Ideas on Europe Blog

As we were racing fast to leave 2020 behind, 2021 came as a slap on the face as the COVID-19 mutations promptly popped up in different parts of the World, including in the UK, Brazil and South Africa, which have made the successful vaccination roll out across the globe all the more crucial. While all celebrated the arrival of vaccines for COVID-19, they did not expect the failures in producing and distributing these life-saving vaccines to cause another European Union crisis. Neither friction was envisaged among the EU and the Member States, nor between the United Kingdom and the EU. While the EU’s handling of this crisis highlighted the EU’s weakest spot: slowness, thoroughness and its non-complying MSs. However, its manoeuvrers to take control of the vaccine crisis meant differentiation through non-compliance, indifference to institutional forbearance and extension of substantial and non-ideological material for the Eurosceptics in the EU and the UK.

From the very beginning, the European Commission and MSs have agreed on joint action against COVID-19 at the EU level; later adopted a centralised EU approach to secure supplies and support developing a vaccine.

However, when the AstraZeneca, pharmaceutical company producing the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, began to suffer from manufacturing problems at one of its European factories and has declared that it will deliver less to the EU than it had planned in the coming months. Thus, the EU’s vaccine target-of 70 per cent of all adults by the summer- was put at grave risk. And from this moment onwards the EU’s common vaccine policy began to go downward spiral.

Chinese Sinopharm vaccine. Photographer: Zhang Yuwei/Xinhua/Getty Images

First, not known for its burden-sharing stance, but infamous for being the most non-compliant member of the EU, Hungary did not disappoint. The Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban criticised the EU’s vaccination efforts allegedly for being slow and ineffective.  Then broke ranks with the EU by licencing the Russian Sputnik vaccine and authorising the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine, ultimately disregarding the European Medicine Agency, which has not yet approved the use of these vaccines in the EU.

Second, when the EU was still drawing up its response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the mid-2020, the UK was still eligible to join the EU’s vaccine scheme, but the UK government opted out and pursued its vaccine strategy. The UK acted fast and decisively in concluding vaccine deals than the EU had done. We know now that the UK entered into a binding much robust contractual vaccine deal with AstraZeneca three months before the EU concluded its deal with the firm. However, the AstraZeneca’s manufacturing failures intersected the faith of the UK’s and the EU’s success in meeting their vaccine targets.

Following this crossing, the Commission’s rhetoric and positions have astonished those who thought that the EU is always the most cool-headed and sensible one in the room. The Commission first implicitly accused the AstraZeneca of giving preferential treatment to Britain in delivering its vaccine and asked some of the shortfalls to be made up with vaccine allotted for Britain and threatened that if AstraZeneca disagrees, supplies to Britain of other vaccines made in Europe may be affected.

However, it did not end here.

Just after publishing its redacted version of the vaccine contract with AstraZeneca on 28th of January and claiming that supply commitments within the deal are binding, on the same evening, the Commission briefly invoked the article 16 of the Brexit deal’s Northern Ireland protocol;  had they not retreated, border restrictions between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland would have worked as part of the Commission’s efforts to clamp down on vaccine exports from the EU.

There are three interconnected points I like to make.

My first point covers Hungary’s non-compliance with the EU’s common vaccine policy. Professor Frank Schimmelfennig argues that bad-governance countries with lack of the functioning rule of law and weak administrative capacity, like Hungary if they do not like an EU rule or decision, do not have to negotiate with the EU and ask for a formal exemption.  This is because these MSs can always find a way around by non-compliance with that rule or aspects of a common EU policy, just like the Hungarian government did thorough exploiting the EU’s slow progress in vaccine suppliance, and overriding the EU’s EMA–hence the outcome was a differentiation in the EU integration through non-compliance. Therefore, the EU should have been better prepared to have its MSs with the traits highlighted by Schimmelfennig to refuse to comply with the regulation of the EU’s vaccine scheme. Additionally, the EU should have adopted a toolbox for those non-complying MSs to keep every other MSs united. However, what is more, alarming is how Hungary’s position could pave the way for the other MSs, with similar political traits to Hungary, to challenge the EU’s unity and solidarity–thumps-down to the EU.

My other point involves the EU’s attempt to invoke Article 16 of the Brexit deal. One can say that the Commission did this out of desperation since it has been a one long dark year for everyone, but it may have severe repercussions for the EU’s stance on the rule of law. By Institutional forbearance Steven Levitsksy and Daniel Ziblat’], in their now much celebrated book titled, How Democracies Die, means that elected officials cannot exercise legal action that intentionally privileges one group of individuals at the expense of another. This helps to comprehend how Commission’s brief invocation of Article 16 is alarming and what dire consequences it would have on the EU’s stance on the rule of law. Yes, the Commission was privileged to act in this way, but not exercising that legal right could have been more beneficial to the EU and its relationships with the UK. The EU now has set precedence; we do not know which side will invoke Article 16 next and its consequences.

My third point concerns how the EU’s position in the UK and the UK’s relatively successful vaccine scheme may contribute to Euroscepticism in the EU and the UK. Wolfgang Münchau sai:d “{F}or starters, the EU has just provided a hindsight argument in favour of Brexit. The UK would not have proceeded with vaccinations as quickly if it had subjected itself to the same policy.” Thus, the Eurosceptics in the EU did not escape praising Brexit. For instance, although the Hungarian PM Orban does not campaign for Hungary’s exit from the EU since Hungary benefits a greater deal from its membership of the EU both economically and politically, he applauded Brexit for swift vaccines authorisation, which meant he exploited the opportunity well enough for his Eurosceptic audience. Furthermore, I agree with Münchau who also said: “The last thing the EU ever wants to do is give people a rational, non-ideological reason for Euroscepticism.”, which is in line with what Professor Simon Hix  predicts that the UK public will become more Eurosceptic now that it has left the EU, and because the UK is a weaker partner in this relationship. Sadly, the current row between the UK and the EU over Oxford Astra-Zeneca vaccine and the Commission’s unfortunate attempt to invoke Article 16 is supplying the UK tabloids with lots of material feeding into the Eurosceptic sentiment of the UK public, as well as into the political parties’ rhetoric– once again thumps-down to the EU.

Let’s hope the EU will learn its lesson from this vaccine debacle and next time around it will be better prepared and organized to act swiftly and decisively in global emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Failure to do so undermines the entire premises on which this union was conceived and stands.

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The so-called “refugee crisis” revealed the urge to ensure the functioning of the Schengen area and the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), the need to operationally assist those Member States most affected by the sudden and extraordinary arrival of mixed migratory flows, and the need to effectively and uniformly implement the EU measures adopted in regard to migration, asylum and border management matters. Against this background, the decentralized EU Agencies, Frontex, EASO and Europol, have emerged as key actors, not only in providing emergency operational assistance to the frontline Member States, but also in implementing the hotspot approach. The expansion of the operational role, multilateral cooperation, presence on the ground and institutional significance within the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ) of Frontex, EASO and Europol, is now unquestionable. Hence, this book entitled “EU Migration Agencies: The Operation and Cooperation of Frontex, EASO and Europol” comparatively analyzes the evolution of the operational tasks and cooperation of Frontex, EASO and Europol. Special attention is paid to the expansion of the legal mandates of these AFSJ agencies, the reinforcement of the activities they undertake in practice on the ground and to what extent a gap exists between these two dimensions.

The evolution of the operational tasks of Frontex, EASO and Europol is analyzed and two trends are highlighted. Firstly, while the Regulations of these AFSJ agencies continue to stress that their operational role is limited to providing the competent national authorities with the technical assistance they may require, the tasks of Frontex, EASO, and to a more limited extent, Europol, have an operational nature on the ground. Secondly, Frontex, EASO and Europol are increasingly involved in guaranteeing the effective and uniform implementation of EU migration, asylum and border management measures, as well as ensuring that the concerned Member States do not jeopardize the functioning of the Schengen area or the CEAS. These two emerging trends are discussed in turn.

In this book is pointed out that Frontex, EASO and Europol closely accompany the frontline Member States in the implementation of EU migration, border management and asylum policies. These agencies focus on operationally supporting the competent border, asylum and law enforcement national authorities in effectively implementing EU law. The expansion of EU competences in AFSJ matters has gone hand-in-hand with the reinforcement of their administration, which no longer falls exclusively on the Member States, but rather, on a conundrum of diverse actors, among which Frontex, EASO and Europol play a prominent operational role. The growing integration that the AFSJ is experiencing has led to a Europeanization of its administration. It is necessary to ensure a uniform and effective implementation of EU border management, asylum and migration laws. The long-standing notion of administrative and implementation power in AFSJ matters is therefore progressively shifting. The deepening of the operational powers and cooperation of Frontex, EASO and Europol is eroding the exclusive procedural autonomy that Member States previously enjoyed, when implementing EU law. These AFSJ agencies increasingly steer and shape the effective and uniform implementation of EU migration, asylum and border management laws and policies at the national level.

Furthermore, the extent of the operational functions of Frontex, EASO and Europol may theoretically range from merely coordinating and providing technical assistance to the Member States, to developing full-fledged enforcement and coercive powers. Since Frontex, EASO and Europol do not have independent executive competences, their tasks can no longer be described as merely technical or supportive. Despite the lack of transparency and the vague legal provisions regulating the activities that Frontex, EASO and Europol undertake in practice on the ground, their tasks do have an operational nature. The issue is that the legal frameworks of Frontex, EASO and Europol lag behind the real operational powers that these agencies exercise on the ground, which creates legal uncertainty.

The reinforcement of the legal mandates and inter-agency operational cooperation of Frontex, EASO and Europol thus reveal a trend, under which these AFSJ agencies are mandated to increasingly develop operational and implementation activities. The operational and implementation role of Frontex, EASO and Europol has followed a constant and linear progression since their respective establishment. While Europol, due to its still markedly intergovernmental nature, is starting to operationally assist the national law enforcement authorities in their national investigations about illegal migrant smuggling, Frontex and EASO already conduct significant operational tasks on the ground and ensure the implementation of the adopted European measures at the national level. Whereas the current tasks already represent an erosion of the operational powers and implementation prerogatives of the Member States, none of these AFSJ agencies have been bestowed centralized, fully autonomous operational and enforcement powers on the ground.

The reinforcement of the operational tasks and implementation role of Frontex, EASO and Europol is not in itself an issue. What is problematic is the broad formulation of these AFSJ agencies’ legal bases and the lack of transparency surrounding their operational activities and cooperation, rendering the task of determining the degree of discretion they enjoy difficult. The key challenge involves determining the degree of discretion that Frontex, EASO and Europol enjoy and whether the institutional balance in the EU is respected. In this light, and despite the fact that Frontex, EASO and Europol have not been vested with strictly delegated powers, this book followed the CJEU’s non-delegation doctrine as useful guidance to analyze the legality of these AFSJ agencies’ operational functions under EU constitutional law. The CJEU, in Short-Selling, updated and relaxed its initial Meroni doctrine, by no longer confining delegation to clearly defined executive powers, but rather to powers precisely delineated and amenable to judicial review in the light of the objectives established by the delegating authority.

Unlike in the case of Short-Selling, the operational powers of Frontex, EASO and Europol are neither circumscribed by well-detailed conditions that limit their discretion, nor clearly detailed in a legal framework or their Regulations. These AFSJ agencies’ operational tasks are not restricted to merely providing technical support to the frontline Member States, but rather, they develop expanding cross-agency operational cooperation and activities on the ground. These agencies’ tasks entail the exercise of discretional prerogatives that are not narrowly delineated or clearly conditioned in any national or EU legal instrument. For instance, Frontex and EASO played a strong recommendatory role in the hotspots, which in principle, is compatible with the non-delegation doctrine, since the concerned Member States are not bound by Frontex and EASO’s recommendations. Nonetheless, the national authorities, subject to extraordinary migratory pressure, may decide to rubber-stamp the recommendations put forward by the agencies. Frontex’s influence over the Greek officials in determining the nationality of the arriving migrants, Europol’s advice and operational support to the national enforcement authorities to dismantle migrant smuggling networks, and EASO’s admissibility assessment of the asylum applications or the detection of vulnerable applicants encompass in practice discretional and political choices. In these cases, the responsibilities of the agencies are blurred, since the national authorities adopt a final decision based on the assessment of the agencies.

Although fully autonomous enforcement and coercive powers are not possible under the current Treaties and would breach the non-delegation doctrine, the ambiguity and lack of transparency surrounding the operational tasks that Frontex, EASO and Europol undertake on the ground challenge the determination of their discretion and whether they actually make policy choices. In the author’s view, the main limitation and control of Frontex, EASO and Europol’s distinctive operational and implementation role comes from the Member States. While it is true that Frontex, EASO and Europol assist the Member States in matters closely linked to their national sovereignty prerogatives, the competent national authorities that vote at the management boards tightly control their recently reinforced operational, implementation and supervisory functions. Only two representatives of the European Commission have voting rights in Frontex and EASO’s management boards and this figure falls to just one representative in the case of Europol. The presence of the European Parliament in Frontex, EASO and Europol’s management boards is non-existent. Member States also exert their influence over the appointment and supervision of the executive directors, who lead the governance, management and daily administration of Frontex, EASO and Europol.

Member States’ reluctance to fully abandon their well-established bilateral practices, share information and operationally cooperate with Frontex, EASO and Europol in core national sovereign matters, like border management, asylum or migration, is especially reflected in these AFSJ agencies’ management boards. The Member States will thus maintain control of the strategic decisions and the daily management of Frontex, EASO and Europol. While centralizing on the executive, decisional and enforcement powers of Frontex, EASO and Europol will ensure a fully effective and harmonized implementation, it is important to bear in mind that these agencies represent an institutional trade-off or a common ground between intergovernmentalism and communitarization in the AFSJ. That is, Member States do not wish to relinquish further sensitive competences to the EU Institutions; but at the same time, they increasingly need supranational operational assistance regarding matters that can only be effectively managed in an integrated manner at the EU level. For this reason, whereas Europol, Frontex and EASO have been conferred upon significant operational tasks, none of these agencies are vested with full decisional, enforcement or coercive powers, which remain as an exclusive competence of the competent national authorities.

