Ideas on Europe Blog

The Prime Minister, Theresa May, seems to be in a desperate hurry. She wants to break-away from the EU within two years of triggering Article 50, and to have a new EU trade deal in place at the same time.

That’s something top EU lawyer, Jean-Claude Piris, said will be ‘totally impossible.’

Next, Mrs May has announced, she wants Britain to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, if she’s elected back to power in the 2020 General Election.

The Prime Minister is intent on undoing the progressive achievements of her predecessors.

Former Tory leader, Margaret Thatcher, urged Britain to remain the European Community in the first referendum of 1975.

In a keynote speech at the time she said:

“It is not surprising that I, as Leader of the Conservative Party, should wish to give my wholehearted support to this campaign, for the Conservative Party has been pursuing the European vision almost as long as we have existed as a Party.”

Mrs Thatcher also pushed for, and made possible, the Single Market of Europe.

It was one of the Tory party’s greatest leaders, Winston Churchill, who passionately promoted the ‘Union of Europe as a whole’ and is recognised as one of the 11 founders of the European Union.

Churchill also proposed a European ‘Charter’ and ‘Court’ of Human Rights that became the European Convention on Human Rights. He said in 1948:

“We aim at the eventual participation of all the peoples throughout the continent whose society and way of life are in accord with the Charter of Human Rights.”

It was Tory Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan who applied for Britain to join the European Community in 1961.

He explained to the British people:

“By joining this vigorous and expanding community and becoming one of its leading members, as I am convinced we would, this country would not only gain a new stature in Europe, but also increase its standing and influence in the councils of the world.”

It was Tory Prime Minister, Edward Heath, who joined Britain to the European Community in 1973, with the backing of Parliament.

And it was former Tory Prime Minister, John Major, who negotiated and won Parliament’s backing to sign the Maastricht Treaty, that among other benefits gave us EU citizenship rights allowing us to live, work, study or retire across a huge expanse of our continent.

Theresa May is throwing away the glorious legacy of past Tory leaders. Why? Because she is not a true Tory.

Her policies are not true Tory goals. Her vision of Britain outside of the European Community, and of Britain leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, do not represent true Tory values.

Mrs May was not even elected as their leader by the Tory Party. It’s time the Tories seriously considered removing Mrs May from office, to save their party’s heritage, and more importantly, to save Britain.

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Other stories by Jon Danzig:

• Brexit Secretary, David Davis, gets 5 stars for double standards
• 10 ways to stop Brexit
• The best EU trade deal? We already have it
• List of the latest articles by Jon Danzig

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

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The left finds itself in a difficult position.  Its role is needed more than ever in the post-WWII period.  However, its internal divisions limit its impact on developments.  This state of limbo must be overcome, if the left is to be able to push forward and work towards putting an end to the crisis in favour of society at large.

Do the two cases of EU exit, BREXIT and GREXIT, whether actual or speculative, constitute critical junctures in the evolution of the EU?  if so, with what implications?  What is the role of the left in these circumstances? In order to provide some answers to these questions, a look is needed into BREXIT and the implications for a potential GREXIT – the modalities involved and the issues raised.

According to Art. 50 TEU, the process for a Member State exiting the EU is initiated with the state submitting a notification to withdraw.  A maximum duration of two years is then allowed, during which the EU negotiates and concludes an agreement with the departing state, setting out the arrangements for the withdrawal and taking account of the framework for the future relationship between the two.  The final agreement is approved by the European Council, acting by a qualified majority.  It must also have the consent of the European Parliament and, under certain circumstances (if it cuts across policy areas that lie within the competence of Member States), be ratified by the national parliaments of the 27 member states.   The issues raised by the negotiated withdrawal of a member state are numerous and complex.

In the case of BREXIT, the result of the British referendum was followed by a government crisis and the emergence of a more anti-EU, conservative administration.  Furthermore, political debate shifted to the right and far right, influencing government actions. It is generally believed that EU leaders wish to complete the negotiation process before the European Parliament elections in the summer of 2019 and the appointment of a new European Commission.   As the economy comes under increased pressure due to the uncertainty created by BREXIT, the effects will be felt by society at large, adding to the general upheaval.

On the European side, the withdrawal of the UK will disrupt the Union’s internal equilibrium, as the economic and political weight of non-eurozone countries in EU will be reduced considerably.  For example, in 2015 the share of non-eurozone countries in EU GDP was equal to 29%, of which 17.5% derived from the UK and the remaining 11.5% from eight countries (Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Croatia).  This may well be expected to strengthen the political and economic supremacy of Germany. The Eurozone member states of Southern Europe will also be affected, as they come under intensified pressure by the financial markets.   In addition, populist insurgents of the right will be inspired by BREXIT and try to shape the political debate as their influence rises.

Overall, BREXIT opens the way to a long process of negotiation, the outcome of which is at best uncertain and at worst damaging, especially for Britain, as it will need to disentangle itself from 40 years of economic and regulatory integration with the EU.

What appears to be complex and uncertain in the case of BREXIT would in all probability be essentially chaotic in the case of GREXIT.  Assuming a euro-exit were legally possible under the EU treaties, the issues raised are many and considerably intricate.  Capital Economics, a London based think-tank, which in 2012 won the Wolfson Prize for the best proposal to ‘safely dismantle the Eurozone,’ concluded that a country contemplating leaving the euro would have to keep its plans secret until the last minute, introduce capital controls, start printing a new currency only after formal exit, seek a large depreciation, default on its debts, recapitalize bust banks and seek close co-operation with remaining Eurozone members.

This is a long list of requirements, which suggests that introducing a new currency is complex when done in a planned way.  If done suddenly and under duress, it is a disruptive process with multiple unintended consequences that cannot all be anticipated either on the domestic or the European levels.

So, if BREXIT is a long and complex process, while GREXIT is an intricate, if not chaotic one, what is the position of the left?  Should it be for or against EU exit?  What alternative route would it propose?  In what way should it participate in the political debate?

Both BREXIT and GREXIT will constitute turning points in the history of the EU.  EU Membership is rejected in the first case and threatened in the second one.  Business as usual is no longer possible. A new era has begun.

Since the inception of the EU, the left has argued against the EU’s three main deficits, viz. the democratic, social and ecological one, which cannot be overcome without peace and solidarity as overarching principles.  At each juncture in the history of the EU, a primarily economic project, which however did boost European-ness in the aftermath of World War II, the left has tried to intervene, making proposals for an alternative way of functioning of European institutions so as to better serve the public interest.  As the power of finance increased, the left fought against any antinomies and neoliberal policies that went with it.  The crisis has acted as a catalyst in terms of political developments.  Although many on the left could see it coming, the left as a whole was slow in responding.  The left’s structural weaknesses and its lack of political intermediation limited its role as a political actor.

The rise of SYRIZA in Greece was an exception, caused partly by the depth of the crisis, the evidently failed policies of the Troika and of the established major political parties, and the coming together of various factions within the Greek left.  The European left rallied around SYRIZA providing valuable support.  However, when SYRIZA was elected to government, and after a long period of negotiations that lasted 6 months (as a result of which SYRIZA agreed to many of the demands of the country’s creditors, choosing not to let Greece go bankrupt), the left both in Greece and in the EU was divided.  Should the SYRIZA government have taken Greece out of the euro and thereby default on its obligations?  The mandate of the January 2015 elections was not for default, rather for a new agreement with the country’s creditors which would be mutually beneficial.  This met with the creditors’ intransigence. Thus SYRIZA asked for a new mandate from the Greek electorate in the September 2015 elections, which was granted, forming the second coalition government SYRIZA-ANEL in 2015.  The hypothetical question however remains.  Only history will show whether the route followed by SYRIZA was the right one.

Lexit, i.e. the propagating exit from the EU by the left, came up in the 2016 British referendum.  The argument of Lexiters is that the current treaties and structures of the EU need to be dismantled and replaced by others within the framework of a new union, on the basis of a fundamental reconsideration of the foundations of the EU and its practices, as those stand.  This is a laudable ambition and political objective.  What is lacking, however, is a roadmap towards the goal to be achieved.  In view of the internal weaknesses of the left and its lack of political intermediation in the decision-making process, it is hard to see how these goals can be achieved.  Neither does the historical precedence of the 20th century offer many useful insights.

Overall, the left finds itself in a difficult position.  Its role is needed more than ever in the post-WWII period.  However, its internal divisions limit its impact on developments.  This state of limbo must be overcome, if the left is to be able to push forward and work towards putting an end to the crisis in favour of society at large.  In this respect, the SYRIZA experience can offer valuable insights.

Based on a paper presented at the ROSA LUXEMBURG FOUNDATION workshop on BREXIT in Berlin, 9-20 October 2016.

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Come January, social pressure runs higher than ever in France. If you do not wish a smashing ‘Bonne année!’ to absolutely anybody you may come across during the entire month, you’re a social outcast.

The Elysée is of course not exempt from this pressure: one of the most bizarre rituals of the French Republican Monarchy is the month-long litany of New Year’s wishes which the President addresses in the most solemn manner, at official receptions all over January, to a large variety of very specific groups and corporations: from the corps diplomatique to religious authorities and trade unions, and, most importantly, the Boulangers-Pâtissiers (no joke). A perfectly redundant series of top-down appearances in pompous settings, disguised as important state-of-the-union moments. As usual in French Republican culture, such traditions are half-ridiculous, half-endearing.

In 2017 the President’s most official wishes for a happy new year may be more pertinent than ever, since pessimism, this old ‘endemic disease of our country’ as historian Michel Winock put it already in 1995 in his book Parlez-moi de la France, is rife in all parts of society (including the Boulangers-Pâtissiers). A recent report with the title ‘Fault Lines’ issued by France Stratégie (which in the glorious times when Jean Monnet headed it was called the Commissariat Général du Plan) reveals just how much a pessimistic view of the country’s present state and prospects is ingrained in the French mindset.

According to the main author, Jean Pisani-Ferry (the former director of the Brussels-based Bruegel think-tank), the report provides a portrait of ‘a worried, distrustful, and split society’ in urgent need of ‘reunification’. As he concludes, rather stunned, from the survey data, ‘the French cast on themselves and excessively dark gaze, and they are exceptionally pessimistic for the future’. This is all the more paradoxical as the French perception is often in contrast with the objective figures, especially in comparison with other European states. This is the case on issues like poverty or social mobility, for instance, but also on integration: while 72% of the French consider that the integration of immigrants ‘functions poorly’ (twice as many as ten years ago), 89% of the children born from two migrant parents declare they ‘feel French’.

The French collective gloom is corroborated by other surveys, like the recent YouGov Poll on perceptions of globalisation in 20 different countries, where the French very clearly stood out with declarations like ‘Globalisation is a force for bad in the world’ (no. 1 with 37% of respondents), ‘immigrants have a negative effect on the country’ (no. 1 with 45%), ‘the world has gone worse in the past 12 months’ (no. 1 with 74%). The only answer on which they rated lowest was ‘my country is the best country in the world’ (5%).

The same can be said about the recent survey published by the Bertelsmann foundation, where only the Austrians are as negative as the French about the cultural ‘threat’ that globalisation represents (55% and 54% respectively), while no other European country matches the economic globalisation anxiety of France (51%).

