European Union

On Thursday, the European Parliament adopted three resolutions on the respect for human rights in Algeria, Belarus and Myanmar.
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on Human Rights

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

To ensure a human-centric and ethical development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Europe, MEPs endorsed new transparency and risk-management rules for AI systems.
Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

To ensure a human-centric and ethical development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Europe, MEPs endorsed new transparency and risk-management rules for AI systems.
Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

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

 

Listen to the podcast on euradio!

 

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

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

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

 

When did she stand for election herself?

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

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

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

 

What did she do exactly for workers’ rights?

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

Interview by Laurence Aubron.

 

 

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

Russia’s war against Ukraine underlined the need for the EU to strengthen its defence strategy and speed up weapons production. Learn how.

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

Russia’s war against Ukraine underlined the need for the EU to strengthen its defence strategy and speed up weapons production. Learn how.

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

TAP Portugal (Décès du copilote)
Transport

L’annulation d’un vol en raison du décès inopiné du copilote n’exonère pas la compagnie aérienne de son obligation d’indemniser les passagers

Bezirkshauptmannschaft Lilienfeld
Transport
A road transport undertaking cannot discharge its responsibility for compliance with the driving times and rest periods of drivers by transferring it to a third person.

Inspecţia Judiciară
External relations
Rule of law: the body in charge of disciplinary proceedings against judges must be independent and impartial

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thursday, 11 May

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

Thursday, 11 May

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

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