European Union

Let me just share one political reflection. The fact that we are meeting here today is the best example that Europe is taking more responsibility at the international level in these turbulent times. When talking about the biggest global challenges Europe becomes a reference point for all those who value liberal democracy and human rights, free and fair trade, the fight against climate change, poverty and violence. We are determined to protect and even strengthen the rules-based international order. This is why we will speak with one voice at the G20 summit next week.

When it comes to migration just one remark: there is already a very ambitious and responsible language proposed by Chancellor Merkel. My suggestion is that maybe we could also add a very concrete reference to the fight against smugglers. We could appeal to the other G20 members to consider for example UN sanctions against the smugglers.

In order to put smugglers on the UN list we need the UN Security Council members to agree.

The G20 format seems to be a good forum to bring it to the table.

The Council wants to simplify life for both beneficiaries and administrators of EU funds. On 28 June 2017, the Council mandated its presidency to start talks with the European Parliament on a Commission proposal to make EU financial rules simpler and more focused on results. The so-called draft omnibus regulation will amend the financial regulation governing the implementation of the EU budget as well as 15 sectorial legislative acts, including in the field of agriculture and cohesion policy.

"The Council's negotiating stance is a strong plea to make things easier. It would enable the Commission to pay funds quicker and with less bureaucratic controls of eligible costs. At the same time we want to ensure that EU funds continue to be managed prudently."

Prof. Edward Scicluna, Maltese Minister for Finance and President of the CouncilFocus on results

In its negotiating stance the Council backed the possibility of basing EU payments on results rather than on the reimbursement of costs incurred. This would save beneficiaries and authorities much time and costs in the implementation of EU funds and reduce the risk of error.

The new rules would also allow for easier use of lump sums and simplified cost options. This would for instance mean that researchers could spend more time in the laboratory and less in documenting their travel expenses.

Cut red tape

In an effort to reduce the number of controls, the Council also supported the idea of allowing the Commission to rely as far as possible on existing audits, assessments or authorisations. This would cut red tape and enable both the beneficiaries and the Commission to spend more time on other tasks rather than doing paper work.

The draft omnibus regulation merges the EU financial regulation and its rules of application in one single rule book.

Background

The omnibus regulation was proposed by the Commission in September 2016 as part of the mid-term review of the EU's multi-annual financial framework 2014-2020.

Next steps

Trilogue discussions between the Council's presidency and representatives of the Parliament and the Commission will start in the coming weeks.

Could Europe’s struggle against Islamic terrorists become a guerrilla war?

Mike Ungersma looks for signs.

It must have a friendly population, not actively friendly, but sympathetic to the point of not betraying rebel movements to the enemy. Rebellions can be made by 2% active in a striking force, and 98% passively sympathetic.

T E Lawrence,  ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ on guerrilla warfare [1]

In Syria, ISIS appears on the edge of defeat.  Cornered into a warren of narrow streets of Raqqa and Mosul, a few hundred determined fighters carry on, facing certain death.  But in the eyes of tens of thousands of fellow Muslims, it will be a heroic end bringing martyrdom and the promise of eternal life.  Where once thousands fought against the coalition, only a handful remain.  Observers on the ground tell us most have fled.  While no one is sure where, the fear is those who came from Europe may have returned there, battle-hardened and very experienced in the skills of irregular warfare.[2]

They will be going home to communities scattered across Europe and be seen, not as conquerors returning from a war to establish the 21st century’s first caliphate, but as sons and fathers (and a handful of daughters) who answered a particularly powerful and persuasive call – Jihad.  What will be their attitude as they recall their brutal exposure to war, toward their involvement in what many Muslims regard as an ultimate duty: participation in a holy war against infidels.  And crucially, how will they be greeted by their families and friends?

They will find the neighbourhoods they left have grown in size and purpose – almost nations ‘within nations’, especially in Britain, France, Germany and the Benelux countries.  There, despite the efforts of governments and charities to integrate Muslims, despite the countless initiatives to prevent Islamic extremists from spreading their messages, the ‘Islamification’ of dozens of European cities continues a pace.[3]

Sociologists[4] tell us these societies are increasingly unified, territorial and isolated, walled off from outside influence by language, religion and culture.  Subjected to what they regard as discrimination and prejudice, their populations are growing at a rate outstripping their non-Muslim hosts.  Worryingly, they show signs of become almost sovereign entities with their own schools, churches, and even a legal system, Sharia law.  They are as impenetrable from the outside, alien and hostile to European traditions and European history.