There have been a lot of hypotheses about the deep causes of this pessimism, which feeds of course the oft-quoted ‘declinism’, but should not be confused with it. Some claim the French feel deeply nostalgic for the loss of their empire and/or their cultural hegemony, but after a quarter century in this country, this sounds absurd to me and might well be an English extrapolation of own feelings on others. Some simply say, not entirely without reason, that the French have more quality of life to lose than others, which explains their conviction that things can only go down the train (‘tout fout le camp!’). Others blame, also with some justification, the French school system, which seems designed to make people unhappy for life, or a deep-rooted cultural tradition of being ‘glad to be unhappy’.

But French collective pessimism probably runs deeper than just nostalgia or anticipated regret for what is too good to last. Claudia Senik, author of a (very good) book on the economics of happiness, considers it is due to a set of basic values acquired relatively early in the socialisation process. I agree with her: to me French pessimism seems deeply anchored in an unusually high collective sensitivity to the unbearable discrepancy between the normative ideals of their republican democracy and what society and politics deliver in real life. Maybe the French have simply preserved the capacity to be unhappy with how global capitalism triumphant interprets Liberté, laughs at Egalité, and strangulates Fraternité. Unhappy with how their own country proves, year after year, its helplessness when it comes to counterbalance these trends.

This is not nostalgia, but a profound distress about the way things are, with modernity’s false promises, with the fundamental unfairness of ‘la condition humaine’. France is to the world what Ken Loach has been to Britain over the last fifty years: a reminder that you have the right to believe in a fairer, gentler society.

Clearly, pragmatism is not the French people’s most striking characteristic. But if being pragmatic means you arrange your worldview and deeply held convictions with what real life has to offer, I cannot help but find a certain appeal in the hopelessly naïve, stubbornly critical, way the French find the world wanting. If that’s all there is, they seem to say, we could have spared the effort to spread our revolutionary ideals in the first place.

This being said, hope, as we know, springs of course eternal. Maybe that’s why the French are so obsessed with wishing a ‘Bonne Année!’ to absolutely everyone they meet.

Albrecht Sonntag
@albrechtsonntag

This is post # 8 on the French 2017 election marathon. Post # 7 can be found here.
Post # 6 here. Post # 5 here. Post # 4 here.
Post # 3 here. Post # 2 here. Post # 1 here.

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This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

It was the moment the UN General Assembly changed the face of international human rights law. Fifty years ago, on December 16 1966, the assembly passed a single resolution containing two new treaties: the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), covering rights to housing, social security and adequate standards of living, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), regarding rights to a fair trial, freedom of expression and physical integrity.

Together, these two treaties constitute the core of the international system that protects human rights. Both treaties entered into force a decade later in 1976, only a few weeks apart. And both of them have received approximately the same number of ratifications to this day: 168 for the ICCPR and 164 for the ICESCR. Like all other European countries, the UK is a party to both of them.

Degrees of separation

But there are significant differences between these two treaties. The intention of those who drafted them was to flesh out the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights by making the protection of rights legally binding for states. But considering that the 1948 Universal Declaration contained civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights in a single text, by creating two separate documents it was clear that the drafters wanted to introduce differences between these rights.

While all this happened during the political context of the Cold War, this was not the main reason why different types of human rights were treated differently. Rather, the decision had to do with states’ general preference for a weaker duty to protect their citizens’ economic, social and cultural rights. Countries were willing to proclaim these rights as long as this proclamation did not entail strong accountability mechanisms.

The second difference between the two treaties refers to the clarity and burden of words. Article 2(1) of the ICCPR talks about states’ obligations “to respect and to ensure [civil and political rights] without distinction of any kind”. Yet the same article in the ICESCR uses much more cryptic language about how the compliance of states to the treaty on economic, social and cultural rights will be monitored. It states:

Each state party to the present covenant undertakes to take steps, individually and through international assistance and co-operation, especially economic and technical, to the maximum of its available resources, with a view to achieving progressively the full realisation of the rights recognised in the present covenant by all appropriate means, including particularly the adoption of legislative measures.

It’s difficult to assess compliance if rights are meant to be “achieved progressively”, or to decide the “appropriateness” of the “means” authorities are making use of. And can we blame governments if they promise “to take steps”, but not just yet?

There are also differences in the ways states who violate these two sets of rights are held to account. When the ICCPR was adopted, it brought with it an independent monitoring body known as the Human Rights Committee.

This had three responsibilities: examining states’ abidance by the treaty approximately every five years; dealing with interstate complaints (although to date this has never been used); and receiving complaints from individuals who consider themselves to be victims of a violation of any of the political and civil rights contained in the ICCPR. A complaint can lead to detailed recommendations on the specific case which countries are expected to implement. To date, 115 countries have let their citizens complain to the UN like this, but the UK is not one of them.

But when it came to economic, social and cultural rights, the ICESCR did not contain anything similar, and this was only partly corrected in 1985 when the UN created a body to periodically assess the general level of enjoyment of these rights in those countries which have ratified the treaty.

All this means that there are three degrees of separation between the two sets of rights: different treaties that states could pick and choose from, different legal wording, and different accountability mechanisms.

An unfortunate hierarchy

Something similar happened in the European context. In 1950, the European Convention on Human Rights was set up with a relatively resourceful European Court of Human Rights devoted essentially to civil and political rights. Then, in 1961, the European Social Charter was established (and then revised in 1996). This is monitored by the much weaker European Committee of Social Rights.

The impact of this hierarchy in which civil and political rights are given more weight than economic, social and cultural rights is visible at the domestic level, too. In the UK, for example, the very important Human Rights Act 1998 gives judges the means to apply the European Convention on Human Rights, but not the European Social Charter or the ICESCR, although the UK has ratified both treaties.

Not to pick and choose from.
StepanPopov/shutterstock.com

Half a century since the adoption of the two landmark human rights treaties, it is time to close the gap between human rights.

Independent human rights bodies, scholars and a growing number of practitioners have worked to define the meaning of economic, social and cultural rights and the contours of states’ obligations to uphold them.

Since 2013, individuals in 22 countries, ranging from Argentina to France and Mongolia, can also complain directly to the UN if their economic, social and cultural rights have been violated. This only applies to countries that have ratified the 2008 Optional Protocol to the ICESCR. Unfortunately, the UK is not one of them.

Yet, even in the UK, a minority of the judges in the Supreme Court has accepted that given their nature, some human rights treaties (although not the ICESCR for now) should be “directly enforceable in UK domestic law”, even without an act of parliament.

Half a century ago, human rights were internationalised with some degrees of separation. Luckily, we now have some tools that we lacked at that time – but we need to tell the government to make use of them.

Koldo Casla, PhD candidate: human rights, international politics and law, King’s College London

 

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The ideal Christmas gift! (For your French friends only).

In case you have friends or family in France and you don’t know what to offer them for Christmas, my suggestion is: buy them a set of jerrycans. They may come handy in 2017. Not at once, but once the summer is over, they might be more useful than ever.

This advice is based on the commonly held view that the French left has no chance whatsoever to weigh on the forthcoming presidential and legislative elections. In the former its main role will be to help block the ascent of the Front National; in the latter, it will serve as punching ball for massive dissatisfaction with the previous government and simply try to limit the damage with regard to the number of seats in the Assemblée nationale. Whatever the desperate posturing of ex-Prime minister Manuel Valls, it is difficult to see how he could beat either François Fillon or Marine Le Pen and make it to the second round.

And once Fillon will be elected and provided with a parliamentary majority, the configuration will be slightly reminiscent of 1995, when a popular President (Chirac) and a brilliant Premier (Juppé) were finally going to bring about the reforms this country so urgently needed.  The Juppé government (of which Fillon was a member, in charge of technology, information and La Poste) set out to make the redistributive retirement scheme and Social Security financially sustainable.

Photo can be used every five years. Just replace name of PM as appropriate.

The French, who expected to be delivered on Chirac’s promise to heal the ‘social divide’, felt betrayed and erupted with anger. The country was totally paralysed for weeks in a row by massive strikes including not only transport, but also health and electricity services, and when two million people took to the streets on 12 December, Chirac gave in, buried the largest part of the reforms and spent the rest of his eleven and a half years in office as ‘The idle king’ (as Sarkozy once called him).

In 2017 the left may appear hopelessly divided and exhausted by five years of governmental responsibility in truly exhausting times, but the disappointment with Hollande does not mean the founding values of the left have lost their power of mobilisation. And once the painful slap in the face of the spring and summer elections overcome by the end of August, the people of the left will be ready to make sure ‘la rentrée’ in early September will be ‘chaude’ (which does not mean ‘warm’, but ‘burning hot and ready for ignition’).

If Doctor Fillon is determined to administer only half of his bitter medicine, the trade unions will be offered the rallying cry they desperately need to exist. In a country where strikes are not the ultimate means when everything else fails in negotiation, but a prelude to talks that gauges the level of bargaining power, the public services – Fillon’s main target and the union’s major stronghold – may be stalled in no time. And the unions are not alone: they might well be joined by an improbable coalition of the ‘sleeping’ movement of ‘Nuit debout’ that is only waiting to wake up again and several other professional groups in defense of archaic privileges. The latter will have a wonderful opportunity to disguise their interest-driven motivations as rightful indignation and struggle for dignity.

Considering the amount of angry demonstrators brought to the streets in recent months by the relatively meek reform bills of the socialist government – including professional groups like notaries and policemen! – it will not take much to set to fire the explosive mix of accumulated anger and frustration.

In the worst-case scenario (which would not even come as a surprise) public transport would be the first sector to be massively impacted, and it might promptly be followed by numerous road blockades orchestrated by exasperated farmers, infuriated lorry drivers and maddened taxi drivers. And the most important thoroughfares to be blocked are of course the access roads to the huge refineries in Gonfreville/Notre-Dame-de-Gravenchon (Le Havre), Donges (Nantes-Saint Nazaire) and Martigues (Marseille). After a few days, the petrol stations will have run dry and France come to a halt.

That will be the moment when your jerrycan Christmas gift will be fondly remembered.

Albrecht Sonntag
@albrechtsonntag

This is post # 7 on the French 2017 election marathon.
Post # 6 here. Post # 5 here. Post # 4 here.
Post # 3 here. Post # 2 here. Post # 1 here.

 

 

 

 

 

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So last night was the Politics Department Christmas meal. Suffice to say that I’m the only one in so far, possibly because I had my first Article 50-themed dream – Lord Pannick was doing donuts a la Boris, while David Davis was giving evidence to a Parliamentary Committee – and felt that sleep was no longer a good idea.

And yes, drinking was involved. And karaoke.

Anyhoo, I tell you this not simply to stress what a good bunch of colleagues I have but because my dream reminded me of a thought I’d had yesterday while watching the actual David Davis give actual evidence.

As various people have noted, there is a shift going on in government of late; namely that the campaigning mode of bright aspiration is now being tempered by some sense of what is actually possible/likely to happen. In Jolyon Maugham’s lovely phrase ”the bare swinging lightbulb of reality” has cast its unrelenting beam on Brexit, with all the uncomfortable consequences that I currently have no trouble imagining.

As I argued recently, this might be partly a matter of positioning, of politicians softening the effect of Brexit by progressive reshaping of debate and attitudes.

However, to read reports of Cabinet discussions, it’s also evident that there’s also a big pile of self-delusion and ignorance still going on and that any modification of rhetoric or objective is due to Maugham’s lightbulb.

Seen in this light, Davis’ comments that the UK’s plan won’t be ready until February must be read as that time being needed for everyone to come to a more informed understanding about such basics as access to the internal market, free movement, transition deals and budgetary contributions.

Part of this is also a growing understanding of the complexities of the EU27 side of the negotiation. At the event I co-organised on Monday with the CER, we had a great debate (that you can listen to here) about the view from Berlin, Paris, the Visegrad Four and beyond on Article 50.

Importantly, all the speakers stressed that while everyone is committed to maintaining the EU, all are also deeply interested in their domestic agendas and in making the most of the UK’s situation for their own benefit. That translates in some diverse priorities, be that keeping links with the UK (for Germany), preserving security cooperation (for France and the CEECs), defending market liberalisation (for the Dutch) or changing the EU’s future path (for everyone). Today’s European Council might resolve procedure on Article 50, but it’s unlikely to reach full agreement on what it contains.

In short, what we’re seeing here is the start of the more serious end of the shift from referendum to negotiation. To put it differently, there is more of a sense that this is not a movie so much as a big lever-arch file of detailed notes: there will not be Lord Pannick doing stunts, but rather long, complex and hard-to-resolve negotiations on many fine points of law and technicality.

This is the phase in which scrutiny will matter all the more, whatever one’s interest or view of Brexit. Where the government has been pretty consistent is in wanting to negotiate away from the prying eyes of Parliament and the media and as public interest drifts away the pressure to be open will likely drop off too. From a democratic perspective, and for anyone who’s worried about backsliding, this isn’t a good situation, but also suggests that the window of opportunity to open things up is closing down.

Christmas might traditionally be a time of rest, but this year it’s going to be very busy, as everyone tries to get their houses in order for the coming of Article 50 notification. As has been the case since 24 June, the sooner you get out there, the sooner you can set the agenda.

And now for a cup of something soothing.

The post Article 50: The Motion Picture appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Andrea Gideon

The main activities of higher education institutions (HEIs), teaching and research, have in recent years started to be influenced by EU law. For example, Austria and Belgium had to make changes in the past to their free and open access to higher education policies,[1] the German study grant Bafög had been subject to various EU cases[2] and a Dutch university’s spin-off activities have been scrutinised under state aid law.[3] Yet, the EU has only limited competences in these policy areas. Indeed, the cases which partly required significant changes to national HEI policies did not arise from EU higher education or research policy, but from individuals relying on their rights in other, seemingly unrelated areas of law. What does this mean for HEIs in Europe? Will it pose a threat to the traditional European understanding of what a university is? Why is there not a coherent policy at EU level instead and would that be preferable? These are questions which are investigated in my forthcoming book ‘Higher Education Institutions in the EU: Between Competition and Public Service’ (TMC Asser / Springer, 2017).

The book aims to provide a comprehensive assessment of the impact that EU law and policy have on HEIs in EU Member States with a particular focus on the impact of EU competition law on research in universities. While the impact of other areas of EU law has received some attention in the past,[4] EU competition law is a largely unexplored area which made this a particularly interesting field for investigation. Furthermore, research on how EU law impacts on HEIs has thus far focused on higher education rather than on research activities of HEIs. In the book I try to redress this imbalance. On the following I will provide a short overview of the book.

 

The mission of European universities and why it may be influenced by EU law

The first chapter, after setting out the research questions and structure of the book, investigates what the mission (in the sense of an idea or goal rather than a mission statement) of European HEIs is. In a short historical analysis it will be seen that traditionally European HEIs were research intensive, national universities with a high degree of academic freedom and autonomy which taught and conducted research for knowledge’s sake rather than towards a particular, commercially exploitable aim and were funded mainly by the state. However, more recently, they have become more economic in nature.

Employing approaches from European integration theory, it will then be seen that this ‘commodification’ of HEIs can increase the likeliness that seemingly unrelated EU law can become applicable to HEIs/HEI policy. The law is then applied to cases by judges mainly when individuals attempt to rely on their rights arising from EU law. The ‘spill-over’ of EU law just happens in a piece meal approach rather than as a coherent policy. Furthermore, the application of economic law can lead to further commodification than may have been intended.

 

EU law and policy on HEIs

The second chapter investigates the competences the EU actually has to draft policies on higher education and research. It will be seen that these competences are rather limited, especially in the area of higher education. Yet, the Member States (and other countries in Europe) seem to have felt it was desirable to coordinate policies beyond what would have been (allegedly)[5] possible under the EU competences. They therefore opted for EU soft law mechanisms under the Open method of coordination as part of the Lisbon/ Europe 2020 Strategy as well as for the Bologna Process (which goes beyond the EU). However, as many have investigated these mechanisms are not entirely unproblematic.[6] More, importantly, for our purposes, they do not prevent ‘spill-over’ from other provisions of EU law. Therefore, the second part of chapter 2 provides an overview of potential impacts of EU Citizenship law, the free movement provisions (free movement of goods, workers, services, establishment and capital) and competition and state aid law on HEIs in the EU.

 

Competition law and HEIs

Chapter 3 continues in this vein by studying in more detail the area of EU competition law. EU competition law is only applicable to ‘undertakings’ and it provides an exemption for services of general economic interest (SGEIs). The two concepts are therefore, first, introduced and it is analysed in how far they apply to HEIs and thus in how far HEIs fall under EU competition law. It will be shown that this becomes increasing likely the more commercial elements an HEI system adopts. The second part of chapter 3 then conducts an in-depth legal-doctrinal analysis of potential constraints on HEIs arising from competition and state aid law. Here it is shown that competition law can occasionally help to vend of exploitative practices by HEIs (e.g. price fixing at a high level). However, it will also be shown that there can be a variety of situations where the application of the competition rules might have a detrimental social effect (e.g. when tuition fees are fixed at a low level to allow broader access and this is being challenged).

 

Competitition law and research universities in England, the Netherlands and Germany

Chapter 4 and 5 conduct an in-depth empirical study of potential competition law effects on research in universities in England, the Netherlands and Germany. These Member States have been chosen as they all started to experiment with more commercial elements in their HEI systems, but at a different pace with England being furthest on the path towards commodification, followed by the Netherlands and then Germany. Chapter 4 introduces the research systems of these three Member States and provides an initial competition law analysis. It will be seen that, if an activity does fall under competition law, potential tensions between competition law and national research policies may arise in all three systems. However, the more economically oriented the system, the more frequently this may happen.

Chapter 5 then contains the empirical study itself. After setting out the methodology employed, a subchapter on each country discusses the economic constraints in the relevant systems, the awareness of key officers in universities of and the potential constraints arising from EU competition law. In all three countries interviewees expected the commodification tendencies to continue and there was some criticism for this development. Yet, the more detailed sentiments about the research systems as well as the awareness of competition law of the interviewees differed between the countries in correspondence with the general character of the research systems. On the basis of the information received from the interviewees, a more in depth appreciation than in chapter 4 of the question in how far competition law becomes applicable and in how far it may lead to potential tensions is then provided in chapter 5. While some potential tensions with competition law discussed in previous chapters do not seem to materialise in the three Member States, some could indeed cause concerns and others have been detected. Of course, there may still be the possibility of the application of exemptions, but these might not capture every situation and, in any case, might make the conduct of HEIs increasingly complicated from a legal/administrative perspective. Given the current situation, HEIs are thus advised to pay increasing attention to EU competition law.

 

Conclusions

Chapter 6 connects the results of all chapters and contextualises them in the wider debate on commodification of HEIs and the concerns related to this development. In more recent Commission legislation it appears that the Commission has made some attempts to align EU research policy with competition and state aid. The chapter therefore discusses these attempts critically and concludes that this equally poses some concerns because they are partly overly complicated, are decided upon entirely by the Commission and do not appear to necessarily reflect the views of the general public or stakeholders in HEIs. Therefore, an outlook is given of potential alternative strategies, as unlikely as their realisation in the current Eurosceptic climate may be, for a more coherent EU level policy on HEIs which moves away from the current tendency towards commodification and truly clarifies the legal position of HEIs under EU law, though the details of such approaches will have to be left to future research.

 

Andrea Gideon is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Law & Business (National University of Singapore) for which she has suspended her position as Lecturer in Law at the University of Liverpool. In her current project she is investigating the application of competition law to public services in ASEAN. Her previous research concerned tensions between the economic and the social in the EU with a focus on EU competition law, in which research area she earned her PhD at the University of Leeds in 2014.

[1] C-147/03 Commission vs Austria, C-65/03 Commission vs Belgium.

[2] C-11-12/06 Morgan and Bucher, C-523-585/11 Prinz and Seeberger, C-220/12 Thiele and C-275/12 Elrick.

[3] T-488/11 Sarc.

[4] For example, Dougan M, ‘Cross-border educational mobility and the exportation of student financial assistance’ (2008) 5 European Law Review 723, Garben S, EU Higher Education Law – The Bologna Process and Harmonization by Stealth (Kluwer 2011), Damjanovic D, ‘“Reserved areas” of the Member States and the ECJ: The case of higher education’ in Micklitz H-W and De Witte B (eds), The European Court of Justice and the Autonomy of the Member States (Intersentia 2012).

[5] Garben (n 4) questions if that was really as impossible as commonly held. For a shortened version see also Garben S, ‘The Bologna Process: From a European Law Perspective’ (2010) 16 ELJ 186.

[6] See, for example, Nóvoa A, ‘Ways of thinking about education in Europe’ in Nóvoa A and Lawn M (eds), Fabricating Europe – The formation of an education space (Kluwer 2002), Neave G and Maassen P, ‘The Bologna Process: an intergovernmental policy perspective’ in Maassen P and Olsen J (eds), University dynamics and European integration (Springer 2007), Garben (n 5), Corbett A, ‘Education and the Lisbon Strategy’ in Copeland P and Papadimitriou D (eds), The EU’s Lisbon Strategy: evaluating success, understanding failure (Palgrave MacMillan 2012).

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The MSc International Public Administration & Politics programme (IPAP) at Roskilde University offers the students to come on a study tour to Brussels to visit the EU institutions and other organisations. This year the study tour took place 28-30 November, where 19 students and two lecturers – Sevasti Chatzopoulou and Helene Dyrhauge – visited NATO, EFTA, the European Parliament and the European Commission. During the three days the students met policy-makers, diplomats and politicians (MEPs), and they discussed a broad range of policy topics ranging from migration, BREXIT to railway and food safety.

The aim of the study tour was to give the students an opportunity to actively apply the knowledge they have gained from the courses and to give them an opportunity to talk to policy experts about topics we had covered in class, also to give the students ideas for future career directions.

The students had all taken three courses this autumn; Institutions & Actors, Civil Servants and International Public Economics. The courses are theoretical driven. The institutions and actors course discusses the role of actors and ideas within institutional structure where it focuses on different governance levels. The civil servant course focuses on the different roles civil servants have, especially in areas where policy problems often cross territorial, administrative and sectoral boundaries.  The International Public Economics courses explores the causes and consequences of differences governments’ alternative approaches to fundamental public policy issues. All the courses discuss the impact of the EU and globalization on national government policies. Some of the topics covered in the courses range from food safety, labour markets and climate change.

The students had to prepare for the study tour. The students had been given a reading list for each policy topic, which contained a journal article and a policy document. Two students were assigned one policy topic and had to prepare questions for the specific presentation. This aim was to ensure that at least two students asked questions to each presenter. In the end there were generally two to five students asking questions to each presenter. Overall, the students not only listened to the policy experts’ presentations they actively engaged in dialogues with the policy experts, thereby using their knowledge from their courses. Indeed one EU administrator left the meeting saying; “this is the most difficult group, I’ve met”. As two of the core lecturers on the IPAP programme both Sevasti and I were proud of our students for asking challenging questions to the policy experts.

