European Union

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Donald TUSK, President of the European Council, visits the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia on 3 April 2017.

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Donald TUSK, President of the European Council, presents the draft negotiating guidelines on Brexit to the 27 EU leaders. 

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EU Foreign Affairs ministers meet on 3 April 2017 in Luxembourg to discuss the situation in Syria, in Libya and in Yemen.

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DRAFT REPORT on EU political relations with ASEAN
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Reinhard Bütikofer

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

I’ve just read Jon Worth’s blog post about why he’s calm about the start of the Article 50 negotiations that will most likely lead to Brexit, even if these negotiations are heading to a fight. After spending the best of my last three years researching budgeting in international organisations, including the effects of budget cuts on the EU and UN organizations, I think it’s important for the EU to do some serious contingency-planning ahead of this fight.

Here’s the sentence from Jon’s article that made me write this:

There are essentially two paths for the negotiations as I see it: towards conflict, or towards fudge. The former seems to be the more likely at the moment, with both sides shaping up for a fight over financial contributions and access to the Single Market.

I guess Jon is right, and even if the European Council President Tusk tweeted today that the “EU27 … will not pursue [a] punitive approach”, this does not mean that this will not end up in a punitive situation and a major fight.

One lesson from studying cutback management at EU-level and the budget cuts in the UN system, especially the reactions to massive cuts in UNESCO, has been that international organisations seem to avoid pre-planning for massive cuts until they are actually about to happen.

When, in 2010, the EU negotiations for the 2011 budget were at risk to break down for the first time since the 1980s, the European Commission staff had only weeks to figure out how they would handle the effective budget restrictions under the monthly emergency budgets. When the USA threatened massive budget cuts to UNESCO in case it would admit Palestine as a member in late 2011, internally no contingency plans were made not to give a sign that one could actually live with such cuts. In the EU case, everything went fine in the end, but not being prepared in the UNESCO for what was about to happen made a bad situation worse, in my view.

What’s the lesson to draw from this?

It should be part of the EU strategy – and the European Commission’s budget department is key in helping with this – to make clear that to the UK that it is ready to handle even a very painful refusal of the UK to provide its legacy contributions. Some inside the institutions may say that this will give a bad signal to the UK, but experience shows that this may not prevent the worst from happening.

It’s better the Commission and especially the member states are ready to say to the UK: “If you don’t provide your legacy contributions, you will not have access to our single market. We are prepared to make our extra contributions to stabilise the EU budget or we are ready to make painful cuts to EU spending, but are you ready to have your market access cut, too?”

For this strong hand to happen, it needs to be agreed among EU member states who would step in on the side of the  contributors with extra funds if the UK doesn’t pay, and/or who would accept budget cuts – especially in agriculture and in regional/structural spending, the largest parts of the EU budget – in case this happens.

The best thing about developing these worst case scenarios and doing the contingency planning is that, should the Article 50 process run smoothly, suffering a little from the re-arranged EU budget (because this will necessary anyway) will seem much less painful than what the contingency planning suggested. But if the cut is hard, the EU will be prepared in advance and not spend a year with budget crisis management at the same time as the new multiannual financial framework needs to be put in place during 2019 and 2020.

 

The post Why the EU should start contingency-planning for Brexit budget cuts appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

General : What does it mean to be European? It’s not just the great leaders: all people are a part of Europe's history and they have a valuable role to play in preserving this common heritage and identity of ours. Over the course of the last two months, hundreds of people have contributed to a new initiative to highlight the stories that make up our history. You can discover the result on the My House of European History website.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

General : What does it mean to be European? It’s not just the great leaders: all people are a part of Europe's history and they have a valuable role to play in preserving this common heritage and identity of ours. Over the course of the last two months, hundreds of people have contributed to a new initiative to highlight the stories that make up our history. You can discover the result on the My House of European History website.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

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The "European Union-NATO Declaration on the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP)" and the "Berlin Plus" arrangements are the basic documents for the EU-NATO strategic partnership.

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There are not many places where Beethoven’s Ode to Joy is followed by Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family”. But the European People’s Party congress is not a normal event.

The majority of Europeans have probably not heard of the EPP. Those that have may associate it with the large centre-right grouping in the EU parliament, not the broader “family” of political parties that held its congress this week in Malta. The EPP’s president, Joseph Daul, is little known even in his native France.

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EU Ministers of Agriculture and Fisheries meet on 3 April 2017 in Luxembourg.

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The workshop was organised on January 26, 2017 at the initiative of the Subcommittee on Security and Defence (SEDE) with the aim to highlight trends, challenges and recommendations regarding civilian and military personnel deployed in CSDP missions and operations in particular in the areas of force generation, training and the national follow-up on crimes and offences perpetrated during deployment.
Annalisa Creta is research fellow of the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Italy, specialised in civilian crisis management with a particular focus on training issues. Petteri Taitto is affiliated with the Laurea University of Applied Sciences in Finland as principal scientist. Alberto di Martino is full professor of criminal law at the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Italy.
Location : Paul-Henri Spaak 4B001
Programme
Workshop summary
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

All European Final of the European Moot Court Competition takes place at the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg on 31 March

Item 5 - US security and defence policy - Presentation by Jan Joel Andersson, Senior Analyst, EUISS
Item 6 - Japan's defence and security policy reform - Presentation by Kazuo Kodama, Ambassador of Japan to the EU
Item 9 - Presentation of the STOA Study "Cybersecurity in the CSDP - Challenges and risks for the EU" - Presentation by ENISA
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

More than ever, the European Union finds itself in a legitimacy crisis. The need for change is crystallising, and so the EU has embarked on a new debate on the future of Europe.

The big challenges the European continent faces are well known: migration; unemployment and the economy; the future of the euro; climate change; Brexit; relations with the United States.

Failure to deliver responses to these challenges risks destroying the remaining trust citizens have in the EU’s ability to bring together a community of nations to solve common problems.

But even delivering adequate responses to these major challenges is unlikely to be enough. The EU’s challenge is not only that it needs to convince voters that it is still relevant in addressing the big problems. That will be the minimum requirement.

The EU’s key challenge is to prove that it can deliver on the promise of a Europe that works for citizens.

These days, the EU displays a startling weakness: too often, its upbeat rhetoric does not match reality. The EU needs to match citizens’ belief in the power of the EU to improve their lives and demonstrably deliver on its promise of a European ‘Union’.

We have come a long way. In many areas we do have a common market (although in others, we do not). Freedom of movement is real. Real successes exist.

But in too many areas, official rhetoric often creates the impression that we have come (or will soon go) further than is the case. Ironically, these shortfalls are most often discovered by precisely those who see the real benefits of the EU for themselves – those who try to cross borders to work, study or take a holiday, or who shop online from a different member state.

“We have come a long way: real successes exist”

These people’s expectations for a functioning ‘Union’ are high. But when they set out to take advantage of the EU’s purported achievements in real life, Europeans far too often find a reality that is below their expectations.

This is something that is far more damaging to the EU than you may think. These are the experiences of people who actively wish to make use of the EU’s advantages, who can see the concrete benefit the EU can bring to their lives. If they are disappointed, the most likely advocates for the European project will be lost. If they are not convinced that the EU keeps its promises, nobody else will be.

Apart from the very important fundamentals of the four freedoms, from which citizens moving across borders very obviously benefit, numerous other mundane encounters with the EU suggest the Union under-delivers in real life.

For example, Belgian residents (including citizens of other EU member states) are banned from driving cars that do not have a Belgian licence plate. If you live in Antwerp and you borrow your mother-in-law’s car from Brussels, that’s fine. But if your mother-in law lives in the Dutch city of Breda and you drive her Dutch-registered car in Belgium, you risk a fine and immobilisation of the car. There are a few small exceptions to this rule – one, interestingly, being for employees of the EU institutions.

Another example: if you have an EU driving licence, it is genuinely valid in all member states. If you change your country of residence, local authorities may encourage you to exchange it for a local one. If you follow that advice (which you are not obliged to), you discover that it is not enough to just hand in your old licence. You also need a certificate from the original issuing authority that specifies that the licence is still valid and what, if any, restrictions are attached to it. Most of the restrictions are codified in an EU directive so that the numerical codes can be easily cross-referenced.

But the certificates are not standardised – so that a German certificate which also shows the explanation of the codes (in German) causes the Belgian authorities to request an official translation of the certificate (at a cost of €250). A genuine European effort to make life simpler fails miserably in practice.

There are many other examples. Non-UK residents, unfazed by Brexit talks, can open a basic bank account in the UK thanks to an EU directive, but they cannot use the bank’s smartphone app because they do not have a UK mobile number. Erasmus students registering their residence in their temporary new home country may find that they need to get their multilingual international birth certificates transcribed into an equivalent local document that looks the same.

“The rhetoric of the EU institutions almost never matches the reality, and that is now rapidly becoming a problem for the EU’s legitimacy”

And of course, there are numerous accounts of hospitals refusing to accept the European Health Insurance Card, leaving tourists with high medical bills to pay. Even if reimbursements can be claimed later, people ask themselves what the EHIC is there for in the first place.

All these experiences send one clear message: the EU doesn’t deliver what it promises.

The failure must lie with an EU decision-making structure that appears to be less concerned with citizens’ experiences and more with accommodating the status quo. In doing so, the institutions have collectively created a huge credibility gap. The rhetoric almost never matches the reality, and that is now rapidly becoming a problem for the EU’s legitimacy.

So what should be adjusted – the rhetoric or the reality?

Changing the reality won’t be easy – resistance to change is strong. But changing the rhetoric to reflect the reality is also unattractive at a time when it is more crucial than ever to demonstrate the value of the EU.

Both options can work, but a choice needs to be made if citizens are to continue to believe in the European project. Changing reality require a hard and honest look at how the existing intended benefits for citizens are delivered in practice, and how this delivery can be improved.

There is much work to be done – and it is work that genuinely needs to be done.

IMAGE CREDIT: CC/Flickr – European Council

The post The EU’s real problem is over-promising and under-delivering appeared first on Europe’s World.

Fidenato and Others
Environment and consumers
According to Advocate General Bobek, Member States can adopt emergency measures regarding genetically modified food and feed only if they can establish, in addition to urgency, a clear and serious risk to health and the environment

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A detailed letter was not strictly necessary. One diplomat explained that “We’re triggering Article 50 – suck it” would have sufficed. But the formal notification shed light on Theresa May’s strategy and expectations going into negotiation.

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DRAFT REPORT on corruption and human rights in third countries
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Petras Auštrevičius

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

AMENDMENTS 5 - 168 - Draft opinion Establishing 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)
Committee on Foreign Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP