European Union

On 7 January 2016, the Council appointed Mr Kęstutis Lančinskas, a senior Lithuanian police official, as head of the European Union Advisory Mission Ukraine. Mr Lančinskas will replace Mr Kalman Mizsei and is expected to take up his duties in Kyiv on 1 February 2016. 

The European Union Advisory Mission for Civilian Security Sector Reform Ukraine, EUAM Ukraine, was formally launched on 1 December 2014, with a mandate to support Ukrainian state agencies in the reform of the security sector. The mission is one the central elements of the EU's enhanced support to the Ukrainian authorities after the Maidan uprising in December 2013. It follows the signing of an Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU in 2014, which includes the establishment of a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA). The DCFTA came into effect on 1 January 2016. 

The EUAM aims to strengthen and support reform in state agencies such as the police, other law enforcement agencies and the overall judiciary, particularly the prosecutor's office. This process is ultimately designed to restore the trust of the Ukrainian people in their civilian security services, which have been beset by allegations of corruption and malpractice. 

Today's decision was taken by the Political and Security Committee. 

A Masters graduate of criminal law, Mr Lančinskas held several first secretary roles as part of Lithuania's diplomatic service during the 1990s. From 1998 to 2005, he served as the head of the international cooperation and European integration service at Lithuania's Ministry of the Interior, where he was also responsible for Lithuania's participation in peace-keeping missions, and its accession to the Schengen cooperation.

Mr Lančinskas became deputy police commissioner general of Lithuania in 2005, before taking over as chief of Vilnius County Police in January 2009, a position he has held until now.

As reported in today’s Daily Mirror, the Conservative government has admitted that it has no concrete evidence to prove that so-called ‘benefit tourism’ exists.

And yet, Prime Minister David Cameron has vowed to ‘crack down’ on benefit tourism to reduce the numbers of EU migrants coming to Britain.

Mr Cameron wants EU migrants in Britain to wait four years before they are eligible to claim benefits – longer than British workers currently have to wait.

His proposal would break an EU foundation principle: that when EU citizens move to another EU county for work, they will enjoy the same benefits as the natives of the host country.

In a Parliamentary question, former Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, requested “all factual evidence” held by the Department for Work and Pensions that proved migrants were lured to Britain because of benefits.

The response provided by the DWP was analysed by expert Jonathan Portes, a Senior Fellow at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research.

He concluded, “This answer doesn’t show any connection at all between people coming here and wanting to claim benefits. If they wanted evidence of benefit tourism, they could commission a study – the government knows that perfectly well.”

As I have reported on numerous occasions, no evidence has emerged of any serious problem of so-called ‘benefit tourism’.

In fact, even prior to Lord Kinnock’s intervention, on three occasions the European Commission asked the British government for evidence of ‘benefit tourism’ – and three times the government wasn’t able to provide any.

Only 2.2% of welfare claimants in Britain are EU migrants – just 114,000 out of a total of just over 5 million benefit claimants.

The evidence is that welfare systems don’t generally drive immigration, according to Mr Portes. Nobody from the rest of Europe comes to Britain to claim benefits; they come here for employment.

Britain currently has more job vacancies than can be filled by the native workforce. That, in a nutshell, is why we need migrants. The country has a chronic skills shortage and without migrants helping to fill that gap, Britain – and Britons – would be poorer.

According to Bank of England boss, Mark Carney (himself a foreign worker), Britain has one of the strongest jobs market in the world, and it’s mostly British workers who are taking up the jobs. But foreign workers are also needed, he said, and they are contributing to Britain’s increase in productivity.

A major study by University College London showed that EU migrants coming to Britain in the last decade made a net contribution to the Treasury of around £20 billion, during a time when British natives were taking out more than they were putting in.

So this is the question: why is the Conservative government concentrated on fixing problems that don’t exist (e.g. ‘benefit tourism’, ‘too many migrants’) and ignoring problems that do exist (e.g. poor people relying on food banks; flood victims not getting sufficient support)?

* Join the discussion about this article on Facebook.

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Related stories by Jon Danzig:

• Does the Prime Minister know what he’s doing?
• Fact: Most migrants come to work or study
• Why Britain needs migrants

To follow my stories please like my Facebook page: Jon Danzig Writes

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— Jon Danzig (@Jon_Danzig) January 7, 2016

The post Benefit tourism: why ‘fix’ a non-existent problem? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

General : This month it has been 30 years since Spain and Portugal joined the EU. At the time the EU was still known as the European Economic Community and after the accession of Portugal and Spain consisted of 12 member states.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

General : This month it has been 30 years since Spain and Portugal joined the EU. At the time the EU was still known as the European Economic Community and after the accession of Portugal and Spain consisted of 12 member states.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Any second now…

Christmas is always a tricky time for politicians: on the one hand, everyone’s packed up for a break after a long autumn, but on the other, there’s usually something that needs urgent attention, like a flood. However, on balance this Christmas past has been generally quite quiet on the referendum front, before bursting back on front pages this week.

Tempting as it is to write about Cameron’s decision to give the Cabinet a free vote in the referendum, there’s little to be said. There has never really looked to be a good alternative position to take on this, especially given the folk-memory of the 1975 campaign, where the free vote produced all kinds of positive effects for Wilson. Faced with a front bench strongly determined in its views, Cameron’s best hope is that none of the senior team will want to take a very visible lead role with the Leavers, in case it damages their prospects for the Tory leadership contest that must be held in the next couple of years.

Likewise, much as the mini-drama of Nigel Farage’s ‘assassination attempt‘ (to be clear, someone trying to kill him, rather than vice versa) trundles on, it merely underlines the marginal position that UKIP find themselves in of present. The poor state of Carswell-Farage relations does not help in this, but more generally the party has yet to find its groove in the way that it did during 2014-15: that might not be so important in the referendum context, but certainly matters for the next cycle of local elections, where a strong performance is going to be essential.

Which brings us to one of the more marginal developments, namely the Labour reshuffle: shuffle being the operative word, given its (lack of) speed.

The broadly accepted reading of the reshuffle was that Corbyn wanted to exert some authority over his shadow cabinet, removing those who had spoken against him or his policies. However, after the protests at the removal of Michael Dugher at Culture, the whispers about replacing Hilary Benn as Foreign Secretary seemed to stop, along with any clear direction about what to do. Finally, Benn stayed in post, but Pat McFadden was taken out of the shadow Europe minister role, followed by a couple of other junior roles resigning in protest. Together with the changes at Defence, to bring a more Trident-unfriendly team, it has been foreign affairs that have taken the main hit of change.

Even if European policy has not been singled out as a point of contention in all of this – instead, Trident and security issues have been the bones of argument – then that policy is likely to suffer. Indeed, the willingness to replace McFadden, who was widely seen as being effective in his role, with Pat Glass, chair of the pro-EU group in the party, suggests no issue with working towards a Remain position in the referendum, but rather a lack of intra-party mobilisation on the referendum at all. The debate about whether Benn has been ‘muzzled’ by Corbyn has principally focused on security, but the scope for disagreement after the end of the EU renegotiation is also considerable.

In short, Labour look like a party that is studiously avoiding the referendum right now. And that matters if Cameron is serious about trying to wrap up a deal in February.

Whether he can achieve that is very up in the air. The Polish suggestion that they could accept limits on free movement in return for support for a NATO base was probably more about Polish concerns about rebuilding some support in the EU after the installation of the PiS government, and indeed everyone seemed to step away from the reports when pressed, but it potentially opens up a new phase of discussions. Given the need for unanimity, every other member state has a strong incentive to name a price for agreement and that incentive only increases as other make their demands.

As White Wednesday noted yesterday, odds on a summer 2017 vote have shortened considerably of late, so many punters remain to be convinced that speedy resolutions are at hand. Given the track record of the government to date, such a delay is not at all unthinkable, even if it comes with some very dubious benefits.

Whatever’s happening, there is a sense that things are picking up some speed: both sides are getting into the swing of campaigning, with videos, joint op-eds and the rest. To that list I will also add my own news, namely that during 2016 I will be a Senior Fellow of the ESRC’s “UK in a Changing Europe” programme, working on the campaign materials around the referendum, as well as more generally trying to help inform the public debate. There’s a lot planned, so I’ll keep you updated about events as we do.

And remember, it all has to be over by Christmas. 2017.

The post Gear-shifting the referendum? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

I think this is my all time favorite quotation from a European philosopher.

“There lies something unique [in Europe humanity], which all other human groups, too, feel with regard to us, something that, apart from all considerations of expediency, becomes a motivation for them – despite their determination to retain their spiritual autonomy – constantly to Europeanize themselves, whereas we, if we understand ourselves properly, will never, for example, Indianize ourselves.”

- Edmund Husserl

Why do I like this? No, not because I am racist. Because, first of all, Husserl is not a Francis Bacon who thought that non-European people were cannibals by nature. Neither is Husserl a right-wing, conservative, neocon, colonialist with his self-indulgence in his European superiority. Keep your Sartre away. Nor is he a French leftie who indulges in self-flagellation, who affirms his superiority by claiming a monopoly on evil. He is none of these. He does not babble. He is crystal clear. Of course, there are always those non-Europeans who are already Europeanized enough to strictly disagree with his claim. But they only reinforce his claim. Anyways. I love this quotation not because I enjoy the fact the Europeans in general never Indianize himself – if they were to Turkishize themselves I would be terribly sad though (I used the fact that I am Turkish in order to justify this racism – which is not something that only Europeans are privileged to do). Rather, I love this quotation because it has the courage to say what it already is without any reservations, shyness, or, slyness, and, as such, it puts a problem before us with its all gravity. It speaks the truth. You like it or not, Husserl does not in the least care about it. He has greater concerns than some’s petty, multicultural, hypocritical, liberal concerns. So, I love this parrhesiastic moment – to have the courage to say what everybody already knows because by saying this, by revealing what is already being evinced, he also problematizes it. Then you start asking asking yourself, why? Why is this so? Why are we all being Europeanized? Some politically-correct forms of life cannot even bare such an utterance. Why? Because as long as you keep it as a secret, it would “function” like a tyrant ruling a nation challenged by nobody. These people were always there, and will always be there and comprise the majority. But their existence had never impaired and will never impair the truth.

I love this quotation because it speaks the truth without any reservations, without any undeserved pride. Hence, it raises a tremendous challenge: Will we all turn into little Americans (as Europeans are already becoming Americans) not because being American is bad by nature or something of course it is not, but because there must be some alternatives, for a world without alternatives, a world in which we all watch the same youtube videos.. I don’t know, I think it will an unbearable world. But of course, you can disagree and call me that I am a racist. After all, you will be right, whatever you say: this is your beautiful world and it seems it will be always yours.

The post We never Indianize ourselves appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

DRAFT OPINION on a new forward-looking and innovative future strategy on trade and investment
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Tokia Saïfi

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

RECOMMENDATION on the draft Council decision on the conclusion, on behalf of the Union, of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement between the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community, of the one part, and Kosovo, of the other part
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Ulrike Lunacek

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

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David Cameron, the British prime minister, went before his parliament on Tuesday to report on last month’s EU summit, where leaders for the first time debated his request for a renegotiated relationship with Brussels ahead of an in-out referendum at home. During the appearance, he dropped a bit of a bombshell: his ministers will be allowed to campaign for Brexit even if his government recommends staying inside the EU. “It’s never been my intention to strong-arm people into a position they don’t believe in,” he told the House of Commons.

That sets up the prospect of Mr Cameron, widely expected to campaign for membership once he reaches a renegotiation deal at February’s EU summit, on the opposite side of such government luminaries as Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary who was once Tory leader himself.

Our Brexit watcher in the FT’s Brussels bureau, Alex Barker, says that while the decision raised eyebrows even within his own party – and may lead many in Brussels to wonder what happened to the sacred British convention of a cabinet’s collective responsibility – there may not have been much else Mr Cameron could have done. Here’s Alex’s take on how Mr Cameron is tackling what may be his hardest Brexit task yet, managing his own party:

For some in Brussels, allowing British cabinet ministers to campaign against their government on such an existential question as EU membership will be bemusing, to say the least. Michael Heseltine, the europhile former cabinet minister, once said Cameron would be a “global laughing stock” if he lifted collective responsibility for the cabinet. Ken Clarke, another of the Tory party’s rare pro-Europeans, said it was a sign of the extraordinary challenge Mr Cameron faces in avoiding “splitting the part” as the referendum campaign revs up.

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The English make up 85% of the UK’s population, with London home to a population equal to that of Scotland and Wales combined and an economy closely linked to Europe. But the capital and its country are at odds when it comes to Europe. Analysing patterns and differences of opinion in England, and especially the outlook of Londoners, is therefore vital to understanding how the UK will vote in the forthcoming referendum – and how the UK’s countries, regions and peoples will deal with the outcome.

Back in January 2013, when David Cameron committed a future Conservative government to holding an in/out referendum on the EU membership, he made clear that ‘it is time to settle this European question in British politics’. Today, one of the problems Cameron faces is that his European question is a multifaceted one that is more than to be or not to be in Europe. Look into what fuels the UK’s tensions with the rest of the EU and you soon find yourself grappling with such questions as the future place in the UK of both England and London. Because of its size, it will be in England where the referendum is largely won or lost. As the capital city and the UK’s biggest and richest region, what the result could mean for London will be a defining issue of the campaign and how the UK deals with the result.

A closer look at the Union

Breakdowns of the UK’s regional political differences often divide the Union into its four parts. The four may be equal constitutionally, but nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to population and economy. As the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish know only too well, England dominates the union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

 

*UK population mid-2014 (source here)

Population (2013) GVA Public expenditure per head Variation from expenditure average £ bn %UK £ per head Variation England 53,865,817 1,298 86.5% 24,091 103.0 £8,678 97 North East 2,610,481 45 3.0% 17,381 74.3 £9,576 107 North West 7,103,260 142 9.4% 19,937 85.2 £9,276 104 Y’shire/Humber 5,337,710 102 6.8% 19,053 81.4 £8,679 97 East Midlands 4,598,729 89 5.9% 19,317 82.6 £8,219 92 West Midlands 5,674,712 110 7.4% 19,428 83.0 £8,641 97 East England 5,954,169 130 8.7% 21,897 93.6 £7,950 89 London 8,416,535 338 22.6% 40,215 171.9 £9,866 110 South East 8,792,626 227 15.2% 25,843 110.5 £7,756 87 South West 5,377,595 114 7.6% 21,163 90.5 £8,336 93 N Ireland 1,829,725 33 2.2% 17,948 76.7 £10,961 123 Scotland 5,327,700 117 7.8% 21,982 94.0 £10,275 115 Wales 3,082,412 52 3.5% 16,893 72.2 £9,924 111 UK 64,105,654 1500 100% 23,394 100 £8,936 100

 

*UK Regions and Nations: Populations, Gross Value Added, and Public Expenditure per head around the UK in 2013 and 2014 (source here)

Furthermore we rarely see breakdowns of opinions across England. This is despite 54.3 million English inhabiting a country home to a wealth of cultures, economies, and political outlooks. To be fair, the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish are not single homogenous groups. But the debate sometimes risks overlooking differences within the English public opinion. Data (albeit to 2012) drawn from the British Election Study Continuous Monitoring Survey shows that support for the EU can vary across the UK and England.

ATTITUDES TOWARDS EU MEMBERSHIP BY REGION

Region

Response

option East Anglia (%)

East Midlands

(%)

Greater London

(%)

North

(%)

North West

(%)

Scotland

(%)

South East

(%)

South West

(%)

Wales

(%)

West Midlands

(%)

Yorkshire and Humberside

(%) Total (%) Strongly approve 11.3 9.4 18.1 10.6 11.3 15.4 10.7 10.9 11.9 10.7 10.9 12.0 Approve 33.3 35.0 40.5 37.8 37.1 43.7 36.0 34.6 40.7 35.8 36.1 37.2 Disapprove 33.6 33.6 25.8 33.2 32.0 26.3 32.7 32.5 29.8 31.9 32.9 31.2 Strongly disapprove 21.9 22.0 15.6 18.4 19.6 14.7 20.5 22.0 17.6 21.6 20.1 19.5

 

Question wording: ’Overall, do you strongly approve, approve, disapprove, or strongly disapprove of Britain’s membership in the European Union?’ Source: Source: British Election Study Continuous Monitoring Survey, June 2005-December 2012 (pooled monthly cross-sectional surveys). Weighted data.

*“Overall, do you strongly approve, approve, disapprove, or strongly disapprove of Britain’s membership in the European Union?”

Note: The data were provided by Dr Ben Clements and come from the British Election Study Continuous Monitoring Survey (BES CMS), based on the pooled June 2005-December 2012 monthly cross-sectional surveys (weighted data). The BES CMS dataset was obtained from the main BES 2009/10 project website.

Amongst the many differences that criss-cross England, London can make a fair claim to being so different as to be the UK’s undiscovered country. It has its own regional government in the form of the Greater London Authority and a Mayor. Its population will within a few years pass the 10 million mark, and if measured by metro area already stands at more than 14 million. That population is also Britain’s most diverse, with 36.7% Londoners born outside the UK, a figure that is growing. Such a fast growing and diverse population makes for distinct social and welfare challenges in terms of housing, policing, the environment and transport. Its economy – 22.6% of all of the UK’s generated by 13.1% of the population – races ahead of the rest of the UK and makes it one of the richest places in Europe and the world. As the BBC’s Robert Peston once argued when explaining why UKIP doesn’t do well in London:

Much of the rest of the UK sees globalisation and its manifestations – such as immigration – as disempowering, impoverishing and a threat. Whereas for Londoners, globalisation is an economic competition they are apparently winning.

London then is an English, British, European and international metropolis, booming thanks to its central place in the UK, Europe and the world.

The English Question and Europe

Despite people across the UK sharing some common concerns about the EU, polling data shows the English as a whole to be the most Eurosceptic of the four parts of the UK. No surprise then that UKIP scored well in large areas of England during the 2015 General Election, securing 14.1% of English votes and becoming the UK’s third most popular party by votes. It should also be noted that UKIP secured 13.6% in Wales, reminding us that other parts of the UK are not the home of pro-Europeanism as some might like to believe they are. Nevertheless, compared to the 1975 referendum when England was home to the most pro-European parts of the UK, today it is undeniably home to the parts that are the most Eurosceptic.

This can be put down to a number of reasons, not least of which is the failure of political parties in England, compared to those in the other three parts of the UK, to offer a pro-European message. It can also be attributed to the failure of the political parties to grapple with changes in English identity, with there being an often-noted connection between Euroscepticism and English nationalism. As Ben Wellings has argued: ‘Euroscepticism is the most formed-up expression of English grievance and an ideology that provides the political content for English nationalism.’

Surveys and analyses have shown an evolving sense of English nationalism is connected to feelings about an unfair treatment of England compared to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and London. With no English Parliament or substantial regional governments of its own (excluding Greater London), England is run by a UK government based in London that can seem distant and beholden to other interests whether they be international ones or of the other parts of the UK. UKIP has been able to tap into this.

The European question in some areas of England is therefore not simply one of distrust of globalisation or the EU; it is also about negative views of a UK state and political parties that can seem weak, disinterested or beholden to others.

The London Question and Europe

Londoners are not known for being ‘little Englanders’. This is in no small part a result of Londoners being the least ‘English’ in England and the most likely to identify themselves as ‘British’ (according to the 2011 census). Its diverse population, economics and liberal politics make it a metropolis where parties such as UKIP struggle to make much headway. In the 2015 General Election UKIP secured 8.1% of Londoners votes, an improvement on its previous results but still its second lowest performance in the UK after Scotland. Nevertheless, UKIP has found success in some of the outer boroughs, especially in the east. That London suffers from major social, economic and community problems was all too clear during the 2011 London riots. While immigration is an issue, since the 1980s immigration has been key to the metropolis rebounding from its post-war decline. London’s Eurosceptic Mayor, Boris Johnson, has been amongst the UK’s most pro-immigration politicians.

A large part of the material wealth of London is tied to the economic vibrancy of the European market as part of wider transatlantic and global markets. Britain might not be in the euro, but that does not stop London handling more euro foreign-exchanges than the eurozone combined. Nor does it stop London being the headquarters of one hundred of Europe’s top 500 companies. Companies such as Goldman Sachs and the Lord Mayor of London have warned of the cost to London and the UK of an exit from the EU. The Mayor of London’s own 2014 report into Brexit and London – ‘The Europe Report: a win-win situation’ – might have argued that whatever the referendum outcome, London could win in varying ways (although see here for a critique). But even it made clear that close relations with the EU would be vital for any post-exit London.

London’s more pro-European outlook, its privileged position within the UK, unique population and identity have not passed unnoticed. ‘London’ has become a by-word for something that is distant, strange and out of control, similar to Brussels across the EU or Washington D.C. in the USA. While London has long been a place slightly apart from the rest of Britain, today people across the UK, and especially England, increasingly view London as a place far removed from the country they feel they inhabit. Suzanne Evans, a former Conservative councillor for Merton who defected to UKIP but lost her seat in the 2014 local elections, blamed UKIP’s poor performance in London on its young, educated, cultured, media-savvy population that can’t understand the heartache felt by the rest of the country. This might have been picked over for her insinuation that UKIP supporters elsewhere are old, not educated (to a certain extent Londoners are indeed younger and on average better qualified) or cultured and that the ‘media-savvy’ were somehow duped by media criticism of UKIP. But her warning that London is becoming a place apart from the rest of the UK has been echoed elsewhere. The EU referendum has the potential to highlight the differences between the capital city and its country and the need for this to be addressed.

A Kingdom of Many Parts

There can be little doubt that the UK’s referendum could have important implications for different parts of the UK. Most notably, Scotland’s place in the union and the Northern Ireland peace process could be changed. But by focusing on such areas we are at risk of missing the larger picture of what the result could mean for the place of England and London in the Union. It will be in England that the referendum is won or lost, and it will be in London and its relationship with England and the UK that we will see some of the most important consequences of the referendum result.

Note: this piece first appeared on the LSE’s Brexit Vote blog.

The post A Kingdom of Many Parts: England, London, the UK, and the EU appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

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Thus far, Brussels appears more willing to take on the Poles than it was the Hungarians. Just days after the new media law was introduced, Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, has announced he will hold a debate on the Polish moves at the commission’s weekly meeting next week.

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General : The Netherlands will be at the helm of the Council of the EU for the first six months of this year. The country will focus on promoting economic growth and connecting with civil society. The priorities will be migration and international security; innovation and job creation; sound finances and a robust euro zone; a forward-looking climate and energy policy. We asked Dutch MEPs across the political spectrum about their expectations.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

General : The Netherlands will be at the helm of the Council of the EU for the first six months of this year. The country will focus on promoting economic growth and connecting with civil society. The priorities will be migration and international security; innovation and job creation; sound finances and a robust euro zone; a forward-looking climate and energy policy. We asked Dutch MEPs across the political spectrum about their expectations.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP