how the EU could improve the lives of ordinary hard working men and women in the UK: then Tony Blair could have focused on the euro, Schengen and the european constitution, rather than getting involved in the Iraq war.

Sources

http://www.open-britain.co.uk/full_tony_blair_speech_17th_february_2017

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/17/will-say-leaving-inevitable-isnt-tony-blairs-brexit-speech-full/

©Jolyon Gumbrell 2017

The post Full membership of EU, the euro and Schengen: Britain’s alternative to Brexit appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Since the early spring of 2016, the number of people migrating across the Mediterranean has stabilised, to about 200,000 people. This is largely due to the closure of the Western Balkan route and the EU- Turkey Statement of March 2016, which sought to end irregular migration from Turkey to the European Union.

Underlying both actions is the new-found willingness of key European governments ‒ Austria, Germany and Sweden, among others ‒ to ensure orderly procedures and ‘reasonable’ levels of openness. The resulting policy ‘recalibration’ has gradually changed both the terms under which asylum-seekers are received, and the expectations of them; it has led to an increasing determination (albeit still mostly rhetorical) to remove both failed asylum applicants and outright economic migrants. The message to would-be migrants and each country’s general public is that illegal migration will no longer be tolerated.

Of course, people are still trying to reach Europe, both by land and by sea. Land routes include travelling to the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, while the sea routes mean continuous small-craft traffic toward Spanish shores, large numbers of crossings through the Central Mediterranean, and a small (but incessant) number of journeys across the Aegean.

It is clear that while the chaos of 2015 and 2016 has abated, neither the conditions that fuelled it nor the demands for entry into Europe have changed. Considering reports about large numbers of potential migrants gathered across much of North Africa waiting for an opportunity to get to Europe, the pressure for crossing by any means will continue to grow geometrically, and if circumstances align, exponentially.

“The message to would-be migrants and each country’s general public is that illegal migration will no longer be tolerated”

Unending European crises spill over and fuel others: Greece’s economic and social woes; Brexit; terrorism; the rise of left- and right-wing populist politics; the never-ending story about the performance of the European institutions; the various challenges to Brussels by several central and eastern European member states. But the unresolved migration crisis continues to influence all of them.

At the heart of that crisis is a simple fact: Europe faces a fundamental governance test that is undermining the legitimacy of both national and European institutions and, more directly, the integrity of management structures of those member states most directly affected by spontaneous migration.

It is unproductive to enumerate and critique the mistakes made by ‘frontline’ states (the southern European countries through which virtually all migrants enter Europe) and the prosperous central and northern European states that the overwhelming majority of migrants want to reach. And it is even more unproductive to criticise the Brussels institutions because they are playing a supporting role at most on this issue; the initiative has always rested with key member states and the Western Balkan states that are aspiring to become EU members (and which are therefore very compliant).

It is more productive to focus on and understand the behaviour of the protagonists on this story: the migrants themselves. Would-be migrants have learned to ignore the rhetoric of political leaders ‒ whether about values and rights or the importance of the rule of law ‒ in favour of the experiences of those who have reached their destination in Europe and have managed to stay there.

To be sure, the activist and humanitarian ‘industry’ does its best to portray all migration as a humanitarian and protection issue ‒ as it should – and many citizens subscribe to that perspective. But responsible governments know that when crises get out of control, their principal duty is to make policy for and govern on behalf of all their people; to observe legal obligations strictly but narrowly; and to allow values to define only what is purely unacceptable behaviour.

This is not only a European issue. Democratic governments everywhere struggle with squaring the circle of rights and legal obligations with the responsibility to protect borders, to remove those who don’t meet protection standards, and to invest deeply and smartly in the integration of successful applicants. But there are a number of measures that can make what appears like a classic Hobson’s choice in migration management easier.

“The true challenge for Europe in the decades ahead will be mass migration from Africa”

First and foremost, offer refugees adequate humanitarian assistance and real opportunities to resume their lives in first-asylum countries. Educate their children so as to prevent the creation of a ‘lost generation’, and support job creation. Both efforts require the cooperation of the host government and the commitment of very large investments. And all such services must flow both to refugees and the communities that host them, or they risk creating tensions that can undermine the entire effort.

