European Union

I have been crossing the river Rhine north of Strasbourg between Iffezheim (Germany) and Roppenheim (France) for as long as my driving licence can remember. In the late 70s and early 80s, passport control and the usual question whether there was anything to declare were part of the ritual (although in a much more relaxed manner than on the checkpoints on the border to Eastern Germany…).

Some years later the border guards were still there but they did not control anybody any more, except some suspect lorries. There were no barriers any more either. What remained, though, was the habit, on the way back, to get rid of your last French Francs in small shops in unlikely places like Soufflenheim, Roeschwoog or Bischwiller. It was only logical that at the beginning of the 1990s, when the guards had left, their post was temporarily turned into a small money exchange house.

Former border post near Roppenheim, August 2015.

Obviously, once the Euro had come, even the exchange house had no reason of being any more. Since then, the building has been waiting, shutters down, in a kind of wasteland nearby a roundabout where mother nature has taken over.

For more than a decade it did not seem to have a future. But who knows? Now that daily news from the refugee drama that is taking place between Lampedusa and Calais are putting the border issue centre stage again, it has become fashionable among politicians across Europe to put the Schengen agreement into question again and ask for tougher border controls. Clearly the tide has turned since the 1980s when the abolition of borders was celebrated as a civilizational progress and a logical step in the process of European integration.

This is not surprising. The control of territorial borders is a central component of the legitimacy of the classical nation-state. Losing this control – even if on a voluntary basis – is by definition a wound to sovereignty, a phantom pain that fear mongers of all political colours may reactivate any time. It is most likely that in the current circumstances speaking out publicly against Schengen will become (of it has not already) a compulsory rhetorical figure in electoral campaigns in many member states.

While unlikely for the time being, it cannot be totally ruled out that in my driving licence’s lifetime systematic border controls may be reintroduced along the Rhine. If Schengen was to be dismantled, why should Roppenheim be different from Calais?

‘The Style Outlets’ Roppenheim: clearly ‘designed to provide you with a unique and unforgettable shopping experience’. Postal address: 1, route de l’Europe.

A nightmare vision for many, especially for all the commuters and travellers between Iffezheim and Roppenheim. If they have recently started to slow down again on the border, it is not (yet) in order to show their passports, but rather their credit cards in the posh factory outlet village that was built right next to the abandoned border post (where ‘more than 100 must-have brands offer you a minimum of -30% off’).

Might as well benefit from the single market as long as it lasts.

Albrecht Sonntag, EU-Asia Institute, ESSCA School of Management.
A French version of this blog can be found here.

The post Border Blues appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Meng-Hsuan Chou

In July 2015, UACES’s (The Academic association for contemporary European studies) European Research Area collaborative research network (CRN) held its second workshop at the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) in Cambridge. Knowledge policies continue to be at the forefront of contemporary global politics. There is an accepted belief among policymakers that knowledge is the foundation on which societies coalesce and economies thrive. Indeed, the competition for knowledge can be said to be driving the global race for talent. Building on the theme of the CRN’s first workshop, which explored the diverse roles of the ‘four I’s’ – ideas, interests, instruments and institutions in the ‘knowledge area building exercise’, this workshop invited contributions to examine the politics of knowledge policies in Europe and beyond.

 

ERA CRN workshop participants (From left: Hannes Hansen-Magnusson, Julie Smith, Inga Ulnicane, Mari Elken, Luis Sanz-Menendez, Laura Cruz-Castro, Pauline Ravinet, Peter Erdelyi, Hannah Moscovitz; Seated: Meng-Hsuan Chou and Mitchell Young) (Photo credit: Mari Elken)

Opening the session on ‘International policies, norms and knowledge policies’, Hannes Hansen-Magnusson (University of Hamburg) proposed a way to account for knowledge in practices of responsibility. In this co-authored paper (with Antje Wiener and Antje Vetterlein), he argued that researchers should uncover meso-level norms in order to ‘increase long-term sustainable normativity under conditions of globalisation’.

 

Is education policy an ‘internal consolidator or foreign policy vehicle? Amelia Hadfield (Canterbury Christ Church University) and Robert Summerby-Murray (Saint Mary’s University) asked. Using the EU and Canada as their examples, they highlighted how education policy has been co-opted to serve multiple purposes—as the modus operandi for cultivating notions of statehood and belonging, and as an extension to others of prevailing national cultural norms and understanding.

 

Turning to the session on ‘Regions and the re-configuration of knowledge policy areas: Examples from Canada, Europe and South East Asia’, Hannah Moscovitz (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev) compared how Quebec and Wallonia used higher education as a tool for identity promotion. She found that their approaches were distinct: whereas Quebec used knowledge policies to consolidate and foster its distinct identity, Wallonia used higher education policies as a promotional tool (the image of ‘Wallonia-Brussels’) to place itself on the global higher education map.

 

Pauline Ravinet (Photo credit: Mari Elken)

Offering another comparative perspective, Meng-Hsuan Chou (NTU Singapore) and Pauline Ravinet (Université Lille 2) discussed the rise of what they called ‘higher education regionalisms’ around the world. They showed how the supranational and national policy actors in Europe and South East Asia articulated their ambitions to establish common higher education areas in similar ways, but ultimately they adopt very different institutional arrangements for achieving their goals. Chou and Ravinet argued that there are varieties of ‘higher education regionalisms’ around the world and encouraged researchers to examine them empirically.

 

In the session ‘Studying Europe’s open labour market for researchers’, Inga Ulnicane (University of Vienna) presented the research design for a study for on the European Research Area. Her study will combine academic research and published studies to identify the shortcomings and gaps in priority areas of the ERA such as effective national research systems and transnational cooperation and competition.

 

Peter Erdelyi (Photo credit: Mari Elken)

In the penultimate session—‘Knowledge policy instrumentation: from failure to reform?’—Péter Erdélyi (Bournemouth University) discussed the rise and fall of UK’s Business Link, a policy instrument the government adopted for furthering its knowledge economy. In this co-authored paper (with Edgar Whitley), he showed the implementation challenges associated with Business Link the UK government faced in its attempts to address market failures impeding the growth of SMEs.

 

Examining the relationship between ideas and instruments, Mitchell Young (Charles University in Prague) argued that policy instruments embed politics. Using the cases of the new Swedish and Czech performance-based funding tools, along with EU’s framework programmes, he showed how studying policy instruments reveal the ideas and narratives steering politics.

 

Is there standardisation in higher education? Mari Elken (NIFU and University of Oslo) asked. Taking the case of the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) and its subsequent translation through National Qualifications Framework (NQF), she showed how the EQF has generated standardisation pressures across Europe. The most surprising element, Elken revealed, has been the voluntary nature of the instrument.

 

Closing the workshop with the session ‘The institutional design and implementation for excellence’, Thomas König (Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna) presented three aspects concerning peer reviewing: (1) how it is defined; (2) when it entered the world of research funding; and (3) how the notion is applied in academia and research funding. He showed that peer review plays a very different role in research funding than in academia. In research funding, peer review is used to legitimise funding decisions and is greatly valued for its procedural flexibility.

 

Finally, in a co-authored paper (with Alberto Benitez-Amado), Luis Sanz-Menendez and Laura Cruz-Castro (both CSIC Institute of Public Goods and Policies) analysed the participation of Spanish universities in the European Research Council (ERC) funding calls. Studying a representative sample of eighteen universities across Spain, they found that Spanish higher education institutions did not respond to the calls in the same way. Put simply, there is no homogeneity in how Spanish universities approach ERC funding calls.

 

The European Research Area CRN would like to thank UACES and POLIS (University of Cambridge) for their generous support in the hosting of this workshop.

 

For further information: http://eracrn.wordpress.com

The post The politics of knowledge: a summary of the second ERA CRN Cambridge workshop appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

General : Reporting on the European Parliament has never been easier, thanks to our blog listing the latest digital resources that are free to use. Updated around the clock, this page informs you what images, infographics, videos and photos are available for you to download as soon as they become available. Not only are these materials free to use, they are also often available in all of the EU’s 24 official languages, from Bulgarian to Swedish.

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

General : Reporting on the European Parliament has never been easier, thanks to our blog listing the latest digital resources that are free to use. Updated around the clock, this page informs you what images, infographics, videos and photos are available for you to download as soon as they become available. Not only are these materials free to use, they are also often available in all of the EU’s 24 official languages, from Bulgarian to Swedish.

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

Carb-loading for the autumn ahead

In these dog days of summer, there’s not much happening in the world of EU politics. Except the on-going debates on the third Greek bailout, arguments about managing asylum applicants and immigrants and the simmering British renegotiation. And the third of these is very much the least, certainly in Continental terms.

To date, the renegotiation has been very low-key: a round of visits to capitals by David Cameron, the briefest of discussions at a European Council and now more substantive talks about nuts and bolts. With most of the British principals on holiday, fighting leadership contests or generally keeping a low profile, it’s an opportunity to see some of the underlying currents more clearly.

This week’s mini-revelation was an article in the Times, claiming that former health secretary, Andrew Lansley, had told a private meeting that the government’s plan is to have a confected ‘row’ with the French, which would be ‘won’ by the British, about the time that the renegotiation was coming to a head, so that the British public could be presented with a stronger-looking package on which to vote (in September 2016, according to Lansley).

Cue much comment from those on the ‘no’ side, decrying the cynicism and the brazenness of the claims.

On the face of it, this is an odd state of affairs. Lansley is one of the more pro-EU figures in the party,  and not obviously a fool, but it’s hard to see how he couldn’t have foreseen his comments being used by others against him. Perhaps he intended his words to be comfort to his audience, in that there would be something to show for the government’s efforts, but one has to wonder.

However, whatever his intentions, the leaking of Lansley’s comments are indicative of the way this renegotiation and referendum campaign have been going.

To date, the main thrust of debate has been procedural, rather than substantive. Cameron has kept his list of objectives deliberately vague, leading to the odd situation where his actual words bear little difference to the rhetoric of reform found in other capitals or in Brussels. Consequently, different groups produce their own wishlists of reforms, but without producing any public debate, beyond that linked to specific issues in the news (most obviously immigration).

Instead, the talk has been about how things are being organised: what’s the wording of the question? what’s the franchise? what limits on campaigning will there be? what about purdah?

The reason for this is two-fold. The first, already mentioned, is that there’s little of substance to discuss. The second is the neither side has any great trust in the other. Certainly, the ‘no’ side seem to hold a genuine fear that each and every opportunity that the government and the ‘yes’ side can take to win some advantage, they will do just that.

Now, one could argue that this is all just part of the way that referenda work, especially when they are within the gift of the government. As the old (political) truism goes, you only hold a referendum when you know what the result is going to be. In this case, Cameron’s hand was forced somewhat, but that doesn’t change the basic calculation, namely that he needs to win this vote and he will do what he can to achieve that. Put like that, one could imagine a sceptical government in this position entertaining similar ideas about generating some helpful outrage as a prelude to a vote on leaving the EU. That doesn’t make it right – certainly in the eyes of voters who are already pretty disillusioned with politicians – but it does make it more understandable.

Of course, by printing Lansley’s comments, the Times has done something more cunning. It has closed down much of the benefit of the potential opportunities to create a positive story around the renegotiations. Imagine that the government does genuinely have a spat (journalese alert) with another member state, which it genuinely resolves to its advantage: even if everyone says it wasn’t contrived, it will be easy for the ‘no’ camp to point to this week’s story and say “I told you so.” In short, this is a lovely bit of political jujitsu, turning a ‘yes’ gain into a loss.

The upshot of this is that no-one is talking about the referendum as a point of resolution, but as a staging post to the next round of the debate. Short of a very substantial majority on a high turnout, the losing side will be able to claim that the vote wasn’t ‘fair’ and that they must fight on – and both sides are willing to do that.

As noted before on this blog, if that meant that there was a national debate about what the UK’s role in the world should be, then that might be alright, but so far this referendum smells of party politics and opportunism. All might well be fair in love, war and referenda, but it doesn’t address the long-term problems confronting the country or the state of democracy.

The post Playing dirty in the EU Referendum appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

L'exercice d’alerte "Noble Jump" en Pologne a mis en lumière les défauts de la Force de réaction rapide de l’OTAN (NATO NRF) face à la Russie. La capacité de déploiement de la nouvelle force de réaction rapide de l'Otan, testée du 9 au 19 juin sur le camp d'entraînement de Zagan (ouest de la Pologne), est insuffisante face à la réactivité militaire russe, car les forces de l'Alliance ont besoin d'un mois au moins afin de déployer 30.000 militaires en Europe de l'Est. De son côté, la Russie a réussi en 24 heures à déplacer jusqu'à 100.000 soldats avec des équipements au cours de manœuvres militaires réalisées fin mai dans le District militaire central.

Les manœuvres en Pologne occidentale impliquent plus de 2.000 soldats provenant de neuf pays de l'OTAN. Les troupes aéroportées tchèques et néerlandaises, l'infanterie mécanisée allemande et norvégienne, les forces spéciales lituaniennes et polonaises, l'artillerie belge, des hélicoptères américains et une unité hongroise de coopération civilo-militaire y prennent part. L'exercice Noble Jump a été conçu pour tester les troupes de préparation élevée de l'OTAN dans les conditions du champ de bataille et veiller à ce que les concepts et les procédures soient prêts en cas de véritable crise. Le Pentagone a également révélé son intention de déployer en Europe de l'Est des chars, des véhicules blindés et des stocks d'armes lourdes, nécessaires afin d'équiper 5.000 soldats. En plus, il est prévu de créer un groupe "très mobile" fort de 30.000 soldats capables d'être rapidement déployés dans les pays Baltes, en Pologne, en Roumanie ou en Bulgarie en cas d'éventuelle "agression russe".

La formation qui se déroule en Pologne fait partie d'une série plus vaste d'activités de formation prévue en juin et appelée Allied Shield. La série comprend, outre Noble Jump :
- Baltops 2015, un exercice naval allié majeure en Pologne;
- Sabre Strike, un exercice de terrain dans les pays Baltes;
- et Trident Joust, un exercice de commandement et contrôle en Roumanie.
Au total, environ 15.000 soldats de 19 pays, dont le Canada, et trois pays partenaires participeront à cette série d'événements de formation qui se déroulent au sein de l'Alliance en 2015.

Sur fond de crise ukrainienne, l'OTAN a multiplié les manœuvres militaires conjointes dans les pays baltes ainsi qu'en Pologne. Moscou a exprimé ses préoccupations face au renforcement de la présence militaire de l'Alliance à proximité de ses frontières.

Source :
http://fr.sputniknews.com/international/20150615/1016545578.html

Tag: NATO NRFAllied ShieldNoble JumpSabre StrikeTrident Joust

Today, we, countries in the eurozone have mandated the ESM to make up to the maximum of €86 billion available to finance Greece. Of course this programme for the coming three years goes with strict conditions, aiming at:

• Setting right public finances and administration; and
• Dealing with the economy and problems in financial sector.

I am glad to say that the Greek government has already taken some credible first steps. A lot of work will still have to be done to stabilize the economy in Greece for the return of confidence both in Greece and in within the eurozone.

We have a lot of work to do in the coming years but I think that the decisions taken in the last couple of weeks and especially today are a big step in that direction.

A popular saying goes that ‘all politics is local’. While public debate on climate change often focuses on international summits and the political drama of negotiations, the real steps to address climate change will be have to be implemented at a much more local scale. Ultimately, the way we lead our lives – how we use energy, design our communities, how and how far we travel, to name but a few examples – drives our personal climate impact and that of our communities. But although scientific insights indicate that climate change impacts are much closer than one may think, many of us still envision it as a far-away problem that will affect other parts of the world in the future. [1] Unfortunately, we don’t care much about problems that will happen later and mainly to others. But we need to care. Scientists, journalists and communicators have thus turned to highlighting the local consequences of climate change – such as extreme weather events, sea level rise and the like – with the assumption that doing so will persuade people, and their policy-makers, to act. For example, in 2003, Rajendra Pachauri—then the Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—stressed that “I am aware that there is an opportunity for much political debate when you start to predict the impact of climate change on specific regions. But if you want action you must provide this information”.[2] In a recent study, we tested this assumption about the effect of local climate information empirically. Our research[3] suggests that simply highlighting local climate impacts may not be enough stimulate action and could in some cases even backfire.

In an experiment, we asked people, who live in the U.S. state of Vermont, to what extent they care about other communities/people (self-transcendent values), or their own status and power (self-enhancing values). Prior research suggests that people with self-transcendent values tend to be more concerned about environmental issues and act on them compared with their self-enhancing peers. After assessing value orientations, our study participants received information about climate change. One group[4] received information on local climate impacts (in the Vermont region), while another group received information on global climate impacts (focusing on other regions in the world – i.e., not in Vermont). A control group received no climate information. Following this stage, we asked participants how important they thought climate change was, the extent to which they were willing to make changes in their lives to reduce their personal contribution to climate change (e.g., driving less), and their support for climate policy measures. As we expected, regardless of the kind of information (global or local), participants who held a strong, versus weak, self-transcendent values were more concerned about climate change, more willing to engage in pro-environmental behaviour (such as switching to public transportation), and more supportive of climate policy. However, the focus of the climate information – local or global – greatly mattered for individuals with strong self-enhancing values. For these individuals, hearing about likely local impacts of climate change was demotivating. Instead of spurring action, hearing the local projections about increased flooding and other likely local outcomes made self-enhancing people care less than their similar self-transcendent value oriented peers who read about global outcomes.

We had expected that giving self-enhancing people information about local climate impacts that could affect their personal status (e.g., through reduced incomes in the Vermont skiing industry) would highlight the importance of climate change and thus lead to increased action. But perhaps those high in a need for status, enhancement, and power, feel particularly threatened by reading about the local impacts of climate change.  This is a reminder that any connections among caring, values, and proximity are complicated and that there is not one message that will work for everyone. However, recent research hints at approaches that could prevent this backlash. Researchers from Columbia University’s Center for Research on Environmental Decisions  found that simply asking people to consider their legacy can increase environmental concern[5].  Perhaps if we had simultaneously grounded our self-enhancing individuals in local outcomes while asking them to consider their personal legacy, our findings would have been different. Future research should further explore the effects we identified, particularly in other regions of the world. But until we have better knowledge, we would caution against simply assuming that local information frames will increase concern and action, because doing so may prove ineffective or even counter-productive with some people.

Please note: this article has also been published on Talking Climate and the Tyndall Centre‘s website.

[1] E.g., Leiserowitz, A., Maibach, E., Roser-Renouf, C., Smith, N. (2011). Global warming’s six Americas. Yale University and George Mason University.

[2] Schiermeier, Q. (2003). Climate panel to seize political hot potatoes. Nature, 421(6926), 879-879.

[3] Schoenefeld, J. J., & McCauley, M. R. (2015). Local is not always better: the impact of climate information on values, behavior and policy support. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 1-9.

[4] Group assignment was random.

[5] Zaval, L., Markowitz, E.M., & Weber, E. U. (2015). How will I be remembered? Conserving the environment for the sake of one’s legacy. Psychological Science, 26, 231-236.

The post Does Local Climate Information Stimulate Action? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.