During the three days, I had several conversations with the students about the policy presentations, especially about how the students could see the link between the courses  and the actual policies, but also how the students could use their knowledge after graduations in their future careers. Indeed one student got lots of new ideas for her MSc dissertation and another decided to change his flight so he could stay for the final presentation on ‘circular economy’ and a third student is thinking about doing an internship in one of the EU institutions.

Organising the tour was hard and took lots of time, but the reward of seeing how the students used their knowledge from the courses, how they actively engaged in discussions with policy experts and discovered the practical relevance of the MSc IPAP programme was a delight. The students have already asked when we are organising a new study tour … but I think I need a break and eat some of the lovely Belgian chocolate the students gave me before going on another study tour. However, we are visiting the European Environmental Agency tomorrow, Tuesday, which luckily only is a short train ride away from Roskilde University, and I look forward to the students once again asking challenging questions to two policy experts talking about climate change.

IPAP group photo from the visit to the European Commission

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Britain has more job vacancies than can be filled by the native workforce. That, in a nutshell, is why we need migrants.

The country has a chronic skills shortage and without migrants helping to fill that gap, Britain – and Britons – would be poorer.

Britain now has more people at work than ever before. We also have a record number of job openings – around 755,000 vacancies this autumn alone. It’s no wonder that in line with that, immigration from the rest of Europe is also at a record high.

Why? Because migrants mostly come to Britain for jobs, and if there were not so many jobs, there would be little reason to come here, and therefore, not so many migrants.

Of course, none of this is any consolation to the 1.6 million people currently unemployed. But unfortunately, many of the unemployed do not have the skills now needed by employers. Britain, of course, should be spending billions in upskilling our workers, and especially the unemployed.

Similarly, we shouldn’t blame migrants that parts of the country lack sufficient schools, hospitals, homes, or that many are struggling on zero-hour contracts. For that, we should blame our political masters.

It’s too easy for the government to scapegoat migrants for our problems, when the fact is that without migrants, the country would be poorer. If all migrants went home, we wouldn’t have more schools, hospitals and homes. We would simply have a bigger shortage of teachers, doctors, nurses and builders.

In the meantime, British businesses are hungry for more skilled workers. Without them, our economy would stagnate and die. That, actually, is one way to stem the flow of migration to Britain – to trash our economy. But who would seriously advocate such a policy?

Whilst still a member of the European Union, Britain has record numbers at work, record numbers of vacancies, and unemployment at an 11-year-low of 4.8%. Helping to propel that recovery are EU migrants, most of whom are in gainful employment, working hard, paying taxes and spending most of their earnings here, in Britain.

And yet, Britain still doesn’t have enough workers to fill the profound skills gap the country is facing.

Yes, of course, we should be training more people.

But in the meantime, the government has compiled a long list of skills the country needs – now, urgently. It’s called the UK Shortage Occupation List. We need, for example:

Scientists, such as geologists; nuclear medicine experts; mechanical engineers, such as for the oil and gas industries; electronic engineers for the motoring industry; software developers for 2D/3D animation; contaminated land specialists; medical practitioners, such as psychiatrists, anaesthetics and radiographers; specialist intensive care nurses; maths and science teachers; social workers; contemporary dancers; orchestral musicians; overhead lines workers; skilled chefs..

..And the list goes on and on. Skilled workers that the country needs now.

In addition, many farms, catering establishments, hotels, care homes and builders categorically state that they simply could not survive, let alone thrive, without EU migrants. Not because they are cheaper (can you really find a cheap Polish plumber these days?). No. It’s because these establishments have more vacancies to fill than British people either can or want to fill.

Eurosceptics say they are not against migration, but want the country to have fewer migrants, and to be able to choose who can come here, based on the skills needed. And they don’t want EU migrants to come here unless they have a job in advance.

But that just creates another bureaucratic barrier to EU migrants coming here at all. And in any event, the country already does choose which migrants to employ – the decision is made by British businesses, who want the right to choose their workforce from across our continent.

If an EU migrant can’t come here without having a job first, then chances are they will go to another country, and help their economy instead. That will be our loss.

EU regulations state that any EU citizen can move to another EU country to seek a job, so long as they have the means to look after themselves and don’t become a burden to the state. And what’s wrong with that? If they come here and don’t find a job, they usually go back home.

It’s a Daily Mail myth that migrants can simply come here and immediately start claiming benefits. It simply isn’t true.

The fact is that most migrants here have jobs; jobs that British businesses desperately need them to do. Britons shouldn’t complain – especially since more Britons are now in work than ever before. Migrants are not taking the jobs our unemployed could do. Migrants are coming here mostly to do the jobs that Britons can’t all do.

According to research published this week by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, as a result of Brexit, migration to the UK could fall by well over half from now to 2020. That would mean net EU migration falling by more than 100,000.

Such a drop in EU migration would also lead to a significant reduction in GDP per capita – up to 3.4% over the period to 2030, the NIESR has calculated. That would represent an economic downfall for Britain.

Britain needs EU migrants. They are not a threat; they are a boon. Our message to them should be, “Welcome, and thank you.”

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Other stories by Jon Danzig:

• Brexit Secretary, David Davis, gets 5 stars for double standards
• 10 ways to stop Brexit
• The best EU trade deal? We already have it
• List of the latest articles by Jon Danzig

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

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Britain has more vacancies than Britons to fill them. That’s why we need EU migrants. Share @Jon_Danzig’s report: https://t.co/ndo8vFWDx7 pic.twitter.com/dhamKas1cB

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Yesterday’s Labour motion on Brexit marked an important step for the party. For the first time it had managed to push the government on the strategy for the Article 50 negotiations, leaving the government little option but to engage in some Parliamentary wrangling to try and deflect the on-coming threat of backseat rebellion. Keir Starmer looked to be in good control of his brief, after many months of Labour indifference/in-fighting on the subject.

That’s the positive reading, and not one that I totally buy.

The gaps remain glaringly obvious. Most importantly, the commitment to provide Parliament with plans is the vaguest of things: there was no specification of content or length. Moreover, David Davis’ observation that it was ‘inconceivable’ that Parliament wouldn’t get to vote on the outcome rightly left many feeling that this was itself no guarantee:

The last point I want to make to the Secretary of State concerns the question of a vote on the final deal. I heard him say today, “I expect there will be a vote”. Well, I expect that the District line will turn up within five minutes, but today there were longer delays. He said, as I understood it, that it was inconceivable that there would not be a vote. Well, some people would have said it was inconceivable that Donald Trump would be elected President of the United States. It does not fill me with a great deal of confidence. I gently say to him that the simple response to the question, “Will there be a vote when the deal comes before us after the negotiation?”, is to stand up, look the House direct in the eye, and say, “Yes, there will be a vote.

In addition, the government amendment on timing will certainly be used as leverage to push through any notification bill that might result from the Supreme Court case now underway, although given the weakness of the rebellion last night, there is no immediate danger of that bill being defeated.

In short, it was a bit of political theatre that essentially highlights the depths of the UK’s position overall.

Firstly, it demonstrates that Labour remains hamstrung on the EU. Starmer has a plan for Parliamentary scrutiny and oversight, but doesn’t have his party leadership behind him to make that work. Yesterday had the feel of a missed opportunity for both sides of the party: the Richmond Park by-election should underline that the government operates on a very small majority and that only concentrated action by Labour will enable that to succeed. Given the position of the SNP and LibDems, that suggests that common ground lies more to the Starmer end of options that the Corbyn one, but if 2016 has demonstrated anything, then it is that Corbyn holds his beliefs very strongly and will expect others to cleave to him.

Secondly, it also demonstrates that the government still lacks a plan. All the fuss around the motion might have obscured this basic fact, but it has ended up making matters worse. The line that one holds one’s cards close sounds good, but it also gives the impression that a) the UK will be a tricky negotiating partner, always pulling surprises, and b) that it has surprises to pull. that’s just bad negotiating strategy, especially when retaining the good-will of the other parties is a baseline requirement. Ultimately, the costs will fall on the government, as the EU27 take a more cautious approach and as the public realise that there is no secret prize-winning move to be pulled.

Theresa May has learnt much from her predecessor about not over-promising: this has been the bedrock of her strategy to date. But the under-promising also comes with dangers. Canniness quickly turns to looking like cluelessness. The Supreme Court case is a glaring demonstration of this. The government has fought the legal challenge repeatedly, but seems to find itself being backed into a corner where it not only has to pass a bill in Parliament, but potentially also involve the devolved assemblies too. As much as a referral to the CJEU looks unlikely, the outcome is based more on hope than conviction. Ungenerous souls might say that the government wants to be pushed like this, since it will offer more opportunities for delay and time to think about how to deal with this.

However, as the Brexit saga has repeatedly demonstrated, those who do not shape events are doomed to be shaped by them. That has been especially true post-referendum, where plans and strategy are in very short supply. Both Labour and the Tories might reflect on that.

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The 28 EU Commissioners met today to decide the fate of the EU’s Nature Directives (the 1979 Birds Directive and 1992 Habitats Directive). Would these two directives, the cornerstone of EU biodiversity legislation, be deemed ‘fit for purpose’ or would they be revised and potentially weakened? After years of internal debates within the European Commission, and the Nature Alert civil society campaign, the decision was clear: the Commissioners agreed that both directives are fit for purpose, and that the Commission should focus on better implementation and not deregulation.

Thanks all colleagues for full support on Birds & Habitats fitness check – now we focus on implementation- #NatureAlert

— Karmenu Vella (@KarmenuVella) December 7, 2016

This blog post reflects back on this two-year debate, raging since the beginning of the Juncker Commission in 2014, and what it tells us about the prospect for future EU-level environmental policy dismantling, that is, cutting, weakening or removing existing policy.

The Nature Alert Saga

The Nature Alert saga started with the Mission Letter sent by Juncker to his new Environment & Fisheries Commissioner Karmenu Vella in September 2014. In this document, Juncker made it a key priority for the Commission as a whole to “Respect […] the principles of subsidiarity, proportionality and better” and for the Environment Commissioner to focus on:

“Continuing to overhaul the existing environmental legislative framework to make it fit for purpose. In the first part of the mandate, I would ask you to carry out an in-depth evaluation of the Birds and Habitats directives and assess the potential for merging them into a more modern piece of legislation.”

This in-depth ex-post evaluation of directives in place for many decades was to be done through the EU Fitness Check or REFIT process. It had actually been planned before Juncker, with a mandate published in February 2014. But by listing it as Vella’s first priority, Juncker dramatically increased its importance. Additionally, increasing the importance of ‘modernising’ existing legislation over producing new legislation, raised alarm among civil society, afraid that the better regulation/modernisation agenda was in fact a way to pursue policy dismantling.

That Juncker made the ‘modernisation’ of these two directives a priority is, on the one hand, not very surprising. The Nature Directives had often been criticised in the past by key political groups in different member states (such as French hunters seeing shorter hunting seasons in the 1990s, or UK developers having to cope with great crested newts in the 2000s). For a Commission keen to reduce “meddlesome EU rules”, targeting such flagship legislation made sense. But while it made political sense, it was also risky because earlier attempts to expose the potentially high costs of these pieces of legislation had failed. For example, after former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne complained about the “ridiculous costs” of the Habitats directive in 2011, a review commissioned to support his point found the very opposite. This earlier attempt had pushed NGOs to find evidence in support for the two directives, which, together with growing international research on evaluating biodiversity legislation, meant that environmental NGOs were particularly well placed to contest the need for a fitness check.

Source: Alert, by Sam Carlquist, Flickr (Creative Commons)

Armed with this large evidence base, environmental NGOs led by BirdLife Europe, the EEB, Friends of the Earth Europe and the WWF Europe, started their Nature Alert campaign to raise the profile of the on-going REFIT evaluation and to gather as many public responses to the European Commission’s online consultation as possible. At the end of its 12-week consultation in July 2015 the Commission had received 552,472 replies “the largest response [ever] received by the Commission to an on-line consultation”, which overwhelmingly sided with the NGOs.

After the consultation, a group of leading environmental consultancies and think tanks (Milieu, IEEP, ICF International and Ecosystems Ltd) contracted by the European Commission produced the expert review to support the fitness check. Finalised in March 2016, this review largely found, again, that the directives were fit for purpose. But it was not published by the Commission. Indeed, until a previous draft was leaked in June 2016, no public discussions were made of its findings. This is particularly striking as in the meantime both the Council and the Parliament had made the case for the directives – even David Cameron used them as a good example of why the UK needed to remain in the EU. Finally, despite a 500 000+ consultation, a clear expert review and a continuing NGO campaign, it took the European Commission six more months to come to a decision and declare the directives fit for purpose.

What does this case tell us about policy dismantling in the EU?

The Commission’s decision has been heralded by NGOs as a ‘huge victory for nature conservation’, but it also has broader implications for the pursuit of better regulation or modernisation and attempts to dismantle policies at EU level.

First, the long delay in publishing the report and coming to a decision confirms that REFIT, like other ex-post evaluation processes, is a political and not solely technical endeavour. REFIT has been used by this Commission (and its predecessor) to bolster its credentials as an opponent of ‘red tape‘. But the politicisation of better regulation begs a number of questions. Whose support is the Commission trying to attract? The Nature Directives Fitness Check has managed to mobilise EU civil society against the Commission: hardly a PR success. Moreover, this could not have been done at a worse time, as the apparent backtracking of the Commission on environmental leadership was used to undermine an environmental case for ‘Remain’ during the Brexit referendum.

Second, Nature Alert contradicts central assumptions in academic research on the costs of environmental policy dismantling. Social policy is characterised by diffuse costs and concentrated benefits, whereas environmental policy tends to be characterised by diffuse benefits and concentrated costs. Thus while dismantling social policy is expected to be politically costly because policy beneficiaries can organise easily and challenge the government; the same cannot be said for environmental policy. According to Bauer et al. (2012: 8) politicians may even expect to gain “some very powerful votes in retrenching environmental policy”. The (debatable) possibility of gaining support through cutting policies may seem even more alluring when considering EU-level dismantling – there is after all less media coverage, a less active civil society and a consensual political system which makes it relatively easy to avoid blame. But the Nature Alert campaign showed that it was possible to mobilise opposition to suspected policy dismantling (even for environmental policy) and to apportion blame (even at the EU level).

It is uncertain whether the Nature Alert success will be easy to replicate: NGOs were well prepared due to earlier attempts to undermine these policies in the UK, and biodiversity may be an easier policy area to defend (especially in terms of public mobilisation) than, for example, waste or chemicals. Yet it may make this Commission think twice before picking ‘easy’ targets in the environmental acquis, and invites scholars of policy dismantling to rethink what is and what is not possible at EU level.

 

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Hollande and Sarkozy posing for Paris Match in order to defend the 2005 referendum on the EU constitutional treaty. At that time, they failed together.

After yet another eventful week marked by Hollande’s renouncement television address, French citizens can now be sure that neither of their two last presidents will be on their ballots for the presidential elections next spring. While the media would have loved to play a game of thrones, unfolding the ‘revenge’ narrative and ask Sam to play again his song about ‘hearts full of passion, jealousy and hate’, to many voters this comes as a relief.

Not so much really because of their relative failure with regard to the unrealistic pre-election promises and over-the-top reform announcements they were virtually forced to make by the highly antagonistic nature of French political culture. It is true that once in office, all French presidents since Mitterrand’s election in 1981 were caught in the pitfall of having to live up to the expectations they were obliged to raise with their electorate, while patently knowing that it was impossible to keep them. And none of them would have been re-elected, had it not been for the stupidity of the opposition (Mitterrand in 1988) or the need to fence off the Front National (Chirac in 2002). Which amounts, by the way, to a total of three decades of successive high hopes and disenchantments.

The real reason why Sarkozy and Hollande were considered unfit to run again by a large part of the population is in the concept of ‘embodiment’. Charles de Gaulle had a certain idea of France, and he also had a certain idea of its presidency and how to incarnate it.

For all the pompousness of protocol, the lovely oxymoron of the ‘Republican monarchy’ has become a famous and altogether fitting metaphor over the years. Both Sarkozy and Hollande were happy to use the extent of power granted to the Royal at the head of the French state. But they underestimated to what extent certain expectations with regard to conduct, behaviour and speech were inseparable from the function. Both can be said to have irremediably damaged the Gaullist ideal-type of the president. In fact, they have become the joint undertakers of French presidency.

Oh, they clearly enjoyed some of the privileges that come with the job. Like the incredibly stupid role play during press conferences in the Elysée, where follow-up questions are not permitted, which allows the president to answer totally beside the point or ridicule the defenceless journalist who spoke out an uncomfortable truth. Or the game of condescendingly putting cabinet members (including the Prime minister) in their place who implemented policies decided by the president but turning out to be unpopular or impracticable.

But neither of them understood that living up to the function would have required them to stay out of down-to-earth policy-making, delegate much more to their Prime minister, and make themselves rare. The presidential word is powerful only if it is scarce, solemn, and exceptional (and, ideally, slightly enigmatic). Sarkozy and Hollande were omnipresent, they simply talked too much. Sarkozy’s obsession with being in the limelight and show just how much he was in charge of everything, as well as his strategy of inundating the media with an uninterrupted flow of announcements to make sure they simply would not have the time and resources to follow up on them later, have earned him the nick-name of ‘hyper-president’, with all the connotation of ADHD this term implied. Towards the end of his term, he visibly tried, following the advice of his communication guru Patrick Buisson, to ‘represidentialise’ (believe me, the word exists in French) both his personality and his behaviour. To no avail, the harm was already done.

Hollande was just as effective as an undertaker. The very pre-electoral promise to be a ‘normal’ president was incompatible with the Fifth Republic’s design. A president who is normal, is useless. And a president who needs to juggle simultaneously with the hysterical (though justified) jealousy of his official partner, the presence of his ex-partner and mother of his four children in his own government, and the breakfast croissants he takes on a scooter to his second mistress is no longer an impressive womaniser (even for the permissive French who are rather tolerant in these matters), but comes closer to a clown. Even Sarkozy, who like a teenager before his parents stood before the press saying ‘with Carla, it’s serious’, looked less ridiculous in comparison.

When Hollande recently accepted the publication of the tell-all book written by two Le Monde reporters after hours and hours of interviews with the President, he probably thought that ‘A President Should Not Say That’ was a nice tongue-in-cheek title. As a matter of fact, the phrase turned out to be a 100% accurate summary of his entire misjudgement of expectations and mismanagement of his presidential function, annulling all efforts to react in a statesmanlike manner to the terrorist strikes against France.

What the ten years under Sarkozy and Hollande boil down to is the ‘desacralisation’ of the French presidency. It’s not entirely their fault. De Gaulle and Pompidou did not have to face up with a highly increased demand for transparency in decision-making, with the reactivity of social media, with fact checkers and fake news, and the overall acceleration and hysterically repetitive character of the political debate in the age of on non-stop news channels.

The next president will have to reconcile historically grown expectations, the damage done by his/her predecessors, and contemporary pressure on an office that seems increasingly out of sync with what 21st-century democracy would need. When Harris Interactive asked the French in a representative poll one month ago whether they considered ‘the capacity to embody the presidential function’ an important criterion in their choice next spring, 79% of them agreed. Unsurprisingly, younger voters seemed slightly less sensitive on this issue (still, they are 65% to agree among the 25-34 age-group). At the same time, only Alain Juppé was deemed to possess this capacity by more than half of the respondents. By over two thirds Sarkozy, Hollande and Le Pen were considered ‘poor’ embodiments of the presidency, while Fillon, Macron and Valls scored only slightly better, rated ‘poor embodiments’ for 57-59% of the respondents.

Whoever will be the successor of the two ‘undertakers’ Sarkozy and Hollande, her/she is likely to have a very hard time to live up to the legacy of de Gaulle and the tacit, but persistent expectations of the citizens.

Albrecht Sonntag
@albrechtsonntag

This is post # 6 on the French 2017 election marathon.
Post # 5 here.
Post # 4 here.
Post # 3 here.
Post # 2 here.
Post # 1 here.

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Air pollution and gridlocked traffic is part of the daily life for many people living or working in major cities around the world. Unsurprisingly, cities around the world have increasingly taken drastic measures to reduce both pollution and traffic. Many of these climate initiatives are miles ahead of national governments. The latest initiatives by four major cities (Paris, Mexico City, Madrid and Athens) is to ban diesel vehicles by 2025[i]. Similar to the ban on diesel cars mentioned in my previous blog post[ii], the aim of this initiative is to push people to drive electrical cars or to bike round the cities.

Air pollution, noise and gridlocked traffic is daily life for many commuters around the world. Indeed the Guardian Newspaper[iii] recently published a series on the huge traffic problems in Jakarta, where traffic is gridlocked most of the day due to lack of public transport and increasing living standards leading to more car owners, which have increased air pollution. Several major European cities have already introduced measures to reduce traffic, such as congestion charges in London and Stockholm and investment in cycle paths have made Copenhagen and Amsterdam famous. These initiatives all aim to change mobility patterns within the cities.

Air pollution continue to be a major issue for many cities and the latest European Environmental Agency (EEA) report on air quality[iv] states that “emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOX) from road transport have not decreased sufficiently to meet air-quality standards in many urban areas.” According to the EEA, one of the reasons is due to diesel road vehicles polluting more than allowed (see figure below).  This impact public health especially in urban areas and city centres, where levels of NOx are higher than permitted by the EU Directive on air quality[v] and recommended daily limits by WHO. On a positive note, other pollutants from road transport have decreased (ibid). Thus progress is being made, but more is needed.

Leading climate cites have imposed stricter limits to road traffic than national governments and thus have achieved more than many national governments. Yet, Copenhagen[vi], which is often mentioned as a leader in sustainable transport, struggles with high levels of pollutions in certain areas in the city centre due to road traffic, which only demonstrates that cities on their own cannot tackle the problem of air pollution caused by road transport. Moreover, the initiatives taken by cities to change traffic behavior within their jurisdiction do not solve the general problem of increased traffic and its subsequent negative impact on the environment in other areas, instead some of the traffic problems have moved to the surrounding suburbs and commuter towns. As I have discussed in previous reflections in this blog, the negative environmental impact of increased traffic can only be solved through coordination between different levels of governance from the local through to international levels and by imposing stricter regulations on emissions from road vehicles to promote alternative fuels. Here the idea posed by the Swedish minister for climate Isabella Lövin to ban fossil fuel cars at EU level from 2030 is a good place to start addressing the problem with road transport pollution[vii].

Finally, cities are increasingly playing an important role in leading the way towards a new mobility paradigm and they can put pressure on governments to change national infrastructure and transport policies. Cities are actively participating in COP meetings and have set up various networks to share experiences and promote best practices. Together with Isabella Lövin’s idea to end sales of fossil fuel cars by 2030 on a European scale cites can put pressure on industry to create better and cleaner technologies to replace fossil fuel vehicles thereby simultaneously protecting free movements and the environment.

