Ideas on Europe Blog

Most of the current discussions on the possible ‘Brexit’ — the United Kingdom leaving the European Union — are concerned with issues of the Eurozone and its economic implications, the ongoing migration and refugee crisis, and the potential economic, political and social consequences for the UK in case of leaving the EU. What has been missing from the heated debates though, is the question about the implications of the Brexit for the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) as well as the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). During the Cold War, European states relied on the security community in the form of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. With the fall of the iron curtain and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and thus the downfall of the biggest threat to Western states, the EU slowly developed its own security and defence structures. In 2003, the Union declared its full operability and launched two of its exemplary military operations, Operation Concordia in the FYRO Macedonia and Operation Althea in Bosnia Herzegovina. So far, the EU has launched 22 civilian missions and 9 military operations. In several of these operations, the United Kingdom played a significant role in terms of operational planning and contributing military capabilities. What would therefore happen to the EU’s security and defence structures as well as its military capabilities if the UK were to exit? How will it cope without the contributions of the UK in future operations?

 

The UK’s Position in the EU’s Security and Defence Structures

In most of the EU’s military operations, the UK has played a key role. The Union’s operational headquarters are situated in Northwood, just north of London. The UK maintains a great share of the overall defence budget of the 28 member states. Even though it has often hampered the process of developing the EU’s security and defence structures further, it remains as one of the most important contributors to operations under CSDP. The EU’s overall military expenditure amounts to €192.5 million and with €43.7million, UK’s military expenditure represents more than a fifth (22.7%) of the EU’s expenditure. Also, it possesses the second biggest troop contingent and has currently deployed a great quantity of its personnel in current military operations as well as civilian missions, such as in Bosnia Herzegovina under Operation Althea which was taken over from NATO under British command. And in the case of Operation Concordia, the UK was even among the key actors in brokering the peace deal between the conflicting groups. By signing the Franco-British Joint Declaration in St. Malo in 1998, the UK has committed itself for a defence policy on the EU level and thus paved the way for further developments. This demonstrates the country’s importance to the Union’s operability and effectiveness as a military actor.

 

Brexit’s Implications for CSDP

Without the United Kingdom, the European Union might not be able to make such contributions to future military operations. Numerous questions concerning the relationship between the UK and the EU would need to be raised especially in security terms. What would happen to operational planning of future CSDP operations? How would the EU deal with a decreased military budget and less military personnel? And since the UK is the most important linkage between Europe and North America, what implications would a European Union without the UK have for future EU-NATO relations?

Regarding all of these questions, the EU and especially its security and defence policy would not make such a good image. This would then have negative effects on Europe’s role on the global stage. The EU would lack a great amount of important personnel, strategic planning capabilities as well as potentially loose its operational headquarters. Unless the UK would become a strategic partner of the EU and would still participate in operations under CSDP, the Union would not be able to develop its security and defence structures any further and the desire to become a global player would once again be at stake. As far as EU-NATO relations are concerned, the gap might become even wider. This special relationship already suffers from deeply rooted issues between its member states. Having another European member state without EU membership would complicate relations, especially in terms of collecting and exchanging intelligence as well as sharing military capabilities and assets.

Brexit would thus have severe implications for the EU as a security and defence actor not only in Europe but also beyond its borders. It is therefore essential, from the European security perspective, for the United Kingdom to remain in the European Union.

The post Why the EU needs the UK – A Security Perspective, by Nele Marianne Ewers-Peters appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

One of my biggest frustrations on watching BBC TV’s ‘Question Time’ is that when UKIP representatives make incorrect statements about the EU, there’s usually nobody on the panel or in the audience to correct them.

Take last Thursday’s broadcast of Question Time. Among those appearing on the panel was UKIP MEP, Patrick O’Flynn, who made a number of statements about the European Union that were wrong.

As I discovered, shouting at the telly made not a blind bit of difference. He carried on regardless, without anyone in the studio able or willing to put him right.

So instead, I’ll share with you here on my ‘EU ROPE’ blog three examples of Mr O’Flynn’s misleading statements on Question Time and explain how they were wrong.

Mr O’Flynn said:

“On the flooding it turns out that there are regulations from the EU that stop us dredging the rivers that have arguably made the flooding worse.”

UKIP has been trying to blame the EU for Britain’s flood disaster. This is completely without foundation.

The anti-EU party, along with some of the media, have claimed that the EU Water Framework Directive ‘bans dredging’. But that’s not true; the directive doesn’t ban dredging.

Whether or not to dredge is a decision of each member state, not the EU, and based on the local situation. The UK Environment Agency recently announced that it had spent £21m on dredging in the past two years, so clearly, dredging hasn’t been banned at all.

It’s also been claimed that the EU directive prevents dredged sediment being spread elsewhere. Again, this isn’t correct, unless the sediment contains toxic substances, in which case dredging could poison land and rivers endangering the health of humans and wildlife.

Experts have commented that dredging can sometimes be an effective measure against flooding, but sometimes it can make matters worse. It’s up to our UK government agencies to decide whether to dredge, and not the EU.

Furthermore, the EU has emergency funding of about £125 million to help Britain’s flooded areas. So far, the British government has turned down this fund, with the Prime Minister, David Cameron, claiming that Britain can afford to deal with the flooding from ‘our own resources’.

Mr O’Flynn also asserted:

“You can’t sack the European Commission. It’s unelected. We’re not a democracy.”

This is also incorrect.

The laws and regulations of the European Union are debated and democratically agreed (or rejected) by the elected Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), in collaboration with the European Commission.

We elect MEPs to represent Britain in the European Parliament; it’s nonsense to claim this is not democratic.

The European Commission comprises 28 Commissioners, one from each EU member state, appointed every five years.

The President of the Commission is decided by a majority vote of the democratically elected heads of each EU member state, which of course includes the UK.

However, the choice of Commission President has to be agreed by a vote of the European Parliament, which can reject the candidate for President.

Once Parliament has democratically approved the appointment of the EU Commission President, the President-elect selects the 27 other EU Commissioners, on the basis of suggestions made by each EU member state, including of course the UK.

However, EU Parliamentary committees assess the suitability of each proposed Commissioner.

Then, the Commission as a whole requires the democratic consent of the European Parliament, to whom the Commission is ultimately responsible.

In fact, the European Parliament has the democratic power to sack the entire Commission of the European Union at any time during its 5-year tenure. This is the same as national governments that can be booted out of office by national Parliaments if they lose a vote of confidence.

The European Parliament is one of the world’s largest democratic assemblies, representing over 500 million citizens.

The Parliament has elected representatives from all the main political parties in Europe – conservatives, socialists, liberals, greens, variants of the extreme left and extreme right, as well as anti-EU parties, such as UKIP.

I have visited both Parliaments of the EU, in Brussels and Strasbourg, and witnessed democracy at work by hard-working elected MEPs. It’s an insult to them, and to all of us who voted in the European elections, to suggest that the EU is not democratic.

The EU is not quite the same as our democratic system in the UK, but the European Union is still a democracy none-the-less. It’s not perfect, but there is no perfect democracy in the world.

In the UK, we don’t get to vote for who sits in the Cabinet or holds ministerial positions. We don’t directly elect our Prime Minister. We don’t elect our Civil Service. We have an unelected second chamber, and an unelected ‘head of state’.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, “Democracy is the worst form of government, apart from all the others.”

Over the past few decades, however, much more democratic power has devolved to the European Parliament, and I hope this ongoing process of democratisation will continue in the years and decades to come.

Only one-third of the British electorate actually vote in the European Parliament elections. Maybe that’s why so many might wrongly believe Mr O’Flynn’s claim that the EU is not democratic.

Mr O’Flynn also stated on Question Time:

“The Governor of the Bank of England is admitting that untrammelled freedom of movement for working class jobs has caused massive wage compression over ten and fifteen years for working people in this country.”

The Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney (himself a foreign worker) didn’t say anything of the sort.

Let me be frank about this: Mr Carney did not say migrant workers bring down the salaries of existing British workers. In fact, Mr Carney has strongly praised ‘free movement of people’ as being good for Britain and Britons.

Mr Carney actually asserted that foreign workers are helping to increase the UK’s productivity. On the BBC Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme, presenter John Humphrys asked Mr Carney if “cheap foreign labour” was actually stopping productivity increasing.

But Mr Carney replied, “I would really dampen down that explanation.”

He explained that most of the increase in labour supply has been down to British workers taking more hours, and older workers staying in employment. Over the last two years, increases in those factors have been 10 times as important as migration, Mr Carney asserted.

Contrary to the implications made by Mr O’Flynn on Question Time, the Bank of England Governor has consistently supported Britain’s continued membership of the EU.

In a lecture last October, Mr Carney said Britain’s membership of the EU since 1973 had improved the dynamism of the economy and increased the prosperity of all people in Britain.

Mr Carney added that “the UK is the leading beneficiary” of the free movement of goods, services, capital and labour enshrined in European treaties.  

Furthermore, Mr O’Flynn’s description of ‘free movement of people’ across Europe as “untrammelled” is also misleading.

There is not “untrammelled” free movement of people. Yes, as EU citizens we have a right to live, work, study or retire in any other EU/EEA countries. But under EU rules, we cannot just move to another EU country unless we have the means to look after ourselves.

It’s a myth to suggest that it’s possible for EU migrants to come here, or for British migrants to go to another EU country, and immediately start claiming benefits. It’s only free movement if you can afford to move.

*Read response from Bank of England Press Office to the comments by Mr O’Flynn: BBC Question Time: Response from Bank of England

* Join the discussion about this article on Facebook.

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Other stories by Jon Danzig:

• EU referendum: It’s going to get nasty
• What Nigel Farage told British expats in Spain
• UKIP’s Hall of Shame

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

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I managed to get through to the James O’Brien phone-in show on LBC radio. James asked me, “Jon, have you changed your view as a result of this sparkling re-negotiation presided over by our wonderful Prime Minister, David Cameron?’ (4 minutes)

Click here to view the embedded video.

 

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#UKIP MEP @oflynnmep gives the wrong answers on #bbcqt about the #EU. Please share my blog: https://t.co/2DAG3TZnLb pic.twitter.com/vAfte5zXgO

— Jon Danzig (@Jon_Danzig) January 17, 2016

Wrong answers on #bbcq by UKIP MEP @oflynnmep Join the discussion on my #Facebook page: https://t.co/0XZ5lyEa7n pic.twitter.com/crttc6lyV8

— Jon Danzig (@Jon_Danzig) January 17, 2016

Multiple wrong answers on #bbcqt by #UKIP MEP @oflynnmep Please share my blog: https://t.co/ASKwmoy7fa pic.twitter.com/awXaJnPd2V

— Jon Danzig (@Jon_Danzig) January 18, 2016

Response from @BankofEngland regarding comments by #UKIP MEP @oflynnmep on @BBCQuestionTime about #migrant #labour https://t.co/rDB9CqUgcA

— Jon Danzig (@Jon_Danzig) January 18, 2016

 

The post Wrong answers on BBC Question Time appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

In his Chatham House speech setting out the UK’s demands for a renegotiated relationship, David Cameron argued Britain’s EU membership is not merely a question of jobs and trade but of national security. Eurosceptics argue Britain’s leaders have too often allowed such foreign policy concerns to be put before domestic priorities, especially economic and democratic needs. Recent events in Paris and Brussels have raised questions about the vulnerability of EU member states, not least over the practicality of Schengen. As the UK’s new Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) made clear, traditional state-based threats and renewed challenges posed by terrorist organisations do not recognise national borders. Britain’s security is – and has long been – shaped by EU membership, whether by enhancing the UK’s international power, allowing the UK to shape European geopolitics and transatlantic relations, or by holding the UK together. As a result, as Ian Bond of the Centre for European Reform recently argued, ‘The British government’s obsession with the details of its relationship with the EU has led it to lose sight of the big strategic picture and of the EU’s role in managing the national security threats identified in the SDSR.’

European integration has long had a security side to it whether as Franco-German reconciliation or integrating former Communist states in Eastern Europe. To what extent the EU has itself been able to keep the peace is open to debate. Nevertheless, for post-war prime ministers such as Harold Macmillan, Britain’s ability to shape the world around it was declining as rapidly as its economic base. Joining the then European Economic Community was, in part, a step forward for the security and stability of a country that had recently ended its retreat from empire and was struggling internally and externally to find a place in the world. Support for membership amongst Conservative MPs in the 1970s was driven by hopes that EEC membership would lock Britain into a capitalist, free market club allowing the country to shed its ‘sick man of Europe’ label, a reason some on the left resisted membership. Membership would also enhance Western European unity in the face of a still formidable Communist world, Saigon having fallen to North Vietnam only a month before the 1975 referendum.

Today, EU membership still means a lot to Britain’s national security. As the UK’s Strategic Defence and Security Review showed, Britain’s own economic and military capabilities remain substantial, but being able to draw on the EU as a force multiplier has become increasingly central as they have been stretched to their limits. For David Hannay, the EU allows Britain to better manage challenges as diverse as a newly assertive Russia through to climate change and instability in the Middle East. Working through the EU is not without its flaws, but other options for Britain to pursue its interests such as by rebuilding the Commonwealth, developing the ‘Anglosphere’, joining NAFTA, or becoming a ‘Switzerland with nukes’, are either limited or overplayed. Leaders from around Europe and the world have regularly cast doubts on whether a Brexit will boost Britain’s international standing and security. Eurosceptics will argue that Britain is weak in the EU, frequently outvoted and sidelined. Such an approach views the EU through the prism of Westminster’s majoritarian politics: a zero-sum game where you either win or lose. Through such an outlook every EU member state struggles to win. The one thing that does set you up for failure is isolating yourself, an approach the UK has in recent years adoptedmore than ever before.

Close relations with the USA remain, despite all the arguments, the cornerstone of UK and European security. Brexit is not going to end such arrangements as ‘Five Eyes’ or cooperation on Special Forces. But wider relations with the USA would be tested. Only a few on the fringe of the US political right think a Brexit would be a sound idea for the UK, USA, EU and transatlantic relations. As Condoleezza Rice, former Bush Administration Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, recently told Chatham House: ‘It is a very different Europe if it is a continental one’. The US has been a long-standing supporter of European integration and Britain’s part in it. A Britain that challenges both of these could find it damages relations with the USA and the USA’s commitment to Europe at a time of heightened US exasperation at Europe’s inability to think about geostrategic concerns – whether they be Russia, China or ISIS – and invest in the necessary defence commitments.

In his Chatham House speech David Cameron argued that the prosperity and security of the rest of Europe are vital for Britain. In doing so he came close to the often overlooked question of what Brexit would mean for Europe. A Brexit could change the European geopolitical and geoeconomic landscape in ways that would not be in Britain’s interests. It would see the departure of the EU’s largest and keenest supporter of Atlanticism and outward looking economic liberalism. The EU could become more inward looking and protectionist. The idea that Brexit could lead to the EU and Eurozone’s disintegration is not to be casually overlooked given the likely costs for the UK and Europe. As HM the Queen warned in June 2015 during a state visit to Germany, Europe’s division is in nobody’s interests. While a British exit is not going to lead to war, it would add to strains on an organisation which however imperfect remains with NATO one of the two pillars on which European politics and security have been built since 1945 and 1989.

At the same time, is the unification of Europe in Britain’s interests? For Eurosceptics, ‘ever closer union’ threatens Britain’s sovereignty, democracy and allows immigration to pressure its social unity, meaning Britain’s security and stability would be better preserved by leaving. But Britain’s departure could allow the EU to further unite. One of Britain’s longest standing international aims has been to prevent any single power dominating Europe. The EU would be a benign power compared to previous attempts, but such an outcome warrants careful consideration.

Finally, if the first concern of any state is its own survival then the referendum could tear the UK apart. The immediate concern is Scotland:  a vote by the rest of the UK to leave the EU while the Scots vote to stay could trigger another independence referendum. This would lead to an avalanche of political, economic and social costs to say nothing of the costs for UK defence and national security, most notably over Trident. Northern Ireland might seem peaceful from the perspective of the UK mainland, but the peace process is under constant pressure and a Brexit could test it to breaking point. A descent into violence in the province should not be overlooked. Brexit could also add to tensions within England. In focusing on Scotland we have overlooked that the part of the UK that is increasingly different is London. An international metropolis that doubles as the UK and England’s capital, London has thrived from immigration, Europe and globalisation, much to the chagrin of some elsewhere in England and Britain who feel they have been left behind.

For scholars of international relations and the EU, Brexit confronts us with the need to theorise European disintegration. Theories are tools that allow us to focus on certain aspects of developments in the world around us, highlighting – and testing – their importance over others. In a simplified way, a constructivist approach would point to the role of ideas as paramount in shaping how a Brexit is handled in international relations. For example, will Brexit push to the fore ideas of European disintegration or lead the rest of the EU to push forward with ideas of unification? For realists it will be economic and security interests, especially ones shaped by international pressures, that will define how the UK and EU handle a Brexit. Institutionalists will point to the role existing institutions and networks – the multiple links that are part of or defined by the EU, EFTA, EEA, NATO – will play in defining what happens to the UK and EU (or might not define it if Brexit exposed any weaknesses in them). Liberal intergovernmentalists will point to a mix of interests, institutions and ideas to show that Britain and the EU (especially Germany, France and other big states) are so caught up in a deeply enmeshed set of interdependencies that Britain (and the EU) suffer from the Hotel California dilemma: you can check-out anytime you like, but you can never leave.

Note: this piece first appeared on the blog of the LSE’s International Security Society. 

The post Britain and the EU: a Question of International Relations appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Much is being made of the potential for Big Data to improve governance in Europe. But all data sets require context. Unless this is available, the contents is less than useful.

Summer 2015 saw the EU Publications Office, through the Open Data Portal website, begin making a selection of  public procurement data available, drawn from the Tenders Electronic Daily (TED) website. This site is the main route for publication of the Official Journal Supplementary series and contains all contract advertisements and awards made by public bodies (that exceed a financial threshold). Prior to this point, the data was only available to either the Commission, or paid subscribers to the TED database.

The scope of the data is incredible, with every advertised procurement project detailed from 2009 to 2015 across thousands of Contracting Authorities. Garnering meaning from such a rich resource is however difficult for all but the initiated few. While this may well be ‘open’, without a glossary, or guide to the data, one is left floundering.

To help remedy this information deficit, and provide some much needed context, the Commission assembled just such a guide to the data table headings. This should help anyone looking through the databases to ascertain the areas that they will find most interesting or applicable for their research.

The data guide is available here: http://open-data.europa.eu/repository/ec/dg-grow/mapps/TED(csv)_data_information_v1.doc

A link to the main data set (2009 onwards) is available here: https://open-data.europa.eu/en/data/dataset/ted-1

A CSV (comma separated value) version available here: https://open-data.europa.eu/en/data/dataset/ted-csv

By way of example, one may draw upon columns CPV and CAE_NAME to ascertain relationships between the Contract Authority type (local council, centralised procurement office etc) and the type of goods or services they contract (facilities management, uniforms, infrastructure etc). This may throw light on the organisation of a State’s policy implementation. While case study research may give a more granular level of detail in such matters, there is something to be said about looking across the whole Union’s economy and seeing the patterns emerge from within.

The post The Meaning of ‘Open’ Procurement Data appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

According to Prime Minister, David Cameron, Britain doesn’t need EU funds to help areas devastated by floods because ‘it’s quicker and better’ to use the country’s own money.

So it seems that Britain is so flush with cash that it can turn down around £125 million in EU emergency help for areas of the country devastated by record levels of rain. Really?

• If that’s the case, then why does the government need to impose £12 billion of austerity measures that will mostly hit the poor and needy?
• If that’s the case, then why did the government scrap flood defence plans that could have saved hundreds of homes and businesses from ruination?
• If that’s the case, then why does the country have a shortage of homes, hospitals and schools?
• If that’s the case, why are patients being denied life-saving drugs on the grounds of cost?
• If that’s the case, then why isn’t there more help for the hundreds of thousands of people who have to use charitable food-banks because they can’t afford a proper meal?

Labour MP for Bury South, Ivan Lewis, asked David Cameron in Parliament, “When are the Government going to apply for the European solidarity fund money?”  (Hansard, Column 41)

Mr Lewis explained, “Hundreds of my constituents in Radcliffe have had a terrible Christmas due to the flooding that has devastated so many people’s homes and businesses in Greater Manchester and across the north of England. Bury and other councils have to pick up the infrastructure costs.

“The European solidarity fund exists to help in such circumstances. It would be unforgivable to put Tory party management and posturing on Europe ahead of the national interest.”

Mr Cameron responded, “First of all, I send the hon. Gentleman’s constituents my sympathy for the flooding that they suffered”

But he made clear, “I think it is quicker and better to give people the help they need from our own resources.”

Mr Cameron explained, “I have looked very carefully at the question of EU funding; we looked at it previously in 2013. It takes a very long time to get hold of any money and it is very uncertain whether you get it. Indeed, you end up paying for it in many ways as well.”

He added, “Let me say that we will do everything we can, including through the Bellwin scheme, to make sure that his council is fully reimbursed for all the emergency measures that it had to take. We will also make sure that we put in place the flood prevention measures and investment that are coming down the track.”

As I reported here last week, EU member states are entitled to apply for money from the EU Solidarity Fund when a natural disaster causes substantial damage, calculated as a percentage of Gross National Income.

According to calculations by accountants, KPMG, the floods have already caused over £5 billion of damage, meaning that the UK is entitled to apply for emergency EU help.

Catherine Bearder, Liberal Democrat MEP for south-east England, said that EU officials told her that the UK government could apply for £125m in grants for flood victims, 10% of which could be available within six weeks.

Although some of the grants would be clawed back from our EU rebate, the European Commission explained to me today that this would only affect a proportion of the funds, and overall Britain would gain a net benefit from the receipt of the emergency money.

I asked Defra, the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the Prime Minister’s reply definitely meant that the UK would not be applying for EU funds to help with our floods disaster.

Defra emailed me a reply from ‘a government spokesperson’ that I could use as a quote for my story:

“We are committed to supporting communities hit by the recent flooding. We have opened the Bellwin scheme for local authorities, with 100% of eligible costs to be met by the Government, and our investment in recovery from Storm Eva and Storm Desmond now stands at nearly £200m.

“This will help people directly affected by the floods, support homeowners protect their properties and ensure flood affected businesses that have had their trading disrupted can get back on their feet.”

I immediately complained to the Defra Press Office:

“Thank you, but the quote doesn’t even mention the EU Solidarity Fund, which seems somewhat odd. Is the government going to apply for the fund or not? Is it the case that the country is rich enough not to need the EU emergency help?”

I will report back here if I receive a reply.

* Join the discussion about this article on Facebook.

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Other stories by Jon Danzig:

• Britain rejects EU help for food and flood victims
• Does the Prime Minister know what he’s doing?
• Benefit tourism: why ‘fix’ a non-existent problem?

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

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According to @David_Cameron UK doesn’t need EU funds for floods. My Facebook report: https://t.co/IAPuIcXx3vpic.twitter.com/fAHnKsFv6k

— Jon Danzig (@Jon_Danzig) January 8, 2016

The post Britain doesn’t need EU help for floods, says PM appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

20 years ago, when television broke the news around midday that François Mitterrand had died aged 79, the collective emotion in France was almost disproportionate. A surprising number of Parisians simply stopped what they were doing, went to their flower shop, bought one red rose and deposited it on the doorsteps of the former president’s apartment. The rose as symbol for the French socialist party was of course also a reminder of the manner in which Mitterrand had orchestrated his victory in 1981, with the famous televised staging of his tribute to the great men of the left in the crypt of the Pantheon.

I know quite a few people who 35 years later consider that 10 May 1981 was one of the finest days of their entire lives. Seeing the left win the presidential elections was something they never had dared hope for. It was the promise of ‘another tomorrow’ as Barbara sang, the ‘Yes, we can’ moment in contemporary French history. It is probably the memory of that moment that brought so many people to tears on 8 January 1996.

A lucid regard on François Mitterrand’s heritage, however, will reveal a more ambivalent picture, to say the least. Yes, there were the sweeping reforms of 1981/82, with the highly symbolic abolition of the death penalty and the refreshing liberation of the media, the long-awaited social anti-austerity measures, and of course the 5th week of paid holidays for everybody. But these were very quickly followed by the so-called ‘rigour turn’ in early 1983, apparently imposed by the European Monetary System – an economic U-turn which may ring a bell with Alexis Tsipras forced to embrace European austerity policies he had just held and won a referendum against.

Other politicians in other democracies would have kicked out in no time after having turned their back on their promises in less than two years of office. Mitterrand stayed on in the Elysée for another 12 years (!). And that’s exactly where his heritage becomes so poisonous for the France of the 21st century. An extraordinarily gifted power politician endowed with an overdose of Weberian charismatic domination and Machiavellian leadership qualities, Mitterrand has left a series of open wounds to French society and politics that are far from healed 20 years after his death. Three of them are particularly serious.

First, in publishing The Permanent Coup d’Etat in 1964, the trained lawyer Mitterrand had clearly shown that he had fully understood the pitfalls of the Fifth Republic with its constitution and presidential regime tailor-made for de Gaulle. He certainly would have had the political clout to reform things, shorten the 7-year mandate, redefine and clarify the respective roles of the president and the government, push for an effective decentralisation rather than a half-hearted creation of fake regions, perhaps even abolish the presidential elections, this curse of French political life. Instead he clang to power over more than a decade (despite a cancer he concealed from the public), cultivated the ‘presidential monarchy’ he had pretended to despise, and seemed to take delight in humiliating right-wing prime ministers during the two periods of ‘cohabitation’ he imposed on the French public in 1986-88 and 1993-95 respectively. Mitterrand could have changed a system that inevitably leads to massive and dangerous frustration, and he did not. That’s even worse than being a lame duck.

The second poison he injected into French politics is the Front National. He obviously only had contempt for a vulgar racist like Jean-Marie Le Pen and took pleasure in his immense intellectual superiority, but he understood very quickly in the early 1980s that this fringe party was about to benefit from the widespread disenchantment with unemployment and growing unease with immigration. For Mitterrand, the emergence of the Front National actually came quite handy. Instead of employing his tremendous authority against it, he instrumentalised the FN for his own power purposes, in order to weaken his Gaullist or Centrists opponents. In 1986, he softened the Socialists’ defeat in the legislative elections by introducing representation and thus allowing the FN to take away 35 seats from the moderate right-wing parties (and gain political legitimacy on the way). Moreover, it does not seem exaggerated to claim that Mitterrand’s manner of clinging to his presidential power, his cunning manipulation of the media and public opinion, as well as the numerous grey zones in his biography contributed to pave the way for the general disillusionment with politics and the renaissance of ugly populism.

The third poison is not entirely of his own making, but it has a lasting impact beyond the borders of France. When in 1990 German reunification threatened to become a reality out of the blue, Mitterrand all of a sudden forgot the Franco-German birthday speeches and his presumed ‘friendship’ with Helmut Kohl, and revealed himself obsessed with German ‘power’ and French ‘rank’. In a series of desperate diplomatic travels he tried to hinder or slow down the process. And when this did not work, he pushed Kohl into publicly sacrificing the D-Mark on the altar of a precipitated common currency, as a token of German commitment to European integration. He was not alone in doing so, and he was already gone when the final details of monetary union were negotiated. But he bears his part of responsibility for the incomplete and immature aspects of the Eurozone that are now causing so many troubles.

The anniversary of the death of a remarkable statesman is always an occasion for nostalgia, especially when his name is linked to days where some things still seemed possible. But it is also an opportunity to look behind the myth-making and story-telling, of which François Mitterrand was an accomplished master.

Albrecht Sonntag, EU-Asia Institute
at ESSCA School of Management.
Follow us on Twitter: @Essca_Eu_Asia

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Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527)

Yet again the European Union is sleepwalking into a diplomatic disaster. According to China’s interpretation of article 15 of its WTO accession protocol signed in December 2001, after 15 years (hence in one year’s time) it will automatically acquire market economy status (MES). For years this was the consensus view in Europe too. Not any more. For two reasons. Washington is starting to reject this interpretation in an electoral year in which being tough on China is popular, and China’s overcapacity (evidenced by the recent fall in steel prices) is starting to trigger a protectionist reaction in the Old Continent.

In this context many officials in Brussels and the national capitals are having second thoughts to the point that there is now a legal battle between those that think that China will obtain MES automatically, and those that believe that although paragraph 15(a)(ii) will expire, the rest of article 15 remains, which means that China will continue to have to prove that it is a market economy to avoid anti-dumping duties.

This matter could be seen as too legalistic and economically trivial. It affects only 2% of EU trade with China. The issue is important, however, for several reasons.

It shows that the EU is divided, even in trade relations, which are supposed to be competence of the European Commission. Italy – the country that launches the most anti-dumping investigations against China – is the only member state that has openly declared that China should not be given MES. The rest of the members are reluctant to position themselves. This lack of unity among the Europeans is a constant and highlights that the relationship between the EU and China remains asymmetric (as it has been for decades), but now it is in China’s favour, as we argue in a recent report written with other leading European think tanks.

Contrary to what is commonly assumed, China is not in the business of ‘divide and conquer’  in Europe. It does not need to. The Europeans are already divided. So much that I was told that officials at the European External Action Service (EEAS) are reading the late 15th Century and early 16th Century Discourses of Niccolò Machiavelli where he lamented that the Italian city-states were culturally and economically incredibly sophisticated but they were too small and divided to compete with the empires in-the-making (and nation-states in-formation) that were Spain, England and France at the time. This led him to write:

‘we [in Italy] have become prey of anybody who has wanted to overrun this land’ (Discourses, II.4).

The post-1945 EU is a bit like Florence, Milan and Venice after the Peace of Lodi in 1454. It has overcome pernicious parochialism and managed to become a regional quasi-state but ‘its members are distinct and each has its own capital; which makes it difficult for them to consult and to make decisions’ (ibid). This is a disadvantage in a globalised world where the great powers are no longer mid-sized European states, but rather continental-sized economies such as the US, China and India. This is the main reason why the Europeans do not know how to deal with the rise of China. On the one hand, they want to protect their national and sectorial interests, but on the other the Chinese market is too big, and therefore too attractive, to alienate China by not granting it MES.

Because of their divisions, the Europeans have played the MES card very badly. For years China has begged for this recognition and the EU could have used it as a political bargaining chip. Now it is too late. The Europeans are in a cul-de-sac. If the EU does not grant China MES in December 2016 after years saying that it will do so, they would be categorized in Beijing as hypocrites, with a possible diplomatic or economic backlash. Contrary, if the EU does finally grant China MES, it would fail Italy, important business associations such as AEGIS Europe and the European Chemical Industry Council, trade unions such as IndustriAll, a great part of European public opinion who does not believe that China is a market economy, as well as the US, an important ally which will not grant China MES anytime soon. Washington shows the advantages of a politically united, continental-sized economy. While in the treaty-constrained, legalistic EU, granting MES would require changing EU law (meaning the Commission, the Council and the Parliament need to approve it, a cumbersome process), in the US the executive branch has full discretion in this matter.

So what would Machiavelli suggest in this situation? Most likely, he would opt for a nuanced approach. First he would divide the problem in its legal, political and economic dimensions. On the legal side, the sensible thing to do is to grant China MES. In this way the Europeans would demonstrate that they respect international law, and what they have signed 15 years ago, even though now it might go against their interests. This can be done immediately in one year’s time. The alternative is to continue applying anti-dumping duties, wait for China to sue the EU before the WTO and then accept the resolution of the dispute settlement mechanism. The danger of Chinese retaliation is higher in the latter option so perhaps it is better to go for the former.

However, politically the EU needs to use this opportunity to show that it is united. Under international law China might have MES, but that does not make it a market economy. Thus, ideally, all three institutions: the European Commission, the Council and the Parliament should issue a joint ‘political’ statement declaring that although some progress has been done over the past 15 years, China is not a full market economy according to the five criteria used by EU. The evidence is very clear on this.

This show of unity would please the constituencies in the Old Continent that are more critical with China and surprise Washington and Beijing, which always think that the Europeans cannot get their act together. Consequently, it could turn the MES into a bargaining chip for the EU again, especially if finally the WTO decides that article 15 – even without paragraph 15(a)(ii) – continues to oblige Chinese firms to prove that they operate in a market economy. In any case, on the economic front, the EU should make clear that it will continue to use all the anti-dumping and anti-subsidy tools at its disposal, and even propose and apply innovative ones, to protect its industries while there is no level playing field with China.

This might provoke a protectionist reaction from Beijing. The risk exists. But with the threat of Chinese overcapacity only increasing, sending a clear message to China is no doubt what Machiavelli would do (if he was appointed counsellor to the EU). If China wants to deepen trade and investment relations with Europe under the One Belt and One Road (OBOR) initiative, and see more Chinese companies buy European ones and obtain public contracts, it needs to open up its market to European products and investments. Ultimately, it is a give-and-take.

This post was simultaneously published on the website of the Royal Elcano Institute.

EU-Asia Institute at ESSCA Ecole de Management, Angers
www.essca.fr/EU-Asia / @Essca-Eu-Asia

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As reported in today’s Daily Mirror, the Conservative government has admitted that it has no concrete evidence to prove that so-called ‘benefit tourism’ exists.

And yet, Prime Minister David Cameron has vowed to ‘crack down’ on benefit tourism to reduce the numbers of EU migrants coming to Britain.

Mr Cameron wants EU migrants in Britain to wait four years before they are eligible to claim benefits – longer than British workers currently have to wait.

His proposal would break an EU foundation principle: that when EU citizens move to another EU county for work, they will enjoy the same benefits as the natives of the host country.

In a Parliamentary question, former Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, requested “all factual evidence” held by the Department for Work and Pensions that proved migrants were lured to Britain because of benefits.

The response provided by the DWP was analysed by expert Jonathan Portes, a Senior Fellow at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research.

He concluded, “This answer doesn’t show any connection at all between people coming here and wanting to claim benefits. If they wanted evidence of benefit tourism, they could commission a study – the government knows that perfectly well.”

As I have reported on numerous occasions, no evidence has emerged of any serious problem of so-called ‘benefit tourism’.

In fact, even prior to Lord Kinnock’s intervention, on three occasions the European Commission asked the British government for evidence of ‘benefit tourism’ – and three times the government wasn’t able to provide any.

Only 2.2% of welfare claimants in Britain are EU migrants – just 114,000 out of a total of just over 5 million benefit claimants.

The evidence is that welfare systems don’t generally drive immigration, according to Mr Portes. Nobody from the rest of Europe comes to Britain to claim benefits; they come here for employment.

Britain currently has more job vacancies than can be filled by the native workforce. That, in a nutshell, is why we need migrants. The country has a chronic skills shortage and without migrants helping to fill that gap, Britain – and Britons – would be poorer.

According to Bank of England boss, Mark Carney (himself a foreign worker), Britain has one of the strongest jobs market in the world, and it’s mostly British workers who are taking up the jobs. But foreign workers are also needed, he said, and they are contributing to Britain’s increase in productivity.

A major study by University College London showed that EU migrants coming to Britain in the last decade made a net contribution to the Treasury of around £20 billion, during a time when British natives were taking out more than they were putting in.

So this is the question: why is the Conservative government concentrated on fixing problems that don’t exist (e.g. ‘benefit tourism’, ‘too many migrants’) and ignoring problems that do exist (e.g. poor people relying on food banks; flood victims not getting sufficient support)?

* Join the discussion about this article on Facebook.

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Related stories by Jon Danzig:

• Does the Prime Minister know what he’s doing?
• Fact: Most migrants come to work or study
• Why Britain needs migrants

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

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#BenefitTourism: Why try to ‘fix’ a non-existent problem? Please share my Facebook report: https://t.co/SETycIIZWF pic.twitter.com/uuoHjRsndM

— Jon Danzig (@Jon_Danzig) January 7, 2016

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Any second now…

Christmas is always a tricky time for politicians: on the one hand, everyone’s packed up for a break after a long autumn, but on the other, there’s usually something that needs urgent attention, like a flood. However, on balance this Christmas past has been generally quite quiet on the referendum front, before bursting back on front pages this week.

Tempting as it is to write about Cameron’s decision to give the Cabinet a free vote in the referendum, there’s little to be said. There has never really looked to be a good alternative position to take on this, especially given the folk-memory of the 1975 campaign, where the free vote produced all kinds of positive effects for Wilson. Faced with a front bench strongly determined in its views, Cameron’s best hope is that none of the senior team will want to take a very visible lead role with the Leavers, in case it damages their prospects for the Tory leadership contest that must be held in the next couple of years.

Likewise, much as the mini-drama of Nigel Farage’s ‘assassination attempt‘ (to be clear, someone trying to kill him, rather than vice versa) trundles on, it merely underlines the marginal position that UKIP find themselves in of present. The poor state of Carswell-Farage relations does not help in this, but more generally the party has yet to find its groove in the way that it did during 2014-15: that might not be so important in the referendum context, but certainly matters for the next cycle of local elections, where a strong performance is going to be essential.

Which brings us to one of the more marginal developments, namely the Labour reshuffle: shuffle being the operative word, given its (lack of) speed.

The broadly accepted reading of the reshuffle was that Corbyn wanted to exert some authority over his shadow cabinet, removing those who had spoken against him or his policies. However, after the protests at the removal of Michael Dugher at Culture, the whispers about replacing Hilary Benn as Foreign Secretary seemed to stop, along with any clear direction about what to do. Finally, Benn stayed in post, but Pat McFadden was taken out of the shadow Europe minister role, followed by a couple of other junior roles resigning in protest. Together with the changes at Defence, to bring a more Trident-unfriendly team, it has been foreign affairs that have taken the main hit of change.

Even if European policy has not been singled out as a point of contention in all of this – instead, Trident and security issues have been the bones of argument – then that policy is likely to suffer. Indeed, the willingness to replace McFadden, who was widely seen as being effective in his role, with Pat Glass, chair of the pro-EU group in the party, suggests no issue with working towards a Remain position in the referendum, but rather a lack of intra-party mobilisation on the referendum at all. The debate about whether Benn has been ‘muzzled’ by Corbyn has principally focused on security, but the scope for disagreement after the end of the EU renegotiation is also considerable.

In short, Labour look like a party that is studiously avoiding the referendum right now. And that matters if Cameron is serious about trying to wrap up a deal in February.

Whether he can achieve that is very up in the air. The Polish suggestion that they could accept limits on free movement in return for support for a NATO base was probably more about Polish concerns about rebuilding some support in the EU after the installation of the PiS government, and indeed everyone seemed to step away from the reports when pressed, but it potentially opens up a new phase of discussions. Given the need for unanimity, every other member state has a strong incentive to name a price for agreement and that incentive only increases as other make their demands.

As White Wednesday noted yesterday, odds on a summer 2017 vote have shortened considerably of late, so many punters remain to be convinced that speedy resolutions are at hand. Given the track record of the government to date, such a delay is not at all unthinkable, even if it comes with some very dubious benefits.

Whatever’s happening, there is a sense that things are picking up some speed: both sides are getting into the swing of campaigning, with videos, joint op-eds and the rest. To that list I will also add my own news, namely that during 2016 I will be a Senior Fellow of the ESRC’s “UK in a Changing Europe” programme, working on the campaign materials around the referendum, as well as more generally trying to help inform the public debate. There’s a lot planned, so I’ll keep you updated about events as we do.

And remember, it all has to be over by Christmas. 2017.

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I think this is my all time favorite quotation from a European philosopher.

“There lies something unique [in Europe humanity], which all other human groups, too, feel with regard to us, something that, apart from all considerations of expediency, becomes a motivation for them – despite their determination to retain their spiritual autonomy – constantly to Europeanize themselves, whereas we, if we understand ourselves properly, will never, for example, Indianize ourselves.”

- Edmund Husserl

Why do I like this? No, not because I am racist. Because, first of all, Husserl is not a Francis Bacon who thought that non-European people were cannibals by nature. Neither is Husserl a right-wing, conservative, neocon, colonialist with his self-indulgence in his European superiority. Keep your Sartre away. Nor is he a French leftie who indulges in self-flagellation, who affirms his superiority by claiming a monopoly on evil. He is none of these. He does not babble. He is crystal clear. Of course, there are always those non-Europeans who are already Europeanized enough to strictly disagree with his claim. But they only reinforce his claim. Anyways. I love this quotation not because I enjoy the fact the Europeans in general never Indianize himself – if they were to Turkishize themselves I would be terribly sad though (I used the fact that I am Turkish in order to justify this racism – which is not something that only Europeans are privileged to do). Rather, I love this quotation because it has the courage to say what it already is without any reservations, shyness, or, slyness, and, as such, it puts a problem before us with its all gravity. It speaks the truth. You like it or not, Husserl does not in the least care about it. He has greater concerns than some’s petty, multicultural, hypocritical, liberal concerns. So, I love this parrhesiastic moment – to have the courage to say what everybody already knows because by saying this, by revealing what is already being evinced, he also problematizes it. Then you start asking asking yourself, why? Why is this so? Why are we all being Europeanized? Some politically-correct forms of life cannot even bare such an utterance. Why? Because as long as you keep it as a secret, it would “function” like a tyrant ruling a nation challenged by nobody. These people were always there, and will always be there and comprise the majority. But their existence had never impaired and will never impair the truth.

I love this quotation because it speaks the truth without any reservations, without any undeserved pride. Hence, it raises a tremendous challenge: Will we all turn into little Americans (as Europeans are already becoming Americans) not because being American is bad by nature or something of course it is not, but because there must be some alternatives, for a world without alternatives, a world in which we all watch the same youtube videos.. I don’t know, I think it will an unbearable world. But of course, you can disagree and call me that I am a racist. After all, you will be right, whatever you say: this is your beautiful world and it seems it will be always yours.

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The English make up 85% of the UK’s population, with London home to a population equal to that of Scotland and Wales combined and an economy closely linked to Europe. But the capital and its country are at odds when it comes to Europe. Analysing patterns and differences of opinion in England, and especially the outlook of Londoners, is therefore vital to understanding how the UK will vote in the forthcoming referendum – and how the UK’s countries, regions and peoples will deal with the outcome.

Back in January 2013, when David Cameron committed a future Conservative government to holding an in/out referendum on the EU membership, he made clear that ‘it is time to settle this European question in British politics’. Today, one of the problems Cameron faces is that his European question is a multifaceted one that is more than to be or not to be in Europe. Look into what fuels the UK’s tensions with the rest of the EU and you soon find yourself grappling with such questions as the future place in the UK of both England and London. Because of its size, it will be in England where the referendum is largely won or lost. As the capital city and the UK’s biggest and richest region, what the result could mean for London will be a defining issue of the campaign and how the UK deals with the result.

A closer look at the Union

Breakdowns of the UK’s regional political differences often divide the Union into its four parts. The four may be equal constitutionally, but nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to population and economy. As the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish know only too well, England dominates the union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

 

*UK population mid-2014 (source here)

Population (2013) GVA Public expenditure per head Variation from expenditure average £ bn %UK £ per head Variation England 53,865,817 1,298 86.5% 24,091 103.0 £8,678 97 North East 2,610,481 45 3.0% 17,381 74.3 £9,576 107 North West 7,103,260 142 9.4% 19,937 85.2 £9,276 104 Y’shire/Humber 5,337,710 102 6.8% 19,053 81.4 £8,679 97 East Midlands 4,598,729 89 5.9% 19,317 82.6 £8,219 92 West Midlands 5,674,712 110 7.4% 19,428 83.0 £8,641 97 East England 5,954,169 130 8.7% 21,897 93.6 £7,950 89 London 8,416,535 338 22.6% 40,215 171.9 £9,866 110 South East 8,792,626 227 15.2% 25,843 110.5 £7,756 87 South West 5,377,595 114 7.6% 21,163 90.5 £8,336 93 N Ireland 1,829,725 33 2.2% 17,948 76.7 £10,961 123 Scotland 5,327,700 117 7.8% 21,982 94.0 £10,275 115 Wales 3,082,412 52 3.5% 16,893 72.2 £9,924 111 UK 64,105,654 1500 100% 23,394 100 £8,936 100

 

*UK Regions and Nations: Populations, Gross Value Added, and Public Expenditure per head around the UK in 2013 and 2014 (source here)

Furthermore we rarely see breakdowns of opinions across England. This is despite 54.3 million English inhabiting a country home to a wealth of cultures, economies, and political outlooks. To be fair, the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish are not single homogenous groups. But the debate sometimes risks overlooking differences within the English public opinion. Data (albeit to 2012) drawn from the British Election Study Continuous Monitoring Survey shows that support for the EU can vary across the UK and England.

ATTITUDES TOWARDS EU MEMBERSHIP BY REGION

Region

Response

option East Anglia (%)

East Midlands

(%)

Greater London

(%)

North

(%)

North West

(%)

Scotland

(%)

South East

(%)

South West

(%)

Wales

(%)

West Midlands

(%)

Yorkshire and Humberside

(%) Total (%) Strongly approve 11.3 9.4 18.1 10.6 11.3 15.4 10.7 10.9 11.9 10.7 10.9 12.0 Approve 33.3 35.0 40.5 37.8 37.1 43.7 36.0 34.6 40.7 35.8 36.1 37.2 Disapprove 33.6 33.6 25.8 33.2 32.0 26.3 32.7 32.5 29.8 31.9 32.9 31.2 Strongly disapprove 21.9 22.0 15.6 18.4 19.6 14.7 20.5 22.0 17.6 21.6 20.1 19.5

 

Question wording: ’Overall, do you strongly approve, approve, disapprove, or strongly disapprove of Britain’s membership in the European Union?’ Source: Source: British Election Study Continuous Monitoring Survey, June 2005-December 2012 (pooled monthly cross-sectional surveys). Weighted data.

*“Overall, do you strongly approve, approve, disapprove, or strongly disapprove of Britain’s membership in the European Union?”

Note: The data were provided by Dr Ben Clements and come from the British Election Study Continuous Monitoring Survey (BES CMS), based on the pooled June 2005-December 2012 monthly cross-sectional surveys (weighted data). The BES CMS dataset was obtained from the main BES 2009/10 project website.

Amongst the many differences that criss-cross England, London can make a fair claim to being so different as to be the UK’s undiscovered country. It has its own regional government in the form of the Greater London Authority and a Mayor. Its population will within a few years pass the 10 million mark, and if measured by metro area already stands at more than 14 million. That population is also Britain’s most diverse, with 36.7% Londoners born outside the UK, a figure that is growing. Such a fast growing and diverse population makes for distinct social and welfare challenges in terms of housing, policing, the environment and transport. Its economy – 22.6% of all of the UK’s generated by 13.1% of the population – races ahead of the rest of the UK and makes it one of the richest places in Europe and the world. As the BBC’s Robert Peston once argued when explaining why UKIP doesn’t do well in London:

Much of the rest of the UK sees globalisation and its manifestations – such as immigration – as disempowering, impoverishing and a threat. Whereas for Londoners, globalisation is an economic competition they are apparently winning.

London then is an English, British, European and international metropolis, booming thanks to its central place in the UK, Europe and the world.

The English Question and Europe

Despite people across the UK sharing some common concerns about the EU, polling data shows the English as a whole to be the most Eurosceptic of the four parts of the UK. No surprise then that UKIP scored well in large areas of England during the 2015 General Election, securing 14.1% of English votes and becoming the UK’s third most popular party by votes. It should also be noted that UKIP secured 13.6% in Wales, reminding us that other parts of the UK are not the home of pro-Europeanism as some might like to believe they are. Nevertheless, compared to the 1975 referendum when England was home to the most pro-European parts of the UK, today it is undeniably home to the parts that are the most Eurosceptic.

This can be put down to a number of reasons, not least of which is the failure of political parties in England, compared to those in the other three parts of the UK, to offer a pro-European message. It can also be attributed to the failure of the political parties to grapple with changes in English identity, with there being an often-noted connection between Euroscepticism and English nationalism. As Ben Wellings has argued: ‘Euroscepticism is the most formed-up expression of English grievance and an ideology that provides the political content for English nationalism.’

Surveys and analyses have shown an evolving sense of English nationalism is connected to feelings about an unfair treatment of England compared to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and London. With no English Parliament or substantial regional governments of its own (excluding Greater London), England is run by a UK government based in London that can seem distant and beholden to other interests whether they be international ones or of the other parts of the UK. UKIP has been able to tap into this.

The European question in some areas of England is therefore not simply one of distrust of globalisation or the EU; it is also about negative views of a UK state and political parties that can seem weak, disinterested or beholden to others.

The London Question and Europe

Londoners are not known for being ‘little Englanders’. This is in no small part a result of Londoners being the least ‘English’ in England and the most likely to identify themselves as ‘British’ (according to the 2011 census). Its diverse population, economics and liberal politics make it a metropolis where parties such as UKIP struggle to make much headway. In the 2015 General Election UKIP secured 8.1% of Londoners votes, an improvement on its previous results but still its second lowest performance in the UK after Scotland. Nevertheless, UKIP has found success in some of the outer boroughs, especially in the east. That London suffers from major social, economic and community problems was all too clear during the 2011 London riots. While immigration is an issue, since the 1980s immigration has been key to the metropolis rebounding from its post-war decline. London’s Eurosceptic Mayor, Boris Johnson, has been amongst the UK’s most pro-immigration politicians.

A large part of the material wealth of London is tied to the economic vibrancy of the European market as part of wider transatlantic and global markets. Britain might not be in the euro, but that does not stop London handling more euro foreign-exchanges than the eurozone combined. Nor does it stop London being the headquarters of one hundred of Europe’s top 500 companies. Companies such as Goldman Sachs and the Lord Mayor of London have warned of the cost to London and the UK of an exit from the EU. The Mayor of London’s own 2014 report into Brexit and London – ‘The Europe Report: a win-win situation’ – might have argued that whatever the referendum outcome, London could win in varying ways (although see here for a critique). But even it made clear that close relations with the EU would be vital for any post-exit London.

London’s more pro-European outlook, its privileged position within the UK, unique population and identity have not passed unnoticed. ‘London’ has become a by-word for something that is distant, strange and out of control, similar to Brussels across the EU or Washington D.C. in the USA. While London has long been a place slightly apart from the rest of Britain, today people across the UK, and especially England, increasingly view London as a place far removed from the country they feel they inhabit. Suzanne Evans, a former Conservative councillor for Merton who defected to UKIP but lost her seat in the 2014 local elections, blamed UKIP’s poor performance in London on its young, educated, cultured, media-savvy population that can’t understand the heartache felt by the rest of the country. This might have been picked over for her insinuation that UKIP supporters elsewhere are old, not educated (to a certain extent Londoners are indeed younger and on average better qualified) or cultured and that the ‘media-savvy’ were somehow duped by media criticism of UKIP. But her warning that London is becoming a place apart from the rest of the UK has been echoed elsewhere. The EU referendum has the potential to highlight the differences between the capital city and its country and the need for this to be addressed.

A Kingdom of Many Parts

There can be little doubt that the UK’s referendum could have important implications for different parts of the UK. Most notably, Scotland’s place in the union and the Northern Ireland peace process could be changed. But by focusing on such areas we are at risk of missing the larger picture of what the result could mean for the place of England and London in the Union. It will be in England that the referendum is won or lost, and it will be in London and its relationship with England and the UK that we will see some of the most important consequences of the referendum result.

Note: this piece first appeared on the LSE’s Brexit Vote blog.

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The Nordic passport union[i] from 1957, which allows citizens from all the Nordic countries (Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland) to travel freely without passport within the Nordic countries, will effectively stop Monday 4th January 2016, where Sweden introduces ID checks at its borders. The introduction of ID check is caused by changes in Swedish immigration and asylum policies. However, the decision has severe implications for the around 30,000[ii] people who daily crosses the Øresund Bridge by train, their journey will longer and they have to change trains instead of taking a direct train. In the long term this can end the successful cross-border commuting and regional cooperation without solving the increased number of asylum seekers.

The number of asylum seeker in Sweden has doubled the past year, specifically 149,028 people applied for asylum in Sweden between January to November 2015 compared to 74,344 people during the same period in 2014[iii].  Since the summer Swedish authorities have checked people taking the train across the Øresund Bridge those seeking asylum have been registered and others have had to return across the bridge often stranding in Copenhagen Central Station, where the sight of sleeping families is not uncommon. From Monday 4th January 2016 the Swedish authorities will pass the responsibility to check people entering Sweden to all transport companies carrying passengers to Sweden.

The Øresund region is a big metropolitan area which extends from Greater Copenhagen area to Skåne (Scania) in Sweden, including Malmø and Lund. Since the bridge was opened in June 2000 there have been more regional cooperation between local councils and regions in addition to businesses, which operate on both sides of the borders. Many people in the region lives in one country and work in another. Moreover, many people cross the bridge for a day out for shopping or tourist activities or a night out in town. People are able to cross the Øresund Belt either by ferry, by car over the bridge or by train. In 2014[iv] 11.4 million people used the Øresund train, the figure for the first three quarters of 2015 is 9 million people, these people now all have to be registered by DSB, the Danish railway company.

From a transport perspective, DSB, which run the Øresund train, has to register all persons crossing the Bridge. It has decided to set up check points at Copenhagen airport (the last stop before Sweden) where all passengers from Monday 4th January 2016 have to change trains and go through designated check points, which will be run by an external company, Securitas[v]. According to Danish Radio the introduction of carrier liability is estimated to cost 200,000 DKK (€40,000) per day, and Skånetrafiken has promised to pay half the cost, which means the daily additional cost for DSB is 150,000 DKK (€20,000) yet The Danish Transport Minister Hans Christian Schmidt[vi] wants DSB to internalise the additional cost of checking ID. It is questionable if DSB in the long term DSB can continue to internalise these extra costs especially after the government has reduced its funding for DSB, which has to deliver the same for less. Thus the additional cost of registering Øresund passengers might have wider implications for the Danish railway network and rail prices. Effectively, the Danish tax payers will pay for Sweden’s introduction of border control.

The extended travel time between Copenhagen and Malmø , which is predicted to double the journey time from 35 min to over 1 hour, will mean people have to take an earlier train to get to work on time and will be home later, this extends their time away from home and have implications for day-care and afterschool activities. The question is whether these people in the long term with try to find jobs on their side of the bridge or will move to the other side of the bridge. Commuters from Sweden has set up a Facebook group called Øresundsrevolutionen[vii] and are protesting against what they see as an increased Stockholm focus, which ignores the close relations between Scania and Copenhagen and the region of Zealand. The close ties between Scania and Zealand region are historical and they have been further strengthened with the opening of the Øresund bridge in July 2000, which has created a big metropolitan area. Indeed, many Danes married to non-EU citizens moved to Scania during the 2000s due to the Anders Fogh Rasmussen governments introduction of stricter immigration rules, by moving to Scania the Danes were able to live with their spouse whilst working in Copenhagen and visiting family in Denmark.

In his New Year speech, the Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen emphasised the need for ‘us to look after Denmark’, and added that he might introduce border controls at the Danish-German border if the situation calls for it. Similar to the Øresund region the landlocked border regions between Denmark and Germany represents another example of close cross-border cooperation, where many people live on one side of the border and work on another.

Importantly, there are many successful cross-border cooperation throughout Europe, if EU member states suspend the Schengen agreement and introduce border controls what will happen to these regions? What will happen to Strasbourg, a big city on the border between Germany and France, which is a symbol of both the EU integration project and historical strife.

Finally, the EU’s principle of free movement and its support for regional cross-border cooperation, which the Øresund region is a prime example off, is challenged especially as it is unclear how long Sweden will impose these measures and if other EU member states will follow Sweden’s example. Crucially, it is unlikely that introducing border controls within Europe and between member states will reduce the number of asylum seekers and immigrants, or bring peace to the regions with civil wars and unrest instead the solution needs to be found elsewhere.

 

[i] http://www.norden.org/da/om-samarbejdet-1/nordiske-aftaler/aftaler/passpoergsmaal-statsborgerskab-og-folkeregistrering/den-nordiske-paskontroloverenskomst

[ii] http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/projects/denmark/cross-border-metro-could-build-capacity-over-oresund-strait

[iii] http://www.migrationsverket.se/Om-Migrationsverket/Statistik/Asylsokande—de-storsta-landerna.html

[iv] http://www.statistikbanken.dk/statbank5a/selectvarval/saveselections.asp

[v] http://politiken.dk/udland/fokus_int/Flygtningestroem/ECE2995347/dsb-laver-register-over-tusinder-af-rejsende-til-sverige/

[vi] http://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/transportminister-passagerer-skal-ikke-straffes-sveriges-id-kontrol

[vii] https://www.facebook.com/oresundsrevolutionen/

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Although they will have to live with the decision for longer than anyone else, young people will have the least say on whether Britain stays in the EU.

Ironically, what is arguably the world’s oldest unelected group of legislators – the House of Lords – voted recently to give 16-to-17-year-olds a vote in the EU referendum. But this month the elected House of Commons threw out the Lord’s proposal.

It means that over 1.5 million 16-and-17-year-olds in the UK will not have a say in Britain’s future in Europe – even though it’s their future, in the long term, that will be most affected.

For sure, their votes could have clinched the referendum result, because surveys show that most younger people want Britain to stay in the EU.

It’s sometimes said that you cannot miss what you never had. But that’s not the case for many of the 121,000 16-and-17-year-olds in Scotland. They were permitted to vote in last year’s referendum on Scottish independence and most of them did.

Commented the Electoral Commission, “This referendum showed that for young people, indeed for all voters, when they perceive an issue to be important and are inspired by it, they will both participate in the debate and show up on polling day.”

“Importantly,” the Commission added, “97% of those 16-17 year olds who reported having voted said that they would vote again in future elections and referendums.”

They would vote, and last year they could vote; but now they can’t. It must seem strange winning a right that’s then taken away.

In the UK 16-to-17-year-olds can work, pay tax, join the army and get married, but they can’t vote in the forthcoming EU referendum.

Too young? Well, that wasn’t the reason given by the House of Commons for denying access to democracy for younger people. The Commons rejected the enlightened wisdom of their elders in the House of Lords, “Because it would involve a charge on public funds.”

What price democracy, eh?

But whilst 16-and-17-year-olds would vote but can’t, those aged 18-to-24 can vote, but mostly don’t. In elections, this age group is almost half as likely to vote as those aged 65 and over.

Around 40% of the 18-24s vote, compared to almost 80% of those of pensionable age.

And yet, once again, surveys show that these young people are by a large majority in favour of Britain’s continued membership of the European Union.

A poll last month revealed that EU membership is supported by 70% of  the UK’s two-million University students, but less than half of them said they would definitely vote in the referendum.

Giving lip service to the EU isn’t enough. Without casting a vote, it doesn’t matter what these young adults think. No vote means no say.

In summary:

• Most over 60s want Britain to leave the EU; they outnumber 18-24 year-olds two-to-one, and they are most likely to vote.

• Most under 25s want Britain to remain in the EU, but there are just 7 million of them compared to around 14 million over 60s, and they are least likely to vote.

In other words, it seems that the oldies may have a bigger say in Britain’s future in Europe, simply because they can vote, and they will.

And even though most young people are pro EU, they will have less of a say in the referendum because they can’t vote, or they won’t.

In addition, two other groups of citizens who will be greatly affected by the EU referendum won’t vote because they can’t.

They include most of the citizens from the rest of the EU who have made Britain their home. And they include all of the British citizens who are living in other parts of the European Union for more than 15 years.

These two groups of citizens are living the EU dream by voting with their feet for free movement of people across our continent. But they will have no say on whether that dream continues. And if the referendum decision is ‘LEAVE’, their dream could turn into an involuntary nightmare of uncertain proportions.

Yet, despite the fact that many of the people who will be most affected by the EU referendum can’t or won’t vote, latest opinion polls show that voters who have made up their minds are split down the middle.

In online polls, those voters who want to ‘LEAVE’ the EU and those who want to ‘REMAIN’ are equal at about 40%, with (curiously) slightly more wanting Britain to ‘REMAIN’ when polls are conducted by phone.

Almost a fifth of voters, however, are still unsure how they will vote in the referendum.

These undecided voters may hold the key to the referendum result; together, of course, with those young voters who can vote – if only they can be persuaded to vote. 

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Related stories by Jon Danzig:

• Many citizens affected by the EU referendum will have no vote
• The EU referendum – who can and can’t vote?
• Isn’t it time politics grew up?

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The post Will old people decide the EU referendum? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

If you are not European enough but nevertheless have been living in Europe, and especially in Western Europe, for a while, it is almost impossible not to hear the following statement: “Europeans are racist.” It is an echo of Palestine-born American literary critic Edward Said’s famous conclusion that he arrived in his classic book Orientalism: “Every European, in what he could say about the Orient, was a racist, an imperialist, and almost totally ethnocentric.” In a more globalized, polymorphous, fluid world where the borders are becoming more and more porous, this echo consequently sounds higher than its original; now, the Orient can be replaced by not only any non-European identity, but also some Europeans that are not European enough such as East Europeans.

Therefore, the statement that “Europeans are racist” constitutes a basic fact, a state of affairs, for millions of people living in Europe. When one grasps the gravity of this staggering situation, it takes only one step to understand the current crises in Europe, how some certain cities in Europe could have become a home for jihadists who hate Europe, how people who grew up in Europe could commit such barbaric crimes towards their “own” people?

However, the problem is that that one step is usually taken too hastily by ignoring the tremendously complex and novel aspects of these phenomena. That is, that enormously heavy statement passes before us too fast, too unreflectively. It seems to me that we take for granted too easily the “fact” that “Europeans are racist” without clearly knowing what we mean by “racism.” Rather than paying attention to the peculiarity of what is happening before us, we are still trying to fit current phenomena to previous schema; and hence, we conclude, “Europeans are racist” and that is precisely the reason why these are happening today, the reason behind Europe’s failure. But then I wonder: By repeating this reasoning over and over again, are we doing justice to Europe that has changed enormously after Second World War, which has now entirely new generations who have grown up in a Europe without internal borders, in a Europe that is becoming gradually intercultural? Are taking into consideration these facts when we accuse Europeans of being racist?

Having lived in three different Western European countries, to be sure, I would not argue that Europeans are not racist. I felt and am still feeling that I do not belong here, there are existential walls hidden behind kind smiles. I am aware of this. But still, I do not believe that the image of the racist that pops up in our mind (which still has strong connotations from cold-war era) when we accuse Europeans of being such, corresponds to the racism that we have in contemporary Europe. To be sure, there are still people, for example, who thinks that just because they are white, they are superior; but I do not believe that they constitute the majority of Western Europe, that they reflect the genuine ideas of an ordinary “white man” in the streets of Western Europe.

Then if we ask “What is this new racism? What distinguishes it from its preceding forms?”, I would answer by proposing a notion round which contemporary racism articulates itself – namely, ambivalence.

Let me try to explain what I mean by ambivalence.

As a non-European living in Europe for almost six years, it has been quite rare that I could make a Western European friend. But what is even more surprising is that I could never make a friend who was from the country I currently was living in. Absurdity of this might make you think that, it is a personal issue, but I assure you that these are quite common phenomena, as you can also see in the compartmentalization within cities amongst different cultures.

What I have noticed in this absurd reality was that I could only become friends with a certain type of a European and the condition that made our friendship possible was not that they were “open to the Other” – as it is commonly assumed. The discourse of the Other, by setting an impossible ideal for itself (namely, unconditional openness to the other), in fact impaired its own possibility. It was, in other words, too demanding to expect from someone to be open to such an extent that that very openness results in devouring his/her own singularity. Neither was it fair. What I have noticed therefore was that, rather than to the Other, they were open to ambivalence. They did not leave their singularity behind, that which makes them what they are, but nevertheless they were okay with the possibility of contamination. They were aware of the fact that ambivalence was the very ground on which different cultures meet. They were neither absolutely open, nor unconditionally closed. Rather, they were not quite sure, as the word ambivalence itself beautifully conveys, they had “mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about” what was going on. It was precisely the uncertainty, unsureness that comes with ambivalence which they were open to. Of course, we were making “racist jokes”, mocking each other; that is to say, there was no “political correctness”, no “discourse of the Other” between us; rather we were negotiating our differences, and this was precisely the way we could get to know each other. It was both the price and the gift of accepting ambivalence, that is, of not being afraid of contamination – the very acceptance that there can be no pure, untouched cultures.

On the other hand, there were the majority of Europeans beyond whose kind smiles I could not take a single step further. They were always gentle and kind, so incessantly were they smiling that, sooner or later, it lost its meaning. It did not matter anymore if they were smiling at me, or if it was the default setting of their character towards the Other. They were taught to respect the Other; no matter what, they had to respect the Other – which means, first of all, that they needed to have the Other. As Sartre put years ago, if there were no Other, they would have to invent it indeed – but with a slight difference this time, not to dehumanize but to respect him or her! So they invented me. Whenever we encountered, it was not me who they saw, it was rather a general figure, a category, of their own imagination which they invented to respect. The question if they really had any sympathy, admiration, interest, or knowledge about that which they respected was of no importance at all. The Other, on this account, was just an undifferentiated, blank face who was put into distance and hindered from any possibility of touching their singularity; and this was done precisely by respecting his or her otherness. What they really wanted was thus “un-contamination”; and they had the strongest tool for building insuperable walls between “them” and “us”, to keep “themselves” safe from people like me, from the Other. That tool was “political correctness:” an indifferent respect, a desolate smile. What they deny was precisely ambivalence that ensues from the cultural encounters. They did not want it. That equivocation scared them. They rather insisted on their conformity and security with which they were endowed by the alleged purity of their singularity, call it, whiteness, Dutchness, Germanness, or Flemishness. And furthermore, they asked themselves, “Why on earth would we leave the safe borders of our singularity while everything outside is falling apart? Why would we really open ourselves to them while we could still enjoy the privileges of being white, European, and wealthy? Why would we welcome ambivalence and become not so sure about our own singularities, while millions of people waiting behind our borders to become one of us?” They thought that they had enough reasons to be the way they are, they acted as if they knew what they are, what whiteness, Dutchness, Germanness, or Flemishness essentially consists in. As such essences returned to us in a new fashion which demanded un-contamination precisely by respecting the Other.

Hence, when you face this smiling racism, you know that everything has been decided for you at the very moment when you say where you are from – at that very moment you become a blank face that has to be respected. No doubt that he or she will tell you how beautiful your country was when they visited it, after all what is the non-European world but, as it were, an enormous zoo for the European. They pay the entrance fee (for them it it cheap), walk around the world, look at us who are dwelling behind the fences, feed us, and leave. And when they encounter one of “us” beyond those fences, of course, they would say how beautiful our cage was, which is a “politically correct” way of saying “You are not one of us! Remember your place!” Liberal multiculturalism and political correctness are perfect tools to keep “them” outside even when “they” are inside, keep “our” cultures un-contaminated by draining others of any significant singularity.

What I have tried to reveal with the latter type is precisely what I meant by the new form of racism that took hold of contemporary Europe today. What is important to notice there is that this new form of racism is not a reactive hate, not a projection of our own wickedness. It is rather a peculiar, insidious defense mechanism, a selfish nihilism that is trying to cling onto the very last piece of privilege and joy before the world collapses. It is a consoling lie that Europeans tell themselves in order to remain blind to the atrocities around the world. It is not simply lacking consideration for the other people, rather it is a stubborn attempt to deny that they do not care about other people. It is a generous way of becoming selfish.

Though essences returned, European racism is no longer a form of Nazism. It has also learned from its mistakes. Therefore, it has a very idiosyncratic, self-agonizing structure, for deep inside it knows very well that it has to acknowledge ambivalence, that what it is doing is selfish and hypocritical, that it cannot remain pure and un-contaminated — nothing can! Its explicit denial (i.e., respect for the Other) indicates the hope trapped behind its nihilist surface. Put differently, political correctness and teh stubborn attempts to live together show that contemporary racism in Europe does not derive any longer from prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against some certain people, rather it derives from nihilism. By nihilism, I am referring to the last man of Nietzsche, to quote from Slovaj Zizek’s article on Charlie Hebdo massacre:

Long ago Friedrich Nietzsche perceived how Western civilisation was moving in the direction of the Last Man, an apathetic creature with no great passion or commitment. Unable to dream, tired of life, he takes no risks, seeking only comfort and security, an expression of tolerance with one another: “A little poison now and then: that makes for pleasant dreams. And much poison at the end, for a pleasant death. They have their little pleasures for the day, and their little pleasures for the night, but they have a regard for health. ‘We have discovered happiness,’ – say the Last Men, and they blink.

The contemporary racism in Europe no longer consists in the alleged superiority of the racist. To the contrary, the racist no longer cares about the Other. The Other is a blank face that he respects. The less the racist knows about the Other and his culture (though he knows all the stereotypes and cliches about it), the better for him, for then he can wallow in his comfort and security and enjoy his life that he loves so much without having have to think about the Other. Beyond that blank face, there is a risk for him, there is ambivalence. Why would he care? If you force him, if you insist on having a face before him, if you insist on existing, he would shout in distress and pain:

“I respect you whoever you are, is this not enough?”

I venture to say, no, it is not.

I can easily find substantial reasons to join the chorus and repeat that “Europeans are racist”, for many years I have been living in countries where I have been treated as if I am one of those TV channels which do not have any signal. Countless times I experienced that abrupt and brutal transformation into an undifferentiated, blank face, that sudden collapse into nothingness accompanied by kind, politically correct, gestures of the Europeans. Yet, I do believe that there is something peculiar about this attitude which, instead of being dismissed, if it can be understood properly, maybe, can be transformed into a new form where ambivalence is slowly being accepted so that we can finally in the genuine sense of the word begin living together.

The post Are Europeans racist? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

So, according to the front page of today’s Daily Express, the EU referendum result is already done and dusted and Britain has decided to leave. Really?

Yes, a majority of voters want Britain to quit the EU, if the results of a poll by Survation are to be believed.

(Readers here will remember that last month the Sun newspaper commissioned Survation to do a poll and subsequently ran an entirely untrue front page story claiming that 1-in-5 British Muslims ‘have sympathy for jihads’).

Claimed the Daily Express on their front page today:

“Fifty-one per cent of people who expressed a firm opinion in a survey of more than 10,000 adults across the country supported exit from the European Union.”

Please look at the sentence above again. It is, actually, a classic example of how numbers can be twisted with clever words.

On first glance it may seem from the Daily Express report that just over half of those 10,000 people polled favour exit from the EU.

But actually, the Daily Express sentence didn’t say that at all. It said only that 51% of people who “expressed a firm opinion” want Britain to leave the EU.

It’s a convoluted and misleading way to present numbers. Let’s look at the facts.

Survation asked 10,015 people in an online survey the following question:

‘Imagine there was a referendum today with the question “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union?” How would you vote?’

• 40% said they wanted Britain to remain a member of the European Union (-2 since the last poll, which is statistically insignificant and within the margin of error)
• And 42% said they wanted Britain to leave (+2 since the last poll, which is statistically insignificant and within the margin of error)

So where does the 51% figure come from? Well, 51% represents just over half of all those who provided either a ‘remain’ or ‘leave’ answer.

But many could be forgiven for thinking the Daily Express ’51%’ meant that just over half of 10,000 people polled wanted Britain to leave the EU.

That seems to be what Nigel Farage, leader of the anti-EU party, UKIP, wants people to believe. In a centre-piece article in today’s Daily Express – a major funder of UKIP – Mr Farage concluded from the poll:

“This new landmark poll of 10,000 people showing that the ‘leave the EU’ side is now ahead demonstrates that the tide has turned.”

There’s more…

There’s something much more interesting about the Survation survey that doesn’t get a mention on the Express front page, and is only briefly referred to at the end of their story.

It’s this: many Britons haven’t yet made up their minds about the country’s future in the European Union.

Almost a fifth – 18% – of those surveyed by Survation responded that they were “undecided” on whether or not Britain should remain a member of the EU. Furthermore, that figure hasn’t changed since Survation’s previous poll on the EU referendum question last June.

That almost-a-fifth-of-voters-who-are-undecided could dramatically and decisively swing the EU referendum result one way or the other (so long as they actually vote). And as yet, nobody, not the Daily Express, not Survation, and not even those voters themselves, yet know which way they will vote.

So rather than the EU referendum result being decided, done and dusted some two years before it might take place, the referendum decision is right now completely undecided. Despite today’s Daily Express headline, the referendum result is far from being ‘in the bag’.

This means that for both sides of the referendum campaign, there is everything to play for. Especially since we don’t yet even know when the referendum will take place, and neither the ‘Remain’ or ‘Leave’ campaigns have yet started in earnest.

And although today’s Daily Express editorial asserted, “Among people who have already made up their minds a majority now want us to leave the EU…”, there’s something that should never be forgotten:

In a democracy, those who have made up their minds today, can change their minds tomorrow.

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Related stories by Jon Danzig:

• Daily Express business model: selling prejudice and bigotry?
• Are some newspapers stirring up trouble?
• The value of being ‘citizens of Europe’

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According to @Daily_Express #Britain is leaving the #EU. Really? Read my Facebook today: https://t.co/Oqf5fi4fsk pic.twitter.com/eGQXZdTXWK

— Jon Danzig (@Jon_Danzig) December 15, 2015

The post Britain is leaving the EU, says Daily Express. Really? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Benedict Anderson most certainly did not think of football when he published his compact masterpiece Imagined Communities in the early 1980s. Yet I cannot think of another book that has been quoted or referred to as often by football researchers from all over Europe and beyond.

For me Imagined Communities certainly was a major eye-opener, and I remain grateful for the thought-provoking thesis the book develops. When I started to want to have a better understanding of why football does to us what it does, I felt I needed to learn as much as I could about the sociological and psychological mechanisms of nationalism. And when thanks to works like Imagined Communities I began to understand what nationalism does with us what it does and how difficult it is for 21st-century humans to emancipate from its emotional stronghold, I came to the conclusion that doing research on European integration from this angle was actually a stimulating perspective.

The book owns a lot to its incredibly catchy and precise title. Nationalism’s main strength lies precisely in the fact that it’s not an ‘imaginary’ – i.e. entirely unreal or made-up community – but an ‘imagined’ one : actively conjured up by the masses at regular intervals and passively taken for granted. Strangely enough, the concept, which made a fantastic career in academia, did not translate easily into French or German. ‘L’imaginaire national’ or ‘Die Erfindung der Nation’ do not have the same appeal, although they actually describe very pertinently what the book is about. I had first come across the French version, and although I had appreciated it a lot, soon bought the English original, too, and preferred, unsurprisingly, to quote the English title like everybody else.

Benedict Anderson has died, aged 79, in Indonesia. It seems very appropriate to me that his name and the title of his great book will be cited at a moment when nationalism is raising its head again even in regions of the world where it was supposed to be half-asleep, and when – simultaneously – the nations of the world are starting to find out that they better think beyond national borders in the fight against climate change and the ensuing ecological catastrophe. Imagine all the people imagining a global community, living life in peace. It isn’t hard to do, but if you want to understand why we’re still not there yet, I can recommend you some good reading.

Albrecht Sonntag, EU-Asia Institute
at ESSCA School of Management.
Follow us on Twitter: @Essca_Eu_Asia 

The post Imagine all the people appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

This summer’s press was once again abuzz with headlines and images of the exodus of thousands of migrants, knocking at Europe’s door. The scenario of a massive number of vessels overflowing with people fleeing from their countries towards southern European shores is no news to Europe. Although the state of alarm has long been declared, the escalation of this summer’s dramatic occurrences forced Brussels and the Member States to raise their level of attention towards the Mediterranean Sea.

New measures were drafted and the on-going debate regarding their implementation is one of the hot topics jeopardizing the stability of the European Union to the core. The States more decidedly issuing for a direct intervention were those located on the southern shore, held responsible for the rescue of the migrants in their territorial waters. Italy declared the costs of “Mare Nostrum” operations unsustainable and thus disconfirmed their renewal for 2015, entrusting the management of the migrants’ emergency to the new EU-flag operation, “Triton”. The state of emergency was declared both from a humanitarian and a logistical perspective, and the key-role of Italy in the happenings is well known. Nonetheless, there is a chapter of the story that has not yet found its representation in the media. Everybody knows about those rescued, but has anyone ever wondered about the rescuers?

One expects the navy and the coastguard ships to be the main rescuers of migrant vessels but data tell a different story. Of the 982 units employed in rescue operations in 2014, less than a half belonged to the military navy. The merchant navy ranks second for the number of rescue missions, actually outnumbering the coastguard. So far, 1,300 merchant ships were diverted to provide first aid to 42,000 people in 2014 and over 15,200 in 2015[1]. If we focus on the meaning of these numbers, we will not fail to realize that about 254 cargo ships, contract bound to delivery dates and crewed by men untrained for these kind of operations, were first in line to face the humanitarian emergencies.

This constitutes the biggest rescue work ever accomplished in the history of the merchant navy. Providing first aid to these people is certainly a duty for all seafarers in the fulfillment of the long established maritime tradition of recruiting those in danger, as well as under the obligations determined by the United Nations Convention on Law at Sea (UNCLAS) and the International Convention on Maritime Search and Rescue (SAR). Still, these obligations refer to ordinary circumstances in which rescue at sea is considered an exceptional event for civil vessels. However, in the past few years, the extraordinary has become ordinary and the involvement of merchant ships in rescuing migrant vessels has become systematic.

What’s wrong with that?

Consider a ship with dangerous cargo, for example inflammable goods (oil, petrol, gas), rescuing immigrants drowning from a sinking vessel and having to board 500 to 1,000 people who cannot speak English or Italian. How are 10 to 15 crew members supposed to handle such a crowd of men, women and children, all the while trying to prevent any accidents that such a situation may implicate? Additionally, restrooms and emergency kits on cargo ships are stocked in proportion to the crew and cannot sustain a massive load of passengers, which makes it difficult to provide help to the rescued in need of immediate medical assistance, such as women who are pregnant or in labor (as per reported circumstances). In 2014, even supply vessels deputed to the emergency escape service of the staff on oil platforms were employed in rescue missions. One of this vessels received no less than 62 calls for rescue missions during 2014 and 26 in 2015, boarding up to 1200 people in a single operation with a crew of 10 people[2].

From a strictly economical perspective the costs of rescue operations, sometimes requesting up to 2 additional days of travel, rest on the ship-owners and on the ports, frequently in Sicily or Calabria, where migrants are disembarked. This issue was emphasized by the Italian merchant navy, Italy being the country responsible for the broadest Search and Rescue zone in the Mediterranean. In this regard, the implementation of the operation, “Triton” partially mitigated the pressure on the merchant navy (around 160 interventions in 2015 against 254 in 2014), but the numbers are still high and the integration of the SAR operations with the commercial activities is unsustainable to the ship-owners.

To all seafarers, there is an unbreakable law, which constitutes a seaman’s code of honor since the beginning of times: when a ship is sinking, it has to be rescued, no matter the cost. The merchant navy has not missed a call and will keep rushing to help as long as someone will call.

But to preserve the safety of their crew and operability of their ships, merchant vessels cannot be viewed as vehicles for humanitarian rescue in large-scale operations.

In March 2015 the European Community Shipowner’s Association (ECSA) and the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), together with other labor organizations, issued a call for help, in order to better face what seems to be a migratory flux which is not going to decrease in the short run. In such conditions, the employment of UN vehicles for humanitarian assistance at sea, with UN designated ships and aircrafts to monitor and coordinate the SAR regional centers and the rescue operation could be an important contribution.

Another issue to be faced in the context of one of the biggest humanitarian crisis of the last decades.

[1]Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre in Rome – MRCC

[2]Report Confitarma 2015

The post EU Refugee Crisis: Who is Rescuing Migrants at Sea? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Filipa M.Ribeiro

What do subjects like personalized learning, curriculum reforms, research agendas and institutional frames have in common? Interdisciplinarity. Whether we discuss the duality of vocational versus general education or the impact of ideologies on research, interdisciplinarity is an in-between topic. Interestingly enough, it is often overlooked even if interdisciplinarity is one of the most hotly debated topics among academics and has spun a complex web of development strategies and theorizing. However, its lack of standardization continues to be an issue, namely in universities that have traditionally hermetic departments and a lack of communication embedded in the academic culture. The various definitions of  interdisciplinarity converge into two main axis: 1) powerfull insights found by applying intellectual resources of different disciplines to particular problems; or 2) rhetorical mechanisms that reinforce the discourses on productivity and competitiveness which, in turn, produce an ideological system that serves the economic regulation at universities, encouraging an overemphasis on research projects and courses (e.g., the proliferation of summer schools).

 

Favoring or disregarding interdisciplinarity?  

Interdisciplinarity is also at stake with regard to the practices put in place by the management bodies of research institutions, university departments or governing bodies to assist, seduce or repel the individual researchers. These practices include institutional restructuring, reorganisation of curricula, the implementation of information, communication technology, changing patterns in knowledge production, the changed role of education in societies, and new modes to manage and assess higher education and research. This is often explicitly phrased in prescriptive documents (e.g. strategic plans of universities and official documents that try to outline the  criteria and “good practices”, whose very title already implies a simplistic outreach to interdisciplinarity) that aim to assume a given role in civil society at large. Thus, the paradox arises: there is a conventional discourse in favor of interdisciplinary research and, at the same time, much indifference or even disregard for such research (Sperber, 2003).

Interdisciplinarity demands constant proactiveness, responsiveness and the ability to adapt to changing situations. As Sperber (2003) notes, often disciplinary boundaries and routines stand in the way of optimal research and that is why a common solution is to go ahead with new research programmes, which requires hasty institutional reshaping. In addition, research shows that constraints to interdisciplinarity are posed both in scientific terms (e.g.: Collinet et al.,2013) but also in institutional terms (e.g.: Su, 2014), especially concerning governance modes (Cooper and Farooq, 2013). As a matter of fact, the idea that interdisciplinarity in higher education is related to the framework of institutions, departments and courses is not new (e.g.: Carpenter, 1995; Pirrie et al, 1999; Becher, 2001; Wall and Shankar, 2008; Dykes et al., 2009). A less debated dimension of interdisciplinarity concerns the individual and social epistemology of knowledge and science. How and why interdisciplinarity emerges at the individual level? Andersen and Wagenknecht (2013) remind that interdisciplinarity involves epistemic dependence between researchers with different areas of expertise, the combination of complementary contributions from different researchers through shared mental models and conceptual structures, and shared cooperative activity with interlocking intentions, meshing sub-plans and mutual responsiveness.

 

Does belonging to a department increase interdisciplinarity?

My recent article “Interdisciplinarity in ferment: The role of knowledge networks and department affiliation”, published in Technological Forecasting and Social Change, posits that social networks shape interdisciplinarity because universities are formed by networked actors whose relations are not only centred on place-based affiliation (though highly shaped by them), but also on niche knowledge and skills affiliations. However, we lack enough empirical data on the knowledge networks of researchers to better understand how these networks shape the influence between faculty structures and knowledge creation in terms of interdisciplinarity and what the optimal structure for interdisciplinarity is. In other words, the paper addresses interdisciplinarity forwards rather than backwards, exploring the relation between the present and the future through the conditions from which interdisciplinarity arises. The focus is not the processes of network structure emergence and tie formation, but rather how those networks and ties affect interdisciplinarity. Based on a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the personal knowledge networks of academics of higher education institutions from Catalonia (Spain), the study used a mixed methods approach combining the delineation of personal networks with the analysis of the ties’ content, proposing a conceptual model specifically developed for this study.

Findings suggest a strong correlation between the network members nominated in the influence generator and interdisciplinarity. In fact, a quite surprising finding is that collaborators are not the ones who most influence either interdisciplinarity or individual knowledge creation. On the other hand, stronger ties (the ones with whom respondents have more affinity, more time of interaction and higher frequency of contact) seem to be more conducive of interdisciplinary research than weaker ties (if those strong ties do not belong to the same department of the respondent). Belonging to a faculty department may increase tie strength but reduces interdisciplinarity.

This study shows that the concept of interdisciplinarity itself is changing on the emergence of new modes of knowledge creation, especially the rise of peer production, which presents a stark challenge to conventional thinking about interdisciplinarity. Indeed, interdisciplinarity should not be understood only as the traditional concatenation of different disciplines. This study offers corroboration for the claim that interdisciplinarity is more about epistemological commitments and exchanges rather than disciplinary training. It is important to see these phenomena not as exceptions or ephemeral fads, but as indications of a fundamental fact about transactional knowledge forms and their relationship to the institutional conditions of knowledge creation.

Therefore, this new way of looking on interdisciplinarity reinforces a third form of transaction in higher education institutions: social sharing and exchange. On the other hand, we produce and exchange knowledge, but we do not count this exchange in our institutional design. This, in turn, may be the reason why social knowledge creation and interdisciplinarity have been shunted to the peripheries of academic organization landscape.

 

Filipa M. Ribeiro is in the final year of her PhD at the University of Porto. She has a diverse background in science and medical journalism, digital media, innovation, project management  and science communication. She graduated in Communication Sciences and has a master degree on Sociology of Science. She has been doing research on Higher Education since 2009 and was  a member of the Portuguese team in the ESF funded project TRUE (Transforming universities in Europe). She is also one of the co-founders and executive members of ECHER – Early Career Higher Education researchers’ network. Her current research involves topics on ubiquitous knowledge, sociology of science, social networks, interdiciplinarity and diversity in higher education.

 

References

Andersen, H., Wagenknecht, S. (2013) Epistemic dependence in interdisciplinary groups.Synthese, 190: 1881–1898. Springer.

Becher, B. (1987). Disciplinary discourse. Studies in Higher Education, 12: 261-274.

Carpenter, J. (1995) Interprofessional education for medical and nursing students: Evaluation of a programme. Medical Education ,29: 265–72.

Collinet, C., P. Terral, P. Trabal (2013) Forms and Modes of Apprehending Interdisciplinarity: a Socio-Computer Analysis of Sports Sciences. Bulletin of Sociological Methodology, 119(1): 61-78.

Cooper, A. F. and Farooq, A. B. (2013), BRICS and the Privileging of Informality in Global Governance. Global Policy, 4: 428–433.  doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12077

Dykes, T., Rodgers, P., Smyth, M., (2009).  Towards a new disciplinary framework for contemporary creative design practice. CoDesign, 5 (2) 99-116.

Pirrie, A., S. Hamilton, V. Wilson (1999) Multidisciplinary education: Some issues and concerns. Educational Research 41(3): 301–314.

Ribeiro, Filipa M. (2015) Interdisciplinarity in ferment: The role of knowledge networks and department affiliation. Technological Forecasting and Social Change. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2015.07.021

Sperber, D. (2003) “Why rethink interdisciplinarity?”. In Heintz, C. (ed.), Rethinking interdisciplinarity. Paris: C.N.R.S. and Institut Nicod.

Su, X. (2014) Academic scientists’ affiliation with university research centres: Selection dynamics. Research Policy 43: 382-390.

Wall, S., Shankar, I., (2008). Adventures in transdisciplinary learning. Studies in Higher Education, 33 (5): 551–65.

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In the course of my research on budgeting in international organizations, I just stumbled over this quote from 1947 article in the journal “International Organization” titled “The Refugee: A Problem for International Organization” which seems quite timely again today:

“Even the governments which are most concerned over the welfare of individuals and the economic and social and political stability of Europe devote few of their resources of personnel and finance to refugee thought and action. Despite occasional prolonged periods of highly-publicized wrangling over general principles, they do not make up their minds on practical policies until the very last minute. The stubborn facts are that there are too many other problems of greater size and urgency, and that the refugee problem discourages attention because it is disproportionately tangled and expensive.“ (Malin 1947: 445, my highlights)

The article’s introduction speaks of 25 million displaced persons in China, 10 million Soviet citizens, and 8 million Germans, with 2 million European refugees being those “with whom a general international organization for uprooted people must deal” and who were “bristling with political complications”, providing more details on the many different groups and the respective challenges later on.

When it comes to the topic of repatriation and whether refugees will stay, the conclusion also seems almost like today:

“The advance of industrialization, even where it is far from complete, has produced vested interests among workers already established in those countries, and a pervasive community fear of unemployment. National societies think of their racial, religious and political pattern as fixed, and dread the importation of Europe’s feuds. (Unofficial anti-Semitism is rising almost everywhere.) Hence, though reception countries are beginning to realize that the refugees are not typically a mass of miserable and demoralized human beings, but a reservoir of sturdy and independent-minded workers of many crafts, the emphasis is sure to be kept on careful individual selection by the reception countries‘ own representatives.” (Malin 1947: 457)

Just in case you wondered how much has changed in the last 70 years when it comes to refugees, refugee policies, and the public perception of those who are refugees…

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How might the EU respond to the unprecedented event of a Brexit? Its response will be defined by 5 I’s: ideas, interests, institutions, the international, and individuals. Looking at these 5 I’s also sheds light on various theoretical approaches to understanding Brexit.

How would the rest of the EU respond to a British vote to leave? Would the EU’s approach to a withdrawal be defined by institutional links, opinions of key leaders, economic and security interests, international pressures, or ideas about integration or disintegration? Will it be a mix of these, in which case, which will be the most influential? What should the British government and public look to in order to understand what to expect from the EU? How should academics theorise a Brexit?

We can understand how the EU might respond to a British withdrawal by looking at five I’s: ideas, interests, institutions, the international, and individuals. No one ‘I’ will dominate, and identifying which will dominate more than others will be a key challenge in understanding and applying theoretical approaches to a Brexit.

Ideas

A vote to depart completely from the idea of an ‘ever closer union’ would challenge the very idea in an unprecedented way. Will the idea of European disintegration then take hold across the EU as somedomino effect sees other governments and their citizens give up on the EU? Or will other EU member states respond in much the same way as they have to many other crises by trying to integrate further? If so, then any new deal with the UK would prioritise EU unity, blocking any UK-EU deal that allows Britain a privileged alternative relationship that could weaken the Union.

Individual member states will assert their own ideas of what Brexit means for them. For example, the Irish Government has made clear it will not be caught in the slipstream of British decisions. Independence and links to the EU are viewed as equal to or of greater importance than relations with Britain. For statesranging from Greece and the Baltic states through to France and Germany, the UK and the Brexit debate are already something of a distraction from various ideas of how European integration can better ensure the security and stability of Europe.

Interests

With Britain as one of the world’s largest economies, some Eurosceptics argue the EU needs the UK more than the UK needs the EU. Britain does run a trade deficit with the EU (£61.6 billion in 2014), meaning the rest of the EU has an economic incentive to find a solution. However, from the perspective of the rest of the EU it is the UK that is vulnerable. Britain represents somewhere around 16% of total EU trade (admittedly excluding services) while the EU represents 44.6% of the UK’s exports of good and services in 2014.

Nevertheless, economic, social and security interests can play a powerful role. To take one example, fear amongst German car manufacturers at a bad UK-EU exit deal could force the German government to push for a relationship that avoids any disruption to trading links. The potential costs for Ireland (including violence in Northern Ireland) could force it to reconsider its ideas of resisting British decisions. The large EU population in the UK and UK population elsewhere in the EU mean a mutually beneficial deal will need to be hammered out.

The argument works against Britain as some states will seek to gain economically by seeking to attract investment that would have gone to Britain.  Some countries might also use a Brexit to push a more social and protectionist EU, limiting any UK efforts to use a Brexit as a means to undercut the EU economically.

If the potential economic interests are not strong enough, then the same cannot be said for Britain in European foreign and defence cooperation. Common areas of concern such as Iran, Russia or migration mean the UK and EU could continue to need one another. At the same time, the UK has been one of the blocks to cooperation in this area, with its exit potentially paving the way for further such efforts.

Institutions

Several processes and institutions will shape a Brexit. Article 50, the EU treaty’s withdrawal clause, provides a degree of structure for both sides, albeit one that is untested and which contains a range of flaws. The legal and administrative issues alone make Article 50 a Pandora’s Box that both sides will face with a sense of trepidation. Agreeing a new UK-EU relationship will require the consent of every member state, the European Parliament, and potentially may draw in the European Court of Justice. None of these can be relied on to grant a quick agreement that meets UK demands.

The UK and EU would also be constrained by existing wider European and international structures. If no new relationship was reached then the EU would still have to work within the limits of World Trade Organisation rules, although Britain is highly unlikely to benefit much from a WTO defined relationship. The European Free Trade Area and the European Economic Area have existing agreements that Britain would have to fit into with the agreement of members such as Norway or Switzerland.

International

International pressures on the UK and the EU could define how they manage an exit. The negotiation of a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) reflects a desire by the USA and the EU to use their interdependent economic relationship to shape global economics and politics. While the UK could be locked out of the main processes by which TTIP will be setup and launched, its long-term exclusion would run counter to the aims of TTIP to extend beyond the EU and USA. The agreement will also frame how the UK attempts its own trade deals with countries such as China or Brazil.

International events may also drive UK-EU cooperation. Terrorist attacks, aggressive behaviour by Russia (perhaps creating an ‘other’ against which common UK and EU resolve is formed), common concerns about environmental or migration crises could mean international events push the UK and EU into a harmonious new relationship. British ideas about restructuring the EU and freedom of movement have gained some traction thanks to developments connected to Syria. That said, international events could cause divisions and animosity between the UK and parts of the EU, such as happened over the Iraq War.

Individuals

If there is one place where animosity could be a particular problem it is in the relations between leaders. David Cameron is likely to resign should he lose a referendum where he backed the UK staying in. A victorious Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative party would then deliver a Conservative British Prime Minister unlikely to be in a position to compromise in negotiations over a new UK-EU deal.

EU leaders could also be in a mood to concede much, particularly if the British people had rejected a renegotiated relationship the rest of the EU made the effort to craft at a time when they would rather have been focusing on issues such as the Eurozone, Russia or migration. Angela Merkel, in particular, could find herself in a difficult position. With German elections scheduled in 2017 she may be in no position – or personally inclined – to offer much. Without German support, Britain will face a much bigger struggle in securing the agreement of every other EU state and its leadership.

Theorising Brexit

The study of the EU is filled with theories of European integration. Brexit confronts us with the need totheorise European disintegration. Theories are tools that allow us to focus on certain aspects of developments in the world around us, highlighting – and testing – their importance over others. These 5 I’s above touch on some of the various theoretical approaches we can use to try and understand where a Brexit could take the EU and UK. In a simplified way, constructivism points to the role of ideas as paramount in shaping how a Brexit is handled. In realism it is the interests and international pressures that will be decisive. Institutionalist or neofunctionalist theories throw light on the powerful limits existing institutions and networks will play (or might not play if Brexit exposed any weaknesses in them). Liberal intergovernmentalism draws in a mix of interests, institutions and ideas to highlight that Britain and the EU (especially Germany, France and other big states) are caught up in a deeply enmeshed set of interdependencies from which there is no easy escape whatever their leaders may want.

This article first appeared on the LSE’s Brexit Vote blog.

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