Ideas on Europe Blog

One for the money, two for the full retention of citizens’ rights

In my house, “rock’n'roll” has a very specific meaning. When uttered in the context of getting people out of the house it denotes that we have arrived at the actual moment of departure and no more delays will be tolerated: everyone is moving to the door.*

Put differently, I have established a credible set of language to present my intentions.

Obviously, I’d like to say that this all stems from the professional work I do on negotiation, but it doesn’t: it actually stems from endless hours of farting about, waiting for children to divine what their true path in like should be (despite it very obviously being get-out-of-the-door-right-now). Trial and error abound.

But the example is still apposite, because it illustrates another basic idea of negotiation theory, namely that your mouth should only write cheques the rest of you can cash.

As any parent will know – or is in the process of learning – both threats and promises should be proportionate, credible and deliverable. And that’s also the case for more formal negotiations.

All of which brings us around – as so often – to Article 50 and the recurring narrative of “no deal”.

Quite aside from the many other issues surrounding the British government’s approach to negotiating the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, there is the element that there are very few people – especially outside the UK – who consider “no deal” to be an option.

Let’s take the three elements I just mentioned – proportionate, credible and deliverable – and look at each of them.

Proportionality is possibly the biggest issue here. Certainly, any deal with the EU on a future relationship is going to require some compromise and concession on the part of the UK, and that will come with associated costs. We can argue for a very long time about how one calculates such things, but in the broadest of terms, the EU holds the stronger position and the status quo ante framework, so costs are very likely to be on the UK’s sides. Those costs could be reduced by keeping divergence from the EU model to a minimum, but that in turn incurs opportunity costs to the UK, which might want to follow different options.

But a “no deal” outcome comes with much greater costs. Whilst the UK might not incur the opportunity costs just noted, it would instead both fully fall out of the EU framework and also create widespread and systemic uncertainty across a vast array of policy areas.

If you want to think of it in a different way, usually in a negotiation there is a coming-together of parties, but with the option of not concluding an agreement because the benefits aren’t sufficient: you can fall back on the status quo ante. But in this negotiation, you start with an agreement, from which one party wants to withdraw, so it becomes primarily a matter of cutting the costs of being in.

In brief, “no deal” seems to consist of avoiding costs by means of incurring much bigger costs, which is not a logically sensible approach.

And this takes us to credibility.

The very phrase “no deal is better than a bad deal” has the ring of thing-you-say: a quick check on Nexis throws up many earlier instances than the present situation, back to an October 1986 piece on the News International strike that is certainly not the first use.

However, just because it’s a thing-you-say, it doesn’t make it credible: indeed, precisely because it sounds like a line from a movie, it loses some of its force. Next time you’re out dating, try “here’s lookin’ at you, kid” and see how you do.

Moreover, the force of the option is deeply undermined by the lack of detail behind the headline claim. Regardless of the state of the impact assessments that the British government has (and is in the (slow) process of making public), none of the speeches from UK principals on Article 50 has actually explored and explained why a “no deal” path might be viable: I will spare us all the “falling back on the WTO rules” trope, if only because the only consensus seems to be that there’s no consensus (although I do recommend this).

But despite these issues, “no deal” does have one big ace up its sleeve: it’s very deliverable. As a direct function of the triggering of Article 50, it is the default option for the negotiations – something has to happen for it not to ensue, as I’ve discussed before. And as we all know, it’s easier for something to not happen than for it to happen.

In that sense, and in that sense only, it is also credible, because all the UK has to do is drag things out and it gets “no deal”. And this is really the nub of the matter.

You can see “no deal” in one of two ways. Either you believe it is a desirable outcome, in which case you just have to keep others from agreeing an alternative, or you think it’s bad not only for the UK but also for the EU, so you toy with it to encourage the EU to make concessions on the deal you actually want.

Neither option looks very sensible – the former for the costs, the latter for the clear and present danger that the game of chicken ends with you getting something you didn’t want. But both views are ultimately driven by an incomplete and particular view of the costs and benefits. To be clear, I make that last point because no one has a full and balanced view: the scope and scale of the process far exceeds anything seen in modern history: even in cases where states have had to pick up the pieces following the collapse of a system, at that previous system had collapsed, rather than remaining and requiring the simultaneous construction of a new relationship.

However, words matter and the comfort-blanket of “no deal” is one that several British ministers seem deeply reluctant to give up. But for their sakes, and for the sake of the UK, they need to recognise that it hinders much more than it helps, whatever future they are working for. Otherwise, there won’t be a lot of shakin’ going on.

thank you very much

* Of course, at some point other members of my household will come to read this and snigger at the portrayal of what is actually a more haphazard affair than that depicted. But being loyal, they will confirm the general thrust of the point, possibly in a nice comment below the line.

The post Unbelievable! The no-deal option’s lack of credibility appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Talks to form a coalition in Germany collapsed yesterday, and Mrs Merkel said that she was ready for a rerun of the September election as most parties refused to return to negotiations.

The Times reported, ‘Brexit-supporting ministers were said to be pressing Mrs May to use the turmoil of the EU’s most powerful nation to reduce Britain’s “divorce bill” before yesterday’s meeting of the cabinet sub-committee overseeing the negotiations.’

But Brexiters don’t seem to get it.

The EU is not one country. The remaining 27 EU countries are united in their resolve in their handling of Brexit. That’s not going to change whoever is the government in Germany, and in any event, Germany is just one of the EU member states.

And the idea that the British government should ‘exploit’ political difficulties in Germany is unlikely to win any favours among the EU27.

It’s widely reported today that the British government may increase its so-called ‘divorce settlement’ with the EU, so long as the EU promises to give Britain a good trade deal. This also shows complete misunderstanding.

The amount owing to the EU is not a ‘divorce settlement’; it’s the amounts Britain agreed to pay whilst we have been a member. Unless Britain wants to gain disrepute across the world for not settling its accounts, the amount has to be paid whatever happens next.

There are only four possible deals; the UK government knows this, but will not tell the British people.

˃ Deal 1 would be to stay in the EU (that’s not even an option that we are being allowed to consider, even if the country has changed its mind about Brexit; so much for democracy).

˃ Deal 2 would be to stay in the EU Single Market, like non-EU member Norway, but we would have to obey most of the rules of the EU, including free movement of people, without any say or vote on those rules, we would have to be subject to the European Court of Justice for those rules, and we would still have to pay an annual contribution to the EU.

˃ Deal 3 would be to have a third-ccountry free trade agreement like the one the EU recently signed with Canada; but it would not include services (our biggest export earner), it would not include all sectors, and it would be far inferior to staying in the EU Single Market

˃ Deal 4 would be to crash out of the EU and Single Market altogether, and rely totally on WTO rules, which would be disastrous for Britain, and many of our costs, such as for food, would shoot up.

There are no other deals possible. So, frankly, there is nothing for the UK team to negotiate.

The Prime Minister, through obstinancy, has ruled out deals one and two; she has said she wants something better than deal 3, a ‘unique arrangement like no other’ she calls it (no hope; the EU is not going to give us a better deal than they themselves enjoy – something that Mrs May actually pointed out during the referendum campaign).

Deal 4 (i.e. No Deal) is what the hard-line Brexiters in her Cabinet desperately want, but this would not be the best outcome, as the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, eloquently pointed out in his speech yesterday.

So what are these negotiations about? David Davis says he won’t agree to settle our outstanding bill with the EU until he knows what sort of deal he can achieve.

He already knows; and whichever of the options above, Britain cannot wriggle out of its financial obligations made whilst we have been a member. It’s not a ‘divorce bill’; it’s a bill of what we owe.

In the meantime, it was announced yesterday that London is losing the European Medicines Agency to Amsterdam and the European Banking Authority to Paris.

The Guardian reported today, ‘The British government was powerless to stop the relocation of these two prized regulatory bodies, secured by previous Conservative prime ministers.

‘The Department for Exiting the European Union had claimed the future of the agencies would be subject to the Brexit negotiations, a claim that caused disbelief in Brussels.’

Yesterday the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier said, “The 27 will continue to deepen the work of those agencies, together. They will share the costs for running those agencies. Our businesses will benefit from their expertise. All of their work is firmly based on the EU treaties which the UK decided to leave.”

The Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable said the suggestion by Brexit Secretary, David Davis, that the UK could keep the agencies showed “just how little grasp the government has of the potential consequences of Brexit.”

He added, “This marks the beginning of the jobs Brexodus. Large private sector organisations are also considering moving to Europe and we can expect many to do so over next few years.”

And the front page of today’s Guardian announced that Vote Leave is now under investigation by the Electoral Commission over whether it breached the £7 million EU referendum spending limit. The Commission said it had “reasonable grounds to suspect an offence may have been committed.”

Is there anyone left in the country who still thinks that Brexit has any advantages for Britain, or that last year’s referendum was fairly conducted? Apparently yes. We can only hope, for all our sakes, that they come to their senses without delay.

Britain urgently needs a legitimate, democratic opportunity to reconsider Brexit. Nobody in last year’s referendum gave their informed consent to destroy Britain.

Now we increasingly know ‘what Brexit means’, we must have the chance to say, ‘We’ve changed our minds. #StopBrexit!’

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Der Schatz an Metaphern, den der Fußball für die Politik bereithält, ist immer wieder erstaunlich. Gar nicht so einfach, ihnen zu widerstehen; sie drängen sich ja oft geradezu auf. Und oft genug gehen sie semantisch nach hinten los. Aber jetzt, da sogar Jürgen Habermas der Versuchung erlegen ist, sei es gestattet, eine seiner Vorlagen aufzunehmen.

In seinem starken Plädoyer im Spiegel, die Europa-Rede Emmanuel Macrons in der Sorbonne ernst zu nehmen und seine Ideen aufzugreifen, kam Habermas zu dem Schluss, der „Ball Europas“, den Macron im März noch „in der französischen Spielhälfte“ gesehen hatte, liege nun in der „deutschen Hälfte“.

Das Bild ist recht stimmig: tatsächlich muss der französische Präsident, laut Habermas, um mit Deutschland an einem besseren, „politisch handlungsfähigen“ Europa zu arbeiten, erst einmal gegen „die deutsche Regierung mit ihrem robusten Wirtschaftsnationalismus“ spielen.

Führt man den Gedanken und die Metapher weiter, kommt man nicht umhin, sich ein intensives französisches „Gegenpressing“ zu wünschen, um zu sehen, wie die deutsche politische Klasse mit intensivem Nachsetzen umgeht.

Copyright: Oleg Starynskyi

Für Leser, die mit den Feinheiten der Fußballtaktik weniger vertraut sind, sei kurz erklärt, was mit „Gegenpressing“ genau gemeint ist. Die damit verbundene Spielweise beruht auf der Beobachtung, dass dominante, an Ballbesitz orientierte Teams genau dann am meisten verwundbar sind, wenn sie den Ball erobert haben. In diesem Moment gilt es, sich eben nicht in die Defensive zurückzuziehen, sondern sofort koordiniert im Schwarm die ballführenden Spieler unter Druck zu setzen. Idealerweise schlägt Gegenpressing unerwartete Breschen in die gegnerische Verteidigung.

Die Art und Weise, mit der die deutsche Politik gegenwärtig die konstruktiven Vorschläge aus den Reden Emmanuel Macrons entweder ignoriert oder, im Falle der FDP, kurzerhand abbürstet, sollte man vielleicht in der Tat mit einem Gegenpressing kontern.

Von Frankreich aus erscheint die deutsche Regierung – die vorherige wie die kommende – wie eine dieser Mannschaften, die das Spiel über Jahre hinweg dominiert haben. Im Glanz ihrer vergangenen Erfolge verdrängt sie, dass sie schon in eine Phase des Niedergangs eingetreten ist. Trotzig auf ihren Gewissheiten und ihrer gegebenen Überlegenheit beharrend, verschließt sie sich neuer Spielweisen, immer unter dem Vorwand, die „Fans“ würden das nicht akzeptieren.

Wie die Welt- und die Fußballgeschichte nahelegen, ist dieser „wohlgefällige Selbstbetrug“, den Habermas diagnostiziert, ein verhängnisvoller Wahrnehmungsfehler, sowohl was die Überschätzung eigener Stärke betrifft als auch die Beibehaltung einer herablassenden, selbstgerechten Haltung gegenüber den Ideen eines jungen „Trainers“, der einen neuen Ansatz verfolgt.

Wird es Macron gelingen, die deutsche Abwehr unter Druck zu setzen? Die Hoffnung sei erlaubt. Was ihm in die Hände spielen wird, ist die Vermutung, dass die deutsche Politik das Ausmaß seiner Entschlossenheit noch gar nicht begriffen hat. Offenbar geht man davon aus, er sei mangels besserer Alternativen hauptsächlich deshalb gewählt worden, um Marine Le Pen zu vermeiden, die von einer Reihe deutscher Qualitätsmedien trotz besseren Wissens während des gesamten Wahlkampfs quasi-obsessiv als zukünftige Präsidentin auf den Titelseiten plakatiert wurde.

Im Gegensatz zu Jürgen Habermas scheint man in der deutschen politischen Klasse den ehrlichen Willen Macrons, dem europäischen Integrationsprozess neuen Schwung zu verleihen völlig zu unterschätzen, genauso wie man die geopolitische Rolle (und auch das wirtschaftliche Potential) Frankreichs systematisch herunterspielt. Vielleicht kann man sich in der deutschen Politik auch gar nicht mehr vorstellen, dass ein europäische Regierungschef sich tatsächlich traut, ein besseres Europa ganz oben auf seine Agenda zu setzen und offensiv gegenüber dem ewig skeptischen Diskurs-Trott zu verteidigen.

Wenn der gegenwärtige Koalitions-Mercato abgeschlossen und die neue Mannschaft aufgestellt sein wird, dann wird sich zeigen, wie sie reagiert, wenn ihr ein wirklich guter Spieler gegenübersteht. Emmanuel Macron ist ein Spielgestalter, der den feinen Pass in die Tiefe spielen kann. Einer, der den Mut hat, der allseits dominierenden Taktik des Europa-Bashings nicht mit einer ängstlichen Defensiv-Strategie zu begegnen, sondern offensiv dagegenzuhalten. Macron ist noch nicht abgenutzt von den langen europäischen Abenden in Brüssel und anderswo, frisch genug, um in die Verlängerung zu gehen. Es stimmt, er tendiert dazu, sich selbst an seiner Spielintelligenz und Vision zu berauschen, und nicht jede seiner Vorlagen ist allein deshalb genial, weil sie seiner Inspiration entspringen. Die eine oder andere kann schon mal im Aus landen. Aber man darf damit rechnen, dass er bei den Einwürfen wieder nachsetzt. Und wie man seit einem Jahr beobachten kann, lässt er sich von imposanten Kulissen und miesepetrigen Berichterstattern nicht einschüchtern.

Noch ist es zu früh, um vorherzusagen, ob sein Gegenpressing erfolgreich sein wird. Aber zumindest gibt es jetzt endlich wieder ein spannendes Match „auf Augenhöhe“. Schau’n mer mal!

The post Zeit fürs Gegenpressing! appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The Labour front bench sought to amend the EU (Withdrawal) Bill to ensure that after Brexit, EU derived employment rights, environmental protection, health and safety standards and consumer standards can only be amended by primary legislation.

But the amendment was slimly defeated in the Commons on Wednesday night this week.

Ken Clarke was the only Tory to vote for the amendment.

(Ken Clarke is arguably the only true Tory left in the Conservative Party: the party that had previously applied for the UK to join the European Community; the party that joined the UK to the European Community; the party that practically invented the Single Market of Europe; the party that pushed hard for the expansion of the European Union. Where is that Conservative Party now?)

During the Commons debate, Mr Clarke warned that there are some Government ministers who are “not excessively fond of workers’ rights” and retaining them after Brexit.

The former Chancellor and pro-European asked why, if the Government did not intend to water down workers’ rights after Brexit, ministers were not prepared to enshrine this in the Bill by backing the amendment?

The defeat of this amendment means that after Brexit, government ministers will be free to keep, amend or scrap EU protections and standards at their will without the usual scrutiny of Parliament – i.e. ‘secondary legislation.’

Despite voting with the Government, the former Conservative attorney general Dominic Grieve – a strong Remain supporter – warned that laws protecting such rights will be brought to the “lowest possible status” in Parliament after Brexit.

Shadow Brexit minister, Matthew Pennycook, said that Labour had put forward the amendment to the bill to prevent secondary legislation being used by future governments to “chip away at rights, entitlements, protections and standards that the public enjoy and wish to retain” after Brexit.

He added that Labour wanted to ensure that retained EU law – on employment, equality, health and safety, consumer and environment – “is accorded a level of enhanced protection that it would otherwise not enjoy”.

But of course, this is the key to what Brexit is all about. Instead of getting our country back, we’re going to lose it. The ruling classes want Brexit because they don’t want the likes of us, ordinary people, having rights that get in the way of the rich making more money, and lots of it.

Those who also thought that Brexit meant our Parliament will get more sovereignty should think again. Our Parliament is losing sovereignty; they are giving it away, eroding our democracy and our current rights and protections, with the false pretence that this is what ‘the people’ want and voted for.

MPs in the Commons also voted down an amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill put forward by Green Party MP, Caroline Lucas, by 313 votes to 295.

Her amendment sought to ensure that animals continue to be treated as sentient beings after Brexit in domestic law.

Under EU law, animals are currently recognised as being capable of feeling pain and emotion. But MPs voted to drop the inclusion of animal sentience into the Withdrawal Bill.

The Government argued during the debate that animal sentience is already covered by the Animal Welfare Act 2006.

But Farming UK reported the RSPCA as saying that this wasn’t the case. RSPCA Head of Public Affairs David Bowles said it was a “truly backward step” for animal welfare.

“It’s shocking that MPs have given the thumbs down to incorporating animal sentience into post-Brexit UK law,” Mr Bowles explained.

Mr Bowles added that the decision by Parliament “flies in the face” of the Environment Secretary Michael Gove’s pledge for high animal welfare standards post-Brexit.

“In the EU, we know that the recognition of animals as sentient beings has been effective in improving animal welfare across the region” he said. “If the UK is to achieve the Environment Secretary’s objective of achieving the highest possible animal welfare post-Brexit, it must do the same.”

During the debate on Labour’s amendment to ensure that EU rights and protections are protected after Brexit – known as ‘new clause 58’ – Shadow Brexit minister, Mr Pennycook, explained that a substantial part of UK employment rights is derived from EU law, and an even larger body is guaranteed by EU law.

“As such,” said Mr Pennycook, “key workers’ rights enjoy a form of enhanced protection.”

He added that, “Those include:

• protections against discrimination owing to sex, pregnancy, race, disability, religion and belief, age, and sexual orientation;

• equal pay between men and women for work of equal value;

• health and safety protection for pregnant women, and their rights to maternity leave;

• a degree of equal treatment, in broad terms, for the growing number of fixed-term, part-time and agency workers;

• rights to protected terms and conditions, and rights not to be dismissed on the transfer of an undertaking;

• and almost all the law on working time, including paid annual leave and limits on daily and weekly working time.”

Mr Pennycook warned that whilst the Government had promised to ensure that workers’ rights are fully protected and maintained after the UK’s departure from the EU, “in the absence of stronger legal safeguards, there are good reasons to be sceptical about that commitment.”

He reminded the Commons that, “Prominent members of the Cabinet are on record as having called for workers’ rights to be removed.”

For example, Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, had written that we need “to root out the nonsense of the social chapter—the working time directive and the atypical work directive and other job-destroying regulations.”

During the referendum, the then Minister for Employment, Priti Patel, called for the UK to “halve the burdens of EU social and employment legislation”.

The newest member of the Brexit ministerial team—Lord Callanan—has openly called for the scrapping of the working time directive, the temporary agency work directive, the pregnant workers directive and “all the other barriers to actually employing people.”

The LibDem Brexit spokesman, Tom Brake, interjected to make the point that the inventor, James Dyson, had also said last week that he welcomes the fact that leaving the EU means “he will be able to hire and fire people more easily.”

Mr Pennycook concluded the arguments for his proposed amendment by saying:

“We should not take risks with rights, standards and protections that have been underpinned by EU law.

“Hard-won employment entitlements, along with entitlements relating to the environment, health and safety, equalities and consumer rights, should not be vulnerable to steady erosion by means of secondary legislation outside of the powers contained in this Bill.

“In future, Ministers should be able to change the workers’ rights and other rights that came from the EU only through primary legislation, with a full debate in Parliament. On that basis, I urge hon. Members on both sides of the House to support new clause 58.”

But Conservative MPs spoke strongly against the amendment; indeed, all the proposed amendments to the Bill were lost last night, as one after the other the government managed to have them voted down.

Tory MP, Priti Patel, who lost her job last week as Secretary of State for International Development said, “Over the past 45 years, the European Communities Act 1972 has been the mechanism by which the sovereignty of this Parliament has been eroded, with more areas of law being taken over by the EU. The Bill puts all those EU laws, regulations and other measures under our control.”

Conservative MP, James Cleverly asked Ms Patel if she agreed that, “the implication that somehow Britain would be a horrible, ungovernable place were it not for the benign guiding hand of the European Parliament and European legislators is a massive insult not just to Members, but to every single person in the country?” She replied that was “an important point.”

Tory back bencher and leading Brexiter, John Redwood tried to offer reassurance:

“I have heard strong assurances from all parties that there is absolutely no wish to water down employment protections or environmental protections, and I see absolutely no evidence that anyone would try to do that,” he said.

“I am quite sure that, were they to try, they would soon discover that there was an overwhelming majority in the Commons, on the Government and Opposition Benches, of very many people who would say, “You cannot do that,” and we would have every intention of voting it down.” 

But Labour back bencher, a strong Remain supporter, Chuka Umunna, said it was important to have more than assurances to protect some of the vital rights that are currently protected in EU law. “In particular, we should protect their [current] enhanced status,” he said.

Mr Umunna made the point that during the debate, the Solicitor General and other Government Members were asking the House to give Ministers “the benefit of the doubt regarding these rights, particularly the employment law rights.”

He said, “We are being asked to give Ministers our confidence that they will protect these rights.”

But he warned:

“Since I joined the House, I have seen the Government – first the coalition and then the current Conservative Government – ride roughshod, unfortunately, over some of the vital employment rights that people enjoy.” 

However, at precisely 6:44pm the Commons voted 299 votes to 311 against the proposed amendment to protect the current status of EU protections and rights.

As Ken Clarke said during the debate, if the Government did not intend to water down workers rights after Brexit, why wasn’t the government prepared to back the amendment protecting those rights after Britain leaves the EU?

Isn’t it true that Parliament has just burnt our right to rights?

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The upsides of getting older are relatively few and far between, but one of the best is that you get to annoy younger people by dragging up things from the past that they have no memory of.

And so it’s been this week: I’ve been musing on the late 1980s and the oddities of monetary policy, while several of my colleagues have sat there, giving me the smile you give old people when they start off again.

Since you’ve got this far, I’ll assume you’re either: a) at least as old as I am, or: b) one of those particularly bright young people, genuinely wishing to learn from the past. Your pick.

So back in the 1980s and early 1990s, much of British European policy was about money, and specifically Sterling’s relationship with the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). In essence, the government sought to find an accommodation with that system that tried to satisfy several policy objectives at once.

Most importantly, it was trying to stabilise Sterling’s position in forex markets: the eighties had been rather a rollercoaster, with big impacts on public finances (and thus public policy). Secondly, the hardening of ERM – fewer and fewer changes in central target rates between member currencies – was making the block an ever more important reference point for the British economy, not least in the broader context of the 1992 single market programme. And finally, there was a big bunch of party politics going on, as Thatcher moved into her later years in office.

The failure of multilateral instruments in the early and mid 1980s seemed to close down that route, so the Treasury – which then ran the Bank of England and exchange rate policy – cast around for other options: if you’d like a good summary of all this, then Philip Stephens’ Politics and the Pound should be your first port of call.

For a year, from early 1987, the option that was followed was shadowing of the Deutschmark, but in secret. The then Chancellor, Nigel Lawson (father of Nigella, younger readers), instructed the Bank to keep the exchange rate just under 3.00DM, but never formulated it as formal policy, nor discussed it with anyone else.

Of course, the rapid mounting up of foreign reserves and the large amount of public speculation eventually brought this to a close, when Thatcher shut the door on it, just in time to cut the legs from under Lawson’s 1988 budget. This seemed to harden his resolve to move towards ERM membership and so to his sacking by Thatcher.

However, Thatcher’s determination not to join was ultimately undermined by her Cabinet’s insistence, including of the men brought in to replace her old guard. Eventually, Sterling did join in 1990, in the dying days of Thatcher’s premiership, but at a rate that was to prove unsustainable. In September 1992, that pressure led to Sterling’s ejection - Black Wednesday - which both trashed the Conservative’s reputation as economic managers for a generation, while also lying the conditions for a period of strong economic growth.

So what, grandad?

The reason this all comes back to mind is that some parallels with the Brexit process seem to be in order.

Most obviously, the episode points to the importance of credibility in commitments. The UK is about to move into a period where it is managing a divergent relationship with the EU, potentially with much of that resting on unilateral commitments to respect EU regulation. The Withdrawal Bill will be the mainstay of this, but there will necessarily be a need for more general political commitment to playing by externally-set rules.

The ERM saga highlights the difficulties of doing such a thing when others either don’t know you’re doing that or don’t believe you’re doing it. Money markets were able to make sizeable profits off playing government policy: Black Wednesday famously saw fortunes made, as speculators refused to believe that the BoE would reservedly back Sterling, and that other central banks would do the same. That the Bundesbank seemed indifferent to the fate of Sterling merely underlined matters – all the more so a year later, then it fought hard to keep the French Franc in.

Clearly, credibility is in equally short supply now: European partners remain unclear about the UK’s intent post-withdrawal, even as the UK faces much pressure to carve out exceptions and changes to the acquis in the medium-term. Even if the UK commits now to retaining that acquis, that seems to be a less-than secure guarantee of equal standards and procedures, which in turn raises questions of market access.

But the period also raises issues of British particularity. It was evident that economic cycles weren’t synchronised – and that no one was prepared to try to synchronise them – and that shocks tended to be asymmetric: Bernard Connelly’s Rotten Heart of Europe is a great bit of economic analysis (sprinkled with a pile of rage). The fundamentals weren’t really in place to help the policy work, whatever the politics.

The question is whether that has now changed. We’re 30 years on from shadowing and market integration has proceeded afoot, but it’s worth reflecting on whether economics might lead politics once more. The strengthening of the Eurozone and the weakening of the British economy will create a number of incentives to act that might not align with the political imperatives.

And finally, this blast from the past poses the big question of who’s in control. The ERM ‘stab in the back’ was a big part in the myth-making around Thatcher – she was right to fight off membership, and we shouldn’t trust those who seek European policy solutions – but in the end, the main message seemed to be that markets set exchange rates, not politicians, whatever their politics.

Of course, we worry less about exchange rates than we used to. But the point still holds: the economic effects of Brexit will be sizeable, to the point that either the British government nor the EU can mitigate or avoid them fully, even if they wanted to.

This doesn’t mean that policy-makers shouldn’t try, but rather that they should be frank about the limits to their power and about the range of potential outcomes. One hallmark of the late 1980s-early 1990s was that all these policy issues were debated and decided within a very small circle of politicians. Their failings contributed to the weakening of trust that now makes our current situation all the more challenging.

If I were being dull I’d close by wheeling out the old Santayana quote about the past, but while hunting for the reference I noted another quote from his Life in Reason: “Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.” Something else to think about, as you get older.

The post A trip down memory lane: Shadowing, ERM and lessons for Brexit appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Today’s front page of The Guardian gives a non-cryptic clue: ‘Russia backed Brexit in fake Twitter posts’.

And today’s front page of The Times claimed, ‘Russia used web posts “to disrupt” Brexit vote.’

The newspaper dramatically claimed, ‘Russian Twitter accounts posted almost 45,000 messages about Brexit in 48 hours during last year’s referendum in an apparently coordinated attempt to sow discord.’

The Guardian claimed, ‘Concern about Russian influence in British politics has intensified as it emerged that more than 400 fake Twitter accounts believed to be run from St Petersburg published posts about Brexit.’

The paper reported that:

“Researchers at the University of Edinburgh identified 419 accounts operating from the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) attempting to influence UK politics out of 2,752 accounts suspended by Twitter in the US.”

The Times reported on separate research by data scientists at Swansea University and the University of California in Berkeley, claiming that more than 150,000 accounts based in Russia switched their attention to Brexit in the days leading up to the referendum vote.

Apparently, the messages were automatically created by ‘bots’ or cyborg accounts, and the analysis suggests they were viewed hundreds of millions of times.

The Times said that most of the Tweets they had investigated, ‘encouraged people to vote for Brexit, an outcome which Russia would have regarded as destabilising for the European Union.’

However, a number of the Russian Tweets were pro-Remain, according to The Times report, suggesting that the goal may have been simply to sow discord.

Commented Damian Collins, the Tory MP who chairs the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee:

“This is the most significant evidence yet of interference by Russian-backed social media accounts around the Brexit referendum.”

Mr Collins added:

“The content published and promoted by these accounts is clearly designed to increase tensions throughout the country and undermine our democratic process. I fear that this may well be just the tip of the iceberg.”

This week Prime Minister, Theresa May, accused Moscow of using fake news to “sow discord” and of meddling directly in elections.

The Times reported that one Russian Tweeter, Svetlana Lukyanchenko, living in the small town of Gelendzhik, used her Twitter name of Sveta1972 to post a series of pro-Brexit Tweets in the four days leading up to the EU referendum.

She Tweeted, for example, that the EU was an “unelected assembly of corporatist agents” imposing debt and austerity “on all member states”. But after the referendum she suddenly stopped Tweeting about Brexit altogether.

According to researchers Sveta1972 was one of thousands of suspect Russian accounts tweeting copiously about Brexit in the run-up to last year’s vote.

According to The Guardian, a number of Russian tweets have been identified by Twitter Inc.

One of them, by someone in Russia with the name, @SouthLoneStar, reportedly Tweeted: “I hope UK after #BrexitVote will start to clean their land from muslim invasion!” and “UK voted to leave future European Caliphate! #BrexitVote.”

The Russian government has strongly denied that it interfered with the EU referendum. President Putin said after last year’s vote, “We closely followed the voting but never interfered or sought to influence it.”

But there is little doubt that many in the Moscow hierarchy welcomed the Brexit outcome.

Commented The Guardian:

“An EU without Britain would be less united on sanctions against Russia, many Russian officials hoped, because it would lose one of its stronger foreign policy voices and would be too consumed with its own internal problems to prioritise Russia policy.”

Last year, the former US ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, said Britain’s vote to leave the EU was “a giant victory for Putin’s foreign policy objectives”.

Writing for InFacts today, Dennis McShane, a former Minister for Europe and Labour MP commented:

‘The Russian president told Bloomberg in September 2016 that Brexit would lead to a smaller EU. Putin has always resented having to deal with the EU and insisted that only bilateral relations mattered for Russia.’

Mr McShane added:

‘At the Lord Mayor’s Banquet this week Theresa May attacked Putin for interfering in elections in the West. She did not mention Brexit as she has to pander to the Brexit hardliners in the cabinet and Conservative Party. But there are also many Tories who care deeply about standing up to Russia.

‘If more evidence surfaces that the narrow Brexit result was influenced by an unfriendly foreign power, it will be harder to argue that a stolen poll should be the final word on Britain’s relationship with its friendly neighbours.’

So, here’s the bottom line. Russia, a proud nation, is still wounded by the loss of its empire, the Soviet Union.

Most of the former countries and territories that had been shackled behind the Iron Curtain for decades decided to join the European Union after they had won their freedom almost 30 years ago.

Those former Communist countries are now proud of their independence as returned-members of our European family, as members of the EU, and they are doing well.

Those former Communities living in the sphere of the Soviet Union are now our continent’s fastest growing economies since they joined the European Union.

Poland, for example, sailed through the world-wide economic crisis unscathed. Since 2007 its economy has grown by a third, and it now has Europe’s fastest growing number of millionaires.

And Romania was recently described by The Economist magazine as ‘the tiger economy of Europe’.

