Ideas on Europe Blog

Eva Saeva, Postgraduate Researcher at Newcastle Law School

The COVID-19 pandemic hit the world hard. While medical researchers are racing to find a vaccine, malicious actors are exploiting the new range of possibilities to interfere with IT devices. Cybersecurity has become a prominent feature of the pandemic, especially in the health sector.

Photo: Virus, Yuri Samoilov via Flickr, yuri.samoilov.online

This blog explores how the European Union has dealt with the impact of the pandemic on the health sector across its Member States and whether the present cybersecurity legislative framework was sufficient to protect it. It examines how existing legislation applies to attacks against this critical infrastructure (CI) sector and will identify key takeaways in terms of the EU’s legal cybersecurity preparedness to act in times of crisis.

The current legal framework for cybersecurity is built upon the three pillars identified in the 2013 ‘EU Cybersecurity Strategy’: law enforcement, network and information security (NIS), and defence. The Directive on Attacks against Information Systems (2013), regulating illegal activities, such as access to information systems or data interference, belongs to the first pillar. The second, NIS, is the most developed pillar and includes legal instruments, such as the NIS Directive (2016, to be reviewed later this year), the Cybersecurity Act (2019) and the proposal for a Regulation establishing a Cybersecurity Competence Centre and Network. The least developed pillar is (cyber) defence and as such the EU has relatively weak powers in this particular field. The most relevant measure here is the Cyber Diplomacy Toolbox, adopted in 2017. Cybersecurity is also found in various sectorial legislative measures such as the European Electronic Communications Code (2018), the Recommendation on Cybersecurity for 5G networks (2019), the White Paper on Artificial Intelligence (2020), among others.

The measures analysed in this blog will be the NIS Directive and the Cyber Diplomacy Toolbox because of their relevance to the COVID-19-related cyberattacks seen across Member States.

The NIS Directive, the first EU overarching cybersecurity law, aims to achieve a high common level of security of network and information systems in the Union. It applies to attacks targeting the CI sectors, including the health sector. It establishes the criteria for identifying operators of essential services (OESs) in each sector. According to article 5(2), these are entities which provide services “essential for the maintenance of critical societal and/or economic activities”, that the service depends on network and information systems and an incident “would have significant disruptive effects on the provision of that service”. This means not all hospitals or medical centres would qualify as OESs. But, for example, the biggest hospital in a large city would. However, which institutions are the OESs in a given sector, as identified by the Member States, is not publicly accessible information.

The Directive also sets security requirements for the OESs. Article 14 (1) and (2) imposes obligations for OESs to adopt risk management, as well as preventive measures for incidents that could affect the security of their systems.

The COVID-19 pandemic was the first large-scale cybersecurity-resilience challenge some Member States had to encounter. The correct implementation and enforcement of the NIS Directive was tested. Even though health institutions across various (current and former) Member States were targeted (Italy, the UK, France), the March and April attacks in the Czech Republic provide the most relevant case study.

The March 2020 attack targeted a hospital in Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic. It reportedly brought IT systems to a complete halt. Daily work was thus affected, new patients had to be re-routed to different hospitals and operations postponed. At the time of the attack, the hospital was also performing COVID-19 testing. While there is no certainty that this hospital was identified as an OESs under the NIS Directive, it certainly meets the criteria. In which case, Czech officials failed to correctly implement and enforce the security requirements listed above.

A month later, the health sector in the Czech Republic suffered another series of attacks. While “unsuccessful”, and although Czech officials never officially attributed the attack to a foreign state, it was reported Russia might be behind them. The allegations were officially labelled “fake news” by Russian officials. However, if foreign interference indeed took place, this would have additional legal implications as it might have constituted wrongful act under international law. According to the Cyber Diplomacy Toolbox, the EU has reaffirmed the recommendations for States not to “conduct or knowingly support ICT activity contrary to its obligations under international law that intentionally damages critical infrastructure”, adopted by the UN Group of Governmental Experts’ 2015 report. The Toolbox further states that even though attribution of an attack to a foreign actor is a sole responsibility of the state, there could be a joint EU diplomatic response.

In terms of the EU reaction, in his declaration on 30 April 2020, the High Representative Borell referenced cyberattacks on the health sector, stating that the EU and its Member States condemned “malicious behaviour in cyberspace”. In June, Commission’s President von der Leyen seemingly pointed a finger at China, stating attacks on hospitals “cannot be tolerated”. Neither statement referenced the Czech attacks specifically. No mention was made of the consequences of a failed implementation of the cybersecurity law. No mention of the possibility of a foreign interference within the territory of an EU Member State. No mention of an EU-level response in support of a targeted Member State. And while the Union has remained silent, on 17 April 2020, the US Secretary of State Pompeo explicitly referenced the Czech attacks, declaring that anybody engaging in such activities against allies should “expect consequences”, implicitly undermining the EU’s authority and making it seem unprepared to respond.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the pressure it put on the health sector have exposed the shortcomings of the overall EU approach to cybersecurity. While norms exist, enforcement is key – both at Member State and at EU level. If the EU wants to be a leader in promoting the regulation of cyberspace, including the protection of CI sectors or responsible State behaviour, it needs to be more assertive when its Member States fall victim to cyberattacks. The lack of reaction questions the willingness of the EU to enforce its own measures.

The post Cybersecurity and the EU: lessons from the COVID-19 crisis appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The European Union (EU) budget is about one percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of all Member States amounting to about €240 per annum, per citizen. The EU budget redistributes more than €150 billion annually. These funds are directed towards agriculture and regional policy, which operate to help less developed countries and local communities. Millions of euros are spent on rebuilding roads or hospitals or for the educational and vocational training of thousands of European citizens’. A significant proportion of this money goes towards underdeveloped and economically less well-off regions, especially across Southern, Central, and Eastern Europe (see Figure 1).

European and national politicians, journalists and citizens have often raised questions on how EU funds are used. The media tends to cover this topic whenever it can frame issues of mismanagement or corruption. It rarely addresses the factors that account for the delivery and spending of EU funds across countries and regions or how Structural and Cohesion Funds (SCF) are absorbed into local economies.

Against this background, our recent article provides a more refined understanding of what factors are driving the absorption of EU funds. Our research is significant because it provides a rich empirical analysis of the differences in EU funds absorption performance across European Union member countries. We help explain why some countries are better at spending European funding than others. In doing so, we examined how administrative and political indicators play out and affect the wider institutional environments responsible, at the national level, for spending a large part of European taxpayers’ money.

It is rather well-known that newer member states have often faced difficulties in absorbing EU funds into their economies. States such as the ones from Central and Eastern Europe had to comply with several EU laws and procedures before joining the EU. Despite a “learning process” achieved during the pre-accession period, some countries still face considerable challenges in accessing Structural and Cohesion Funds (also as can be seen from Figure 1). Looking at the previous multi-annual financial period of 2007-2013, and with few exceptions, three large groups of countries were identified in terms of Structural and Cohesion funds implementation:

1. most of the new Member States, with a relatively low absorption capacity, especially in the first period of the Cohesion Policy implementation (with notable outliers such as Lithuania, Estonia and Poland);
2. southern periphery Member States such as Italy and Spain which had consistently low absorption rates throughout the period;
3. most other EU-15 countries that had a relatively high performance in the early stages of Structural Funds implementation.

 

Although differences in absorption performance have considerably decreased in the last years, they have generally persisted over the entire programming period of 2007-2013, with significant delays and bottlenecks for several NMS. This is also the case for the current 2014-2020 EU budgetary period.

Figure 1: Allocated Cohesion and Structural Funds (SCF) during the 2007–13 Programming Period and Absorption Rates (2015) in EU‐27 countries. Source: Authors compilation based on DG Regional Policy and Eurostat data, 2007-13

Two core findings stand out in our article. These help provide answers to the above puzzles on why some countries’ are doing better than others when it comes to spending EU funding.

First, the effectiveness of a countries’ government and the latter’s ability to combat corruption are key factors that could boost a country’s absorption of EU funds. What this means is that the more effective a government is and the more it is willing to curb corrupt practices, within its structures, the more likely it is for that country to do better in spending EU money. Apart from ensuring a functional management and institutional system, Member States also need to prevent the distortions of different interest groups as to ease the implementation of Structural Funds. However, political cartels and corruption are still very present in many European countries, which in turn could affect how the returns of EU funds’ investments, and EU money more generally, are managed.

Second, other elements such as the quality of regulations or and the level of political stability in a country, contrary to our initial expectations, do not seem to matter so much. At the same time, other elements such as the level of political centralisation and decentralisation found and the macro-economic financial absorption capacity of a country, are also not important for what countries manage to get from the common European budget.

Why are these findings relevant? In essence, because they confirm the importance of administrative institutions and political governance in how public resources are managed, something already known in the field. European taxpayers’ money is redistributed, through the European budget, with the honourable aim of helping regions and European citizens in need. There needs to be a more specific focus on how domestic institutions and political forces influence the way public resources are spent. In recent years, politicians, academics and citizens have equally become more aware of this. Our research adds to this chorus of voices arguing that government effectiveness and internal corruption practices require further attention. These might be some of the most practical solutions for strengthening the implementation of Cohesion Policy across all EU Member States.

So how could politicians / policy-makers help achieve these aims? Firstly, more steps should be taken to improve the quality of institutions, procedures and human resources managing EU funds. This could be attained through a better use of Technical Assistance funding. Secondly, the question of combating corruption and of greater political support needs to be addressed head-on by all stakeholders. When politicians in the EU Council get together, in the next few months, to decide on the future European budget, these issues should be treated with utmost priority, alongside other technicalities and the increasing dominant discussions regarding the recovery plan needed post-corona.

The idea of a stronger European Union is linked to a common EU budget. Member States need to do more to improve their governmental effectiveness and efficiency, as well as reduce levels of corruption in order to improve spending of EU money. A better use of these resources seems to be highly related to these two factors across almost all EU countries. Advances in these areas might help achieve the wider objectives of European cohesion and solidarity. Eventually, this might also improve citizens’ levels of satisfaction with Europe and their support for the European integration project.

 

This blog post draws on the JCMS article, ‘Evaluating the Determinants of EU Funds Absorption across Old and New Member States – the Role of Administrative Capacity and Political Governance’

 

Authors

Cristian Incaltarau is a researcher at the Centre for European Studies within Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi (Romania). His recent research focuses on economic resilience, the migration – development nexus, and EU Cohesion Policy.

 

 

 

 

Gabriela Carmen Pascariu is full professor in European economics and policies at Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi (Romania). She is the Director of the Centre for European Studies, Jean Monnet professor and Team Europe expert. Her main academic interests include: Economics of integration; Regional Development and European cohesion policy; Cross-border cooperation and ENP.

 

 

Neculai-Cristian Surubaru is a postdoctoral researcher at Maastricht University’s Studio Europa. His research focuses on European Union politics, Central and Eastern Europe and the new East-West divide, EU funds and state/administrative capacity.

The post Do institutions help achieve greater value for spending European taxpayers’ money? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Brexit politicians have sold to the nation that Britain must have 100% sovereignty – a key reason for leaving the European Union.

But wiser politicians know better. Former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, was one of them.

In a Parliamentary session back in December 1989, about her latest conference with the 11 other leaders of the European Community nations meeting at the European Council in Strasbourg, Mrs Thatcher explained to MPs:

“When you enter into international treaties you voluntarily give up a certain part of your sovereignty, because perhaps you are pooling it with others, because that is the way it has to be done in a world which is very multinational.”

She added about the meeting of Community leaders:

“What emerged most strongly is the degree to which the Community and the 12 member states can act as the driving force in the development of the whole of Europe, at a turning point in the continent’s history.

“The Community should be an example of how free and democratic nations can work ever more closely together, while remaining open to the outside world.

“That is the way in which Britain wants the Community to develop, and, despite disagreements on some points, the Strasbourg Council encourages us to believe that that is how the Community will develop, with Britain playing a very full part.”

She added:

“The nations of Europe are drawing closer together for economic purposes.

“That will be a considerable force in the world and should give much greater opportunities for employment in this country and for prosperity in general. It will be very good for all our peoples.”

 UNION OF BRITAIN AND FRANCE Other British Prime Ministers have also supported that the pooling of sovereignty, in the right circumstances, can be for the good of the nation.

After all, it was during the Second World War that Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, announced in June 1940 the ‘Declaration of Union’ between Great Britain and France.

With the full backing of his Cabinet, Churchill stated:

“The two governments declare that France and Great Britain shall no longer be two nations, but one Franco-British Union.

“Every citizen of France will enjoy immediately citizenship of Great Britain; every British subject will become a citizen of France.”

An Anglo-French stamp was even designed to commemorate the proposed Anglo-Franco union, but the Nazi invasion of France scuppered those plans.

The proposals did demonstrate, however, that Churchill was in favour of political union between European countries.

It was also Churchill who, in 1950, called for the creation of a European Army “…under a unified command, and in which we should all bear a worthy and honourable part.” (France objected to this plan).

In a debate in Parliament in June 1950 to discuss a united Europe, Churchill explained the circumstances under which the Conservative and Liberal parties would be prepared to part with “any degree of national sovereignty”.

He replied, “without hesitation” that, “we are prepared to consider, and if convinced to accept, the abrogation of national sovereignty, provided that we are satisfied with the conditions and the safeguards.”

He further explained:

“National sovereignty is not inviolable, and that it may be resolutely diminished for the sake of all the men in all the lands finding their way home together.”

 WE ARE ALL INTERDEPENDENT When in 1961 Prime Minister Harold Macmillan applied for Britain to join the European Community – an application that received Churchill’s support – he explained to the nation that it would involve the sharing of some sovereignty.

Mr Macmillan said:

“Accession to the Treaty of Rome would not involve a one-sided surrender of ‘sovereignty’ on our part, but a pooling of sovereignty by all concerned, mainly in economic and social fields.

“In renouncing some of our own sovereignty we would receive in return a share of the sovereignty renounced by other members.”

He added,

“The talk about loss of sovereignty becomes all the more meaningless when one remembers that practically every nation, including our own, has already been forced by the pressures of the modern world to abandon large areas of sovereignty and to realise that we are now all inter-dependent.

“Britain herself has freely made surrenders of sovereignty in NATO and in many other international fields on bigger issues than those involved in the pooling of sovereignty required under the Treaty of Rome.”

 CLOSE PARTNERSHIP It was another Prime Minister, Edward Heath, who negotiated the terms of our membership of the European Community – terms democratically agreed by our Parliament in Westminster – and he also explained to the nation just before we joined:

“The Community which we are joining is far more than a common market. It is a community in the true sense of the word.“It is concerned not only with the establishment of free trade, economic and monetary union and other major economic issues – important though these are – but also, as the Paris summit meeting has demonstrated, with social issues that affect us all – environmental questions, working conditions in industry, consumer protection, aid to development areas and vocational training.”

He added:

“Above all, the European Community is a community of peoples, and in joining this new association of nations we are committing ourselves not only to a series of policies or institutions but to a close partnership with our western European neighbours in which we will all work together rather than separately.”

 GOING IT ALONE But despite the fact that “close partnership” and “pooling of sovereignty” with our European neighbours were policies strongly supported by EVERY British Prime Minster from 1957 to 2016, the current lot in charge believe it’s better to go it alone, work separately and not closely together.

Outside the EU, of course, Britain will only be able to look on as decisions about the running and future direction of our continent are made without us, even though those decisions will affect us just as much, whether we are a member or not.

That to me doesn’t look like gaining sovereignty. It looks like losing sovereignty.

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The European identity is generally perceived on the notion that it is a pure race. But we are reminded that even Europa –according to the Greek myth –was a Phoenician-Asian woman. Furthermore, the Europeans attach their lineage to the Greece and Greek Philosophers of 400 BC. But those Greeks never considered themselves Europeans and distinguished themselves as Hellenes distinct from Europeans and Asians both. These facts decenter our earlier notion of what Europe is.

In addition to that, Derrida also identified several traits in Europe that might otherwise not be considered European. He asserted that Europe’s identity will always be mingled by whatever non-European passed through Europe; the Arabs of pre-Quran era and after Quran, even the gypsies and Indians Husserl barred.

Derrida in this regard, wanted “a new today of Europe beyond all the exhausted programs of eurocentrism and anti-eurocentrism.” He stressed that Europe needs to acknowledge the inherent hybrid nature of itself. He has also shown how it is important to not to make a program of self/good and other/enemy. Additionally, he has also written extensively on the issue of unconditional hospitality. These articulations of Derrida are very important due to the fact that Europe today is comprised of huge population of non-Europeans (majorly Muslims) due to the mass immigration of 1960’s and later times.

These Muslims present in the Europe are seen as intruders and equally they feel marginalized. The distinct social and religious otherness of Muslims against Europeans is what is creating differences. This is leading to become a growing problem Europe faces today. As the incident mentioned of Charlie Hebdo magazine exemplifies it. And secondly the November 13, 2015 attacks on Paris after eight month of Hebdo attacks intensifies the issue which were coordinated attacks on three different places (cafe, on-going concert, and outside football stadium), killing almost 130 people and leaving 352 injured. Later the attacks were claimed by an Islamic State group in Syria and claimed that France involvement in Syria has led to such attacks. The killings resulted in fierce reaction against Muslims residing in Europe and mass immigration of Muslims due to war-torn situations in neighboring Syria and Iraq.

These events bring forth the need to tackle the growing tensions between immigrant Muslims and Europeans. Samuel P. Huntington’s doctrine of clash of civilizations (1996) is simply a recipe for disaster. For this we need to look towards Derrida, as he has dealt on Algerian Muslim immigrants, the treatment of authorities on them and also on the notion of how hospitality should work.

Derrida wrote that by the end of World War II, the colonized Algerian Muslims were always called French nationals and not French citizens. They could apply for civil services but would remain below the status of citizens. Although there were laws to grant citizenship for Muslim Algerians the administration never encouraged them and Muslims did not pursue it as they thought this will be in exchange of letting go their religious and social identity. In World War II, there were numerous Algerians who fought for France; a law was passed to grant citizenship to the Algerians on basis of equality irrespective of their race, language and religion. But there was discrimination for Algerian Muslims at the heart of the amendment. Only few Muslims who fulfilled certain conditions were granted citizenship. Those were school diplomas, army service with decorations and specifically of the rank of officers.

Derrida added that it is against the notion of hospitality. Unconditional hospitality demands that a foreigner is welcomed without being defined, delimited in specific criteria. Because asking them to abandon their religion and Europeanize them would be a conditional hospitality the guests might be uneasy about.

Derrida emphasized that, hospitality should be unsullied and unrestricted, and such a hospitality does not come up with an invitation like you are invited and welcome in my home on the basis that you fulfill following of my terms. “Pure and unconditional hospitality”, in Derrida’s words will always be directed towards, “who is neither expected nor invited, to whoever arrives as an absolutely foreign visitor.” Derrida labels such hospitality as “hospitality of visitation rather than invitation.” Derrida here seems to be critiquing on the situation of scores of Muslim immigrants in France and the policies of authorities towards them which they consider are trying to rip their identity away.

Additionally, Derrida has said that when nations develop a way of policing the borders (for incoming immigrants), the foreign  immigrants  in essence turn inwards to linguistic and nationalistic politics and in return develop a fear of otherness. These policies then become a tool of what they were trying to eradicate i.e. the reaction from the immigrants.

The policies that give rise to nationalism need to be addressed without delay as there are several studies showing how youth of immigrant Muslims will become a larger part of Europe sidelining actual Europeans whose major percentage of population is getting old.

Derrida also hinted on his disgust on the use of “threshold of tolerance” for the amount of immigration France was ready to accept and after that limit it was intolerable to accept any more foreigners. Even Francois Mitterrand tried to justify his rejection of immigrants using this phrase. Derrida said that it showed that after including a particular amount of migrants, other newcomers who are not like the Europeans will definitely face a dismissal. Derrida also wrote an article in a magazine condemning use of such jargon to propel naturalist agenda. Mitterrand later on took back his words but Derrida believed that the use of word tolerance indicate a limit to amount a restriction to certain kind of people.

Derrida wanted to give full option to unconditional hospitality but along that he demanded that there should be an “equality of citizens before the law.” So if the immigrant poses a threat he should be dealt according to the law and be reprimanded. But Derrida’s works mandates that this immigrant should be treated like any other citizen of Europe would for the same crime and is not unjustly treated because of his difference. This is also to bring light to the common perception of Muslims in Europe or US alike that when a white man is caught for a killing he would be deemed as a killer but when a Muslim especially of Asian origin is guilty of same crime he is termed as a terrorist and whole race behind him is condemned.

Derrida has taken Europe as a self on the discourse of self-identification. The European thinkers have always tried to define what Europe’s self is, like Husserl. Derrida endeavored to change and further this discourse by mentioning the problematic of identification of self, that “there is no self-relation, no relation to oneself, no identification with oneself, without culture, but a culture of oneself as a culture of the other, a culture of the double genitive and of the difference to oneself.”

Here, Europe is taken as a self, which will have to differentiate self from other but on the same token accept the otherness of other in self and other. Badredine Arfi also discussed Europe as a self on the continuous project of identification, which need to be aware of self and others.

If we accept the notion that Europe is a decentered entity, question arises how a decentered body will be hospitable to other. If we consider a decentered body more in depth, we can see that it will be more hospitable to the others. This decentered self does not implicate that there is no self, the mere purpose is to eradicate possible negativity and biases which arise from thinking of self as a pure entity. Like that has been a case in Nazi Germany that Hitler on the premise of supposed superiority tortured and killed millions of Jews. So an acceptance of Europe for decentered self may get rid of such possibility.

The world wars have changed the perception that there is a certainty in this world. Similarly recognizing that entities like man or Europe are not that much complete in itself. It will help us lessen the policies of hatred and exclusion that shunned the humanity into world wars. If Europe recognizes a decentering at the heart of it, Europe will become more humble and hospitable towards its others. As there would be no certainty about self, there will be no certainty to define an enemy.

When Derrida asserted that Europe is a decentered entity, it will imply that no one owns it. The legacy of Europeans a supreme race that owned Europe would be over. Being a decentered subject would also implicate that Europe will not be so sure about its role.

But in Derrida’s works we see him assigning Europe a responsibility to act as a “guardian.” He also reminded Europe of its responsibilities towards its former colonies in lieu to the atrocities it brought upon them. This shows an assumption of the Europe’s former self, a centralized idea of Europe that once ruled the world. There seems to be a logical flaw in the propositions Derrida gave about ‘decentering’ and ‘others.’ On one hand he showed Europe to be a decentered entity, on other he took its identity as of an autonomous body with a past that had influence on others.

Despite Derrida’s claims of multiple identities of Europe, Europe is still owned by the Europeans, the natives living there. Even if Derrida is trying to make Europeans realize a decentering in conception of Europe, he was still taking one kind of people as its rightful owners.

Although he championed a decentered Europe, he himself seemed not to fully comprehend it.

This can also be seen through his constant emphasis on others. The decentered subject implicates that the entity cannot be well defined, it is good for any future policies for Europe. But it will also implicate that the others of Europe cannot be defined. When the self is indeterminate so will be the others. But Derrida defined the others of Europe (the Orient and US) as well. And Derrida did so similar to what European supremacist philosophers have always been doing that is defining its others especially the orient (Spivak 1985).

Accepting that the subject of decentered Europe is only in theoretical form and contradicted by Derrida’s own writing. We will like to emphasize that the concept of decentered Europe is most important in today’s political scenario.

Taking us back to the core subject of this section that is the Muslims in Europe, only Derrida’s ideals of decentering can help resolve these matters peacefully. How the Muslims present in Europe needs to be addressed, as Europeans face a threat to their identity. How these Muslims might change the demography of the Europe that used to be including the Muslims who feel unwelcome. Derrida has mentioned how the earlier Muslim immigrants were already being marginalized. In this regard, Derrida’s ideals on hospitality and immigration policies are what the European legislators should look into. Prudence demands that they should streamline policies that will accommodate the immigrants as they cannot be sent back to the mother lands after being present for five decades. It is not to indicate in any way that Muslims involved in terrorist activities should be shown hospitality but it is about the scores of Muslims who associate themselves with France or other European states they were born in or migrated to.

 

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This is the big question of late 2020 in Brexit-land. All summer and into the autumn, we’ve have multiple briefings, this way and that; some setting us on the road to a rapid settlement, others pointing towards whatever euphemism-of-the-day we might have for a no-deal outcome.

So which is it?

Rather than try to list and weigh up all the possible factors, I’ll instead try to focus on the more inflexible and mechanical aspects that might be in play, since these appear to be increasingly important.

Central in these is our old friend, time.

From the very start of the process, before the referendum was even held, it was generally agreed among researchers that this would be a long-term set of interactions to get to a new relationship and that Article 50 would struggle to suffice for all of that.

And so it proved: not only were there the multiple extensions of 2019, but the content of the Withdrawal Agreement was very closely drawn to cover only the bare minimum of issues relating to ending UK membership (as opposed to building a new relationship).

The failure of both sides to extend transition back out to its original 20 month schedule with those Art.50 extensions, plus the refusal of the UK to countenance using the one-off extension mechanism this summer, plus the delays caused by Covid-19, all have contributed to one of the more heroic interpretations of what can be done in short order on a deal.

Right now, three months out, we have not only not got a legal text that can be ratified, we don’t have even a joint draft, or a basic political arrangement to allow any of those things to happen.

PDF version: https://bit.ly/UshGraphic44

The simple mechanical requirements for each of those steps take time, time that is increasingly not there: the legal drafting could easily take several weeks, even if everyone agrees with everything (which they won’t).

Which leads to a second key element in the mix, trust.

Just as time has run out, so too has the extent to which each side finds the other credible and constructive. London politicians treat the EU as if everything it does is a trap to entangle the UK and/or reverse the referendum result; those in Brussels and EU27 capitals wonder whether the Internal Market Bill can really be a serious proposition, given that it undermines the entire basis of international agreements.

That trust has been falling for a long time. From the delay in triggering Article 50, to the immediate calling of the 2017 general election; the mess over the joint text and the blowing up of Cabinet over Chequers; the meaningful votes and the extensions; even the popping up of Gibraltar at the last minute: all of this has led EU-UK relations to a pretty bad place.

My personal sense check on this is the Salzburg European Council two years ago. Yes, Theresa May might have made a mess of the attitude/rhetoric, but at least there remained a functioning political negotiation.

So if we know that trust is low, and that trust is very much harder to rebuild than to lose, then we can be confident that this will remain a barrier through the remainder of current talks, whatever they aim for.

And that aim represents a final stable factor: the lack of difference in outcomes.

If we imagine a deal is concluded, and one on UK terms, then we would have to note that there would still be very extensive contraction of UK-EU alignment and a rise in barriers to economic, political and social interactions. The UK government is asking for a very minimal relationship, partly because it wants to limit the ability of the EU to make cross-linkages in the current negotiations.

As much as a no-deal would come with huge costs, so too would a deal be linked with smaller, but still substantial, downsides.

Recall too that this is different from Article 50, when the UK remained a member until the end and neither side had a fall-back to protect its interests. Indeed, that’s precisely why the EU structured the process like this; so that if this current stage failed, at least it would have the legal certainty [sic] of the Withdrawal Agreement.

For the UK, if this is obviously going to hurt either way, and if Number 10 decides that the public might not be too thrilled by the message “we know this hurts, but believe us when we say it could have hurt a lot more”, then the incentive to push for a deal would seem to drop.

Moreover, a deal implies mutual acceptance, which drips the negotiating parties’ hands very firmly into the blood, whereas a no-deal contains the potential to shift blame on to the other lot. Hence, in part, a lot of those briefings I mentioned: we’re trying really hard to make this work, but they’re making it impossible, etc.

Taken together, it’s hard not to be pessimistic about the next months.

Time is running away and there’s no credible mechanism for adding more (even if both sides wanted to), trust is as low as it’s ever been (not helped at by the completion of the Internal Market Bill’s progress through the Commons), and the gains of a deal seem to be now limited to reducing the costs of exit.

Yes, a deal would mean one less headache for both sides, both economically and politically, especially since their asks will not magically disappear as midnight strikes on New Year’s. But as we’ve seen time and again, this is not a rationally-constructed process, but instead one of politics, short-time thinking and the entanglement of many other factors (not least Covid-19).

Put it like this: I never built up some extra food staples in the run-up to the conclusion of Article 50, but I am doing it now.

The post How likely is a Future Relationship deal? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

An opinion by Jolyon Gumbrell.

Photo of CE mark on plug taken by Jolyon Gumbrell.

The CE label that appears on many products shows that a product complies with EU health, safety and environmental standards. Although the United Kingdom left the EU on 31st January 2020 these standards still apply to products sold in the UK until the end of the transition period on 31st December 2020. After that date UK consumers will no longer be protected by European health, safety and environmental standards, unless these protections are written into a future trade agreement between the EU and the UK.

Why is this important? Because once the transition period for the UK ends at the end of 2020, items such as “active implantable medical devices” and “invito diagnostic medical devices” as well as other “medical devices” used by the NHS might be below standard, and thus endanger the lives of patients in the UK. This situation will be exasperated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Concern has already been shown over the accuracy of 90-minute rapid coronavirus tests procured by the UK Government. In an article by Sarah Boseley published in The Guardian on 8th August 2020 entitled: ‘UK’s rapid Covid-19 test not passed by regulator and no data on accuracy’, it said: “The test, from Oxford Nanopore, a young biotech company spun off from Oxford University, has not yet gained a CE mark. Before Covid-19, Oxford Nanopore had been involved only in research, not tests for patients.”

The article went on to mention another company DnaNudge that was granted an “emergency exemption by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency” from having to display the CE mark. According to the article DnaNudge was awarded a £3.2 million contract in April and a £161 million contract on 1st July from the government. If either of these – Oxford Nanopore and DnaNudge – testing systems were unreliable, then it could mean that some people would receive the wrong results for their Covid-19 tests.

What will happen to the people of the UK when they finally lose the protection of European law on 31st December 2020? One of the consequences of this will be the loss of the CE mark for consumer products sold in the UK, so the British public will no longer know how safe or reliable a product – such as an plug on an electrical device, a kettle, light bulb, laptop, mobile phone, or child’s toy – is, that they are purchasing from a retailer or online supplier.

The CE mark does not mean that a product has been manufactured within the European Economic Area (EEA). An electrical device could have been made in China for example and still display a CE label, but when the product was imported into Europe it would have had the CE marking placed on it by the manufacturer’s authorised representative in Europe. The product would have had to comply with European health, safety, and environmental standards before it could legally be distributed for sale to consumers living in the EEA area.

If high standards of protection are to be maintained for consumers living in the UK next year, then the UK will either have to stay in the EEA along with EU and EFTA member states or come to a bilateral relationship with the EU similar to that of Switzerland. Either way no trade deal will take place between the UK and EU unless the UK Government accepts these high standards as recognised with the CE mark.

Sources

https://ec.europa.eu/growth/single-market/ce-marking_en

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/ce-marking

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Glossary:European_Economic_Area_(EEA)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Area

Boseley, Sarah; (08.08.2020) ‘UK’s rapid Covid-19 test not passed by regulator and no data on accuracy’ The Guardian.

©Jolyon Gumbrell 2020

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The European Union recovery fund could greatly increase the stability of the bloc and its monetary union. But the fund needs clearer objectives, sustainable growth criteria and close monitoring so that spending achieves its goals and is free of corruption. In finalising the fund, the EU should take the time to design a strong governance mechanism.

Ursula von der Leyen during the recovery fund negotiations in July. Photo: Etienne Ansotte / European Union

In late July, the European Council created the European Union recovery fund, a major new policy instrument that could substantially increase the stability of the EU and its monetary union, and under which the bloc will for the first time borrow and pay out large sums as grants. But the Council deal lacks a clear strategy to ensure the money boosts inclusive, sustainable growth and avoids corruption. This gap must be plugged, because the recovery fund will be delegitimised if wasted. The ongoing negotiations between the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council (the trialogue) provide an opportunity for improvement and should focus on three crucial points.

First, the goal needs to be more clearly stated: providing a boost to Europe’s sustainable growth potential. The current focus on speedy disbursement suggests policymakers still hope the EU funds can play a countercyclical role, but this will not work. The Council wants to commit 70% of the main instrument, the recovery and resilience fund (RRF), in 2021-2022, but only a quarter of disbursements are planned for these two years. All EU countries can go to the markets to borrow and it is national budgets that can and should be used to support economies reeling under the immediate effects of the pandemic. EU funds, meanwhile, should be part of a medium-term strategy clearly focussed on quality spending. This will provide some protection against the permanent damage to Europe’s growth potential COVID-19 is likely to leave in its wake. The EU funds should thus be about medium-term growth objectives and not countercyclical fiscal policy.

The second question then is how to achieve quality spending that would boost sustainable growth. The European Council conclusions from July include some vague statements about linking EU funds to the European Semester, the EU’s annual process to steer member states towards inclusive and sustainable growth and digital transformation. But the European Semester has proven to be a rather ineffective bureaucratic process that EU countries too often disregard.

It is easy to see how such a bureaucratic process will trigger a bottom-up approach driven by special interests in EU countries in which spending plans are labelled, as requested by the European Commission, “green, social and digital.” Plans will be sent to Brussels and result in large pay-outs with little benefits. While the design of the recovery fund, with its predominant focus on the RRF, puts national governments in charge, clear conditions are still crucial for sustainable growth goals to be achieved. A recent study proposes the use of recovery funds for major structural reforms, such as in the education system, public administration efficiency and climate goals. The new EU funding is a unique opportunity to provide the ‘carrot’ for genuine structural reforms.

Quality spending requires good governance. The third issue is therefore monitoring so that spending achieves its goals and is free of corruption. Unfortunately, EU funding has a mixed record of avoiding corruption. Meanwhile, academic work has confirmed that the vast amounts of common agricultural policy funds do not achieve Europe’s green goals despite repeated claims to the opposite. The current governance of EU funds can be regarded as unsuitable for achieving stated political goals.

The European Parliament rightly insists on a strong say. A better ‘red-card’ procedure to stop pay-outs in case money does not achieve the political ambitions is needed. The currently proposed process foresees the Commission asking for opinions from the Economic and Financial Committee, a group of top finance ministry officials, on whether political targets of the funds have been achieved. The committee shall strive for consensus but if one or more countries disagrees, the matter will be referred to the European Council. But state secretaries discussing a Commission report will not provide the accountability necessary for the EU’s biggest borrowing programme. Even members of the European Council will not challenge their peers unless there are blatant breaches of agreements.

Instead of intergovernmental debate, real political accountability is needed to avoid corruption and the failure to achieve the EU’s political ambitions of green and inclusive growth. This political accountability should also ensure that the interests of the EU as a whole are considered. The European Parliament should therefore insist on receiving regular and detailed reports from the Commission and should hold hearings with the involved Commissioner to bring about transparency and public accountability. Moreover, the Parliament should entrust the European Court of Auditors and the European corruption watchdog OLAF with constant monitoring of the spending.

Negotiators should take the time to design a strong governance mechanism. Europe cannot afford to waste its resources.

This opinion piece is republished with permission from Bruegel.

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Believe it or not, Conservatives used to be the party of Europe.

Indeed, it was:

• The Conservatives that joined the UK to the European Community.
• The Conservatives that advocated and helped to design the EU’s Single Market.
• The Conservatives that encouraged the former Communist countries to join.

It was also one of the Tory party’s greatest leaders, Winston Churchill, who promoted the cause of a united Europe as the antidote to war on our continent.

It was 74 years ago today, on 19 September 1946, that Churchill gave his landmark speech at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, when he called for a united Europe as the way to guarantee peace.

His aim was to eliminate the European ills of nationalism and war-mongering once and for all. He proclaimed his remedy, just one year after the end of the war:

“It is to re-create the European family, or as much of it as we can, and to provide it with a structure under which it can dwell in peace, in safety and in freedom.

“We must build a kind of United States of Europe.”

The European Economic Community was formed on 25 March 1957 with the signing of the Treaty of Rome by the six founding European nations: France, Italy, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

Just four months later, at London’s Central Hall, Westminster in July 1957, Churchill gave a speech welcoming the formation of a “common market” and stating:

“We genuinely wish to join…”

From then onwards, every Conservative Prime Minister strongly endorsed Britain being a member of the European Community – with the notable exceptions of the current Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and his immediate predecessor, Theresa May.

Hardened Eurosceptics were always previously on the far side-lines of the Conservative party. But now, they’re in charge, with Mr Johnson at least pretending to be one of them (he wasn’t always).

This month last year, 21 Conservative MPs were sacked because they rebelled against the UK crashing out of the EU in a catastrophic no-deal Brexit.

Those no longer welcomed included Sir Nicholas Soames, grandson of Sir Winston Churchill.

Sir Nicholas had been a Tory MP for 37 years, and like his granddad, is a passionate supporter of a united Europe.

His sacking shockingly demonstrated that the new Europhobic Tory party could no longer tolerate pro-EU members in their midst.

Although Boris Johnson restored Sir Nicholas to the party a few weeks later, he decided not to stand again as a Conservative candidate.

A few months before the EU referendum, Sir Nicholas gave an impassioned speech in the House of Commons, remembering his grandfather’s address in Zurich, which he described as a speech of “great prescience and great vision.”

Sir Nicholas extolled the European Union’s remarkable achievement in bringing us:

“peace, stability, freedom and security unprecedented in a thousand years of European history.”

He added:

“It is a very great credit to our country that we should have played such a leading role in seeing this through.”

But his message, along with that of his grandfather, Sir Winston Churchill, is now off-message.

Can the Conservative Party ever be the same again? Their pro-Europe legacy has been shattered.

• Related article by Jon Danzig: Winston Churchill: A founder of the European Union
• Watch this extract of Churchill’s speech of 19 September 1946 and his grandson’s tribute to it in the House of Commons.

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

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Given all the recent interest in breaking treaties, I thought it’d be useful to provide you with a quick guide to what is generally accepted to be the international framework for this: pacta sunt servanda. A short Twitter thread puts some words to it, and a PDF version is available here.

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The EU’s legitimacy depends on institutional procedures that respect democratic principles – both in cases of uniform and differentiated integration, Max Heermann argues.  

Photo: European Parliament / Flickr / CC BY 4.0

Crises often reveal the need for closer European cooperation. At the same time, they highlight divisions among the European Union’s member states about the right path forward. The COVID-19 pandemic is no different. The European Council may have, for now, agreed on a financial recovery plan. Nevertheless, demands for new competences on the EU-level are sure to emerge. Healthcare, in which the EU has little power, is a likely candidate.

To free necessary reforms from political gridlock, it is often suggested that the EU should resort to “differentiated integration”, the idea that not all EU member states need to take part in a common policy area for integration to move forward.

Politicians and political theorists have long debated the desirability and legitimacy of differentiated integration as such. Still, they have spent little time on the question of how to govern a differentiated Union.

An increasingly differentiated EU requires normatively defendable procedures that citizens perceive as legitimate. But do institutions which were designed for uniform integration provide sufficient legitimacy for differentiated policies?

Do institutions which were designed for uniform integration provide sufficient legitimacy for differentiated policies?

The upcoming Conference on the Future of Europe, a planned series of debates among and between citizens and political elites from across the Union, should address this question.

Another issue likely to come up during the Conference is the establishment of transnational voting lists for the European Parliament (EP). In fact, from the perspective of institutional design, differentiated integration and the EP’s electoral system are closely related. Dirk Leuffen and I explore this connection in a new study, which asks how the EU’s legislative organs – the Council and the Parliament – should legislate in differentiated policy areas.

Differentiated integration’s challenge to the European Parliament

In the Council, member states that have opted out of a common policy area are excluded from the legislative decision-making in this area. In contrast, the European Parliament allows all its members (MEPs) to cast their vote.

This practice results in a mismatch between the territorial scope of EU policies and the composition of the legislature: MEPs vote on bills that will not apply to their constituents.

From a normative point of view, this mismatch is troubling because it violates two fundamental principles of democracy: autonomy and accountability.

The principle of autonomy, understood as collective self-government and the freedom from domination, demands that those who are subjected to laws should be the ones authorized to make them. In the case of differentiated integration, autonomy is violated when MEPs from opt-out states make laws to which they themselves and the voters they represent are not bound. Moreover, they cannot be held accountable by those voters who live in a member state that does participate in the given policy area and who are therefore directly subjected to their decisions.

Even though the European Treaties stipulate that the EP represents all European citizens, the European elections currently fail to provide an effective mechanism of accountability. Each member state devises its own electoral rules. National parties organise campaigns where domestic issues often dominate. MEPs depend on their national parties for re-elections and future careers.

Therefore, they are more likely to vote with their national party than with their transnational parliamentary group, a fact often masked by high levels of voting cohesion in the parliamentary groups. Participation of their member states in a differentiated policy area may consequently influence the voting behaviour of MEPs. Léa Roger and colleagues found that MEPs from countries outside of the Eurozone, were more likely to vote for new fiscal rules which they knew would not apply to their own home country.

MEPs from countries outside of the Eurozone, were more likely to vote for new fiscal rules which they knew would not apply to their own home country.

Consequently, from the perspective of autonomy and accountability, MEPs whose state does not take part in a differentiated policy area, should not be allowed to vote on these policies.

However, defenders of the current practice evoke another basic democratic principle: the equality of citizens and their representatives. Deirdre Curtin and Cristina Fasone argue that stripping individual MEPs of their voting rights in some areas due to their nationality would violate their equality, turning them into second-class MEPs and their voters into second-class citizens. If MEPs are reduced to mere national delegates, the EP will lose its symbolic function as the Parliament of the European demos, impairing the EU’s legitimacy more generally.

Ensuring democratic legitimacy in a differentiated EU

Differentiated integration thus creates a trade-off between the basic democratic principles of equality, accountability and autonomy that does not exist in the case of uniform integration. As Dirk Leuffen and I discuss in our paper, different reform proposals for decision-making in the EP weigh these principles differently.

The trade-off can be resolved, however, by introducing a unified electoral system with transnational lists. MEPs elected from transnational rather than from national lists will be, in principle, true representatives of the European demos.

MEPs elected from transnational rather than from national lists will be, in principle, true representatives of the European demos.

This will satisfy the autonomy criterion, which demands that MEPs and their constituents are bound by the decisions they take. Voters from across the EU will be able to hold MEPs to account by punishing or rewarding them (or their party list) in the next election.

Advocates of transnational lists have long argued that they lead to behavioural changes of both politicians and voters, resulting in elections focused more on EU rather than on national politics.

Irrespective of such developments, transnational lists would satisfy the minimum criteria of equality, autonomy and accountability for decision-making by all MEPs, even in areas of differentiation.

A unique opportunity

The Conference on the Future of Europe provides a unique opportunity to highlight the connection between electoral rules and the democratic legitimacy of differentiated integration.

Moreover, in conjunction with new survey research, the citizen assemblies to be held as part of the Conference will offer political scientists the opportunity to better understand how citizens evaluate differentiated integration. Lawmakers will gain crucial knowledge for designing a differentiated EU that citizens from all member states perceive as fair and legitimate.

Holding a Conference on the Future of Europe after a decade of crises and incremental reform may lead to the political acknowledgement that differentiation is here to stay, and that the EU therefore needs institutional procedures that respect democratic principles both in cases of uniform and differentiated integration.

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Armenia is conducting a policy of illegal settlement across Azerbaijan’s occupied territories and recently launched a policy of resettlement of Armenians from Lebanon there. Yesterday news of a family from Lebanon resettled in the city of Shusha – a destination of utmost historical and moral significance for Azerbaijan has been posted on social media. As the world countries, including Azerbaijan, are dealing with the issue of elimination of tragedy’s consequences that befell Lebanon and offering humanitarian assistance, Armenia is exploiting this tragedy and people’s hardship, pushing their sordid agenda. Thereby, Armenia has once again demonstrated that it recognizes no moral values
I wish to emphasize that the population resettled in our occupied territories has become victim of Armenia’s reckless and adventurist policy. It must be said that the policy of illegal settlement across Azerbaijan’s occupied territories has no validity, and Azerbaijan rejects its outcome categorically.
Armenia is also using the people from Lebanon and Syria resettled in the occupied territories as mercenaries.
Armenia aims to alter the demographic situation across Azerbaijan’s occupied territories by pursuing the illegal settlement policy. The same policy is a flagrant violation of the international humanitarian law, including the Geneva Convention of 1949. According to the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, the occupying power cannot transfer its civilian population into the territory it occupies.
During the 1946 Nuremberg International Military Tribunal for the Trial of Major War Criminals, two of the defendants were convicted for changing the ethnic composition of the occupied territories.
According to international law, the pursuit of illegal settlement policy by the occupying power in the occupied territories should be classified as a military crime. In this regard, Armenia’s illegal settlement policy across Azerbaijan’s occupied territories is a military crime.
Ironically, such actions are considered a crime under Armenia’s own legislation. In Article 390 of Armenia’s Criminal Code, the occupying power’s deportation of the local population and transfer of its people to the occupied territories is a grave violation of international humanitarian law, punishable by 8-12 years of imprisonment.
Armenia’s act of aggression perpetrated in the direction of Tovuz district, along the state border between the two countries this July and an attempt to carry out a subversion operation across the Line of Contact reveal that Armenia is preparing for yet another provocation and military adventurism.
Moreover, in recent days, Armenia has once again begun to declare explicitly; through the puppet regime, it installed in our occupied territories its intention to occupy Azerbaijan’s other areas and threatened to launch a missile strike on the city of Ganja.
Inflammatory rhetoric by Armenia’s Prime Minister and Defense Minister and their actions and other steps of such nature, once again confirm that the goal of the brazen Armenian leadership is to dismantle the negotiation process and secure the annexation of Azerbaijan’s occupied territories.
The responsibility for perpetrating provocations and escalating the situation lies with Armenia’s political and military leadership.
Armenia must withdraw its troops from Azerbaijan’s occupied territories to achieve progress in the resolution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. The conflict must be resolved only and solely in line with Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, sovereignty and inviolability of its internationally recognized borders.

Hikmat Hajiyev
Source: azertag.az/en/xeber/1582895

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Since the lockdown was introduce in the UK in March 2020, some of the best scholars at the UK Universities and learned organisations like the Political Studies Association (PSA) and the academic association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES) had organised several conferences and talks, mainly on different aspects of online teaching in the light of COVID-19 pandemic.

I gladly participated to the large part of these talks over the Summer and found them extremely useful on from ‘How are you going to get through this?’ and ‘What campus universities can learn from online/distance ones‘ to ‘Replacement or supplement: asynchronous teaching, accessibility, and methods‘ and ‘What makes a good online lecture?’

Yes, I learned substantially from these talks about:

• How academics could help each other about online teaching during a Global Pandemic,
• What forms of teaching-asynchronous or synchronous- is better suited for different learning processes- lecture or seminar/tutorial,
• How the new technology used to transfer the knowledge from an instructor to a learner,
• What software is best for online teaching; Zoom, Canvas or Panopto,
• What should be a priority in organising online-teaching; the software in hand or teaching objectives,
• What new ways could be adapted to increase students’ participation and contribution to online learning via discussion boards or forums like Vanilla, GoogleDoc and WordPress,
• How often students’ feedback should be collected.

While this is all well and good, I had a problem: during these talks is that I never turned on the camera and except on few occasions I did not use the chat boxes too, not mentioning the lack of microphone use. Therefore, when I heard from Andy O’Cain and Dave Lewis, of Open University, ‘Running an Online Seminar/Tutorial in Politics and IR’, that generally students turn their backs on microphones and cameras during virtual classes, I was able to empathise with them.

There may be plenty of reasons for why people do not turn the cameras on or use the microphones: camera-shy, lazy or multi-tasking. I believe the main issue is that the virtual environment is not a natural part of the human habitat for communication, as well as not being a conventionally accepted learning and teaching environment. Therefore, for some people, it takes longer to accommodate. It is best to be understanding each other. Nevertheless, it is one area we can all challenge ourselves to fit in and adapt our ways of learning, teaching and conferencing to the requirements of these extraordinary times.

While learning about being patient with each other, turning on the cameras from very the beginning and keep it on until the end of that session could be significantly advantageous. Think of it as going first to a meeting or a lecture and leaving last. Ultimately it develops to be about being present and making others feel your presence. Additionally, it provides an opportunity for you to feel part of the community which organised that event or the talk.

Some may argue that they could multitask if the camera is off. Reading a newspaper article or writing an email is not the right thing to do when you are listening to a complicated academic argument. If your attention is divided, it is highly likely that you are missing the opportunity to learn something new and meet new people with similar interests. Ultimately, seeing others on the laptop screen and having your face on the screens for others creates opportunities for eye contact between you and them. In this way, online learning and teaching could be as effective as face-to-face teaching and learning.

I decided to write this blog as I was getting ready for my two Virtual Conference presentations. Over the years, I have presented my research on countless times at the face-to-face Academic Conferences, but presenting at a virtual one was new territory.

For ‘Brexit and European integration: political, policy and legitimacy challenges’, organised by NEXTEUK, I was expected to pre-record my presentation of 10 minutes and share it with them before the Conference and speak for 3 three minutes on the Conference day. For the UACES’s 1st Virtual Conference, European Studies Conference, I was expected to have my presentation on PowerPoint and speak to it for a maximum of 15 minutes on the Conference day.

Recording my presentation was not easy. So that the end product is of an acceptable level, it is advisable to have most the relevant and advanced tech gadgets and software, and I was aware of that.

First of all, it is necessary to choose the best software that could do voice record and screencast; I found Camtasia very useful to do a pre-recorded presentation. However, when the Conference’s setup did not support it, I had to do it all over again on PowerPoint and recorded a slide show. The sound quality was much better with Camtasia than Powerpoint, and ultimately it was a learning process, and it is useful to know this now.

Secondly, before recording my presentation, there were a number of actions I had to take in the order of below:

1. Write up your speech
2. Read it out loud
3. Read it out loud until you are fully satisfied with it
4. Make the necessary additions or removals
5. Highlight and extract the essential bits you want to have on your PowerPoint slides
6. Copy and paste the highlighted parts to your PowerPoint slides
7. Go through them
8. Record your written up presentation or lecture or speech
9. Finally, depending on the recording software you use, edit and record again

Thirdly, the NEXTEUK Conference was held on Hopin, while the UACES took place on ZOOM. Hopin is an online events platform where engaging virtual events take place; the Conference was streamed live and recorded, will be available on the Conference’s Website soon. Whereas the UACES’s Conference was not recorded, but it allowed everyone, including presenters and the participants to be on the same screen if and when the cameras were on. However, with Hopin, there was a limited number of people you could have on-screen at a given time. Chatbox was popular with Hopin, while Conference participants with the UACES chose to engage through using their microphones and cameras. Softwares for events like these have varying degrees of advantages, and you can never say one is better than the other, except that you should be sufficiently versed enough about them to make an informed choice between the software which may serve your purpose best.

Through these Conference presentations, I accepted the challenge to adapt to this new virtual academic and research world that is triggered by the COVID-19;  and did and will do my part to contribute to its evolution. Of course, face-to-face teaching and learning should be the future.

 

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EU researchers have been rather silent about rhetorical action in recent years. The current Brexit and Corona reconstruction negotiations show why they shouldn’t be, Dirk Leuffen and Pascal Mounchid argue.

Chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier in London this month, for a new round of Brexit negotiations. (Photo: Ben Cawthra/Sipa USA/NTB Scanpix)

In the early 2000s, rhetorical action – the “strategic use of norm-based arguments” – was a powerfully used concept in academic debates on European integration. For instance, it was applied to explain the EU’s and NATO’s Eastern enlargement, as well as EU constitutionalization.

More recently, however, the concept of rhetorical action has largely vanished from the scene. We believe, wrongly so. The mechanism still exists, as the examples of the Brexit negotiations and the Corona recovery measures highlight.

The Helsinki effect

When properly applied, strategic norm-based arguments may rhetorically entrap opponents. In a “community environment”, actors can refer to the community’s constitutive values and norms and thereby put “social and moral pressure” on those actors who, arguably, deviate from these norms. Public shaming and blaming raise the costs for defecting actors by imposing reputation costs on them. This, in turn, enhances the probability of compliance – even against short-term interests.

If the norms are accepted in the first place, actors can be “entrapped”. Daniel C. Thomas’ (2001) study of the “Helsinki effect”, named after the 1975 CSCE Helsinki Final Act, highlights that “rhetorical entrapment” can actually make a difference. In his study, Thomas shows that dissidents used the Helsinki Final Act as a normative reference point to criticize their socialist governments’ poor human rights records. The critique did work because these governments had previously publicly committed themselves to honouring the norms codified in Helsinki.

Pacta sunt servanda – also during Brexit

The negotiations on EU-UK future relations are a telling example of applied rhetorical action. In early June 2020, in response to London’s unceasing thinning out of the negotiating dossiers, EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier publicly argued:

We must stick to our commitments if we want to move forward! We engaged in this negotiation on the basis of a joint Political Declaration that clearly sets out the terms of our future partnership. This document is available in all languages, including English. It is a good read, if I may say so. This declaration was negotiated with and approved by Prime Minister Johnson. It was approved by the leaders of the 27 Member States at the European Council in October 2019. It has the backing of the European Parliament. It is – and it will remain for us – the only valid reference, the only relevant precedent in this negotiation, as it was agreed by both sides.

When accusing the UK to continuously “backtrack on the commitments it has undertaken in the Political Declaration,” Barnier points out deviations from a commonly approved normative reference point. In this particular case, the norms had even been laid out in written form. The fact that Boris Johnson himself approved the declaration puts additional normative pressure on him. Barnier thus uses a strategy of shaming to promote his negotiation agenda.

While rhetorical action could hardly be more explicit, we still do not know whether the UK will feel rhetorically entrapped and therefore succumb to the argumentative strategy. In general, however, meeting rooms can be left more easily than commonly constructed identities and value schemes.

From austerity water to Keynesian wine

The exogenous shock of the Corona pandemic severely affected not just all EU member states’ health systems, but also their economies. At the same time, the impact was asymmetrical: a great variation emerged at both the medical and the financial playing fields, revealing growing inequalities between EU member states.

An interesting fact is that Germany – before the crisis amongst the EU’s strictest defenders of austerity – turned to Keynesianism back at home. Although less affected by the medical crisis, Germany – according to estimates by Bruegel – plans to spend more than 1,600 billion euros to boost its national economic recovery, thereby largely extending other member states’ ambitions.

Germany’s shift in domestic economic policy preceded its shift in European policy. The Franco-German proposal of May 18th 2020 to establish a European recovery fund containing 500 billion Euro of grants, leaves the austerity measures of the Eurozone crisis behind, possibly heralding a new conciliation of procedural and distributive justice in the EU.

One way to explain the notable policy shift consists in pointing out that in a community environment double standards are likely to undermine legitimacy. Drinking Keynesian wine back at home, while preaching austerity water in Europe, reduces credibility, as Christian Breunig and one of the authors argued in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Reputation costs, in fact, proved to be on the rise in polls documenting growing anti-German resentments after the first weeks of the Corona crisis.

Frugal failure

With Brexit, the frugal states in Europe’s North had lost the most outspoken supporter of an economically liberal EU. Germany’s position shift towards higher intra-EU transfers constituted another major blowback. Losing Germany made the position of the frugal four or five (Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland) weaker – both in power terms as well as on normative grounds.

Preceding the Corona crisis, Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz in a Financial Times editorial (February 16th 2020), published with Mark Rutte, prime minister of the Netherlands, Mette Frederiksen, prime minister of Denmark, and Stefan Löfven, prime minister of Sweden, , had defended their frugal approach with reference to their commitment to the EU. For Kurz et al. “[s]tanding up for common values does not have a price tag, and the single market, a considerable driver of European competitiveness, is not a costly endeavour.”

However, as we know after the European summit of July 17th to 21st 2020, the Corona crisis ended up being a game changer. Described by Belgian Finance Minister Alexander De Croo as an “existential battle for Europe”, the negotiations on the recovery fund highlighted that the Single Market, in fact, was at stake. According to BBC,  President Macron reportedly “banged his fists” on the table, telling the frugal states that he thought they “were putting the European project in danger”. Likewise, Italy’s Giuseppe Conte not just referred to community and solidarity norms, but also criticized the frugal four for threatening the existence of the Common Market. The community environment was stressed by Spain’s Foreign Ministre Arancha González Laya comparing the EU to a “family’s relationship”.

The negotiation strategy of the recovery funds supporters was thus twofold: references to a community ethos were larded with undisguised warning about the future of the commonly supported Single Market. At the end even the reluctant Northern member states agreed to a Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for 2021 to 2027 and the recovery fund – Next Generation EU – together totalling over €1.8 trillion and including issuing common debt at the EU level.

Rhetorical action and the battle for norms

Whether the reference to the EU’s community norms, or rather the insight that the Single Market really was at danger, finally led to concessions, is up to speculation or historical analysis, once the archives are open. Notwithstanding, references to norms again played an important role during the recovery fund negotiations.

It should be noted, however, that during the negotiations of the recovery programme, the ‘frugal states’ repeatedly also referred to the treaty basis to back their argument that uncontrolled spending would violate EU norms.

That highlights an important point: can we say ex ante, which norms dominate, or is the proof in the pudding? While this remains a challenge for rhetorical action, it should not stop us to revitalize the concept, but make us more curious about the mechanisms of how norms and justificatory strategies shape EU politics today.

The post Bringing Rhetorical Action Back In. Brexit and the Corona crisis show the strength of norm-based arguments appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

As I’ve sat down to write this, I’ve just reminded myself that I said only a short time ago that a leading indicator of heading to an agreement on the Future Relationship would be a de-escalation of the rhetoric. Make of that what you will, both in regard to Brexit and to me. This past week has been an absolute bloodbath for diplomatic niceties and for any rational modelling of the negotiations. The rolling breaking news on the language of the Internal Market Bill – which turned out to be even worse than expected – was joined by the non-announcement of a UK state aid policy to produce something that looks very like a de facto statement of non-engagement with the Future Relationship talks by the UK. As I noted on Monday, there are vanishingly small upsides to the IM Bill move, as summarised here: PDF version: https://bit.ly/UshGraphic37 It’s not only bad for the negotiations, but also for the UK reputation in current and future negotiations with other parties, which runs against any plans for ‘Global Britain’. I’m hardly the only one to note all this, but it does then raise the question of why do it? As with the extension debate, asking why people aren’t acting in their own apparent best interests is important, mainly because it suggests you’ve not understood their perception of their interests. In this case, there really only three options available to explain this diplomatic equivalent of taking a leak on the head of the other side: rupture; bigifying; and ignorance. The Rupture view is simply that this is the end of the Future Relationship and of pretty much any preferential relationship with the EU. The UK is setting its own course, and burning the one bridge it has left in place, the Northern Ireland Protocol. Consequences be damned, it’s off. This counts on a degree of no-one else minding too much, possibly because of the excellent trading opportunities that would be on offer with the UK (seventh-largest, etc, etc) and possibly because this move might make the EU throw a complete strop, so allowing the UK to foist the blame on to them for not engaging. Stuff of Telegraph editorials this might be, but it also doesn’t stack up. Most obviously, if you don’t care about any of this, then why only serve up a very precise dis-application of the protocol? As the ERG note, the IM Bill doesn’t go far enough in that regard. More generally, the UK isn’t notifying formally that it’s stopping negotiations and is accepting the emergency meeting of the Joint Committee today; hardly moves to bolster a ‘we’re off’ approach. Even the softer version of this – make it so the EU throw in the towel – doesn’t really stand up, given the technical progress that’s been reported up to very recently on both protocol implementation and the FR negotiations. So perhaps it’s bigifying: kicking up some dust to show how tough the UK government is? This has two elements: domestically, it reaffirms Number 10’s credentials as delivering a proper Brexit to backbenchers, while in negotiations it shows the UK is serious about walking away if it doesn’t get what it wants. The general consensus has been that the EU arm of this is a busted flush: the EU long ago calculated that the costs of non-agreement would fall very much more heavily on the UK than themselves, so while everyone would lose from failed to reach a deal, that would be much more London’s problem. Walking away from a negotiation is only credible and effective if the other side think you’ve got a better alternative and/or if they themselves have no viable alternative but to keep you in. Neither applies here. But the domestic aspect does have legs. Remember these backbenchers might well have to ratify a Future Relationship deal in short-order this autumn, so maybe flashing your teeth and then claiming to have beaten the EU down to a world-beating deal might be worth it. This I have more time for, not least since it’s what Johnson did last autumn with the same Withdrawal Agreement his spokesman is now claiming he negotiated too quickly. Add in the self-denying decision not to extend transition and you have a recipe for needing to make sure you don’t lose control of your party at all. Of course, as the ERG move shows, the problem with teeth-flashing is that it makes people hungry, especially if you then claim you have extracted something with it: why not do more? Ratification is going to be very awkward for all involved. Johnson needs his own party to comply, because opposition parties are likely to take the view that since even the intended Future Relationship is going to come with disruption, they won’t want to get it over the line, because Johnson will then blame them for it. So Tory rebels might only need to deprive the government of its majority to stymie the ratification Bill, and with so little time even a small delay might be enough to crash the bus for 31 December. So the possible gain of this week on this front is already in doubt. Which leaves ignorance. Again, as a general rule, I dislike this as an explanation, since everyone’s got enough sense to know what’s what. The protocol’s effects on state aid were clear during negotiation and the entire time since, and the Johnson government was always clear about disconnecting state aid during the current talks, so if we might channel our inner Theresa Mays: nothing has changed. Yes, there might be a feel that all this reads like someone finally joining the dots, but even then it’s a remarkable antagonistic way of resolving it, as evidenced by the departure of Jonathan Jones showed. Which brings us back to bigifying and all the issues which that comes with.

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What is the role of knowledge today when almost every aspect of our lives is affected by the global pandemic? What changes does this radically new situation bring to politics and policies of science, technology and higher educattion?  These and other questions were discussed at the Knowledge Politics and Policies Section of the first virtual General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) 24-28 August 2020. At this year’s conference the ECPR not only celebrated its 50th anniversary but also addressed some of the most pressing topics of our times such as gendered impact of Covid-19 crisis and decolonisation of curriculum and political practice. The conference connected some 2200 researchers to discuss 1804 papers in 72 sections and 443 panels.

 

This is the ninth time when a section dedicated to the topics of politics and policies of higher education, science and innovation is organised at the ECPR General Conference. It is endorsed by the ECPR Standing Group on Knowledge Politics and Policies which brings together more than 200 researchers from arounmd the world. Some 30 papers were discussed in the eight panels of this section covering topics from geopolitics of knowledge and science diplomacy to policies for emerging technologies and higher education.

 

Politics and Policies of Artificial Intelligence

The panel ‘Politics and Policies of AI, Big Data and Algorithmic Governance’ kicked off our section. In recent years, the fast development of these emerging technologies has presented major opportunities and challenges as well as proliferation of dedicated policies to facilitate beneficial effects and mitigate concerns. Papers in this panel addressed political and policy dynamics in Europe, the United States and Asia and examined emerging patterns of global collaboration and competion. Nora von Ingersleben-Seip (Technical University of Munich) presented her joint research with Andrea Renda (College of Europe) on great power competition among the European Union, the US and China. In another collaborative paper, Pertti Ahonen (University of Helsinki) and Tero Erkkilä (University of Helsinki) examined questions of algorithmic decision-making as a challenge and opportunity to openness and transparency in the Finnish political context. In her contribution, Raluca Csernatoni (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) discussed artificial (in)security and the politics of hype in Europe through buzzwords, myths and imaginaries. Continuing the topic of AI and the EU, Inga Ulnicane (De Montfort University) traced elements of Normative Power Europe and Market Power Europe in emerging EU policies, ethics guidelines and regulation in the field on AI. In the final paper in this panel, Jongheon Kim (University of Lausanne) explored the evolution of discourses on AI in South Korea.

 

While the topic of politics and policies of AI is relatively new, it is attracting an increasing interest. One of attendees shared on social media that he has come to this panel ‘purely out of curiosity’ but has managed to follow it and has realised ‘what a central issue will be for the future of politics!’ All panel participants agreed that it would be beneficial to undertake comparative research on AI politics and policies.

 

Academic Time

How have changes to the higher education sector around the world shaped the profession of political science? The panel ‘Conceptualising Academic Time’ addressed this question through the lens of ‘academic time’. While time in the academy has been traditionally measured by tasks an academic performs (i.e. research, teaching, and service), its allocation is increasingly complex as requests for today’s academic labour grow from within and beyond the university. Tero Erkkilä (University of Helsinki), Meng-Hsuan Chou (NTU Singapore), and Niilo Kauppi (University of Helsinki) kicked off the panel with ‘Conceptualising Academic Time’. The paper reviewed how scholars of political science and higher education studies conceptualised time that ultimately revealed the elusive character of academic time as an object of study. Simona Guerra (University of Surrey) followed with ‘Crashing Time? The Contemporary Experience of Time’, and showed that the ways in which time is valued in the UK very much depended on the role that an academic occupied (senior, junior), as well as the financial, institutional, and individual resources available ‘at the time’.

 

Dorota Dakowska (University of Lyon 2) continued with ‘In Search of Lost Time. The Academic Profession Under Pressure’ that examined how the profession has evolved in Poland and France through the analytical lens of time. She demonstrated how the two cases confirmed that research time has become a scarce resource and how conflicting temporalities threatens research time—the very essence of the academic profession. By calling attention to the symbolic violence of ‘time stolen’ in ‘The Social Suffering of Some Homo Academicus(es): Digital Time Machine and Time Control’, Didier Bigo (Sciences Po Paris) discussed how public-private management narratives have invaded the world of universities, depicting higher education institutions as branded companies. In ‘Time, Space and Academic Identity’, Christopher Pokarier (Waseda University) argued that the transformation of academic work can be usefully examined from the perspective of time, space, and resources. By inviting us to study the temporalities and spatiality of academic work, he emphasised the interdependence between time and our physical worlds. James Mittelman (American University) and Heidi Mauer (University of Bristol), panel co-discussants, animated the discussions by asking the participants to consider how and why the analytical lens of academic lens is needed now. Some similar topics where further discussed in the panel ‘Time-scales and Time Policies in Higher Education’.

 

Knowledge and Global Challenges

Several panels highlighted global dimensions of knowledge politics and policies. The panel ‘Science Diplomacy and Global Challenges’ explored different aspects of science diplomacy as both an academic concept and a term of practice in foreign policy. The first paper ‘The Promotion of European Studies in China. A Case of European Soft Diplomacy?’ by Silvana Tarlea (University of Basel) looked at how the EU exercises soft power in its promotion of European Studies in China, finding that its influence was diminishing for two reasons, first because of its perception by China as a powerful global actor, and second, due to a misplaced focus with its grants on universities rather than think tanks, which the author shows are the key actors particularly in regards to the diffusion of knowledge into the foreign ministry. The second paper, ‘Knowledge as Power: Global Challenges and the Development of European Foreign Policy’ by Mitchell Young (Charles University), explored the ways in which knowledge could be understood as a form of power in international relations, and particularly questioned whether the EU could be depicted as a powerful knowledge actor. Finally, Muhammad Adeel (Murdoch University) presented a paper on ‘Application of Science Diplomacy for Regulation of Genome Editing’ which traced the efforts to regulate genome editing, and the policy narratives that have become engaged in these debates through a variety of diverse stakeholders, particularly he focused on the question of whether Crispr should be considered genetic modification or not. A lively discussion followed the papers.

 

The panel ‘Knowledge and International Relations’ explored the relationship between the international relations and knowledge policy domains. The first paper focused on how the re-emergence of nationalist ideas and the re-closing of borders (to a large extent spearheaded by right-wing parties) challenges the trend of intensifying internationalisation of higher education. The empirical setting in focus was Denmark and Katja Brøgger (Aarhus University) linked the various developments in Danish higher education, including significant reductions in English-speaking programmes, with the overall shift towards protectionist and inward looking migration and welfare policies. Sarka Cabadova Waisova (University of West Bohemia) discussed in her paper the concept of expert knowledge and how diffusion thereof has been and could be studied. She particularly discussed the promises and pitfalls of actor-network theory, social network analysis, and other approaches utilized in international relations literature, as well as bibliometrics, qualitative historical analysis, topography and topology.

 

Geopolitics of Higher Education

Papers in the panel ‘The Geopolitics of International Higher Education’ explored international dimensions of higher education within the altered global context of emerging powers, shifting international and regional relations, and growing populism and nationalism. Natalia Leskina (Ural Federal University, Russia) and Emma Sabzalieva (University of Toronto, Canada) presented their research on higher education region-building in Central Asia. Their paper is a comparative analysis of activities in the Russian led Eurasian Economic Union and Chinese led Belt & Road Initiative and how these activities have been received and are being shaped by Central Asian policymakers. Bowen Xu’s (University of Cambridge, UK) paper focussed in on China’s efforts to create an educational community using the Belt & Road Initiative, helpfully bringing policy initiatives to an English language audience.

 

Huili (Stella) Si presented a co-authored paper with Miguel Lim (both University of Manchester, UK) again centring China but from the perspective of the rise and decline of joint programmes and institutes with other states. Hannah Moscovitz (University of Cambridge, UK) continued the focus on international linkages in her paper on the role of international student recruitment for nation branding in Québec and Canada. These are contexts where nationalisms compete and where sovereignty is shared, underscoring a differentiated process of nation branding in majority and minority nations. Taken together, the papers opened up new approaches at sub-national, national and supra-national levels to explore the changing impacts of geopolitics on higher education. They help to lay the groundwork for new kinds of research on higher education that are grounded not in Eurocentric approaches but explore different framings and geographies.

 

Participants found exchanges in this panel fruitful. One of them said: “It was my first time to attend ECPR, and it was a great experience for me. Having conversations with like-minded scholars help me to grow both intellectually and socially. I’d love to have this continued and looking forward to next year.” Similarly, another panellist who is a 2nd year PhD student told: “It is very meaningful to meet so many fantastic researchers through ECPR. ECPR provides a brilliant platform for researchers to communicate and share with insights. The comments and feedbacks from my peers are very valuable not only to my research but also to my future development.”

 

Higher Education Policy

Several panels examined issues of higher education policy. In the panel ‘Competition and Agentification in Funding Research and Innovation’, Ivar Bleiklie (Universitetet i Bergen) presented the co-authored paper ‘Policy Making by Dialogue?’ which introduces a new mode of policymaking that has emerged in Norway’s process of university mergers. It is identified as a ‘managerial’ mode, as it is based on direct dialogue with the leadership of organizations and their strategic positioning. The authorship collective included several other members of the SG, Svein Michelsen (Universitetet i Bergen), Nicoline Frølich (Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education) and Mari Elken (Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education). A second paper was presented by Anastasia Steinbrunner (Willy Brandt School of Public Policy, Universität Erfurt) which examined the policy process around tuition fees in France and Germany. The paper, co-written with several other researchers at Willy Brandt School of Public Policy, ‘Agenda Setting and Policy Diffusion: Exploring Higher Education Tuition Fees in France, Germany, and the United States’ applied a multiple streams analysis to the contentious and unstable issue of fees and their rationale.

 

The final panel in this section ‘The Politics of Higher Education Policy – Lessons from Western Europe, Canada and the USA’ chaired by Jens Jungblut (University of Oslo) brought together four papers that discussed different elements of the politics of higher education policy. All of the contributions are part of an upcoming volume that compares the policy-making dynamics in higher education policy in Western Europe, the U.S. and Canada. In the first contribution, Martina Vukasovic (University of Bergen) presented her work on the role of interest groups and intermediary organizations for higher education policy in Europe. In her paper, she not only provided a concise overview on the literature but also a detailed mapping of the interest group ecology in the higher education sector in multiple European countries. A key finding of her work is that most European countries show corporatist characteristics in their higher education interest group arrangement.

 

Meng-Hsuan Chou (Nanyang Technological University) presented in her paper an analysis on the use of the concept of policy framing in higher education policy. The results of her detailed literature review showed that the use of the concept of framing became more prominent in the literature especially after the year 2001. Moreover, she identified three clusters in the literature focusing on “The European story”, “When Europe hits home”, and “the national story”. In his contribution, Julian Garritzmann (Goethe University Frankfurt) presented a concise overview of the politics of higher education finance literature, highlighting the differing explanatory approaches that are used in the literature. In addition, he used new public opinion data to show how different factors influence public opinion towards tuition fees. Finally, Jens Jungblut (University of Oslo) presented the literature on the politics of higher education governance reforms. Focusing on the role of political parties for changes in the governance of higher education, he presented an analysis of party manifestos from six West European countries to highlight differences between party families regarding their preferences for the relationship between higher education and the state.

 

Excellent Paper Prize and future plans

To share official news, future plans and informally discuss how pandemic has affected our work and lives, our Standing Group met for the business meeting and social hour. The key highlight was celebration of the excellent paper award from an emerging scholar which this year was awarded to Justyna Bandola-Gill (University of Edinburgh) for her paper ‘Knowledge exchange repertoires: Producing and translating knowledge for policy’. This was the fourth time that our Standing Group awarded this prize. The new call for applications will be published soon and we will be celebrating the next winner at the 2021 ECPR General Conference which hopefully will take place in Innsbruck (Austria).

The post Virtual ECPR Knowledge Politics and Policies 2020 appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Vor wenigen Monaten hat der Deutsche Bundestag offiziell beschlossen, dass ab 1.1.2021 das neue Bundesamt für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten (BfAA) mit Sitz in Brandenburg(Havel) gegründet wird. Hier trage ich zusammen, was wir bislang alles wissen und was noch nicht (alles) auf der Wikipedia steht.

Warum mich das interessiert?

Zum Einen wohne ich seit einigen Monaten hier in der Stadt Brandenburg, unter anderem um eine neue Wissenschafts- und Forschungsorganisation zu gründen. Als Fast-Nachbar des neuen Amts und als Politik- und Verwaltungswissenschaftler verfolge ich daher den Aufbau eines neuen Amts natürlich mit großer Aufmerksamkeit.

Aber wer meine Forschung der letzten Jahre verfolgt hat, weiß, dass ich mich natürlich auch inhaltlich für die Arbeit des BfAAs interessiere. Laut der Webseite des Auswärtigen Amts ist eine der Aufgaben des Amts nämlich das “Management von Fördermitteln und Zuwendungen, zum Beispiel für humanitäre Hilfsprojekte“.

In meiner Forschung rund um die Finanzierung des UN-Systems habe ich mich zuletzt intensiv mit Fragen der humanitären Finanzen befasst, inklusive von Organisationen wie dem UN-Flüchtlingshilfswerks UNHCR oder dem UN-Hilfswerk für Palästina-Flüchtlinge UNRWA. Da ist das Amt genau in meinem Themenbereich unterwegs.

Interessanterweise wird laut den lokalen Medien (hier Märkische Allgemeine Zeitung, MAZ) der ehemalige deutsche Botschafter in Beirut (Libanon), Georg Birgelen, wohl der erste Leiter der neuen Amts werden.

Das ist insofern spannend, weil der kleine Staat Libanon in großer Zahl Geflüchtete aus Syrien aber auch eine eine signifikante Zahl Palästina-Flüchtlinge aufgenommen hat und damit ein wichtiger Empfänger von multilateraler Hilfe über Organisationen wie UNHCR und UNRWA ist. Birgelen hat also vermutlich vor Ort gesehen, was das Management von Hilfsgeldern direkt und indirekt bedeutet.

Was genau das neue Bundesamt alles tun soll ist allerdings noch nicht im Detail bekannt. Im Kern soll es nicht-politische Verwaltungsaufgaben des Auswärtigen Amts übernehmen.  Wobei das natürlich nicht heißt, dass es hier um unwichtige Aspekte geht.

Im Gesetz heißt es (§2 Abs. 2):

“Das Bundesamt unterstützt den Auswärtigen Dienst auf dem Gebiet der Auswärtigen Angelegenheiten bei der Verwaltung und Infrastruktur, dem Fördermittelmanagement sowie im Rechts- und Konsularwesen. Das nähere regelt das Auswärtige Amt.”

Außerdem können dem Amt noch weitere auswärtige Aufgaben übertragen werden, inklusive aus anderen Ministerien und Bundesbehörden (§2 Abs. 3). Man könnte sich also vorstellen, dass es irgendwann nicht nur die Verwaltung der auswärtigen Fördermittel des AAs sondern auch anderen Ministerien übernimmt. Z.B. wird wohl auch die Verwaltung des Auslandsschulwesen auf das BfAA übertragen (siehe weiter unten).

Die ungenaue Aufgabenbeschreibung des BfAA wurde im Februar vom Bundesrechnungshof in einem Einzelbericht zum neuen Amt kritisiert:

“Welche Aufgaben das neue Bundesamt übernehmen soll und was demgegenüber der für die politische Steuerung des Auswärtigen Amts zuständigen Zentrale vorbehalten bleibt, lässt der Gesetzentwurf offen. Er enthält auch keine hinreichend genauen Angaben zu den mit dieser Organisationsmaßnahme verbundenen haushalts- und insbesondere personalwirtschaftlichen Auswirkungen. Weder lässt der Gesetzentwurf erkennen, wie die Personalausstattung des neuen Bundesamtes genau ausfallen soll noch wie sich die Neugründung auf die Personalausstattung der Fachabteilungen der Zentrale auswirkt.“

Die Begründung zum Gesetzesentwurf sprach übrigens von einem “geplanten schrittweisen Aufwuchs des Personalstamms des Bundesamts auf 700 Beschäftigte“.

Wir haben es hier also nicht mit einer kleinen Behörde zu tun, sondern in ihrer angestrebten Größe mit einem signifikanten Akteur in einer Stadt mit knapp über 70.000 Einwohnern. Und auch ein Akteur, der mit Sicherheit einiges im Auswärtigen Amt verändern wird, wenn dadurch tatsächlich Stellen eingespart oder verlagert werden.

Damit ist laut Presse auch klar, dass die zunächst angemieteten Räumlichkeiten in der Kirchhofstraße in Brandenburg wohl nicht ausreichen werden und es möglicherweise einen Neubau für das Amt geben könnte.

Die Lage in der Kirchhofstraße ist aber für Mitarbeiter*innen des BfAAs, die aus Berlin oder Potsdam einpendeln, insofern vorteilhaft, als dass man in nur 5-10 Minuten zu Fuß vom Bahnhof dort ist. Von Berlin fährt der RE1 halbstündlich in ca. 50 Minuten von Berlin Hbf nach Brandenburg Hbf (zurück auch). Ab 2022 wird der Takt sogar von halbstündig auf 20-minütig erhöht.

Was für Mitarbeiter*innen werden gesucht?

In einer Stellenausschreibung des AAs für den gehobenen Dienst vom August 2020 hieß es zum Beispiel:

“Wenn es Sie reizt, am Aufbau einer neuen, international ausgerichteten Bundesoberbehörde, dem zentralen Servicezentrum für außenpolitische Verwaltungsaufgaben im Geschäftsbereich des Auswärtigen Amts engagiert mitzuarbeiten, Sie hohe Teamfähigkeit und Einsatzfreude sowie die unten aufgeführten Anforderungen mitbringen, freuen wir uns auf Ihre Bewerbung.“

Die Aufgaben in dieser Ausschreibung waren ganz klar an der Mittelverwaltung angesiedelt:

• • “Bewilligung von Zuwendungen nach § 44 Bundeshaushaltsordnung einschließlich der Prüfung von Finanzierungsplänen und der Beratung zu Projektvorhaben im Ausland
  • Abschluss von zivilrechtlichen Verträgen mit im Ausland sitzenden Zuwendungsempfängern, einschließlich Kommunikation in Wort und Schrift mit den Zuwendungsempfängern in englischer Sprache
  • Prüfung von Ausgaben im Rahmen von Verwendungsnachweisen
  • Projektbegleitung und Bewertung von Sachberichten einschließlich der Dokumentation von Beanstandungen und der Durchsetzung von Rückforderungen Mittelbewirtschaftung“

Auch die Visa-Vergabe soll demnächst hier Brandenburg geschehen, wobei juristisch das Verwaltungsgericht in Berlin zuständig bleibt — formal werden die Entscheidungen also wohl in der Zuständigkeit es Auswärtigen Amts fallen, nicht hier.

Darüber hinaus deuten weitere Stellenausschreibungen darauf hin, dass auch Aufgaben des Bundesverwaltungsamts in Bereich des Auslandsschulwesens auf das BfAA übergehen:

“Derzeit wird die Zentralstelle für das Auslandsschulwesen durch das Bundesverwaltungsamt betreut. Mit Einstellung dieser Tätigkeit beim BVA übernimmt das Bundesamt für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten diese Aufgabe voraussichtlich zum 01.01.2021.“

Weiterhin werden wohl Aufgaben in der Buchführung und Rechnungslegung des AAs an das BfAA ausgelagert. Auch Expert*innen im Tarifrecht werden in der Zentralabteilung des BfAA gesucht. Auch braucht das BfAA natürlich eine neue IT, so dass Stellen für das Auswärtige Amt in diesem Bereich schon seit Anfang 2020 mit der Möglichkeit der Versetzung nach Brandenburg ausgeschrieben wurden.

Hier in Brandenburg ist also einiges in Bewegung. Wenn die ersten 2-300 Mitarbeiter*innen hier im Laufe des nächsten Jahres ihre Arbeit beginnen, wird das in Brandenburg(Havel) sicher einiges in Bewegung setzen.

Dem neuen Amtsleiter Birgelen kann man nur viel Erfolg wünschen, denn beim Aufbau einer neuen Behörde kann ja einiges gut aber auch einiges schief laufen. Als Politik- und Verwaltungswissenschaftler wäre beides interessant zu beobachten, aber als Bürger der Stadt hoffe ich auf ein gutes Zusammenwachsen von Bundesamt und Brandenburg.

The post Das Bundesamt für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten (BfAA) in Brandenburg: Was wir wissen appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Azerbaijan is currently actively working with several companies to bring the COVID-19 vaccine to the country.
President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said this during the opening of a modular hospital of the Health Center of the Ministry of Emergency Situations for the treatment of coronavirus patients.
Azerbaijan will be among the first countries to receive the vaccine in this area. But the main condition is that the vaccine should go through all the stages of testing. Doctors are well aware that any new vaccine goes through several stages and only then is released to the market and used to vaccinate people. Therefore, Baku aims to bring this vaccine to the country after all the stages of research have been conducted by companies and after international certification has been completed. After that, it will be possible to say that this terrible situation is over.
“Currently, 100 to 200 people are infected in our country every day. This is certainly a better result than in previous months. However, daily monitoring is and will be carried out to keep the situation under control. At the same time, mitigation steps should be taken in such a way that the number of patients does not increase sharply. This is the key issue, and we will certainly take our steps very carefully”, Mr. Aliyev noted.

Editor

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All that summer rest finally gave me the impetus to put together this little chart the other day. It’s a simple breakdown of the time allocated to the 11 headings of the Future Relationship negotiating rounds, including this week’s 7th. Weightings are based on a negotiating block (usually a half-day), with some joint sessions (e.g. governance and aviation) being split evenly between the two original headings. All the data is based on the published agendas. When I posted on Twitter, I focused mainly on the stability of the time allocations, reflecting the non-agreement on any one chapter: the entire agenda is still in a state of nascent points of common ground, but awaiting now the political level to push into any horse-trading that might occur. Without that push, we’re not going to see things change, or indeed resolve into agreement, regardless of what rational cost-benefit analysis might tell us should happen. Others have written on the politics of the calculations involved, so I’m not going to add further to that pile, but instead I’ll pick up on the comments I got about the time devoted to fisheries. People rightly pointed out that fisheries contributes a trivial amount to economic activity, certainly compared to services, and yet it gets just as much time (only the Level Playing Field gets more). A quick glance at that overall distribution of time will show that economic value is not the driver here. Instead, it’s about the production of legal text to meet the needs of the parties involved, as well as the degree of disagreement between them. Time in negotiations is shaped much more by the logic of the agreement than by objective external benchmarks: the process of negotiation itself becomes part of what is discussed. In some cases, the parties might have minimal disagreement, so it’s relatively quick and simple to close the gap. In others, there might be big differences, but the nature of the field might only allow for one position or the other, so the only discussion is about whether either side concedes the point, or rather that it falls. The difficult and time-consuming cases come when there are multiple options available – including novel ones – or where there are additional legal obligations to be factored in. Fisheries is a good example of such a situation, given assorted bits of international public law, fishing conventions, environmental protection obligations and more ways of managing things than you’d think would exist. Services, by contrast, remains an underdeveloped area of international cooperation, so a lot of what’s going on is about degrees of alignment to EU rules, including on financial equivalence. In addition, the UK isn’t asking for nearly so much on this front, as compared to fisheries. In both cases, the time taken to produce legal texts for inclusion in a new treaty takes time (and you can read the Withdrawal Agreement‘s many annexes for a relevant illustration of how politically not-so-important points can take up a lot of legal space), but it’s not as simple as saying that works on the same basis as the politics of the situation.

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I am writing this piece in response to the Hungarian opposition political parties’ agreement to create a joint programme for government and stand single candidates against Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s ruling Hungarian Civic Alliance party (Fidess) in all 106 electoral districts.

The Hungarian opposition’s pledge to unite and form an anti-Orban block for the next General elections seen as a positive move by some quarters, who want Orban gone for good. However, when I look at a similar case study country like Turkey, where alliances between the opposition political parties were formed to either to stand against Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in the Presidential elections in 2018 or Istanbul Mayoral elections against Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party in 2019, I can say that they do not always produce the desired outcome.

Political parties exist not only to promote the values they are formed on but also to stand in the elections to win a majority to implement their political agenda, which is usually put together before the elections, at least in democracies. While both the Freedom House and V-Dem no longer regard Turkey and Hungary as democracies, I could, to a certain extent, understand the functions of political parties may have changed in Hungary and Turkey.

The evidence suggests that the opposition political parties and their leadership in Hungary and Turkey are desperate to change the status quo. My interpretation of this is that elections for the opposition political parties in Hungary and Turkey are no longer about winning a majority to form a government so to exercise power and gain the opportunity to put their programme in action. However, it has subtly evolved from giving a kick to the governing political party to almost toppling the governing political party through an election that is usually not fought on fair and open grounds. 

What can explain is that by the opposition political parties’ oversight of their original purpose in politics, as well as playing politics with the rules set by Orban in Hungary and Erdogan in Turkey, either voluntarily or involuntarily, which does not change the outcome. Nevertheless, in this way the opposition political parties play an essential part in legitimising the autocratic political systems Orban and Erdogan has established over the last decade in their respective countries. 

I argue that, in the case of Hungary, the opposition political parties should go back to their roots and remember, what kind of Hungary they envisage, instead of putting all their energy in forming alliances to overthrow Orban’s administration.

They should look for answers to the following questions: do you want an open and democratic Hungary, which respects the EU values? What is your position on illiberal democracy? Do you prefer free Media? Do you aspire Hungary as a migrant-friendly country? How economically well off do you imagine Hungary? Then look for fresh policy ideas to develop attractive party programmes that could address these questions.They must also look for a leader who could convince the electorate that they could deliver on these policy ideas.

Otherwise, drawing on the Turkish case, I would say the following could be the future for the opposition political parties in Hungary: (i) perceived ‘lack of distinctiveness’; (ii) ‘disenchanted voters’; and (iii) ‘intensified polarisation’.

When political parties agree to form alliances on several occasions, my observation is that they end up losing their distinct characteristics in the eyes of the electorate. For instance, when the Turkish People’s Party (CHP) united with the Good Party (IP), Felicity Party (SP) and Democrat Party (DP) in 2018. It has raised many question marks about how is it possible for these political parties to come together while they sharply differ on issues like religion and nationalism. They ultimately caused a loss of confidence in politicians among the electorates.

The electorate observed the leadership of the opposition political parties as too soft on the issues that are too critical for them. When what differs political parties from each other disappears from the political spectrum, I predict that there would be an increase in disenchanted voters who not only have no confidence in political parties but also cannot feel any affiliation to them in terms of interest and values. In the case of Turkey, it is difficult to measure what impact the alliance among the opposition politicians have on the voter turnout since voting is compulsory. However, I will watch out for Hungary.

While polarisation is partly an indication of a healthy democracy since it means all segments of the society are allowed to express their differences freely, however alliances formed between the opposition political parties could produce an intensified polarisation of politics and society, sharply dividing the society into two camps. For instance, in the case of Turkey, the society is divided between anti-Erdogan and pro-Erdogan camps, and the divisions are sharpened each and every time there is an election. Similarly, in Hungary, we see an anti-Orban camp versing pro-Orban, which is subtly evolving. I argue that this not least is dangerous, but more importantly overshadows other interests and values of the electorate, which should be at the forefront of the political parties’ agendas and narratives.

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This month 59 years ago – on 13 August 1961 – Berliners woke up to find that a wall was being built to split their city in two. To say it was a huge shock is an understatement.

It was not until 28 years later – in November 1989 – that Berliners ripped the wall down, using their hands and hammers.

It was a momentous moment in our continent’s history.

It led to the downfall of the Soviet communist regime, followed eventually by applications to join the European Union by most of the former Iron Curtain countries, fully supported and encouraged by our UK government.

It’s an event worth remembering, celebrating and, most of all, understanding.

Because for much of the last century, it was not just a major city, but our entire continent that was split in two, brutally separating European families and friends, communities and countries.

The planet’s only two world wars both originated right here, on our continent.

For hundreds of years, Europe was a continent whose history was regularly punctuated by the most vicious and nasty conflicts, wars and political oppression.

Between 1914 and 1945, around 100 million people in Europe needlessly lost their lives as a direct result of those wars, conflicts and oppression – including millions murdered on an industrial scale as a result of genocide.

It’s a shocking, despicable history of violence and subjugation, for which no one can be proud or nostalgic.

The second, and hopefully last, world war came to an end in 1945.

But then, instead of celebrating Europe’s liberation from Nazism, half of Europe’s countries found themselves consumed and subjugated by another totalitarian regime, Communism.

It was only 44 years later, as the Berlin wall began to crumble, that those countries could begin to see and feel freedom at last.

This was Europe’s gruelling and arduous road to peace and liberation that we should surely reflect upon.

When I recently visited Amsterdam, my Dutch friend said to me:

“Why are you doing Brexit? Europe is integrated now!”

Maybe this is something we, as islanders, simply don’t understand as deeply as those who live on the mainland of our continent.

Europe has suffered profound pain on its path to find peace and ‘integration’, following centuries of wars.

For many, the Second World War only ended in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the half of our continent that was hidden from us behind an ‘Iron Curtain’ was liberated at last.

We saw the fall of the oppressive Soviet Union, and many of the countries that had been trapped in its sphere then re-joined our family of countries through the European Union.

Following our continent’s long and harrowing journey, we have found peace between each other, and yes, integration at last.

And yet, in response, Britain is on a rapid road to an unharmonious Brexit, snubbing our friends and neighbours on our own continent, and putting at risk Europe’s profound and remarkable accomplishments of recent decades.

We may not be building a brick wall between our country and the rest of our continent, but Brexit is a wall nonetheless, that needlessly separates and divides us from our European family, friends and neighbours.

Do we really know what we’re doing?

• Watch this 3-minute video about the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989:

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

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Posted by Jon Danzig on Thursday, 13 August 2020

 

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