European Union

On 25 April 2017 the Council adopted conclusions on the United Nations strategic plan for forests with a view to EU participation in the 12th session of the UN forum on forests.

The conclusions highlight the importance of the first-ever UN Strategic Plan for forests 2017-2030 and the related four-year work programme. The plan will be a key instrument to promote synergies and mutually supportive implementation of the policies and programmes for forests of the different UN bodies. The conclusions  also confirm full EU support for the plan and commitment to enhancing the implementation of global forest-related issues at international, regional and national level.

The conclusions pave the way for EU participation in the 12th UN forum on forests (UNFF 12) on 1-5 May 2017 in New York. The UNFF is a subsidiary body aimed at promoting “the management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests and to strengthen long-term political commitment to this end”.

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Berlin and Brussels are breathing a hefty sigh of relief this morning on the news that Emmanuel Macron will face off against far-right leader Marine Le Pen in the second round of the French presidential election, with the centrist former economy minister firmly installed as the frontrunner.

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On 25 April 2017, the Council adopted a directive on the protection of the financial interests of the EU (PIF Directive). This will improve the prosecution and sanctioning of crimes against EU finances, and facilitate the recovery of misused EU funds. These common rules will help to ensure a level playing field and improved investigation and prosecution across the EU.

The directive will also be a major part of the law to be applied by the future European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) which is to be created by a number of member states through enhanced cooperation.

Owen Bonnici, minister for Justice of Malta said: "The protection of the EU budget is key to ensuring the most efficient and effective use of European taxpayers' money. Having common definitions, common rules, and common minimum sanctions is a step forward for fighting fraud across the EU. This directive will be an important tool for the new European Public Prosecutor's Office".

The directive provides common definitions of a number of offences against the EU budget. Those offences include cases of fraud and other related crimes such as active and passive corruption, the misappropriation of funds, money laundering, amongst others. Serious cases of cross border VAT fraud will also be included in the scope of the directive when above a threshold of €10 million.

The directive finally includes minimum rules on prescription periods, within which the case must be investigated and prosecuted, as well as minimum rules on sanctions, including imprisonment for the most serious cases.

Next steps

Once voted by the Parliament, the directive will be published in the Official Journal and member states have 24 months to implement the provisions at national level.

Participating member states

Ireland has notified its wish to take part in the adoption and application of this Directive. The United Kingdom and Denmark are not taking part in the adoption of this Directive and are not bound by it.

Place:        European Convention Center Luxembourg
Chair:        Dr. Ian Borg, Parliamentary Secretary for the Presidency and EU Funds

All times are approximate and subject to change

from 08.30
Arrivals

+/- 09.00
Doorstep by Deputy Prime Minister Grech

+/- 10.30
Beginning of Council meeting (Roundtable)
Adoption of legislative A items (public session)

Modification of the rules on the European structural and investment funds (public session)

Adoption of non-legislative A items

Bringing cohesion policy closer to our citizens

Implementation of EU macro-regional strategies

+/- 14.30
Press conference (live streaming)

Some of us have been pulling the alarm for years, warning not just of the growing power of populist parties across Western democracies but of their increasingly obvious capacity to attract middle-of-the-road voters to their brand of politics.

For years, a long-held (and understandable) worry about the extreme right prevented most analysts from detecting the very real shift that was occurring on the ‘robust right’ of the political spectrum. Parties that began as heirs to mid-20th-century Nazism or fascism were starting to adopt broader, more hybrid stances. They couched their racism in talk of defending Western values. They moved away from their petty bourgeois base, broadening their appeal to the Left’s natural constituencies by focusing on joblessness and declining incomes. They converted unease with mass immigration into welfare chauvinism. A mix not so terribly different from fascism’s, but with softer rhetoric and sharper suits. Overall, they fed the anxieties of vast swathes of Western electorates who felt abandoned and fearful.

Add to this a steady stream of terror threats and the great gaping chasms created by social media channels and, suddenly, everything – Brexit; an erratic billionaire authoritarian in the White House; gloating, plotting gatherings of right-wing populists in small German cities – starts to make sense. If not ‘good’ sense.

