Ideas on Europe Blog

Presented below is the letter sent to the Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos (Carbon Copied also to the Chair of the Eurogroup Jeroen Dijsselbloem) on 23rd of August 2016 from

• Valdis Dombrovskis, European Commission Vice-President for the Euro and Social Dialogue, also in charge of Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union
• Marianne Thyssen, European Commissioner on Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility
• Pierre Moscovici, European Commissioner on Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs.

regarding the ongoiong court case of the former President of the Greek statistical service (ELSTAT) and two other senior ELSTAT members on the reporting of the deficit during 2010, obtained exclusively by Alexandros Kyriakidis and EU & Democracy.

The post EXCLUSIVE: The Letter Sent from the Commission to the Greek Finance Minister for the ELSTAT Case appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

A Brexiteer in the BBC Question Time audience last Thursday compared the EU to the Soviet Union. It’s an entirely false and unfounded comparison.

There is absolutely no resemblance between the EU and the USSR. Such comparisons are reckless, childish and nonsensical.

It shows no understanding or respect for those people who truly suffered and were horribly murdered in their millions under both the Communist and Nazi regimes.

The EU has democracy, human rights and free market trade as the non-negotiable membership requirements for all members.

All member states of the EU volunteered to join, and all are free to leave.

The USSR was not a democracy, but a one-party state. There were no human rights, or respect for life. There was no free market, but a state controlled one.

Member states of the Soviet Union were forced to join, under threat of violence that was often used to bludgeon any member state that didn’t comply.

No countries caught up the Soviet sphere of control were free to leave, until the Soviet empire itself collapsed.

Far from being a one-party state, the European Union is made up of many governments, and democratically elected MEPS, from right across the political spectrum.

The EU is a democracy with free movement of its people, unlike the sealed borders and oppressive one-party state that represented the now defunct Soviet Union.

Membership of the EU is open to any European country which respects the inherent values of the EU, as laid down by the Treaty of the European Union (TEU).

Anyone who’s lived in a Soviet Union controlled country will immediately recognise the profound differences between USSR values and EU values.

The EU values include, “respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities.”

Before becoming a member, a country has to demonstrate that it has a stable government guaranteeing, “democracy, the rule of law, human rights, respect for and protection of minorities, the existence of a functioning market economy, and the capacity to cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the Union.”

Furthermore, unlike the Soviet Union, which consumed member states, countries applying to join the EU didn’t do so fearing the loss of their national identities and cultures; quite the opposite.

Indeed, the motto of the European Union is, “United in diversity”.

This signifies how European countries have come together, in the form of the EU, to work for peace and prosperity, while at the same time being enriched by the continent’s many different cultures, traditions and languages.

Frankly, the differences between the European Union and the Soviet Union couldn’t be more stark. Indeed, the former Iron Curtain countries who became members of the EU have seen their nations transformed for the better.

These erstwhile Soviet-sphere countries who voluntarily joined the EU include the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.

These countries suffered decades of Nazi and Communist rule, and it will take time for them to fully recover.

However, their return to the family of Europe will, I believe, reap great rewards in future, as these countries restore their dignities, independence and wealth-creating abilities.

In time, they will be sufficiently recovered to become net-contributors to EU funds, helping our continent to be safer and more prosperous.

And the signs are looking exceptionally good. These countries are now among the fastest growing economies of Europe.

Poland, for example, sailed through the world-wide economic crisis unscathed. Since 2007 its economy has grown by a third, and it now has Europe’s fastest growing number of millionaires.

And Romania was recently described by The Economist magazine as ‘the tiger economy of Europe’.

Both Poland and Romania are economically stable countries, with low inflation, relatively low public debt (public debt of Romania is only at 39% of the GDP), low interest rates and a relatively stable exchange rate.

GDP growth in Romania is around 4% and in Poland around 3.5% – rates that our British government could only dream about. British businesses are significantly benefiting from the export markets in both Poland and Romania.

Research from KPMG shows wealthy Poles spend 18% of their income on luxury goods, and aspirational Poles spend 13% on luxury goods – representing great export opportunities for British businesses.

Poland is Tesco’s largest Central European market, with over 440 stores and nearly 30,000 employees, and serving more than 5 million customers per week.

Romania is also a successful export market for British businesses, currently worth about £1 billion a year.

Commented Enterprise Network Europe, “Romania represents a high-growth market close to home, offering the prospect of major new business partnerships and considerable catch-up potential within the European Union.”

Former USSR member, Estonia, has become the world’s most advanced country in the use of internet technologies. Just a generation ago, it was still under Soviet domination as a very poor backwater on the Baltic Sea. Now it is a developed country and a member of both the EU and NATO.

According to the Cato Institute, “The Estonians now have the rule of law, the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the EU, a balanced budget, free trade, and a flat-rate income tax — all of which have led to their high economic growth and prosperity.

“The Estonians now rank globally number 22 out of 152 countries on the Human Freedom Index, number 8 out of 186 economies on the Index of Economic Freedom, and are in the number 1 category in the Freedom in the World report.”

Without becoming members of the EU, it’s highly unlikely that any of this could have been achieved.

Britain has also hugely benefited from EU membership. We first applied to join the European Community back in 1961, when it became clear that we were no longer a super power.

Our Empire was finished, our Commonwealth diminished as was our relationship with the USA, together with our reduced standing in the world following the failure at Suez.

It was seen by successive Conservative and Labour governments that our future economic survival depended on becoming part of the European Economic Community (later to be called the European Union).

We eventually joined in 1973, following the democratic agreement of Parliament, and confirmed by a decisive referendum in 1975.

Britain has prospered during its membership of the EU.

In 1962, one year after we applied to join the EEC, Spain also applied. The country was then ruled by military fascist dictator, Franciso Franco.

The application was flatly and unanimously rejected by all EEC members. The reason? Because Spain wasn’t a democracy.

Doesn’t that say something about the difference between the EU and the USSR?

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• Churchill wrongly recruited for Brexit
• Boris Johnson hits rock-bottom with Hitler claim
• Never again? It’s happening again
• List of the latest articles by Jon Danzig

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

_________________________________________________

• The Reasons2Remain Facebook Community continues to support the case for Britain’s membership of the EU, and now, the actual impact of the Brexit vote. Join us!
  
• Join and share the discussion about this article on Facebook and Twitter:

#Brexit supporter in #BBCQT audience wrong to compare #Britain in the #EU with the #USSR. My response: https://t.co/j54NaZ0JrI pic.twitter.com/sAU80of7nP

— Jon Danzig (@Jon_Danzig) September 25, 2016

The post The EU is not the USSR appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

There is nothing else like it on the internet: the unique and growing portfolio of over 300 graphics and articles continuing to present the case every day for Britain to remain in the EU.

I started the Reasons2Remain Facebook Community Campaign on Monday 4 April 2016. With a small team of supporters, for the following 11 weeks, we put forward clear-cut evidence-based facts, arguments and heart-felt opinions on why Britain’s future would be better and brighter staying in the EU.

Of course, it wasn’t enough.

We lost the Referendum, and woke up early on Friday morning of 24 June dismayed and distraught. Brexit had won.

But we haven’t given up.

Today, we continue to present the compelling case for Britain to remain in the EU. We sincerely hope that there may be opportunities in the future for Britain to reconsider the Brexit decision.

Some have called this ‘undemocratic’. On the contrary, it would be undemocratic if the Referendum result meant that over 16 million people who voted for ‘Remain’ simply had to give-up their beliefs and principles.

No. Democracy doesn’t end with one vote. Anything democracy decides, democracy can also undecide if enough people so desire. That’s called ‘democracy in progress’. If that wasn’t the case, nobody would ever have the chance to change their minds.

Yes, we accept the Referendum returned a slim majority for Brexit. But we’re concerned that the campaign for ‘Leave’ made promises that can never be fulfilled.

In time, we believe that the electorate will increasingly realise that they were conned, and that Brexit will be a tragedy for Britain that we should do our very best to avoid.

How could we reconsider Brexit? Only by legitimate, democratic means.

We look to Parliament to carefully assess the Referendum result, bearing in mind that it was only ever meant to be an advisory exercise; that only a very slim majority voted for ‘Leave’, and that the electorate was grotesquely misinformed during the Referendum campaign about the benefits of Brexit.

We hope and push for another Referendum to vote on what type of Brexit we’re going to get, and whether on reflection, it’s what we really want.

And we hope that, whether there’s a General Election as scheduled in May 2020 or sooner, opposition parties will offer us a credible alternative to Brexit, and that the electorate will positively decide that Britain’s future remains in Union with our European allies, rather than snubbing them and ‘going it alone’.

None of our hopes, beliefs and actions can be described as ‘undemocratic’.

Democracy is about persuading others to the merits of one’s beliefs. We sincerely believe that Britain’s future is better served as a modern, prosperous, cosmopolitan member nation of the European Union, playing a full and active part in the running and future direction of our continent.

With other pro-Remain groups, political parties and individuals, using the legitimate power and provisions of democracy, we hope to persuade the nation that Britain should reject Brexit and remain in the EU.

_________________________________________________

• Tim Farron versus Nigel Farage
• The UK government is trying to pass Brexit by bypassing Parliament
• Sir Bill Cash falsely claims the EU outlawed imperial measure in the UK
• List of the latest articles by Jon Danzig

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

_________________________________________________

• The Reasons2Remain Facebook Community continues to support the case for Britain’s membership of the EU, and now, the actual impact of the Brexit vote. Join us!

• Join and share the discussion about this article on Facebook and Twitter:

It’s not undemocratic to challenge #Brexit. My blog explains why: https://t.co/jAJotAVPVJ pic.twitter.com/DjhHoeAb1e

— Jon Danzig (@Jon_Danzig) September 20, 2016

The post It’s not undemocratic to challenge Brexit appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Martina Vukasovic

Section chair Mitchell Young. Photo credits: Meng-Hsuan Chou

The 2016 edition of the General Conference of ECPR (European Consortium for Political Research) took place in Prague, 7-10 September 2016. Approximately 2000 participants presented their most recent work in political science, policy analysis, public administration and related areas of inquiry in almost 70 different sections. The newly formed ECPR Standing Group on Politics of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, for the fifth time in a row organized a section dedicated to knowledge politics and policies.

The section consisted of eight thematic panels comprising 3-5 papers each, spread over the three conference days. First, ‘Applying Complex Systems Theory to Higher Education and Research Policy’ panel looked beyond the commonplace description of political and policy phenomena as complex and discussed the possibilities of using complexity theory for public policy analysis. It featured presentations by Graham Room about agile actors on complex educational terrains (author of the 2011 book on Complexity, Institutions and Public Policy) , Sandra Hasanefendic about using complex adaptive system theory for analysing behaviour of higher education institutions, Mads P. Sørensen on complex policy conditions conducive to scientific breakthroughs and research excellence and Mitchell Young on the linkages between policy dynamics and biological systems.

The second panel – ‘Market-Making of, in, and around European Higher Education’ – focused on marketization of higher education, both as a process and as an outcome. Janja Komljenovic presented her work on actors involved in the process of construction of ‘diverse, variegated, processual and relational’ markets. Christopher Pokarier focused on expansion and downscaling of higher education market in postwar Japan, while Lukas Graf focused on decentralized cooperation in skill formation. Eva Hartmann then shed light on international coordination service firms (European Quality Improvement Systems (EQUIS) and their role in privatization of higher education. Finally, Susan Robertson focused on contradiction between the global trade agreements in the making (e.g. TTIP, TPP) and a creative and dynamic knowledge-based economy.

This was followed by a panel on ‘Policy Failures and Achievements in the Knowledge Domain’ which focused on policy success and failure in conceptual terms (what constitutes failure?), in terms of implications of failure for the policy process as well as in empirical terms (focusing on specific cases). For example, Damien de Blic and Anne Marijnen presented how universities in France reacted to the refugee crisis and how limited initiatives in this respect (largely by individual universities) shaped the political agenda on this matter. Mari Elken focused on the concept of policy failure as such, as well as in particular in relation to the European level policy coordination. The panel concluded with Daniel Kontowski’s presentation on antecedents and consequences of several (largely failed) attempts to introduce liberal education in Poland.

As is becoming tradition, the section also included a panel more explicitly focused on ‘Researching the Governance of Knowledge Policies: Methodological and Conceptual Challenges’. First, Teele Tõnismann presented her work on plurality of external influences on research policies in the Baltics, in particular highlighting the necessity for careful consideration of similarities and differences between systems when conducting comparative research. This was followed by Inga Ulnicane’s work on researchers’ motivations for collaboration that builds on an expansive data set including interviews, site visits, longitudinal case studies, publication and citation data, and CVs.

The final day of the conference started off with the panel on ‘The Contentious Politics of Higher Education. Students as Political Actors in Times of Crisis’. Four papers were presented: (1) Thierry Luescher’s work on student movement in South Africa, in particular focusing on recent #FeesMustFall protests, (2) Cesar Guzman-Concha’s work on student protests in Chile, in particular on their outcomes and impact on Chilean HE policy, (3) a paper by Lorenzo Cini on student mobilizations in Italy and their policy influence and, finally, (4) Alexander Hensby’s work on the 2010 student demonstrations in UK and how mediation of highly charged ‘moments of excess’ influenced the student mobilization and public visibility of tuition fees as a contentious policy issue.

This was followed by a panel on ‘The Impact of Changing Knowledge Policies’, which featured presentations by (1) Mounia Driss on higher education and welfare regimes – in particular concerning the (possible) alignment between de-commodification efforts and social security policies, (2) Karel Sima’s work on demographic changes in Central and Eastern Europe and how they may affect the politics of access to higher education and (3) Beverly Barrett’s work on higher education attainment in the context of the Bologna Process, specifically concerning Portugal and Spain.

In the afternoon, the panel on ‘The Politicization of Knowledge Policies: Actors in National Arenas’ highlighted the role of different political actors in the process of knowledge policies. First, Jeniffer Chubb presented her work on perspectives of academics from UK and Australia to an increasingly present ‘impact’ focus in research funding policies. This was followed by Alexander Raev who discussed transnational higher education projects (some of which are profit-oriented) and the actors involved in designing them, specifically focused on their (sometimes diverse) interests. Then, Miguel Antonio Lim focused on university rankings as ‘active instruments’ and in particular the actors which created them and the actors which use them in their own national contexts, illustrating these processes with examples from Denmark and India. Margarida Chages Lopes presented her analysis on Portuguese higher education reforms and the panel ended with Jens Jungblut’s (co-authored with Deanna Rexe) comparison of approaches to federal coordination of higher education policy in Germany and US.

The section was concluded with the panel ‘Transnational Actors in Knowledge Policies – Ideas, Interests and Institutions’, i.e. various non-state actors operating on macro-regional (e.g. Europe, South-East Asia) level and their role in knowledge policy-making. The panel comprised: (1) Pauline Ravinet and Meng-Hsuan Chou’s presentation on how a specific instrument of cross-region cooperation – ‘EU Support to Higher Education in ASEAN Region (SHARE)’ – is framed, (2) Didem Turkoglu’s comparison of student groups and unions in England, Germany and Turkey, (3) Que Anh Dang’s analysis of so far under-researched actors – Bologna and ASEM Education secretariats, (4) Tore Bernt Sorensen’s work (co-authored with Susan Robertson) on inclusion of non-state actors in the work of OECD and (5) Martina Vukasovic’s theoretical paper on European stakeholder organizations (EUA, ESU, EI etc.) as meta-organizations.

Standing Group meeting. Photo credits: Mari Elken

Apart from these eight panels, the members of the Standing Group on Politics of Higher Education, Research and Innovation also attended some of the panels in other sections, as well as the roundtables and took part in the annual meeting of the Standing Group on Friday, 9 September. The latter was an excellent opportunity to take stock of the development of this research community (currently comprising more than 200 members) as well as publication outlets and plans for the future, including the next year’s ECPR General Conference in Oslo, 6-9 September 2017.

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As academic coordinator of the European Union in International Affairs (EUIA) conference that took place in Brussels this May, Lisanne Groen introduced Young Researchers’ Masterclasses into the fifth edition of the biennial conference. The masterclasses, deemed successful, saw senior scholars give pointed feedback on both papers and presentations of younger scholars, and enabled them to establish connections with both senior scholars and fellow presenters. In future, running the masterclasses before the conference, as a separate event, might enable postgraduates to get even more out of the conference as a whole.

The aim of the EUIA 2016 masterclasses was to provide PhD and early postdoc researchers with feedback on both their papers and presentation (skills) from senior scholars in a friendly environment. Three masterclasses were included in the conference programme: on economic governance and the environment; migration; and foreign and security policy.

Each masterclass included three to four paper presentations and feedback from a senior scholar with expertise in the issue area. The masterclasses took place simultaneously on the first day of the conference in the morning. The participating junior researchers were allowed to attend the rest of the conference, but not present in a non-masterclass panel, so as to allow a larger number of academics to take part in the conference.

The masterclasses were perceived as a success for several reasons. First, they provided an opportunity for postgraduates to interact with fellow young researchers working in the same issue area and facing similar problems at the early stages of their academic careers. This allowed them to share experiences and to stay in touch during and after the conference, and to continue to share best practice and broaden their networks.

Second, the postgraduates received detailed feedback from senior scholars who are experts in their field. They also had the opportunity to speak with their reviewer after the session and to stay in touch after the conference (in order to receive more feedback with a view to preparing their conference paper for publication).

It was essential to the success of the masterclasses that the senior scholars had taken the time to prepare substantive feedback and were relatively familiar with the topics, so that the early career researchers would receive useful comments on their work. As a paper giver in a normal academic conference panel, by contrast, you can never be sure that your discussant has actually taken the time to read your work and prepare detailed feedback.

Third, the senior scholars commented on issues that are particularly relevant for early-career researchers, such as how to present your conference paper in a convincing manner. In one of the masterclasses, for example, the senior scholar advised the presenters to always face the audience while speaking, to put down only the key points of the paper on the slides and to practice the presentation at home beforehand to make sure it stays within the allowed time limit. The senior scholars were also prepared to answer any early academic career-related questions based on their own experience.

To improve the integration of postgraduates into a future edition of the conference, we might consider organising the masterclasses before the conference, as a separate event – for instance, on the day before (following the example of EISA). This would create space for the junior participants and senior scholars from all the masterclasses to interact with each other before the conference – for example, at a common reception or dinner.

If the masterclasses are billed as a separate event, the junior scholars will be able to take part both in a masterclass and in the normal conference as paper givers and can interact with more scholars. In that way, they get the best of both worlds.

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Since 2010, the EU’s political institutions have often been slow to respond to the challenges of the sovereign debt crisis, banking crisis and economic recession in much of the EU. In this context, the European Central Bank (ECB) has attempted to compensate for the political inertia with the adoption of a range of new unconventional monetary policies. This approach has, however, generated problems of its own, notably by undermining the ECB’s legitimacy: it has resulted in the ECB stretching its mandate, has led to an increasing politicization of the ECB’s decisions, and has undermined the transparency of both the ECB’s monetary policy and national macroeconomic policies.

Elections are not the only source of legitimacy
In democratic systems, legitimacy can stem from (at least) three different sources: First, it can stem from the participation of citizens in the election of political elites or the formulation of policies (input democracy). Second, it can be derived from policies that serve the general good (output legitimacy). And third, throughput legitimacy can come from the ‘quality of EU policymaking processes, judged by their efficacy, accountability, transparency, and inclusiveness’. This third concept is particularly relevant for non-majoritarian technocratic institutions (like central banks), that by nature perform poorly in terms of input legitimacy.

But what are the conditions of legitimacy in the case of an institution like the ECB? In the case of delegation to non-majoritarian institutions like the ECB, the mandate and powers of the institution should be clearly and narrowly defined and its policy-making should be characterized by a high level of ‘expertise, procedural rationality, transparency and accountability by results’. Similarly, Moravcsik finds a high level of ‘insulation’ of EU policy-making acceptable provided that the policies are regulatory, economic and fairly depoliticized. Before the sovereign debt crisis, academics often felt that the ECB’s precise mandate and policy output generated sufficient legitimacy (Majone, Moravcsik, Tallberg). The ECB could be criticized for lacking operational transparency, as its accountability to European institutions and national governments had been limited to ensure its independence. However, it could compensate for this by creating more transparency in national macroeconomic policy-making through its low-inflation policy, which prevented governments from using inflation as a tool to hide economic problems.

In the course of the sovereign debt crisis, many of these conditions for legitimacy were eroded. Specifically, the unconventional monetary policies of the ECB led to three problems.

Mandate stretching
The ECB’s policies stretched its original mandate in two respects. First, the mandate of the ECB as set out in the Maastricht Treaty defines the pursuit of low inflation (price stability) as the bank’s primary goal. Second, the Maastricht Treaty prohibits the monetization of member state debt and the ‘bail-out’ of one member state through another member state.

The inflationary effects of the ECB’s unconventional monetary policies became the subject of intense disagreement. This concerned especially the impact of the ECB’s liquidity boosting measures (notably, the purchase of covered bank bonds) and the ECB’s Securities Markets Programme (SMP) — specifically the purchase of sovereign debt on secondary markets of those euro area member states most at risk of default and facing high bond yields. Prior to mid-2012 euro area inflation remained well above the 2 per cent target and the ECB was frequently unable to neutralize the inflationary impact of its sovereign debt purchases. In Germany, in particular, the perceived departure from the ‘low inflation’ focus exposed the ECB to widespread criticism.

Second, the ECB pursued a course that arguably contradicted the treaty prohibitions on the monetization of sovereign debt and government bailout. Four nonconventional policies have had significant fiscal implications: the SMP, the Long Term Repurchase Operations (LTRO), the announced but yet to be activated Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) Programme and, most recently, Quantitative Easing (QE). With the exception of the OMT Programme, these policies undermine both the transparency of national fiscal and macroeconomic policy and the strength of national structural reform efforts.

Under the SMP (2010-2012), the ECB bought sovereign bonds in an effort to bring down debt yields, thus enabling governments to fund themselves at lower rates. The SMP was widely criticized for breaking the ban on the monetary financing of debt and transforming the ECB into, de facto, a ‘lender of last resort’.

In early August 2011, the ECB extended bond purchases beyond the three ‘Programme countries’ — that is the euro area member states that were subject to macro-economic policy programmes monitored by the ‘troika’ of the European Commission, the ECB and the International Monetary Fund — to two countries (Spain and Italy) that were not subject to ‘troika’ monitoring. Thus, the ECB acted as de facto ‘lender of last resort’ without the quid pro quo of fiscal / macroeconomic policy constraint, despite ECB’s claims that the SMP was adopted to restore the effective transmission of its monetary policy throughout the euro area.

LTRO involved lending to commercial banks at a very attractive 1 per cent fixed rate with unlimited access to central bank liquidity subject to the provision of adequate collateral. Collateral requirements were in turn eased a number of times and the maturity of LTROs was lengthened. The principal impact of LTRO was that euro area banks — especially those in the periphery — borrowed funds to purchase sovereign debt with higher yields — notably that on the periphery. In addition to contributing very directly to the dangerous sovereign debt-bank doom loop, the ECB’s LTRO operations effectively helped to lower sovereign debt yields by increasing demand, thus allowing the cheaper financing of governments.

Third, the OMT Programme consists principally in a promise to conduct unlimited interventions in secondary sovereign debt markets to purchase the debt of a country on the condition that the member state government concerned accepts the conditions of a European Stability Mechanism (ESM) programme. In effect, OMT allowed the ECB to act potentially as a ‘lender of last resort’ in government bond markets.  It also amounted to a significant form of ‘slippage’ in terms of the potential fiscal policy powers that the ECB assigned itself — albeit via the ESM.

Finally, on 22 January 2015, the ECB launched its QE programme with the purchase of up to €1.1 trillion in mostly government bonds. Officially, the ECB sought to diminish the risk of euro area deflation and bring the inflation rate up closer to target (ECB 2015). In practice, the desired and real effect of ECB policy was to lower government bond yields — albeit this time throughout the euro area — although the impact on different government debt varied, with yields on bonds already at historic lows.

The politicization of ECB policy-making
With the stretching of the ECB’s mandate, its decisions became increasingly politicized, in the sense that they attracted vocal internal and external criticism. Politicization took three main forms. First, dissent within the Governing Council and the opposition of the German Bundesbank and other Northern European Governing Council members to the ECB’s decision to engage in emergency bond buying exposed deep divisions over policy approaches. Northern European members argued that nonconventional monetary policy reduced the pressure on euro periphery governments to introduce much needed reforms.

Second, the tendency of governments to question ECB policy intensified. Government criticism focused on the ECB’s role in the Troika, but its unconventional monetary policies also attracted vocal criticism from the German government and especially Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble.

Third, the public took a greater critical interest in ECB policy-making and national political debate intensified. Public awareness of the ECB rose from 71 per cent in the autumn of 2007 to 85 per cent in the spring of 2015. In the meantime, public trust in the ECB declined from a high of 53 per cent in the Spring of 2007 to a low of 31 per cent in the Spring of 2014. The European Parliament also expressed concerns (ECB Annual Reports 2011 and 2012) over the ability of the ECB’s unconventional monetary policies to achieve their goals as well as over the risk of unintended consequences.

Non transparent monetary policy
In the course of the crisis, the ECB undertook a number of measures to improve its process legitimacy as it realized the increasing salience of its policies. For example, it moved to improve transparency through the publication of summaries of its meetings from 2015 onwards. However, at the same time, unconventional monetary policy arguably had the effect of creating less transparency on the ground. ECB unconventional monetary policy — by lowering bond yields — has undermined structural reform efforts in member states, thus directly contradicting stated ECB preferences on structural reform and the explicit objective of the Maastricht Treaty of avoiding the possibility of ‘fiscal dominance’. Furthermore, ECB monetary policy has undermined the transparency-inducing effects of EMU at the national level that Erik Jones vaunted.

Conclusion
Over the course of the sovereign debt crisis, both the ECB’s policies and the public perception of these policies changed. As a result, many arguments that had been used to support the democratic legitimacy of the ECB’s policies became less obviously valid. For a start, EU monetary policy is no longer regarded as a purely technocratic matter with limited (re)distributive effects. The ECB’s unconventional monetary policies supported certain member states while creating difficulties for other member states — notably Germany, given the impact of low and then negative real interest rates upon the country’s savers, pensions and banking sector.

The European Central Bank is at a crossroads. Its original mandate was to be an independent technocratic institution, the legitimacy and credibility of which was set in terms of meeting its price stability mandate — output legitimacy. However, from the outbreak of the sovereign debt crisis, ECB unconventional monetary policies had a significant impact upon the direction of euro area member state macro-economic policies — and in a manner that contradicted the ECB’s terms of delegation as outlined in the Maastricht Treaty, thus also undermining its input legitimacy. In light of the political salience of these policies and their impact, it is questionable whether the independence of the ECB remains democratically viable. ECB policy-making has become problematically controversial and politicized. At the very least, the reinforcement of European parliamentary scrutiny over ECB policy making is more urgent than ever.

Based on A.L. Högenauer and D. Howarth. 2016. “Unconventional Monetary Policies and the European Central Bank’s Problematic Democratic Legitimacy,” Journal of Public Law/Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht 71(2): 425–448.

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Now we’re back into the normal flow of things, I’ve been giving more talks about Brexit, and writing pieces for other sites. As I decried in my previous posts here (and here), a major challenge for pursuing Brexit is that there is no clarity on either side about what the objective might be.

That in turn makes it almost impossible to know how to get to a conclusion of any kind, let alone one that meets the needs of the various negotiating parties.

At the same time, I find myself increasingly bored with having to say that there’s no real plan on the table and that nobody is trying: it’s easy to take an ‘academic’ perspective and point out problems without offering any solutions. In that spirit, I’m going to offer a solution to you, right now.

In essence, what is proposed is a mechanism that could lead to a new UK-EU relationship. Recall that Article 50 only deals with immediate arrangements for a member state’s exit, running alongside another negotiation for the future. Practically speaking, the points below represent the second half of that Article 50 agreed text.

The first half would deal with the immediate practicalities of leaving – employment of UK nations in the institutions, re-location of agencies, etc – Andrew Duff and David Allen Green are good on these elements (here and here). Think of this as the partner moving out of the family home and the immediate changes that happen (‘I’m taking my toothbrush and a suitcase of clothes’): what follows is more like the divorce procedings proper.

The proposal is predicated three core assumptions. Firstly, that the UK must leave the EU, as per the referendum result. Secondly, that the EU27 are willing to tolerate  some ambiguity and flux, if it maintains a working relationship with the UK. Thirdly, that since the UK is a member state now, it is easier to work from that starting point than one of no relationship at all.

I accept now that all three assumptions can be (and are) challenged, but in the absence of a solid and agreed alternative agenda, there is still a good chance that this approach might be acceptable.

In particular, the model doesn’t make any assumption about what the final relationship will look like. Rather than just tell you what my ‘red lines’ are – which is of little interest to anyone but me – it is aimed at encouraging a rolling debate in the UK (and the EU27) about where issues specifically lie and ways in which to address them.

The Proposal

Enough set-up, now for the detail. The text would cover the following core elements (comments in italics):

• Agreement would close Article 50: UK would cease to be an EU member state upon its entry into force (which would need unanimity, given the following content);
• UK would commit to continued respect of all current EU acquis, plus all further such, subject to revision as below. This address the issue of transitional states between the UK and EU;
• EU would commit to respecting UK’s transitional status when agreeing new decisions, with institutionalised dispute resolution mechanism (including sanctions). It would also grandfather UK’s participation into existing third-party agreements until revised terms could be agreed by UK. This addresses UK-third party relations in transition;
• Creation of a standing EU-UK committee at ministerial level until conclusion of final agreement;
• The UK will notify EU of intention to dis-apply areas of acquis. EU will provide binding and reasoned opinion on any knock-on effects within 3 month timeframe. UK would then confirm dis-application, at which point would come into effect, with detailed annex appended to this agreement. Reversal is also allowed, with Commission confirmation of compliance with then-current acquis. Budgetary adjustments would also be made, drawing on existing principles for allocation of income and expenditure. This is the main mechanism, with the EU being able to minimise challenges to the integrity of the four freedoms, while the UK is able identify specific de-applications of EU law/acquis. The reversal option is there to recognise that this will be a fluid arrangement that might need to adapt to changing circumstances;
• Requirement that UK leaves no longer than 6 months between notifications, otherwise EU will assume fixed UK position and will treat then-status quo as the legal text for the new relationship. UK can also notify EU that it has now reached final position, with same consequence. This aims at both ensuring a high level of interaction between the parties and avoidance of kicking matters into the long grass; it also short-circuits ratification issues long the line;
• Subsequent amendment of agreement would require amendment under agreed mechanism, but one that is more ponderous than the rolling mechanism outlined above. Again, in the spirit of a need for dynamic adaptation, this is simply the conventional amendment mechanism found in all third-party agreements;
• Optionally, agreement that should UK wish to re-join EU, an abbreviated re-accession procedure could be followed, with broad principle of a priori compliance with acquis (except in excepted areas), but continued Article 49 requirement to accept full requirements of membership (i.e. no a priori renewal of current British exemptions). The particular status of the UK as an ex-member state does matter, as for the foreseeable future it will continue to apply very substantial amounts of the acquis: however, this clause would sit within the current treaty provisions and would be a marker of intended on-going close relations.

Some final comments

This is a sketch of an idea, but one that I want to come back to. I appreciate that many readers will have problems with it, and I’d like to read those. Recall however that the intention is to establish a framework, not a particular objective. For this to work, it needs a British government that is sufficiently engaged with the matter both to support public debate within the UK and to discuss matters with the EU27. It also needs an EU27 that feel that UK will be a reliable negotiating partner: if not, then it is unlikely to support this kind of approach.

The post How to achieve a new UK-EU deal when no-one knows what they want appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Media coverage of the European Union is key to understand the mainstreaming of Euroscepticism in Europe and its impact on democracy in old and new member states.

The UK referendum made the headlines of newspapers throughout the world. Croatia, the EU’s newest member state, was not an exception. “Should I stay or should I go?” asked the daily Slobodna Dalmacija on June 23, while the tabloid 24sata quoted a YouGov poll that predicted a victory of the “remain” camp with 52% against 48%.

The increased coverage of the final week before the UK referendum contrasted with the typically rather modest coverage of British politics by the Croatian media. In fact, even after the meeting between David Cameron and former Prime-Minister Zoran Milanovic in October 2015, Brexit was still only sporadically mentioned. The focus of national local media remained largely on domestic matters, economic relations and the support to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s EU membership bid.

Picture 1: “Could Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker urge non-Eurozone states to adopt the common currency? Croatia is not ready yet.”

A press release from the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs published in February 2016 summarised Croatia’s position regarding Brexit: concessions made to Westminster would require “concrete solutions” from the EU, as put by Prime Minister Tihomir Oreskovic. The institutional crisis triggered by Brexit could slow down the accession of Balkan countries, which would go against Croatia’s economic interests. Zagreb could also face a severe political crisis if the Commission pushes for a fast enlargement of the Eurozone and for the adoption of austerity measures (Picture 1).

Croatia’s road to membership to the EU has its roots in 2000, when a reformist coalition rose to power following the death of President Franjo Tudjman, from the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). A year later the Parliament launched a communication strategy aimed at informing the public about the integration process and how it could strengthen Croatia’s sovereignty.

