European Union

The Greek government dismissed on Monday (24 august) Turkey’s stated intention to start a dialogue and de-escalate tensions over gas drillings activities in the Eastern Mediterranean, saying Ankara is not reliable. “A reliable interlocutor is needed for a dialogue”, Greek...

On Monday (24 August), an Italian-developed coronavirus vaccine began its first clinical trial as the first volunteer, a woman who said she hopes “to be useful to our country”, received a jab at Rome’s infectious disease hospital known as Spallanzani....

Finland has restored its border controls with a number of countries within and outside the Schengen Area due to the worsening coronavirus situation abroad. From Monday (24 August), controls were reinstated for travel between Finland and Iceland, Greece, Malta, Germany,...

Belgium’s capital is one of ten European regions recording the fastest-growing surge of new coronavirus cases in past weeks, Belgium’s top state virologist Marc Van Ranst said, urging authorities not to let their guard down against the virus. “The politicians...

Over the weekend, motorists waited in traffic for hours (in some cases up to 12 hours) at the border between Austria and Slovenia, after a regulation that took effect on Saturday (22 August) required travellers to either sign a declaration...

On Monday (24 August), the Belarusian defence ministry claimed it used Mi-24 military helicopters to stop eight air balloons “with anti-state slogans” from crossing the border during the Freedom Way demonstration in Lithuania. On Sunday, thousands of people in Lithuania...

Spanish health authorities confirmed that some 37,064 new COVID-19 cases had been recorded in the last week, a figure that has prompted hotspot regions to enforce new restrictions just two weeks before schools are scheduled to reopen, EURACTIV’s partner EFE reports.

The EU's anti-piracy military mission in the Indian Ocean, Atalanta, has exonerated Somalia's police force after reports police had hijacked a Panama-flagged cargo ship last Thursday. "There had been certain incidents on board the vessel" but these "cannot be classified as a maritime security incident," Atalanta said. Somali police boarded the ship because it was adrift due to hull-damage and a Spanish warship was monitoring the situation, the EU said.

German scientists held three music concerts in the city of Leipzig on Sunday to study how mass gatherings affect coronavirus infection, with each event using different rules on hygiene and social distancing. "We have good quality data," Halle University's lead researcher, Stefan Moritz, said, with results due in autumn. Infection rates were climbing in Germany in recent weeks, but the country still had one of the lowest figures in Europe.

The director-general of Belgium's federal police, André Desenfants, told a press conference he was temporarily stepping aside from his role after the emergence of a video showing a Slovak man being pinned down in a custody cell hours before his death and an officer apparently making a Hitler salute, the BBC reported. The Slovak man, Jozef Chovanec, was arrested at Charleroi airport in 2018.

Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko, wearing body armour and holding a rifle as he landed at his residence amid ongoing protests, accused Nato of trying to interfere in Belarus, a claim the military alliance rejected.

"The EU warmly welcomes the announcements issued on 21 August 2020 by the president of the presidency council Fayez Al-Serraj and speaker of the house of representatives Aguila Saleh", EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said in a statement Saturday. However, on Sunday, general Khalifa Haftar, leader of the Libyan National Army rejected the ceasefire, calling it a "marketing stunt" and saying Sarraj was building up forces near Sirte instead.

French president Emmanuel Macron vowed Saturday that he would do everything to find out those who defaced the memorial to a Nazi massacre in Oradour-sur-Glane, France, The Guardian writes. Macron condemned the graffiti in which the word mémoire (memorial) was crossed out and replaced by menteur (liar) as an "unspeakable act". Oradour became the scene of a Nazi brutality in 1994 when 642 people were slaughtered by a German division.

The EU and the US on Friday announced a mini-deal that would eliminate EU tariffs on American lobster after years of trade tensions, Reuters reported. "We intend for this package of tariff reductions to mark just the beginning of a process that will lead to additional agreements that create more free, fair, and reciprocal transatlantic trade," said US trade representative Robert Lighthizer and EU trade commissioner Phil Hogan.

Statement by David McAllister (EPP, DE), Chair of the Parliament's EU-UK Coordination Group, after the latest round of talks on the future relationship between the UK and the EU:

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

Statement by David McAllister (EPP, DE), Chair of the Parliament's EU-UK Coordination Group, after the latest round of talks on the future relationship between the UK and the EU:

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

The European Parliament is in recess from 27 July to 23 August 2020.

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

All that summer rest finally gave me the impetus to put together this little chart the other day. It’s a simple breakdown of the time allocated to the 11 headings of the Future Relationship negotiating rounds, including this week’s 7th. Weightings are based on a negotiating block (usually a half-day), with some joint sessions (e.g. governance and aviation) being split evenly between the two original headings. All the data is based on the published agendas. When I posted on Twitter, I focused mainly on the stability of the time allocations, reflecting the non-agreement on any one chapter: the entire agenda is still in a state of nascent points of common ground, but awaiting now the political level to push into any horse-trading that might occur. Without that push, we’re not going to see things change, or indeed resolve into agreement, regardless of what rational cost-benefit analysis might tell us should happen. Others have written on the politics of the calculations involved, so I’m not going to add further to that pile, but instead I’ll pick up on the comments I got about the time devoted to fisheries. People rightly pointed out that fisheries contributes a trivial amount to economic activity, certainly compared to services, and yet it gets just as much time (only the Level Playing Field gets more). A quick glance at that overall distribution of time will show that economic value is not the driver here. Instead, it’s about the production of legal text to meet the needs of the parties involved, as well as the degree of disagreement between them. Time in negotiations is shaped much more by the logic of the agreement than by objective external benchmarks: the process of negotiation itself becomes part of what is discussed. In some cases, the parties might have minimal disagreement, so it’s relatively quick and simple to close the gap. In others, there might be big differences, but the nature of the field might only allow for one position or the other, so the only discussion is about whether either side concedes the point, or rather that it falls. The difficult and time-consuming cases come when there are multiple options available – including novel ones – or where there are additional legal obligations to be factored in. Fisheries is a good example of such a situation, given assorted bits of international public law, fishing conventions, environmental protection obligations and more ways of managing things than you’d think would exist. Services, by contrast, remains an underdeveloped area of international cooperation, so a lot of what’s going on is about degrees of alignment to EU rules, including on financial equivalence. In addition, the UK isn’t asking for nearly so much on this front, as compared to fisheries. In both cases, the time taken to produce legal texts for inclusion in a new treaty takes time (and you can read the Withdrawal Agreement‘s many annexes for a relevant illustration of how politically not-so-important points can take up a lot of legal space), but it’s not as simple as saying that works on the same basis as the politics of the situation.

The post What do we talk about when we talk about Brexit? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

I am writing this piece in response to the Hungarian opposition political parties’ agreement to create a joint programme for government and stand single candidates against Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s ruling Hungarian Civic Alliance party (Fidess) in all 106 electoral districts.

The Hungarian opposition’s pledge to unite and form an anti-Orban block for the next General elections seen as a positive move by some quarters, who want Orban gone for good. However, when I look at a similar case study country like Turkey, where alliances between the opposition political parties were formed to either to stand against Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in the Presidential elections in 2018 or Istanbul Mayoral elections against Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party in 2019, I can say that they do not always produce the desired outcome.

Political parties exist not only to promote the values they are formed on but also to stand in the elections to win a majority to implement their political agenda, which is usually put together before the elections, at least in democracies. While both the Freedom House and V-Dem no longer regard Turkey and Hungary as democracies, I could, to a certain extent, understand the functions of political parties may have changed in Hungary and Turkey.

The evidence suggests that the opposition political parties and their leadership in Hungary and Turkey are desperate to change the status quo. My interpretation of this is that elections for the opposition political parties in Hungary and Turkey are no longer about winning a majority to form a government so to exercise power and gain the opportunity to put their programme in action. However, it has subtly evolved from giving a kick to the governing political party to almost toppling the governing political party through an election that is usually not fought on fair and open grounds. 

What can explain is that by the opposition political parties’ oversight of their original purpose in politics, as well as playing politics with the rules set by Orban in Hungary and Erdogan in Turkey, either voluntarily or involuntarily, which does not change the outcome. Nevertheless, in this way the opposition political parties play an essential part in legitimising the autocratic political systems Orban and Erdogan has established over the last decade in their respective countries. 

I argue that, in the case of Hungary, the opposition political parties should go back to their roots and remember, what kind of Hungary they envisage, instead of putting all their energy in forming alliances to overthrow Orban’s administration.

They should look for answers to the following questions: do you want an open and democratic Hungary, which respects the EU values? What is your position on illiberal democracy? Do you prefer free Media? Do you aspire Hungary as a migrant-friendly country? How economically well off do you imagine Hungary? Then look for fresh policy ideas to develop attractive party programmes that could address these questions.They must also look for a leader who could convince the electorate that they could deliver on these policy ideas.

Otherwise, drawing on the Turkish case, I would say the following could be the future for the opposition political parties in Hungary: (i) perceived ‘lack of distinctiveness’; (ii) ‘disenchanted voters’; and (iii) ‘intensified polarisation’.

When political parties agree to form alliances on several occasions, my observation is that they end up losing their distinct characteristics in the eyes of the electorate. For instance, when the Turkish People’s Party (CHP) united with the Good Party (IP), Felicity Party (SP) and Democrat Party (DP) in 2018. It has raised many question marks about how is it possible for these political parties to come together while they sharply differ on issues like religion and nationalism. They ultimately caused a loss of confidence in politicians among the electorates.

The electorate observed the leadership of the opposition political parties as too soft on the issues that are too critical for them. When what differs political parties from each other disappears from the political spectrum, I predict that there would be an increase in disenchanted voters who not only have no confidence in political parties but also cannot feel any affiliation to them in terms of interest and values. In the case of Turkey, it is difficult to measure what impact the alliance among the opposition politicians have on the voter turnout since voting is compulsory. However, I will watch out for Hungary.

While polarisation is partly an indication of a healthy democracy since it means all segments of the society are allowed to express their differences freely, however alliances formed between the opposition political parties could produce an intensified polarisation of politics and society, sharply dividing the society into two camps. For instance, in the case of Turkey, the society is divided between anti-Erdogan and pro-Erdogan camps, and the divisions are sharpened each and every time there is an election. Similarly, in Hungary, we see an anti-Orban camp versing pro-Orban, which is subtly evolving. I argue that this not least is dangerous, but more importantly overshadows other interests and values of the electorate, which should be at the forefront of the political parties’ agendas and narratives.

The post Why alliance formation among opposition political parties is not a good idea? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.