European Union

Main agenda items, approximate timing, public sessions and press opportunities.

During his meeting with Prime Minister Bakhtadze, President Tusk confirmed the EU determination to further deepen the cooperation between EU and Georgia.

High Representative Federica Mogherini issued a declaration on behalf of the EU on President Omar Al-Bashir visit to Russia on 14 July 2018.

Declaration by the High Representative on behalf of the European Union on the alignment of certain third countries with Council Decision (CFSP) 2018/880 of 18 June 2018 amending Decision 2014/386/CFSP concerning restrictive measures in response to the illegal annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol

Declaration by the High Representative on behalf of the European Union on the alignment of certain third countries with Council Decision (CFSP) 2018/901 of 25 June 2018 amending Decision (CFSP) 2017/2074 concerning restrictive measures in view of the situation in Venezuela

Declaration by the High Representative on behalf of the European Union on the alignment of certain third countries with Council Decision (CFSP) 2018/900 of 25 June 2018 amending Decision 2013/184/CFSP concerning restrictive measures against Myanmar/Burma

Declaration by the High Representative on behalf of the European Union on the alignment of certain third countries with Council Decision (CFSP) 2018/833 of 4 June 2018 amending Decision 2010/413/CFSP concerning restrictive measures against Iran

On 18 July, EU ambassadors confirmed the agreement reached with the Parliament to increase the budget of the structural reform support programme by €80 million.

Declaration by the High Representative on behalf of the European Union on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17

Following the second EU-CELAC ministerial meeting, participants adopted a declaration.

Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission and Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan, met in Tokyo for the 25th Summit between the EU and Japan and issued the following statement.

During the press conference after the summit in Tokyo, President Donald Tusk highlighted the strong relations and partnership between the European Union and Japan.

At the press conference of the summit, held in Beijing, President Tusk presented the main topics the leaders discussed during their meeting.

The Berlin Wall, constructed in 1961 to separate East and West Berlin during the Cold War, is a cause and consequence of a plethora of historical events and processes. It is also a symbol for artificial separation of peoples and ideas behind artificially created borders. In this respect it can serve as a perfect proxy, which allows to draw parallels to the EU-Ukrainian boundaries and their surmounting.

The Berlin Wall serves as a popular motive for various notions, often contradictory, like much in human life, such as free will, its suppression, activism and passivity, opposition and unity, migration and border control. But it is also a symbol for the break with the whole epoch of the Cold War and global confrontation.

The Soviet Block portrayed the Wall as a protection from Western fascist elements who conspired to circumvent the “democratic will of the people”.  This strain of reasoning is clearly and logically manifested in the continuity of today´s Russia aggressive policy against Ukraine. Russia occupied and annexed Crimea and Eastern Ukraine in 2014, disguising it under the same false pretenses of “protection against fascism” – the democratic Ukraine and the West in this case.

 

A GDR-built Trabant car, produced almost unchanged from 1957 to 1990, is a popular mention of the Communist era, stifling not only creativity and innovation but any human desires. Graffiti on the wall of the East Side Gallery.

The line of the original wall, chipped away by hoards of tourists.

A picture of a preserved 70-metre section of the former border strip, photographed from the roof of the Berlin Wall Memorial, located at the historic site on the Bernauer Strasse.

Berlin Wall graffiti art: lifting of borders as an overarching theme.

The motifs are numerous, like that of a fleeing man.

The world-famous Checkpoint Charlie booth, the Berlin Wall crossing point, transferred from its original stand in 1990 to the Allied Museum, which was inaugurated in 1998.

The Berlin Wall is an integral part of the public exhibition at the Topography of Terror history museum, located  on the site of the former Main Security Office of the Nazi Germany.

A watchtower, one of the last relics from the GDR era, can be found north of central train station. It is named in memory of Günter Litfin, who was the first victim to be killed by East German border troops. A memorial, established in 1992 on the initiative of his younger brother, is located in the watchtower.

This notorious painting, called “My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love”, was created in 1990. It depicts Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker in a fraternal kiss, a mimicry of a photograph that captured the moment in 1979.

Division and unity, when put in a broader context. Another piece of graffiti art on the Berlin Wall.

 

Photos and copyright: Alexander Svetlov

 

 

 

 

 

The post The Berlin Wall put in context appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Berlin, as a site and a backdrop of many epochal events, used to play a central role during the East-West confrontations in the 20th century. Nowadays the city turned into coulisse for many historical events, commemorations and discourses. As the past conditions our present, Berlin as a spot is also seen pertinent to the generally and specifically “european” interactions with Ukraine. Common history, as surveyed bellow, connects Ukraine as geographic and socio-political entity with Western Europe, personified by Berlin.

Berlin city plan, as presented at the Berliner Stadt-Modelle (Mitte).

Diorama of the Siege of the Berlin Reichstag by the Soviet Army in 1945 at the Deutsch-Russisches Museum Berlin-Karlshorst.

View from the Flak tower at Humbolthain.

Cecilienhof Palace in Potsdam, south of Berlin. It is the last palace built by the House of Hohenzollern that ruled the German Empire until the end of World War I. In 1990 it became part of the UNESCO World Heritage. The palace was used for a summit by the G8 foreign ministers in May 2007.

But first it was the location of the Potsdam Conference in 1945, in which the leaders of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States made decisions affecting the  post World War II time. The red star was planted by the Soviets well in advance of the meeting to imply the dominating position.

Negotiation table of the Potsdam Conference.

The view from the second floor.

The Soviet War Memorial in Tiergarten, erected in 1945, within a few months of the capture of the city.

The memorial is a place of active commemoration and a popular tourist attraction.  It is a site of pilgrimage for war veterans from the countries of the former Soviet Union, whereby wreath-laying ceremonies are held at the memorial. The site and adjacent cemetery are maintained by the City of Berlin.

Soviet tanks are renowned, and these constitute an inevitable piece of every WWII commemorative scene.

T-34 model, as built after 1944, at the pedestal at the German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst, which is the historical venue of the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht on 8 May 1945.

Airplanes, like tanks, are also impressive artifacts. This Handley Page Hastings transport plane deployed by the Royal Air Force is placed at the Allied Museum  museum, which was inaugurated in 1998, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Berlin airlift.

The US Air Force Douglas C-47B “Raisin Bomber” on the roof of the German Museum of Technology.

Tempelhof was one of Europe’s first airports, and its 1 km long main building was once among the top 20 largest buildings on earth.  The whole complex was designed to resemble a flying eagle with semicircular hangars forming the bird’s spread wings. It acquired an iconic status as the centre of the Berlin Airlift of 1948-49. Tempelhof Airport closed all operations in 2008, and the airfield has been subsequently used as a recreational space known as “Tempelhofer Feld”.

First air jets of the early 1950-s, as displayed at the former Royal Air Force Station Gatow (now Bundeswehr Museum of Military History): a Soviet jet…

… and a “Western” jet.

A West-German NATO propagating poster “His comrades are our allies” (Bundeswehr Museum of Military History).

A Soviet officer training an East-German pilot – a monument of the GDR-times. A clear connotation for the younger brother relations within one family, subtly and cunningly propagated in the Communist Bloc. (Bundeswehr Museum of Military History).

One of the cipher machines from the exhibition over the history of espionage and secret services at the Spy Museum, opened in 2015.

The KGB Prison in Potsdam near Berlin, situated in the command quarters of the KGB for Germany, was a detention centre run by the Soviet counter-intelligence. Soviet soldiers,  accused of desertion, espionage or close contact with the population, were imprisoned here until the mid-1980s. Until 1955 Germans were also interned here. The memorial site was opened in 2009.

A ward´s peephole in the cell´s wall.

GDR Museum, the 11th most visited museum in Berlin, is located in the former governmental district of East Germany. Opened in 2006 as a private museum, its exhibition depicts life in the GDR in a direct “hands-on” manner, as it does not focus on every single individual exhibit (of which there are thousands), but rather on the overall atmosphere.

Jewish Museum, opened in 2001, is the largest Jewish museum in Europe. Its modern building is erected in deconstructivist style, which gives the impression of the fragmentation, unpredictability, absence of harmony or symmetry.

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe consists of a 19,000 m2 site covered with 2,711 concrete slabs, arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field next to the Brandenburg Gate.

 

Photos and copyright: Alexander Svetlov

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The post The East-West history discourses in the Berlin´s context appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

A delegation of seven members of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, led by Chairman David McAllister (EPP, DE), visited Algeria from 18 to 20 July 2018. MEPs met the Prime Minister, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Interior, the Vice-President of the Council of the Nation, the President of the People’s National Assembly as well as the Chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
During the visit they had fruitful discussions on the political, socio-economical situation of the country, but also on the security and stability of the region. The chair underlined that they came here to listen and observe to better understand Algeria and strengthen the parliamentary cooperation.

In this context, Mr. McAllister stated:

"Algeria plays an important stabilising role in the region and we should continue our cooperation on security as well as on fighting terrorism and radicalisation."

This visit follows the setting up of the EU-Algeria Joint Parliamentary Committee and shows the commitment of the members of the Foreign Affairs Committee to reinforce political dialogue with Algeria.

The delegation consisted of:

David McAllister (EPP, DE), Tokia Saïfi (EPP, FR), Francisco Millán Mon (EPP, ES), Jo Leinen (S&D, DE), Javi López (S&D, ES), Jakop Dalunde (Greens, SE), Dobromir Sośnierz (NI, PL)

Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

At a time when the EU is undergoing a number of crises, some seen as existential and provoking an upsurge in theorising on the disintegration of the EU, Luis Bouza and Alvaro Oleart offer intriguing reasons for suggesting there is room for more optimism. In a succinct summary of their larger article, recently published in JCER, Bouza and Oleart here outline their argument that we are witnessing the normalisation of the EU as a polity, such that we can speak of an “empowering’ rather than “constraining” dissensus.

Depiction of TTIP with US and EU flags © Sangoiri / Adobe Stock

EU affairs have been only rarely controversial in Spain. This is an expression of the ‘permissive consensus’ on EU affairs that has been characteristic of many European societies. The campaign for the ‘no’ ahead of the 2005 Spanish EU Constitutional Treaty referendum illustrates the weakness of such debates, since in this case it was only driven by a few alter-globalisation groups such as Ecologistas en Acción (EeA) or ATTAC. Most leading civil society organisations, such as the trade unions CCOO and UGT or ADICAE (a consumer organisation), actively supported the ‘yes’ vote, as well as the political party in Government (PSOE) and the leader of the Opposition (PP).

In stark contrast, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations saw the development of a transnational campaign that gained momentum in various countries in parallel, including in Spain.

The driving forces of the Spanish anti-TTIP campaign are largely the same actors as those active in the 2005 Spanish ‘no’ vote campaign referendum, but this time they reached far beyond their traditional allies. Gaining some salience among media, civil society, trade unions and political parties, in 2016 the manifesto of the Spanish anti-TTIP campaign was signed by 340 organisations, including political parties such as Podemos and institutionalised civil society organisations such as CCOO and Greenpeace. The headline of the manifesto resembled strongly the frames used in the ‘no’ vote campaign: ‘People, the environment and democracy before profits and the rights of corporations’.

It was precisely this conundrum, i.e. why TTIP became a controversial issue in Spain, considering the generally ‘permissive consensus’ stance of Spanish civil society, that drove our most recent research project, the results of which were recently published in JCER.

In that article, we argue that the change of positions of Spanish civil society actors in relation to the EU in the case of TTIP can be explained by a change in the field of European affairs in Spain, a highly suggestive notion considering the degree of continuity in the identity of the entrepreneurs of the anti-TTIP campaign in relation to past EU-critical mobilisations.

Whereas during the 2000s the field of EU affairs in Spain was characterised by the involvement of only a few professionalised organisations along with some alter-globalisation activists, the STOP TTIP mobilisation constituted a turning point. Two streams of civil society activists that do not often mobilise together, institutionalised actors (such as CCOO or anti-poverty networks) and protest actors (EeA or ATTAC), combined their efforts to contest TTIP in what constituted the largest EU-critical mobilisation to date in Spain.

Even more notably, organisations not usually involved in political protest, such as professional associations of judges and taxi drivers, joined the network.

Figure 1 Network of the Spanish anti-TTIP campaign

Through a combination of methods, using semi-structured interviews and network analysis, we show that the Spanish anti-TTIP campaign has engendered a new type of resource in the Spanish civil society field vis-à-vis EU affairs: the ability to mobilise citizens on EU issues at the national level. We have also published an article on this subject, about how different actors have so far used the European Citizens’ Initiative.

Figure 1 represents the network of actors involved in the Spanish anti-TTIP campaign. This figure is a one-mode network (all members are actors except the central node, which represents the Spanish anti-TTIP campaign) representing the national campaign against TTIP. It includes organisations that have no European connections and were not involved in previous EU debates, such as associations of taxi drivers or public health workers.

The different colours represent different types of relationships: the turquoise links imply contacts in the context of the campaign in the form of engagement in debates and other informal exchanges. The yellow links imply formal membership in a coalition, whereas the red imply strategic collective action such as shared resources, coordinated action or leadership in the organisation of a coalition.

Our empirical analysis confirms that a small group of cause entrepreneurs (essentially led by EeA) managed to bring along powerful actors towards their EU-critical anti-TTIP campaign. Such a significant change can largely be explained by the increasing politicisation of Spanish civil society vis-à-vis the EU, induced initially by the 2011 Indignados movement.

Later, the politicisation of the EU was expanded by the anti-TTIP coalition, led by EU-critical cause entrepreneurs (ATTAC Spain and EeA), that amplified the movement’s frames of protest towards the EU. Spanish civil society actors increasingly see and treat the EU as a normal polity rather than as a benevolent entity. As a result, it is possible to challenge its policies without being labelled as ‘Eurosceptic’.

There is a body of literature that argues that the politicisation of EU issues will lead from a ‘permissive consensus’ to a national ‘constraining dissensus’ in terms of an increased political cost of EU decision making.

Instead, we argue that the introduction of EU-critical ideas can lead to an ‘empowering dissensus’. Dissensus is in our view empowering actors at the national level to influence EU policies, because the ability to mobilise citizens on EU issues – a rare resource for most Brussels-based organisations – acquires a renewed importance. The politicisation of EU policies at the national level would then be a symptom of the normalisation of the EU as a playing field. Rather than ‘constraining’ EU decision-making by the lack of consensus, dissensus can enlarge the field beyond the national political arena and ‘empower’ European issues to be considered matters worth discussing at the national level.

This introduction of political conflict over EU issues at the national level normalises the EU as a polity, and is therefore good news for European democracy.

This article is based on the authors’ article in the Journal of Contemporary European Studies (JCER) Vol 14 No 2. 

Please note that this article represents the views of the author(s) and not those of the UACES Graduate Forum, JCER or UACES.

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Luis Bouza | @luisbouzagarcia
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

Luis Bouza is an assistant professor in Political Science at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. His main field of interest is the emergence of European debates in the public sphere. He is the author of ‘Participatory Democracy Civil Society in the EU: Agenda-Setting and Institutionalisation’ (Palgrave Macmillan).

Alvaro Oleart | @alvarooleart
Université Libre de Bruxelles (IEE-ULB)

Alvaro Oleart is a PhD researcher in political communication at the Institute for European Studies of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (IEE-ULB). His main field of interest is the European public sphere and the role of civil society in the EU policy-making.

 

The post From 2005’s ‘Permissive Consensus’ to TTIP’s ‘Empowering Dissensus’: The EU as a Playing Field for Spanish Civil Society appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The Knesset passed a national self-determination bill on Thursday that stresses Israel's Jewish character and strips Arabic of its official language status. The law also foresees the creation of municipalities that can deny Arabs the right of residence. For some the new law is deeply undemocratic, for others it is a legitimate means to defend the Israeli state.