Second, the manner in which people seek protection in desirable destinations must be redirected. Refugees requiring resettlement (because of special needs and/or as a means to relieve pressures on first asylum countries) must be vetted and selected before they reach a destination country. States that resettle refugees must create large numbers of new resettlement places while also working hard to expand the number of wealthy and middle-income countries participating in resettlement programmes, thereby sharing the burden more equitably.

Last, states that receive large spontaneous flows must believe in borders and watch them assiduously. They must institute and execute internal controls responsibly and remove quickly (both voluntarily and not) those without robust legal grounds for protection.

Pursuing the integrated set of policies outlined above will only produce the desired result if each European government embraces them and if there is thoughtful coordination at the European level.

Everyone needs to understand that while the immediate test of leadership is dealing with the causes and consequences of the 2015-16 migration crisis, the true challenge for Europe in the decades ahead will be mass migration from Africa. Much larger public and private resources must be invested in creating opportunities for Africans to stay and build lives in their own countries. Otherwise Europe will find itself taking more extreme steps to protect itself, with less success. Leadership, imagination and patience will be the key ingredients.

Will Europe be up to that task?

IMAGE CREDIT: Anjo Kan/Bigstock.com

The post The migration crisis is over: long live the migration crisis appeared first on Europe’s World.

Length of video : 142'
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Disclaimer : The interpretation of debates serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic record of proceedings. Only the original speech or the revised written translation is authentic.
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Wednesday, 8.3.2017, the Committees on Foreign Affairs, Development and Budgets convened jointly to hear and discuss the views of experts and stakeholders - including development banks and federations, academics and civil society – on the legislative proposal for a European Fund for Sustainable Development (EFSD).
The three Committees will use the inputs of the meeting to shape Parliament's position on the EFSD, a key legislative proposal within the proposed External Investment Plan, including a EU guarantee, loans and grants for scaling-up private and public investment and enhancing economic prospects in the EU neighbourhood and Africa. The meeting took place in room 3 C050 (Paul Henri Spaak), 15:00-17:30 and was webstreamed live.
Further information
Draft programme
More on the EFSD
EPRS briefing on the EFSD
Live webstreaming
Meeting documents
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

The Committees on Foreign Affairs, Development and Budgets will convene jointly to consider the joint draft report on the legislative proposal for a European Fund for Sustainable Development (EFSD).
The report will define the Parliament's position on this key proposal within the European External Investment Plan, including an EU guarantee, loans and grants for scaling-up private and public investment and enhancing economic prospects in the EU neighbourhood and Africa. Tuesday 21 March 17:30-18:30.
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

General : When it comes to gender equality, much remains to be done, be it at home, in the office, at school or in politics, according to MEPs Constance Le Grip and Anna Hedh. We talked to the two member of Parliament's gender equality committee on the occasion of International Women's Day on 8 March, which this year focuses on economic empowerment. Watch our video to find out what they had to say on the subject.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

General : When it comes to gender equality, much remains to be done, be it at home, in the office, at school or in politics, according to MEPs Constance Le Grip and Anna Hedh. We talked to the two member of Parliament's gender equality committee on the occasion of International Women's Day on 8 March, which this year focuses on economic empowerment. Watch our video to find out what they had to say on the subject.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

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OPINION on Towards a new trade framework between the EU and Turkey and the modernisation of the Customs Union
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Kati Piri

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

https://tvnewsroom.consilium.europa.eu/uploads/council-images/thumbs/uploads/council-images/remote/http_7e18a1c646f5450b9d6d-a75424f262e53e74f9539145894f4378.r8.cf3.rackcdn.com/d334c32c-c2c1-11e6-a1ab-bc764e093073_228.5_thumb_169_1488379034_1488379034_129_97shar_c1.jpg

EU Heads of State or Government meet on 9 March 2017 in Brussels to focus on economic issues, including trade, single market strategies and the European Semester. Leaders are also discussing migration, external security and defence, as well as the situation in the Western Balkans. The European Council is expected to elect its President for the period 1 June 2017 to 30 November 2019.

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