European Union

On 4 October 2016, the Council adopted the decision on the EU ratification of the Paris Agreement. This agreement sets the framework for global action on climate change.

Following the vote in the European Parliament giving  its consent, the Council adopted the decision by written procedure. The decision will be deposited on Friday 7 October 2016 with the Secretary-General of the UN, who is the depositary of the Paris Agreement. EU ratification comes into effect from the moment of deposit of the decision.    

The Slovak Minister for the Environment and president of the Council, László Sólymos said: "United, Europe did everything possible to speed up its proceedings and breathe life into the Paris Agreement. The Council's adoption of the decision in just a few hours illustrates our commitment to keeping our promises. The deposit of the ratification instruments on Friday will finally round off the whole process. We can all be collectively proud of this achievement". 

Member states will ratify either together with the EU if they have completed their national procedures, or as soon as possible thereafter.

The agreement will enter into force 30 days after the ratification by at least 55 countries accounting for at least 55% of global greenhouse gas emissions. So far 63 countries have ratified, accounting for 52.11% of global emissions.

CountryRepresented by

ALBANIA

Ditmir Bushati, Minister for Foreign Affairs

ARGENTINA

Mario Verón Guerra, Ambassador - Head of the Argentinian Mission to the EU

ARMENIA

Garen Nazarian, Deputy Foreign Minister

AUSTRALIA

Ric Wells - Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Deputy Secretary  in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

AUSTRIA

Ambassador Peter Launsky, Vice Minister of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Integration, Europe and Foreign Affairs

AZERBAIJAN

Elmar Mammadyarov, Minister for Foreign Affairs

BAHRAIN

Abdulla bin Faisal bin Jabur Al Doseri - Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs

BANGLADESH

Mohammed Shahdat Hossain, Ambassador designate to the EU

BELGIUM

Didier Reynders, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

Igor Crnadak, Minister for Foreign Affairs

BRAZIL

Everton Vargas, Ambassador designate - Head of the Brazilian Mission to the EU

BRUNEI DARUSSALAM

Abu Sufian Haji Ali - Ambassador designate to Belgium

BULGARIA

Daniel Mitov, Minister for Foreign Affairs

CANADA

Kenneth Neufeld, Ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan - Kabul

CHILE

Rodrigo Fernandez Gaete, Deputy Head of the Chilean Mission to the EU

CHINA

Deng Xijun, China's Special Envoy on Afghanistan Affairs

CROATIA

Miro Kovač, Minister of Foreign and European Affairs

CYPRUS

Kornelios Korneliou, Permanent Representative to the EU

CZECH REPUBLIC

Vaclav Kolaja, Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs

DENMARK

Kristian Jensen, Minister for Foreign Affairs

EGYPT

Hamdy Loza, Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs

ESTONIA

Vaino Reinart, Undersecretary for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation

FINLAND

Eija Rotinen, Special Representative for Afghanistan, Deputy Director General

FRANCE

André Vallini, Minister of State for Development and Francophonie

GEORGIA

Mikheil Janelidze, Minister for Foreign Affairs

GERMANY

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Minister for Foreign Affairs

GREECE

Andreas Papastravou, Ambassador - Permanent Representative of Greece to the EU

HUNGARY

Péter Szijjártó, Minister for Foreign Affairs

ICELAND

Bergdis Ellertsdottir, Ambassador - Head of the Icelandic Mission to the EU

INDIA

M. J. Akbar - Minister of State for External Affairs

INDONESIA

Yuri Octavian Thamrin, Head of the Indonesian Mission to the EU

IRAN

Morteza Sarmadi, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs

IRELAND

Declan Kelleher, Permanent Representative of Ireland to the EU

ITALY

Mario Giro, Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs

JAPAN

Kentaro Sonoura, State Minister for Foreign Affairs

JORDAN

Yousef  Bataineh, Ambassador - Head of the Jordanian Mission to the EU

KAZAKHSTAN

Erlan Idrissov, Minister for Foreign Affairs

KUWAIT

Jasem Albudaiwi, Ambassador designate to Belgium

KYRGYZSTAN

Erlan Abdyldayev, Minister for Foreign Affairs

LATVIA

Andrejs Pildegovics, State Secretary

LITHUANIA

Jovita Neliupšiene, Permanent Representative of Lithuania to the EU

LUXEMBOURG

Romain Schneider, Minister for Development Cooperation

MALAYSIA

Fenny Nuli, Deputy Chief of the Malaysian Mission to the EU

MALTA

Hon Carmelo Abela, Minister for Home Affairs

MEXICO

Miguel Ruiz Cabanas, Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs

MONGOLIA

Khishigdelger Davaadorj,  Ambassador - Head of the Mongolian Mission to the EU

MONTENEGRO

Vera Jolicic-Kulis, State Secretary

NETHERLANDS

Lilianne Ploumen, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation,

NEW ZEALAND

Murray McCully, Minister for Foreign Affairs

NORWAY

Børge Brende, Minister for Foreign Affairs

OMAN

Najeem Sulaiman Najeem, Al Abri, Ambassador - Head of the Omani Mission to the EU

PAKISTAN

Sartaj Aziz, Minister for Foreign Affairs

POLAND

Joanna Wronecka, Undersecretary of State

PORTUGAL

Nuno Brito, Permanent Representative of Portugal to the EU

QATAR

Soltan Saad Al-Moraikhi, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs

REPUBLIC OF KOREA

Yun Byung-se, Minister for Foreign Affairs

ROMANIA

Daniela Grigore-Gitman, Secretary of State for Global Affairs

RUSSIAN FEDERATION

Zamir Kabulov, Special Envoy for AFG,

SAUDI ARABIA

Nizar bin Obaid Madani, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs

SERBIA

Aleksandar Vulin, Minister of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs

SLOVAK REPUBLIC

Miroslav Lajčák, Minister for Foreign Affairs

SLOVENIA

Karl Erjavec, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs

SOUTH AFRICA

Baso Sangqu, Head of the South African Mission to the EU

SPAIN

Luis Felipe Fernandez de la Peña, Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan

SWEDEN

Isabella Lövin, Minister for International Development Cooperation and Climate and
Deputy PM

SWITZERLAND

Thomas Greminger, State Secretary

TAJIKISTAN

Aslov Sirodjidin Muhrinovich, Minister for Foreign Affairs

THE FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA

Nikola Poposki, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs

TURKEY

Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Minister for Foreign Affairs

TURKMENISTAN

Rashid Meredov, Minister for Foreign Affairs

UKRAINE

Mykola Tochytskyi, Ambassador - Head of the Ukrainian Mission to the EU

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Ahmad Al Jarman, Assistant Minister for Political Affairs - Ministry of Foreign Affairs

UNITED KINGDOM

Rory Stewart - Department for International Development, Minister of State

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

John Kerry, Secretary of State

UZBEKISTAN

Abdulaziz Kamilov, Minister for Foreign Affairs

  Organisation/agency/IFIRepresented by

ADB (Asian Development Bank)

Zhang Wencai, Vice President and Thomas Panella, Afghanistan Country Director

Aga Khan  Development Network

HH Aga Khan

 AIIB (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank)

Nikolai Putscher, Executive Director

EIB

Werner Hoyer, President

IDB (Islamic Development Bank)

Sayed Aqa, Vice President, Cooperation and Country Programming

International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)

Peter Maurer, President

IMF

Daniela Gressani, Deputy Director, Middle East and Central Asia Dept. and Christoph Duenwald, the Fund's mission chief for Afghanistan

IOM

William Lacy Swing, Director-General

NATO

Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary-General

OECD

Douglas Frantz,  Deputy Secretary-General

OHCHR / UNAMA

Danielle Bell, Director of Human Rights Unit at UNAMA and Representative of OHCHR

OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation)

Ms Ismat Jahan, Ambassador - Permanent Observer of the OIC Mission to the EU

OSCE

Ambassador Paul Bekkers, Director of the Office of the Secretary General

SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation)

Arjun B. Thapa, Secretary-General

SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation)

Rashid Alimov, Secretary General

UNAMA

Tadamichi Yamamoto, Special Representative

UNITED NATIONS ORGANISATION

Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General

UNDP

Haoliang Xu, Assistant Secretary-General, Assistant Administrator and Director of the Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific

UNESCO

Irina Bokova, Director-General

UNHCR

George Okoth-Obbo, Assistant High Commissioner for Operation
Daisy Dell, Director of the Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific

UNICEF

(Ms) Jean Gough, Regional Director for South Asia

UNODC

Yury Fedotov, Executive Director

UN Women

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngucka, Executive Director

WORLD BANK

Annette Dixon, Vice-President

WFP

David Kaatrud, Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific

FAO

Daniel Gustafson, Deputy Director-General

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EU-Kazakhstan relations are based in the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement and a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in the field of energy. Kazakhstan is also part of the EU and Central Asia Strategy for a New Partnership.

Download this video here.

Plenary sessions : High-level guests, solemn speeches and a warm applause. All this was present on Tuesday afternoon at the ceremony surrounding Parliament’s historic vote in favour of the Paris climate agreement and the signature paving the way for it to enter into force. Take a look at our slideshow to see how it happened.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Plenary sessions : High-level guests, solemn speeches and a warm applause. All this was present on Tuesday afternoon at the ceremony surrounding Parliament’s historic vote in favour of the Paris climate agreement and the signature paving the way for it to enter into force. Take a look at our slideshow to see how it happened.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Plenary sessions : The UNFCCC Paris Agreement on fighting climate change, the first-ever universal, legally binding global climate deal, will come into force next month, having met the necessary conditions much earlier than predicted, as the European Parliament agreed to its ratification by the European Union in a historic vote on Tuesday. The EU will join the US, China and India, other global players and major greenhouse gas emitters, at a November meeting of Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA) in Marrakesh.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Plenary sessions : The UNFCCC Paris Agreement on fighting climate change, the first-ever universal, legally binding global climate deal, will come into force next month, having met the necessary conditions much earlier than predicted, as the European Parliament agreed to its ratification by the European Union in a historic vote on Tuesday. The EU will join the US, China and India, other global players and major greenhouse gas emitters, at a November meeting of Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA) in Marrakesh.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Plenary sessions : Revised EU rules to prevent trade in goods and services that may contribute to torture or execution were approved by MEPs on Tuesday. In negotiations with member states on previous drafts, the European Parliament inserted a ban on the marketing and transit of equipment used for cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of people in third countries.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Plenary sessions : Parliament approved €1,651,834 in EU Solidarity Fund aid on Tuesday to help Greece to repair damage caused by an earthquake that hit the Ionian Islands region, and in particular Lefkada, northern parts of Ithaki and Kefalonia, on 17 November 2015.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Plenary sessions : Parliament gave its green light on Tuesday to EU aid worth €5.3 million to help find new jobs for 1,441 workers made redundant by Microsoft and its suppliers in Finland and almost €4 million for 918 workers made redundant by Ericsson in Sweden. The European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) aid had been approved by the EU Council of Ministers on 29 September.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

DRAFT RECOMMENDATION on the draft Council decision on the conclusion of the Agreement continuing the International Science and Technology Center between the European Union and Euratom acting as one Party and Georgia, Japan, the Kingdom of Norway, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Republic of Armenia, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Republic of Korea, the Republic of Tajikistan, and the United States of America
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Elmar Brok

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

The Cooperation Council between the European Union (EU) and Kazakhstan held its fifteenth meeting on Tuesday, 4 October 2016 in Brussels. The meeting was chaired by Mr Miroslav Lajčák, Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of the Republic of Slovakia. The delegation of Kazakhstan was led by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan Mr Erlan A. Idrissov. Jean-Christophe Belliard, Deputy Secretary General of the European External Action Service was also present.

The Cooperation Council welcomed the start of implementation of the enhanced partnership and cooperation agreement, provisionally applied since 1 May 2015 in a number of areas, including   political dialogue, trade and economic cooperation, rule of law and justice. The Cooperation Council confirmed the mutual interest in consolidating the relations and cooperation, in particular in ensuring regional stability and development.

The Cooperation Council also discussed political, judiciary and economic reforms, the rule of law, trade and economic relations, and international issues, topics that are of importance to both parties. The Cooperation Council addressed the issues of good governance, human rights protection and civil society cooperation. It also underlined the need to maintain the right balance between legitimate security measures necessary in fighting terrorism and individual rights and freedoms.

The Cooperation Council reiterated the importance of a regional dialogue under the EU strategy for Central Asia. Regional security aspects were also discussed in relation to the Brussels Conference on Afghanistan, including border management, counter-terrorism and the fight against drug trafficking.

The EU welcomed Kazakhstan's active participation in the EU-Central Asia ministerial meeting and in the Brussels Conference on Afghanistan.

Suspending EU structural funding for Spain and Portugal would be counter-productive, because it would harm their most vulnerable citizens and regions, a vast majority of MEPs warned the EU Commission at a “structured dialogue” hearing yesterday. The suspension had been proposed under EU Stability and Growth Pact rules, because Spain and Portugal had run up excessive deficits.
Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs
Committee on Regional Development

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

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Away from the spotlight, the EU this weekend reached an altogether different deal with Afghanistan, aimed at increasing the number of deportations from Europe to the war-torn country.

Read more

Prime Minister Theresa May is determined to take Britain on a course to Brexit, but only six months ago she said it wouldn’t be in the country’s interest to do so.

Mrs May, then Home Secretary, said in a pro-Remain speech in April 2016:

“I believe it is clearly in our national interest to remain a member of the European Union.”

But now Mrs May is going to do something that only half-a-year ago she said clearly wasn’t the right thing to do.

Why hasn’t a journalist asked her why? What’s wrong with journalism today?

Quite likely if she had been asked, she would have replied with one of her stock answers, as she did in her speech yesterday at the Conservative Party’s annual conference:

“The referendum result was clear. It was legitimate. It was the biggest vote for change this country has ever known. Brexit means Brexit – and we’re going to make a success of it.”

So, does that mean, whatever your principles and beliefs, if people vote against them, you will then turn your principles upside down and on their head (in this case, on her head)?

On that basis, if Labour wins the next general election, shouldn’t Mrs May then join the Labour party?

In April this year Mrs May gave a speech of almost 6,000 words fully supporting Britain’s continued membership of the European Union. She said then:

“We export more to Ireland than we do to China, almost twice as much to Belgium as we do to India, and nearly three times as much to Sweden as we do to Brazil. It is not realistic to think we could just replace European trade with these new markets.”

“If we.. leave the European Union, we risk bringing the development of the single market to a halt, we risk a loss of investors and businesses to remaining EU member states driven by discriminatory EU policies, and we risk going backwards when it comes to international trade.”

“In a stand-off between Britain and the EU, 44 per cent of our exports is more important to us than eight per cent of the EU’s exports is to them.”

“Remaining inside the European Union does make us more secure, it does make us more prosperous and it does make us more influential beyond our shores.

“I believe the case to remain a member of the European Union is strong.

“I believe it is clearly in our national interest to remain a member of the European Union.”

Now Mrs May says:

“Brexit means Brexit and we’re going to make a success of it. There will be no attempts to remain inside the EU.

“There will be no attempts to re-join it by the back door; no second referendum. As Prime Minister I will make sure that we leave the European Union.”

If someone tells you it’s a mistake to do something, and then goes ahead and does it, can you ever trust them again?

The late Tony Benn used to classify politicians as either ‘signposts’ or ‘weathervanes’.

• Signposts indicate the way ahead, resolute and unchanging in the face of criticism or challenge.
• But weathervanes spin on their axis, responding swiftly and unthinkingly to changes in the prevailing wind.

Is Mrs May someone who just swings in the wind, whichever way it blows?

Maybe if we blow hard enough, she and her ‘three Brexiteers’ will just fall over.

___________________________________________________

Other stories by Jon Danzig:

• The EU is not the USSR
• Boston wasn’t always against migration
• It’s not undemocratic to challenge Brexit
• List of the latest articles by Jon Danzig

To follow my stories please like my Facebook page: Jon Danzig Writes

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• The Reasons2Remain Facebook Community continues to support the case for Britain’s membership of the EU, and now, the actual impact of the Brexit vote. Join us!
  
• Join and share the discussion about this article on Facebook and Twitter:

#Brexit #PM @Theresa_May is going to do something that in April she said wasn’t in #Britain’s best interest. Share: https://t.co/A4xLcUuMg0 pic.twitter.com/JkUKxYoikl

— Reasons2Remain (@Reasons2Remain) 2 October 2016

In April @Theresa_May said staying in the #EU was in the national interest. So why is she leading #Brexit? My blog https://t.co/LJ4NRpfBi2 pic.twitter.com/p891rlUEOp

— Jon Danzig (@Jon_Danzig) October 3, 2016

The post Mrs May: Acting against the national interest? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

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Informal meeting of Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Ministers on 3 and 4 October 2016, in Bratislava. 

Download this video here.

The press conference following the EU-Kazakhstan Cooperation Council will take place on 4 October 2016 at 16:10 in the main press room of Justus Lipsius building. The press conference will be given by Miroslav Lajčák, Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of Slovakia and Erlan A. Idrissov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan.

Webcast of the press conference

Media accreditation

David Cameron started his career as party leader with a simple wish: to get the Conservative Party to ‘stop banging on about Europe’. However, he did not have a strategy for making his dream come true. Instead, he took a series of tactical decisions in hopes that each would silence Tory Eurosceptics committed to ‘banging on about Europe’ until Britain left the EU.

When canvassing for support in the 2005 party leadership contest against David Davis, Cameron promised to take the Conservative Party out of the largest political group in the European Parliament, the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP). After becoming leader, he fulfilled his pledge. An incidental consequence was that this denied him the experience of periodically meeting with leaders of centre-right parties whose support he subsequently sought in a vain effort to secure a renegotiated membership deal for the UK prior to the EU referendum.

A second stop to Eurosceptic demands was the 2011 European Referendum Act requiring a national ballot on any future transfer of powers from the Westminster Parliament to Brussels. The Foreign & Commonwealth Office regarded this as a harmless symbolic measure unlikely to be invoked because of disagreements among EU member states about whether or how the EU’s powers should be increased.

Despite these measures, Eurosceptic MPs banged their drum even harder. In the last Parliament, a private members bill was introduced to authorize an In/Out referendum. At the time, the Coalition government of Conservatives and pro-EU Liberal Democrats would not accept the bill and it died. However, pressured by his MPs, Cameron pledged to call a referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU after the 2015 election. Instead of producing another Coalition government that would not countenance an EU referendum, Cameron won an outright majority.

Cameron’s dream turned into a nightmare as the calling the referendum resulted in even louder ‘banging on about Europe’ and Tories disagreed about the direction in which to march. Cameron tried to march in two directions at once, stating that the case for remaining in Europe rested on his success in repatriating powers from Brussels to the British Parliament. This was dream, because it violated a fundamental doctrine of the EU, the acquis communitaire. It postulates that once very lengthy intergovernmental negotiations give a certain power to the EU, no member state can claw that power back.

Cameron sought to win the referendum by getting the EU to suspend the UK’s treaty commitment to accept the free movement of EU citizens to Britain. To secure a deal, he turned for help to his new-found friend Angie. However, his eyes were opened when the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, made clear that she did not want to risk German political capital in what would likely be a vain attempt to get an unprecedented derogation from the EU treaties that went against the national interest of many member states.

To promote his wish, last November Cameron met with Theresa May and Philip Hammond. Both the then Home and Foreign secretaries told him that the deal on free movement he wished for was simply not practical. According to an eye-witness advisor’s account, Cameron was surprised and denounced them as ‘lily-livered Cabinet colleagues’ for not joining him in his wishful pursuit. They were realists, recognising that Cameron’s strategy would lead to a public defeat that would strengthen the Brexit cause.

Cameron returned from the February European Council with temporizing statements about possible future EU changes that he trumpeted as a major set of concessions. But Tory MPs were not taken in. Given the choice between defending symbolic promises and firming up support from their voters, many MPs came off the fence and endorsed Brexit.

Theresa May acted consistently with Cameron’s initial goal: she avoided banging on about Europe. She lined up in favour of remaining in the EU on the grounds of loyalty to the Prime Minister while not actively campaign for remaining in. She thus avoided George Osborne’s fate of making her political future dependent on a majority vote to remain in the EU. The pledge she made to become Prime Minister, that ‘Brexit means Brexit’ – was a realistic commitment to accepting the referendum result without raising specific expectations about the UK’s future relationship with the EU.

In Downing Street Theresa May has so far avoided encouraging dreams about a cost free soft Brexit or about the UK being able to rebuild long-gone Imperial ties immediately upon leaving the EU. The announcement that the negotiations triggering the countdown to Brexit will not begin for up to 15 months gives her time to prepare a set of negotiating goals that are not the stuff of dreams.

May has also sought to distance herself from Brexit by placing Boris Johnson, David Davis and Liam Fox in key roles for negotiating what happens after the UK leaves the European Union. Placing these three in the roles of Foreign Secretary, Minister for Brexit, and a new International Trade post means that they, rather than she, will be the public face of Brexit. They will thus be responsible for any failure to secure hoped for concessions from the EU and such rude awakening that follows when the UK leaves the European Union in 2019.  Meanwhile, Theresa May will be not be dreaming about Europe but carefully laying the groundwork for winning the 2020 British general election.

The post Be careful what you wish for: a tale of two prime ministers appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Sarah Glück and Charoula Tzanakou[i]

 

“Researchers love what they do. It is not entirely clear to us that the systems in which we work love us.” (Bratislava Declaration of Young Researchers)

 

How can we attract young students to a career in science and how can we retain them? Those were the leading questions of the first workshop of the Bratislava Declaration of Young Researchers, held in Brussels in the beginning of the year. Initiated by the Slovak Presidency of the Council of the European Union (July-December 2016) and the Directorate General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission, the workshop brought together researchers from diverse career stages, including high school, undergraduate, PhD, postdoc and professor. At this meeting, it was not clear where this would all lead to, but despite our different experiences and backgrounds, we soon realized that we share similar problems and we all see the need of radical structural changes within the EU as well within the national research and higher education systems.

 

Press conference on the Bratislava declaration. From left: Sarah Glück, author of the declaration; Carlos Moedas, Commissioner; Peter Plavcan, Slovak Minister; Emilia Petrikova and Miguel Jorge, authors of the declaration. Photo credits: EU2016 SK.

 

The Bratislava Declaration of Young Researchers is a document written by researchers from various fields of science, different nationalities and research experiences (including the authors of this blog), expressing their aspirations for future research and higher education systems and calling on policy makers to take actions to:

-       reorganize funding streams to trust and empower young researchers,

-       incorporate research and scientific skills into high-school education through radical reform of curricula and methods of assessment,

-       create sustainable and effective funding schemes for young researchers,

-       urgently enhance employment stability and provide structured opportunities for non-traditional career trajectories,

-       fulfil their duty of care with respect to the training and the career development of young researchers,

-       support an EU-wide equality and diversity charter,

-       act on ideas that span traditional disciplines and sectors,

-       develop policies that enforce free sharing of data and ideas,

-       implement supportive and better childcare provisions, parental care, flexible working practices and provide dual-career opportunities, and

-       put in place mechanisms to facilitate and equally reward diverse forms of mobility.

 

These issues are known for a long time but the high level of political attention and the inclusion of the Declaration in the Conclusions of the Council of Ministers are novel. Furthermore, the Declaration highlighted the significance of including scientific methods and thinking early in school curricula, and aims at engaging individuals – before the PhD level – in research endeavours and constitute them relevant stakeholders in research systems. This initiative came  from high level actors such as the European Commission and the Slovak Presidency, but soon was given into the hands of the researchers, who dictated the content. The encouragement of these high level actors to articulate our aspirations and concerns and their support throughout this process has enhanced our optimism that the Declaration could actually lead to addressing the issues raised at the level of national and EU policy makers.

 

The content of the declaration was influenced by a survey from the Young European Associated Researchers network YEAR. This survey provided an insight into the obstacles young researchers face, the reasons for becoming a scientist and the extent of satisfaction with their current situation as researchers. The main ideas of the Declaration were then presented and discussed at the Young Researchers Conference 2016 in Brussels on 13th June together with representatives of research (funding) organisations, the EU Commission and the Slovak Presidency. This Conference enabled the authors to consult different stakeholders and get useful feedback which clarified further the content of the Declaration for the meeting with ministers.

 

At the informal meeting of the Council of Ministers on 19th July 2016 a representation of the authors of the Bratislava Declaration of Young Researchers were then invited to present their concerns to the ministers and ask for their commitment to support the Declaration. The ministers welcomed this initiative and engaged enthusiastically with the authors acknolwedging the significance of the challenges and aspirations. They were thus asked to endorse the Declaration as a whole and include it it the Conclusions of the Council of the Ministers, which will be adopted on 29th November 2016.

 

During the preparation of the Bratislava declaration. From left: representatives of the Slovak Presidency Daniel Straka and Andrej Kurucz, authors of the declaration Lynn Kamerlin, Emilia Petrikova, Charoula Tzanakou, Bruno Gonzalez Zorn and Miguel Jorge. Photo credits: Dusan Sandor.

Since then the group of researchers authoring the Declaration have undertaken various efforts to enhance the visibility of this initiative, engage individuals, relevant staekholders and policy-makers to support the Declaration and identify ways for its implementation. Considering the urgency and importance of this issue, we would like to involve individuals who are affected by the current research and (higher) education systems and those who are able to change the situation, namely EU and national politicians, as well as research (funding) organisations and higher education institutions. Therefore, we have developed a website with the Declaration where it can be endorsed. So far around 400 signatures and 100 comments of interested and supportive researchers and research organisations have been reached.

 

We hope that the next European Research Framework Programme would reflect most of the issues addressed in the Declaration, to ensure that the next generation of researchers will be able to pursue their research endeavours and to establish research systems where care and responsibility towards young researchers is at the heart of such systems, implemented in national and EU legislation.

 

A recurrent question we get is who are the young researchers the Declaration refers to? There was a great deal of discussion about what a young researcher is and the dimensions of age and career stage were central to this. However, we soon realised that this could become a minefield. Some of the authors of the Declaration are young in age and have started conducting research at high school and/or in their undergraduate studies so this term would be inclusive of them. The issues that the declaration brings up are especially problematic for researchers at their early career stages due to the lack of experience, contacts/networks and they need to be supported, trusted and cared for in a special way. But the structural barriers the declaration tries to emphasise on, are an obstacle to any researcher and the discussion until which exact age a researcher is young and therefore covered by the declaration isn’t taking anyone further.

 

It is hoped that this initiative will be the starting point for a continuous dialogue between young researchers and policy makers about the future of science and research. From our personal perspective, we think that “young” researchers should be involved at an even more critical and challenging stage of such initiatives which is the implementation and fulfilment of the aspirations described in the declaration.

 

Sarah Glück is Research Fellow at the Zeppelin University (Germany). Dr.Charoula Tzanakou is Research Fellow at the Warwick University (UK). They both are among the authors of the Bratislava Declaration. The content of this blog represents only the opinions of the both above mentioned authors.

 

 

[i] Sarah Glück and Charoula Tzanakou are among the authors of the Bratislava Declaration of Young Researchers.

The post Bratislava Declaration of Young Researchers appeared first on Ideas on Europe.