European Union

The “Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform” aims to boost digital, net-zero and biotechnologies and enable the EU's industry to achieve the digital and net-zero transitions.
Committee on Budgets
Committee on Industry, Research and Energy

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

The “Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform” aims to boost digital, net-zero and biotechnologies and enable the EU's industry to achieve the digital and net-zero transitions.
Committee on Budgets
Committee on Industry, Research and Energy

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

Russia will try — and is already trying — to benefit from the Israeli-Hamas conflict, which has an unfortunate potential to develop into a regional conflict.

In a vote on Tuesday, Parliament improved and endorsed a proposal for a €50 billion facility to support Ukraine’s recovery, reconstruction and modernisation from 2024.
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Committee on Budgets

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

In a vote on Tuesday, Parliament improved and endorsed a proposal for a €50 billion facility to support Ukraine’s recovery, reconstruction and modernisation from 2024.
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Committee on Budgets

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

In a vote on Tuesday, Parliament improved and endorsed a proposal for a €50 billion facility to support Ukraine’s recovery, reconstruction and modernisation from 2024.
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Committee on Budgets

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

All EU fishing vessels will be monitored and their catches reported electronically, to ensure full traceability, under a revamped EU fisheries control system.
Committee on Fisheries

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

All EU fishing vessels will be monitored and their catches reported electronically, to ensure full traceability, under a revamped EU fisheries control system.
Committee on Fisheries

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

Every Monday, a member of the international academic association ‘UACES’ will address a current topic linked to their research on euradio.

 

Listen to the podcast on euradio.

 

 

For our weekly editorial by UACES, the University Association for Contemporary European Studies, we have the pleasure to welcome Adrian Favero, from the University of Groningen, in the Netherlands. Adrian, you’re inviting us to take a look beyond the borders of the EU, at the forthcoming Swiss federal elections.

 

That’s right, on Sunday 22 October 2023, Swiss voters elect a new parliament. They will choose the 200 members of the National Council, the lower chamber of the Swiss Parliament, as well as 46 members of the upper chamber, called “the Council of States”. MPs will serve from 2023 to 2027.

 

Why is this election relevant for Switzerland’s European neighbours?

Because the 2023 elections will show whether the 2019 “green wave” can be sustained or whether we see a shift towards the right.

Four years ago, roughly 5.3 million voters in Switzerland were summoned to the polls. About 45% of them cast ballots, a turnout that was slightly lower than in previous years. As the polls had predicted, the major parties lost votes and the two green parties – the “Greens” (GPS) and the “Green Liberals” (GLP) – gained seats. The Greens almost doubled their votes, surging to a 13.2% share, and gaining 17 seats in the National Council. This was an unprecedented increase in representation for any single party. The Green Liberal Party also exceeded expected results, with a gain of 3.2% and nine more seats. Both parties benefited from their “competence issue ownership”.

 

What do you understand by this concept?

“Competence Issue Ownership” describes a situation in which some parties are perceived by the public as being clearly the most qualified or competent in a specific area. With more awareness and salient debates about climate change, this is what happened to the green parties in Switzerland.

In 2023, however, we see a different situation.

This year’s polls indicate that the tables may turn. Most current surveys and forecasts confirm that the right-wing populist “SVP” will win seats back from the Greens. Unlike in 2019, climate change does not dominate the political agenda anymore.

 

Have the Swiss citizens turned their back on the fight against climate change?

No, climate change is still a pressing issue for many citizens, but the people’s concerns for the environment do no longer necessarily translate into votes for the Green Parties.

On the one hand, other topics, such as healthcare costs, pensions, and immigration, are widely felt and more tangible. At present, the SVP seems to win back votes with their focus on these issues. This is where they are felt to have “competence issue ownership”, which is expected to give them a significant boost.

And on the other hand, climate activists who glue themselves to roads cause massive disruptions and are often seen as a nuisance, which does not help their cause. As such, climate change is of course not off the table of concerns but has been temporarily replaced by more immediate threats which call for instant solutions, and the SVP benefits from this shift.

 

What about the rest of the political spectrum?

The two parties in the centre are expected to attract roughly the same number of votes and seats as in 2019. And on the left, the Social Democrats are also predicted to win votes, although to a rather moderate extent. It’s really the two green parties that are expected to lose significantly.

Importantly, however, national forecasts usually predict only the results for the National Council, which is elected based on a system of proportional representation. The second chamber, the “Council of States”, which is elected by majority vote in most cantons, is also important in determining the political direction of parliament but remains a cantonal issue. Currently, the Centre Faction (14 seats) and the Radical-Liberal Faction (12 seats) are the dominant forces in this body.

 

What else should we watch out for?

It will also be interesting to see whether the parliament will maintain the number of female representatives. Currently, the National Council has 84 women, a share of 42% of the chamber. This puts Switzerland second in Europe, behind Sweden, in women’s representation in the legislature.

 

An interview conducted by Laurence Aubron.

 

The post Swiss Elections appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

AMENDMENTS 1 - 474 - Draft report EU-China relations
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Hilde Vautmans

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

AMENDMENTS 1 - 131 - Draft report EU-Japan relations
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Reinhard Bütikofer

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

Unexpected finds are one of the joys of archival research. In September 2023 I set out to conduct research in the Historical Archives of the European Union in Florence thanks to a UACES Microgrant. My research explores the career of the US diplomat, economist, journalist and scholar Miriam Camps, née Camp. Camps is best known for having authored the book Britain and the European Communities, 1955-1963. Published in 1964, it is still one of the most detailed and best-informed books on Britain’s first attempt to become a member of the EEC. When writing the book, Camps made use of the insider contacts she had established while working for the US State Department in the 1940s and early 1950s. These individuals then happened to be in leading positions in the European institutions and the British foreign office during the accession negotiations.

At the archives, I was hoping to find traces of Camps in the personal papers of François Duchêne (or rather the collection of sources that formed the basis of his Jean Monnet biography) and the federalists John Pinder and Uwe Kitzinger with whom Camps had worked at Chatham House in the 1960s and 1970s. Camps, with Pinder, Kitzinger and a few others such as Richard Mayne and Roy Pryce, were also pioneers in establishing the discipline of European Studies (I have published on this issue elsewhere). Pinder and Kitzinger also happened to be among the founders of UACES. While Camps featured heavily in Duchêne’s papers, she was less present in Pinder and Kitzinger’s papers. This is probably because in the 1970s Camps turned her back on European integration and focused more on the reform of GATT and the international trading order, so was not prominent anymore among those shaping the scholarly agenda of European Studies.

Pinder, however, was – in his publications, as director of the think tank Political and Economic Planning, and as a federalist activist. He was also a frequent speaker at early UACES conferences. Amongst his papers was the programme of the 8th Annual Conference at the University of Warwick, which was dedicated to the topic ‘Origins of the European Community – Progress and Prospects?’. This conference programme suggests that early UACES conferences were much more historical in their focus, much smaller, much more British, and male-dominated. The Warwick conference was a two-and-a-half-day affair and there were no parallel sessions. Crucially, its’ speakers comprised of a mixture of academics, campaigners for European integration, and former and current civil servants involved in shaping European integration in the early years, with some speakers whose careers had spanned all of these roles. Roy Pryce, for instance, had started his career as an information officer at the ECSC High Authority in the 1950s, and had then worked for Jean Monnet’s Action Committee before he became founding director of the Centre for Contemporary European Studies at the University of Sussex. In 1973, Pryce went full circle and returned to the Eurocracy as a civil servant in the European Commission’s Directorate General for Information.

What does this suggest? Still in the 1970s, Europeanists were a small crowd, not necessarily confined to one (academic) role but switching between functions and, like Pinder, Kitzinger and Pryce, were activists as much as scholars of European integration. Miriam Camps, though more detached from Europe in that period, has to be counted among this group. Although multifaceted, she used each of her roles to promote European integration, transatlantic relations and more specific to her, a rules-based global trading order.

 

 

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.

 

 

The post Unexpected Finds: Stumbling Across the Early History of UACES appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

MEPs Malin Björk and Eugenia Rodríguez Palop will brief journalists on Parliament’s position on the revision of the directive on combating trafficking in human beings.
Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

MEPs Malin Björk and Eugenia Rodríguez Palop will brief journalists on Parliament’s position on the revision of the directive on combating trafficking in human beings.
Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

As both EU leaders of the European Council and MEPs convene, we appeal for Europe to continue supporting the vital work of UNRWA — which declared this week that it can no longer assist those in need in Gaza.

The EU is creating a Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) to support key technologies and strengthen European sovereignty.

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

The EU is creating a Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) to support key technologies and strengthen European sovereignty.

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

Tuesday, 17 October

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

Tuesday, 17 October

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

Two Swedish people were shot dead in Brussels on Monday by an Islamist gunman, who was "neutralised" on Tuesday morning.