Both Poland and Romania are economically stable countries, with low inflation, relatively low public debt (public debt of Romania is only at 39% of the GDP), low interest rates and a relatively stable exchange rate.

GDP growth in Romania is around 4% and in Poland around 3.5% – rates that our British government could only dream about. British businesses are significantly benefiting from the export markets in both Poland and Romania.

Former USSR member, Estonia, has become the world’s most advanced country in the use of internet technologies. Just a generation ago, it was still under Soviet domination as a very poor backwater on the Baltic Sea. Now it is a developed country and a member of both the EU and NATO.

But many of these countries fear that Russia wants its old territory back.

Last June, Russia sent 2,500 troops to its border near Latvia and Estonia, making the people of those countries fear that their giant neighbour is planning conflict and annexation.

Newsweek reported at the time, ‘Concern has been mounting for years among some European officials over whether Russia could strike the Baltics following its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.’

Anxiety about a possible war in the Baltics remains high, with most citizens of Lithuania and Latvia citing armed conflict as their prime concern.

Russia has formally denied it would ever attack a member of NATO, which the three Baltic countries of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are. But the promises of Moscow diplomats have done little to assuage worries in the former Soviet Union states that are now established members of the EU.

Last month Der Spiegel magazine reported on a leaked NATO report that it would be unable to repel a Russian attack on its Eastern European members.

Poland as well as Scandinavian and Baltic member states feel threatened by Russia and have urged the alliance to bolster its eastern flank against possible aggression.

Are we going to see an attempt by Russia to try and recreate something similar to the USSR?

Several prominent Brexiters have already expressed that their goal is to see the end of the European Union.

Conservative MP Steve Baker, one of the government’s Brexit negotiators, said in 2010 that he wanted to see the European Union “wholly torn down.”

Michael Gove, MP, now the Environment Secretary, said similar comments during the referendum. He said, “Britain voting to leave will be the beginning of something potentially even more exciting – the democratic liberation of a whole continent.”

He described Britain’s departure from the EU as “a contagion” that could spread across Europe.

Nigel Farage said on Talk Radio in Spain that he didn’t stop at Britain leaving the EU; he wanted to see “Europe out of the European Union” – in other words, the complete disintegration of the European Single Market.

These are the friends of Russia’s implicit aims.

The choice may come down to this:

• Do we support a European Union, that brings together our family of European countries in peace and prosperity; a cohesion we should not disrupt or harm with Brexit?

• Or do we support a new kind of Soviet Union, in which once again we lose those countries which only a short time ago re-joined us, and want to stay with us in our Union of Europe?

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Every day newspapers such as the Daily Mail and Daily Express print articles that promote hatred of migrants and the EU generally.

‘Too many EU migrants’ was cited as one of the main reasons people voted for Leave in last year’s referendum.

Yesterday Prime Minister, Theresa May, gave a speech at the Lord Mayor’s banquet in London, accusing Russia of using fake news to ‘sow discord in the West’. That may be true, but Mrs May should also look closer to home for the impact of fake news.

Last week, Mrs May attended a party to honour Paul Dacre’s 25th year as editor of the Daily Mail, the newspaper that has probably done more than any other to spread hatred of migrants and of the EU through misleading news.

Also yesterday, the European Commission announced that it is tackling fake news as part of a wider effort to protect democracy across Europe. 

This is in response to a resolution passed by the European Parliament last June, calling on the Commission to analyse the current situation and legal framework regarding fake news, and to verify the possibility of legislation to limit the spreading of fake news content

First Vice-President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans said:

“The freedom to receive and impart information and the pluralism of the media are enshrined in the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights.

He added: 

“We live in an era where the flow of information and misinformation has become almost overwhelming. That is why we need to give our citizens the tools to identify fake news, improve trust online, and manage the information they receive.”

The EU Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, Mariya Gabriel said: 

“Fake news is a direct threat to the very foundations of our democratic society.”

Ms Gabriel announced the Commission’s plans to set up a ‘High-Level Expert Group’ representing academics, online platforms, news media and civil society organisations to look into the problem of fake news. There will also be wide level consultations with the public about the impact of fake news to conclude in February next year.

She said: 

“At the heart of my action lies the defence of citizens’ right to quality information which is a cornerstone of our democracies. I want to have an open and broad discussion about fake news to address this complex phenomenon in order to overcome the challenges ahead of us.”

Most internet traffic is spread through Google, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter. The Commissioner explained that fake news is easily disseminated with little effort via these US-owned platforms.

She added that people can purchase 20,000 comments for €5,000 and another €2,600 will buy up to 300,000 social media followers. “This type of manipulation is possible because there is an offer to provide these services,” she said.

Regulators are facing a difficult debate on balancing fake news and fundamental rights such as the freedom of expression.

Commented Andrus Ansip, the Commission’s Vice-President for the Digital Single Market 

“We need to find a balanced approach between the freedom of expression, media pluralism and a citizens’ right to access diverse and reliable information. All the relevant players like online platforms or news media should play a part in the solution.”

The Commission said that citizens, social media platforms, news organisations, researchers and public authorities are all invited to share their views in the public consultation until mid-February. The Commission added that it will, “gather opinions on what actions could be taken at EU level to give citizens effective tools to identify reliable and verified information and adapt to the challenges of the digital age. 

• My campaign, Reasons2Remain, is profoundly concerned about fake news being propagated by some of our leading newspapers to promote Brexit, in addition to the problem of social media being used to spread misinformation.

Jon Danzig giving his speech at an international media conference about newspaper lies.

► Watch my 14-minute video, ‘How fake news caused Brexit’. I shall be submitting this film and other evidence to the European Commission’s Public Consultation on Fake News.

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Remembrance Sunday is held in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth as a day “to commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts”.

Of course, we must never forget those who gave their lives in service to our country. We especially owe a great debt to all those who helped to save this country – and the rest of Europe – from the terrible onslaught of the Nazi regime in the Second World War.

But as well as remembering all those who fought so hard and valiantly during times of war and conflict, we should also remember all those who worked so hard and valiantly to help to avoid wars and conflicts.

The European Economic Community – later to be called the European Union – was started in the aftermath of the Second World War with one purpose and one purpose alone: to avoid wars on our continent ever happening again.

That was the passionate resolve of those who are regarded as the eleven founders of the European Union, including our own war leader, Winston Churchill.

After all, Europe had a long and bloody history of resolving its differences through war, and indeed, the planet’s two world wars originated right here, on our continent.

So the EU was never just an economic agreement between nations.

It was always also meant to be a social and political union of European nations to enable them to find ways not just to trade together, but to co-exist and co-operate in harmony and peace on many levels as a community of nations.

The goal, in the founding document of the European Union called the Treaty of Rome, was to achieve ‘ever closer union among the peoples of Europe’ (which is rather different to ‘ever closer union of nations’.)

Just one year after the Second World War, in 1946, Winston Churchill made his famous speech in Zurich, Switzerland in which he said:

“We must build a kind of United States of Europe. The structure of the United States of Europe, if well and truly built, will be such as to make the material strength of a single state less important.”

At the time Churchill did not envisage Britain joining the new Union of Europe, but he was later to change his mind.

In March 1957 the European Economic Community (EEC) was established by its six founding nations, France, Italy, West Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg.

This was a remarkable achievement, considering that these countries only a few years previously had been fighting in a most terrible war, and four of the founding nations had been viciously subjugated by another of the founders, Germany, during their Nazi regime.

In a speech four months later in July 1957 at Westminster’s Central Hall, Churchill welcomed the formation of the EEC by the six, provided that “the whole of free Europe will have access”. Churchill added, ”we genuinely wish to join..”

But Churchill also warned:

“If, on the other hand, the European trade community were to be permanently restricted to the six nations, the results might be worse than if nothing were done at all – worse for them as well as for us. It would tend not to unite Europe but to divide it – and not only in the economic field.”

Maybe this is the point that many Brexiters simply don’t get.

Here in Britain we don’t seem to understand the founding purpose of the European Union – and on the rest of the continent, they don’t understand why we don’t understand.

The European Union isn’t just about economics and trade, and never was.

It’s about peace, and a community of nations of our continent working together for the benefit and protection of its citizens.

We are now rebuffing our allies in Europe, telling them by our actions and words that the precious, remarkable and successful post-war project to find peace and security on our continent isn’t as important to us as it is to them.

Will our friendship and relationship with the rest of our continent ever recover?

• Photo: central Rotterdam on 14 May 1940 after the bombardment by German war planes.  Around 900 people died and vast swathes of the city were destroyed in the bombing. Almost 80,000 people lost their homes when parts of the city became ‘a sea of fire’. Photo: German federal archives via Wikimedia Commons.

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On 9 May 1948, Winston Churchill, Britain’s war-time Prime Minister, addressed the European rally held in Amsterdam, during which he said:

We hope to reach again a Europe united but purged of the slavery of ancient, classical times, a Europe in which men will be proud to say:

We hope to see a Europe where men of every country will think as much of being a European as of belonging to their native land, and that without losing any of their love and loyalty of their birthplace.

We hope wherever they go in this wide domain, to which we set no limits in the European Continent, they will truly feel:

Let us meet together. Let us work together. Let us do our utmost – all that is in us – for the good of all.

How simple it would all be, how crowned with blessings for all of us if that could ever come, especially for the children and young men and women now growing up in this tortured world.

How proud we should all be if we had played any useful part in bringing that great day to come. And here I invoke the interest of the broad, proletarian masses. We see before our eyes scores of millions of humble homes in Europe and in lands outside which have been afflicted by war.

Are they never to have a chance to thrive and flourish? Is the honest, faithful, breadwinner never to be able to reap the fruits of his labour? Can he never bring up his children in health and joy and with the hopes of better days?

Can he never be free from the fear of foreign invasion, the crash of the bomb and the shell, the tramp of the hostile patrol, or what is even worse, the knock upon his door by the political police to take the loved one from the protection of law and justice, when all the time by one spontaneous effort of his will he could wake from all these nightmare horrors and stand forth in his manhood, free in the broad light of day?

But if we are to achieve, this supreme reward we must lay aside every impediment; we must conquer ourselves.

We must rise to a level higher than the grievous injuries we have suffered or the deep hatreds they have caused. Old feuds must die. Territorial ambitions must be set aside.

National rivalries must be confined to the question as to who can render the most distinguished service to the common cause.

Moreover, we must take all necessary steps and particular precautions to make sure that we have the power and the time to carry out this transformation of the western world.

Much of this of course belongs to the responsibilities of the chosen governments responsible in so many countries.

But we have gathered together at The Hague, to proclaim here and to all the world the mission, the aim and the design of a United Europe, whose moral conceptions will win the respect and gratitude of mankind and whose physical strength will be such that none will dare molest her tranquil sway.

• Link to Churchill’s full address in Amsterdam on 9 May 1948

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A recently published book: “Wir können nicht allen helfen” – of which the title translates into English as we cannot help everyone – is about the moral dilemma now facing Germany as a consequence of the refugee crisis. The book is an account by Boris Palmer – the mayor of Tübingen, a town in the state of Baden-Würtemburg in Germany – who was responsible for providing accommodation for refugees in the summer of 2015, when there was an influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees into Germany. In the book Palmer debates the limits of Germany’s resilience when it comes to integrating over 1.16 million asylum seekers, who arrived in Germany over a period from 2015 to 2016.

The book is interesting because it is written by a green politician, who comes from a political tradition of left wing politics: which has always put the rights of minorities and disadvantaged groups such as refugees fleeing persecution as well as environmental protection at the centre of its policies. Therefore Palmer can inform the reader of the challenges and problems of mass immigration without having an anti-immigrant agenda, which would not have been the case if he had been a member of the right wing AfD party.

In 2015 the town of Tübingen had a population of 85,000 people. By the autumn of that year according to estimates the influx of refugees entering Germany had reached around 800,000, which was set to rise to over one million people at the start of 2016. Palmer explains that as the refugees were distributed to locations across Germany, Tübingen was expected to receive a proportion of one thousandth of the refugee population. This meant the town had to accommodate around 1000 extra people within a period of 18 months, which was likely to rise to around 2000 within a period of 30 months, if the numbers of refugees entering Germany had continued at the same rate. Many of the refugees had fled from the war in Syria and northern Iraq, and had reached Austria and Germany via the Balkan route after first passing through Turkey and Greece.

The first challenge for many local communities in Germany was to find temporary accommodation for the new arrivals. In Tübingen emergency accommodation was provided for refugees in the regional sports hall. This meant that local people had to find other sports venues, which they accepted in a spirit of good faith and solidarity under the exceptional circumstances. In the autumn of 2015 the local authority made 400 spaces available in the sports hall which soon filled up.

It was not long before conditions in the sports hall started to become unpleasant: there were protests and fights amongst some of those who were sheltering there; in February 2016 complaints were made by refugees to a local newspaper that they had been living at the sports centre for months; they also made complaints about the food provided by the local authority there. Employees of the local authority reported to Palmer that they had found the toilets in the sports centre in a terrible condition, saying excrement had been smeared on the toilet walls. A contributing factor to the bad behaviour in the sports hall was the consumption of alcohol by some of the men staying there.

In the book Palmer does not want to put all the blame for the disorder in the sports hall on the newcomers staying there, recognizing that if 400 local Schwabens had been put in such accommodation, it would have ended up with people fighting each other. Part of the problem for all local authorities at that time – after such a large and sudden influx of people – was that resources were overstretched, and it was difficult to find enough social housing for the newcomers.

Palmer wrote of the difficulty of trying to integrate large numbers of people into German society who did not speak German. He was concerned that politicians in central government had not considered the problems of finding employment for people who came from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and several African countries, many of whom had arrived in Germany without formal qualifications or training. It was estimated that 80 percent of the refugees would not be considered qualified in the German employment market; and that the integration of these people into the country’s employment market once all the necessary education and training had been provided would take a decade.

One of the concerns that many people in Germany had, was the large proportion of young single men among the refugees. Many of these men arrived without being accompanied by any of their family members. German parents of girls – fearing for the safety of their daughters – were willing to accept refugee families in their neighbourhoods, but were unhappy about the single men being accommodated nearby.

At the time of writing this review the reviewer is not aware that “Wir können nicht allen helfen” has been translated into English for sale in the United Kingdom. He bought a copy of the book in its original German language at a bookshop in Cologne, Germany, and has read it and then written a review of it in English. This book is very important to understand the political situation in Germany and the rest of Europe.

In 2015 Angela Merkel made a massive political miscalculation, by opening Germany’s borders to such a large influx of people who were not EU citizens. Many people in Germany have felt that the needs of refugees have been put before those of local people. For many Germans – who are struggling to hold down three minimum wage part time jobs, or are unemployed on Hartz IV subsistence benefit – the newcomers are seen as invaders competing for jobs and housing as well as pushing down pay and conditions for German workers. As a consequence of this situation the AfD was able to win around 13 percent of the vote in the German election of September 2017.

©Jolyon Gumbrell 2017

Sources

Palmer, Boris (2017) Wir können nicht allen helfen, Siedler Verlag München, ISBN 978-3-8275-0107-3.

https://www.randomhouse.de/Buch/Wir-koennen-nicht-allen-helfen/Boris-Palmer/Siedler/e526754.rhd

The review entitled “When it is impossible to help everyone” was first published on Jolyon’s Review on 10th November 2017 at http://jolyonsreview.co.uk/bookreviews.htm

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Roland Bloch and Alexander Mitterle

Universities have become central crossing points in modern society. They coproduce the narratives of our time, ranging from politics over neurogenetics to climate change. Universities educate students for diverse roles in society: nurses, musicians, lawyers, physicists, managers, neuroscientists, and philosophers have all been credentialized by higher education systems. In recent decades, there has been a consistent increase in the number of participants in higher education. The move from elite to mass education, has led to the emergence of an expansive, self-enforcing dynamic (Trow 2006).

Mass education implies that higher education has become crucial to securing access to labor markets, especially to positions with higher social status (Collins 1979). Over the decades, scholars have confirmed that educational credentials are door openers, which legitimate exclusive access to high-status professions and lead to occupational attainment (Abbott 2005). With the expansion of higher education, a growing differentiation, professionalization, and stratification within higher education systems can be perceived (Teichler 2008). Surprisingly, there has been less attention paid to how exactly the organization and (vertical) structure of higher education impacts on social structures and on occupational attainment. Beyond acknowledging the role of higher education in constructing elites, there has been a serious lack of research on the link between higher education and high-status positions.

Bringing the university back in

While acknowledging the important work that emphasizes the role of higher education in reproducing elites, our new book ‘Universities and the Production of Elites. Discourses, Policies, and Strategies of Excellence and Stratification in Higher Education’ (Bloch, Mitterle, Paradeise and Peter 2018) focusses on how universities as organizations produce elites.

As education provider and a research institution, the university “forms basic ideologies and creates academic degrees and expertise around these ideologies” (Baker 2014, p. 84). As a “sieve”, “incubator” or “hub” of society (Stevens et al. 2008), it both co-constructs and legitimizes “new classes of personnel with new types of authoritative knowledge” (Meyer 1977, p. 56). As an organization its forms of educational provision and its ties with the labour market are impacted by constant policy changes in the name of internationalization, excellence, New Public Management, quality improvement, efficiency and cost reduction (Paradeise and Thoenig 2015; Bloch and Mitterle 2017).

The aim of our book is to highlight the relationship between higher education institutions and the production of elites by focusing on how organizational change and increasing stratification in higher education impact on – or try to adjust to – the production of new elites for labor markets and academia. Its purpose is to provide new empirical and theoretical perspectives on this relationship and it focuses on the role of the university, rather than the labor market.

Discourses, policies, and strategies of excellence and stratification

The contributions originate from a small, intense workshop held at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in September 2015. The workshop brought together scholars from Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States to explore these issues. The endeavor is of course much greater than an edited book can handle. We see it as a starting point for a longer discussion. It thus provides relevant theoretical approaches that help to think the relationship anew, such as discourse analysis, new institutionalism, institutional habitus approaches, or visibility theory. The approaches are developed along concrete case studies in the respective countries on multiple levels along which this ordering takes place (such as programs, organizational units, universities, global business school fields, and nation states).

The book begins with addressing some of the discursive rationales that underlie recent policy changes toward increasing stratification in higher education and that emphasize individual actorhood, responsiveness, and competition. We then examine how governments take up these rationales – in response to massification and internationalization in higher education – when formulating policy changes. Examples from Finland, France, Germany, and Ireland describe how such policy changes impact on and reshape the structure of higher education systems. Policy devices that exemplify verticality in programs and institutions (such as rankings) are key to implementing and sustaining these changes in higher education. We show how policy devices – as objective status distributors – make hierarchies visible along specific indicators and how such devices impact on universities. Universities respond to these policy changes by adjusting to status demands. Common indicators play an important role in comparative positioning but local organizational arrangements are very heterogeneous. With regard to educational pathways, we draw on case studies from China, the United States, and Germany (business education and doctoral programs) to show how universities and their schools seek to employ international faculty, visualize elite architectures, or build privileged pathways to job positions. Finally, we discuss the role of specific logics of elite production. Examples from the United States and France each show that even if internationalization strategies are in place and although universities are global institutions, they still largely follow national production logics in the way that they educate and socialize their students.

Connecting the various empirical studies in this book opens up a new perspective for future research on the nexus between higher education and labor markets. The vertical differences and the way that they rebuild higher education matter, and they matter particularly for educational pathways leading to high-status positions.

Roland Bloch is a research associate at the Institute of Sociology and the Center for School and Educational Research at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. He received his PhD at University of Leipzig with a dissertation on the study reforms in the course of the Bologna process and has worked on the structure of academic work at German universities. His latest research concerns stratifications in higher education, especially doctoral education.

Alexander Mitterle is a research associate at the Institute for Sociology and the Center for School and Educational Research at Martin-Luther-University. His recent research focuses on the development of stratification in German higher education. He has worked and published on various aspects of higher education including internationalization, private higher education, teaching structure and time as well as real-socialist higher education.

References

Abbott, A. (2005). ‘Linked Ecologies: States and Universities as Environments for Professions‘. Sociological Theory, 23(3), pp. 245–274.

Baker, D.P. (2014). The Schooled Society: The Educational Transformation of Global Culture. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.

Bloch, R. and Mitterle, A. (2017). On stratification in changing higher education: The ‘analysis of status’ revisited, Higher Education, 73(6), pp. 929–946. DOI: 10.1007/s10734-017-0113-5.

Bloch, R., Mitterle, A., Paradeise, C. and Peter, T. (eds.) (2018). Universities and the Production of Elites. Discourses, Policies, and Strategies of Excellence and Stratification in Higher Education. Palgrave Studies in Global Higher Education. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Collins, R. (1979). The credential society: an historical sociology of education and stratification. New York: Academic Press.

Meyer, J.W. (1977). The Effects of Education as an Institution. The American Journal of Sociology, 83(1), pp. 55–77.

Paradeise, C. and Thoenig, J.C. (2015). In search of academic quality. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Stevens, M.L., Armstrong, E.A. and Arum, R. (2008). Sieve, Incubator, Temple, Hub: Empirical and Theoretical Advances in the Sociology of Higher Education. Annual Review of Sociology, 34(1), pp. 127–151.

Teichler, U. (2008). Diversification? Trends and explanations of the shape and size of higher education, Higher Education, 56(3), pp. 349–379. DOI: 10.1007/s10734-008-9122-8.

Trow, Martin (2006). Reflections on the transition from elite to mass to universal access: forms and phases of higher education in modern societies since WWII. In: James J. F. Forest und Philip G. Altbach eds., International Handbook of Higher Education. Vol. 1. Global Themes and Contemporary Challenges. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 243-280.

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Twenty-eight years ago today, on 9 November 1989, the people of Berlin – east and west – joined together to dismantle the wall that had cruelly separated their city for twenty-eight years.

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

It’s an event worth remembering and celebrating.

But there is also another event that happened on this day in history that we should surely also not forget, but which we cannot celebrate.

On this day, on 9 November 1938, commenced 48-hours of ‘Kristallnacht’, also known as ‘The night of broken glass’.

Throughout Germany and Austria, Nazi Stormtroopers – ‘Brown shirts’ – together with non-Jewish civilians, commenced a co-ordinated series of vicious attacks against Jewish people and their properties.

The name Kristallnacht comes from the millions of fragments of shattered glass strewn across the streets after Jewish homes, shops, buildings, schools, hospitals and synagogues were ransacked and their windows mercilessly smashed with boots and sledge hammers.

Over 1,000 synagogues and 7,000 Jewish businesses were destroyed. At least 91 Jewish people were killed and 30,000 arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps. The two nights of terror were widely reported by the media and sent shock waves around the world.

Soon these events led to the Holocaust, which saw the horrific, industrial-scale murder of 11 million victims across most of Europe, including six million Jewish people.

It was arranged with meticulous calculated efficiency by the Nazi regime, which was only eventually defeated by the combined forces of Russia, USA, Britain and their Allies following a terrifying five-year world war.

But instead of celebrating liberation following the end of Nazism in 1945, half of Europe’s countries were then consumed by another totalitarian regime, Communism.

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

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

When I visited Amsterdam in September, my Dutch friend said to me, “Why are you doing Brexit? Europe is integrated now!’

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

Europe has suffered profound pain on its path to find peace and ‘integration’. It was previously commonplace on our continent for differences between countries to be resolved through violence and war. Indeed, the planet’s two world wars originated right here on our continent.

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

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

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

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

Do we really know what we’re doing?

• Photo of Kristallnacht by Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1970-083-42 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5418870

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The government has commissioned 58 secret reports on the economic impact of Brexit, but has refused to make them public.

The comprehensive studies have been prepared by experts into the likely effects of various Brexit terms on different sectors comprising around 90% per cent of the UK economy.

Today Prime Minister Theresa May was under mounting pressure from Parliament to release these official studies into the economic dangers of Brexit.

Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer said: “Theresa May should not be imposing a blanket ban on information about the economic consequences of Brexit.”

Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable said: “The Government is desperately trying to hide the true impact of an extreme Brexit from the public… Ministers need to come clean and publish these reports immediately.”

Government officials said the studies were commissioned to help negotiations with the EU on Brexit terms and they could not be published without exposing the government’s hand.

But this conniving government needs exposing.

At every twist and turn of this tortuous Brexit journey, the government has resisted being open, or democratic, or rational, in its handling of everything to do with our country’s departure from the European Union.

It was bad enough that in last year’s referendum the Leave campaign had to use lies and mistruths to win, aided and abetted by a large section of our media that has delivered a daily deluge of reprehensible hate against the EU and migrants.

It was bad enough that in last year’s referendum many, many people directly affected by the outcome were denied a vote.

It was bad enough that only a minority of registered voters voted for Leave. In most countries across the world that hold referendums, such a change on such a flimsy vote could never be allowed.

In fact, such a result wouldn’t have been good enough to change the constitution of UKIP or the Conservative Party, or sufficient under new Tory rules for a trade union to vote for strike action.

It was bad enough that Theresa May tried her utmost to pass Brexit by bypassing Parliament, using the antiquated Royal Prerogative, that the late Labour MP, Tony Benn, tried so hard in vain to get scrapped.

Fortunately, thanks to the brave intervention of Gina Miller and her supporters, the High and Supreme Courts slapped down Mrs May’s undemocratic plans, ruling that they were illegal.

It was bad enough that despite the Supreme Court’s ruling that Parliament must decide whether the country should leave the EU, Theresa May’s government refused to allow Parliament such a vote.

Instead, the government incorrectly told Parliament that the Brexit decision had already been made by the referendum (impossible, since the referendum was advisory only and not legally binding).

It was bad enough that Mrs May is carrying on with her crazy Brexit plans, despite losing her entire majority in her snap election of 8 June, and having pleaded with the nation to give her a whopping majority so she would have a mandate for her crazy plans.

All this is more than just bad enough. It’s an outrage to decent, law-abiding, intelligent citizens that the current Conservative government is attempting to force the country on a course of action that most people in the country now consider, in hindsight, was wrong.*

Britain does not want Brexit. Given another opportunity to reconsider the vote of 23 June 2016, Brexit would almost certainly be given the thumbs down. But Mrs May is not going to allow us to change our minds, even though she allowed herself to do so simply so she could move into 10 Downing Street.

Brexit will touch the lives of every single one of us. If we are going to Brexit, we cannot allow it to happen based on lies, secrecy and actions that contemptuously bypass our Parliament and us, ‘the people’, who Mrs May duplicitously pretends to represent.

The government cannot continue to hide the truth from us.

Keeping secret 58 assessments on the economic impact of Brexit has nothing to do with the negotiations taking place in Brussels, and everything to do with the government’s desperate attempts to complete our withdrawal from the EU without allowing any opportunities for Parliament or the people to object.

We cannot allow decisions to be made about our future that are not subject to democratic scrutiny.

It is undemocratic and unacceptable to keep the British people in the dark, especially by a government that commands no power in Parliament except with the dodgy and tenuous agreement of the tiny DUP party.

As former Chancellor George Osborne editorialised in the Evening Standard today, “If the public have a right to know anything, then surely it has a right to know what the Government thinks the impact of leaving the EU will have on over 90 per cent of the economy.”

And as Abi Wilkinson writing in today’s Guardian put it, “True democracy requires the electorate to have access to relevant information. If you’re handed a piece of paper and told to tick a box without knowledge of what each option represented, can you be said to have cast a meaningful vote?”

The opening lyrics of John Lennon’s song, ‘Gimme Some Truth’, seem powerfully appropriate today:

“I’m sick and tired of hearing things from uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocritics. All I want is the truth, just give me some truth. I’ve had enough of reading things by neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians. All I want is the truth, just give me some truth.”

Mrs May and your band of Brexit ministers, all we want is the truth. Each day you hide it from us, each day we know you are up to no good.

• Words and graphic by Jon Danzig​

• That John Lennon song: Gimme Some Truth

• Photo of John Lennon by Peter Fordham, Billboard, 18 September 1971, now in the public domain

* My article on the latest YouGov polls showing that most voters in the country now consider that the Brexit decision was wrong.

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Yesterday I attended an event at the House of Commons on Brexit research and how it could be used to inform policy. This was jointly organised by the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology and the Economic and Social Research Council, the latter of which is funding the UK in a Changing Europe programme, which in turn funding our project on the implications of Brexit for fisheries policy. On the one hand it was a good way to find out about other Brexit research taking place. Crucially, however, it was an opportunity to interact with parliamentarians and parliamentary staff, and discuss how our research could be used to inform their work.

The event kicked off with a couple of keynote addresses on the importance of research to inform policy debate. Participants were then given a choice. They could either attend one of a number of parallel sessions featuring presentations by each of the projects, grouped together around broad themes. Or they could circulate around a set of stalls where they could chat to project team members about what they were doing. I was set to work on one of the stalls while my other colleagues on the project did the presentation.

The overall number of people attending the event seemed high – from what I could tell it was standing room only for the keynote addresses at the start of the event. However by virtue of there being concurrent sessions, there were fewer people when it came to looking round the project stalls. I  was at our project’s stall for 1.5 hours, but  during this time I had only a handful people come up to me. Other projects’ stalls were also receiving low patronage, although levels of interest did vary by topic. Now, that’s not to say there wasn’t any interest in our project at all. There was, and I spoke to people with a specific interest in fisheries policy. It’s just that I was just expecting more.

This highlights one of the main challenges to engaging with policy makers and practitioner community. We were fortunate enough to have the event organised for us, for it to be hosted on the parliamentary estate and with the full support of the parliamentary authorities. And yet the overall number of attendees seemed low. This may be down to my unrealistic expectations of the event. But it also reflects the reality of pressures on other people’s time.

I know from my time as a practitioner in local government that politicians (even local councillors) are busy people. The same applies to the staff supporting their work, who all have day jobs to be getting on with. The pressures on parliamentarians’ time are obviously far greater. And, inevitably, the political priorities of the day take over – the event was taking place at roughly the same time as the urgent debate on sexual harassment in parliament, which has attracted much media attention over the last few days.

After brief reflection I’m not sure how I would have organised the event differently to overcome this. However, there was something that could have been done to better engage those who were attending. While footfall around the stalls was low (at least compared to my expectations), those getting the most attention seemed to have hit a basic formula: A simple message or research finding which could easily be condensed onto an A1 poster / infographic, which could be easily seen from a couple of metres away. Posters usually focused on a single but interesting finding from a just a small part of the overall project. This then acted as a hook, giving researchers an opportunity to go into further detail about their projects.

Any engagement with practitioners therefore needs to reflect the realities of time pressures they face. Messages need to be simple, to the point and easily digestible in a short amount of time. Conclusions need to be clear and not hidden away amongst some of the features that an academic audience might be expecting to see (such as a comprehensive literature review or detailed outline of methodology). Posters and infographics represent one way to achieve this clarity (Simon Usherwood’s infographics on the Article 50 negotiations are a good example).

I have used posters in the past to communicate my research in the past, and was a finalist in a poster competition on EU regional policy jointly organised by the Regional Studies Association and the European Commission. While I was teaching the Politics of the European Union module at Keele, I got the students to produce a poster on an EU institution (much to their frustration). The task is not as easy as the students initially think, but the experience at yesterday’s event vindicates my belief that the they should be able to communicate something complex (such as the EU’s institutional structure) in a succinct and engaging way.

EU posters by the students

So, I’m an fan of poster presentations, and observations from yesterday’s event showed they can be useful in communicating research to practitioners. Which only raises questions about why I didn’t think to follow my own advice for this event. In assuming it would be busier, I hadn’t given that much thought to how I would actually engage those who attended.

Now, my overall assessment is the event was a success. It was well organised, a fantastic opportunity to communicate our research to policy-makers and the contacts made will be valuable for our project and future engagement activities. But, with the benefit of hindsight, a little more effort into thinking how I would engage those that attended may have yielded a few more contacts and promoted our research beyond those with a specific interest in fisheries policy.

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We’ve known this all along, but still many people don’t believe it. Citizens living here from the rest of the EU/EEA give much more to Britain than they take. They are a boon, not a burden, and we’d be poorer without them.

Last July in Parliament, Philip Davies, the Conservative MP for Shipley in West Yorkshire, asked Damian Hinds, the Minister for Employment, what benefits are received by EU migrants living in Britain.

Mr Hinds replied that, “The nationality and immigration status of claimants is not currently recorded on benefit payment systems.”

However, Mr Hinds was able to point Mr Davies to a government website giving information about the tax and national insurance contributions paid by EU/EEA citizens in Britain for the tax year 2013-2014, and the benefits those citizens received in tax credits and child benefits.

We already knew UK-dwelling EU migrants pay six times more tax and national insurance than they claim in ‘HMRC benefits’. These are specifically child benefit or tax credits.

But the figures released for 2013-2014 threw up some surprises.

French citizens living in Britain are the European nationals contributing the most to the Treasury coffers. In 2013-2014, they contributed £2.3 billion in tax and national insurance. Yet they only took £90m in tax credits and child benefits.

That means French citizens here contributed almost 26 times more to the Treasury than they took in HMRC benefits.

Second on the list of biggest contributors were the 790,000 Polish workers in Britain, who handed over nearly £2.2 billion to our Treasury in 2013/14 (the latest figures available).

They took £911 million in HMRC benefits, meaning that they gave 2.4 times more than they received.

The most impressive gulf between what’s paid in tax and claimed back from HM Revenue and Customs was by Greek citizens working in Britain. They paid 31 times more in tax (£439 million) than they claimed in HMRC benefits (just £14 million).

Not one EU/EEA country on the list showed any one of them taking more than they gave. Even the country with the smallest gap, Slovakia, had their citizens here paying almost twice as much in taxes as they took out of HMRC in benefits (£208 million to £122 million).

Overall, citizens here from all EU/EEA paid taxes in one year totalling £14.7 billion, but only took HMRC benefits worth £2.6 billion.

Summarised HM Revenue and Customs in their report, “In 2013-14, EEA nationals paid £12.1 billion more Income Tax and National Insurance than they took out in tax credits and Child Benefit.” 

That means that in one year alone, citizens here from the rest of Europe gave almost six times more to the Treasury than they took in HM Customs and Excise benefits.

(Switzerland is included in the figures because, although it’s not a member of the EU/EEA, it is part of the Single Market, meaning Swiss nationals have the same rights to live and work in the UK as EEA nationals).

The HMRC benefit figures didn’t include DWP benefits, such as Jobseeker’s Allowance or disability payments. But even if they were included, there is still a significant net gain from the receipts of EU/EEA tax contributions versus the benefits they receive.

Figures from the Department of Works and Pensions revealed that the out-of-work benefits paid to EU/EEA citizens totalled £886 million in the 2013-2014 tax year – just 3% of the total DWP budget for such benefits. These benefits include housing benefits, Jobseekers Allowance, and other out-of-work benefits.

Total DWP benefits paid to EU/EEA migrants during the 2013-2014 tax year, including in work and out of work, came to £3.4 billion, meaning there was a net overall gain of £8.7 billion from EU/EEA migrants here in just one year. (Source at end of article).

The DWP also reported that as of February 2015, only 21,460 nationals from the rest of the EU were claiming Jobseekers Allowance, and only 3,900 were claiming disability allowance.  (See ITV News: What benefits can eu migrants claim?)

In addition to income tax and national insurance, EU migrants living in Britain also pay a wide range of ‘indirect taxes’, such as VAT, duty on petrol, beer and cigarettes, as well corporation tax and business rates.

Of course this isn’t the full picture, and the overall calculations are far more complicated than simply deducting benefits paid out from taxes received.

But in summary we can see: all those EU citizens working here are paying in taxes far more than they receive in in-work benefits. Their tax contribution also more than adequately covers the costs of the very small number of EU migrants claiming out-of-work benefits. And even after all that, there is a massive surplus from the tax contributions of EU migrants to help the country. 

As part of his EU reforms last year, former Prime Minister, David Cameron, introduced an ‘emergency brake’ on the benefits EU migrants can receive, meaning that new EU/EEA migrants would have to wait four years to receive in-work benefits.

Many migration and employment specialists were surprised by the imposition because the ‘brake’ wouldn’t make any difference. As even the Brexit-supporting Daily Telegraph pointed out:

“Around 90% of the EU nationals that come to Britain would not even be affected by the brake as they do not claim tax credits.” 

This really should come as no surprise. We have known for years that EU migrants coming to Britain make a massive net contribution to Britain.

They come to Britain to work, and fill job vacancies that there are simply not enough Britons to do.

Most of these migrants are in full and gainful employment. They are often dedicated, hard-working and highly desired by British employers. Only a tiny proportion are claiming benefits, and none came for benefits.

In extensive research undertaken by University College London, it was discovered that EU migrants arriving in Britain in the last decade (between 2001 to 2011) made a massive NET contribution to our Treasury of £20 billion.

During the same period, British people took out MORE from the Treasury than they put in – a deficit of a whopping £617 billion.

The same report revealed that, since most of those EU migrants came to Britain with their education already paid for, they ‘endowed the country with productive human capital that would have cost the UK £6.8bn in spending on education.’

A separate study conducted by the LSE last year concluded that:

• EU immigrants pay more in taxes than they use public services and therefore they help to reduce the budget deficit. 

• The areas of the UK with large increases in EU immigration did not suffer greater falls in the jobs and pay of UK-born workers.  

• EU immigrants are more educated, younger, more likely to be in work and less likely to claim benefits than the UK-born.

The fact is that EU migrants coming here are enriching our country (as do non-EU migrants).

They are helping to pay for our schools and hospitals. They are contributing to our pensions. They are mostly in-work, paying-in more than they take-out, and spending most of their hard-earned earnings right here in this country.

So, why would Britain want to put a put a ‘brake’ on the numbers of citizens from the rest of the EU coming here, resulting in a drastic reduction in the huge benefits they bring to our country?

I asked the same question during last year’s referendum campaign on the James O’Brien LBC radio phone-in programme.

Mr James O’B responded:

“You leave me only with xenophobia and mild racism as the only motivation for the ‘Leave’ campaign…”

Is that right? Some Britons would prefer to forego the benefits that migrants bring to Britain because… they don’t like foreigners? 

If so, that’s a high price the country will have to pay for the disease known as xenophobia. 

• Related: Link to Jon Danzig’s phone-in to LBC’s James O’Brien during the referendum campaign.

► SOURCES: The website cited by the Employment Minister’s answer in Parliament last July is no longer available. I have found another government source for the statistics used in my graphic.

• Link to ‘DWP benefit expenditure on claims from EEA nationals, 2013/14′  

• Link to UCL report: Economic impact of EU migration

• Link to LSE report: Brexit and the Impact of Immigration on the UK

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One year ago, I sent an email to the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, David Kaye (@davidkaye), in reaction to a public consultation, not knowing whether it mattered. Now that his report on “Access to Information in International Organizations” is published, I realized that I was one of a few people who had sent in a submission.

As you can see on the website of the report, my name is listed as one of five submissions from civil society and academia. However, my submission is not published because it came via email.

To make this more transparent, I publish below the text that I sent on 18 October 2016 in reaction to the public consultation. It’s not a refined submission – indeed just an email – but maybe it’s useful for future work in the direction of making the United Nations system and other international organizations more transparent to have this published here:

Dear Mr. Kaye,

through the Centre for Law and Democracy and a person working for Access Info Europe I saw that you are currently consulting with UN organizations on their access to information policies.

I do not know whether a submission from a researcher in political science and international public administration is welcome, especially after the general deadline has passed three days ago. However, I thought my observations would still be useful as context and as a “user’s” perspective.

My ongoing research on UN budgeting is part of a publicly funded project (see http://ipa-research.com/time), which itself is part of a larger research unit in Germany studying the work of international bureaucracies (http://ipa-research.com). I have been in particular to the UN in New York, ILO, UNESCO and WHO, including each of their archives. We also do research on other UN organizations, but less detailed than in these four cases.

If you allow, I would like to share three observations that I have found through my research in the UN system in the past two years:

1. Besides the archives or libraries, there is often no contact person named on public websites through which (ad hoc) requests for access to documents can be made. This means that one is forwarded from archives to relevant units, while relevant units may refuse access right away or refer back to higher levels of the hierarchy, leaving it unclear how to even ask for access to documents. Some UN organizations also have dedicated public document registers, some including main categories of administrative documents (even those that are not public), which allows to reduce the “unknown unknowns”, while other UN organizations publish their documents in unstructured ways or, if they have structured document repositories, they are not easily accessible for the public or documents are dispersed across several systems with different levels of (full-text) searchability.

2. The 20-year archival policy in the UN combined with the lack of access to documents policies makes well-reasoned academic research on UN organizations very difficult at worst and sketchy at best. There are two reasons for this:

First, the decision whether to actually archive documents is often taken years before the 20-year period is over. Going through archive documents 20 years and older (e.g. in UNESCO), I found that important parts of the budgeting decision-making documentation I was interested in had not been archived, while I had also no right to request more recent documents that were still in the hands of the secretariats. This left me without any documents not just for periods of 20 years but even well beyond that.

Second, the 20 year period seems to apply to documents with quite different degrees of political importance. In some cases, I was just looking for basic administrative guidelines describing a process inside the organization, but these documents, past and present, are treated similarly to internal letters in which detailed views and opinions of member states and UN administrative leaders are documented. The latter seem to have quite a different potential for creating diplomatic misunderstandings if published too early, while the former do not threaten diplomatic relations but rather reveal just basic systems of governance that are useful for our academic understand of how the respective UN organization works.

3. There is a lack of coherence in the application of the rules and practices, both within UN organizations and across the UN system. I happened to get documents in UN archives that were much younger than 20 years while the same type of documents from previous years were not accessible. Similarly, some of the documents I would get in one UN organization are difficult to impossible to get in another organization.

I make these three points since our research project started with a similar analysis for the EU-level, where there is Regulation 1049/2001 on access to documents. I can say that getting access to administrative documents on EU budgeting of the past ten years relevant to our research was much more easy than any similar attempt to get access to UN documents.

Altogether, I think that all UN organizations should have a dedicated access to information policy, with clear guidelines for the outside world and a separation between archival documents and documents that are accessible outside the archives, either directly online or through requests.

Please do not hesitate to contact me in case you have any questions.

Ronny Patz

PS (Disclaimer): I have worked, in the past, for the EU Office of Transparency International (2010-12 as a volunteer, 2012-14 as a full time staff). I am in no work or other formal relationship with the office since June 2014, so the points made above reflect my personal views as a researcher.

 I really hope for future researchers, activists, and citizens that access to information from international organizations becomes easier in the future. The historic record of what IOs such as the United Nations have contributed to shaping our present world should be accessible, and today’s and future generations should be able to hold global institutions to account.

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A couple of months ago I wrote about the latest Flash Eurobarometer survey on perceptions of EU regional policy. One of the interesting results was the apparent increase in awareness of EU regional policy in the UK after the referendum.

Having now had a chance to access the raw data as part of a wider project I’m doing on EU regional policy and the EU referendum, I’ve been able to look a bit more closely at this. This allows us to get a longer-term picture of how awareness of EU regional policy has changed in the UK over the last seven years.

Here are the results to the question “Have you heard about any EU co-financed projects to improve the area where you live?” for the last four waves of the Flash Eurobarometer survey on perceptions of EU regional policy.

A couple of observations: Firstly, between June 2010 and June 2015 the level of awareness has remained relatively static (and low). There is a slight downward trend, but nothing conclusive. However between June 2015 and March 2017 there was a notable increase in awareness of EU funded projects. Secondly, this increase exceeds the margins of error, so we can be fairly confident it’s not a random blip. In other words the result of the latest survey seems to buck the trend.

Now, the conclusions and caveats of my earlier post still stand. While the timing of the EU referendum might offer one potential explanation for the sudden increase in regional policy awareness, we can’t say for certain it was the cause based on this survey. And despite the recent increase, the overall level of awareness is still low. But it does speak to the wider debate going on at the moment about communicating cohesion policy to citizens, and that incorporating it into national political discourses may hold one answer to raise awareness.

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The European Council today and tomorrow is an important staging post for the Article 50 process. It marks the point at which the EU27 had decided they would review the negotiations and take stock.

More particularly, the original mandate for the Commission suggested that this was the point at which the European Council would take a view on whether ‘sufficient progress’ had been made on the Phase I topics; the immediate issues that needed settling of citizens’ rights, financial liabilities and the Irish border. Only with that sufficiency would there be a movement on to Phase II, the transition talks to set up a new relationship.

Already we know that the European Council will not give the green light to this, with the Commission, the General Affairs Council and the European Parliament all having already weighed in to say that there has been progress, but not enough to suffice. The drafts of the European Council conclusions take the same line.

So far, so unsurprising: ever since the summer break there has been a growing feeling that the negotiations had run into difficulties, not least because of the on-going inability of the British government to settle on a preferred outcome: there is a good understanding of the points to be discussed and agreed, but a lack of political direction from the UK on how to resolve them.

As such, the non-progression this week has already been largely priced into the process.

However, this comes with some significant costs. The most obvious is that it will not now be until December that any move to Phase II takes place, leaving very little time to reach a full deal by October 2018 (which is when one is needed, if ratification is to take place by March 2019).

Moreover, a blockage now will rob Article 50 of whatever momentum it might have picked up from May’s Florence speech, which sought to advance the financial side of things.

So, that’s the context. But what does it suggest everyone wants or needs to get from the European Council?

For the EU27, Brexit remains a side-show to all the other things that they are dealing with at the moment. With only a handful of states deeply involved in the process, most will be happy to know that the Commission is on the case and that there remains collective buy-in to the mandate for Phase I: no-one wants to get rolled over on the finances and citizens’ rights are a concern for many. As long as they can go back with a message that the EU is still fighting for those things, then they will be happy.

Likewise, for those member states most closely involved, upholding the mandate is also the best course of action. For Ireland, it keeps their priorities front-and-centre, while for Germany it keeps everyone on-board for a process to find a deal with the UK. However, the blockages seen suggest that they will be working with the European Council President and the Commission.

And the Commission itself is in a more tricky position. It has a very strong interest in making Article 50 work, both because it wants to keep the UK in a functioning relationship with the EU, and also because it wants to demonstrate its problem-solving abilities. At the same time, it needs to protect the core values and benefits of the EU for its members, which limits what it can give way on to help the UK.

The compromise that seems to be emerging is that while there will be insufficient progress, the Commission will push for the EU27 to start preparing a Phase II mandate, so that as-and-when approval is given, both sides can hit the ground running, rather than lose another month or so to Phase II prep. Moreover, since that prep will be in public, it will also allow the Commission to provide some additional signalling to the UK of its intentions, which might in turn help with outstanding Phase I problems.

Which leaves the UK.

If the EU side seems to be pointing towards a tough-but-accommodating position, then the British government is in more of a bind. The strength of feeling from hard-brexiteers makes it hard for any concessions, especially with the calls to simply walk away from the talks altogether. That such calls are self-evidently self-defeating just points out how limited May’s position is, with little agency in either Brussels or London.

Since May does not intend to – or, indeed, is able to – make any new offers at the European Council itself, much will rest on the presentation of matters. In that, she might obviously go for the lines taken in the Barnier-Davis press conferences in previous rounds of negotiations: the EU says ‘insufficient progress’, the UK says ‘progress’.

But the big danger is the one that has lurked ever since June, namely a further compromise to May’s position. If tempers flare and EU leaders come out with doom-laden messages, then May risks finding herself with her cornerstone policy priority looking even worse than before, and MPs might increasingly feel there’s little to be lost by changing horses mid-stream.

The EU might ask itself whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, both given where we are and what might follow.

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Within the known as the “procés”, or the “Catalan question”, on 10th October 2017 the President of the Catalan Government participated in a regular session of the Catalan Parliament in order to give an balance of the political situation in the region.

In his speech Mr. Puigdemont reported the positive results of the alleged referendum of 1st October 2017. However the words he used were full of confusion about whether or not the declaration of independence took place at the Catalan Parliament

In any case, Mr. Puigdemont stated:

“Arrived to this historical moment, as President of the Generalitat, I assume to present the results of the referendum to the Parliament and our citizens: the mandate that Catalonia becomes an independent State in the form of a republic.

That is what I have to do today. For responsibility and respect.

And with the same solemnity, the Government and me too propose the Parliament to suspend the effects of the independence declaration in order to start a dialogue in the following weeks without which is not possible to reach an agreed solution”[i]

These words have created some confusion regarding the existence or not of an implicit declaration of independence since, although such a declaration didn’t properly take place, the Government and the President proposed to the Parliament “to suspend the effects of the declaration of independence”.

Certainly, the independence declaration corresponds to the Parliament of Catalonia, according to art. 4.4. of Law 19/2017, of 6 September, on the referendum of self-determination, law suspended by the Spanish Constitutional Court:

“If in the count of valid votes there are more affirmative than negative votes, the result implies the independence of Catalonia. To this end, the Parliament of Catalonia, within two days following the proclamation of the official results by the Electoral Syndicate, will hold a regular session to carry out the formal declaration of the independence of Catalonia, specify its effects and initiate the constituent process.“

It is important, from the Catalan secessionist legal perspective to comply with the provisions of this article because, although suspended by the Spanish Constitutional Court, it is the one that determines – from the perspective of the alleged legality of the new Republic – the entry into force of Law 20/2017, of 8 September, on Legal Transitoriness and on the Foundation of the Republic, third final provision, also suspended by the Spanish Constitutional Court.

Thus, from the perspective of the alleged legality of the Catalan Republic, this is born – materially – with the positive result of the vote of the Referendum on October 1st  (“the result implies the independence of Catalonia”), although “to this end” , within two days of the proclamation of the results, the Parliament must hold a regular session to carry out the formal declaration of independence, specify its effects and initiate the constituent process.

However, although the session of the Catalan Parliament took place on October 10th, there was no formal declaration by the Catalan Parliament, nor the concretization of its effects and the beginning of the constituent process.

In fact, what happened was that Mr Puigdemont reported the positive results of the Referendum and immediately requested to the Parliament to suspend the effects of a declaration which had not yet taken place. Moreover there was not any answer or agreement of the Parliament in this sense.

However, after the Parliament session, the deputies of the secessionist groups proceeded to sign a document in another room containing a declaration of independence[ii]:

“… We, democratic representatives of the people of Catalonia, in the free exercise of the right of self-determination, and in accordance with the mandate received from the citizens of Catalonia,

WE CONSTITUTE the Catalan Republic, as an independent and sovereign State, State of right, democratic and social.

WE MAKE AVAILABLE the entry into force of the Law of Legal Transitoriness and on the Foundation of the Republic.

WE INITIATE the constituent, democratic, citizen-based, transverse, participatory and binding process ”

Now, has there been a declaration of independence? If we understand that from the point of view of the alleged legality of the Catalan Republic the independence started with the positive results of the referendum, they don’t need a declaration for it. However article 4.4 of Law 19/2017, key to interpret this, is clear requiring a formal statement from Parliament that has not been adopted.

This document is a clear commitment to independence, and in itself can be considered as the intended statement whose effects are requested to be suspended.

Moreover, declarations are regulated in the article 166 of the Catalan Parliament Regulation, establishing three types of declarations: declarations of the Parliament of Catalonia (which require the unanimity vote of the Board of Spokespersons), declarations of the Board of Spokespersons (which require a majority vote of the Board of Spokespersons) and Declarations of the Presidency of the Parliament[iii].

It is true that art. 4.4 of Law 19/2017 does not state what kind of declaration should be made. We can think on a statement of the Board of Spokespersons by majority, and a Presidential Statement or a Declaration by Parliament itself. However it would be logical to think, due to its relevance, that the best way is to vote Declaration of the Parliament; therefore a unanimous consent of the Board of Spokesmen would be required. Or in a non legal way -breaking the Catalonian Parliament Regulation- a vote of the Parliament itself.

Therefore, it can be understood that, from the point of view of the alleged legality of the Catalan Republic, there was no declaration of independence, nor suspension of the effects of it. And in this sense what took place from the legal point of view – of that supposed legality – is rather an independence – born ex art. 4.4 of Law 19/2017 with the positive result of the referendum – whose formal statement by the Parliament was omitted or suspended, even though that a declaration was signed in document by some Members of the Parliament, but outside the session and therefore without legal value.

In reaction to this situation, the Government of Spain activated the possible application of art. 155 of the Spanish Constitution (EC) sending a request to the President of the Generalitat of Catalonia, dated on October 11, to clarify the situation and to confirm whether or not the independence of Catalonia has been declared, awaiting an answer tomorrow 16 October; stating that an affirmative or ambiguous answer will imply the application of art. 155 EC, which can be use to intervene and obligate the Autonomous Community to return to the Spanish Constitutional Order[iv].

Although I am not able to anticipate the answer of President Puigdemont, I understand -from my point of view- that there was no declaration of independence of Catalonia, although the process of independence has begun and is actually in suspense, which undoubtedly also affects and breaks the Spanish Constitutional Order.

[i] Compareixença del president Puigdemont davant del ple del Parlament, Barcelona, 10 d’octubre de 2017, Generalitat de Catalunya, Departament de la Presdiència, Oficina del President, Gabinet de Comunicació del President.

[ii]Declaració dels Representants de Catalunya, available at:  https://es.scribd.com/document/361241376/Declaracio-Independe-ncia#from_embed

[iii] Reglament del Parlament de Catalunya, available at: https://www.parlament.cat/document/cataleg/165484.pdf

[iv]Requerimiento de 11 de octubre de 2017, accesible en http://www.lamoncloa.gob.es/consejodeministros/Documents/11102017-requerimiento.pdf

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