European Union

Applicants who are in debt, have a criminal record or are considered a security threat could have to wait longer for Swedish citizenship.

The post Sweden puts more obstacles on path to citizenship appeared first on Euractiv.

Morawiecki will succeed Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as president of the European party.

The post Former Polish leader Morawiecki elected ECR party president appeared first on Euractiv.

"We do not see the need to apologise," chief spokeswoman Paula Pinho said on Tuesday.

The post EU Commission refuses to apologise for concealing von der Leyen hospitalisation appeared first on Euractiv.

On Monday afternoon, MEPs discussed the security situation in Europe and beyond as well as defence and EU-NATO cooperation with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on Security and Defence

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

On Monday afternoon, MEPs discussed the security situation in Europe and beyond as well as defence and EU-NATO cooperation with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on Security and Defence

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

On Monday afternoon, MEPs discussed the security situation in Europe and beyond as well as defence and EU-NATO cooperation with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on Security and Defence

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

European rules aim to promote a culture of repair, and ensure that products are environmentally friendly and that advertising does not mislead consumers.

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

On Monday, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte will make his first official visit to the European Parliament since taking office on 1 October 2024.
Committee on Foreign Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

On Monday, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte will make his first official visit to the European Parliament since taking office on 1 October 2024.
Committee on Foreign Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

Mainstream political parties across Europe attempting to see-off far-right political parties by copying them instead of challenging them hasn’t worked. It can’t work. It won’t work.

Or as historian Timothy Garton Ash, Professor of European Studies at Oxford University said on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme:

“There is good evidence that politics of appeasement by mainstream liberal centre-right parties trying to win back voters by adopting some of the more extreme rhetoric and policies doesn’t work.

“Because voters say why should I have the dog whistle when I could have the real dog?”

Today, in seven EU countries, electorates have voted for the “real dog” meaning that their governments include far-right parties. In another four EU countries, “the dog” is close to winning.

In Austria, The Freedom Party (FPÖ) secured almost 29% of the vote in the September 2024 parliamentary elections and is about to form the government, marking Austria’s first far-right-led administration since World War II.

In Italy, The Brothers of Italy, a right-wing nationalist party, leads the government under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

In Finland, the Finns Party, a right-wing nationalist group, secured 46 seats in the Eduskunta (parliament) during the April 2023 general elections, becoming the second-largest party with 20.07% of the vote.

In Hungary, The Fidesz party, under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, has been in power since 2010. Fidesz is known for its national-conservative and sovereigntist policies.

In Slovakia, The Slovak National Party, a right-wing nationalist party, is part of the governing coalition.

In Sweden, The Sweden Democrats, a nationalist party, have significant influence over the government through a confidence and supply agreement, despite not being formal coalition members.

In The Netherlands, The Party for Freedom (PVV), led by Geert Wilders, has gained substantial support, leading to the formation of a right-wing government.

As of January 2025, several European countries have far-right or right-wing nationalist parties that are gaining significant support and are close to achieving governmental power.

In Romania, Pro-Russian far-right candidate Călin Georgescu is leading in the polls for the upcoming presidential election, with over 40% support.

In Germany, The Alternative for Germany (AfD), a right-wing populist party, has been increasing its vote share in recent elections.

In France, the National Rally (Rassemblement National, RN) led by Marine Le Pen is a far-right party making significant gains and securing Members of the European Parliament (MEPs).

In Spain, Vox Party is one of several far-right and right-wing parties gaining voters.

And in the UK?

In last year’s general election, the far-right Reform UK party (yes, it is far-right) gained 5 seats with just over 14% of the vote share. Its leader, Nigel Farage, is convinced that he will be Britain’s next Prime Minister.

How did this happen?

Because liberal-thinking, middle-of-the-road parties and politicians, who should have known better, let the blame-game grow. The anti-immigration, anti-refugee, anti-EU, pro-Brexit message gained momentum without being properly challenged.

In the process, both the Tories and Labour have transitioned from being pro-EU parties to basically Brexit parties.

I have written multiple articles about this. For example, ‘How freaky hair ‘won’ in the Netherlands and Britain’

Even today, Labour promotes an anti-migrant message, and continues to support Brexit, even though the way ‘Leave’ won the referendum was fraudulent and undemocratic; Brexit is doing huge harm to Britain; it cannot be ‘made to work’, and polls consistently show that most people think it was a mistake.

Instead of attempting to ape the far-right, now is the time all good parties to come to the aid of the people by powerfully exposing the false diagnoses and empty promises promoted by far-right politicians.

YES, people need affordable homes, decent wages, better access to medical care, good education for their children. And NO, it’s not the fault of migrants.

Properly fixing those problems will see off far-right parties that always exploit hardship by wrongly scapegoating others.

Going down the far-right route will simply cause division, hatred, and societal decay, and still won’t give us affordable homes, decent wages, better access to medical care, or good education for our children.

Good politicians everywhere, be brave, be bold.

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• Related article from 2025: ‘The Brexit nose job’

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• Related article from 2023: ‘How freaky hair ‘won’ the Netherlands and Britain’

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• Related article from 2023: ‘Brexit is unfinished business by a long way’

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• Related article from 2021: ‘What they really want – the end of the EU’

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• Related article from 2017: ‘How did we get stuck with Brexit?’

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• Related article from 2016: ‘Tim Faron versus Nigel Farage’

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• Related article from 2015: ‘Nigel Farage: Ban terminally ill migrants’

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• Related article from 2015: ‘Who do you think you are kidding, Mr Farage?’

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• Related article from 2014: ‘Why did UKIP win in Clacton?’

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• Related article from 2013: ‘What Nigel Farage told British expats in Spain’

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• Related video: ‘Rise of the far-right? British newspapers are to blame’

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• Related video: ‘When Nigel Farage was caught out’

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The post Tories and Labour to blame for rise of Farage appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

by Gilles Pittoors (KU Leuven)

To kick off 2025, the JCMS blog is highlighting some of the excellent work published in JCMS in autumn 2024. In this blog, we feature ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once? Introducing a Field-Theoretic Model for Party Politics in the European Union’  which puts forward a new approach to the European political party system.

Much like the debate on EU democracy at large, ideas about the role political parties play in the EU’s political system are caught in a dichotomy. On the one hand, those who think of the EU as a collection of national democracies consider supranational democratic politics unrealistic or even undesirable, instead contemplating the role of national parties in structuring the political debate in Member States and translating this to the European level. From this perspective, European party politics comes down to coordinating often loose networks of like-minded national parties. On the other hand, those who perceive the EU as a kind of proto-federal system put more emphasis on supranational democratic politics, banking on the polity-building capacities of strong ‘Europarties’ and a democratic praxis that will Europeanise national politics.

Both of these models are rooted in the experience of the coherent nation-state and thus neither capture the reality of European politics: the former takes too little account of the structure inherent in European party politics, while the latter creates unrealistically hierarchical expectations for what a European party (system) could be. Therefore, a new model is needed that departs from the nation-state as  ultimate reference point, and instead theorises parties as genuine multilevel actors whose behaviour can only be understood by appreciating the dynamic European context in which they operate.

Beyond the nation-state

I argue that simply applying models from the national context to the EU does not do justice to the complexity of European politics, and therefore introduce the European Multilevel Party Field (EMPF) as a novel concept to study party democracy in the EU. I argue that the EU is a polity characterised by non-domination in which politics occur simultaneously in every direction all the time — it is a situation of ‘everything everywhere all at once’. Fundamentally, the EU is not a state, but “a multi-state, multi-democracy, multi-people political order” that circumscribes Member States without itself being a state. In this messy context, structure is not characterised by constitutional hierarchy or hegemonic domination, but by a form of mutual dependence among actors that need to collaborate across levels and territories. Indeed, actors’ political activities are no longer bound to the neatly delineated territory of nation-states, but extend beyond their familiar borders and across levels of governance.

Despite excellent research on the nature of the EU’s political system and complex party politics, both scholars and practitioners continue to grapple with the question of how to capture and understand the fundamental nature of party politics in the EU. While most scholars would subscribe to Schattschneider’s assertion that “modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of parties”, the impact of European integration on party politics remains difficult to pinpoint. Moreover, in addition to bridging citizens and politics, whose disconnect is at the core of the EU’s democratic deficit, parties in the EU could act as vehicles of cross-level linkage, transnational policy diffusion, and inter-institutional coordination. Such potential is the main motivation behind the EU’s increasing support for Europarties, hoping these would act as “transmission belts” from citizens to ‘Brussels’.

However, it is one thing to say that parties play an important role in European democracy, and quite another to consider whether the prevailing conceptual models underpinning these arguments make sense in the EU context. At the end of the day, parties have a clear task to fulfil: to represent their constituents, a task that spans from the local to the European level in a messy multilevel context that no longer reflects the neatly organised nation-state. The discussion on EU party politics has paid too little attention to this messy nature of EU politics as characterised by non-domination and far-reaching mutual dependence, which is fundamentally different from the politics of the nation-state in which most of our notions of political parties and party systems have emerged.

An alternative model

Building on organisational field theory, the EMPF presents an alternative model that acknowledges both the agency of actors and the structuring framework in which they operate, making it more suitable to capture the cross-level (multilevel) and cross-border (transnational) interactive nature of EU politics. Conceptualising the European party system as a political field and Europarties as inter-organisational alliances, the EMPF asserts that parties in the EU behave in accordance with their position in the field, interpreted in terms of dynamic and relative power relations to other actors. This position is defined by the dominant rules and norms of the field, as well as by the relative capital of each actor.

Parties act based on their interpretation of what is the best thing to do in a given circumstance, whereby the ultimate purpose is to gain competitive advantages over their rivals and achieve their political goals. In turn, each action triggers a reaction across the field, perpetuating a permanent renegotiation of the field’s balance of power, political configuration, and actors’ distribution in it across political levels and national borders. The messy nature of the EU’s political system is thus structured through the bottom-up creation of field-wide alliances that impose jointly defined rules and norms, while enabling parties to influence EU policies in a way that reflects their and their voters’ preferences.

This approach can be used to address a wide range of topics in EU party politics; from the formation and development of Europarties, to the strategic behaviour of individual actors. As such, the EMPF presents an original model that allows for capturing how EU party politics work in real life, without using the nation-state as a reference point. A key task for future research is the operationalisation of the EMPF for application to empirical (case) research: to figure out how the field’s structure can be concretely measured, which specific factors motivate actors, which variables can predict and explain outcomes, and how this has changed over time (particularly in relation to EU enlargement). This would allow for the development of the EMPF into a comprehensive theory of European party politics, enabling researchers to predict political outcomes and offering insights into what kind of policies can and cannot emerge. Furthermore, field theory has previously been used to describe parliamentary, bureaucratic and civil society networks in the EU. Future research should elaborate how the EMPF relates to these approaches, and whether integrating these into a broader field-theory of European integration would be possible.

Finally, the EMPF also opens new perspectives on EU party democracy as characterised by a dynamic and continuous interaction between mutually dependent actors across different levels and political arenas that cannot be disentangled. For instance, connecting to recent research on citizen participation in the EU, a field approach could be used to argue in favour of the bottom-up transnational engagement and socialisation of parties, civil society and individual citizens. Importantly, I do not posit the EMPF as the ultimate democratic model for the EU, but extend an open invitation to future researchers to further elaborate on this field-theoretic approach in the process of making sense of the EU as a democratic polity.

Dr Gilles Pittoors is Lecturer at the KU Leuven’s Department of Political Science and Research Associate at Ghent Univeristy. He has previously worked at the European Parliamentary Research Service, the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the University of Groningen. His research focuses primarily on questions of transnational democratic governance and the Europeanisation of national politics.

The post Introducing: the European Multilevel Party Field appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The European Charlemagne Youth Prize gives you the chance to gain support for your youth-led EU project. Apply now for the 2025 edition.

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

Beevers Kaas
Competition
Competition law and distribution deals: The exclusive distributor must be protected against active sales in its territory by all the supplier’s other buyers

Mousse
Principles of Community law
GDPR and rail transport: a customer’s gender identity is not necessary data for the purchase of a transport ticket

On 13 January, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte will participate in his first exchange of views with Members of AFET and SEDE as well as in association with the Delegation for relations with the NATO PA (DNAT). Discussion topics will include EU-NATO cooperation, efforts to strengthen NATO defence and deterrence, Russia's ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine and its implications for transatlantic relations as well as other regional and global security threats and common challenges.
Meeting agenda and documents (AFET)
Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

Bindl v Commission
Law governing the institutions
The General Court orders the Commission to pay damages to a visitor to its ‘Conference on the Future of Europe’ website as a result of the transfer of personal data to the United States

13 January 2025:
A joint meeting of the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) and the Subcommittee on Security and Defence (SEDE) - in association with the Delegation for relations with the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (DNAT) - with an exchange of views with NATO Secretary General Mark RUTTE, takes place on Monday, 13 January 2025 from 16:00-17:30 in Brussels (ANTALL 2Q2).

Meeting documents are available here.

27/28 January 2025:
The next meeting of the Subcommittee on Security and Defence (SEDE) is scheduled to take place on Monday, 27 January 2025 from 15:00-18:30 and on Tuesday, 28 January 2025 from 9:00-12:30 and 14:30-18:30 in Brussels (SPINELLI 1G3).

Further information about the meeting can be found here.

_______________________

SEDE missions 2024:

• Ukraine - 25-26 October 2024
• United Kingdom - 28-30 October 2024
  

SEDE meetings' calendar 2025
SEDE meetings' calendar 2nd half of 2024 - 10th legislature
EP calendar 2024
Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

Parliamentary activities resume on 6 January 2025 with external parliamentary activities.

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

Just before the EU referendum, the then USA President, Barack Obama, visited the UK and said he hoped that Britain would stay in the EU.

Nigel Farage was having none of it. An American President, he said, had no right to meddle in British affairs. The President, in short, should “butt out”.

The Mirror ran the headline:

“Nigel Farage tells Barack Obama to keep his nose out of the Brexit debate.”

Zoom forward almost nine years and spot the difference.

Now, Nigel Farage is actively encouraging his close ally and incoming President, Donald J. Trump, together with the unofficial deputy President, Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, to meddle in British affairs.

Mr Musk spends considerable time trashing Labour Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, on his X platform (formerly Twitter). He has described Reform as the UK’s “only hope” and has urged Britons to vote for it.

On 16 December, Mr Farage – who believes he is going to replace Sir Keir as Britain’s Prime Minister – met Mr Musk at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

The meeting came following widespread media reports that Mr Musk is considering a sizeable donation to Mr Farage’s Reform Party – maybe as much as $100m – as a “f*** you Starmer payment”.

Mr Farage, the leader of Reform, formerly leader of UKIP and Brexit parties, was reported to say that the two had discussed money and that there will be “ongoing negotiations” with the tech billionaire.

Under UK law, a foreign person is not allowed to donate to a UK political party, although a foreign business based in the UK can.

So, maybe it should come as no surprise that four days before the meeting – on 12 December – Mr Musk registered a new limited company in London called X.AI London Ltd.

However, a foreign-owned company based in the UK can only donate to a UK political party if it is carrying on business in the UK at the time of the donation.

A mere registration in the UK does not qualify. The company must actively conduct business within the UK. For example, it should have operational activities, employ staff, or generate revenue within the country.

So far as can be ascertained, X.AI London Ltd has not yet started to trade here.

There is already considerable evidence that Putin’s Russia has meddled deeply into Britain’s affairs and helped to fund and fuel Brexit. See my video at theRussianConnection.co.uk

Now, expect more meddling by Trump and Musk into UK politics, aided and abetted by PM wannabe Nigel Farage for his own ends.

Mr Farage has offered to broker a new US-UK free trade agreement to turn the UK further away from the EU. He said:

“The US is our most important relationship in the world – forget Brussels.”

Is this a trap for Sir Keir?

If he accepts the trade agreement, Farage will take the credit. If he doesn’t, Farage will claim that the Labour government has damaged Britain’s prospects.

“Take back control” was the Brexit mantra. But since Brexit, outside actors seem to be controlling our affairs.

What do you think?

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The post The Brexit nose job appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

David Irion

On 9 September 2024, the world’s press gathered in Brussels. On that day, Mario Draghi, former Italian Prime Minister and previous President of the European Central Bank, presented his eagerly awaited report on “The Future of European Competitiveness”. The publication of the so-called Draghi report was timed to coincide with the start of the Commission’s next mandate, which the Commission itself has declared to be the decisive phase in its fundamental reorientation. The Commission intends the Draghi report to have a significant impact on policy-making and priority-setting in the European Union (EU) in the coming years.

The Draghi report provides a comprehensive analysis of the challenges and opportunities facing the EU and develops strategic approaches to promote stability. Draghi notes that growth in the EU is slowing down, mainly due to weak productivity. He also sees recent negative developments in foreign trade, energy supply and external security as a threat to the EU’s previous growth model. But one of the main reasons for him is the poor performance in terms of breakthrough innovation and the initial concentration of innovation activities in medium to low R&D intensive sectors, which is forcing the new European institutions to adopt a new approach to EU R&D policy.

The report recommends creating science as a ‘fifth freedom’ and a ‘Research and Innovation Union’ to reduce the R&D spending gap between the EU and its main competitors. Draghi’s view is undoubtedly that the future of the EU hinges on the success of science and research and its policy.

 

On the way to centre stage

Against this background, the question arises as to how science and research have become such an important policy area in the EU today. This question is addressed in a special issue recently published in the Journal of European Integration History entitled “EUropeanisation in and through Science: Unveiling the Long-Term Dimensions of European Integration” (Irion & Volf 2024). The six contributions to this special issue, written by historians and political scientists, take a multi-angle view of the impact of integration within the political framework of the European Union and its predecessors, covering a wide historical range of almost seventy years – from the formative years of post-war European cooperation to contemporary debates on research infrastructure.

The articles highlight that an indispensable part of the EU’s complicated journey to its present form is the fascinating but often overlooked story of the Europeanisation of science and research which comprises two interrelated strands: the transformation of European science and research in the wake of political, economic and monetary integration, on the one hand, and the transformative impact of scientific research on the evolving European Union, on the other.

 

One policy, many forms, many forums

Each contribution explores this symbiotic relationship, examining in detail how the various actors, institutions, practices and policies have been shaped by the process of European integration and, conversely, how they have influenced the development of the EU. In doing so some authors even look at networks and institutions that have emerged on the margins or even outside the EU framework, but have interacted with its structures in a lively way. One example is the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), which in the 1950s was one of the first major instances of scientific cooperation in post-war Europe. Another is the Standing Committee for the Social Sciences of the European Science Foundation (ESF), which was set up in the 1970s and is another organisation independent of the EU.

Looking at the EU itself, the Commission’s initiative for the so-called Framework Programmes illustrates how research is being integrated into the fabric of European governance in the 1980s. The special issue also looks at the evolution of key concepts within European research policy. It examines the evolution of ‘scientific excellence’ in European research, tracing its transformation from a critical concept in the early 1990s to a normative standard within the European Research Council (ERC) since 2007. The European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC), launched by the European Commission in 2009 and which represents a turning point in the organisation and management of European research infrastructures, is also investigated.

Taken together, the articles sketch the landscape of European scientific cooperation and examine its various forms and impacts, but there is still much to be explored in this area. We would therefore like to provide a starting point and some food for thought.

 

David Irion is a PhD candidate and research fellow at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich (Germany). His current research focuses on the emergence and development of European research policy since the 1980s.

 

Reference:

Irion, D. & Volf, D. (2023) EUropeanisation in and through Science: Unveiling the Long-Term Dimensions of European Integration – Introduction. Journal of European Integration History, 30(2): 205–216. https://doi.org/10.5771/0947-9511-2024-2-205

 

The post EUropeanisation in and through Science appeared first on Ideas on Europe.