European Union

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The EU and Israel committed themselves to establishing a partnership which provides for close political and mutually beneficial trade and investment relations together with economic, social, financial, civil scientific, technological and cultural cooperation.

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Plenary sessions : Today’s unprecedented level of instability at EU borders demands that the EU and its member states shoulder more responsibility for their security and defence now, say MEPs in a resolution voted on Thursday. They urge member states to use Common Security and Defence Policy tools more effectively, improve the fit between external and internal security measures, and pool and share resources, so as to counter terrorism, fight organised crime, strengthen cyber-defence and cope with migration.

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

Plenary sessions : Today’s unprecedented level of instability at EU borders demands that the EU and its member states shoulder more responsibility for their security and defence now, say MEPs in a resolution voted on Thursday. They urge member states to use Common Security and Defence Policy tools more effectively, improve the fit between external and internal security measures, and pool and share resources, so as to counter terrorism, fight organised crime, strengthen cyber-defence and cope with migration.

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

Plenary sessions : Parliament passed three resolutions on Thursday, calling for Zimbabwean human rights activist Itai Dzarana to be found immediately; the release of all political prisoners in Swaziland; protection for Rohingya asylum seekers and action against human trafficking in Thailand.

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

Plenary sessions : Parliament passed three resolutions on Thursday, calling for Zimbabwean human rights activist Itai Dzarana to be found immediately; the release of all political prisoners in Swaziland; protection for Rohingya asylum seekers and action against human trafficking in Thailand.

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

Plenary sessions : Struggling companies will be given a second chance to improve their financial situation under new rules on insolvency approved by MEPs on 20 May. Every year 1.7 million jobs are lost in the EU due to companies going bankrupt. Under the new legislation on cross-border insolvencies, companies in financial difficulties but otherwise sound are given another opportunity to turn the situation around. The plans also include measures to help firms before they go bust.

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

Plenary sessions : Struggling companies will be given a second chance to improve their financial situation under new rules on insolvency approved by MEPs on 20 May. Every year 1.7 million jobs are lost in the EU due to companies going bankrupt. Under the new legislation on cross-border insolvencies, companies in financial difficulties but otherwise sound are given another opportunity to turn the situation around. The plans also include measures to help firms before they go bust.

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

In the run up the UK elections FleishmanHillard reached out to its network of clients across the EU to ask them what they thought of the possibility of a ‘Brexit’ . The feedback was overwhelming in its clarity – business is concerned that a Brexit would not just hurt Britain, it would hurt Europe. Below are some key quotes with which to contextualise business, Britain and Brexit.

“We are concerned about the uncertainty caused by the Referendum”

The UK is important to many of our clients, and not just as a market. One client remarked that the UK was the home of an R&D centre, for which the free movement offered by the EU was vital. The benefits of the UK’s position as an English-speaking country which enjoys a generally positive business environment make it a key investment point and ‘staging ground’ for many international businesses. Businesses from outside the EU invest in the UK disproportionately to its share of Europe’s economy: in 2013 the UK commanded 20% of FDI, while producing about 15% of GDP. 

It’s clear that businesses are happy to invest in the UK. What is also clear is that businesses are nervous about a Brexit; a recent survey of business leaders highlighted that it is even more concerning than a ‘Grexit’ (Greece’s possible departure from the Eurozone). It seems likely – and prudent – that businesses will be more hesitant about investing, when the stakes of the upcoming referendum are so high. It is for this reason that the new UK government seems to be considering a referendum in advance of its already ambitious 2017 deadline. Minimising the period of uncertainty is doubtless a step in the right direction, but it seems businesses would rather not see the issue come to a head, only 11% of respondents to our survey favoured having a referendum at all.

“Regulation and market barriers as a consequence of a Brexit would substantially harm our business”

There are those who fear that regulation and market barriers will negatively impact their business. The altered future relationship between the UK and the EU could mean that where once the “free movement for our supply chain across borders and for our workers is valuable” the reinstatement of barriers, wholly or partial could serve to make trading with the UK more difficult. When we asked our clients whether they think a Brexit would see them reducing the work they do in the UK, they were split quite evenly. Britain is the EU’s second biggest economy, and businesses are unlikely to stop trading with it, regardless of its membership status. What will happen though, as cited by our clients, is that the UK will no longer be an agenda setter, with limited ability to steer the course of the EU’s economy.  However, while the recognised advantages of the EU Single Market would prove a difficult obstacle if revoked, one client envisaged that the “most important bottom line element for our UK business is the UK business environment, notably tax levels and this is independent from the work of the EU.” This correctly identifies one of the most popular aspects of investing in the UK, and while the tax levels would evidently not be affected by a Brexit of any kind, the business environment rests on tender hooks as uncertainty over the future prevails.

