European Union

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Plenary sessions : Iraqi Yazidi Islamic State survivors and activists Nadia Murad and Lamiya Aji Bashar receive Parliament’s 2016 Sakharov Prize during a ceremony in Strasbourg on Tuesday 13 December. After escaping sexual enslavement by Islamic State they both became spokespeople for women affected by the terrorist group's campaign of sexual violence and for the persecuted Yazidi minority. Find out more about their fight by watching our video and follow the ceremony live online.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Plenary sessions : Iraqi Yazidi Islamic State survivors and activists Nadia Murad and Lamiya Aji Bashar receive Parliament’s 2016 Sakharov Prize during a ceremony in Strasbourg on Tuesday 13 December. After escaping sexual enslavement by Islamic State they both became spokespeople for women affected by the terrorist group's campaign of sexual violence and for the persecuted Yazidi minority. Find out more about their fight by watching our video and follow the ceremony live online.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

New rules empowering shareholders to vote on directors’ pay, so as to tie it more closely to their performance, were informally agreed on Thursday. These rules also aim to foster shareholder commitment to companies’ long-run success.
Committee on Legal Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

New rules empowering shareholders to vote on directors’ pay, so as to tie it more closely to their performance, were informally agreed on Thursday. These rules also aim to foster shareholder commitment to companies’ long-run success.
Committee on Legal Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Soon after Britain voted to leave the European Union in June, Ursula von der Leyen, the German Defence Minister, said that Germany and France would lead talks with other EU member states to assess their appetite for closer defence cooperation.

Speaking at the launch of a new German defence white paper, she added that the UK had “paralysed” progress on these issues in the past, but now the rest of the EU should move forward.

Partly based on subsequent practical Franco-German proposals — such as sharing more of the costs of military logistics, medical assistance, and satellite reconnaissance — EU foreign and defence ministers agreed on a new EU security and defence plan in mid-November. EU heads of government should approve this plan at a summit in December.

But while they agree on much on paper, there are some major differences in strategic culture between these two EU heavyweights.

France, which is a nuclear-armed permanent member of the UN Security Council, has a special sense of responsibility for global security. The French Defence Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, proposed in June that the EU should send naval ships to ensure open waterways in the South China Sea. Germany, by contrast, is not yet in the habit of initiating international military operations anywhere, let alone in faraway East Asia.

Berlin is still more reluctant than Paris to deploy robust military force, partly because of cautious public opinion. A series of Koerber Stiftung opinion polls from January 2015 to October 2016 shows an increase in the willingness of Germans to take a more active role in international crisis management (from 34% to 41%), but a majority still prefer restraint.

Germany did beef up its support to the anti-Daesh coalition following the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris. It will lead one of four NATO battalions soon to be stationed in Eastern Europe. Berlin has also promised to increase its defence spending, and its new white paper says that it wants to boost its military contribution to international security.

But Germany will act only in coalition with others. France, by contrast, is not only prepared to bomb the self-styled ‘Islamic State’, but it will also act unilaterally if needed — consider the robust French military interventions in Mali and the Central African Republic in 2013 and 2014.

Berlin and Paris do not necessarily agree on the end goal of EU defence policy. The new German white paper says that EU members should aim to create a ‘European Security and Defence Union’. Even though von der Leyen has ruled out an EU army for the foreseeable future, some German politicians understand a European defence union to mean the creation of a common army in the long term.

It is not entirely clear who would command such an army — national governments or the Brussels-based EU institutions — nor what it would do in practice. But the idea has a lot of appeal in Germany for a host of historical and political reasons (54% of Germans support the idea according to a Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung poll taken in September). An EU army would be the ultimate expression of European political unity: in other words, EU defence is primarily an integration project for some in Berlin.

The French are more interested in a stronger intergovernmental EU defence policy than a symbolic integration project (albeit one that has its own political value for some in Paris as well as in Berlin). France perceives acting militarily through the EU as an important option for those times when the United States does not want to intervene in crises in and around Europe. This was the main strategic rationale behind the 1998 Franco-British Saint-Malo agreement, which resulted in an EU defence policy — but which has since consistently failed to realise its potential.

Before Brexit, and despite the ever-intensifying security challenges, EU governments had progressively lost interest in the Union’s defence policy. As a result, the French do not assume that their EU partners will always rush to support their military operations. In general, they haven’t robustly supported France in Africa in recent years, although Germany has enhanced its presence in Mali since the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks. But if acting through the EU could help ensure more military support from other EU members, France would find that preferable to acting alone.

In a speech on 6 October French President François Hollande said that there are European countries “that think the United States will always be there to protect them…if they don’t defend themselves they will no longer be defended”. Hollande added “Europeans must realise…they must also be a political power with a defence capability”.

In comparison, the German white paper says that “only together with the United States can Europe effectively defend itself against the threats of the 21st century and guarantee a credible form of deterrence… NATO remains the anchor and main framework of action for German security and defence policy”.

The election of Donald Trump as US president has a greater potential to transform Europe’s strategic landscape than Brexit if he scales back American military commitments in Europe. But unless and until that happens, France and Germany may struggle – despite their sensible joint proposals – to develop a substantially more active EU defence policy, because of their very different strategic cultures.

IMAGE CREDIT: CC Flickr – Herman Van Rompuy

The post Can France and Germany lead European defence? appeared first on Europe’s World.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

The surge in right-wing and anti-immigrant movements sweeping central and Eastern Europe doesn’t seem to have caught on in Romania, with the country following its tendency to align its interests with those of the EU’s older member states.

As a relatively new member state, Romania appears to have held on to its optimism for the European project. It falls behind the EU’s decisions even when it doesn’t agree with them. A case in point is the acceptance of the refugee reallocation quotas. It initially voted against the quotas, but decided – unlike Hungary and Slovakia – not to seek a judicial review. In the end, Romania promised to take in 6,205 refugees over the next two years.

And Romania is in a good position to do this. Not being a member of the Schengen area, and located away from the main migratory channels, refuges generally do not treat Romania as a transit or destination country. The most recent Eurostat data points to only 1,260 asylum applications in Romania in 2015, compared with 177,000 in Hungary and 12,000 in Poland. Romania can, therefore, afford to take its time in figuring out how to best manage its allotted refugee intake.

But one of the reasons behind these statistics is the relatively low standard of living compared to other member states, and the perception that Romanians are hostile to immigrants (and refugees in
particular). That perception is not entirely unfounded: immigrants make up only 1.1% of the country’s population, more than half of whom come from the culturally and linguistically akin Republic of Moldova. The local population isn’t used to foreigners, and the s ignificant cultural differences of refugees have given rise to fear and distrust.

But while recent national polls have revealed that three-quarters of Romania’s population is against the EU’s policy of reallocating refugees, most individuals surveyed agreed that refugees are a vulnerable population that must be helped. What’s more, while some political parties – the Popular Movement Party in particular – have taken an anti-refugee stance in an effort to broaden their electorate base, the largely welcoming National Liberal Party and Social Democratic Party are leading the polls ahead of December’s general election. These main political parties aren’t catering to the still feeble anti-immigration voices of some segments of the population and a handful of scholars.

It remains to be seen what strategy Romania’s next government will adopt, but as things stand today, we should expect continuous support for the EU’s measures and a relatively positive stance on refugee resettlement.

IMAGE CREDIT: outchill/Bigstock.com

The post Romania’s odd-one-out stance on refugees appeared first on Europe’s World.

ECB chief Mario Draghi announced on Thursday that the bond buying programme will be continued until at least the end of 2017. From April, however, it will be scaled down to 60 instead of 80 billion euros per month. Draghi is gradually turning off the cheap money supply and Italy in particular needs to take action, commentators warn. Others say the bond buying programme won't end any time soon because Europe's stability is at stake.

As of March the European Commission wants to resume the policy of having refugees to the EU who first set foot in Greece transferred back there. This part of the Dublin Regulation was suspended in 2011 because Greek reception centres didn't conform with international standards. Athens is still not prepared for such a move, some commentators warn. Others believe there won't be any transfers even if the plan goes ahead.