Ideas on Europe Blog

Is there really something so exceptional and special about Britain that makes the requirements of our country so different to all the other countries of Europe?

British newspapers have today referred to the gap between the UK and the EU, mostly relating to the issue of sovereignty.

But really, this is not about a gap between us and them. That’s an illusion.

If sovereignty is the real issue, why doesn’t Germany, France or Belgium bellyache about their sovereignty?

Are those countries so different to ours that something that seems so important to us is not important to them?

No. The issue isn’t really about our sovereignty. It’s about the power of the people who now govern the United Kingdom.

Remember the mantra – the slogan – of the Brexit campaign? It was:

‘Take back control’

But do you really think that was about the likes of you or me taking any control? Will Brexit give you or me control over our country’s borders, laws or money?

Of course not.

This is not about US but about THEM having control; those people who are now our political masters.

• If Boris Johnson et al had real respect for the notion of sovereignty, don’t you think they’d behave differently towards sovereignty of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?
• If sovereignty meant something to the hard-line Brexiters now in charge, don’t you think they’d recognise and acknowledge the sovereignty of the European Union?
• If they really wanted to give us, ‘the people’, more control, don’t you think they would have allowed Parliament a proper say from the start?

Since the referendum result, the Tories in charge have played every trick they can muster to bypass Parliament, whether through Royal Prerogatives, Henry VIII clauses, denial of debates or even to close Parliament itself.

This is not about our sovereignty. This is not about our control. This is about their sovereignty and their control.

For us mere citizens, Brexit means we have lost control.

Of course, if Britain wants to trade freely and fairly with our European neighbours, we have to abide by the rules of trade for our continent – as democratically decided by the remaining member countries of the EU (all of them, that is, except us).

Brexit means we’ve lost all control of those laws. We used to have a say in them. But now, we’ve been stripped of our sovereignty over our continent.

Brexiters in government don’t want to obey the rules of Europe that, through their doing, we no longer help to decide. Of course not.

Instead, they want to control our country’s laws, borders and money.

Not you. Not me. Them.

Don’t believe me? Just look at how the government is handing out multi-million-pound contracts to their mates, without the usual public scrutiny and accountability.

Our money, under their control. Our country, under their control.

Yes, there is a gap. A huge gap in understanding of what is really going on here.

Brexit means we – the people – have lost control. It means we have lost sovereignty. It means we have lost our continent.

We didn’t get our country back. We gave it away to the most right-wing reactionary government in recent history.

Only when we truly ‘take back control’ might we get our country back, and our rightful place as a full and engaging member of our continent.

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Just a quick note about József Szájer, the Hungarian MEP, who resigned over attending a party despite the strict lockdown rules in Belgium.

Breaking the lockdown rules is unacceptable, but attending an orgy party is a personal choice, and one should not be bashed for it.

There is one thing that has deeply touched me about Juózsef Szájer’s situation is that how much dishonest he has been to himself about his sexual orientation.

I cannot say for sure, but Szájer’s upbringing or the Hungarian Conservative social structures might have coerced him to disguise and disregard his true identity over the years.

Plus, the fact that Viktor Orban’s, the Hungarian Prime Minister, anti-LGBTQ policy choices and constitutional changes have also come from Szájer, it makes his state of being a bit more complicated and problematic.

I am curious to know if he came up with anti-LGBTQ policies to stay close to power and therefore, to Orban; while doing that he hated himself every day for what Fidesz was doing to the LGBTQ communities in Hungary.  Alternatively, was he okay with it because this is the socially given norm, which he had accepted all throughout life. Perhaps we should all take responsibility for such conundrum.

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Seeking work and shelter in another EU country proves more difficult today than at the end of the last century. Despite existing EU legislation, national administrations seem reluctant to facilitate the residence of certain European citizens. Julien Bois calls for the European Commission to again clarify citizens’ free-movement rights, taking into account societal and judicial developments and administrative practices that have developed in the last 15 years.

The European Commission should take into account legal developments in the field of free-movement rights and issue a clarification. Photo from Edinburgh by Lāsma Artmane on Unsplash

Seeking work and shelter in another European Union (EU) country proves more difficult today than at the end of the 20th century. National administrations seem reluctant to facilitate the residence of certain European citizens. Despite existing legislation (Directive 2004/38/EC on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States), citizens have difficulties overcoming administrative hurdles when trying to obtain residence documents, have their third-country national family members joining them abroad, or simply obtaining social benefits in their new country of residence.

A genuine political union?

The adoption of the Maastricht Treaty created European citizenship. It meant that every citizen could move and reside freely in another EU country, even if they were not economically active. Discrimination on the grounds of nationality thus proved illegal under EU law, and foreign citizens were given the same social rights as nationals.

The Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) played a key role in favoring cross-border mobility and residence. It granted economically inactive parents and students the possibility to receive support from their new state of residence. The legislator outlined the scope of residence rights with a text that clearly defined the rights and obligations attached to EU citizenship. By tying citizenship less to common market considerations and more to fundamental rights, as Adrienne Yong points to in her recent book, EU institutions took a major step towards a genuine political union.

Restrictions on free movement rights

Yet the mood has clearly changed in the last 10 years. The economic and financial crisis led European countries to tighten public spending. Mobile citizens also became victims of public spending cuts. EU countries restricted access to welfare by denying previously accepted requests or withholding access to needed documents like residence permits.

The CJEU departed from its earlier expansive reach of EU citizenship to a narrow interpretation of the rules regulating free movement. It famously put an end to social tourism in the Union and has not helped former workers to stay beyond six months even if its earlier case law hinted towards this possibility.

The Commission issued further guidance on the application of the free-movement directive in 2009, but has not followed up despite dramatic changes in the socio-economic environment in European countries. As a result, some parts of the directive are not applied. Family members of EU citizens who are third-country nationals (TNC) are often required to provide visas, despite their right to move visa-free in the Schengen area. Some groups remain particularly prone to frequent residence documents checks although this is clearly prohibited.

There is no consensual definition of “public policy grounds” which allow member states to deport or refuse entry of EU citizens into their territory in order to prevent disturbance of social order. The European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless (FEANTSA) reports that member states have adopted different approaches as a result. National authorities in Spain, France, Italy and Portugal keep refusing marriage and birth certificates issued in a non-EU country even for EU citizens or for their TCN family members.

As Martin Risak and Thomas Dullinger have shown, member states also adopt generalized thresholds when assessing the working situation of mobile EU citizens, despite the provision in Directive 2004/38/EC to assess situations on a case-by-case basis. National administrations have adopted either a minimum income threshold and/or a minimum number of hours worked per week for the activity to be considered work, and these thresholds are much higher than those retained by the CJEU’s case law. These are a few examples of the many uncertainties that Sandra Mantu and Paul Minderhoud have identified in EU law regulating cross-border mobility. Others relate to ‘comprehensive medical insurance’, or ‘sufficient resources’.

Same-sex marriage and other societal developments

The adoption in 2004 of a directive regulating the exercise of free movement and residence was a welcome move for EU institutions and national administrations in their task of facilitating the exercise of one of the core freedoms enshrined in the EU treaties. But no such text can foresee the developments in society. Free movement in the EU in 2020 does not hold the same meaning as it did in 2004. Since then, the definition of labor has changed, same-sex marriage lawfully contracted in a member state shall be recognized as such across the EU’s territory (Coman case), the length of residence shall be taken into account when considering deportation on grounds of public policy.

Some of these uncertainties displayed effects early on, which led the Commission in 2009 to issue the above-mentioned clarification of the directive on free movement and residence. It answered some questions raised by citizens, national administrations and judiciaries at the time, which had implications for the situation of thousands of mobile citizens and their family members.

Putting an end to uncertainty

The increasing flow of mobile citizens, the unequal application of free movement and residence rights and the ambiguities displayed by the case-law of the Court of Justice all point to the need for further clarification of the free movement regime, according to the European Citizen Action Service (ECAS).

While a full overhaul of the directive 2004/38 EC does not seem necessary as it provides the grounding rules that still fit the societal situation in 2020, a new communication would be a welcome move to help clarifying certain aspects of a necessary vague text. While the current situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic demands a halt to non-essential travels, the demand for further clarification remains greater than ever for EU citizens who seek to establish themselves in their new member states in these troubled times.

A clarification from the European Commission would hardly be demanding, as it would only have to consider judiciary developments and administrative practices regarding situations not foreseen by the legislator 15 years ago. It would simply be to ask what is required of any political system based on the rule of law: the end of uncertainty. Today, many do not know what may happen when residing in another member state. All it takes is a few words to put an end to uncertainty.

This post was developed during the author’s stay at the European Citizen Action Service (ECAS) as Marie-Sklodowska Curie visiting fellow in March 2020.

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Anfang September habe ich hier einmal zusammengetragen, was man zu dem Zeitpunkt über das neue Bundesamt für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten (BfAA) wissen konnte. Seitdem sind noch mehr Informationen veröffentlicht worden. Daher gibt’s hier ein Update.

Was wir im September bereits wussten oder was sich aus Quellen andeutet:

• Das BfAA wird für das Auswärtige Amt (und vielleicht auch für andere Ministerien) Fördermitteln und Zuwendungen, zum Beispiel im Bereich humanitärer Hilfsprojekte, verwalten.
• Es soll die Visavergabe z.T. managen.
• Es wird das Auslandsschulwesen betreuen.
• Die Rechnungslegung des Auswärtigen Amts wird an das BfAA übertragen.

Seitdem sind neue Details bekannt geworden:

• Die Personalausgaben im Haushalt des AAs werden von 2020 auf 2021 um 96 Millionen Euro reduziert. Laut eines Presseberichts (Business Insider) sei ein Großteil der Einspaarung auf Verlagerungen in das BfAA zurückzuführen. Allerdings spricht eine Pressemitteilung des AAs von einem geplanten Budget von 15,25 Millionen Euro für 2021 für das BfAA.
• Das BfAA wird für das “Immobilienmanagement Ausland” zuständig sein. Dafür wird es eine ganze Abteilung geben, die sich unter anderem um Baumaßnahmen rund um die Auslandsvertretungen kümmern soll. (Quelle: Stellenausschreibung Abteilungsleiter A16)
• Das BfAA soll vor allem für die Visavergabe im Inland zur Umsetzung des neuen Fachkräfteeinwanderungsgesetzes zuständig sein. (Quelle: Kleine Anfrage)
• Stellenausschreibungen im Bereich des Auslandsschulwesens enthalten bereits den Hinweis, dass ab Übertragung der Stelle in das BfAA eine Zulage von bis zu 330€ gezahlt wird. (Quelle: Bundesverwaltungsamt)
• Das BfAA sucht insbesondere Sachbearbeiter*innen und arbeitet für die Gewinnung von Mitarbeiter*innen mit der Arbeitsagentur in Brandenburg(Havel) zusammen. (Quelle: MOZ; Stellenausschreibungen siehe letzter Blogpost)

Ansonsten gibt es auch eine Reihe von Vorschusslorbeeren: Bundesinnenminister Seehofer sieht das BfAA schon vorab als gelungenes Beispiel für die Verlagerung von (Bundes)Verwaltungen in “strukturschwache ländliche Räume” (Quelle: BR). Der Bürgermeister von Brandenburg(Havel) hob bei seiner Rede zum 30. Jahrestag der Deutschen Einheit die Ansiedlung des Amts als eine der Erfolgsgeschichten der Nachwendezeit hervor. Und der neue Leiter des Bundesamts, der aus Nordrhein-Westfalen stammende Georg Birgelen, freut sich “fast im Rentenalter” nicht nur auf die neue Aufgabe sondern auch auf das Fahrradfahren um die Brandenburger Seen.

In weniger als sechs Wochen soll es losgehen, wobei einiges darauf hinweist, dass ein Großteil der Amtsgeschäfte erstmal noch aus Berlin geleitet wird. Mal schauen, wie schnell das Amt hier in Brandenburg an der Havel Fuß fasst.

 

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Today’s a special day, for several reasons.

Most importantly, it’s the launch of our new Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence in the Centre for Britain and Europe, with many excellent speakers (and me). You can follow the discussion on Twitter on #SurreyBritainEurope and by following our account.

But it’s also important as the deadline for talks on the Future Relationship.

Except it’s not.

The continued non-progress in negotiations has meant that today’s informal European Council, slated for several weeks as the decision point, will not now do anything more than receive a status report.

While this might be seen to be a positive, in that talks haven’t collapsed, it’s also clear that any possibility of concluding even a partial ratification on both sides before 31 December is looking vanishingly small. My two regular trackers below highlight the lack of time and the scale of the task.

One silver-lining: it means our keynote speaker, Katya Adler, is unlikely to get called away by breaking news.

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Before the referendum, David Frost, Britain’s Brexit negotiator, advised that remaining in the EU would be better than leaving. 

In June 2016, just before the big vote, Mr Frost (as he was then – he’s now Lord) wrote an article for a pamphlet published by Portland Communications on what would happen in the event of Brexit.

Lord Frost’s piece was called, ‘Can the UK secure free trade outside the EU?’

Back then, his answer was not hopeful.

He was the CEO of the Scotch Whisky Association but wrote his article in a personal capacity.

There were two key questions, he asserted.

• Can any future trading arrangements, as a matter of theory, be as good as the current ones provided by membership?
• Is it possible to negotiate such arrangements, as a matter of practical politics?

Concluded Lord Frost:

“I have doubts on both points.”

He explained, “There’s a very simple trade-off in this area.

“It is that the more independent your national trade policy is, the more difficult it is to negotiate completely barrier-free access to any other country.”

 A MAMMOTH UNDERTAKING Negotiating new free trade agreements in the event of Brexit is “a mammoth undertaking”.

“Simply setting out the task underlines how risky a decision to Vote Leave will be” he wrote.

If, as is the case with the UK, pointed out Lord Frost, “a country is already part of a customs union and has already adapted its trading arrangements to it, the case for change has to be overwhelming.”

He asserted then, “It isn’t.”

Lord Frost clearly understood the problems in great detail. He wrote that it’s “important to remember that trade is no longer about making one product and sending it across one border.”

The situation in the modern world is much more complicated.

“Most modern products are made up of components from many other countries.

“A car finished in Germany might have components made in Italy, incorporated into a larger component in the UK, be re-exported to France and incorporated again, be sent back to the UK and incorporated in (say) the final car engine, before going back to Germany for final assembly.

“The result is that it would cross the UK border more than once and the administrative costs of doing so would keep mounting up.

“That would be a barrier, over time, to making the components in the UK in the first place.

“So all these arrangements would leave the UK with less access to the single market than before.”

Lord Frost asked a pertinent question.

“Would this be outweighed by freedom to negotiate our own trading arrangements with other countries?

“A simple bit of maths shows the answer is no.”

He went on to explain that the EU already has free trade agreements covering nearly 60% of the UK’s trade, including the EU itself.

“If TTIP and the EU/Japan FTA can be negotiated soon, that figure goes up to 80%.

“It can’t possibly make sense to have less good arrangements with the 60% or 80% in return for slightly better arrangement with the 20%”

In another argument against Brexit, Lord Frost went on to explain that the single market is plausibly worth 5% of GDP, which would be boosted by the EU’s future new trade agreements with other countries, such as Japan and India.

He concluded that:

“It simply isn’t worth jeopardising access to the single market for the sake of global trade.”

 NEGOTIATING REALITIES Negotiating “realities” were another barrier to Brexit.

“After leaving, the UK will have to renegotiate trading arrangements simultaneously with many major countries, including the EU,” wrote Lord Frost.

“Britain will be demandeur* and so it will be Britain that has to make the concessions to get the deal. True, other countries will want deals too, but they won’t be under anything like the same time pressure and can afford to make us sweat.”

[* i.e. the country applying for the trade agreement]

Another barrier to Brexit would be the “formidable administrative task” involved.

“Trade negotiations are complex and a good modern trade agreement requires many stakeholders within a country to be involved in the negotiations and be ready to implement the result.”

Explained Lord Frost:

“That is why negotiations take years not months.”

He added, “The EU is involved in perhaps a dozen live FTA negotiations at any one time and even that puts strain on the system.

“The UK would have to do many more, with few experienced trade negotiators at our disposal.”

 THE BOTTOM LINE The bottom line?

“In reality therefore what we can negotiate will fall short of the theoretical ideal..

“In short, even the best-case outcome can’t be as good as what we have now; and we won’t be able to negotiate the best-case outcome anyway, because in real life you never can.”

That’s not all, because “these negotiations would not be happening in a vacuum.”

Lord Frost pointed out:

“There would be political turbulence in Britain and, no doubt, the EU.”

He continued: “Firms and other countries would see that the future arrangements for British trade were up in the air and that existing tariff-free access could not be ensured.

“So it could be a traumatic and difficult period, with no guarantee of a good outcome.”

 LORD FROST’S RECOMMENDATION (THEN) What would Lord Frost recommend if he was Britain’s negotiator in the event of Leave winning the referendum?

Believe it or not, Lord Frost recommended a Norway Brexit – even though that would mean retaining Free Movement of People.

He explained:

“Exit from the EU to a Norway model is probably the easiest thing to negotiate, because the model already exists, it would be hard to refuse us, and Britain would keep access to the single market and apply single market legislation.”

Over time, he wrote then, the UK could move towards a Swiss style Brexit.

But, he added:

“All this said, there is no doubt that leaving would be fraught with economic risk.

“It would be a step into uncertainty and, in many key respects, into the unknown.

“If this is the situation on 24th June, we will face an anxious and potentially turbulent time.”

Today, Lord Frost seems to be a different man with an entirely different agenda.

He is attempting to negotiate a deal with the EU that he not only wrote before the referendum wouldn’t be possible, but also, wouldn’t be desirable.

In reality, doesn’t this show what a two-faced sham Brexit represents?

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By Sarah Adeyinka, PhD Candidate at Ghent University

The fields of migration studies and human trafficking research (especially in Europe) are diverse and well-researched. Much work has been done among vulnerable populations such as refugees, unaccompanied minors, and victims of trafficking, including their experiences, push and pull factors, integration, etc. However, more work is needed to understand their experiences beyond the legal and policy aspects to consider their mental health and psychosocial wellbeing in the countries of settlement.

The term stigma dates back to the Greeks, who cut or burned marks into the skin of criminals, slaves, and traitors to identify them as tainted or immoral people who should be avoided. Stigma, however, is more than a physical mark and comprises two fundamental components- the recognition of difference and devaluation. Simply put, recognising differences (which may differ from the norm) in a person and attributing less value to them because of those differences. Stigma, therefore, comprises of intolerance and discrimination. “Show a people as one thing, only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become”.

My research, a longitudinal study, adopts a mixed-methods approach and addresses the psychosocial impact of human trafficking on young, Nigerian women in Italy. One of the main findings from 31 interviews was the prevalence of stigma. The majority of the young women expressed how they felt stigmatized during various aspects of the journey, including while transiting in Libya and after arrival in Italy.

Working with or carrying out research among victims of trafficking comes with unique challenges and ethical dilemmas and I discovered that stigma is one of them. The instances of (perceived) stigma experienced by this group and their interpretation of it determine how they relate with others – including researchers.

The interviewees were by virtue of being Black, irregular migrants automatically assumed to be working in prostitution. They described being treated unfairly and pestered by men who said that prostitution was the only job available to ‘people like them’. I gained a bit of personal insight into this reality when in different Italian cities, cars pulled up on the curb next to me and the male drivers asked me how much I charge. Since I was dressed semi-formally and carrying my laptop backpack, I can only deduce that they assumed I worked in prostitution based mainly because I am a Black woman.

Stigma was also experienced at the hands of caregivers as some of the staff assumed that Nigerians are always at fault. A participant shared information with an NGO staff who discussed informed consent with her and promised that the conversation would be treated as highly confidential. Yet, she found her full story, including intimate details, posted on the NGO website as the story of one of their ‘helpees’. This led to others including the shelter manager reading it and confronting her about parts of her story that she had hidden from them, including past experiences of violence and sexual assault. She was distraught and has since refused to trust any NGO staff.

Several participants had similar experience of distrusting people who wanted to ‘help’ them for fear confidentiality would be breached. Indicating that while many actors may have the interests of migrants at heart, some do not effectively take into account or respect the rights of the very people they claim to help.

There were also instances where the participants upon boarding a bus, noticed people covering their noses, making them feel out of place and unwelcome. Thereby, treating migrant bodies (or colour of their skin) as problematic, and devaluing it. These non-verbal indications of discomfort, or even displeasure, communicate a message of difference and that being different is bad.

These experiences of stigma, however, were not only external, they were also internal. Some of the women experienced stigma within the group; e.g. those who had children as a result of rape or who were unsure of the paternity of their children. Leading several of them to make up stories about who and where the father of the child was. It is very important therefore, that confidentiality is highly respected and honoured, and no information is taken for granted or discussed under the assumption that it is common knowledge.

Stigma among victims of trafficking is multi-layered and multifaceted and a topic that requires more research and attention. Since stigma exists in social interactions and not in isolation or solitude, it is imperative that the social contexts are taken into consideration as well.

In conclusion, I want to stress the importance of remembering that the rights of people in vulnerable groups must be respected. These include, but are not limited to, teenage victims of loverboys, victims of trafficking, undocumented migrants etc. Their rights to privacy and confidentiality should be respected like we would respect that of the citizen of an EU country. The recently released EU Pact on Migration and Asylum touches on several important aspects- one of which is ‘supporting legal integration into local communities’. This would be beneficial for my group of participants because it would help them be seen as humans who also desire to add value to society. It would begin the process of changing the narrative that portrays them as less than, and in some cases, a derogatory other.

It is important that actors like NGOs while trying to assist these people and raise the required funds for their organisations take extra precaution in telling the stories of migrants- their express consent without inhibition should be sought. As researchers, we must hold ourselves accountable for how we frame our work and communicate about our respondents because while absolute neutrality is impossible, having a nuanced perspective and an open mind is key. Stigma occurs in social interaction as mentioned earlier therefore, a regular evaluation of policies and programs is important to see what is being done well and what could be improved upon, what could in fact be stigmatising and what could be beneficial.

 

 

Sarah is currently a PhD candidate at Ghent University where she is part of the ERC funded ChildMove project and is conducting research on the impact of transit experiences on the wellbeing of unaccompanied minors. Her part of the project focuses on young Nigerian women that were trafficked into Italy for sexual exploitation. She is also the founder of CoCreate NGO.

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European Union’s (EU) capacity of influencing (and even changing) other actors without recurring to coercion is one of its defining features as an international player. Although it has been seriously challenged by the economic and financial crisis, migration crisis, terrorists’ attacks and the Brexit, the countries to EU’s East continue to look for strengthening of their existing ties with the EU. This makes it important to analyse the Eastern Partnership (EaP), an initiative which celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2019, targeting a group of six countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. The EU made an unprecedented offer to these states: a perspective of Association Agreements and the associated Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Areas. While this offer could be expected to reinforce the EU’s standing in the region, one cannot forget that the relations between the EU and the EaP states do not evolve in a vacuum, and in this particular region, this means paying attention to an important regional actor, namely, Russia. So how far can the EU project its influence towards the EaP countries?

Georgia and Ukraine are two EaP states that have accepted the Association Agreements as their ‘civilizational choice’, resulting in a course on comprehensive adoption of EU’s norms, values, and regulations, while simultaneously rejecting participation in any Russia-led integration initiatives. Moreover, both have been constantly putting forward initiatives that go beyond their existing advanced relationship with the EU. In addition to Ukraine and Georgia, Moldova has also embraced the EU’s offer of the Association Agreement and all three states have been keen to emphasise the ‘irreversibility’ of their political course. Armenia in its turn has adopted the position of ‘complementarity’ between its advanced cooperation with the EU’s and its adherence to the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union. While explicitly abstaining from references to the EU as a ‘civilizational choice’, Armenia has nevertheless concluded its own Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement with the EU, and has continuously emphasized the importance of reform process. As for Belarus and Azerbaijan, they demonstrated no interest in signing an Association Agreement. While Azerbaijan’s has abstained not only from the EU’s but also Russia-led integration initiatives, Belarus embraced the latter (a position that may be changing in the course of 2020 post-election protests).

There are further important differences among individual countries. For instance, while both in Georgia and Ukraine as well as Moldova, the increasing rapprochement with the EU has been evolving along with detachment from Russia, such detachment has been more moderate in Moldova than in the two other states. At the same time, within the group of ‘contesters’, Belarus and Azerbaijan have been acting upon different premises, and contrary to Azerbaijan, Belarus has never insisted on a special type of (Strategic Partnership) agreement with the EU.

This is not to say that there are no ideas shared by the majority EaP states: the idea of a EU-supported reform process has been central to the leaderships in Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and Moldova (and until 2013, also to Azerbaijan). However, even when certain ideas are shared by EaP countries, they need to be approached carefully, since they may reflect radically different positions. For instance, the idea of ‘complementarity’ related to the Association Agreements in Moldova, Armenia as well as Belarus, corresponds to fundamentally different visions of cooperation with the EU. In Belarus, ‘complementarity’ supports the idea of ‘pragmatism’ and the notion of Belarus as a ‘cooperation platform’ between the East and the West. This is contrary to Moldova, where ‘complementarity’ reveals a potentially problematic relationship with the idea of ‘(ir)reversibility’ of Moldova’s integration with the EU. This means that any possible institutional compromises (such as Armenia’s aforementioned advanced cooperation agreement) are not viewed as a unequivocally positive precedent guiding and supporting reform process, but rather associated with a danger of abandoning of the existing Association Agreement with the EU and the ensuing course on reforms.  This explains why the idea to connect, institutionally, the Eurasian Economic Union and EaP has been raising concern in Moldova while welcomed in Belarus.

The systematic analysis of all the EaP states positions between 2009 and 2019 allows for the conclusion that the EU maintains its capacity of influencing and changing the EaP states, even though there are significant variations. The same cannot be said about Russia: its power of attraction is uncertain even in such closely aligned countries as Armenia and Belarus.

This blog post draws on the JCMS article, ‘The European Union’s ‘Potential We’ between Acceptance and Contestation: Assessing the Positioning of Six Eastern Partnership Countries’.

 

 

Alena Vysotskaya Guedes Vieira is Professor at the University of Minho, Portugal, and the Integrated Member of the Research Centre in Political Science (CICP). She holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Erlangen-Nuernberg, and was Visiting Research at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, at the Institute for Strategic and International Studies (Lisbon), and at the University of Leuven. She also published several briefing papers and reports for EU institutions and other think-tanks (orcid 000-0002-5643-0398).

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Covid-19 has once again put EU solidarity to the test. While much of the focus has been on the pandemic’s impact on healthcare and the European economy, it has also pushed states further apart on the issue of irregular migration.

Prior to the Covid-19 outbreak, the issue of irregular migration had been at the top of the EU’s political agenda for over a decade. At the same time, the governance of migration proved to be the most complex and problematic area of governance in the EU due to the multiplicity of interests within the Union which are in constant flux.

Disagreement between EU leaders was brought to the fore during the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ of 2015-17 when the EU received the largest influx of irregular migrants since the end of the Second World War. Consequently, EU institutions and member states were unable to forge a common approach to deal with the crisis. Indeed, rather than developing a long-term strategy, a series of short-term ad hoc measures were implemented, which ultimately failed to alleviate pressure on those member states facing high migration pressures.

The EU’s inability to develop a coherent response to the crisis resulted in political cleavages both between and within the national and supranational levels. This was primarily reflected in the deadlocked inter-institutional negotiations on the reform of the Dublin Regulation revolving around the question of whether to replace the ‘state of first entry’ rule with a mandatory relocation mechanism to distribute asylum seekers across EU member states. These cleavages were exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic which further exposed serious flaws in EU migration governance as well as the EU’s limitations in the face of crisis.

EU institutions and member states have similarly failed to overcome their differences and pull together in the spirit of solidarity during the pandemic. Even though, unlike the asymmetrical impact of the ‘refugee crisis’, the pandemic has affected all states bar none. Still, following the outbreak of Covid-19, divisions have grown deeper within the EU in terms of its approach to irregular migration, stemming from the fact that policymaking in this field continues to be dominated by national concerns. Accordingly, the pandemic has further strained intergovernmental relations in the EU. Against this backdrop, the EU remains as divided as ever in terms of its response to irregular migration, despite irregular arrivals to Europe decreasing in the aftermath of the 2015-17 crisis.

While the governance of migration in the EU is becoming increasingly fragmented, it is also becoming increasingly restrictive towards irregular migrants. In this regard, the pandemic has augmented the perceived threat of irregular migrants as they are being increasingly viewed as spreaders, resulting in the implementation of more restrictive migration measures in most EU member states. For instance, Italy and Malta have closed their ports to persons rescued at sea for the duration of the health emergency. Both governments later stated that migrants rescued in the Mediterranean would be quarantined at sea in order to prevent the spread of the virus, sparking criticism from NGOs advocating migrants’ rights.

Restrictive measures taken by other member states included reintroducing internal border controls within the Schengen Area to prevent irregular secondary movements of migrants from neighbouring states under the guise of protecting public health. Certain states, such as Austria, Denmark, France, Germany and Sweden, have had border checks in place since the outbreak of the previous crisis in 2015.

Given that the main migratory routes into the EU are across the Mediterranean, the southern EU members have been at the forefront in dealing with the issue of irregular migration and hence have assumed a much higher degree of asylum responsibility. Furthermore, due to their geographical proximity to main departure points for irregular migrants, they are disadvantaged by the Dublin rules, which in most cases assign asylum responsibility to the first EU state in which an asylum seeker arrives. Nonetheless, as in previous years, appeals for solidarity by the southern member states have largely fallen on deaf ears.

One such case in point is the Malta Declaration agreed upon by Italy and Malta together with France and Germany in September 2019 under the Finnish Presidency of the Council of the EU, whereby the five states declared their intent to develop a new scheme for disembarkation and relocation of migrants rescued at sea to ease pressure on Italy and Malta. The proposal, however, was rejected the following month by EU interior ministers in the Justice and Home Affairs Council.

The Covid-19 crisis is giving rise to a similar response from EU member states and the pursuit of national interests rather than common ones. More concretely, the pandemic has revealed the lack of solidarity and unity in the EU response to irregular migration even in an unprecedented situation.

Current European responses to irregular migration thus illustrate that the governance of migration is giving rise to suboptimal policy outcomes. In other words, the tightening of national migration policies has resulted in a ‘race to the bottom’ in asylum standards and rights across Europe. Moreover, the pandemic has exposed the unwillingness of EU leaders to act cohesively in the face of a major crisis. All of this increases the likelihood of the EU developing into an ‘ever looser’ Union, which could ultimately lead to the fragmentation of the European project.

This article was first published on the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) blog on European Politics and Policy (EUROPP) on 23 September 2020.

The post Assessing the impact of Covid-19 on the EU’s response to irregular migration appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Tomorrow, this blog celebrates its 10th anniversary. Much has happened in those ten years. Too much to write a summary, but the 305 posts published still document some of my work, my activism,  and my research over the years.

I published my first post on 5 November 2010, after I had just returned from living in Brussels for half a year. One of my earliest posts — “Reading a Japanese journal article with Google Translate” — still regularly brings readers to this blog, although I don’t know why.

2011 was an amazing year. I returned to Brussels and soon after became part of a series of blogger meetings with the Hungarian Council Presidency spokespersons. As a result, Europasionaria and I become the first eurobloggers ever to officially cover an EU Council meeting from the Council press room. In May 2011, we repeated this with the second bloggers’ coverage of a Council meeting.

When it comes to my academic life, my first participation in academic conference with my own research was the UACES conference in Cambridge in September 2011. A pre-conference blog post showed my worries about the paper I’d present, while my post-conference post sounds more optimistic.

The first half of 2012 was challenging as I was writing my PhD thesis in Berlin while still trying to blog and stay connected to Brussels politics (as I wanted to return). Participating at re:publica and advertising Euroblogging in Germany was definitely the blogger’s highlight of this year. My secret side project in that year—mainly a procrastination from my PhD writing— was authoring a fake Barroso blog for a few months. The blog even got a mention in a German news portal.

After the summer of 2012, my blog became quite quiet as I started working for the Transparency International EU Office and was also responsible for the social media communication. So from the 2nd half of 2012 my favourite post is this one on how the #EUCO hashtag was born in October 2010, i.e. quite exactly ten years ago.

2013 was a year with very little blogging as I was finishing writing my PhD thesis while also conducting a research project at Transparency International. So my post on how “The Matrix” inspired my doctoral research is probably the only text worth highlighting. Maybe alongside this post on Minecraft and the EU.

2014, the year of the European elections, started with a look at the emergence of a true European public sphere, foreshadowing the debates on migration that would follow a year later on a much larger scale. It was also the year when I moved from Brussels to Munich for my postdoc. Part of my research was on EU budgeting, so some of my blogging also moved in this direction while also watching how the new Juncker Commission emerged out of the “political” European elections.

In 2015, my blogging dried down even further, with this post on the network structure of European Parliament committees being maybe one of the more interesting things I did that year. I also did some blogging alongside my teaching on EU affairs in Munich.

In 2016, I managed to write only seven posts, only eight posts in 2017, and only one in 2018. 2019 continued to be a quiet year with only eight posts, and so was 2020 with only a few so far.

The only 2018, German-language post in defence of political science and large conferences against a critical essay in a German newspaper (‘FAZ’) became quite the debate in the German political science sphere. Sometimes writing one good post can replace a dozen boring posts, I guess.

This is clearly true for this year’s article that got a lot of attention when I announced that I’d leave university out of love for academia to create a new kind of research company. I’m still working on this while teaching Global Governance and EU Fiscal and Financial Governance at Hertie School in Berlin. Next year, the economic and overall situation permitting, this will be the focus of my attention.

What I realized over all these years of blogging is that long-form writing has its merits, but for most purposes Twitter (for text and links) or Instagram (for photos) are just the better medium to communicate ideas.

I like Polscieu because it has accompanied me for so long, but while 10 years ago blogging (still) felt like a worthwhile endeavour now few of the people who blogged back then are still doing it actively – Jon Worth being a notable exception (how do you do this, Jon?).

So I won’t put up a cake and candles to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Polscieu tomorrow, but this blog—just like my Twitter account but much less frequent in use—is still an outlet to share interesting insights that come across my way in a long form.

PS: Thanks to Ideas on Europe (by UACES) for hosting it all these years!

The post One decade of Polscieu appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

 

Over the past two months, I see that religion is playing a significant role in politics, both domestically and internationally. The UK and Ireland archbishops’ warning of the government’s  Internal Market Bill, ongoing confrontation between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the French President Emmanuel Macron over Islam and Secularism, and the Catholic Church’s success in tightening the abortion laws in Poland are good examples of the intersection of religion and politics. In the case of the UK, we see illegitimate religious actors interfering in political processes, while in the other two examples we note that Erdogan and Kaczynski using their association with religious institutions for their political agendas.

The person on the street knows that in democracies, we elect our representatives to represent our interests and make decisions on our behalf on numerous policy areas at different levels of government. There are also mechanisms through which the public can keep the politicians to account. To put it in simple terms, when and if the electorate is not happy with the politicians’ policy choices, in the next elections, they vote them out.  However, not alone the person on the street, but also the person with a certain level of education, do not have an idea about how much religious institutions and actors are involved both in our everyday life choices (private/public). Beyond that, the relationship between the religious institutions/actors and the elected politicians is not always transparent. The interests of the public in this interaction is the one that raises alarm bells.

Following are the questions that have been occupying my mind:

• Why are religious actors, symbols and expectations are popping up time and again in politics?
• How and why religious actors are given platforms to express their views on the day of the business?
• How can you explain the intersection between religion and politics?
• What is the public’s place in this interaction?
• Is religious politics an outcome of rational calculations of both politician and religious actors?

I do not have answers for all the above listed questions. Instead I have some observations which may address some of those questions.

Internal Market Bill

On 19th October, the five primates of the UK and Ireland have written a joint letter in Financial Times, setting out their grave concerns about the UK’s Internal Market Bill. They said: ‘the UK government is not only preparing to break the protocol but also to breach a fundamental tenet of the agreement: namely by limiting the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights in Northern Ireland law.’  Additionally, they implicitly implored their fellow peers in the House of Lords to take responsibility and stop the democratically elected government in passing the Internal Market Bill by saying: “We wish to highlight the grave responsibility of peers… as they debate the UK Internal Market Bill’.

I like to make a couple of points in relation to the above. First, the UK government’s Internal Market Bill can be criticised on many grounds, and the legitimate institutions and actors, such as the opposition political parties have expressed their position on this bill. At the same time, the European Commission has already started a formal infringement process against the United Kingdom. Whereas the UK and Ireland archbishops’ interference in the democratic process do raise questions about the role of religious institutions and actors’ role in the UK political system and the impact they may have on the political processes.

Second, I know from my observations that the UK archbishops, if not regularly, occasionally do express their views on the political processes, which means there is a culture of religious actors interfering with the political processes in the UK. Whether they succeed in affecting the outcomes of the political processes, and whether seen as a problem in UK politics, I am not sure.

Third, how an illegitimate and unelected body like the Archbishops of the UK and Ireland can openly ask another unelected House of the Westminster Parliament to interfere and block the passage of a bill. It is this level of interference which makes me ask: whose interest the Archbishops of the UK and Ireland do represent, what kind of relationship Archbishops have with the House of Lords, and is there any mechanism to keep to account.

Islam versus Secularism

The tension between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the French President Emmanuel Macron began to intensify, and to this day it is still escalating when in early October Macron said:  “Islam is a religion which is experiencing a crisis today,” and announced stricter oversight of schooling and better control over foreign funding of mosques. Macron’s statement was an open provocation beyond disrespect for Erdogan, who responded:  “Who are you to talk about the structuring of Islam?” What made the relationship between Macron and Erdogan worst was the tragic murder of Samuel Paty, a French history teacher, for showing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad to his students. Upon this, Macron said that “We will not give up caricatures and drawings, even if others back away”.

I like to offer a couple of points. First, Macron and Erdogan are seating on the opposite side of the seesaw. Macron is an advocate of Secularism, on the other hand, there is Erdogan, who in all his political career fought against ‘French-inspired Turkish version of Secularism’.  Therefore, it is only average for them to disagree and confront each other at this level.

Second, Erdogan, from his first day in politics to this day, has gradually, but consistently, both favoured use of religious symbols in everyday life and allowed involvement of the religious institutions and actors in the political processes in Turkey.  That meant religion continuously have a high impact on the policy decisions and choices made by Erdogan. Having said that when the intersection between politicians and the religious institutions and actors has become constant and persistent in Turkey, ultimately it became harder to work out on who is influencing who, whose interests the government and the religious institutions do represent, and more importantly, where do the public’s interests lie in this interaction.

Third, as far as what motivates Erdogan and Macron in their attack for each other apart from having a different position on the separation of government institutions and persons from religious institutions. I do not think Erdogan is standing up against a secular and Christian leader in the best interests of the Muslims. Erdogan, who earned a name across the globe for his vociferous character and a strong opinion about religion, is using religion to create a smokescreen to cover up the downturn of the economy and rising COVID-19 cases in Turkey. Every news outlet in Turkey has been covering this story, hailing him for his words, used against Macron. While the interest of his loyal voters and Muslim communities is the least of Erdogan’s concern, the problem is that it is difficult to prove to these people that Erdogan is only confronting Macron because it serves well his current political interests. As for Macron, he is representing one of the most secular country  in Europe, but his dispute with Erdogan is not only motivated by Secularism. There is a suggestion that Macron likes Erdogan using this situation in his benefit, as 2022 Presidential Election is looming, and he is head-to-head with far-right leader Marine Le Pen in the opinion polls.

Polish Women versus the Catholic Church

On 22nd of October, the Polish Constitutional Court outlawed abortion in cases where the foetus is severely damaged or malformed; which meant that in practice now means almost all forms of abortion are banned. The tightening Poland’s abortion laws were welcomed by senior church figures, including archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki, head of Poland’s episcopal conference, having pushed for it for a long time. However, the women whom this ruling most concerned took to the streets to protest against the Court’s declaration and have disrupted masses and spray-painted churches. Whereas the Jarosław Kaczynski, who is the leader of ruling Law and Justice political party and Deputy Prime Minister of Poland, regarded demonstrators’ action as an ‘attack to destroy Poland’ and called on for his supporters to turn out on the streets to defend churches at any cost, in a way he permitted violence against the protesters.

First, since 2015 the PiS has been overhauling the Polish Legal system regardless of the EU’s criticism and the Article 7 procedure. Thus the constitutional courts have been going through a reform. I cannot say for sure, but the judges may have been sympathetic to the PiS’s agenda, as well as to the Catholic Church’s demands when declaring the tightening of the abortion law.

Second, Kaczynski’s harsh critique of the protestors and his call on his supporters are an indication of a deeper problem Kaczynski may have. Kaczynski is failing to read the public mood about abortion law, but more so on women’ place in the society. This might cost him women’ vote in the next elections.

Third, the interaction of Catholic Church and the leadership of the PiS, the close connection between them and how out of touch they are with Polish society, but particularly with women who are demanding a voice in political processes and want to decide for themselves, in this case, whether they want to have an abortion or not. I think that women screaming in the face of a local priest for the first time and chanting at them to “go back to church”, is a piece of evidence that Polish women are saying ‘no’ to status quo, pointing to Churches where priests should be based, not interfering with politics and in women’s personal choices.

In conclusion, religion and politics together do not seem to serve in the interests of us all, either religious actors want to see politicians representing their demands in the political processes, or politicians use religion for their political agendas. The losing side in this interaction is us all; but like the Polish Women, we can always stand up to them.

The post Intersection of Religion and Politics– who is on the losing side in this encounter. appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The eerie quiet of negotiators, um, negotiating means we’ve seen very little of the Future Relationship process of late: everyone’s too busy trying to work up texts and compromises to brief outsiders. Which makes it a good time to consider an aspect of the ratification problem that’s not been much seen so far: what happens if there’s a deal, but ratification can’t be finished by the end of 31 December? So far, we’ve tended to think about things as a case of there being a deal or not and then sticking to that as a binary. But clearly, this isn’t the case: as we know, a collapse of the Future Relationship process still leaves the door open to future efforts to address each sides’ interests. And it’s also true that if the current talks do produce a treaty that each side wants to ratify, then failure to do so by the end of the year doesn’t kill it. This is because while the transition period – with the UK following all elements of EU membership, bar representation and voting – runs until New Year’s Eve, there is no such time limit on the negotiating mandate of either side. Yes, both are committed to ‘best efforts’ to hit the deadline, for a seamless jump from one arrangement to another, but as we know from earlier discussions about this, it was both practically and legally impossible to make that an obligation. So the possibility of a gap exists. Broadly speaking, we could see this gap in one of two variants. The first is the ‘half a mo’ version, where ratification is underway, but someone just runs out of time to complete their processes (the IfG have a good run-down on this): if we have to go down a route of EU27 national ratifications, this is a distinct possibility, even if Christmas closures do leave some margin for extra sitting days for legislatures (I leave you to ponder how sympathetic parliamentarians might feel to that, especially given everything else on their plate). In this scenario, the gap is likely to be small and everyone’s pretty obviously on board with the programme. This points to a short window when no arrangement would be in legal effect, but the rapid arrival of the new deal would give much leeway to let everyone neglect to enforce the full weight of a no-deal scenario. Given that there’s been much discussion in EU circles about progressive introduction of controls post-January in the latter scenario, this could be an extension of that principle, knowing that things would be on a firmer footing shortly. In brief, here we might see a short period of soft-pedalling, which itself might be used as a way of demonstrating good faith. Which is also why we might think it less likely than the second variant of the gap: the ‘err, hang on chaps’ model. Precisely because the first version is grounded in some genuine procedural problem, we have to imagine that both sides would know this was coming and would seek to avoid it at all: better to have no gap than even a small one, especially if we’re trying to rebuild trust. However, as we’ll recall from 2018-20, ratification is not only about your relationship with the other negotiating party, but also your domestic constituency. To take the obvious case, will Number 10 be able to carry the backbenches on a wave of a ‘world-beating’ deal, at speed and without rebellion? Particularly given that some of the scales might have fallen from their eyes now that they’ve had time to consider whether the Withdrawal Agreement was actually what they thought/said it was? One consequence of that saga is that the EU will be pushing for more explicit language about dispute settlement and governance, which even the less assiduous readers of treaty texts might pick up on. And the sailing might be no easier on the EU side, especially if the concessions made fall too obviously on any one member state (e.g. France and fisheries): clear problems for one might be enough to put the brake on and to send Barnier back to try again. Again, the calculation here might be that the UK needs this more than the EU, so the former will have to cave in. However it goes, big problems on any side are liable to mean that we’re back into that territory of renegotiation, and that would be occurring through the end of transition. Here it would be much harder to sell the gap as brief or underpinned by rebuilding trust, which in turn makes it harder to keep everyone on board. Indeed, if it turns out that the world doesn’t fall apart on 1 January, some in the UK might decide that it’s actually not so bad after all and pack it in (even though that would be partly because of that progressive re-introduction of controls mentioned earlier). At the very least, this kind of gap would be one that contained much more potential to collapse the process of negotiation, and to see the full effects of no-deal occur. Even if a deal could be patched up and pushed through, the experience would do little to improve the quality of the relationship between the EU and UK. All of which might be a long way to say that if you want a deal, you also should really not want a gap.

The post Gaps to a new deal appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

According to leading analytical agencies, Ukraine’s sovereign credit rating did not exceed “B” for more than 20 years, but international organizations and foreign countries keep pouring money into the country.

politeka.net

It was announced during the visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the UK in October that London will provide Kyiv with an additional £5 million in humanitarian assistance. The amount involved is not much for the state, but financial support of this kind from Europe and the United States has been received by Ukraine regularly since 2014. Dollars and euros help the economy to maintain a precarious balance on the background of general fall in the industry and the global turbulence due to the coronavirus pandemic. Part of the international assistance comes to the country as donations, but significant amounts come to Ukraine in the form of investments or loans.

According to the senior analyst of the Ukrainian Council on Foreign Relations Vladimir Denisyuk, there are no official statistics on how much money and from what sources Kyiv received. Such information is not systematically collected in one particular agency. According to information from the open sources, the main donors of the country are the United States, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, which over the past 6 years have transferred tens of billions of dollars to Kyiv.

Foreign aid from Washington

Since 2014, the US has been annually providing to Ukraine from $306 to $518 million financial assistance. By 2020, the total amount represents more than $2.7 billion. Funds were used to diversify energy, support government institutions and encourage anti-corruption efforts. More than a billion of donations were spent to strengthen the Ukrainian armed forces and improve cooperation with NATO. Washington donated equipment, military hardware, lethal and non-lethal weapons to Kyiv, organized courses for retraining officers.

From Brussels with love

According to approximate estimates Ukraine received financial support from Europe totaling €15 billion for the last six years. The European Union’s spokesperson for foreign affairs Maja Kocijancic underlined that the EU’s support to Ukraine in the past years has been “unprecedented and consistent.” European aid was divided into several tranches provided by various institutions, states and organizations.

economics.segodnya.ua

Since 2014, the European Commission has donated four macrofinancial assistance tranches totaling nearly €4 billion to Ukraine. In addition, the EU provided Kyiv with grants for development and humanitarian aid totaling about €1.5 billion. This year, Ukraine received another €190 million from the EU to purchase medical supplies, personal protective equipment and reduce the consequences of COVID-19. Brussels has repeatedly emphasized that Ukraine is the largest recipient of European financial assistance among non-EU countries.

Particular EU member states also supported Ukraine in the form of grants, loans and investments. In 2014-2017, the total amount of tranches had reached €1.5 billion. Germany allocated the most funds – nearly €1 billion. Other important donors were Sweden (€122 million), Poland (€118 million), Great Britain (€106 million) and France (€62 million). Based on open source data, the European Commission and EU member states donated at least $7 billion to Kyiv.

Another part of financial assistance from European countries was grunted in the form of loans. In 2014-2019, the European Investment Bank and its partners in Kyiv signed commitments worth €3.8 billion. The projects involved investments mainly in the public sector (municipal infrastructure, education, transport, etc.).

From June 30, 2014 to June 30, 2019, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development allocated to Ukraine about €3.5 billion as loans and capital investments.

The IMF loans

The main pillar of financial support for Ukraine is the IMF. In just 25 years of cooperation, the Fund provided the country with loans totaling $31.3 billion. Active borrowing occurred right after the Revolution of Dignity in 2014. In April 2014, the IMF approved a two-year stand-by (SBA) program for Ukraine costing about $17 billion, under which only $4.5 billion was allocated.

ukraina.ru

In the summer of 2014, it became clear that as a result of the events in Crimea and the conflict in southeastern Ukraine, a large-scale economic crisis has been triggered in the country. The current cooperation program between Kyiv and the IMF has been revised. In March 2015, the IMF replaced it with a new $17.5 billion expanded financing plan. According to it, Ukraine received $6.6 billion in 2015, and $1 billion each in the next two years. In return, the Ukrainian government agreed to take austerity measures: cut social payments, increase the retirement age and gas tariffs.

In December 2018, the IMF Executive Board approved a 14-month SBA program totaling about $3.9 billion, under which Ukraine managed to get only $1.4 billion. The assistance was not paid in full, as Kyiv could not fully meet the requirements of the Fund. Although Ukraine adopted a law creating an anti-corruption court, the stumbling block were slow increase in gas prices and a high budget deficit. However, soon cooperation was resumed.

To date, Ukraine has agreed with the International Monetary Fund on another support amounting to $5.5 billion. The conditions for the provision of financial assistance were the continuation unpopular with the people medical, land, and educational reforms, as well as the growth of utility bills. In June 2020, Kyiv received the first tranche under a new agreement in the amount of $2.1 billion. In general, since 2014, the IMF has provided Ukraine with loans totaling $16.7 billion.

Digging the debt hole

As of February 2020, Ukraine ranks third in the world in terms of debts to the International Monetary Fund. Multibillion-dollar financial injections into Ukraine’s economy over the past six years have driven the country into debt, which constitutes for almost half of GDP. At the end of this summer, Ukraine’s external debt has already crossed the $85 billion mark, which is about $7500 per citizen, while $2000 of them everyone owes exactly the IMF.

glavcom.ua

Servicing such an external debt is expensive for the government. According to experts, new tranches from the IMF go to repay previous loans to the Fund, and not to restart the economy and gradually recover from the debt. Indeed, international aid today is only a refinancing of previous loans. Within 3 years, Ukraine has to return $5.3 billion to the Fund, and the IMF is just allocating $5.5 billion for 3 years under the updated cooperation program. It turns out that the state needs even more money from foreign donors to revive sustained grow of the economy.

Ukraine is a risky asset

Relations with the IMF are considered on a strategic level for Kyiv. Most other organizations, world banks and funds agree to lend to the country only after the decision to open a loan program made by the IMF Executive Board. Cooperation with the IMF is a kind of “investment anchor” for Ukraine. Other international credit organizations, funds and states have invested tens of billions of dollars in Ukraine over the past six years thanks to the Kyiv’s long history of relations with the Fund.

At the same time, the largest analytical agencies have been assigning extremely low credit ratings to Ukraine for more than 20 years. On the Standard & Poor’s, Fitch or Moody’s scale the country needs to overcome at least 5 more steps to become attractive to foreign investors. In 2014-2015 (when foreign states were most actively allocating money), estimates of the Ukrainian economy predicted a default. Current ratings of international experts recommend not to invest in Ukraine due to the significant risks of such investments. In September this year, Fitch left the credit rating of Ukraine unchanged at “B” with a stable forecast. At the same time, a minimum acceptable and attractive for investors rating is «BBB-».

mof.gov.ua

In exchange for risky investments in the Ukrainian economy, foreign donors demand that the government comply with strict austerity measures. In addition to cutting social payments, creditors insist on implementing structural reforms unpopular with the people.

Who pays the piper calls the tune

When agreeing on financing programs with the IMF, Ukraine each time signed a memorandum of cooperation, which was an indispensable condition for receiving funds. In 2014, Kyiv agreed to increase gas tariffs, conduct judicial, anti-corruption reform and reform of state-owned enterprises, including Naftogaz. Among the requirements was also the lifting of the moratorium on the sale of agricultural land and raising the retirement age. When signing a new memorandum in 2015, Ukraine agreed with the IMF to privatize the largest commercial PrivatBank, legalize gambling, even more increase utility tariffs, and again promised to open the land market and continue the fight against corruption. Despite the pressure of creditors, Ukraine never hurried to implement the points of the memorandum. For example, laws on the legalization of gambling and the opening of the land market were adopted only in 2020.

The current program of cooperation with the IMF of December 2019 implies even more serious requirements. Ukraine pledged to continue pension, medical and educational reforms, reduce welfare payments and benefits for age and hazardous employment. The new conditions again prescribe lifting restrictions on utility tariffs, boosting the privatization of large state-owned enterprises, as well as further reforming of land market, allowing foreigners to buy vast Ukrainian lands.

In the following articles we will try to explain what foreign aid to the Ukrainian economy was spent on. We will also try to answer for what purpose Europe and the United States continue to invest taxpayer money in Ukraine, and how do they intend to return these investments.

 

The post Foreign aid to Ukraine. Part I: Bottomless barrel for European and American taxpayers appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Although hard to believe now, for most of the UK’s four decades as a member of the European Union, Britain didn’t want to leave. On the contrary, most Brits wanted us to stay.

What’s the proof of that? Well, apart from polling over the years, look at governments and general elections.

• From 1959 to 2016, every UK government and every UK Prime Minister strongly wanted Britain to be a member of the European Community.
• Since we joined the Community in 1973 right up to 2016, at every general election, all the main parties wanted us to stay in the EU, with just one exception.

What was the exception?

It was the general election of 1983, when Labour’s manifesto – described then as ‘the longest suicide note in history’ – pledged to get Britain out of the European Community.

Labour lost that election by a huge landslide. Arch Eurosceptic, Tony Benn, lost his Bristol seat.

Since then, Leaving was a minority call on the far side lines of British politics for most of our decades of membership.

Just two years before the referendum, in 2014, Ipsos Mori polling showed that Britain’s support for wanting to remain in the EU was the highest it had been in 23 years – 56% in favour of remain, just 36% for leave, as reported at the time by The Guardian.

This, despite the apparent rise of UKIP, that the Tories and Labour seemed so scared about.

The Guardian from 22 October 2014

A year later, in 2015, the Ipsos Mori poll showed that support for continued EU membership was even higher – a staggering 61% in support of remaining, with just 27% supporting leave, as reported by The Independent.

Independent from 19 June 2015

What does this all mean?

It means that many, if not most, of those who voted Leave in the 2016 referendum would have voted Remain just a year or two earlier.

Somehow, in the months, weeks and days leading up to the referendum, many of those who previously would have supported Remain were cajoled and convinced to switch to Leave.

Of course, many of them now realise that they were conned with lies and false promises in what was a fundamentally flawed referendum. That is going to become more apparent from 1 January 2021 onwards.

• That’s when Brexit arrives for real.
• That’s when all of us can compare Brexit Britain with Remain Britain.
• And that’s when the truth will trump the lies.

It’s when it will become increasingly, painfully and shockingly obvious that Brexit cannot deliver its promised land, and that Britain – and Britons – were better off remaining in the EU.

Remainers – now Rejoiners – must be ready to say to vast numbers of ex-Leave supporters:

“Welcome back. We missed you.

“Let’s now work together to undo the mess of Brexit; legitimately, democratically and with a huge show of numbers.”

• 8-minute video by Jon Danzig: Why the EU was started and why Britain joined.

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

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ECJ’s interpretation of Community law must be useful to the national court

 It should be noted, at the outset, that Article 234 EC does not empower the Court to apply rules of Community law to a particular case, but only to rule on the interpretation of the EC Treaty and of acts adopted by European Community institutions (see, inter alia, Case 100/63 van der Veen [1964] ECR 565, 572, and Case C‑203/99 Veedfald [2001] ECR I‑3569, paragraph 31). The Court may, however, in the framework of the judicial cooperation provided for by that article and on the basis of the material presented to it, provide the national court with an interpretation of Community law which may be useful to it in assessing the effects of one or other of its provisions (Case 20/87 Gauchard [1987] ECR 4879, paragraph 5, and Joined Cases C‑515/99, C‑519/99 to C‑524/99 and C‑526/99 to C‑540/99 Reisch and Others [2002] ECR I‑2157, paragraph 22). (C-54/07, par.19)

Public statements that constitute direct discrimination; an identification of the victim is not required

Nevertheless, it cannot be inferred from (…) that the lack of an identifiable complainant leads to the conclusion that there is no direct discrimination within the meaning of Directive 2000/43. The aim of that directive, as stated in recital 8 of its preamble, is ‘to foster conditions for a socially inclusive labour market’. For that purpose, Article 3(1)(a) states that the directive covers, inter alia, selection criteria and recruitment conditions. (C-54/07, par.23)

 The fact that an employer declares publicly that it will not recruit employees of a certain ethnic or racial origin, something which is clearly likely to strongly dissuade certain candidates from submitting their candidature and, accordingly, to hinder their access to the labour market, constitutes direct discrimination in respect of recruitment within the meaning of Directive 2000/43. The existence of such direct discrimination is not dependant on the identification of a complainant who claims to have been the victim. (C-54/07, par.25)

Distinguishing direct discrimination (the conceptual requirement) from the legal procedures (the practical minimum) implies a space for Member States to introduce higher protection in that regard.

The question of what constitutes direct discrimination within the meaning of Directive 2000/43 must be distinguished from that of the legal procedures provided for in Article 7 of that directive for a finding of failure to comply with the principle of equal treatment and the imposition of sanctions in that regard. Those legal procedures must, in accordance with the provisions of that article, be available to persons who consider that they have suffered discrimination. However, the requirements of Article 7 of Directive 2000/43 are, as stated in Article 6 thereof, only minimum requirements and the Directive does not preclude Member States from introducing or maintaining provisions which are more favourable to the protection of the principle of equal treatment. (C-54/07, par.26)

It is up to the national court to assess according to the national legislation, whether an actio popularis in the name of employment equality is permitted.

Consequently, Article 7 of Directive 2000/43 does not preclude Member States from laying down, in their national legislation, the right for associations with a legitimate interest in ensuring compliance with that directive, or for the body or bodies designated pursuant to Article 13 thereof, to bring legal or administrative proceedings to enforce the obligations resulting therefrom without acting in the name of a specific complainant or in the absence of an identifiable complainant. It is, however, solely for the national court to assess whether national legislation allows such a possibility. (C-54/07, par.27)

The presumption of Discrimination; the defendant carries the burden of proof

Article 8 of Directive 2000/43 states in that regard that, where there are facts from which it may be presumed that there has been direct or indirect discrimination, it is for the defendant to prove that there has been no breach of the principle of equal treatment. The precondition of the obligation to adduce evidence in rebuttal which thus arises for the alleged perpetrator of the discrimination is a simple finding that A PRESUMPTION OF DISCRIMINATION has arisen on the basis of established facts. (C-54/07, par.30)

Public statements give rise to the presumption

Statements by which an employer publicly lets it be known that, under its recruitment policy, it will not recruit any employees of a certain ethnic or racial origin may constitute facts of such a nature as to give rise to a presumption of a discriminatory recruitment policy. (C-54/07, par.31)

The content of the adduced evidence

It is, thus, for that employer to adduce evidence that it has not breached the principle of equal treatment, which it can do, inter alia, by showing that the actual recruitment practice of the undertaking does not correspond to those statements. (C-54/07, par.32)

The national court will assess the sufficiency of the evidence

It is for the national court to verify that the facts alleged against that employer are established and to assess the sufficiency of the evidence which the employer adduces in support of its contentions that it has not breached the principle of equal treatment. (C-54/07, par.33)

The scope of the sanctions

Article 15 of Directive 2000/43 confers on Member States responsibility for determining the rules on sanctions for breaches of national provisions adopted pursuant to that directive. Article 15 specifies that those sanctions must be effective, proportionate and dissuasive and that they may comprise the payment of compensation to the victim. (C-54/07, par.36)

The scope of discretion granted to Member States; de minimis EU requirements

Article 15 of Directive 2000/43 thus imposes on Member States the obligation to introduce into their national legal systems measures which are sufficiently effective to achieve the aim of that directive and to ensure that they may be effectively relied upon before the national courts in order that judicial protection will be real and effective. Directive 2000/43 does not, however, prescribe a specific sanction, but leaves Member States free to choose between the different solutions suitable for achieving its objective. (C-54/07, par.37)

The form of the sanctions

If it appears appropriate to the situation at issue in the main proceedings, those sanctions may, where necessary, include a finding of discrimination by the court or the competent administrative authority in conjunction with an adequate level of publicity, the cost of which is to be borne by the defendant. They may also take the form of a prohibitory injunction, in accordance with the rules of national law, ordering the employer to cease the discriminatory practice, and, where appropriate, a fine. They may, moreover, take the form of the award of damages to the body bringing the proceedings. (C-54/07, par.39)

 

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Uneven surface ahead Lots of people have lots of problems with the Maastricht Treaty, and I’m not one to change that. Instead I’ll throw another issue onto the pile: its lopsidedness. If you’ve read the text – and really, you should have – you’ll notice that there’s a huge difference between the sections relating to the first pillar (the European Community) and those for the second and third pillars (Common Foreign & Security Policy and Justice & Home Affairs respectively). The former is full of rich detail, setting out in elaborate detail how things should work. The latter is very brief, with sketchy outlines of what might come. Indeed, it was so brief that there was a commitment to review all of that five years after signature (which became the Treaty of Amsterdam). How so? Well, Maastricht came out of a process that starting in the wake of the Single European Act, with the 1988 Delors Committee on Economic & Monetary Union producing recommendations on a single currency and its management. That resulted in a decision to hold a round of treaty revision. Soon after, we had the collapse of communist regimes in Central and Europe Europe, and there was a hurried bolting on of further treaty revisions to consider political integration. By the time of the end-game at Maastricht in December 1991, EMU had been through a long iterative process of refinement and filling-out to produce that first pillar text, while the political side had ‘only’ had about eighteen months to get to the self-confessed vagaries of CSFP and JHA. You’ll see where I’ve gone with this. The breaking ‘news’ (and I use the word advisedly, given how everyone seems very much less than shocked about it) that Future Relationship talks are resuming from today is connected to this history lesson because we’re currently short on words. Or, rather, we’re short on shared words. We know that until now there has been no joint text in the talks, only separate ones held by each party. And even the announcement yesterday of rolling talks does not fully bridge the gap, as Anton Spisak notes:

A couple of notable points from the agreed choreography for the final phase:

The two sides have now agreed to work on the basis of legal texts. This is the single most important development in mths. It's only by going through the texts line-by-line (1/n)https://t.co/tAv8ysitdu https://t.co/ymUvk616Xo

— Anton Spisak (@AntonSpisak) October 21, 2020 Words matter a lot here because they have legal force. And the more words you have, the more chance there is of some unintended error creeping in. Consider the Withdrawal Agreement, which you’d think had been pretty well pored over by all involved through 2018-20. That had to be revised this year to resolve some infelicities. The Future Relationship treaty – if we get to it – is going to be a very much more difficult proposition. Partly that’s because of time, which is achingly brief, but also because its scope is going to be that much wider than the WA: several hundred articles are likely, plus a long list of annexes that someone (probably the EU) will need to throw in too. Of course, if the aim of the exercise is to get to an in-force treaty by 1 January then legal drafters will have to work to that. But one likely consequence is going to be a pushing of much detail into subsequent rounds of negotiations within a framework established now. In that sense, we’ll be on the pillar 2/3 track: ideas more than actions, coupled to a standing need to negotiate with each other on the numerous loose ends. As Sydney Nash notes, we’ve got a whole lot more banging on about Europe, however this turns out:

Some future gazing regarding #Brexit. Two possible scenarios for consideration, and under both, Brexit just doesn’t go away.

— Sydney Nash (@NashSGC) October 21, 2020

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Could the proper interpretation of an EU Directive be prohibiting a national rule from granting a general authorization?

By its two questions, which can be examined together, the national court is asking whether Directive 78/687 must be interpreted as precluding a national rule that grants a general authorisation to doctors who have not received the training required by Article 1 of that directive to carry out the activities of a dental practitioner and whether the answer to that question depends on the title under which those activities are practised. (C-35/02, par.20)

The Court’s reply

It follows from all the foregoing that the answer to the question referred must be that Directive 78/687, properly construed, precludes a national rule containing a general authorisation for doctors who have not completed the training required by Article 1 of that directive to carry out the activities of a dental practitioner, irrespective of the title under which those activities are carried out. (C-35/02, par.38)

The proper interpretation; should be a grammatical one.

At the outset, it should be recalled that Article 1(1) of Directive 78/687 provides that to be entitled to practice dentistry under one of the titles referred to in Article 1 of Directive 78/686, a dental practitioner must hold a diploma, certificate or other evidence of formal qualifications referred to in Article 3 of Directive 78/686. (C-35/02, par.24)

Only derogations expressly provided for in the EC Treaty or in the relevant directives are allowed (see Case C-40/93 Commission v Italy, cited above, paragraph 23). In that regard, three types of derogation are provided for, namely, first, the derogation set out in Article 7 of Directive 78/686, second, the one referred to in Articles 19, 19a and 19b of that directive and, finally, the derogation mentioned in Article 1(4) of Directive 78/687 (see Case C-40/93 Commission v Italy, paragraph 21). (C-35/02, par.25)

Article 1(4) of the Directive 78/687 applies only to the recognition of diplomas, certificates or other evidence of formal qualifications obtained in a non-member State (see Case C-40/93 Commission v Italy, paragraph 22). Article 7 of Directive 78/686 is applicable only to nationals who hold diplomas, certificates or other qualifications issued by the Member States before Directive 78/687 came into effect, in other words before 28 January 1980. Articles 19, 19a and 19b of Directive 78/686 concern only the transitional provisions applicable to people who received or embarked on their dental training in Italy, Spain or Austria respectively, under a system prior to the one in place as a result of the entry into force of those directives in those Member States. (C-35/02, par.26)

Paragraph 1(1) of the ZHG, which grants a general authorisation, from 28 January 1980 onwards, for doctors to practice dentistry on a permanent basis without completing the dental training required by Article 1 of Directive 78/687 is therefore not covered by any of the derogations from that provision referred to in paragraph 25 of this order. (C-35/02, par.27)

Moreover, it should be recalled that it is not open to Member States to create a category of dental practitioners which does not correspond to any category provided for by Directives 78/686 and 78/687 (see Case C-40/93 Commission v Italy, cited above, paragraph 24, and the order of 5 November 2002 in Case C-204/01 Klett [2002] ECR I-10007, paragraph 33). (C-35/02, par.28)

Applying that interpretation of those directives, the Court has ruled that a person may not carry out the activities of a dental practitioner even where he holds a diploma in medicine and has followed a specialised course in dentistry of three years’ duration (see Case C-40/93 Commission v Italy, Case C-202/99 Commission v Italy, and Klett, all cited above). Persons who hold only a diploma in medicine are, a fortiori, precluded from carrying out such activities. (C-35/02, par.29)

It follows that a general authorisation for doctors to practice dentistry on a permanent basis without holding the diplomas, certificates or other qualifications referred to in Article 3 of Directive 78/686, as required by Article 1 of Directive 78/687, is contrary to Community law. (C-35/02, par.30)

In that regard, the title under which those doctors intend to practice dentistry is of no relevance. If German doctors who do not have the training required by Article 1 of Directive 78/687 were authorised to practice dentistry under a title other than ‘Zahnarzt’, that would create a category of dental practitioners which does not correspond to any category provided for by Directives 78/686 and 78/687. (C-35/02, par.31)

The proper interpretation; the teleological one.

However, Mr Vogel submits that neither Directive 93/16 nor Directives 78/686 and 78/687 contain any restriction on the scope of doctors’ activities. In his view, if the Court were to rule that under Directives 78/686 and 78/687 doctors may not practice dentistry, those directives would be incompatible with Directive 93/16, since under that latter directive, doctors are entitled to practice odontostomatology, a discipline in the field of dentistry. (C-35/02, par.32)

In that regard, it need only be noted that Directives 78/686 and 78/687 seek to establish a clear separation of the professions of dental practitioner and doctor (see Case C-202/99 Commission v Italy, cited above, paragraph 51). Those directives apply to dental practitioners whereas Directive 93/16 applies to doctors and specialist medical practitioners. Even though Article 27 of that directive authorises specialist medical practitioners to practice stomatology, they must have met the training requirements laid down in that directive, namely at least three years of specialist training. (C-35/02, par.33)

The issue about the indirect effect of EU secondary law.

Mr Vogel also submits that the provisions of Directives 78/686 and 78/687 cannot apply to the dispute in the main proceedings because the provisions of a directive do not have direct effect against individuals. (C-35/02, par.34)

In that regard, it should be remembered, first, that the Member States’ obligation under a directive to achieve the result envisaged by the directive, and their duty under Article 10 EC to take all appropriate measures, whether general or particular, to ensure fulfilment of that obligation, are binding on all the authorities of the Member States, including, for matters within their jurisdiction, the courts (see, inter alia, Case C-168/95 Arcaro [1996] ECR I-4705, paragraph 41, and Case C-62/00 Marks & Spencer [2002] ECR I-6325, paragraph 24). (C-35/02, par.35)

Is there an infringement of the principle of non-retroactivity, if the previous case-law is to be implemented? The demand for ruling in light of the European law.

Mr Vogel submits, inter alia, that Directives 78/686 and 78/687, and the Court’s previous judgments relating to those directives, concern the right to practice dentistry under the title of dentist and not, as is the case at issue here, the right to practice dentistry as a doctor. In any event, those judgments were delivered well after he had embarked on his medical studies, on the basis of which he was expecting to be able to practice dentistry by virtue of Paragraph 1(1) of the ZHG, with the result that were those judgments to apply to his situation they would infringe the principle of non-retroactivity. (C-35/02, par.23)

It follows that, in applying domestic law, regardless of whether the provisions concerned are prior or subsequent to the directive, the national court called upon to interpret that law is required to do so, as far as possible, in the light of the wording and purpose of the directive, in order to achieve the purpose of the directive and thereby comply with the third paragraph of Article 249 EC (Case C-106/89 Marleasing [1990] ECR I-4135, paragraph 8, and Marks & Spencer, cited above, paragraph 24). (C-35/02, par.36)

 

 

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Yesterday saw Michael Gove and David Frost, the UK leads for the current negotiations with the EU, give evidence to Parliamentary committees. They were very upbeat about it all, pointing to the increasing chances of a deal and sounding conciliatory about compromises on state aid, even as they acknowledged the continuing problems elsewhere. I noted this on Twitter, but expressed some doubt about it too, since I wasn’t clear whether this was actual “things are going to work out”, or more covering-of-backsides in case it didn’t: the space between ‘it’ll happen’ and ‘it’d have happened if only the other lot had tried as hard as we have’ is relatively small. Which provoked this response:

There's a bit of a dbl standard here. When UK doesn't present a view it is 'not engaging'. When it does, and I thought today's session illuminating, it is accused of blame management. The EU is never accused of same even though, in a sense it is constantly engaged in it too.

— John Rowland (@rowlandreport) October 7, 2020 I take the point, since I’m well aware that I’m much harder on the UK than the EU in this process and that several readers constantly assume I think the UK should just do whatever the EU wants. The second point can be dealt with briefly, since my interest is in the parties finding a mutually-acceptable outcome to these negotiations, because that’s the result that will most likely produce stable and constructive relations between them. Where that outcome lies is for the negotiators to decide, not me, but I certainly don’t think it’ll be possible if either side dictates terms. On the first point, some more consideration is merited. John’s last comment is certainly true: the EU is, and has long been, very aware of the reputational management aspects of Brexit. The process matters in of itself, but also as a marker of the EU’s wider objectives with its external partners: concessions to the UK would potentially mean concessions elsewhere. The difficulties of the period since 2016 have only strengthened the concern not to get played by the UK into becoming the villain of the piece. But the two parties have taken very different approaches to the managing of their image in all this. The UK has consistently had a very tight circle of people around the Prime Minister determining policy, with the bare minimum of engagement with those outside government (and not a huge amount within it). Recall the fights to give Parliament, the courts or any sectoral interest a say in the various stages of creating and developing the British position. By contrast, the EU has gone the opposite route, with a very high level of transparency from the start. Sure, that’s partly because of the terrible experience of TTIP, and partly because the EU is a very leaky organisation anyway, but still the decision to have very public binding of member states and EU institutions to the several mandates is striking. Some of this comes down to the representation of Brexit as an existential threat to the EU, driving all on that side towards both high levels of solidarity and to a clear desire for a negotiated outcome (i.e. a deal). The same isn’t true of the UK, where through either calculation or misunderstanding the scale of Brexit wasn’t fully internalised by the government, resulting in much more contestation of the practice and purpose of the exercise. Put differently, while the EU has taken a line that has been consistent both across time and across its constituent elements, taking actions that reflect that line, the UK has none of that. As yesterday’s evidence underlined, much of the work necessary to give effect in the UK to the things already agreed between the two looks doubtful for their 1 January deadline, be that on the Irish protocol implementation or the measures needed for even the British version of what they want from the Future Relationship talks. Chuck in all the other things, like the Internal Market Bill or the continuing unwillingness of Number 10 to talk to anyone about their plans, and a degree of scepticism about the British ‘position’ is warranted. This comes back to the question of trust, which is going to colour strongly the next few years of EU-UK relations: words are cheap, so they need to be backed up by appropriate action, and durably so, before they can have real weight by themselves. And that’s for the good of both the UK and the EU, if they want to find that mutually-acceptable outcome.

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In the last decade, the EU’s foreign policy practices have grown increasingly complex. For instance, despite the centralisation envisaged by the Lisbon Treaty, informal groups of member states shaped the Union’s policy on Kosovo and Ukraine.

Former and current EU foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini and Josep Borrell. Photo: NTB Scanpix/AP/Francisco Seco

Ten years after its ratification, some believe that the Lisbon Treaty failed to strengthen the EU activities in international politics. Others see the multiple crises the EU has faced as an opportunity to revise the Treaty, so the EU can live up to its ambitions on the international arena.

In principle, the Lisbon Treaty should have rationalized the EU’s institutional functioning, and thus increased the effectiveness of the EU external activities. The new High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and especially the creation of the European External Action Service, should have ensured consistency in EU foreign policy both within and outside the EU institutional framework.

Still, many believe that the EU foreign policy is marred by a ‘leadership paradox’. Added to this, many dimensions of the crises the EU has faced after the Lisbon Treaty relate to the foreign policy sector. How is this possible?

EU Foreign Policy Governance Post-Lisbon

It might be too early to reach a final, encompassing balance of EU foreign policy post-Lisbon. In the meantime, however, given the qualifying institutional features of the High Representative as both Vice President of the European Commission and chair of the Foreign Affairs Council, an examination of this actor can offer insights into the institutional practices underpinning this policy domain.

What seems clear is that such practices do not reflect the intergovernmental-supranational divide formally envisaged in the Lisbon Treaty. Over the past decade, in fact, member states often engaged in patterns of interaction that went beyond such divide.

In particular, the Lisbon Treaty’s implementation seems to have triggered horizontal, informal dynamics of cooperation among member states. Some of these dynamics occurred within the EU institutional system, particularly in the intergovernmental forums. On these occasions, member states integrated their efforts without necessarily devolving discretionary power to supranational bodies, such as the European Commission. Hence, the label ‘new intergovernmentalism’.

Under certain circumstances, however, member states also engaged in informal, differentiated integration outside the treaty framework. EU foreign policy toward the Eastern neighbourhood can provide crucial insights into these dynamics.

In my recently published article, I demonstrate that this is especially so for the cases of Kosovo and Ukraine.

The case of Kosovo

The occurrence of informal differentiated integration has characterized the EU foreign policy towards Kosovo – and the Western Balkans. Ever since the dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, France, Germany, Italy and the UK – alongside the US – coordinated their efforts within an international contact group: the Quint.

While doing so, they essentially shaped the EU approach to Kosovo and the Western Balkans. The members of the Quint have been at the forefront of the Union’s policies on Kosovo in the post-Lisbon era as well.

Simultaneously, German Chancellor Angela Merkel initiated the Berlin Process in 2014 – one of the most prominent informal groups in the post-Lisbon era. The Process involves a small number of member states – Austria, Croatia, France, Germany, Italy, Slovenia and the UK – the Western Balkans countries aspiring to EU membership, and EU representatives.

Indeed, the European Council pre-eminence over the High Representative in decision-making processes has characterized EU foreign policy on Kosovo in the post-Lisbon era. This notwithstanding, when member states believed in the need to devise a collective effort, the High Representative could significantly influence EU foreign policy, as it happened during Catherine Ashton’s mandate and the EU-brokered dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia. On these occasions, informal groups of member states participating in the Quint and in the Berlin Process, contributed to EU efforts in coordination with EU institutions.

Still, when consensus among member states was not an option, the European Council took the lead. It is against this backdrop that the above-mentioned informal groups of member states frequently determined EU approach to Kosovo. For instance, during the suspension of the EU enlargement towards the Western Balkans, Germany prevented the Kosovo–Serbia talks from collapsing through the Berlin Process.

The case of Ukraine

Informal differentiated integration characterized EU foreign policy towards Ukraine as well. The occurrence of the Normandy Format is a clear example of an informal group steering EU approach, without receiving a formal mandate from EU institutions but remaining broadly anchored to the EU framework.

The Normandy Format is composed by the representatives of France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia. It was launched in July 2012, shortly after the outbreak of the Maidan protests and the Russian annexation of Crimea, to ensure a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Ukraine. Notably, it is within this format that France and Germany took the lead in the negotiation of the Minsk Process.

The Central East South Europe Gas Connectivity High Level Group (CESEC) offers another example of how member states integrate their efforts through the formation of ad hoc coalitions in coordination with EU institutions. In the energy domain, including in the Ukrainian policy dossier, the Commission generally conducted its activities in cooperation with an informal group of member states. In February 2015, the Commission decided to establish CESEC alongside Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia.

The Ukrainian case too shows that the formation of a consensus among member states’ representatives within the European Council is a necessary – albeit not sufficient – condition for the High Representative to influence EU foreign policy. When such consensus existed, the High Representative could benefit from the support of informal groups of member states.

However, when Ashton and Mogherini did not benefit from a consensus among member states on the general approach to adopt, they were unable to act as instigators and enforcers of EU foreign policy. Under these circumstances, as the negotiation of Minsk Process shows, informal groups steered EU response to the Ukrainian crisis instead.

The EU at a crossroad

All this considered, the EU finds itself at a crossroad. The occurrence of informal groupings within EU foreign policy on Kosovo and Ukraine reflect the extent of informal differentiated integration in EU foreign policy governance, despite the centralisation envisaged by the Lisbon Treaty.

Indeed, informal groups steering EU foreign policy might serve short-term purposes, and provide a response to conflicts and crises while the EU intergovernmental forums are deadlocked. Yet these distinctive patterns of interaction point towards a fragmentation of the EU foreign policy post-Lisbon.

By doings so, they inevitably put the spotlight on the urgent need to reform EU governance, especially in the foreign policy domain.

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Heute Nachmittag (7. Oktober 2020) hatte ich die Freude, zusammen mit fünf Wissenschaftskolleg*innen und UN-Expert*innen (Hannah Birkenkötter, Nicole Deitelhoff, Manuel Fröhlich, Carlo Masala, Hans-Christof von Sponeck) im Unterausschuss Vereinte Nationen des Deutschen Bundestages mit den Abgeordneten über Lehren und Schlussfolgerungen aus 75 Jahren Vereinte Nationen zu diskutieren. Die Debatte ist auf der Bundestags-Webseite  auch schön zusammengefasst.

Da wir nur 7 Minuten für das Eingangsstatement hatten, habe ich meine Gedanken tatsächlich mal in ein auf die Zeit getacktetes Redemanuskript geschrieben, an das ich mich auch einigermaßen gehalten habe.

Der reine Text meines Manuskripts ist unten wiedergegeben. Es gibt auch eine PDF-Fassung mit Fußnoten und Quellenangaben, die ich dem Unterausschuss vorab zur Verfügung gestellt habe. (An English translation of the speech in the UN subcommittee is available here.).

Die Aufzeichnung der ganzen zwei Stunden der Anhörung kann man hier anschauen. Mein gesprochenes Statement kommt ca. bei Minute 39:30.

Hier die Schriftfassung:

Sehr geehrter Herr Vorsitzender, sehr geehrte Abgeordnete, liebe Kollegïnnen,

ich möchte mit Blick auf die Frage, die Sie uns Sachverständigen gestellt haben, vier zentrale Lehren aus der Forschung zu den Vereinten Nationen als System fragmentierten globalen Regierens ziehen und einige Schlussfolgerungen formulieren.

Diese sind durch vielfältige Erkenntnisse gedeckt, die Wissenschafts-Kollegïnnen aus unterschiedlichen Disziplinen, national und international, zusammengetragen haben. Die Lehren und Schlussfolgerungen sind für diesen Rahmen etwas zugespitzt. Zentrale Quellen für meine heutigen Aussagen finden sich in der verschriftlichten Stellungnahme.

Meine eigenen Forschungen haben sich dabei in den vergangenen sechs Jahren insbesondere auf die Budgetierung und die Finanzierung des UN-Systems fokussiert, sowie auf die Rolle von UN-Verwaltungen bei der Mittelbeschaffung und bei der Organisation von Haushalts- und Reformprozessen.

Vorweg sei gesagt, dass, wenn ich von den „Vereinten Nationen“ spreche, ich mich vor allem auf das UN-System in seiner Gesamtheit beziehe. Dieses System ist ein historisch gewachsenes, immer stärker fragmentiertes Netzwerk aus mehreren Duzend internationalen Organisationen, zwischenstaatlichen Verhandlungsarenen, Expertïnnen-Gremien, Militär- und nicht-militärischen Operationen, Finanzierungs-Mechanismen und einer Vielzahl internationaler Verwaltungseinheiten. Diese sind teilweise oder vollständig unabhängig aber häufig juristisch, finanziell und/oder personell miteinander verwoben.

Verbindungen zwischen den Teilen des UN-System bestehen auf globaler, auf regionaler und auf nationaler Ebene sowie „im Feld“. Oft ergeben sich diese Verbindungen politikfeldspezifisch, also zum Beispiel im Bereich „Globale Gesundheit“. Diese Mehrebenen-Netzwerke des UN-System haben sich seit den Anfängen der UN entwickelt, zum Teil bestehen sie auch schon länger.

Nicht umsonst spricht der UN-Generalsekretär António Guterres neuerdings in seinen Reden von einem „networked multilateralism“.

Die 1. Lehre für diese Stellungnahme ist daher, dass man die Vereinten Nationen nach 75 Jahren nur versteht, wenn man sie als diplomatisch und administrativ vernetztes und organisch gewachsenes Gesamtsystem betrachtet. 

Die wichtigste Schlussfolgerung aus dieser Erkenntnis ist, dass jeder Versuch, einen Teil des UN-Systems zu verändern immer auch Auswirkungen auf andere Teile hat. Manches Scheitern von einzelnen UN-Organisationen ist deshalb auch systemisch bedingt und hat nur wenig mit Einzel-Organisationsversagen zu tun. Sie sollten das als Politik bei Ihrer Bewertung der Arbeit der UN im Blick behalten.

Zum Teil muss man allerdings bis in den Völkerbund zurückgehen, um die heutigen Strukturen und Prozesse im UN-System zu verstehen, also die Prozesse, die möglicherweise reformiert werden sollen.

Das bringt mich zur 2. Lehre aus der Forschung der letzten Jahre: Die Vereinten Nationen sind nicht erst 75 Jahre alt, sondern einzelne zentrale Bereiche, und auch ihre Verbindungen untereinander, sind bis zu 100 Jahre alt oder sogar älter.

Insbesondere organisatorisch und administrativ sind die UN durch den Völkerbund und, bei den technischen UN-Organisationen (wie ITU, UPU oder WIPO), auch noch durch Strukturen aus dem 19. Jahrhundert vorgeprägt.

So ist zum Beispiel der heutige Haushaltsprozess für den UN-Kernhaushalt im Prinzip noch der gleiche wie schon im Völkerbund — und ähnlich schwierig. Die Völkerbund-Gesundheitsorganisation (LNHO) war schon in den 1920ern für ihre Aktivitäten von privaten Philanthropen aus den USA finanziell abhängig, so wie es die WHO heute wieder ist. Netzwerkstrukturen der „intellektuellen Kooperation“ legten im Kontext des Völkerbunds die Grundlage für die spätere UNESCO. Und selbst das Internationale Nansen-Büro für Flüchtlinge hatte bereits im Völkerbund Organisationsstrukturen, die später auch den UNHCR prägten.

Als etwas unbequeme Schlussfolgerung folgt daraus für Sie als Politikerïnnen, dass viele heutige Reformbemühungen im UN-System aus wissenschaftlicher Sicht eher zum Scheitern verurteilt sind, weil sie auf lange gewachsene Pfadabhängigkeiten sowie stabile und komplex vernetzte Interessenkonstellationen treffen. Es gibt auch bei der Vereinten Nationen die klassische Politikverflechtungsfalle.

Aber, um diese Schlussfolgerung etwas positiver zu formulieren: Für UN-Reformen braucht es vor allem synchronisierte Anstrengungen von einer großen Staatenmehrheit unter Einbindung der betroffenen UN-Bürokratien, um diese gewachsenen Strukturen der UN zu verändern. Minilateralismus in Form von kleinen und exklusiven Reform-Initiativen reicht dafür nicht aus.

Diese Bemerkungen führen mich zur 3. Lehre: Fragmentierung und damit letztendlich Bürokratisierung im UN-System sind häufig Ergebnis von wohlgemeinten minilateralen Vorhaben, durch die nationale Politikerïnnen lieber eigene politische Steckenpferde in die UN hineintragen als in den globalen multilateralen Mühlen nach schwierigen Kompromissen zu suchen.

Ein Grund dafür ist, dass insbesondere die Länder des Globalen Nordens, also die wichtigsten Geldgeber des UN-System, sich bis heute nicht ernsthaft damit abfinden, dass postkolonialer globaler Multilateralismus heißt, dass die Länder des Global Südens (z.T. repräsentiert durch die G77) die Mehrheit der Staaten auf dieser Welt stellen. Viele dieser Länder haben eine Kolonialgeschichte und schauen deshalb auch mit bestimmten Erwartungen auf die Vereinten Nationen. Aber statt Kompromisse zu suchen, die diese Mehrheitsverhältnisse repräsentieren, finanzieren die westlichen Geldgeber lieber minilaterale Sonderprogramme, Nebeninstitutionen, Multi-Donor-Trust-Funds und sonstige pressewirksame Leuchturmprojekte, häufig über eng zweckgebundene Mittel.

Die Schlussfolgerung aus dieser Erkenntnis ist, dass die Zukunft der Vereinten Nationen auch davon abhängt, ob und wann diese minilateralen Reflexe enden. Bis zu diesem Zeitpunkt werden sich der Globale Süden—also die globale Mehrheitsgesellschaft—und der Global Norden—die Finanzierungsmehrheit—einigermaßen reformunfähig oder -unwillig in der UN gegenüberstehen.

Die gute Nachricht bei all dem ist, und das ist dann die 4. Lehre: Während sich der globale Multilateralismus der Staaten in einer Reihe von Sackgassen zu befinden scheint, machen die meisten UN-Verwaltungen trotzdem ihre Arbeit.

Sie nutzen die Autonomie, die sie haben, um globale Politik zu gestalten und Lösungen für dringende Probleme wie Klimawandel, Flucht und Vertreibung, oder globale Pandemien zu finden oder voranzutreiben.

Sie sind es, die das pathologisch widersprüchliche Verhalten der Staatengemeinschaft in praktisches globales Handeln umsetzen müssen.

Sie machen ihre Arbeit selbst dann, wenn ihnen die Staaten regelmäßig in multilateralen Gremien oder durch zweckgebundene Finanzierungsanreize widersprüchliche Signale senden, und sie tun das in Genf und New York genauso wie in Yarmouk in Syrien oder in der Kivu-Region in der Demokratischen Republik Kongo.

Vielleicht—und das ist meine provokante abschließende Schlussfolgerung—sollten die Mitgliedsstaaten der UN, und insbesondere die großen Geldgeber, die UN-Verwaltungen häufiger einfach ihre Arbeit machen lassen. Damit wäre der UN im 75.  Jahr vielleicht mehr geholfen, als sie mit permanentem kollektivem Micro-Management zu traktieren oder mit neuen minilateralen Initiativen weiter zu fragmentieren.

Vielen Dank für Ihre Aufmerksamkeit!

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