Ideas on Europe Blog

Heute, am 4. Januar 2021, nimmt das neue Bundesamt für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten (BfAA) seine Arbeit hier in Brandenburg an der Havel auf. Nachdem ich ja schon im September und im November über erste Details informiert hatte, gab’s heute eine Pressekonferenz mit Außenminister Heiko Maas, auf der weitere Information bekannt wurden.

Das neue Bundesamt für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten in Brandenburg an der Havel – demnächst (Foto: Dr. Ronny Patz, Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 4.0)

Das hochfrequentierte, lokale News-Portale “Meetingpoint Brandenburg” – die zukünftigen Behörden-Mitarbeiter*innen sollte das lesen — berichtet von einer Online-Pressekonferenz mit Außenminister Heiko Maas, dem Ministerpräsidenten von Brandenburg Dietmar Woidke, und dem Oberbürgermeister der Stadt Brandenburg, dass das Amt in den nächsten Jahren auf 700-1000 Mitarbeiter*innen anwachsen soll, mehr als die Hälfte davon neu und viele sicher aus der Region.

Eine Behörde dieser Größe in einer Stadt mit knapp über 70.000 Einwohnern wird das Stadtbild nicht nur ein bisschen verändern sondern könnte Brandenburg nachhaltig prägen. Bislang ist zwar wohl (Hörensagen!) noch keine formale Kooperation mit der Technischen Hochschule Brandenburg (THB) vereinbart, aber wenn das Amt und die Hochschule intelligent sind, holen sie das bei nächster Gelegenheit nach. Auch die Unis und Hochschulen in Potsdam, Magdeburg und natürlich auch Berlin sind nicht weit.

Die Märkische Allgemeine Zeitung (maz) berichtet ebenfalls, dass der Mitarbeiter*innen-Stab des BfAAs noch in diesem Jahr von aktuell ca. 80 auf bis zu 300 Personen anwachsen soll – 15,25 Million Euro seien budgetiert, davon der Großteil für Personal. Der Aufbaustab für das BfAA war bislang der Zentralabteilung des Auswärtigen Amtes zugewiesen (siehe Screenshot des Organigramms vom November 2020), vermutlich ist das jetzt (oder wir demnächst) dann in die Behörde ausgelagert. Die heutige Pressemitteilung des Landes Brandenburg hebt auch hervor, dass das BfAA “Nebenstellen” in Berlin und Bonn haben wird.

Der Aufbaustab für das BfAA in der Zentralabteilung des Auswärtigen Amts (eigene Hervorhebung)

Warum das Amt so groß wird, wird deutlich, wenn man sich z.B. die aktualisierte Datenschutzerklärung der Stipendienseite der Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung anschaut:

Dort wird die Verarbeitung von persönlichen Daten mit einer Abrechnungsprüfung durch das BfAA “im Auftrag der Zuwendungsgeber (das Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung sowie das Auswärtige Amt)” begründet. Das heißt, wenn es um die Mittelvergabe geht ist der Auftrag des neuen Amtes nicht nur auf humanitäre Projekte beschränkt sondern umfasst wohl ein breites Feld an Zahlungen (inkl. Stipendien) mit Auslandsrelevanz.

An der Eingangstür zum Gebäude, wo das BfAA seinen Sitz haben soll (das Schild hängt an der Kirchhofstraße 1-2, 14776 Brandenburg) gab es heute Mittag noch keinen BfAA-Briefkasten und in den Büros brannte außerhalb des dort ansässigen Blutspendezentrums auch noch kein erkennbares Licht. Aber da das Schild dort hängt, ist das wohl die Adresse.

Die virtuelle Pressekonferenz vor dem BfAA-Banner hielt Oberbürgermeister Scheller offenbar aus der Technischen Hochschule, deren Logo man auf dem Pult in diesem Foto von heute sehen kann (siehe Pressebericht der Stadt).

Das heißt, vermutlich wird ein Großteil der BfAA-Arbeit aktuell noch aus Berlin erledigt, bis das Gebäude bezugsfertig ist (sonst wär das Foto vermutlich dort entstanden). Wie viele der geplanten Mitarbeiter*innen dann da drin Platz finden werden ist von außen nicht einsehbar (Fotos sind von der Vorder- und Hinterseite, Lizenz siehe oben).

Also dann: Herzlich willkommen, liebe aktuelle und zukünftige Mitarbeiter*innen des BfAA in der Stadt Brandenburg an der Havel. Auf gute Nachbarschaft!

(Dieser Beitrag wurde nach Erstveröffentlichung um wenige Details erweitert.)

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The turn of the year has brought me something I never envisaged at the beginning of 2020: residency in Portugal. The certificate available to British citizens who arrived before the end of the transition period on December 31st gives me the right to spend five years in the country, at which point I can renew it or apply for Portuguese citizenship.

While I’ve made no firm decisions about where I’m going to be in the long term, for a time at least I’m joining what Samantha North calls ‘digital émigrés‘ – a growing group of international professionals who, being able to work remotely, up sticks and go abroad because they find their home country no longer suits them. They’re a more settled variant of the digital nomads which Lisbon has increasingly been attracting: cosmopolitan, welcoming to foreigners and – apart from the cost of accommodation – inexpensive, the Portuguese capital has sun, sea and co-working spaces.

Some of the more recent arrivals may be part of the Brexodus trend which has led British citizens to secure their right to live in another European country before the UK’s departure from the European Union. ‘Brexiles’ sometimes attribute their decision to a change in perception of the UK, their faith in a tolerant, cosmopolitan society replaced by a view of an insular country wary of foreigners.

In reality, of course, each person’s decision to uproot and go elsewhere is made up of myriad factors and feelings, not least their particular circumstances at the time. Life in a foreign country carries irremediable challenges: no matter how well you integrate, master the language or love your adopted country, you are always an incomer. That’s why, having been tempted by several other countries, I’ve always decided, in the end, that home was home. Living in Britain assured me the comfort of communicating in my native language and being surrounded by familiar cultural references. I also had the profound sense of safety that comes from the conviction that your society is liberal, humane and stable.

So it’s a surprise to find myself contemplating life in another country for the first time. My last minute dash for Portuguese residency, just three weeks before the Brexit deadline, wasn’t just because I’d lost my face-to-face work during the pandemic and, like many others, the ability to do things important to me. It was also due to what the UK’s Covid response revealed about the country’s priorities and values. Theatres and performance venues have been shut down without the compensation that would ensure their survival, and millions of freelance, creative people have been excluded from the generous financial support offered to the majority. Cafes, restaurants and pubs have been subject to so many restrictions and on-off closures that it’s likely that many will never re-open. It all adds up to a society which places little value on the kinds of shared experience and communal life that only take place in public space. And because of the long-term implications of these measures, I could see Britain, in the medium term at least, becoming a greyer, more privatised and monocultural place.

In contrast, European countries that I’ve been following throughout the pandemic seem committed to preserving their way of life, demonstrating how each country’s response is a distinctive reflection of its politics and culture. Visiting friends in Paris in the summer, I was impressed by how readily the French had recovered their savoir-vivre and were – while angry debates about holidays were raging in Britain – happily resuming their summer trips to other regions and continental countries.

Here in Portugal, bars and cafes – seen by George Steiner as a defining feature of European life – remain open, albeit with some restrictions. The calmness I recognise from my first visit to Lisbon some twenty years ago prevails, along with a sense that life goes on. Shops are open, and it’s still possible to visit a museum or attend a performance. On the streets and in homes, the sociability characteristic of southern Europe is visible and audible. ‘The Portuguese don’t want to give up their culture,’ a local told me. Hearing about how government decisions are being made in the UK, she laughed loudly and told me that the constitution formed after the dictatorship would prevent such a situation in Portugal.

At Christmas the authorities published advice with a focus on enabling the elderly to have dinner with their families and to see their grandchildren. I’ve been amused by an article about Portuguese police visiting those who live alone – a refreshing contrast to the many reports of the enforced isolation of the elderly in the England of 2020, when even those suffering from dementia or the last weeks of their lives have been forbidden contact with their loved ones.

All of which has brought the questions with which I began my research into European cities into sharp focus: what does it mean to ‘belong’ to Europe? What are European values? And how do I do maintain my European values in a country that seems ever-further removed from them. Unexpectedly, I’ve been forced by my nation’s response to a global crisis to take a deeper look at the question of ‘how to remain European’ than I ever anticipated when the UK left the EU at the beginning of 2020. One of the likely results is that my three cities will become four, and the book evolve into a more personal story about affinity with place.

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In this blog post, Chris Lord reflects on lessons from PLATO for doctoral supervision. As an international, cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral PhD network, PLATO has created an unusual opportunity to compare supervision practice. But its innovative supervision arrangements and collaborative nature have also placed unusual demands on supervisors and PhD researchers.

What to expect from a supervisor? And from a PhD researcher? Supervisees and supervisors jointly developed PLATO’s Supervision Charter at the project’s first supervision workshop in Oslo

PLATO is an Innovative Training Network (ITN) funded by the EU’s Marie Sklodowska Curie programme. The network consists of 15 PhD researchers from nine different European universities. PLATO investigates whether recent crises in European have amounted to a legitimacy crisis, defined as a crises that calls into question the very rightfulness of the EU as a justified form of political power. Each of the 15 PhD dissertations makes it own distinctive contribution to answering that research question. PLATO is an original form of collaboration at doctoral level, so what lessons can we draw for PhD supervision?

First, PLATO has created an unusual opportunity to compare practices in supervision. 26 supervisors and co-supervisors have been involved in supervising the 15 PLATO projects. Some have more than 30 years experience with doctoral PhD supervision. Others have views of PhD supervision that are shaped by their own recent experiences as supervisees. All work in countries, universities and even academic departments with somewhat different practices, procedures and concepts of the relationship between supervisors and PhD researchers.

Second, PLATO is an unusual way of researching a PhD, especially in the social sciences. PLATO is a form of PhD research together and apart. Each doctoral researcher has her or his own independent investigation. Yet each also contributes to a process of collaborative research within the network of researchers. That places unusual demands on supervisors as well as PhD researchers. It also means that PhD supervision is less of a one-to-one relationship between doctoral researchers and their supervisors.

What follows describes PLATO’s originality in greater detail. It then makes some observations on supervision from the perspectives of its PhD researchers and their supervisors. Some of those reflections relate to any supervisory relationship. Others tell us something about the specific problems and possibilities of researching a PhD in a network, rather than a through a more one-to-one relationship between PhD researchers and supervisors.

Innovative supervision arrangements

Our project introduced several innovative arrangements which had important bearings on the supervisory relationships: co-supervision, network meetings, supervision workshops, and shorter stays with non-academic partners.

First, each PLATO PhD researcher has had a co-supervisor in a partner university. Since most universities require two internal supervisors, most ended up having three PhD supervisors. Of course, there is nothing unusual about co-supervision. It is also becoming increasingly common to create ‘supervisory’ teams. But more unusual is to have a co-supervisor in another university; and for PhD researchers to spend three months working with external supervisors as visiting researchers.

Second, PLATO organised four week-long research schools, attended by all PhD researchers and many of their supervisors, as well as other researchers from partner institutions. The schools were important to the process of supervision. They provided one more opportunity for PhDs and internal and external supervisors to meet to discuss all the normal questions involved in writing a dissertation: research questions, research design, methods and writing up.

PLATO also used the research schools to organise supervision workshops lead by Vitae, a further partner in the PLATO network.

Drafting PLATO’s Supervision Charter at the Oslo kick-off conference: PhD researchers Philipp Lausberg, José Piquer and Joris Melman with supervisors Julie Smith and Dirk De Bièvre

All 15 PhD projects were complemented by short secondments, most to think tanks working on EU affairs, some to civil society organisations. The work placements were an innovative aspect of our doctoral training. The secondments provided insight into research careers other than in universities. Even for those pursuing an academic career, secondments in think tanks provided understanding of one of the main means by which academic research into European integration is turned into policy advice or influences public debate. However, a need to define how the PhD researchers could best benefit from the experience was one further matter they needed to discuss with their supervisors.

The model of collaborative and networked PhD research developed by PLATO has required supervisors to go beyond their core role of advising on the writing of a dissertation

In sum, then, the model of collaborative and networked PhD research developed by PLATO has required supervisors to go beyond their core role of advising on the writing of a dissertation. Supervisors have been indispensable to supporting mobility of researchers within the network. Patterns of mobility required matching the interests of PhD researchers to those of supervisors and coordination of research designs and research outcomes.

Above all, supervisors have had to contribute to guiding the network as a whole: to overall discussion of how the network should answer its shared research question through 15 related PhD projects. The role of the supervisors in coordinating research questions, research design and research outcomes was crowned by a collaborative book project bringing together this research. The book was co-edited by four of the PLATO supervisors. Individual chapters were then based on the frameworks used in the PLATO PhD dissertations. Several meetings on the book, and the editorial role of supervisors, provided an ideal means of co-ordinating and integrating findings whilst respecting each PhD project as an individual investigation.

Vox populi: PhD researchers on supervision

Starting with feedback from our 15 PhD researchers, we asked them to rank what they found most valuable in the roles of supervisors. We gave them the following possibilities.

1. Discussing the structure of my thesis
2. Helping me frame my research question
3. Commenting on my drafts
4. Identifying where I am going wrong
5. Providing me with advice on a research career
6. Providing me with ideas
7. Suggesting books and articles I should read

Note that we did not include the role of supervisors in advising on training in methods needed for their PhD research. That, we assumed, is a necessary requirement of supervision and not something on which it is really possible to have preferences on what is most valuable in the supervisory role.

Commenting on drafts was thought to be the most valuable role. Helping to frame a research question and ‘identifying where I am going wrong’ were not far behind. Easily the least valued role was ‘providing me with advice on a research career’. However, amongst qualitative comments, advising on how to publish was thought to be important. The following is an example:

‘I found that close supervision during the publication process was extremely useful. As I was about to submit an article to a journal for the first time I relied on my supervisor’s experience. My supervisor watched over my shoulder before submitting, during the peer review, the revision process and resubmitting the article. I think this was extremely useful since I had no former experience of the process. Also my supervisor gave great feedback on my response to reviewers. This gave me insight to what journals exactly want’.

Several responses emphasised the importance of the supervisory role in the ‘end game’ and not just in the conceptualisation of the project

Other qualitative comments emphasised the importance of advising on just what is a PhD. We all know that every PhD needs a research question, a research design, a method, a beginning, a middle and an end. But just what those things are – and what they should be in the case of a specific investigation – often remain difficult to define. Yet, several responses emphasised the importance of the supervisory role in the ‘end game’ and not just in the conceptualisation of the project: ‘In knowing what to do to finish a dissertation’. Also important to some were simple tricks of the trade. ‘The best advice I got: “write everday”. It does not need to be great but it forces me to make sense of what I read during the day’.

Supervisors’ difficult judgement call

Discussions in our supervision workshops give some indication of how PLATO supervisors might respond to the foregoing views of what is most important in the supervisory role. The same discussion emerged on the relative importance of supervision in designing and finishing the thesis. As one supervisor put it, ‘the most exacting stage in any PhD supervision is always the first year – when the PhD has to formulate a research question, develop a theoretical model and a research design’.

On the other hand, there was also a discussion on how to encourage completion; and, on the role of the supervisor in identifying where a thesis is more than good enough to be submitted, even if that means saving up ideas and findings for future publications and projects.

The biggest challenge is to get through to a student who is clearly determined on a research path that is not working out

In a sense, all that is obvious enough. But that does not detract from the difficulty of the ‘judgement call’ and the ways it falls on supervisors as well as PhD researchers. The role of supervisors in identifying where things might be going wrong was also discussed. As one supervisor put it, ‘the biggest challenge is to get through to a student who is clearly determined on a research path that is not working out in terms of time-scale, feasibility or results’. But, again, that seemingly obvious part of the supervisory role is anything but self-evident in practice. As another supervisor put it, there is always a risk that a great idea, hypothesis or data mine might simply not yield significant results.

But how far should supervisors aim to solve those problems rather than just talk their PhD researchers through them? ‘Leave them alone, but not too much alone’ summed up the difficult balance most of the PLATO supervisors felt was intrinsic to their role; or, as one put it, ‘avoid being interventionist in a way that stops PhD researchers sorting as many problems as possible for themselves.’

PLATO supervisors Natasza Styczynska, Dirk De Bievre and Bas Denters using the Vitae RDF Development Cards

Whilst, though, we spent some time exchanging thoughts about all those usual problems, PLATO was quite as much an unusual experience for supervisors as for PhD researchers. For sure, our institutions usually require co-supervisors. But the idea that our PhD researchers might have co-supervisors in other universities or pick up all kinds of dangerous advice from casual conversations in a network of researchers, perhaps strains our ideas of control.

Yet, for all the importance of taking a controlled and self-controlled approach to satisfying all the necessary conditions for a successful PhD, there is always that crucial non-linear dimension to research. Cross-fertilisation of of ideas is more likely in networks of PhD researchers and their supervisors than in one-to-one relationships.

Personality types and motivators

At one of our supervision workshops, VITAE introduced us to three personality types. One has a need for achievement; a second a need for affiliation: and a third a need for power. Each of these personality types would be likely to write a different kind of PhD; and each would be likely to pose a different challenge of supervision. The achiever would be good at solving the research problem. (S)he would be creative and resourceful. But (s)he would also be likely to be perfectionist and insist on doing things her own way. The affiliator would be a good listener and good at synthesising ideas. But she would also be likely to lose her way in seeking to include too much and to reconcile conflicting findings and ideas. Finally, the power seeker would be likely to concentrate on what is ‘in it for me’: perhaps to be more interested in a PhD as a personal career move than as an exercise in discovering knowledge.

Of course, the lesson of all this is ‘know your PhD researcher’. If, as suggested by our simple survey ‘identifying where I am going wrong’ is important for PhD researchers, supervisors will need to know where the latter are most most likely to go wrong, depending on the persons they are and not just the researchers they are.

If everyone belongs to one of those three personality types, that will go for supervisors and not just PhD researchers

Yet, if everyone belongs to one of those three personality types, that will go for supervisors and not just PhD researchers. Perfectionism? Insistence on doing things ‘my way’? Avoiding conflict instead of pointing difficulties out? Asking only ‘what is in it for me’ and for my own research, rather than treating a PhD project as something of great value to the student? Surely all those are instances where the personality of the supervisor can have a negative effect on the research.

But are there any lessons for collaborative forms of PhD research where the role of a PhD supervisor is not just to advise on a single project but on how that project can best be developed within a research network? Intuitively, one might think that networked research is best suited to ‘affiliators’ who contribute to the synthesis of ideas through the network. Maybe, though, that is too simple. Whilst collaborative networks of PhD researchers and their supervisors can probably do without ‘power-seekers’, they probably do need a balance of the other types: of achievers ready to challenge any lazy synthesis and affiliators ready, none the less, to persist in bringing findings together where that helps as many as 15 different PhD investigations contribute answers to a common research question.

David McClelland’s theory about human beings and motivation identifies The Affiliator as one of three motivational types (handout by Emma Gillaspy/Vitae at PLATO’s third supervision workshop)

All photos: Marit Eldholm, ARENA, University of Oslo

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In this blog post, first published on E-International Relations, Joris Melman reflects on the public’s distance towards the EU. Even though most Europeans seem to lack interest in (or at least knowledge of) European policy-making, the role of public opinion is bigger than ever. 

The ‘Europe can you hear me?’ campaign aimed to encourage young people to participate in European elections, here from the event in Milan (photo: European Communities, 2009)

There seems to be some irony in the devoted way in which many Europeans followed the US elections. While many Europeans breathlessly watched how CNN’s John King reported the incoming results of yet another US county, some observed the striking contrast with their own continent’s elections. Of course, the Twittersphere was quick to capture this in a witty way (below). It is difficult to decide if we should read this as funny, or mostly as a statement of something true. Apart from bringing about so much political energy among European populations, the US elections simultaneously highlighted something else: the lack of interest most Europeans have in the politics steering the future of their own continent, even though the effect of it on their daily lives is a hundred times bigger.

European people: if Biden can keep Nebraska’s Second Congressional District he can reach the 270 votes even if the suburbs in Philadelphia has a lower turnout than predicted, as long as Milwaukee votes keep Wisconsin blue.

Also European people: what’s the difference between the European Commission and the European Parliament?’

There is nothing new about this observation. It has long been known that citizens experience the EU as a distant entity, and have difficulty in understanding its institutions and its policy making. Some have argued that this is fine, because the EU is mostly concerned with regulation rather than more political redistribution. Hence, it can do without popular contestation. Most others have decried this, and argue that an involved public is crucial if the EU is to be a truly democratic polity.

Yet, there is something paradoxical about this observation of the public’s distance towards the EU. Even though most Europeans seem to lack interest in or at least knowledge of European policymaking, there is a consensus among academics that the role of public opinion for European integration is bigger than ever. One only has to think of Brexit, or the hugely heated public debate following this summer’s negotiations on a European coronavirus recovery fund, where rowdy disagreement between national governments seemed to be caused by their anticipation on domestic electorates’ responses.

The importance of the public’s role is only set to increase as European integration is taking big steps in the formation of a polity. One such step is the EU’s agreement to joint borrowing as a response to the Covid-19 crisis, which has been hailed as a ‘Hamiltonian moment’ – referring to a 1790 agreement between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson which helped to turn the United States into a genuine political federation. Likewise, the buzzword in the European debate these days is ‘strategic autonomy.’ Now that the EU can no longer rely on the US, whilst global economic competition is increasing, many think the time has come for the EU to become more independent in areas like defense and industrial policy. Such steps, however, seem crucially dependent on public support in order to sustain them. Without support, there is a high chance of a backlash. If integration goes faster than citizens can keep up with, they are likely to turn their backs against it.

Yet, the question remains how this fundamental impact of public opinion can be reconciled with the citizens’ apparent disinterest in the EU. Or to put it differently: how should we understand the role of public opinion in the EU? Is it the centerpiece of the integration process, or should we rather think of it as an indifferent mass that allows elites to take the decisions? And in turn, what does this mean for the future prospects for citizens’ involvement in European politics?

Between indifference and politicization

Let’s start by placing the role of the public in some historical context. In the first decades of the post-war period, European integration was an elite process, with political and technical elites making the decisions bringing about the creation and initial development of the European Community. As citizens generally trusted their representatives, and public attention for it was limited, the public was hardly a meaningful actor in the integration process. Academics speak of a ‘permissive consensus’ to describe the role of the public in this period.

This changed as the salience of European integration grew. Following the signing of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, the EU became more widely discussed in the media, polarization between political parties increased, and citizens appeared to become more critical. As the EU became ‘politicized’, the influence of citizens on the integration process grew. This became particularly clear in the 2005 constitutional referenda that failed in France and the Netherlands.

As a consequence, political scientists now speak of a ‘constraining dissensus’ that has replaced the permissive consensus. Political leaders now have to look over their shoulders when negotiating at the European level, as outcomes might easily be contested in the domestic arena. The fierce protests in especially Southern European countries during the euro crisis, Brexit, and most recently this summer’s hugely salient debates the EU recovery fund are examples of this phenomenon.

Still, this view of the public is one-sided if we do not distinguish between the functional importance of public opinion for European decision making, and citizens’ actual perception and evaluation of European politics. The fact that citizens’ preferences increasingly affect political decision-making does not necessarily mean that citizens themselves have come to have stronger opinions on EU affairs – it is still possible that many do not care, or do not know.

Most research tends to pay insufficient attention to his distinction. This might be related to the bias of EU experts, as those who participate in heated EU debates on a daily basis might easily overlook the indifference most citizens have towards the EU or even politics in general. But it is equally important to consider the methods used in measuring public opinion. Polls asking how people think about specific questions easily convey the impression that citizens hold meaningful opinions on these items (‘x% of the public trusts the European Commission’, ‘x% of EU citizens supports solidarity with other EU countries’). However, it might of course well be that survey-respondents tick a box without actually really having a clear or stable opinion. To understand questions of citizens’ interest and involvement, it therefore is important to use a wider variety of methods, including qualitative research that studies the convictions and perceptions underlying citizens’ plain pro- and anti-preferences.

The research that does use such methods consistently finds how, even in the constraining dissensus-period, public opinion on the EU is mostly characterized by the distance citizens experience towards it (e.g. Baglioni and Hurrelmann, 2016; Duchesne et al., 2013; van Ingelgom, 2014; White, 2011). Rather than being outspoken, most citizens find it difficult to express a clear opinion on European politics because of its complexity, the limited amount of information they receive, and the little connection it seems to have to their daily life concerns.

Admittedly, most of this research was conducted in the previous decade. In the heated passed 10 years, the public might have become more animated. Indeed, in research that I’m currently conducting myself, some findings hint at such a development. In this research, I organized focus groups in 3 European countries (Italy, France and the Netherlands) to study public opinion on the Euro. Despite Europe’s single currency being narrower as a topic than the EU in general, discussions showed a sense of the increasing importance of European politics. Instigated by Brexit, the perceived threat brought about by the rise of China and a more hostile US, as well as the general political instability associated with the rise of populism, people seem to feel that important things are happening, and the EU has to play a role– although these findings should be taken as very preliminary.

Yet, even if this is true and the public’s interest in European politics grows, it is important to note that this development still takes place in the context of a more general distance most people feel towards the EU, if not politics in general. People might have some awareness of particular developments, but they are still perceived as far away. They are still complex, unconnected to their daily lives, and happening in an arena that is far away from their influence. As a consequence, even those who have a growing sense of the EU’s importance might find it difficult to form an opinion on it.

Public opinion as embedded, diffuse, and moldable

It is crucial to appreciate this, and grasp the consequences it has for understanding public opinion. What it particularly draws our attention to is not to the content of people’s opinions – are they in favor of or against the EU? Do they like its policies? – but rather to the form of their opinions, the type of opinions they have. When looking at opinion in this way, a couple observations are particularly relevant.

Firstly, how is public opinion on the EU often embedded? That is to say, how attitudes towards the EU are absorbed in more general political considerations. Because the EU is seen as too distant and complex to form a clear opinion on, it is likely that opinions on it are a derivative of more general orientations. In other words, opinions on the EU are not necessarily opinions that are actually based on the EU. Even people who express negative attitudes towards the EU – people we might normally frame as ‘Eurosceptic’ – might actually not be that interested in the EU, but express a more general anger towards their national elites, or frustration with the state of society in general.

In turn, we should realize how much of public opinion on the EU is diffuse. Most people do not have clearly demarcated opinions on the EU, based on conscious reflection on the pros and cons of integration. Instead, their attitude towards the EU can better be seen as a vague orientation.

The consequence of this diffuse, wavering public opinion is that it is highly moldable. While people might have general orientations towards project of European integration, their actual opinions are very sensitive to what they hear from elites: politicians, political parties they sympathize with, media they trust. It is not unlikely that it is precisely this ‘moldability’ that, more than strong opinions about Europe, made events such as Brexit possible. People such as Brexit campaigner Dominic Cummings, known for his obsessive use of focus groups he uses to base policy on, know this better than anyone. If we find out which frames resonate with people, public opinion can be steered accordingly.

This should not lead us to relativism about public opinion. Of course, it should not be read as implying that public opinion is meaningless, or that it can be steered in any direction. There are still structural grounds for the formation of opinion, and there still are preferences and values underlying it. The most important one is probably the national lens, which filters people’s understanding of European politics, determines how people perceive their interests, and can function as a benchmark to evaluate membership of the EU against. Yet, it is important to appreciate what the form of public opinion implies for its role.

Weighing the role of public opinion

What this shows us in in the first place that the EU’s current politicization is still in the first place an elite process. Yes, there is more public attention for it, and the debate on it is more polarized and heated than before. As a consequence of this, the role of the public is increasing, as politicians closely follow the polls and respond to them. Still, this does not mean that the public takes an active role. It is still only a passive actor, ambiguously responding to processes at the elite level.

This also means we should not overestimate the role of the public. For example, governments should not be overly afraid for public opinion in negotiating European issues. Instead of behaving as if they are only following what the public demands of them, they should acknowledge that it is their own stories that determine how the public thinks in the first place. Rather than being afraid of the public and telling it what they believe it wants to hear, politicians should show leadership and make clear what exactly is at stake.

Last summer’s negotiations on the coronavirus recovery fund serve as an example. As these negotiations were dominated by the ‘frugal four’ (Austria, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands), these frugal countries’ leaders mostly seemed to speak only to please their citizens. The Netherlands for example rather than explaining to the public why and how solidarity was needed, the main message Prime Minister Rutte communicated was that European cooperation was now demanding too much solidarity, and that he would be as tough as possible in the negotiations to protect the Dutch interest. While appreciated by the public (over 70% supported the governments’ stance), the side effect of such discourse is that both the short and long term willingness of the Dutch public to show solidarity decreases, even when this is hugely important and would be entirely in its self-interest. In this way, politicians’ tendency to act out of a fear for public opinion makes in increasingly difficult to manage the EU.

Germany’s example makes clear that such fear for public opinion is indeed. In general, the German public is seen as very critical of European solidarity. In the euro crisis, it seemed to favor a hard stance against Greece, indicated not only by the polls but also the fact that 12,000 ordinary citizens took to the Constitutional Court to complain about the rescue fund (ESM) that was established to weather the crisis. However, Merkel managed to change things around during this summer’s negotiations, seemingly without problems. In an impressive speech, she argued that Germany could only thrive if Europe did. The result was a remarkably high support for this position which serves as an illustration of how moldable public opinion is, and how leadership can serve the shared European interest.

Again, the fact that public opinion can easily be molded should not be seen as making it unimportant. On the contrary, it is also precisely because it is moldable that it can easily turn into a threat for the integration project. One only needs to think of Brexit. As the EU lacks the ‘naturalness’ that nation states can rely on, there is little protecting it from volatile public opinion. While most people might fear the consequences of an exit from the EU, there is no strong attachment to it either.

Therefore public opinion should not be neglected. Not only because such a strategy would backfire as citizens sense that a highly important political body is being created without them having a say, but also because creating such a body needs the involvement of citizens for its legitimacy. Thus public opinion should be taken more seriously. But this does not mean to treat public opinion as a way for clearly demanding politicians to take particular actions. Instead, it means to reflect on what public opinion actually entails, and to realize that because of its undetermined character, elites have a responsibility in the shaping of public opinion. Their task is therefore to make a bigger effort in educating citizens in what is at stake, rather than telling them what they like to hear, and what seems to be electorally profitable.

Future prospects

However, to what extend this is possible, is a difficult discussion. On itself, it is not overly revolutionary to say that it would be desirable to have an educated European public that understands what is at stake in the European debate, and has the resources to hold policy makers accountable. But the question is how to get here, and if this is possible in the first place.

It is undeniable that there are important hurdles to be overcome. The most obvious one is citizens’ general disinterest and difficulty to make sense of European politics. As long as citizens do not feel there is something at stake that is relevant to their daily lives, and as long as they do not feel having an opinion on such matters would make a difference, it will be difficult to convince citizens that they should think about the EU in a particular way.

Another one is the dominance of national perspectives. As long as citizens view European discussions purely in terms of their national interest, there is a fertile soil for Eurosceptic politicians to portray the EU as a threat from which they will try to protect their citizens. What contributes to this is that there is little that European institutions can do themselves in this regard, as the legitimation of the EU runs through national institutions. It is national governments and national media that are spinning the narrative about Europe.

Yet, it is possible to point at some paths for overcoming these hurdles. Firstly, there might be some potential here for supranational initiatives. An example is the euro, through which European integration entered the daily lives of citizens, and as such might normalize the idea of European governance for citizens. Another one is the Conference on the Future of Europe, an initiative through which the EU hopes to involve citizens in the European project. At the same time, the question is if such initiatives on themselves will have enough force. In the case of the euro for example, the actual evidence of its effect is limited, even if this is a huge step in European integration. While it does seem that citizens accept the euro as a social fact that is there to stay, there is little evidence that it has created a European identity. And likewise, the question with initiatives focusing on citizens’ participation is if these will really be experienced as meaningful by citizens themselves. As long as they have little understanding of what is at stake, such initiatives are likely to be experienced as artificial.

In that sense, the emergence of more trans-European media could have a much more important effect. This would not only make information more accessible and breach the dominance of purely national frames, but would also do an important job in giving citizens a sense of what is at stake. Think of what having an EU commissioner held accountable for their policies in a talk show could do. Yet, while there are some first signs of this happening – think of the success of a medium like Politico, or of how this summer’s negotiations suddenly led to a surge of politicians giving interviews in media outside their own country – the question remains whether the market for such reporting is big enough.

For now, the most direct impact is probably to be expected from the crises Europe is now living through. This fits to the essence of the EU. “Europe will be forged in crises,” said Jean Monnet, one of the founding fathers of the European Union, “and will be the sum of the solutions.” And indeed, Europe’s current situation might have the effect of fostering a shared identity. Now that most of us are locked up in our houses because of a pandemic, and at the same time we are faced with external challenges such as the rise of China, Brexit, and a more hostile US, the sense that we are in the same boat is likely to increase resulting in a more legitimate European governance. Later, the climate crisis – of which the current Covid-19 crisis can be seen as a test case – might have the same effect. Admittedly, the effect of both the Covid-19 pandemic and the climate crisis can also go the opposite direction, and can just as well have a divisive effect, depending on how they are handled. Even in this turn of events, however, the crises would still have the effect of drawing the public closer towards European politics.

In any scenario, the prospect of Europeans staying up at night to watch the European elections is still far away. And looking at the current state of affairs in the US, staying away from such a level of politicization also seems desirable. What we should hope for though is that European politics will finally be infused with at least a pinch of this perception of importance. A perception among citizens that European politics is not just something vague happening far away, but that it concerns important decision-making that affects their lives in a fundamental manner. In turn, such a perception should be accompanied by the feeling that having a position on these decisions actually can make a difference. Admittedly, this development is still in its infancy. But it does appear that it has started. And now that the genie is out of the bottle, putting it back seems impossible. The question is now how political elites will deal with it.

References

Buscha, F., D. Muller, and L. Page (2017): Can a common currency foster a shared social identity across different nations? The case of the euro. European Economic Review 100, 318–336

De Vries, C.E. (2018) Euroscepticism and the Future of European Integration, Oxford University Press.

Follesdal, A., & Hix, S. (2006). Why there is a democratic deficit in the EU: A response to Majone and Moravcsik. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 44(3), 533-562.

Habermas, J. (2015). Democracy in E urope: Why the Development of the EU into a Transnational Democracy Is Necessary and How It Is Possible. European Law Journal, 21(4), 546-557.

Hobolt, S. B., & De Vries, C. E. (2016). Public support for European integration. Annual Review of Political Science, 19, 413-432.

Hooghe, L., & Marks, G. (2009). A postfunctionalist theory of European integration: From permissive consensus to constraining. British journal of political science, 1-23.

Lindberg, L. N. Scheingold, Stuart A., 1970: Europe’s Would-Be Polity. Patterns of Change in the European Community. Englewood Cliffs.

Majone, G. (2002). Delegation of regulatory powers in a mixed polity. European Law Journal, 8(3), 319-339.

Melman, J and Porcaro, G . (2020), ‘Europeans take the Euro for granted’, Bruegel Blog, 03 March. https://www.bruegel.org/2020/03/europeans-take-the-euro-for-granted/

Monnet, J. (1976), “Mémoires” de Jean Monnet. Librairie Arthème Fayard, Paris.

This article was originally published on E-International Relations. 

The post Influential but indifferent? Assessing the role of the public in European politics appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Differing political cultures and migration traditions among EU member states have given rise to a variety of national policy approaches toward irregular migration. While in principle this diversity hinders agreement on common asylum and migration policies, EU member states are now increasingly converging toward more restrictive migration policies.

National policy approaches are deeply rooted in historical legacies as well as political, economic and social factors, including issues of religion and cultural identity. Member states are unequal in terms of power, resources, location, experience, institutions, cultural and historical baggage and the number of asylum seekers they receive. As a result, these powerful cleavages make it harder to reach consensus in this policy domain.

Historical experiences

In the aftermath of the Second World War, north-western Europe experienced high levels of immigration due to colonial commitments or recruitment programmes for migrant workers. Hence, such states have a history of taking in large numbers of migrants from multi-ethnic backgrounds, particularly from former colonies. France, for example, saw an influx of Algerians fleeing the Algerian War from 1954 to 1962, whilst in Britain, migrants arrived from the Indian subcontinent and the Caribbean during the 1950s and 60s. By contrast, the southern and central-eastern member states had little experience with migration.

Beginning in the 1980s, southern members Italy, Greece and Spain were rapidly transformed from countries of emigration to immigration. These member states experienced a dramatic ‘migration turnaround’, from mass emigration during the 1950s, 60s and early 70s, to mass immigration during the 1980s and especially, in the 90s and 2000s. Similarly, Cyprus and Malta, post EU accession in 2004, became immigrant receiving countries.

The migration experience of the central-eastern member states has been quite different. Although they did experience some immigration after the end of the Cold War, it was mainly from migrants with very similar cultures to their own, mainly from Ukraine. This group of states thus had little tradition and experience in dealing with cultural diversity.

Geographic location

EU member states confront irregular migration to differing degrees due to their geographical proximity to zones of instability and conflict. Consequently, the different regions of the EU experience different migratory pressures.

Those member states on the EU’s periphery, namely Italy and Greece, have become the main entry points for irregular migrants by accident of geography, and are responsible for guarding long sea and land borders. As a result, the southern member states agree on the need to overhaul the Dublin Regulation and abolish the ‘first state of arrival’ rule, which places an unfair burden on them. They have also repeatedly pushed for the establishment of an EU mandatory permanent relocation mechanism in order to evenly distribute asylum seekers across the EU member states.

Public opinion

According to the latest Standard Eurobarometer (Autumn 2018), immigration is perceived as the most important concern of European citizens (40 per cent). Public opinion is an important factor influencing member states’ policy approaches to irregular migration as governments need the support of the people to be re-elected. The public’s focus on an issue affects the response of national governments.

In times where a given issue has low salience, national governments are not under pressure to ‘deliver’ a policy that the public accepts, mainly because the public is not especially concerned about the issue itself. However, when an issue is problematised in the media resulting in high salience, the public will be more concerned. The response of the governing party or coalition will therefore tend to be oriented toward public opinion.

The rise of right-wing populism

Following the outbreak of the ‘refugee crisis’ in 2015, the issue of irregular migration emerged as a key debate in national elections across the EU, with right-wing populist parties gaining support in several member states.

In the 2017 French presidential election, stopping ‘uncontrolled’ immigration was the slogan of the right-wing populist Front National (now ‘Rassemblement National’) candidate Marine Le Pen. In the 2017 German federal elections, the leader of the nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD), Alexander Gauland, stated that Islam is alien to German society and spoke of fighting an ‘invasion of foreigners’. The party was elected to the Bundestag for the first time, winning 12.6 per cent of the vote and more than 90 seats.

At the end of 2017, the coalition government formed by the centre-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) resulted in the first western European state with a governing far-right party. During the campaign, both parties put restrictive positions on immigration and integration at the centre of their electoral campaign. ÖVP leader, Sebastian Kurz, called for limits on the number of asylum seekers entering Europe and reduced social benefits for EU citizens living in Austria.

Irregular migration was also a key issue in Eastern Europe for instance in the run-up to Hungary’s election in 2018. A central pillar of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s campaign was that Hungary would be ‘overrun’ by refugees if he was not elected. He also appealed to the prejudices of his core supporters with talk of the importance of ‘ethnic homogeneity’, and of a ‘Europe under threat of invasion’.

In Southern Europe, in the run-up to the Italian general election in 2018, the electoral campaign of the centre-right coalition was characterised by anti-immigrant rhetoric. Former Prime Minister and leader of Forza Italia, Silvio Berlusconi, claimed there were 600,000 ‘illegal’ migrants living in Italy representing a ‘social time-bomb ready to explode’, and pledged mass deportations. The leader of the League, Matteo Salvini, declared that if he was elected Prime Minister, one of his principal objectives would be to expel half a million failed asylum seekers.

Towards convergence of migration control policies

National policy approaches to irregular migration quickly diverge as a result of the factors discussed above. At the same time, there has been a visible convergence. Indeed, as the issue of irregular migration gained salience in the political debate, the salience of national identity and secure borders resulted in convergence towards restrictive migration policies. Deterrence has become a key theme in the rationale for EU asylum and migration policies, exemplified in the agreements with Turkey and Libya.

Austria’s motto when it took over the Presidency of the Council of the EU in 2018, ‘a Europe that protects’, reflects the EU approach to irregular migration: the focus on the ‘fight against illegal migration’. Hence, although the EU is more divided than ever over irregular migration, it is united when it comes to the externalisation of migration controls.

This article was first published on the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) blog on European Politics and Policy (EUROPP) on 17 July 2019.

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This year Europe and the United States have donated millions of dollars to Ukraine to fight COVID-19. In fact almost half of the funds were allocated not for medicines or medical equipment, but slip into the pockets of the Ukrainian construction firm’s cartel and foreign contractors.

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Non-earmarked expenditures

The coronavirus pandemic continues to spread around the world and Ukraine is not the exception. There are reports from all over the country on overcrowded hospitals, problems with hospitalization, lack of necessary medicines and oxygen. This spring authorities created the fund totaling $2.3 billion specifically to fight the pandemic and its consequences. The fund consisted of money from the Ukrainian government, European Union, foreign states and grant organizations. Ukraine was provided with funds from the UN ($33 million), EU ($232 million), Germany ($181 million), United States ($15 million), Canada ($0.5 million) and even South Korea ($0.7 million). According to the open sources, international assistance amounted to $462 million, or at least 20% of the Ukrainian Coronavirus Fund. What is more, the EU agreed on an additional $1.5 billion lending program due to the pandemic.

In November a scandal broke out in the Ukrainian media. Former Finance Minister and Adviser to the Head of the Presidential Office Igor Umansky said that money from the Coronavirus Fund was allocated for the construction of roads under the presidential program Great Construction. On the threshold of a new lockdown and, as a result, a new wave of the financial crisis, the Ukrainian authorities allocated $1.2 billion to a populist project. At the same time, only $364 million was reserved for social payments, $570 million for health care, and $94 million for law enforcement.

Ruthless PR-campaign

Great Construction started in Ukraine in March. This is a joint project of President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Government of Ukraine funded by the state budget. The goal of the program is the construction and general maintenance of 6.5 thousand km of roads, 137 educational institutions, 116 kindergartens and 122 sports facilities. The planned budget together with money from the Coronavirus Fund is $4.4 billion. The President actively used the project to increase his own rating and the popularity of his political party in the run-up to the local elections in late October. Vladimir Zelensky has been visiting every region of the country, where among others he inspected the construction sites of the Great Construction. Such actions of the head of state angered both the opposition and public organizations. Chairman of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine Alexei Koshel noted that technically the president cannot be prosecuted for this, but his actions undermined the principles of democratic elections.

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Obviously, the ruling party counted on the presidential project as a principal trump in the political struggle. Intensive construction in the regions made it possible to associate candidates from the Servants of People with large-scale road building; however, as it turned out after the Election Day, even such measures did not help the party to get the majority of votes.

Large contracts for local oligarchs

Igor Umansky also reported on large-scale corruption schemes in the project. The tender conditions were specially changed that only a limited number of companies or members of the so-called “road cartel” could participate. The former Finance Minister noted that six companies appropriated money from the Coronavirus Fund. According to the article by Nashi Groshi, he was talking about Avtomagistral-South, Onur, Avtostrada, Rostdorstroy, Altkom and Techno-stroy-center. From the beginning of the year to July they received 72% of contracts for the road building.

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Ukravtodor quickly published a rebuttal. The department said that for the first time in Ukraine tender documents were not worked out for specific contractors, but for companies that have the appropriate experience, equipment, employees and financial support. In 2020, it allowed to attract more than 60 companies to work at the Great Construction sites. As of November 13, 20 contractors were doing contracts worth $35 million. The department claims that this fact completely excludes the possibility of cartel.

One way or another, the statement of the road department does not refute the existence of the cartel, which was mentioned by former Finance Minister Igor Umansky. In spite of the fact that the conditions of tenders have become more transparent for small firms, “road giants” from the article published by Nashi Groshi, still win the lion’s share of tenders.

Companies of the Odessa Mayor

One of the largest road construction and repair companies in Ukraine is Avtostrada-South. According to July data, the company won contracts totaling $220 million. Formally, the company belongs to Odessa residents Valery Korotkov and Oleg Nalivanny. At the same time, media reports that it is controlled by the inner circle of Odessa Mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov. The connection was revealed accidentally during one of the bids. Many participants took part in the tender, and one of them, Kyivshlyakhbud, filed a letter of guarantee where accidentally entered the title of the Avtostrada-South Company. Among the beneficiaries of Kyivshlyakhbud were Yuri Schumacher – a deputy of the Odessa City Council, a member of Trukhanov’s political party, and the famous businessman Alexander Zhukov. Media often call Yuri Schumacher “the main Trukhanov’s road worker”.

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Another major’s road company from the list is Rostdorstroy LLC or RDS. From the beginning of the year till July the contractor won tenders totaling $63 million. The beneficiaries of the company are Evgeny Konovalov and previously mentioned Yuri Schumacher. The supplier of Rostdorstroy is Squo Company, which is controlled by Trukhanov’s daughter. Rostdorstroy appears in a number of criminal proceedings in Poltava, Cherkasy and Nikolaev regions. Rostdorstroy was accused of official negligence, poor-quality work, appropriation of funds, overestimation of materials and work, as well as forgery of documents.

Vinnitsa monopolist

The road cartel also includes the Avtostrada Company. According to information published by Nashi Groshi, the company won tenders totaling $161 million. Its owner is Maxim Shkil, founder of MS Capital Holding. Last year, Avtostrada was caught up in a scandal. Avtostrada was accused of arson attacks on competitor’s equipment. The director of the damaged company Poltavabudcenter then stated that corruption in the industry is supported at the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, and Avtostrada is allegedly a contractor close to officials. In Avtostrada, these accusations were called an information attack. Maxim Shkil applied to the court and the defendant had to delete the publication.

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In the Vinnitsa region, the company was accused of violating road construction standards and maximization the cost of projects. During the investigation crimes were not confirmed and the case was closed. Some media attribute this to the fact that the top manager of Avtostrada was Anatoly Vakar, who previously worked in the transport department of Vinnitsa region administration. The company also received most of the contracts in this region. Avtostrada declines any allegations of using an administrative resource.

Igor Kolomoysky

Ukrainian oligarchs also benefited from the Great Construction. In November, it became known that tenders for road construction in the Carpathian region were won by PBS Company, which is closely connected to one of the most influential businessmen in Ukraine Igor Kolomoisky. The founder of PBS is a resident of Ivano-Frankivsk, Galina Nepik. Earlier, Nepik worked at the famous resort Bukovel, owned by the Privat Group belonging to Igor Kolomoisky.

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The total amount of the bids under the Big Construction program in the Ivano-Frankivsk region amounted to $125 million. About $32 million of them were allocated directly from the Coronavirus Fund.

Coronavirus Fund for Turkish Firms

Builders of the Great Construction were not only prominent Ukrainian businessmen and oligarchs, but also foreign companies with a questionable reputation. Two Turkish companies Onur and Ozaltin won significant contracts from Ukravtodor in 2020.

Onur is a group of Turkish construction companies, which includes its Ukrainian division Onur Construction International. The company is one of six members of the cartel and, according to July data, won tenders totaling $91 million. The beneficiaries of Onur Construction International are Turkish citizens Onur and Ihsan Chetinjeviz. The company has been building and repairing roads in the country since the beginning of the century.

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The Onur Group is successfully performing around the world, but in Ukraine it has a doubtful reputation. Law enforcement officers and public organizations have many questions about the work of the company. A number of criminal cases were instituted in Ukraine against Turkish company. Most of them were initiated over the embezzlement of state money, illegal mining of materials and forgery.

Another large foreign company at the Great Construction of President Zelensky is the Ozaltin company. According to July data, the Turkish contractor won tenders worth $38 million, but little has been done.

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In September, journalists of the Perviy Zaporizhzhskiy visited the section of the М18 highway between Zaporozhye and Melitopol which is being constructed by Ozaltin. The company won a tender for the repair of 55 km of highway in the spring. In early autumn the contractor removed only 17 km of the old asphalt and the only 1 km was completely repaired. Journalists believe that the work will not be done by the end of the season. In addition, according to media workers, half of the company’s employees are foreigners while the country faces a 15 years maximum unemployment rate.

Ozaltin has come to Ukraine only this year right before the Great Construction began. The company did not submit leasing agreements for equipment, papers confirming the employment of some workers in the tender offer. However, Ukravtodor ignored violations and allowed the Turkish constructor to work in Ukraine.

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What role do technologies play in European integration? How EU governance of security technologies is changing and how does it differ from other major players? These and other questions are examined in a recent book Emerging Security Technologies and EU Governance: Actors, Practices and Processes, edited by Antonio Calcara, Raluca Csernatoni and Chantal Lavallée. In this Q&A, they tell about the origins of this book, key themes and emerging topics in this exciting and fast changing area.

 

Q1: What have been the rationales and origins of this book?

The origins of the project date back to 2017, when we were all based at the Institute for European Studies of the Vrije Universiteit in Brussels. Coincidentally, we actually first met during a hot September afternoon in Barcelona, at the 11th EISA (European International Studies Association) Pan-European Conference 2017, where we were paper presenters in the panel on ‘Military Adaptation or a Case of Putting One’s Head in the Sand?’ Notwithstanding different academic backgrounds and scholarly approaches, we were interested to investigate the impact of emerging security technologies in various EU policy areas. The core idea was (and still is!) to understand how new technologies are shaping the rapidly changing European policy processes, governance dynamics, and overall security landscape. We therefore began to discuss these issues on a daily basis and decided to involve scholars with similar research interests and with a very open attitude in terms of inter-disciplinary approaches.

 

Our collective work has especially benefitted from in-depth discussions during the panel on “Actors and Technologies: Towards a New European Security Governance” at the European Union in International Affairs 2018 (EUIA) in Brussels and the workshop on “Theoretical and Practical Implications of Dual-Use Technologies in the European Union” as part of the EISA European Workshops in International Studies (EWIS) at the University of Groningen (2018). We then met several times – both in-person and online – throughout 2019 to finalise the project. We are pleased to have cultivated a close-knit research group over the years and we are also convinced that the main strength of our book is the fact that it gathers scholars at different stages of their careers with various academic backgrounds and research interests. Using varied theoretical perspectives, they shed light on how diverse emerging technologies are being embedded in EU policy frameworks as a common good, with new legal, policy, economic instruments and measures, triggering new governance mechanisms, practices, and patterns of authority.

 

Q2: What role do technologies play in European integration?

Technologies play a key role in the process of European integration. In the last twenty years, the emergence of technologies such as drones, autonomous robotics, artificial intelligence, cyber and biotechnologies has stimulated worldwide debates on their use, risks and benefits in both the civilian and the security-related fields. The book emphasises the importance of studying how these emerging security technologies are governed in practice within the EU’s complex political and institutional machinery. With reference to European governance, the various contributions address the complex interplay of power relations, interests and framings between broad range of stakeholders EU institutions and agencies, state and non-state, public and private actors, and surrounding the development of policies and strategies for guiding the use of new security technologies. Each chapter in the book identifies actors involved in the governance of a specific technology sector, their multilevel institutional and corporate configurations, and the conflicting forces, values, ethical and legal concerns, as well as security imperatives and economic interests.

 

Q3: The EU governance towards security technologies have changed. Since the 1980s the EU has been supporting research and development through its Framework Programmes which have exclusive focus on civil applications. In recent years, EU has also started to fund defence research and set up the European Defence Fund. Why this shift in EU policy? Is the EU still a peace project?

Concerning these changes, we have seen growing concerns in the critical literature and civil society about the militarisation of the EU and the securitization of different policy domains. We believe that this debate should be further contextualised from an institutional point of view taking into account the EU governance structure, a political point of view taking into account power configurations among different levels of authority and a strategical point of view considering fast-evolving, very costly and competitive research and development as well as changing dynamics in transatlantic relations. For what concerns the policy shift from civilian to military research (or vice versa when considering how innovation nowadays predominantly stems from the civilian sector), our book highlights the multi-causal and complex nature of the phenomenon, especially when it comes to dual-use technologies.

 

Technological progress has been framed to be of strategic importance for both the EU’s future military capacity and economic competitiveness. An integrated defence-industrial base (with the support of EU funds), as also specified in the 2016 EU Global Strategy, is portrayed as indispensable, that is if Europe wants to achieve the by now infamous concept of ‘Strategic Autonomy’. In addition, there is no doubt that the European Defence Agency, the European Commission, the European Parliament (especially the Subcommittee on Security and Defence) and defence industry have – for different reasons – pushed for this process. Our book also looks at new patterns of authority and expertise within the intergovernmental-supranational institutional balance and the European Commission’s policy entrepreneurship and activity in framing and governing emerging security technologies. Arguably, such developments have raised important questions concerning the EU’s foundational and integration myth as a ‘peace project’ and whether it can still be seen as such, given recent EU-driven defence technological and industrial initiatives. While this question falls beyond the scope of the book’s research agenda, what is certain is that the EU is undergoing significant policy and institutional transformations that might indeed impact its identity-building as a global security actor and technological powerhouse.

 

Q4: How does the EU governance of security technologies differ from how these technologies are governed in other regions? Is the EU better or worse that other parts of the world in governing its security technologies?

Rather than better or worse than other regional contexts, we argue that the EU governance of emerging security technologies – due to its multiplicity of actors, institutions, discourses and practices – is following a distinctive path that sometimes converges and sometimes diverges from other international approaches. For instance, the EU seems to be accepting the dominant narrative that the development of emerging security technologies such as Artificial Intelligence or drones is essential to bridge the technological-innovation gap, towards the US and China. However, EU representatives are also trying to find a complex balance between creating markets and stimulating cutting-edge research and innovation, and the need to address their normative and ethical implications with legal controls regarding their use and the risks of misuse.

 

Unlike other actors in fact, the EU has used extensively specialised expert groups to legitimize its policies and to involve state and non-state, civil and private actors (industry, civil society, international organisations, civil authorities). This warrants further research into an area that is also covered in the book, namely the role of security and science expertise in establishing and reproducing patterns of authority and legitimate knowledges in the governance of new and emerging technologies. Moreover, we argue that the analysis of the EU governance towards these technologies is also questioning the nature and scope of the European integration. Such technical advancements are transforming civil–military practices as well as their interactions and might have unforeseen long-term effects on the EU imaginaries (of what the EU is) and its global role.

 

Q5: What role do security technologies play during the times of global Covid-19 pandemic?

Security technologies are playing a central role during the global Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic is acting as an accelerator of certain dynamics that were already in place, such as the use of contact tracing apps, drones and biometric technologies for surveillance, coercive control of confinement measures. Our new works, which also build on the research carried out for the book, are looking at the broad use of emerging security technologies to tackle the health emergency. Raluca Csernatoni has noted that whereas tracking apps represent a critical experiment for the role technology will play in tackling future pandemics, scepticism should surround techno-solutionism and AI-powered mass digital surveillance when it comes to complex problems. Chantal Lavallée, in a co-authored piece with Bruno Oliveira Martins, another book chapter contributor, has looked at the extensive use and multiple applications of drones from the outset of the pandemic, the implications in terms of privacy/data protection, security and safety issues and consequences on public acceptance.

 

Q6: What are the most important trends and developments in the governance of security technologies to watch in the next few years?

We believe that there are three trends and developments in the governance of security technologies to watch in the next few years. The first is linked to the previous point on the use of technological silver bullets mobilized during states of emergency and the necessary careful assessment of the trade-offs between democratic principles and technologically mediated emergency politics. Second, from an EU perspective, it will be interesting to see how the relationship between institutions, member states, industries and civil society groups will evolve in the regulation and governance of new technologies, not least those related to artificial intelligence. Third, from a broader perspective, we believe it is important to observe how the debate on strategic autonomy and European technological sovereignty will develop. Both concepts seem to have lost traction after the 2020 American presidential election, but may come back into vogue if there will be further transatlantic turbulence and in the context of US-China rivalry.

 

Q7: What are the main lessons from your book for practitioners and policymakers?

This is the first book that deals with understanding how a unique and complex institutional actor such as the EU adapts and puts forward the governance of innovative technologies. The focus on these emerging and dual-use technologies and key technological areas such cyber, drones, and AI in the EU will certainly be of high interest to stakeholders, expert audiences, practitioners, and policy makers in Brussels, in Europe and beyond, as well as for professionals engaged in these sectors in Europe and worldwide. European policymakers should read our book to understand the role of national actors, but also their interactions embedded within new configurations of actors. National policymakers should read our book to understand more about EU dynamics. Both industrial and civil society representatives and/or ordinary citizens might also better grasp institutional and political dynamics that are already having a significant impact on their lives.

 

Q8: What would be interesting avenues for future research?

From a theoretical point of view, we believe that more conceptual effort should be made to rigorously bridge Science and Technology Studies with Security Studies and European Studies. Besides our book, some recent works are going in the same direction. From an empirical point of view, each emerging technology analysed in the book would deserve a more extensive treatment, which, due to space constraints, we could not go into, and a follow-up as they are fast-evolving technologies and as the framing of new EU policies is ongoing. Perhaps these could be two ideas for a second collective book on the subject.

 

 

Antonio Calcara is Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Department of Political Science of the LUISS “Guido Carli” University in Rome. He is also currently Visiting Lecturer at SciencesPo Paris. His research interests are at the crossroads of International Relations, International Political Economy and Security Studies.

 

Raluca Csernatoni is Guest Professor at the Institute for European Studies (IES) of Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). She is also Visiting Scholar at Carnegie Europe in Brussels, where she works on European security and defence. Her research interests focus on critical theoretical approaches at the intersection of security and technology, as well as new and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and drones.

 

Chantal Lavallée is Assistant Professor of International Studies and Assistant Director of Centre for security and crisis governance (CRITIC) at Royal Military College Saint-Jean (Canada). Her research and publications focus on the contribution of the European Commission to the security and defence as well as emerging technology (drones) sectors.

 

The post Emerging Security Technologies and EU Governance: Actors, Practices and Processes appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

A mothers existential account through a son’s circumcision 

a la Derrida’s Circumfession

Derrida’s account was what a person feels when he is trying to write, being circumscribed and naked to public, the existential crisis of should I never write or write it down and be forever humiliated. But of course it was his ideas on circumcision, signature and survival as well.
Mine too is a multi-layered account of circumfession; my writing a non English speaker’s writing who thinks, writes and mostly speaks in English however flawed that may be. And also confessions of my borderline heretic thoughts when I was having my second son circumscribed and  later when he healed.
But why should that be on a blog dedicated to Europe because I blame these thoughts to my years spent studying European Oeuvre and Jacques Derrida.

Note beforehand: I wanted to be happy that there was a Azan in Hagia Sophia ( the 6th century church of Byzantium empire converted into a mosque in 1453 during Ottoman rule then was kept as a museum for so many years. This year turned into a mosque again, I wanted to be  jubilant like so many around me; but all I could think was that it was best if Hagia Sophia remained a museum.

And should I or should not blame it on my degree of European Studies?

Derrida must have been circumcised, to be born a Sephardic Jew in Algeria –no questions asked? But were his children?
Because mine are..
It is not the first time,  this is my second son. I went through the procedure three and a half years ago as well with my eldest son . I went and got everything done with a rock solid conscience.
But this time I questioned my husband if that was necessary. And his reply was you were pretty enthusiastic about your first son, why now?

… well I had no answer.

I remember when I gave my final defense of M. Phil. thesis, I gave a practice one to my father a night before, like this girl has been doing since grade I.
And listening to it he only reply was that, “You sound like a secular person.”
Blame me for reading Derrida and only Derrida for such a long time, or blame yourself (Abu) for letting me read Derrida for such long time or blame Derrida alone.
Those were my thoughts.

But was Derrida secular, or is he up there giving recitation of Vayicra and Breshiet.
I need to know, maybe I need to unread him extensively for next eight years
because I have to relearn my AlRahman.

Getting back to my boys’ circumcision, my elder one had a ring that came off in three days of several doses of panadol, three sleepless night, incessantly crying. But since he was rocking the whole house on the top of his lungs from day one; I was okay with his circumcision.

But my second child, he was calm from day one, worried me only for milk and spoiled diapers and would be asleep as soon as his needs will be met. Post circumcision he cried incessantly and he only cried then. The doses of augmentine will calm him but as soon the effect tapers off, his pain will come back (cue: incessant crying). To put salt on my wounds his procedure wasn’t with a ring but with a bandage and cotton that was stuck to his tummy with a tape. The procedure was done like a Naye (desi barber) – so much  for  a Dr. Brigadier in a posh hospital in a posh gated society. The local public hospital I went for my first born did a better procedure.

And did I  mention the lockdown and real impact of pandemic in the month of his circumcision (Mar ’20) in Pakistan. Oh the heightened heresy!

You must be thinking that you couldn’t see a more phallogocentric account of existential crisis- a detailed circumfession, then this.

Well you are wrong. Enter Sir Phillip Stewart

Click here to view the embedded video.

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It was in the early hours of that Friday 13 December 2019 that we learnt the results of the third general election in four years: the Tories had won a landslide, with an 80-seat majority.

England had turned predominantly blue.

It wasn’t so much a shock that the Tories had won – Labour was trailing behind for some time, even though the Tory government was considered by so many to be the worst that any of us could ever remember.

No, it was the size of the Tory majority that shocked and stunned – because they won their huge win with practically the same number of votes that they got in the previous general election of 2017, in which the party lost their majority entirely.

Clearly, something was terribly wrong with the country’s voting system to return such a distorted result, unrepresentative of the nation as a whole.

But, on that day, there were other things on people’s minds.

For one thing, it was over for Remain. Until Friday 13 December 2019, hopes were high among Remainers that Brexit could be legitimately, legally, and democratically reversed in a new referendum – a ‘People’s Vote’.

The European Court of Justice had ruled that, up to the expiry of the UK’s Article 50 notice to leave the EU, Brexit could be cancelled, and we could remain a full member of the EU as if nothing had happened.

But it was not to be. England turned blue. And so did the mood of Remainers.

(I immediately closed my Reasons2Remain campaign, but did relaunch it six months later as Reasons2Rejoin).

It was also over for Jeremy Corbyn. Labour had suffered its worst defeat since 1935.

And it was certainly over for Prime-Minister-wannabe, Jo Swinson, the LibDem leader who lost her seat, her credibility, and reduced her party’s presence in the Commons from 21 seats to 11.

 WHAT TO MAKE OF ALL THIS? Well, those of us who still support the UK’s membership of the EU, and who also support socially progressive polices for the country (i.e. not Tory policies) need to make something of it.

Otherwise, we will never learn from the mistakes of the past five years, and how to democratically turn them around,

Below is my contemporaneous analysis of the General Election result of 2019, written and published on 13 December 2019.

On re-reading it today, one year later, I think my conclusions were correct, but you can judge for yourself.

As a direct result of what happened in that general election of last year, today the UK is about to crash out of the EU Single Market and Customs Union with a no-deal or a skinny-deal Brexit, even though Boris Johnson promised us a ‘fantastic, oven-ready deal’.

It’s going to cause chaos for us all, on top of the devastation already being caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Would people have voted the same way a year ago, if they knew then, what we know now?

IF IT HAD BEEN A REFERENDUM, REMAIN COULD HAVE WON DATELINE 13 DECEMBER 2019: The LibDems, then the SNP, followed by Labour, made a catastrophic error of judgement in agreeing to hold yesterday’s general election.

Instead, the three parties – and others – could and should have worked together to resist Mr Johnson’s desperate plea to hold a new election.

Then, they could have bargained with the Tories to see through their Withdrawal Agreement, subject to it being put to a new referendum – a People’s Vote.

But they went ahead, almost gleefully, and acceded to Mr Johnson’s request, and in doing so (with the glittering exception of the SNP), fell on their swords and lost what was almost undoubtedly our last chance to achieve a democratic reversal of Brexit.

If only the general election yesterday had been a referendum, almost certainly Remain would have won. On the data now available, we know for sure that a majority voted for politicians calling for a new People’s Vote on Brexit.

History analyses are peppered with ‘what ifs’ and ‘if onlys’ – and this pivotal and historical moment was a big one.

The mistake by the LibDems, SNP and Labour in agreeing to the general election, instead of pushing together for that People’s Vote, will now fundamentally change the course and destiny of our country.

A destiny that millions in our country – probably a majority – do not want.

A Brexit that will hurt Britain and Britons, and change us into a more insular and xenophobic country, cut off from the mainland of our continent, pretending that everything is fine, when it won’t be at all.

 A LYING, RACIST PRIME MINISTER In Boris Johnson we have a liar and a racist for Prime Minister. We have known that for some time, but he amplified it when he complained earlier this week that EU migrants here have been able for too long to “treat the UK as if it’s part of their own country”.

That was shocking. Citizens here from the rest of the EU should feel that this is their country. They have made our country their home. And they should be welcomed. We need them, probably much more than they need us.

But in the same speech, Mr Johnson also claimed that “there’s basically been no control at all” of EU migrants coming here.

That’s untrue. EU migration to the UK is well controlled. Nobody from the EU can just arrive in the UK and claim benefits. They mostly come for jobs, and in the main, if there are no jobs, they either don’t come or don’t stay.

Under current rules, EU migrants can only stay for a limited time if they come here and can’t find a job, and they can be ejected or deported if they pose a threat to the country.

We’ve needed larger numbers of EU citizens coming here in recent years because we have millions more jobs than Britons to do them. It’s as simple as that. As we will all discover when Brexit continues to reduce their numbers here, severely hurting our businesses, our NHS, and therefore, us.

Yet, even so, EU migrants currently represent only around 5% of our population – that’s small and hardly mass immigration.

Is Mr Johnson’s new administration really, as he claimed today, ‘the people’s government’? Hardly

Because of the archaic nature of our first-past-the-post system of voting, most people didn’t choose the Tories to be their government with Boris Johnson as our Prime Minister.

 LABOUR’S MISTAKES When the general election was announced, I predicted that Labour would suffer its worst defeat since Michael Foot led his party to disaster in 1983. I got that slightly wrong. Yesterday was a worse defeat for Labour than that.

Labour’s wishy-washy policies on Brexit in great part lost them the general election. Some of their manifesto policies were brilliant, but offering so many radical changes in one go scared the public. And, of course, the public did not warm to Jeremy Corbyn.

Many of those who voted for the Tories did so not because they want Brexit, but because they wanted a government led by Mr Corbyn even less.

That’s the tragedy. Labour, with a different Brexit policy, and with more sellable, albeit radical, plans, under a different leader, could and should have won yesterday’s landslide.

 LIBDEM’S MISTAKES The LibDems were bold – some might say cocky – in having a policy simply to ‘cancel Brexit’ if they won power. The policy might have had more traction if the party had spent serious energy on properly and lucidly explaining to the country precisely why Brexit should be cancelled. But they didn’t.

Jo Swinson, the beleaguered new LibDem leader who is now their ex-leader, thought it would be enough to say that ‘cancelling Brexit’ was what the party believed to be right. But she was wrong.

It’s not enough for the party to believe in an exit from Brexit. The party also needed to work much harder in persuading the nation that this was the right course.

Jo Swinson, in putting herself forward as the next Prime Minister, was also seen as ridiculous grandstanding by many.

Instead – using the same winning principle as the basis of the European Union – all the anti-Brexit parties should have worked united and closely together to see off both Brexit and Boris.

Together, they could have represented a magnificent and winning force against a formidable enemy. Instead, divided, they have given the Tories an easy win, and have to take some responsibility for the bleak future our country now faces.

(Yes, I know, Brexiters will say I am being too pessimistic, and that Brexit will herald a new golden dawn for Britain. Well, let’s see what they say in a couple of years time).

 SNP’S VICTORY The SNP have done well, but their win won’t see off Brexit for Britain – and they could have resisted Johnson’s call for a snap general election. Instead, the new, stronger position of the SNP could see a successful attempt for Scotland to separate from the UK.

With Brexit, we now risk the break away of our country from two unions – the European one, and ours of the United Kingdom.

Some Brexiters respond that they don’t care. We don’t need Scotland, or Northern Ireland, or even Wales, they say.

We might end up as Little England, surrounded by EU countries. Is that really a prospect we can relish?

 REMAIN’S MISTAKES From the start, the Remain movement has been on the back foot, with inept, inefficient and unfocused campaigning.

We wasted the thirty years before the referendum in not seeing off the lies of the tabloids, that led a vicious, daily deluge of hate against the EU and migrants.

And we squandered the three years since the referendum, in not tackling the grotesque and continuing lies of Brexit politicians, and not properly explaining and promoting the positive benefits of EU membership.

The mainstream parties – Conservatives and Labour – should also be blamed for failing to take on Nigel Farage and his nasty, racist, dog whistle populism in the years before the referendum.

Instead, some leading Tory and Labour politicians pandered to his racism and anti-EU rhetoric, when they should have defused and defeated it from the outset.

That lost opportunity, however, directly led to us having a referendum, and to Remain losing it.

Remain should have won the referendum, but after losing, we should have won the chance to have a new referendum on the details of Brexit.

We failed, and many future books and essays will explore why that was the case.

 LACK OF AN EFFECTIVE PRO-REMAIN CAMPAIGN There has never been in the UK (and I really mean never) a proper, effective national campaign of awareness to promote and explain to the nation the positive benefits of EU membership. Many millions across the country are still completely unaware.

Many have no idea that the EU is a democracy, democratically run by its members for the benefit of members. Worse, they believe the exact opposite. That’s our fault.

If we didn’t tell them the facts, who would? Our enemies? Of course not.

I have been campaigning against Brexit since the word was invented (by a Remainer) back in 2012. It’s been a lonely and unrewarding journey.

Despite reaching out to all the main anti-Brexit groups (the ones with money, offices and salaried staff) none of them have wanted to embrace my work or to make use of it, even though it was all freely offered. Subsequently, my reach has been limited, my voice a small one.

Maybe they didn’t think my work – my 2,000+ articles and posters, and 200+ videos, aimed at providing the facts, evidence and arguments for EU membership – was any good. Fair enough.

But why didn’t they themselves launch an awareness campaign to explain about the positive benefits of EU membership? After all, they had the funds (and People’s Vote had 60 members of staff).

During the referendum campaign, the pro-Remain focus was on project fear. That strategy horrendously backfired.

Then, after the referendum, the main pro-Remain campaigning was about getting another vote, but hardly any resources or energy put into winning another vote.

We now won’t get another vote, but if the resources instead had been spent on winning the arguments to remain in the EU, the ensuing mass call for another referendum on Brexit might have been unassailable.

Other anti-Brexit groups, such as Infacts, have done sterling work, but they also had limited reach, and for unknown reasons, they never wanted to use my work (even though I first offered my help to them several months before the referendum).

So many lost opportunities; so many unanswered questions.

 THE END OF REMAIN. THE START OF REJOIN? As I wrote on the eve of yesterday’s general election, if the Tories win power with a working majority, it’s over for Remain.

Well, the Tories have won a landslide majority. We can no longer be Remainers, but we could be Rejoiners – although that is likely to be a long and difficult journey ahead.

Thank you to all our supporters. It’s the end of the road now for the Reasons2Remain campaign. We tried our best, with just a small team of volunteers (to whom I am hugely grateful) and with no funding or resources, or interest from the main players.

Maybe there will be new groupings and opportunities ahead for a resurgence of a pro-EU campaign. I won’t close doors, but it seems now I need to find new pastures, after 7-years of campaigning for the cause.

Despite our huge setback, we should all hope for the best, and if new and credible opportunities arise to undo the terrible mistake that Brexit represents, we need to embrace them firmly, but at the same time, to learn from our previous mistakes.

Best wishes and (hopefully despite everything) a Merry Christmas to you all.

________________________________________________

That was my analysis written one year ago, on 13 December 2019. Since then I have re-launched Reasons2Remain as Reasons2Rejoin.

• Video: Why the EU was started and why Britain joined:

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The post The day England turned blue appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Not many decisions taken by the European Court of Justice make it beyond the nerdish    case law debates relished by our law colleagues at the UACES conference. True, a few directives make the mainstream news headlines, going as far as to impact major votes, just ask Frits Bolkestein. But, certainly, a simple ruling that triggers heated discussions among ordinary people across the entire continent is more the exception than the rule.

One such exception, perhaps the most striking one, is the judgement of case C-415/93, dated 15 December 1995, known as ‘the Bosman ruling’, in recognition of the second-class Belgian footballer who turned European football upside down with the help of very able Liège-based lawyers and the support of the footballers trade union, FIFPro.

For those who care little about football or have lived on another planet for the last quarter century, here’s the story in a nutshell: by taking the Belgian football federation and European football’s governing body (UEFA) to court, Jean-Marc Bosman imposed the application of the free movement of workers within the European Union to professional football players. As a result, a player whose contract had expired could no longer be held hostage by his club under the pretext of transfer fees, a traditional practice in football that the Dutch MEP Van Raay said amounted to ‘slavery’. The court also ruled that quotas limiting the number of foreign players were, when applied to EU citizens, a discrimination against nationals from other member states and therefore to be abolished.

Cartoon by Chenez for L’Equipe, December 1995.

The football governing bodies – UEFA, national federations, leagues, and clubs – immediately adopted a self-victimising discourse, heralding that this would be the end of football as we knew it. UEFA President Johanssen even went so far as to claim, ‘the EU is trying to destroy football’. They shed crocodile tears over the sacred independence of the sport movement and publicly decried the reign of the market in an activity that was not to be considered an economic one.

This was all the more intriguing as all of them had been extremely busy, over the entire first half of the 1990s, turning football into a full-fledged economic activity, increasingly disconnected from its grassroots. It was not Bosman or the EU who initiated the path-breaking Premier League spin-off (1991) and sold its TV rights to BskyB (1992) under dubious circumstances. It was not Bosman and the EU either who launched the UEFA Champions League (does anyone see the irony here?) as a cash machine to maximise revenues for what became a small elite of super-rich clubs (1992). The massive liberalisation process that shook the European football market in the early nineties was already under way when Bosman simply asked to have his rights respected.

What the Bosman ruling did inaugurate was, of course, a new era of player mobility. The end of the quotas for EU nationals led to a quick and massive change in the composition of top-tier teams, especially as virtually all major leagues, while publicly deploring this disconnection from local and regional roots, were remarkably quick to extend – without being forced to do so – the abolition of quotas to players from beyond the borders of EU-15. (Take note, UACES Graduate Forum, there’s a real knowledge gap to fill by qualitative doctoral research on the opaque decision-making in European football bodies of the 1990s!)

The ruling also had a strong impact on the transfer market, both with regard to (skyrocketing) transfer fees for top players still under contract and, inevitably, an extreme concentration of talent in a small handful of top leagues financially privileged by a large television market. The latter effect was particularly felt in France, which found itself the number one purveyor of talent for top clubs in England, Italy, Germany and Spain: while the French squad for Euro1996 counted 18 players playing in their domestic championship, two years later only 9 of 22 World Cup winners were under contract with a French club.

What it did not change was, surprisingly, the intensity of feelings of belonging invested by supporters in their club. As David Ranc has pointed out in his monograph, supporters identify in manifold ways with their club, and contrary to a widespread assumption, the origin of the players who wear the sacred jersey plays a very negligible role. (Yes, we supporters want our team to win, not necessarily sport a line-up of eleven local footballers).

In retrospective, while the Bosman ruling certainly is a ‘landmark’ in the history of European sports, it is exaggerated to call it a ‘revolution’, as mainstream media like to do. In their longitudinal study of football’s migration patterns, Pierre Lanfranchi and Matthew Taylor referred to is as a mere ‘excuse for deregulation’, which ‘added impetus to a trend already in motion’ (Moving with the Ball, Berg, 2001, p. 222).

Cartoon by Plantu, for Le Monde, Dec. 1995.

In political terms, however, it may even be said the Bosman case and the massive debate it provoked among football lovers across the continent (a non-negligible community) had a lasting impact on the perception of sport by European institutions. It raised awareness among policy-makers that sport was “too serious a business to be left to the sportspeople”, to paraphrase Georges Clémenceau’s famous quote about the military. Very quickly, institutions and sport bodies moved ‘from confrontation to cooperation’, and as early as in a “Declaration on Sport” annexed to the Amsterdam Treaty, it was highlighted that European institutions were to ‘to listen to sports associations’. Another sport-related political declaration was annexed to the Nice Treaty.

Later on, sport found its way into the Lisbon Treaty (the famous article 165), and judging by the remarkable selection of sport-related projects now funded by the ERASMUS+ programme year after year, the awareness-raising process in which the Bosman ruling played a major role, is well under way.

Finally, on a more self-interested note, we owe the Bosman ruling that football all of a sudden became a study of the ‘Europeanisation’ strand of academic research, highlighting the relevance of this fascinating multi-dimensional phenomenon of everyday European integration and providing it with a whole new respectability (for which the development of the Sport&EU association provides convincing evidence).

Merci beaucoup, Monsieur Bosman, and happy 25th birthday to the ruling that bears your name! Your action will be gratefully remembered.

The post 25 years later, the multifaceted legacy of the Bosman ruling appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Is there really something so exceptional and special about Britain that makes the requirements of our country so different to all the other countries of Europe?

British newspapers have today referred to the gap between the UK and the EU, mostly relating to the issue of sovereignty.

But really, this is not about a gap between us and them. That’s an illusion.

If sovereignty is the real issue, why doesn’t Germany, France or Belgium bellyache about their sovereignty?

Are those countries so different to ours that something that seems so important to us is not important to them?

No. The issue isn’t really about our sovereignty. It’s about the power of the people who now govern the United Kingdom.

Remember the mantra – the slogan – of the Brexit campaign? It was:

‘Take back control’

But do you really think that was about the likes of you or me taking any control? Will Brexit give you or me control over our country’s borders, laws or money?

Of course not.

This is not about US but about THEM having control; those people who are now our political masters.

• If Boris Johnson et al had real respect for the notion of sovereignty, don’t you think they’d behave differently towards sovereignty of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?
• If sovereignty meant something to the hard-line Brexiters now in charge, don’t you think they’d recognise and acknowledge the sovereignty of the European Union?
• If they really wanted to give us, ‘the people’, more control, don’t you think they would have allowed Parliament a proper say from the start?

Since the referendum result, the Tories in charge have played every trick they can muster to bypass Parliament, whether through Royal Prerogatives, Henry VIII clauses, denial of debates or even to close Parliament itself.

This is not about our sovereignty. This is not about our control. This is about their sovereignty and their control.

For us mere citizens, Brexit means we have lost control.

Of course, if Britain wants to trade freely and fairly with our European neighbours, we have to abide by the rules of trade for our continent – as democratically decided by the remaining member countries of the EU (all of them, that is, except us).

Brexit means we’ve lost all control of those laws. We used to have a say in them. But now, we’ve been stripped of our sovereignty over our continent.

Brexiters in government don’t want to obey the rules of Europe that, through their doing, we no longer help to decide. Of course not.

Instead, they want to control our country’s laws, borders and money.

Not you. Not me. Them.

Don’t believe me? Just look at how the government is handing out multi-million-pound contracts to their mates, without the usual public scrutiny and accountability.

Our money, under their control. Our country, under their control.

Yes, there is a gap. A huge gap in understanding of what is really going on here.

Brexit means we – the people – have lost control. It means we have lost sovereignty. It means we have lost our continent.

We didn’t get our country back. We gave it away to the most right-wing reactionary government in recent history.

Only when we truly ‘take back control’ might we get our country back, and our rightful place as a full and engaging member of our continent.

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Just a quick note about József Szájer, the Hungarian MEP, who resigned over attending a party despite the strict lockdown rules in Belgium.

Breaking the lockdown rules is unacceptable, but attending an orgy party is a personal choice, and one should not be bashed for it.

There is one thing that has deeply touched me about Juózsef Szájer’s situation is that how much dishonest he has been to himself about his sexual orientation.

I cannot say for sure, but Szájer’s upbringing or the Hungarian Conservative social structures might have coerced him to disguise and disregard his true identity over the years.

Plus, the fact that Viktor Orban’s, the Hungarian Prime Minister, anti-LGBTQ policy choices and constitutional changes have also come from Szájer, it makes his state of being a bit more complicated and problematic.

I am curious to know if he came up with anti-LGBTQ policies to stay close to power and therefore, to Orban; while doing that he hated himself every day for what Fidesz was doing to the LGBTQ communities in Hungary.  Alternatively, was he okay with it because this is the socially given norm, which he had accepted all throughout life. Perhaps we should all take responsibility for such conundrum.

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Seeking work and shelter in another EU country proves more difficult today than at the end of the last century. Despite existing EU legislation, national administrations seem reluctant to facilitate the residence of certain European citizens. Julien Bois calls for the European Commission to again clarify citizens’ free-movement rights, taking into account societal and judicial developments and administrative practices that have developed in the last 15 years.

The European Commission should take into account legal developments in the field of free-movement rights and issue a clarification. Photo from Edinburgh by Lāsma Artmane on Unsplash

Seeking work and shelter in another European Union (EU) country proves more difficult today than at the end of the 20th century. National administrations seem reluctant to facilitate the residence of certain European citizens. Despite existing legislation (Directive 2004/38/EC on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States), citizens have difficulties overcoming administrative hurdles when trying to obtain residence documents, have their third-country national family members joining them abroad, or simply obtaining social benefits in their new country of residence.

A genuine political union?

The adoption of the Maastricht Treaty created European citizenship. It meant that every citizen could move and reside freely in another EU country, even if they were not economically active. Discrimination on the grounds of nationality thus proved illegal under EU law, and foreign citizens were given the same social rights as nationals.

The Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) played a key role in favoring cross-border mobility and residence. It granted economically inactive parents and students the possibility to receive support from their new state of residence. The legislator outlined the scope of residence rights with a text that clearly defined the rights and obligations attached to EU citizenship. By tying citizenship less to common market considerations and more to fundamental rights, as Adrienne Yong points to in her recent book, EU institutions took a major step towards a genuine political union.

Restrictions on free movement rights

Yet the mood has clearly changed in the last 10 years. The economic and financial crisis led European countries to tighten public spending. Mobile citizens also became victims of public spending cuts. EU countries restricted access to welfare by denying previously accepted requests or withholding access to needed documents like residence permits.

The CJEU departed from its earlier expansive reach of EU citizenship to a narrow interpretation of the rules regulating free movement. It famously put an end to social tourism in the Union and has not helped former workers to stay beyond six months even if its earlier case law hinted towards this possibility.

The Commission issued further guidance on the application of the free-movement directive in 2009, but has not followed up despite dramatic changes in the socio-economic environment in European countries. As a result, some parts of the directive are not applied. Family members of EU citizens who are third-country nationals (TNC) are often required to provide visas, despite their right to move visa-free in the Schengen area. Some groups remain particularly prone to frequent residence documents checks although this is clearly prohibited.

There is no consensual definition of “public policy grounds” which allow member states to deport or refuse entry of EU citizens into their territory in order to prevent disturbance of social order. The European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless (FEANTSA) reports that member states have adopted different approaches as a result. National authorities in Spain, France, Italy and Portugal keep refusing marriage and birth certificates issued in a non-EU country even for EU citizens or for their TCN family members.

As Martin Risak and Thomas Dullinger have shown, member states also adopt generalized thresholds when assessing the working situation of mobile EU citizens, despite the provision in Directive 2004/38/EC to assess situations on a case-by-case basis. National administrations have adopted either a minimum income threshold and/or a minimum number of hours worked per week for the activity to be considered work, and these thresholds are much higher than those retained by the CJEU’s case law. These are a few examples of the many uncertainties that Sandra Mantu and Paul Minderhoud have identified in EU law regulating cross-border mobility. Others relate to ‘comprehensive medical insurance’, or ‘sufficient resources’.

Same-sex marriage and other societal developments

The adoption in 2004 of a directive regulating the exercise of free movement and residence was a welcome move for EU institutions and national administrations in their task of facilitating the exercise of one of the core freedoms enshrined in the EU treaties. But no such text can foresee the developments in society. Free movement in the EU in 2020 does not hold the same meaning as it did in 2004. Since then, the definition of labor has changed, same-sex marriage lawfully contracted in a member state shall be recognized as such across the EU’s territory (Coman case), the length of residence shall be taken into account when considering deportation on grounds of public policy.

Some of these uncertainties displayed effects early on, which led the Commission in 2009 to issue the above-mentioned clarification of the directive on free movement and residence. It answered some questions raised by citizens, national administrations and judiciaries at the time, which had implications for the situation of thousands of mobile citizens and their family members.

Putting an end to uncertainty

The increasing flow of mobile citizens, the unequal application of free movement and residence rights and the ambiguities displayed by the case-law of the Court of Justice all point to the need for further clarification of the free movement regime, according to the European Citizen Action Service (ECAS).

While a full overhaul of the directive 2004/38 EC does not seem necessary as it provides the grounding rules that still fit the societal situation in 2020, a new communication would be a welcome move to help clarifying certain aspects of a necessary vague text. While the current situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic demands a halt to non-essential travels, the demand for further clarification remains greater than ever for EU citizens who seek to establish themselves in their new member states in these troubled times.

A clarification from the European Commission would hardly be demanding, as it would only have to consider judiciary developments and administrative practices regarding situations not foreseen by the legislator 15 years ago. It would simply be to ask what is required of any political system based on the rule of law: the end of uncertainty. Today, many do not know what may happen when residing in another member state. All it takes is a few words to put an end to uncertainty.

This post was developed during the author’s stay at the European Citizen Action Service (ECAS) as Marie-Sklodowska Curie visiting fellow in March 2020.

The post Strangers at the gates: denying residence rights in Europe in the 21st century appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Anfang September habe ich hier einmal zusammengetragen, was man zu dem Zeitpunkt über das neue Bundesamt für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten (BfAA) wissen konnte. Seitdem sind noch mehr Informationen veröffentlicht worden. Daher gibt’s hier ein Update.

Was wir im September bereits wussten oder was sich aus Quellen andeutet:

• Das BfAA wird für das Auswärtige Amt (und vielleicht auch für andere Ministerien) Fördermitteln und Zuwendungen, zum Beispiel im Bereich humanitärer Hilfsprojekte, verwalten.
• Es soll die Visavergabe z.T. managen.
• Es wird das Auslandsschulwesen betreuen.
• Die Rechnungslegung des Auswärtigen Amts wird an das BfAA übertragen.

Seitdem sind neue Details bekannt geworden:

• Die Personalausgaben im Haushalt des AAs werden von 2020 auf 2021 um 96 Millionen Euro reduziert. Laut eines Presseberichts (Business Insider) sei ein Großteil der Einspaarung auf Verlagerungen in das BfAA zurückzuführen. Allerdings spricht eine Pressemitteilung des AAs von einem geplanten Budget von 15,25 Millionen Euro für 2021 für das BfAA.
• Das BfAA wird für das “Immobilienmanagement Ausland” zuständig sein. Dafür wird es eine ganze Abteilung geben, die sich unter anderem um Baumaßnahmen rund um die Auslandsvertretungen kümmern soll. (Quelle: Stellenausschreibung Abteilungsleiter A16)
• Das BfAA soll vor allem für die Visavergabe im Inland zur Umsetzung des neuen Fachkräfteeinwanderungsgesetzes zuständig sein. (Quelle: Kleine Anfrage)
• Stellenausschreibungen im Bereich des Auslandsschulwesens enthalten bereits den Hinweis, dass ab Übertragung der Stelle in das BfAA eine Zulage von bis zu 330€ gezahlt wird. (Quelle: Bundesverwaltungsamt)
• Das BfAA sucht insbesondere Sachbearbeiter*innen und arbeitet für die Gewinnung von Mitarbeiter*innen mit der Arbeitsagentur in Brandenburg(Havel) zusammen. (Quelle: MOZ; Stellenausschreibungen siehe letzter Blogpost)

Ansonsten gibt es auch eine Reihe von Vorschusslorbeeren: Bundesinnenminister Seehofer sieht das BfAA schon vorab als gelungenes Beispiel für die Verlagerung von (Bundes)Verwaltungen in “strukturschwache ländliche Räume” (Quelle: BR). Der Bürgermeister von Brandenburg(Havel) hob bei seiner Rede zum 30. Jahrestag der Deutschen Einheit die Ansiedlung des Amts als eine der Erfolgsgeschichten der Nachwendezeit hervor. Und der neue Leiter des Bundesamts, der aus Nordrhein-Westfalen stammende Georg Birgelen, freut sich “fast im Rentenalter” nicht nur auf die neue Aufgabe sondern auch auf das Fahrradfahren um die Brandenburger Seen.

In weniger als sechs Wochen soll es losgehen, wobei einiges darauf hinweist, dass ein Großteil der Amtsgeschäfte erstmal noch aus Berlin geleitet wird. Mal schauen, wie schnell das Amt hier in Brandenburg an der Havel Fuß fasst.

 

The post Das Bundesamt für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten (BfAA): Ein Update appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Today’s a special day, for several reasons.

Most importantly, it’s the launch of our new Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence in the Centre for Britain and Europe, with many excellent speakers (and me). You can follow the discussion on Twitter on #SurreyBritainEurope and by following our account.

But it’s also important as the deadline for talks on the Future Relationship.

Except it’s not.

The continued non-progress in negotiations has meant that today’s informal European Council, slated for several weeks as the decision point, will not now do anything more than receive a status report.

While this might be seen to be a positive, in that talks haven’t collapsed, it’s also clear that any possibility of concluding even a partial ratification on both sides before 31 December is looking vanishingly small. My two regular trackers below highlight the lack of time and the scale of the task.

One silver-lining: it means our keynote speaker, Katya Adler, is unlikely to get called away by breaking news.

The post Another day, another deadline appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Before the referendum, David Frost, Britain’s Brexit negotiator, advised that remaining in the EU would be better than leaving. 

In June 2016, just before the big vote, Mr Frost (as he was then – he’s now Lord) wrote an article for a pamphlet published by Portland Communications on what would happen in the event of Brexit.

Lord Frost’s piece was called, ‘Can the UK secure free trade outside the EU?’

Back then, his answer was not hopeful.

He was the CEO of the Scotch Whisky Association but wrote his article in a personal capacity.

There were two key questions, he asserted.

• Can any future trading arrangements, as a matter of theory, be as good as the current ones provided by membership?
• Is it possible to negotiate such arrangements, as a matter of practical politics?

Concluded Lord Frost:

“I have doubts on both points.”

He explained, “There’s a very simple trade-off in this area.

“It is that the more independent your national trade policy is, the more difficult it is to negotiate completely barrier-free access to any other country.”

 A MAMMOTH UNDERTAKING Negotiating new free trade agreements in the event of Brexit is “a mammoth undertaking”.

“Simply setting out the task underlines how risky a decision to Vote Leave will be” he wrote.

If, as is the case with the UK, pointed out Lord Frost, “a country is already part of a customs union and has already adapted its trading arrangements to it, the case for change has to be overwhelming.”

He asserted then, “It isn’t.”

Lord Frost clearly understood the problems in great detail. He wrote that it’s “important to remember that trade is no longer about making one product and sending it across one border.”

The situation in the modern world is much more complicated.

“Most modern products are made up of components from many other countries.

“A car finished in Germany might have components made in Italy, incorporated into a larger component in the UK, be re-exported to France and incorporated again, be sent back to the UK and incorporated in (say) the final car engine, before going back to Germany for final assembly.

“The result is that it would cross the UK border more than once and the administrative costs of doing so would keep mounting up.

“That would be a barrier, over time, to making the components in the UK in the first place.

“So all these arrangements would leave the UK with less access to the single market than before.”

Lord Frost asked a pertinent question.

“Would this be outweighed by freedom to negotiate our own trading arrangements with other countries?

“A simple bit of maths shows the answer is no.”

He went on to explain that the EU already has free trade agreements covering nearly 60% of the UK’s trade, including the EU itself.

“If TTIP and the EU/Japan FTA can be negotiated soon, that figure goes up to 80%.

“It can’t possibly make sense to have less good arrangements with the 60% or 80% in return for slightly better arrangement with the 20%”

In another argument against Brexit, Lord Frost went on to explain that the single market is plausibly worth 5% of GDP, which would be boosted by the EU’s future new trade agreements with other countries, such as Japan and India.

He concluded that:

“It simply isn’t worth jeopardising access to the single market for the sake of global trade.”

 NEGOTIATING REALITIES Negotiating “realities” were another barrier to Brexit.

“After leaving, the UK will have to renegotiate trading arrangements simultaneously with many major countries, including the EU,” wrote Lord Frost.

“Britain will be demandeur* and so it will be Britain that has to make the concessions to get the deal. True, other countries will want deals too, but they won’t be under anything like the same time pressure and can afford to make us sweat.”

[* i.e. the country applying for the trade agreement]

Another barrier to Brexit would be the “formidable administrative task” involved.

“Trade negotiations are complex and a good modern trade agreement requires many stakeholders within a country to be involved in the negotiations and be ready to implement the result.”

Explained Lord Frost:

“That is why negotiations take years not months.”

He added, “The EU is involved in perhaps a dozen live FTA negotiations at any one time and even that puts strain on the system.

“The UK would have to do many more, with few experienced trade negotiators at our disposal.”

 THE BOTTOM LINE The bottom line?

“In reality therefore what we can negotiate will fall short of the theoretical ideal..

“In short, even the best-case outcome can’t be as good as what we have now; and we won’t be able to negotiate the best-case outcome anyway, because in real life you never can.”

That’s not all, because “these negotiations would not be happening in a vacuum.”

Lord Frost pointed out:

“There would be political turbulence in Britain and, no doubt, the EU.”

He continued: “Firms and other countries would see that the future arrangements for British trade were up in the air and that existing tariff-free access could not be ensured.

“So it could be a traumatic and difficult period, with no guarantee of a good outcome.”

 LORD FROST’S RECOMMENDATION (THEN) What would Lord Frost recommend if he was Britain’s negotiator in the event of Leave winning the referendum?

Believe it or not, Lord Frost recommended a Norway Brexit – even though that would mean retaining Free Movement of People.

He explained:

“Exit from the EU to a Norway model is probably the easiest thing to negotiate, because the model already exists, it would be hard to refuse us, and Britain would keep access to the single market and apply single market legislation.”

Over time, he wrote then, the UK could move towards a Swiss style Brexit.

But, he added:

“All this said, there is no doubt that leaving would be fraught with economic risk.

“It would be a step into uncertainty and, in many key respects, into the unknown.

“If this is the situation on 24th June, we will face an anxious and potentially turbulent time.”

Today, Lord Frost seems to be a different man with an entirely different agenda.

He is attempting to negotiate a deal with the EU that he not only wrote before the referendum wouldn’t be possible, but also, wouldn’t be desirable.

In reality, doesn’t this show what a two-faced sham Brexit represents?

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The post Britain’s Brexit negotiator warned against Brexit appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

By Sarah Adeyinka, PhD Candidate at Ghent University

The fields of migration studies and human trafficking research (especially in Europe) are diverse and well-researched. Much work has been done among vulnerable populations such as refugees, unaccompanied minors, and victims of trafficking, including their experiences, push and pull factors, integration, etc. However, more work is needed to understand their experiences beyond the legal and policy aspects to consider their mental health and psychosocial wellbeing in the countries of settlement.

The term stigma dates back to the Greeks, who cut or burned marks into the skin of criminals, slaves, and traitors to identify them as tainted or immoral people who should be avoided. Stigma, however, is more than a physical mark and comprises two fundamental components- the recognition of difference and devaluation. Simply put, recognising differences (which may differ from the norm) in a person and attributing less value to them because of those differences. Stigma, therefore, comprises of intolerance and discrimination. “Show a people as one thing, only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become”.

My research, a longitudinal study, adopts a mixed-methods approach and addresses the psychosocial impact of human trafficking on young, Nigerian women in Italy. One of the main findings from 31 interviews was the prevalence of stigma. The majority of the young women expressed how they felt stigmatized during various aspects of the journey, including while transiting in Libya and after arrival in Italy.

Working with or carrying out research among victims of trafficking comes with unique challenges and ethical dilemmas and I discovered that stigma is one of them. The instances of (perceived) stigma experienced by this group and their interpretation of it determine how they relate with others – including researchers.

The interviewees were by virtue of being Black, irregular migrants automatically assumed to be working in prostitution. They described being treated unfairly and pestered by men who said that prostitution was the only job available to ‘people like them’. I gained a bit of personal insight into this reality when in different Italian cities, cars pulled up on the curb next to me and the male drivers asked me how much I charge. Since I was dressed semi-formally and carrying my laptop backpack, I can only deduce that they assumed I worked in prostitution based mainly because I am a Black woman.

Stigma was also experienced at the hands of caregivers as some of the staff assumed that Nigerians are always at fault. A participant shared information with an NGO staff who discussed informed consent with her and promised that the conversation would be treated as highly confidential. Yet, she found her full story, including intimate details, posted on the NGO website as the story of one of their ‘helpees’. This led to others including the shelter manager reading it and confronting her about parts of her story that she had hidden from them, including past experiences of violence and sexual assault. She was distraught and has since refused to trust any NGO staff.

Several participants had similar experience of distrusting people who wanted to ‘help’ them for fear confidentiality would be breached. Indicating that while many actors may have the interests of migrants at heart, some do not effectively take into account or respect the rights of the very people they claim to help.

There were also instances where the participants upon boarding a bus, noticed people covering their noses, making them feel out of place and unwelcome. Thereby, treating migrant bodies (or colour of their skin) as problematic, and devaluing it. These non-verbal indications of discomfort, or even displeasure, communicate a message of difference and that being different is bad.

These experiences of stigma, however, were not only external, they were also internal. Some of the women experienced stigma within the group; e.g. those who had children as a result of rape or who were unsure of the paternity of their children. Leading several of them to make up stories about who and where the father of the child was. It is very important therefore, that confidentiality is highly respected and honoured, and no information is taken for granted or discussed under the assumption that it is common knowledge.

Stigma among victims of trafficking is multi-layered and multifaceted and a topic that requires more research and attention. Since stigma exists in social interactions and not in isolation or solitude, it is imperative that the social contexts are taken into consideration as well.

In conclusion, I want to stress the importance of remembering that the rights of people in vulnerable groups must be respected. These include, but are not limited to, teenage victims of loverboys, victims of trafficking, undocumented migrants etc. Their rights to privacy and confidentiality should be respected like we would respect that of the citizen of an EU country. The recently released EU Pact on Migration and Asylum touches on several important aspects- one of which is ‘supporting legal integration into local communities’. This would be beneficial for my group of participants because it would help them be seen as humans who also desire to add value to society. It would begin the process of changing the narrative that portrays them as less than, and in some cases, a derogatory other.

It is important that actors like NGOs while trying to assist these people and raise the required funds for their organisations take extra precaution in telling the stories of migrants- their express consent without inhibition should be sought. As researchers, we must hold ourselves accountable for how we frame our work and communicate about our respondents because while absolute neutrality is impossible, having a nuanced perspective and an open mind is key. Stigma occurs in social interaction as mentioned earlier therefore, a regular evaluation of policies and programs is important to see what is being done well and what could be improved upon, what could in fact be stigmatising and what could be beneficial.

 

 

Sarah is currently a PhD candidate at Ghent University where she is part of the ERC funded ChildMove project and is conducting research on the impact of transit experiences on the wellbeing of unaccompanied minors. Her part of the project focuses on young Nigerian women that were trafficked into Italy for sexual exploitation. She is also the founder of CoCreate NGO.

The post Stigma: Perspectives of Nigerian women trafficked into Europe appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

European Union’s (EU) capacity of influencing (and even changing) other actors without recurring to coercion is one of its defining features as an international player. Although it has been seriously challenged by the economic and financial crisis, migration crisis, terrorists’ attacks and the Brexit, the countries to EU’s East continue to look for strengthening of their existing ties with the EU. This makes it important to analyse the Eastern Partnership (EaP), an initiative which celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2019, targeting a group of six countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. The EU made an unprecedented offer to these states: a perspective of Association Agreements and the associated Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Areas. While this offer could be expected to reinforce the EU’s standing in the region, one cannot forget that the relations between the EU and the EaP states do not evolve in a vacuum, and in this particular region, this means paying attention to an important regional actor, namely, Russia. So how far can the EU project its influence towards the EaP countries?

Georgia and Ukraine are two EaP states that have accepted the Association Agreements as their ‘civilizational choice’, resulting in a course on comprehensive adoption of EU’s norms, values, and regulations, while simultaneously rejecting participation in any Russia-led integration initiatives. Moreover, both have been constantly putting forward initiatives that go beyond their existing advanced relationship with the EU. In addition to Ukraine and Georgia, Moldova has also embraced the EU’s offer of the Association Agreement and all three states have been keen to emphasise the ‘irreversibility’ of their political course. Armenia in its turn has adopted the position of ‘complementarity’ between its advanced cooperation with the EU’s and its adherence to the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union. While explicitly abstaining from references to the EU as a ‘civilizational choice’, Armenia has nevertheless concluded its own Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement with the EU, and has continuously emphasized the importance of reform process. As for Belarus and Azerbaijan, they demonstrated no interest in signing an Association Agreement. While Azerbaijan’s has abstained not only from the EU’s but also Russia-led integration initiatives, Belarus embraced the latter (a position that may be changing in the course of 2020 post-election protests).

There are further important differences among individual countries. For instance, while both in Georgia and Ukraine as well as Moldova, the increasing rapprochement with the EU has been evolving along with detachment from Russia, such detachment has been more moderate in Moldova than in the two other states. At the same time, within the group of ‘contesters’, Belarus and Azerbaijan have been acting upon different premises, and contrary to Azerbaijan, Belarus has never insisted on a special type of (Strategic Partnership) agreement with the EU.

This is not to say that there are no ideas shared by the majority EaP states: the idea of a EU-supported reform process has been central to the leaderships in Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and Moldova (and until 2013, also to Azerbaijan). However, even when certain ideas are shared by EaP countries, they need to be approached carefully, since they may reflect radically different positions. For instance, the idea of ‘complementarity’ related to the Association Agreements in Moldova, Armenia as well as Belarus, corresponds to fundamentally different visions of cooperation with the EU. In Belarus, ‘complementarity’ supports the idea of ‘pragmatism’ and the notion of Belarus as a ‘cooperation platform’ between the East and the West. This is contrary to Moldova, where ‘complementarity’ reveals a potentially problematic relationship with the idea of ‘(ir)reversibility’ of Moldova’s integration with the EU. This means that any possible institutional compromises (such as Armenia’s aforementioned advanced cooperation agreement) are not viewed as a unequivocally positive precedent guiding and supporting reform process, but rather associated with a danger of abandoning of the existing Association Agreement with the EU and the ensuing course on reforms.  This explains why the idea to connect, institutionally, the Eurasian Economic Union and EaP has been raising concern in Moldova while welcomed in Belarus.

The systematic analysis of all the EaP states positions between 2009 and 2019 allows for the conclusion that the EU maintains its capacity of influencing and changing the EaP states, even though there are significant variations. The same cannot be said about Russia: its power of attraction is uncertain even in such closely aligned countries as Armenia and Belarus.

This blog post draws on the JCMS article, ‘The European Union’s ‘Potential We’ between Acceptance and Contestation: Assessing the Positioning of Six Eastern Partnership Countries’.

 

 

Alena Vysotskaya Guedes Vieira is Professor at the University of Minho, Portugal, and the Integrated Member of the Research Centre in Political Science (CICP). She holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Erlangen-Nuernberg, and was Visiting Research at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, at the Institute for Strategic and International Studies (Lisbon), and at the University of Leuven. She also published several briefing papers and reports for EU institutions and other think-tanks (orcid 000-0002-5643-0398).

The post Between the European Union and Russia: A Decade in the Contested Neighbourhood appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Covid-19 has once again put EU solidarity to the test. While much of the focus has been on the pandemic’s impact on healthcare and the European economy, it has also pushed states further apart on the issue of irregular migration.

Prior to the Covid-19 outbreak, the issue of irregular migration had been at the top of the EU’s political agenda for over a decade. At the same time, the governance of migration proved to be the most complex and problematic area of governance in the EU due to the multiplicity of interests within the Union which are in constant flux.

Disagreement between EU leaders was brought to the fore during the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ of 2015-17 when the EU received the largest influx of irregular migrants since the end of the Second World War. Consequently, EU institutions and member states were unable to forge a common approach to deal with the crisis. Indeed, rather than developing a long-term strategy, a series of short-term ad hoc measures were implemented, which ultimately failed to alleviate pressure on those member states facing high migration pressures.

The EU’s inability to develop a coherent response to the crisis resulted in political cleavages both between and within the national and supranational levels. This was primarily reflected in the deadlocked inter-institutional negotiations on the reform of the Dublin Regulation revolving around the question of whether to replace the ‘state of first entry’ rule with a mandatory relocation mechanism to distribute asylum seekers across EU member states. These cleavages were exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic which further exposed serious flaws in EU migration governance as well as the EU’s limitations in the face of crisis.

EU institutions and member states have similarly failed to overcome their differences and pull together in the spirit of solidarity during the pandemic. Even though, unlike the asymmetrical impact of the ‘refugee crisis’, the pandemic has affected all states bar none. Still, following the outbreak of Covid-19, divisions have grown deeper within the EU in terms of its approach to irregular migration, stemming from the fact that policymaking in this field continues to be dominated by national concerns. Accordingly, the pandemic has further strained intergovernmental relations in the EU. Against this backdrop, the EU remains as divided as ever in terms of its response to irregular migration, despite irregular arrivals to Europe decreasing in the aftermath of the 2015-17 crisis.

While the governance of migration in the EU is becoming increasingly fragmented, it is also becoming increasingly restrictive towards irregular migrants. In this regard, the pandemic has augmented the perceived threat of irregular migrants as they are being increasingly viewed as spreaders, resulting in the implementation of more restrictive migration measures in most EU member states. For instance, Italy and Malta have closed their ports to persons rescued at sea for the duration of the health emergency. Both governments later stated that migrants rescued in the Mediterranean would be quarantined at sea in order to prevent the spread of the virus, sparking criticism from NGOs advocating migrants’ rights.

Restrictive measures taken by other member states included reintroducing internal border controls within the Schengen Area to prevent irregular secondary movements of migrants from neighbouring states under the guise of protecting public health. Certain states, such as Austria, Denmark, France, Germany and Sweden, have had border checks in place since the outbreak of the previous crisis in 2015.

Given that the main migratory routes into the EU are across the Mediterranean, the southern EU members have been at the forefront in dealing with the issue of irregular migration and hence have assumed a much higher degree of asylum responsibility. Furthermore, due to their geographical proximity to main departure points for irregular migrants, they are disadvantaged by the Dublin rules, which in most cases assign asylum responsibility to the first EU state in which an asylum seeker arrives. Nonetheless, as in previous years, appeals for solidarity by the southern member states have largely fallen on deaf ears.

One such case in point is the Malta Declaration agreed upon by Italy and Malta together with France and Germany in September 2019 under the Finnish Presidency of the Council of the EU, whereby the five states declared their intent to develop a new scheme for disembarkation and relocation of migrants rescued at sea to ease pressure on Italy and Malta. The proposal, however, was rejected the following month by EU interior ministers in the Justice and Home Affairs Council.

The Covid-19 crisis is giving rise to a similar response from EU member states and the pursuit of national interests rather than common ones. More concretely, the pandemic has revealed the lack of solidarity and unity in the EU response to irregular migration even in an unprecedented situation.

Current European responses to irregular migration thus illustrate that the governance of migration is giving rise to suboptimal policy outcomes. In other words, the tightening of national migration policies has resulted in a ‘race to the bottom’ in asylum standards and rights across Europe. Moreover, the pandemic has exposed the unwillingness of EU leaders to act cohesively in the face of a major crisis. All of this increases the likelihood of the EU developing into an ‘ever looser’ Union, which could ultimately lead to the fragmentation of the European project.

This article was first published on the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) blog on European Politics and Policy (EUROPP) on 23 September 2020.

The post Assessing the impact of Covid-19 on the EU’s response to irregular migration appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Tomorrow, this blog celebrates its 10th anniversary. Much has happened in those ten years. Too much to write a summary, but the 305 posts published still document some of my work, my activism,  and my research over the years.

I published my first post on 5 November 2010, after I had just returned from living in Brussels for half a year. One of my earliest posts — “Reading a Japanese journal article with Google Translate” — still regularly brings readers to this blog, although I don’t know why.

2011 was an amazing year. I returned to Brussels and soon after became part of a series of blogger meetings with the Hungarian Council Presidency spokespersons. As a result, Europasionaria and I become the first eurobloggers ever to officially cover an EU Council meeting from the Council press room. In May 2011, we repeated this with the second bloggers’ coverage of a Council meeting.

When it comes to my academic life, my first participation in academic conference with my own research was the UACES conference in Cambridge in September 2011. A pre-conference blog post showed my worries about the paper I’d present, while my post-conference post sounds more optimistic.

The first half of 2012 was challenging as I was writing my PhD thesis in Berlin while still trying to blog and stay connected to Brussels politics (as I wanted to return). Participating at re:publica and advertising Euroblogging in Germany was definitely the blogger’s highlight of this year. My secret side project in that year—mainly a procrastination from my PhD writing— was authoring a fake Barroso blog for a few months. The blog even got a mention in a German news portal.

After the summer of 2012, my blog became quite quiet as I started working for the Transparency International EU Office and was also responsible for the social media communication. So from the 2nd half of 2012 my favourite post is this one on how the #EUCO hashtag was born in October 2010, i.e. quite exactly ten years ago.

2013 was a year with very little blogging as I was finishing writing my PhD thesis while also conducting a research project at Transparency International. So my post on how “The Matrix” inspired my doctoral research is probably the only text worth highlighting. Maybe alongside this post on Minecraft and the EU.

2014, the year of the European elections, started with a look at the emergence of a true European public sphere, foreshadowing the debates on migration that would follow a year later on a much larger scale. It was also the year when I moved from Brussels to Munich for my postdoc. Part of my research was on EU budgeting, so some of my blogging also moved in this direction while also watching how the new Juncker Commission emerged out of the “political” European elections.

In 2015, my blogging dried down even further, with this post on the network structure of European Parliament committees being maybe one of the more interesting things I did that year. I also did some blogging alongside my teaching on EU affairs in Munich.

In 2016, I managed to write only seven posts, only eight posts in 2017, and only one in 2018. 2019 continued to be a quiet year with only eight posts, and so was 2020 with only a few so far.

The only 2018, German-language post in defence of political science and large conferences against a critical essay in a German newspaper (‘FAZ’) became quite the debate in the German political science sphere. Sometimes writing one good post can replace a dozen boring posts, I guess.

This is clearly true for this year’s article that got a lot of attention when I announced that I’d leave university out of love for academia to create a new kind of research company. I’m still working on this while teaching Global Governance and EU Fiscal and Financial Governance at Hertie School in Berlin. Next year, the economic and overall situation permitting, this will be the focus of my attention.

What I realized over all these years of blogging is that long-form writing has its merits, but for most purposes Twitter (for text and links) or Instagram (for photos) are just the better medium to communicate ideas.

I like Polscieu because it has accompanied me for so long, but while 10 years ago blogging (still) felt like a worthwhile endeavour now few of the people who blogged back then are still doing it actively – Jon Worth being a notable exception (how do you do this, Jon?).

So I won’t put up a cake and candles to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Polscieu tomorrow, but this blog—just like my Twitter account but much less frequent in use—is still an outlet to share interesting insights that come across my way in a long form.

PS: Thanks to Ideas on Europe (by UACES) for hosting it all these years!

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