Hence, this book makes four main contributions. First, it maps Frontex, EASO and Europol as EU decentralized agencies, which are clearly distinguished by their operational powers and by the possibility to directly assist the competent national authorities on the ground. In particular, the establishment and early operational functions conferred on Frontex, EASO and Europol are studied. Second, it comparatively analyzes the reinforcement of the operational tasks vested on Frontex, EASO and Europol, as well as the extent of their assistance on the ground and influence on the implementation prerogatives of the national authorities in the aftermath of the “refugee crisis”. Third, it explores the bilateral and multilateral inter-agency cooperation between Frontex, EASO and Europol. Specifically, the expanded multilateral and operational cooperation that takes place in the hotspots is studied. Fourth, the limitations to the reinforced operational activities and cooperation of Frontex, EASO and Europol is analyzed. The constitutionality and legal bases of these AFSJ agencies, as well as the degree of discretion that they enjoy according to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) non-delegation doctrine, is examined. The internal administrative organization and governance of Frontex, EASO and Europol is also studied as to determine the influence and real control that the Member States and civil society may exert over the increasing operational powers these AFSJ agencies have been conferred on.

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It was one year ago today that Britain left the European Union, and one month ago that we also left the EU’s Single Market and customs union.

So far, NOT so good.

Putting up costly and complicated barriers to trade with our most important customers and suppliers in the world is causing enormous headaches and losses for our businesses, without any apparent benefits.

Also today, the government announced that the UK is applying to join a trade bloc thousands of miles away – the Asia-Pacific free trade pact, or CPTPP, of 11 countries.

Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, said:

“One year after our departure from the EU we are forging new partnerships that will bring enormous economic benefits for the people of Britain.”

But in the EU, we already enjoyed comprehensive free trade agreements with three of the big economies in the CPTPP – Canada, Japan and Singapore.

And in any case, our exports to the CPTPP countries only account for around 8% of UK exports – tiny, compared to the 43% of all our exports that go to the EU, more than any other destination in the world by far.

 MISSING THE POINT Anyway, all this misses the point.

Being a member of the European Community was never just about trade. It was always about peace, first and foremost.

And attempting to increase trade with countries thousands of miles away also misses the point.

Most countries do most of their trade with their neighbouring countries – for good, practical reasons.

Also, in a world attempting to tackle global warming, doing more trade with countries thousands of miles away isn’t going to help. It will make the problem much worse.

 BREXIT AND VACCINES Today, some Sunday newspapers are attempting to justify Brexit because of the EU’s failure to secure vaccines in time, compared to Britain’s success.

Supply problems, especially with the AstraZeneca vaccine, have indeed hampered the EU – which was slower than the UK in securing contracts with pharmaceutical companies.

That was a serious mistake, as was the European Commission’s knee-jerk reaction on Friday to invoke Article 16 of the Brexit agreement, which would have put a border on the island of Ireland specifically for vaccine exports.

But within hours, the Commission realised its error and rapidly climbed down from its threat of invoking Article 16 (which, incidentally, Boris Johnson also threatened to invoke just two weeks ago).

If only our government was more willing to promptly acknowledge its errors of governance, that have resulted in over 100,000 Covid-19 deaths, the worst in Europe and close to the world’s worst, and contracts worth hundreds of millions of pounds going to mates of government ministers, without any proper tendering process or accountability, and resulting in the NHS either not getting PPE, or else receiving unusable PPE.

Vaccine supply problems in the EU, although of course a gravely major setback, will be resolved soon.

And as I explained in my feature article yesterday, the EU’s model of purchasing vaccines as a bloc for 27 countries, will probably have to become the model for the planet’s acquirement of vaccines in future global pandemics (as for sure, more are on the way).

The UK is proud to have, so far, vaccinated more people than any other country in Europe.

But as the World Health Organization pointed out yesterday, ‘vaccine nationalism’ will only prolong the pandemic.

Until all the world becomes vaccinated, rather than just richer countries, there is the danger, says WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, that:

“the faster the virus will take hold, the potential for more variants will emerge, the greater the chance today’s vaccines could become ineffective, and the harder it will be for all countries to recover.”

So, the only way to beat the global pandemic is for countries to work together, not apart, and to ensure that treatments, tests, and vaccines are equitably and widely distributed to all countries world-wide.

 UK NATIONALISM Countries working together is also the way to ensure peace, prosperity, and security for our continent of Europe – the very reason that the European Community was established in the first place.

In the long run, UK nationalism – of any kind – is not going to work. We need to be a part of our European family of nations, and not apart.

No longer having any say in the running and future direction of our continent represents a loss of British sovereignty.

In time, the country will discover that Brexit means going backwards, not forwards. We will need a new democratic opportunity to reconsider Brexit, although that may be some years away.

In the meantime, please share the 8½-minute video embedded below as widely as you can. You might already have seen it, but many haven’t.

The video explains why Britain joined the European Community in the first place. The very same reasons why Britain is likely to want to join the EU again, one day in the future.

• Follow my journalism page on Facebook: Jon Danzig writes
• My campaign page on Facebook: Reasons2Rejoin
• And LinkedIn

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• Join the discussion about this article on Facebook:

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By Bjarke Refslund, Aalborg University, Department of Sociology and Social Work

The impact of European Union legislation varies across different policy fields and across countries. Some policy areas like competition rules are highly, and directly affected, while other areas like social policies and labour market policies are only indirectly affected. Moreover, the member states varies in terms of compliance with European legislation. Some scholars and observers argue national policy actors are severely limited in their ability to regulate policy areas strongly influenced by Europeanisation, in particular Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) case law (what has been called judge-made law. National policy-makers, nevertheless, appear to have more political room for manoeuvre than often portrayed in the literature and in public debates, as I show along with my co-authors Jaehrling, Johnson, Koukiadaki, Larsen and Stiehm in our recent article in JCMS.

In the article, I and my co-authors investigate how public procurement policies have developed over the recent years in Denmark, Germany and the UK in the light of the prominent impact of Europeanisation within this policy field, in particular the 2008 CJEU Rüffert (C346/06)-ruling. Drawing on qualitative data, mainly interviews, from a comparative European project on precarious employment and social dialogue, the results show enduring national policy variation and how national actors, despite legal uncertainty utilise public procurement to endorse their own policy goals. Sometimes the actors directly challenge the case law, or at least utilise the legal uncertainty to further their own national policy agenda.

Public authorities are prominent buyers of goods and services in areas like cleaning and construction, but the procurements spans widely, and at EU level 14 per cent of GDP is spent on public purchase of services, works and supplies according to the EU commission. Following this the role of state, regional and local public entities such as municipalities and hospitals as ‘socially responsible customers’ has been increasingly discussed. In particular how public buyers balance social (like fair wages and working conditions) and economic (low prices which in turn often result in low wages and poor working conditions) implications of public spending. While the role of public procurement has historically been debated, the Rüffert-ruling caused great commotion and uncertainty, as it appeared to severely limited national polities ability to promote social goals with public procurement. However, more recent rulings like the RegioPost ruling combined with the new Procurement Directive has given renewed prominence to the social dimension of public procurement. Nevertheless, in most national settings legal uncertainty remain.

Policy-makers may have different goals with public procurement. For example, some national and local authorities are highly inclined to curb labour market precariousness and securing decent working conditions (and other social goals) when procuring, whereas other policy-makers are more inclined to secure the lowest prices, which in turn may result in poor wages and working condition for the affected workers. The contradictions between these two legitimate goals underlines the inherent discussion of the ‘social dimension’ of European integration, where it has often been argued that the social consequences receive only secondary prominence compared to the economic freedoms in the Single marked as argued by for instance Fritz Scharpf. The tension has been further reflected in recent discussion on the Social dimension in particular the ‘EU social pillars’.

The findings in our research show how both national authorities, but equally important local governments for instance in municipalities, use procurement policies to achieve social goals such as certain wage levels and issues related to working conditions. Hence, some policy-makers are actively promoting social goals with their public procurement policies through labour clauses or legislation enforcing labour clauses that define certain wages and working conditions that suppliers must meet. Our results additionally highlight how political differences are important for how the political actors behave, which has also been shown by other researchers. The results show that governments (local as national) that are dominated by Social democrats or other left-parties are more inclined to apply e.g. labour clauses and promote social goals via public procurement. However, centre-right parties are also actively utilising public procurement to reach social goals, although to a lesser extent.

Although the overall policy implications of Europeanisation are quite similar in the three countries, there is significant variation in the policy trajectories on public procurement. These differences reflect the traditions for wage setting and the historical role of public procurement. Danish legislators at the national level and their German peers in some Länder are more prone to utilise social clauses, whereas their UK peers mainly rely on voluntary agreements. Overall, this illustrates how national policy-makers themselves defines the room for national ‘push-backs’ against Europeanisation for instance through policy innovation and through defining new regulatory measures.

In sum, our article illustrates that despite increasingly Europeanisation of national policies due to the influence of the CJEU, there is still a lot of leeway for national actors to shape policy decisions. These policy decisions may even act against overall Europeanisation. This active contestation is reinforced by the ambiguity of the EU legislation and case-law, which some national actors utilise to promote their own policy goals, whereas others are more reluctant for political reasons or out of fear of the risk of infringing EU law. We also show that public procurement is used as a tool to promote social goals, as in particular the experience from some German Länder and Denmark shows, where the institutional contexts is also more favourable for this than in the UK, where labour clauses remain voluntary. This illustrates overall how the impact of Europeanisation remains uneven across Europe, and how national policy-makers actively challenge Europeanisation, when it runs counter to their own policy goals.

 

This blog draws on the JCMS article Moving in and Out of the Shadow of European Case Law: the Dynamics of Public Procurement in the Post‐Post‐Rüffert Era

 

 

Bjarke Refslund is associate Professor in Industrial Relations and working life studies, Department of Sociology and Social Work, Aalborg University. His research focus on industrial relations, comparative employment relations and political economy and industrial sociology.

 

 

 

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Differentiated integration is a political reality in the European Union. However, public opinion remains divided, both across countries and among individual citizens. This fact highlights important challenges for the workings of the Conference on the Future of Europe.

Prime Ministers Viktor Orbán and Mateusz Morawiecki stood by each other when faced with the EU’s rule of law requirements. Photo: Czarek Sokolowski/AP/NTB

During the recent tense and aggressive debate on the EU budget and the COVID-19 relief fund, Prime Ministers Mateusz Morawiecki (Poland) and Viktor Orbán (Hungary) threatened to veto the budget if the EU did not abolish the fund’s requirements on the rule of law. At this point, it seemed a real possibility that the fund would be set up excluding these two countries. In response, Morawiecki staunchly repeated his (and Orbán’s) long-held belief that such a ‘two-speed’ EU is both undesirable and unnecessary. Possibly, this is because they believe that such “differentiated integration” would relegate their countries to the periphery of the Union.

Differentiation in half of all integrated policy areas

Nevertheless, differentiated integration has indeed become a reality in multiple policy fields. While the number of member states has increased, the Union has become more heterogeneous. The most prominent cases of differentiated integration are, of course, the Schengen agreement and Euro currency, in which not all EU member states participate. More generally, however, we know that almost half of all integrated policy areas contain some form of differentiation (Leuffen et al. 2013).

At the same time, EU matters have become increasingly politicized and affect not only supra-national, but also national elections. We observe a polarization of debates and a higher frequency of referenda on EU policies, as well as a rise of Eurosceptic parties across member states (see, for example, Börzel and Risse 2018 and Schimmelfennig 2018).

Integration gridlock

An extreme consequence of this sort of dissatisfaction is the threat of disintegration. This problem is exemplified by the gridlock during the budgetary negotiations in light of the COVID crisis. The situation exposes the more general dilemma related to differentiated integration.

This is because public support for integration in the South is linked to the demand of moving forward, towards deeper integration. However, the Eastern states block deeper integration because they oppose the linkage of a social deepening to a normative deepening.

The very same states that brought about the gridlock in the first place also oppose differentiated integration.

The solution to this would be differentiated integration as an alternative to uniform deepening. But it is the very same states that brought about this gridlock in the first place that also oppose differentiated integration – at least in what concerns redistribution. This shows how sensitive the issue is. The increasing politicization of the matter makes it even more important to widen our understanding of how citizens feel about differentiated integration.

Divided public

In an article recently published in the Journal of European Public Policy, we use survey data to shed light on how individual-level preferences for differentiated integration are formed. A first look at how public opinion on differentiated integration evolved over time shows that, nowadays, a slim majority of respondents support differentiated integration – specifically, the general idea of a “two-speed Europe”.

There is some fluctuation over time, but public opinion is mostly two-fold: about half of the respondents oppose differentiated integration (DI), the other half supports it. However, support of DI reached a significant low in 2015. This stands in stark contrast to general support for the EU, which increased rather steadily from just below 50% in 2011 to almost 60% in 2017.

North vs South, left vs right

Taking a closer look at the individual level, the data suggest that social dispositions play an important role in citizens’ preferences for differentiated integration. More specifically, when it comes to explaining citizens’ support for differentiated integration, socio-demographic variables seem to matter very little compared to attitudinal variables. This is in contrast to what explains general support for the EU (see i.e. Andersen & Reichert 2009).

For example, we find evidence that support for differentiated integration correlates with liberal economic values. This means that there is support amongst citizens that also support free trade and a market economy, while there is scepticism amongst those with concerns about equality. Additionally, citizens in the political right are more supportive of differentiated integration than citizens in the centre or the left.

At the country level, our analysis reveals important variation in levels of support for differentiated integration across the EU. For example, citizens of the Northern and Eastern member states are more prone to support differentiated integration, and citizens of Southern member states are markedly more prone to oppose it.

Debate on legitimacy

A possible explanation supported by our evidence points to the negative (and still prevalent) repercussions of the Eurozone crisis, which mostly affected the south of Europe. To some citizens, differentiated integration might mean an attempt to dilute EU solidarity and to further divide the more prosperous from the less prosperous states. In other words, their opposition to differentiated integration might pertain to what they believe it implies for their member states.

To some citizens, differentiated integration might mean an attempt to dilute EU solidarity and to further divide the more prosperous from the less prosperous states.

Our findings should be taken seriously by the Conference on the Future of Europe. A substantive amount of EU citizens, especially those with strong preferences for equality (as well as those in the South), seem to think of differentiated integration as a process of discrimination and a threat against EU solidarity. If the attempt is to change their minds, or to reconcile their views with what those in favour of differentiated integration see as the correct way forward for the EU, then public debate must include convincing arguments about why and under which circumstances it is legitimate and fair.

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As we move into the new phase of Brexit – ‘long Brexit’ as I find I’m thinking about it – it’s useful to cast an eye back on one of the more obvious difficulties that the UK government faced during 2020: trying to do two things at once. While this shouldn’t be in the same ballpark as an individual “walking and chewing gum”, there’s good reason to treat it as if it is. At the heart of it is the notion of opportunity costs and finite resources. Doing something (anything) means you can’t do something else, and using your capacities for one purpose ties them up should you want to use them for a different purpose. For a person, that’s very clear: I’m sure we can all think of people who try to juggle too much at once, often resulting in them being unable to properly achieve any one thing. Something’s gonna give, somewhere. With a state, this should be less of an issue. There are many individuals and (relatively) huge resources, with scope to increase these in a way that one person cannot. Indeed, states spend their time doing lots of things simultaneously. But even here, we can notice that in the usual run of things, there are priorities to be made and focus to be made. Governments typically concentrate their efforts on specific things, leaving the rest to tick over. And that gives us a clue as to the issue here. 2020 was not ‘the usual run of things’ but rather a highly atypical coincidence of two huge events: Brexit and Covid. Each alone would have represented a massive challenge for a government. In particular, each has had profound effects across public policy, the economy and society, and so could not be contained within the usual structures of government. Moreover, in each case there was a necessity to translate policy decisions into effective action by economic and social agents: businesses needed to change processes for importing and exporting to the EU; everyone needed to work to reduce transmission of the virus. This, in of itself, need not have been a problem, since the kind of policy and implementation in each case did not necessarily have to pull in different directions. Working for home is not incompatible with working out EORI numbers, for example. But problems of interaction did still occur. Firstly, the need for the highest-levels of government to be closely involved in both Covid response and negotiations on the future relationship meant that neither one had the undivided attention of those concerned. I won’t speak of the Covid side of things, but it was certainly evident that Number 10 took a somewhat erratic path through the negotiations. Notwithstanding their model of backloading the process to increase pressure on the EU to make concessions, the decision to introduce the Internal Market Bill reads like the product of a hastily-assembled gambit that wasn’t thought through at anything like sufficient length. Likewise, the historic unwillingness of Boris Johnson to get across the fine print cannot have been aided by the need to deal with the sharp rise of Covid cases in December, leaving him unable to provide anything more than emotional support to the negotiators in the room and making any political breakthrough in his discussions with Ursula Von Der Leyen or Charles Michel more convoluted. Secondly, the political choices made during 2020 increased the difficulty of the next steps. Central in this was the decision not to seek an extension to the transition period ahead of the June deadline: While it made sense in terms of the narrative of ‘getting Brexit done’, it ensured that the hot end of negotiations would occur during the already-anticipated second wave, and that there would be the economic disruption of the post-transition arrangements stuck on top of the economic disruption of Covid. Thirdly, the overlapping of the two events means that we enter 2021 with the conditions for increased dissatisfaction with the outcome of negotiations (again, I can’t speak on Covid, other than to note the relatively poor comparative performance on cases and deaths). Already in 2020 we saw the dangers of such disconnection and discontent: the rhetoric of the meaninglessness of the Withdrawal Agreement, followed by that Internal Market Bill, was the feeding ground for those who wish to propagate a framing of being stabbed in the back. The prospect of a UK Dolchstoßlegende opens up the prospect of not only continuing instability in EU-UK relations, but also scope for instability around the Johnson administration; an administration that has never looked the most robust, even with its big majority. The absence of scrutiny, let alone involvement in the formulation of the Trade & Cooperation Agreement means that the political threshold to reopen – or reject – it is relatively low. This might well have been a problem even without Covid – the ‘renegotiation’ of the Withdrawal Agreement by Johnson is a case in point – but again it is plausible to argue that riding both horses at once exacerbated the issue. Of course, we can’t always chose when things happen, but maybe when we can we should bear in mind that the more we can focus on one thing at a time, the better for all involved.

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Introduction

 

The European Union is undoubtedly one of the greatest examples of inter-state co-operations that have ever existed. However, despite its stunning achievements in the last half a century, the EU had become the sick man of the world by the twenty-first century. The symptoms of her illness are the obvious and many crises we have witnessed on the surface since 2008; however, it is only the tip of the iceberg. Beneath, the roots of these crises (e.g. financial, immigration, economic, foreign affairs) are partly structural, but predominantly ideological. After the Second World War, extreme liberalism emerged as the most attractive ideology in Western Europe, and gained absolute dominance in the whole of Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Compared to the exclusion and terror of extreme nationalism and Bolshevism, extreme liberalism was cheered as an inclusive ideology, which was supposed to be able to promote openness and pluralism. However, it was clear soon enough that the political Left (often disguised as Centre or mainstream) is en bloc unable and unwilling to offer real solutions to those problems affect the people the most, which led to the rapid loss of its credibility.

 

The ultimate reason behind the rise of populism (both on Left and Right) and the cementation of illiberalism is the utter failure of extreme liberal governance. Radicals on the Right had set the Russian and Turkish illiberal democracies as an example to follow, attempting to get ever closer to govern with catchy promises. Despite the relative attention gained by radical political forces, the overwhelming majority of the European people are dissatisfied with the political elite’s incompetent crisis management in general. More specifically, the people desperately seek a third way, which is neither liberal nor conservative, but trustworthy, expert, and decisive. Therefore, the time is ripe to offer such an alternative by reforming our mindset and resetting our priorities.

 

The most severe crisis of Europe is the sinking of European identity into oblivion. In order to successfully challenge political extremism on both poles, we must rediscover our spiritual and moral origins, and live in accordance with them, translating and fitting their values into our modern era. The return to the real European values and heritage is the primary precondition of reforming the European Union into an enlightened and united superstate.

 

The pillars of European identity

 

By conquering the whole of the Mediterranean, from Hispania to Asia Minor and from Northern Africa to Gaul, the Roman Republic – and its successor the Roman Empire – created a solid legal and political entity, which was capable to host, preserve, and further develop the Hellenistic culture dominated the known world at the time. As the consequence of Roman military victory, the eastern Greek-Hellenistic civilisation could spread into the western basin of the Mediterranean Sea without obstruction, allowing the cultural transformation of the Roman Empire under the influence of Hellenism. It is not a surprise that the Romans admired the culture of the ancient Greek city states, as their cultural and intellectual superiority have laid down the foundation of civilisation already centuries before. By learning, applying, and constantly developing various sciences known already in the great empires of the Middle East, the Greek city states – especially Athens – lit the fire of civilisation in the darkness of barbarism.

 

The emergence of the Graeco-Roman civilisation was interpreted in Rome as the cultural triumph of the militarily conquered Greece over Rome. As a result of their openness, and solving the challenge of living in the intersection of numerous cultures, realising that they live in symbiosis with each other, the Romans could further develop a value system, upon which European culture was born and raised. To the contrary of the Greek city states, Rome never isolated itself, but was open to learn, and form the foreign elements of other cultures to its own image, for openness did not mean the loss of identity; moreover, it helped them to express their intellect even better. Rome understood that connectivity is crucial for a civilisation to grow and flourish, and applied this mindset on a high level and to a great effect, which enabled the Latin city state to be the centre of a civilisation. The Graeco-Roman (or classical) civilisation, completed by the Judaeo-Christian tradition, gave us that intellectual heritage, which is the foundation of the entire European culture and value system.

 

Due to the purposeful destruction of the original Jesus-like Christianity by the Catholic Church, the concept of Judaeo-Christian heritage might need some explanation. The difference between Christianity as an underground movement and as the religious institution created by the Catholic Church could not be bigger. Based on the Bible, moreover on Jesus’ words, it is obvious that the latter has nothing to do with the former. From times of the Apostles until the institutionalisation of Christian communities, Christianity was the embodiment of Jesus’ teachings. Being faithful to their principles and values, Christians truly cared for each other and for anyone in need, whilst waiting enthusiastically for the promised return of their Lord. There was love amongst them, which proved their faith real. They also understood and recognised their Hebrew-Jewish roots. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob (Israel), Joseph, Moses, Aaron, Joshua, David, Solomon, and all the prophets – amongst many others – were Hebrew-Jewish. Jesus himself was born from Jewish parents in the Jewish city of Nazareth. Christianity roots back to the Torah and to the numerous prophecies talking about Jesus as the Messiah in great lengths and specifics. Christianity is inseparable from Judaism; in fact, the latter gave birth to the former. Jesus transformed the Old Covenant into a newer and thus different alliance, in which the salvation of the individual became the core message (New Covenant or New Testament).

 

This Jesus-like Christianity, together with its Judaic self is another fundamental pillar of European identity. The Judaeo-Christian heritage and the Graeco-Roman culture are yet to break into the public’s interest and attention, but I am certain that it cannot be delayed for much longer. It is clear that from time to time they always came back to the stage of European culture and politics – even when faced certain persecution.

 

The adversaries and allies of European identity

 

In the end days and after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the Catholic Church has gained an immense ideological power and influence, which resulted in the systematic exploitation of the society, the rapid spread of anti-Semitism, merciless terror, and the death of intellect in Europe. Philosophy, art, literature, and science did not exist anymore, only in the narrow and dumb narration of the Church. Instead, torture, murder, and public execution were all part of the daily routine in the Church’s business.

 

The first real intellectual challenge to this plagued ideological system emerged in the era of Renaissance (rebirth), which was the attempt to resurrect the Graeco-Roman culture. The rediscovery of classical Greek philosophy and Roman Humanitas inspired many to develop the idea of humanism (as they called it), which was recognisable in art, architecture, politics, science, and literature. Experienced primarily in the Italian city states between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, this era is mainly famous for its geniuses (e.g. Bruno, Da Vinci, Dante, Galilei, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Petrarch), who could present an alternative to the Church’s rotten spirituality, expressing the virtues of the long-forgotten antic world. Despite the harassment and persecution, extraordinary talents and uplifting ideas were born and flourishing, proving that Europe did not cease to be the world’s grey matter. Whilst Renaissance tried to reach back to Graeco-Roman antiquity, and reinstate its ideas and culture, Reformation aimed to search the roots of real Christianity – as once taught by Jesus –, reforming the sick Catholic Church. Reformation – initiated by monk Martin Luther in the sixteenth century – was an absolute direct hit in the Church’s dark heart, unlike arts and sciences, which were more of gentle and indirect expressions of the desire for something else than Catholicism. Although, both Renaissance and Reformation were constructive forces, which fought valiantly to resuscitate the values of the Graeco-Roman and Judaeo-Christian world; overpowered, they ultimately failed to complete their missions.

 

It was not until the unfolding of the Enlightenment movement that the Catholic Church began to lose its power significantly, when feudalism started to crumble and eventually collapsed. The Glorious Revolution in Great Britain was the first remarkable act to open political and economic institutions, which would include not only a narrow circle of the elite, but broader segments of the society too. Along colonial expansion, international trade, creation of financial markets, and the accumulation of capital, the Glorious Revolution established fundamental conditions to the Industrial Revolution, ending feudalism in Great Britain. Even more exceptional was the storm brought by the French Revolution a century later. Influenced by the achievements of the Enlightenment movement, and their manifestation in the birth of the United States of America and in the Industrial Revolution, the ideology of classical liberalism implemented the principles of social contract, constitutional state, democratic governance, and basic human rights. The achievements of Enlightenment are the liberation of intellect, the prosperity of science, technological advancement, rule of law, general liberty, improved working conditions, emancipation, broadening suffrage, and general well-being.

 

Conservatism, supported by the aristocracy and clergy, tried to reinvent itself as enlightened absolutism in order to forcefully regain its power – without lasting success. Later, conservatives gave their full support to extreme nationalist political forces, such as the Nazis in Germany, the fascists in Italy, and the autocratic governments of Hungary, Poland, and the alliance of Little Entente. Whilst nationalism in the nineteenth century was moderate, democratic, and even liberal, extreme nationalism of the twentieth century was violent, aggressive, and oppressive. Originally, liberal nationalists primarily fought for the creation of nation-states independent from dynastic feudalism, broad range of autonomy for ethnic minorities, and the inclusion of every single person in the state as citizens, but conservative extreme nationalism was focused on destruction.

 

Classical liberalism did not face extreme nationalism as its only adversary, but Bolshevism from the Left as well. Both ideological extremities did their absolute best to crush any moderate political ideologies in between. After the defeat of extreme nationalism in the Second World War, Western Europe was strongly influenced and gradually conquered by American extreme liberalism, whilst in Eastern Europe, millions of people suffered under Bolshevik terror. Extreme liberalism in the West and Bolshevism in the East reproached every form of nationalist consciousness; therefore, even the thought of patriotism disappeared from the identity of those generations.

 

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, extreme liberalism has been the absolute dominant ideology in Europe. Extreme liberalism has influenced people in the West since the generation of 1968, unleashing a spirituality, which quickly led to a value system disorder. The symptoms are clearly to be seen in the ardent support of homosexual propaganda – which supports same-sex marriages, child adoption, and genderism –, radical feminism, illegal immigration, multinational companies, and wealthy individuals, whilst ignoring the overwhelming majority of citizens and salaried workers. The value system disorder caused by extreme liberalism is a direct threat to our societies, which is materialising in the forms of anti-social legislation and praise of deviant behaviour. Libertine-ism, excess, consumerism, and numerous perversities combined with the ideology of capitalism created an amoral extreme liberal social, political, and economic system in Europe. Despite its moral erosion, the influence of extreme liberalism had been unchallenged until the financial crisis in 2008, when it became obvious that it is not only ideologically insolvent, but also inexpert, and thus incompetent in governance. The disastrous economic and social consequences have alienated a significant amount of people, who express their dissatisfaction and anger towards the mainstream political parties, marking the beginning of a radical ideological-political turnaround in the member states of the European Union. Exploiting the ordinary people’s desperation, populism began to rise and spread.

 

The essence of populist rhetoric and propaganda is the conscious and calculated manipulation of emotions by twisting and bending the facts or ignoring them altogether. Its language is vulgar, negative, unintelligent, fearsome, intimidating, and hateful, whilst its message is based on this communication and on irresponsible frequent promising, generating false hope deliberately. Populism promises protection, security, and peace to its followers, but in fact, it creates fear and hatred, and builds up a semi-autocratic governmental system. It appears mostly – but not exclusively – on the political Right as a method of extreme nationalists to get closer to governance. The best known examples of populism on the Right are the success of Brexit (from the campaign to quitting) and Trump’s political breakthrough in 2017. Despite the current trend and popularity, populism in itself is going to collapse sooner than later, because it is nothing, but a radical protest ideology, which does not stand on its own feet, but exists only as the opposition of extreme liberalism. For that very reason, populism is nothing, but a political-ideological dead end.

 

Reacting to populism from the Right, Viktor Orbán (Prime Minister of Hungary) declared the ideology of illiberalism, which describes a method of democratic governance, which is not liberal. The main pillars of an illiberal state – according to him – are the values of Christianity and nationalism. Illiberalism is populist in its rhetoric and propaganda, but also different from populism, because when it seizes power, it is somewhat capable of successful governance. Illiberalism, which is also called Christian democracy by Orbán, is the twenty-first century version of extreme nationalism in a resurrected form. Illiberalism preaches conservative values to its followers, steps up as the apparent supporter and protector of Christian religion, and praises national homogeneity and unorthodox economic policy, whilst it is extremely inflexible and exclusionary. Despite standing at different stages, the examples of Putin’s Russia, Erdogan’s Turkey, and Orbán’s Hungary show that in an illiberal state, power concentrates around the self-assigned strong leader. This leader and his party intend to demolish the crucial elements of democracy gradually, silencing the critical press, and make the functioning of non-governmental organisations impossible. Although, the political branches seemingly remain separate and independent, neither the opposition nor the media has any real power to act. The political opponents call it pseudo-democracy or autocracy, whilst the illiberal forces and their allies argue that it is still a democracy, only that is not liberal – thus illiberal.

 

Conclusion

 

My verdict is that neither extreme liberalism nor their extreme nationalist challengers is a desirable alternative to the great many European moderate conservatives and patriots, and moderate socialists and liberals, who are compelled to choose between these two extreme ideologies. European identity must be redefined upon the pillars of Graeco-Roman values (e.g. virtue, honour, valour, restraint, love of justice), Judaeo-Christian heritage (e.g. comradeship, social justice, generosity, solidarity), and the achievements of Enlightenment (e.g. science, expertise, progress), resulting in the idea of enlightened Europism, which is the translation and integration of traditional European values into the modern era of science and technology. It is my proposal as a third alternative, which would hopefully prepare the way for the total political unification of Europe, enabling us to successfully deal with European affairs of the present and future. Once extremism is isolated and vanquished, necessary reforms related to the suffrage, political system, economy, social system, armed forces, and foreign policy can be introduced and implemented. This blog is going to focus on the introduction of these reforms.

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Among the more minor consequences of Brexit has been the opportunity for me to give evidence to Parliament. In the case of talking with the Commons Committee on the Future Relationship with the EU (formerly the Exiting the EU Committee), that has always been a very constructive and engaging experience. Which makes it all the more frustrating to find my evidence quoted quite as much as it is in the Committee’s final report (although do note the various Conservative amendments to expunge references to a single European committee). That report concerns the arrangements for Parliamentary scrutiny of relations with the EU in the wake of both the conclusion of the Trade & Cooperation Agreement and the rolling-up of the Committee itself. The messages of the report are much as one might expect, from a neutral perspective: the UK-EU relationship will be an important one and the effects of managing the TCA are likely to cut across public policy, so it makes sense to review and strengthen scrutiny provisions. One of the points I made – and which the report notes – is that scrutiny comes with the benefit of improving sight of looming issues. More knowledge and understanding of what’s happening will help with avoiding problems in the first place, and managing those that can’t be avoided. That’s something that would presumably be of value to government, whatever its wider views about Parliamentary involvement in public policy: allowing Parliament to interrogate key issues and individuals raises the quality and quantity of evidence available, however you’re making decisions. But the impression given to date is that government seems more intent on take back control to itself than in creating efficient, effective and inclusive ways of making policy. The decision not to extend the Committee’s life for a period to allow for full scrutiny of the TCA itself is Exhibit A here. Brexit is done, so ipso facto there’s no need to talk about it any more. The argument by government that EU issues will be spread across the full range of other committees fails to address the likely outcome that it becomes no-one’s responsibility and there is little scope to deal with more systemic and cross-cutting issues. Sadly, the likely outcome of all of this is that this government will get to have minimal scrutiny of its EU-related decisions, and that only a major failure on those decisions will change matters. But that in turn requires Parliament to maintain its pressure to be able to run an effective system of scrutiny. This report is an excellent step in that direction and it is to be hoped that it results in appropriate action sooner, rather than later. However, with a government that seems intent on ignoring the EU at every possible moment, we might not get our hopes up too high.

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Abstract

This insightful book analyzes the evolution of the operational tasks and cooperation of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (FRONTEX), the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) and the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (EUROPOL). Exploring the recent expansion of the legal mandates of these decentralized EU agencies and the activities they undertake in practice, David Fernández-Rojo offers a critical assessment of the EU migration agencies. 

The book identifies two key trends in the administration of the European Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. Fernández-Rojo discusses how on one hand the new legal frameworks of FRONTEX, EASO and EUROPOL stress that their operational roles are limited to providing national authorities with technical assistance, while on the other hand these agencies are increasingly involved in guaranteeing the enforcement of EU migration, asylum and border management measures. The book expertly illustrates how FRONTEX, EASO and EUROPOL establish an effective and uniform national implementation of laws and policies, with a focus on their multilateral cooperation in the hotspots established in the aftermath of the refugee crisis.

Examining the de jure and de facto operational powers and cooperation of EU migration agencies, this book will be critical reading for academics and students of law, international relations and political science. Its assessment of the effectiveness of policy implementation will also be beneficial for legal practitioners, policy makers and NGOs.

Critical Acclaim

‘In this detailed and precise guide, the author traces how Europe’s border, police, and asylum agencies are evolving in an interactive system of governance. EU Migration Agencies maps out lines of authority, pathways of power, and unexpected feedback loops.’
– David Scott FitzGerald, University of California, San Diego, US

‘David Fernández-Rojo has produced an excellent and invaluable book on a topic of great importance and complexity, namely the evolution of the operational tasks and cooperation of three key agencies in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice: FRONTEX, EASO and EUROPOL. His comparative analysis offers crucial insights to understand central aspects for the future of the European Union such as the Schengen area, the Common European Asylum System or the so-called hotspots.’
– Diego Acosta, University of Bristol, UK

Contents

1. Introduction to Frontex, EASO and Europol as Operational Decentralized Agencies 2. The Establishment and Initial Operational Role of Frontex, EASO and Europol 3. The Reinforced Operational Tasks of Frontex, EASO and Europol and the Impact of their Activities on the Ground 4. Bilateral and Multilateral Operational Cooperation among Frontex, EASO and Europol 5. Limitations to the Reinforced Operational Tasks and Cooperation of Frontex, EASO and Europol 6. Conclusions and Perspectives: An Integrated Administration of Border Management, Migration and Asylum Matters in the EU Bibliography Index

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PDF version: https://bit.ly/UshGraphic65

The conclusion of the EU-UK Trade & Cooperation Agreement (TCA) over Christmas meant that the end of the transition period a few days later saw the start of a new phase of the relationship between the two parties. Since there are many others who are much better placed to analyse the contents of the TCA (e.g. Steve Peers, Chris Grey, and the entire UK in a Changing Europe massive), I will limit myself here to discussion of just one aspect, namely the structuring of future EU-UK relations within the treaties. As the diagram above indicates, the TCA joins the Withdrawal Agreement (WA) in creating an architecture not solely of commitments but also of continuing change, review and negotiation. Put simply, Brexit is not ‘done’, merely shifted into a new framework. To illustrate the dynamic nature of the relationship, we might usefully consider four distinct areas. Firstly, the TCA /WA creates a number of grace periods. These are agreed non-applications of rules or processes immediately after the end of transition/start of the TCA (i.e. 1 January 2021). In all the cases listed these are functions of the very rushed timetable from end of negotiations to start of implementation and the consequent inability of the UK to put in place replacement systems or processes. Such grace periods should be considered relatively unusual, for the reason just mentioned: international treaties do not normally get done at such breakneck speed and they do not normally involve divergent regulation. This second point matters a lot in enabling a more phased introduction of the TCA model, since the starting point on 1 January was one of complete alignment on EU standards. The variable length of the grace periods is thus a function of the likely speed at which divergence and/or issues might be expected to emerge: higher for food standards (which involves health), lower for rules of origin (where integrated supply chains cannot change speedily). A further should be made on the data adequacy provision in Art.FINPROV.10a, both for its semi-automatic extension and for the particularity of what follows. Unlike the other cases, where the UK will simply start following pre-agreed rules, this will require the EU to make a new unilateral declaration on adequacy for the UK to maintain existing data flows. This does not allow for any negotiation by the UK, only demonstrating its continuing implementation and enforcement of the necessary standards. The Commission did leave this hanging over the UK during the autumn, so it would be naïve to expect it to be without problem this summer. The second category is that of more conventional transitional arrangements. Unlike the grace periods, these allow for temporary situations to apply while more major adaptations can take place. In the case of references to the Court of Justice on citizens’ rights matters, the emphasis is on sunsetting this legal avenue, as free movement of people becomes a more historic right: the anticipation is that eight years should be long enough for any significant issues to have worked their way through to the courts. By contrast, both the rules of origin and fisheries transitions are designed to phase in new arrangements in a more progressive manner than a simple step-change: the adjustments allow for a longer process of change that better reflects the ability of each side to operationalise it. The final transitional arrangement is the limited shelf-life of Title VIII (energy) of the TCA. While it can be extended beyond June 2026, by mutual agreement, the Title also clearly sets out plans for further, specific negotiations, notably to implement a new energy interconnector agreement by the middle of next year. This is best understood as an early case of the two sides identifying specific needs for resolution, but not being able to tie that off straight away: thus Title VIII will grow, rather than shrink, over time, whether within the TCA text or not. The interconnector example is the only specific and scheduled case of the third category: negotiations. The commitment to develop a new framework for mutual recognition of professional qualifications is left hanging in the TCA and there appears to be no sign of any immediate urgency to get this moving. The other case of a commitment to negotiate falls under the fisheries section of the TCA. Annual rounds of discussions will continue using the Common Fisheries Policy framework through the 5.5 year adjustment period, using the TCA’s indications on reducing the EU’s share of access to UK waters. Thereafter, from 2026, the UK will be treated like other fishing states, albeit with one major caveat, namely that the EU can apply tariffs on UK fish if it suffers further reductions in its share (Bryce Stewart explains more). With the exception of the fisheries negotiations, all that has been listed so far has been about bedding into a new relationship, but this is not the end of the structuring of relations. Perhaps most consequential of the four categories is that of review, since these all carry the potential for more major changes to the TCA/WA arrangements. Most fundamentally of all, the TCA carries a general review clause (Art.FINPROV.3), first at the end of 2025 and then every five years thereafter. No limits are placed on that review and so we might expect it to become a convenient point for both sides to (re)consider what they do with each other and how. The timing of that first general review also matters, since it will follow the outcome of the first consent vote on the Northern Irish Protocol, the start of the emergency brake provisions in the UK’s Trade Scheme, and will coincide with the end of the fisheries adjustment period. Each of these might generate significant issues that require more general attention in the general framework. A similar bunching occurs in 2030, when the TCA’s provisions on fish will be specifically reviewed just ahead of the second general review. All of this runs alongside the rolling reviews that the WA’s Joint Committee will be pursuing in its Northern Irish Protocol implementation (as specified in its recent Decisions). As the graphic at the top suggests, it might be expected that the TCA’s Partnership Council also ends up establishing such reviews, as it gears up its work and identifies points of interest. Summary While the signature of the TCA might have brought to a close of the ‘hot’ phase of Brexit, it certainly does not mean that the UK and EU have now entered a stable new relationship. At best, the TCA/WA is a framework within which both parties will have to actively work to establish new norms of interaction and (hopefully) rebuild some of the trust that was lost during the period since 2016. If the cataloguing above appears extensive, then that is because both of the time-constrained nature of the TCA negotiations and because of the continuing uncertainty of the UK about what it wants to do with its new situation. Only with the passage of time will it become evident how that fits with (or changes) the TCA/WA.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Innovative supervision arrangements

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vox populi: PhD researchers on supervision

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Supervisors’ difficult judgement call

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Personality types and motivators

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

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

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

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

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

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

All photos: Marit Eldholm, ARENA, University of Oslo

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Between indifference and politicization

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Public opinion as embedded, diffuse, and moldable

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

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

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

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

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

Weighing the role of public opinion

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

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

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

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

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

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

Future prospects

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

References

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This article was originally published on E-International Relations. 

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

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

Historical experiences

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

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

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

Geographic location

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

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

Public opinion

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

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

The rise of right-wing populism

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

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

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

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

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

Towards convergence of migration control policies

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

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

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

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

klymenko-time.com

Non-earmarked expenditures

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

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

Ruthless PR-campaign

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

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

Large contracts for local oligarchs

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

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

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

Companies of the Odessa Mayor

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

klymenko-time.com

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

Vinnitsa monopolist

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

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

Igor Kolomoysky

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

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

Coronavirus Fund for Turkish Firms

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

Q2: What role do technologies play in European integration?

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

 

Q8: What would be interesting avenues for future research?

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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A mothers existential account through a son’s circumcision 

a la Derrida’s Circumfession

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

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

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

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

… well I had no answer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well you are wrong. Enter Sir Phillip Stewart

Click here to view the embedded video.

The post Circumfession appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

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

England had turned predominantly blue.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So many lost opportunities; so many unanswered questions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

________________________________________________

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cartoon by Chenez for L’Equipe, December 1995.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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