European Union

The Permanent Representatives Committee endorsed an agreement reached with the European Parliament on the Omnibus regulation.

On 19 April 2018, High Representative issued a declaration on behalf of the European Union on the recent developments and situation in Venezuela.

President Donald Tusk presented to the European Parliament plenary session in Strasbourg the outcome of the European Council meetings on 22 and 23 March 2018

On 17 April, the Eurogroup issued a statement welcoming Austria's submission of an updated draft budgetary plan (DBP) for 2018.

G7 Leaders adopted a joint statement to condemn the use of chemical weapons in the April 7 attack in Eastern Ghouta, Syria and to support the action of the United States, the United Kingdom and France on April 13 to degrade the Assad regime’s ability to use them.

Main agenda items, approximate timing, public sessions and press opportunities.

On 16 April 2018, the Foreign Affairs Council adopted Council conclusions on Syria

The Council adopted conclusions on South Sudan.

On 16 April 2018, the Council adopted its position on the regulation modernising EU's trade defence instruments.

On 16 April 2018, the Council adopted conclusions on malicious cyber activities.

On 16 April 2018, the Council adopted conclusions on chemical disarmament and non-proliferation.

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The High-level conference "Clean Energy for all Europeans - The way ahead" takes place on 19 April 2018, in Sofia.

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Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

SEDE will hold an exchange of views on 'Global arms exports trends' with Caroline Cliff, COARM Chair, EEAS, María Villellas Ariño, Research fellow, School for a Culture of Peace, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Jordi Calvo Rufanges, Coordinator & Researcher, Centre Delàs for Peace Studies, Barcelona and Christophe Stiernon, Research fellow, GRIP. The discussion is expected to feed into the next EP resolution on the implementation of the Common Position on arms exports.
Further information
meeting documents
Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

Not long ago, the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) was seen as one of the major sources of tension between London and its partners. Since Brexit was decided however, the UK has hinted that it wishes to maintain a role within CSDP. Brexit does look easier to manage on defence - intergovernmental by nature - than on other issues. But with recent developments (EDF, PESCO), this may no longer be true. Could Brexit end up improving Euro-British cooperation in defence, or increase the divide?
Further information
meeting documents
Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

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The Sofia European Youth Conference takes place in Sofia from 17 to 19 April 2018. It forms a tangible recommendation to the European Commission with regard to the next European Youth Strategy.

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Two weeks away from all this Brexit stuff has been very pleasant, especially now the sun’s come out too.

Naturally, part of me worries that everyone else has had a fortnight off, which is A Bad Thing when running a fixed-timetable negotiation, but there you go.

To ease us all back into things let’s try revisiting the old chestnut of ‘control’, because it’s floating around again and because there continues to be a lack of clear understanding.

Let’s try starting from here: lots of people see the world as a place when being strong means you get to decide how things are. My fancy words don’t count for much if you can punch me in the face, or even just threaten to punch me in the face.

As a model, it’s got a lot going for it: it’s simple, it fits with much of what we see around us and it taps into social expectations/conventions of the role of violence.

This worldview is a key part of the ‘control’ narrative in the Brexit process: others force us to do things against our will, so we must regain our agency to do what we chose.

However, it’s also highly problematic. Most obviously, ‘being strong’ covers a multitude of not-necessarily mutually-compatible things: thus, the US can be the most powerful country in the world, but still be subject to other powers defeating them in combat or to hacks or trade disputes. Likewise, strength is rarely stable, especially in competitive systems: if everyone believes they need to be strong to succeed, then security dilemmas ensue and everyone tries to push everyone else down.

Again, you might feel this is just how things are: the rat race is just a fact of life so we’d better get on with it.

And yet, try looking around you for a moment. You’ll notice that face-punching is the exception, not the norm.* That’s because it is possible to conceive of things in a different, more cooperative way. Yes, we need structures for making decisions and setting out what is and isn’t allowed, but these can be agreed jointly, rather than imposed unilaterally. Control here comes for the ability to be part of that joint decision-making: we each have a voice and a say, at the price that none of us has a say that imposes – by itself – on others.

‘Ah, a wishy-washy liberal: I knew it!”, you cry. “Why can’t we all just get along?” you say, with a sarcastic tone. Maybe making a peace sign while you’re at all.

Well, much as it’d be nice to all get along, we don’t, so this alternative perspective actually invites us to put in place checks and balances, so that there is that collective tying of hands. We lose some control – over what we can impose unilaterally on others – but we gain some – over what we can impose collectively on others (and ourselves).

And this is a key part of the logic on which European integration is built: we take decisions together, to provide a more equitable process and outcome than would otherwise occur. To take the classic example, France wanted the Euro because it would institutionalise French interests in a monetary policy system that previously failed so to do: the Bundesbank set policy for Germany, but that had effects beyond German borders. Likewise, German policy-makers got to make those other states joining the single currency follow the rigours of the German model, which would expand the zone of stability they had created in the post-war period.

(before you say, yes, expectations can sometimes be wrong)

But how does this come back to Brexit?

Much of the debate in the UK on control has been driven by passion and emotion, rather than cold rationality: who wouldn’t want more control, after all?

What has been missing is a questioning of what the purpose of having control might be.

Here we might think about a business engaged in international trade. If it wants to sell to overseas markets, then it has to conform to the standards in place there, as well as any domestic standards. Free trade types will explain how this all incentivises progressive regulatory convergence, as transnational economic operators will press to reduce wasteful variation. As I explained in a podcast some years back, the reason the EU has rules on fruit shape is because that’s less complex than each member state have their own rules.

Of course, some domestic producers will also lobby for different standards, precisely to limit international trade and protect their market share. This is then a non-tariff barrier; much mentioned, little understood. Even if there aren’t quotas or tariffs on products moving across a border, you can still make life difficult for others by requiring them to meet some arbitrary product standard that your domestic producers just happen to be much better placed to provide.

Economic theory tells us that limiting trade might provide some localised benefits, but at a global cost. Think of the US’s trade dispute with China: yes, raising tariffs on selected goods will make them more expensive, and thus attractive to US consumers, but typically that means those consumers are also now paying more for those goods – whatever their source – which hits their bottom-line. Add in the trade-diversion effects – cheap Chinese products flowing into other markets – and the economics not stack up to anything like the political claims.

In the British case, leaving the EU is more subtle in its effects. For many products, a system of mutual recognition operates: if it’s safe to sell in one state, then it’s safe for other states, even if it doesn’t meet the entirety of those other states’ standards. That means many British producers may find that even without changes to UK standards, they suddenly don’t have the access they once did. That’s on top of anything that does change.

And that brings us to the nub of the matter: why should anything change?

This brings us back to that starting point. Leaving the EU means the power to make our own rules, but there’s a difference between actually making changes because we can and simply having the power to do if we choose. Witness the way in which the government wants to use the EU Withdrawal Bill to continue using all of the EU law in operation in the UK until it can decide whether or not to continue using it: the default is continuation, not termination.

Again, many economic operators and sectoral interests want to see continuity, not disruption. And that has led several politicians and commentators to question: is it worth it? If we’re just going to carry on following most of the same rules, but now without that voice and vote, what’s the point?

That’s somewhat to miss the point of the popular debate. The power to divergence, if we so choose, is as important any actual divergence.  It doesn’t matter to most people that the EU has mechanisms for accommodating degrees of disagreement about specific pieces of legislation, because it still feels like an imposition.

However, the liberal nightmare to come in this is that instead of a sense of having to follow EU rules because we have to, there will be situation where the UK chooses to follow EU rules because it wants to: we agree on a lot more than we disagree on. Cue the next round of the long-running debate about what Britain’s relationship with Europe should be.

* If not, my apologies and my commiserations.

The post Control in theory and practice appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Councils and mise en relations (CMR)
Freedom of establishment
Commercial agents are entitled to the indemnity and compensation provided for even if termination of the agency contract occurs during the trial period

Société des produits Nestlé v Mondelez UK Holdings & Services
Intellectual and industrial property
According to Advocate General Wathelet, EUIPO must re-examine whether the three-dimensional shape of the ‘Kit Kat 4 fingers’ product may be maintained as an EU trade mark

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The informal meeting of EU energy ministers takes place in Sofia on 19 April 2018. The motto of the meeting is “Sustainable Energy Union with a forward-looking climate change policy”.

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