Graph 1: Visibility of the EU in Croatian media since 2004

Public attitudes towards accession have varied depending on the status of the negotiations and coverage of EU affairs by the Croatian press (Graph 1). The overwhelming support for membership in the early 2000s gave way to rising Euroscepticism once negotiations began, and reached its lowest point in 2005, when talks were delayed because of failure to cooperate with the UN war Crimes Tribunal (ICTY). At that time, only 42% of the population believed that membership would be beneficial to Croatia. In order to respond to this trend, the government launched a second communication strategy to convey “realistic optimism” concerning Croatia’s future. The strategy highlighted the economic, social and political benefits of the EU in various policy areas – agriculture, rural development, public administration and judiciary system – and targeted specific groups such as civil society organisations, local governments, farmers and recipients of social benefits.

The accession process, which involved not only economic and trade matters, but also cooperation with other former Yugoslavian republics and the ICTY, was concluded in 2011 after seven years of negotiations. EU membership was approved by referendum on 22 January 2012 (66.27% against 33.13%), despite the low turnout (43.51%), and on 1st July 2013 Croatia became the 28th EU member state.

British and Croatian Euroscepticism
Limited knowledge about the EU, distrust in politicians, and worsening of economic and social indicators are key issues that contribute to the spread of Euroscepticism across Europe. However, this phenomenon affects member states in different ways. Media coverage is an important factor in understanding how public opinion about the EU is formed. EU communication strategy still tends to be perceived as excessively technical and inaccessible to citizens, thus contributing to the perception that the EU does not work in favour of its citizens.

Table 1: Awareness of EU institutions

The 2004 enlargement presented an opportunity for the EU to come closer to citizens. In the new member states, considerable effort has been placed on informing audiences about the opportunities brought up by EU membership. Poor knowledge of the EU remains a problem, but awareness of EU institutions has significantly increased since negotiations started (Table 1).

The same trend is not observed in the UK. In 2004, 75% of British citizens knew about the European Commission, while the EU average was 80%. Ten years later, the British public are the least aware of the Commission (75% against 84% EU average), despite the fact that 8 out of 10 adults use the internet on a daily basis.

Graph 2: Positive image of the EU over time: Croatia and UK compared

To large part of the British public, the EU is associated with the financial crisis, which explains the growing awareness of the European Central Bank (ECB), and also a rather negative attitude towards the EU. Contrary to Croatia, EU enlargement has been reported in the UK as a source of instability, and a threat to national identity. As a result, progress in the negotiations with candidate countries have reinforced the image of the EU in the former, but led to higher levels of mistrust in the latter (Graph2).

National media in Croatia also reacts differently to the outcome of negotiations with the EU. Whenever Zagreb and Brussels reached a deadlock, EU affairs became less prominent in the media, as in the impasse regarding cooperation with the ICTY in 2005-2006. When disputes were resolved – such as the 2009 arbitration concerning the border with Slovenia and the agreement on Ecological and Fisheries Protection Zones (ZERP) with Italy and Slovenia – EU integration became more salient in the media. In the UK, by contrast, media coverage increases whenever there is a conflict between the interests of the UK and those of other member states or those of the EU. These relations are generally framed in the media as a zero-sum game; the EU is presented as an obstacle to national interests, and the main one to blame for deterioration of the “British Way of Life”. The side-lining of experts’ advice and the extensive discourse around the idea of taking back control over policy-making led to the victory of the “leave” camp in the UK referendum. “Remainers” seem to have learned very little from the French “non” in 2005 and from the Dutch opposition to the association agreement with Ukraine last April. Pro-EU forces from various British parties have been unable to coordinate themselves and use mass media portray the overall benefits from EU membership that go beyond financial advantages.

It is unlikely that relations between Croatia and the UK will suffer major changes following the Brexit vote, as the economic and cultural ties between the countries have not developed significantly over the last ten years. Brexit, however, represents a challenge for the EU to act as cohesive actor. Populism and anti-immigrant sentiment are rising throughout Europe, which could be a destabilizing force in the coming years. Communication strategies remain of vital importance in informing citizens – most notably young cohorts, who show lower levels of political participation worldwide – about the potential benefits of the EU (as well as of its problems), and about how they can have an active role in the European project.

The post Euroscepticism in Old and New Member States: The Role of the Media in the United Kingdom and Croatia appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

So it turns out that Usherwood’s Law is simply that things can always get worse. It’s not quite my childhood dream, but (appositely) it could be worse.

Since publishing The Brexit Clusterf**k earlier on, I’ve had lots of feedback on Twitter, essentially boiling down to “you forgot some other things”. Since I’m apparently on a roll here, I thought I’d add in those things right away.

My original post was focused on the difficulties attached to the process and content of Brexit negotiations, but there’s another element which I neglected, namely outcomes. This comes into play not only at the end, but also much, much earlier.

The party

While I suggested one cause for less-than-complete pessimism was that the Tories had rebounded after the vote, that is a highly conditional situation. Theresa May might be the firm and reassuring hand that many in the party were looking for, but she was a Remainer (however half-heartedly). She heads up a government with a small majority and enough visceral eurosceptics to make life difficult-to-impossible for her legislative agenda. That we hear repeated calls from the backbenches to get on with Art.50 is not just frustration, but also a warning to May.

Of course, she could try to improve her immediate situation by calling an early election, to capitalise on the turmoil in Labour and the seeming deflation of UKIP. Almost certainly, she would pick up seats, reinforcing her mandate and her room to keep the sceptics in their box. However, after everything that has happened this year, “almost certainly” isn’t certain enough: better to slum it now than risk it all, especially if it means an even greater chance of keeping Corbyn in office for longer.

The sceptic core will matter throughout the coming years. Firstly, they will be the big internal source of pressure to notify the EU on Art.50, with the clear sanction that they will turf out May and seek to find a more compliant replacement. Secondly, they’ll be constantly pushing for the most UK-friendly deal possible within Art.50 (the “they’re lucky to have us” gambit), which will make any of the pretty inevitable compromises needed to bridge differences very hard indeed to achieve. Here the sanction is the ‘hard Brexit’ option: refusing any deal and leaving after the two-year period is up.

This sounds possible: it preserves British integrity and will make others see that its very much their loss. However, this option has its own problems, not least of which is that WTO membership is linked to EU membership for the UK, so there would have to be renegotiation of tariff-schedules and the rest, under WTO unanimity rules (i.e. including the EU27). LostLeonardo reasonably asks why third-party agreements would have to fall: certainly, there could be agreement by all parties to grandfather the UK’s position post-Brexit, but given the size and structure of the British economy, some parties might see opportunity to improve their positions, asking for concessions to ‘help’ the UK avoid a more painful renegotiation. In short, the WTO option isn’t as simple or quick as it seems.

Finally the sceptic core might seek to secure parliamentary approval for any final deal, again seeking more concessions from a government that will struggle to gain them in an Art.50 process that gives it scant locus. It’s not too much of a push to imagine some sceptics playing the ‘give the people a voice’ card again, this time to kill an agreement and head to ‘hard Brexit’.

The people

If the party is a millstone to the government, then the people are going to be ones who ultimately suffer.

The Leave campaign succeeded in part because it built a very broad church: the ‘take control’ slogan was open to many interpretations and agendas, especially because no fixed plan for Brexit was presented or defended. For the purpose of winning a vote that made sense, but now the cost becomes clear.

As the last two months have shown, there are many, many models of Brexit theoretically possible: and recall the May wants a British model, not a Norwegian or Swiss or anyone else’s one. However, as I noted in my original piece, May talks about limiting free movement of people and changing market access.

Almost by definition, whatever the deal might be reached (or indeed not reached), it will not be what those who voted Leave wanted. While that might be marginally offset by some Remainers feeling that (on reflection) it’s an improvement on the status quo ante, there is a clear risk that the wider forces of disaffection will see the outcome of Brexit as further betrayal by the ‘system’. That plays out in elections, especially if Labour and UKIP can reassert their “defence of the common man” position, but it also breeds further disaffection and disengagement, which can never be good in a democratic system.

To pull all of this together, someone’s nose is going to be put out of joint by Brexit, and probably quite soon. What will matter is whose nose it is and what they decide to do about it. Maybe it drives them back to a Remain stance – although you’d need a lot of people to decide that to have any chance of reversing the fundamental position – but much more likely it means that when decisions come to be made – in government, parliament, elections or elsewhere – they’ll be even more wildcards in play.

Like I say, things can always get worse.

The post More Brexit clusterf**king appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

With the UACES 2016 conference coming to a close, Viviane Gravey and Anna Wambach offer some suggestions for postgraduate researchers on how to make the most of a conference once it has finished. They recommend maintaining the momentum, both for one’s research and network, and planning ahead for future conference opportunities.

UACES 2016 (Photo by UACES)

The run-up to a conference can be quite stressful – preparing and sharing your paper, ironing out your presentation, reading as many papers from other authors as possible. The conference itself is often so hectic that you have no time to think beyond which panel to attend next. Now that UACES 2016 is coming to a close, here are a few tips to making the most of your conference experience!

1. Keep your network going

You have met lots of new people, or perhaps caught up with colleagues you have not seen since last year’s conference. Once the conference finishes, delegates often lose contact, but this does not need to be the case. In fact, you will get a lot more out of your conference if you make an effort to stay in touch. There are a few things you can do to maintain your newly woven network:

• Even if you were not particularly active on Twitter yourself, you can check #UACES2016 and the Storify to find people who contributed and who you find interesting. Follow them to keep up to date with developments in the field, upcoming jobs and conference opportunities.
• If you found a presentation particularly interesting, don’t hesitate to email the author(s) to ask for their papers or, if you already have the papers, to provide additional comments.

2. Keep your paper going

Finishing off your paper in the run-up to the conference may have been taxing, and it’s quite tempting to simply shelve it and move on, especially with the beginning of term and teaching duties around the corner. Turning your paper into a publication can take a long time, and a number of further iterations, but there are a few steps you can take in the short term to keep the momentum going:

•  After your panel, or in the days following the conference, take some time to think about the feedback you received and how you plan to address it. Write down a to-do list which you can easily go back to, even if you find no proper writing time for a few weeks or months.
• Keep it manageable: if revising the entire paper appears too daunting at first, you can focus on key issues, or a single section. This can also be helped by writing a blog post on this topic, which will allow you to get targeted feedback from your peers. This blog, for example, is very keen to publish ongoing research by PhD students in EU studies.
• Finally, it is a good idea to present your paper – especially if it’s one of your first papers – in different settings: at another conference or in your own departmental seminars, for example. The UACES SF conference, held annually in spring/early summer, is a good opportunity to test-run your paper before the general conference season in early September. Presenting to multiple audiences can help you receive feedback on the paper’s progression, on specific issues you had at earlier stages, as well as get a variety of views (e.g. from different disciplines).

3. Plan your next steps

UACES 2016 may be over, but now is the time to start planning your upcoming conferences. Calls for Papers for next year’s conferences have either already opened or will open in the next few months.

•  Look out for smaller events in the forthcoming months. These can help you keep contact with your PhD peers or with scholars working in your field. For example, the UK in a Changing Europe initiative frequently organises events across the UK, and the forthcoming UACES SF seminar (18 November in London) will bring together PhD students from across the EU to discuss teaching, fieldwork and how to adapt to the post-Brexit world.
• Take a hard look at all the conferences you attended this year. Is it worth submitting an abstract for their next edition? Did the conference work for you? Did you receive sufficient feedback, or was your paper the odd one out? Shop around for conferences that fit your research.
• Once you have chosen one (or many) conferences you would like to attend, consider organising your own panel. This can be a great way to strengthen your professional network and to guarantee useful feedback for your paper. Well-organised panels can also lead to publishing together in special issues or other forms of collaboration. Conference organisers are always thankful for pre-organised panels, but keep in mind that for general conferences panels mixing PhD students with more established academics is preferred.

The post What next after #UACES2016? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

UPDATED: read a second installation here, after all your comments.

Summer is over: winter is coming in the world of Brexit. As politicians return from their sojourns in the sun, they open up their emails and briefings to find that things are going about as badly as they could.

I’m writing this at the end of the UACES annual conference in London, where colleagues from across Europe have been debating and discussing the referendum and the next steps. The mood has been sombre, not only because most people were strongly pro-Remain, but because the mess that has been created looks even worse once some more systematic thought has been given. Suffice to say that – when offered the choice over breakfast this morning – colleagues all plumped for this above title over ‘omnishambles’. In essence, however, problematic you think Brexit is, it’s actually going to be worse than that.

Refreshingly – for me at least – discussion here has not been about how to overturn the vote, but about how to make it happen. The anger and frustration that many Remain voters have felt in the past couple of months is still there, but there is a broad feeling that -however contentious – the decision is the decision and has to be worked to. If nothing else, no one I spoke to thinks that a second referendum would have anything other than the same result, and probably with a much bigger majority.

For my own part, a self-enforced break over the past couple of weeks has been useful in stepping back and thinking about what comes next. I’d like to say that it’s my problem if that has left me much more pessimistic about things, but sadly, it’s also your problem too. Certainly, nothing I’ve heard in the past three days has given me any reassurance.

So in that spirit, let’s just run through how much of a mess Brexit is in right now.

The underlying legitimacy of the referendum remains contested. While it’s nice that many more people are coming round to the view that an uncodified constitution is not really any way to underpin a modern state, it doesn’t change the fact that when people have to talk about procedural aspects, they undermine the integrity of the decision.

To be clear, this isn’t so much about the ire of the 48%, but about the lack of clear relationship between the vote and the rest of the political system: parliamentary approval(s), the hierarchy of dominance between the people and parliament and general sense that we’re making it up as we go along (which we are, largely). The various legal challenges now in train are thus inevitable and there’s a non-negligible chance that one or more of them with succeed, causing further uncertainty.

Linked to this, there is no clear process on the UK side. That means we don’t really know how we get to Article 50 notification, how it will manage and oversee Art.50 negotiations or those for the subsequent new relationship or those for new third-state agreements.

The root problem here is the intentional lack of pre-planning by the government, which was terrified over any such plans coming to light through Freedom of Information requests and of looking anything less than confident about the outcome of the vote. Just about the only body that did seem to have a plan was the SNP and that focused almost solely on reviving the independence campaign.

This lack of UK planning is matched by a lack of EU planning too. For all the constant refrain about getting into the Art.50 process, there is no clear process at the moment. The hurried formation of units in the Commission and Council has yet to deliver a process document or template to which to work. Even if someone did get sent down into the archives to dust off the Greenland documents from the mid-1980s, they’d have found almost nothing of use, just as they’d find nothing from the pre-referendum discussion, again because the EU27 largely worked on the basis that they’d not have to deal with this.

The lack of process on both sides is compounded by the lack of positions.

The UK government evidently doesn’t know what it wants to achieve, beyond leaving the EU. Theresa May does speak of making sure that free movement of people is curtailed (rather than stopped), but also of ensuring as much market access as possible. While we have to suppose that the former will be privileged over the latter, this does still not amount to a plan of action.

This in turn drives delay in notification. May knows enough to see that once inside Art.50, the UK gets very little say on things, so it makes complete sense to pursue as much as possible pre-notification. However, it’s exactly for that reason that the EU27 want to get to notification as soon as possible.

While the UK indecision is much discussed, it’s also important to recognise that the EU27 themselves don’t agree on what to do. The Ventotene meeting of Merkel, Hollande and Renzi produced nothing more than some warm words about Altiero Spinelli, while the coming Bratislava summit is unlikely to advance matters. While Germany wants a close relationship, Italy wants to mark a clean break, France is caught up in limiting concessions that can be used by Marine Le Pen in the presidential elections, Ireland fears for its economy and security, Hungary sees opportunities to pursue more ‘eurorealism’ and Poland toys with its increasing isolation. And that’s before we even get to a European Parliament that looks set to be a complete pain in the neck about any Art.50 deal that undermines the EU’s core ideas.

The paucity of positions reflects a paucity of developed options. The summer was going to be when bright young things in foreign ministries or think tanks were going to produce the cunning plans that would set a direction of travel. But nothing has come through yet, anywhere: there is no Schaeuble-Lamers paper, no Cockfield report, no Adonnino report.

Here, I’m less clear why this should be. Perhaps it’s because it’s so big and complex that nothing can be produced in short order, perhaps because everyone thinks it’s someone else’ problem. Part of it might be that – on the British side at least – the government doesn’t want to have its lack of idea made all the more obvious.

Contributing to all this is the lack of institutional capacity. The new Department for Exiting the EU remains in a process of creation, with under half its intended complement of staff and an uncertain relationship with the Foreign Office and the International Trade Department. Moreover, it is clear that many civil servants with EU experience have either chosen to steer well clear of the whole affair, or have been discouraged from signing up because they might have become tainted by contact.

And all of this is before we even get to the specific issues that present no good solutions.

First and foremost, in my mind, is the Northern Irish border. There is a basic and fundamental incompatibility between the UK’s territorial integrity, EU freedom of movement and the Good Friday peace arrangements. Whether you fancy a hard border, soft border, no border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, Northern Ireland and Britain, the British Isles and the EU: all present obvious and (seemingly) intractable problems.

Second, there’s a broader problem of territorial reorganisation, with the resurgence of the Scottish independence debate. While the lack of clear shift in polling in favour of independence will hold back the SNP for now, the party is well-placed to press its advantage, especially if Art.50 goes badly. Again, issues of EU membership, borders and the rest are daunting.

Third, there’s the huge problem of transitional arrangements. Any deal within Art.50 will only provide for immediate terms of exit, but the new relationship will take much longer to negotiate and then implement. Assuming all third-party agreements that the UK is part of within the EU fall, then it not only needs to renegotiate these, but also add in any new deals it might want. Quite aside from capacity issues, none of this is fast, so businesses will be operating in any uncertain legal and economic environment for a long time to come.

Better now you got that off your chest?

So are there any grounds for optimism? Perhaps, but not many.

Most obviously, we haven’t hit the depths that many feared. Economically, this is partly because nothing has actually changed yet in the UK’s status, but there has been more contingency planning among businesses than in the political sphere, so there is some course of adjustment that could be followed. Politically, the ability of the Conservatives to regroup post-referendum (helped by Labour’s floundering) means that early elections look to be off the cards for now.

I’d also point to the (diminishing) stock of goodwill on all sides around Brexit. Possibly because of a general awareness of how bad things are (and can be), people are trying to find solutions and make allowances for each other. That’s clearly not unlimited, especially if notification drifts beyond early 2017, but the old EU habit of muddling through to some compromise dies hard. The huge range of elements involved mean complexity, but also opportunities for package deals, log-rolling and trade-offs; the very stuff of European integration.

Let’s leave it like this: we’re not screwed, yet.

Read more here.

The post The Brexit clusterf**k appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The summer of 2016, between the French Euro and the Brazilian Olympics has demonstrated once more to what extent sport has become an important showcase for contemporary nation-states. Not only for the hosts, but also for the participants (ask the Portuguese or the Icelanders, the British or the Jamaicans). The historians of nationalism have well shown that already at the end of the 19th century, governments of all kinds quickly understood the benefits in terms of prestige and recognition that they could reap from this popular activity which gave centre stage to individuals or teams supposed to represent the national body.

The benefit was (and is) twofold, as sport has always served two major purposes: highlight the competitiveness and performance of the nation, as well as consolidate, with the help of sport’s emotional power, its collective identity.

This political use of sport has hardly changed over time. The vocabulary, however, has. The intangible resources of cultural influence or internal cohesion that may be accumulated thanks to the different levers of ‘sport diplomacy’ are now often referred to by the term ‘soft power’, which has made its way from political science to mainstream media.

The high-level group at work in the Berlaymont.

If virtually every more or less developed nation-state has a ‘sport diplomacy’, should the European Union have one, too? The question was put on the table by the Lisbon Treaty which gives the European Union competence in sporting matters. It is thus not surprising that over the last academic year Commissioner Tibor Navracsics set up a high-level expert group to discuss the matter in a series of meetings between October 2015 and June 2016 and submit a report with their conclusions and recommendations.

I am relieved to testify that the objective of a European sport diplomacy, if ever there will be one, will NOT be to challenge nation-states on their favourite playing field: sentiments, flags and sporting performance.

It is true that in the mid-80’s the ‘Ad-hoc Committee on a People’s Europe’ (whose final document is also known as the ‘Adonnino report’) suggested to the European Community to seize sport’s potential to move people and bring them together. Among other things, it proposed the ‘organisation of European community events’ for certain sports, the ‘creation of Community teams’, or the invitation to ‘sporting teams to wear the Community emblem in addition to their national colour’.

Today, such propositions sound somewhat naïve at best, outright counter-productive at worst.

They were based on a conceptual mistake. As we all never tire of telling our students, the European Union is a ‘sui generis’ entity: it is not, and has no ambition to become a large nation-state, and it has no interest whatsoever to take inspiration from the mechanisms of classical ‘nation-building’.

It is of course legitimate for any enthusiastic promoter of European integration to have the desire to see Europe ‘loved’ by its citizens, and it is true that without citizens’ support for a common project there will be no sustainable solidarity among them.

But the EU would be well-advised to avoid falling into the ‘identity trap’ and resist the ever-present temptation to instrumentalise sport in order to ‘build a European identity’ or ‘provoke feelings of belonging to Europe’. Its identity will derive from the legitimacy that citizens are willing to grant it, and this legitimacy will be based on a strong credibility with regard to the values it wants to embody.

A smart European sports policy would not copy or imitate what is already done by the nation-states, but provide a tangible added value to international sport. The Union definitely has the potential for it, precisely because it is not a nation-state pursuing interests of national prestige. On the contrary: it can become a respected actor, patiently defending high ethical standards and the fundamental, universal values of sport.

The report of the high-level group on sport diplomacy was handed over to the Commissioner this summer. It contains quite a few recommendations on how the EU could intelligently integrate sport in its external relations. It can be downloaded under the following address:  http://www.essca.fr/EU-Asia/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2016/07/Final-REPORT-HLG-SD.pdf

Albrecht Sonntag,
ESSCA School of Management, Angers

The post Does Europe need a sport diplomacy? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Ever heard of ‘L’Arlésienne’, a short story written by French novelist Alphonse Daudet in 1869 and included in his famous ‘Letters from my Windmill’? The title refers to a lady from the city of Arles, who is central to the plot, but never appears on the stage. No one ever sees her, and yet everyone talks about her. Over the years, the term ‘l’Arlésienne’ has become a household expression for someone or something that everyone seems concerned about and talking about, but which is simply not there.

It seems to me that before Brexit eventually jumps on the stage (in 2019? 2020? later?), it will remain a genuine ‘Arlésienne’ for quite a while!

In the meantime, keen Brexiters will have gone through a learning process, realizing that the EU had more advantages than disadvantages for Britain, and that after all, being part of the EU as the least committed member state, negotiating all sorts of exemptions, blocking many decisions it disliked, offered both a comfortable position and a convenient shelter. At that stage it will however be too late to revert to these good old days of bottom line commitment.

Some form of ‘soft Brexit’ is likely to materialize in a few years’ time to keep loud-barking Brexiters quiet and the Remain camp not too disenchanted. But in the process, a lot of feathers, even teeth, will have been lost completely unnecessarily.

Jean-Marc Trouille is Jean Monnet Chair
in European Economic Integration
at Bradford University School of Management, UK.

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In the last 7 years, the EU has gone through one of its most challenging periods. Measures introduced during the Eurozone crisis (e.g. financial assistance programs), to counter the immigration crisis, etc., have been widely considered as challenging to the democratic principles and foundations of the EU.

This blog focuses on analyzing and investigating all issues relevant to the democratic principles of the EU from a variety of perspectives and academic disciplines.

Contributions, to a maximum of 1.000 words, are invited on any issue relevant to the EU and democratic principles or processes, from any discipline within the social sciences or law.

Contributions can be either in Greek or English.

All proposals or full blog submissions should be emailed for review at euanddemocracy@gmail.com.

We look forward to your ideas and contributions!

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Despite the importance of the European Parliament in EU law making, MEPs have typically been marginalised in UK politics, writes Margherita de Candia. She argues this attitude on the part of national politicians may have contributed to the UK’s decision to leave the EU, and that the remaining Member States should recognise the importance of the Parliament in order to foster greater democracy legitimacy for the EU.

A recent Pew Research Center poll found that 42 per cent of Europeans were keen for some ‘powers’ to be returned to the national level, with only 19 per cent favouring further centralisation at EU level. The idea of ‘less Europe’ is not new: calls for it date back to the great subsidiarity debate of the 1990s that followed the Danish ‘No’ vote on the Maastricht Treaty. But have these repeated demands led to anything? Does the European Union have a reverse gear, or is ‘more Europe’ always the default choice?

Rollback, or policy dismantling, is a distinctive direction of policy change. It is the opposite of policy expansion. As policy is made at different levels in the EU, in theory so can policy dismantling happen both at the EU and national (even regional) levels.

In the EU context, national policy dismantling can happen when disparate national policies are removed and replaced by a common EU rule (‘positive integration’). Conversely, EU policies can be dismantled if certain policies are ‘returned’ back to the Member States. Crucially, despite repeated calls for returning certain policies, no such ‘repatriation’ of EU policies or competences has happened.

This does not mean that EU policies are necessarily eternal, or that further policy expansion is a given. Instead, it means that dismantling may still be happening, but from within the EU policy-making system. Indeed, EU policies can in principle also be dismantled at EU level, through legislative reform, if a new directive removes or waters down existing provisions, reduces the scope of application or the penalties for non-compliance.

In order to investigate whether the EU has a reverse gear, we studied changes to EU environmental rules, a policy area which has featured prominently in calls for cutting EU ‘red tape’ and for greater subsidiarity. In the 1990s, EU water and air directives were targeted, and in the 2000s, the EU’s waste legislation and again air policy were the focus. The 2010s saw calls to weaken biodiversity, chemicals, waste and air legislation.

We identified all pieces of EU environmental legislation targeted for dismantling over a 22 year period (1992-2014), which had been subsequently revised through the EU legislative system. The dataset comprises 19 directives and regulations, revised between one and five times, which yielded 75 legislative texts. These policies cover a wide range of environmental issues from bathing water and eco-labels, to air quality and electronic waste.

We developed a new coding scheme and policy typology, and coded changes to directives and regulations across six different dimensions: changes to policy density (eg the number of instruments within a directive, or directives within a policy area), scope (eg how many businesses are affected by the rules) and settings (eg how ambitious it is) at both the level of the entire piece of legislation and that of its individual instruments, comparing different generations over tim

We found that some EU policies have been dismantled in part. But dismantling is not a frequent direction of policy change. In our 19 directives, 16 experienced some kind of policy dismantling. Most policy dismantling appeared to take place at the level of instruments, not of the whole piece of legislation – small changes to policy instruments, not cuts across the board. Within policy instruments, dismantling was most frequent when considering density (removal of existing instruments), not scope or settings (weakening of existing instruments).

These results are striking, as our dataset is composed of directives and regulations openly targeted for dismantling. Yet even for these, dismantling was the least frequent direction of policy change (Figure 1). Moreover, there was more policy expansion than policy dismantling.

Figure 1. Directions of policy change across policy instruments’ density, scope and settings (own data)

These results confirm that the EU has a reverse gear. The EU is not only a driver of policy dismantling in its Member States. It has become a new locus of dismantling in its own right. These results, along with growing calls for austerity and cutting red tape at EU level, underline the need for further research.

First, how significant is policy dismantling? This question raises major methodological considerations regarding how dismantling is measured, in particular whether expansion in one area can offset dismantling in another. Second, is it just a story of EU environmental policy, or does it apply to other policies as well? Recent work on the reduced rate of policy proposals has shown that the European Commission has slowed down policy expansion across a number of policy areas, but is dismantling also widespread?

Third, what of the politics of dismantling? Why (and how) is dismantling taking place at EU level? The mix of expansion and dismantling found at EU level echoes existing research on welfare state retrenchment in consensual systems and ‘expansionary dismantling’. Examples of policy dismantling occurring through the EU legislative process appear to confirm that supranational institutions, namely the European Commission and the European Parliament, are not ‘hard-wired to seek ever closer union’ through policy expansion, or even in favour of maintaining the status quo.

More research is needed to understand these respective roles and rationales in pursuing policy dismantling. Addressing these and other questions, such as the role of non-state actors or the strategies used to build dismantling coalitions in the EU, constitutes a rich and promising research agenda on EU level dismantling.

This blog post draws from the authors’ recent open-access publication in the Journal of European Public Policy special issue ‘Best Papers from the European Union Studies Association 2015 Biennial Conference’: Does the European Union have a reverse gear? Policy dismantling in a hyperconsensual polity. It was originally published on European Futures, the academic blog on Europe and European affairs from the University of Edinburgh and the Edinburgh Europa Institute. 

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To pit one narrative against another, that is the way of human life. Imagine all the people, living life as one – but people do not live lives as one. They live lives deeply embedded in spaces – space and orientation, Ordnung und Ortung, or perhaps rather a dis-orientating orientation through ordered space.

Institutionalised politics is the most widely known form of how human beings deal with power and the distribution of power. The distribution of power has vast effects on how we see and deal with reality. The proliferation of nation states and nation state borders in the 20th century was a shaky ride, but the solidification of borders as national and the subsequent post War ordering and orienting of politics based on the assumption of the reality of these borders gave rise to a new geopolitical reality. The response in Europe was premised on the assumption  that, to prevent the 20th century atrocities  in the future, the possibility for warfare should be minimised.

Integration and cooperation were seen as the best bet. Given recent history in western Europe, they were quite probably right. Yet the European Union, despite populist talk of faceless bureaucrats and a ‘loss of control’, is itself premised on the reality of nation states. The legal constructions that allow for free travel of people, goods, services and capital throughout many EU countries is created in response to having to take borders not as a spatial reality, but at least as one that bears a cultural-political expression that cannot be denied.

In what follows, I discuss the nature of borders, the symbolic aspect of bordering through physical as well as mental representations, their relation and bearing on spatial constructions of identity and lay out some of the consequences of exporting political ideologies in the recent past. In the concluding paragraphs I briefly outline the major implications.

The real nature of a border is a farce. Even the mightiest, and perhaps oldest, symbols of bordering – the construction of walls -  find most of their power in a symbolic, fictive display of stability. Such impressive symbolic powers have stifled through from popular imagination into political discourse (if it were ever absent there). Even in historical themes central to Western thought and identity construction – the onset of philosophy, the age of the Greek  – walls come to set the stage. The stage – order and orientation: The walls of Troy, but also how it was passed and hence surpassed. In the digital world walls have equally come to occupy our imagination. The Great Wall of China became the Great Firewall, and like of old, filtering is its purpose. And although the symbolic power and place of walls in our thinking is perhaps stronger than ever, it is hardly a coincidence that the symbolic power of the Trojan Horse has accompanied the concept of the wall throughout history.

Borders always have to be created and maintained in order to be real. Not merely physically. Physically, the imagination only needs to be stirred briefly to think of borders as real. From feeble fence work to billion dollar concrete walls equipped with cameras, barbed wire and mines that attempt to settle any doubt as to its real nature. I  remember well the holidays to Germany as a kid and how upon approaching the border, the attention of my parents, sister and me would immediately be drawn to our surroundings. How that space was ordered would simply draw your attention. And you would orientate yourself, wouldn’t you? Signs telling the remaining distance to Germany; the different colours, brands and striping of police cars; the concrete booths with thick, protective glass and the boom barriers. It just so happened that with the booths unoccupied and the border police standing with carefully maintained stern, but rather forlorn expressions, it was always quite an odd impression. More than anything, it made me feel that borders – that which separates where I live from where others live – were becoming a thing of the past.

National language and identity are compellingly persuasive as complementary political arguments in the construction of a territorial history that belongs to a nation state. Such history is normative. It is premised on the belief in national borders as stable, whereas they never have been. The ordering and orientation of borders has only ever changed. Our thinking on these matters – often the result of an emotional, much more than a rational response – has been shaped by many forces. One of these is a striking resemblance to religion: Were you to be born in France, your nationality would be French. If you are born in a predominantly Christian region, you would most likely become Christian too. This is not to say that it cannot be any other way, only that  identity is a spatial concern. Spatial concerns enter our thinking from a young age. At primary school, the first maps of this world – with stable lines and given names – start to shape your perspective. It is nothing short of learning a rendered version of geography based on ideological cartography that is existentially tied to a state. This coupling of language, identity and territory determines the scope of the discourse-framework of political sovereignty, but sadly also often that of political participation.

It is almost amusing to think how far this can go. I am not a nationalist. I’d almost be offended if you thought I were. Yet this does not mean that nationalism has no effect upon me. For me, even as a football fan , this year’s European Cup was always going to be boring with the absence of the Netherlands. Now I’m not talking about the football being dreadful – it was, we’ve all seen it – but about the experience of enjoyment,  emotional bondage and passion. There was no narrative I have grown up to relate to, not in an environment where nothing other than national identity is decisive. So suddenly nationality becomes a factor in terms of whom I do or do not support. Persuasion comes at the end of reasoning, when all else ceases to be an argument, not because the argument to support the best playing team has no value in terms of sports-value or entertainment-value, but simply because it is not persuasive. I have already been persuaded to support Holland. A long time ago.

This is odd, to say the least. And with odd I do not mean explanatory evasive, but odd because of my natural habitat. Despite the geographical closeness to Germany of the region where I was born, the cartographic representation of the Netherland determined the orientation. Dutch language made up the world – literally. And it did so effectively, because to this day, I often refer to the Netherlands as Holland – effectively the centre of its economic activities, now and historically – even though it is not. To this day, I support the Dutch football team. To this day, I remember the song about Piet Hein, celebrating the sinking of the Spanish Silver Fleet. Narratives of nationality are pitted against one another. If there is no ‘them’, there is no ‘us’. This is not the same as saying that narratives always exclude other narratives, but that there is always a struggle of recognition. The cartographic map must first be drawn, before there is territory to be recognised in the first place. Between Spain and France this works quite well, but between Spain and Catalonia things are not quite so simple. The construction of political reality has followed this principle of recognition – of sovereign recognition of sovereignty, the founding myth of the state. Think only of the League of Nations, the European Union or any other collection of states.

What modern maps primarily show are economic zones. These economic zones are within states, but it is an illusion to think that all that dwells within these zones is subject(ed) to sovereign law. The reality of economic life is that it has to act in response to the ordering of space as national, but this also means it can profitably adapt to any shortcomings of such an ideology. Here one could think of migrating flows of money through tax havens – effectively using one recognised national order to avoid the financial consequences of another – but also of infamous ghost companies, where both the economic  and legal complexity in and among states have granted creative accounting a realm of its own.

The colonial heritage is that a commonplace approach towards the global market is fashioned in neo-liberal outfits, developed, produced and reproduced in the US and EC/EEC. Through international institutions – the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO, etc – the global economy has been ordered and oriented around vested interests, and as a result political norms that shape our judgement of what constitutes a correct political response are heavily biased. This influence reaches far and goes deep. In the 1980’s, for instance, the IMF’s Structural Adjustment Policies demanded structural cuts from governments without exempting health care and education. If governments would not agree, no loans would be provided. In that same decade, the World Bank, WHO and UNICEF suddenly came to envision healthcare with similar ideological charge. Only a couple of years after the famous Alma Ata healthcare conference on universal primary healthcare, selective primary health care became a trending topic: Investing only where significant gains could be expected, while expressing metrically and in the jargon of finances where results would make political sense.

The world is dealing with this legacy. The cartographic drawings determined the political order and orientation in Africa and the ‘Middle-East’ were drawn and solidified in our thinking in the aftermath of colonialism. Many states’ border lines have created divisions where there were none before, through geopolitical decisions based on the political interests of those who were drawing the lines on the map. Only narrow (and often economic) depictions of what modern states are – and modern nominally, not as the equivalent of the developed-developing dichotomy – depend on the popular belief in national borders. This is a phenomenon that can easily be observed. The influx of migrants into Europe has upset political status quo in a few years’ time.

What has happened since? States have vehemently tried to reshape landscapes. They have created borderscapes, frontiers and god knows what else, but they have always done this somewhere. Somewhere is essential. No politics without a place. Migrant detainee camps have become political tools in gathering round everyone that has not passed European border-filtering practices. To too many a passport means that you shall not pass, or – if you do – at least a political attempt will have been made to make it difficult. Attempts at isolating groups happen, but in Western European countries, in a time with more information and research available to critically assess the development of political discourse, it is striking to see how states’ political spheres mimic the type of order and orientation that is based on a fictional, narrow and normative history of demarcated and supposedly sovereignly controlled territory.

It was only ever to be expected that the horrors that have taken place in Europe in the 20th century would fade from memory. The reality of war has become a reality of other spaces. Terrorism has already questioned the naïve but popular perception of a walled world where whole populations can be isolated at will, if only we tried. No politics without space. We have built and most likely will continue to build walls, create borderscapes and filter at hubs near popular routes in accordance with a set of norms, just to prove the reality of an internally ordered space. To prove the difference between the there and here, or perhaps to create it.  So in order to solve European political concern, politics is simply relocated to other places. Turkey, Libya or Lebanon – if the problem is not on our property, the problem must be someone else’s, so the question of responsibility becomes one of international relations, where a different order allows for a different orientation.  So long as peace and serenity at ‘home’ continue, we may yet succeed in keeping the fiction of a bordered world alive, but what inflated price tag will come with it?

——

Should you be interested in topics that relate to states and borders, be sure to read Wendy Brown’s ‘States of Injury’. To explore border enforcement from a conceptual point of view, Brown’s book ‘Waning Sovereignty, Walled Democracies’ is an excellent, accessible introduction. Also, have a look at some of the articles published by the Guardian on walls. Simply googling ‘walls the guardian’ will get you there.  

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At a first cut, the 23 June referendum result has been the clearest possible vindication of the many years of concerted action by British Eurosceptics: on a high turnout, a majority of people voted to leave the EU, even if many of them wouldn’t have particularly described themselves as Eurosceptics. The result has opened up a new path, out of the Union and into some new situation. Even if we don’t know what that situation might be, the mere knowledge of its existence will prove to be an attractive lure for others.

And yet, in this moment of triumph there is a serious question for the British Eurosceptic movement: what is it for?

For the quarter century since the Maastricht treaty, which crystallised critical British attitudes into a constellation of groups, there has been the critique – something’s wrong with the EU – and a solution – reform or exit that organisation. Now that the country is indeed exiting, both the casual observer and the academic scholar might ask: what happens next. Does the movement continue, change or die?

Some context

Before we can answer this question, it’s helpful to set out some context, of how the UK arrived at this place and where this place is.

In many ways the UK has been the wellspring of Euroscepticism. This was the country that invented the very word, back in the 1980s, and saw the creation of the very first modern Eurosceptic groups at the end of that decade, building off Margaret Thatcher’s Bruges speech. The Maastricht treaty provided further mobilisation opportunities, with a raft of groups from across the political spectrum being formed and creating the basis for a much more critical political space in the UK for discussing European integration.

Aided and abetted by a print press willing to give a platform to these groups and a succession of governments not prepared to go beyond reactive problem/crisis management with regard to the EU, Eurosceptics were able to set public agendas to a very considerable extent, even if their power to make decisions remained very limited.

This last point is an important one, especially given the claims made by the likes of Nigel Farage after the referendum. For all the media attention that more focused, single-issue Eurosceptics received, it was those political actors for whom Euroscepticism was only one part of their make-up who actually shaped the political trajectory vis-à-vis the EU. The path to the referendum is a case in point.

The pressure from the 2000s on for popular referendums to underpin treaty reforms came from a broad spectrum, from those keen to build a stronger EU through to those wishing to slow or stop it. In the UK, the election of David Cameron as leader of the Conservative party in 2005 and his backtracking on a referendum on Lisbon once it made into force in 2009 provided a clear opportunity for his backbenches to pressure him towards every more critical positions on the EU.

That pressure came from a number of sources. The rise of UKIP from the late 2000s onwards had made some in the Tory party nervous that their voter base was at risk. But just as important were factors more internal to the Conservatives: the growing number of new MPs for whom Euroscepticism was a visceral part of their political being, drawing on a very-oversimplified image of Margaret Thatcher as an unbending critic of European integration.

All of this points to a number of key conclusions that we need to keep in mind as we consider the future possibilities.

Firstly, Euroscepticism is clearly shaped by the context within which it operates. It is not the main driver of political or social change, but rather a marker of other forces, notably around dissatisfaction and disengagement, nationalism and identity politics, economic and social marginalisation.

Secondly, there is no ‘Euroscepticism’, only Euroscepticisms. There is no positive ideological core to this phenomenon, only the negative one of disliking some aspect of European integration. Instead, we find conservatives and socialists, greens and liberals, racists and libertarians all using their ideological bases to justify their attacks on the EU. Those who consider the EU to be the whole problem and the sole problem can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Thirdly, and very much as a function of the first two points, Euroscepticism is contingent. As I have argued before, this does not mean that it is ephemeral, but rather that while it provides a convenient proxy for other discontents, it has achieved sufficient critical mass to transcend those specific discontents. Maybe the most useful analogy is of a relay team, passing the baton from one to the next: however, this is a relay with no course or specific finish line.

Three paths for British Eurosceptics

With this in mind, we might discern three main paths that the current Eurosceptic movement might move down. This is based on both the constellation of actors involved and the changing opportunity structures that present themselves. In particular, it recognises that with the securing of a Brexit majority in the referendum, we have now moved into a fundamental different situation.

This matters because it would appear to remove the key objective of the movement and thus the source of much of the mobilisation that has occurred. That mobilisation has three main elements, roughly equivalent to the point at which individuals became mobilised. 

The ephemeral newcomers

The most recent supporters – those who only came to matters as a result of the referendum campaign – are arguably the least engaged with the issue of European integration. While they might have been active in the Leave campaign, for many this was primarily an opportunistic move to register discontent, either with the EU or with something else, such as the government.

If we take a working assumption that 37% of the UK’s adult population (the 52% majority on the 71.8% turnout) is not completely dissatisfied with the political system – and that would seem to be supported by the outcome of the 2015 general election – then we would expect these recent Eurosceptics to disappear back into the general population. As I noted in a previous piece, there are serious questions – both political and academic – about whether the Leave campaign could really be described as Eurosceptic, but even if we take a generous view, we would still anticipate that the passing of the moment will see some activists being lost to the movement. The obvious category of people here would be those who now regret their choice in June. 

The ideological masses

The second – and probably largest – group of Eurosceptics are those of more long standing, individuals who have been interested in the issue for some time and who might well have joined a pressure group or political party prior to 2015. For them, the European issue is more central to their political make-up, but probably still only part of their political identity.

As we know from various studies, even the most obvious destination for these people, UKIP, is a very broad church, in ideological terms. The party has no core ideology, only a shared negative of disliking the EU and, more latterly, of uncontrolled immigration. This breadth is seen in the various polls that have shown a small minority of UKIP supporters voting Remain, to take a more egregious example.

That breadth is seen across the Eurosceptic movement; indeed, it partly explains why there have been so many groups formed over the past 25 years – there is as much to divide as to unite. Thus, all political parties have their sceptics, as do trade unions, businesses and the rest. The organisational churn that has characterised the movement throughout its history will undoubtedly continue.

However, in the changed context of Brexit, we might expect that the force and effort of this second group will become redirected. This follows a logic of “we’ve won this one, so on to the next fight, to achieve our goals”. Here you can take your pick about where the next fight might be, but we can offer some obvious locations.

English nationalism has been highlighted by several as a very strong proxy for Euroscepticism and in the context of a revived Scottish independence movement the notion of enhancing (or even simply protecting) England’s place in the United Kingdom will become a more pressing issue. Add to this the scope for Northern Irish discontent over the reconstitution of the peace accords following Brexit and there is even more potential for Englishness to occupy a more central position in political debate. It touches on many of the same nexus of issues as Euroscepticism: representation, proximity of decision-making, group identity and ‘fairness’.

The immigration issue also still has much life in it, and even as the European dimension moves away from its current central position, there will be substantial pressures to keep the broader question alive. The likely persistence of high levels of immigration, whatever the regime for EU nationals, and the continued lack of central government policy to tackle the resolution of migration-related problems will provide a fertile ground for both more nativist and more moderate expressions of displeasure and concern. UKIP made use of this in their expansion since the mid-2000s, and any new leader of the party might decide that this is their best bet for continued relevance.

Finally, we might imagine that if there is a split in the Labour party between the Corbynistas and what used to be New Labour, then there is potential for a general reshaping of the party political system in the UK. In this scenario, the main cleavage would be between liberal cosmopolitans and more reactionary elements. This would offer new opportunities for members of this section of the Eurosceptic movement to move more fully into the party political system, again influenced by their ideological preferences. 

The true believers

The final group of Eurosceptics to consider are those for whom the EU is their sole focus. This includes the most long-standing individuals and those who have chosen to devote all of their energies to this one cause. Almost by definition, it is the smallest of the three segments we consider here, but it is also the most obdurate and determined.

Some years ago, I wrote about this group as the rock in the sand, the stable base around which others have built their efforts. For them, the EU is either all that they care about, or is so consuming that they must see things through to the very end.

With that in mind, we would expect that this group will be in the vanguard of policing Brexit negotiations, stopping any backsliding in either overt or covert manner by the government. They have been the ones who have pushed hardest in the movement for speedy Article 50 notification, who have defended the result of the referendum most heartily, who have the most detailed plans of how to move through this phase to a new situation and who will still be on this issue when most others have gone. Indeed, they will be the core of any post-Brexit anti-EU group that will be set up – much on the lines of Norway’s Nei til EU – to ensure that the UK does not drift back into the EU’s orbit.

Concluding thoughts

The British Eurosceptic movement is a creature of its age. Its formation and evolution have followed and – to some degree – shaped the changing landscape of British politics. It is this basic characteristic that has informed this quick overview and which will be borne out by whatever actually comes to pass.

These changes again offer an excellent opportunity for us to consider what ‘Euroscepticism’ actually means (if anything) and to consider the subtle and wide-reaching effects that it has on the domestic and European political order. We stand at a crucial point in the development of Euroscepticism, as one country has chosen a path out of the Union and Eurosceptics elsewhere have to make decisions about whether this is a path worth following. Even if British Eurosceptics are unlikely to be the force that they once were, they might still find themselves role-models for many across the continent.

This post originally appeared on the EPERN blog.

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Turkey has, for unfortunate reasons, been covered extensively in the news over the past weeks. There appears to be consensus in Europe that neither political coups, nor subsequent mass repression, are acceptable. Moreover, the crackdown after 15th July is only the last item on a long list of measures taken over the past years which would have made Kemal Atatürk revolt. But the AKP leadership does not seem very impressed by negative media coverage or foreign condemnations, and even seems to be challenging the EU. One of the questions therefore is: how should the EU react, and can relations with Azerbaijan perhaps provide an answer?

PLAYING WITH THE NARRATIVES – AN AZERBAIJANI TALE

I believe that Turkey’s reaction to the EU is in several ways comparable to that of Azerbaijan. Let me emphasise that the similarities exist not in the nature of the regimes, but in the (foreign) policy strategies applied by both the Azerbaijani and increasingly also by the Turkish government. These governments are starting to use the same diplomatic tools as the EU to advocate their interests in international relations and are becoming more assertive in 1) defending their own policies; 2) reacting to EU criticism; 3) acting pro-actively and try influence relations with the EU.

First, the Turkish president has complained about foreign, including EU, ‘interference in domestic affairs’, an expression used to politely clarify that they don’t need any help with the ‘cleansing’ operation. Any potential criticism is undermined in advance by pointing out (possibly flawed) comparisons to policies within the EU –  for instance that France has also installed a state of emergency. The Azerbaijani government under Aliyev engages this strategy too, especially when it comes to human rights issues.

Second, the Turkish president has gone a step further by spinning the narrative around, and in turn accusing the West of supporting the coup attempt. Brussels and other European capitals would furthermore be doing so indirectly by condemning the government’s call for demonstrations in Member States. In sum, this turning of the narrative -a much-liked strategy of Aliyev too – thus catches two birds with one stone: denouncing external criticism, and criticising the critics themselves.

President Aliyev of Azerbaijan (L) and President Erdoğan of Turkey (R). Source: mfa.gov.tr

PLAYING WITH THE NEW KIDS

Of course this strategy is not unique for Turkey and Azerbaijan: for instance, Russia and Egypt have responded in similar ways to EU criticism before – these reactions should therefore also be seen in a broader context of contestation. Yet what makes these two cases remarkable is that Ankara and Baku have for a long time been considered close allies in the region, who had a favourable attitude towards Europe and the West more broadly.

But both Ankara and Baku now explicitly question this previously uncontested co-operation. Having alternative alliances available significantly increases one’s bargaining power. This is a second main similarity in their foreign policy strategies.

Azerbaijan has had such multi-vectored policy ever since the 1990s, when the then-president Heydar Aliyev installed a foreign policy of ‘balancing’ between the big regional powers, to ensure Azerbaijan’s independence. Being considered the ‘little brother’ of Turkey, such policy made full sense for a relatively small and young state. What is new, however, is the way in which the regime plays out this availability of alternatives in negotiations with the EU. This, again, can be seen in light of the growing assertiveness of the country’s establishment – and is at the same time probably a logical consequence of changing regional power dynamics, with the EU becoming a less appealing partner while other actors in the region, such as Russia or Iran, are rapidly gaining strength and appeal.

Turkey, likewise, has always had strong connections to the region and for several years seemed to profile itself as a bridge between West and East. But in the last few weeks, this foreign policy is presented in a more hostile way, as a turn against the West and towards the East. Whether or not this is a feasible option for Turkey, remains unclear. After all, ties between Turkey and the EU cannot be overlooked that simply. Rather, it seems part of a reactionary discourse, a form of resistance to practices of the past decades whereby the EU would take the lead in setting the agenda on cooperation. By turning away from the friendly discourse towards Europe and through rapprochement with notably Russia, Turkey makes a statement about its own independence, and against dominance of European agenda-setting.

This assertiveness will be played out on different levels. Meetings with president Putin, but also setting an ultimatum about the Migration Deal, are expressions of this policy strategy. Turkey is now showing its growing bargaining power and its increased self-awareness in full. It tries to signal that roles have been changed: The EU can no longer tell Turkey what to do.

The EU and Turkey in happier times, when the Migration Deal was agreed, in March this year. Source: SputnikNews

SO (HOW) SHOULD THE EU RESPOND?

Different EU, Member State, and scholarly views on how the EU should act in regards to Turkey, again seem to come down to the values-versus-pragmatism debate – a debate to which there is no answer, and which is highly political in itself. There seem to be several considerations to take into account:

a)       There is a changing power dynamic going on in the region, whereby non-EU states are becoming increasingly powerful, but also assertive enough and sufficiently self-aware of their potential. There is increasing resistance to EU normative pressure.

b)      There are different extents to which these states capitalise on their resources and potential. So far, Azerbaijan was an outlier in the region, but Turkey under AKP leadership is catching up with this move quickly and, as has been shown above, has now also started to apply similar strategies in its foreign policy to undermine EU criticism and to enforce its own bargaining position.

c)       In Turkey, the EU has significant strategic interests. Often mentioned are trade, geostrategic and security considerations (Turkey being a member of NATO, an ally in a volatile region, supporting the so-called ‘international coalition’ against ISIS) and the recent Migration Deal. But let’s not overlook special relations concerning movement of people (both ways), and most importantly, the fact that values promotion could also be a vital interests of the EU in the case of Turkey. Since the country is in the accession process with the EU, its success or failure will set an example for others but also reinforce or undermine internal legitimacy of the EU itself.

d)      The EU’s selective trade-offs between values and pragmatism do not help its credibility or legitimacy. Long-term, broader, considerations will certainly play a role in determining the EU’s reaction to developments in Turkey.

e)      Lastly, in the case of Azerbaijan, the EU has seemingly chosen a middle ground by not choosing at all. There are clear elements of values promotion in policies vis-à-vis Baku, but these have been systematically ignored or undermined by the authorities; which would be very likely the case in Turkey, too, if the EU were to install stronger measures on issues such as political prisoners, capital punishment, freedom of media and organisation. The result in Azerbaijan is a strange status quo limbo with which both sides seem relatively happy for now – the question is if such situation would suffice for the EU in relations with Turkey, as there is possibly more at stake.

CONCLUSION: THE EU’S ETERNAL DILEMMA

No policy decision towards Turkey will be the right one – possibly, the EU will once again end up in a lengthy reactive process with ad hoc decisions.

The question of the EU’s response is nevertheless still worth asking, because it is an issue of a much larger scale which reaches well beyond relations with Turkey. The EU cannot overlook the fact that more and more countries in the region are standing up against the EU’s top-down attitude and its exclusive policies. A more pro-active strategy to deal with changing power dynamics in the region seems needed (and the June Global Strategy won’t do it).

This may require more controversial policy choices, such as more inclusive forms of policy-making together with the current Turkish regime. On the other hand, such rather pragmatic approach will be subject to heavy criticism and will undoubtedly raise questions about the EU’s own legitimacy. No one may want to or can afford to burn their hands on this.

Unfortunately, the EU’s dilemma in relations with Azerbaijan therefore now seems to be applied to Turkey too: Brussels is caught between a rock and a hard stone. But they’d better try to get out of that position, soon.

Much gratitude goes to Igor Merheim-Eyre and Zhouchen Mao for their comments and suggestions for this post.

The post “Turkish and Azerbaijani foreign policy strategies of resistance to the EU”, by Eske van Gils appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

From Thursday, I will again teach a 2-week European Studies intensive course here in Munich, with students from China, South Korea, Jordan, India, Canada and different EU countries.

When I taught the course for the first time in 2014, I was just back from living in Brussels where I had worked for the EU Office of Transparency International, fresh after the European elections and with Jean-Claude Juncker just selected as designated Commission President. At that time, there was no POLITICO Europe around, so I mainly lived on my own experience of EU politics and what EU-focused research could provide.

Last year, I produced a Wordle of all POLITICO Europe Playbook newsletters of July 2015, and as you can see below, Greece was still very high on the agenda (most of you might not even remember…), before August and September became the months in which migration turned out to be the EU mega-topic for the rest of the year. I made my students read the newsletter every day, and it actually generated some interesting discussions at the start of each session.

Wordle.net-generated word cloud with the top 200 words from July 2015 POLITCO Europe newsletters, with the final parts (birthdays, thanks, sponsor message etc.) removed.

Ahead of this year’s class, I did the same type of word cloud again, and it turns out that Brexit, the Commission and “President”-ial politics (both Juncker and Trump-Clinton, I guess) have been dominating the July newsletter. Migration has almost disappeared again from the political attention – you find it just below “also”, as if “also migration” might suggest that, after Brexit, it’s just one of many issues again.

Wordle.net-generated word cloud with the top 200 words from July 2016 POLITCO Europe newsletters, with the final parts (birthdays, thanks, sponsor message etc.) removed.

Still, this year’s schedule of the summer programme, I’ve added one session on theories of European disintegration followed by a session on EU referenda. When I proposed the programme, I did not yet know the results of Brexit, so I’ll also take a look at some of the other referenda that have shaped EU politics (like the ones in France and the Netherlands in 2005).

I also upgraded the session on justice, home affairs and migration to a double session on migration and Schengen to reflect the events of last year and the events still unfolding. And I keep a strong focus on EU lobbying, as this was something students have been very interested in in past years (and it remains a major issue in the Brussels bubble).

What is different this year to the past two years is that my own research focus has moved on to the UN system (as you can see on this blog), so I feel I have much more distance to EU matters and look at them with a much broader angle than I used to do – which I hope is a good thing!

So, as in the past two years, I’m very much looking forward to this course as I’m (re-)learning as least as much in the preparation and execution of the course as (I hope) my students do during the coming two weeks. Thanks to the multi-cutural group, I also have to look at EU politics from a different angle than what I get from my EU bubble social media stream every day, so I may end up learning even more!

The post European Studies Summer School 2016: what is Brussels talking about this year? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.