European Union

On Thursday, the European Parliament adopted three resolutions on the human rights situations in Guatemala, Azerbaijan and Bangladesh.
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on Human Rights

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

On Thursday, the European Parliament adopted three resolutions on the human rights situations in Guatemala, Azerbaijan and Bangladesh.
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on Human Rights

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

On Thursday, the European Parliament adopted three resolutions on the human rights situations in Guatemala, Azerbaijan and Bangladesh.
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on Human Rights

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

Parliament called on Thursday for EU measures to tackle prostitution and policies that eliminate poverty.
Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

Parliament called on Thursday for EU measures to tackle prostitution and policies that eliminate poverty.
Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

Parliament today gave the green light to start negotiations with Council to reform the EU’s electricity market.
Committee on Industry, Research and Energy

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

Parliament today gave the green light to start negotiations with Council to reform the EU’s electricity market.
Committee on Industry, Research and Energy

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

The nominees for this year’s Prize will be presented by the political groups in a joint meeting of the Committees on Foreign Affairs (AFET) and on Development (DEVE) and the Subcommittee on Human Rights (DROI) in Brussels on 20 September, 14:30-15:30. Each year, the Parliament awards the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to honour exceptional individuals and organisations defending human rights and fundamental freedoms. In 2022, the Prize was awarded to the Brave People of Ukraine.
The AFET and DEVE Committees will vote on a shortlist of three finalists on 12 October and the Conference of Presidents will take a decision on the final laureate on 19 October.
Sakharov Prize - Presentation of the nominees - Webstreaming link
Sakharov Prize website
Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

AMENDMENTS 1 - 93 - Draft report Implementation report on the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Committee on International Trade
Andreas Schieder, Seán Kelly

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

AMENDMENTS 1 - 185 - Draft report The situation of children deprived of liberty in the world
Committee on Foreign Affairs
María Soraya Rodríguez Ramos

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

NADA and Others
Principles of Community law
Anti-doping and data protection: Advocate General Ćapeta considers that a national anti-doping authority which publishes personal data of a doped professional athlete on the internet is not in breach of the GDPR

AMENDMENTS 250 - 535 - Draft report Establishing the Ukraine Facility
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Committee on Budgets
Michael Gahler, Eider Gardiazabal Rubial

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

Thursday, 14 September

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

Parliament has revised its internal rules in response to allegations of corruption, based on the President’s 14-point reform plan.
Committee on Constitutional Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

In their annual report, MEPs urge the EU and Türkiye to break the current deadlock and find “a parallel and realistic framework” for EU-Türkiye relations.
Committee on Foreign Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

DRAFT REPORT on a European Parliament recommendation to the Council and the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy concerning EU-China relations
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Hilde Vautmans

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

DRAFT OPINION on the transparency and accountability of non-governmental organisations funded from the EU budget
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Deirdre Clune

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

A delegation of AFET Members will travel to the UK from 18 to 19 September 2023. This will be the first time that the committee travels to the UK since 31 January 2020 when the United Kingdom officially left the EU. The AFET delegation will discuss possibilities for strengthened partnership and deepening dialogue on issues of importance in relevant areas of bilateral cooperation, including in foreign and security affairs.
This visit will also be an opportunity to exchange views on issues of significance to Northern Ireland, particularly in the context of the Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol and the Windsor Framework.
Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

MEPs backed the European Defence Industry Reinforcement through common Procurement Act (EDIRPA) on Tuesday.
Subcommittee on Security and Defence

Source : © European Union, 2023 - EP

This blog post is a follow-up to the presentation “The Aspiration Towards Centrality in the European Research Area: The European Interest in Bringing the Southern Neighbourhood Into the Picture,” given on 11 September 2023, during the virtual panel 104 “The EU as an External Actor I” of the UACES 2023 Conference.

The presentation highlighted some of the main content lines of the forthcoming publication, which examines how research cooperation serves the goals of the European Southern Neighbourhood Policy and the European Research Area. This topic is addressed through the lens of the motivations and pursuits of Europe-based project managers. Following insight obtained from interviews with Europe-based managers funded by EU Framework Programmes, the presentation outlined that many Europe-based project coordinators welcomed Moroccan and Tunisian institutions to the consortium because this would enhance their position of centrality and point of expertise intersections in the European Research Area. Narrative analysis guides multifaceted conclusions. Agency strategies pursued through a scientific focus on the projects serve the overall goals of the European Research Area and the Southern Neighbourhood Policy. European project coordinators function as enablers of the EU’s structural diplomacy. The science diplomacy considerations are secondary and not unified across the examined projects.

Looking beyond this specific presentation, the multiple forms of EU actorness, actorship, and actorhood deserve more attention to acquire a more complete picture of the multiple ways in which the EU engages with the rest of the world. There are many blind spots waiting to be discovered and properly addressed in future research. The EU’s external action toolbox remains to be fully evaluated and its full resonance properly explained. A more in-depth study of several thus far neglected areas is instrumental to making EU engagement more purposeful and targeted and constructing complementarities with higher-value deliverables. This is not meant as a criticism of the existing policy planning, programming, and implementation practices. It is guided by an aspiration to never stop seeking room for improvement and to set even higher sights on research excellence.

Additionally, these follow-up remarks prove the topicality of the panel title “The EU as an External Actor”. This title will remain pertinent for the foreseeable future. The EU open access data repositories offer plenty of options to discover new patterns and less studied constellations of EU-supported encounters across the world that deserve to be more thoroughly examined and discussed during the forthcoming UACES conferences. The lively debate throughout the online session was an opportunity to introduce attendants to other recent scholarly publications addressing contemporary engagement of the EU with various domain-specific diplomacies, such as knowledge diplomacy and connectivity matters.

To conclude, the panel “The EU as an External Actor I” attests that several highly engaged scholars are working towards starting to fill this gap with promising theoretical, conceptual, and empirical choices. The study of perceptions of the EU is on the rise. The way the EU is perceived is of interest to early-career and senior researchers who study diverse regional and geopolitical heavyweight constellations.

 

Blog post author: Zane Šime

The post Aspiration Towards Centrality in the EU External Action Context appeared first on Ideas on Europe.