European Union

Besides Parliament’s core activities, President Sassoli has offered EP support to local authorities providing meals, shelter and a COVID-19 testing centre.

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

The European Youth Event (EYE) goes online to engage young people with high-level politicians, experts and influencers and discuss EU role in the COVID-19 crisis.

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

The European Youth Event (EYE) goes online to engage young people with high-level politicians, experts and influencers and discuss EU role in the COVID-19 crisis.

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

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Because of Brexit, Britain is rapidly propelling away from Europe, involving the loss of free trade, and free movement of people, with our neighbouring countries. Is that really what Britain wants?

The UK government seems determined to close all possibilities of a successful new relationship with our closest countries on our continent.

Instead, we’re moving away from Europe and getting closer to the USA.

The talks between the UK and EU have so far ended in stalemate – and the prospects of us ending up with a no-deal Brexit now look both plausible and probable.

Does the UK government really believe that they can achieve a satisfactory trade agreement with Trump’s USA to replace our relationship with Europe?

Almost half (around 45%) of ALL UK exports go to EU countries.

By contrast, only around 20% of our exports go to the USA – yes, that’s a lot, but nowhere near the volume of trade we do with the EU.

The irony is that in the EU we could have both – it never needed to be either/or. The EU never stopped us trading with the USA or other countries across the world.

LOSS OF FREE TRADE We didn’t need to leave the EU to have good trade with the USA, or anywhere else.

In fact, leaving the EU means we lose excellent free trade deals covering over 70 countries, successfully negotiated by the EU for its members, with many more on the way.

In addition, according a Financial Times investigation, the EU has secured 759 separate EU international agreements of direct relevance to Britain. These cover trade, regulatory co-operation, fisheries, agriculture, nuclear co-operation and transport co-operation (including aviation) involving 168 countries.

The EU successfully negotiated these international agreements with other countries because it’s is the world’s largest trading bloc and the world’s largest economy, alongside the USA and China.

Furthermore, the EU is the top trading partner for 80 countries. (By comparison the US is the top trading partner for a little over 20 countries.)

So, the EU has the muscle, the reach and the negotiating skills to secure the best deals for its members. Isn’t that just one of the many membership benefits?

If, as now seems likely, we end the transition period with the EU without any ongoing deal, all those trade and international agreements must be torn up, and Britain will have to negotiate them all over again.

It will take many years, without any guarantee that we’ll get new agreements as good as, let alone better than, the agreements we’ve enjoyed as an EU member for decades.

In the EU, we had an equal, democratic say in all trade deals achieved by the EU, and a veto for trade deals directly affecting Britain.

Are we likely to have an equal say and veto with any new free trade agreement with the USA?

As a much smaller economy, we’ll be the junior partner. The UK will be a rule taker, and not a rule maker, in any new deal with the USA.

In any event, if Trump wins the next USA election, he’s already shown that he doesn’t like ‘free trade’ agreements.

It was Trump who halted the free trade agreement, TTIP, between the USA and the EU – that was close to being signed-off before he became President.

The USA cannot replace Europe as our closest and most important trading partner.

And yet, a hard Brexit means we lose free AND frictionless trade with our most valuable customers and suppliers across the EU – by far the MOST lucrative market for Britain in the entire world.

We know for sure that Brexit means we lose frictionless trade with Europe – upon which so many UK businesses, especially our car manufacturers, vitally depend.

But if as now anticipated, we leave the EU Single Market at the end of the transition period this year without any new trade deal between us, we’ll also lose free trade with Europe, with devastating consequences for the UK.

Is that really what you want? Did you ever specifically vote for THAT?

LOSS OF FREE MOVEMENT For decades, Britain has enjoyed free movement of people – both ways – with the EU. But now, the UK government has introduced a new bill to kill it.

Just as the UK is drifting away from Europe – at least politically, at least economically – our government wants to move away from the people of Europe too.

On Monday 18 May, the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill passed its initial stages in the House of Commons by 351 votes to 252.

With the Tory government enjoying a sizeable majority of 80 seats, the bill will almost certainly soon receive Royal Assent.

When it becomes law, it will end EU freedom of movement and introduce new rules, yet to be fully specified, on who can come to Britain in future.

Migration to the UK will be on a complicated points system, and anyone earning less than £25,600 a year will be automatically categorised by the government as ‘unskilled’ and therefore unwelcome.

Nor will migrants be welcome who haven’t already got a job lined up before they arrive.

The new rules would have excluded practically ALL EU citizens who are already here as care workers, refuse collectors, NHS ancillary staff, delivery drivers, transport staff and local government workers – to name but a few.

They arrived on easy-to-understand EU free movement rules and, as key workers, are essential to keeping the country going during the pandemic lockdown. (Some have lost their lives doing so).

Free movement has worked for Britain and for Europe. It’s meant that citizens of our continent can easily move between neighbouring countries, filling job vacancies as needed, here or there.

Free movement has allowed Britons to live, work, study or retire anywhere in the EU, as well as Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.

Millions of Britons have made use of these freedoms over the decades.

And under EU free movement, British pensioners have had the right to move to sunnier climes in Europe, and enjoy their FULL UK state pension, and access to FREE STATE HEALTHCARE in their new country, paid for by the NHS.

Free movement was never broken, and it didn’t need fixing.

 Under the rules, EU citizens couldn’t just arrive in another EU country and claim benefits – they had to have sufficient funds to travel and to stay.

 Under the rules, EU citizens could be rejected or ejected if they were considered to pose certain risks to the country.

 Under the rules, EU citizens could enjoy the right to stay in another EU country for up to three months only, so long as they didn’t become a burden to the state.

 Under the rules, EU citizens could only legally stay longer in another EU country if they were jobseekers; workers; self-employed; students; self-sufficient; permanent residents (i.e. legally here for more than five years); or family members of one of the above.

What a brilliant system, that has served our country well – either for citizens coming here, or our citizens going there.

Now to be killed off, because the government interpreted the referendum Brexit vote as meaning the end of ‘free movement’.

Even though, just as for non-EU countries Norway and Switzerland, we could have kept free movement without having to be an EU member.

And even though, the country was never specifically asked if we wanted to end free movement with our continent.

The government just assumed we did.

 But polls show that most Britons would rather retain our freedom of movement with Europe.  Just as polls show that most Britons would rather have a close trading relationship with the EU than the US.

 

• Watch this 2-minute video that outlines what we lose with the end of free movement.

 

• Follow my journalism page on Facebook: Jon Danzig writes
• And LinkedIn

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The post Do we want to be a part of Europe or apart? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Nord Stream 2 v Parliament and Council
Energy
The General Court of the European Union declares that the actions brought by Nord Stream AG and Nord Stream 2 AG against Directive 2019/692, which extends certain rules of the internal market in natural gas to pipelines from third countries, are inadmissible

By Adina Maricut-Akbik, Hertie School, Berlin

Since the euro crisis, the European Central Bank (ECB) has expanded its powers from monetary policy to banking supervision in the Eurozone. In the framework of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), established in 2013, the ECB became responsible for the direct supervision of the largest banks of Eurozone countries. The goal was to rebuild trust in the European banking system by ensuring consistent supervision and thus increasing the resilience of banks. Smaller banks remained within the purview of national supervisors, under the indirect supervision of the ECB. The expansion of ECB powers in banking supervision was accompanied by the institutionalization of new accountability obligations vis-à-vis the European Parliament (EP), separate from monetary policy. The purpose of the article was to assess the functioning of the new accountability relationship between the ECB and the EP in banking supervision based on the practice of parliamentary questions and answers exchanged between the two institutions in the first years since the establishment of the SSM (2013-18).

 

The idea that parliaments can and should hold central banks accountable is part of the general principles of legislative oversight in democratic settings. This type of political accountability is seen as the counterpart to delegation: if a specialized task (such as banking supervision) needs to be carried out in a specific setting (like the Eurozone), the task is delegated to an actor with the expertise and policy credibility to do so (in this case the ECB). From a democratic perspective, the act of delegation needs to be countered by accountability mechanisms that seek to check whether the actor performs its tasks as intended at the moment of delegation. In the SSM, the EP does not have at its disposal the full toolbox of accountability mechanisms available to national parliaments overseeing specialized agencies. For example, the EP cannot sanction the ECB by changing its legal framework in banking supervision – a competence that belongs to national governments in the Council. However, the EP can use the tool of parliamentary questions to call the ECB to account for its supervisory decisions. Such questions can either be addressed orally in regular public hearings with the ECB’s Chair of the Supervisory Board, or in writing through letters – to which the ECB is obliged to respond within five weeks (SSM Regulation, Article 20).

 

The article shows how an interactionist approach to accountability helps to investigate the exchange of questions and answers between Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and the ECB. The interactionist approach is premised on the idea that in practice, accountability interactions presuppose a back-and-forth exchange between two parties: the first, known as the forum (here the EP), is legitimized to ask questions and contest the activity of the second (the actor, here the ECB), which in turn is required to engage with the contestation of the forum and justify its conduct. Accordingly, accountability interactions are envisaged in three steps, where: (I) the forum contests the decisions of the actor, (II) the actor silences, rejects or engages with said contestation and (III) the forum follows up on the issue (or not), thus continuing or ending contestation on the matter. Contestation can be weaker, when forums merely request information or justification of decisions from an actor, or stronger, when forums request changes of decision or sanctions to be applied to the actor. The interactionist approach proposes to keep an inventory of the type of questions posed by forums and the type of answers provided by actors in order to evaluate the extent of a forum’s contestation and the degree of an actor’s responsiveness within a given accountability relationship. The dataset behind the article includes 337 written questions and 369 oral questions (and as many corresponding answers) identified during the period November 2013-April 2018.

 

In the case of the EP and the ECB in banking supervision, the analysis identified a frequently-used infrastructure for political accountability that is however limited in ensuring a stronger contestation of ECB supervisory decisions. The vast majority of questions were categorised as ‘weak’ according to the interactionist approach, for various reasons: some were mere requests for policy views about legislative initiatives in the field of banking supervision, others were outside the scope of ECB competence in the SSM, and many more were demanding transparency regarding the situation at specific banks supervised by the ECB. In respect to the latter, the problem comes from the tight confidentiality rules in the SSM, which allow the ECB not to disclose information about supervisory decisions concerning individual banks. And yet these are the questions that feature most often when MEPs contest something about ECB supervisory conduct. Notwithstanding the confidentiality requirements, the ECB is generally open to engage with questions from MEPs – especially when it comes to the internal organization of the SSM or the decision-making process thereof. Moreover, in the few cases where MEPs demanded a change of conduct, the ECB demonstrated willingness to address their requests and subsequently made the required adjustments. So far, it seems that the EP can exercise more accountability when it has evidence – provided by internal parliamentary services – that the ECB acted outside the limits of its mandate in the SSM, as was the case of the 2017 Addendum to the ECB Guidance on non-performing loans.

 

Under the circumstances, the question is what can be done to improve the record of accountability interactions in the SSM. In line with the interactionist approach, what is needed is for MEPs to contest relevant issues regarding ECB conduct in banking supervision and, in turn, for the ECB to engage with contestation and change its decisions under specific circumstances. These two conditions require minimising the asymmetry of information between the two institutions, which is not an easy task. One possible solution is for MEPs to develop in‐house expertise on banking supervision in order to ensure that their questions are addressed to the relevant institution while substantively contesting [something about] the ECB conduct in the SSM. Another avenue of reform is to revise the SSM confidentiality rules by identifying specific conditions under which supervisory decisions can be disclosed, for example after a sufficient period of time has passed or after a bank was declared failing or likely to fail. The idea to completely reform professional secrecy standards applicable in the SSM is not novel, although its feasibility under the current circumstances remains low. Such a reform would require a review of the SSM legal framework, but more importantly a change of approach from the ECB leadership. The political feasibility of this reform will be decided in the years to come.

 

This blog post draws on the JCMS article,  Contesting the European Central Bank in Banking Supervision: Accountability in Practice at the European Parliament

 

 

Adina Maricut-Akbik is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Hertie School in Berlin. Her current research focuses on political accountability in EU economic governance and EU integration theory. Her interests also include informal politics in the European Council and the Council and inter-institutional decision-making in justice and home affairs.

@MaricutAkbik @thehertieschool

The post Can the European Parliament make the European Central Bank accountable? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

One million out of eight million species globally are threatened with extinction. Find out which and how many species in Europe are endangered or extinct.

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

One million out of eight million species globally are threatened with extinction. Find out which and how many species in Europe are endangered or extinct.

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

There are lessons to be learned from the EU’s responses to the Covid-19 crisis. The pandemic reveals the absolute need for further cooperation in the EU if the member states are to manage these types of health crises effectively. Importantly, the crisis has shown that the social and economic costs of not being able to react – or reacting too late – can be enormous for the EU and its member states.

 

What is clear is that Covid-19 is unlikely to be the last of this type of health challenge to EU countries and its citizens. Antimicrobial resistance – AMR – is increasingly seen a problem that will become one of the biggest challenges for global and European public health during the next twenty to thirty years.  Like Covid-19, AMR, knows no borders. Resistant bacteria move across countries along with people, animals and goods.

 

It is estimated that AMR causes around 33,000 deaths per year in the EU, and global AMR deaths are estimated to reach 10 million deaths per year by 2050. More people are expected to die due to AMR in 2050 than due to cancer.

 

In humans, antimicrobials – like antibiotics – are being used to combat various types of bacterial infections (e.g., pneumonia) and for prophylactic purposes in connection with surgery (e.g., heart transplants or hip replacement surgery). In the veterinary sector, antimicrobials are used to combat or prevent bacterial infections among livestock animals (pigs, cattle, chickens, etc.), and even among our pets. Use of antimicrobials is an integral part of modern human medicine and modern livestock production.

 

Approximately one-third of the consumption of antimicrobials in the EU is used within the human sector, while two-thirds is used in the veterinarian sector. However, every time antimicrobials are used to combat bacterial infections, the bacteria tends to become more resistant. Today, most bacterial infections can still be treated with antimicrobials, but in the near future, there is good reason to believe that we will be facing ‘superbugs’ for which antimicrobials will have no effect.

 

Over the past decade, the EU has taken a number of steps to combat AMR at the global and European level. In many ways, the EU is taking the lead in this effort, collaborating with UN organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO). The European Commission has launched two actions plans to combat antimicrobial resistance within the EU countries. The first Action Plan was launched in 2011, and the second in 2017. Both action plans contain a number of initiatives that can help ameliorate the AMR threat.

 

The basic aim of these initiatives has been to reduce overall consumption of antimicrobials in the EU. These include a proposal to increase testing of patients before they are given antimicrobials, increased antimicrobials stewardship systems at hospitals, and limiting the use of antimicrobials in livestock production. There is a close correlation between the level of antimicrobial use and the level of AMR. Countries with high levels of antimicrobial use, such as Italy, have high levels of AMR, while countries with low levels of use of antimicrobials, such as Denmark, also have low levels of AMR. Reducing overuse of antimicrobials is therefore a central goal in the EU Commission’s action plans.

 

A major challenge to the development of a common EU AMR policy is that health policy is primarily an area of national competence. The national control over health policy is explicitly stated in the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union (Art. 168 No. 7 TFEU). This national competence has also been the case for EU policies aimed at reducing the risk of developing AMR.

 

Consequently, the Commission is prevented from initiating regulation on antimicrobial use unless there is clear support from the member states. The Commission has thus based a number of their initiatives in the AMR action plans on ‘soft law’. Hence,  instead of laws and directives, they use ‘recommendations’ and ‘methods of open coordination’ as the regulatory instrument for reducing overuse of antimicrobials among, for example, physicians or  pig farmers. Binding legislation such as EU ‘regulations’ or ‘directives’ are seldom used in the AMR context, unless these can be directly related to the single market. From the Commission’s perspective, the use of soft law within the field of AMR can be seen as a strategic way of dealing with the lack of EU competence in this policy field in situations where there is a clear need for transnational initiatives.

 

The action plans to combat AMR launched by the Commission have definitely increased focus on AMR problems among the EU member states. Most member states have developed their own plans for how to reduce the use (and overuse) of antimicrobials at national level.

 

Yet, the overall consumption of antimicrobials in the EU remains high. One explanation for continued overuse of antimicrobials is probably that the EU actions plans are rather new, and that a number of member states until now have not been so active in the combat against AMR. Another reason could be that the use of soft law reduces the effects of the EU initiatives. Member states might feel a normative pressure to act in line with the Commission’s recommendations, but at the end of the day, they decide for themselves whether they wish to follow the recommendations. In that respect, pressure is on the member states as they have the main responsibility for reducing the consumption of antimicrobials.

 

The Covid-19 crisis has laid bare the interdependence of the EU member states when it comes to vulnerability to different types of transnational health challenges. Both Covid-19 and in the long term the risk of AMR have put pressure on the member states in order to accept a higher degree of EU policy development in relation to health policy.

 

This blog post draws on Carsten Strøby Jensen, ‘While We Are Waiting for the Superbug: Constitutional Asymmetry and EU Governmental Policies to Combat Antimicrobial Resistance,’ published in JCMS.

 

 

 Carsten Strøby Jensen is an associate professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen. His work has mainly focused on political sociology, labour market and processes of EU integration. Recently he has increasing worked with different societal aspect of the consequences of antimicrobial resistance.

 

 

 

The post Combating Antimicrobial Resistance in EU appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The Employment and Social Affairs Committee will debate with the Commission on Wednesday how to classify SARS-CoV-2, responsible for COVID-19, to protect workers’ health and safety.
Committee on Employment and Social Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

The Employment and Social Affairs Committee will debate with the Commission on Wednesday how to classify SARS-CoV-2, responsible for COVID-19, to protect workers’ health and safety.
Committee on Employment and Social Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

In an EP webinar on the EU’s long-term budget and response to the crisis, MEPs urged that the recovery fund must be set up as soon as possible to prevent a major recession.
Committee on Budgets

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

EU countries are relaxing Covid-induced border controls. Parliament wants a coordinated effort to restore a functioning Schengen zone as soon as possible.

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

DRAFT OPINION on a new EU-Africa Strategy - a partnership for sustainable and inclusive development
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Anna Fotyga

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

In a celebratory Tweet, Home Secretary Priti Patel has announced the end of ‘free movement’.

She wrote:

‘We’re ending free movement to open Britain up to the world. It will ensure people can come to our country based on what they have to offer, not where they come from.’

Her Tweet is an insult to all EU citizens who came to Britain specifically to work and who offer so much to our country.

And that represents most of them.

Because most EU citizens in this country are in gainful employment, doing jobs that we simply don’t have enough Britons to do, and who make a massive NET contribution to our Treasury and our economy.

Your Tweet, Ms Patel, demeans and diminishes them.

Those EU citizens came here because of what they could offer, and they offer so many skills that our country needs.

And yes, it was easier for them to come here because of where they are from. Because it makes sense – economically, environmentally and geographically – to have free movement between neighbouring countries.

Does ending free movement with Europe really ‘open Britain up to the world’?

No.

You are not opening up Britain ‘to the world’. You are simply applying the same rules to EU citizens that have always applied to non-EU citizens.

You are putting up new barriers to Europe, whilst keeping the same old barriers to all other continents.

With your crass Tweet, you are saying to EU citizens:

‘We don’t like where you’re from, and we don’t appreciate what you offer.’

What a slap in the face to the hard-working EU citizens offering so much to hospitals and care homes in service to the country and our citizens, especially at this time, in the middle of a pandemic.

Without EU citizens working in all sectors, trades, professions and industries right across the UK, our country would be poorer and not nearly so enriched.

Do you really know what you are doing to Britain? Or understand the divisiveness of your words and actions?

 

• Follow my journalism page on Facebook: Jon Danzig writes
• And LinkedIn

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Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

‘Visit Europe from 1 January 2021’ is the title of the UK government website which ironically tells you how much more difficult visiting ‘Europe’ will be from next year.

Yes, we’re getting our country back (really?) but instead, we’re losing our continent, or at least, easy access to it.

Among some of the key points for travel throughout the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein from 1 January 2021:

 You may be refused entry if your passport only has 6 months left

 The guarantee of free mobile phone roaming ends

 Your EHIC health card is only valid until 31 December 2020

 Use separate lanes from EU/EEA arrivals when queuing

 Visa requirements for long stays, business travel, work or study

 Your pet passport will no longer be valid

 Extra documents to drive

 Customs declarations for business goods

Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg. More restrictions are likely, especially – as anticipated – we don’t get a deal this year covering our new relationship with the EU.

Brexit means ending free movement between us and our continent.

 Oh, how the people of the former Communist countries would have cherished ‘free movement’ instead of being trapped behind their Iron Curtain.  Oh, how Winston Churchill would have been amazed – shocked – that the people of Britain would volunteer to end easy access to the European mainland.

It was he who wrote to his foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, on 21 October 1942, after the first British victory of the Second World War at El Alamein:

‘Hard as it is to say now.. I look forward to a United States of Europe, in which the barriers between the nations will be greatly minimised and unrestricted travel will be possible.’

And it was he who said in his famous speech on 5 March 1946 at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri:

“The safety of the world requires a new unity in Europe, from which no nation should be permanently outcast.”

 And yet, it’s Britain that is maximising the barriers between European nations and restricting travel.  And yet, it’s Britain that is shunning unity in Europe by making ourselves a permanent outcast. What have we done?

 

• Follow my journalism page on Facebook: Jon Danzig writes
• And LinkedIn

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Parliamentary committees will this week deal wtih the EU’s Covid-19 strategy and support for neighbouring countries.

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

MEPs want a €2 trillion package to support people and businesses as the EU battles a deep economic recession due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP