European Union

On 11 October, SEDE will discuss the recently adopted UN Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Rooted in serious humanitarian concerns and frustration with slow progress of nuclear disarmament, according to its supporters, the Treaty represents an important milestone in multilateral disarmament efforts, as it sets up a number of norms that build upon the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and contributes to a renewed progress on nuclear arms reduction towards their eventual elimination.
Further information
Draft agenda and meeting documents
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Beverly Barrett

The internationalization of higher education is a response to the pressures of globalization. There are economic, political, and social explanations for the reforms that have taken place in Europe since the Bologna Process launched 18 years ago on June 19, 1999 in the historic university city of Bologna, Italy.

Correspondingly, these explanations for internationalization of higher education are globalization (economic), intergovernmentalism (political), and Europeanization (social). The progress of the Bologna Process to create the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) originated with the Sorbonne Declaration among the education ministers of France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom on May 25, 1998.

 

My new book Globalization and Change in Higher Education: The Political Economy of Policy Reform in Europe (published by Palgrave Macmillan) explains the institutional change that has taken place as a response to these pressures.[1]  The 21st century’s increasing demands for knowledge reflect a knowledge society that is driven by a knowledge economy (David and Foray 2002).[2] This is defined as an economy in which growth is dependent on the quantity, quality, and accessibility of the information available. Universities and all types higher education institutions have experienced unprecedented institutional change in the knowledge society (Cantwell and Kauppinen 2014).[3] Educational sociologists have concurred that the international convergence of academic programs’ criteria that comes from the Bologna Process is unprecedented (Frank and Meyer 2007:299).[4]

 

History, Ideas, and Institutions

When the Bologna Process started, it had been less than a decade since the end of the Cold War. As a social explanation, the central and eastern European countries were eager to show solidarity with the leadership initiative from the countries in western Europe. The growth of the Bologna Process from 29 countries originally to 48 countries today reflects how it has complemented the expansion of the European Union’s  Single Market, as the EU has grown from 15 countries in 1999 to 28 countries today.

 

The history, ideas, and institutions that frame our understanding of higher education are set out in the initial Chapters of the book, which frame the analysis in a historical institutional theoretical perspective.  The three primary objectives of the Bologna Process are convergence of higher education policies in 1) academic degree structure, 2) quality assurance, and 3) automatic recognition of degrees within the EHEA. Chapter 4 explains the dual roles of higher education institutions, as recipients of policy change from the national and European levels and as agents of policy change in the knowledge economy. The Bologna Process intersects with the higher education attainment objective of the Europe 2020 economic growth strategy of the Europe Commission. Chapter 5 explains, in quantitative assessment, that the most statistically significant relationship for higher education attainment is with GDP per capita among other variables in the political economy including employment, trade, R&D investment, population, and education spending.

 

With similar histories of political governance and distinct structures of government, the Iberian countries, Portugal and Spain, provide qualitative assessment case studies for countries within the EU.  Chapters 6 to 9 explain that given the unitary government of Portugal, the process of reform has proceeded with more uniformity than in the quasi-federal government of Spain. In the country of 17 autonomous communities of sub-national regions, Spain has 11 higher education qualifications agencies as compared to most EHEA countries that have one, indicating the complexity of higher education in the country.  Portugal has made greater progress, from 11 to 31 percent, than Spain’s progress, from 29 to 42 percent, toward the Europe 2020 target objective for 40 percent (of 30-34 year-olds) for higher education attainment, though Spain has reached the target (Eurostat 2016).

 

Model for Regional Integration and Key Findings

Referencing back to my posting in 2013, the Bologna Process has been a model for the regionalization of higher education throughout the world. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has developed its own Qualifications Reference Framework.  In North America, the Canadian and U.S. structures are similar. The U.S. and Mexico, together with Canada, have opportunities to collaborate, once able to overcome uncertainties around security, funding, and availability of academic mobility programs.[5]  The next step following graduates’ mobility is mutual recognition of professional qualifications, for which the ASEAN region continues to make progress.[6]

 

Among the key findings in the book are that these aspects of domestic politics matter for higher education policy reforms:

1) Structure of government (unitary v. (quasi-)federal)

2) Leadership consistency providing support for the reforms

3) Funding available for education or national wealth (measured by GDP per capita)

 

Today the 48-country EHEA, with the European Commission as a partner, continues to develop a higher education space where academic qualifications become recognized across countries. Competitive external economic pressures are part of globalization, while domestic politics influencing international cooperation drive intergovernmentalism. Leadership from the supranational EU that socially engages stakeholders and constructs regional norms is Europeanization. Approaching the end of the second decade of the Bologna Process, the change in higher education finds economic, political, and social explanations.

 

Beverly Barrett has served as Lecturer at the Bauer College of Business in Global Studies and at the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston. She served as Associate Editor of the Miami European Union Center of Excellence following her doctoral fellowship. Current research interests include international political economy, regional integration, and governance with particular emphasis on education and economic development.    

 

 

[1] Barrett, Beverly. 2017. Globalization and Change in Higher Education: The Political Economy of Policy Reform in Europe. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

[2] David, Paul A. and Dominique Foray. 2002. “An introduction to the economy of the knowledge society.” International Social Science Journal, 54:171, 9-23. Paris: UNESCO.

[3] Cantwell, Brendan and Ilkka Kauppinen (Eds). 2014. Academic capitalism in the age of globalization. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

[4] Frank, David J. and John W. Meyer. 2007. University expansion and the knowledge society. Theory and Society, 36(4), 287–311.

[5] Vassar, David and Beverly Barrett. 2014. “U.S.-Mexico academic mobility: Trends, challenges, and opportunities.” Mexico Center Issue Brief. Baker Institute for Public Policy, Rice University, Houston, Texas.

[6] Asian Development Bank. 2016. Open windows, closed doors: Mutual recognition agreements on professional services in the ASEAN region. Mandaluyong City, Philippines: Asian Development Bank.

The post Globalization and Change in Higher Education: Economic, Political, and Social Explanations appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

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The 14th EU-India Summit takes place in New Delhi on 6 October 2017, and marks the 55th anniversary since the establishment of EU-India diplomatic relations.

Download this video here.

A text I published elsewhere over two years ago.
Read it again against the backdrop of this week’s news, found it still valid.

 

It is not every day that a researcher has the opportunity to be the eye-witness of a nation in the making. Sunday evening 7 June 2015, at the intersection between Avinguda de Sarria and Avinguda Josep Taradellas in the centre of Barcelona, was such a moment. Bumping into a joyful crowd that was waiting for the victory parade of their Champions League heroes in an open-deck bus, we had over two hours to improvise an in-depth session of participant observation. From the reports in the following day’s newspapers, it appears that our ‘field work sample population’ was perfectly representative of the entire city, which for the occasion metamorphosed into a very, very long ‘Fanmeile’.

As is usual nowadays on such fan zones, the patiently waiting crowd was entertained with music from loudspeakers placed at regular intervals along the itinerary of the bus. Next to the DJ, a nice lady was handing out Barça flags to those (a minority) who were not already equipped with garment or objects in the club’s colours, while an equally nice security man was scratching his head somewhat anxiously given the impressive number of persons sitting and standing in the middle of the street.

The crowd had several distinctive features: it was fully trans-generational, encompassing every single age group of the city; it had a striking gender parity within each of these age groups; and it was very visibly ethnically inclusive, with a rather significant percentage of individuals from various migrant origins.

Every now and then the DJ played ‘El Cant del Barça’, the official anthem of FC Barcelona, the lyrics of which are not really on a higher level of poetic sophistication than what can be heard in other stadia, but which seems to be mandatory learning content in primary education, judging from the degree of familiarity shown by the schoolchildren.

The latter were easy to observe since the youngest among them had been placed on the garbage container in order to give them a good view on the bus (as shown by my little photo gallery). They were, of course, excited, and while not all of them were necessarily understanding what exactly was being celebrated, they were certainly all intuitively getting the point that this was an exceptional moment, a kind of cheerful, but solemn ritual allowing individual persons to publicly show their belonging and obedience to a larger social group.

In other words: this was socialisation at work. Right before our eyes, kids from various backgrounds were being turned into little Catalans. For life, probably. The composition of the public, the sheer size of the crowd, and the Catalan flags hanging from every second balcony clearly gave evidence to the fact that the clichéd Barça motto ‘Més que un club’ is not an usurpation. As a matter of fact, this is not a club at all. It’s a national team.

This impression is confirmed when you walk into the Barça museum, where you have to go past a poster that enumerates ‘Catalan Identity. Universality. Social Commitment. Democracy’ as the pillars of the Barça identity.  It sounds like a political platform.

The evening reminded me of two very good book chapters on FC Barcelona. The first one figures in Simon Kuper’s wonderful Football against the Enemy, written in the mid-1990s, at a moment when ‘every day shop signs in Spanish went down and were replaced by Catalan signs’. For Simon Kuper, Catalan nationalism was all about symbolic recognition, not concrete political independance: ‘The Catalans do not want a state of their own, but they want something vaguer than that, symbols to prove they are a separate people’, and Barça is ‘the symbol that this nation needs in lieu of a state’. Certainly not a wrong perception twenty years ago, but it would be difficult to write the same thing today, as it would no longer sound reasonable to qualify Barça as an ‘under-performing’ club.

Ten years later, Franklin Foer also dedicated a chapter to Barça nationalism in How Soccer Explains the World. For him Catalan nationalism is already much more tangible, but it appears to him as an open and inclusive nationalism, like the liberating idea introduced by the French Revolution before it was perverted (mainly by the German romantics) into what then become no doubt the most powerful ideology of the 19th and 20th century.

Foer’s enthusiastic vision of Catalan nationalism is not naive, but it is shortsighted: proto-nationalism that is based on an existing and practiced language and on strong cultural self-awareness, and that may at the same time credibly claim to have undergone a long period of oppression, almost naturally appears as a sympathetic cause. It’s when independence has been reached and a newly existing state is charged with protecting borders, redistributing resources, and defending so-called national interests when things have a tendency to turn nasty.

Producing new Catalans with the help of cultural symbols is not too complicated. Especially if you can use the powerful emotions that football is capable of providing. But maintaining openness, inclusiveness and ethnic diversity in a future independent state will be the real test. A slightly more demanding one than a Champions League final.

The post Nation-building. Participant observation, June 2015. appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

It is a true pleasure to be here at our first summit together in New Delhi. Thank you for your warm welcome and friendship.

India and the European Union are two of the world's largest democracies. This carries with it the great responsibility to uphold freedom, democracy, human rights and a credible rules-based global order. Not least in times of uncertainty and change. The best way to face these challenges is to cooperate more and better. By strengthening our strategic partnership.

So, I am happy that today we have agreed to further develop the political dimension of our relationship; that we have agreed to develop our dynamic trade and investment relations; and that we have agreed to step up cooperation on global and regional issues.

Let me briefly touch on some of these topics.

We adopted a joint declaration on counterterrorism in which we agree to counter violent extremism and radicalisation, particularly on-line, and to deal effectively with the threat posed by foreign terrorist fighters, terrorist financing and arms supply.

We decided to step up cooperation on maritime security in the Indian Ocean and beyond, which I hope will lead to enhanced military cooperation. We welcome the resumption of tactical exercises in the Gulf of Aden between the EU's Naval Force Operation ATALANTA and the Indian Navy and look forward to more such opportunities including India's participation in escorting World Food Programme vessels.

We also discussed the global migration and refugee crisis and agreed to coordinate closely. Through our EU-India Common Agenda for Migration and Mobility. And within the United Nations. Your engagement, Prime Minister, is appreciated and needed. The European Union continues to assume its responsibilities by receiving people in need of protection and by assisting host countries close to the conflict zones. The international community has a responsibility to crack down on human smugglers that exploit vulnerable people and violate sovereign borders.

We addressed the situation in Myanmar and the Rohingya refugee crisis. We want to see a de-escalation of tensions and a full adherence to international human rights obligations in Myanmar, as well as full humanitarian access so the aid can reach those in need. The Rohingya people must be able to return voluntarily, in safety and dignity. We call for the implementation of the recommendations of the international Rakhine Advisory Commission to tackle the root causes of this crisis. As a neighbour, India stands first in line to respond.

Turning to North Korea, the European Union, India and the whole international community have a responsibility to act with resolve for a peaceful denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. The DPRK must abandon its nuclear weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programmes in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner and immediately cease all related activities. The 11 September resolution unanimously adopted by the UN Security Council is increasing the pressure on the North Korean regime. It sends a strong signal, showing the unity of the international community. The European Union is implementing the resolution and is working on adopting EU additional sanctions to increase the pressure on North Korea.

As regards Ukraine, the European Union remains strong and united in its support for Ukraine's territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty. That is why we insist on the full implementation of the Minsk Agreements and encourage all our partners to join us in this.

Let me conclude on our trade talks and the gap between each side's expectations. I will not enter into the details as this is for Commission President Juncker but let me just make a political observation. Free and fair trade agreements are not only economically important for our companies and citizens to prosper. Above all, they strengthen and defend the rules-based international order and our way of life. The democracies of the world can be the ones to set ambitious global standards, but only if we cooperate.

Rabindranath Tagore said 'one cannot cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water'. I am confident we can 'swim' better for this ambitious and strategic cause.

Prime Minister, thank you again for the hospitality and for the discussions today.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

At the 14th EU-India summit in New Delhi, India, on 6 October 2017, the leaders adopted a joint statement, reaffirming their commitment to strengthen the EU-India strategic partnership. 

Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, and Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, represented the EU. The Republic of India was represented by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi.

Joint statement of the EU-India summit, New Delhi, 6 October 2017

EU-India leaders also adopted joint declarations on  specific issues:

EU-India joint declaration on counter-terrorism, 6 October 2017
EU-India joint declaration on climate and energy, 6 October 2017
EU-India joint declaration on a partnership for smart and sustainable urbanisation, 6 October 2017

A number of other documents were also agreed during the summit:

• Implementing Arrangement between the Science & Engineering Research Board (SERB) and the European Research Council (ERC)
• New €500 million EIB loan agreement for Bangalore Metro Phase-II Project
• Joint Declaration between the Interim Secretariat of the International Solar Alliance (ISA), and the European Investment Bank (EIB) aimed at mobilising investments for broad-based deployment of affordable solar energy applications across the 121 prospective member countries of the ISA

On 11 October, the Subcommittee will consider the amendments to the draft report on the implementation of the Common Security and Defence Policy by Michael GAHLER, EPP. The draft report advocates a thorough revision of the CSDP to better equip Europe in an increasingly unstable and volatile internal and external security environment.
Further information
Draft agenda and meeting documents
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

There’s nothing very useful to be to added to the general cacophony around Theresa May’s speech to her party conference yesterday: the jokes have all been made, the judgments handed in.

But one aspect that’s been relatively overlooked is the impact on Brexit: as discussion continues to swirl about, could it improve things to have her out of office?

The case in support of this looks pretty solid. Her authority, her policy and her communication are all severely lacking.

Firstly, her position within the party is severely compromised, and has been since the general election this spring. The trashing of her reputation was as swift and brutal as any that has been seen in recent times. The Tories are an unsympathetic lot when it comes to power and May failed the most basic of tests.

The speech appears to have done nothing more than convert some of the contempt into pity, which is not really an improvement, but instead another stage in the party’s rejection. It opens up the line of argument that she is tired and needs a break, ‘for her own good’: the attempt to get the party to buckle down on Brexit can now be met with a ‘there, there’.

Secondly, May’s policy line on Brexit remains utterly unclear. To all intents and purposes, we are still at the ‘Brexit means Brexit’ phase: empty rhetoric and incomplete and contradictory positions. The speech contained nothing to change that, a strange omission even if one considers the Florence speech to have been the main place for this: the conference as a whole was full of Brexit-talk, but without the push from the leader that might have mattered.

And this runs into the communication gap. This isn’t a matter of having a cough, but of having a communication strategy that reaches those it needs to reach, with appropriate messages.  To take the obvious example, the stronger response to Boris Johnson’s sniping would have been to re-appropriate the narrative on Brexit and Article 50 and demonstrate leadership on the matter, rather than skulking in the sidelines.

So, case closed. Right?

Not really. For as much as May is now damaged goods, there are good reasons to think that she remains the preferable person to be in Number 10.

First and foremost is the time question. As I think I’ve mentioned before, time is very much of the essence now in Article 50: we are now only just over a year away from the time when a deal needs to be finalised with the EU. Having already lost two months to a general election, losing another one or two months to a leadership contest – plus maybe another two to a further general election – looks deeply irresponsible. While there are still some who would happily leave the EU on a ‘no-deal’ basis, they are ever fewer in number, so the desire – which has built up markedly in recent weeks – to get to an agreement points towards making done with the current personnel.

Secondly, there is no one in the Conservative party who looks to have a more settled position on how to handle negotiations. There is a choice between the various shades of softening, and the various shades of hardening, but neither direction is built on a rigorous model and vision. Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson might have been the darlings of the conference, but neither had any more to offer than platitudes on the greatness of Britain and how it would all work out in the end.

Even if a new leader did take over, the Conservatives would still have no single-party majority in the Commons, plus a potentially more hostile Opposition, galvanized by the scent of blood in the water: any hardening would also make internal party rebellion more likely.

Finally, and in contrast to the negative reasons for keeping May, there is also a positive in her premiership: the very ambiguity on policy that has hurt her so far. Article 50 is a negotiation and one in the which the UK was always going to have to make some compromises. While it might not have been the optimal way to go about it, May’s rhetoric has at least allowed for adaptions of position over time: consider sequencing, finances, transitions and all the other points she has given way on.

The original May plan was to be bold, but vague, then win a huge majority against Labour, then negotiate whatever deal, and then say “that’s what Brexit meant, and there’s nothing you can do to gainsay it, since you gave me a huge mandate.”

That plan now lies in the dirt, but May probably remains the best person to pursue something similar. Her very weakness means that she can now shoulder the blame as she compromises further.

In short, May has been the author of her own, slow-burning disaster. But that doesn’t mean she is yet to meet her end.

The post Must May go, or might May stay? A Brexit balancesheet appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

On 11 October, SEDE will hold a public hearing on the militarisation in the Black Sea. The hearing is timely, as the regional security situation on the eastern flank has become very challenging for the EU and NATO. It will focus on the security situation following the Russian illegal annexation of Crimea and the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. Furthermore, the hearing will analyse the military strategic consequences of the conflicts and the possibilities to foster stability and cooperation.
Location : Paul-Henri Spaak 5B001
Further information
Draft programme
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

On 11 October, SEDE will hold a public hearing on the militarisation in the Black Sea. The hearing is timely, as the regional security situation on the eastern flank has become very challenging for the EU and NATO. It will focus on the security situation following the Russian illegal annexation of Crimea and the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. Furthermore, the hearing will analyse the military strategic consequences of the conflicts and the possibilities to foster stability and cooperation.
Further information
Draft programme
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Entry into office of a new Member at the General Court of the European Union
Entry into office of a new Member at the General Court of the European Union

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President Tusk consults all EU leaders on his proposal for an EU leaders' agenda to move Europe forward. The EU leaders' agenda will be discussed at the European Council  on 19 and 20 October 2017.

Download this video here.

Monday 2 October 2017
15.30 Phone call with Prime Minister of Spain Mariano Rajoy

Wednesday 4 October 2017
(Luxembourg)
08.30 Meeting with Prime Minister of Luxembourg Xavier Bettel
(Brussels)
15.00 Meeting with Prime Minister of Belgium Charles Michel (Lambermont)
20.00 Meeting with Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte

Friday 6 October 2017
New Delhi
EU-India Summit
(local time)
10.15 Courtesy visit of Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj
10.55 Wreath laying ceremony at Mahatma Gandhi's memorial
11.25 Arrival and welcome by Prime Minister Narendra Modi
11.30 Restricted meeting
12.15 Plenary meeting
13.00 Working lunch
14.00 Exchange of bilateral agreements and press statements

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Length of video : 58'
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Disclaimer : The interpretation of debates serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic record of proceedings. Only the original speech or the revised written translation is authentic.
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP