European Union

Thousands of Bulgarians took to the streets on Monday (31 July) to protest violence against women after a harrowing case of a teen cut hundreds of times shocked the Balkan nation.

The Niger coup marks the end of a largely-failed French military ‘Barkhane’ operation in the Sahel, broadly due to a lack of resources, and an underlying sense of neocolonialism, according to experts EURACTIV spoke with.

Bulgaria benefits from an EU derogation allowing it to import Russian oil for its only refinery owned by Lukoil. However, the financial and political interests served by this derogation are not those of Bulgarian consumers, but those of Lukoil and the Kremlin, write Martin Vladimirov and Ruslan Stefanov.

The EU and the Philippines will restart negotiations on a free-trade agreement as they seek to accelerate "a new era of cooperation", European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Monday (31 July).

 

International Shipping and Emissions: Background

 

Although international shipping accounts for approximately 3% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, its share of global emissions is projected to continue to rise in the coming decades.  

 

Accordingly, international shipping’s current trajectory is incompatible with the Paris Agreement and its 1.5° warming objective. At the 80th session of the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC 80), members of the London-based UN agency finalised negotiations around a revised IMO strategy to reduce GHG emissions within international shipping. 

 

On 7 July 2023, the MEPC adopted the IMO 2023 Strategy on Reduction of GHG Emissions from Ships. The strategy establishes the following targets: 

 

• Reduce emissions by 20% (compared to 2008 levels), striving for 30%, by 2030 
• Reduce emissions by 70%, striving for 80%, by 2040 
• Net-zero GHG emissions “by or around, i.e., close to, 2050” 

 

To get there, the IMO will employ a basket of economic and technical measures, leaving the door open for carbon pricing and other tools to be used. Although the 2023 IMO Strategy was not as ambitious as science and many states had called for, it was a multilateral compromise.  

 

Thanks to the UACES microgrant, I saw that compromise being reached firsthand.  

 

My Research Interest in Climate Diplomacy

 

As part of my PhD, I looked at the European Union’s (EU) climate diplomacy with respect to four multilateral negotiations, including the 2018 IMO Initial Strategy on Reduction of GHG Emissions from Ships. For the Initial Strategy negotiation, EU member states supported Pacific Small Island Developing States in driving ambition within the IMO and in ultimately delivering the Initial Strategy. Since then, the EU has pushed forward on its own, with the inclusion of a shipping-related provision within the European Green Deal. Shipping will soon be included within the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS): a cap-and-trade mechanism aimed at reducing GHG emissions. Needless to say, I was very interested in seeing how these developments would shape the 2023 negotiations. 

 

Impact of The UACES Microgrant

 

When I began my PhD in 2019, I had every intention of conducting in-person interviews and participant observation as part of my data collection. Like many other PhD researchers, my plans were turned upside down with the COVID-19 pandemic. I relied heavily on WebEx and Microsoft Teams to speak with officials and diplomats. MEPC 80 was thus one of the first opportunities I had to observe a negotiation in person and interact with delegates. 

 

Going into MEPC 80, I was relatively confident – from an academic perspective – in my understanding of the IMO and multilateral negotiations. I quickly learned that practice and theory are very different things! It is one thing to read about the negotiation process, but observing in person how a compromise comes together is an entirely different matter. I feel privileged to have followed the process. To give a few examples, I observed impassioned interventions and unwavering efforts by Pacific Island States to increase ambition, diplomats huddled during coffee breaks in order to broker a deal on text, and an impressive spirit of camaraderie in the room when the 2023 Strategy was adopted.  

 

I am a much better scholar for having attended MEPC 80 as an academic observer and look forward to applying this rich data to my current research project. 

The post UACES Microgrant Report: Getting to the 2023 IMO Revised GHG Strategy appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Eurozone inflation fell further in July and most measures of underlying price growth also eased, in a largely comforting sign for the European Central Bank (ECB) as it considers ending its severe run of interest rate hikes.

With its so-called Bidenomics, the US is leading the way in linking subsidies to social conditionalities, an approach that the EU has both criticised due to its impacts on competition and been reluctant to integrate into its industrial policy.

The European Parliament won't disclose recent investments made in a luxury pension scheme for MEPs — despite demands made by the EU's administrative watchdog, the European Ombudsman.

If you watched Fox News last month, you may have heard that Ireland is planning to slaughter 200,000 cows to meet its EU climate goals. Of course, there was one big problem with the reporting: the claims were untrue.

German far-right party AfD has decided on a hardliner advocating for a “Europe of nation states” as their lead candidate for the upcoming EU elections. Meanwhile, it remains unclear whether the party will push for Germany to exit the EU.

July 2023 has broken multiple temperature records and is expected to be the hottest month ever recorded, according to the UN's World Meteorological Organisation and EU-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Sub-Saharan migrants escaping racism and violence in Tunisia are reaching Italy in record numbers — despite an EU push to halt migration.

Fabio Mauri, the man behind DG MEME, a popular Twitter account with 100,000 followers poking fun at EU politics and policy-making, told EURACTIV that he is regarded as a "troublemaker" by European Commission's top management but that this does not put him off.

West African nations imposed sanctions and threatened force on Sunday (30 July) if Niger’s coup leaders fail to reinstate ousted President Mohammed Bazoum within a week, while supporters of the junta attacked the French embassy in Niamey. The 15-nation ECOWAS...

The largest party representing North Macedonia's ethnic Albanian minority offered to pull its ministers from the government to meet a demand from the opposition to clear the way for European Union membership talks.

A senior Ukrainian official reported heavy fighting in the northeast of the country on Sunday (30 July), with Kyiv's forces holding their lines and making gains in some areas.

Italy made an "improvised and atrocious" decision when it joined China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) four years ago as it did little to boost exports, Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said in an interview published on Sunday (30 July).

Niger's military leaders warned against any armed intervention in the country as West African leaders are set to gather in Nigeria's capital for an emergency summit to decide on further actions to pressure the army to restore constitutional order.

China hopes France can "stabilise the tone" of EU-China relations, vice-premier He Lifeng told a senior French minister in Beijing on Saturday (29 July), as European leaders debate how to "de-risk" but also cooperate with the world's second-largest economy.

Thousands took to the streets to protest against the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) on Friday and Saturday (28 and 29 July) as the party held a convention to choose its candidates for European parliamentary elections next year.