European Union

Just five weeks ago, UKIP leader Nigel Farage, anticipating a close-finish in the EU referendum, told The Mirror, “In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way.”

In those circumstances, said Mr Farage, pressure would grow for a re-run of the 23 June ballot, and he would fight for a second referendum.

Well, the result yesterday was exactly 52%-48%. But of course, Mr Farage isn’t fighting for a second referendum, because it was his side that narrowly won.

But as the nation is so evenly split in two, there are now many calling for a second referendum, just as Mr Farage said he would with the same split.

Although the country as a whole voted 52-48 in favour of Leave, there are regional and national differences in that vote.

For example, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the UK’s capital, London, voted strongly in favour of remaining in the EU.

In Scotland a large majority of 62% voted for Remain, in Northern Ireland 55% and in London 60%, with some London boroughs as high as 70%.

It is now possible that Scotland will seek another referendum on their independence from the UK, no doubt so they can reapply to join the EU. That might be something Northern Ireland could also consider.

In many cities of Britain, the referendum result was practically a tie. Such as in Britain’s second largest city, Birmingham, where the voters were evenly divided 50% – 50%.

But some other towns were strongly in favour of Leave, with for example 70% of the voters in Hartlepool opting for Leave.

A split of 52-48 in favour of Leave across the country as a whole has caused deep despair and frustration for many Remain voters, just as it would have done for Leave voters if the situation had been reversed (as clearly Mr Farage thought it might be).

A more decisive referendum result, with a much larger margin, would have seemed more convincing, and possibly less bruising for almost half of the country.

In other nations, changes to a constitution – which could be considered to be akin to leaving the EU – require somewhat more than a simple majority.

In Australia, for example, a referendum is only passed if it is approved by a majority of voters in a majority of states, and by a majority of voters across the nation. This is known as a ‘double majority’.

Since Brexiteers are now wanting to import an Australian style points-system for all migrants, how would yesterday’s referendum have fared if we had imported Australia’s ‘double majority’ system?

Of course, we cannot back-date the procedure adopted for yesterday’s referendum. And it was a democratic decision of the electorate, even though wafer thin, and so no doubt it has to be accepted in good grace.

However, nothing is set in stone. Unlike most modern states, Britain doesn’t have a codified constitution. It’s up to Parliament to lead the way.

As the country is painfully split right down the middle on this issue, there could be a strong argument to hold a second referendum on whether Britain agrees with the terms of the eventual EU divorce.

There is nothing stopping Parliament offering this option if it is the will of our lawmakers.

Commented EU law expert, Professor Steve Peers of Essex University, “The government could offer people a choice between staying in the EU and accepting the terms of departure, once we know what those are.”

And since Nigel Farage said he would himself call for a second referendum if the result was 52-48, he can hardly have any grounds for complaint if this is actually what happens. We should keep reminding him of this.

• Today’s Metro​ article

Other stories by Jon Danzig:

• EU Referendum result: Disunion
• You won’t get your country back if you vote for a Brexit
• Leave campaign is relying on lying to win
• List of the latest articles by Jon Danzig

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— Jon Danzig (@Jon_Danzig) June 24, 2016

The post EU Referendum: Unfinished business? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

I was recently advising a start-up offering job opportunities to individuals willing to relocate across the world. In one case, a Dutch chef working in a hotel in the Caribbean signed a contract with a new hotel chain in Georgia. Mobility is the key word in today’s labour market, but it doesn’t solve all the problems.

In my country, Greece, the CEO of a large multinational corporation will still find it hard to recruit for an entry-level position while at the same time youth unemployment rates are over 50%. Such peculiar observations are traditionally seen as a problem, but are now being taken by some as an opportunity. People often talk about ‘brain drain’ killing Europe’s best, while others, like the founders of the start-up I have been advising, see it as more of an opportunity, describing the phenomenon instead as ‘brain circulation’.

Ever since its establishment in 1997, the European Employment Strategy (EES) has been trying to set common objectives and goals regarding employment policies in order to make life easier for jobseekers. A lot has been achieved, including a fight against the number of administrative barriers within member states that often prevented the free movement of workers in the EU. People today find it much easier to look for a job abroad than before, and are also given indirect opportunities to kick-start their career in a foreign country through study programmes like Erasmus and Leonardo, which guide them into different cities.

All of this is good provided you actually secure a job at the end of the programme; otherwise you’re doomed to the eternal search many are still faced with. Here in Greece, when someone graduates as a chemical engineer, he or she has a couple of years of grace to find decent work. If the graduate doesn’t find work immediately, they will most likely end up supporting their family by working in a completely irrelevant sector – it wouldn’t be unusual for such a person to become a bartender on a Greek island. Even worse, they may have to continue in this job for long enough that when the right opportunity finally arises, there is nothing to boost their candidacy besides a well-framed, and now slightly dusty, degree. That, in practice, is driving people out of the market, making little to no use of the investment that they themselves, their families and their countries put into educating them.

“People often talk about ‘brain drain’ killing Europe’s best, while others see it as more of an opportunity”

But this description of the problem is a picture only in black and white, and is probably unfair and certainly lacks imagination. We need at the very least to add some grey – policies that will bridge the gap between the unemployed and the employed, not just matching the unemployed with whatever jobs are available at any given time.

My answer to the problem is the launch of a massive programme for paid, enterprise-based internships within the EU. I am an advocate of using paid internships, for what should be their primary role, to bring new talent into a company, not as a way of finding cheap labour. Internships can also be used by candidates to explore a number of potential job markets besides those in closest proximity to either their location or field of study. Traditionally, only a few sectors asked for student internships such as medicine, the law and sometimes accounting. All other sectors are more or less left without an established internship culture.

Companies are very selective, and once they pick someone they tend to stick with their investment. A good enough candidate working as an intern has considerably more chance of staying on to work for the company as opposed to an unknown competitor for the permanent position from outside. This is not a theoretical remark but a practical observation. The institution I work for, The Hellenic Initiative, has been one of the main sponsors of such a programme in Greece called ‘Regeneration’.

“An intern has considerably more chance of staying on to work for the company as opposed to an unknown competitor”

The programme, launched a couple of years ago, has so far had an overwhelmingly positive response from the participating companies, and the number of applications received and placements offered has nearly doubled since launch. Even with the dire macroeconomic factors surrounding Greece today, participating companies were asked to pay their interns the minimum wage for six months, and in return we guaranteed after a tough selection and training process to assign them the best fits for their vacancies. This small-scale experiment had a 78% success rate when it came to interns getting their contracts renewed and being hired as full-time employees.

I am sure that many can think of different alternatives to this idea, like for example having students involved in such programmes as part of their course and not waiting until after they graduate to gain work experience. But the main idea remains quite simple and is easy to implement. We need to bridge the gap between what universities offer and what companies need, and a good way of doing so is to spend as much time as possible in both worlds.

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On the 23rd of June, the British people voted to leave the European Union. Against all odds and, above all, against all reason, one of Europe’s most moderate and pragmatic of peoples has decided to disregard overwhelming evidence that such a decision would have negative consequences for the country.

Almost the entirety of the country’s intellectual, economic and political establishment had explicitly opposed Brexit. There had been letters by Nobel laureates detailing the cost to UK research of a ‘Leave’ vote, a public statement by over 250 academics to the same effect, the official opposition of most British businesses as well as an avalanche of expert reports indicating the significant economic cost of leaving the world’s largest single market. In political terms, the ‘Remain’ campaign had the formal support of the country’s four largest political parties, the Tory-led national government and that of a plethora of international leaders, including the President of the United States. But as Michael Gove, a Brexit supporter, recently said: “people in this country have had enough of experts”. He was, of course, right. The fact that Gove is an Oxford-educated politician who recently led the UK’s Department of Education, an institution dedicated precisely to producing experts, seems to have been inconsequential.

“If illiberal populism takes hold, the European Union will be a particularly easy victim in large part because it is an elite-driven project”

The British are not alone in their rejection of their elites. Over the past few months, there have been numerous indications that many other Western societies are following a similar path. The presumptive nomination of Donald Trump as Republican candidate for the US Presidency is perhaps the most significant case. Trump’s nomination was not only something very few had predicted but also a significant blow to the Republican Party’s establishment, which opposed it en masse. Bernie Sanders’ almost successful run for the Democratic nomination, and in particular his results in caucuses (i.e. primaries in which party elites had less control over the outcome), points in the same direction. Spain is about to vote in a historic general election that is going to see close to a third of the vote go to Unidos-Podemos, a far-left coalition composed of former communists and a newly-born anti-establishment party. In the case of Austria, it was the far-right that almost won the presidency only a few weeks ago. And in Italy, a party founded only in 2009 by a comedian in protest against the political class recently won the mayoralty of Rome.

Opposing elites is not necessarily a negative development in itself. However, it so happens that the elites being opposed are precisely the ones that support the fundamental values and institutions of the Western liberal-cosmopolitan order. Therefore, this convulsion will see the reconfiguration of the classical left-right political axis into one composed of liberal cosmopolitanism versus anti-liberal populism. If this illiberal populism takes hold, anti-trade, anti-immigration and anti-capitalist policies will proliferate. The European Union will be a particularly easy victim of this new mood, in large part because it is an elite-driven project. The benefits of being a member of the EU are mostly understood by intellectual, business and political elites. If those elites are unable to carry the support of the broader European population, the project will be in dire straits. More pressure will be placed on politicians to detach themselves from European integration or to call for a referendum on membership – results in such elections and plebiscites will be very difficult to predict. Uncertainty will be the name of the game. Marine Le Pen has now called for an EU membership referendum in France, and the latest Ipsos Mori poll in Italy shows that 60% of Italians want the same, with 48% saying they would vote to leave the Union.

Free trade and globalisation more broadly will be other casualties of the upcoming illiberal era. Trade is a technical matter that requires experts to arrive at deals that are not understood by those of us who do not dedicate our lives to such matters. Again, if trust in elites is not there, we are bound to see simplistic messages take hold and suspicion of free trade grow. The prospects of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Transpacific Partnership (TPP) being signed and ratified look slimmer by the day. Ultimately, anti-capitalist and, perhaps, anti-democratic movements will emerge. We know, for example, that many of Europe’s far-left parties have in the past questioned capitalism as a system, or that far-right parties bring with them strong anti-democratic tendencies. Immigration and multiculturalism in general will also be questioned, and already are in Europe and America. Minorities and others are normally victims of populist movements because they are seen as bearers of problems, as stealing people’s jobs or as security threats.

“From the 1970s to today, we have gained productivity without increasing wages, which means labour income has ceased to function”

Why is this happening? And why now? Some have said it is a consequence of globalisation, free trade and immigration. These factors surely play a role but I would like to suggest that the lion in the grass, or the hidden threat, is rapid technological development and its impact on labour markets and wealth distribution. Middle-class workers are today competing not just with cheap labour in the developing world but also with machines and algorithms that are ever cheaper and ever better. This structural process is producing large amounts of material prosperity, but it is undermining the middle class in the process through the destruction of jobs. We have never been wealthier in terms of total output of goods and services, but the US and Europe have seen a steady rise in inequality over the past two decades. We know that from the 1970s to today, productivity and labour income have decoupled; we have gained productivity without increasing wages, which means that our most important redistribution tool, labour income, has ceased to function. Wealth concentration in the US has now reached dramatic levels. And people are losing faith in a system that produces aggregate wealth but fails to distribute it.

Now, the barbarians are at the gates. Populists come to break the system and in the process destroy a great deal of wealth. Hopefully it is only wealth that is lost in this convulsion. The liberal cosmopolitan elites of the world need to diagnose this problem quickly and effectively, and start thinking about the new equilibrium after the upheaval. How do we build an inclusive economic system in which entrepreneurship, innovation and private enterprise are still driving growth but do not produce politically-unstable levels of inequality? What is to be the future role of governments and corporations in an environment of high productivity but lower employment? These questions will need to be answered in the next decades if we want to arrive at a politically-sustainable arrangement. The current model built by our elites is not. And we shall all pay the price for it.

IMAGE CREDIT: CC / FLICKR – diamond geezer

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Nations have long relied on one another to balance the supply and demand of energy. This is particularly true for Europe. Italy and Malta, for example, rely on imports for over 75% of their energy needs, while Denmark produces enough energy to be a net exporter.

The stable output from fossil fuel and nuclear power stations previously dominated the trade of energy across Europe. This made managing supply relatively straightforward regardless of differences between national energy policies. But the continued growth in renewable generation and move away from fossil fuels is changing this picture. European countries are now becoming more reliant on each other for a more balanced supply of electricity and the need for shared energy policies across Europe is increasing in importance.

Europe has for decades had common policies on a huge range of areas including agriculture, defence and border controls. But the first comprehensive Europe-wide energy strategy – formally called the ‘Energy Union Strategy’ – was only launched early last year, by which time it had become clear that establishing more secure, competitive and cleaner energy across Europe was no longer optional.

“After a decade without progress, member states have realised that resistance to shared policies doesn’t work”

The motivation behind the Energy Union Strategy’s approval was not much of a secret. Europe is highly dependent on Russian energy, importing over a third of its crude oil and nearly 40% of its total gas from the country in 2013. Uncertainty over Russian energy contracts following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in early 2014 and the subsequent risk of disruption to gas supplies from Russia highlighted the fragility of Europe’s energy infrastructure.

Not a lot can change in the short term. Every year until the mid-2020s, Europe is contractually obliged to buy the equivalent of around 75% of the gas it imported from Russia in 2013. Despite this, Europe recognises the need to work together to ensure it has tangible alternatives to Russian imports in the medium to longer term. Renewables aren’t the only option; others include increasing investment for liquefied natural gas (LNG) infrastructure and decreasing demand for energy by improving efficiency measures. With geopolitical events acting as a catalyst, EU member states suddenly found themselves able to put the finishing touches to a common strategy for energy that had been without any real traction for years.

Thankfully, there is also a positive reason why European countries are working together. The EU’s leadership in climate change mitigation means a shared commitment to reduce emissions by 40% by 2030 from a 1990 baseline. This led to a shared target of generating 20% of energy from renewable sources by 2020. Having common targets for both emissions reductions and renewable generation lends much greater force to collaborative efforts.

Agreeing a common energy strategy is one thing, but successfully implementing it is another challenge altogether. Fortunately, European research is already highly collaborative among member states, with much pooling of resources to increase efficiency and to avoid duplication of efforts. Joint work on energy innovation has been happening for decades, and now provides the underpinnings that will enable the common strategy to succeed.

Just one example can be found in collaborative projects on the electricity grid. Interconnectivity of grid systems is of course critical to efficiently balance energy across borders and a headline target of the Energy Union is for all countries to achieve 10% of electricity interconnection by 2020. For some, this is already being achieved. When high winds mean Danish wind turbines alone produce more energy than meets the country’s electricity needs, the excess power can be shared with neighbouring countries for use or, in the case of Norway, stored for later use.

A recent collaborative research project involving 18 member states made significant advances in helping Europe to become more connected by a ‘smart grid’ – a dynamic system in which electricity can flow to meet localised changes in supply and demand. Several months of real-world observations tested the impact of renewables on power quality across different weather conditions and seasonal load changes. The collaboration has provided significant insights into the effect of renewables on power quality and led to the development of cost-effective methods to ensure fair trading of energy between countries.

“Having common targets for both emissions reductions and renewable generation lends much greater force to collaborative efforts”

For others, the target is more challenging. Some states like Cyprus or Malta have little to no interconnectivity capacity, and being an island makes plugging into the European grid much more expensive. Proposals like the ‘EuroAsia Interconnector’ propose linking Greek, Cypriot and Israeli grids, but will cost upwards of €1.5bn and won’t be fully implemented until at least 2022. Clearly, a successful energy union needs to recognise that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution and consider differing regional challenges.

As well as collaborative research, other joint programmes have built on existing Europe-wide standards to create a level playing field for new innovations. One example is the EU’s Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) scheme, which provides independent testing to verify performance claims so that SMEs can prove their technology to customers and investors. Being able to complete a single verification that is then valid across the whole of Europe reduces the costs to innovative European SMEs and accelerates the commercialisation of their products.

After a decade without progress on a common European energy policy, member states have realised that resistance to shared policies doesn’t work in the new environment. The need to tackle climate change, create a healthy and competitive market and ensure security of supply rely on collaboration beyond the sharing of ideas and occasional peeks over the garden fence.

But as well as adjusting to a shifting geopolitical landscape and climate concerns, energy union provides an opportunity for Europe. Collaborative research has already shown that innovation and efficiency is cultivated by cross-border research. By working together strategically, Europe can ensure that the whole becomes much more than the sum of its parts.

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Plenary, committee and political group meetings, Brussels

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

AMENDMENTS 1 - 102 - Draft opinion on the future of ACP-EU relations beyond 2020
Committee on Foreign Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

On 16 June, the former NATO secretary general and the EU high representative Javier Solana presented the main findings of the study on the EU security and defence, which will feed in the future own-initiative report on the EU defence union to be drafted by Urmas Paet (ALDE, EE).
Further information
Draft agenda
Study: On the way towards a European Defence Union - A White Book as a first step
Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

General : EP President Martin Schulz, European Council President Donald Tusk and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte met Friday morning in Brussels at the invitation of EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. They discussed the outcome of the United Kingdom referendum and made the following joint statement:

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

General : EP President Martin Schulz, European Council President Donald Tusk and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte met Friday morning in Brussels at the invitation of EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. They discussed the outcome of the United Kingdom referendum and made the following joint statement:

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

General : European Parliament President Martin Schulz and EP political group leaders made statements to the press on 24 June following an extraordinary meeting of Parliament's Conference of Presidents (EP President and political group leaders) on the outcome of the UK's EU membership referendum on 23 June.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

General : European Parliament President Martin Schulz and EP political group leaders made statements to the press on 24 June following an extraordinary meeting of Parliament's Conference of Presidents (EP President and political group leaders) on the outcome of the UK's EU membership referendum on 23 June.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

General : To follow up the UK’s EU membership referendum, Parliament's Conference of Presidents (EP President and political group leaders) decided on Friday morning, to convene an extraordinary plenary session for 28 June at 10:00. During this session, MEPs will vote a resolution analysing the outcome and ways forward. EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Council representatives will take part.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

General : To follow up the UK’s EU membership referendum, Parliament's Conference of Presidents (EP President and political group leaders) decided on Friday morning, to convene an extraordinary plenary session for 28 June at 10:00. During this session, MEPs will vote a resolution analysing the outcome and ways forward. EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Council representatives will take part.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

The objective of this joint DROI/SEDE hearing on 30 June from 9.00-11.00, is to assess whether the use of drones complies with international law including respect for human rights and international humanitarian law. Issues related to civilian casualties and impact on affected communities, the question of transparency and accountability as well as the need for meaningful compensation mechanisms will also be addressed.
Further information
Draft Programme
Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

General : Extraordinary Plenary session live in Brussels

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

General : Extraordinary Plenary session live in Brussels

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

“All changed, changed utterly,” wrote the celebrated Irish poet W.B. Yeats of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin, adding “a terrible beauty is born!” A century later, he might well have been writing about the result of Britain’s referendum on EU membership.

Radical change has been the dream of the UK’s triumphant Brexiteers, but what, beautiful or not, will be born? An absence of clarity about the impact of Brexit on the UK, the rest of Europe and worldwide will last for a decade at least. The notion that Britain can neatly cut the links binding it to continental Europe will quickly prove absurd, as will the idea that the surgery will be painless and only local.

To return to that ‘terrible beauty’; the referendum result suggests that a majority of British voters believe they have freed themselves of the cumbersome diktats of the EU ‘superstate’, and that the UK will be able to rediscover its former glory. They see the British lion again standing rampant at the centre of an international trading system wider than Europe, with the strength to impose some benign new form of Pax Britannica whenever troubles threaten.

The picture is beguiling but misleading. It is impossible to predict how the 27 remaining EU member states will react, but right now it seems likely that next week’s scheduled meeting of the European Council grouping national leaders will be a subdued affair.

David Cameron’s successor will presumably attend as Britain’s prime minister, and the appropriate courtesies will be extended to him, along with commiserations for having lost the referendum.

Once the dampening effects of shock wear off, though, the pain will come flooding in. This summer will see the beginning of a tumultuous political crisis that will probably set many EU member states against one another, and will certainly reverberate around the world.

It is too soon even to guess at the immediate consequences of the vote for Brexit. The pound sterling will probably tumble, stocks and shares slide and the global financial system will be severely shaken. But what goes down can also come back up, so the more important question is the longer term political outlook for the EU and for the 60-year process of European integration.

Will Britain’s exit trigger a wave of copycat pressures across the Union, as many fear? The European Union’s global credibility is going to suffer, and the further risk is that voters in other European countries will demand special treatment that could, unless satisfied, prompt fresh demands to leave the EU.

The arguments raging so fiercely in recent months inside the UK have been followed closely elsewhere, not least by Europe’s eurosceptic populists. The established centre-right and centre-left mainstream parties that in effect govern the EU’s choices and direction know that their reactions to the Brexit decision must avoid strengthening their hand.

That leaves the EU and its member governments with a difficult balancing act. They must avoid panicking and permitting the UK’s withdrawal negotiations to exacerbate euroscepticism elsewhere. And they must at the same time create a more positive climate so as to move the European project forward.

A first step would be to stop pretending that the EU’s lack of accountability is no problem. Eurosceptics are not the only ones to question the secrecy surrounding Council of Ministers’ meetings that produce no public record of who said what, along with the unelected character of the European Commission.

No one can predict the sort of more open, democratic and transparent EU decision-making structure that might emerge from a re-think. The EU and the national leaders who in truth are responsible for its policies would, however, be very unwise to ignore the pressures for reform. Not the sort of narrow, self-serving ‘reforms’ that Britain’s prime minister David Cameron attempted to secure earlier this year, but imaginative improvements that could restore the EU’s credibility and popularity.

IMAGE CREDIT: CC / FLICKR – Dave Kellam

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