Ideas on Europe Blog

For our weekly ‘Ideas on Europe’ editorial by UACES, the University Association for European Studies, we have the pleasure to welcome Dr Theofanis Exadaktylos, from the University of Surrey, in the UK.

 

 

 

 

1. Why now?

The term in office of the New Democracy government under PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis that started in 2019 would be coming to an end this autumn. Elections were declared slightly earlier for 21 May.

 

2. What is at stake?

The elections are held under the electoral law voted by the previous Syriza-led government (2015-19). In the meantime, yet another one has been voted (see below), but as a safety clause, new electoral laws only apply from the second election following the ratification of the law, rather than the immediate one.

A long-standing promise by Syriza, the new electoral law is replacing the enhanced majority proportionality rules with a simple proportional allocation of seats in parliament. The idea behind this move was the increase of proportionality in parliament and giving grounds for coalition governments. Why was this important? According to public opinion polls, no party is set to muster enough votes to have overall majority in parliament. Therefore, the parliament emerging out of the 21 May election is likely to force big parties into coalition negotiations, with smaller parties gaining a pivotal role as regulators of government policy.

 

3. Who is likely to win?

According to the latest polls, the liberal-conservative New Democracy, under the leadership of current prime minister Mitsotakis, is likely to be the first party in vote share followed by Syriza. Their difference may not be electorally significant, but it will mean that New Democracy will receive a mandate to form a government first. They are likely to approach the once-strong Pasok, which has been reduced to a small political force following the Greek financial crisis back in 2010. The question will be whether New Democracy and Pasok together will be able to secure 151 out of 300 seats for a majority under the new electoral rules or will require a third small party to support them. Following the failure of all possible avenues to form a government, a fresh election will be declared. The twist in this instance, is that this will be conducted under the new electoral law voted by New Democracy in 2020 that reverses Syriza’s simple proportionality and grants the first party in votes bonus seats in parliament for every 0.5% of the vote share above 25% and up to 50 bonus seats.

 

4. Who will enter parliament?

Beyond the two big parties mentioned above, Pasok and the Greek Communist Party, two more parties may be likely to make an entrance but are polling close to the minimum threshold of 3%. These are DiEM25 led by former Syriza finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, and the right-wing Greek Solution – both represented in the current parliament. Their support base is quite volatile and minor events and scandals can drive voters away or towards the more mainstream parties. The considerable percentage of voters who are still undecided are likely to determine the fate of smaller parties depending on the polarisation of the electoral debate in the coming days. These voters may also determine the ability of the first party in votes to form a coalition government. Statements of support or refusal to cooperate with the first party (whichever this may be) have been made by almost all small parties. New Democracy, if declared the winner, is likely to push for a fresh election to benefit from the electoral law it voted on in 2020, rather than force a coalition with unlikely partners.

 

5. What are the issues at hand?

• The economy

 

The economy remains a priority issue considering the after-effect of the Greek financial crisis, the cost-of-living crisis and the energy prices pressures. The Greek economy, despite the post-pandemic booming effects from tourism and other investments, remains on thin ice and requires any government to maintain a path of fiscal discipline and push forward unfinished reforms in public administration and public spending. Suggestions by the DiEM25 leader that they would not be afraid to abandon the euro, close the banks and introduce a new currency, created frictions in the left-wing arena of the Greek party system, cutting out a potential Syriza ally from a future government.

 

• Immigration

 

Still affected by migration flows from the east, Greece has been at the spotlight for pushback processes and for failing to protect human rights of undocumented immigrants who cross the Aegean Sea in search for asylum. Alongside a general fatigue about the inability of the Greek state to accommodate and process immigrants and asylum seekers, migration issues have heightened xenophobic and racist sentiments, polarising the political debate to the benefit of the right-wing side of the political spectrum.

 

• Foreign policy

 

Greek foreign policy is mainly affected by two actors: Russia and Turkey. The war in Ukraine has damaged the previously good relations with Russia both in terms of investment and tourist flows. Greece rightly decided to side with Ukraine following the common declarations by the EU. Some Syriza voices still view Russia favourably and that has been criticised in public debates. Second, the outcome of the concurrent election in Turkey will either see the continuation of an aggressive warmongering narrative if Erdogan wins, or the emergence of unknown parameters in Greek-Turkish relations if any other candidate wins. Both scenarios are damaging as Greek foreign policy actors will need to maintain a high level of alert in the rhetoric coming from Turkey.

 

• The environment

 

Climate change has moved up in the public agenda much like anywhere in the world. For Greece, climate change means extreme heat in the summer with highly likelihood of wildfires erupting and water shortages, especially on tourism-popular islands. The previous election outcome was judged on the failure of the Syriza government to prevent the death of several citizens from a wildfire near Athens due to poor crisis management and services coordination. The impact of wildfires is frequently felt in the wintertime when extreme weather conditions cause severe flooding and potential casualties.

 

• Corruption and public failures

 

A few weeks before the election was due to be announced, a tragic rail accident took place in the valley of Tempi in Central Greece in March. A freight train travelling south collided with a passenger train travelling north at full speed resulting in over 50 people dying and many more seriously injured. Most casualties were people under 25 years of age as the passenger train carried university students back to Thessaloniki following a long weekend holiday. The train accident exposed not only the insufficient infrastructure of the rail network in Greece, but most importantly issues of corruption and public failure both by Syriza and New Democracy to modernise the signalling system and to take advantage of EU funds and investment, the persistent favouritism when hiring staff in the public sector and the absence of solid health and safety standards in public transport. The unjustified death of young students has negatively affected the dominance of New Democracy in public opinion polls pushing the difference with Syriza to shrink and favouring a diffusion of preferences towards smaller parties.

 

6. Who to look out for?

Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis is fighting to secure a second term in office and so far, he has managed to remain untouched by political fires, still featuring as more popular and more fitting as prime minister in the eyes of the public.

Syriza leader, Alexis Tsipras is trying to restore his party’s electoral base following a series of failures during his term in office and to manage his own party officials, who have been engaging in polarising strategies in public.

Pasok leader, Nikos Androulakis is trying to re-establish the party as a deciding force in Greek politics and a threat to single-party governments – if this election round fails to include Pasok as a coalition partner, its percentages are likely to shrink further as voters will align with the two bigger parties.

Former Golden Dawn deputy leader, Ilias Kasidiaris, has led an offensive from prison where he is serving a sentence for forming a criminal organisation and as an accomplish to homicides led by Golden Dawn members. The Supreme Court forbid him from leading his new party Greeks – essentially a recast version of Golden Dawn – in this election and banned the party from running for office. It will be interesting to see where these supporters will find a new home, especially in a scenario that suggests a repeat election.

 

7. Why should Europe care?

Instability in Greece has the potential of affecting the EU as a whole considering two factors: one from an economic point of view, the previous experience with the Eurozone crisis which almost led Greece to bankruptcy is one the EU wants to avoid repeating, so they would like to see some continuity in economic policy and financial discipline; second from a foreign policy point of view, Greece is a key player in maintaining the geopolitical balance in the south-eastern Mediterranean basin and a buffer in the united front against Russia, so preserving a strong ally in the region is key for EU foreign policy.

The post Electoral Law Games in Search for a Majority Government: The Greek Election of 21 May in Seven Questions appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

For our weekly ‘Ideas on Europe’ editorial by UACES, the University Association for European Studies, we have the pleasure to welcome once more Dr Simona Guerra, from the University of Surrey, in the UK.

 

Listen to the podcast on euradio!

 

Very happy to have you back with another untold story of ‘the early women of European integration’. After Käte Strobel last November, and Nilde Lotti in March, who will be in your portrait today?

For my third profile, I have chosen Marguerite De Riemaecker-Legot, born on 9 March 1913 in Oudenaarde, East Flanders, in Belgium.

Between 1931 and 1936 she attends the Law School at the University of Ghent. That is still unusual at the time, although the lawyer profession had opened to women in 1922. It is telling that the diploma certificate was standardised only for men, which meant that in her certificate ‘she’ needed to be handwritten over ‘he’. It was also challenging to find a patron to get started in the profession, but she was helped by her professor and senator Maurice Orban. While working in Brussels for Pierre Nothomb, a Belgian writer and politician, she came into contact with Maria Baers, a senator and advocate for women’s rights. Marguerite left her work to become cabinet secretary to Mrs Baers. In 1938 she got married and had two sons, Xavier and Christian, who has left a book and a few pictures of her extraordinary life.

 

When did she stand for election herself?

Marguerite De Riemaecker-Legot was elected as a Member of the Belgian Parliament in 1946, although it was only in June 1949 that all women could participate in parliamentary elections for the first time at the national level.

In her national parliamentary experience, she started to work on those issues she had herself experienced, as on a bill on ‘granting equal rights to men and women with regard to the exercise of public functions’. In 1947 she submitted a bill on the ‘authorization of women to exercise the office of lawyer at the Court of Cassation’ and one on the ‘admission of women to the magistracy’.

She was the first woman in the Belgian Parliament, the first Belgian woman in the European Parliament in 1958, and the first woman Minister in Belgium in 1965. She submitted fourteen bills, was appointed rapporteur on more than forty bills, and, in Europe, she was appointed as rapporteur for two legislations that followed her interest devoted to women, families, and workers.

 

What did she do exactly for workers’ rights?

In 1956, a record number of 46,000 Italians moved to Belgium, most of them for the coal mines. Until the end of the 20th century, they represented the biggest immigrant group.

On 12 January 1960, Marguerite de Riemaecker took the floor to highlight the difference between ‘residence’ and ‘domicile’, pointing out that Italians in Belgium had definitely changed their residence, but did not benefit from a change of ‘domicile’ and the civic and political rights that went with it. In her words, as rapporteur of the (European) Social Funds, these had to be delivered for the well-being of mobile workers and their opportunity to travel. The institution of Social Funds was perceived among the members of the Social Affairs Committee as a small step, but they were moved by the social and political context of the time. After consulting with the Committee on Economic Affairs, the solutions offered to show the interest and influence of the young Parliament on social policy, something that Mechthild Roos has already spoken about in your programme.

 

That’s right, she called it the “self-empowerment” of the young Parliament.

And Marguerite De Riemaecker-Legot represented exactly this capacity of the Parliament of putting pressure on the other European institutions, and its smart ability of using cooperation and consultation across different members and committees for a role that the Treaties did not even consider.

 

Just like in your previous cases, your research shows that women were active political actors in the early stages of the European integration process.

And yet they have been undocumented, given little or no importance. Recognizing these voices and experiences is crucial, not only for the past but also for the future. The persistent lack of women in some specific positions in the EU has critical policy consequences, as should have the experiences of women during the economic crisis, the pandemic, and the Conference on the Future of Europe.

Recognizing and acknowledging this deficit in European studies can help us teach and learn the history of European integration without transmitting the same old bias. Political socialization is likely to affect descriptive representation in the long term, and familiarizing with the names and work of these women can be a strong symbolic factor. Again: it is time to write about them in the textbooks and to know about them as makers and shapers of the European integration process.

 

I could not agree more. Thank you so much, for sharing the findings of your historical research with us. I recall you are Senior Lecturer at the University of Surrey, in England.

 

This contribution is based on the CAROLINE research project (‘Creating A netwoRk On femaLe pIoNEers’ of European integration). A first research paper was presented in April 2023, at a conference on women in the narrative on European integration organized by Professors François Klein and Elena Danescu at the University of Luxembourg, and has been accepted for publication in the journal Politique Européenne.

 

Interview by Laurence Aubron.

 

 

The post Marguerite De Riemaecker-Legot and Workers’ Rights appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

As someone who’s just passed the 8th anniversary of his Brexit-related podcast (do sign up, it’s gripping), I feel I’m well-placed to consider the issue in the longer run of UK-EU relations.

I also feel broadly justified in summing up UK policy on the matter throughout the post-war period as “errrm”.

There’ a lot of reacting, not much proacting [?] and plenty of this:

As such, for a long time now my main question about Brexit has been: “what next?”

It was evident even before the 2016 referendum that it was not really going to be an engaged and thoughtful debate about the UK’s role in the world or the purpose of any particular form of relationship with the EU. It was a bun fight.

The lack of planning by either the government or the Leave campaigners for the eventuality of a Leave win meant 2016-17 was another bun fight over owning that result to advance agendas, most of which had nothing to do with UK-EU relations per se.

The horrors of 2017-19 and the fighting of many battles in Parliament stemmed from the profound lack of consensus (or even majority) in all this.

The runctions over the Northern Ireland Protocol that ran from 2020 have only continued to obscure the wider issue of what to do in the broader sense.

So I’m always on the look-out for people with ideas.

The most satisfying pieces have been those that focus on process. Anton Spisak’s work is a good example of this, as the recent Lords European Affairs Committee report (and not because I get quoted). Such pieces are at least as important as overviews of policy areas, which might set out opportunities, but not logics.

With all this in mind, I’ve been discovering something a bit different again: what we’ll call (because others call it that) the O’Malley Pivot.

For those who know about it, this might be point where you tut and note that the first part of this plan is shutting up about it. To which I’d make the rejoinder that a free Substack feed isn’t the place you put things you actually want to stay secret.

In essence, O’Malley argues that Labour should be left to be quiet about ‘Europe’ until they win the next general election, whereupon they form an independent commission to consider future relations and then sell the result as ‘actually getting Brexit done’, even as you end up much closer to a Norwegian model of relations. Sidestep the politicking, reach across the aisle, assume most people aren’t too bothered, especially if you can rebrand Freedom of Movement of people.

In its defence, it’s not the worst idea I’ve seen, by some distance. There’s no will to power, no heroic assumptions, no breaking of international law.

Certainly, if such a commission where to occur, I’d be happy to try and make a contribution to it.

But still, we come back to the questions of intent and legitimacy.

A commission of the great and the good [insert any punchline you like here] might be able to take a longer view, but any relations with the EU necessarily require a set of understandings about the UK itself and what it wants to achieve.

Maybe that’s about being a global force for good, or a major trading partner, but what if that leads you to seeking EU membership again? You might be able to revisit what Leaving looks like, but to revisit Leaving itself is another matter.

Even if you don’t arrive at a rejoining position, the technocracy of a commission and its attendant obfuscations about terminology are still problematic. Remember that one of the big drivers of euroscepticism across Europe is the sense of a lack of connection with the EU as a system. The assumptions of the permissive consensus don’t stand up any more, as was seen so often during the referendum.

None of which is to say that there isn’t a need to avoid falling into a cul-de-sac of European policy, where no-one is willing to expend the political capital needed to arrive at a policy that is anything other than least-offensive.

So process does matter. It needs all relevant parties to try to treat with each other openly and constructively, trying to take people along with them rather than dropping a little gift on their laps. And it means not prejudging the outcome, but accepting that a fair process is more likely to produce a fair result.

The post Thinking and planning ahead in UK-EU relations appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

On May 14th, Turkey will hold a critical vote that will determine the fate of its democracy. The incumbent president and leader of the Justice Development Party (AKP), Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is running against the opposition candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who leads the Republican People’s Party (CHP). The campaign is intense, with Erdogan, who has been in power for 20 years, facing stiff competition from Kilicdaroglu and the Nation Alliance, a coalition of six opposition parties: the True Party (CHP), Good Party (IP), Felicity Party (SP), Democrat Party (DP), Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA), and Future Party (GP). Currently, it appears that Kemal Kilicdaroglu is winning while Erdogan is hardly making new gains.

While opinion polls do support my observation (POLITICO’s Poll of Polls puts the contest on a knife edge, meaning there will probably be a second round in the presidential vote on May 28), I base my assessment primarily on the discourse presented by the People’s Alliance, comprising the AKP, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), and other parties like the Great Unity Party (BBP) and the New Welfare Party (YRP). The alliance is facing challenges in offering policies and instead appears to be focusing on attacking the Nation Alliance’s candidate, Kilicdaroglu, in a negative, threatening, and degrading way. Whereas, Kilicdaroglu and his team offers a solid united front with a full-blown democratic agenda. Their platform includes a commitment to bringing wrongdoers to justice, addressing the country’s economic challenges, and developing Turkey’s space industry to support entrepreneurs and scientists. The Kurdish votes could potentially play a significant role in this election, as they have the potential to be a kingmaker. However, the situation for Kurdish politicians remains the same, with many being excluded from mainstream politics and some facing arrest.

The People’s Alliance

The AKP’s strategy of delegitimizing their opponent and pre-emptively dismissing the possibility of a fair election is evident in the rhetoric used by Erdogan and his team at their rallies. Instead of promoting their own platform and highlighting their achievements, they focus on attacking their opponent, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP).

One striking example of this is the statement made by Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu in late April, in which he compared the upcoming general election to the failed coup attempt of July 15, 2016. This comparison is particularly significant given the trauma and division that the coup attempt caused in Turkey, and the widespread support that Erdogan and the AKP received in the aftermath. Soylu’s suggestion that the election itself could be another attempt at a coup undermines the very foundation of democracy and suggests that any outcome other than an AKP victory would be illegitimate.

Moreover, by framing the election in terms of a struggle against Western powers, Soylu and the AKP are attempting to rally nationalist sentiment and cast themselves as defenders of Turkish sovereignty. This is a familiar tactic for the AKP, which has consistently sought to portray itself as standing up to foreign interference and protecting Turkey’s interests against external threats. However, this rhetoric also serves to distract from domestic issues and the AKP’s own record in government.

In another example of the AKP’s election strategy, Erdogan used a speech in May to delegitimize Kilicdaroglu’s candidacy by associating him with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group that is recognized as a foreign terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. Specifically, Erdogan claimed that Kilicdaroglu was supported by the Qandil, a mountainous area in the Kurdistan Region near the Iraq-Iran border that served as the PKK’s main headquarters in the 1990s and is currently used as a base camp for Kurdish peshmerga forces.

By linking Kilicdaroglu to the PKK, Erdogan sought to tap into nationalist sentiment and portray his opponent as a threat to Turkey’s security and unity. Additionally, by asserting that the nation would not hand over control of the country to someone who received support from the Qandil, Erdogan effectively suggested that any victory by Kilicdaroglu would be illegitimate.

This strategy of delegitimizing opponents by linking them to terrorism is a familiar tactic for the AKP, which has consistently sought to portray itself as the sole defender of Turkey’s interests and the only party capable of ensuring stability and security. However, by using such divisive and inflammatory rhetoric, the AKP risks further polarizing Turkish society and undermining the democratic process.

The Nation Alliance

The opposition parties in Turkey have formed a strong and dynamic alliance, unlike the Hungarian alliance that was created against Viktor Orban in 2021, ahead of the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections.

Initially, the alliance faced a hurdle when Meral Aksener, the leader of the Good Party, opposed Kilicdaroglu’s candidacy for leadership. However, this disagreement was quickly resolved when it was agreed to introduce two vice-presidential positions to support Kilicdaroglu. This move effectively allowed Aksener to maintain her position as a prominent opposition figure while still supporting the alliance’s leader.

To further bolster their chances of success, the alliance strategically selected two of the CHP’s metropolitan mayors, Ekrem Imamoglu from Istanbul and Mansur Yavas from Ankara, as candidates to support Kilicdaroglu. Both mayors have garnered widespread support and recognition for their effective governance and efforts to promote transparency and accountability in their respective cities.

Since their selection as Kilicdaroglu’s running mates, Imamoglu and Yavas have worked closely with him and other alliance members to create a cohesive and united front against the ruling AKP party. They have also been active in their efforts to engage with voters and spread their message of hope and change across the country.

Overall, the opposition alliance in Turkey represents a significant challenge to the long-standing dominance of the AKP, and the alliance’s ability to overcome its initial disagreements and present a united front bodes well for its chances of success in the upcoming elections.

The Kurds

The Kurds have expressed their support for Kemal Kilicdaroglu for the Presidential elections for three main reasons. Firstly, they hope to get rid of President Erdogan and his ruling clique. Secondly, due to the arrests, detentions and political pressure they have faced, the Kurds could not field their own candidate. And finally, Kilicdaroglu has made some promises that have resonated with the Kurdish community.

However, the Kurds are facing challenges in terms of voters. Their former alliance member, the Turkish Workers Party (TIP), has emerged as a strong contender in the elections. Many people are finding TIP less contentious and with fresh ideas. This could make it difficult for the Kurds to gain significant representation in the elections.

In conclusion, the political pressure and arrests faced by the Kurds have hindered their efforts to achieve greater representation and autonomy, and unfortunately, they may end up being the main losers of this election. They cannot be sure that Kilicdaroglu would keep his promises after the election, since no official proposal was made to the Kurdish representatives.

As the elections are only a week away, the upcoming six days will be crucial for all political parties involved in the electoral campaign. It is expected that the tone of the campaign will become more intense and aggressive among the parties, as they make their final push to secure votes. Meanwhile, the electorate may be cautious and apprehensive about what could happen if the National Alliance wins and Erdogan follows in the footsteps of Donald Trump’s actions in the 2020 US presidential election. The potential consequences of such a scenario have left many voters feeling uneasy and uncertain about the future. If Erdogan were to refuse to concede or make claims of election fraud, it could create a tense and divisive political climate in Turkey. This uncertainty has created an added layer of stress for voters. The upcoming days will be a test of the strength and resilience of Turkey’s democracy, and the eyes of the world will be watching closely.

The post Kilicdaroglu dominates, Erdogan trails, and Kurds left to own devices in Turkish General and Presidential Election (II) appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

On 20th and 21st April 2023, EUHealthGov headed to Brussels for a 2-day workshop discussing research and teaching connected with EU health policy and law. The overarching theme of “Maastricht at 30” provided a useful starting-point to consider both aspects, with the emergence of EU health law and policy as a discipline in its own right typically being traced across this period.

The workshop brought together a range of academics from across Europe, at different career stages, and across law, political science, social policy and public health. This latter diversity, in itself, highlighted important considerations for how and what we research and teach, which forms the basis for future discussions and collaborations.

The research workshop started with Óscar Fernández presenting “The European Union’s global health actorness: Outlining a post-COVID-19 research agenda”. This focus on the EU’s response to the pandemic and its position in global health was followed by Giulia Gallinella discussing early ideas on “The EU’s Role in the WHO during the COVID-19 pandemic: multilateral power politics?”. João Paulo Magalhães considered “Main non-communicable diseases as cross-border health threats: can a European Health Union live up to the treaty potential?”. This was followed by the EUHealthGov coordinators presenting current work forthcoming in a special issue of the Journal of Health Policy, Politics and Law on Political Determinants of Health and the EU. Charlotte Godziewski presented a paper on HERA’s role in increasing integration in health and the EU’s securitisation response to COVID-19. Mary Guy  presented work on solidarity in connection with EU competition policy, whilst Eleanor Brooks outlined a model for understanding regulatory chill, Better Regulation and EU health policy. 

The teaching workshop was opened by Tamara Hervey, setting the scene for a wide-ranging discussion of how, where, and to whom EU health may be taught, as well as the benefits of student involvement in curriculum design. Inesa Fausch drew on her experience of adopting transdisciplinary approaches in knowledge exchange. Rok Hržič provided insights from the long-established programmes at Maastricht University and experiences of working with problem-based learning in a global classroom. Volkan Yilmaz shared how he incorporated EU health themes into wider public policy and health policy modules, whilst Benjamin Ewert discussed the challenges of teaching EU health themes to students from both within and beyond the EU in an intensive course format. João Paulo Magalhães described his experience as a learner within the context of a public health programme, and Germán Andrés Alarcón Garavito presented the experience of the innovative collaborative Emerging Voices for Global Health Program. As a group, the absence of a comprehensive textbook on EU health governance was a key point of discussion. 

Following on from the teaching workshop, EUHealthGov is developing a shared teaching resource which will be posted on our website in due course. For updates on this, and future events of the network, follow us on Twitter, check out the website and/or join our mailing list.

We are very grateful to UACES for funding the network and enabling this in-person workshop, as well as to Mundo-B for providing us with a welcoming space, and to Les Petits Oignons for an excellent dinner! 

The post Maastricht at 30: Exploring past, present, and future drivers of EU health integration appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

We’re now at a point where it’s possible to say that almost all of the Windsor Framework’s numerous elements are now either fully adopted or (for a handful of pieces of EU legislation) in the process of agreement.

PDF: https://bit.ly/UshGraphic119

That might make for a nicely-coloured graphic, but what does it actually mean on the ground?

As various people noted when I tweeted this out, having the legal adoption of a text doesn’t immediately mean it comes into effect, something that was being noted by the witnesses at the Lords Protocol Sub-Committee evidence session yesterday.

Partly that’s because of the provisions of the decisions themselves.

Article 23 of Joint Committee Decision 1/2023 (the key document in all this) sets out a number of different dates for entry into force of provisions. The default date is 30 September 2023, with only a handful of elements immediately in force.

It’s also worth noting that that default date only produces an entry into force if the EU is satisfied about access to UK information, EORI paperwork is correctly issued, the UK has guidelines in place on parcels and NI-GB goods export. No satisfaction, no operationalisation of the provisions.

There’s another reason too, namely the lack of UK documentation to clarify process (h/t to @irishagreement for this).

The government’s Border Target Operating Model will be the new standard system for goods movements across the UK’s borders, but this will only fully come into effect at end October 2024. Moreover, it specifically notes the Windsor Framework’s agreement and says new arrangements will be forthcoming ‘later this year’.

In both cases, the focus returns to UK capacity, rather than EU-UK agreement per se.

This was largely obscured during the time of the Johnson administration: the policy of contesting the Withdrawal Agreement’s provision (and status) meant that building effective systems necessarily took a bit of a back seat. This January’s agreement on a basic system of information-sharing can only be partly explained by the technical issues involved.

But IT is only one part of the infrastructure and process involved, as the Border Target Operating Model makes clear. From the EU’s perspective, making sure that this is all in place is understandably important, given the need to protect against any future backsliding by a UK government that doesn’t have a perfect record (and that might be out of office relatively soon).

This would have been the case even without Windsor: last year’s infringement procedures (now suspended) were precisely about such issues.

Even at arm’s length, interaction with the EU comes with obligations, something that will only become more evident as new areas of cooperation are developed.

The post When is a framework actually in operation? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Being located at the intersection of European Studies and Security Studies, my PhD project looks at how counter-terrorism policy, in particular preventive counter-terrorism, has come to be an important area of integration in EU enlargement towards the South East European accession candidate states. I am interested in how preventive counter-terrorism shapes and (re)orders political relations and networks in EU enlargement. My findings demonstrate that although EU enlargement is often depicted as a clear and linear process, it is rather embedded in a complex transnational structure that in turn impacts the content and development of enlargement and its areas of political integration.

A crucial part of a PhD project is not only the empirical research and the writing process but also the dissemination and presentation of its results. Particularly towards the end of a PhD trajectory, it is very important to disseminate and discuss findings and build a network at international conferences. With the Covid-19 pandemic disrupting many opportunities for in-person conferencing and networking, as it was the case for a significant part of my PhD project, such exchanges have become even more relevant now. The UACES Microgrant was a great opportunity and it enabled me to participate in the International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Conference held on 15-18 March 2023 in Montréal. The ISA Annual Conference is one of the largest annual gatherings of scholars working in the field of International Relations in which my research is embedded. After having attended some academic conferences in Europe, for example the UACES Annual Conference, the ISA conference was the first conference for me taking place outside of Europe. It was therefore an important occasion for me to present my research in a novel setting and to engage with a wider academic community than I had done before.

With the support of the UACES Microgrant, I was able to fund my attendance at the ISA conference and present my research on the underlying assumptions behind the EU’s approach to preventive counter-terrorism in EU enlargement. At the conference, I received valuable feedback and ideas regarding my research. Attendance at the ISA conference contributed to broadening my perspective on my research findings and to seeing potential ways of improving my argument. The comments and questions that I received as well as the inspiration that I got from attending other panels and discussions including the networking events will feed back into my writing process and will certainly improve my dissertation. I am therefore very grateful to UACES for funding my attendance at the ISA Annual Conference and for giving me the opportunity to connect with the International Relations community at a conference located outside of Europe.

 

 

About the UACES Microgrants scheme:

The UACES Microgrant scheme is aimed at supporting research for our Early-Career and Individual Members.

The microgrants scheme will provide grants of between £100 and £500 to UACES members to assist them to cover the costs of undertaking their research.

The post Engaging with the International Relations Academic Community Beyond Europe – Presenting Research Findings at the ISA Annual Conference in Montréal appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

For our weekly ‘Ideas on Europe’ editorial by UACES, the University Association for European Studies, we have the pleasure to welcome Prof Başak Alpan, from the Middle East Technical University, in Ankara.

 

Listen to the podcast on eu!radio.

 

 

Only two weeks left before the election. What is the mood in the country like?

The mood is perhaps best captured in the recent advertisement by Yeni Rakı (one of the biggest Rakı brands in Turkey). The clip seemingly asks people how they will celebrate the centennial of the Turkish Republic (which is six months away), but is actually implicitly depicting the sheer joy people would feel if the opposition wins in the 14 May elections.

The advert illustrates well how emotionally laden and tense this election campaign is. For the first time in two decades, the incumbent party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) that has been in power since 2002, and its leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, are facing the risk of losing the presidential elections. Most of the pre-election polls predict that the opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu will win the majority of votes in the first round, with Erdoğan coming in second.

 

How has AKP managed to remain so long in power?

AKP came to power in 2002 with the claim that they were not political Islamists but “conservative democrats” who would be the voice of those who had hitherto been oppressed and under-represented by the staunchly secular, Western-minded, and elitist Republic. But AKP radicalised and adopted an authoritarian and religious-oriented positioning, especially after 2010.

The Gezi protests of 2013 and the coup attempt of 15 July 2016 all contributed to the narrative of “fear” cultivated by Erdoğan, which seemed to have attracted voters in all previous elections. This time around, AKP runs under the slogan “once again”.

 

And what opposition is AKP facing?

The main opposition bloc, known as the Nation Alliance, is led by the Republican People’s Party (CHP). It includes five other parties, which explains its popular name “the Table of Six”.

It is campaigning for strengthening the parliamentary system, reversing the democratic backsliding of the country, easing the extremely high inflation, and accomplishing a reset of Turkey’s foreign policy. And of course, it is heavily criticising the government’s response to the devastating earthquake of February. Candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu is also supported by the leftist Labour and Freedom Alliance, which is only running for the parliamentary elections (with the highest number of women candidates, by the way).

 

These elections look definitely different…

It is an election of many firsts.

For the first time, the opposition is competing with both Ankara and Istanbul already governed by CHP-aligned mayors. While this might sound irrelevant to a Western European ear, you should bear in mind how politicised Turkish local elections are. The popular Istanbul and Ankara mayors could help the opposition garner the support of especially young voters, who are still undecided.

Also for the first time, strategic voting will be a tool in the parliamentary elections: it’s about ensuring as many opposition MPs winning seats in the Parliament as possible.

Last but not least, democratic consolidation is an important agenda item with very concrete promises like upholding the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) judgments and releasing prominent Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtas and Turkish philanthropist Osman Kavala from prison.

 

And how are you personally experiencing the election?

These elections are crucial for the educated, secular, urban, middle-class voters like myself, who spent the best part of their younger years under the AKP rule.

The erosion of our democracy, the decision to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention, the charges put against the Academics for Peace movement in the past years, and the hyper-inflation that very severely hit the lifestyle of the middle class, are pressing concerns that need to be addressed not only by the new president, but also by a hopefully diverse parliament giving voice to groups like women, Kurds, Alevis, LGBTQs, etc.

I would love to take politics solely as an academic job for some time, rather than the existential struggle directly determining the flow of my life that it has been for the past years.

Perhaps this day will come, just like spring comes. And when that day comes, we will, with Kılıçdaroğlu’s words, perhaps live in “a Turkey that does not hurt each other, that loves and respects those who are different as they are. A Turkey that embraces, not distances. A Turkey with a full stomach and an abundant heart; a Turkey that loves to live.”

 

Thank you very much, for sharing your personal views on the forthcoming election in Turkey. I recall that you are associate professor at the Middle East Technical University. Interview by Sophie Girstmair

 

 

The post “When that Day Comes” appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

No graphic for you this time, mainly because the ideas that I’m writing about here are part of an on-going process/struggle for me to generalise into something bigger. But I’m sure you’ll cope.

Blossom: new beginnings, ephemeral

The ‘resolution’ of the Northern Ireland Protocol with the Windsor Framework earlier this year was taken in some quarters as a sign for all manner of new cooperation between the UK and EU to unfurl. Sure, Windsor didn’t actually solve everything (and needs to be implemented), but it gave both sides an opportunity to try giving their post-membership relationship a more regular twist.

Top of that particular to-do list was Horizon, the EU’s main research programme.

The UK had always said it wanted to stay involved in it after it left, but the joys of 2019-20 meant that while there was a mechanism for managing this in the TCA, it got stuck while the Commission pondered some technical questions that had absolutely nothing to do with the Irish impasse.

Result? Two full years of UK non-association to Horizon, which meant no access to several of the funding lines and severely restricting rules for the rest. UK researchers, who had hitherto been both disproportionately active and successful, either wind down their bidding a lot or else moved to other countries that could access the programme (i.e. pretty much anywhere else on the planet).

Windsor undoubtedly unlocked this. Even as Ursula Von Der Leyen proclaimed the Framework’s agreement with Rishi Sunak in the random hotel-that-was-more-Surrey-than-Berkshire, she said work on association could start ‘immediately’.

Of course, starting work ‘immediately’ doesn’t mean agreeing ‘immediately’, and we find ourselves two months later still without a settlement, despite some rounds of detailed talks.

The core issue now is one of money.

The UK argued that since it hadn’t been associated in the first years of the current funding cycle (2021-27), it shouldn’t have to make contributions for the time it missed.

After some pushback by the Commission, that point was conceded, whereupon the government then suggested that this non-participation had a chilling effect on researchers, who wouldn’t be able to return to full capacity in bidding for some time, so a further reduction in contribution would be proportionate.

And here we find ourselves now, a bit stuck.

It’s not clear how this issue will resolve, but confidence still seems high on both sides that a resolution is possible, but it raises a number of reflections about EU-UK cooperation.

Big picture, small steps

Perhaps the central point of this tale is that the calculation for doing work together is now situated in a different context.

Haggling over funding is hardly something that was invented on the day the UK left the EU: a moment’s glance at any budgetary question from the history of European integration will tell you that much.

What is different is the scope for trade-offs.

As a member state, the UK was – like its counterparts – able to balance out costs or disadvantages in one area of cooperation by building up package deals. Everyone gets something they value, enough to justify more localised costs. This was not only in treaties, but also in linkages across secondary legislation, most notably the Single Market programme in the 1980s.

Now however, the UK is a third country, so the EU is able to structure things rather differently. Horizon is not part of a package of topics, but a standalone. Agreeing the Windsor Framework was the entry price to a new negotiation about Horizon association, even though the EU had connected it previously.

The reason the EU is able to do this is two-fold.

Firstly, this is about the UK joining an EU programme. So the EU holds the veto power alone: whatever requirements it decides it has for entry, it can impose on the UK and anyone else. If it were about creating a new joint structure – like the Withdrawal Agreement or the Trade & Cooperation Agreement for example – then both parties would have veto rights, but this takes us to the second reason.

Despite being one of the world’s largest economies and a state with global ambitions, the UK is still relatively small in the grand scheme of things. As a result, its options for alternative lines of action are rather limited, which in turn mean that cleaving to the EU becomes more of a necessity, which takes us back to that first reason.

Research is a good demonstration of this.

Throughout the past few years, the UK government has talked up building alternatives to Horizon that ‘better serve’ UK interests.

Only this month, it published details of a plan for ‘Pioneer’, as a back-up should Horizon association not play out. This would have the same budget envelope as Horizon, so surely it’s just as good, right?

Not really.

The value of Horizon and its predecessors was always much more in the networks of collaboration that it built, rather than the money per se. For example, I’ve just finished a project with partners across Europe, South Africa and Canada which has given me a bunch of new contacts and opportunities for future work that would otherwise have been unavailable.

So Pioneer, like the other Plan B options the government has advanced before, falls far short, precisely because other countries aren’t part of it. Witness the Turing Scheme, designed to make up for exiting ERASMUS+ exchanges, which still has nothing like the breadth and range of international partners.

As any negotiator will tell you, knowing what your alternative to agreement might be is really useful in deciding whether to accepting that agreement. But in this case, that alternative is so clearly inferior (and clearly so to all parties) that it doesn’t really work as an incentive to the EU to flex. No wonder the minister has not gone full-Johnson on ‘no deal’.

All of this is likely to be a pattern that gets repeated again and again in the future. The EU’s relative weight mean it can be pretty confident that the UK will have to bend to its terms, or instead wait until it comes around to that idea.

This isn’t to say that the UK has no options, but rather that it needs to start from a position of understanding this situation more fully. And in coming posts I’ll write some more about what it might do about it all.

The post Over the Horizon appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

One of the most profound but under-appreciated impacts of the Covid pandemic on Early Career Researchers (ECRs) is that we simply have not had the opportunity to find “our people” – the ones who are so integral for socialising us into academia, for accompanying us through the confusing terrain and showing us the hidden rooms. Our people are the kindred spirits who help us find our voice and develop our approach to research and the world.

Years of cancelled and online conferences have meant that we have not had the opportunity to meet other ECRs and established scholars in our field in person. And so, it was with a generous microgrant from UACES, that I packed my bags and headed off to the 2023 International Studies Association (ISA) conference in Montreal where, as fortune would have it, I essentially managed to meet the entire bibliography of my thesis [1].

To give some context, ISA is the largest international studies conference in the world. It is MASSIVE – 5,500 attendees from across the globe (though much more work needs to be done to help those who require visas to attend), present at several hundred panels, organised across three hotels over four days. It is easy for a first timer to get burned out and overwhelmed (I did). I attended innovative insightful talks ranging from migration and borders, through ontological security, to solar geoengineering and patent mapping.

These panels and presentations are, of course, important. But being able to meet these people outside of the confines of a panel and hear more about their work more candidly; to arrange drinks and dinners to sit and bounce around nascent thoughts with people working in similar (and sometimes completely different) areas as me has helped me clarify my ideas, (re)orient myself within my discipline, and move my research forward. Conversations with both established and early career ontological security scholars have helped in my thinking around contingency and temporality in particular and given me renewed focus and engagement with my thesis.

On a more human level (which is all too frequently overlooked in institutional academia), we need these kinds of encounters to develop our support networks. Academia can notoriously be a very lonely place and being able to meet our people is utterly vital in helping ECRs survive and thrive in this world.

Maybe the real ISA is the friends we made along the way.

 

[1] This line was shamelessly stolen from Lauren Rogers (@rogerslkay)

 

 

About the UACES Microgrant:

The UACES Microgrant scheme is aimed at supporting research for our Early-Career and Individual Members.

The microgrants scheme will provide grants of between £100 and £500 to UACES members to assist them to cover the costs of undertaking their research. The grants are designed to recognise the challenges facing researchers at this time.

Next application deadline: 31 July 2023.

The post Always Meet Your Heroes: Reflections on ISA 2023 appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Hannah Moscovitz and Emma Sabzalieva

How are shifting geopolitics affecting higher education institutions and systems? What are the power dynamics at play when geopolitics comes into conflict with higher education policy and practice? What is different about today’s higher education and global geopolitical trends from their interactions in the past? These questions are at the heart of our inquiry in the special issue on The New Geopolitics of Higher Education in Globalisation, Societies and Education. In recent years, higher education institutions have found themselves caught up in various geopolitical crises and events, including a global pandemic, new territorial conflicts and military invasions, and a spread of grassroots movements calling for climate justice and a redressing of structural racism, among others. Bringing together a collection of ten articles, the Special Issue roots the study of higher education in prevailing geopolitical currents to explore how higher education policies and actions are imbricated in the changing geopolitical landscape.

 

What is “new” about the “new geopolitics”?

By qualifying the current geopolitics as new, the special issue emphasizes that we are currently witnessing a different set of geopolitical patterns requiring new ways of thinking about their intersections with higher education.  This “new geopolitics” also signals a need for a renewed and refined understanding of geopolitics as it pertains to higher education. Indeed, the literature linking higher education to geopolitics remains scant and scattered, opening opportunities to bring these together into a new sub-field. At the same time, we acknowledge that geopolitics are constantly in flux, and that those witnessed today will not always be “new”. Indeed, since we started to develop this novel conceptual approach, we have seen the new geopolitics continue to unfold before our eyes, with recent examples including Russia’s war on Ukraine, the incursion of armed forces into universities in Perú, and global solidarity with academic communities affected by earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria.

While the articles making up the special issue are concerned with issues and events of contemporary relevance, they also promote deeper conceptual questions on how to study the intersection between geopolitics and higher education. The special issue thus aims to offer flexible frameworks for future inquiries.

 

Conceptualising the New Geopolitics of Higher Education: a proposed framework

In our full-length opening article for the special issue, Conceptualising the new geopolitics of higher education, we introduce a new conceptual framework for investigating the new geopolitics of higher education. By interconnecting multiple scales, agents, interests and opportunity structures, the SAIOS framework offers a way to connect to broader geopolitical contexts and tensions at play in the higher education domain.

SAIOS framework developed by Moscovitz and Sabzalieva

The framework draws from previous studies investigating the global dimension of higher education, in particular Marginson and Rhoades’ ‘glonacal’ framework and its subsequent development. Theoretically, the framework has its roots in relevant concepts including multi-scalar dynamics in higher education and the agent-structure connection. The SAIOS framework accounts for the multifaceted and complex ways in which geopolitical forces interact with higher education policy decisions and actions and aims to offer a flexible heuristic to analyse and critique the intersections of the new geopolitics with higher education, which can adapt to ongoing shifts in the geopolitical environment.

 

Advancing a Critical Geopolitics Approach to Higher Education

The SAIOS framework is also an important development in promoting a critical geopolitics approach to higher education. Concerned with making explicit the discursive and manifest interactions between space and power, and recognizing that politics, space and territory are contested notions, a critical geopolitics framing of higher education leads us to the identification of four themes where we see intersections between critical geopolitics and higher education studies. As we discuss in the paper, each theme represents a form of rupture away from dominant understandings of power and organisation in relation to geopolitics and higher education. The ruptures are from i) hegemonic notions of world power, politics, and knowledge production, ii) the fixation on the national scale to understand territorial sovereignty and power, iii) the strict domestic-foreign binary and iv) the emphasis on macro perspectives and a need for scaling down to the micro.

The themes and inquiries advanced in the articles of the special issue advance one or more of these ruptures, promoting rich and timely insights into the new geopolitics of higher education.

 

Towards Context-Sensitive Approaches to the New Geopolitics of Higher Education

The articles making up the special issue approach the notion of geopolitics of higher education from a specific geographical scale or context, from the perspective of specific agents and their distinct interests and motivations and underscore different ways in which geopolitics collide with higher education policy and practice. Taken together, the ten articles make the case for examining both empirically and theoretically the new geopolitics of higher education. Each contribution points to critical transformations occurring in the higher education policy domain as a result of shifting geopolitics. Yet, while widespread, these transformations are in no way fixed. The special issue therefore aims to shed light on the context-specific ways in which higher education is evolving in the current global landscape, with articles highlighting the new geopolitics between and across borders. They also offer a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to inquire into this connection, providing worked examples of the variety of entry points into our SAIOS framework.

Through the SAIOS framework, the call to engage in critical geopolitics, and through the combination of the ten articles in the special issue, we set forward an ambitious agenda for a new subfield of higher education studies, one concerned with geopolitics as a main reference point.

The entry is based on the special issue “The New Geopolitics of Higher Education” and its opening article “Conceptualising the New Geopolitics of Higher Education”.

 

Dr. Hannah Moscovitz is postdoctoral research fellow at the Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, Denmark.

Dr. Emma Sabzalieva is Head of Research and Foresight at UNESCO International Institute for Higher Education (UNESCO IESALC).

 

Reference:

Moscovitz, Hannah & Emma Sabzalieva (2023) Conceptualising the new geopolitics of higher education, Globalisation, Societies and Education 21(2): 149-165 https://doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2023.2166465

The post The New Geopolitics of Higher Education appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

By Mihail Chiru

Committee group coordinators are some of the most influential Members of the European Parliament (MEPs): they manage committees’ broad policy agendas, ensure the positions of their European Party Group are coherent across different policy initiatives and maintain high levels of voting discipline at plenary votes. When coordinators achieve consensus among party MEPs in the committee (i.e., the party group’s experts on the topic), a very powerful signal is sent to the non-specialist MEPs that they can support the party group line in the plenary without reservations. They also matter greatly through their role in bidding for and acquiring reports for their party and selecting the rapporteur, the person who shapes the position of the European Parliament on a legislative file, from their own committee contingent. Last but not least, successful spells as group coordinators have proved steppingstones in the careers of very successful MEPs, such as Manfred Weber, Martin Schulz and Elmar Brok. How then are these powerful MEPs chosen?

With the EP’s empowerment to the status of co-legislator in the European Union, committees can increasingly shape EU legislation and the stakes of selecting competent group coordinators have also increased significantly. The appointment of group coordinators is not only highly relevant for substantive policy-making, but also opens up a very interesting question for students of legislative politics beyond the EP. Notably: when given total freedom, what qualities and types of expertise do legislators prioritise when deciding whom to make their coordinator in a committee? Group coordinators are elected by their peers, the European Party Group committee contingent, not the leadership, as happens with most other positions in the European Parliament. Moreover, the proportionality criteria that apply to virtually all other EP offices do not affect this selection process.

In this article recently published by JCMS, I analyse the selection of group coordinators in the two largest parties in the European Parliament, the European People’s Party (EPP), from terms 2 to 8, and the Socialists & Democrats (S&D), from terms 6-8. The analyses indicate that coordinator seniority and committee incumbency are the most important factors that predict which MEPs become group coordinators. Probing further, it seems that while coordinator seniority matters greatly irrespective of committee type, committee incumbency is an extra argument for nomination as coordinator in the more powerful committees, i.e., those with higher levels of legislative activity and influence over the EU budget.

These findings corroborate the argument that legislative organisation in the European Parliament is mostly driven by an informational logic, which favours further specialization of MEPs by continuous membership in the same committee and re-appointment to committee leadership positions. Nevertheless, and similarly to the selection of committee chairs in the European Parliament, I find no evidence that the empowerment of the supranational legislatures has changed the patterns of group-coordinator selection.

Somewhat surprising given the policy-seeking orientation of MEPs, the absence of leadership influence and proportionality constraints does not automatically lead to the election of group coordinators who are more congruent ideologically with their committee contingent than other aspirants. One would expect such congruence to matter given the discretion that the coordinators have in selecting rapporteurs and the assumption that committee members would want to minimize the likelihood that the coordinator chooses rapporteurs who are not aligned with their preferences. Corroborating the latter, there is evidence that coordinators allocate more reports to MEPs who are closer ideologically to the coordinators’ national party position on EU integration. Our own analyses show that ideological proximity influences who becomes group coordinator only for the S&D sample, while it does not play a role for EPP coordinators.

Ties with interest groups active in the sectors covered by the committee’s portfolio increase the likelihood of becoming a group coordinator, according to initial analyses run on a sub-sample, but this finding would need to be further tested. It is also worth noting that in the case of the EPP, German and to a smaller extent Spanish MEPs are over-represented among committee group coordinators even when accounting for the large size of their national delegations. One possible explanation is the similarity in terms of legislative organization in two of these national parliaments compared to the EP: the coordinator position resembles that of Obleute in the German Bundestag and the committee spokesperson in the Spanish Congress.

It is reasonable to assume that the patterns of selection of EPP and S&D group coordinators uncovered by this research would be mirrored by similar processes in other European Party Groups interested in shaping EU policies. Nevertheless, it would be worthwhile exploring the extent to which the selection of group coordinators in smaller and less transnational groups is dominated by those groups’ largest national delegations. The apparent positive role for group coordinator selection of having a functionally equivalent position in the national parliament highlights how elements of national legislative organisation contribute to preparing MEPs for their work in the supra-national legislature and warrants further comparative research.

Overall, our results indicate that committee members are not primarily concerned with choosing the most ideologically congruent MEP as a group coordinator, but that they value experience in overcoming coordination problems among group members. Thus, a good boss is one who has already proven able to facilitate the committee members’ collaboration and the efficient usage of the group’s human resources.

Dr. Mihail Chiru is a Lecturer in Politics at the University of Oxford. He previously taught at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies (OSGA) and conducted postdoctoral research at UCLouvain. His work focuses on legislative behaviour, legislative organisation and party politics in the European Union and Central and Eastern Europe.

Twitter: @MihailChiru, at the Department of Politics and International Relations (DPIR) @Politics_Oxford. Find Mihail Chiru’s academic profile here.

The post How to Choose a Good Boss? Committee Coordinators in the European Parliament appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

For our weekly ‘Ideas on Europe’ editorial by UACES, the University Association for European Studies, we have the pleasure to welcome again Dr Nick Startin, from John Cabot University, in Rome. Listen to the podcast on eu!radio.

 

 

Over the last decade, there has been much media debate about the rise of right-wing populism and its potential threat to liberal democracy.

That’s right: from Trump to Bolsonaro, from Orbán to Erdoğan, the notion that an era of ‘illiberal democracy’ is gaining momentum has become a dominant media narrative.

And over the last twelve months the debate has intensified in Europe with Marine Le Pen’s strong performance in the 2022 French elections, followed by Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the Fratelli d’Italia and first female Prime Minister of Italy.

In France, on the back of the protests over President Macron’s pension reform and his controversial decision to trigger article 49.3 to pass his legislation, we have even seen in recent days a further rise in support for the Rassemblement National. According to an IFOP poll conducted for the Journal du Dimanche, support for the RN would rise by 7% if there were fresh parliamentary elections in France.

 

So, it sounds as if that media speculation about the onward electoral trajectory of the Radical Right in Europe is right?

Certainly, what with the cost-of-living crisis and tensions around migration across the West, the demand side conditions remain favourable for Radical Right Parties. But we shouldn’t necessarily be as pessimistic as some media channels and experts would lead us to believe.

The reality is that Radical Right Parties, in spite of their potential to exploit the ‘echo chamber’ of social media and to spin ‘fake news’, are not in control of the shifting demographic, generational cycle. Some of the regressive policies of the Radical Right simply do not chime with the evolution of public opinion among the younger generation in some key attitudinal areas. And this is problematic for the Radical Right.

 

What kind of issues are we talking about?

Let’s take ‘climate change’. Traditionally, European Radical Right Parties have tended to be in ‘denial’ or ‘sceptical’ about climate change but as the issue has taken on more salience – particularly among younger voters – this has led to a scramble among the Radical Right to appear credible on the ‘climate crisis’.

In France, there is no doubt that Marine Le Pen’s commitment not only to stop new wind farm projects, but also to dismantle existing ones, was a reality check for many younger, undecided voters at the last Presidential elections France.

 

What other issues are there beyond climate change?

On value issues, like abortion and same-sex marriage, the demographic sands are also shifting away from the Radical Right. In the U.S, it was apparent how some Republican candidates were unable to exploit the Roe versus Wade debate to their advantage in some key contests at the November midterm elections.

In Italy, the Meloni government, despite its strong emphasis on traditional family values, will have to tread carefully if it does not want to appear out of touch with younger voters. For instance, it is unlikely to instigate any national legislation on the reform of abortion law, for fear of it being overturned by a constitutional referendum.

It’s true, the Italian senate did vote against a measure introduced by the European Commission to make the recognition of same-sex parents mandatory. But we have also recently seen demonstrations in Milan after the Minister for the Interior, Matteo Piantedosi, advised the centre-left Mayor of Milan, Beppe Sala, to stop registering the children of same sex couples. This has alienated many voters, particular younger ones.

 

So, are you implying the long-term electoral prospects of the Radical Right in Europe may not be so clear-cut after all?

In the long term, this might well be the case.

As the wheel of demography continues to turn, so progressive social attitudes are likely to become more entrenched. No amount of regressive framing by Populist news channels or social media is likely to reverse this. The simple truth is that the ‘generational genie’ is out of the bottle, and it can’t be put back in!

Such demographic changes are likely to put Radical Right Parties on the back foot as they seek to widen their support. In truth, despite much talk of ‘culture wars’, these demographic shifts are probably more likely to strengthen liberal democracy in a global context rather than ‘illiberal democracy’ in a national one!

 

Thank you for this cautious note of optimism in a long-term perspective. I recall that you are currently teaching at John Cabot University, in Rome.

 

Interview by Rune Mahieu.

The post Populist Right Parties and the Generational Shift appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Between January and March 2023, I had the opportunity to join the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internationals (IBEI) as a visiting researcher on a RENPET bursary. As I embarked on the last semester of my PhD, I counted on my research stay at IBEI to receive additional feedback on my PhD thesis, as well as other research projects, and strengthen my professional relations with the academic community at IBEI. I am delighted to say, my stay at IBEI delivered on all counts.

My PhD project revolves around the role of informality in EU foreign policy negotiations. Specifically, I develop scope conditions for the rise of informality in CFSP/CSDP negotiations and examine the informal venues, practices, and roles that member states navigate to make formal institutions work (for them). This original framework is applied to the study of three EU foreign policy negotiations of the last decade: the 2014 Russian sanctions negotiations, the PESCO negotiations, and the negotiations over the establishment of Operation EUNAVFORMED Irini. I can hardly think of someone better placed to provide feedback on my thesis than Charlie Roger, assistant professor at IBEI and author of the book The Origins of Informality: Why the Legal Foundations of Global Governance are Shifting, and Why It Matters (Oxford University Press, 2020). While at IBEI, I also completed the write-up of the final few chapters of my manuscript, getting all that much closer to the final submission in June.

During my stay, I also had the opportunity to present a draft version of a co-authored paper I am working on with Ana Juncos (Bristol University) and Karolina Pomorska (Leiden University), titled ‘Coordinative Europeanisation and Russia’s war of aggression: how crises shape Europeanisation dynamics in EU foreign policy’. The paper explores the distinctive Europeanisation dynamics triggered by Russia’s war of aggression. The members of the IBEI research cluster Norms and Rules in International Politics provided us with insightful comments, taking time to engage in a substantive discussion on the paper. The article will appear in a Special Issue of Contemporary European Politics.

Lastly, my research stay provided a fantastic opportunity to get to know in greater detail the outstanding work of various members of the IBEI community, from the predoctoral fellows to several members of the faculty (including Esther Barbé, Oriol Costa, and Eva Michaels). The stay thus provided a great networking opportunity – and, more importantly, just some lovely exchanges among colleagues.

I am very grateful to RENPET and UACES for making my residency possible. I am especially indebted to Robert Kissack, for welcoming me at IBEI, Charlie Roger, who took time to provide feedback on my PhD thesis, and the members of the Norms and Rules in International Politics research cluster for their feedback. A special thank you to Carlos Sanchez, Helena Arregui, and the rest of the administrative staff at IBEI, for always being kind, professional, and ready to help. Most of all, I wish to thank the wonderful predoctoral candidates and research assistants at IBEI, who made the days at the office fun and enjoyable.

 

 

RENPET is an Erasmus+ Jean Monnet Network of ten major universities across Europe and a leading pan-European professional academic association. RENPET builds on the strong cooperation established through the 2014-2017 ANTERO Network and the 2017-2020 NORTIA Network. RENPET fosters cutting edge research, translates that research into innovative teaching and professional development and actively engages in policy debates among our powerful powerful epistemic community.

 

Apply for a RENPET Network Residency.

The post Research Stay at IBEI – A RENPET Bursary Report appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Culture encompasses symbols, language, beliefs, values, and artefacts found in human societies. The components of culture could be categorised under “ideas and symbols” on the one hand and “artefacts” (material objects) on the other hand. Artefacts in the form of “statues,” for example, possess a strong cultural language that can represent the identity of a group of people. However, reflecting on the #RhodesMustFall campaign in South Africa, which was directed against a statue at the University of Cape Town (UCT), one would realise how artefacts can bring cultural entanglement to remembrance, and the consequences thereof.  For example, in the context of the #RhodesMustFall campaign, it was a revolt against culture, not artefacts. This is because culture can serve as an instrument of dominance. The #RhodesMustFall campaign was, therefore, a negative response to cultural entanglement. Notwithstanding, the problem with cultural entanglement is that cultures do not meet but people of different cultural backgrounds do.

Consequently, when we talk about cultural entanglement and the violent confrontation that often takes place, we are referring to the friction that takes place when people with different cultural identities negotiate about belonging within the same geographic spaces. The issue of “who is in and who is out” is relevant during the process because it is linked to “otherness” (the fact of being different) and other complexities that are involved when negotiating collective belonging. The #RhodesMustFall campaign in South Africa was, therefore, indicative of the memory of entanglement between Europeans and native Africans in South Africa. Geographic spaces belong to everyone because people arrive in different geographic spaces at different times.

No human being is supposed to be perceived as a foreigner anywhere in the world. Concerning African-European cultural entanglement in South Africa, it should be noted that Europeans who arrived in South Africa/Africa did not understand/learn African culture, languages, and spirituality. As a result, African languages and spiritualities were relegated to an inferior position below European languages and spirituality. Objectively speaking, the relegation of African languages below European languages, for example, was a result of the complex linguistic landscape of Africa. There are African countries with more than 200 native languages. This made interaction difficult. Hence, the use of European languages helps people of varied native languages to easily interact. We should, therefore, avoid the temptation to perceive the use of European languages in Africa as a mechanism of oppression. African societies pre- and post-colonisation did not have a single language. If that were the case, it would suffice to argue that the relegation of African languages was an act of oppression.

Therefore, as Africans in the present dispensation, we should refrain from perceiving European languages as “the languages of the oppressor.” We are obliged to be objective in our views. Ngugi Wa Thiongo’o advises us (Africans) “… to use European languages, but not to allow European languages to use us.” It is also our responsibility to create a language that can be used across the continent.
Certainly, human encounters do not exclude violent conflicts from occurring at the micro and macro levels. Sometimes it is a matter of time before a violent conflict takes place.

The memory of African and European cultural encounters is, however, not so much about truth, but about the experience. This is because truth in this context is a lived experience of peoples’ pain that must be acknowledged. Some early clashes between African and European encounters happened because of “difference – otherness”. If you are not like us, we must make you look like us – “culturalization.” This affected Africans the most, as envisaged in the dominance and dispossession of African societies by Europeans in South Africa. The traumatic memory of dispossession has been haunting native South Africans hitherto. It is, therefore, imperative to consider how African and European entanglement in South Africa can be reimagined. This issue is salient because there is a need to create a collective memory in South Africa that would work for Africans and Europeans equally. One way to do that is to leverage the South African cultural philosophical concept of Ubuntu (meaning I am, because you are). Ubuntu is important in South Africa in the present political time because of socio-economic agitations. Ubuntu would allow native South Africans and Europeans to look at the “land question” for the benefit of all.

However, if that is not possible, Africans and Europeans must learn to be tolerant and accommodating of each other to create a stable environment. This is what cultural encounters should do when perceived in a positive light. Africa and Europe are two allies with deep historical encounters. There is no need to propagate resentment and anti-European sentiments across South Africa/Africa. The negative effect of African and European encounters should, therefore, be noted by both parties. And the time to do that is now.

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Photo credits: Alex Blajan unsplash

Justinas Lingevicius

The emerging AI policy of the European Union (EU), new financial instruments and institutional entities dedicated to boosting emerging technologies including AI, suggest that the EU approaches technological developments strategically and aims to play a role in their international development and regulation. However, the EU position on military AI – the wide-ranging issue of future security with multiple potential effects and forms of application – appears diluted in the emerging EU AI policy due to different institutional priorities. This mixed position thus raises the question of what the discussion on military AI suggests about EU actorness.

I analyse this question in my new article ‘Military Artificial Intelligence as Power: Consideration for the European Union’s Actorness’ (Lingevicius, 2023) released in the special issue ‘Responsible AI of Military Applications’ of the Ethics and Information Technology journal.

 

Military Power Europe and Military AI

Discussion of EU actorness focuses heavily on the ‘Europe as a power’ debate and the different definitions proposed: what are the leading characteristics of the EU and its external positioning and action. Despite a number of variations, my article puts forward three definitions: Normative Power Europe, Market Power Europe, and Military Power Europe. Interestingly, the overview of these definitions in the context of the ‘Europe as a power’ debate reveals that Military Power Europe, seemingly associated with standing armies and coercive interference, is not specifically introduced but rather mentioned in contrast to the others. Therefore, my article introduces the definition of Military Power Europe based on discussions of military AI in the EU. To do that, four categories are formulated as being at the core of the definition: ways of action, self-definition, preferred international engagement, and the role of the military.

The combination of discursive elements within these categories shows that the definition of Military Power Europe involves a normative model of governance, preferred multilateral international engagement, and the perceived EU role of norm-promoter. At the same time, military AI is associated with future power referring to advanced defence capabilities, readiness, and preparedness to address security challenges, including the possibility of the battlefield. The article therefore argues that, alongside normative proposals, there are evident desires for militarisation and a considerable role for the military in the EU. In this way, despite its initial exclusion from the emerging AI policy and diverging institutional positions, military AI is a part of the discussion and thus a part of the EU’s emerging AI policy.

 

Normative and military EU actorness

Over and above the ‘Europe as a power’ debate with its conceptual considerations, the introduced Military Power Europe definition also provides additional insights into (re)discussing EU actorness itself. For example, what is the relationship between technology, security, power and different policies or even political concepts such as digital autonomy? What is the security environment, what actions does it require and what new trends does it set?

The article shows that the discussion on military AI brings different characteristics to EU actorness: normativity in terms of governance and the desire for international influence as well as competition and military advancement as a response to perceived security concerns. In other words, the EU has been positioned as a military power concerned about its capabilities and readiness for the future effects of military AI. Therefore, the article joins those (for example, Hoijtink, Muehlenhoff, 2020) challenging the understanding of EU actorness based merely on civil/normative definitions. This dive into the EU’s inter-institutional discussion on military AI suggests that the military appears to be not only a matter of security (for example, the Common Security and Defence Policy) but also part of the EU’s ambitious digital agenda. Having clarified this complexity, both the Military Power Europe definition and EU actorness in the context of military AI could be further elaborated and investigated through other digital policy initiatives (data, cybersecurity, robotics), and their relation to the military or security, particularly in the light of the EU’s ambitions on autonomy and sovereignty.

Finally, the analysis focused on military AI reveals a sense of urgency where the mix of long-term future scenarios and currently existing challenges such as cyber-attacks are interlinked. For interpretative research, this brings additional characteristics to the way the discussion is constructed – searching to define itself in the context of technological uncertainty and (re)producing inter-institutional disagreements on how the EU is expected to perform and respond to emerging global challenges.

 

Justinas Lingevicius is a PhD candidate at Vilnius University, Institute of International Relations and Political Science, Lithuania. This article is the result of a one-year fellowship at the Charlemagne Prize Academy (Aachen, Germany), mentored by Dr. Inga Ulnicane (De Montfort University, UK).

 

References:

Lingevicius, J. (2023). Military artificial intelligence as power: consideration for European Union actorness. Ethics and Information Technology, 25(19). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-023-09684-z

Hoijtink, M., Muehlenhof, H. L. (2020). The European Union as a masculine military power: European Union security and defence policy in ‘Times of Crisis´. Political Studies Review, 18(3), 362-377. https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929919884876

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For our weekly ‘Ideas on Europe’ editorial by UACES, the University Association for European Studies, we have the pleasure to welcome again Carmen Pérez González, from the University Carlos Tercero, in Madrid. Listen to the podcast on eu!radio.

 

 

You are the holder of an UNESCO Chair for ‘Education Linkage through International Sports’ and an expert on Sport Diplomacy. As a sports lawyer, how do you analyse the current debate about Russian athletes at the Paris Olympics?

It is true that the IOC – the International Olympic Committee, which was created in Paris by the way – is facing criticism over its intention of exploring the possibilities for allowing Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete at the Paris Olympics. The voices against welcoming them, even if they participate under a white neutral flag or in refugee teams, multiply.

Recently, the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, has clarified her opposition to the participation of these athletes as long as the war in Ukraine continues. In addition, up to 35 countries seem willing to call for Russian and Belarusian athletes to be banned from the Olympics. The United States, Germany, Australia, the UK and Japan are among them.

 

These are very important sporting nations!

And it will be no easy debate.

Their position is understandable: it can be argued that there is a profound contradiction between the Olympic values and the participation in mega sporting events of athletes and teams from a country that is so seriously violating international law.

On the other hand, a boycott could be seen as discriminatory. Recently, two UN Human Rights Council Rapporteurs have expressed concerns in this regard, asking the IOC to ensure non-discrimination of any athlete based on their nationality, emphasizing that no athlete should be required to take sides in the conflict.

 

And what exactly does the IOC say themselves?

The arguments used by the IOC are well-known. In a letter sent at the end of January to the Ukrainian Olympic Committee, IOC president Thomas Bach criticized Ukraine’s threat to boycott the Games, saying it would violate the Olympic charter. No athlete, he added in his letter, should be prevented from competing just because of his/her passport. As I said, these are not new arguments. In fact, the sport movement has always strongly advocated for political neutrality as a fundamental ethical principle.

In reality, what was really surprising, and to some extent contradictory to this position, was that almost immediately after the invasion of Ukraine was launched, the IOC and a growing number of sports associations took measures aimed not only at preventing the organization of international sports competitions in Russian or Belarusian territories but also affecting the participation of athletes of both countries in sporting competitions held worldwide. In the same vein, the Court of Arbitration for Sport dismissed in July 2022 Russian appeals against being banned from FIFA and UEFA competitions.

 

How can public international law help us solve this issue?

We can start by saying that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine seriously violates ‘peremptory international law obligations’. These are rules that protect the most essential interests of the international community as a whole. This is by no means a minor violation of international law. It therefore seems legitimate to call for a reaction from such powerful international actors as the IOC. Let me remind you that in 1985, under the auspices of the United Nations, an international convention against apartheid in sports was adopted, effectively banning South Africa.

 

So it’s not a new debate.

No, there are precedents. For instance, German and Japanese athletes were banned from the Olympics in 1948 due to their nations’ acts during the 2nd World War. At the same time, on many other occasions the IOC has stayed out of situations involving serious human rights violations by invoking the hackneyed argument of the political neutrality of sport.

In my opinion, the 21st century seems to call for a more decisive response from all actors, public and private, against the most serious violations of international legality. Without underestimating the approach of non-discrimination against athletes, it seems innocent not to take into account that their participation in the Paris Olympics will be exploited by Russia in terms of propaganda. Maybe the time has come to stop playing Putin’s games.

 

Thank you very much for sharing your analysis with us. I recall you are the UNESCO Chair for Education Linkage through International Sports at the University Carlos Tercero, in Madrid.

 

Interview by Laurence Aubron.

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When conducting empirical research in EU law and governance, researchers might often feel like they’re taking on the role of a detective or an investigative journalist. It all starts with an idea that becomes a workable puzzle, you gather data and compose it to tell a story, with the overall aim to uncover information and create knowledge about something. Oftentimes, unexpected information reveals itself along the way that might challenge the initial assumptions of the research. Some odd times, one starts from a surprising observation or a snippet of knowledge that hints towards a larger issue. Other times, the researcher will discover a new source of data while conducting an analysis. In studying the EU, a ‘creature’ that is already complex and sometimes unpredictable in its own ways, these twists-and-turns of the research process can unearth new insights that were often not part of the plan. How can we use these unforeseen developments along the research process to enrich our approach?

One potential answer to this question is quite straightforward: embrace them. Generally, research designs in this field, particularly stemming from the discipline of political science, follow a deductive approach – i.e., begin with a concept or theory that is used as a guiding point to investigate a given phenomenon. Embracing the unexpected in research, or even depending on it, calls for somewhat of a different approach. Specifically, this post proposes the introduction of investigative methods, in the methodological toolbox of studying political and legal (dis)integration in the Union.

Investigative methods, generally speaking, belong to the family of exploratory research methods and carry a number of unique characteristics. These mainly revolve around the presence of flexibility and adaptability at different stages of the research process. For instance, this approach proposes a structured starting point for the research process which, though informed by previous research, remains malleable and open to adaptation based on new ideas or new data. In practice, this can look like finding a ‘clue’ about the phenomenon at hand and using it as an ‘opening move’ or impetus for research.

For instance, in my own research on the process of creating EU soft law by the European Commission, a first clue was the fact that nobody seems to know how these instruments are made. Now this initial observation kicks off a myriad of other questions: why is that the case? Can this be attributed to the informal character of the instruments? Is it because it is difficult to find out? Is this a sign of fragmentation in the Commission’s internal procedures? This can then be used as separate avenues of investigation, all of which can inform our initial observation. Certainly, some will be more informative than others, but  that cannot be known in advance.

One of the more central aspects of this approach relates to its unique strategy of data collection. When using investigative methods, sources of data – data sets, data samples, interviewee lists, etc. – are not fixed for the duration of a given project. Instead, the researcher starts with the most promising avenue of data collection and acts as a detective; changing the composition and ordering of their data in accordance to new evidence or analytical ideas. This allows the researcher to ‘follow the trail’ and find answers to the central puzzle by exploring new angles, employing different perspectives from different disciplines or fields of study, and adapting their research strategy without being constrained by rigid conceptual frameworks and without forfeiting methodological rigour.

This is not entirely unfamiliar in the EU studies field. Elements of this approach are often used in empirical data collection, usually taking the form of ‘snowballing’ relating to, for example, the recruitment of interview participants or survey respondents. Still, the incorporation of investigative methods in the study of EU law goes much further and deeper, and primarily speaks to the overall design and epistemological approach of the research. It is the unique modelling and mapping of processes – e.g. administrative or policy processes – that investigative methods propose that enable us to gain a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of processes which would otherwise be inaccessible. That being said, so far investigative methods are primarily used in disciplines as psychology or sociology and have not been utilised in the study of the EU as a holistic approach.

Still, for legal scholars who work with empirical research, this approach and this process might sound familiar. It is very often the case that, when embarking on empirical legal research in EU matters, researchers find themselves in front of a sea of information with a simple question: where do I even start? This question is often followed up with trying to identify what is and isn’t there – are there relevant cases to my research problem? Have the concerned institutions made any statements about it? Is there someone I can talk to to find out more? This very exploration of what is and what is not available is part of the research and can be a finding within itself. Most importantly, this initial process of ‘figuring out’ potential avenues of data collection and inquiry sets the ‘investigation’ in motion. The flip side of this accidental familiarity of empirical legal scholars with investigative methods is that, by and large, legal studies are considered to be – sometimes unfairly – lacking in methodological rigour, primarily because it does not follow the stricter political science models of ‘theory-testing’ deductive models. Are these models the be-all and end-all of credible EU studies research? That is a discussion far more nuanced than the scope of this blog post. Still, I argue that there is significant merit in stepping away from predefined models and opening up the process of creating knowledge through research.

The point of this reflection is to propose investigative methods as an exceptionally useful tool in studying administrative and policy processes in the Union, both from disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives. Such an approach is particularly useful in areas of regulation that are characterised by high informality, high techno-scientific complexity, or are generally high-paced – which are notoriously difficult to study due, partly, to the large quantity of data sources and research avenues, or research blind-spots. In this sense, this methodological approach, when applied in the study of EU law and governance can help empirical scholarship ‘keep up’ with legal and administrative developments or uncover complex formal or informal mechanisms that make EU law work in practice.

Still, with all that in mind, there is an important point to be made here regarding the limitations to creativity and exploration in research imposed by the very structures of academia – surely, tight deadlines, funding, and output expectations do hinder the process. This is the reality of the field in broader EU studies and every other discipline. Perhaps, this is an issue for further reflection.

In short, by placing a specific emphasis on exploration, description, adaptation, and explanation, investigative methods can open up an avenue of understanding the more ‘nitty-gritty’ aspects of EU law and governance in a way that other research methods cannot. This post offers a methodological reflection on how investigative methods can enhance the methodological toolbox of studying EU law and help us better understand the ever-changing nature of law in the Union. The point here is simple: embrace creativity in research and embrace the unforeseen.

An example of the application of this method can be found in Petropoulou Ionescu, D., & Eliantonio, M. (2022). Soft Law Behind the Scenes: Transparency, Participation and the European Union’s Soft Law Making Process in the Field of Climate Change. European Journal of Risk Regulation, 1-21. doi:10.1017/err.2022.31 available here.

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Nilde Iotti

For our weekly ‘Ideas on Europe’ editorial by UACES, the University Association for European Studies, we have the pleasure to welcome again Dr Simona Guerra, from the University of Surrey, in the UK. Bonjour, Simona! Listen to the podcast on eu!radio.

 

 

Every once in a while, you tell us the untold story of ‘the early women of European integration’. And today, you are back with another fascinating profile, after the portrait of Käte Strobel you gave us last November.

Glad to be back! And guess what: I have recently won a research grant, named CAROLINE, which stands for ‘Creating A netwoRk On femaLe pIoNEers’ of European integration.

 

Congratulations!

Thank you! For my second profile, I am choosing Nilde Iotti. Nilde is actually short for ’Leonilde’. She is a well-known political figure in Italian political history and she left an imprint on Europe, too.

She’s impressive! She lost her father as a young woman but won a scholarship and graduated in philosophy when she was just 23. Two years later, in 1945, she was appointed regional secretary of the Union of Italian Women, after having joined this labour movement since she was 18.

When women gained the right to vote, in 1946, she was elected municipal councilor, and was appointed member of the Italian Communist Party assembly. In the same year, still only 26 years old, she entered the Italian Parliament among 21 women deputies, who presented themselves holding each other’s hands. It is in 1969 that she joined the still very young European Parliament.

 

Tell us about the initiatives she engaged in.

She was a member of the Working Group on European Parliament Direct Elections, but also of the Conference of Presidents, where she promoted the creation of an annual Conference of Parliamentary Commissions, dealing with European affairs, now recognized as the COSAC by the European Treaties.

Research tends to stress the role of women on promoting EU’s women policies. But the case of Nilde Iotti shows the active political agency of those ‘early women’ for European democracy. As Mechthild Roos has explained – I think you know her well – it is in the everyday policymaking and in the formal and informal procedures that we can better understand the work of individual deputies, emerging party groups, committees, and the European Parliament as a whole.

 

Where do you find all your historical data?

The European Parliament Research Archive offers online access to about 850,000 documents. I have consulted the ones relevant to my research, 43,516 documents, with a focus on the 1950s and 1960s, published in French, and the documents of the committee meetings allowed me to appreciate in detail the role of Nilde Iotti, who worked hard for the Parliament to gain influence, representation, and transparency.

In October 1969, she considered ‘absurd’ that the Parliament was not devoting any debate ‘on the proposed conference on security in Europe.’ To her, it was necessary to bridge ‘the gap which divides today’s Europe and prepare one of the essential acts of a policy of coexistence in Europe and worldwide.’ She wanted the Parliament to leave its ‘spectator’ dimension. Let me quote her again:

‘Do we want to accept forever that Europe is divided into two opposing opposed military blocks, and that, within these two, we see the persisting fatal consequences of the implacable logic of the bloc regime?’

And she added:

‘Dear Colleagues, if we want to be Europeans, we must take part in the events of history and European culture, we cannot continue to be absent; the place we occupy and the authority we are exercising are as strong as the measure of our participation in the major European political debates.’

That’s very pro-European for a woman from the radical left!

That’s right. Nilde Iotti pursued an idea of a Europe that was more international, and coherent with her idea of democracy. She was supporting integration beyond the economic solidarity and cooperation, towards civic and social integration.

In 1971, at a meeting of her party, she presented a work on ‘National sovereignty and European institutions’, explaining how to develop cultural, institutional, and political integration. In her 1979 inaugural speech as President of the Lower House in Italy, she stressed the ‘exceptional’ qualitative advancement of democracy at the European level with the first direct elections of the Parliament. And throughout her career, in Brussels and in Rome, she promoted a special Committee on European policies and democracy, until she left politics in 1992, after a political career of fifty years.

 

What a life! And I am sure you could not even cover everything. Thank you so much, Simona, for sharing your findings with us. I recall you are Senior Lecturer at the University of Surrey, in England. A slightly extended version of the text was simultaneously published on the LSE blog: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2023/03/08/nilde-iotti-and-european-democracy/ Interview by Rune Mahieu.

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By Elena Zacharenko

 

In April 2022, the European Commission (EC) declared that it plans to attract more labour migrants to the European Union (EU). This is a response to the challenges posed by the demographic ageing of the EU, as people are living longer and having fewer children. Those who had traditionally taken care of the elderly – their female relatives – are increasingly unable to do so due to employment obligations. Labour migration is thus seen as a solution to address the care needs of the growing numbers of elderly people – one which is already heavily relied upon by several Western European states. Countries such as Germany, Austria and Italy are popular destinations for female migrant care workers, benefitting from migrants’ willingness to work in this demanding and often underpaid sector due to the relative weakness of the economy in their countries of origin (usually to the East and South of the EU or outside of it). While the European Care Strategy, launched in September 2022, makes high level declarations on the importance of care, dedicated and adequate funding for its greater provision and the decent remuneration of care workers is still missing. As such, the solution proposed by the EC risks deepening existing patterns of care drain from poorer to richer countries in the EU and in its neighbourhood.

 

From personal issue to policy concern

In September 2022, the European Commission released the European Care Strategy, which for the first time contains direct policy provisions on long-term care, the type of care required by many elderly or disabled individuals. Until then, the most explicit mentions to the right to receive and provide care were made under the 2017 European Pillar of Social Rights and the 2019 Work-Life Balance Directive. The adoption of the European Care Strategy and the prominence of long-term care within it is the result of a rapidly rising awareness among EU policy makers on the policy implications of the aging of European societies, the shrinking of the workforce, and the rising numbers of individuals in need of care. The demographic ageing of the EU’s population, coupled with the deepening crisis of care as more women are joining the labour market and unable to look after their elderly relatives as they once had, have become impossible to ignore in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ageing and demographic change emerged on the EU policy agenda as a standalone topic in 1999, when the European Commission published a Communication ‘Towards a Europe for all ages’. At that point, providing care to the elderly was seen as the responsibility of families, with the state expected to step in only as a last resort. With the introduction of the Social Investment Package (2013) came the recognition that care provision, including that which is unpaid or performed by family members, comes at a cost to state budgets in the shape of lost tax revenue and social security payments. EU policy began to call on states to support individuals in taking up caring obligations and waged work simultaneously. Finally, the Covid-19 pandemic prompted the release of the European Care Strategy which presents care as important to the economy and urges states to make it available to all who need it. However, this increased attention has not translated into binding policy or financial commitments.

 

Women responsibility, migrants’ work?

The increased attention to demographic ageing on the EU policy agenda does not unequivocally resolve one of the central challenges related to the socially necessary labour of care: who should provide it? As mentioned above, initially, this was not considered an issue for debate by EU policy makers but rather a personal or family decision. In practice, this meant that the responsibility for care of elderly family members usually fell to women. However, as EU employment policy increasingly encouraged women to enter the labour market, their care responsibilities began to be seen as an obstacle to labour market participation. To on the one hand ‘liberate’ women from care and domestic tasks and thus facilitate their take up of waged work, and on the other, to provide employment to low-skilled women and other under-employed groups, EU policy began to promote the development of a personal and household services sector.

This policy promoted the commercialisation of care provision. As women were expected to take up waged work, often moving away from their elderly relatives to do so, and as state services were curtailed as a result of austerity measures, markets became increasingly relied upon for elder care. The resulting competition in the field led to demands for cost reduction which in turn drove up a demand for migrant care workers. Many of these labour migrants came from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and became indispensable to the operations of elder care systems in Western Europe. This was possible due to the CEE region’s geographic proximity, the lower wages, worse working and living conditions present within it as well as its inclusion into the EU’s single market, with its central principle of the freedom of movement. While migrant care labour plugs the gap in care present in wealthier countries, with cheap labour effectively subsidising underfunded social systems, it creates a care, youth and brain drain in the migrants’ countries of origin and can amount to social dumping.

Awareness of a growing dependence on the labour of CEE and other migrants existed in policy-making circles in Brussels thanks to the work of trade unions and activists. This resulted in a debate within EU policy-making circles in the 2000s and 2010s. Initially, the European Commission portrayed using migrant care labour to meet the growing demand for long-term care as a cost-efficient way to address care needs, while the European Parliament stressed the inherent inequalities in wealth between origin and destination countries and highlighted the risks of social dumping. As time went on, however, and the gap between the needs of care recipients and availability of care grew wider, the European Parliament aligned its position with that of the Commission. This has led to the current utilitarian approach to migrant care labour in EU policy, which presents labour migration as simply one of a repertoire of measures to boost the EU’s elder care workforce. Indeed, the European Commission’s 2022 communication on migration, ‘Attracting skills and talent to the EU’ states that increasing labour migration from outside of the EU will be crucial to meeting labour demands within the long-term care sector. Effectively, the discussion on the negative consequences of relying on migrant care labour has been silenced in EU policy.

 

What does the future hold for elder care in the EU?

Concerns over demographic ageing and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic have turned EU policy makers’ attention towards the growing demand for long-term care. However, overarching concerns focusing on productivity and GDP growth continue to prevail. In view of demographic ageing, increasing elder care needs, the continuing push for women to enter the formal labour market, as well as the forward-looking nature of both the European Care Strategy and the communication on migration, it seems likely that the reliance on migrant care labour in the EU will steadily increase. The outcome of this utilitarian approach to migrant care labour is likely to be the displacement of the Western European care deficit to poorer EU member states, as well as beyond the bloc’s borders.

 

 

Elena Zacharenko is a doctoral researcher at the Department of Gender Studies of Tampere University, Finland. Her research focuses on the framing of care and social reproduction in EU economic, social and gender equality policy, and how this shapes the political economy of and core-periphery relations within the EU.

Twitter: Author @elenazzzz; Department of Gender Studies, Tampere University @UTAGender; Tampere University @TampereUni

Academic profile.

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