European Union

Talk about the calm before the storm!  The silence is deafening as both Brussels and Washington DC holds its breath days before the February 1st deadline for an agreement on a new Safe Harbor framework.

At the moment both sides of the Atlantic continue to stare hard at each other waiting for the other side to blink. Senior level negotiations occurred behind closed doors during Davos but very little was revealed. The EU is standing firm as Commissioner Jourova said she is clear that ‘when a European’s personal data travels the equivalent protections also need to go with it’. While Penny Pritzker, U.S. Secretary of Commerce said they have a comprehensive offer being refined ‘…that creates what’s called ‘essential equivalents’ which is the standard that needs to be met in order for Safe Harbor to receive what’s called an adequacy determination’.

What we can assume by next Monday is that some sort of agreement will be announced notwithstanding a complete breakdown in negotiations. Which is a possibility.

What would such an agreement look like? Hard to say, but here are some areas that have been discussed. Clarity on the use of legal mechanisms recognized by the High Court in Europe to allow the transfer of data from the EU to the US. In particular, Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) and Binding Corporate Rules (BCR). There has even been discussion on potentially introducing new ‘creative’ mechanisms such as Codes of Conduct and Certification. However, some Data Protection Authorities in Germany have said they will challenge SCCs and BCRs and any new mechanisms would take several years to be develop, accept, and implement.

But what if the negotiations fail? Where does that leave companies that are directly impacted by the absence of Safe Harbor (of which many are European, by the way)?

We would hope that, in absence of an agreement, the European Commission and Data Protection Authorities will provide clarity and specific ways for companies to transfer data overseas. Unfortunately this does not exclude investigations being started by the Data Protection Authorities.  We can hope these authorities will recognize the good faith companies have shown to date. Companies have repeated throughout the process that they do not have the competency to change how US laws are applied but have offered to make unilateral commitments such as providing transparency reports, developing compliance processes, implementing specific technical or organizational measures.

The real test will be that whatever is announced will need to stand up to European Data Protection Authorities. But it will also need to survive another challenge most likely to come from the High Court and the ‘Schrems’ of the world. A perfect acceptable solution will mean a seismic change in US domestic policy to halt its intelligence services and provide assurances that will need to be entrenched somehow in law. This is not likely in the current US political climate which is very sensitive in the run up to the Presidential elections. The current administration will not want to give Republicans more ammunition with an agreement that may be seen to appease the EU in exchange to sacrificing some of its national security. In addition, the EU would need to provide a credible message to the US explaining why it is ok for Member States, like France and the UK, to introduce new mass surveillance laws. The US will be less enthused to hear Brussels’ response that it does not have the competency to issue orders to Member States, especially not to the likes of the UK with Brexit on the horizon.

Unfortunately the only conclusion is that 1 February will not be the end of the painful discussions that will still be needed to ensure data can flow across the Atlantic. We can only hope cooler heads will prevail and factor in the benefits the free flow of trans-Atlantic data can have in bringing prosperity, jobs and important innovation. Maybe wishful thinking on my part.

Ray Pinto 

On 25 January the Subcommittee on Security and Defence jointly with the Subcommittee on Human Rights exchanged views on children in armed conflicts and challenges for international action with Leila Zerrougui, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, United Nations (see link to speech below).
Further information
draft agenda and meeting documents
discours Leila Zerrougui (en FR)
Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Welcome to the Friday edition of our new Brussels Briefing. To receive it every morning in your email in-box, sign up here.

Mr Cameron and Mr Juncker at the prime minister's official country residence last year

David Cameron, the British prime minister, is due in Brussels today for a meeting with Jean-Claude Juncker – a session so important that he cancelled a trip to Denmark and Sweden in order to sit down with the European Commission president in person. The two men have a famously difficult relationship – Mr Cameron actively opposed Mr Juncker’s election as president, and was one of only two leaders to vote against him at a 2014 summit. But it’s less than three weeks before a high-stakes EU summit where Mr Cameron hopes to get a renegotiation deal that changes the UK’s relationship with Europe. So Mohammed must go to the mountain.

For months, the main sticking point in the British renegotiation talks – which have taken Mr Cameron on a grand European tour from Berlin to Bucharest – has been benefits for EU workers in the UK. Mr Cameron wants to prevent EU migrants from receiving in-work benefits for four years, something that would appear to run directly counter to EU treaties’ non-discrimination requirement.

The latest option under consideration is actually one that has been debated for several months – an “emergency brake”. The original idea would have allowed Britain (and other countries) to limit immigration from other EU members if it can prove government services like healthcare or schools were becoming overwhelmed by the strain. As our Brexit watcher Alex Barker reports, the new twist is that the “emergency break” would allow countries to limit work benefits, rather than immigration. In the past, Downing Street has been lukewarm to the “emergency brake” idea, especially since it would likely need vetting from Brussels before the brake can be pulled. But with time running out, and alternate “Plan B” options limited, Mr Cameron may be warming to the idea.

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The 2007 European Union (EU) Strategy for Central Asia was reviewed for the fourth time in 2015. Over the last eight years, the EU has successfully established several institutionalised mechanisms for strengthening relations and working with Central Asian governments, including an increased presence on the ground. Despite this, the EU’s engagement in Central Asia is one of limited to no impact. The region has become more unstable; forecast gas deliveries from the region to Europe have so far not materialised; trade is minimal with the exception of EU-Kazakhstan links, democracy is seen by the Central Asian regimes as a threat to their survival; corruption severely undermines economic development and siphons off much of the development aid; and the human rights situation has been backsliding. The EU should not and cannot compete with Russia and China in the region. The EU would do best to focus on a few key areas where it can achieve concrete results. Besides broader economic and some security cooperation, the EU should focus on education in supporting the region’s development while further emphasizing human rights and strengthening political and financial support to civil society.
Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Central Asia, located at the centre of the Eurasian continent and straddling the borders of some of the world’s most pressing hot spots, offers economic opportunities and natural resources but also remains insecure and troublesome. For the European Union, the region is not a priority. It is too distant and Brussels experiences difficulties in executing its democratic and value-based agenda on the ground. Regional dynamics have been significantly influenced by many players present in the region; Russia, China and the United States are the most significant. Russia’s position relies on a holistic approach, including military might and the more recent Eurasian narrative. China, pursuing its Silk Road ideas, has no equal in trade and energy. The US has partially retreated from Central Asia and is reviewing its security-centered strategy. Under these circumstances, what should the EU regional approach look like? What are the shared interests and divergent objectives of the actors present in Central Asia? With what actors could the EU cooperate and with whom should it abstain from regional rapprochement? Finally, what options does the EU have to strengthen its posture in the region from a regional and geopolitical perspective?
Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

The 2007 European Union (EU) Strategy for Central Asia was reviewed for the fourth time in 2015. Over the last eight years, the EU has successfully established several institutionalised mechanisms for strengthening relations and working with Central Asian governments, including an increased presence on the ground. Despite this, the EU’s engagement in Central Asia is one of limited to no impact. The region has become more unstable; forecast gas deliveries from the region to Europe have so far not materialised; trade is minimal with the exception of EU-Kazakhstan links, democracy is seen by the Central Asian regimes as a threat to their survival; corruption severely undermines economic development and siphons off much of the development aid; and the human rights situation has been backsliding. The EU should not and cannot compete with Russia and China in the region. The EU would do best to focus on a few key areas where it can achieve concrete results. Besides broader economic and some security cooperation, the EU should focus on education in supporting the region’s development while further emphasizing human rights and strengthening political and financial support to civil society.
Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

On 28 January 2016, the Council extended until 31 January 2017 a freeze on the assets of 48 persons deemed to be responsible for the misappropriation of state funds in Tunisia and those associated with them. 

The decision will be published in the Official Journal of the EU on 29 January 2016.

The sanctions were initially introduced on 31 January 2011, targeting former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, his wife and 46 other persons. They have been renewed annually.

Meng-Hsuan Chou and Pauline Ravinet

Higher education is undeniably global. But this did not prevent interested policy actors, meeting on the occasion of the 650th anniversary of the University of Vienna in 2015, to emphasise the significance of the global and international dimension, as their colleagues have done at the 800th anniversary of the University of Paris nearly 20 years ago. As academics, we know that higher education has a deep relationship with globalisation: from rankings to mobility of students, faculty, and staff; from quality assurance to student-centred learning outcomes; from university governance to the digitalisation of teaching and research collaboration. It is nearly impossible to separate the two. Yet we are still lacking a clear and shared definition of ‘global’ and ‘globalisation’ among higher education practitioners, scholars, and observers—the very people who have been struck by their intensifying relationship since the very beginning, whenever that was. Our handbook chapter develops a set of conceptual tools and lenses to understand the global transformation of the higher education sector by focussing on a particular pattern of this phenomenon we call higher education regionalism (Chou and Ravinet 2015).

 

Scanning the globe, we see regional initiatives in the higher education sector. For instance, in Europe, we have the Bologna Process towards a European Higher Education Area, familiar to the readers of this blog. But there are many more. Indeed, there have been consistent efforts in building common areas in Africa: the African Union’s harmonisation strategy, sub-regional initiatives of the Southern African Development Community, and activities of the African and Malagasy Council for Higher Education. Similarly, in Latin America, there is the ENLACES initiative, the MERCOSUR mechanisms for programme accreditation (MEXA) and mobility scheme (MARCA). Looking East to Asia, there are the many initiatives from the AUN and the very exciting SHARE programme. These are manifestations of higher education regionalism, which we define as referring to:

 

[A] political project of region creation involving at least some state authority (national, supranational, international), who in turn designates and delineates the world’s geographical region to which such activities extend, in the higher education policy sector (Chou and Ravinet 2015: 368).

 

We derived this definition after a review of what has been written on higher education regionalism in political science and in higher education studies—two distinct sets of literature that have much to say about this phenomenon, but rarely engage each other in a fruitful conversation on the subject. From political science, we learned from scholars who examined regions, ‘new regionalism’, and European integration (Caporaso and Choi 2002; Fawcett and Gandois 2010; Hettne 2005; Hettne and Söderbaum 2000; Mattli 2012; Warleigh-Lack 2014; Warleigh-Lack and Van Langenhove 2010). From higher education studies, we obtained insights from scholars who are serious about the impact that the re-composition of space, scales, and power have on past, current, and the future state of higher education (Gomes, Robertson and Dale 2012; Jayasuriya and Robertson 2010; Knight 2012, 2013).

 

The lessons from our review led us to these three positions concerning the study of higher education regionalism:

• It must be comparative. Studying higher education regionalism means comparing varieties of higher education regionalisms to consider the sector’s apparent isomorphism.
• It must be sector-based. Studying higher education regionalism is to take serious the particular dynamics of higher education and how they interact with the wider multi-purpose regional organisation (EU, ASEAN, AU, etc.) and national needs.
• It must be differentiated. Studying higher education regionalism means to distinguish between intra-regional initiatives (within one geographical region) and inter-regional initiatives (between at least two geographical regions).

 

With these points of departure, we proposed a heuristic framework to study higher education regionalism along these three dimensions:

1. Constellation of actors central and active in these processes: this means identifying the individual and collective actors involved and mapping their interaction patterns.
2. Institutional arrangements adopted, abandoned, and debated: this refers to identifying the institutional form and rules and the instruments considered and accepted.
3. Ideas and principles embedded and operationalised: this points to identifying the paradigms, policy ideas, and programmatic ideas guiding the instances of higher education regionalisms.

 

These three dimensions require intensive fieldwork with the key actors involved, which we are currently undertaking in the Southeast Asia region. But we invite researchers - especially those examining less studied regions such as Africa and Latin America – to get in touch so that together we can contribute to the conversation about higher education and globalisation from the regional perspective.

 

Meng-Hsuan Chou is Nanyang Assistant Professor of public policy and global affairs at NTU Singapore and Pauline Ravinet is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Lille 2. They both acknowledge the generous support from Singapore’s Ministry of Education AcRF Tier 1 and Institut Français de Singapour (IFS) and NTU Singapore’s Merlion grant for this research.

 

References

Caporaso, J. A. and Y. J. Choi (2002) ‘Comparative regional integration’, in W. Carlsnaes, T. Risse and B. A. Simmons (eds) Handbook of International Relations (pp. 480–500) (London: Sage).

Chou, M.-H. and P. Ravinet (2015) ‘The Rise of “higher education regionalism”: An Agenda for Higher Education Research’ in J. Huisman, H. de Boer, D.D. Dill and M. Souto-Otero (eds) Handbook of Higher Education Policy and Governance (pp. 361-378) (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan).

Fawcett, L. and H. Gandois (2010) ‘Regionalism in Africa and the Middle East: Implications for EU studies’, Journal of European Integration, 32(6), 617–636.

Gomes, A. M., Robertson, S. L. and R. Dale (2012) ‘The social condition of higher education: Globalisation and (beyond) regionalisation in Latin America’, Globalisation, Societies and Education, 10(2), 221–246.

Hettne, B. (2005) ‘Beyond the “New” regionalism’, New Political Economy, 10(4), 543–571.

Hettne, B. and F. Söderbaum (2000) ‘Theorising the rise of regionness’, New Political Economy, 5(3), 457–472.

Jayasuriya, K. and S. L. Robertson (2010) ‘Regulatory regionalism and the governance of higher education’, Globalisation, Societies and Education, 8(1), 1–6.

Knight, J. (2012) ‘A conceptual framework for the regionalization of higher education: application to Asia’, in J. N. Hawkins, K. H. Mok and D. E. Neubauer (eds) Higher Education Regionalization in Asia Pacific (pp. 17–36) (New York: Palgrave Macmillan).

Knight, J. (2013) ‘Towards African higher education regionalization and Harmonization: functional, organizational and political approaches’, International Perspectives on Education and Society, 21, 347–373.

Mattli, W. (2012) ‘Comparative regional integration: Theoretical developments’, in E. Jones, A. Menon and S. Weatherill (eds) The Oxford Handbook of the European Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Warleigh-Lack, A. (2014) ‘EU studies and the new Regionalism’, in K. Lynggaard, K. Löfgren and I. Manners (eds) Research Methods in European Union Studies (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).

Warleigh-Lack, A. and L. Van Langenhove (2010) ‘Rethinking EU Studies: The Contribution of Comparative Regionalism’, Journal of European Integration, 32(6), 541–562.

The post What is higher education regionalism? And how should we study it? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

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The Informal meeting of Competitiveness takes place in Amsterdam on Wednesday 27 and Thursday 28 January. The goal is to strengthen the single market in the interests of companies, citizens and consumers.

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The start of EU accession negotiations with Serbia and the progress made in normalising relations between Serbia and Kosovo was welcomed by Foreign Affairs Committee MEPs in two resolutions passed on Thursday. They also stressed that these relations would be helped if all EU member states were to recognise Kosovo.
Committee on Foreign Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Austria v Commission
State aid
The General Court confirms that the guarantee granted by Austria to BayernLB in the context of its restructuring concerning BayernLB’s credit lines in favour of Hypo Group Alpe Adria constitutes State aid which is nevertheless compatible with EU law