Ideas on Europe Blog

Maybe it’s the sense of the passing of the seasons and the proximity of the next British general election, but recently I’ve been asked a lot about whether a Labour government would make a bold move on EU relations.

Mujtaba Rahman has obviously also been finding this, with his report today about various member states being up for flexing to get the UK much closer in the wake of the war in Ukraine:

I think there could be more space for flexibility and creativity in the EU's approach to the UK under a @UKLabour @Keir_Starmer Govt than most assume – and the EU's current “official position” suggests. Thread 1/

— Mujtaba Rahman (@Mij_Europe) June 22, 2023

If I’m hesitant about the degree to which the EU might actually bend single market arrangements after making so much of cherry-picking, and about how widespread such views are, the simple fact that this is even being discussed points to the potential for fluidity in relations.

That said, what the EU wants/might accept is far from the only variable. Not much of postwar European policy really makes sense without considering the domestic political constraints and incentives in the UK itself.

With that in mind, I have been turned over this problem for a while to produce the graphic below.

Factors

I’m assuming here that political parties are shaped by a number of factors. First there is ideology, but if we accept that centrist left thinking has never quite settled on whether internationalism is compatible with national solidarity then I don’t think this is much of a factor here, so I omit it.

What can’t be left out is voter support. Labour has been assiduous in targeting those things that have lost it votes (e.g. Corbyn and the radical left) and those things that might win it votes (e.g. competence in economic management). That’s worked really well, even if aided by late-stage Tory rule, so any EU choice needs to be seen in that light.

Let’s note Labour is already home to most Remain voters and has built up its recent success on the back of attracting Leavers from the Tories, all while not really talking about the EU at all (see Kelly Beaver’s presentation to the recent EU-UK Forum conference for more).

Even if the salience of things European has dropped markedly, there has to be some concern that a move to a major reworking of relations (i.e. either single market membership or rejoining) under a new government will cause some of those Leavers to reconsider their support, more than might be offset by the tapping into people’s clear frustrations over the situation right now.

Internal party cohesion also matters. As any Labour leader can’t fail to have noticed by looking across the aisle, ‘Europe’ can be a highly divisive force within a party. Even if Labour isn’t quite as exposed as the Tories were during the last 20 years, there are clearly a range of positions on European integration and the UK’s relationship with it.

Part of the peace on this recently has been exactly because the leadership hasn’t pushed a radical line. If that changed then we’d expect to see some MPs break on that, especially if the Commons majority is small; in that, the legacy of Spartan ERG rebellions by MPs utterly unwilling to bend to their leader’s will is likely to live on.

We also have to remember that parties have more than one policy. This carries two main implications.

Because European policy is cross-cutting, changing basic trading and political relations with the EU would come with implications for the rest of the policy platform. Trade policy with the rest of the world is an obvious example, but recasting economic links with the single market would also affect the government’s ability to pursue unilateral state aid or public procurement. Business would face another uncertain transitional period to any new arrangements, weakening or delaying investment choices, which in turn might cause short-run negative impacts, even if they ultimately unlocked longer-term benefits. As we know from recent history, a weaker economy also affects tax income, monetary policy and the overall pursuit of government objections.

Moreover, that cross-cutting nature of EU policy also means that moving beyond the TCA framework risks generating significant opportunity costs. As we’ve seen with Brexit, EU rules have been deeply intertwined with domestic processes and structures, and returning to significantly closer relations will carry a need to rebuild that. This then requires a diversion of political and bureaucratic capital that could otherwise be used for pursuing other policy goals (and ones that voters consider more important, let’s not forget).

While we might note that governments regularly walk and chew gum at the same time, the experience of 2016-19 should also point to the potential for the EU to become an all-consuming issue.

In all this, the EU itself matters. As we noted at the top, while there might be a variety of views among member states, anything that goes beyond just implementing the current treaties requires the EU’s explicit approval. That might be relatively easy for things like refinements to the TCA, such as a veterinary agreement or work on energy cooperation. But as the ongoing impasse on Horizon membership shows, even this level of work can be tricky.

But moving to readmitting the UK to single market institutions, let alone full re-accession, carries big questions for the EU. Partly that’s about a concern of whether this second volte-face is going to last any longer than the one that led to the 2016 referendum, but partly it’s also about whether the EU feels it needs the UK in general. The Union’s ability to progress on several policy fronts in the last three years and extent to which some member states have improved their profile in that time reflect how the UK would not be coming back to the same organisation it left.

And finally, there’s a dollop of good old party politics. Here I’ve focused only on differentiation to the Tories, since they would be the main opposition to a Labour government. Even on a conservative [sic] assumption that there wasn’t a shift to a more radically sceptical EU policy in such an event, we would expect there to be an effort to continue portraying Labour as European lapdogs, whatever they do.

If policy swung towards a more full-on shift to closer links, then the Conservatives will be more than happy to jump on that and make a ‘will of the people’-style argument to try and tar the entire Labour programme. Of course, if the Tories did that in an extreme way, under a ultra-hard Brexiteer, then that might help Labour narratives about how the opposition have lost the plot, but it still comes back to the opportunity cost point above; the more you spend time and effort on this, the less you have for other stuff.

I’ll note in passing that a more radical sell on the EU might be beneficial to Labour in covering any similar effort by the Liberal Democrats. However, even here we might note that the LibDems seem to have reverted to their 1980s/1990s approach of hyper-localism, coupled to passive internationalism, instead of pressing on with the very vocal pro-Europeanism of 2017-19.

Policy options

So overall, what we have are a range of factors, against which I’ve mapped four policy choices, ranged from ‘steady as she goes’ to full-on re-accession.

All of this seems to me to point to only two viable paths for Labour to follow at this juncture.

The first is the one they are on right now, the ‘make Brexit work’ model. This means tinkering with policy and working to reestablish good faith relations, possibly with a few new agreements of the kind already mentioned on trade, energy and possibly security.

This keeps things contained and allows the party to focus on what it sees as the lower-hanging fruit on economic and social reform that voters want. It also limits getting dragging into justifying itself to a Conservative opposition.

But it also means that there is a conscious closing off of options that might produce more significant effects down the line, economically and politically.

Hence the other, radical option is to use popular disillusionment over how Brexit was ‘done’ to leverage much closer ties with the EU. These ties would markedly improve (or more accurately, undo the damage done by withdrawal) economic access to the European market and be a marker of full-spectrum British reengagement with the world (because the current European hole doesn’t really help).

However, this radical model comes with clear short- and medium-term costs. Quite apart from endless Tory heckles about taking the Leave-voting majority for fools, it would suck up a huge amount of political resource, also raising questions about whether the rest of the manifesto could be pursued if new EU-inspired constraints were coming down the line. Plus, the EU might well not want to even play ball in starting negotiations, let alone reach an agreement of such a kind.

Which is all a long way of saying that as things stand now, I’d argue that Labour isn’t going to risk its current position by going for a markedly different European policy. If you want an historical analogy, then it’s a ‘second term issue’, much like single currency membership was for New Labour in 1997.

And you’ll remember how that turned out.

PDF: https://bit.ly/UshGraphic121

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The Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s war against Ukraine, and intensifying US-China competition and its repercussions on EU member states have prompted the bloc to increasingly reflect on its position on the geopolitical chessboard and forced it to take concrete action.

As a result, the EU has adopted many new instruments and policies allowing the bloc to act in a unified and more resolute manner: the Covid recovery plan and the European Green Deal as economic answers aim to restore growth and economic recovery whilst also making the EU economic fit for the future. In the field of security and defence, the adoption of the Strategic Compass was a major achievement to outline the EU’s ambition and planned tools as a security actor. And lastly, the combination of its different tools to react to Russia’s war against Ukraine — sanctions, massive economic support for Ukraine, enlargement as a geopolitical tool, and funding of lethal weapons through the European Peace Facility — shows that the EU has beefed up its role as an actor in international security.

 

Strategy for European Sovereignty: In the Making

These actions are also increasingly underpinned by strategy based on the objective of European sovereignty: this implies reducing dependencies and define European approaches to global challenges based on European interests, while working with partners wherever possible. The EU’s strategies published over the last year — such as its maritime security strategy and or cyber security strategy — as well as the announced economic security strategy reflect that specific strategies slowly merge into an embryo of grand strategy for European sovereignty.

As such, the European sovereignty agenda is good news for the European continent. A European Union that is more able to act in strategic domains can generate concrete benefits for member states and ultimately EU citizens, but is also a more capable partner in international affairs.

 

EU-UK Relations

Nevertheless, the EU’s sovereignty agenda also implies the need to adapt for the country that deliberately decided to leave the bloc: the UK. While relations between the EU and Britain have visibly been warming up since Prime Minister Sunak has taken office, EU-UK relations still need to catch up with the EU’s sovereignty agenda. The UK’s relations with the bloc mostly rely on the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA), which entered into force in 2021 and focuses mostly on free trade, but also includes provisions on judicial cooperation. In contrast, there is no framework on cooperation on geopolitical challenges, such as security and defence, or questions like jointly securing supply chains for the European continent. London has managed relations in these fields either with EU member states on a bilateral level, coordination within NATO, or more informal international formats like the G7 or the G20.

 

Challenges of EU Engagement

The EU’s increasing actorness in security and defence can hence pose a challenge to London – but also constitute an opportunity. The fact that member states have enhanced their cooperation through Brussels makes the EU institutions more important interlocutors in strategic domains; the creation of the EU-US Trade and Technology Council, as well as its EU-India equivalent, are just one example. Similarly, Brussels is seeking closer ties with partners in the Indo-Pacific on supply chains, or aims to install a dialogue with the US on working with partners of the “Global South”. All these issues are also of high strategic importance for the UK, and both the “Refresh” of the Integrated Review and recent statements from the British government show that London is aware of the necessity to work more closely with the EU. In fact, the EU is the most salient framework for the UK to engage on many of these issues — and this is something that other partners already realised earlier. Through the Johnson years and following its quest for “Global Britain”, London has lost time to think about constructive engagement with the EU as a bloc. In other words, it now needs to catch up.

This phase of catching up can also be a significant opportunity for London. Besides the fact that public opinion now creates a permissive political environment at home than a few years ago, the financial weight of the EU still makes it an attractive partner not only for the UK, but also for EU-UK cooperation with partners outside the European continent. A first concrete example for enhancing cooperation could be cooperation on supply chains with Indo-Pacific countries. In the field of security and defence, the UK’s participation in the military mobility project of the EU’s Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) shows that this cooperation on practical matters is not only possible, but objectively a reasonable solution.

In the end, the UK cannot escape its geography, and geography makes that the UK will remain part of the European continent. That’s also why the UK must take reflections on European sovereignty – which goes beyond EU sovereignty – seriously and actively engage in them.

 

 

The UACES microgrant allowed me to travel to London for field research, and gather additional data through exchanges with policy-makers and experts on the UK’s view on current developments in the EU and the debate on European sovereignty. This was also part of the interviews I conducted for my PhD research on ad hoc formats in European defence cooperation.

 

 

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UACES Chair, Prof Simon Usherwood

Dear Colleagues

One of the great pleasures of being Chair of UACES is the repeated opportunity to talk with colleagues who have contributed to the life of the Association through the years and who continue to want to do their bit to our on-going endeavours.

It’s fair to say that Prof Uwe Kitzinger did more than most in that regard, and so news of his death recently has rightly been felt across our community: our thoughts go to his family and friends. As Prof Willie Paterson explains in his obituary for us, Uwe was responsible for setting up the Journal of Common Market Studies and making it the flagship journal for European Studies. His foresight in keeping ownership with UACES laid the foundations for a stream of income that makes the Association quite so much as it does: any of you who have received funding from us have done so in no small part thanks to Uwe.

As Willie writes, Uwe did much more than this and I encourage you to reflect on how we can all make a contribution to our professional community and to society at large. Perhaps more than most fields of study, the connection between our research and those beyond academia is clear and pertinent and we have a responsibility to help inform and educate where we can.

With that in mind, I’m very happy that we can also announce the relaunch of our Research Networks programme. This offers funding to support on-going collaborations of colleagues in more focused fields, while also stimulating work that the entire membership can access and benefit from. Notably, we have moved away from fixed terms and our support will be dependent upon both the number of people involved and the maintenance of activity, which will give you more scope to optimise your network to your needs.

You have until 30 September to apply and I look forward to seeing the first fruits of the successful applications at our conference in Trento next year.

Mention of the conference also prompts me to encourage any of you yet to secure accommodation for Belfast this September to do so as soon as possible, since it appears various world-class musical acts (and Lewis Capaldi) will be playing that week. I am sure that those trying to double-head their trip will share their hard-rockin’/head-noddin’ experiences during the coffee breaks.

And for those of you who think they can top all that, we are now looking for a host for 2026. If you want to see 400 colleagues what you and your town/city are all about, then you have the summer to register your expression of interest.

Finally, I’m very happy to note various changes to the UACES team. Dr Vivianne Gravey and Dr Koen Slootmaeckers will take up their positions as Secretary and EDI Officer respectively this September. Both Dr Kathryn Simpson and Prof Roberta Guerrina have given a lot to these roles during the past three years, providing thoughtful and constructive support in making their portfolios work during what was a less-than-ideal set of circumstances with the pandemic.

On the Committee, we say goodbye and thanks to Prof Ben Farrand for his work, and welcome Dr Ben Leruth and Dr Olga Litvyak as new members. Every year we look to colleagues to give some time to being part of the Committee and it was really heartening to see so a strong roster of candidates this year.

And finally, we have a new member of the UACES Office. Ollie Pilkington brings a great breadth of experience to his position as Events Officer and it’s been great to see him step into the role so smoothly this spring. Emma Marlow, who did so much for this position for over three years, goes to new work with our best wishes and thanks.

So as the summer sets in and we all wonder whether we really should have said yes to those book chapters that are due last week, I will wish you all an excellent break and hope that I see very many of you in Belfast in September, where you are welcome to explain why I am wrong about Lewis Capaldi.

 

Prof Simon Usherwood, UACES Chair

 

 

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A couple of weeks ago, Turkey held its second run-off for the presidential election, which resulted in Erdogan’s victory and the opposition’s defeat. This outcome was reminiscent of the night following the UK’s Brexit vote, where the margin was also close at 52:48.

Several factors may have contributed to the opposition’s loss in the Turkish presidential elections. Firstly, Erdogan effectively manipulated the media, exerting control over the dissemination of information. His camp utilized various means to spread disinformation, further influencing public opinion. Additionally, the opposition’s choice of candidate for the presidency may not have resonated effectively with voters.

Furthermore, there was a prevalence of strongman romanticism among sections of the population, which favoured Erdogan’s leadership style. The opposition also faced challenges due to the support it received from the Kurdish community, which may have polarized the population to some extent.

Moreover, nationalist instincts played a significant role in shaping the outcome of the election, as a substantial portion of the population identified strongly with Turkish nationalism. Overall, a combination of media manipulation, disinformation, candidate selection, strongman appeal, Kurdish support, polarization, nationalist sentiments, and poverty may have contributed to the opposition’s defeat in the Turkish presidential election.

One important aspect I’d like to delve into is the voting patterns within the Nation Alliance and whether the opposition was attuned to the concerns of middle Turkey. In this context, I draw inspiration from the term “Middle England” to describe middle Turkey, which represents a specific socio-political demographic residing outside major urban areas like Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and Adana. Middle Turkey encompasses social groups and communities that share traditional values and prioritize key issues like territorial integrity, unity, love for the nation-state, national sovereignty, and partly economic well-being. This segment is often seen as a crucial battleground constituency with significant influence over electoral outcomes. Moreover, the term “Middle England” has been employed to depict a perceived cultural and social identity that places value on stability, pragmatism, and a sense of national identity.

The election results indicate a lack of attraction between the Nation Alliance and middle Turkey, as well as a failure on the part of the Nation Alliance to actively engage with this significant portion of the electorate. Throughout the election campaign, both sides operated independently, with no apparent effort made by the Nation Alliance to bridge the gap and address the concerns of middle Turkey. The disconnect between the Nation Alliance and middle Turkey went unnoticed, resulting in a missed opportunity to connect with this large population of voters.

The opposition parties should take heed of this lesson for the upcoming Local Elections next year.

Here are a few recommendations until then:

• Conduct a thorough analysis and mapping of the Middle Turkey region.
• Identify the residents living in this area.
• Determine the key issues that matter most to this demographic.
• Develop a clear party agenda and policies that address these concerns.
• Organize citizen assemblies to engage with the electorate, listen to their worries, and present viable solutions.
• Create customized manifestos and actively engage with voters by door-to-door campaigning, effectively communicating the party’s pledges.

If the opposition parties commit to focusing on those who did not vote for them in the Presidential elections and genuinely demonstrate a keen interest in understanding and addressing the needs of middle Turkey, they have the potential to make significant progress and win the hearts and minds of this particular segment of the population.

The post The Nation Alliance’s Oversight: Exploring the Neglected Middle Turkey in Turkish Politics appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

 

‘The original European in the UK, certainly the best known’ – William E Paterson

‘Uwe and zest are inseparable’  – David Butler

 

Uwe Kitzinger at the UACES Annual Conference in Passau.

The death of Uwe Kitzinger in May marks the end of an era. Uwe was the leading advocate of British membership in the then EEC and he continued this advocacy through Brexit till his death. He had developed the skill of advocacy as President of the Oxford Union and his advocacy was expressed first in his enormously influential book ’The Challenge of the Common Market‘ (B. Blackwell, 1962) and in a raft of later books and speeches. Uwe’s most lasting contribution was to found the Journal of Common Market Studies in 1962. His death is the end of an era in a second sense. With the recent death of Peter Pulzer and Uwe’s death, the line of distinguished academic refugees from the German-speaking area who arrived in Britain as children has come to an end. 

Uwe was born in Nuremberg in 1928 where his father was a banker and his mother had academic interests. Aided by a Jewish relative the family made their escape to the United Kingdom in July 1939. He had a brilliant school career at Watford Grammar and proceeded to Oxford where he took a First in PPE. He then became the sole British economist at the Council of Europe. From 1962 he was a Fellow of Nuffield College. Later, he was to serve as adviser to Sir Christopher Soames, the British Vice President of the Commission, and in a range of academic posts at INSEAD, Harvard, and Templeton College Oxford. His first Harvard appointment in 1969 was to replace Henry Kissinger who had left to advise President Nixon.  

In those days, doctorates were not the rule and Uwe’s first publication ’German Electoral Politics (OUP, 1960) a Study of the 1957 Campaign’ was the first of its kind in English as there were very few German studies. Despite the book being well received, Uwe never returned to the study of German Politics and concentrated on European Integration. His book ‘The Challenge of the Common Market’ (Blackwells, 1962) was an enormous public success and framed the debate surrounding British entry. Later books followed on like ‘Diplomacy and Persuasion’ (Thames and Hudson, 1973) and a well-regarded study of ‘The 1975 Referendum’ (Macmillan, 1976), a collaboration with David Butler which appeared in the prestigious Nuffield Series. These books were historically accurate and well written but were not theoretically informed. In common with other British books of the early period they were essentially the works of advocacy.  

Through his Presidency of the Oxford Union, Uwe was a well-known figure in Oxford. This together with his first book on the EEC gave him the confidence to call on Basil Blackwell in his office in Oxford to suggest starting the Journal of Common Market Studies. Terms were quickly agreed, and the Journal was launched. Uwe was the original editor, and a number of Oxford postgraduates were recruited to help. The timing coinciding with the start of British attempts at entry was serendipitous. It was the first major journal in the area and it is alone in having tracked all the debates in the area since the beginning. When I became Chairman of UACES in 1989, it was clear to me that continued reliance on EU funding was not a viable model. The European Institutions were becoming increasingly reluctant to fund academic associations and it was obvious to me that Europe was about to change fundamentally. My concern was that a more securely funded association would move into the space which we had owned. 

I believed that the solution lay in making an offer for Uwe’s share in the JCMS. UACES was already involved in the journal through Eva Evans’s work (Executive Secretary at the time) in charge of reviews and the members’ subscription to the Journal. Uwe responded very generously in accepting our offer. The income from the Journal has had a transformational effect on the Association and my successors in the Chair have developed numerous schemes which rely on the funds accrued from the JCMS. A number of these schemes benefit younger members, a choice which would have pleased Uwe. 

We remain eternally grateful to Uwe. Without his launch and sale of the Journal, UACES would never have enjoyed the continuing success it has. Uwe remained a committed European to the end and was pushed in his wheelchair by his daughter Celia on the great anti-Brexit marches. Uwe died in Bages in the south of France on 16th May 2023 and is buried there. 

 

In grateful memory, 

William E Paterson (UACES Chair 1989-94, Co-editor of the Journal of Common Market Studies 2003-2008)

 

 

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Today on “Ideas on Europe” we are going to Windsor. Not to visit the new King, but to talk about whether this spring’s deal on Northern Ireland means a new start for relations between the EU and the UK. To discuss this further, we welcome back the chair of our partner UACES, Simon Usherwood, professor at the Open University.

 

Listen to the podcast on eu!radio.

 

So, is everything happy again between the British and Brussels?

As much as you might hope that was the case, sadly it’s not quite that simple.

You will remember that ever since the EU agreed on the terms of the UK’s withdrawal from the organisation at the very start of 2020, the British have been talking about how unhappy they are with the arrangements, contained in the Northern Ireland Protocol.

In essence, those arrangements keep Northern Ireland inside the EU’s single market, as a way of avoiding having to have border controls between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. This was something that has been a key part of the settlement of the violence there in the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, which has just had its 25th anniversary.

The problem is that not having those so-called North-South controls has meant having controls instead between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK; or East-West checks, as we refer to them.

For London, that was taken as an infringement of British sovereignty and the integrity of the UK, and Boris Johnson, the then Prime Minister, kept on making moves to get out of the Protocol.

Now in the world of international law, not sticking to your treaty obligations is a Bad Thing and so the EU has spent the last three years being deeply concerned about this. Most obviously, it has meant that any other topic of potential cooperation between the two has been made conditional by the Union on resolving this problem.

 

But Johnson has left Number 10 Downing Street. Are things improving now?

If we ignore the brief period with Liz Truss, the current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak saw an opportunity to cut through this impasse, simultaneously reopening options with the EU and demonstrating his ‘can-do’ approach ahead of the next British general election.

The deal reached in February this year provides for some reductions in East-West checks and the application of EU rules in Northern Ireland, but these details are less important than the politics of the situation.

By signing up to this, and by getting broad support from his party at the same time, Sunak has started to repair the damage done to trust in relations and has, in effect, committed the Conservative party to work to honour its commitments under the Protocol.

 

So where does Windsor come into all this?

This was part of the cunning second aspect of the deal: getting Northern Ireland’s government up and running again.

The main unionist party, the DUP, has refused to join any government for the past couple of years, because of the Protocol.

Choosing the name of Windsor Framework for the new deal with the EU was a very calculated attempt to dress up the changes in the rhetoric of unionism: it’s hard to think of other places that are quite so invested in the images and symbols of the United Kingdom.

However, that symbolic push hasn’t worked out and we still don’t have a government in operation in Northern Ireland; something that doesn’t look like it’ll change soon.

 

Has it at least removed some of the tensions between London and Brussels?

It hasn’t been a complete reset, I’m afraid.

On Northern Ireland itself, there are still numerous points of practical implementation that are causing difficulties and where the UK has still to show that it is doing the things it said it would.

In Parliament, we have a couple of pieces of legislation being pushed through that could well break other treaty obligations made by the UK to the EU.

And while we have seen new talks about British participation in various EU activities – like research funding – those haven’t yet produced agreements.

Indeed, the main point we might take from all of this is that while trust is really important as a basic condition for working together, it’s not enough by itself. Things like finances, legal differences and day-to-day party politics also count for a lot too.

 

So should we be cheerful, or pessimistic right now?

Good question! And one that’s very hard to answer at this stage. Maybe the best we can say is that Windsor has been a positive step, but only one step in a long journey to the British finding a relationship with the EU that everyone is comfortable with.

 

Many thanks, for sharing your analysis with us. I recall you are professor at the Open University.

 

Entretien réalisé par Laurence Aubron.

 

 

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For our weekly ‘Ideas on Europe’ editorial by UACES, the University Association for European Studies, we have the pleasure to welcome again Dr Başak Alpan, from the Middle East Technical University, in Ankara.

 

Listen to the podcast on eu!radio.

 

 

You spoke to us just before the first round of the elections in Turkey, full of hope for change. What is your analysis after the run-off election won by President Erdoğan?

In my previous commentary, you may remember I referred to a recent ad by one of the biggest Rakı brands in Turkey with the title, ‘When that day comes’…

Well, that day came. And it came with the uttermost anxiety and excitement amongst the voters. As you know, the presidential election went to a run-off after none of the candidates reached the 50% threshold for victory.

In the closely contested second round on 28 May, the opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu secured 47.8% of the votes whereas Recep Tayyip Erdoğan obtained 52.1 % and became, again, president of Turkey. Erdoğan was able to keep the electoral block he had claimed for the last 20 years despite the ongoing hyper-inflation and recent earthquake that could not be handled very efficiently by the state authorities.

Nevertheless, in Ankara and İstanbul, which had already passed their local administration to the Republican Party CHP in 2019, the opposition got the lead, with the majority of votes going to Kılıçdaroğlu and only 46.69% and 46% obtained by Erdoğan respectively. The third biggest city, İzmir, had traditionally voted for the opposition anyway. Besides these major cities, support for Kılıçdaroğlu’s presidential bid emerged solidly from all the Kurdish-majority South-Eastern provinces.

 

And still, it was not enough to make change happen.

It seems that the predominant strategy of the second round, which was nationalism, paid off for Erdoğan. He always had a strong influence on the conservative nationalist electorate, in the traditional Central Anatolian regions in particular, which this time, was accompanied by the opposition’s clearly anti-refugee rhetoric.

Since 2011, when the first Syrian refugee arrived in Turkey, migration has become a game-changer in daily Turkish politics for the first time. The CHP revealed its perspective by clearly propagandizing against the number of refugees. In a video, they claimed, “we will not abandon our homeland to this mentality that has introduced 10 million undocumented migrants among us.” On a similar note, the CHP signed a memorandum of understanding with the ultra-nationalist “Victory Party”, which stipulated that the practice of appointing trustees in place of elected mayors, whose “links with terrorism had been judicially proven” could continue, which clearly pointed at the Kurdish municipalities. This memorandum cost Kılıçdaroğlu a bulk of votes in the second round, especially in South-East Turkey, where citizens had long complained about this anti-democratic practice.

 

Where do you think Turkish politics are heading now?

Erdoğan’s first speech after the election already showed the prospective tone of domestic politics. He taunted his opponent’s defeat with the words “Bye, bye, Kemal” and accused the opposition of being ‘pro-LGBT’. It seems that the political polarisation in Turkish society epitomised by the election results will further increase the level of antagonism in daily politics.

Nevertheless, there is one field that cannot be governed by rhetoric alone, and that is the economy. The Turkish economy has been suffering from high inflation and dramatic slumping of the Turkish lira. The anti-popular austerity measures that would alleviate the inflation are not likely to be implemented by Erdoğan in the short-term since there will be local elections in Ankara and Istanbul in 10 months’ time. Erdoğan has won, but he knows that his job will be even more difficult if he fails to win back the municipalities of two big cities.

Is there any silver lining on the horizon? There is, as always. Merve Dizdar, who won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival one day before the election, delivered an emotional speech on the struggle of women in Turkey. She said that for her role as a teacher in a remote town in the movie “About Dry Grasses”, she didn’t need to rehearse because she has known how such women feel “by heart since the day I was born”. I am sure that in the coming years, there will be more momentum for grassroots mobilisation and organisation of LGBTs, Kurds, and the working class which is getting poorer every day. And for women, to whom Merve Dizdar dedicated her award with the words “to all my sisters who do not give up hope no matter what the award is, and to all struggling spirits in Turkey who are waiting to experience the good days they deserve”.

 

Thank you very much for having shared twice your personal views on Turkey at election time. I recall that you are an associate professor at the Middle East Technical University.

 

Interview by Laurence Aubron.

 

 

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Over the last fifteen years, EU leaders have frequently resorted to emergency measures in response to periods of crisis. But while these measures may have helped bring order to unstable situations, have they come at a cost for the EU’s legitimacy? Jonathan White argues that instead of bolstering the EU’s fire-fighting capacity, we would be better served by designing a ‘normal’ regime that is able to handle extreme circumstances.

Charles Michel, President of the European Council at the round table of the European Council Summit of 24 June 2021. Source: European Council.

In today’s volatile world, the ambitions attached to the EU have never been higher. French President Emmanuel Macron calls for the construction of ‘European sovereignty’ as a way to preserve European identity, shape the continent’s destiny, and escape the role of ‘mere witness of the dramatic evolution of this world’. Visions of a more assertive and autonomous EU abound in the European Commission too. But the grander the ambitions, the more important the foundations. Does the EU have the legitimate institutions and habits of rule to support this more activist role?

Critical assessment of the EU often centres on its effectiveness – understandably for an organisation created to solve problems. For their economic measures, border management, vaccine procurement or foreign policy, those acting in the EU’s name are judged on their capacity to act.

The risk of assessing something by its outcomes is that one downplays how these are attained. A hallmark of EU politics over the last decade has been leaders’ willingness to overstep legal and political constraints in the name of getting things done. One sees actions exceeding norms and rules, rationalised as necessary responses to exceptional and urgent threats – the template of emergency politics. Sometimes this empowers executives at the supranational level, in the EU institutions or things like the Troika; sometimes it empowers state representatives, in forums such as the Eurogroup or European Council.

Emergency measures have their logic and can bring order to an unstable situation. But they also raise constitutional issues. Power in such moments comes to be concentrated ever further on executive institutions, political and technocratic, at the expense of parliaments, courts and wider publics. It passes to key figures at the apex, often acting informally, opaquely and fast. Who precisely is in control, and what criteria they apply to decision-making, becomes difficult to discern and contest, while decisions may be hard to revise later.

Two structural features of the EU make it especially vulnerable to exceptionalism. The first is its soft constitutional structure. Processes of coordination are based on conventions of consultation rather than codification. This means there is little to deter executive agents, singly or collectively, should they seek to depart from procedure. A second vulnerability lies in the EU’s historically technocratic orientation. For those imbued with a problem-solving ethos, achieving certain outcomes ‘whatever it takes’ is likely to be the prime concern. Ends will typically trump means.

Emergency scripts

In view of the EU’s reliance on improvised and irregular methods, some argue the need to bolster its fire-fighting capacity. What the EU requires in this view is an agreed set of procedures for handling exceptional situations – a temporary boost in the powers of its institutions to protect public health, settle the economy, or respond to an international crisis. The EU needs an emergency script, allowing its representatives to act quickly and efficiently while also maintaining their accountability.

Yet an exceptional mechanism of this kind could potentially make matters worse. Historically, such arrangements have been predicated on the idea that emergencies are short-lived. The ancient Roman institution of ‘dictatorship’, employed mainly in the context of war, assumed the limited duration of the military campaigning season. Exceptional measures were acceptable because the circumstances they addressed were exceptional.

Today’s emergencies, in the EU and more generally, typically emerge from long-term pathologies of politics, capitalism and climate, giving them a much more extended horizon. If there is no natural boundary between normal and abnormal times, the risk is either of short, superficial responses to deep problems, or of a permanent politics of emergency.

The very existence of emergency powers encourages authorities to leave problems to fester. Knowing they can invoke extra powers when the going gets tough, they have less reason to pursue the hard choices and reforms that get to the heart of things. They have a fallback option to rely on. Emergency politics is always in some sense the legacy of policy failure, and when that failure can be mopped up using exceptional measures it is that bit easier to indulge.

Constitutionalising the EU

Instead of devising an emergency script, the task is to design a ‘normal’ regime that is able to handle extreme circumstances – efficiently but also acceptably. One goal should be a simplified structure of power. Abolish the European Council, Eurogroup and the like, and give the Commission the responsibilities of government. A more integrated transnational executive would be less prone to informality and the ad hoc concentration of power. To the extent that it would still lapse into arbitrary or unresponsive methods, it would be a more visible target of critique.

Couple this with strengthening the European Parliament. Embedding executive power in a parliamentary system gives it a stronger basis in public opinion and debate. One of the lessons of Covid-19 is that countries with strong parliamentary systems tended to respond at least as well as the alternatives. The key principle of governing in extreme circumstances should not be speed but consent. Not only is this more democratic, but it increases the prospects of compliance in the short term and can build public support for the structural change needed to ward off crises to come.

Any such transformation of the EU is likely to meet plenty of resistance. But unlike with a supposedly temporary emergency script, the stakes would be clear at the moment of enactment. It would be approved only to the extent its arrangements are acceptable as permanent features rather than as temporary deviations from normality.

Constitutionalisation in this deeper sense would reflect the reality that the policy challenges of the present amount not to a series of passing emergencies, short-lived and exceptional, but to enduring problems of politics, society, climate and economy that should be engaged on a fundamental and open-ended basis. Recent events suggest an EU that aspires to become more militarised and economically assertive – a sovereign actor in world affairs. It needs a constitutional overhaul to match.

For more information, see the author’s accompanying paper at the Journal of Common Market Studies. 

This post has been previously published by the LSE Blog here. 

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For our weekly ‘Ideas on Europe’ editorial by UACES, the University Association for European Studies, we have the pleasure to welcome Dr Tamás Matura, from Corvinus University in Budapest.

 

Listen to the podcast on eu!radio.

 

You are the founder of an institute that conducts research on the relations between Central and Eastern European countries and China.

That’s right. You may have heard that these relations, which were institutionalized in the so-called “17+1” cooperation group, have cooled down a bit over recent years, for various reasons. But contrary to the majority of Central and Eastern European countries, the Hungarian government still seems very keen on maintaining close and friendly relationships with China.

 

What exactly is Victor Orbán’s strategy with regard to China?

The Orbán government has never published an official China Strategy! As a result, one can only speculate about its intentions. But some strategic goals are clear to see.

First, the government hopes that strong ties to the PRC may lead to economic advantages in the form of increased trade and investment relations. Currently, Chinese foreign direct investment in Hungary is between 4 and 6 billion Euros, which is not negligible, and the government argues that bilateral trade has been growing dynamically. Let’s not forget either that thanks to the goodwill of Beijing, Hungary was one of the first countries to roll-out Covid-19 vaccinations to its population, even though vaccine procurement from China has raised many questions regarding the efficacy and price of the doses.

 

And in political terms?

When it comes to domestic politics the pro-China attitude of the government did bear some fruits.

Since 2010, the public praise by the Orbán cabinet of Sino-Hungarian relations and of Chinese investors has shaped a pro-China narrative in governmental communication and in pro-government media outlets. Furthermore, the positive tone about a successful China helps to depict the West as an even less favorable partner, on the brink of collapse. The Covid-19 crisis offered another opportunity to the Hungarian government to paint a pleasant picture of China while it could denounce European ‘incompetence’. Official comments have never blamed Beijing for the outbreak of the pandemic. On the contrary, the government has been emphasizing the massive amounts of medical equipment sent from China to Hungary. The outcome of these governmental communication efforts was a sharp increase in China’s reputation among Fidesz voters, which in turn, has contributed to the popularity of the ruling party and its massive election success in early 2022.

 

What are the diplomatic benefits for Hungary in adopting this attitude?

Well, the perceived or actual support of Beijing may actually improve the bargaining position of Hungary vis-à-vis the European Union and the United States.

Ever since Mr. Orbán announced his intention to turn Hungary into an “illiberal democracy”, he has been trying to form a global alliance of similar regimes with the likes of Bolsonaro, Erdoğan, Netanyahu, Putin, up to Xi Jinping, and even Donald Trump. Part and parcel of this endeavour was the use of Hungarian vetoes in the EU to support not only Chinese but also Russian, Turkish, or Israeli interests.

 

How successful is this strategy? Has it reached its limits?

Mr. Orbán’s foreign policy, based on a loud and aggressive communication strategy, worked surprisingly well in the peace and prosperity of the 2010s. It seems, however, less applicable in recent years as the “illiberal club” proved unstable with the political fall of many of its members, and as Russia’s aggression on Ukraine has made European countries rally around the flags of the EU and NATO in defense of “liberal democracy”.

But despite these fundamental changes in the international landscape, Mr. Orbán apparently tries to double down on his pro-China policy. Indeed, as he has become the very last friend of Beijing in the whole EU, his relative importance may have even grown in the eyes of the Chinese government. The visit of state councillor Wang Yi to Budapest in February 2023 and the subsequent announcement that Mr. Orbán may visit China in the near future both demonstrate the strength of bilateral ties while at the same time, EU-China relations experience serious tensions. Whether this unique position is worth its price of lost reputation in Washington and Brussels, is a question only Mr. Orbán himself could answer.

 

We’re already happy with your own analysis. Many thanks for sharing this insight with us. I recall you are the founder of the Central and Eastern European Center for Asian Studies, and assistant professor at Corvinus University in Budapest.

 

Interview by Laurence Aubron.

The post Mr. Orbán’s Hungary: China’s Last Friend in the EU? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

This week’s announcement from the Council on the adoption of three Regulations marks the end of a rapid process of enacting the Windsor Framework.

As discussed earlier this month, while the February photoshoot in leafy Surrey [my local news sources were very adamant about it not being even Berkshire, let alone Windsor] was good for headlines, it wasn’t much more than a set of commitments to enact a bundle of items.

While the Joint Committee‘s meeting within a month permitted much of that content to be moved into the rule books, even with an accelerated procedure the EU has needed a further two months to get these Regulations over the line.

PDF: https://bit.ly/UshGraphic119

But enactment is not quite the same as application, as we noted before. While I picked out a couple of examples last time, it felt sensible to be more systematic about this, given that we are now on the next stage.

The graphic below sets out the progressive application for the central Joint Committee decision and for the three Regulations: the other elements are effective immediately.

The Joint Committee decision unpacks its provisions, with goods subject to a phased introduction of new measures, conditional upon British implementation. This is similar to the original transitional elements within the Withdrawal Agreement and reflect an intention to allow market operators to adjust over a clear time horizon.

Likewise, the SPS Regulation phases in markings of retail goods, especially on diary and meat where production and distribution chains have been most cross-border pre-withdrawal.

Of course, markings on retail goods is a more general UK headache, with the UKCA mark pushed back to the end of 2024, so producers will need to incorporate this aspect in a more systemic overhaul, which in turn requires a definitive central government position.

Finally, the medicines Regulation will only apply from 2025, again conditional upon several British guarantees.

PDF: https://bit.ly/UshGraphic120

Recall that all of this comes three years into the notional start of the Protocol. Partly this is the price paid for the breakneck timetable of negotiation and ratification, but it is also a reflection of the British government’s long refusal to accept the Protocol as the baseline for future relations.

Business might be understandably loath to use capital expenditure when policy remains in the air: indeed, even when policy appears relatively clear, misallocation occurs with all its associated opportunity costs.

The take away here is still that implementation will be a long process, rather than an event. Even when we get to the end of this set of transitions, we run directly into the TCA revision in 2025, which might produce further changes. Not to mention the potential effects of a general election.

Relations are thus in semi-permanent flux: the question is how this is managed by the parties and communicated to stakeholders and citizens. Whether that’s easier or harder as we return to the technocratic mode is open to debate, but reflection on that now might seem a prudent course of action.

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By Theofanis Exadaktylos, University of Surrey and Kennet Lynggaard, Roskilde University

As scholars of politics and international relations we are trained to design our research based on methodological and research design traditions. For those of us working on EU politics, broadly speaking, the way we conceive the EU as a political reality and entity reflects the way we study it and the way we design our research in terms of methods, data and analysis. Are we therefore falling into a trap that predetermines our research findings based on our practices of research design?

In our recent article at JCMS, we took up a meta-analytical exercise to review the literature around EU politics, zooming into the way some of the most influential articles in our field use certain methods, design their empirical research and produce specific types of findings (for similar exercises see Exadaktylos and Radaelli 2009 and Exadaktylos and Lynggaard 2016). Our cue was the work by Colin Hay (2002) followed by the reflections of Manners (2011) who suggest that there is a so-called ‘directional dependence’ between the way we understand our object of study, the type of knowledge we produce about it and the way we get to that knowledge. This is a trap we can all fall into when those dependencies become fixed and automatically sneak into our research design choices almost diluting the research problem at hand.

There may be damaging effects when falling into this trap that can constrain the scope of innovation in our field, the type of questions that we ask and the way we analyse EU politics. In our article, we don’t attempt an evaluation of the quality of our field of research; our purpose is to map out those research design practices and explore their consequences for the way we view and understand the actuality of the EU. In plain words, what do we see when we look at EU politics through our preferred research design? More importantly, what questions and dimensions of EU politics are not exposed enough or are even silenced in the process?

There are some strong methodological and research divides in EU studies, for instance between rationalist and constructivist methodologies or between quantitative and qualitative methods and data. While there are some commendable attempts to bridge traditions and break methodological silos, the divisions persist. Building bridges is a difficult ambition requiring a good definition of scholarly positions and can lead to either descriptive exercises or doing methods for methods’ sake.

Recognising favouritisms and negligence in research design practices moves us beyond the principled positions of the past; we understand the richness of topics around EU politics, and we make better sense of their impact in defining and demarcating the scope of our research field. Therefore, does a degree of directional dependency exist in EU studies and how high is it? Are the choices we make automatic, and do they damage our field at an aggregate level?

In our article, we sketch out those choices and describe how deviations can be possible. We suggest two pathways, stemming from our primary choice of studying the effect of EU politics as a cause, or placing the EU as a cause of effects. The figure below shows how the paths operate in terms of the subsequent choices once we embark on our research journey.

Our analysis of the state of the art in the study of the EU confirms an important degree of traditionalism in our research approaches. The lion’s share of EU politics literature we examined exhibits a high degree of directional dependency in the way their research is designed. This is not say that this is problematic, considering that shared paradigms favour aggregation of knowledge and solving puzzles. But innovative research may suffer (see Kuhn 1996 [1962] for a wider discussion) and our portrayal of the EU as a political reality can become static. We lose out on pluralism and multidimensional views of the EU.

Explorative pieces of research are not as prominent in our field in terms of opening up new areas of research or focusing on less prominent aspects of EU politics, but those who manage to break this barrier create vibrant and innovative research agendas (see for example the JCMS special issue on ‘Another Theory is Possible: Dissident Voices in Theorising Europe’). On a similar vein, the majority of the literature adopts rich sets of variables, which of course allow capturing and understanding of the complexity of EU political phenomena. However, research that is more parsimonious may hold the key to new agendas and to making claims about the wider dynamics and implications of EU politics.

Despite the high degree of a directional trap in EU politics literature, there are examples of departing from the beaten track. The pathways are not, and don’t need to be, deterministic. Although rare, studies that take paths least travelled can offer nuances or alternatives to the current state of play (see for example the nuanced typology by Dunlop and Radaelli (2013) on policy learning in the EU). Taking less traditional approaches, such as political economy, deliberative intergovernmental, or narrative approaches, help to actively pursue alternative designs and generate innovative research outcomes (Copelovitch et al 2016 or Puetter 2012 are good examples).

There are multiple reasons as to why the trap exists, frequently starting from the way we are being trained as researchers, our comfort zones, the pressures to publish in specific outlets or to increase our specialisation, and from the publicly acceptable paradigms that are reproduced within our very own research communities. But there are also plenty of reasons why we should reflect and avoid a stasis in the production of knowledge around EU politics and why we should not be afraid to go off the beaten track.

Theofanis Exadaktylos is Professor in European Politics at the University of Surrey. His most recent book is the co-edited volume with Nikolaos Zahariadis, Evangelia Petridou and Jörgen Sparf on Policy Styles and Trust in the Age of Pandemics: Global Threat, National Responses (2022). He is the co-editor of Research Design in European Studies: Establishing Causality in Europeanization (2012) (with Claudio Radaelli). Find his academic profile here.

Follow Theofanis Exadaktylos @EUForeignPolicy // University of Surrey @UniofSurrey // Department @SurreyPolitics

Kennet Lynggaard is Associate Professor in European Politics at Roskilde University. He is the author of Discourse Analysis and European Union Politics (2019) and co-editor of Governments’ Responses to the Covid-19 Pandemic in Europe: Navigating the Perfect Storm (2023) (Kluth, M. and Jensen, M.D.) and Research Methods in European Union Studies (2015) (with I. Manners & K. Löfgren). Find his academic profile here.

Follow Kennet Lynggaard on Twitter @KennetLynggaard // Roskilde University @roskildeuni

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On 20 and 21 April 2023, EUHealthGov held a 2-day workshop to discuss research and teaching on EU health policy and law. As part of the latter focus, we undertook an exercise to develop a collaborative, open access teaching resource. 

This blog (also available as a PDF here) presents a series of vignettes describing topics or themes that might be taught as part of a course or programme on EU health governance. They were developed collaboratively at the EUHealthGov teaching workshop, held in Brussels on 21 April 2023, and compiled by the EUHealthGov coordinators. Each vignette includes a short description of the topic or issue to be addressed, ideas for activities, discussion questions or assessments, and one or two suggested readings. They are loosely divided into themes based within the disciplines of public health, law and political science.

The vignettes are presented here as an open and living resource – if you have any additions or suggestions, and would like these added to the resource (with attribution), please email euhealthgov[at]gmail.com. We’re particularly keen to hear from those addressing EU health governance from other disciplines (sociology, economics, geography etc.). 

We are grateful to the following contributors for their inputs:

• Dr Eleanor Brooks (University of Edinburgh)
• Dr Charlotte Godziewski (City, University of London)
• Dr Mary Guy (Liverpool John Moores University)
• Dr João Paulo Magalhães (Portuguese Directorate-General of Health)
• Dr Benjamin Ewert (Fulda University of Applied Sciences)
• Dr Volkan Yilmaz (Dublin City University)
• Germán Andrés Alarcón Garavito (University College London)

Public Health and the EU Healthcare workforce and EU health governance

TOPIC, THEME, ISSUE DESCRIPTION

This session might discuss challenges for healthcare workforce (HCW) planning, retention and fixation between national healthcare systems, and the impacts of the single market and free movement of goods and people in the EU.

IDEAS FOR ACTIVITIES, DISCUSSION QUESTIONS, ASSESSMENTS ETC.

The main activity would involve exploring current policy options and best practices undertaken by national healthcare systems and assessing their effectiveness towards the HCW goals. In what areas of EU law and Commission competences, could the EU act on harmonising HCW planning, retention and fixation between Member-States? Discussion and innovative approaches; do financial instruments and fiscal policy arena have scope to become effective strategies for managing HCW?

ANNOTATED READING LIST

Glinos, I.A. Health professional mobility in the European Union: Exploring the equity and efficiency of free movement. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2015.08.010.

The author argues that health professional mobility has efficiency and equity implications in the EU. They note that some EU Member States benefit more from health professional mobility, whilst free mobility of health professionals may reinforce intra-EU disparities. Health, Law and the EU The role of law in EU health governance

TOPIC, THEME, ISSUE DESCRIPTION

This session considers the EU law framework regarding issues of health governance in the EU. So it will consider not only the “cross-cutting” nature of EU health law (as a discipline), but also unpack some examples of how law works in this area, and where/how it interacts with policy.

IDEAS FOR ACTIVITIES, DISCUSSION QUESTIONS, ASSESSMENTS ETC.

Case studies / problem scenarios to work through, e.g., concerns about accessing healthcare from the perspective of EU citizenship rules, and considerations emerging in state aid assessments. Recent cases could form the basis for this, e.g.

• Casa Regina Apostolorum (CJEU 2023 judgment), regarding state aid to Italian public hospitals, offers opportunities to examine not only social/economic tensions in EU law as applied in the healthcare sector, but also the Member State – EU-level dynamic regarding healthcare system organisation, and how far the EU institutions may be willing to go in scrutinising national arrangements.
• Case C-247/20, VI v Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, (CJEU 2022 judgment) regarding the linking of the NHS with the requirement for comprehensive sickness insurance (CSI) for EU nationals in the UK. This case offers scope to consider how health (via CSI) is an integral part of free movement and citizenship rules, also raising questions of economic/social tensions and EU-level/Member State interaction.

Consideration of Health in All Policies (HiAP) could also be linked to discussions of the EU’s competence in health, and how law might be used to help reinforce policy.

ANNOTATED READING LIST

O. Bartlett and A. Naumann, ‘Reinterpreting the health in all policies obligation in Article 168 TFEU: the first step towards making enforcement a realistic prospect’, (2021) Health Economics, Policy and Law 16(1), 8-22.

• Discusses links between HiAP ‘in law’ (Art. 168(1) TFEU) and in policy.

A. de Ruijter, EU Health Law & Policy (OUP 2019).

• Discusses the EU’s expanding role in public health and healthcare from a values and rights perspective.

Hervey and McHale, European Union Health Law – Themes and Implications (CUP 2015).

• Comprehensive overview of the development and extent of EU health law. Discussed thematically in terms of “internal” EU health law (both individual and systemic perspectives) and “external” EU health law.

Hancher and Sauter, EU Competition and Internal Market Law in the Healthcare Sector (OUP 2012).

• Comprehensive overview of how competition and internal market law have been applied in health cases.

Health, Political Science and the EU The European Health Union

TOPIC, THEME, ISSUE DESCRIPTION

This session addresses the emergence and possible development paths of the European Health Union (EHU), its implications for the status of health policy within the EU institutional architecture, the role/competences of new agencies (e.g. HERA). Key question: to what extent has the pandemic been the ultimate crisis in order to advance the idea of an EHU?

IDEAS FOR ACTIVITIES, DISCUSSION QUESTIONS, ASSESSMENTS ETC.

Activity: Analysing political statements with regard to the creation of a European Health Union (drawn from, for instance, the Commission President, parties within the European Parliament, member state leaders etc.). The task involves differentiating competing visions and driving forces of the EHU, assessing the EHU process through a supranationalism/intergovernmentalism lens; and predicting the possibility of EHU scenarios (e.g. further integration, differentiated integration, status quo).

ANNOTATED READING LIST

Nabbe, M.; Brand, H. The European Health Union: European Union’s Concern about Health for All. Concepts, Definition, and Scenarios. Healthcare 2021, 9, 1741. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare9121741

• The article identifies five potential scenarios of a European Health Union based on a scoping literature review. The suggested scenario plots, ranging from a full-fledged EHU (scenario 1) to a fragmentation of the EU (scenario 5), are discussed alongside three predetermined  forces (surveillance and monitoring, crisis preparedness, funding) and four unpredictable forces (political will, vision of public health expenditures, population interest and awareness, global health).

Kickbusch, I. and De Ruijter, A. (2021). How a European health union can strengthen global health. Commentary. The Lancet Regional Health Europe. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanepe.2021.100025

• Discusses the implications of the EHU for global health, offering an introduction to the EU’s role in global health and the idea of the EHU.

 

Far-right political parties and health in Europe

TOPIC, THEME, ISSUE DESCRIPTION

This session looks at far right political parties in Europe, their influence at EU and national levels, and their views on / implications for health. It contrasts the rise of such parties, the limits of their success in securing formal governance positions and the dearth of research into their relevance to health.

IDEAS FOR ACTIVITIES, DISCUSSION QUESTIONS, ASSESSMENTS ETC.

Activity: analysing political manifestos. Using manifestos from 2-3 far-right parties in different European countries (language barriers permitting), analyse these parties’ position on health, using a framework that explores reference to individual versus social drivers of health inequalities. Can be done individually or in groups, in-person or online (in breakout rooms, for instance).

ANNOTATED READING LIST

Falkenbach and Greer (eds) (2019) The Populist Radical Right and Health (Springer).

This is an edited volume, the first in-depth analysis of the health policies of populist radical right parties. Its scope is global but more than half of the case study chapters are based in EU member states (and their division by country makes for easy group-reading activities).

 

The EU and global health

TOPIC, THEME, ISSUE DESCRIPTION

This session considers the EU as a global health actor/non-actor, EU soft power through health and health diplomacy, and the EU’s role in global health security.

This session also facilitates debates and reflection on who, how, and why global health is governed. Subthematics include global health leadership, health in global governance, and the interaction of the EU with other global health actors such as the WHO, the World Bank, the Global Fund, and GAVI, among others.

IDEAS FOR ACTIVITIES, DISCUSSION QUESTIONS, ASSESSMENTS ETC.

Task: analyse the role of the EU in global health equity through the COVID vaccine case study. Drawing on selected readings, media reporting and blogs, use the EU’s role in COVID vaccine procurement and distribution to assess its contribution to global health equity. Students may need to be introduced to a health equity framework/lens (or may have used this earlier in the course/other courses).

Furthermore, students are encouraged to analyse EU health agencies’ role and impact on global health activities by interpreting agencies’ functioning data (finances, governance, procurement, and transparency). This will be done by reading selected material, extracting information from agencies’ websites, and contrasting it with multiple sources.

ANNOTATED READING LIST

Bergner (2023) The role of the European Union in global health: The EU’s self-perception(s) within the COVID-19 pandemic, Health Policy, 127, 5-11.

• Analyses the EU’s role in global health, via the COVID pandemic, along the dimensions of self-perception, external perception and performance.

Usher, A.D., (2021). A beautiful idea: how COVAX has fallen short. The Lancet, 397(10292), 2322-2325.

• A shorter article introducing the COVAX facility and the shortfalls in equity during its operation.

Bengtsson, L. & Rhinard, M., 2019. ‘Securitisation across borders: the case of ‘health security’ cooperation in the European Union’, West European Politics, 42(2), 346–368, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2018.1510198.

Bengtsson, L., Borg, S. & Rhinard, M., 2019. ‘Assembling European Health Security: Epidemic intelligence and the hunt for cross-border health threats’, Security Dialogue, 50(2), 115–130, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010618813063.

Sonja Kittelsen (2007) Beyond Bounded Space: Europe, Security, and the Global Circulation of Infectious Disease, European Security, 16:2, 121-142, DOI: 10.1080/09662830701529745

Thibaud Deruelle & Isabelle Engeli (2021) The COVID-19 crisis and the rise of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), West European Politics, 44:5-6, 1376-1400, DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2021.1930426.

DIJKSTRA, H., & DE RUIJTER, A. (2017). The Health-Security Nexus and the European Union: Toward a Research Agenda. European Journal of Risk Regulation, 8(4), 613-625. doi:10.1017/err.2017.34.

Dodgson R, Lee K, Drager N. Global Health Governance, A Conceptual Review. Glob Heal. 2018;(1):439–61.

Clinton C, Sridhar DL. Governing global health: who runs the world and why? 2017. 282 p.

Gostin LO, Mok EA. Grand challenges in global health governance [Internet]. Vol. 90, British Medical Bulletin. Oxford Academic; 2009 Available from: https://academic.oup.com/bmb/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/bmb/ldp014.

Andrews M. The good governance agenda: Beyond indicators without theory. Oxford Dev Stud. 2008;36(4).

Besley T, Kudamatsu M, Merlo A, Olken B, Nunn N. Health and democracy. In: American Economic Review. 2006.

Kevany, Sebastian, and Aoife Kirk. Outbreaks, Epidemics, and Health Security: COVID-19 and Ensuring Future Pandemic Preparedness in Ireland and the World. San Diego: Elsevier Science & Technology, 2022. Print.

 

Democratic legitimacy, healthcare and EU health governance

TOPIC, THEME, ISSUE DESCRIPTION

This is a reflective session which focuses on how EU competences affect health. Should the EU have more explicitly health-related competences, or should this remain with Member States? What are the implications of either option?

IDEAS FOR ACTIVITIES, DISCUSSION QUESTIONS, ASSESSMENTS ETC.

Activity: Think about the ‘pros/cons’ of more health competencies, perhaps structured across the ‘three faces’ of EU health policy, or the WHO building blocks of health systems. Ideas could be devised individually, then compare findings in pairs, then create groups of 4 (‘pair up the pairs’) and exchange findings until students have an overview of the implications and issues at stake.

ANNOTATED READING LIST

Greer, S.L.,(2014). The three faces of European Union health policy: Policy, markets, and austerity. Policy and Society, 33(1), 13-24.

• One option to structure the task is to think about the implications of competences across the three faces of health policy.

Greer et al. (2022) Everything you’ve always wanted to know about EU health policy but were afraid to ask, https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/354182.

• A more comprehensive overview/introduction to EU health policies and competences.

Lamping, W., & Steffen, M. (2009). European Union and Health Policy: The “Chaordic” dynamics of integration. Social Science Quarterly, 90(5), 1361– 1379.

• Slightly older source but one that reflects on the limits and value of EU health integration.

 

Public policy and the determinants of health

TOPIC, THEME, ISSUE DESCRIPTION

This session addresses how EU policy affects health even if it is not directly about healthcare/health systems. Potential case studies or focal points include health in all policies (HiAP); Better Regulation; the eurozone crisis, austerity, and health; food safety regulations and health; trade and Health; the CAP and health…

IDEAS FOR ACTIVITIES, DISCUSSION QUESTIONS, ASSESSMENTS ETC.

Activity: Creating maps of how the EU activities can indirectly impact health through other policy areas (such as food, environment, fiscal policy, trade, etc). This can be a really creative exercise, using paper and pens, whiteboard and markers, or online drawing software.

Discussion topic: Using the concept of ‘policy coherence’, students might reflect on their maps and consider the challenge of generating coherence across such a wide range of policy sectors and actors.

ANNOTATED READING LIST

Greer, S. L. (2014a). Three faces of European Union Health Policy: Policy, markets, and austerity. Policy and Society, 33(1), 13–24.

• Offering an initial overview of the three faces of health policy and the range of EU non-health competences and actions that affect health.

Karanikolos, M., Mladovsky, P., Cylus, J., Thomson, S., Basu, S., Stuckler, D., Mackenbach, J. P., McKee, M. (2013). Financial crisis, austerity, and health in Europe. The Lancet, 381(9874), 1323–1331.

• As a case study, this source introduces the impact of austerity on health in Europe following the financial crisis in 2007/8.

Koivusalo M (2010). The state of health in all policies (HiAP) in the European Union: potential and pitfalls. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 64(6):500–3.

Jarman H & Koivusalo M (2017). Trade and health in the European Union, in Hervey TK, Young C & Bishop L (eds). Research Handbook on EU Health Law and Policy. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 429–52.

 

The politics of European Union and health

TOPIC, THEME, ISSUE DESCRIPTION

The European Union (EU) has been engaged in health issues since the Thalidomide tragedy in the 1960s, which led to the introduction of the European pharmaceutical authorisation process. Since then, the EU’s role in health has been diversified and extended. The European Health Union initiative, which emerged as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, is the most recent and ambitious attempt to establish a stronger role for the EU in health. In this context, this session addresses the following question: What should the EU’s role in health be? The session is designed to familiarise students with the normative and political debates on European integration in health, enable them to formulate and articulate their own stances in these debates and create a platform to foster an open dialogue on the appropriate role of the EU in health among students.

IDEAS FOR ACTIVITIES, DISCUSSION QUESTIONS, ASSESSMENTS ETC.

Activity: The proposed activity is to create a platform for students to form a political stance on the European Union’s role in health, consider different political alternatives and elaborate on their stances while interacting with their classmates. It is recommended that the instructor uses live polling methods to spark a debate. For this purpose, the instructor is expected to prepare different statements about the preferred division of responsibility between the European Union and its Member States in different sub-sectors of health (e.g., pharmaceutical reimbursement decision, EU-wide health tax). These statements can include both statements reflecting the current state of affairs and ones that are aspirational. For a one-hour session, 12 statements would be sufficient.

In terms of the session outline, the first step is that the instructor asks students to respond to each of these statements in an “agree and disagree format”. The instructor is advised to use the Vevox app, which allows live polling, and recording of student responses. Once students individually express their opinions on a statement in terms of agree and disagree through the app, it is recommended that the instructor first shows the overall results for the class. Then the instructor is expected to explain whether each statement reflects the current state of affairs. This is followed by a lively discussion on the appropriate role of the EU in the selected areas within health policy. When the discussion reaches saturation, the instructor should then outline the political dimensions of each statement and state that every opinion expressed deserves political respect. The same order can be repeated for each statement. This activity must be completed before delivering a lecture on the European Union’s involvement in health and the contemporary European Health Union initiative.

Discussion topic:

• The European Union should introduce a single European social health insurance plan with the same entitlements for all EU citizens.
• The European Union should levy a Europe-wide sugary drinks tax that will become a new revenue source to the EU budget.

ANNOTATED READING LIST

Bambra, C., Fox, D. and Scott-Samuel, A., 2005. Towards a politics of health. Health Promotion International, 20(2), pp.187-193.

Carpenter, D., 2012. Is health politics different?. Annual Review of Political Science, 15, pp.287-311.

Greer, S.L., Rozenblum, S., Fahy, N., Brooks, E., Jarman, H., de Ruijter, A., Palm, W. and Wismar, M., 2022. Everything you always wanted to know about European Union health policies but were afraid to ask. World Health Organization. Regional Office for Europe.

This event was supported by UACES and the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.

The post Vignettes on EU health governance: A shared teaching and learning resource from the EUHealthGov network appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Hein Brookhuis

Over the past decades, the European Commission has increasingly aimed to include scientific collaboration explicitly in its political project. With the introduction of the European Research Area in 2000, the Commission hoped to create a “borderless market for research, innovation and technology.”

The origins and dynamics of this European science policy have been widely studied over the past decades, often from the perspective of political science. The ways in which the policies impacted scientists and scientific institutions has been less studied. How did scientists use the new policy instruments to advance their scientific projects? Through the study of one specific project, namely the establishment of a new research reactor in Belgium, my research project aimed to complement existing literature with a more historical approach [Brookhuis 2023].

The Belgian MYRRHA project entails the construction of an accelerator-driven research reactor, which primarily aims to demonstrate the feasibility of reducing the longevity and radiotoxicity of some elements in spent nuclear fuel. Between 1998 and 2010, this project was part of several European research programs. By having access to notes, correspondences, interviews and internal strategic documents, this historical study of European science policy can inform us better on the impact of policy changes on research communities. How did European policies impact collaboration among scientists? How did this effect their projects? In this blog post, I will highlight three interactions between European Science Policy and the Belgian MYRRHA project to reflect on the role of Big Science in the European Research Area.

 

Balancing European and Belgian ambitions

For the purpose of this blog post, I will highlight three moments in which European scientific and political developments intertwined with the MYRRHA project. While the Belgian project initially focused on a small-scale instrument that would primarily focus on (commercial) medical applications, a similar reactor-concept experienced a major political breakthrough in Europe as a potential alternative solution for nuclear waste, propagated by Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia. Although Rubbia’s plans were often criticized by his peers, he became the chair of a European Technical Working Group on the topic, stimulating efforts in the domain of using so-called Accelerator Driven Systems (ADS) for the transmutation of nuclear waste. [TWG – ADS, 2001].

Engaging in European projects also entailed balancing local interests with the attractiveness of international exposure and funding. Initially, Carlo Rubbia’s success was considered damaging for the credibility of the Belgian project, as his views were not necessarily shared by the rest of the scientific community. There was also some hesitancy to integrate the small project into the European collaboration, as this could increase the technological requirements and thus the complexity, costs and timeframe of the project. On the other hand, expanding the range of applications and obtaining European support could help forward the Belgian project, others believed. From 1998 onwards, the Belgian project increasingly engaged in European projects, while also shifting priorities from (local) institutional to more international interests.

 

Becoming an Integrated Project in the European Research Area

A second noteworthy interaction with European science policies occurred in 2003. That year one of the cornerstones of the European Research Area-proposal, the so-called “Integrated Projects,” was implemented. Integrated Projects (IP) were defined as “projects of substantial size, designed to help build up the ‘critical mass’ in objective-driven research with clearly defined scientific and technological ambitions and aims.” The introduction of this policy instrument can be understood as an expression of discomfort among European policymakers with small-scale projects, often interpreted as fragmentation (Ulnicane, 2020). Indeed, the new policy did not allow similar initiatives to co-exist next to each other, but they had to be integrated in an overarching project. In 2003, the Belgian team was confronted with a situation in which “no European party [was] willing to work for MYRRHA,” as French, German and Italian collaborators preferred a collaboration that excluded the Belgian project.

The role as a European project for MYRRHA was reclaimed after a competing project experienced loss of support on a national level. Meanwhile, the MYRRHA project had to be considered an experimental ADS instrument to demonstrate the technological feasibility of the transmutation of nuclear waste. This way, it could take part in an Integrated Project with the total budget of about 43 million euro [EUROTRANS, Cordis]. While within SCK CEN this orientation was considered of secondary importance by some, it became the main focus throughout the process of European collaboration. The director of SCK CEN had to confess to the Belgian ministry that the project became increasingly complex now that it would be considered a technological demonstration: “this role for MYRRHA has an impact on the design, costs, and timing of the project, but is today unavoidable given the apparent impotence of all possible partners to decide on a big investment decision.”

Impression of the MYRRHA reactor building on the SCK CEN site. Courtesy of SCK CEN.

The diplomatic use of the European Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructure

While the framework programs described so far primarily targeted scientific research projects, the European Commission has also increasingly prioritized the phenomenon of what is called “Research Infrastructures.” [Hallonsten, 2020] Large-scale research infrastructure, including research reactors for nuclear applications, increasingly gained importance in European science policy. One example is the introduction of the European Strategic Forum for Research Infrastructure. Despite the absence of a formal budget, it is considered an important diplomatic tool [Bolliger & Griffiths, 2020]. Among the board of the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre it was believed that “to obtain European financial support, it is necessary to make it to the ESFRI list.”

The Belgian MYRRHA project received its first (small) governmental funding in 2010 and was accepted on the ESFRI list that same year. By then it had thus benefitted from several of the new policy instruments initiated by the European Commission. How effective this will ultimately turn out to be for a Big Science project in a small European nation is not yet to tell. Despite a lack of international commitments at that time, the Belgian government invested 550 million euro in the project in 2018. By 2021, however, projects that had entered the ESFRI list in 2010 reached their 10 years of preparation time, and were reviewed in order to obtain a so-called Landmark status to stay on the list. MYRRHA was the only reviewed project that was rejected this status [ESFRI, 2021]. It appears that despite the introduction of formalized science policies, Big Science is still strongly dependent on national funding opportunities.

 

Hein Brookhuis is a PhD Candidate at the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre (SCK CEN) and KU Leuven, Belgium.

 

References

Bolliger, Isabel & Alexandra Griffiths (2020) “The introduction of ESFRI and the rise of national Research Infrastructure roadmaps in Europe,” in Big Science and Research Infrastructures in Europe, edited by Katharina Cramer & Olof Hallonsten, 101 – 127. Edward Elgar Publishing https://doi.org/10.4337/9781839100017.00011

Brookhuis, Hein (2023) Making Belgian Big Science: A History of the MYRRHA Research Reactor (1994—2010), Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 53 (1); 35-70 https://doi.org/10.1525/hsns.2023.53.1.35

ESFRI (2021) Roadmap 2021 – Strategy Report on Research Infrastructures. Link: roadmap2021.esfri.eu

European Technical Working Group on ADS (2001) A European Roadmap for Developing Accelerator Driven Systems (ADS) for Nuclear Waste Incineration, ENEA. Link: https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/32/044/32044945.pdf

Hallonsten, Olof (2020) Research Infrastructures in Europe: The Hype and the Field, European Review 28 (4) 617-635 https://doi.org/10.1017/S1062798720000095

Ulnicane, Inga (2020) “Ever-changing Big Science and Research Infrastructures: Evolving European Union Policy,” in Big Science and Research Infrastructures in Europe, edited by Katharina Cramer & Olof Hallonsten, 76 – 100. Edward Elgar Publishing https://doi.org/10.4337/9781839100017.00010

 

The post How do small countries establish Big Science in the age of the European Research Area? The case of the Belgian MYRRHA project appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

By Dr Laura Chappell, University of Surrey

This blog post is a longer version based on a podcast published on eu!radio in March.

 

Within the 2022 Strategic Compass, published a year ago, the EU sets out the ambition to create a force of 5000 troops, including pre-identified strategic enablers, built on “substantially modified Battlegroups”. The Rapid Deployment Capacity (RDC), which was originally called an initial entry force, was proposed by 14 member states and was subsequently discussed at the Foreign Affairs Council on Defence Issues on 6 May 2021. It gained additional traction after the EU member states had to rely on the US to facilitate the evacuation of their citizens from Afghanistan. Finally, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has focused minds in Brussels on EU member state military capabilities.

 

However, the question is whether the Rapid Deployment Capacity provides the EU with enhanced rapid reaction capabilities. The EU Battlegroups on which the RDC is based have never been deployed despite being fully operational since 2007. The fundamental issues with the Battlegroups come down to three key elements: funding, composition and political will. Regarding funding, costs lie where they fall, meaning participating member states have to pick up the tab for most of the operation costs. Second, the battlegroups are small in size, around 1500 personnel. This limits what the Battlegroups can do on the ground. Their structure was premised on Operation Artemis, however this type of operation has not materialised again, highlighting the issue with a bottom up as opposed to a top down approach to strategy. Whilst the Battlegroups were discussed in what became EUFOR Congo and EUFOR Chad/RCA, they were too small for the operation which was eventually sent.

 

Finally, there has been a lack of political will to deploy the Battlegroups. Member states have diverse views on when force should be deployed, including being able to sustain different levels of risk, where force should be deployed, particularly as the primary location for Battlegroup deployments is largely focused on the African continent, which is not in every state’s interests, and with whom force is used which highlights Atlanticist and Europeanist visions for European security. Whilst the latter has not played a core role, it has greater significance today. The lack of political willingness is particularly evident in the Battlegroup rotation. Two Battlegroups were on standby and rotated every six months, although this has just recently increased to a year in line with the RDC requirements. However there are no Battlegroups scheduled for the second half of 2023 for example.

 

However, there are advantages to the Battlegroups as they can facilitate military cooperation and training, the reorganisation of national armed forces, and interoperability. This joins the idea of enhancing the EU’s rapid reaction capability as the underpinning rationale and provides a reason regarding why the Battlegroups continue to exist despite not being used.

 

Turning to the RDC, an extension of common costs, which are funded based on member states GDP, was explicitly stated within the strategic compass, however no agreement has been reached beyond agreeing to include the first live exercise for the RDC this year. Structurally the RDC is larger, however it is still based on two Battlegroups plus strategic enablers, which really questions whether it represents an increase in capability. Importantly however it is modular so the RDC can be tailored to the crisis. Finally, the duration has increased to a year. To ensure that the RDC is relevant, two operational scenarios based on rescue and evacuation with an African focus, and the initial stabilisation phase have been created with further scenarios in the pipeline. This will ensure that the RDC is tailored to the types of tasks that the EU envisages conducting. Finally, for the first time, the EU will host live exercises the first of which will take place in Spain this year and will be run by the Military Planning and Conduct Capability which will when fully operational, be able to act as an OHQ for the RDC. This provides an additional value added for member states.

 

Nonetheless, will this resolve the key sticking point, that of political will? Fundamentally, countries still have different visions for European security. Ukraine is particularly important as some countries’ focus is on deterring Russia rather than contributing to the RDC. NATO has also announced a new force model of 300,000 troops and EU member states only have a single set of forces. This really begs the question as to who is willing to contribute to the RDC, whether in terms of strategic enablers, or in filling up the Battlegroup rota. Fundamentally even if common costs are expanded and a suitable scenario comes up, it will still depend on whose Battlegroups are on standby. Whilst the core idea is to make the RDC more attractive to member states as a rapid reaction tool such that they are less likely to say no to deploying it, fundamental issues remain to be resolved.

The post From the EU Battlegroup Concept to the Rapid Deployment Capacity: A Gear Change in the EU’s Rapid Deployment Capabilities? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

A few months ago, the government updated its retained EU law (REUL) dashboard, its go-to place for monitoring progress in moving away from this foreign imposition on the UK.

As I noted at the time, this wasn’t entirely satisfactory, either in terms of the new discoveries of EU law or the progress towards the nomination deadline of the REUL Bill, wherein anything not explicitly dealt with otherwise by the end of 2023 would be revoked/sunset/sunsat/sunsetted.

It’s been clear from the off that the Bill is a nonsense, given that the government doesn’t know what is on the books and that departments evidently don’t have the capacity to check the impact of revocation.

That the government has finally conceded this point with the decision last week to move an amendment to make revocation an exception rather than a rule is welcome, even if it doesn’t address the other deficiencies of the Bill.

The intention now is that the government will seek to revoke a specified list of REUL by the deadline, with everything else being left for later/kept on the books (depending on how you want to see it).

That list finally came out this week.

Having produced a tracker of progress on REUL since last summer, it felt incumbent that I check out what was on this list and its impact on revocation.

On a first analysis, problems rather leapt out:

Some more analysis of the REUL schedule

tl;dr it's a bit of a mess

1/ https://t.co/bMWlxian3x pic.twitter.com/Hoj9h56d45

— Simon Usherwood (@Usherwood) May 16, 2023

The problems are two-fold.

First up, the schedule includes a lot of items that weren’t previously listed on the dashboard: 171 of the 587 items, or 29% have no obvious match to what was available with last week’s update of the dashboard.

While many of these new items were relatively mundane and inconsequential, the fact that after two major revisions to the list there were still so many items that hadn’t been noted before just underlines the fundamental problem behind the REUL Bill: it’s hard to have confidence in the automatic revocation/sunsetting process when you keep on discovering new items that this affects.

This new discovery falls across a lot of departments in Whitehall, especially in DEFRA, DfT and DESNZ. The outlier is Treasury, mainly because their REUL is parked in a separate process under a new financial services bill.

However, for everyone the impression is that there’s ever more REUL than before (and these graphs are without the new items from the schedule):

record

Which leads to the second issue: record-keeping.

In the course of checking through the schedule it became apparent that there is neither a consistent identification protocol for REUL items nor a check on duplication.

to take two examples from the Excel spreadsheet behind the dashboard, Council Decision 2010/763/EU and Regulation 906/2009 both appear twice. Even if that doesn’t carry through to the dashboard itself, it raises questions about how far there is full oversight of the process in central government bodies.

Overall, while the government’s move on the REUL Bill is welcome it still leaves a number of basic questions unanswered on how practical or viable the process intended might be. The shift to retention until otherwise decided makes even more sense that it already did, but this should not obscure the difficulties involved or the potential for unintended consequences.

The post Even more retained EU law (in every sense) appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

For our weekly ‘Ideas on Europe’ editorial by UACES, the University Association for European Studies, we have the pleasure to welcome Dr Theofanis Exadaktylos, from the University of Surrey, in the UK.

 

 

 

 

1. Why now?

The term in office of the New Democracy government under PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis that started in 2019 would be coming to an end this autumn. Elections were declared slightly earlier for 21 May.

 

2. What is at stake?

The elections are held under the electoral law voted by the previous Syriza-led government (2015-19). In the meantime, yet another one has been voted (see below), but as a safety clause, new electoral laws only apply from the second election following the ratification of the law, rather than the immediate one.

A long-standing promise by Syriza, the new electoral law is replacing the enhanced majority proportionality rules with a simple proportional allocation of seats in parliament. The idea behind this move was the increase of proportionality in parliament and giving grounds for coalition governments. Why was this important? According to public opinion polls, no party is set to muster enough votes to have overall majority in parliament. Therefore, the parliament emerging out of the 21 May election is likely to force big parties into coalition negotiations, with smaller parties gaining a pivotal role as regulators of government policy.

 

3. Who is likely to win?

According to the latest polls, the liberal-conservative New Democracy, under the leadership of current prime minister Mitsotakis, is likely to be the first party in vote share followed by Syriza. Their difference may not be electorally significant, but it will mean that New Democracy will receive a mandate to form a government first. They are likely to approach the once-strong Pasok, which has been reduced to a small political force following the Greek financial crisis back in 2010. The question will be whether New Democracy and Pasok together will be able to secure 151 out of 300 seats for a majority under the new electoral rules or will require a third small party to support them. Following the failure of all possible avenues to form a government, a fresh election will be declared. The twist in this instance, is that this will be conducted under the new electoral law voted by New Democracy in 2020 that reverses Syriza’s simple proportionality and grants the first party in votes bonus seats in parliament for every 0.5% of the vote share above 25% and up to 50 bonus seats.

 

4. Who will enter parliament?

Beyond the two big parties mentioned above, Pasok and the Greek Communist Party, two more parties may be likely to make an entrance but are polling close to the minimum threshold of 3%. These are DiEM25 led by former Syriza finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, and the right-wing Greek Solution – both represented in the current parliament. Their support base is quite volatile and minor events and scandals can drive voters away or towards the more mainstream parties. The considerable percentage of voters who are still undecided are likely to determine the fate of smaller parties depending on the polarisation of the electoral debate in the coming days. These voters may also determine the ability of the first party in votes to form a coalition government. Statements of support or refusal to cooperate with the first party (whichever this may be) have been made by almost all small parties. New Democracy, if declared the winner, is likely to push for a fresh election to benefit from the electoral law it voted on in 2020, rather than force a coalition with unlikely partners.

 

5. What are the issues at hand?

• The economy

 

The economy remains a priority issue considering the after-effect of the Greek financial crisis, the cost-of-living crisis and the energy prices pressures. The Greek economy, despite the post-pandemic booming effects from tourism and other investments, remains on thin ice and requires any government to maintain a path of fiscal discipline and push forward unfinished reforms in public administration and public spending. Suggestions by the DiEM25 leader that they would not be afraid to abandon the euro, close the banks and introduce a new currency, created frictions in the left-wing arena of the Greek party system, cutting out a potential Syriza ally from a future government.

 

• Immigration

 

Still affected by migration flows from the east, Greece has been at the spotlight for pushback processes and for failing to protect human rights of undocumented immigrants who cross the Aegean Sea in search for asylum. Alongside a general fatigue about the inability of the Greek state to accommodate and process immigrants and asylum seekers, migration issues have heightened xenophobic and racist sentiments, polarising the political debate to the benefit of the right-wing side of the political spectrum.

 

• Foreign policy

 

Greek foreign policy is mainly affected by two actors: Russia and Turkey. The war in Ukraine has damaged the previously good relations with Russia both in terms of investment and tourist flows. Greece rightly decided to side with Ukraine following the common declarations by the EU. Some Syriza voices still view Russia favourably and that has been criticised in public debates. Second, the outcome of the concurrent election in Turkey will either see the continuation of an aggressive warmongering narrative if Erdogan wins, or the emergence of unknown parameters in Greek-Turkish relations if any other candidate wins. Both scenarios are damaging as Greek foreign policy actors will need to maintain a high level of alert in the rhetoric coming from Turkey.

 

• The environment

 

Climate change has moved up in the public agenda much like anywhere in the world. For Greece, climate change means extreme heat in the summer with highly likelihood of wildfires erupting and water shortages, especially on tourism-popular islands. The previous election outcome was judged on the failure of the Syriza government to prevent the death of several citizens from a wildfire near Athens due to poor crisis management and services coordination. The impact of wildfires is frequently felt in the wintertime when extreme weather conditions cause severe flooding and potential casualties.

 

• Corruption and public failures

 

A few weeks before the election was due to be announced, a tragic rail accident took place in the valley of Tempi in Central Greece in March. A freight train travelling south collided with a passenger train travelling north at full speed resulting in over 50 people dying and many more seriously injured. Most casualties were people under 25 years of age as the passenger train carried university students back to Thessaloniki following a long weekend holiday. The train accident exposed not only the insufficient infrastructure of the rail network in Greece, but most importantly issues of corruption and public failure both by Syriza and New Democracy to modernise the signalling system and to take advantage of EU funds and investment, the persistent favouritism when hiring staff in the public sector and the absence of solid health and safety standards in public transport. The unjustified death of young students has negatively affected the dominance of New Democracy in public opinion polls pushing the difference with Syriza to shrink and favouring a diffusion of preferences towards smaller parties.

 

6. Who to look out for?

Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis is fighting to secure a second term in office and so far, he has managed to remain untouched by political fires, still featuring as more popular and more fitting as prime minister in the eyes of the public.

Syriza leader, Alexis Tsipras is trying to restore his party’s electoral base following a series of failures during his term in office and to manage his own party officials, who have been engaging in polarising strategies in public.

Pasok leader, Nikos Androulakis is trying to re-establish the party as a deciding force in Greek politics and a threat to single-party governments – if this election round fails to include Pasok as a coalition partner, its percentages are likely to shrink further as voters will align with the two bigger parties.

Former Golden Dawn deputy leader, Ilias Kasidiaris, has led an offensive from prison where he is serving a sentence for forming a criminal organisation and as an accomplish to homicides led by Golden Dawn members. The Supreme Court forbid him from leading his new party Greeks – essentially a recast version of Golden Dawn – in this election and banned the party from running for office. It will be interesting to see where these supporters will find a new home, especially in a scenario that suggests a repeat election.

 

7. Why should Europe care?

Instability in Greece has the potential of affecting the EU as a whole considering two factors: one from an economic point of view, the previous experience with the Eurozone crisis which almost led Greece to bankruptcy is one the EU wants to avoid repeating, so they would like to see some continuity in economic policy and financial discipline; second from a foreign policy point of view, Greece is a key player in maintaining the geopolitical balance in the south-eastern Mediterranean basin and a buffer in the united front against Russia, so preserving a strong ally in the region is key for EU foreign policy.

The post Electoral Law Games in Search for a Majority Government: The Greek Election of 21 May in Seven Questions appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

For our weekly ‘Ideas on Europe’ editorial by UACES, the University Association for European Studies, we have the pleasure to welcome once more Dr Simona Guerra, from the University of Surrey, in the UK.

 

Listen to the podcast on euradio!

 

Very happy to have you back with another untold story of ‘the early women of European integration’. After Käte Strobel last November, and Nilde Lotti in March, who will be in your portrait today?

For my third profile, I have chosen Marguerite De Riemaecker-Legot, born on 9 March 1913 in Oudenaarde, East Flanders, in Belgium.

Between 1931 and 1936 she attends the Law School at the University of Ghent. That is still unusual at the time, although the lawyer profession had opened to women in 1922. It is telling that the diploma certificate was standardised only for men, which meant that in her certificate ‘she’ needed to be handwritten over ‘he’. It was also challenging to find a patron to get started in the profession, but she was helped by her professor and senator Maurice Orban. While working in Brussels for Pierre Nothomb, a Belgian writer and politician, she came into contact with Maria Baers, a senator and advocate for women’s rights. Marguerite left her work to become cabinet secretary to Mrs Baers. In 1938 she got married and had two sons, Xavier and Christian, who has left a book and a few pictures of her extraordinary life.

 

When did she stand for election herself?

Marguerite De Riemaecker-Legot was elected as a Member of the Belgian Parliament in 1946, although it was only in June 1949 that all women could participate in parliamentary elections for the first time at the national level.

In her national parliamentary experience, she started to work on those issues she had herself experienced, as on a bill on ‘granting equal rights to men and women with regard to the exercise of public functions’. In 1947 she submitted a bill on the ‘authorization of women to exercise the office of lawyer at the Court of Cassation’ and one on the ‘admission of women to the magistracy’.

She was the first woman in the Belgian Parliament, the first Belgian woman in the European Parliament in 1958, and the first woman Minister in Belgium in 1965. She submitted fourteen bills, was appointed rapporteur on more than forty bills, and, in Europe, she was appointed as rapporteur for two legislations that followed her interest devoted to women, families, and workers.

 

What did she do exactly for workers’ rights?

In 1956, a record number of 46,000 Italians moved to Belgium, most of them for the coal mines. Until the end of the 20th century, they represented the biggest immigrant group.

On 12 January 1960, Marguerite de Riemaecker took the floor to highlight the difference between ‘residence’ and ‘domicile’, pointing out that Italians in Belgium had definitely changed their residence, but did not benefit from a change of ‘domicile’ and the civic and political rights that went with it. In her words, as rapporteur of the (European) Social Funds, these had to be delivered for the well-being of mobile workers and their opportunity to travel. The institution of Social Funds was perceived among the members of the Social Affairs Committee as a small step, but they were moved by the social and political context of the time. After consulting with the Committee on Economic Affairs, the solutions offered to show the interest and influence of the young Parliament on social policy, something that Mechthild Roos has already spoken about in your programme.

 

That’s right, she called it the “self-empowerment” of the young Parliament.

And Marguerite De Riemaecker-Legot represented exactly this capacity of the Parliament of putting pressure on the other European institutions, and its smart ability of using cooperation and consultation across different members and committees for a role that the Treaties did not even consider.

 

Just like in your previous cases, your research shows that women were active political actors in the early stages of the European integration process.

And yet they have been undocumented, given little or no importance. Recognizing these voices and experiences is crucial, not only for the past but also for the future. The persistent lack of women in some specific positions in the EU has critical policy consequences, as should have the experiences of women during the economic crisis, the pandemic, and the Conference on the Future of Europe.

Recognizing and acknowledging this deficit in European studies can help us teach and learn the history of European integration without transmitting the same old bias. Political socialization is likely to affect descriptive representation in the long term, and familiarizing with the names and work of these women can be a strong symbolic factor. Again: it is time to write about them in the textbooks and to know about them as makers and shapers of the European integration process.

 

I could not agree more. Thank you so much, for sharing the findings of your historical research with us. I recall you are Senior Lecturer at the University of Surrey, in England.

 

This contribution is based on the CAROLINE research project (‘Creating A netwoRk On femaLe pIoNEers’ of European integration). A first research paper was presented in April 2023, at a conference on women in the narrative on European integration organized by Professors François Klein and Elena Danescu at the University of Luxembourg, and has been accepted for publication in the journal Politique Européenne.

 

Interview by Laurence Aubron.

 

 

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As someone who’s just passed the 8th anniversary of his Brexit-related podcast (do sign up, it’s gripping), I feel I’m well-placed to consider the issue in the longer run of UK-EU relations.

I also feel broadly justified in summing up UK policy on the matter throughout the post-war period as “errrm”.

There’ a lot of reacting, not much proacting [?] and plenty of this:

As such, for a long time now my main question about Brexit has been: “what next?”

It was evident even before the 2016 referendum that it was not really going to be an engaged and thoughtful debate about the UK’s role in the world or the purpose of any particular form of relationship with the EU. It was a bun fight.

The lack of planning by either the government or the Leave campaigners for the eventuality of a Leave win meant 2016-17 was another bun fight over owning that result to advance agendas, most of which had nothing to do with UK-EU relations per se.

The horrors of 2017-19 and the fighting of many battles in Parliament stemmed from the profound lack of consensus (or even majority) in all this.

The runctions over the Northern Ireland Protocol that ran from 2020 have only continued to obscure the wider issue of what to do in the broader sense.

So I’m always on the look-out for people with ideas.

The most satisfying pieces have been those that focus on process. Anton Spisak’s work is a good example of this, as the recent Lords European Affairs Committee report (and not because I get quoted). Such pieces are at least as important as overviews of policy areas, which might set out opportunities, but not logics.

With all this in mind, I’ve been discovering something a bit different again: what we’ll call (because others call it that) the O’Malley Pivot.

For those who know about it, this might be point where you tut and note that the first part of this plan is shutting up about it. To which I’d make the rejoinder that a free Substack feed isn’t the place you put things you actually want to stay secret.

In essence, O’Malley argues that Labour should be left to be quiet about ‘Europe’ until they win the next general election, whereupon they form an independent commission to consider future relations and then sell the result as ‘actually getting Brexit done’, even as you end up much closer to a Norwegian model of relations. Sidestep the politicking, reach across the aisle, assume most people aren’t too bothered, especially if you can rebrand Freedom of Movement of people.

In its defence, it’s not the worst idea I’ve seen, by some distance. There’s no will to power, no heroic assumptions, no breaking of international law.

Certainly, if such a commission where to occur, I’d be happy to try and make a contribution to it.

But still, we come back to the questions of intent and legitimacy.

A commission of the great and the good [insert any punchline you like here] might be able to take a longer view, but any relations with the EU necessarily require a set of understandings about the UK itself and what it wants to achieve.

Maybe that’s about being a global force for good, or a major trading partner, but what if that leads you to seeking EU membership again? You might be able to revisit what Leaving looks like, but to revisit Leaving itself is another matter.

Even if you don’t arrive at a rejoining position, the technocracy of a commission and its attendant obfuscations about terminology are still problematic. Remember that one of the big drivers of euroscepticism across Europe is the sense of a lack of connection with the EU as a system. The assumptions of the permissive consensus don’t stand up any more, as was seen so often during the referendum.

None of which is to say that there isn’t a need to avoid falling into a cul-de-sac of European policy, where no-one is willing to expend the political capital needed to arrive at a policy that is anything other than least-offensive.

So process does matter. It needs all relevant parties to try to treat with each other openly and constructively, trying to take people along with them rather than dropping a little gift on their laps. And it means not prejudging the outcome, but accepting that a fair process is more likely to produce a fair result.

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On May 14th, Turkey will hold a critical vote that will determine the fate of its democracy. The incumbent president and leader of the Justice Development Party (AKP), Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is running against the opposition candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who leads the Republican People’s Party (CHP). The campaign is intense, with Erdogan, who has been in power for 20 years, facing stiff competition from Kilicdaroglu and the Nation Alliance, a coalition of six opposition parties: the True Party (CHP), Good Party (IP), Felicity Party (SP), Democrat Party (DP), Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA), and Future Party (GP). Currently, it appears that Kemal Kilicdaroglu is winning while Erdogan is hardly making new gains.

While opinion polls do support my observation (POLITICO’s Poll of Polls puts the contest on a knife edge, meaning there will probably be a second round in the presidential vote on May 28), I base my assessment primarily on the discourse presented by the People’s Alliance, comprising the AKP, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), and other parties like the Great Unity Party (BBP) and the New Welfare Party (YRP). The alliance is facing challenges in offering policies and instead appears to be focusing on attacking the Nation Alliance’s candidate, Kilicdaroglu, in a negative, threatening, and degrading way. Whereas, Kilicdaroglu and his team offers a solid united front with a full-blown democratic agenda. Their platform includes a commitment to bringing wrongdoers to justice, addressing the country’s economic challenges, and developing Turkey’s space industry to support entrepreneurs and scientists. The Kurdish votes could potentially play a significant role in this election, as they have the potential to be a kingmaker. However, the situation for Kurdish politicians remains the same, with many being excluded from mainstream politics and some facing arrest.

The People’s Alliance

The AKP’s strategy of delegitimizing their opponent and pre-emptively dismissing the possibility of a fair election is evident in the rhetoric used by Erdogan and his team at their rallies. Instead of promoting their own platform and highlighting their achievements, they focus on attacking their opponent, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP).

One striking example of this is the statement made by Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu in late April, in which he compared the upcoming general election to the failed coup attempt of July 15, 2016. This comparison is particularly significant given the trauma and division that the coup attempt caused in Turkey, and the widespread support that Erdogan and the AKP received in the aftermath. Soylu’s suggestion that the election itself could be another attempt at a coup undermines the very foundation of democracy and suggests that any outcome other than an AKP victory would be illegitimate.

Moreover, by framing the election in terms of a struggle against Western powers, Soylu and the AKP are attempting to rally nationalist sentiment and cast themselves as defenders of Turkish sovereignty. This is a familiar tactic for the AKP, which has consistently sought to portray itself as standing up to foreign interference and protecting Turkey’s interests against external threats. However, this rhetoric also serves to distract from domestic issues and the AKP’s own record in government.

In another example of the AKP’s election strategy, Erdogan used a speech in May to delegitimize Kilicdaroglu’s candidacy by associating him with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group that is recognized as a foreign terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. Specifically, Erdogan claimed that Kilicdaroglu was supported by the Qandil, a mountainous area in the Kurdistan Region near the Iraq-Iran border that served as the PKK’s main headquarters in the 1990s and is currently used as a base camp for Kurdish peshmerga forces.

By linking Kilicdaroglu to the PKK, Erdogan sought to tap into nationalist sentiment and portray his opponent as a threat to Turkey’s security and unity. Additionally, by asserting that the nation would not hand over control of the country to someone who received support from the Qandil, Erdogan effectively suggested that any victory by Kilicdaroglu would be illegitimate.

This strategy of delegitimizing opponents by linking them to terrorism is a familiar tactic for the AKP, which has consistently sought to portray itself as the sole defender of Turkey’s interests and the only party capable of ensuring stability and security. However, by using such divisive and inflammatory rhetoric, the AKP risks further polarizing Turkish society and undermining the democratic process.

The Nation Alliance

The opposition parties in Turkey have formed a strong and dynamic alliance, unlike the Hungarian alliance that was created against Viktor Orban in 2021, ahead of the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections.

Initially, the alliance faced a hurdle when Meral Aksener, the leader of the Good Party, opposed Kilicdaroglu’s candidacy for leadership. However, this disagreement was quickly resolved when it was agreed to introduce two vice-presidential positions to support Kilicdaroglu. This move effectively allowed Aksener to maintain her position as a prominent opposition figure while still supporting the alliance’s leader.

To further bolster their chances of success, the alliance strategically selected two of the CHP’s metropolitan mayors, Ekrem Imamoglu from Istanbul and Mansur Yavas from Ankara, as candidates to support Kilicdaroglu. Both mayors have garnered widespread support and recognition for their effective governance and efforts to promote transparency and accountability in their respective cities.

Since their selection as Kilicdaroglu’s running mates, Imamoglu and Yavas have worked closely with him and other alliance members to create a cohesive and united front against the ruling AKP party. They have also been active in their efforts to engage with voters and spread their message of hope and change across the country.

Overall, the opposition alliance in Turkey represents a significant challenge to the long-standing dominance of the AKP, and the alliance’s ability to overcome its initial disagreements and present a united front bodes well for its chances of success in the upcoming elections.

The Kurds

The Kurds have expressed their support for Kemal Kilicdaroglu for the Presidential elections for three main reasons. Firstly, they hope to get rid of President Erdogan and his ruling clique. Secondly, due to the arrests, detentions and political pressure they have faced, the Kurds could not field their own candidate. And finally, Kilicdaroglu has made some promises that have resonated with the Kurdish community.

However, the Kurds are facing challenges in terms of voters. Their former alliance member, the Turkish Workers Party (TIP), has emerged as a strong contender in the elections. Many people are finding TIP less contentious and with fresh ideas. This could make it difficult for the Kurds to gain significant representation in the elections.

In conclusion, the political pressure and arrests faced by the Kurds have hindered their efforts to achieve greater representation and autonomy, and unfortunately, they may end up being the main losers of this election. They cannot be sure that Kilicdaroglu would keep his promises after the election, since no official proposal was made to the Kurdish representatives.

As the elections are only a week away, the upcoming six days will be crucial for all political parties involved in the electoral campaign. It is expected that the tone of the campaign will become more intense and aggressive among the parties, as they make their final push to secure votes. Meanwhile, the electorate may be cautious and apprehensive about what could happen if the National Alliance wins and Erdogan follows in the footsteps of Donald Trump’s actions in the 2020 US presidential election. The potential consequences of such a scenario have left many voters feeling uneasy and uncertain about the future. If Erdogan were to refuse to concede or make claims of election fraud, it could create a tense and divisive political climate in Turkey. This uncertainty has created an added layer of stress for voters. The upcoming days will be a test of the strength and resilience of Turkey’s democracy, and the eyes of the world will be watching closely.

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On 20th and 21st April 2023, EUHealthGov headed to Brussels for a 2-day workshop discussing research and teaching connected with EU health policy and law. The overarching theme of “Maastricht at 30” provided a useful starting-point to consider both aspects, with the emergence of EU health law and policy as a discipline in its own right typically being traced across this period.

The workshop brought together a range of academics from across Europe, at different career stages, and across law, political science, social policy and public health. This latter diversity, in itself, highlighted important considerations for how and what we research and teach, which forms the basis for future discussions and collaborations.

The research workshop started with Óscar Fernández presenting “The European Union’s global health actorness: Outlining a post-COVID-19 research agenda”. This focus on the EU’s response to the pandemic and its position in global health was followed by Giulia Gallinella discussing early ideas on “The EU’s Role in the WHO during the COVID-19 pandemic: multilateral power politics?”. João Paulo Magalhães considered “Main non-communicable diseases as cross-border health threats: can a European Health Union live up to the treaty potential?”. This was followed by the EUHealthGov coordinators presenting current work forthcoming in a special issue of the Journal of Health Policy, Politics and Law on Political Determinants of Health and the EU. Charlotte Godziewski presented a paper on HERA’s role in increasing integration in health and the EU’s securitisation response to COVID-19. Mary Guy  presented work on solidarity in connection with EU competition policy, whilst Eleanor Brooks outlined a model for understanding regulatory chill, Better Regulation and EU health policy. 

The teaching workshop was opened by Tamara Hervey, setting the scene for a wide-ranging discussion of how, where, and to whom EU health may be taught, as well as the benefits of student involvement in curriculum design. Inesa Fausch drew on her experience of adopting transdisciplinary approaches in knowledge exchange. Rok Hržič provided insights from the long-established programmes at Maastricht University and experiences of working with problem-based learning in a global classroom. Volkan Yilmaz shared how he incorporated EU health themes into wider public policy and health policy modules, whilst Benjamin Ewert discussed the challenges of teaching EU health themes to students from both within and beyond the EU in an intensive course format. João Paulo Magalhães described his experience as a learner within the context of a public health programme, and Germán Andrés Alarcón Garavito presented the experience of the innovative collaborative Emerging Voices for Global Health Program. As a group, the absence of a comprehensive textbook on EU health governance was a key point of discussion. 

Following on from the teaching workshop, EUHealthGov is developing a shared teaching resource which will be posted on our website in due course. For updates on this, and future events of the network, follow us on Twitter, check out the website and/or join our mailing list.

We are very grateful to UACES for funding the network and enabling this in-person workshop, as well as to Mundo-B for providing us with a welcoming space, and to Les Petits Oignons for an excellent dinner! 

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