European Union

In the row over cancelled appearances of Turkish politicians in Germany Turkey's President Erdoğan has accused the German authorities of using Nazi practices. Some journalists harshly condemn Erdoğan's provocations and say the president has gone too far. Pro-government Turkish media angrily counter that flimsy excuses are being used in Germany to prevent AKP politicians from campaigning.

We are living through a time of rupture and paradox.

Ground-breaking global commitments on science, sustainable development, climate protection and human rights collide with rising global inequalities, recurrent famine and historically high human displacement. Tolerance and equality are increasingly being met with racism and misogyny.

Frighteningly, we have seen a marked increase in militarisation and a surge in populist movements at the extreme ends of the political spectrum – movements founded on the rejection of pluralism and multilateralism, and a very public embrace of nationalist values and political systems of patronage. Radicalised attitudes risk leading to violence and violent extremism, which feeds on inequality and exclusion, marginalisation and hateful rhetoric.

These extreme agendas are often deeply gendered. They gain much of their populist base from assaults made on the rights of women: over women’s rights to make decisions about their own bodies and personal and public lives; over women’s rights to access education, equal pay, healthcare and positions of leadership.

Attacks on women’s rights constitute a thread that runs from terrorist organisations, such as the self-styled ‘Islamic State’ (Daesh) and Boko Haram, to political populists in Europe and the United States. Both types of group depend on some form of persecution and inequality. Recent gains in human rights and progress toward achieving more inclusive and sustainable societies risk becoming endangered if the pendulum swings too far back.

“Attacks on women’s rights constitute a thread that runs from terrorist organisations to political populists”

For more than 15 years the United Nations’ Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda has stressed the importance of women’s participation and leadership to global peace and security, backed by eight UN Security Council resolutions that formally recognise the transformative impact women’s full and equal participation has on conflict prevention, resolution, peacekeeping and peace-building.

But implementation has been gradual and limited. Among EU member states the WPS agenda is largely perceived as a foreign policy tool – measured in terms of funding dedicated to development projects that target women’s empowerment in fragile contexts, or in terms of the number of women in peacekeeping forces. This is, of course, very much what women, peace and security is about. But it is also about preventing instability and sustaining peace domestically.

The European Union’s Global Strategy for Foreign and Security Policy includes two important priorities: strengthening the resilience of countries surrounding the EU and adopting an integrated approach to conflict and crisis that focuses on prevention and sustaining peace, including preventing relapse into conflict.

We know from qualitative and quantitative evidence that gender equality strengthens societal resilience to conflict and social breakdown. Women’s political and economic participation and leadership increases stability and prosperity.

“We need a shift in thinking to understand that security starts from within”

Inclusive processes with strong participation and leadership from women are systematically more comprehensive and lead to more sustainable solutions, whether in domestic political decision-making or in peace negotiations. Women’s participation in the security and defence sectors improves operational efficiency, reduces corruption, diminishes sexual exploitation and abuse, and increases trust between authorities and civilians. This is demonstrated partially by increased reporting of crimes to authorities. All of these effects are true in both domestic and international contexts.

It seems fair to argue that gender equality and women’s empowerment are the cheapest and most effective tools for economic growth, social and political stability and sustainable peace.

But women’s participation is not valued for its cross-cutting impact. Sweden’s feminist foreign policy is a welcome example of how governments should apply the WPS agenda. But gender-responsive approaches should not be limited to foreign policy only.

We need a shift in thinking to understand that security starts from within. A strong gender lens should be systematically applied and woven into domestic security and development policies in stable and wealthy democracies just as equally as in conflict-affected and developing countries. The EU Global Strategy is on the right track, but would do well to apply its women, peace and security focus both within the Union and outside.

Conflict and extremism cannot take root where there is equality. Never before has the equal participation and leadership of women and the promotion of human rights been as critical to global security. It is time to move from commitments to accomplishments; to ensure the tide will turn the right way. The onus is on Europe – not least as as the biggest humanitarian aid and development cooperation provider in the world – to lead the response. A strong feminist Europe is not radical, it is rational.

IMAGE CREDIT: CC/Flickr – UN Women

The post Radical or rational? Why Europe needs strong feminist policies to sustain peace and security appeared first on Europe’s World.

Committee and political group meetings, Brussels

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

A few days ago, the European Commission passed up an ideal moment to warn EU citizens against the greatest threat to their prosperity and that of their children. It wasted an opportunity to persuade eurosceptic voters that the EU still has much worth.

The occasion was the first EU Industry Day in Brussels, an event designed to “help shape the industrial agenda of tomorrow”. What this carefully avoided doing was to identify the backsliding EU countries that have ignored almost two decades of commitments on R&D spending and have sunk to the lowest rungs of global league tables.

Poor productivity is Europe’s greatest weakness, and it is going to be exacerbated by ageing and by youth unemployment. It should be the European Commission’s most powerful rallying call for concerted national policies to boost productivity.

There are bewilderingly different ways to calculate productivity. The essential point is that in the closing two decades of the last century Europe’s productivity growth at around 2% a year was twice that of the United States. Now, at 0.5% it’s less than half. America has its own problems, of course, but major corporations there are on average twice as profitable as in Europe. They have more money to invest, and have entered a virtuous circle.

“European Commission recently wasted an opportunity to persuade Eurosceptic voters that the European Union still has much worth”

One might think recovering lost productivity in services as well as manufacturing is a crusade tailor-made for the European Union to lead. Indeed, it once was; In March 2000, EU governments signed up to its Lisbon Agenda for streamlining their economies, notably by digital means, “to make Europe the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world.”

Ten years later that boast was being widely ridiculed. A plethora of studies showed that, far from making progress, EU countries were slipping behind newcomers in the globalising world economy. Already by November 2004, former Dutch prime minister Wim Kok had presented a high-level experts’ report saying the Lisbon strategy wasn’t working because of national governments’ inertia and lack of investment. He recommended that the Commission should name and shame the culprits.

Needless to say, successive commissions have never done so. Their reluctance reflects a fear of political repercussions and a deeply-held belief by EU officialdom that the European project would be seriously damaged by public criticism of a member state. Other than on €-zone disciplines, it remains unthinkable that EU governments should be publicly called to account.

“Poor productivity is Europe’s greatest weakness, and it is going to be exacerbated by ageing and by youth unemployment”

That’s not entirely so. In early 2015, former Finnish premier Jyrki Katainen, remarked as the Commission’s vice-president for jobs, growth and investment that “naming and shaming is a good tool, and we shouldn’t be too modest to use it.” Encouragingly, he returned to the question very recently on the embryonic EU plans to stimulate increased defence spending and cross-border research cooperation, endorsing the value of naming ‘free riding’ governments that did not deliver on their commitments.

So what’s the solution to Europe’s sagging productivity, and why should Brussels point its finger at national capitals? There are several answers, and they all add up to the need for a tough and uncompromising new approach by the EU commission.

World Bank researchers say that improving productivity isn’t so much about introducing “industrial strategies” as it is about removing barriers. They pinpoint rules governing business practices, insurance, hiring and firing, and intricate social security regulations as among the difficulties handicapping companies, especially the 95% of them that are SMEs.

EU officials have long championed ambitious innovation policies and cross-border scientific research, yet European productivity keeps on sliding. That’s why it’s time for Brussels to unsheathe its most potent weapon of all – embarrassment. Publicise league tables of national failures and achievements on reversing the productivity slide and public opinion will do the rest.

Related content:

• Friends of Europe: The storm of new protectionism: what lies behind it? by Daniel Daianu
• Europe’s World: The best alternative to a ‘hard’ Brexit may be no Brexit at all, by John Bruton
• Debating Europe: What should be the status of EU nationals in Britain after Brexit?

The post It’s time the EU named and shamed backsliding members appeared first on Europe’s World.

Third post in our series on the Dutch general elections.

Pillarisation in the Netherlands

Questions on the vital statistics of ‘The Left’ are rising everywhere in the Western World. At least in the Netherlands, it is too early to organise a wake. We may be well known for our liberal and permissive attitude to society (which is not the same as being tolerant, and is more marketing than truth), but the Netherlands has never truly had a left wing revolution, silent or otherwise. In part due to verzuiling (a Dutch form of mild sectarianism along religious and class lines, sometimes called ‘pillarisation’) and the closely related poldermodel (a system of highly proceduralised consensus-building in government), the welfare state and the economy have always been pragmatically constructed.

Although it has been a long time now since the days of verzuiling, the political spectrum never meandered far from that structure. Any changes that occurred since the 1980′s have by-and-large been within the well-known system. New parties would form, but they would adhere to the left-right spectrum (and until the 80′s, the famous ‘pillars’). In fact, the most significant upstart that advocated system-change, D66, has quickly been encapsulated into the spectrum as the epitome of the middle-of-the-road party. D66 is perhaps the most vivid example of the stolid Dutch political establishment that is reluctant to accept change it cannot qualify.

Pim Fortuyn: enjoying an almost saint-like status nowadays.

That ended with Pim Fortuyn. A politician that now has an almost saint-like status in Dutch culture as the man who dared to speak out against the ‘The Hague apparatchiks’. The governments before him had been very successful in fostering economic, social, environmental and cultural progress. The so-called ‘Purple Cabinets‘ (Paars I and II) were a mix of liberal and socialist parties, coming together to form progressive-centrist policies. None of the opposition parties offered any real resistance. How could they? Purple policies were progressive enough for the liberals, social enough for the reds and in the time of secular liberalism, the Christian parties were out anyway.

Pim Fortuyn, who was assassinated in 2002, was the first person to find the cracks in this structure. The complicated and not very successful integration of immigrants into society (mainly guest workers brought in over the post-war decades) played into his hands, as did the fact that the political elite that was enjoying its success too much. Fortuyn formed a perfect storm and created a platform for the angry. His party (the LPF) couldn’t be qualified along the lines of Dutch politics. It was right-wing in foreign and migration policies, but with redistributive policies only seen in the most socialist of programmes. Combined with the promise to let ‘people who had business experience’ run the government, it was the first successful anti-establishment party. For ‘The People’, not just a pillar as with the socialist movement.

From 2001 onward, the traditional left-right divide no longer worked as an analytical tool or even a useful form of political expression. Yet, the system has never recovered from the new idea that parties could actually exist outside of the status quo. In the wake of the rise and fall of the LPF, a number of contenders have emerged, each with a mix of left-wing and right-wing policies. This is best exemplified by the successor of Pim Fortuyn, Geert Wilders and his Freedom Party (PVV). With an agenda based on xenophobic screed and anti-elite discourse, the well-spoken former liberal (a scion of former VVD deputy and EU Commissioner Bolkestein) torments both the liberal VVD, and the socialist SP and PvdA. These traditional parties are trying to adapt, incorporating stances heretofore unacceptable to them. The VVD becoming more repressive on law and order, the SP going back to its reactionary socialist roots, and the PvdA still searching for a response.

So what has happened to ‘The Left’?

The truth is that before Fortuyn the old system had led to the adoption of norms in all political parties that would be called ‘Left Wing’ in other countries. The large losses of the Socialist parties is largely due to the fact that they have not been able to find a new cause after most of their policies had been enacted by the 80′s. Even the Christian Democrats advocate a highly organised welfare state, and with ChristenUnie there is even a (moderate) progressive faction. When the old system of Left-Right politics worked, coalitions would be created along familiar lines, even though that sometimes appeared arbitrary. With the crash of that old system of politics, there is no logical flag to rally round for opposition to Wilders and other populists, even though more values are shared. But in effect, almost all other parties condemn the PVV. And although the PVV is ahead in the polls, so are GroenLinks (a Green Party with a liberal streak) and D66 (Progressive Liberals), polar opposites of Wilders.

The Left isn’t dead. In the Netherlands, without ever really coming into power a lot of the traditionally left-wing policies have become an integral part of the political culture. Even with the dissolution of the traditional demarcations by Fortuyn and Wilders, progressive and socialist thought and culture is everywhere in varying degrees. It just can’t be pinned down in the old taxonomy. The current anger at the so-called ‘Progressive Left-Wing Elite’ is therefore mostly a construct of the populists with the objective of giving people something to rage against, based on the old convention of the well-to-do city dwellers that would vote Social Democrats, rather than on something that actually exists. The real questions which the post-election Netherlands will need to ask are therefore: How do we organise our system after the death of the Left-Right spectrum? Will verzuiling eventually be replaced by sectarianism and identity politics?

The post Whatever happened to the Dutch Left? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

DRAFT OPINION on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council providing macro-financial assistance to the Republic of Moldova
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Petras Auštrevičius

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

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Populists cause political instability. It is not an original headline as far as Europe goes. But the novelty in Finland is that the populists are causing instability from within the government.

Read more

When Margot Wallström took office as Sweden’s Foreign Minister in 2014, she adopted a ‘feminist’ foreign policy. For her, this meant three Rs: rights, applying equally to women; representation in decision-making; and resources being fairly allocated to women.

Wallström gave a name to an approach that had been undertaken by Hillary Clinton. She proclaimed the rights of women and girls as a cornerstone of the United States’ foreign policy and vital to American national security interests when she became secretary of state in 2009.

Clinton’s commitment to these issues has been a constant in her career. But her passion was sparked by her participation in the Fourth World Conference on Women, organised by the United Nations in 1995. There, as first lady of the United States, she made a keynote address that captured the world’s attention. Clinton declared that “human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights” – no longer relegated to the margins, but enshrined in international human rights law.

The administration of President Barack Obama, with Clinton leading its foreign policy in the first term, promoted the integration of gender into US foreign policy as a matter of vital national interest.  Investing in women and girls was considered to be one of the most powerful and positive forces for reshaping the globe.

Today there is a wealth of research and data to show that investing in women is critical for economic, social and political progress. Advancing equal rights is a moral imperative – but it’s smart and strategic too. It helps tackle the most pressing global challenges, from jobs creation to peace and security.

To ensure the institutionalisation of women’s global issues into US Foreign Policy, President Obama created the position of Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues. Gender policy guidelines were established for the State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The guidelines focused on coordination within the Department, gender responsive budgeting and planning, and the Foreign Service Institute’s training programmes for diplomats.

“Countries where the gender parity gap is smaller are far more prosperous”

Gender issues were also included in the first-ever ‘Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review’. The study, set up by Clinton, proposed “integrating women and girls into everything we do in all our diplomacy with other governments (and) our work on conflicts and crisis.” Clinton’s successor, John Kerry, noted the example of gender integration as an excellent illustration of how key crosscutting issues should be mainstreamed across the Department.

Three issues were seen as vital gender priorities: the global economy; peace and security; and human development.

Economic growth, job creation and shared prosperity for all nations and people are formidable global challenges, and evidence points to women’s economic participation as being vital to the achievement of these objectives.

The World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Report shows that those countries where the gender parity gap is smaller – where men and women are more equal – are far more prosperous. With women investing up to 90% of their incomes in their families and communities – on food, healthcare and education – female economic participation has a multiplier effect and constitutes an investment in a higher standard of living.

Studies also show that women-run small businesses are accelerators of gross domestic product. They lift incomes and create jobs. But laws, customs and discriminatory practices are often serious obstacles to women starting or growing a business. In some places women have no inheritance or property rights. They face violence, a global scourge. Women entrepreneurs often lack access to training, to mentors, to finance and to markets.

The effects are real. A UN report calculated that close to US$90bn in GDP is lost each year in the Asia-Pacific region due to untapped potential and structural discrimination of women. That’s why the State Department pushed the issue of women’s economic participation in multilateral forums, including the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

And the change is real, and global. APEC now holds programmes on women and the economy to address barriers to entrepreneurship. In Africa, the African Women’s Entrepreneurship Program, promoted by the State Department, supports access to markets for women-run SMEs. In Latin America the Pathway to Prosperity initiative provided training and access to trade opportunities. And in Europe, through Invest in the Future, the Department brought together women entrepreneurs from the Balkans, the Caucasus and other areas to support each other.  A concerted effort was made to support the economic potential of women.

Considerable efforts were also made to advance women’s role in conflict resolution, negotiations and peace-building – notably through implemention of UN Security Council Resolution 1325.

At the end of 2011 the US launched a national action plan on women, peace and security, and as secretary of state Clinton took the lead abroad. During a trip to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, she addressed a range of issues relating to the country’s violent conflict, from security sector reform and peacekeeping to transitional justice. She focused on the atrocities being perpetrated against women and girls, hearing first-hand accounts of mass rapes, used as a strategic weapon of war.

“The Obama administration promoted the integration of gender into US foreign policy as a matter of vital national interest”

Action followed. Clinton put forward UN Security Council Resolution 1888 to create greater accountability for sexual violence, to end impunity, and to improve the role of peacekeeping missions to protect women and children from sexual violence. The resolution also called on the UN Secretary-General to appoint a special representative on sexual violence in conflict.

But empowerment was also on the agenda. As a female activist said to me in a discussion in Kabul, “Stop looking at us as victims but as the leaders that we are.”  Women have been greatly victimised in Afghanistan – but they are also critical agents of change.

The State Department and USAID also recognised gender as a key element in global development. Research shows that investment in women means poverty reduction and improved human development.

The Obama administration’s Feed the Future initiative – which aimed to strengthen the world’s food supply – recognises women farmers as vital to agriculture. In many places they form the majority of small farmers, but they are often disadvantaged when it comes to securing land tenure rights or owning land outright. Women farmers often get poorer access than men to training, credit and tools. But when they are treated the same, they can yield the same.

On climate change, women have a key role to play. Clinton led governments and the private sector in creating a Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves – an example of how engaging women in developing, disseminating and maintaining clean technologies can have significant benefits to them and to society.

Technology was also recognised for its potential to transform women’s lives by providing critical access to information as well as opportunities for financial security. But there is still a gender gap in access to mobile technology, which is essential to enabling poor women to transform their lives.  Investments in global development see women are not just beneficiaries but also drivers of social change.

Clinton succinctly described the stakes for all humankind: “Until women around the world are accorded their rights and afforded opportunities to participate fully in the lives of their societies, global progress and prosperity will have its own glass ceiling”.

A foreign policy that has women at its core – whether called ‘feminist’ or not – recognises that democracy, peace, prosperity and social progress need the full participation of women. No country can get ahead if it leaves half its people behind.

IMAGE CREDIT: k2 images / Bigstock.com

The post Is there such a thing as feminist foreign policy? appeared first on Europe’s World.

https://tvnewsroom.consilium.europa.eu/uploads/council-images/thumbs/uploads/council-images/remote/http_7e18a1c646f5450b9d6d-a75424f262e53e74f9539145894f4378.r8.cf3.rackcdn.com/086203e8-0421-11e7-a235-bc764e093073_33.02_thumb_169_1488992633_1488992633_129_97shar_c1.jpg

The main theme of the Tripartite Social summit on 8 March 2017 is 'The future of Europe: charting the course towards growth, employment and fairness'. Discussions focus on the following three topics: making work pay as a way to promote employment and social inclusion, new forms of work and the future of industry the European Pillar of social rights and the role of the social partners.

Download this video here.

General : Each year the European parliament draws attention to a specific topic related to women´s situation on the occasion of International Women's Day on 8 March. This year we decided to highlight the issue of economic empowerment. Check out our infographic to see where more work is needed.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

General : Each year the European parliament draws attention to a specific topic related to women´s situation on the occasion of International Women's Day on 8 March. This year we decided to highlight the issue of economic empowerment. Check out our infographic to see where more work is needed.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

In the United States, views advocating a ‘strategic’ approach to international trade were mostly marginal in public debate for decades. But with the Trump administration there is increasing talk in Washington, DC of bilateral agreements and using tariffs to protect industries. American companies are prodded to move operations back home; a reversal of finance regulation and supervision reforms is foreseen.

To consider this radical change as only a temporary anomaly would be simplistic. Deep currents have been present for a long time. Within European Union member states similar forces and national concerns are on the rise too – witness Brexit – but EU rules bind countries into a free trade order. Immigration policies are being re-examined, both in the US and in Europe.

But where does this new protectionism come from? Why do ‘sirens’ of protectionism and nationalism ring in the developed world? I believe that we can look to two main explanatory areas: economics and security.

In terms of economics, there is the decline of America’s global power status, threats to the economic pre-eminence of the Western world, new technologies replacing jobs, the financial crisis, and bad corporate practices such as tax-dodging.

New protectionism is also a reaction to unmanaged globalisation and the perils it has entailed. One can argue that if public policies had been more attentive to the needs of individuals and companies that lose out from global competition, there would not be so much social stress at the moment.

One should also remember that countries have used protectionism and industrial policies to construct competitive advantages and alter the balance of power in the past. That has been the case with the power struggles between the US and the UK; between Germany and the UK; between Japan and the West. The rise of other Asian economies can be judged through such lenses.

“New protectionism is also a reaction to unmanaged globalisation and the perils it has entailed”

When it comes to security, the role of the state as a guardian of public interest is becoming even more prominent on the public agenda. Terrorism, unconventional threats (cyber warfare, hybrid wars), fears for the future and uncertainty are putting pressure on national governments. New security measures are proliferating. The refugee/migrant crisis has undermined the Schengen passport-free zone. But isolationism, protectionism and nationalism may act as a boomerang; they may only serve to make things worse.

Another issue that needs to be addressed is the potential trade-off between security and openness.

Authoritarian temptations and inward-looking proclivities come up in liberal democracies during hard times. These propensities match the way states act in times of heightened tensions and war (creating a ‘war economy’ or ‘war society’ syndrome). But a trade-off is possible. One can link protection/security to openness (economic freedom) and imagine levels of citizens’ comfort in terms of these two public goods.

Substitution of protection/security measures with economic openness has its limits, because these public goods are not independent of each other. Protectionist measures and restrictions distort an open society if they go too far; total economic or societal openness, with no rules or protections, may cause intense social strife. In very good times people prefer more openness. When times get worse, a more inward-looking society emerges: this may involve protectionism and restrictive measures.

How decisions are made regarding public goods, and who make those decisions, brings politics into the spotlight. People have varying and changeable opinions; it may be that the way people value protectionism versus openness varies over time, and what is abnormal or unpalatable today may be acceptable at another time. The problem is that  protective measures trigger similar responses from partners that may outlast these changes in opinions – and trade wars are likely to damage all parties.

Perhaps there is an optimal degree of openness that changes according to circumstances, to long cycles of upswings and downswings in the world economy. But even in this case a complete breakdown of an international rule-based system based and multilateral agreements would be disastrous. (It is worth recalling that the globalism of the 19th century was also followed by commercial and military conflicts.)

“If those who are on the losing side of global economy are not given a fair chance and continue to feel excluded, tensions will rise and conflicts will intensify”

The world seems to be bumping into fragmentation: there is an increasingly multi-polar and uncertain reality. Many developed states feel threatened by ascending economic powers and seek to protect themselves via various measures. Terrorism and other new threats fuel these inward-looking tendencies.

If those who are on the losing side of global economy are not given a fair chance and continue to feel excluded, tensions will rise and conflicts will intensify. Interethnic and religious conflicts add to the social and political strain; the new (4th) Industrial Revolution does not ease efforts to adapt to shocks.

New protectionism will probably usher in a prolonged interregnum in global trade, with a corrosion of international, global institutional arrangements and increased instability. This is worrisome for those who believe in the virtues of multilateralism and rules. Europeans know from their own history where unrestrained rivalries may lead to.

But the big question is what the new economic order will be during this interregnum. Will multilateralism survive as a basic principle? This is a fundamental question. It seems that we are in a transition towards a new international regime and it is vital that big conflicts and serious damage be avoided.

The EU, which is a public good itself, has to be protected despite threats to multilateral systems. As former EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana put it, the EU may be the world’s best line of defence against what threatens the multilateral order.

But the EU needs reforms that address its internal divides and prevent their deepening. The eurozone needs completion. Europe needs security arrangements that are adapted to a new reality. EU member states will have to pay more for their own defence. And the EU and the US need to work together to prevent major conflicts in the world.

New protectionism won’t go away quickly or easily: it is up to multilateral organisations, such as the EU, to take these necessary steps to weather the storm.

IMAGE CREDIT: phakimata / Bigstock.com

The post The storm of new protectionism: what lies behind it? appeared first on Europe’s World.

Plenary sessions : The increased migration flows to Europe and the thousands of refugee children currently missing throughout Europe show the limits of the current EU asylum system. Swedish ALDE member Cecilia Wikström presents her report on the reform of the Dublin regulation, which clarifies which EU country is responsible for processing asylum seekers, to the civil liberties committee on 9 March. Today she will outline her main proposals during a press conference starting at 11 CET.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Plenary sessions : The increased migration flows to Europe and the thousands of refugee children currently missing throughout Europe show the limits of the current EU asylum system. Swedish ALDE member Cecilia Wikström presents her report on the reform of the Dublin regulation, which clarifies which EU country is responsible for processing asylum seekers, to the civil liberties committee on 9 March. Today she will outline her main proposals during a press conference starting at 11 CET.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

REPORT on the 2016 Commission Report on the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Ivo Vajgl

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

The committee will welcome Annick Hiensch, Deputy Head of the UN Liaison Office for Peace and Security and Clara Ganslandt, Head of Division for Common Security and Defence Policy – partnerships and agreements, EEAS for a discussion on the UN-EU Strategic Partnership on Peacekeeping. The debate on 9 March will aim to review the implementation of the Council’s 2015 decision on “Strengthening the UN-EU Strategic Partnership” and explore the new commitments made under the EU’s Global Strategy.
Further information
Draft agenda and meeting documents
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

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Member States are not required, under EU law, to grant a humanitarian visa to persons who wish to enter their territory with a view to applying for asylum, but they remain free to do so on the basis of their national law