[i] http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-38170794

[ii] http://eutrack.ideasoneurope.eu/2016/10/31/challenges-ban-fossil-fuel-cars-2030/

[iii] https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/nov/23/world-worst-traffic-jakarta-alternative

[iv] http://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/stronger-measures-needed

[v] http://ec.europa.eu/environment/air/legis.htm

[vi] http://politiken.dk/indland/ECE3342094/eu-kritiserer-danmark-i-goer-ikke-nok-mod-luftforurening/

[vii] http://eutrack.ideasoneurope.eu/2016/10/31/challenges-ban-fossil-fuel-cars-2030/

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“The only thing new in the world is the history you don’t know.”

                                                                                           President Harry S Truman

The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War, or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967 by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. At that time,Mike Ungersma was a news producer for WLW-T Television in Cincinnati. He wrote this feature for the Midwestern city’s leading newspaper, The Cincinnati Enquirer in September of that year.

 ∞

 ‘The Hidden Report That Could Have Changed History’

Sunday 27 September 1967 –

Most Americans are aware that the recent Mideast crisis was deeply rooted in the soil of history, both events of our own time and happenings 4,000 years old.  But few of them know of the crucial World War I mission of Henry Churchill King, the late president of Ohio’s Oberlin College who was chosen by President Wilson for one of the most important tasks ever assigned a distinguished scholar and educator.  King and the businessman who accepted the responsibility with him came with a hair’s breadth of drastically altering the course of history in the trouble-plagued Mideast.

For it was King who was selected to lead a Commission sent after the First War to gather facts needed to implement one of President Wilson’s most celebrated promises of the war: the pledge that subjected peoples would have for the first time in their history the chance to determine their own future.

One of the most important results of the war was the utter destruction of the ancient Ottoman Empire.  A 20th century misfit, the old kingdom was near collapse when the fighting began and was in shambles when the shooting stopped.  Its downfall touched off a behind-the-scenes scramble for the Empire’s abandoned sphere of influence.  Allied with Germany during the war, the Empire paid a bitter price for defeat: the victors carved up its territory, some of the most coveted land in the world.  The carcass included the Holy Land.

It was the myriad of claims and counterclaims for the Holy Land which provoked Wilson to give serious consideration to an idea advanced by a Mideast expert, the president of the American University of Beirut.  Close to the area and appreciating its critical importance to the Peace, he suggested that Wilson and the French and British peacemakers empanel a blue-ribbon commission of experts to visit the Mideast and gather facts on the wishes of the people involved.

The suggestion sat well with Wilson, himself a scholar and idealist who was to conceive the the notion of a League of Nations.  He pressed for the adoption of the proposal at the peace table, and managed to extract the reluctant support of the Anglo-French negotiators.  Their unwillingness stemmed from the secret agreements the French and British already had concluded concerning the Ottoman Empire and how is remnants were to be divided among the victors.

Wilson’s plan included having the peacemakers name two of their most respected citizens to the fact-finding commission.  It didn’t take him long to settle on the American participants.  First he chose businessman Charles R. Crane, afterwards to become Ambassador to China.  Then Wilson tapped President Henry Churchill King of Ohio’s Oberlin College.  As one of the nation’s most highly regarded scholars and educators, King was no newcomer to international affairs.  At the time Wilson called him, he was in Europe having put in a year’s wartime service with a special detachment of the YMCA.  In addition, King had studied in Europe.  President of Oberlin since 1902, he was head of the prestigious Association of American Colleges.

Off to anything but a good start, and plagued by the continuing lack of enthusiasm by the French and British, Crane and King nevertheless proceeded with their plans for the mission.  Unknown to them and President Wilson, it was doomed from its outset.

There was some hint of its fate initially when the British and French dragged their feet in naming appointees to the Commission.  But at the urging of Wilson, and prompted by a frantic telegram from General Allenby in Palestine, the British finally appointed a pair of commissioners. Unfortunately, they never got beyond Paris.

But Wilson persisted, and after a visit by Crane and King in Paris, the President assured them that the investigation he promised the people of the Mideast would be made, and at once. That was May.  Within three weeks, King and Crane has landed in Palestine and begun their work.  They vowed to meet in conference with individuals and groups to obtain the broadest possible sample of Mideast opinion.  And that they did.

For six weeks, Crane and King and their entourage of experts visited one city after another.  From town to town and village to village they patiently listened to the pleas of representatives from 1,500 communities.  They received 1,863 petitions signed by 19,000 people.  Some pre-conceived notions were shattered, others fortified.  Encouraged by the sincere response, they retired to Constantinople on July 21 to prepare their detailed and exhaustive report they assumed would be a guideline for international diplomacy in the countries of the Eastern Mediterranean.

Central to their report was the issue of Palestine.  As much of a problem in 1919 as it is in 1967, the venerable region was the home of three religions inclined to the bitterest kind of intolerance of one another.

Then part of Syria, Crane and King suggested Palestine be made a ‘mandatary’ or trustee territory under the new League of Nations.  This internationalization would be supervised by the United States.  If this had been the only question in the Mideast that required the attention of the Commission, it might have been accepted by the peacemakers since there is evidence to indicate France and England would have been content to yield Palestine to some other influence than their own.

But Crane and King had to deal with the Zionists. This international movement hoped to establish a national home for the Jews of the world in their ancient homeland, Israel.  Inspired by the opportunities presented in the War, the politically powerful Zionists obtained an important commitment from Lord Balfour, England’s Foreign Secretary.  Balfour sided with the objectives of the movement on the condition that the rights of existing non-Jewish population there be respected.

When Crane and King came to this crucial matter in their report they admitted they had changed their minds:

The Commission began their study of Zionism with minds predisposed in its favor, but the actual facts in Palestine, coupled with the force of the general principles proclaimed by the Allies and accepted by the Syrians, have driven them to the recommendations here made.

Their recommendations?  That the project of making Palestine a Jewish commonwealth should be given up.  Crane and King gave two reasons.  First, both said they felt that only the force of arms could maintain the Zionist program in Palestine so opposed to it were the Arab populations.  Secondly, Crane and King felt it would be a serious injustice to the Arabs, who had, after all, been in possession of the territory for 13 centuries and had at present an overwhelming preponderance of the population, even if Jews had a prior claim historically.

Their report and its controversial conclusions complete, King and Crane cabled President Wilson late in August outlining their essential recommendations.  It was this point where their product entered the political thicket.  It never emerged intact.

Wilson fell ill just days after having received the report, although there is nothing to indicate he would have been able to press for its conclusions in any case.  The ground had already been cut from beneath the idealistic Chief Executive.  His concept of the League of Nations torpedoed by opponents in the Senate, his political future dealt a fatal blow by his serious illness, Wilson could hardly muster the strength to live let alone energetically govern.

The King-Crane Commission’s Report?  It was unheard of until 1922 when a resourceful newspaperman convinced private citizen Woodrow Wilson that it should be published.  When it was made public, the report carried a sub-heading called, “A Suppressed Official Document of the United States Government.”

And President King?  He returned to Oberlin with a renewed image of a statesman and continued to serve as the school’s president until 1927 when he retired.

His report remains a monument to far-seeing and untiring scholarship and a constant reminder of one of King’s favorite maxims:  “One does one’s best and leaves he rest.”

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Can Europeans learn anything from America’s experience with immigrants?

Mike Ungersma argues there is much to be gained.

What happens if we place a drop of red dye into a beaker of clear water? Do we have clear water plus a spot of red dye? Obviously not. We have a new coloration to every molecule of water. That is what I mean by ecological change. A new medium does not add something; it changes everything. In the year 1500, after the printing press was invented, you did not have old Europe plus the printing press. You had a different Europe.

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

While the American media theorist and cultural historian, Neil Postman, was talking here about the impact of television, he could just as easily been referring to the greatest sociological experiment in modern history: the mass migration of millions of Syrians, Afghans, Somalis, Nigerians and countless other nationalities into Europe. Moreover, it’s an experiment that is not happening in a laboratory, posed in a seminar room or offered up in a lecture hall, but actually taking place in an extraordinary short space of time on the streets and in the neighbourhoods of virtually every European city. No one knows what impact this remarkable event will have.  What we do know is – depending on your point of view – communities and their character are changing as a result, with their very essence under threat, or, they are being infinitely enriched by ethnic and cultural diversity while their economies benefit from low-cost workers and an injection of new, highly trained professionals.   Whatever the true effect, this is a wave of mass migration on a scale Europe previously saw only during two world wars.

There is no need to rehearse the amazing numbers, statistics from a variety of migration ‘watchers’ showing how London, Paris, Rome, Berlin, Athens – never mind hundreds of smaller towns and even villages – are experiencing a rush of new arrivals who bring with them novel and even unknown religious, cultural, ethnic and linguistic differences and practices.  This societal change is tidal, unprecedented and challenging, causing many to wonder whether old, long established beliefs and familiar surroundings will be altered beyond recognition.

Europe’s economic ‘pull’ is magnetic and compelling.  There is the undeniable attraction of the welfare state and good jobs.  There is affordable housing in poorer areas in host communities away from the hostility of more affluent neighbourhoods.  Sympathetic support awaits migrants from countless voluntary agencies and charities, willing to not only assist in finding a place to live, learning the local language, locating schools and medical help, but also acting as a buffer from prying bureaucracy and rapacious landlords.

Historically, wherever people are free, they choose to live ‘among their own’, a truism that is even reflected among immigrants themselves.  Wherever they end up, they almost always elect to live with ‘their own’ – or – for a variety of reasons, are forced to do so.  Familiar faces that speak the same language are welcome indeed when one is faced with upheaval and displacement.  This is why Paris has its banilieues, London its Chinatown, Berlin its Turkish ghettos, and the the Roma are coerced into segregation in almost every host European country just as they were in their home nations.

Still another truism seems to be that this extraordinary state of population flux and historic movement in Europe shows no sign of ending.  As long as there are impoverished and desperate migrants and refugees who can find a way to prosperous Europe, they will come.

This phenomena is, however, not new.  Substitute the United States for every mention of Europe in the myriad of news stories about the ‘migration crisis’, and you have a more or less perfect fit, albeit a century or even 150 years earlier.  Remarkably, perhaps, substitute Roman Catholic for Muslim, and the parallel is striking.  Take, for example, this excerpt from one of many editorials in the Louisville Journal by its editor, George D Prentice, who was alarmed by the influence ‘foreign’ immigrants – especially Catholics – might exert in the upcoming election for Kentucky’s state governor:

Rally to put down an organization of Jesuit Bishops, Priests, and other Papists, who aim by secret oaths and horrid perjuries and midnight plotting to sap the foundation of our political edifices — state and national.

It was August, 1855.  Clearly not all of the ‘huddled masses’ – the inscription that was later to adorn the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbour – were welcome in the ‘Land of the Free’.  Prentice was far from alone in his concern.  Charlie Hebo’s calculated irreverence toward France’s millions of Muslims was more than matched by the repeated insults hurled at the latest wave of 19th century immigrants to America by the ‘No Nothings’ – a offshoot of the early Republican Party.  While the movement disappeared as a political force, its anti-immigrant policies deeply infected the American body politic.

Irish immigrants were a favourite target.  Here is a cartoon from the satirical magazine Puck in 1889 showing the legendary American ‘melting pot’ working for everyone but one Irishman who stands aside holding a knife, waving the flag and demanding to be accepted.

 “The Mortar of Assimilation And The One Element That Just Won’t Mix”.

German Catholics were similarly regarded.

The Syrian, Afghan, Iraqi and African refugees streaming into Europe since 2015 have roiled its politics and tested its tolerance.  In 19th century America, the vast waves of immigrants pushed politics further and further to the right.  In every single decade from the 1870s to the present, the American Congress felt the need to respond with legislation, sometimes welcoming immigrants and but more frequently, restricting the flow.  The ‘crisis’ created a rollercoaster of action and reaction, what has subsequently been regarded by historians as a surge of populism.  When they were manifestly needed, the bar to immigrants was lowered.  When the need subsided, the welcome was suddenly withdrawn. The Civil War was an example. Some historians argue the outcome of that costly conflict might have  been very different were it not for the 500,000 German and Irish immigrants who served in the Union Army. Not all were volunteers however, and their forced conscription into ‘Lincoln’s Ranks’ touched off violent protests in New York in the summer of 1863.  Ironically, the Irish vented their frustration on the city’s blacks whom they felt threatened their jobs following the emancipation of southern slaves.  Unlike wealthier Americans who could literally buy a substitute when faced with draft, the Irish were swept up into the ranks in number which were far disproportionate to the Irish population.

Nearly a century later, with millions of young American men off fighting in Europe and the Pacific, the country welcomed Mexican ‘braceros’ to work the fields and farms.  Meanwhile, tens of thousands of blacks fled from poorly paid agricultural employment in the South to work in wartime northern mills and factories, a mass internal migration of unprecedented levels.  Most resided in ghettoes, and to this day, American cities live with the consequences. Similarly, the Chinese were welcomed as ‘coolie’ labour during the 19th century’s rapid push to connect every major American city by rail.   But when the ‘Golden Spike’ was driven and the Trans-Continental Railroad complete, Congress expressed its gratitude to the thousands of Chinese workers upon whose backs the task was made possible by passing the 1882  ‘Chinese Exclusion Act’, which not only barred further Chinese immigration, but forbade those already there to apply for citizenship.  Most were left unemployed, to fend for themselves in an increasingly hostile America. More recently, Hispanics, always present in America in numbers that continue to surprise Europeans, had arrived in the country by their thousands, and not just from Mexico.  Now their presence is altering the face of American politics and has pushed blacks down the ranking of ethnic minorities.

Europeans, representatives of an ancient culture that bequeathed so much to America, are not accustomed to thinking of the US as a role model, except perhaps in technology and enterprise.  But the experience of Americans dealing with wave after wave of immigration, of seeking to integrate disparate peoples into a still-expanding and developing democracy, may have lessons for Europe, and especially the European Union as it grapples with the influx of millions of invited and uninvited refugees and economic migrants.  What can be learned?

Some lessons are self-evident.  Given the mix enveloping Europe’s shores, count on disruption at virtually every level of society.  In the US, the country at least had the advantage of trying to accommodate people of a broadly similar background – largely expatriates of democracies with an historic Western Judaeo-Christian heritage.  Apart from a small injection of anarchists, communists and convinced socialists, immigrants to America were content to leave political ideologies behind.  Most were driven by the opportunities they perceived available. Much potentially divisive baggage was left behind.  While they may not have been uniformly and heartily welcomed, the US they encountered – at whatever period – was not alien and strange. Hence, a ‘Clash of Civilizations’ seems unlikely in any foreseeable American context, but Europe?

Secondly, America benefits from almost impenetrable natural borders.  With the exception of Mexico, migrants to America faced a very difficult and costly journey to Ellis Island’s immigrant reception centre in New York Bay, the gateway to 12 million immigrants to the United States for more than 60 years.  Europe’s borders are easily overcome, virtually impossible to patrol and a subject of fierce political disagreement.

Thirdly, if the American experience is a guide, expect even more unsettling turmoil.  Echoing the movement in 19th century America, the drift toward populism across Europe, as well as the discontent and discomfort many feel about their new neighbours, will be exploited and used by opportunists in every nation.  That certainly was the case in America.  The cost of ignoring rising public feeling in this regard has already been paid in Britain, where the precipitous and disastrous ending of the government of David Cameron is a alarming warning recognised in every chancellery in Europe.  As the Scottish-born historian Niall Ferguson argued recently:

Populists are not fascists.  They prefer trade wars to actual wars: border wars to military fortifications. The maladies they seek to cure are not imaginary: uncontrolled migration, widening  inequality, free trade with unfree countries and political cronyism are all things that millions of voters have good reason to dislike.  The problem with populism is that its remedies are in practice counterproductive.

Finally, the plaintive pleas of those who feel ‘We Can Do This,’ may be misjudging the magnitude of the task.  It is more than 150 years since Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation that freed three million black Americans from servitude.  In spite of decades of positive, energetic, forceful legislation and immense civic effort – not to mention the election of a black President – this thorny and difficult issue of integrating a minority remains unfinished.

Europe, like Sisyphus, has a mountain to climb and a very large boulder barring the path.

 

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On the face of it, Martin Schulz’s announcement that he is leaving his post as president of the European Parliament would appear to be good news for British policymakers hoping for a soft Brexit. This is because Schulz has been an outspoken opponent of making concessions to the British government to soften the impact of the UK’s departure.

Post-Brexit the British government would like to have the economic benefits of participation in the single Europe market while getting rid of such single market obligations as free movement of EU citizens and EU economic regulations. Doing so would give Britain what many MPs would regard as the best of both worlds. However, this soft Brexit could only be achieved if the European Union were prepared to depart from its principle that the free movement of labour and obedience to EU regulations are necessary conditions of participating in the single market.

In common with President of the European Commission Jean Claude Junker, Schulz views this as Britain wanting to have its cake and eat it too. They fear that any concession to the UK would start an avalanche of demands for exemption from EU rules by other member states. They also fear it would strengthen the hand of anti-EU parties challenging national governments to reduce their commitment to the EU and encourage them to follow the UK in opting for a soft exit.

The bad news for Britain is that Schulz is not leaving European politics but throwing his hat in the ring to be a leading member of the German government after its election next autumn. Even if Angela Merkel succeeds in maintaining her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) as the largest group in the German Bundestag, she will need to form a coalition in order to retain office as Chancellor.

The Socialist Party of Germany (SPD), of which Schulz is a member, is currently the CDU’s coalition partner. Both parties are almost certain to lose seats in the Bundestag to the anti-immigration Alternative for Deutschland, but remain large enough to form another coalition government. In that case Schulz will be in line to receive the post of German Foreign Minister, which is normally reserved for the second partner in a coalition. The post will be vacant as the current SPD incumbent, Frank Walter Steinmeier, is set to become Germany’s next president.

If Schulz becomes Germany’s new Foreign Minister, his voice will be heard in Brussels in meetings where Boris Johnson will speak for Britain. He will also be a major voice in the German Bundestag and in discussions with Angela Merkel about how the European Council should respond to requests from Theresa May for concessions. The most likely alternative to a CDU-SPD coalition is a coalition between the SPD and the parties of the left.  Its current leader, Sigmar Gabriel, is just as outspoken as Schulz in opposing the British government’s desire to have an à la carte choice of EU benefits and obligations.

Schulz’s departure from the European Parliament will not change its long-standing commitment to the promotion of greater European integration. The new president is likely to be chosen by the European People’s Party, the parliamentary group from which David Cameron withdrew British Conservative MEPs on the grounds it was in favour of ever closer Union. Crucially, any agreement that the European Council struck with Britain will require ratification by the European Parliament.  If Britain were to gain substantial concessions from the European Council, it would invite hard opposition in the Parliament. The refusal of the European Parliament to approve a deal would result in Britain having a “cold turkey” exit without any benefits to cushion the transition and without any obligations. Only the hardest of backers of Brexit would welcome this.

Theresa May faces a hard choice to avoid being boxed in by opposition that Schulz might mobilize in Berlin and Brussels. In terms of British domestic politics, the softer choice is to retain few of the benefits of single market membership in order to bring back to Westminster control of EU immigration and economic regulations. The harder alternative is to accept the EU’s conditions for staying in the single market and facing a challenge to her hold on Downing Street from Conservative MPs and ministers to whom Brexit means a hard Brexit.

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As the nights have drawn in and the mercury has dropped, thoughts – in my neck of the woods at least – have turned to that important festivity of the six month-iversary of the referendum. Even though we’re little over five months on, we’re starting to see the wave of events asking us to reflect on the vote and on 2016 more generally.

From my perspective, the key paradox is the mix of radical rupture and apparent stasis in the British political scene. On the one hand, we have had a fundamental change of direction in the UK’s engagement with the international system and a shaking up of the party political system. On the other, we have many of the old hands still on deck and – most crucially – we still have little sense of how those old hands will pursue Brexit.

It is little exaggeration to say that we know about as much on this now as we did on the morning of 24 June, i.e. hardly anything. Whether it’s the totemic incantation of “Brexit means Brexit” or the “have cake and eat it” notes spotted this week, there is only the sense that the cunning plan gambit has failed to materialise. Of course, this is not surprising, because there is no cunning plan, no way out – in practical terms – of both limited free movement of people and not limiting free movement of goods, services and capital.

Earlier in the autumn I thought that there might be some flexibility on free movement of people from the EU27, who have other reasons to think about stepping back from a maximalist interpretation, but this has closed down of late. This is due to a more general hardening of the position that negotiations can only take place under Article 50 and mutual reassurance that the UK cannot be given a pick-and-mix deal as a reward for departure. That’s not unreasonable, especially given the growth of concern about populism post Trump (and pre-Le Pen), and the general air of messing about in London.

As David Allen Green rightly pointed out, the fight that May has to deal with is more about how she manages public opinion in the UK than it is about the EU27. It’s pretty clear that the UK can go low or high into Article 50, either retaining the four freedoms or binning them all (broadly speaking): the 27 might prefer the UK to keep them, but will cope either way. Thus it is the domestic audience that matters, because the UK government – and, to a less extent, the other member state governments – that have to get any deal approved, either formally (in parliament) or informally (in their party, the press and – eventually – elections).

If we assume that the deal side of things is broadly fixed into the high/low options, then we might usefully consider that what May is now doing is applying Lukes’ third face of power. Since she can’t impose her preferences on the public (first face) nor control the agenda (second face), she’s instead going to try and change what people want.

This really came home during this week’s exchange of letters with Donald Tusk, who rightly pointed out that the EU27 await the UK to get going with negotiations, so any uncertainty over the status of UK nationals in the EU rests firmly at the UK’s feet.

This has been part of a longer-running thread, of refusing to confirm rights for EU nationals in the UK without first getting confirmation of UK nationals’ rights in the EU. This is bar-room politics at its worst, since all sides have international treaty obligations to protect these individuals, while the alternative of forced removal is not credible, even in these febrile times: so reciprocal guarantees will be forthcoming. But May presents the situation as having an ace in her hand.

Language matter here. As the bots keep telling me on Twitter, ‘expats’ are just ‘our’ migrants. Much of the British public has a problem with immigrants, but hardly anyone has a problem with expats. Since I assume May is a well-informed and thoughtful individual, I also have to assume that she knows full well what she is doing here and the simplest explanation I can see is that she is seeking to kick up a mess about ‘expats’ so that there’s an outcry from the media and her party to act to save them. And the only way she can do that is by granting reciprocal rights to EU nationals, which might well include free movement (assuming the ‘expats’ want that too – which I’m guessing they do from my passage through Malaga airport last month).

In short, May is seeking to reframe the public debate, so that the weight of the ‘people discussion’ falls on ‘expats’ rather than ‘immigrants’. And if you couple that to the growing sense that people might be more open to the trade-off of market access in return for freedom of movement, then you have a basis for the high deal in Article 50.

Whether this will work, or can work, is a different issue. The fight over Parliamentary approval of Article 50 notification has distracted many in her party and the press, but at some point this effort will get noticed and attacked. Then it will be a question of how skillfully May can defend her position, which has not yet been seriously challenged. Someone did note to me the other day that the Tories won’t want to eject May because that would mean a second Prime Minister without an election: given how high temperatures have risen in the party, even that might not be enough to stop another regicide.

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The detention of irregular migrants in specialized centers to ensure their removal is a contentious precautionary measure. Although the Return Directive does not constitute the ultimate solution to this controversial issue, nor has the CJEU been very concrete and clear in the matter, both have had an important impact on the Spanish detention legislation (Organic Law 2/2009 and the recent Royal Decree that regulates the detention facilities). This blog post briefly addresses two contentious issues: the implications of the CJEU’s Zaizoune ruling and insufficient alternatives to detention.

In the Zaizoune case, the CJEU declared the Spanish measure of replacing expulsion with a fine to be incompatible with the Return Directive. Before the Zaizoune case, most of the irregular stay cases were handled in Spain by issuing a fine, jointly with a voluntary period of departure of 15 days, to the migrant. If the fine was not paid or the departure from the national territory did not occur, the migrant’s removal would take place through a preferential procedure as soon as the individual was re-identified by the law enforcement authorities. Following the Zaizoune case, the ordinary procedure of removal now must be applied, which grants the migrant a period of voluntary departure, in contrast to the preferential procedure. While the Spanish law used to broadly transpose the exceptions of the Return Directive regarding the granting of a period of voluntary departure, the current application of the ordinary procedure to most of the removal cases will require a restrictive interpretation by the national courts. Otherwise, the CJEU may also declare this broad transposition of the Return Directive incompatible with EU law.

On the other hand, the Return Directive establishes as a core objective that the detention of any irregular migrant should effectively lead to his or her expulsion, yet data shows that Spanish law enforcement authorities excessively resort to detention. Out of the 7,340 people detained in 2014, only 3,483 were finally expelled. Nevertheless, while the Return Directive grants the States the possibility to detain a migrant a maximum period of 18 months, in Spain the authorities only have 60 days to effectively remove the migrant. Given this dilemma, the solution lays in the Spanish courts, which should further resort to alternatives to detention.

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Floundering on a Sea of Cultures

Mike Ungersma argues that Europe can learn much

from 200 years of American immigration

What happens if we place a drop of red dye into a beaker of clear water? Do we have clear water plus a spot of red dye? Obviously not. We have a new coloration to every molecule of water. That is what I mean by ecological change. A new medium does not add something; it changes everything. In the year 1500, after the printing press was invented, you did not have old Europe plus the printing press. You had a different Europe.

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

While the American media theorist and cultural historian, Neil Postman, was talking here about the impact of television, he could just as easily been referring to the greatest sociological experiment in modern history: the mass migration of millions of Syrians, Afghans, Somalis, Nigerians and countless other nationalities into Europe. Moreover, it’s an experiment that is not happening in a laboratory, posed in a seminar room or offered up in a lecture hall, but actually taking place in an extraordinary short space of time on the streets and in the neighbourhoods of virtually every European city. No one knows what impact this remarkable event will have.  What we do know is – depending on your point of view – communities and their character are changing as a result, with their very essence under threat, or, they are being infinitely enriched by ethnic and cultural diversity while their economies benefit from low-cost workers and an injection of new, highly trained professionals.   Whatever the true effect, this is a wave of mass migration on a scale Europe previously saw only during two world wars.

There is no need to rehearse the amazing numbers, statistics from a variety of migration ‘watchers’ showing how London, Paris, Rome, Berlin, Athens – never mind hundreds of smaller towns and even villages – are experiencing a rush of new arrivals who bring with them novel and even unknown religious, cultural, ethnic and linguistic differences and practices.  This societal change is tidal, unprecedented and challenging, causing many to wonder whether old, long established beliefs and familiar surroundings will be altered beyond recognition.

Europe’s economic ‘pull’ is magnetic and compelling.  There is the undeniable attraction of the welfare state and good jobs.  There is affordable housing in poorer areas in host communities away from the hostility of more affluent neighbourhoods.  Sympathetic support awaits migrants from countless voluntary agencies and charities, willing to not only assist in finding a place to live, learning the local language, locating schools and medical help, but also acting as a buffer from prying bureaucracy and rapacious landlords.

Historically, wherever people are free, they choose to live ‘among their own’, a truism that is even reflected among immigrants themselves.  Wherever they end up, they almost always elect to live with ‘their own’ – or – for a variety of reasons, are forced to do so.  Familiar faces that speak the same language are welcome indeed when one is faced with upheaval and displacement.  This is why Paris has its banilieues, London its Chinatown, Berlin its Turkish ghettos, and the the Roma are coerced into segregation in almost every host European country just as they were in their home nations.

Still another truism seems to be that this extraordinary state of population flux and historic movement in Europe shows no sign of ending.  As long as there are impoverished and desperate migrants and refugees who can find a way to prosperous Europe, they will come.

This phenomena is, however, not new.  Substitute the United States for every mention of Europe in the myriad of news stories about the ‘migration crisis’, and you have a more or less perfect fit, albeit a century or even 150 years earlier.  Remarkably, perhaps, substitute Roman Catholic for Muslim, and the parallel is striking.  Take, for example, this excerpt from one of many editorials in the Louisville Journal by its editor, George D Prentice, who was alarmed by the influence ‘foreign’ immigrants – especially Catholics – might exert in the upcoming election for Kentucky’s state governor:

Rally to put down an organization of Jesuit Bishops, Priests, and other Papists, who aim by secret oaths and horrid perjuries and midnight plotting to sap the foundation of our political edifices — state and national.

It was August, 1855.  Clearly not all of the ‘huddled masses’ – the inscription that was later to adorn the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbour – were welcome in the ‘Land of the Free’.  Prentice was far from alone in his concern.  Charlie Hebo’s calculated irreverence toward France’s millions of Muslims was more than matched by the repeated insults hurled at the latest wave of 19th century immigrants to America by the ‘No Nothings’ – a offshoot of the early Republican Party.  While the movement disappeared as a political force, its anti-immigrant policies deeply infected the American body politic.

Irish immigrants were a favourite target.  One cartoon from the satirical magazine Puck in 1889 shows the legendary American ‘melting pot’ working for everyone but one Irishman who stands aside holding a knife, waving the flag and demanding to be accepted. German Catholics were similarly regarded.

The Syrian, Afghan, Iraqi and African refugees streaming into Europe since 2015 have roiled its politics and tested its tolerance.  In 19th century America, the vast waves of immigrants pushed politics further and further to the right.  In every single decade from the 1870s to the present, the American Congress felt the need to respond with legislation, sometimes welcoming immigrants and but more frequently, restricting the flow.  The ‘crisis’ created a rollercoaster of action and reaction, what has subsequently been regarded by historians as a surge of populism.  When they were manifestly needed, the bar to immigrants was lowered.  When the need subsided, the welcome was suddenly withdrawn. The Civil War was an example. Some historians argue the outcome of that costly conflict might have  been very different were it not for the 500,000 German and Irish immigrants who served in the Union Army. Not all were volunteers however, and their forced conscription into ‘Lincoln’s Ranks’ touched off violent protests in New York in the summer of 1863.  Ironically, the Irish vented their frustration on the city’s blacks whom they felt threatened their jobs following the emancipation of southern slaves.  Unlike wealthier Americans who could literally buy a substitute when faced with draft, the Irish were swept up into the ranks in number which were far disproportionate to the Irish population.

Nearly a century later, with millions of young American men off fighting in Europe and the Pacific, the country welcomed Mexican ‘braceros’ to work the fields and farms.  Meanwhile, tens of thousands of blacks fled from poorly paid agricultural employment in the South to work in wartime northern mills and factories, a mass internal migration of unprecedented levels.  Most resided in ghettoes, and to this day, American cities live with the consequences. Similarly, the Chinese were welcomed as ‘coolie’ labour during the 19th century’s rapid push to connect every major American city by rail.   But when the ‘Golden Spike’ was driven and the Trans-Continental Railroad complete, Congress expressed its gratitude to the thousands of Chinese workers upon whose backs the task was made possible by passing the 1882  ‘Chinese Exclusion Act’, which not only barred further Chinese immigration, but forbade those already there to apply for citizenship.  Most were left unemployed, to fend for themselves in an increasingly hostile America. More recently, Hispanics, always present in America in numbers that continue to surprise Europeans, had arrived in the country by their thousands, and not just from Mexico.  Now their presence is altering the face of American politics and has pushed blacks down the ranking of ethnic minorities.

Europeans, representatives of a  venerable culture that bequeathed so much to America, are not accustomed to thinking of the US as a role model, except perhaps in technology and enterprise.  But the experience of Americans dealing with wave after wave of immigration, of seeking to integrate disparate peoples into a still-expanding and developing democracy, may have lessons for Europe, and especially the European Union as it grapples with the influx of millions of invited and uninvited refugees and economic migrants.  What can be learned?

Some lessons are self-evident.  Given the mix enveloping Europe’s shores, count on disruption at virtually every level of society.  In the US, the country at least had the advantage of trying to accommodate people of a broadly similar background – largely expatriates of democracies with an historic Western Judaeo-Christian heritage.  Apart from a small injection of anarchists, communists and convinced socialists, immigrants to America were content to leave political ideologies behind.  Most were driven by the opportunities they perceived available. Much potentially divisive baggage was left behind.  While they may not have been uniformly and heartily welcomed, the US they encountered – at whatever period – was not alien and strange. Hence, a ‘Clash of Civilizations’ seems unlikely in any foreseeable American context, but Europe?

Secondly, America benefits from almost impenetrable natural borders.  With the exception of Mexico, migrants to America faced a very difficult and costly journey to Ellis Island’s immigrant reception centre in New York Bay, the gateway to 12 million immigrants to the United States for more than 60 years.  Europe’s borders are easily overcome, virtually impossible to patrol and a subject of fierce political disagreement.

Thirdly, if the American experience is a guide, expect even more unsettling turmoil.  Echoing the movement in 19th century America, the drift toward populism across Europe, as well as the discontent and discomfort many feel about their new neighbours, will be exploited and used by opportunists in every nation.  That certainly was the case in America.  The cost of ignoring rising public feeling in this regard has already been paid in Britain, where the precipitous and disastrous ending of the government of David Cameron is a alarming warning recognised in every chancellery in Europe.  As the Scottish-born historian Niall Ferguson argued recently:

Populists are not fascists.  They prefer trade wars to actual wars: border wars to military fortifications. The maladies they seek to cure are not imaginary: uncontrolled migration, widening  inequality, free trade with unfree countries and political cronyism are all things that millions of voters have good reason to dislike.  The problem with populism is that its remedies are in practice counterproductive.

Finally, the plaintive pleas of those who feel ‘We Can Do This,’ may be misjudging the magnitude of the task.  It is more than 150 years since Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation that freed three million black Americans from servitude.  In spite of decades of positive, energetic, forceful legislation and immense civic effort – not to mention the election of a black President – this thorny and difficult issue of integrating a minority remains unfinished.

Europe, like Sisyphus, has a mountain to climb and a very large boulder barring the path.

 

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