Ideas on Europe Blog

For our weekly “Ideas on Europe” editorial by UACES, the University Association for European Studies, we welcome Dr Kathryn Simpson, Associate Professor in Politics & Economics of the European Union, Keele University. Listen to the podcast on eu!radio.

 

Together with Nick Startin, whom we know well at Euradio, you have recently published a piece of research on “how the tabloid press shaped the Brexit vote” back in 2016.

That’s right. There has been a wealth of academic research attempting to explain the Brexit vote, with a lot of different approaches. What we were interested in was to find out to what extent did the UK’s tabloid press shape public opinion during the referendum and whether this did influence the outcome.

In Britain ‘hard’ euroscepticism stemming from the tabloid press has long been widespread. Since the Maastricht era, tabloid newspapers such as The Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express have become renowned for portraying the EU in negative terms and as against the national interest. Some infamous headlines such as The Sun’s ‘Up Yours Delors’ front-page have become iconic reference points for British eurosceptics.

 

So how did you go about your research?

We analyse the final stages of the EU referendum campaign by focusing on the front pages of the five British daily tabloids – The Sun, the Daily Mail, the Daily Mirror, the Daily Express and the Daily Star – looking at the four weeks prior to the referendum, which coincided with the so-called ‘purdah’ period during which no official information is released any more.

We found that the tabloid press progressively centred on the theme of immigration to shape its eurosceptic narrative and set the agenda in the final stages of the campaign. Which is in line with other research that found ‘coverage of immigration more than tripled over the course of the campaign, rising faster than any other political issue’.

In terms of support for Brexit by readership, The Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express, with a combined readership of almost four million outnumbered the Remain supporting Daily Mirror by four to one. Scrutiny of the front pages of the five tabloids also illustrates how the three tabloids supporting Brexit devoted their front pages to Brexit far more frequently than either the Remain-supporting Daily Mirror or the neutral Daily Star.

 

So people were bombarded with Brexit-supporting front pages?

Yes, they were. The Daily Express and the Daily Mail devoted over three quarters of their front pages to the referendum. Overall, there were 48 pro-Brexit front pages, compared to the seven Remain or neutral front pages in the final stage before the referendum. And of these 48 front pages, 27 were directly (or indirectly) related to immigration. By contrast, the Remain-supporting Daily Mirror only started to illustrate its support for EU membership with front-page headlines in the final three days of the campaign.

Our analysis is reinforced by an IPSOS Mori opinion poll published on the day of the referendum which showed that ‘concern with immigration had risen by ten percentage points [to 48%] since May, when concern stood at 38%.’ Concern with immigration was particularly high – over 60% – ‘for Conservative supporters, those aged 65 and over and those from the socio-economic category C2, referring to qualified workers. All three of these demographics are core in terms of the readership of the British Tabloid Press.

 

But do people actually believe what they read in these newspapers?

It’s a long-standing debate, and we recognise this limitation of our conclusions. However, research in this area does reinforce our argument about the impact of the agenda-setting, anti-immigration, ‘bombardment approach’ on influencing tabloid readers. In a referendum, where one third of voters made up their mind which way to vote in the final stages of the campaign, such a highly polarized framing undoubtedly had an impact.

 

This post draws on the article ‘Tabloid Tales: how the British Press Shaped the Brexit Vote‘, co-authored with Dr Nick Startin, Associate Professor of International Relations, John Cabot University, Rome, and published in the Journal of Common Market Studies. A version of this blog was also published on the UK in a Changing Europe website.

 

Interview conducted Laurence Aubron

 

 

The post Tabloid Tales appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

By Patrick Bijsmans (Maastricht University)

In recent decades criticism on the European Union (EU) and even the complete dismissal of European integration – a range of positions generally grouped under the umbrella term ‘Euroscepticism’ – have gained ground. Euroscepticism has become mainstream, as “it has become increasingly more legitimate and salient (and in many ways less contested) across Europe as a whole” (Brack & Startin, 2015, p. 240). Events such as referendums and European Parliament (EP) elections provide a particularly good opportunity for Eurosceptic movements to mobilise (Usherwood, 2017).

In my recent Journal of Common Market Studies article, I look at the mainstreaming of Euroscepticism by studying the coverage of EP election debates in the Netherlands in 2009, 2014 and 2019. I examine mainstreaming through a two-part qualitative analysis that centres around a fourfold typology, which distinguishes between supportive, Euroalternative, soft Eurosceptic and hard Eurosceptic claims (Table 1). Here, I build on the concepts of soft and hard Euroscepticism developed by Taggart and Szczerbiak. Yet, by introducing ‘Euroalternativism’, I avoid soft Euroscepticism’s catch-all nature. Euroalternativism implies criticism towards (elements of) EU policies or its institutional design that is essentially supportive of the EU and European integration (FitzGibbon, 2013). I also add support for the existing nature of the EU and its policies to my categorisation, so as to take into account the “complex interaction among competing pro-integration narratives and counter-narratives to European union” (McMahon & Kaiser, 2022, p. 1). Finally, I further refine the categorisation by distinguishing between statements regarding (I) the EU polity (its political system and its institutions) and (II) EU policies.

Table 1: Possible positions on European integration

There has been relatively less attention for mass media in the study of Euroscepticism, which is surprising given their central role in contemporary European democracies (Caiani & Guerra, 2017). Furthermore, most existing research has taken a quantitative perspective, whereas scholars have argued that a qualitative approach focussing on discourses and narratives is more suitable for achieving an encompassing understanding of Euroscepticism’s changing meaning and importance (Leconte, 2015). Indeed, as Brown et al. illustrate what is and what is not mainstream in the public sphere is prone to change because ideas change through debates in that same public sphere.

The first part of my analysis consists of a manual coding of EU-related claims by actors in three newspapers – De Telegraaf, De Volkskrant and NRC Handelsblad – that play a central role in the Dutch mediated public sphere. The analysis of claims focusses on two essential elements of a claim, namely, ‘who’ (the claimant) and ‘what’ (the subject of the claim), plus on determining the assessment of EU affairs through a close reading of the wording (Koopmans & Statham, 2010). The second part of the analysis zooms out again to place the claims analysis in the context of the wider EP election debates in the Dutch public sphere. Hence, in contrast to the first part of the analysis that follows a pre-established categorisation, the second part looks at the overall story and the key themes as present in the material analysed.

In total I analysed 3148 claims. Figure 1 presents an overview of the way in which the EU and its policies were discussed in the Dutch-mediated debate on the EP elections. Despite some differences between the three mediated debates, it becomes clear that supportive claims are least prominent. Instead, criticism of and opposition to the EU has become widespread, whether essentially supportive or fundamentally Eurosceptic; because, while representing “pro-system opposition” (FitzGibbon, 2013), Euroalternative claims are still a form of criticism on the EU.

Figure 1: Distribution of claims*

* In solid fill the percentages of claims that concern the EU polity. In pattern fill the percentages of claims that concern EU policy.

As such, Figure 1 suggests that Euroscepticism has indeed become mainstream; that it is at the centre of the debates in the Dutch public sphere. Yet, it comes in different guises, namely, Euroalternative, soft Eurosceptic and hard Eurosceptic claims. Building on this, the second part of the analysis calls for an even more nuanced assessment and puts forward three key points.

First, during the three EP elections, Euroscepticism in its various guises was specifically mainstreamed in a debate that concerned the pros and cons of integration, with limited attention for policies. This illustrates that there is an interplay between pro-con narratives, as suggested by McMahon and Kaiser (2022).

Second, what is being mainstreamed still amounts to a vague notion of Euroscepticism. As such, we may ask what Euroscepticism was being mainstreamed? For instance, in an article in De Volkskrant on 5 June 2009, the ongoing campaign was said to be “governed by Euroscepticism”, while it simultaneously referred to a “Eurocritical wave” and the “anti-European camp”.

Third, at the same time, the place of Eurosceptics in the debate gradually changes, turning them from outsiders into insiders. Eurosceptics’ existence is no longer merely observed and noted, but they are increasingly treated as equal and legitimate actors in the EU debate. Brexit may have mattered here, as the hard edges of Euroscepticism have at least partly withered away (cf. de Vries, 2018).

In essence then, my article illustrates that the statement that Euroscepticism has become mainstream is partly a simplification of a development in which criticism of and opposition to the EU are prone to change. Even focussing on EP elections alone creates problems, as they skew debates toward issues of integration – in some of my other work, I find that day-to-day EU debates focus on policies and policy alternatives. It is therefore important that we continue to treat the term ‘Euroscepticism’ with caution. In fact, perhaps we need to even go one step further and, paraphrasing Ophir (2018), ought to ask ourselves ‘what kind of concept is Euroscepticism?’. In other words, shouldn’t researchers in the field of Euroscepticism consider re-launching the conceptual debate? Obviously, this is not an easy challenge. Yet, it exactly this conceptual puzzle that I am currently exploring with my colleague Luca Mancin and we are looking forward to sharing our thoughts at a conference near you soon!

Bio

Patrick Bijsmans is Associate Professor in Teaching and Learning European Studies and Associate Dean for Education at Maastricht University’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. His research focusses on media and Euroscepticism, as well as curriculum development and learning in the international classroom. Find more about Patrick’s work on Twitter and his personal website.

 

 

The post What is Actually Being Mainstreamed in the Mainstreaming of Euroscepticism? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

This week saw UK in a Changing Europe drop a report on public opinion and Brexit.

It’s notable partly because there’s less and less in-depth exploration of this question with the passage of time: even if Brexit isn’t actually ‘done’ in poli-sci terms, it increasingly is in social and party-political ones (as witnessed by the ‘Europe policy’ wasteland of the Labour conference this week).

But it’s also notable because it reminds us that even with something as momentous as Brexit – which was genuinely A Big Deal not so long ago – publics do not hold consistent views.

Consider this:

This is a classic chart of recent years: ‘everyone’ thinks Brexit’s a crock, regardless of voting behaviour or intention. It’s the heart of the Bregret-Rejoin narrative, wherein we realised we’ve done a terrible thing, to which the answer is to undo it all and go back to The Good Old Days.

You can look elsewhere for discussion of why this is a problematic narrative, but let’s leave it with the observation that it was precisely The Good Old Days that led to the 2016 referendum in the first place. Old? yes. Good? debatable.

Anyway, let’s look at the next chart:

For all that most people think Brexit’s been rubbish so far, that doesn’t translate into the longer-term. A clear majority of Leavers think it can all turn the corner in the end, enough that the overall population view is much more ambivalent than the previous data might suggest.

When I tweeted about this at the time, much of the response was one of either “these people are obviously misguided” or “it’s just a minority of the population, so ignore them”.

I can understand where both views come from: the onslaught of evidence about the costs of Brexit continues week after week, while the swing from the referendum result is significant and clear.

However, it all feels like it has fallen once more into the classic traps of this domain.

The leitmotif of British European policy has always been its use to beat opponents; there has consistently been more interest in scoring domestic party political points than in finding broad consensus about the purpose of dealings with European states.

The referendum was much more a device to overturn domestic power structures than it was a considered debate on the situation of the UK in the world. Just as the fights to control the narrative of What Brexit Meant weren’t that much about EU policy but instead about owning the next generation of political discourse.

That this was both wearying and unsuccessful should be clear enough to all involved and – you might hope – would point to trying a different way of going about things. Maybe by looking for ways to reach across divides, instead of trashing those who disagree.

Maybe not.

As the referendum campaign and fallout demonstrated, rationalist arguments about costs and benefits have significant limits. People hold inconsistent views that are often more shaped (and shapeable) by emotion than cold, hard facts. ‘Take back control’ and ‘get Brexit done’ are powerful messages, whatever you think of the politics behind them (which many people didn’t think about particularly).

So yes, most people think Brexit is a mess, and yes, most people don’t think it’s ever going to turn out well. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be looking for ways to build new narratives and approaches that reach out those who disagree. Otherwise, we will find that any new policy choice is neither equitable nor durable.

The post A note on public opinion and Brexit appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Within the rapidly-expanding area of competition law and healthcare, public hospitals and state aid may seem at first a mundane topic when contrasted with developments in connection with pharmaceutical policy and health technology. Nevertheless, the CJEU’s April 2023 Casa Regina Apostolorum judgment has reignited fundamental questions about the very applicability of EU competition policy which have implications far beyond the case’s focus on the interaction between private providers and public hospitals, and state support to the latter, in Italy.  

This post considers how the Casa Regina Apostolorum case fits within wider analysis of competition reforms in healthcare, and the tensions which now emerge between this judgment and the Commission’s Evaluation of the State Subsidy Rules for Health and Social Services of General Economic Interest which reported in December 2022. 

The four categories of European healthcare and competition reforms: 

The expansion of private sector delivery of public healthcare services might be considered at the heart of competition reforms in healthcare systems across Europe. This closer interaction between public and private healthcare has narrowed the gap where once the two may have appeared distinct. Such developments are found across the typologies of healthcare system in Europe, even though it is considered that insurance-based systems may be more amenable to competition reforms than taxation-funded systems.

Following discussion (by Guy and by Odudu) of competition reforms in English healthcare and the applicability of EU competition law, the interaction between public and private healthcare can be framed as “four categories of European healthcare” thus: 

 

Where once there may have existed a clear distinction between a public healthcare system (category 1) and a supplementary or complementary private healthcare market (category 4), the increasing interaction between public and private healthcare suggests a grey area which narrows this gap. Within this, category 2 represents the activity often underpinning competition law claims: a challenge by a private provider that, for example, state support favours public hospitals. Category 3 activity provides an example of arguments raised in such cases, including Casa Regina Apostolorum:  that public providers charging patients for certain services contributes to evidence that an entire healthcare system has shifted away from its solidarity basis to a competition basis. 

Such category 2 activity has been seen in various cases involving public hospitals across EU member states – notably the IRIS-H network in Brussels, but also in Germany, Czechia, and Estonia, as well as in Italy with Casa Regina Apostolorum. The latter is unusual for proceeding to appeal – these cases are typically handled under the Commission’s SGEI package for health and social services, which is intended to reduce the administrative burden on Member States in meeting compatibility criteria for granting support to SGEI. 

The two iterations of the SGEI package to date (from 2005 and 2012) have both specified hospitals as a candidate for this kind of assessment: this would seem to suggest a degree of intuition regarding the extent to which these particular healthcare institutions are amenable to competition reforms in general and being subject to the application of the Article 107(1) TFEU prohibition on state aid in particular. Here, three specific points are worth noting. 

Firstly, and most fundamentally to these assessments, the focus seems to “buffer” around the question of whether the recipient of the contested aid is an “undertaking”. A positive finding can simply lead to the conclusion of classification as SGEI, as in the aforementioned Brussels Hospitals case, thus an exception to applying the prohibition to other economic activities not so classified. A negative finding – as happened from the Commission, the General Court, and the CJEU in Casa Regina Apostolorum – means total exemption.  

Secondly, the requirement for the aid to give a “selective advantage” has required clarification. Here attention is typically paid to the functions of private providers in delivering healthcare services and where and how these may differ from the functions of public providers. The distinction apparently drawn here relates to questions of continuity and viability of service provision – in other words, where a private provider could exit, a public provider may be deemed broadly either “too big”, or certainly “too politically sensitive” to fail. Such considerations feature in the Brussels Hospitals case, but gave rise to an interesting categorisation of “genuine SGEI” in the aforementioned German hospital case.  

Finally, the apparent preference of patients not to travel for hospital treatment raises questions about the requirement for an effect on trade between Member States. Thus in this regard, contrasts emerge – for example between the aforementioned Brussels and Czechia hospitals cases between where a public hospital may deliver specialist services, or whether it may treat a significant or a negligible number of patients from neighbouring Member States in a border region. 

Taken together, it might be considered that if this diversity of considerations relate to a seemingly self-contained category such as hospitals, then the broader specification of “SGEI…meeting needs as regards health and long-term care” by the 2012 SGEI package could well generate further questions and hurdles. 

The legacy of Casa Regina Apostolorum 

As noted above, the Casa Regina Apostolorum case developed across a Commission assessment in connection with the 2012 SGEI package, and two appeals to the General Court and the CJEU, both of whom upheld the Commission’s finding that the state aid prohibition did not apply. This would seem to follow a range of relevant case law, so is not an unexpected finding. Indeed the absence of an Advocate General opinion would seem to highlight the lack of a new question of law for the CJEU to consider. Aside from the CEPPB approach of further disaggregating activities, it is currently hard to see how new questions of law might be developed in light of a tendency to “compare apples and oranges” with cases on diverse healthcare (and other) topics – notably the experience of the Slovak health insurance system in Dôvera with the situation in Casa Regina Apostolorum (as noted by the appellant in the latter). 

What is particularly notable also is the lack of attention paid by the courts to the relevance of Commission SGEI assessments. This is particularly striking in the case of the CJEU, whose judgment follows the Commission’s December 2022 review. In this, the Commission highlighted the lack of clarity about applying competition law and consequent legal uncertainty as a particular stumbling block. So with regard to state support to hospitals, we appear to be at something of an impasse which seems difficult to overcome. The lack of clarity regarding public hospitals is likely to pose questions about not only other healthcare institutions and practices, but also the effectiveness of the SGEI package more generally. 

For now, Casa Regina Apostolorum appears a niche case with broader implications which will emerge in time from a range of perspectives, not least competition and constitutionalism. 

 

This post is part of work being developed by Dr Mary Guy in the context of the “Public Health, Markets and Law” workshop hosted by Dr Mina Hosseini at University College Dublin in September 2023 and funded by the MSCA COMPHACRISIS project. 

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Welcome to our third UACES Graduate Forum podcast in this series. We welcome Neli Kirilova PhD Candidate in Security Studies, Doctoral School of International Relations and Political Science, Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary & PhD Fellow at the Doctoral School on CSDP / CFSP, European Security and Defence College in Brussels, Belgium.

 

UACES Podcasts · Neli Kirilova on Power Perception and Conflict Prevention

 

 

Welcome Neli, and congratulations on your recently submitted PhD thesis. This is fantastic news and must be a relief after all of the work that went into your research.

Thank you so much, Niall! I am really happy that I have finally submitted this dissertation and it gives me an amazing feeling and I am happy to share more bout the research with you.

 

Your research topic is on the ‘Power perception and conflict prevention in the Black Sea region: the EU, Russia and Turkey’. So, first of all, could you tell me what relations do you see between your research and the current global situation?

We are currently facing a war in Ukraine which is in the black sea region, but I started my research before that. The current security crisis in Ukraine shows two main facts. First, the Black Sea region is still a zone of competition for influence, which leads to crisis escalation with devastating consequences as we observe nowadays. Second, the reactions of the international community happen too late – instead of waiting until a crisis escalates, the conflicts should be prevented in advance. This is why I focus my research on regional conflict prevention.

 

This definitely shows us the value of understanding conflict prevention. Did you have any particular reasons why you selected this topic?

Yes, the Black Sea region is in close proximity to the European Union. Another such region is the Western Balkans. The EU needs stability and security in its surrounding regions. As a researcher of Bulgarian origin, I have personal motivation to work on the EU preserving regional security in both, the Black Sea region and the Western Balkans. Bulgaria is also a new member and it is located just between these two crisis-intensified regions.

 

Thank you! Can you tell us what you found in your research?

Of course. The Black Sea region has been a zone of competition for regional dominance over centuries. The main regional competitors in relatively recent history have been Russia, Turkey, and the West – comprising of both NATO and the EU. I do examine the regional security crises and conflicts as a result of this competition for influence.

The main literature my research steps on is related to conflict prevention and power measurement in international relations. The classical theories of IR, which I find relevant to the regional competition, are two – balance of power and security dilemma. According to the balance of power theory, conflict is the result of unequal amounts of power and, therefore a lack of balance. According to security dilemma theory, conflict is the result of a misperception of the intentions of the other. Therefore, there are two main problems with these theories. First, a clear classification of the meaning of power is missing, which is needed for measuring power as Baldwin points out. Second, each regional context requires a specific approach, to be relevant to the participating actors, so that a conflict can be prevented before crisis escalation. This is suggested by Lund in 2009 when he speaks about conflict prevention and the necessary regional context.

On this background, I identify a classification of six power elements. These are the basic values that can be measured as suggested by Baldwin. Then, I assess their application by three regional actors as suggested by Lund. The regional competitors I have selected in the Black Sea region are the EU, Russia, and Turkey.

 

Could you tell me more about how your theory was applied to this case?

Of course, I basically analyse power in IR and created its measurements so I could apply it. After a thorough analysis of power in international relations, which I based on the main concepts of hard, soft, smart, and sharp power, I made a new classification which is a theoretical innovation in the field. The newly organised six power elements which I suggest include: Military/Security, Economy/Investment, Energy/Climate, Diplomacy/Politics, Governance/Society, and Information Exchange/Access. These are later applied to the perceptions of competing actors and I suggest could be used in other regions as well.

 

That is very interesting. I understand that you also made conceptual innovations through your research. Could you tell me about that?

It’s my favorite! My conceptual invention is that identifying the perception of power by regional competitors early enough can contribute to conflict prevention in a selected region. There are several criteria for that: a classification of power elements so that it could be applied to all actors who compete. Secondly, the competitors shall be selected as actors with equal status, in my case I call them regional powers and base this on a number of criteria. And Thirdly, a specific time shall be selected, and I selected a time between regional security crises in 2016 and 2021. The assessment of the perceptions of power is based on measurable values in the foreign and security policy concepts of the competing regional actors for the selected time. This conceptual innovation aims to contribute to the theory of conflict prevention. I empirically test it for the case study of the Black Sea region.

 

You focus on the EU, Russia, and Turkey. What practical results did you find about these international relations actors?

As mentioned earlier I asses their strategies between 2016 and 2021. The strategic documents I examine to assess their power perception are the foreign and security policy concepts, corresponding to that time period. My suggestion is that the higher perceived importance of a power element means a higher potential for this actor to trigger a conflict. Respectively, the lower perceived importance of a power element means open possibilities for cooperation.

The actual results for the EU, which I presented in a research paper published in 2022, in a series of annually updated strategies show change of the narrative from norm and governance to security and defence. The main contribution of the EU in the global competition to economic investment, as well as a growing narrative on climate change and energy. The diplomatic and political agreements widen its scope, aiming to manage evolving crises. The geographic interests of the EU change as well, trying to cover bigger world area. Disinformation and civil society grow as a priority.

 

That’s great. Would you tell me about your findings for Turkey?

The results for Turkey, which I presented in a research paper published in 2021 from its active foreign policy strategy show a double perspective. On the surface, it corresponds to the name of the strategy, focusing mainly on society and economy, followed by diplomacy, military, and information exchange power elements. However, the deeper textual analysis shows higher values to military security, diplomacy, and information exchange, only then followed by society and economy. This means that, first, Turkey is showing some power elements as more significant than the actually perceived ones. Secondly, as traditional for foreign policy actors, military security and diplomacy area leading, closely followed by the information and societal power elements. An unexpected factor found in the research was the attitude towards communities with Turkic languages or Muslim religion. Therefore, a reaction of Turkey on these power elements would not be surprising, as long as its regional interests are concerned. This is also shown by the recent name change of Turkey to Türkiye which means the length of the people of Turkish origin and it goes beyond the border of the territory of the country. 

 

That is very interesting! What about Russia?

Derived from the available strategies related to its foreign and security policy, there is a different meaning that I found in the volume of strategies and the content. So, there is a complete dominance in the energy security power element because there is a separate strategy for energy security of IR, and its size is double the strategy of the national security strategy and the foreign policy strategy. Apart from that, Russia also has dual meaning of the results. On the surface, the content of the strategies prioritises diplomacy, then military security, then society and economy, then information exchange. This is similar to Turkey and typical for a traditional IR actor. However, the deeper textual analysis of the combined strategies of national security and foreign policy shows major priority on the power elements of society and governance, only then followed by military security, diplomacy, economy, and information exchange. Finally, a textual analysis of the foreign policy strategy alone shows priority on diplomacy, followed by military, information exchange, economy, energy, and society. In these analyses, surprising is the focus on information exchange and on society perceived as belonging to the concept of Russianness. This means that a specific trigger for a reaction by Russia would be namely the society, information, and energy security as power elements.

 

Thank you for this detailed insight. It certainly seems like your thesis research has had a lot of work put into, and I’m sure you are glad that it’s finished to be able to share some of these very interesting findings. Am I right in understanding that the two papers are open-access?

Yes, this paper has been published and is available open-access and there will be a few more available soon. One will be related to the Russian foreign policy, the other one to the actual six elements of power, and the other one to the status of IR actors. So I will provide access to them as well when they are available and in this podcast, you’ll have access to the ones that are already published.

 

That is fantastic! To wrap up our podcast today, what contribution does your research make beyond academia?

As you mentioned, the first contribution of my research is to academia and to the general knowledge on conflict prevention. And the second one which I targeted EU diplomacy from the beginning, particularly I aim this research to strengthen the EU’s role as a conflict prevention actor in the Black Sea region. It can be particularly used by the European External Action Service.

 

Thank you, Neli, for taking the time to share your insights into your research with us. Congratulations again for submitting your dissertation and good luck with your next steps.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to share the results of my research in this podcast. It has been a pleasure talking to you.

 

Thank you for listening and don’t forget to check the transcript of this podcast for a list of the research mentioned. If you would be interested in sharing your research with our graduate forum community on the podcast, please get in touch with me at nrobb03@qub.ac.uk or check the graduate forum section on the UACES website.

 

 

Additional reading :

Baldwin, D. A. (2016). Power and international relations. A conceptual approach. Princeton NJ, USA: Princeton University Press.

Kirilova, Neli (2021). Elementite na vliyanie vyv vynshnopoliticheskata strategiya na Turciya – shest kategorii sila, sred koito obshtnostite i informaciiata se otkroiavat. Nauchna Konfereniia ‘Moreto – granica ili vrata’. pp.16-22. Chernomorski Institut. Burgas, Bulgaria: Izdatelstvo Bryag. [Кирилова, Нели. 2021. Елементите на влияние във външнополитическата стратегия на Турция – шест категории сила, сред които общностите и информацията се открояват. pp.16-22] Available online: blacksea.bg/site/templates/assets/img/the_sea-border-or-door-2021.pdf. Accessed: 15.03.2023.

Kirilova, Neli (2022). ‘Elements of power in the EU Global Strategy for Foreign and Security Policy’. In: Monár A., Fiott D., Asderaki F., Paile‐Calo S. (Eds.). Challenges of the Common Security and Defence Policy. ESDC 2nd Summer University Book. pp.55-77. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Available online: op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/e3706908-db0f-11ec-a95f-01aa75ed71a1/language-en?fbclid=IwAR2Q3z1U8cf-PBAPFlY51IiLGUNCuhBdlUntGG4NQBww0-raIYejzc3IyUM. Accessed: 15.03.2023.

Lund, M. S. (2009). Conflict Prevention: Theory in Pursuit of Policy and Practice. In: J. Bercovitch, V. Kremenyuk & I.W. Zartman (Eds.). The SAGE Handbook of Conflict Resolution (pp.287-308). London, UK: SAGE.

 

 

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Undertaking a research project is a pleasurable and yet sometimes solitary enterprise. You spend much of your time reflecting on your ideas, reading your way through libraries, writing down your conclusions and putting everything together in a single document. Researchers, even in collective projects, often do this process on their own. This is a style of working that I got used to since starting my PhD at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris in September 2021 and that I learned to enjoy intellectually.  

In the wide world of academia, there is another specific moment which I equally learned to adopt and enjoy: conferencing and in particular international conferencing. In that regard, UACES has been a great help. A few weeks after attending the Graduate Forum in Barcelona, UACES provided me with financial support via its Microgrant programme to participate in the 2023 European Consortium for Political Research General Conference. 

The ECPR General Conference brought together around 2,000 academics from around the world in Prague for a few days to discuss a variety of contemporary political science research topics. I was selected as a presenter for the panel ‘Parties under Pressure: Party Divisions and Party Change’ chaired by Kristina Weissenbach. My paper ‘Johnson and “Let’s Keep Brexit Done”: The Impact of Conservative Party Management on the UK’s Policy on Europe’ covered elements of my PhD and specifically dealt with one of the statecraft theory dimensions by Jim Bulpitt that underpins my theoretical framework. 

 

My participation at the conference enabled me to present parts of my PhD to an international audience. The feedback received at the panel and subsequent informal discussions provided input to guide the further reflection for this paper and more widely for my PhD. It greatly complemented comments already received at other academic events and helped to identify the strengths as well as the current weaknesses of my approach that still need to be addressed.   

On a more personal note, the participation at this conference also allowed me to discover Prague. It was my first time in the city, and in Czechia, but I was so impressed by the history, architecture, culinary scene, and lifestyle that I will gladly come back. My recent transfer to Berlin means that Prague is reachable by train in under 5 hours. The ability to combine work and leisure only made this conference more stimulating. 

For all these reasons, I am particularly grateful to UACES for this Microgrant that made my participation at the ECPR 2023 General Conference possible. The funds helped me to complement the logistical costs and allowed me to fully focus on participating in the event. As a PhD student, I am thankful for this opportunity and I am happy to be able to contribute to such international conferences. They are really intellectually, professionally, and personally a major perk of academic life. 

 

 

More about the Microgrant 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 grants are designed to recognise the challenges facing researchers at this time.

 

 

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What can critical and postcolonial European Studies scholars learn from W.E.B. Du Bois’ sociological thought? And how can this contribute to the agenda of  ‘decolonising’ Europe? A UACES Microgrant report on the 53rd Annual European Studies Conference in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

A UACES Microgrant report by Joshua M. Makalintal.

 

 

Critical European Studies has gained some ground, particularly at the recent UACES Annual Conference that took place at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland earlier this month. Uniting 11 panels and over 30 contributions under the themed track entitled ‘(En)countering Europe as Global, Othered and Transperipheral Voices’ (EUROGLOT), this year’s event enabled a space to elevate pressing issues and critical works that have mostly been and are still usually marginalised within the field. The contributions under this themed track engaged in questions of how to approach Europe and its various historical legacies as well as its encounters with the broader social world.

For the EUROGLOT panel on ‘Theorising Europe, Otherwise’, I took the opportunity to present my working paper reassessing W.E.B. Du Bois’ immanent critique of Europe and empire. This paper forms part of a more comprehensive theoretical research project of mine that aims to reconstruct his ideology-critical and anti-disciplinary sociological work. My contribution in this context foregrounded an attempt to intervene in critical and postcolonial European Studies.

W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) was an Afro-American historian, sociologist, and a leading figure of the US civil rights and pan-African movements. While substantial debates within the social sciences have erupted intensively in recent years regarding Du Bois’ place in the classical canon, his disruptive scholarship has yet to be acknowledged in other disciplines. Indeed, Du Bois’ critique of European imperialism remains undervalued in both mainstream and critical European Studies; however, as I have argued in Belfast, his anti-imperial thought may offer us a vast array of crucial resources in problematising the myths that persist within contemporary imaginaries of the European project’s history and modern trajectory. This would consequently pave an alternative pathway towards more radical and reflexive understandings of modern Europe struggling to account for its colonial pasts.

For instance, I highlighted a key concept coined by Du Bois — the notion of the colour line, which depicted the global racialised structure of his era that had governed societal relations and practices, thus producing multiple patterns of subjugation, and in turn, various forms of resistance. Using the colour line as an analytical anchor and ideological resource, Du Bois reiterated an immanent critique of European subjugation — a domination “through political power built on the economic control of labour, income and ideas”, as he wrote in 1946. Excavating the inherent contradictions within such domineering practices, Du Bois underlined how these dynamic antagonisms would stimulate the critical consciousness necessary to trigger practical opportunities for resistance and social transformation.

Du Bois has long been one of the social sciences’ marginalised voices, and rectifying this epistemic neglect entails proactively recuperating his subversive scholarship. Reclaiming and re-applying his critical thought and practice in this sense would no doubt contribute to the project of ‘decolonising’ Europe by innovatively enabling us to uncover patterns of domination and forms of injustices that are otherwise unobtrusive. By further enriching critical European Studies scholarship through various transdisciplinary (and anti-disciplinary) perspectives, coupled with the aim of subverting the epistemic hegemonies that persist within the field, we as scholars would undoubtedly be better equipped to assess the current European societal conjuncture — prone to failures, crises, and various antagonisms. This entails confronting these contradictions, compelling us to understand their immanent inevitability and consequently prevail over them, thus further stretching the space for effective interventions in the broader social world.

I was able to share these insights at the 53rd Annual European Studies Conference in part thanks to the UACES Microgrant. I am grateful for the fact that there are academic associations that are determined to financially support students and scholars of all levels in their research pursuits. My participation in this conference provided me not only with valuable feedback, but also inspiration from the other panels that would certainly further broaden my knowledge in the rich interdisciplinary field of European Studies scholarship. I am also grateful to my fellow panellists as well as to the impressively attentive audience for the insightful discussions. It was great to be part of an important and long-overdue conversation on studying, theorising, and critiquing Europe otherwise, especially in such a compelling academic setting.

 

 

The post Theorising Europe from the Margins: A Reappraisal of W.E.B. Du Bois’ Critical Thought appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Still not very far away

We’re at a bit of a junction in EU-UK relations right now.

Having bumped back from the questions of good faith with February’s Windsor Framework, the two sides got to work on the next obvious target: Horizon membership.

Seven months later – and with enough discretion that I could record a podcast saying it wasn’t coming soon, two days before it came – we got a deal.

And now?

Well, now we appear to have slipped into a gap of some kind.

Certainly, there are things that need attention right now, like car batteries, but despite pressure on both sides to rework tariff schedules, the Commission seems not to want to play ball. On the UK side, joining the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean (PEM) Convention also looks a bit distant.

Outside the narrow confines of the Trade & Cooperation Agreement (TCA), the UK is also still working out how it handles the European Political Community (EPC) summit it’s supposed to host next summer (dates and location still TBC).

In short, there’s not much sign of things going on. Which is either because those things that are going on are being kept very far from the limelight, or because there aren’t things going on.

To be clear, there is a baseline of on-going contact and interaction, to service the various agreements, but that’s rather different from substantive work on opening out new areas.

If we assume that an absence of public comment is the best marker of in-camera activity, then Breton’s statement on car batteries looks like a signifier of inactivity, or impasse. And that’s for the most obvious next step in working together.

Which takes us back round to my title: are we in a holding pattern right now, and if so, what kind of holding pattern is it?

As I’ve argued before, Sunak has approached EU relations through a strong lens of his domestic political situation. Windsor made sense as a closing-off of an obvious problem (plus a clear differentiation from his predecessor but one), and Horizon was self-contained enough to be worth the effort, but getting into bigger resets looks like a hiding to nothing, either with his backbench or with voters that increasingly don’t rate the matter as that important.

So the British government is arguably in a fire-fighting mode for the rest of this administration.

But what about the EU?

Domestic factors obviously apply here too. We’re on the run-in to European elections next spring – witness Von Der Leyen’s State of the EU speech last week, with all its pitch – which means lots of people changing jobs, even if the underlying political balance doesn’t move very much.

Add to that all the other things the EU is concerned with, from rule of law to enlargement to post-Covid reconstruction, and it might be understandable if attention is elsewhere than the UK.

But at the same time, the Union has held a long-term position of deepening ties with its neighbourhood, especially with those bits of it that aren’t actively antagonistic. That’s an uneven track, but as a rule of thumb, there’s a clear preference to doing more together.

Perhaps the current hiatus is a temporary thing, a product of everyone waiting to clear the coming election year on both sides, so that everyone can pick up in late 2024 with a clearer sense of what’s what.

However, Windsor shouldn’t leave us thinking that we’re back to regular business. The scars of the Internal Market Bill and the Retained EU Law Bill and the noises off about ECHR membership are still there and still fresh in the minds of EU policymakers.

Even if there is a change of party in London next year, that will still leave issues.

Firstly, Labour have put so many fences around policy that there might not be scope for doing much. With dynamic alignment apparently also off the table, some in Brussels might be forgiven for thinking that a full and frank discussion in the UK of trade-offs might not be about to happen.

Secondly, even if Labour are willing to conclude new deals, then at least half an eye will be on the trajectory of the Conservatives in opposition. With the possible sole exception of Michael Heseltine, the general view is that the party will drift right under new leadership, given its membership. While that might make a second Labour term more likely, the past seven years will give enough pause for thought about What Britain’s Like. Is there risk in setting up more entanglements with Labour, if a returning Tory government is going to tear things up again?

Such views are understandable, but also come with the risk of setting up a new stasis.

As a case in point, look to Switzerland.

Here we have a much closer relationship, but one with significant issues, both political and institutional. Both sides bump along, sometimes making progress, but often not: we’re nearing a decade of to-and-fro on an institutional accord that still has no clear endpoint, even if the Swiss are moving once again to get things going.

In both the Swiss and the British case, the EU has arrangements that function acceptably, even if other opportunities are left on the table, so if there are more pressing issues to work on, why not just leave things as they are, on a semi-permanent basis?

The EU’s built up a lot of experience and expertise in handling crises (you can read about this is in a couple of volumes (here and here) that I’ve contributed to), but we’re not in a crisis any more.

Regular governance doesn’t have the glamour of an emergency situation, but it still requires attention and effort. Not least because several of the crises the EU has faced have come out of the failings of that regular governance: Brexit is a case in point.

As a recovering historical institutionalist, I’ll end by noting that institutions are sticky: the arrangement you put in place in a hurry because you had to often end up sticking around for a very long time, even when they don’t really work so well. Again, the Swiss model is a good example.

Whether the UK is now locked into the TCA model remains to be seen, but the next year will give us a pretty good idea.

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Knowledge Politics and Policies Standing Group in Prague

The 2023 edition of the General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) took place in Prague, 4-8 September. The section of our ECPR Standing Group Knowledge Politics and Policies included nine panels on politics and policy of academic mobility and diplomacy, universities, higher and vocational education, research, and Artificial Intelligence. This year our section on Knowledge Politics and Policies took place for the 12th time and was probably one of the biggest sections we have had so far. Our panels were so well attended that in some of them the audience had difficulties to find seats, as there was standing room only. This blog post provides insights from rich presentations and discussions in a number of our panels, written by the panel chairs.

 

Contemporary issues in shaping universities

As an open topic panel, “Contemporary issues in shaping universities” addressed diverse issues from student politics in Sub-Saharan Africa, over the construction of competitive higher education regions in China, to education to work transitions.

Andrea Kronstad Felde drawing on a case study of Makerere’s student union (Uganda), discussed the party influence on student politics and decision-making and how students aimed to reinstate and reinvigorate a representative body for the students. The presentation not only fills a void of decreasing research on student politics during the last decade but adds a much-needed non-Western case study. Adding to the non-Western perspective, Taixing Sheng’s presentation (with Tatiana Fumasoli) discussed the politico-cultural project of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA). Drawing on descriptive analysis, he mapped out the advances and challenges of artificially bringing together three highly diverse regions in China to establish a common competitive higher education area to rival long established global lighthouses such as the San Francisco Bay Area. In comparing the two, he provides valuable insights into utopian engineering of large cohesive economic powerhouse through metrics, cultural integration, and coercive cooperation.

Building on a collaborative chapter with colleagues from the University of Bath, Predrag Lazetic analysed political and media perceptions of students as future workers across Europe and contrasted them with student’s self-perceptions from Eurostudent data. While the public and policy discourse predominantly frames them in human capital terms as rationalist decision-makers and as an economic resource, students distanced themselves from such prescriptions, leaning towards credentialist or oppositional frames of Bildung or vocationalism. Finally, Alexander Mitterle addressed the increasing academization of work through the institutionalization of new degree programs without corresponding roots in the German labour market, namely Public Policy degrees. He shows organizational specificities, strategies and emerging field structures to which public policy schools adhere. Despite a lack of corresponding job positions, students overall find jobs according to their degree specialization and their positions.

 

Artificial Intelligence: power, politics & policy

Since 2020, a panel on AI politics, policy and power is a regular part of the Knowledge Politics and Policy section. This year’s panel started by launching a newly published special issue on Politics and policy of Artificial Intelligence, edited by Inga Ulnicane and Tero Erkkilä. This special issue, published in Review of Policy Research, includes nine articles on topics such as access to public digital services, construction of food courier profiles, intersectional bias, gender equality, policy paradigms, narratives and sociotechnical imaginaries as well as global standards and rankings. Many of these articles have benefited from the discussions in previous ECPR General Conferences, which also helped to identify five overarching themes for this special issue: social and political co-shaping of AI, the role of ideas, power, continuity and change, and interactions among developments at local, national, regional and global levels.

The talk by Meng-Hsuan Chou was based on her special issue article, co-authored with Catherine Gomes on Politics of on-demand food delivery: Policy design and the power of algorithms. Their contribution contrasts social construction of food courier profiles in Melbourne and Singapore, highlighting the role of policy. The two following talks examined AI governance in the EU. Ville Aula and Tero Erkkilä presented their study on politics of transparency, based on analysis of public consultation on the EU AI Act. Ronit Justo-Hanani drew on her recent article on AI regulation in the EU to discuss political drivers behind it. She also highlighted similarities across governance of various emerging technologies, mentioning her forthcoming book on governing nanotechnology safety. Lively discussions during the panel on issues of regulation, power asymmetries and generative AI underlined the political salience of its topic.

 

Higher education and research facing unstable circumstances

A starting point for the panel “Higher education and unstable times” was that higher education and research sectors are increasingly facing unstable circumstances. This includes societal, political, technological instability where existing institutional structures and norms may become challenged. With this starting point, the panel examined various aspects concerning the role of higher education during crisis and instability.

In the first of three papers “Resisting Big Science: Why Local Opposition to the Thirty Meter Telescope Sustained Momentum”, Anna-Lena Rueland (University of Leiden), presented an analysis of how Native Hawaiians mobilized a remarkably long-term opposition towards the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on Mauna Kea, Hawaiʻi Island. In the second paper, “Education reforms in Europe’s knowledge economies: The impact of technological change on higher education”, Doglas Nunes de Sousa (Europa-Universität Flensburg) explored the role of technological change on higher education, in particular exploring the intersection between technological change, higher education policies, and labor market in Ireland and Spain, focusing particularly on the regional level. In the third and final paper of the panel, Mari Elken & Peter Maassen (both University of Oslo) examined policy changes in Europe in the area of internationalization of higher education in the context of current geopolitical and social challenges.

 

Knowledge policies in a globalized world

Standing room only for the Knowledge policies panel

In the panel “Shaping knowledge policies in a globalized world – Actors, structures, and policymaking dynamics” the different contributions addressed the key question how knowledge policies in today’s globalized higher education world come about. In the first contribution Silje Svartefoss from the University of Oslo analyzed the policy process leading to the creation of two mission-oriented innovation policies in Norway. Focusing on coordination of different actors as a key challenge the presentation highlighted that the two mission-oriented policies encountered different levels of coordination challenges that can partly be traced back to the number and type of actors involved in the process.

The second contribution by Tim Seidenschnur from the University of Kassel and Leonie Buschkamp from the University of Hannover presented a theoretically well-grounded analysis of dynamics of competition in three distinct organizational fields, namely a company, higher education, and the arts. Using extensive empirical material from the three contexts, they manage to trace differences in the way competition materializes which they explain by specificities of the organizational fields under study.

The third contribution by Yiran Zhou from the University of Cambridge presented a detailed analysis of the Chinese Discipline Evaluation in higher education focusing on its specific Chinese characteristics. Her work highlights the fact that the lack of precision in defining what the term “Chinese characteristics” refers to in the context of this evaluation scheme is by no means a flaw of the system but rather a desired imprecision that provides more room to maneuver to the state agency that is in charge of conducting these evaluations. This can be explained as one tool in the toolbox that the Chinese state uses to ensure control over their higher education system.

In the final presentation Jens Jungblut from the University of Oslo presented the main findings of a recently published edited volume. This book presents a comprehensive assessment of the politics of higher education policy in Western Europe, the US and Canada along 5 key aspects of policymaking. Through multiple levels of comparison, the volume also traces differences and similarities across contexts, contributing to the conceptual debate between sociological and historical institutionalism.

 

European Universities initiative

The panel “European Universities Initiative – taking stock and looking forward” focused on one of the most recent EU flagship projects, which concerns the establishing of transnational alliances of universities. Developed rather quickly (in less than a year), it garnered significant EU-level support and funding despite (a) concerning an area in which the EU has only supporting competence and (b) the overall crisis of the European integration project. Five papers were presented, two focusing primarily on EU level developments, while the other three explored the impact of EUI on national and institutional levels.

A paper by Alina Felder and Martina Vukasovic covered the process leading to the launch of the first call of proposals and in particular the role of associations representing interests of higher education institutions. Nadia Manzoni explored the extent to which the European Universities Initiative triggered a new wave of institutional changes in the EU, in particular concerning emerging transnational governance structures.

Antonin Charret’s study put Member States’ positioning towards the EUI front and centre, both in relation to the EU level developments as well as in relation to the participation of their universities in various alliances. In her paper, Marina Cino Pagliarello analysed whether and how transnational alliances developed within the EUI framework act as informal diplomatic actors. Finally, Marco Cavallaro (in a paper co-authored with Agata Lambrechts) provided novel evidence concerning the extent to which the goal of relative balance between excellence and inclusiveness within the scheme has been achieved. This varied set of papers, each focusing on a different aspect of the EUI, provided ample material for discussion concerning the novelty of this flagship project, its impact on European, national and institutional levels and theoretical and methodological approaches suitable for studying it.

 

Standing Group affairs: excellent paper award and membership renewal

As every year, during the conference we held the business meeting of our Standing Group. The highlight of the meeting was the award ceremony for the winners of the latest edition of our excellent paper award for emerging scholars – Dr. Adrienn Nyircsák and Anke Reinhardt. Soon the call will be out for the next round of the excellent paper award – stay tuned.

Excellent Paper Award winners Dr. Adrienn Nyircsák and Anke Reinhardt

At the moment, one of the key items on the Standing Group’s agenda is membership renewal. If you are a member of the Standing Group, please log into your My ECPR profile, go to ‘My Groups’ and renew your membership by 30 September. If you are not a member yet but would like to join our group, you can join here, by following ‘Join Standing Group’. We would like to continue and expand our collaboration and see many of you in the 2024 edition of the ECPR General Conference in Dublin next August. We hope to have a bigger room!

The post ECPR Knowledge Politics and Policies 2023 appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

 

“European security screening of new investments is neither desirable nor feasible.”, Karel De Gucht (2012), European Commissioner for Trade

 

“We are not naïve free traders. Europe must always defend its strategic interests. This is why today we are proposing a new EU framework for investment screening.”, Jean-Claude Juncker (2017), President of the European Commission

 

The experience of the Covid pandemic, coupled with concerns about critical Chinese takeovers and technological transfers, has brought security threats to the forefront. Consequently, screening incoming foreign direct investment (FDI) for national security reasons has become a common practice. The traditional understanding that FDI exclusively boosts economic benefits has evolved into a more complex understanding. In the face of rising FDI from non-OECD countries, particularly in strategic sectors, concerns have emerged about the potential loss of technological edge and threats to European security. This shift in perspective is evident in the statements of Karel De Gucht in 2012 and Jean-Claude Juncker in 2017, which reflect the evolution of EU policy on investment screening. This blog post briefly analyses the FDI screening mechanisms within the EU, highlighting the different factors at play and their implications for member states.

 

What is Investment Screening? Who is in the driving seat, member states or the EU?

Investment screening refers to the government’s systematic evaluation of incoming foreign investments based on predetermined criteria. It distinguishes itself from other approaches like prohibitions and ad hoc case reviews by establishing regulatory frameworks and procedures for evaluating investment proposals. Although the EU introduced Regulation 2019/452 in March 2019 to provide an EU-wide coordinating mechanism for information sharing and cooperation, it does not have a single direct screening authority. This is because the solid reference for national security keeps the member states in the driving seat for designing and governing their national mechanisms.

 

Is it new?

Most countries have had some domestic arrangements for decades to screen and address potential national security risks arising from specific FDI. However, for a considerable duration, such measures were not considered essential, as the adoption of neo-liberal policies during the 1980s led many countries to dismantle control restrictions, and FDI primarily occurred between developed nations or among members of the same security alliances. Consequently, the prominence of national security concerns was diminished.

Starting from the early 2000s, the landscape of investment screening shifted due to the rise of emerging economies and technological advancements. Developing countries’ investors, often lacking traditional security alliances and transparency, raised concerns about potential harm to critical infrastructure in developed economies. This concern intensified after the 2008 crisis and accelerated further with the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, prompting many countries to strengthen their screening mechanisms. Consequently, beyond conventional security, the scope of investment screening policies has expanded to cover other areas. Multisectoral or cross-sectoral investment screening mechanisms have been introduced by many member states, especially after 2010. Depending on this, intense policy-making activity has become the “norm rather than the exception” across the EU.

 

Understanding the Puzzle

The puzzle at the heart of EU member states’ commitment to multilateralism and a rules-based trade order lies in their approach to FDI screening. While emphasising the importance of safeguarding national security and public order, member states often utilise a rather ambiguous concept of “national security”, which opens the door to circumvent the principles of capital freedom. This situation is compounded by the broad spectrum of risk identification across countries, making it challenging to foresee the triggers for investment screening and their implications. As a result, the distinction between protectionist industrial policy and the protection of public order and national security becomes increasingly blurred.

Even though the investment screening is intended to ensure a level of economic playing field while addressing, the puzzle lies in maintaining this equilibrium without resorting to protectionist tactics, which could hinder free trade or adopting policies that might favour certain domestic industries over others.

The puzzle deepens when viewed from different angles. First, the timing of investment screening adds complexity, especially in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic when attracting FDI is crucial for economic recovery. Historically, attracting FDI has been a well-documented strategy for economic revival, which was witnessed following the 2008 financial crisis. Second, while the EU defines foreign investors as non-EU nationals or entities, this is not necessarily the case at the domestic level. In fact, investment screening might take place even between the member states due to the legal differences in their legislations. Third, the diverse screening practices in place have given rise to prolonged negotiations, multi-jurisdictions, and complex administrative procedures. The resultant ambiguity concerning the enforceability of legal rights and obligations has intensified concerns about legal uncertainty and corruption. This becomes particularly important in countries where governments have illiberal tendencies, which could potentially exploit screening requirements to secure personal economic or potential gains.

 

Conclusion

The FDI screening regulatory environment is complex because the elements that shape the member states’ policy designs intersect with various spheres ranging from economy, security, and law to sustainability. Moreover, the concepts of national security and/or public interest leave room for interpretation; they generally allow recipient governments to restrict foreign investment in certain situations. That’s why this broad discretion might also be misused for protectionist purposes. In other words, they might be weaponised. Therefore, how member states design their FDI policies might serve as a footprint on how they use the ambiguity of “national security” to balance their economic interest. Thus, screening mechanisms from a critical perspective might be a valuable attempt to demonstrate how political and economic choices operate, often implicitly.

 

 

This article is based on research presented at the UACES Graduate Forum Research Conference 2023 (8-9 June, at IBEI, Barcelona).

 

Written by Elif Cemre Beşgür, PhD Student, University of Trento

 

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by Jan Pieter Beetz (Utrecht University)

On 15 September 2022, the vast majority of the Members of the European Parliament condemned Hungary’s Fidesz government for undermining European values. They proposed that Hungary has become an electoral autocracy. Further, they called for more forceful action against the Hungarian government by the EU.

What authority does the EU have to protect liberal democracy in its member states in the first place? Most empirical and normative studies assert that the EU has a right to act because of existing treaties. Empirically this is an uncontroversial claim, but these scholars do not offer a normative principle to justify this legal right. Militant democracy justifies democracies protecting themselves from anti-democratic forces by denying democratic rights, such as party bans. They assume that the EU has democratic authority, but again do not offer a normative justification. In my recent contribution for JCMS, I bolster the emerging normative case for EU democracy protection by developing a realistic political theory grounded in a democratic principle of EU political authority.

Shared Popular Sovereignty: A Realistic Principle of Democratic Authority

I propose that shared popular sovereignty is the most appropriate principle to theorise the EU’s normative political authority. This is transnational conceptualisation of a core democratic principle of authority: popular sovereignty. The traditional conception holds that a people is the fountain of all authority. Shared popular sovereignty entails that multiple peoples can share their sovereignty: A democratic people can authorize both its national democracy and, together with other democratic peoples, a transnational democracy.

Shared popular sovereignty is the most appropriate conception for the EU, because it aligns with the real-world preconditions: multiple democratic peoples without an EU equivalent, an integrated EU administration and a transnational democracy built atop national democracies.

Two fundamental conditions follow for the political authority of the EU: first, authorization by its democratic peoples and, second, transnational democratic decision-making between Europe’s peoples. The former requires Europe’s peoples to directly authorise the EU’s institutions. The latter aims to ensure that the peoples remain democratic equals in EU legislative processes.

The EU has a Duty to Protect Democracy

Democratic backsliding involves a member state government intentionally weakening core liberal and democratic institutions with the aim of consolidating and expending the ruling party’s power. Such democratic decay in a member state challenges both fundamental conditions of EU political authority.

The EU has a duty to protect democracy in its member states because its political authority is at stake. When backsliding in one country takes place, any EU citizen has sound normative reasons doubt the political authority of the EU. The EU should act against democratic backsliding within its borders to maintain its political authority: Inaction is not a legitimate option.

A crucial question is where to draw the line between diversity and decline in a pluralistic polity, such as the EU. A representative body of Europe’s peoples is the most realistic set-up. These representatives should judge whether democratic backsliding is taking place and whether action should thus be taken. In contrast to the current depoliticised set-up, I argue that the European Parliament is the most appropriate candidate to fulfil this role.

Legitimate interventions

The EU must ensure that its democracy protection measures do not undermine its political authority, and therefore, they should be compatible with the principle of shared popular sovereignty. From this principle, I submit, follows a substantive desideratum for evaluating the democratic legitimacy of EU measures: the protection of Europe’s democratic peoples. The goal of these measures should be to protect citizens and their democratic institutions rather than punish the backsliding government.

A normative assessment follows of widely discussed measures of EU democracy protection. Discursive interventions, such as naming and shaming, are democratically legitimate because they support Europe’s democratic peoples without harming them. Despite concerns about their effectiveness on changing the backsliding’s government mind, this type of measure can play normatively desirable role, such as rally citizens to the democratic cause or shame democratic actors supporting backsliding governments.

Economic measures require careful scrutiny. On the one hand, economic sanctions are often proposed, but they could harm pro-democratic actors. If economic sanctions could be formulated to punish a backsliding government without harming these actors, they would be democratically legitimate. Otherwise, these types of interventions give rise to normative trade-offs. On the other hand, financial support aimed at bolstering democratic resistance from within the suppressed citizenry is democratically legitimate, because it aims to protect suppressed elements of a European people. Moreover, they impose no democratic harm on the other peoples of the EU and even, to some extent, can re-establish the democratic preconditions of peoplehood by giving the opposition a voice.

Political actions might become necessary to maintain the EU’s democratic authority, especially when the backsliding government can no longer be considered a liberal democracy, but these types of measures often come with democratic costs. Isolating a backsliding government from EU decision-making, such as through the Article 7 procedure, is democratically legitimate, because it would protect Europe’s other democratic peoples from the influence of an undemocratic government in transnational legislative procedures. The measure does not hurt oppressed citizens because their democratic voice has already been silenced.

If a member state becomes and remains an electoral autocracy, then the rebooting of the EU becomes a democratically legitimate response. This measure in effect results in expulsion, hence it has many tragic consequences. Still, it protects Europe’s peoples from undemocratic forces undermining their transnational democratic order, while affirming their democratic sovereignty. Further, one might consider former EU citizens after such a move worthy of special consideration.

Conclusion

My realistic political theory bolsters the emerging normative case for the EU engaging in democracy protection. There may be good reasons to consider not pursuing democratically legitimate measures when having to respond to democratic backsliding in EU member states. This might include the economic and human costs of measures or security concerns. Although I believe that political judgements should take such considerations into account when deciding how to protect democracy in the EU polity, I maintain that a democratic EU has the normative duty to protect its peoples.

Jan Pieter Beetz (he/him) is Assistant Professor in Political Theory and European Integration at the Utrecht University School of Governance. Jan Pieter is fascinated by the political authority of liberal democracies and the contemporary challenges to their legitimacy, in particular European integration and the rise of the administrative state. His realist philosophical research reflects and draws upon cutting-edge debates and insights in the human sciences, in particular EU-studies, political science and governance. In addition to his homepage, Beetz’ work can be followed on his Google Scholar pages.

The post Saving Popular Sovereignty from a Slow Death in the European Union appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

This blog post is a follow-up to the presentation “The Aspiration Towards Centrality in the European Research Area: The European Interest in Bringing the Southern Neighbourhood Into the Picture,” given on 11 September 2023, during the virtual panel 104 “The EU as an External Actor I” of the UACES 2023 Conference.

The presentation highlighted some of the main content lines of the forthcoming publication, which examines how research cooperation serves the goals of the European Southern Neighbourhood Policy and the European Research Area. This topic is addressed through the lens of the motivations and pursuits of Europe-based project managers. Following insight obtained from interviews with Europe-based managers funded by EU Framework Programmes, the presentation outlined that many Europe-based project coordinators welcomed Moroccan and Tunisian institutions to the consortium because this would enhance their position of centrality and point of expertise intersections in the European Research Area. Narrative analysis guides multifaceted conclusions. Agency strategies pursued through a scientific focus on the projects serve the overall goals of the European Research Area and the Southern Neighbourhood Policy. European project coordinators function as enablers of the EU’s structural diplomacy. The science diplomacy considerations are secondary and not unified across the examined projects.

Looking beyond this specific presentation, the multiple forms of EU actorness, actorship, and actorhood deserve more attention to acquire a more complete picture of the multiple ways in which the EU engages with the rest of the world. There are many blind spots waiting to be discovered and properly addressed in future research. The EU’s external action toolbox remains to be fully evaluated and its full resonance properly explained. A more in-depth study of several thus far neglected areas is instrumental to making EU engagement more purposeful and targeted and constructing complementarities with higher-value deliverables. This is not meant as a criticism of the existing policy planning, programming, and implementation practices. It is guided by an aspiration to never stop seeking room for improvement and to set even higher sights on research excellence.

Additionally, these follow-up remarks prove the topicality of the panel title “The EU as an External Actor”. This title will remain pertinent for the foreseeable future. The EU open access data repositories offer plenty of options to discover new patterns and less studied constellations of EU-supported encounters across the world that deserve to be more thoroughly examined and discussed during the forthcoming UACES conferences. The lively debate throughout the online session was an opportunity to introduce attendants to other recent scholarly publications addressing contemporary engagement of the EU with various domain-specific diplomacies, such as knowledge diplomacy and connectivity matters.

To conclude, the panel “The EU as an External Actor I” attests that several highly engaged scholars are working towards starting to fill this gap with promising theoretical, conceptual, and empirical choices. The study of perceptions of the EU is on the rise. The way the EU is perceived is of interest to early-career and senior researchers who study diverse regional and geopolitical heavyweight constellations.

 

Blog post author: Zane Šime

The post Aspiration Towards Centrality in the EU External Action Context appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

EUHealthGov is delighted to have been involved in this week’s annual conference of the University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES). We have hosted three panels at the event at Queen’s University Belfast on 4, 5 and 6 September. 

On Monday morning, we gathered for a panel on EU governance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mina Hosseini (University College Dublin, Ireland), introduced an evaluation of the EU’s use of advance purchase agreements (APAs) to procure COVID-19 vaccines. Utilising the lens of competition law, Mina’s work explores challenges to transparency and accountability in the APA process, and how the EU might use its wider Vaccine Strategy to address such challenges in future. Our second presenter, Francis Jacobs (also UCD), presented a paper on how the European Parliament responded, in its day-to-day functioning, to the challenges presented by the pandemic. This work explores how the Parliament adapted its rules of procedure and working methods to enable it to keep its legislative agenda moving, and how it is contributing to debates on how to increase the resilience of institutions. 

On Tuesday morning, we turned our attention to the European Health Union (EHU). Louise Bengtsson (Swedish Defence University, Sweden) opened the panel with her work on the securitisation of EU global health policy. Comparing the new global health initiatives published by the Commission as part of the EHU with the older, existing elements of EU global health policy, Louise’s work explores a shift in narrative framing and underlying logic. Next, Georgiana Ciceo (Babeș-Bolyai University, Romania) presented a paper that uses the experimentalist governance framework to assess changes in the EU’s cross border health threats legislation within the EHU. Georgiana argues that the EU has been able to expand its authority in public health by amending the high level goals and iterative feedback stages of the governance process in cross border threats. Finally, Mary Guy (Liverpool John Moores University, UK) introduced a new project mapping solidarity in European healthcare. In this panel Mary focused on the role and place of solidarity within the EU’s response to COVID-19, arguing that there remains potential for solidarity logics to inform the development of EU vaccine policy, fiscal governance and the EHU. 

On Wednesday morning, for our final panel, we gathered to discuss law-making and legislation in EU health governance. Hannah van Kolfschooten (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands) presented a paper on the EU’s artificial intelligence (AI) legislation and its less-known implications for third countries. Drawing on a concept of ‘data colonialism’ and a comparison to clinical trials legislation, Hannah outlined some of the wider impacts of EU law and offered some early thoughts on how the EU might act to take account of these impacts. Second, Eleanor Brooks (University of Edinburgh, UK) presented a paper on the role of stakeholder consultation in the EU policy process. Using a case study from EU pharmaceutical law, Eleanor’s work examines the existence of participation bias in the consultation process, and explores the challenges in identifying, measuring and analysing such bias. Finally, Katrina Perehudoff (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands) introduced a new project exploring the EU’s responsibilities towards low and middle income countries in the area of pharmaceuticals. Drawing inspiration from across international, EU and national legal frameworks, Katrina’s work seeks to develop a framework for EU action on global access to medicines, exploring the potential for positive duties towards health beyond the EU’s territorial borders. 

Between and across panels, we’ve had fruitful discussions about the scope and future of the EHU, the EU’s role in global health governance, and the potential of its legal frameworks to contribute to health equity. With thanks to all of our presenters, chairs, discussants and audience participants, as well to UACES for the invitation and financial support. Here’s looking forward to #UACES2024!

The post EUHealthGov at UACES 2023 appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

 

Far from taking downtime, summer has been a busy period for the Graduate Forum. This short update contains important information about what we have been up to as a community in the past few months and all of our upcoming events.

A Successful Conference in Barcelona

In June, we gathered in Barcelona for our annual conference at the Institut Barcelona Estudis Internacionals (IBEI). It was fantastic to meet so many emerging scholars and delve into the research being undertaken in European studies. We are really grateful to the UACES staff for their help organising the conference, to IBEI for their support in hosting it, and to all the discussants and panelists who contributed their valuable time — a big thanks to all attendees who provided feedback, which we will incorporate into our future events.

Upcoming Doctoral Training Academy in Brussels

Behind the scenes, we have been planning our next event – the Doctoral Training Academy – in Brussels on 24 November. This year’s theme is professional skills, and we have sessions on publishing, engagement, and academic applications with leading scholars in European studies. Check out the schedule and sign up here!

Our Communications Strategy

With the grateful assistance of the UACES admin team and two graduate placement students, we have been refreshing our communications strategy and updating our brand identity. We have released two podcasts and published several short pieces from attendees at the conference on our Crossroads Europe blog. We have more to come shortly.

If you would like to highlight your research through our channels, on our blog or our podcast, get in touch with me at nrobb03(at)qub.ac.uk!

We have also launched an Instagram account and will shortly be starting a Telegram channel to make networking with other European Studies scholars easier!

UACES Conference in Belfast

If you’re coming to the UACES Conference in Belfast, add our panels on Careers Beyond Academia and Academic Careers to your conference agenda.

We are also going for drinks on Monday 4th September at The Sunflower Pub in Belfast at 8pm, following the drinks reception in Belfast City Hall. We look forward to seeing you there!

The post UACES Graduate Forum Committee – Summer Update appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Between April and June 2023, I had the chance to conduct the RENPET bursary at the ARENA Centre for European Studies at the University of Oslo under the supervision of Dr. Helene Sjursen. As I began the first half of my second year, I was hoping that a stay at ARENA would allow me to establish the theoretical foundations of my research for the rest of my PhD while receiving some useful feedback from peers and more senior academics. My stay there was worth it since it allowed me to achieve these goals while also allowing me to get in contact with other researchers and practitioners residing in Oslo.

 

The Benefits for My Research

My PhD project tries to breach the traditionally established gap between the national and the international by considering under what conditions the actions that national actors (radical right populist parties) take affect the EU’s most international policy: its external action. While I stayed at ARENA, I was able to develop an elaborate framework for the concept of influence, which is key in my research. I built upon previous conceptualisations by ARENA scholar Guri Rosén to include elements from both the national and international levels while also considering approaches to influence from other disciplines such as lobby research. Coincidentally, I had the chance to listen to one of the leading authors in this field, Andreas Dür, in the first Tuesday Seminar I attended. These seminars proved to be highly beneficial for me since they put me in contact with realities beyond the ones a PhD candidate in the EU’s external action experiences. On the one hand, I was able to learn from peers working in other fields linked to the EU. On the other hand, I had the chance to see how bigger administrative projects, such as the establishment of a new research centre: the Research Centre on the European dimension of Norwegian Law (EurNorLaw). These experiences helped me understand the wider aspects of an academic career.

 

Oslo and its perks

My research went beyond the walls of the University of Oslo, and I conducted some interviews with other researchers and practitioners living in Oslo. These included researchers from the Fridtjof Nansen Institute (FNI) which was particularly useful for the “China aspect” of my research as well as a former Norwegian minister. Similarly, I also had the chance to enjoy the city of Oslo itself and visit its fjord, its recently built National Museum, and witness the celebrations of the Norwegian Constitution Day on the 17th of May.

 

About RENPET

All in all, the RENPET bursary was an excellent opportunity to advance my research, learn from a network of more experienced academics, while discovering other realities and other ways of research. For that, I am grateful to the whole RENPET network that finances the bursary and, particularly, to Helene Sjursen and all the ARENA staff for providing academic guidance during my stay.

 

 

More about the author

Unai Gómez-Hernández is a second-year joint PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh and KU Leuven. His research revolves around under what conditions European radical right populist parties influence the EU’s external action vis-à-vis China. His fields of interest involve populism, EU foreign policy, as well as EU-China relations both widely and with a specific focus on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Unai holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science (University of the Basque Country); a bachelor’s degree in International Relations (London School of Economic and Political Science), and a master’s in international relations and diplomacy of the European Union (College of Europe). Before beginning his PhD, he worked in the private and public sector, in the Basque Environmental Cluster as well as in the Delegation of the Basque Country to the EU.

 

 

 

The post RENPET Network Residency at ARENA Centre for European Studies (University of Oslo) appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The sight of more heavy rain outside the window tells me it’s high summer. This means all the important people have gone on holiday to somewhere sunnier, leaving us hoi polloi to discuss politics.

As a result, I’m at my desk when Matt Goodwin’s latest Substack post arrives, heralded as a contribution to ‘silly season’.

The core argument is that talk of rejoining the EU is overblown, because there are lots of things that are problematic about membership.

Since Matt reminds me how many of us all subscribe to his Substack, I’ll assume you’ve read it.

As a first thought, this is classic eurosceptic messaging on the EU and European integration: it’s costly, it’s too intrusive but also not strong enough to sort things out, it’s lethargic and divided and it leaves the door open to millions of people coming here.

These messages don’t just date back to 2016, but to the mid-1990s.

The messages have hung around for two main reasons.

Each of them taps into wider discontents and emotions about politics, about foreigners, about fairness that allow them to leverage more engagement from audiences. Politicians are the least trusted profession in the UK, you say? Well maybe it’s not going to hurt my cause (whatever it is) to trash-talk them then, right? Certainly I can think of would-be populists who rail against the failings of the ‘new elite’ in just this manner.

But the messages also persist because they have something to them.

If I were being sniffy about Matt’s list I could argue that there are various things that are rather particular readings of situations, but actually most of it isn’t that arch.

Let’s take the first of his ‘very good reasons’:

1. It will not be like it was before. The relationship will be harder and the terms will be worse. You will not get special opt-outs on things like Schengen, justice and home affairs. You will not get rebates. You will have to go all-in. And having already left once you will not be as influential as you were before.

“Fair enough” is my main response here.

The EU is in constant evolution, just like the UK, so to pretend one could just make like it’s 22 June 2016 and none of this ever happened is deeply naive. The opt-outs the UK secured during its membership came because it was there as new policy domains were developed: as a new member state it would have to cleave to what the EU already has in place.

And even more than influence is the question of whether the EU and its member states want to go around British involvement once again. If we can flip into increasing support in the few years since the referendum, then we can flop back in equally short order: a new membership wouldn’t settle things definitively, so why return to that psychodrama at all?

We might take from this that the EU is not the land of milk and honey, just as it also not the ‘end of a thousand years of history’: it’s a choice, and one with both costs and benefits.

Moreover, it should also remind us that this choice is not just for the UK alone: the EU has not only a voice but a vote, so for any kind of relationship beyond ignoring each other, there has to be common cause and agreement.

As such, Matt is right to argue that the polling is misleading and would tighten in any active debate on re-accession. Most people don’t actually know or care that much about the EU, so follow cues from others. If re-accession where to close in, then some of those people would discover costs or inconveniences that make them think again about the matter: it’s happened in every other accession to the EU and it’d happen here.

Of course, research on this matter picks up some interesting elements in this. So let’s explore and – to keep in fair – let’s use Matt’s own work here.

First up, Matt did some polling back at the start of this year, looking exactly at the impact on attitudes of reminding people about the kinds of costs he’s listed this week. If you’ve paid for his Substack, you can read the full piece, but the exchange below picks up a key point, namely that even when you do expose people there’s still a majority in favour of rejoining.

tbh, the most remarkable thing about your polling is that, even when made aware of just how tough the re-entry requirements might be, still a majority of respondents want to #rejoin

Looks like Bregret is firmly entrenched and the #Tory lies about #Brexit have been rumbled. pic.twitter.com/wm4mAXUAIH

— Jonny Brogdale (@Govtandpolitics) January 6, 2023

Of course, this is only one side of the equation. Matt (with co-authors) also found in 2020 that the British public had largely priced-in eurosceptic arguments about the EU, whereas pro-integration ideas seemed to have a more substantial effect. Put differently, precisely because everyone knows the old eurosceptic tunes they are less likely to nudge anyone’s views, while the same isn’t the case for their opponents.

This does, however, leave one not-inconsiderable issue: why haven’t pro-integrationists found their voices and their messages?

If the 2016 referendum campaign was striking for how Leave’s messaging was deeply familiar, then it was also striking for how Remain seemed to be casting around for anything equivalent. The same still broadly holds today.

The reasons aren’t entirely clear, but part of it is that pro-integrationists haven’t felt that they needed to make an active case until recently: the weight of the status quo bred a degree of complacency that facts and friction against change would be enough.

Even now, the focus on rationalist arguments about economic costs echo this position. They do not have the emotional heft that helped make eurosceptic ideas carry further.

Moreover, the numerous perceived failings of post-referendum government have bound up popular views with a set of contingent ideas: Brexit is unpopular because the government is unpopular (partly because its Brexit policy didn’t deliver), so what happens when you take the government out of the equation?

If pro-integrationists are to make any progress towards re-accession then they need to find ways of speaking that resonate with a wide constituency over an extended period of time. Whether they’ll secure is still to be seen, but certainly it’ll need longer than a season, silly or not.

The post Goodwin’s ’10 reasons why Britain will not rejoin the EU’: some thoughts appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

by Marko Stojić, Metropolitan University Prague

In recent years, the Western Balkans has experienced a significant decline in democracy. This has been especially pronounced in Serbia, a country that is no longer perceived as a functioning democracy but rather categorized as a partly free ‘electoral autocracy’. At the same time, Serbia has made some strides in its pursuit of EU membership, leading many observers to argue that the EU has become complicit in the erosion of democracy, supporting rather than discouraging this concerning trend.

More strikingly, the European Parliament (EP) – known for its commitment to upholding the EU’s fundamental values – and some transnational parties have also shown a disregard for the democratic decline, both within and beyond the Union. This has been particularly evident within the European People’s Party (EPP) which consistently shielded its former member, the Hungarian Fidesz, until 2021. In an article recently published in the Journal of Common Market Studies, I contend that the EPP has similarly turned a blind eye to the undemocratic practices of its Serbian affiliate, the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS).

Namely, this transnational party did endorse progressively more critical EP resolutions on Serbia that, for instance, noted in 2023 that ‘the governing majority has steadily undermined some political rights and civil liberties, putting pressure on independent media, the political opposition and civil society organisations’. However, a closer examination of the amendments tabled by the EPP group and their frequent motions for separate votes to exclude disapproving articles paints a different picture. The leading European party consistently sought to moderate the content of these politically important – although not legally binding – documents, aiming to shield its Serbian affiliate from severe criticism in the EP. The article, therefore, reinforced scholarly arguments that EU actors have considerably contributed to the rise of ‘competitive authoritarianism’ in this region.

Protecting Serbia’s ruling party from criticism

The EPP frequently dismissed the arguments that there was a rollback of democracy in Serbia. It actively worked to remove from the 2021 EP resolution that ‘[The EP] regrets the lack of progress in many areas of Serbia’s reform agenda and the fact that there has even been backsliding on issues that are fundamental for EU accession’. The party vehemently contested articles that highlighted the role of the SNS in the erosion of democracy. For instance, it sought to eliminate references to ‘the ruling party’ from the article noting ‘monopolisation of the media landscape in the country by the ruling party’. Furthermore, the EPP opposed the inclusion of specific examples of high-level corruption, making unsuccessful attempts to vote down references to prominent and unsolved corruption cases involving senior SNS officials, such as ‘Krušik, Jovanjica, and Telekom Srbija’.

Likewise, the EPP’s narratives and official documents consistently overlooked the democratic decline. Party senior officials have rarely, if ever, publicly criticised the SNS for its illiberal practices. Instead, they emphasized Serbia’s readiness for changes and membership in the EU. While the 2021 EPP EU-Western Balkans declaration boasted that ‘we cannot compromise on values and rights’, it disregarded undemocratic tendencies in the countries governed by its affiliates. Its 2022 position paper on the Western Balkans thus praised the initiatives to ‘strengthen the independence and the efficacy of the judiciary’ and create ‘a better level playing field’ for the April 2022 election in Serbia. At the same time, it criticised the Socialist-led governments in Albania for democratic deterioration across three resolutions and called upon the EU to cross-check how democracy works in this country. The logic of partisan allegiance evidently shaped its contrasting approaches to countries led by EPP affiliates and those where EPP members were in the opposition.

When political and economic interests trump principles

Seeking a wider pan-European sway, the EPP strove to protect its Serbian member driven by strategic incentives. Viewing its non-EU allies as potential full members and valuable electoral assets in future EP elections, it had no incentives to excessively criticise the SNS. As one of the few ruling EPP members in this region and a dominant party in Serbia with a significant influence across the post-Yugoslav space, the SNS guaranteed an enduring presence of the EPP in the Western Balkans. An important factor contributing to this dynamic was the close personal relationship between SNS leader Aleksandar Vučić and former CDU leader Angela Merkel. Vučić consistently expressed unwavering admiration for Merkel, considering her as ‘the undisputed leader of Europe’. Crucially, he was a loyal partner in stemming the flow of migrants and preserving regional stability – two fundamental pillars of German Western Balkan policy.

Moreover, most EPP affiliates presumably lacked genuine interest in the issue of democracy in candidate states. Their positions were likely shaped by members more involved in Western Balkan matters – primarily the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union. Reflecting Germany’s vested political and economic interests, characterized by generous state subsidies, weak labour laws, and low wages, these EPP affiliates arguably aimed to downplay criticism of Serbian authorities. Moreover, the repeated attempts of the EPP rapporteur to remove critical remarks about ‘the dominant market position of (state-owned) Telekom Srbija’ and ‘the allegations that the ruling party is using it to increase its influence over the media market’ from the 2023 EP resolution exemplify how broader economic interests may influence the EPP’s lenient stance towards illiberal members.

Remarkable intra-party cohesion and few ideological outliers

The EPP displayed striking cohesion on votes pertaining to Serbian democracy. An overwhelming majority of EPP legislators systematically and consistently toed the party line. The observed voting pattern indicates that the positions of most EPP legislators on this matter were primarily influenced by strategic considerations driven by transnational partisan politics and the necessity to maintain cohesion. The EPP was interested in maintaining influence in the Western Balkans while avoiding alienation of the SNS. This approach took precedence over particular national interests, domestic electoral incentives, or ideological beliefs that might have otherwise inclined individual parties towards a more critical position.

At the same time, dissenting voices within the EPP constituted a small fraction, ranging from one to thirteen MEPs out of 177 legislators. Ideology seems to have predisposed their behaviour as their positions were fundamentally informed by contrasting normative commitments to liberal democratic principles. Notably, the parties that voted against nearly all provisions criticising Serbian authorities were illiberal national conservatives with close ties to Fidesz – the Hungarian Christian Democratic People’s Party and the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania. By contrast, most critical were two Dutch EPP Group members – the Christian Democratic Appeal and the Christian Union – committed to the EU as ‘a community of values’ sharing principles of freedom, the rule of law, and democracy.

EU credibility on the wane

The EPP’s reluctance to confront the democratic deterioration in Serbia proved to be detrimental to the EU’s enlargement policy as it further alienated pro-European parties and domestic stakeholders. A marked difference in how the European People’s Party – but also the Party of European Socialists – responded to similar autocratic tendencies in different candidate countries illustrates the lack of consistency among key EU players, damaging the Union’s already undermined credibility in the region. The article also points to transnational parties’ overall inability to be a driving force behind the ‘norm socialisation’ and ‘Europeanisation’ of their affiliates. Finally, ignoring undemocratic tendencies within their ranks may eventually contribute to the decline of democratic norms in these party families themselves.

Marko Stojić works at the Department of International Relations and European Studies, Metropolitan University Prague. His work focuses on party politics in the European Union and the Western Balkans. He is the author of Party Responses to the EU in the Western Balkans: Transformation, Opposition or Defiance?.

The post Partners in Democratic Decline? The European People’s Party and the Serbian Progressive Party appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

 

International Shipping and Emissions: Background

 

Although international shipping accounts for approximately 3% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, its share of global emissions is projected to continue to rise in the coming decades.  

 

Accordingly, international shipping’s current trajectory is incompatible with the Paris Agreement and its 1.5° warming objective. At the 80th session of the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC 80), members of the London-based UN agency finalised negotiations around a revised IMO strategy to reduce GHG emissions within international shipping. 

 

On 7 July 2023, the MEPC adopted the IMO 2023 Strategy on Reduction of GHG Emissions from Ships. The strategy establishes the following targets: 

 

• Reduce emissions by 20% (compared to 2008 levels), striving for 30%, by 2030 
• Reduce emissions by 70%, striving for 80%, by 2040 
• Net-zero GHG emissions “by or around, i.e., close to, 2050” 

 

To get there, the IMO will employ a basket of economic and technical measures, leaving the door open for carbon pricing and other tools to be used. Although the 2023 IMO Strategy was not as ambitious as science and many states had called for, it was a multilateral compromise.  

 

Thanks to the UACES microgrant, I saw that compromise being reached firsthand.  

 

My Research Interest in Climate Diplomacy

 

As part of my PhD, I looked at the European Union’s (EU) climate diplomacy with respect to four multilateral negotiations, including the 2018 IMO Initial Strategy on Reduction of GHG Emissions from Ships. For the Initial Strategy negotiation, EU member states supported Pacific Small Island Developing States in driving ambition within the IMO and in ultimately delivering the Initial Strategy. Since then, the EU has pushed forward on its own, with the inclusion of a shipping-related provision within the European Green Deal. Shipping will soon be included within the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS): a cap-and-trade mechanism aimed at reducing GHG emissions. Needless to say, I was very interested in seeing how these developments would shape the 2023 negotiations. 

 

Impact of The UACES Microgrant

 

When I began my PhD in 2019, I had every intention of conducting in-person interviews and participant observation as part of my data collection. Like many other PhD researchers, my plans were turned upside down with the COVID-19 pandemic. I relied heavily on WebEx and Microsoft Teams to speak with officials and diplomats. MEPC 80 was thus one of the first opportunities I had to observe a negotiation in person and interact with delegates. 

 

Going into MEPC 80, I was relatively confident – from an academic perspective – in my understanding of the IMO and multilateral negotiations. I quickly learned that practice and theory are very different things! It is one thing to read about the negotiation process, but observing in person how a compromise comes together is an entirely different matter. I feel privileged to have followed the process. To give a few examples, I observed impassioned interventions and unwavering efforts by Pacific Island States to increase ambition, diplomats huddled during coffee breaks in order to broker a deal on text, and an impressive spirit of camaraderie in the room when the 2023 Strategy was adopted.  

 

I am a much better scholar for having attended MEPC 80 as an academic observer and look forward to applying this rich data to my current research project. 

The post UACES Microgrant Report: Getting to the 2023 IMO Revised GHG Strategy appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

EUHealthGov held its third Practitioner Perspective on 19th July 2023. We were delighted to host Elizabeth Kuiper, Associate Director and Head of the Social Europe and Well-being programme at the European Policy Centre (EPC) to discuss the evolving place of health on policy agendas between the COVID-19 pandemic and upcoming changes with a new Commission term and European Parliament elections in 2024.

Against the backdrop of current interconnected challenges spanning the geopolitical context and cost-of-living crises, the profile of health on EU-level agendas has gained more prominence. This has emerged not only via learnings from COVID-19 for public health and EU competence in health, but also via Commission President Von der Leyen’s greater ambitions for health from December 2019, where the previous Commission had seen health famously characterised as a “small thing”.

Elizabeth Kuiper’s experience of working in Brussels since 2010 has taken place alongside this evolving profile of health. Her work with the EPC on health has included highlighting the recent discussions about potential Treaty change and the contrasts between citizens’ calls for, and politicians’ equivocations regarding, more EU-level health competence in connection with marking 30 years of health as a Treaty competence in the Maastricht Treaty. The EPC have also engaged with the current evolutions regarding EU governance and the implications for health, issuing a bold proposal for an Executive Vice President for the Wellbeing Economy.

Elizabeth’s presentation also introduced the EPC’s recent work on examining what the European Health Union means – including as a narrowly-defined concept, or an aspiration. Bringing together a broad coalition of stakeholders (including academics and health representatives), the European Health Union Task Force has enabled the EPC to develop concrete recommendations which will be launched on 12th September 2023.

The EPC’s focus has been on extending the European Health Union beyond the now well-established pillars (including pandemic preparedness and the European Health Data Space) and questions of Treaty competence in recognition of attention this has received in other fora, notably the Conference on the Future of Europe. The directions indicated by this work include extending use of joint procurement to address inequalities and access, particularly for rare diseases; elevating HERA’s status to ensure more independence and autonomy in recognition that perspectives on health may change with the new Commission in 2024; highlighting the need for better implementation of recommendations for addressing the skills gap in the health workforce; and the need to explore more partnerships across the world and work more holistically at the global level in tackling health emergencies.

A recording of this event is available here.

The post Summary: Putting Health on the Agenda: Practitioner Perspectives from Elizabeth Kuiper appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

 

Between March and June 2023, I completed a RENPET-funded research stay at the KU Leuven Faculty of Social Sciences, within the Leuven International and European Studies department” (LINES). By embarking on this residency halfway through my PhD, I sought to get more acquainted with the top-tier research carried out at LINES and gain access to KU Leuven’s outstanding facilities all over Belgium, which include extensive bibliographic resources. 

 

During my stay, I took advantage of the institution’s proximity to Brussels: I conducted interviews with public officials from EU institutions and attended various international academic conferences and research seminars. My residency was very rewarding – and even surpassed my expectations. 

 

A Variety of Experiences

 

Additionally, I had the opportunity to experience KU Leuven’s dynamic academic life, including the Research Day of the Faculty of Social Sciences’ Doctoral Programme. I also delivered a guest lecture with bachelor students from American University, as part of a joint programme involving this institution and KU Leuven. My lecture addressed the evolution of global health governance and the EU’s interaction with it, paying particular attention to the effect of crises like COVID-19. This complemented the programme’s overall focus on the EU’s responses to external shocks.  

 

Closer to the end of my stay, I presented a draft of a book chapter – which will be one of the components of my PhD – at a “LINES session”, in which early-career scholars affiliated with the department discuss their work in progress in an informal setting. I also engaged with LINES researchers and other RENPET members at the 2nd RENPET annual conference, which took place at my home institution (IBEI) in late May-early June. This event allowed me to obtain additional feedback on my research.  

 

My RENPET residency at KU Leuven has been instrumental in propelling my PhD forward. During my stay, I finalized my first PhD article and submitted it to an academic journal, completed the first draft of a co-authored book chapter, and started working on the third component of my PhD – a journal article within a Special Issue to which other LINES and RENPET researchers will also contribute. In more formal terms, my three-month research stay in a prestigious university abroad will render me eligible for an International Mention, an honorary qualification awarded in the Spanish system that will add value to my PhD diploma. 

 

My gratitude goes to…

 

I am very grateful to Dr Kolja Raube (my host at the LINES department) and Dr Katja Biedenkopf (the coordinator of LINES) for warmly welcoming me and assisting me at every step, including in the months prior to my arrival. Special thanks also go out to Charlotte Debeuf (my wonderful office mate), Franziska Petri (my friendly office neighbour and fellow commuter from Brussels), and the rest of professors and colleagues from the LINES department. I would also like to extend my appreciation to Ingrid De Wachter, Greet Louw and Amin Mirabdollah for their kind and resourceful support in various capacities. Finally, I would like to thank UACES and RENPET for their generous sponsorship and for presenting early-career scholars with this valuable opportunity, among many others. 

 

More About the Author

 

Óscar Fernández is a PhD candidate in the program Political Science, Public Policy and International Relations at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, under the supervision of Dr. Robert Kissack. He obtained a predoctoral contract from the H2020 research project ENGAGE (Envisioning a New Governance Architecture for a Global Europe). His fields of interest are the European Union’s external action, global health governance, international security, and conflict management. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Pompeu Fabra University, a Master’s degree in Advanced European and International Studies from the Centre International de Formation Européenne, and a Master’s degree in Internationalization from the University of Barcelona. Prior to joining IBEI, he was senior researcher at the EsadeGeo Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics and junior researcher at the World Health Organization. 

 

 

The RENPET network invites applications from PhD students and Early-Career Researchers (within 5 years of their PhD) working in EU Foreign Policy, EU external relations or related fields to apply for bursaries to support an extended residency (2-3 months) at one of the network institutions. Find out more on the RENPET website. Apply for a residency via the UACES website.  

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