With these Jihadi now back on their streets, back in their mosques answering questions and relating their exploits to the admiring young and naive, the question that must be high on the agenda of Europe’s counter-terrorism experts is: Do they pose a new and more dangerous threat? Unthinkable as it may seem, might these emerging Muslim ‘nations’ soon gain a new attribute: a dedicated, determined and experienced army of Jihadi to protect them from us?  Will they become Islam’s promised ‘soldiers of the God’ to protect their mothers and sisters from insults and derision, shield their fathers and elders from taunts and threats by ultra-right extremists, and guard their mosques and holy places from further attack?  In short, are these former ISIS fighters a vanguard of a larger, more organised and trained guerrilla force that could carry terrorism to a frightening new level in Europe?

The situation is unprecedented, though anticipated two decades ago by the American historian Samuel P. Huntington in his controversial The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order:

Islam’s borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.[5]

Nor is the future – given increasing Muslim settlement in Europe – much brighter. French politicians and intellectual, Pierre Lallouche:

History, proximity and poverty insure that France and Europe are destined to be over-whelmed by people from the failed societies of the south.  Europe’s past was white and Judeo-Christian.  The future is not.[6]

Huntington and Lallouche were writing as the 20th century drew to a close.  Since then, the situation has clearly worsened.  Should the terrorism Europe has already suffered become even more intense and more frequent – that is, show signs of being organised and directed – the response could be ugly.  Periodic vigilante attacks aimed at Muslims and mosques, could escalate to a systematic effort by the state to bring both sides under control.  Armed troops now routinely deployed in France and Belgium, could become an everyday sight in every European country, including Britain. Is the imposition of martial law, cloaked in the disguise of ‘aiding the police’ next?

Something has to give it seems.  Robert Verkaik, author of The Making of a Terrorist, wrote recently in the London Guardian, that Scotland Yard and MI5 share a database of 23,000 jihadist “subjects of interest”.  Of these, 3,000 are seen as posing a serious threat, and another 500 are given “the highest priority.”  In addition, there have been 8,000 referrals to the ‘Prevent’ anti-extremism programme.  He concludes: The security services are “drowning” in the sheer volume of intelligence and suspects.[7]

Furthermore, the jihadis know how to play the game – with cynicism.  To waste the time of the police and counter-terrorism authorities, they behave provocatively, “knowing that they’ll come under surveillance, but remain just on the right side of the law so as to ‘suck up’ resources”.[8]

Already the calls for action are becoming increasingly shrill: In his opening line to The Strange Death of Europe, Douglas Murray,  associate director of the Henry Jackson Society and associate editor of The Spectator, writes: “Europe is committing suicide, decadent and godless, and rendered helpless by our relativism, we have become easy prey for a resurgent Islam.”  As the few remaining committed Christians stare at the ‘bare, ruined choirs’, that have become bingo halls or social centres, Islam flourishes in every European country.

And, many argue, from the million Syrians accepted in Germany to the unstoppable flow of ‘refugees’ across the Mediterranean, we have brought this on ourselves. Rod Little, reviewing Murray’s book in the Sunday Times notes that opponents of mass immigration have always been dismissed as racist.  “But the Strange Death of Europe, he writes,  mordantly exposes many of the familiar canards that we have been fed on the subject – such as the claim that immigration brings great economic benefits, or that Britain has always been a nation of immigrants.

One of those presumptions was undermined last year when Dame Louise Casey published her controversial study into social integration of immigrants, and found “high levels of social and economic isolation in some places, and cultural and religious practices in communities that are not only holding some of our citizens back, but run contrary to British values and sometimes our laws.” The report, commissioned by former Prime Minister David Cameron, also found that “by faith, the Muslim population has the highest number and proportion of people aged 16 and over who cannot speak English well or at all.[9]

Or take the recent words of Sara Khan, a British Muslim and CEO of Inspire, an independent non-governmental organisation working to counter extremism and gender inequality.  Writing in the London Evening Standard, she says

The response after every Islamist attack is the same: politicians claim the perpetrators don’t represent the Muslim community – as if such a unified body even exists.  The reality is that the terrorists do represent a certain group of Muslims in the UK – one that promotes a supremacist, intolerant, anti-Western Islam on campuses, at community events and on line.[10]

In the event of a drastic escalation in violence – terrorism and an inevitable state-sponsored response – the result would be an asymmetric war terrorists could be certain of losing – the odds are too great, overwhelming even.  But the price all would pay, Muslims and everyone else, would be very high indeed.  At that level, repression of the terrorist threat would mean historic restrictions and unprecedented sacrifices of freedoms Europeans have taken for granted for decades.

Make no mistake, ISIS veterans are returning to our streets and neighbourhoods, and they are unlikely to respond to initiatives such as Britain’s ‘Prevent’ and other such initiatives. Young  Muslims may be beyond persuading.  Instead and predictably, the returning ‘warriors’ and those they can convince, will feel there is a score to be settled.  Defeated in Syria, their dreams of a new world-dominating caliphate in shatters, the life-changing experience of seeing death of friends and comrades up-close, in a word – ignominy. Everywhere and at every opportunity – they will want to get even.  ‘Post Traumatic Stress’ takes on a fearful meaning for these young men and women who were willing to give their lives for their beliefs.  Are they still willing to make this sacrifice?

Perhaps this is the real tragedy surrounding the awful, shocking, heart-rendering events of Paris, Nice, Berlin, Brussels, Manchester, and on and on.  The distorted and grotesquely displaced idealism of young Muslims.  A dilemma made more profound because there seems to be no answer, no solution.  There is an inevitability about it that haunts everyone.

Roger Kimball, editor of The New Criterion, has characterised the response of Western elites to the terrorist outrages as a combination of sentimentality and apology, what he calls a “Kumbaya sentimentality”. Now, however, he senses a new feeling:

We have certainly heard a reprise of that tired song in the immediate aftermath of the Manchester massacre.  But we have also heard some refreshingly discordant, refreshingly adult notes.  There is anger in that descant, justified anger.  There is also the burgeoning awareness that the culture under threat, whatever its faults, is very much worth preserving.  That dual reality – a newfound awareness fired by anger – may yet rescue us from our more hapless selves.

[1] T. E. Lawrence, On guerrilla warfare, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14th edition (1929) Accessed on-line

[2] “ISIS: Up to 5,000 jihadists could be in Europe after returning from terror training camps abroad.” independent.co.uk, February 20, 2016

[3] “5 facts about the Muslim population in Europe”, The Pew Research Center, July 19, 2016 Accessed on-line

[4] Can mostly Christian countries integrate Muslims? This new book shows what must be done.” The Washington Post, December 1, 2015

[5] The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Samuel P. Huntington, 1996

[6] Quoted in Strangers at the Gate, Judith Miller, New York Times Magazine, September 15, 1991

[7] Robert Verkaik, quoted in The Week, London, 17 June 2017, p 23

[8] Ibid, from an article by Dipesh Gadher in the Sunday Times

[9] “Segregation at ‘worrying levels’ in parts of Britain”, Dame Louise Casey warns, BBC, 5 December 2016

[10] London Evening Standard, Tuesday 6 June 2017.

The post Ultimate Jihad? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The Council's Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper) today agreed its position on a draft regulation aimed at improving controls on cash entering or leaving the Union. 

This position serves as a mandate for the Council to enter into negotiations with the European Parliament, once the Parliament will have set out its own position. 

“Criminal and terrorist networks take advance of anonymity of cash payment transactions. That is why we need an effective system of cash declarations that can help authorities to better prevent and fight against illegal activities and reinforce security across the Union”.

Edward Scicluna, Minister for Finance of Malta 

The future regulation will improve the current system of controls with respect to cash entering or leaving the EU by replacing regulation 1889/2005. The objective is to take into account the development of new best practices in the implementation within the EU of international standards on combating money laundering and terrorism financing developed by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). Accordingly, the draft regulation extends the definition of cash to some instruments or methods of payment other than currency, such as cheques, traveller's cheques, gold and prepaid cards. 

Furthermore, it extends its scope to cash that is sent in post, freight or courier shipment. 

It will thus complement the EU's legal framework for the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing laid down in directive 2015/849. 

Under the Council common position, any citizen entering or leaving the EU and carrying cash of a value of €10 000 or more, will have to declare it to the customs authorities. 

The declaration will have to be done irrespective of whether travellers are carrying the cash in their person, their luggage or means of transport. At the request of the authorities they will have to make it available for control. 

With regard to cash sent in postal packages, courier shipments, unaccompanied luggage or containerised cargo (“unaccompanied cash”), the competent authorities will have the power to request the sender or the recipient, as the case may be, to make a disclosure declaration. The declaration will be done in writing or electronically using a standard form. 

The authorities will have the power to carry out controls on any consignments, receptacles or means of transport which may contain unaccompanied cash. 

The authorities of the member states will exchange information, notably where there are indications that the cash is related to criminal activity which could adversely affect the financial interests of the EU. This information will also be transmitted to the Commission. 

The new regulation will not prevent member states to provide for additional national controls on movements of cash within the Union under national law, provided that these controls are in accordance with the Union's fundamental freedoms. 

It’s time we think about peace. By doing so in the context of war, we might win both the war and the peace.

We plan to win wars and therefore we organise, train and equip ourselves, our allies and our partners to win wars. But what is our plan to win the peace?  How do we train for that? Do we even really understand the new complexities of the globally-integrated 21st century?

War is the ultimate come-as-you-are event: it doesn’t allow time to prepare. Military victory must be pursued before a war begins; but military victory is no longer a sufficient outcome.  Lasting peace is the ultimate goal, but it cannot be achieved without preparation, which must be pursued even before a war begins.

The United States-led military missions accomplished in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, were only the beginning of the fight for the real victory ‒ peace.  The massive application of treasure that followed the military’s exploits does not appear to have been as well planned as the military campaign that preceded. It begs the questions: did we really understand the nature of the war we were about to enter into before we engaged in combat?  Do we ever?

Over the last fourteen years of war, a few simple truths have emerged.

“War is the ultimate come-as-you-are event: it doesn’t allow time to prepare”

First, cost: we cannot afford our current way of dealing with instability, and we never could.  Nevertheless, we become involved again and again. It will be too expensive unless we adapt.

Second, collateral damage: any time we choose ‘kinetic options’ ‒ formerly known as violence ‒ we create a humanitarian disaster on some scale.  We are not prepared in advance to deal with those consequences.

Third, collaboration: many people are constantly engaged in improving the human condition, wherever the military goes. These people don’t work for defence ministries  or for government. So military personnel don’t know who these people are or how to work with them, and their work is often neglected in operational planning. But these people are addressing instability on the ground before the military arrives; many stay during the military operations; most return to continue their work after the conflict is over.

Fourth, cooperation: the armed forces are not the solution ‒ they are part of the solution, but we have yet to figure out how to effectively integrate military and civilian activities. Creating the conditions for the success of others is the key activity of the military.

And last but not least, context: preparing the exit strategy for the next possible conflict now is the best guarantor of future success. Understanding the context in which we are operating, committing to close cooperation with those also engaged, and collaborating effectively with partners to ‘de-conflict’, coordinate and integrate everyone’s efforts, are essential elements of the military’s realisation of a tenable exit strategy.

With a good plan in hand, the military must be prepared to operate on the ground in the area of instability in ways that reinforce the stability and the development work of the international community. But such comprehensive preparation to win the peace and to understand the exit strategy takes time, and as time is scarce once a military operation begins, the preparation must take place in advance.

It’s always been easier to form a coalition to manage a crisis than to create a coalition to prevent one. But the silver lining is this: if we can build the necessary relationships to operate effectively together from day one of a crisis, we would have the same set of relationships and the same level of understanding required to work collectively to prevent that same crisis in the first place.

Even if we don’t fully prevent conflict from breaking out, our collective efforts from the start can go a long way towards mitigating the consequences of the conflict, reducing its intensity and shortening its duration.

“Crises grab our attention, motivate us to action, and force us to collaborate and cooperate”

By focusing our collaborative efforts on building a coherent capacity to manage the next crisis somewhere in the world, we will simultaneously develop the capacity to work together effectively in potentially unstable hot spots while there is still time to do something about it.

Crises grab our attention, motivate us to action, and force us to collaborate and cooperate. It’s time to take the energy we put into responding individually and then figuring out how to work together on the ground, and channel it into preparing together to respond collectively. In this way, thinking about both war and peace in the same context, we see how preparing for war with a view toward the peace that follows can give us the capability to better preserve the peace in the first place.  An ounce of prevention is certainly a pound of cure in this case.

And this is an urgent imperative. If we continue to see crisis response as too expensive and too ineffective, we will not respond. If we continue to see conflict prevention as too complicated and too amorphous, we will not apply the resources we need in time.

Only by living the way we intend to fight, doing the difficult now so the easy will come, can we start to develop the collective set of skills we need to engage effectively ‒ if we are to win the peace we must start now.

The views presented in this paper represent the author’s personal opinion and findings and not the official views or policy of the United States government.

IMAGE CREDIT: CC/Flickr – Latvijas armija

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On 28 June 2017 the Maltese presidency and the European Parliament reached a preliminary agreement on an overhaul of the existing EU rules on organic production and labelling of organic products.

The agreed regulation sets more modern and uniform rules across the EU with the aim of encouraging the sustainable development of organic production in the EU. The new rules also aim to guarantee fair competition for farmers and operators, prevent fraud and unfair practices and improve consumer confidence in organic products.

"People want greener and healthier food on their plates and the demand for organic products in the EU is growing by the day. We are proud to announce an agreement on new rules that will unlock the potential of the organic sector, support farmers and increase the trust of consumers".

Hon. Clint Camilleri, Maltese Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries, and Animal rights and president of the Council 

The much anticipated agreement comes after three years of intense negotiations and will have to be formally endorsed by the Council and the Parliament.

Organic farmland has more than doubled in the last decade and each year 500 000 hectares of land are converted into organic production. However, the legislative framework has not kept up with such market expansion and still includes different practices and derogations. 

The new rules will: 

• make the life of organic farmers easier by enhancing legal clarity and allowing for further harmonisation and simplification of production rules. A number of past exceptions and derogations will be phased out subject to relevant Commission reports.
• increase consumer confidence by strengthening the control system. Preventive and precautionary measures have been clarified and made more robust (e.g. the roles and responsibilities of the different controlling bodies). The new regulation introduces checks on retailers and a risk-based approach to controls, thus reducing the administrative burden for operators in general and SMEs in particular. Specific controls on organic farming will be complemented by the recently introduced rules on official controls along the agri-food chain.

• make competition between EU products and imports fairer. The 'compliance system' will become the rule as regards the recognition of the private control bodies in third countries. This means that these bodies will have to comply with EU production and control rules when deciding whether a product to be exported to the EU market is organic or not. Furthermore the development of new trade agreements with third countries will enable EU operators to find new market opportunities outside of Europe.
• enlarge the scope of organic rules to cover a wider list of products (e.g. salt, cork, beeswax, maté, vine leaves, palm hearts) and additional production rules (e.g. deer, rabbits and poultry).
• support small farmers by introducing a new system of group certification. This will make it easier for small farmers to switch to organic farming by reducing inspection and certification costs, as well as the related administrative burden.
• provide a more uniform approach on pesticides. The new regulation harmonises precautionary measures thereby enhancing legal security. At the same time, it builds flexibility in the case of measures to be taken in the presence of non-authorised substances to take account of the different situations of different member states. This means that those countries already having in place national rules establishing thresholds for non-authorised substances will be able to maintain them. Four years after the entry into force of the new rules the Commission will come forward with a report assessing national rules and practices in the field and may also table a legislative proposal to further harmonise rules concerning thresholds for non-authorised substances.
• phase out derogations for production in demarcated beds in greenhouses.  Farmers utilising demarcated beds in greenhouses up until 28 June 2017 in Denmark, Sweden and Finland will be able to maintain this practice for 10 years. In the meantime the Commission will assess the compatibility of this practice with the principles of organic production and in light of the result of this analysis, it may table a legislative proposal.

Next steps 

Today's agreement still needs to be approved by the Council's Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA). After a thorough legal and technical revision of the text and formal endorsement by the Council, the new legislation will be submitted to the European Parliament for a vote at first reading and to the Council for final adoption.

The new regulation will apply from 1 July 2020.

DRAFT OPINION on the EU-Africa Strategy: a boost for development
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Fabio Massimo Castaldo

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

OPINION on the impact of international trade and the EU’s trade policies on global value chains
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Pier Antonio Panzeri

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

The British government on Monday presented its plans for the 3.2 million EU nationals living in the UK after Brexit. Those who have lived in Britain for more than five years will be able to apply for unlimited residency with full access to education, the pension system and public healthcare. All others would receive a temporary residence permit. Not all media see the plans as sound.

The final hurdle has been cleared for Theresa May's minority government. Her Tories on Monday signed an agreement with the Northern Irish DUP, which in future will support key bills presented by the government. In exchange Northern Ireland will receive roughly 1.7 billion euros for economic and infrastructural projects. Do the risks of this arrangement outweigh the advantages?

Great things are expected of the German-French duo: after the EU's summer summit Europe's commentators once again voice optimism that Merkel and Macron can reform the Union and save it from collapse. These hopes, initially expressed after Macron's inaugural visit to Berlin, are now reinforced by the two politicians' clear demonstration of partnership.

Romania has a new prime minister after President Klaus Iohannis on Monday tasked Mihai Tudose, the outgoing economy minister, with forming a government. Tudose succeeds Sorin Grindeanu, who was toppled by his own party in a no-confidence vote. Many commentators see PSD leader Liviu Dragnea pulling the strings behind the coup to serve his own interests.