As polls and surveys gave narrow leads to mainstream political options throughout 2016, voters went to the polls and simply turned their back on the status quo. They plumped instead for options that would have seemed near-impossible a year ago. 2017 unleashes a series of further challenges, notably the French and German elections, to see whether Europe as an idea and as a set of institutions will continue to be hollowed out by the forces of populism.

“Ordinary voters feel left behind by elites who have failed to protect them against the harsher winds of globalisation”

Populism may not be the perfect term, but it is useful enough for our purposes. The series of revolts we see across Western economies all fit quite well under this broad (and contested) heading: ordinary, middle-class or lower-income voters feeling left behind by elites who have failed to protect them against the harsher winds of globalisation. This feeling stems from falling wages and deindustrialisation, an ebbing of the comforts that many had come to expect after the Second World War, a sense of being less culturally ‘relevant’, or a combination of all three.

Regardless of the specific grievances, the sentiment voiced by a large minority, and sometimes a majority, is that a governing elite mandated to ensure their prosperity and well-being failed to do so, privileging its own more liberal interests above those of the ‘home team’. Trying to separate out the economic grievances from the cultural or social ones is a fool’s game: it is quite clear that the irrelevance felt and the ‘relegation’ experienced are about how economic power and social and cultural status are intertwined.

This populist revolt, a political chameleon, takes on the hue of its cultural and social context: bombastic, capitalist and aggressive in the US; insular, pragmatic and penny-pinching in the UK; grandiloquent, historic and paranoid in France; taboo-breaking, Kleinbürger-ish and technical in Germany. But the shared trait is that of populism: a menu of nostalgia, nationalism, outraged sentimentality, anti-elitism, suspicion of experts, all washed down with a large helping of xenophobia.

As the initial shock and consternation ebb, many on the non-populist side have been given to belated soul-searching. How could people who share a political and social space be so far apart in understanding the way forward and what would bring individual and collective well-being? The answer, of course, is that there is little shared political and social space (especially given the self-selection vice-grip of social media) and so little chance of there being a shared diagnosis, or a shared set of solutions.

The soul-searching is followed by a mea culpa phase that consists of good liberal self-flagellation. ‘We should have detected the distress earlier on’. ‘We should have paid more attention to the excluded from our own country’. ‘We should have looked out for the white-working class who missed the benefits of globalisation’. ‘We should have skilled-up our workforces more effectively to face this global workplace’.

All of this is true. It prompts all of us who have woken up to smell the Brexit coffee (and the whiff of other nationalist parochialisms) to pay more attention and range a lot more widely in our sources of information and social exchanges. And it is precisely why it is so important now to be proactive.

“The people who ‘have spoken’ are the people who speak from their guts and without hesitation”

At the moment, what seems to dominate is a sort of mantra: ‘the people have spoken and this is the kind of politics they say they want’. But are we not adding insult to injury by caving into this view, merely as a way of assuaging guilt or cutting our losses? Is this really what ‘the people’ want?

It’s a fundamental question. First, because it forces us to ask ‘who’, or ‘what’, is ‘the people’. Second, because it forces us to ask ourselves what we think ‘they’ want. And the two are, of course, intimately linked.

For most populists of the right, the people are defined in part according to a form of nativism. The true people are the natives. But some natives are ‘traitors’ (for example, the ‘elites’), so the ‘real’ people are also those who are defined by their capacity for common sense, their rejection of intellectualism, and their ability to see through the fog of expert knowledge. This knowledge is suspected of being used to bamboozle ordinary people to let an over-educated elite get its way. So the people who ‘have spoken’, as Theresa May put it, are the people who speak from their guts and without hesitation.

But what do ‘they’ want?

The current situation across Western economies suggests that what populist supporters want is a mix of better protection, wage guarantees, and the sense that their contribution both to a country’s economy and its cultural identity is valued. These understandable demands for forms of respect and recognition are interpreted and replayed by populist leaders as a need to ‘take back control’. In other words, legitimate (if not uncomplicated) demands are played back and articulated as an infantile fantasy designed to suspend any disbelief. Promising to deliver on this constructed fantasy – by building borders and walls, or limiting access – puts words into voters’ mouths, thereby limiting what they want. It is also dangerously counter-productive in economic terms.

The consequence is more uncertainty for everyone – but especially for those who the populists claim to help: those who have the most to lose from economic stagnation, a shrinking tax base, and lower investment in the skills they will need to face the world in the 21st century.

IMAGE CREDIT: michaelpuche/Bigstock

The post Give the people what they want? appeared first on Europe’s World.

Parliament's Press Service is holding a seminar on the work that is being carried out by MEPs to revise the existing Audiovisual Media Services Directive. This revision aims to respond to market, consumption and technological changes and thereby achieve the overarching objective of bringing about a balance between competitiveness and consumer protection. This thematic digest provides selected policy department publications prepared to support the committees in their work related to these issues.
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Wednesday 26 April 2017
13.00 Meeting with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker (Berlaymont)

Friday 28 April 2017
17.15 Meeting with Prime Minister of Croatia Andrej Plenković

Saturday 29 April 2017 
08.30   Meeting with Prime Minister of Slovenia Miro Cerar
10.00 European People's Party summit (Sofitel)
12.30 Special European Council (Art. 50) 

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The machine gun attack on the capital’s famous Champs-Elysées boulevard has left one policeman dead, two others seriously wounded and another person injured. The attacker was also killed, and ISIS has claimed responsibility.

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AMENDMENTS 19 - 217 - Draft opinion Union Resettlement Framework
Committee on Foreign Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

AMENDMENTS 1 - 255 - Draft report on a European Parliament recommendation to the Council concerning the 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly
Committee on Foreign Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

https://tvnewsroom.consilium.europa.eu/uploads/council-images/thumbs/uploads/council-images/remote/http_7e18a1c646f5450b9d6d-a75424f262e53e74f9539145894f4378.r8.cf3.rackcdn.com/7926baf0-2678-11e7-a4f6-bc764e092fac_34.33_thumb_169_1492772599_1492772599_129_97shar_c1.jpg

EU-India Agenda for Action-2020 is the common roadmap to jointly guide and strengthen the India-EU Strategic Partnership in the next years. The agenda further builds upon the shared objectives and outcomes of the Joint Action Plans of 2005 and 2008.

Download this video here.

Opinion on the Criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an application for international protection lodged in one of the Member States by a third-country national or a stateless person (recast)
Report on statelessness in South and South East Asia
Financial rules applicable to the general budget of the Union
Protocol to the Stabilisation and Association Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States and Bosnia and Herzegovina
Opinion on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council providing macro-financial assistance to the Republic of Moldova
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

‘May you live in interesting times’ is a phrase of dubious origin but very real meaning for Europe’s leaders. Blessing or curse, times have been perhaps too interesting recently, as leaders watch the European project being dismantled in front of their eyes. They seem unable to change course and to have learned nothing from the accumulation of crises tormenting the European Union.

Take the financial crisis, widely acknowledged to have been caused by weak regulation and poor enforcement. Instead of learning from the past, toughening up laws and enforcing them more strictly, the European Commission – under President Jean-Claude Juncker in particular – has embarked upon a course of deregulation and, through its Better Regulation programme, sought to reduce ‘regulatory burden’.

But regulation is not a burden – rather a necessary tool for governments to do their duty and act in the public interest: to protect people’s health, wellbeing, labour rights and the environment, rather than oiling the wheels for companies to make quick profits.

From this perspective, a post-Brexit EU may be marginally better-off than one that includes the United Kingdom – or at least less worse-off. While the UK is not the only member state infected by the deregulation disease, it has been one of the strongest proponents of this agenda.

Former British prime minister David Cameron negotiated a reform package that, had the UK voted to remain in the EU, would have “…establish[ed] specific targets at EU and national levels for reducing burden on business…’’. While this approach will now hopefully be off the table, it is likely to be the only positive effect of the June 2016 referendum when it comes to the environment.

“Our transport, energy and farming systems are all eating away at the Earth’s safety net”

No-one can predict at this point how organised or disorganised the Brexit negotiations will be. But it is clear the impact for both the UK and the EU27 will be significant. There is a high risk that environmental and climate goals may be traded away in the process. This is why environmental organisations like Friends of the Earth, both on the continent and in the UK, are working together to ensure that the Britain does not water-down hard-won EU environmental standards and laws. Retaining them is not only important for the UK, but also to avoid a future where environmental dumping has a negative impact on the rest of the EU.

In spite of this cross-Channel uncertainty, the environmental challenges in Europe do not stem only from Brexit. As the world approaches safe planetary boundaries, and in some cases starts to cross them, we need a radical rethink of our economic system of production and consumption. The Arctic saw unprecedented temperatures of 20°C above normal at the end of 2016. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels officially passed the symbolic 400 parts per million mark in September last year, never to return below it in our lifetimes. Extreme weather is becoming the norm.

Large-scale impacts like these are rooted in the everyday. Our morning cup of coffee has a water footprint of 140 litres. Our throwaway cotton t-shirts require a staggering 2,700. Our transport, energy and farming systems are all eating away at the Earth’s safety net. We need a drastic change of course to avoid planetary catastrophe. Meanwhile, the world is entering the Trump era, where climate deniers and chiefs of fossil fuel companies no longer have the ear of government – they are the government.

At EU level it is no secret that Juncker has neither an understanding of nor an interest in the environment and its importance to our future. The European heads of states  pursue ‘business as usual’ politics with an unwavering zeal, unwilling or unable to see that this approach is fuelling the numerous crises in which we find ourselves, from climate and the environment to the economy and democracy itself.

These are, in my view, much bigger challenges than anything Brexit might bring.

The change we need is profound. It may appear frightening at first. No-one will be more afraid than today’s political elites, who operate and legislate to a short-termist, short-sighted electoral calendar.

But this change is inevitable. The European electorate has run out of patience and is starting to turn to dangerous populists bearing false promises of healing the unease caused by increasing inequality and job uncertainty. Further austerity, deregulation and the granting of more rights to corporations will only fuel this isolationist fire. The status quo is an option we simply cannot afford to choose.

“67% of citizens want to see more EU action on the environment”

Instead, the solution lies in a new pact for Europe based on a positive vision of global solidarity, where people are engaged towards building a society that lives within its ecological limits; one that ensures that standards of fairness and equity are applied while keeping vested corporate interests at bay.

It is important to recognise that it makes more sense to develop progressive and sustainable policies at a European level than it does to act nationally. Left to their own devices, countries will begin a race to the bottom for environmental standards (and social rights), underpinned by the hope of attracting businesses and investment. There was a time when EU legislation on the environment, and on social issues such as women’s and migrants’ rights, was progressive and forward-looking. It has been done before, and we can do it again.

This unprecedented situation calls for unprecedented action.

I am talking to activists, non-governmental organisations, scientists and politicians in many countries, both inside and outside the EU. There are rays of light on the horizon. I see people forming new groups and coalitions to work for the environment, but also volunteering to improve the situation of refugees or marching for the rights of women. People are taking control of their lives and rekindling feelings of community. Political elites need to listen to these movements and empower them to build a society based on solidarity; one that can take care of its people while recognising environmental limits.

This means managing the negative impacts of globalisation by building sustainable and resilient local economies, supporting local food and energy systems and the full circularity of our economy. This change in mindset will be possible only if we also profoundly challenge our current patriarchal system and opt for collaboration over competition.

The environment remains a popular issue with citizens: 67% want to see more action from the EU in this area. Putting the environment and citizens’ health and well-being at the centre of the EU’s future is not just the most reasonable way forward, it is the only realistic option for restoring faith in the European project.

The EU can make the most of these interesting times. It is under the spotlight. It needs to deliver.

IMAGE CREDIT: © European Union 2014 – European Parliament

The post Europe’s environmental challenges dwarf its Brexit troubles appeared first on Europe’s World.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

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The EU supports the process of economic and social reform underway in China. It backs China's transition towards an open society based upon the rule of law and respect for human rights, and believes this will benefit China's development and social stability. Over ninety dialogues and working groups feed the work of the annual EU-China Summit.

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There could be up to 5m fewer votes this year compared to 2012. History shows that a low turnout increases uncertainty about who will make the final run-off. It lowers the threshold required to qualify, which makes a François Fillon or Jean-Luc Mélenchon-shaped upset more likely.

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‘Pschitt!’ is – at least in colloquial French – the disappointing sound of flat champagne, a deflating balloon, or a damp firecracker.

It is also a good description of the feeling that many French voters will inevitably have on Sunday evening in front of their television screen. With an unprecedented degree of uncertainty, with virtually millions of people who will take their last-minute decision in the silence of the voting booth, with pollsters that are helplessly hoping their curves will not have been too far from the final results, and with four frontrunners who find themselves – to refer once more to colloquial French – ‘within a handkerchief’, the big looming question is: who is going to ‘Pschitt’?

Will we really see the French electorate neatly sliced into five equal parts – roughly 20% for each of the leading candidates and 20% for the seven others – or will the temptation to sacrifice one’s own conviction on the altar of the ‘useful vote’ suddenly suck the air out of one the candidates’ balloon?

The most obvious nominees for a miserable ‘Pschitt!!’ are Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Emmanuel Macron. The former, whose poll ratings were pushed by his rhetoric skills and his successful hi-jacking of the true gospel of the Left, already underwent a similar deflation in 2012, when he was credited with a much bigger share of the votes than the 11% which he finally obtained. The latter might suffer on the finishing line from what made his strength and attractiveness in the first place: the desire to shove the left-right dichotomy in the dustbin of history. It could be too early to do so: no one can tell with certainty how strong the gold old partisan reflexes still are in face of the ballot paper on Sunday.

François Fillon already had his ‘Pschitt!!’ moments. The post-primary sparkling wine already opened for what looked like an unlosable election has turned into flat champagne in the wake of the scandals that have ruined his credibility for many. For him, the question is rather whether beyond his die-hard supporters, who seem to grant him a minimum of 18%, he has the potential to make some bubbles again. Difficult, though not impossible. As for Marine Le Pen, her aggressive nervousness and imprudence of recent days seems to suggest that after having led the polls for so long, she seriously starts to envisage the possibility that the promised bonfire may go damp by Sunday night.

Beyond the candidates’ fates, however, there is another, more intense and more depressing, ‘Pschitt!’ feeling.

If this campaign feels like a never-ending one, it’s because it actually was. For five long years, a good deal of media discourse has been entirely dedicated to who would run in 2017. Right from the first moments of François Hollande’s ill-fated presidency, virtually everything was interpreted with regard to his possible re-election. Every result of every intermediate vote – be it European, regional or municipal – was seen in the light of jockeying for position for the one election that really counts.

Never has the stranglehold in which the presidential election keeps French political life been as tight as over these last five years. This election ‘drives them all crazy’, as Daniel Cohn-Bendit once famously put it. He referred to politicians with oversized egos, but the ‘them’ necessarily also includes the entire Parisian media bubble, with its morbid fascination for narratives of ‘greatness’ and tales of ‘rise and fall’, its grateful drooling for any piece of verbal venom in the corridors of the palaces, and its lustful craving for every small sign of treason and disgrace.

Hollande almost seemed to take a masochistic pleasure in throwing them scandalous bits to chew, and he offered them a long-term narrative by linking, very early on, his own fate to employment and growth rates. Sarkozy fed them by preparing his great return in the shadows, positioning himself as the providential solution of last resort. All the while Juppé was surfing on his scores of popularity, basking in the delight of the man who knows that his time has finally come.

The billboards currently exposed in the streets of France give striking evidence to the vanity of all the speculations, rumours and conjectures. Among the eleven faces, there is no Hollande, no Sarkozy, no Juppé. If that’s not a ‘Pschitt!’ feeling, what is?

Bouchemaine, Western France, April 2017

How often did we listen over these five years to a news programme on whatever TV or radio channel, wondering whether there were really no other, more pressing, issues than the 2017 presidential race? Will the next five years be any different?

Perhaps. If the rather radical reconfiguration of the political spectrum is confirmed on Sunday, it is not impossible that the sudden importance of the legislative elections brings about a re-education of the French political class. There were some unexpected signs of enlightenment in the aftershock the 2015 regional elections, and the effective implementation of the law against the ‘accumulation of mandates’ may indeed renew the France’s representative assemblies in an unprecedented scope.

Perhaps not. The system is remarkably resilient. It has shaped, through its engrained values and unwritten rules, the socialisation of political actors, the professional habitus of Parisian journalists, and the often unconscious expectations of voters, even among those who declare themselves definitely disillusioned with everything.

As much as I dislike this overused expression, 2017 is a ‘crossroads’ moment in French politics. It may be remembered as the moment when all the accumulated pressure of frustration with the system finally made the cork of change pop out of the Champagne bottle. The end of the ‘Pschitt!’ feeling? It would be almost too good to be true.

Albrecht Sonntag
@albrechtsonntag

This is post # 18 on the French 2017 election marathon.
All previous posts can be found here.

The post France 2017: That ‘pschitt!’ feeling appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

With days to go before the first round of the 2017 French presidential election, Emmanuel Macron, the frontrunner since March, has seen his commanding lead cut sharply.

Whilst still ahead in the latest polls, on a par with far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, only four points now separate him from the right-wing François Fillon and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the hard left candidate who has been rising fast in the last few weeks.

With one-third of voters still undecided and with the usual margin of error inherent to any poll, this rollercoaster of an election is clearly heading down to the wire. Can Macron hold on to his lead and reach the second round?

Macron certainly has strengths, but they might well turn into weaknesses. The reason for his appeal largely lies in the political positioning of his competitors. Unlike in previous elections, the main candidates have not sought to woo moderate voters. Instead, they are representing the ‘hard’ version of their party, leaving open a wide boulevard in the middle.

By claiming to be beyond the right and the left, by having a programme designed to appeal, broadly speaking, from the centre-right all the way to the right wing of the Socialist Party, and by being the only candidate from the centre, Macron has gained supremacy over the vast expanse of land between Fillon on the Republican right and Benoît Hamon on the Socialist left.

As the only openly pro-European candidate and with a programme mixing social liberalism, social democracy and moderate economic liberalism, Macron also stands starkly apart.

“If Macron does succeed in clearing all the obstacles facing him, he will truly deserve his moniker of the ‘wonder child’ of French politics”

However, in a country where the left and the right are still strong markers, Macron’s pretension of being neither has left him vulnerable to accusations of being ideologically flimsy and lacking coherence. Macron’s first presidential challenge, to reach the second round, has therefore become much tougher and no one at this stage can predict whether he will be able to clear this hurdle.

Assuming that Macron does succeed in the first round and then goes on to win the second round, his next challenge ‒ gathering a parliamentary majority ‒ will be no less daunting. To have any real power, a French President needs the support of a majority of members of the National Assembly. Hence the customary appeal of all newly-elected presidents to ask the French electorate to do the ‘right’ thing and vote for ‘their’ candidates in the subsequent parliamentary election. But for Macron, who has no established party, this is likely to prove a huge challenge. His movement, ‘En Marche’, has no experience of fighting what is, in effect, 577 micro-elections in each parliamentary constituency.

When you consider that centrist François Bayrou in 2007 and Marine Le Pen in 2012 each won 19% of the vote in presidential election but only managed to win three and two MPs respectively, the scale of the task Macron is faced with becomes clearer. It is true that the French electorate does tend to do the ‘right thing’ ‒ most famously in 1981, after François Mitterrand became the first Socialist president of the Fifth Republic, much to the bemusement of political commentators who thought a majority was out of his reach.

So Macron does have a point in saying that “if the French want […] change, they will vote for me and will confirm it in the parliamentary elections“. But in all previous elections the president has had a strong and well-organised party or coalition of parties behind him, which is not the case with Macron.

“This rollercoaster of an election is clearly heading down to the wire”

If Macron fails to gain a majority, he will have to engineer one ‒ either through a coalition or through ad hoc pacts on any given law. Considering that many politicians will undoubtedly see Macron’s presidency as an opportunity for their own political careers, such a majority might well be engineered, but solidity and loyalty will not be guaranteed. Macron might well end up in the situation of two former presidents, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and Mitterrand, who for parts of their presidencies lacked the full support of a majority and had their ability to run the country curtailed.

Assuming that the majority challenge is passed, the final one will be for Macron to implement his new style of presidency, which he has dubbed ‘Jupiterian’. He summarised this slightly cryptic conception of power as “a President who presides […], a Government that governs“. By focusing on setting out long-term objectives in six areas (growth, taxation, pensions, education, security, cleaner politics), whilst leaving the government to deal with the day-to-day running of the country, Macron intends to break away from the ‘hyper-presidentialisation’ that was the theory of Nicolas Sarkozy and the practice of the current president, François Hollande.

Macron finds the habit of both men to comment on every event as demeaning to the role of president. So it becomes clear that he is seeking to forge a certain mystique around the Presidency through a less involved and more aloof way of presiding. In an age of constant media attention, Macron’s ability to transform the idea of the presidency may well turn out to be his stiffest challenge.

If Macron does succeed in clearing all the obstacles facing him, he will truly deserve his moniker of the ‘wonder child’ of French politics. But with such a tight finish to the presidential race, it would take a very brave person to bet on any of this happening.

And yet, who would bet against this topsy-turvy campaign to deliver such a final twist?

IMAGE CREDIT: CC/Flickr – Mutualité Française

The post Macron’s challenges go way beyond winning the election appeared first on Europe’s World.

Marking the 40th anniversary of the start of their dialogue ASEAN and the EU have agreed to work towards establishing a strategic partnership. While trade has always been the cornerstone of the relationship - ASEAN is the EU’s third largest trade partner - the EU’s ambition to expand its role as a global actor demand increased engagement. Both sides face common challenges that can only be addressed through joint responses that involve all stakeholders. To be strategic the partnership must embrace all aspects, from trade to energy, from climate change to security issues, from human rights to sustainable development. Deepening and enhancing relations between one of the most dynamic region in the world and the largest and most affluent market will bring important benefits to both European and ASEAN citizens. The last years have seen an increase in contacts but the many challenges faced today by the EU, internally and in its close neighbourhood, risk to require all attention and put the EU-ASEAN relations at risk. Finally the study argues that strengthening the parliamentary dimension of the relationship would, besides supporting representative democracy in Southeast Asia, contribute to maintaining the momentum launched in 2012.
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

The lovely thing about long walks is that they give you time to think, to join your physical movement with metaphysical wanderings through the things that occupy your life. It’s often a time when you have a bright idea, that makes sense as the sunlight filters through the leaves and warm air of spring fills your lungs.

And this general election has very much the feeling of an idea that Theresa May has had on her walking break in North Wales. It’s easy to imagine her chatting with Philip about the pros and cons of calling a vote, exploring the highways and by-ways of it all as the vistas unfurl before them, and the security detail think back fondly to those barbeques in Witney.

It’s not that the election is a bad idea, but there is no immediately obvious, compelling reason to hold it: all of the basic parameters have been in place as long as May has occupied Number 10.

This leads to the most obvious conclusion about this decision, namely that it is driven by domestic political calculation rather than anything to do with Brexit. This is important to keep in mind both because it echoes the long-term pattern of British European policy, but also because it reminds us that May continues to entertain the idea that her premiership will not just be shaped by the departure from the EU.

This said, it is useful to consider the relationship between general election and Brexit, because the two will have to bump alongside each other and there will be effects by each on the other, especially given the rather specious reasoning given by May for calling the election, namely the division in Westminster.

In procedural terms, the election will not result in any major delay in Article 50 negotiations. Recall that at present everyone is awaiting the 29 April summit of the EU27 to confirm the negotiating brief and the basic schedule for talks. Then there will be another week until the second round of the French presidential elections and some weeks after that when Commission’s mandate will be finalised, which puts us within spitting distance of 8 June. At the same time, it does mean another month lost for substantive negotiations, which will prove problematic when it comes to working through the extended agenda that May has in mind.

Once again, the key point to keep in mind here is that Article 50 is driven by the EU, not the UK, so in this initial phase, the focus will be on what the other member states can agree to offer to the UK, rather than what the UK might ask for. Incidentally, this also highlights the vapidity of the Tory position that an enlarged majority for May will somehow strengthen her hand:  ever country has voters and it will be their own domestic pressures that change their positions more than how many MPs the British government can count on.

If there is a procedural bonus, then it is that the resetting of the electoral clock means that by the time the next general election has to be called, in June 2022, not only will the Article 50 negotiations be well past, but so too will much of the mooted 2-3 year transition period, which makes it even harder for any new government to overturn the process: Brexit will indeed mean Brexit.

Much of the procedural questions at this stage will be largely technical – schedules of meetings and the like – and can continue unabated during the campaign but the general election will raise an interesting personnel issue.

General elections are often opportunities for Prime Ministers to reshuffle portfolios, especially if there is the prospect of an influx of new faces. However, May will be a bit of bind over whether to do this. On the one hand, some of her front bench have been less than impressive, either politically or managerially, so this is a chance to have a second bite of the cherry.

However, on the other hand, the current Cabinet have been in place for a relatively short period of time and there was a clear presentation of the choices made as a conscious strategy: put Leavers in key roles to own the subject.

To replace any of the three main Brexit ministers – Davis, Fox or Johnson – now might lead to improved performance, but at a price of calling into question May’s judgement in appointing them in the first place (and recall that all three came with big question marks over their heads). As was clear at the time, while it’s useful to have a front row to soak up the problems, it is ultimately on May’s shoulders that they succeed.

The final potential impact of the election will be on substantive policy goals in Article 50.

Here we have to be careful to unpick the dynamic that has already emerged of a softening of May’s stance in and around notification. Gone are the more improbable goals on CJEU jurisdiction and no transitions, in reflection of the growing awareness of the intricacies involve in unpicking the UK from the EU. None of that happening in anticipation of this election, but potentially the election will give more cover to May.

Consider the most likely outcome on 8 June: an increased majority for May. Let’s also assume that Central Office is able to have a relatively big say in candidate selection over local associations, given the time constraints. This suggests that the specific weight of any sub-grouping within the new parliamentary party will be reduced and that the group as a whole will be more beholden to May’s leadership.

Put differently, neither the pro-EU rump nor the hard Brexiteers will be as able as now to hold the Parliamentary majority to hostage, so May will be in a stronger position to pursue her own agenda in negotiations and then to get the results approved at the end of Article 50.

This underlines one of the more unmentioned truths of the Brexit process, namely that Theresa May does not obviously know her own mind on what the post-membership relationship should look like. The studied ambiguity of her public pronouncements will continue throughout the campaign, as she seeks to find a solution that looks viable, rather than one that follows any detailed ideological positioning.

Seen in this light, the general election is set to offer little new light on how Brexit will unfold and will do little to shape what happens. Unless, of course, there is some major upset on 8 June: and if recent history has taught us anything, then it is that we should always keep the unexpected in mind.

 

This post originally appeared on the UK in a Changing Europe website.

The post What the 2017 General Election means for Brexit: procedure, personnel and policy appeared first on Ideas on Europe.