“Brexit would simply be another factor to the broad view that Europe is less and less attractive for investments”

One highly pessimistic view depicts a Brexit as the final straw in a long history of decisions which contribute to an uncompetitive and stagnant investment environment – something the European Commission seems well aware of, considering the grand efforts of the Juncker Plan (an investment fund for Europe championed by Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker) to stimulate growth and investment in the EU. Our clients certainly think that this would be a step backwards for the EU as a whole, with an overwhelming majority agreeing that the EU’s economy would suffer in the case of a Brexit. Perhaps the view of many in the US when it comes to the EU was summed up by US Presidential long-shot Bobby Jindal when he said they must avoid turning “the American Dream into the European Nightmare.

“It would be a glorious mistake”

At present, nobody knows what the terms of a Brexit would be, or even what is being requested in the “renegotiation” period leading up to a popular vote. There are a number of overhanging issues, for example Directives which are transposed into national law would still apply if the UK were to leave the EU, agreements which have been signed with countries the world over on trade and international relations will have to be renegotiated. That is not to say that the UK’s relationship with the EU must stay the same, businesses are certainly open to the possibility of negotiation, but Brexit is overwhelmingly considered a bad idea. Therefore the above short comment which neatly summarised what a lot of our respondents were conveying may become true, however it remains to be seen how a Brexit might work, what basis a future relationship with the EU would be served on and the state of the UK post-EU.

 

 Rob Anger,  Martin Bresson,  Joachim Wilcke, Cillian Totterdell and Anne Murray 

 

 

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On Tuesday I went to one of my alma maters, LSE’s European Institute, to listen to a panel on Britain’s EU policy. As well as storifying it, I’ve also been thinking about the discussion and particularly three of the things mentioned by Simon Hix, one of the panellists.

“Never underestimate the EU’s ability to find a way to muddle through”

As has been discussed on this blog before, crisis is in many ways the dominant mode of the EU and its predecessors: there’s always something that’s a problem and which requires urgent (and improvised) action. If we can accept that, then the British situation is merely another in a long line stretching from the EDC and the Empty Chair crisis, and there will be a way to sort something out.

In this context, that might mean agreements for the UK that are not embodied in treaty reform per se, but instead in some novel form, such as declarations or intergovermental accords, or the like. As was pointed out at the event, some of the key British objectives might be secured through amending directives, a much more manageable (if still tricky) process than opening a new IGC.

Of course, the danger here is that if too many people come to believe that ‘a way will be found’, then that potentially increases the risk that it doesn’t happen, because everyone assumes someone else is doing it (indeed, that’s what I’m doing here too: I’m not offering any creative solutions): it’s a bit of a ‘tragedy of the commons’ situation, only partly mitigated by the presence of one party who have a strong interest in finding a deal: the British. Now that he is locked on this path, Cameron will not want to turn up empty-handed from any renegotiation, if only for his personal reputation and for getting through the next five years with his backbench, which gives him a good reason to find solutions.

“Never underestimate British arrogance”

However, there’s a second problem. As Hix notes, the dominant way that Brits talk about themselves is a great power (think Empire, sun never setting, UNSC permanent chair, beacon of all that is good, etc.): there’s not a great deal of humility going around, certainly not with this government. The German debate of tying oneself into a European system to protect oneself and others simply wouldn’t happen in the UK. And why should it, you ask?

Exactly.

Naturally, such a view is not universal – it’s one of the reasons that recent Tory governments have been rather suspicious of the Foreign Office – but they are deeply resonant. And in the context of a renegotiation, a view that ‘they need us more than we need them’ is likely to make matters more difficult to resolve. Yes, the UK is a big market for other EU member states, but it’s not as big as the EU market is to the UK: miscalculations of strength/influence raise the risk of an impasse.

And it’s not just the negotiators: the British public will have to be convinced that a meaningful and ‘successful’ deal has been struck by Cameron, if he is to benefit from that stage of the process. If we are going for novel, non-treaty based changes (as above) then that becomes easier to challenge.

“The renegotiation deal doesn’t actually matter at all: it’ll all come down to calculations of the benefit of membership”

In Hix’s view, this might not really matter in any case, because hardly anyone will be too bothered about any ‘deal’: they’ll follow broader cues and perceptions about the value of the system. In this, it’ll be 1975 again, where Wilson’s ‘renegotiation’ really didn’t come into matters at all.

I’ve got some sympathy for this view, since it’s clear that most people don’t have a strong (in the sense of being deeply held) view on the EU, but rather pile it into a wider understanding of their situation: limiting migrant worker benefits by a couple of extra years is neither here nor there.

What does become more important is the bigger picture of the EU’s situation: all the panellists agreed that if the Greek situation worsens, then that will badly damage the ‘yes’ campaign: why shackle yourself to a corpse, in the colourful metaphor of some sceptics. That a resolution in this looks to be no closer than before doesn’t bode well.

As this referendum campaign starts to gather pace, not least with next week’s unveiling of a referendum bill in the Queen’s speech, we are likely to see more of these dynamics. Enjoy the ride.

The post The Brexit referendum: some underlying dynamics appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

Over the past ten years, there have been significant geopolitical shifts in the European Union’s (EU) near and far neighborhood. Crafted in 2003, the opening remarks of the European Security Strategy underline: “Europe has never been so prosperous, so secure nor so free. The violence of the first half of the 20th Century has given way to a period of peace and stability unprecedented in European history.” This is no longer the case. The ring of instability that currently characterises the EU security landscape both in the East – from the crisis in Georgia in 2008 to the on-going conflict in Ukraine – and in the South calls for a serious reassessment of Europe’s neighbourhood and the adoption of  adequate foreign policy tools to respond to fast-changing developments.

“The success of the EaP will largely depend on its ability to meaningfully deal with a diverse group of partners with divergent and diverging goals”

Europe faces new risks and opportunities on its periphery and beyond and needs to recast its strategic and foreign policy thinking to conform to the evolving setting. The EU’s Neighborhood Policy (ENP) – along with its regional component that has been strengthened through the Eastern Partnership (EaP) and the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) initiatives – needs to be closely integrated into a unified EU Foreign Policy framework. To promote a shared commitment to stability, security and prosperity, it needs to reassess the conditions needed for further economic integration and the deepening of political co-operation between the EU and partner countries. These competing patterns of policy platforms do not easily cohere into a unified vision.

Formally launched on March 20, 2009, the overarching aim of the EaP initiative is to intensify the EU’s relations with six partner countries in the neighborhood, namely, Belarus, Moldova and the Ukraine to the east and Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia to the south-east. Based on the existing ENP framework, the partnership puts the emphasis on a more pragmatic and regionally-tailored format of co-operation.

The programme aims to create a secure ring of stable and well-governed countries on the eastern borders of the EU. It seeks to establish a security belt around the EU borders that is sustained through effective co-operation networks including multi-lateral and bi-lateral frameworks.

“The EU member states do not have a common position on the implantation of EaP”

However, the underlying objective of the new regional co-operation initiatives such as the UfM and the EaP remains unclear and is contingent on different priorities, largely determined by the dominating group interests within the EU. The primary question is whether these initiatives are complementary or whether they compete with existing policies. For example the EaP is often characterised as an initiative which was launched as a response by some EU member states to the the UfM.

Because of absence of a unified vision on regional priorities within the EU some EU member states focus on the South Caucasus, some on the Mediterranean and others on the Middle East. This is all the more compelling since the EU member states do not have a common position on the implantation of EaP; nor do the eastern neighbors have converging views on its execution on the ground.

While all of the Caucasian republics have declared EU integration as their “strategic choice,” albeit with different evidence to sustain these pronouncements, there is no regional coherence within the group as a whole due to existing security concerns and different country-specific measures to accommodate them. For one, Russia is perceived as a major security threat in Georgia, while Armenia – given its geopolitical location and security perceptions vis-à-vis Azerbaijan and Turkey – regards Russia as the main guarantor of its security and heavily relies on it both militarily and economically. Azerbaijan, on the other hand, maintains strong security partnerships with Turkey and Israel, while procuring modern military hardware from Russia.

To complicate the landscape further, Georgia recently signed an Association Agreement with the EU that sets up the legal foundations for an enhanced political and economic co-operation. Armenia has indicated its readiness to join the Russian-led Eurasian Union, along with Belarus and Kazakhstan, and has already gained membership of the body. Azerbaijan has stayed away from both.

These security perceptions and alliances clearly weaken the impact of the EaP. Different visions, political agendas, and alliance partnerships that drive the policies of South Caucasian republics present a clear challenge to the successful accomplishment of the initiative.

“To succeed on its eastern borders, the EU needs to come up with more realistic initiatives, clearer incentives and better mechanism”

On a broader scale, the frequently contradictory interests both within EU member states and those between the EU and Russia not only cripple the integration processes in the region, but also weaken their effective execution on the ground. The success of the EaP will largely depend on its ability to meaningfully deal with a very diverse group of partners with divergent and diverging goals.

While finding a compromise between member states is a complex practice in the EU foreign policy-making process, the divergence  between the Mediterranean and Eastern initiatives undermines the EU’s strategic leverage in the region. Also, such discrepancies find a direct reflection in the perceptions of the participant countries, resulting in half-hearted efforts that undercut the overall outreach of the program and compromise its effectiveness.

The Eastern Partnership summit in Riga on 21-22 May will serve as an important platform for the review of the ENP strategy – and its integration into an overall EU Foreign Policy – in order to bridge the widening gap between the EU and partner countries. To succeed on its eastern borders, the EU needs to come up with more realistic initiatives, clearer incentives and better mechanisms that can be meaningfully translated into more workable and regionally-attuned policies.

The EU’s role in promotion of stability and security at its eastern borders cannot be meaningfully accomplished without taking into account the current geostrategic realities in its eastern neighborhood, as well as aspirations of individual countries with respect to the programme. What is indeed needed is the formulation of a coherent EU policy which reflects the concerns and interests of the eastern neighbors. The partnership should be a two-way process of mutual accommodation.

 

IMAGE CREDIT: CC / FLICKR – Crossroads Foundation

The post The EU’s Eastern Partnership: Between promises and realities appeared first on Europe’s World.

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP