Ideas on Europe Blog

The journey of connecting your research interests and questions as a PhD student with an effective means of exploring them can sometimes be challenging, writes Rachael Dickson Hillyard. Reflecting on her research critically analysing EU narratives on good governance and rights-based policies, she argues that it is important to recognise the different ways of studying the EU and to embrace more reflexive approaches.

Nicoline Frolich and Ivar Bleiklie chair panel on higher education policy

Hannah Moscovitz and Martina Vukasovic

This year’s ECPR (European Consortium of Political Research) General Conference took place at the University of Oslo between September 6-9. The conference included hundreds of panels on a wide array of topics and representation from close to 2,000 academics from around the world. The ECPR Standing Group on the Politics of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, for the sixth time in a row (following Prague 2016, Montreal 2015, Glasgow 2014, Bordeaux 2013 and Reykjavik 2011) organised a section with a total of six panels covering various themes related to knowledge policy governance.

The section opened with the panel European Integration in the Knowledge Domain –
Taking Stock and Forward Outlook. The panel was based on the research agenda presented in Maassen and Olsen’s (2007) seminal book “University Dynamics and European Integration”. Peter Maassen began by reflecting on the book’s contribution to empirical and theoretical work on higher education research. Mari Elken presented a paper outlining ideas for further developing the research agenda on European higher education and emphasizing the importance of considering the complex ecology involved. Jens Jungblut followed with a discussion of the political contestations involved in the implementation of European policy ideas at the national level. Finally, Meng-Hsuan Chou and Pauline Ravinet presented their research on higher education regionalism, discussing its potential for contemporary political research as well as the importance of comparing regions ‘beyond Europe’ to further develop this field.

The following panel – Policy translation, adaptation and complexity in higher education, research and innovation – explored the various conditions which shape knowledge policy design. Hila Zahavi presented her research assessing the manner in which the EU’s foreign policy interests are embedded in various EU funded higher education programs. Teresa Patricio’s paper explored the research and higher education policy implications involved in complex international collaborations through the example of Portuguese university partnerships. Davide Donina then presented his paper on the examination of New Public Management features in Portuguese and Italian higher education systems, through a comparative and multi-level analysis. Hannah Moscovitz’s paper addressed the role of territorial identity-related interests in the design of knowledge policy from a subnational perspective. Finally, Sandra Hasanefendic’s paper examined the different responses to a new research policy implemented in two Portuguese poly-technics, revealing that the heterogeneous responses can be attributed to unique organisational structures.

The third panel highlighted empirical and theoretical contributions to research on the Policy, Governance and Organisational Change in Higher Education. Martina Vukasovic opened the panel with a discussion of the term ‘loose coupling’ in higher education research – outlining how it has been used, discussing some lacunas in its empirical application and opening avenues for future use. Sara Diogo then presented her paper on the influence of the OECD on European higher education, highlighting the diffusion of educational trends in Portugal and Finland. Roland Bloch followed with a presentation on the role played by the German Excellence Initiative in the proliferation of doctoral programs and its impact on the overall structure of German higher education. Agnete Vabo’s paper assessed how university mergers affect institutional autonomy and strategic steering, shedding light on the diversification involved. The panel concluded with a presentation by Ivar Bleiklie on the potential for discussing a Scandanavian model for higher education through a consideration of the commonalities and differences between Scandinavian countries’ higher education models.

The panel on Research Executive Agencies – Independent Organizations or the Extension of Research Policymakers?, aimed to prompt a discussion on research executive agencies (REAs) and their implications for knowledge policy research. Sarah Glück introduced the panel by highlighting the importance of scrutinising REAs in order to understand the competing logics inherent in science policy systems. Rupert Pichler and Sascha Ruhland’s paper analysed the normative framework governing research funding agencies, focusing on a number of dynamics impacting Austrian government policies in this domain. Que Anh Dang’s presentation explored Nordic higher education regionalism revealing how regional research agencies have contributed to new forms of region-building and market making in the area. Thomas König and Tim Flink’s paper assessed the challenges of the ERC for European research policy which they attribute to both its organisational framework and discursive compromises it undertakes. Finally, Inga Ulnicane presented her work on the concept of ‘grand challenges’, assessing whether it represents a new paradigm in science, technology and innovation policy.

The panel Unbundling knowledge production and knowledge dissemination aimed to conceptualise the ‘unbundling’ of knowledge policy; examining the different actors involved, understanding the consequences of such processes and implications for the university’s perceived role in society. Farah Purwaningrum’s paper discussed the understanding of the university’s third mission in Malaysia, specifically asking how the idea of the third mission as perceived by the Malaysian Ministry of Education affects knowledge production in Malaysian universities? Joonha Jeon’s paper assessed how New Public Management has influenced the realization of universities’ ‘third mission’, highlighting university-industry links in South Korea. Finally, Janja Komljenovic presented her paper assessing the unbundling processes evident in university social media marketing strategies. Through the example of LinkedIn, the study shows an important connection between higher education, markets and digital platforms.

The topic of the last panel in the section was Quality and Effectiveness of Governance in Higher Education: Unpacking the Quality of Governance and Effects of Governance Changes in Higher Education Policies. The panel comprised five papers. First, Michael Dobbins presented a comparative study on German and Swiss higher education reforms which, in response to similar challenges such as globalization and competition pressures, took two distinct (and somewhat unexpected routes) – decentralization and centralization, respectively. Giliberto Capano presented the study he co-authored with Andrea Pritoni on whether increasing autonomy can account for changes in education performance in Western European higher education systems. Meng-Hsuan Chou presented the paper co-authored with Pauline Ravinet concerning effectiveness of inter-regional policy dialogues, in particular focusing on cooperation between EU and ASEAN in the form of EU-SHARE project. Beverly Barrett presented a paper on higher education in Latin America, Portugal and Spain. The panel concluded with a paper by Jens Jungblut and Peter Maassen focusing on quality of governance in sub-Saharan Africa, which, amongst other, provided also a conceptual contribution concerning two dimensions of quality of governance – autonomy and capacity.

Apart from the panels in this section, the members of the Standing Group also took part in other sessions, including:

-          Roundtable on the consequences of internationalization of political science education

-          Featured Panel: The European Research Council @ 10: What has it done to us?

-          Transformation of the Political Studies Profession: What does it mean to be an Active Academic in the Current Era?

Standing Group dinner at the Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education NIFU

As has become tradition, the Standing Group also had its annual meeting focused on planning future activities, including ECPR 2018 which will take place in Hamburg. The meeting was also marked by the Award for Excellent Paper from an Emerging Scholar to Que Anh Dang for her paper “The Bologna and ASEM Education Secretariats: Authority of Transnational Actor in Regional Higher Education Policy”. Standing Group members attended the keynote lecture by Johan P. Olsen “Democratic Accountability and the Changing European Political Order” and enjoyed the very generous hospitality of the Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education NIFU, which hosted the traditional Standing Group dinner.

ECPR 2017 was another successful year for our Standing Group, gathering researchers from 20 different countries, currently based on three continents (Asia, Europe and North America). See you in the next ECPR General Conference in Hamburg in August 2018!

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Prime Minister Theresa May’s speech in Florence was intended to move forward stalled Brexit negotiations. But as I argue in this post that first appeared on the Dahrendorf Blog, Britain has found itself running into numerous problems with Brexit because its strategy for exiting the EU has been a textbook example of failed strategic thinking.

It’s said that in the First World War the Germans viewed the British troops and their generals as lions led by donkeys. One hundred years on, to much of the rest of Europe it is Britain’s national leaders, bereft of any coherent unified strategy for exiting the EU, who are donkeys misleading a great country.

If things continue as they have been, Britain’s approach to Brexit will be studied by generations of strategists as an example of flawed strategic thinking. The rest of Europe and Britain’s key allies such as the United States should lament this. As the Henry Jackson Society pointed out in a recent report, Britain remains a country of immense power and potential. It is not a dwarf and Brexit does not doom it to become one. The British people, like the troops of the First World War, will soldier on. But Brexit does pose the biggest political, administrative, and economic challenge Britain has faced in a long time. If it is handled badly, Britain will suffer unnecessary pain and losses. In facing such a challenge, the British people deserve to be led by leaders with a grasp of what it is they want to achieve and an ability to direct Britain towards it.

Strategy is a balanced combination of ends, ways, and means, which incorporates an assessment of risk and an opponent’s likely behaviour. Successful implementation and adaptation of strategy depends on having leaders who are able and willing to react and lead the struggle. Britain’s approach to Brexit has not lived up to this definition.

Before we open this up further let us be clear that Brexit is not a simple one-off event. It is a series of overlapping multifaceted, multi-levelled processes, negotiations, and debates involving multiple actors in Britain, the remaining EU, Europe, and the rest of the world. Its wide-ranging nature and complexity make it one of the most important and difficult political issues to define and analyse. Finding a way through it, for all involved, was never going to be easy. As I’ll touch on in a future blog post, the EU’s own approach has not been without problems. But Britain has so far gone about it in a particularly poor way.

Ends

Britain has made the fundamental strategic mistake of not knowing what end it seeks from Brexit. “Brexit means Brexit” said Theresa May. But Brexit is a process with no clearly defined destination. It’s like saying “War means war”. War, after all, is a means to an end. Britain’s leadership has been divided, unsure, and left shell-shocked by the Leave vote in a referendum in which most of them had campaigned for Remain. But in voting for Leave what the British people wanted Leave to mean – and therefore what end they want the UK government to deliver – has never been entirely settled. Its why British politics since 23 June 2016 has been defined by a battle to define the narrative of Brexit. It was the need for a mandate to define such a narrative that led Theresa May to trigger an unexpected general election. She hoped it would empower her to pursue the Brexit she outlined in January. Instead, the hung parliament that emerged has only confused things further.

That more than a year on from the vote British politicians are still arguing about the nature of a transition deal points to how far there is still to go before Britain knows what it wants from what Theresa May describes as a “deep and special partnership” with the EU. And it has not been just the governing Conservative party that has struggled. Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and other opposition parties have either fudged the issue or offered unrealistic ends as part of electoral manoeuvring rather than an assessment of what is possible or in the national interest. The inability of British politicians to know what they want and whether they can get it has led to calls for the EU to take the initiative by explaining to the UK what its options are.

Ways

With an unclear end, the UK has been in no position to assess or prepare the ways to get there. Given that no plan survives first contact, the need to constantly plan and adapt is one of the key requirements of any strategy. As Former U.S. President and U.S. Army General Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, “plans are worthless, but planning is everything”. It makes sense, therefore, to task the British civil service with planning for a range of possibilities, including a no-deal scenario. That sounds an ideal way towards a resilient strategy. But the planning only started a year ago, thanks to David Cameron’s refusal to contemplate a Leave vote in the run-up to the referendum. Since then, and as noticed by the EU’s negotiators, Britain’s negotiators have struggled to grasp the detail because there’s so much for them to do. This hasn’t stopped British Ministers from promising to achieve great things. They ignored that they lacked a way – and the time –to settle Brexit in the two-year timeframe provided by Article 50. They forgot that under-promising and over-delivering is a shining virtue; vice versa, a mortal sin.

Means

With no clear end and inadequate and confused ways, it should come as no surprise that Britain has been unable to prepare, configure, or effectively deploy the means it has available. The means are plentiful: staff, money (not least Britain’s budgetary contributions), legal positions, diplomatic support from allies, trade deals, military and security capabilities, the status of UK and EU citizens, Britain’s trade relationships with the rest of the EU, the power of the City of London, and so forth. One reason Britain has struggled is because its diplomatic means in Europe are not what they once were. Before the referendum, a great deal of EU business was conducted via Brussels. Large parts of Britain’s diplomatic resources throughout the rest of the EU were redirected towards areas of the world outside Europe, especially emerging powers. That now must be rebalanced.

Britain also needs replacements for EU regulators, additional civil servants to undertake new work, new facilities at ports, new IT systems to address changes in how trade is handled, and much more. None of this is impossible and work has begun, but it’s still in the early phases. The rest of the EU knows this. Those who compare Brexit negotiations to a poker game overlook how both sides know exactly what the others hand is. Threatening to walk away from the EU when you won’t have the means in place to deliver a ‘hard Brexit’ in a way that doesn’t inflict real and lasting damage is a bluff the other side sees straight through.

Assessment of Risk

Britain’s assessment of the risks involved in Brexit has been lacking. In triggering Article 50 when she did, Theresa May made time an ally of the EU and increased the risk of Britain not having a settlement in time for an exit it wanted. The British government forgot what the ancient Chinese general Sun Tzu argued in the 5th century BC: ‘The victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory’. Having jumped headlong into Article 50 negotiations, Britain has come to realise over the past year that it needs to look for a way to victory.

Assessment of the EU

Assessment and understanding of the EU, the UK’s opponent in Brexit, has been limited. May’s speech in Florence was billed as a ‘re-engagement with Europe’. That will have perked up the ears of the rest of the EU, because, as the outgoing French ambassador in London recently noted, the UK has spent the past year talking to itself about Brexit. Leaders and decision makers elsewhere in the EU have routinely denounced talk such as ‘having your cake and eating it’, and done so to the point of ridicule. Yet with donkey-like stubbornness, some British ministers have continued to repeat and, even worse, believe their own rhetoric. Mrs May and the rest of the UK’s leadership need to recognize that the EU is changing and that Britain’s place in Europe will be shaped by this dynamic, and not only by its own hopes and plans for Brexit. Brexit is but one of several challenges and opportunities confronting the EU, among them the pressures facing the eurozone, Schengen, Russian relations, the future of NATO and ties with the U.S. How the EU responds to these pressures will determine its place in the world and frame its future relationship with Britain.

Does this mean Britain is doomed to lurch from one Brexit crisis to the next, resulting in catastrophic humiliation for Britain? Not necessarily. Britain might have over-reached in the first phase of Brexit negotiations, but it’s still too early to evaluate the full significance of Brexit and whether the old phrase holds that you can lose a battle but win the war. That, of course, depends on where Britain and the EU end up in the 2020s in terms of their relations and relative power in the world and in Europe. The rest of the EU has its own weaknesses. Strategies for saving the euro have sometimes been nothing more than glorified exercises in muddling through, with EU decision-makers often making donkeys of themselves. The only strategy that can realistically work is one based on mutual self-interest, where losses are minimised for both sides. However, it remains unclear whether Britain, or the EU, can find ways towards this.

This post first appeared on the Dahrendorf Blog.

The post Britain’s Brexit Strategy: Lions Misled by Donkeys appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Although little evidence supports the existence of welfare tourism, the EU’s Court of Justice has increasingly adopted this economic rationale in its rulings, writes Charles O’Sullivan. He argues that the court, having departed from its original legal test for social assistance claims in several decisions, is bowing to political pressure on access to welfare support.

The European Union (EU) referendum result has led to the unfolding of a domestic constitutional drama in the United Kingdom, which on its current trajectory could lead to its break-up. This is the first of two blog posts which maps the initial trajectory by considering the roles of the key institutional actors in the drama so far. The second post  will consider the impact of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, published in July 2017 and to be debated by the UK Parliament in Autumn 2017, on this constitutional drama.

Setting the scene

Within the framework of the current devolution settlement, the UK’s withdrawal from the EU will mean that Scotland also leaves, despite 62% of the Scottish electorate voting to ‘remain’. However, EU law is embedded within Scotland’s devolved constitutional landscape – the devolved administrations are required to honour the obligations of EU law – and a UK withdrawal from the EU will have direct and significant impacts on the devolution settlement as currently designed.

This sets the scene for a constitutional drama which has been slowly unfolding since 24 June 2016.

Act 1

Enter – the Scottish Government

The referendum result has prompted calls from Scotland’s First Minister to ‘take all possible steps and explore all options to give effect to how people in Scotland voted.’ Short of a second independence referendum which, if successful, would allow Scotland to become an EU Member State in its own right, consideration, as promised, has been given to whether Scotland could remain in the EU without seeking independence in two position papers: Scotland a European Nation and Scotland’s Place in Europe.

Although legally feasible, implementation of the plan set out in these papers would require a high level of political will and legal creativity at both the UK and the EU level. However, the UK Prime Minister has not so far shown any signs of willingness to permit Scotland to negotiate a differentiated position as part of the Brexit negotiations.

Act 2

Enter – The UK Government

The UK Government’s reaction to its counterpart’s calls from Holyrood to respect the decision of Scottish voters to remain in the EU has been muted. Aptly summarised under the title of the ‘May Doctrine’ the UK Government is said to be proceeding on the basis of two assumptions: first, that a certain course of action, namely Brexit – however vaguely defined in its specifics – is irresistible. Second, that the UK executive alone has direct responsibility for the implementation, delineation and definition of Brexit (Blick, 2016).

The ‘May Doctrine’ is clearly enunciated in Theresa May’s Brexit speech, given on 17 January 2017, in which the Prime Minister made it clear that there would be no accommodation of Scotland’s desire for a differentiated relationship with the EU. Doubts were also cast in this speech, and in the government’s subsequent White Paper, over the future remit of the Scottish Parliament. It is often assumed that those powers currently exercised by the EU which fall within devolved competence will be repatriated to the Scottish legislature. In her speech, Theresa May instead suggested instead that it would be left to the UK Parliament (with no mention of the devolved administrations) to decide on any future changes to the law. This position has been confirmed in the publication of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill; a preliminary overview of which can be found here (for more detail on the devolution aspect see blog post 2).

Despite much rhetoric to the contrary the UK government’s position on Brexit expounded to date appears to diminish rather than value the devolved constitutional landscape of the UK and the voices of the administrations within that. There is no legal means by which those voices can be taken into account and a flawed intergovernmental talking shop (the Joint Ministeral Committee) is apparently not providing a meaningful forum for genuine discussions based on mutual trust and respect. With the stakes so high, this is a sorry situation indeed, and in all likelihood, a constitutional collision course in the making.

Act 3

Enter – The Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has taken the place of the third actor in this constitutional drama. In R (on the application of Miller and Dos Santos) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union [2017] UKSC 5 the Court was asked whether the UK Government had the power to give formal notice of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU (to ‘trigger article 50 TEU’) without prior parliamentary authorisation through a legislative Act. The outcome of the case in respect of this question is well known: namely that an Act of Parliament is required to authorise ministers to give notice of the decision of the UK to withdraw from the EU. However, the Court was also asked to examine the role of the Sewel Convention which provides that the UK Parliament will not normally legislate with regard to devolved matters without the consent of the Scottish Parliament. Given that the decision to leave the EU directly impinges on a considerable part of the work of the Scottish Parliament and Scottish government on issues ranging from agriculture and fisheries, environmental protection to higher education and research, the argument was led that the UK Parliament required the consent of the Scottish Parliament before it could trigger Article 50 TEU.

The Supreme Court unanimously held that the Sewel Convention effectively restates a constitutional convention rather than a legally binding obligation. The Court did not reach a conclusive decision on whether consent was required as a matter of convention but did decide that the devolved legislatures lack the legal power to block the triggering of Article 50 TEU.

The decision of the Court in this respect may well contribute to the heightening of tensions within our current constitutional drama as the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill will be subject to approval by the Scottish Parliament through a legislative consent motion. Both the Welsh and Scottish governments have indicated their refusal of consent following the publication of the Bill (see blog post 2).

Act 4

Enter – The UK Parliament

The Supreme Court’s decision in Miller has been described as simply putting ‘the Brexit ball firmly back in the [UK] parliament’s court.’ Only it, through the adoption of a statute – and not the UK Government – could allow Article 50 TEU to be triggered and both the House of Commons and the House of Lords agreed to give the Prime Minister the power to trigger Article 50 TEU. The UK’s notification of withdrawal was sent on 29 March 2017. The UK Parliament will have a significant role to play in relation to the EU (Withdrawal) Bill and will be required to adopt a raft of additional legislation (yet to be drafted) within an extremely short timescale.

Final Curtain?

All eyes are now back on the Houses of Parliament as the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill makes its way through the legislative process. The disappointing outcome of June’s general election which returned a ‘hung’ parliament has seemingly emboldened some (government and opposition) MPs to question the government’s stance on Brexit. At the same time, the Scottish government’s position has been seriously weakened by the loss of many of its MPs in the election.

The Bill itself may result in fundamental changes being made to the devolution settlement and given that devolution has embedded itself increasingly into the fabric of the UK constitution over its almost 20 year history, it seems unconscionable that it might be at breaking point – but on the basis of performances given thus far in the drama, it is, at least when viewed from North of the Border.

This blog post is a shortened version of a longer piece
which appeared as M. Fletcher and R. Zahn,
‘Brexit, the UK and Scotland: the story so far:
A constitutional drama in four acts’
in G. Hassan and R. Gunson, Scotland, the UK and Brexit:
A Guide to the Future, Luath Publishing, Edinburgh, 2017

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Giving a tutorial on practice based and problem solving research

Sandra Hasanefendic

Fostering regional and innovation ecosystems through strengthening professional higher education and related research activities has been an imperative in recent years in Europe and globally. I have been personally involved both as a researcher, and expert adviser in understanding how and through which mechanisms can this be achieved. In recent years, I have been following and supporting the development of a program for the Modernization and Valorization of Polytechnic Institutes in Portugal. The comprehensive policy program was launched in 2016 at the initiative of the Portuguese Government and acts in more than fifty cities all over Portugal and aims to: a) promote local innovation partnerships through collaborative initiatives and co-creation mechanisms between polytechnics, local communities and a wide variety of small and medium size companies; b) foster problem based and practice oriented learning and research approaches to help innovate in professional higher education; and c) to secure knowledge sharing on educational practices and professional development across Europe through international collaboration among regional-based partnerships.

The policy program is built on inclusive, open and fully participatory community principles. It is a symbol of participatory policymaking in Europe centered around dialogue, negotiation and decision making among and between academic leaders and teachers/researchers, students, experts from local communities and companies in a wide variety of sectors, as well as across different countries. Its consequences are already greatly felt in Portugal, but it is predicated that the program will have far reaching consequences for the state of polytechnic education and research in Europe. Namely, it will promote internationalization of professional higher education which has mostly been local, while at the same time stimulate innovative research activities based on regional partnerships. This is expected to additionally strengthen the role of professional higher education institutions as intermediaries in regional and innovation ecosystems which has been recently discussed by me and my colleague Hugo Horta in “Training students for new jobs: Intermediary role of technical and vocational higher education”.

In the first phase of the program, targeted visits of polytechnic representatives to Finland, Netherlands, Ireland and Switzerland were stimulated. It was expected that this experience would lead to learning and gaining experience about the emerging professional higher education and related practice-based research activities in Europe. The second phase involved knowledge dissemination workshops, organized throughout the country and at different institutions, through which acquired knowledge and developments in other visited countries were shared. These workshops stimulated dialogues about lessons learned, but they also aimed to explore the current state of professional higher education and related research activities in Europe through tutorials and potential opportunities for improvement and innovation based on experience, yet within the limits of the national socioeconomic context.

The third phase of the program consisted of introducing targeted initiatives exploring aforementioned opportunities and promoting change at Portuguese polytechnics. The initiatives concentrated around the promotion of funded collaborative research projects between polytechnics and local industry and community, setting up creative research labs to promote polytechnics’ integration with their region through problem based and practice oriented research activities, and the promotion of short cycle technological courses resting on innovative learning methodologies promoting problem based and practice oriented research. It has involved the use of European structural funds and national funds in a total of 46 million Euros for a period of 18 months.

The current phase concentrates on the promotion of internationalization activities and partnerships between European professional higher education institutions and associated research groups. Within this framework, the Portuguese Minister of Science, Technology, and Higher Education recently visited Dutch polytechnics in Rotterdam and Leeuwarden and agreed on strategic international partnerships promoting long term collaborative activities between polytechnic institutions in Europe.

These international partnerships are critical in sharing learning perspectives and developments in professions to train resilient and engaged students and professionals of the future. It is expected that the partnerships will benefit students by fostering dual and joint programs, exchange in research projects among others, and contribute in gaining a more rounded understanding of their profession. Professions are not local but globally developed and by exposing students and staff to the same profession, yet in different environments and contexts, and through problem based and practice oriented research activities, the idea is that they will be able to advance the state of the profession in their local and regional contexts within Portugal.

Sandra Hasanefendic is a double doctoral degree student from the Vrije University in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL) in Portugal. She researches organizational behavior in higher education. Her focus lies on non-university higher education (or professional higher education) and responses to policy pressures regarding research and innovation in education and training. Sandra also teaches, consults and advises policymakers on issues relevant to advancement of professional higher education and research activities in Portugal and the Netherlands.

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I would like to take a look at the factual and legal aspects of Russia´s aggression against Ukraine´s territorial integrity in early 2014. Indeed, to what extent has the international law been violated and what are the consequences?

In February 2014 Russian authorities used the internal political conflict in Ukraine to deprive the Ukrainian state of its control over Crimea by attacking the Crimean Parliament and blocking the peninsula’s infrastructure as well as power ministries´ units with “unidentifiable” “green men”, which later turned out to be Russian military and security forces. Further, a fake, internationally condemned, referendum with rigged results was held in order to give the affair a flair of justice, and to absorb Crimea with apparently legal means.

As far as the relations between Russia and Ukraine are concerned, they are contained in a number of bi- and multilateral agreements.  The 1994 Budapest memorandum was concluded providing Ukraine with security assurances for giving up Soviet nuclear weapons. USA, UK, Russia committed to “respect the Independence and Sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine” and reaffirmed their obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, and that none of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine except in self-defense or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the UN.

The Constituent Act of the Community of Independent States of 1991 set out the principles of respect of the existing borders, with Russia relinquishing any challenge to them.  In 1997 the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership, and the Black Sea Fleet Status of Forces Agreement, prolonged until 2042 in 2010 by the so-called Kharkiv Accords, were concluded between Russia and Ukraine, reaffirming again the inviolability of the borders between both states.

Kremlin claims the legality of its actions under two concepts of international law: the protection of nationals abroad (Articles 2(4) and 51 UN Charta) and intervention upon invitation. Both, upon consideration, don’t find factual support for referring to. Rhetorical claims of Putin have no legal value and can not supplement existing case law and international practice.

General Assembly Resolution A/RES/68/262 of 27.3.2014, adopted with 100 votes,

58 abstentions, and 11 No-votes, has called upon states not to recognize any alteration to the status of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol.  Russia violated the following United Nations Charter provisions:

- Article 1.1: UN´s purpose is to maintain international peace and security.

- Article 2.3: All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.

- The use of force is prohibited (Article 2.4), as is intervening in another state’s domestic affairs and territory (Article 2.7).

- Armed intervention is only justified when mandated by the UN Security Council under Chapter VII or in case of self-defence.

The EU´s reactions include diplomatic sanctions adopted by the EU (the unilateral suspension of visa facilitation talks, negotiations on the New Agreement, and the EU-Russia Summit); level 2 restrictive measures based on Article 29 TEU (CFSP Decision) + Article 215 TFEU (Regulation); and level 3 economic sanctions (e.g. arms, oil, gas and other trade embargoes).

 
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) suspended the accession process of Russia and began strengthening ties with Ukraine. The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly has accused Russia of the breach of the basic principles laid down in 1975 Helsinki Final Act, 1990 Charter of Paris for a New Europe, and condemned Russian actions in Ukraine in 2014 “Baku Declaration” and in 2015 “Helsinki Declaration”.

 
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), declaring that Russia’s annexation of Crimea was “in clear contradiction with the Statute of the Council of Europe” and the commitments Russia made, when it joined the organisation in 1996, has decided to suspend the voting rights of the Russian delegation, as well as its right to be represented in the Assembly’s leading bodies, and its right to participate in election observation missions. In its resolution, adopted by 145 votes in favour, 21 against and 22 abstentions, the PACE Assembly stated that the military occupation of Ukrainian territory, threat of military force, recognition of the illegal referendum and annexation of Crimea “constitute, beyond any doubt, a grave violation of international law”.

 
Ukraine pursues many courses of action. Thus it has filed a claim at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, but the options beyond this are limited, lawyers agree. Russia does not recognise the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, while its position as a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council means little chance of formal UN sanctions given its possession of the veto. Ukraine intensified its cooperation with partner states, EU, NATO, Visegrad, etc. thus adopting a clear European course and building a significant coalition of states.

 
This case raises structural questions regarding the development of international law. If the conflict is not solved promptly, it may serve as a precedence and justification for further violation of legal practice, bringing uncertainty, potential chaos and unenforceability into any international agreement.

 
Calls for reforms in the UN Security Council composition, procedures and competences intensify since 2014, and if not attended to, may lead to further de-legitimisation of the UNO.

 
Besides, we witness qualitative and quantitative proliferation and legalization of the “hybrid war” methods, by military masking the uniforms or mercenaries, but also through manipulation, propaganda and fakes, with growing significance of populistic rhetoric for legitimizing the breach of legal norms, irrespective of factual background and international law.

 
Russia´s actions have a transformatory influence on international politics and institutions, since giving up or non-proliferation of the nuclear weapons in return for guarantees has lost its credibility.

 
Given the usual lack of legal remedies in international relations, the value of international commitments fell sharply. This fall is exacerbated by unwillingness of the guarantor states, EU, NATO, UNO, OSCE and other entities to address the conflict in a serious manner in order to provide for effective remedies for law and treaty enforcement, de-occupation and de-escalation of aggression.

By annexing Crimea Russia raised fundamental questions about the principles of world order. For Russia itself the annexation is a watershed event, which dramatically intensifies the internal political and economic burdens, that Russia’s authoritarian regime is faced with. In the long run, many scholars predict disintegration of the Russian Federation territory into more cohesive legal entities in accordance with economic, socio-cultural, ethnic and historical legacies, all according to the “principles” Russia itself set in motion in 2014.

A. Svetlov

The post The post – Crimean world: Russia´s annexation and its consequences. appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The prevalence of cybersecurity threats against state infrastructure demonstrates the need for an effective European and national response, writes Eva Saeva. Focusing on the UK, she argues that, while legal measures are important, the fast-changing nature of the situation means that other avenues, such as public-private cooperation, are also essential.

While last year’s Brexit vote marked a watershed moment for the European Union, its impact on EU foreign policy might remain limited, writes Ragnar Weilandt. He argues that the UK’s dual role as a provider of capabilities and occasional driver of policy on the one hand, and as an obstacle to constructing common institutions and positions on the other, means that these contradictory influences are likely to cancel each other out.

I’m wrapping up for a summer break, just as more Brexit stuff is about to be released: tant pis.

While we wait for that – and it might not come to much - I’d like to revisit a theme that has long floated about the Brexit debate, namely the weak/strong paradox.

Simply put, many of those who argue(d) for Brexit said that the UK was weak within the EU. It is pushed around, made to do things that it didn’t want or like, and generally got the sharp end of the stick. But if the UK left, then it would be strong, able to play a major role in the world and pursue its interests with much more ease, including with the EU, who would have to take what the UK offered.

Hopefully the paradox is evident, especially when one asks why it should be that as an insider the UK should have less power and agency than as an outsider.

As much as an answer exists, it points to the UK becoming stronger by no longer having to be involved in the large amount of EU activity that it never cared for – a ‘getting back to basics’-type argument – and to the presence in the British polity who have betrayed the national interest by working to support the EU – the ‘fifth column’ line. You can see where both come from, even if neither stands up to very close inspection.

I’ve been reminded of all this by some of the news stories and discussions this week (like this and this), that come back to a core frame of “it’s the EU’s fault”.

“It” here means pretty anything you like.

Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen the EU blamed for not giving enough to Cameron in his renegotiation, giving too much, giving the wrong sort of thing, getting involved in the referendum, not getting involved enough, pushing too hard for Article 50 notification, not negotiating outside Article 50, pushing its agenda too much in Article 50, pushing the UK around too much in Article 50, trying to backslide on Brexit, trying to push for punishment of the UK: at that’s off the top of my head. You’ll have other examples.

Think of this as the manifestation of the weak side of the paradox: if it weren’t for those pesky Europeans, we’d be fine.

Oddly, the strong side has become more muted of late. Yes there is still talk of how the UK is – comparatively – a strong and stable partner, but the language is very much on the lines of “we can work something out”, “it just needs some common sense” and “it’s in our mutual interest”, i.e. more phatic than substantive.

The big gaping hole remains the lack of a clear plan from the UK for the process: I’ll not rehearse that again, except to say that the biggest surprise is that this should still be an issue, so late in the day.

You might think of this as an extension of the referendum campaign: both sides fought hard to win the vote, but neither engaged in a debate about what their outcome was good for.

Of course, the EU makes a very convenient scapegoat: it does lots of things, it is easily portrayed as ‘other’ and it isn’t good at defending itself. It’s not just the UK who does this, which is why euroscepticism is a continent-wide phenomenon.

But here, in the context of Brexit, the most striking thing is how the EU continues to be treated as the source of all woes. I have no doubt at all that whatever results from Article 50, the EU will be blamed for making/letting it happen. Indeed, there will be even greater incentives to do so: I mean, what can the EU do? Kick us out?

The point to be kept in mind is that this is a reflection on the UK’s agency.

As a first cut, it highlights the thinness of the British position now: if there was a plan, then the plan would be the focus of discussion, instead of how the EU is being difficult. In the absence of a constructive agenda, one falls back on to sniping.

As a second cut, it remains us that the international system is not one where states have anything like complete agency: whatever its relationship with the EU, the UK is going to be buffeted about by the world and its events. It may not be anarchic but it is tough (doubtless there’s a bunch of IR theorists who can argue this at much greater than I can).

When we talk about the UK needing a plan for Brexit, it has to be a plan that is not just about the EU and Article 50, but also about the wider future. Grumbling about the water in the meeting room isn’t going to be enough.

The post The weak/strong paradox of Brexit appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Have you been struggling to keep up with all the new books on Brexit? Were you secretly planning to spend your summer holiday catching up on some of them? OK – perhaps not. But if you were, then here to help is a guide on what to take away with you to the beach or pool to focus on an issue that will keep us busy for several more summers to come.

Summer brings with it a host of reading lists on what to take away with you to while away the hours by the poolside or on the beach. The thought of a guide on what books to take away to read on Brexit might fill most people with horror. Even though Brexit negotiations are now underway, ‘banging on about Europe’, as David Cameron once put it, remains a sure way of boring most people. Giving the appearance you’re prepared to bang on about it while on holiday might seem just downright bizarre.

But that doesn’t apply to everyone. The number of people bored by others banging on about Europe is bound to decline as Brexit hits home. And it certainly doesn’t apply to those struggling to study and understand Brexit, aka ‘Brexicologists’. The past year has witnessed a flood of books explaining what happened in June 2016 and trying to understand what might happen next. Then there’s the mountain of reports and articles from governments, parliaments, think tanks, universities, businesses and so forth. We’ll leave them for another day.

It’s easy to lose track and even though it might not be the ideal way (or one many are prepared to admit) to use a summer holiday, time away does offer a chance to reflect on the biggest political development Britain has faced in decades. Below I list some of the best books published since the referendum. A regularly updated list can be found on my website.

Not long seemed to pass between the final votes being counted and the appearance of the first books telling of what happened inside the campaigns. Tim Shipman’s All Out War: The full story of how Brexit sank Britain’s political class remains a provocative and well-written account of both the Remain and Leave campaigns. Cameron’s communications director, Craig Oliver, was equally quick out of the blocks with Unleashing Demons: The inside story of Brexit. It remains one of the best insider accounts. Owen Bennett’s The Brexit Club takes us into the victorious but often deeply fractious Leave campaigns. Another quickly published account is Harry Mount’s Summer Madness: How Brexit split the Tories, destroyed Labour and divided the country. Love him or loathe him, UKIP funder and businessman Aaron Banks’s updated The Bad Boys of Brexit is guaranteed to evoke strong feelings.

The rush to have the first word and so define history means anecdotes can win out over careful analysis. Jason Farrell and Paul Goldsmith offered a more considered approach in How to Lose A Referendum: The Definitive Story of Why the UK Voted for Brexit. In explaining their eighteen key reasons for Leave’s victory, they delve into both the history of UK-EU relations and more recent developments in the campaign.

Former Labour minister Denis MacShane was quick to turn his pre-referendum book ‘Brexit: How Britain will leave the EU’ into Brexit: How Britain Left Europe. Last time I heard he was working on the next book Brexit: How Britain will stay in the EU, which will focus on the limits of Brexit and be ideal reading for your 2018 summer holiday.

Tory donor and polling supremo Lord Ashcroft teamed up with Kevin Culwick to quickly publish Well, You Did Ask… Why the UK voted to leave the EU. Published soon after the vote, it collated some of the earliest polling that helped explain why the British people voted as they did.

The most detailed analysis of the vote so far published is Harold Clarke, Matt Goodwin and Paul Whiteley’s Brexit: Why Britain voted to leave the European Union. As the most comprehensive analysis so far of the vote it is required reading for anyone interested in the referendum. You can read my review of the book for the LSE’s Brexit blog here.

If numbers are not your thing then Andrew Glencross’s Why the UK voted for Brexit provides a short academic analysis of the referendum divided into four sections covering the history of Euroscepticism, the renegotiation, the campaign, and the future handling of Brexit. It focuses on the nature of direct democracy in the UK and the nature of Euroscepticism.

Brexit is not an event or a single process, but a series of potentially open-ended processes touching on everything from tariffs and health to matters of war and peace. Understanding where this unprecedented development takes the UK or the EU is the biggest challenge Brexit poses. Almost every book listed in this review offers some ideas on where we go next. Some do so more than others.

Published not longer after the vote, journalist Ian Dunt’s Brexit: What the hell happens now? gives an easily digested – but Remain leaning – account of what may unfold.

A more detailed and academic analysis looking at the implications of Brexit across a wide range of institutions and policy areas can be found in Janice Morphet’s Beyond Brexit: How to assess the UK’s future.

Cambridge professor of law, Kenneth Armstrong’s Brexit Time: Leaving the EU – why, how and when? is divided into four sections examining the world before the vote, the vote itself, preparing for Brexit, and Brexit itself. It’s accompanied by a very helpful online edition.

Former foreign secretary, SDP leader and supporter of Leave, David Owen, teamed up with David Ludlow to write British Foreign Policy After Brexit, which offers thoughts on where Brexit leaves Britain in the world.

UCP’s ‘Haus Curiosities’ series of short pamphlets offers two on Brexit. C4 News political editor, Gary Gibbon’s Breaking Point: The UK referendum on the EU and its aftermath, looks not only into what drove Brexit but provides some analysis of what it could mean for the UK and the remaining EU. Stephen Green’s Brexit and the British delves into the divisions in British society to find answers to why Britain voted as it did.

The breadth of Brexit as a topic means we can expect many edited books on the topic. Both of those so far produced are ideal for postgraduate readers or those with an existing knowledge of the topic of UK-EU relations.

David Bailey and Leslie Budd’s The Political Economy of Brexit looks not only at the political economy of Brexit, but also at such issues as the unity of the UK and the future of the EU. Contributors include Edgar Morgenroth, Jan Toporowski, Lisa De Propris, Sukhwinder Salh, Margarita Nyfoudi, Alex De Ruyter, Dimitris P. Sotiropoulos, John Milios, Jim Gallagher, John Bachtler, and yours truly.

Similarly, William Outhwaite’s Brexit: Sociological Responses builds around a sociological approach a broad-ranging coverage of the topic. Contributors include Martin Westlake, Jonathan Hearn, John Holmwood, Stefan Auer, Craig Calhoun, Chris Thornhill, Gurminder K. Bhambra, Colin Crouch, Gerard Delanty, Antje Wiener, Simon Susen, Harry F. Dahms, Adrian Favell, and yours truly.

Guilty Men: Brexit Edition by ‘Cato the Younger’ is the most provocative of all the books listed here. It is based on the 1940 classic of the same title that condemned the men guilty of the policy of appeasing Hitler. This Brexit edition is aimed squarely at those in Britain and Europe who Cato argues led Britain into making its biggest mistake since the days of Chamberlain and Lord Halifax. Unapologetic in its tone, the fifteen men and women listed are found guilty of deceit, distortion, personal gain, failures of leadership, and gloating, hubris and frivolity.

Longstanding Eurosceptic Dan Hannan’s What Next: How to get the best from Brexit offers a Leavers analysis of where Britain and UK-EU relations can go next with a focus on the nature of UK democracy.

With your productive holiday of Brexit reading behind you, you’ll no doubt be keen to keep abreast of the many Brexit books due out later this year. Worry not if you once again find yourself falling behind with reading them. If you’re good then maybe on Christmas morning you’ll find Santa has stuffed one of the following into your stocking. What better way to spend Boxing Day than reading about Brexit?

The autumn will see the publication of Anand Menon and Geoffrey Evans’ Brexit and British Politics. Anand – the Professor of Brexit studies – will be familiar to many as the head of the ESRC’s UK in a Changing Europe programme. Their book looks set to explain the outcome of the vote by looking at longer-term trends in British politics.

The autumn will also see Brexit: What Everyone Needs to Know by David Allen Green. Part of OUP’s ‘What everyone needs to know’ series, what you need to know about Brexit will be set out in the answers to 41 questions.

I’ll be adding my own contribution with Europe’s Brexit. Thanks to the work of a team of thirty people across Europe, this edited book will look at how the rest of the EU – all twenty seven other member states and the EU’s institutions – responded to the UK’s renegotiation, referendum campaign, the result of the vote, and reacted up to the triggering of Article 50.

By 2018 we should all have a much better idea of where Brexit is taking us. The year already promises some textbooks to accompany the debate, with a Handbook of Brexit planned by Patrick Diamond, Peter Nedergaard and Ben Rosamond. If I spend the summer reading and writing on Brexit then my own Brexit: A Concise Introduction should also be available thanks to Policy/Bristol University Press. If you can’t wait that long then catch the Brexit: A Crash Course of lectures at NYU on which the book will be based.

This post first appeared on the LSE’s Brexit Vote blog.

The post A Brexit summer reading guide appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

This fictional story, which can potentially materialize, is to be pondered about, given the current oncoming of apparently uncertain times in the global politics.

This is a scenario of how, for the sake of progress and stability, the EU should avoid the political and territorial division of the European continent and ongoing divisions into the 1st and 2nd class countries.

For long the Europe’s political boundaries did not coincide with its geographic ones, but the decision of the EU Council, eagerly endorsed by the Parliament in Luxembourg, to join Ukraine, finally gave hope to the citizens of the EU. Since then they could look into the future with certainty. For the EU this important and logical step meant the beginning of its own successful transformation into a modern polity.

For the EU, Ukraine in this respect is not only the land of the rising sun. It is the home of Humanism and Progress, the island of Normality in the sea of chaos and crisis. Ukraine serves as a centre of continental gravity, which exercises both passive influence (because it is so attractive) and active policies of cooperation with the neighbouring European Union. Humanitarian assistance is being constantly shipped to the EU´s capitals in order to relieve the needs of destitute and homeless population of the European continent.

By 2030 the EU came to bureaucratic perfectionism, but at the cost of common sense and human individuality. Led by unaccountable politicians, the EU turned into a bureaucratic monster, unable to make concerted decisions, thus further undermining its democratic legitimacy and neglecting civil rights of its subjects. The inability to deal with complex issues and various challenges, impaired EU´s functionality and threatened its very existence. Brittle peace which at rare times still could break out within the EU was always of undurable nature, with increasingly more countries leaving this sinking ship.

As a response to the ongoing crisis the EU was about to turn into authoritarian and repressive state, squeezing the last taxes from its impoverished citizens. Total control of all social life and public sphere in the EU, together with regular, illegal and inhumane screening of all EU´s citizens, further undermined public trust in the European Union. What followed, was the mass migration of Europe´s citizens to Ukraine, for whom this country meant going back to the normality. They fled from the EU´s over-regulation and pervasive dominance of ultimate rationality.

In this context the European Union´s decision to join Ukraine, which is seen as the true, original Europe, unspoilt by genetically modified products, Bureaucratization of all spontaneous activities and Standardization of everyday life, came just right. Ukraine remained the only state in the world, still free from thought control. It built upon its democratic traditions to become the richest and most developed state on the European continent.

It is not only the geographical center of Europe, which lies in Ukraine. The decision came as a recognition of the key role, played by Ukraine in the fields of global security, food and energy supply as well as cutting edge technologies, such as green energy, aircraft and space ships. The Ukrainian space ships fly American, European and even Brazilian satellites into space for over half a century now.

The Ukrainians, as opposed to the EU´s citizens, managed to nourish their love for freedom, stemming from the Cossack state of the 17th century. This country made the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity the everyday reality already back then. The Cossacks had direct democracy, which is the most democratic of democracies.

Besides, Ukraine is the country, which gave birth not only to Belarus but also to Moskovia, which in the 18th century self-proclaimed itself as Russia.  The first constitution in Europe, written in 1710, was also the Ukrainian one. It established a democratic standard for the separation of powers between the legislative, executive, and judiciary, and that well before the publication of Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws. The Constitution was unique for its historic period, as it limited the executive authority, protected individual rights and established a unique Cossack parliament.

Europe acknowledged Ukraine´s outstanding contribution to the European civilization and world peace. This country lost over 10 million dead (a quarter of its population) during the WWII. Nevertheless Ukraine could quickly rise from the ashes of the war and already in 1951 the first computer in Europe came from Kyiv. And although this computer´s initial average speed was just 50 operations per second, this invention paved the road for further evolution of technology.

In the light of all these facts, already well known in Western Europe, there is still some way to go in order to materialize the future of the common European house.

The post International relations reconsidered: Accession of the EU to Ukraine – a 2030 scenario? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Michaela Martin and Christine Emeran

A result of the rapid expansion and diversification of the higher education sector is that academic quality has come under greater scrutiny. The development of internal quality assurance (IQA) systems by higher education institutions (HEIs), as a means of monitoring and managing quality, constitutes one of the most important reform initiatives to address this concern.

Higher education institutions (HEIs) confront a number of challenges in IQA design, such as choosing an appropriate focus, integrating IQA tools into a cost-effective and coherent system, considering graduate employability, and finding an appropriate balance between centralized and decentralized structures. For these reasons, a demand exists for reliable empirical knowledge about how to make IQA effective while sustainable for the enhancement of quality and relevant for higher education in different national and institutional contexts.

UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) research on internal quality assurance

To provide more knowledge on factors that condition IQA, IIEP, in coordination with the International Association of Universities (IAU), conducted an international survey to understand the purpose, orientation, structures, tools and processes, drivers, and obstacles of IQA practices in HEIs worldwide. In addition, IIEP conducted case studies on eight universities to document good principles and innovative IQA practices, analyze their effects, and identify factors (both internal and external) that contribute to an effective IQA system. The universities studied under the project are: American International University (Bangladesh), University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany), University of Talca (Chile), Daystar University (Kenya), University of the Free State (South Africa), Xiamen University (China), University of Bahrain (Bahrain), and Vienna University of Economics and Business (Austria).

This research followed a multi-stakeholder approach in the primary data collection to compare different actor groups’ perspectives on IQA, such as academic and administrative staff, students, and academic and administrative leaders. In each of the case universities interviews were held with university leadership at different levels, focus groups discussions with programme directors and students and survey conducted with academic and administrative staff. The overall purpose of the research was to highlight approaches to IQA and study their effectiveness with a view to providing good principles to inspire other HEIs to better design and implement an IQA system.

Benefits of Internal Quality Assurance

The research project revealed that, in the institutions examined, IQA has initiated a large set of reforms, particularly, in the domain of teaching and learning that has generally improved the coherence of study programmes and its alignment with labour market needs. In addition, as an IQA effect, management processes were streamlined and better integrated with data analysis and evaluation.

The research data also found a number of common factors for success, although they largely depend on the context of each individual institution and modes of implementation. Overall, the participating universities agreed that leadership support, stakeholder involvement, IQA integrated with strategic planning and an effective management information system were of tremendous importance. Leadership support was identified by both academic and administrative staff as a necessary and commonly present factor in the case universities in facilitating the integration of centralized and decentralized management of IQA. Linking IQA with decision-making can close the loop at three levels: individual level; academic programmes, and strategic planning of the whole university. Indeed, strategic planning provides a framework of orientations and goals, including on quality, at all levels towards which IQA works most effectively if all levels are engaged.

Lastly, the effectiveness of the IQA system also relied heavily on the level to which students and staff were aware of and involved in its processes and tools. For instance, programme reviews and job market analysis were found effective if they incorporated employer recommendations to revise academic programmes in line with employment needs. In terms of limits, students and staff felt that they did not receive enough feedback from certain IQA tools, such as course evaluations or student satisfaction surveys, the study found. In addition, the data from certain tools was not always used for maximum benefit by all stakeholders. For instance, the results of graduate tracer studies were predominantly used by management rather than academics who are in charge of the revision of study programmes.

Overall, the study concluded that IQA is most effective if it leads to a regular internal dialogue on quality. A dialogue that fosters a quality culture that is also the ultimate purpose of IQA and will contribute to improved academic quality and graduate employability.

Visit here for more information on this study.

Michaela Martin and Christine Emeran work on higher education issues at the UNESCO International Institute for Education Planning (IIEP-UNESCO).

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As everyone (semi-)winds down for the August break, and the pace of events slows, it is a useful point to consider Article 50 and Brexit once more.

While I have usually looked at this from the British end, this time I’d like to look at it from the EU’s perspective, not only because I’m now in a large research project with Hussein Kassim doing just this, but also because the structure and process of Article 50 is very much driven by the EU.

Moreover, I have a number of thoughts that I’m trying to marshal together and this is as good a time as any.

With all that in mind, I want to suggest that the EU’s position is conditioned primarily by salience, and only secondarily by substance.

Salience as a key driver

The opening observation is that the EU faces a wealth of issues and difficulties at any given time, by virtue of its size and nature. Because it reaches into a very large number of policy areas and because it covers many states (both as members and as external partners), there is always copious scope for something to go wrong.

Moreover, at present, the EU faces a particularly large number of grave problems, above and beyond the normal noise. Most obviously, the long-running eurozone crisis remains highly problematic, despite nearly a decade of efforts to address it, with a model of economic governance that still lags far behind monetary centralisation. The migrant/refugee crisis might not be quite as hot as in 2015, but it is still highly political and increasingly pervasive in its effects. And Russian challenges to security are as poor as they have been at any point in the post-Cold War era.

And that’s just to pick on the three most obvious candidates, alongside Brexit.

But Brexit differs in one crucial aspect. It looks manageable, in a way that the others do not.

By this, I mean that it is a ‘going-away’ problem, a bit of difficulty that is contained to one country that wants to get away. Sure, it’s still tricky to work out the details, but the basic intent of the UK appears to be to get further away, not closer. By contrast, the other issues are ‘coming-closer’ ones, pervasive and structural, with higher cost implications for the EU. Put differently, if nothing’s now, the UK will stop being the EU’s direct problem, while the others will just get worse.

To be clear, this is an attitudinal view, rather than an objective one, as we’ll discuss below. But the point remains that in the grand scheme of (EU) things, Brexit is low down the list.

You can find markers of this all over the place.

The European Parliament Think Tank’s review of 2016 European Council conclusions showed that only 5% of space was devoted to Brexit, as against 50% on migration, 20% on economic governance and 20% on foreign policy. Also consider how most EU27 discussions of Brexit have also been bound up in (and increasingly are subservient to) wider discussions about the future of the Union. It also accounts for the common view across the continent that the British have been crazy to decide to visit Brexit on themselves when there are many more important things to be dealing with. More prosaically, Jean Claude Juncker spends maybe some more time than half-an-hour per week (as claimed by his chief of staff), but evidently not much more.

In short, for most member states and most institutions, there are more pressing issues to deal with than Brexit.

The upshot of this is two-fold:

Firstly, it means that EU preferences are formed primarily by those who do find the matter salient. And secondly, it means that the EU’s position might not be as stable as it currently looks.

When actors care

Taking each of those points in turn, we can observe that there have been parts of the EU that have seen Brexit as a key priority for action.

Exhibit one includes the Commission and the President of the European Council. As guardian and figureheads of the Treaties they have been the logical point of contact in the initial phases of the process, firstly as Donald Tusk managed the renegotiation, and then as the Commission slotted into its conventional role as negotiating partner in Article 50. From the day after the referendum, both have worked together to pull together a management plan and then a negotiating mandate. This latter is clearly informed by the central idea that the EU’s legal order needs to be preserved, not least because to have otherwise would compromise their own positions within the Union: if a departing state can change the treaty architecture, then what might a extant member state require or demand?

These bodies are thus pursuing both their official role and engaging in an (indirect) defence of their position: recall that in June 2016, it wasn’t clear what would happen with populists in the Netherlands, France, Hungary, Poland or elsewhere. Brexit was (and is) an opportunity to demonstrate the value of membership to all and sundry.

Exhibit two is Ireland. Of all of the EU27, this is the member state that most obviously has a stake in how Brexit unfolds. It is no accident that the border question is included in the opening round, since Irish politicians and diplomats worked very hard indeed to get it positioned there, working on the basis that the UK didn’t seem to be too bothered about it all. Quite aside from the apparent intractability of the matter, the willingness of the country to make such a strong push reflects on this idea of salience: economic modelling suggests Ireland will suffer much more than any other member state as the UK transitions.

Exhibit three are the ‘odds and sods’ group, which currently includes Spain and Croatia. The former saw an opportunity to include references to the status of Gibraltar in the mandate, while the latter has become the only vocal critic of that mandate, focusing on free movement restrictions that arise from the on-going transition arrangements the country has had since joining in 2013. While neither of these have been big issues, they highlight how particular issues can become important as negotiations progress.

What matters

Of course, to argue that most member states don’t care is misleading. And the argument here is that low salience combines with a Commission-led mandate that addresses most concerns, leading the rest to leave this to one side until a more critical juncture. That juncture will be at the end of the process, when decisions are actually made. As such, we might expect that the relative harmony of the EU over Article 50 is conditional, not structural.  To pick just a couple of  examples, the European Parliament might decide it needs more on citizens’ rights before it accepts a deal, while accommodations in any transition deal might cause problems around the financial settlement, to the displeasure of net budget contributors.

It is also important to underline that Article 50 is not the whole game of Brexit. Equally as important is the way in which the UK’s departure will change the balance of the EU. Those countries that saw the UK as a counter-weight to Germany or France, or who used it to promote liberalising, Atlanticist agendas will now find that the environment is less conducive. Security will be a key part of this, as there is a potential to return to the old cleavages and a structural boost to Europeanist models.

This means that states have to think about what Brexit means for the rest of the UK’s relationship with Europe, through NATO, WEU and all the dense network of multi- and bilateral agreements. And it also means that states have to think about how to adapt their EU strategy: there will have to be a realignment of alliances and coalitions.

And this brings us back to the starting point: Brexit qua Brexit is only ever going to be part of a much larger picture for most member states, and much of what will matter will be in their own hands and have little to do with the choices that are reached within Article 50. That leaves a lot of opportunity for those who do care to shape matters.

The post A tentative model of the EU27′s approach to Brexit appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

EU regional policy spending accounts for about a third of the EU’s total budget. It is the EU’s main mechanism for financial redistribution. In addition to supporting jobs, economic growth, sustainable development and so on, one of its key stated aims is to underpin European solidarity. In this way it is a key part of the European integration project. This is why the Commission places a lot of emphasis on how its regional spending is communicated to citizens, and it’s why they are particularly concerned with how spending is perceived and making sure it is well publicized. For this reason, recipients of EU funds are required to acknowledge the EU’s contribution on public signage and in literature.

A Huggins family day out funded by EU regional policy…

Despite these efforts, communication of EU regional policy is far from perfect and awareness of EU spending varies significantly across the EU. To get a feel for how it is doing on this front, the European Commission sporadically looks at public opinion about EU regional policy through the Eurobarometer survey. The results of the latest survey were published last month. There are some interesting findings when looking at the UK.

In June 2015, just 9% of UK respondents said they had “heard about any EU co-financed projects to improve the area where you live”. This was the lowest level of awareness among any EU member state (the EU average was 34%, Poland had the top spot at 76%). In March 2017, however, this had doubled to 18%. This is still very low (though no longer the lowest), but on a percentage point basis this represents the joint highest increase (with Ireland) in the EU.

Large increases are found in other measures in the survey too. 35% had heard of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) in March 2017 (EU28 average 28%), compared to 29% in June 2015. Again this 6 percentage point difference was the highest increase across the EU28.

27% said they were aware that EU funding fosters cross-border co-operation between regions (EU28 average 22%), up 13 percentage points from June 2015 and again the joint highest increase across the EU28.

Of the respondents who had heard of either the ERDF or Cohesion Fund, 22% felt they had benefited from an EU funded project (EU28 average 24%), up 12 percentage points from June 2015 and the second highest increase across the EU28.

What accounts for the increased awareness of EU regional policy in the UK between 2015 and 2017? The survey itself does not answer this question, but one obvious possibility is the EU referendum and Brexit. EU investment in UK regions was a feature of the referendum campaign, and was frequently linked to wider debates about the overall costs and benefits of the UK’s membership.  In this way Brexit may have given EU regional policy an unintended publicity boost.

The potential impact of this shouldn’t be over stated, though. At 18%, the overall level of awareness is still low and behind the EU average of 35%. Indeed, this overall lack of awareness might be part of the reason why areas which received relatively large amounts of EU investment (Wales, Cornwall, the north-east) nevertheless voted to leave. It is also entirely possible that increased awareness of EU funding may have had a negative impact on support for EU membership. There were, after all, many more respondents stating they had not benefited from an EU-funded project (65%) compared to those that said they had (22%). Nevertheless it may indicate that part of the solution to raising EU citizens’ awareness of EU regional spending may be to incorporate it into national discourses.

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Janja Komljenovic and Susan L. Robertson

How are education markets constructed? What is the global education industry? How is education becoming part of global trade in services?  Who are the actors involved? What are the consequences and outcomes for the sector and for society at large? These are some of the key questions addressed in a recent special issue ‘Making global education markets and trade’ published in the Globalisation, Societies and Education journal.

This special issue had its genesis in two panels that we have organised at the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) Annual Conference in Vancouver in 2016. It aimed to generate theoretical, methodological and empirical insights into the very complex and new ecology of education systems that are being rapidly unbundled as largely state regulated sectors to functioning as a market. The authors identify a number of market devices and analyse how they work to set up and lubricate the ongoing workings of particular markets. They also analyse space and time as marketizing strategies to reveal complex modalities of power at play. And finally, they reveal networks of market-making actors who together work and invest to expand education markets as well as (re)structure national, regional and global political institutions.

Education market devices

A number of papers in the special issue focus on market devices and particularly elaborate (i) standards and standardisation, (ii) technology and infrastructure and (iii) data and metrics.

It is not surprising that standards are ‘normal’ elements of markets as they lubricate their smooth operation by increasing efficiency, reducing cost and enhancing trust. The papers analyse how education market-making actors intensively work to create industry standards, often without charging for this service. This is, however, also unsurprising as standardisation not only lubricates market operations, but also provides market opportunities for innovation and new products. In other words, standardisation in itself enables the creation of new commodities and markets.

Digital technologies and infrastructures are a second key group of market devices that are used both for and in countless particular devices and the same act as devices in their own right. Finally, data and metrics act as devices in that they convince buyers of education products of the trustworthiness of markets and their different products, acting, as one of the contributors to the issue describes it, as ‘epistemic objects’. Moreover, numbers give illusion of objectivity and are tools of the ‘governing by numbers’.

Spatial and temporal strategies for education market-making

Authors reveal the use of space and time as strategies for market-making; a set of processes that are often overlooked in the scholarly work on markets in education. Regarding spatial dynamics, particularly the use of space, scale, place, the nature of their social relations, and strength or weakness of their boundaries, are discussed. Regarding temporal dynamics, particularly the shift in temporal order towards the future is analysed to show how efforts to lock in a particular kind of future that privileges the interests of the investors, in turn helping to reproduce markets in education.

Networks and investors involved in education market-making

A number of papers also analyse those actors who are active in marketizing the education sector and the networks they form. They scrutinise the investment capital that seeks returns-on-profit, but also philanthropic donations that have particular connections to specific companies and the actors behind them.

Future research

Contributions to this special issue all in their own way engage with different sites and social processes as the basis for studying market-making and trade. An important endeavour of the authors was to theoretically and conceptually move beyond current approaches to studying market-making and trading in education services. As editors we endorse this endeavour and see that the complex processes are revealed in a novel way. As the editors, we wish to thank all of the authors for their outstanding contributions and look forward to wider ongoing conversations and future engagements with work on markets in education.

Janja Komljenovic and Susan L. Robertson are guest editors of the special issue ‘Making global education markets and trade’. Dr Janja Komljenovic is Senior Research Associate at the Lancaster University, UK. Professor Susan L. Robertson is Professor of Sociology of Educaton at the University of Cambridge, UK.

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[This post was originally published in the Atlantic Community.]

Saturday, July 8th, 2017 marked the first anniversary of the Joint Declaration by the President of the European Council, the President of the European Commission, and the Secretary General of NATO. The signing of this joint declaration between the EU and the Atlantic Alliance called for a new era of their relationship. But is the Joint Declaration really such a milestone that everybody in Brussels talks about? Or, is it just another act of nothing?

Even in the area of security and defense, cooperation has become an unavoidable issue in the last twenty-five years. States in Europe have not only recognized the need for closer collaboration, but have also come to realize that there is no alternative. Recent events, such as the Ukraine crisis and the renewed disputes with Russia, the refugee crisis, and the emergence of hybrid warfare as well as terrorist attacks in European capitals, have illustrated that one security organization alone is not able to solve such issues. The changing international order and the developments along Europe’s borders call for more cooperative approaches to peace and security.

With the EU-NATO Joint Declaration, another stone was laid to build a basis for cooperation. One year has passed since the signing. The main questions are now:

1. What is the Joint Declaration comprised of?
2. What has been implemented so far?
3. What is the outlook for the future of EU-NATO relationship?

The EU-NATO Joint Declaration and the subsequent Implementation Plan are based on seven areas of cooperation: hybrid threats, operational cooperation, cyber security and defense, defense capabilities, defense industry and research, exercises, and defense and security capacity-building. The 42 articles within these areas of cooperation further propose actions and approaches to foster cooperation.

Yet, while these proposals sound promising and let one think that the EU-NATO cooperation has moved from “desirable” to “possible,” one important question remains: What has been achieved so far? Of course, their cooperation cannot be expected to have become the goody-goody among inter-organizational relations in security and defense only one year after signing this declaration. But the current “European defense momentum” should be used effectively and wisely, and should be translated into closer cooperation over the Atlantic. Fruitful grounds for doing so are hybrid warfare and cyber security. These fairly new security threats can trigger cooperation through using each organization’s own strength – for example, cooperation in hybrid warfare , in which each can make use of their strength and expertise, could become a good point of departure and a potential for a spill-over effect to other areas of cooperation, such as cyber security and defense capabilities.

Still, one has to be realistic and down to earth in terms of EU-NATO cooperation in general. Since signing the Joint Declaration, one major concern remains: Both organizations could take the easy way out and rest on their laurels. As pointed out by a NATO official, both organizations have to deliver now. Concrete and substantive deliverables are urgently needed. Just ticking the boxes of carrying out meetings and seminars is not enough. The “joint” is still missing from their actions and both have to work towards a sense of togetherness on both the operational and strategic levels in order to find solutions to current security threats on Europe’s eastern and southern borders.

Overall, the atmosphere between the two organizations and their staff has improved over the last months and weeks. Exchanges have become more regular, and issues of EU-NATO cooperation more frequently find their way on the organizations’ agendas. The future for their relationship looks promising, albeit full of obstacles and challenges, and a lot of work still needs to be done. The EU and NATO find themselves in the “friend zone” and should work towards more strategic partners with a sense of togetherness.

Areas of cooperation that seem to be most fruitful for joint actions are cyber security and hybrid warfare, as well as counter-terrorism and maritime security. Efforts in the Gulf of Aden and in Mediterranean Sea have illustrated that cooperation on the operational level is possible. Now it is time to translate the will to cooperate to other theatres. Crises in the Ukraine and Libya demand joint action because of the complex nature of these enduring conflicts. Neither organization is fully equipped to deal with these issues. However, questions still remain. Who will make the first move? Who dares to actually start cooperating on both the operational and strategic level? The implementation of the Joint Declaration and the 42 proposals remains to be seen.

Nele Marianne Ewers-Peters is a PhD Candidate and Teaching Assistant at the University of Kent.

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Governments around the world are trying to strike a balance between climate policy and energy policy. This is difficult due to tension between the oil sector and the renewable energy sector, which has created a dualism between climate commitment and energy policies because national energy policies accommodate both fossil fuels and renewable energies. The tension within the different energy sectors is evident in Denmark, and it has implications for Danish climate targets especially in terms of its 2030 targets of 50 percent renewable energies and the long-term goal of low-carbon economy by 2050.

Denmark has traditionally been highlighted as an environmental forerunner[i], especially in green technology and wind-power, yet the current government’s policies are not enabling this transition from fossil fuel to renewable energies. The government’s climate and energy policies are inconsistent, simultaneously promoting the green technology sector through an export strategy whilst supporting the national oil industry through a new investment strategy.

Denmark is on course to achieve its 2020 EU climate and energy target for renewable energies, which is 30 percent and according to the 2017 national energy forecast[ii] Denmark will go beyond the target reaching 40 percent in 2020. The 2017 Energy Forecast is doubtful about reaching the targeted 50 percent for renewable energies for electricity in 2030. Importantly the European Environmental Agency has published a similar forecast for the whole of the EU, which only demonstrates the difficulties in implementing climate targets and changing energy production. The 2017 Energy Forecast argues this is partly due to lack of investment in renewable energies, i.e. wind-power, and conversion of existing power-plants. A further factor is predicted increase in energy consumption due to Apple and Facebook datacentres, which will lead to increased demand for mainly coal because of stagnated investment in renewable energies[iii].

According to DR news, the initial two datacentres (Facebook and Apple) will increase demand for electricity by 10 percent[iv] (the news report came before Apple announced it is building a second datacentre). Without investment in renewable energies, this increase in demand for energy will be supplied by fossil fuels, thereby negating Danish climate change commitments. However, Apple will invest in wind-power to produce electricity for its two datacentres[v]. A decision which is welcomed by the Danish government. According to Greenpeace Denmark, Apple’s investment in wind-power might not have negative effect on Danish renewable energies and climate target as the company apparently will rely on its own energy production[vi]. Thus, the problems with increased energy demand highlighted by the 2017 Energy Forecast might not be so big, but it is still unclear if Facebook will use the national energy grid or like Apple build its own power supply.

This year the government has shown a renewed commitment to fossil fuel. In January, the government signed a new deal with Danish Underground Consortium (DUC) represented by A.P. Møller-Mærsk to continue to obtain oil from the North Sea, including rebuilding the Thyra area. In the beginning of July, the government published its new strategy for investment in North Sea oil and gas[vii]. Denmark has been an oil producer for the past 40 years, and has been independent of imports, which has provided the country with high level of energy security. The government aims to continue to extract oil and gas from the North Sea thereby protecting energy security, tax revenue (despite a rebate for the DUC) and local jobs[viii].  A press release from Lars Christian Lilleholt, Minister for Energy, Utilities and Climate, stated that “in the future Denmark must have a strong and competitive energy sector with competences in both oil/gas and renewable energies”.[ix] Indeed the minister does not see a contradiction in the North Sea strategy and the 2050 goal of becoming a zero-carbon economy[x].

The dualism in energy investment, which favours both fossil fuels and renewable energies, does not enable green energy transition. It is important to remember that Denmark is not only a successful wind-power energy producer, it is also an oil producing country and the tension between these two energy sectors will increase as part of the green transition. This tension is not unique to Denmark indeed it is present in the overall climate debate. Importantly, Denmark is often mentioned as a forerunner in wind-power[xi], and the Danish fossil fuel story is frequently ignored. Yet the fossil fuel sector continues to play an important role for the national energy policy, which cast doubt on whether Denmark will reach its 2030 climate targets and eventually become a zero-carbon economy by 2050.

[i] Dyrhauge, H. (2017). “Denmark: a wind powered forerunner” in A Guide to EU Renewable Energy Policy: Comparing Europeanization and Domestic Policy Change in EU Member States. Edited by Israel Solorio, and Helge Jörgens, Edward Elgar publishing.

[ii] https://ens.dk/sites/ens.dk/files/widgets/multi_campaign/files/bf2017_hovedpublikation_13_mar_final_0.pdf

[iii] Ibid page 9

[iv] http://www.dr.dk/nyheder/penge/klimaraadet-datacentre-tvinger-danmark-til-investere-mere-i-sol-og-vind

[v] http://www.dr.dk/nyheder/viden/naturvidenskab/4-grunde-til-apple-bygger-endnu-et-datacenter-i-danmark

[vi] http://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/greenpeace-facebook-og-google-boer-foelge-apples-groenne-planer

[vii] https://ens.dk/sites/ens.dk/files/OlieGas/nordsoestrategi.pdf

[viii] Ibid page 3

[ix] http://efkm.dk/aktuelt/nyheder/nyheder-2017/juli-2017/ny-strategi-for-olie-og-gas-i-nordsoeen/

[x] http://www.dr.dk/nyheder/penge/minister-danmark-skal-vaere-et-foerende-olie-og-gasland

[xi] Dyrhauge, H. (2017). “Denmark: a wind powered forerunner” in A Guide to EU Renewable Energy Policy: Comparing Europeanization and Domestic Policy Change in EU Member States. Edited by Israel Solorio, and Helge Jörgens, Edward Elgar publishing.

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Today, UK in a Changing Europe publishes its report on “The Cost of No Deal“, to which I’ve contributed. Here I consider some of the wider ramifications.

There is one than one way that the Article 50 process might fail to reach an agreement and it is useful to consider each of these in turn, since they each carry quite varied political and reputational costs and benefits.

The most obvious path is that by late 2018 it becomes clear that there has not been much progress on substantive negotiations under Article 50 and that no amount of extension to the two-year period that ends in March 2019 will unblock this. By mutual agreement, both sides let the clock run out and the UK leaves at the end of the period.

Much will turn here on who did what and who blocked what. For both the UK and the EU, there will be considerable political and popular fall-out – all the more given that the start of the negotiations in summer 2017 appears to be relatively constructive – so there will be a strong desire to paint the other side as the spanner in the works.

The UK is unlikely to come out of such a battle of framing well: on the experience to date, it has been much less clear about its desired outcomes or its detailed positions, so the EU will be able to point to its much more public and visible approach as one of being transparent from the start. If the UK had problems with any of these points, then it had two years to make that clear.

Even if provisional agreement is reached on some issues – citizens’ rights, for example – everything is more than likely to lapse in the absence of an overall agreement, so those who thought they might miss the chaos of a ‘no deal’ outcome would also be sucked back in, raising questions about whether either side will make unilateral commitments.

More importantly, the absence of an agreed set of terms for withdrawal will leave the UK with a long list of uncertainties (discussed elsewhere) that will consume the very large majority of governmental and parliamentary business for some years to come, potentially enlivened with cases brought before international courts for compensation.

The failure to secure an agreement will also complicate international trade deals with third parties, who will be uncertain not only about the UK’s legal position, but also about whether it is a desirable negotiating partner: again the shadow of Article 50 will be long and will condition much thinking by others about how much British negotiators can be moved in their preferences.

However, the mutual impasse scenario is one that still leaves a fig-leaf of decency for the UK, since it requires the EU also to become implicated in the decision to run out the clock. It is not hard to imagine the political and media debate in such a situation, where ‘Brussels’ is to blame in large part: only if there has been a substantial organisation of soft- and anti-Brexiteers politically and a swing in public opinion in a similar direction will that translate into further problems for the government of the day. This is not to suggest it will be an easy option, but rather one that is highly fraught and uncertain, with no one response holding the upper hand.

By contrast, if Article 50 ends without agreement because of a unilateral British decision to remove itself from negotiations – maybe even to declare a unilateral and immediate withdrawal from the EU – then all of the costs and problems outlined above will be very much stronger.

In this situation, the uncertainties of the UK’s legal position would be much magnified, raising internal political debate about what might happen next. Of course, for this to come about, there would have to have been some governmental and parliamentary debate, and possibly a vote on the course of action, but given the current make-up of the House of Commons it is hard to see how any majority might operate with any stability or durability. In any case, the pressure from all sectors of business, citizens and others would consume the government to provide some clarity about the status of law and regulation. In addition, third parties might consider that a UK which up-ended its membership of the EU in such a manner might not be one with which to conclude any new treaty commitment.

This is perhaps the key point to take from any consideration of the political and reputational aspects: Brexit is not just about the EU. How the UK acts now and through the rest of the process, whatever the outcome, matters.

This breaks down into three basic elements.

Firstly, the British political system has already been thrown about by Brexit, which is likely to be the defining political event of this period. The choices made by the Conservative party, and Theresa May in particular, have put the country on a track that requires a satisfactory conclusion (i.e. a deal). Without it, there will be further profound dislocations in the party political system and more widespread discontent with the failure of the establishment. Since the UK would be in a position of being outside the EU, the current oppositional views to the government – softening or aborting Brexit all together – would no longer be viable, leaving all sides in a policy cul-de-sac.

Secondly, the EU would still be there. This basic truism is often forgotten in the British debate, but in the absence of a deal, it is inconceivable that there would be no dealings between the UK and the EU. If nothing else, the British Prime Minister and ministers will regularly bump EU counterparts at NATO, UN, G7, WTO and many other meetings: the EU has always been part of a bigger framework. As such, while it might be tempting to blame each other for a failure to agree a deal, this might in turn poison other relationships.

Finally, failure to agree will also compromise what little debate there is about the future path of the UK. The EU referendum did nothing more than conclude that the UK didn’t want to be a member of the EU; it did not set out a clear alternative path. If Article 50 does not produce that path, then the country is likely to find itself in an extended period of dislocation, short on friends, lacking in credibility as an international partner, and generally low on options.

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An art exhibition in Germany illustrated the tragic price of the migration crisis that is now effecting Europe. The theme of an art installation called Lampedusa 361 was about refugees who have drowned in the Mediterranean, while trying to make the sea crossing from Africa to Europe. The installation which has been exhibited in Dresden and Düsseldorf is not just a piece of artwork, but also acts as a memorial to those who have died and a warning to all of us.

The exhibition consisted of posters which were laid out rather like beach mats or towels on the ground in an open space. The posters were of photographs of the graves of refugees who died off the coast of southern Italy. Candles were placed on the ground beside the mats, which created the impression of actually being in a cemetery where the refugees had been buried. In the year 2016 over 5000 men, women, and children died while trying to cross the Mediterranean often in old leaky overloaded fishing boats. These events pose the question of why are these people going to such desperate measures to reach Europe?

Throughout history refugees have fled the terror of persecution and wars, which continues to the present day: at the time of writing there are wars going in South Sudan, Nigeria, Yemen, Iraq and Syria. These conflicts have created millions of refugees who have lost everything, but added to this is the phenomenon of climate change. Both of these problems of climate change and wars are global, and could be described as the force that is pushing the mass migration from the south to the north.

The mass migration is a symptom of a dying planet, where large areas of the planet are becoming uninhabitable. The human species is killing the planet and itself at the same time. Europe can no longer cope with mass immigration, but mass immigration is not the fault of the immigrants, everybody will do what they have to do to survive. If EU member states – including the UK irrespective of Brexit – are selling armaments to Saudi Arabia and other oil and gas producing states in the Middle East, then Europe is helping to make the problem of mass immigration worse.

Sources
http://lampedusa361.de/

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/09/saudi-arabia-becomes-worlds-biggest-arms-importer

http://www.thenational.scot/news/eu-to-probe-saudi-arms-trade.13087

©Jolyon Gumbrell 2017

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