Ideas on Europe Blog

For as long as I have lived in this country – a quarter century, after all – the surest way for French politicians to put an end to their political career was to make a statement, however prudent, in favour of ‘liberalism’. Once labelled a ‘liberal’, you could be sure to be turned in no time into a ‘neo-liberal’ before being commonly and irremediably demonised as ‘ultra-liberal’ (whatever that means). Naming a party ‘lib-dem’ was either political satire or political suicide. Alain Madelin tried in 1998, but gave up in 2002 after having earned exactly 3.91% of the vote in the presidential election.

The primaries, however, seem to have changed things. With the right and centre virtually monopolising the political debate for several weeks, ‘liberalism’ is undergoing an unexpected semantic rehabilitation. The final TV debate between François Fillon and Alain Juppé on Thursday night – followed by an incredible 8.5 million audience – featured two candidates who advocated reforms for which the adjective ‘liberal’ appears perfectly appropriate. And they’re not alone!

Fillon, a Thatcherite liberal? Libération cover page, 22 Nov.

For the 2017 season, the liberalism fashion will actually come in three trends. There’s the daring yet sober design of Fillon’s self-proclaimed ‘radical’ costume, not without a certain reactionary chic. Then there’s the admittedly ‘less brutal’ Juppé outfit, which seems a little bit easier to wear and tries not to break too abruptly with traditional attire. And finally there is the stylish and trendy apparel designed by Emmanuel Macron, rather tasteful actually, but will it stand the test of the spring fashion shows?

‘Liberal’ is one of these key words that have a different meaning in different languages, shaped and draped with connotations by the local political culture. In a wonderful sketch by German humourist Loriot (yes, seriously: German humour!), a liberal-democrat politician keeps repeating in a TV debate that ‘in the liberal sense, liberal not only means liberal’. In the French Fifth Republic ‘liberal’ is traditionally perceived as a shortcut to ‘promotor of cynical laisser-faire capitalism’ and ‘strictly conservative in societal matters’ (not exactly what Fox News or breitbart.com would spontaneously associate).

Fillon, who obtained 2 903 564 votes on Sunday, fits this classical description remarkably well. What is new is that he is no longer ashamed of it. The reason is probably that he has felt that the discourse of the ugly, but simple and necessary truth is being received differently than ten or twenty years ago. Especially the electorate of Catholic obedience and heritage proves very sensitive to his logic of redemption: confession of decades of sinning is followed by punitive repentance and compensated with eternal salvation at the end of the tunnel.

Macron begs to differ. He regularly points out that ‘liberalism is a value of the left’. This would find the applause of the so-called ‘social democrats’, as embodied by former trade unionist, renowned editorialist and historian of the French left Jacques Julliard, who wrote after the 2005 referendum on the constitutional treaty that it was ‘extravagant that the socialist left has heaped opprobrium onto a doctrine that presided over its birth until the mid-19th century and has since then allowed Socialism to distinguish itself from its totalitarian twin’ (Le malheur français, Flammarion, 2005, p. 124). Liberalism was the French left’s ‘take-away’ from the Revolution, from Benjamin Constant to Alexis de Tocqueville (and no, I am not confusing ‘libérté’ et ‘libéralisme’).

For Macron, a true liberal is a politician who ‘attacks privilege and economic deadlock, while working for social mobility rather than favouring those who are already successful!’ According to him, the French confuse ‘liberal’ with ‘conservative’, simply ‘because we do not have a liberal tradition’, as he just recently explained again in an interview with Le Monde.

And there’s the rub. Since Mitterrand’s famous ‘turn to austerity’ in 1983, liberalism has always been equated with humiliating external disciplining, mostly imposed by Brussels and Bonn/Berlin, undermining the Welfare State and public services. Macron is already categorised as a ‘social-liberal’, which – you may have guessed – is a label bestowed only by the guardians of the true doctrine of the French left and comes very close to ‘evil’.

Macron’s clumsy catwalk.

In other words: the stage given to liberalist ideas by the fashion show of the right and the centre may be a very temporary one. Soon other fashion houses will stage their own parades and impose a different lexicon. Macron’s new garment of liberal economics and progressive social ideas does not correspond to traditional French taste. It is truly ‘disruptive’ (to quote one of his own favourite adjectives).

The renaissance and rehabilitation of the word ‘libéral’ is a remarkable feature of this early campaign phase. Whether it will be followed by a redefinition is another question.

Albrecht Sonntag
@albrechtsonntag

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

The post France 2017: The unexpected rehabilitation of an adjective appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Hannah Moscovitz

Around the world, the social role of higher education has garnered interest and generated important discussion. It is commonly agreed that alongside their research and teaching functions, academic institutions should also promote what has been termed their “third mission”. Important efforts have been made in recent years to further the understanding of the social role of the university. The Talloires network for instance, provides an international forum of institutions committed to strengthening their social responsibilities. In Europe specifically, the social contribution of higher education has gained ground through the elaboration of a ‘social dimension’ to accompany the Bologna Process reforms.

Social responsibility has become an important promotional feature for higher education institutions. University mission statements, websites and promotional materials regularly highlight an institution’s commitment to community engagement and public responsibility. Despite the growing importance of university social responsibility at a declarative level, its implementation in practice is not clear cut. The very notion of what constitutes social responsibility in the higher education realm remains ambiguous. Moreover, notwithstanding important efforts, a coherent and all-encompassing approach both within and between academic institutions, to strengthening social responsibility, is far from complete.

The European Commission funded, Tempus-ESPRIT (Enhancing the Social Characteristics and Public Responsibility of Israeli Teaching through an HEI-Student Alliance) project, coordinated by the Centre for the Study of European Politics and Society  - Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, was developed with the aim of delineating the social responsibility of higher education and clarifying its features, as well as to test models for its enhancement in Israeli universities. Academic institutions and organisations in Israel and Europe [i] as well as the European Students’ Union (ESU) and the National Union of Israeli Students (NUIS) took part in the project, launched in 2012, and culminating this month.

The project’s overall goal is to analyze, map and strengthen the social and public roles of higher education institutions in Israel. To this end, three main pillars were pursued. At an initial phase a mapping exercise was conducted in order to shed light on the level of social engagement of Israeli students/faculty and their perceptions towards social responsibility. A second pillar involved the development of models and guidelines for the design of curriculum with a social engagement component. A digital platform was also produced to serve as a resource center and contact point to promote dialogue between faculty working on these types of courses.

Finally, the project saw the development and testing of a Social Benchmarking Tool (SBT) to assess and compare academic institutions according to their social missions. Together, these three pillars aimed to sharpen the understanding of social responsibility in academic institutions as well as enhance this feature in the partner institutions.

On November 21st, ESPRIT project partners and invited guests representing different higher education stakeholders, gathered at the ESU headquarters in Brussels, for a final roundtable to discuss the project’s outcomes and its relevance for Israel and Europe. A number of important themes emerged from this meeting shedding further light on the potential of academic social responsibility efforts in Israel, Europe and beyond.

The Social responsibility of universities – promoting a wide definition

Recognisant of the wide-ranging interpretations of social responsibility as it relates to higher education, one of the very first tasks of the ESPRIT consortium was to draft a working definition which would guide its activities and objectives.  The notion of social responsibility was given a wide interpretation – relating to the university’s external actions on the one hand, and its internal policy on the other. A university’s social responsibility is reflected in its community outreach programmes, ‘socially engaged’ courses, partnerships and actions benefiting their surrounding neighborhoods and society in general. It should also be apparent in the institution’s internal functioning; ethical codes, transparency, employment policies, sustainable development etc; and relating to student, staff and faculty wellbeing.

During the roundtable, the challenge of promoting social responsibility in the internal domain was considered. Participants highlighted the fact that the internal social policy is often more difficult to discuss and promote, while academic institutions more easily disseminate their ‘external’ actions of community engagement and public responsibility.  Yet, project partners emphasized the importance of seeing the internal and external domains as one common framework; a university’s degree of social responsibility is dependent on both its external and internal actions- they should be understood as intertwined, not as separate entities.

Benchmarking University Social Responsibility – An opportunity

Rankings and Benchmarking mechanisms have been gaining momentum in the field of higher education. These systems are primarily focused on the research and teaching functions of universities, generally overlooking their “third mission”. The ESPRIT project aims to add another dimension to benchmarking; one which recognizes that alongside research and teaching, institutions should also be measured by their social characteristics.

The Social Benchmarking Tool (SBT) was initiated by the National Union of Israeli Students against the backdrop of a growing social awareness and engagement amongst Israeli students. NUIS representatives understood that students and prospective students are increasingly interested in the degree of social engagement and responsibility in their current or potential academic institutions. The SBT was thus perceived as valuable to provide a transparent picture of the social responsibility feature of universities as well as for offering university management with a self-assessment tool to enhance their social policy.

The SBT proposes a data collection mechanism for academic institutions to assess their social policy and compare where they stand vis a vis other institutions. The self-administered questionnaire collects data from a variety of sources within the institution and relates to different features of social responsibility-equality, wellbeing, ethical conduct and environmental policy.

The value and innovative character of the SBT for both Israeli and European partner institutions was emphasized. From both a student and institutional perspective, the SBT was discussed as holding important potential for furthering the social functions of universities. Participants also considered the challenges involved in promoting such a mechanism, in particular considering the priority given to the research and teaching functions of higher education. A conceptual shift was proposed in which social responsibility should not be understood as a “third pillar”, rather as an inherent feature of all other functions of higher education.

Importance of the student voice in enhancing social responsibility

The importance of student involvement in the promotion of social responsibility was a common theme elaborated throughout the project. The ESPRIT project was founded upon the notion that both students and institutions will inevitably play a part in strengthening the social role of academia. As such, project activities were guided by a university-student alliance, reflected in the active involvement of both the National Union of Israeli Students and the European Students’ Union.

The importance of the student voice was re-iterated during the roundtable. Student Union representatives highlighted the fact that there is often a disconnect between student and faculty/staff perceptions on a wide variety of issues, including those related to social responsibility. Working together on these matters offers a valuable bridge to close the perception gap and provides a mutually beneficial and effective framework. The significance of this partnership was also evoked by university representatives at the meeting, who stressed the important breakthrough of the ESPRIT project in this regard, particularly in the Israeli context.

The questions raised in the Tempus-ESPRIT project are of international relevance and will undoubtedly continue to be debated and elaborated in the years to come. The project provided EU and Israeli partner institutions the benefit of mutual learning and discussion on crucial questions of social responsibility in the academic realm. While the university/student alliance is vital to promoting an effective social responsibility agenda, the cooperation between institutions, student unions and different countries is also valued. These collaborations deepen the discussion on important issues relevant to higher education stakeholders and to society as a whole.

Hannah Moscovitz is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Politics and Government, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (Israel). Hannah works as part of the Tempus-ESPRIT coordinating team at the Centre for the Study of European Politics and Society, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

[i] Project partners include: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design; Interdisciplinary Center Herzlyia; Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Tel-Hai Academic College; University of Brighton; Center for Higher Education, Consult; Masaryk University; University of Santiago de Compostela.

The post Enhancing the Social Responsibility of Higher Education – challenges, ideas and opportunities. Insights from the Tempus-ESPRIT project appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

This is, of course, the big news from the past week. The whole Farage/Trump/ambassador thing is little more than a febrile combination of unwillingness to follow protocol, mutual back-scratching and intentional destablising, while the Autumn Statement simply underlines that no-one in government really knows what Brexit means.

But the resumption of legal contests – now in the Supreme Court – is arguably much more consequential.

As readers will recall, Miller and dos Santos saw a clear defeat of the government position in the High Court, with all judges strongly supporting the line that Parliament has to pass an Act to trigger Article 50 notification to leave the EU. The government has appealled, and now the case will be joined by the Northern Irish action that was defeated earlier in the month in Belfast, with additional representations from the Scottish executive.

As an appeal, the government is more or less bound to follow the same line of argumentation as before, which it appears to be doing, so there’s a priori not much chance they’ll win.

However, sources did indicate that the government has its fall-back in place, namely a “three-line bill” that would be almost impossible to amend: ‘bombproof‘, indeed.

One of the many things I’m not is a specialist on Parliamentary procedure, but I am very lucky that a couple of doors down from my office is Louise Thompson, who is such a specialist (and a very helpful colleague too). She pointed me to Griffith, the ‘seminal text’ apparently, who sets out the grounds for amendments. From this the following points are central.

Firstly, the key grounds of accepting amendments for debate (in this context) are, in rising order of seriousness, that: they don’t render all or part of the bill inoperative; they don’t delay the entry into force of the bill in England until a similar bill has passed in Scotland; they aren’t inconsistent with the bill as agreed by committee; and they aren’t relevant to the subject matter of the bill.

The first two grounds simply mean that an amendment to not invoke Article 50 wouldn’t be acceptable, any more than any effort to use Scotland to delay matters. This latter might come into play in the Supreme Court, if it decides that elements such as the Act of Union require Scottish approval and involvement (although this seems unlikely).

The inconsistency issue might matter more, although the government might be able to get to the committee stage with its text intact, especially if it’s as brief as indicated.

Thus the key test will be irrelevance. Assuming that the government draws the line as tightly as possible, then we’d expect the bill to be one with the title “to authorise the government to make notification under Article 50 TFEU”, ie nothing at all about the bigger process, only the very narrow triggering. The challenge to amenders would be whether they could add in any scrutiny powers for Parliament as part of that notification. At a first glance, the argument would have to run that the triggering power necessarily has to be linked to scrutiny, because of the wider consequences of notification, including the irreversibility of the process (which both the government and Miller have argued in their court submissions).

Which leads us to the second key point, namely that it is the chair of the committee who determines what is admissable, working on the advice of the clerk and the bill’s draftsman. Since we don’t know quite how this would be pitched, it’s not possible to be certain about who that chair would be, but the government would presumably want to have someone sympathetic to keeping the bill as proposed. Griffith does discuss at length the power of selection, but doesn’t provide a final answer on how definitive the chair’s power might be, beyond noting that “the chair is often wiser to yied” (p.82) to discontent in committee.

The picture that emerges from Griffith is that if there is careful drafting and a determined stance by the chair, then amendments will be very difficult to achieve. This, in turn, suggests that the government will have to be steely in this matter if it is to manage both remainers and hard brexiteers: it will be a key test of how much confidence the government commands in the house and (more importantly) in its party.

This matters because if amendments can’t happen, then the only active options open to remainers are to use the Lords (who are under warning about just this) to delay or amend, or to try and defeat the bill altogether.

Which brings us to Labour. Anyone reading All Out War, by Tim Shipman, will have been struck by the degree of indifference/incompetence/sabotage of the Remain campaign by the party leadership. Given the subsequent entrenchment of those same individuals – Corbyn, McDonnell, Milne – since the leadership contest, there is very little reason to suspect that Labour will put out any concerted effort to challenge – or even scrutinise – this bill. And without Labour, any Tory remain rebels will have a much weaker position.

UPDATE 1010:

Louise has now read this and came by to point out that this bill is likely to be heard by the House as a whole, rather than in one of the bill committees: as the Parliament page helpfully tells us, when this happens, it is the deputy speaker who chairs. This means that Paul Daly’s suggestion of PACAC chair Bernard Jenkin probably doesn’t fly, other issues notwithstanding, and that the selection process is out of government hands even more than otherwise, which might strengthen the hand of amenders.

UPDATE 1115:

Well, it’s nice to see people read this stuff, even if to point out my shortcomings. Uncivil Still notes that I’m using amendment rules for the third reading (i.e. after committee), when committee stage is more likely to see challenges. They also note here is the option in the second reading of a reasoned amendment, which allows for the denial of that second reading and the effective abandonment of the bill. Again, this brings us back to the final point, namely that without Labour playing ball with remain rebels, this doesn’t work.

BTW Louise is now checking with Parliament about which Deputy Speaker would chair the committee in the House, as no-one seems to know for sure.

The post Making an unamendable A50 bill – UPDATED appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

No longer needed.

I did it!

I participated in the primary of the right and the centre on Sunday around lunchtime. It didn’t even hurt. I paid my contribution of 2 Euros, took the 7 ballot papers, and signed, without any conflict of conscience, the ‘Charte de l’alternance’, confirming that I was in favour of political change (which I am), committed to respect the republican values of the centre and the right (which I am) as well as to the ‘redressement de la France’ whatever that means (‘recovery’? ‘improvement’? ‘rebound’? Fine with me, I consider all of these necessary).

It appears I was one of 600,000 participants who do not traditionally belong to the French right, but who seized the opportunity to cast a vote of Sarkozy avoidance, with the hope to have someone else confront Marine Le Pen in what is likely to be the 2nd round of the presidential elections next May. Sarkozy’s intense fishing for votes on the extreme right was going to make him, in comparison to Le Pen, the ‘Pepsi’ offering a weak alternative to the real ‘Coke’. Yesterday morning, France woke up without Sarkozy, who had declared, somewhat pathetically on Sunday night, that he would withdraw from politics. And it didn’t even hurt.

Surprise winner François Fillon will now face former frontrunner Alain Juppé in the runoff next Sunday. While it is doubtful that the support from the left and centre will be enough to enable Juppé to close yesterday’s 15%-gap within one week, pollsters and media would be well advised not to rule out yet another surprise.

They did it!

The parties of the right and the centre who organised the primaries deserve unanimous respect. The logistical challenge was remarkable, and it was handled professionally, with all lessons learnt from the calamitous experience exactly four years ago, when the internal election of the president of the UMP (now called Les Républicains) was wrought with fraud and incompetency. In other words: a very well-organised event of active citizenship, which mobilised over 4 million voters. Chapeau!

The seven candidates deserve the same respect. The entire campaign, marked by an unprecedented total of three television debates was an exercise in political discussion where everybody refrained from crossing red lines but actually exchanged about the issues they cared most for. What a welcome change from the mud-slinging of the US elections and the dishonesties of the Brexit referendum. France may be a has-been in many respects, and the constitution of the Fifth Republic, as this blog will not get tired of repeating, is the country’s greatest enemy on its road to renewal, but at least democracy still has a taste of democracy. Ouf!

The only persons involved who were clearly not up to the standards are the TV journalists. During the third debate their complacency and smugness was almost embarrassing and their eagerness to ‘spice up’ a seemingly boring debate was totally out of sync with what the 5 million audience was perfectly happy with over two hours and a half, i.e. a serious, boring exchange on serious, boring issues. The candidates even had to fight for the right to develop their thoughts about the European Union, a topic which the journalists were only too keen of brushing aside in order to focus on more ‘sexy’ issues. Nul!

He did it!

Yet, even the intense focus on the primaries was interrupted by political rivals, who carefully chose the same week to catch a part of the limelight and grab media attention for some precious minutes.

The first one was Emmanuel Macron, the former economy minister and deputy general secretary of the Elysée, who announced his candidacy for the presidential elections on Wednesday. Macron, who had founded his own political movement En marche! after having left the government, chose a training centre in one of the Paris suburbs to make his announcement.

En marche! –which smartly reproduces the initials of its founder’s name – claims to have already over 100,000 followers and refuses to be categorised as ‘left’ or ‘right’, or even ‘centre’. It thus tries to replicate the Gaullist aspiration to become a political movement ‘above’ the party system rather than one party among others. Emmanuel Macron is popular – an Odoxa poll for France info revealed that the 57% of the French who spontaneously considered his candidacy ‘a good thing’ are spread across the entire party spectrum.

Macron should not be underestimated. Should François Fillon win the 2nd round of primaries of the right next Sunday, many moderate voters scared by his austerity and ‘putinophile’ attitude would be tempted to have a closer look at Macron’s programme at the presidential election. What remains perfectly uncertain, though, is how a President Macron, without the backing of a full-fledged political party, would be able to obtain a parliamentary majority in the legislative elections in June/July.

She did it!

The champagne is already being served.

And then there was Marine Le Pen. Unusually discreet over the last months, she also chose Wednesday (one day before the primaries TV debate) to unveil her brand-new logo for the presidential campaign. What a feast for semiologists! No mention of the Front National at all! No reminder of the FN’s traditional tricolour ‘flame’ emblem, and not even a reference to her family name! Which not only happens to be the same as her father’s – recently excluded from the party – but also as her niece’s, a much more dangerous adversary in the modernisation of the FN. The logo simply says ‘Marine for president’, while the baseline slogan – ‘In the name of the people’ – is, in her words, ‘a code of conduct and a profession of faith’.

The attention focused mainly, however, on the fact that she dared choose a blue rose as new symbol. A rose! The symbol of the Socialists that Mitterrand put at the centre of his famous inauguration march to the Pantheon in 1981. First she took the Socialists’ working-class electorate, then their most-cherished symbol, next will be the presidency. According to her own explanations the rose is meant to be a symbol of femininity, which came upon her as ‘an evidence’.

What a week! Political battle cries and moments of high-flying symbolism on all channels! Fortunately this blog still has some months to go, which should enable it to digest November’s overdose.

Albrecht Sonntag
@albrechtsonntag

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

The post France 2017: Just do it! appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

It looks as if Simon Usherwood was asked the same question I was: How to win at Brexit.

My answer would begin by taking a step back and loving the bomb.

Winning at Brexit is the wrong question. The goal is winning at life. Winning Brexit is simply the best way to do that, but by no means the only way.

Incidentally, this shows how singularly unsuited I am to frontline campaigning. That’s more of a job for people who think the next vote is the most important thing that’s ever happened.

I think the first step towards winning at life (Brexit-wise) is to think about abortion rights in America.

In the United States today, you couldn’t find a pro-choice conservative with two hands and a flashlight. But that hasn’t always been the case. Just look at Roe v. Wade itself. Among the seven Justices in the majority, surely Chief Justice Burger counts as a conservative, while fellow Nixon appointee Harry Blackmun actually wrote the opinion for the Court. Even 20 years later, when the currently controlling case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey came out, the plurality opion was a joint effort by centre-right Justices like Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy on the one hand, and left-ish Bush appointee David Souter on the other hand. So where have all the pro-choice Republicans gone?

While I’m no expert in this field, my understanding is that the answer is broadly twofold: Some pro-choice Republicans, particularly the “Rockefeller Republicans“, have become Democrats during the (3rd way) Clinton era. Others have adjusted their views on abortion so that they fit better in the Republican herd. This is not just a matter of Republican politicians saying what they think their core constituency want to hear. As much as we don’t like to think of ourselves that way, people are sheep who like conformity. If all our peers, the people that we compare ourselves to, are pro-life, we will tend to copy that stance regardless of where we started out.

But of course, that works both ways. This “mirroring” only works to the extent that we have inherent affinity for these peers. (Otherwise they wouldn’t be peers.) There has to be a shared group identity for this to occur. And that’s exactly the purpose of using wedge issues: to manipulate the groups that people identify with, so that they will conform their views in one way rather than another.

So where have the pro-EU Tories gone? As far as anyone can tell, there’s Ken Clarke, and then no one. But surely all the others who stood with Margaret Thatcher in the 1970s to fight for the EU against the Eurosceptic socialists haven’t all joined the LibDems or Tony Blair’s Labour party? They must still be out there.

But how could we persuade them to speak up in favour of the EU? (Which may or may not mean against Brexit. It could simply mean against leaving the Single Market. Being picky in your choice of allies is not helpful.)

By the logic above, we would have to separate them from the Conservative herd. For example through appropriate use of wedge issues.

Conveniently, there is no shortage of those since Mrs. May has taken office. In her determination to compete with UKIP for votes, she has left herself exposed on her centrist flank. In terms of electoral politics, that is smart, because neither tovarich Corbyn nor Tim Farron – bless him – will take those voters away from her. But when it comes to wider politics, this presents an opportunity.

An obvious example is Nissan. What did the government promise them to persuade them to stay? Giving money to big businesses but not SMEs can’t possibly be popular among the centre-right. Andrew Tyrie, the powerful (and scary) chair of the Treasury Select Committee, is already asking questions, and he should be supported as much as possible.

More generally, every other word out of the Remain side’s mouth should be “crony capitalism”. (Yes, I know that that’s two words.) I cannot recommend enough the recent blog post by George Peretz and Kelyn Bacon on the blog of the UK State Aid Law Association, exploring state aid law post-Brexit. If the goal is to bring the pro-business, libertarian-leaning part of the Tory party over to a place where they can be sympathetic towards the EU, we need to push the narrative of the EU as the UK’s last best hope against a government that hands out billions of taxpayer money to whoever lobbies most effectively.

With Nissan as an example, that cannot be a difficult story to tell.

The second half of this same story is Mrs. May’s industrial strategy, which she has helpfully failed to define so far. As long as no one knows what it is, there is no reason why it should not be framed as another handout to British business, favouring jobs for the boys over genuine competition. Again, that cannot possibly be a hard sell.

None of this will stop Brexit. Because of the same mechanism discussed before, the sides will harden not soften. The more you talk to Leavers about how stupid Leave is, the more convinced they will be that you are an idiot/stooge/not-their-kind-of-person. There will not be a massive swing in popular opinion, no matter how bad the economy goes. (Conveniently, economic growth comes without a counterfactual. So it’s impossible to prove that someone [cough] Osborne [cough] ran the economy into the ground.) Tory MPs will vote Leave because they’re afraid of being deselected, Labour MPs will vote Leave if they represent Leave constituencies, as many of them do, and Peers will vote Leave because they’re afraid of the Strathclyde review.

The only way to win is to frame this as a conversation about something other than Brexit, and to accept that Brexit may be involved. Remember: if the UK Brexits, they can always come back in. (That’s in art. 50 too.) And even if they don’t, defeating the Trumps, Farages and LePens of this world is more important than Brexit.

The post How to win at Brexit (2) appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

These days, my bedtime reading consists of books on the EU referendum: The Brexit Club, Bad Boys of Brexit, Unleashing Demons and (currently) All Out War. All have provided another level of understanding to what happened over the past year or two, confirming some suspicions and challenging some assumptions.

Most strikingly so far has been the strategising that took place. From the Tate plot, to the Parliamentary manouvering on the Referendum Bill to the failed coup against Dominic Cummings, there are repeated instances of political actors working two steps ahead of their opposition.

Given the success that such an approach has had, and given the lack of apparent strategising going on in government on Article 50, this post tries to imagine what the two critical groups in Brexit might do, now and in the future. To be clear, I am not suggesting that this is what they are actually going and any examples I provide should not be taken as implementations of such ideas; instead, the intention is to scope out what the path ahead looks like at a critical juncture in British politics, where much feels contingent and open to change.

Let’s start by looking at those who have made most of this strategic approach to date, those pushing for a hard Brexit.

Harder still

The underlying situation is well-placed for hard brexiteers: they have the momentum from the referendum and own much of the media debate. However, David Cameron’s resignation immediately after the referendum meant that progress to Article 50 has become stalled.

The priority objective here has to be to get to Article 50 as soon as possible. This matters because it locks the UK much more firmly into leaving and because it opens up much more chance of making that departure a full one.

To tackle this last point first, Article 50 has a timetable and an extended number of veto players, anyone one of whom can block the conclusion of a negotiated deal. Failure to reach a deal means that the UK leaves after two years with a rupture. Either that is the objective, or it prompts the kind of crisis talks that lead to a deal in which the UK might have more opportunity to secure the trade-based relationship that many hard brexiteers want. In any case, the absence of agreement moves the UK very firmly – and possibly permanently – into the hard Brexit position.

Hence, getting to Article 50 matters. This means stamping hard on any sign of delay by the government, as well as calling out any and all who question any aspect of the situation, even if they are nominally ‘friendly’. Thus the various court cases might not question whether notification or Brexit should happen – only how – but by ramping up public dissent it makes it much more difficult for anyone to leverage those cases into further diversionary or limiting action.

Likewise, Parliament becomes a battleground, with a hard core of hard Brexiteers able to deprive the government of its majority, possibly to link up with an acquiescent Labour party in inflicting defeats on any area of policy that might cause Theresa May to think hard about defining them. Within the Tory party, that power also potentially extends to raising a challenge to their leader more directly, by triggering a leadership contest. While more of a nuclear option, it does have weight behind it, made more credible by the copious demonstrations of willingness to unleash havoc.

In short, the hard brexiteers probably do best by being unrelenting in their criticism of anyone who doesn’t cleave to the view that Brexit is quick and simple, pushing as hard as possible to get to Article 50, and then being unhelpful in finding a basis for cooperation, so that exit occurs on hard (ie. no) terms.

Whoa, Nelly!

If hard brexiteers might to push on being obstructive, then those that still want to fight for no brexit have a very different challenge.

For them, the referendum is a big, unavoidable problem and there is no easy way around it. So let’s assume that they will not directly challenge it. This opens up two lines of action, one short-term, the other longer.

In the short-term, the priority would have to be killing the momentum of the process. Cameron’s non-notification on 24th June opened up a big opportunity, but now it needs more work.

The logical first port of call is the Supreme Court next month. While neither party in Miller & dos Santos looks like changing their basic argument, the involvement of representation from the Scottish government and (possibly) the joining of the defeated Northern Irish action mean that there is scope for new elements to be introduced. To pick a recent idea, arguing that Article 50 notification needs not only the Act required by the High Court but also repeal of the 1972 European Communities Act would throw a huge spanner in the works, as this latter might mean years of legal unpicking before notification can happen.

The fall-back would be Parliament and efforts to expand the notification bill not only to improve oversight but to add further hurdles to getting to notification – such as the agreement of devolved assemblies – or the requirement for a second referendum to approve the final deal. Again, there are enough no-brexiteers in Tory ranks to cancel out the government majority, so work on getting Labour on-side would have to be a priority. Here, repeals would need to be multi-faceted, speaking to values and ideas that will resonate strongly with the leadership, i.e. not simply the benefits of EU membership.

Delaying notification is central in all of this, since it opens up the longer-term perspective, namely to effect a change in wider circumstances that make over-turning the referendum more feasible. That might include economic costs becoming more obvious, but also allowing more political events to accumulate. To take the most recent example, a Trump administration might be willing to cut a quick trade deal with the UK, but if that doesn’t happen then it makes the brexiteers’ argument about being a global player more difficult. Likewise, elections in France and the Netherlands in the first half of 2017 open up paths to more radical change within the EU that might render leaving moot.

Really?

Both these paths – hard brexit and no-brexit – are difficult and problematic. There is much to question about them and I’d have serious doubts about the viability of either.

However, the middle path – that of a managed brexit – is little easier. There have been some good pieces of late about how to strategise this, but that does not disguise the many pitfalls and bear-traps that exist. Perhaps the value of thinking more radically is that it exposes these, so that we might have more of a chance of getting to a sustainable future policy position.

The post How to win at Brexit appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

In the wake of populist successes in the UK and the US, Viviane Gravey examines the prospects for a Front National victory in the upcoming 2017 French presidential election. She argues that, while the institutional structure of French politics would limit the room for manoeuvre of Marine Le Pen, it is ultimately the responsibility of other political actors to provide convincing alternative leadership, rather than solely rely on the checking power of institutions.

As the 22nd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 22) in Marrakech draws to a close, it is becoming increasingly clear that credible monitoring and transparency procedures are urgently needed. Otherwise national pledges to address climate change in the spirit of the 2015 Paris Agreement will not build sufficient global trust.

The 2015 Paris Agreement marked a shift towards countries making emission reduction pledges known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and a new Transparency Framework (Article 13). This framework requires regular progress reports on pledges to address climate change. While the quick ratification of the Paris Agreement is a sign that the international community is eager to make progress, setting up a strong and effective transparency framework will likely require hard and sustained work for years to come.

Our new research, published today in Climate Policy, shows that the long term success of the Agreement depends on the availability of well-designed and functioning monitoring and review mechanisms. The EU has one of the most advanced climate policy monitoring systems in the world – but it still encounters persistent challenges that, crucially, could jeopardize the implementation of the Paris Agreement if these challenges persist within the EU and potentially also in other countries and regions. We show that the EU’s current approach to monitoring climate policies – largely borrowed from monitoring greenhouse gases, which is a vastly different task – has not supported in depth learning and debate on the performance of individual policies. Other important obstacles include political concerns over the costs of reporting, control, and the perceived usefulness of the information produced. The international community should therefore draw on the EU’s valuable experiences and also difficulties in monitoring climate policies in order to develop the practice further.

A vital part of the implementation of the Paris Agreement will hinge on whether political actors can muster the leadership in order to successfully navigate these monitoring challenges at the international level. Monitoring is probably the most underestimated challenge in implementing the Paris Agreement. In the past, it has been seen as a technical, data gathering task. We show that it is anything but a mere reporting exercise. Implementing more advanced monitoring at the international level will require substantial political efforts, resources, and leadership. In order to justify investments in monitoring and evaluation to the public, care needs to be taken to ensure that monitoring information is used effectively to evaluate and improve policy, rather than as a weapon to lay blame when things slip.

A key strength of the Paris Agreement is that so many countries are part of it and are willing to engage. Disengagement or even withdrawal could therefore imperil the whole Agreement and have grave ramifications for the set-up of a strong monitoring system. The EU’s experience shows that recognising the role of public policies in the NDCs should thus be seen as one step in a long journey to deeper understanding of what climate policies achieve and how policies can be improved.

Image credit: CGIAR Research Programme (Creative Commons)

The post Lessons from European Climate Monitoring Crucial for Paris Agreement Success appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Finding reliable figures on the budgets and finances of the United Nations (UN) system is not easy, unless you know where to look for them. I’ll try to present some of this below and also bring you up-to-date on my research on budgeting and resourcing in international organizations.

First, a lot of the older UN budget data has been gathered by the Global Policy Forum, especially thanks to the help of Klaus Hüfner.

On the websites of the UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination (UNSCEB), basically the body where the heads of all UN agencies and body coordinate, there are all kinds of UN system financial data, including in reusable (csv) formats for the years starting in 2010. Note that this data is annual although most UN budgets are biennial or, in some cases, even longer.

The UNSCEB (and its predecessor called ACC) have also been issuing reports on the financial situation of the UN system since the early 1990s, with the oldest reports including data going back to 1983. The latest report for the budget period 2014-15 has just been published at the end of October, and the figures above are from this report.*

My own research project in which we study UN budgeting and budget administration continues. We have just published a chapter titled “Changing Budgeting Administration in International Organizations” in the edited volume “International Bureaucracy” and are working on a special issue following our workshop on “Resourcing International Organizations” here in Munich. More is to come on the United Nations in the coming weeks and months.

If you also work on budgeting of international organizations or the questions related to resource matters in the UN system, in regional organizations or in other types of IOs, you can join our panel “Budget Formulation, Budget Administration and the Politics of Resourcing International Organizations” at the ICPP in Singapur in June 2017 (deadline of the CfP is in January).

* Note that this data does not represent budgets or expenditure but revenues that include government and private voluntary contributions made to the various UN organizations. In some of them, voluntary funds make up a large chunk of the money available (e.g. ~80% in WHO). I’ve added the figures for 2014 and 2015 for the chart.

The post The budget of the United Nations (UN) system: latest figures and research appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Remember The Day of the Jackal? This thrilling movie released in 1973 and featuring Edward Fox as enigmatic contract killer, is based on the failed attempt to assassinate Charles de Gaulle on 22 August 1962 by the paramilitary underground organisation OAS (‘Organisation de l’armée secrète’), composed by extreme right-wing activists who considered the Evian Treaty, signed in March 1962 in order to pave the way to Algerian independence, an act of high treason.

The fanatics who machine-gunned de Gaulle’s legendary Citroën DS fortunately missed the General. But they seriously injured the young Fifth Republic, profoundly handicapping her for life. What they did was provide de Gaulle with an unexpected, most welcome opportunity to modify the constitution under the pretext of ‘protecting’ the country. (Any resemblance with current Turkish presidents purely coincidental).

And he seized it quickly, because he felt that the conditions under which the Fifth Republic had been tailor-made to his personality in the first place – the need to put an end to the Algerian crisis – were no longer provided.

Only one week after the incident he announced a constitutional revision in his Council of ministers and notified public opinion in a press release that he was actively ‘preparing to take the necessary initiatives’ in order to ‘ensure, under all circumstances and without losing any time, the continuity of the State’. And on 12 September – just returned, by the way, from a triumphal visit to Germany where he laid the foundations of the path-breaking Elysée Treaty signed a few months later – he registered a television address that was broadcast on 20 September, informing the French population that it was time to ‘protect the country from crises and partisan ploys’, reminding them that ‘all this pain, the tears and the blood’, had created an ‘exceptional bond’ between the French people and himself, and that, for the sake of those who would one day have the heavy task to succeed him, he would submit the election of the president ‘by direct universal suffrage’ in a forthcoming referendum.

De Gaulle thus managed to push a constitutional reform that was anti-constitutional in itself! As the vast majority of observers and even the Conseil d’Etat pointed out, constitutional changes had to be decided and discussed in both chambers of the parliament, a provision de Gaulle simply dismissed (any resemblance with current British prime ministers purely coincidental). The Assemblée nationale did what it had to do: it adopted a vote of no confidence, obtained a large majority for it on 5 October and … as a result, was dissolved right away by de Gaulle (one of the convenient prerogatives of the French president), with new legislative elections announced for after the referendum.

If one is to believe Alain Peyrefitte in his book C’était de Gaulle (Vol. 1, Paris: Fallois-Fayard, 1994), the President was fully aware of the implications, telling his young secretary of state ‘What we are going to do is at the limits of legality. I even believe we crossed the line. (…) If we win, we will be able to say it’s legal because the people wants it.’

‘YES, it’s YOU who will elect the President of the Republic’

On 28 October 62.25% of the French electorate approved the new electoral process. The referendum was promptly ratified by the Conseil constitutionnel which showed a total absence of democratic backbone at this historical occasion.

What an incredible manipulation of constitutional provisions and public opinion! And what a massive vote of defiance against the ‘establishment’, which had been against it in closed ranks: all major politicians, trade unions, media, intellectuals and academics had warned against it – to no effect whatsoever. Is it exaggerated to say that in 1944 de Gaulle had promised the French he would make their country ‘great again’, and in 1962 he more or less told them ‘I am your voice!’ (Any resemblance with…).

Given his historical achievements, one can only have the greatest respect for Charles de Gaulle. His courage and determination, his moral and political legitimacy are undeniable. But that does not change the fact that, very clearly, the high art of demagogy is not reserved to shabby opportunists and ruthless cynics. There are moments when it finds a masterly application in the hands of uncontested heroes and great statesmen.

In de Gaulle’s case, the move was motivated mainly by his profound distrust of parliamentary democracy, with its litany of partisan spirit, unsatisfying compromise, tedious negotiations and fragile coalitions. In 1946 already, in his famous speech in Bayeux, he insisted on the need for ‘national arbitration above the political contingencies’ and made it clear that ‘it is from the Head of State, placed above the parties, that the executive power must proceed.’ In 1962, he got his will.

De Gaulle’s manoeuvre did not actually change the scope of power of the French President. It did not have any major immediate impact either – de Gaulle was of course re-elected in 1965 – and it may even be argued that the direct universal suffrage indirectly paved the way for political changeover in 1981: would there ever have been a Socialist in the Elysée if the President had always been chosen by the electoral college like in 1958?

But the long-term heritage for French politics is devastating: more than half a century later the poor Fifth Republic is more than ever held in the firm grip of de Gaulle’s plot of 1962. The presidential election has become a self-locking, seemingly unbreakable padlock for French democracy (and someone seems to have thrown away the key). Several posts of this blog will deal with the concrete consequences of de Gaulle’s historical constitutional ‘rape’, as former French premier Paul Reynaud famously commented at the time.

Fortunately the French are able to laugh about the padlock themselves. In the hilarious spy movie parody OSS 117: Lost in Rio, Jean Dujardin as secret agent Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath, on mission in Rio de Janeiro in 1967, refuses to consider Brazil a dictatorship, despite the arguments of his young colleague from the Mossad. And when she objects, asking: ‘But what do you call a country which has as head of state a former military with full powers, a secret police, one single television channel, and where all information is controlled by the State?’, he pauses for a moment and declares solemnly: ‘I call this la France, Mademoiselle. And not just any kind of France. The France of the General de Gaulle.’

Today France has more TV channels than it needs and information is certainly no longer under control. But the electoral padlock is still shut.

Albrecht Sonntag
@albrechtsonntag

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

The post France 2017: How the padlock was shut appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

A week after the Paris Agreement entered into force, the United States have elected Donald J. Trump as their 45th President – a man who famously described climate change as “created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” His stance on climate change, his strong support for coal and pledge to “lift the restrictions on American energy” have raised fears about his likely actions once in office, and their impact on international efforts to combat climate change. Critically, while he is most vocal against climate change he is no strong supporter of environmental policy in general. While he has backtracked on completely shutting down the US Environmental Protection agency (EPA) he is promising to ‘refocus’ its work:

“The Trump Administration is firmly committed to conserving our wonderful natural resources and beautiful natural habitats. America’s environmental agenda will be guided by true specialists in conservation, not those with radical political agendas.  We will refocus the EPA on its core mission of ensuring clean air, and clean, safe drinking water for all Americans.  It will be a future of conservation, of prosperity, and of great success.” GreatAgain.Gov

In this blog post, I attempt to make sense of the challenges facing environment and climate policy in the US – and beyond – by reflecting on past efforts to undermine and roll-back environmental regulation in the United States of America.

Donald J. Trump is not, by far, the first Republican to run for office on an anti-EPA, anti-climate change action platform. Ronald Reagan made removing environmental ‘over-regulation’ one of his key campaign objectives in the 1980s. Newt Gingrich led a Republican victory in the 1994 Congressional elections on the basis of his opposition to environmental action and its cost. And finally, George W. Bush’s reluctance to act on climate change saw him pull the US out of the Kyoto Protocol in the early 2000s.

What can we learn from these previous deregulatory attempts and their partial failures?

First, that environmental policy is not just made in Washington D.C. – for example, Klyza and Sousa argue the US ‘Green State’ is not only influenced by federal legislation (both environmental and non-environmental) but also by state-level action, by court cases, by implementation of both federal and state policies, by administrative decisions made by the administration and finally by self-regulation from industries.

Second, that these different sites are where policies can both be made and unmade. There are thus many ways in which one can weaken a given policy. It is possible to roll-back a policy, or remove it entirely through legislation. But when doing so is not possible, as Reagan, Gingrich or Bush all found out when failing to weaken Clean Air or Clean Water programs in Congress, there are other tactics. Politicians and others may pursue what Judith Layzer calls “low profile challenges”.[1] They can for example, target the implementation agency – which is often the EPA in the US (air, water pollution) or the Interior Department (for biodiversity) or the Energy Department (for renewables). Congress can also defund specific programs. The President can further appoint anti-regulation, climate-deniers to the head of the EPA – as Donald Trump is expected to do. The President can alternatively use executive orders – as President Obama did repeatedly – to bypass Congress and push for more ambitious environmental policy. But what one President can adopt by executive orders, another can rescind – as Donald Trump is expected to do. It is also possible to use the courts by for example by encouraging businesses to litigate, or refusing to appeal when these businesses win against the EPA.  Conversely, this also means that, despite Republican control of Congress and the Presidency, other sites remain open for environmental policy expansion – in some states, such as for example California, more ambitious climate policies could be adopted now.

Third, that policies are more than a series of specific instruments but are underpinned by narratives and weakened or strengthened by public perception. Over the last 40 years, US Conservatives have reshaped how we think about environmental policy – not just in the US, but in the EU and globally. Layzer contends that US Conservatives have thus “created a storyline that undermines the environmental narrative by discrediting environmentalists and furnishing a principled basis for disputing their claims”.[2] Examples of such principled opposition include calling for the respect for property rights (v. habitats protection), pointing to the costs of environmental action which increases tax burdens on the poor (rarely compared to its benefits), rejecting the precautionary principle as not based on ‘sound science’, or conversely rejecting said ‘science’ as conducted by scientists as ‘in it’ for the money.

Trump and his current attacks on the Paris Agreement are not just a US story but matter to the entire world – as evidenced by Chinese calls for continued US engagement in the Paris Agreement. But Trump’s victory should not be considered in isolation. When it comes to the environment, it marks in many ways the next step in decades of a US Conservative challenge to environmental policy. This challenge has already been successful in reframing what makes a ‘good’ environmental policy; and has rapidly moved from the fringes of US politics to the global mainstream of environmental politics – think for example of the Regulatory Fitness Checks conducted by the European Commission, or efforts to cut environmental ‘red tape’ by UK governments.

In conclusion, reviewing past challenges to US environmental policy shows that US Conservatives and the Republican Party have often failed to dismantle legislation through Congress – but have been much more effective at limiting administrative capacity for implementation (through cutting budget, nominating anti-regulatory advocates to the EPA). They have further been successful at reshaping how environmental policy, in the US and also globally, is perceived, even when out of office, stressing its cost, the ‘red tape’, the losers of regulations and casting doubts on the role of science. Under the Trump Administration, pro-environmental actors need to be fully aware of these different battle grounds – inside the legislature, inside the administration, across the different states and courts – as well as the battle of ideas. Shut out of Washington, it now falls on pro-Environmental actors to not only oppose and report on the future administration challenges to the environment, but also to redefine how they think and speak about environmental policies.

[1] Judith Layzer (2012), Open For Business: Conservatives’ Opposition to Environmental Regulation, MIT Press p. 334

[2] Ibid, p.333

The post Donald Trump v. The Environment: learning from past attempts to dismantle environmental policy appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The historic victory of Donald Trump in the US 2016 presidential election has been readily compared with the UK’s vote to leave the European Union – a ‘Brexit effect’ that some would suggest to have emanated from the UK, migrated across the Atlantic and impacted on the US. The notion that the UK has that much influence on the US, or the world more broadly, is rather bemusing. However, a similar kind of self-styled populist, anti-establishment surge has clearly manifested itself in both contests.

The French are still numerous to consider voting both a right and a duty (‘un devoir citoyen’, as they say). This is probably why turnout – despite a wide-spread feeling that nothing ever changes – has been remarkably stable over the decades, especially at the presidential elections. Even the lowest participation ever (71.6% in the 1st round of the 2002 election, the one that famously saw Jean-Marie-Le Pen qualify for the runoff, precisely because many Socialists didn’t bother) is higher than what has been registered in the UK since the turn of the century (between 59.4% and 66.1%). And the decisive 2nd round consistently mobilises around 80% of the electorate (between 79.7% in 1995 or 2002 and 83.9% in 2007), which is above the turnout for the last four German Bundestagswahlen (only 71.5% in for Angela Merkel’s third victory in 2013) or even Spain (66.5% in June 2016, down from 69.6% in December 2015).

It remains to be seen whether the voters’ motivation will be as high this time around. For various reasons people may be tempted to spend the four spring Sundays concerned doing other things than walking to one of the over 50,000 polling stations across the country. One of these reasons is the introduction of primaries.

Things used to be fairly simple: you went to the 1st round of the presidential elections in order to vote FOR a person of your ideological preference among a large choice of candidates. Then you went to the 2nd round in order to vote AGAINST the candidate you disliked most. A month later or so you obeyed the new president’s dearest honeymoon wish to bestow him (no ‘her’ so far) with a stable majority in the parliament. Ever since the alignment of the presidential and the legislative elections in 2002, this is how it has happened.

But now, the Americanisation of French politics has led the traditional parties to organise open presidential primaries, presumably with the objective to appear ‘closer to the citizens’ or ‘give people a say’ (any resemblance to referenda in other countries is purely coincidental). The Socialists introduced them at the end of 2011, with two women among the six candidates. It turned out to be a rather successful television event (which is what politics seems to be about nowadays), drawing a 5-million audience. And it fitted surprisingly well with the Socialists’ internal tradition of bringing different sensitivities to a formulation of a common denominator (most often the lowest, but that’s compromise), and compensated for the unexpected ‘dropout’ of frontrunner Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

For Les Républicains, whose first-ever primaries are scheduled end of November, it will be major upheaval. The very idea of having to choose between seven candidates (including only one woman) is in stark contradiction with the Gaullist tradition of the strong, inevitable, providential leader, who engages in a direct dialogue with the French people. During the first debate on 13 October, it was almost touching to watch just how physically difficult it was for Sarkozy to share speaking time with six opponents. It is also not sure to what extent the candidates will be capable of campaigning against each other without totally damaging the one among them they will have to defend and promote over the long months of the presidential campaign.

All primaries have been designed as ‘open’, which means that anyone can vote, provided he/she signs a declaration of sympathy for the ‘values’ of the party concerned (which does not commit you to anything) and a modest fee of couple of Euros. Needless to say that for Les Républicains this opens the door to distortion of the vote by citizens from the left or the extreme right eager to crown the candidate that suits their own agenda best. Under these conditions, it is unsure to what extent loser’s consent will at all prevail. The eternal candidate of the ‘Centre’, François Bayrou (18.6% in the first round of 2007, and still 9.1% in 2012), declined to take part himself and declared his support for Alain Juppé, while announcing he would run against Sarkozy if ever he emerged as winner, which was a serious topic at the second TV debate on 3 November.

The discrepancy between the intention of the primaries – choose a party’s best candidate for the highest office – and their real impact should be troubling for all French citizens. Given the very peculiar circumstances this time around – with the future winner of the Socialist primaries having next to no chance to make it beyond the first round and Marine Le Pen almost certain to be in the run-off without having to campaign particularly hard (and probably having a really good time watching the TV debates) – the winner of the ‘Right and Centre’ primary will most likely be the eighth President of the Fifth Republic.

All this means that the ‘primaries’ really deserve their name, as they turn all the following elections, presidential and legislative, into ‘secondaries’. Which does not mean the ensuing presidential campaign between January and May will be meaningless. Quite the contrary: it will highlight once more all the pitfalls of the system, offering one more diagnosis of everything that is unhealthy about the Fifth Republic and the current state of French politics. As for the therapy, it’s unfortunately not even sure the patient wants to be healed.

Albrecht Sonntag
@albrechtsonntag

This is post # 2 on the French 2017 election marathon.
Previous post here.

The post France 2017: The primaries and the secondaries appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The EU is no stranger to inter-institutional repetition. As was made famous in the referendum debate, it has many presidents (for instance, leading the European Commission, European Council, European Parliament, European Central Bank and the Eurogroup). So it has also been in the EU’s preparation for the Brexit talks. Over the summer, Michel Barnier (Commission), Didier Seeuws (Council) and Guy Verhofstadt (Parliament) were all appointed as the EU’s Brexit negotiators.

Today’s High Court ruling in Miller/dos Santos has provoked a flurry of reaction, across the board. To read the comments of some Remainers, this is the first step to reversing the referendum result and building a new, pro-EU consensus in the UK. For Leavers, it’s being called a travesty of democracy and justice.

As someone not (usually) prone to hyperbole, both positions strike me as unhelpful and wrong-headed. So let’s unpack a bit what’s what.

The case was launched on the basis that since leaving the EU would remove certain rights from the claimants, this needed the approval of Parliament, rather than just the executive submitting Article 50 notification. Both they and the Government took the position that starting Article 50 meant that the process was unstoppable (a view I’d disagree with).

The ruling has very much taken the line of the claimants and would seem to leave them with the whip hand when this goes to the Supreme Court, as the Government has indicated that it will appeal. A quick reading of the summary points to the limitations of royal prerogative powers and the centrality of Parliamentary sovereignty.

So what?

The case was only about the process by which Brexit happens: while some had talked in the immediate aftermath of the vote of taking the position that the referendum was only advisory, and that Parliament (with its large majority of pro-membership MPs) could overturn the result, that has very much faded…

There are various reasons for this. Most obviously, there has been a shift in political sensibilities now that there has been some reflection, and the idea that Parliament would sanction asking people for their opinion and then ignore it seems to fly in the face of popular democracy. Moreover, about 70% of constituencies had Leave majorities, so those thinking to be re-elected would be given a very big stick to their opponents.

Thus, even if the Government does lose its appeal, the result will be one where Parliament has to give its approval, which it will almost certainly so do. With a Supreme Court ruling possible by Christmas, that leaves enough time for a vote, even for an entire Bill. The latter would involve the Lords, who might delay a bit, but ultimately would be bound by the Parliament Acts, unless they wanted to shorten the path to their own reform.

There is a possible complication, should the Supreme Court decide to make a referral to the EU’s Court of Justice. This might be necessary if the reversibility of Article 50 became an issue, perhaps because the Government changed its position. However, even here the expedited process now available would allow for a three month turnaround, so the end-March deadline set by Theresa May is still possible. Which is good, because the thought of having to delay because of an ECJ ruling already drives Leavers wild with anger.

Of course, the irony in all this is that the entire case is about ensuring democratic oversight and control, the very agenda advanced by Leave. The key decision has already been taken, by the people in the referendum. Parliament cannot reasonably stand in its way, and the ECJ cannot do anything that impinges on the UK’s sovereign rights.

What might now change is the nature of the process.

Parliament might now get a vote, but it will also get a voice. It’s not hard to imagine pro-Remain Tories working with the opposition to demand much closer scrutiny and approval processes in the negotiations: the very ‘running commentary’ that has been so frequently held back. While the impact of that scrutiny might be weakened by the continued failure of the Labour party to work actively in holding the government to account, it is still something of value for the UK.

So the destination remains the same, but how we get there might be about to change.

The post What the High Court ruling does (and doesn’t) mean appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Before the next Tour de France starts on the 1st of July from the banks of the Rhine, the entire country will embark on a seven-month election marathon, beginning with three primaries, one of which (the Greens’) is already half-way through, with ‘the Right and the Centre’ to follow in November and the Socialists (or what’s left of them after five years in power) finishing by 29 January. These will kick off the all-pervasive campaign for the presidential election on 23 April and 7 May, which in turn will be followed by the legislative elections on 11 and 18 June, all held in the traditional two-round voting system.

Over this period, a politically interested French citizen may thus direct his or her Sunday afternoon stroll at least eight times towards a polling station (nine if he or she’s among the 17,146 individuals registered for the Greens’ second round next Sunday). Chances are that he or she will be sucked up by the media tornado before the end of winter into a highly personalised campaign that will end up becoming frenzied in spring, especially between the two rounds of the presidential election. The catharsis of 7 May will in all likelihood be followed by a collective hangover and a feeling of utter disappointment and fatigue, reinforced further by the almost meaningless duty of voting in June.

Until then, the French citizens will have been reminded on an almost daily basis by politicians, media experts and the inevitable ‘declinists’ that the principles they thought their Republic firmly anchored on, are all severely threatened. ‘La liberté’ is under attack by the never-ending state of emergency apparently necessary to fight ‘the war’ against home-bread terrorists. ‘L’égalité’ is being torn to pieces alongside with a beloved ’social model’ that is perceived to be crumbling and an education system that reveals itself ever more incapable of respecting its own meritocratic promises of social mobility. Even ‘la fraternité’ is no longer what it used to be, with public services deserting rural areas, refugees being welcome in very small numbers and certainly not in my backyard, and the eternal identity debate setting up one ethnic or cultural community against another. Not to mention ‘la laïcité’, which has never been understood outside France and is now increasingly under siege at home.

The journey to next summer will be a hard one. In the state the country is currently in, this will be more than a typical election drama with its usual dose of hypocrisy, hyperbole, and hysteria. Rather, the next months will very painfully reveal the severity of the systemic crisis France finds itself it, probably the most important one since 1958. And, contrary to 1958, with no providential saviour in store and hardly any light at the end of the democratic tunnel.

If you consider France hopelessly ‘has-been’, in irremediable decline, and no longer of relevance to what happens on a European level, please simply ignore this blog. If you think that a dispirited, disheartened and depressed France is a problem for Europe (even without subscribing to the ‘Domino’ theory), you might be interested in following this blog’s musings about why France seems so irremediably stuck in a stagnation that increasingly feels like a ‘Groundhog Day’ treadmill.

Contemporary French political culture is the result a highly complex historical process. We teach our students the concept of ‘path-dependence’, but for the French case study we might as well invent the neologism of ‘path-imprisonment’.

This blog is a modest attempt to accompany the country’s journey over the next seven months with a regular series of comments and reflexions on how France found itself imprisoned, how imprisonment is denied (and sometimes almost celebrated against better evidence), how key individuals position themselves with regard to the system, and what the (more than slim) chances are something might actually change for the better in the next legislature.

It is possible that despite all efforts to uphold a minimum of academic objectivity, these election chronicles may be tainted with a tinge of sadness. Bon voyage, malgré tout.

Albrecht Sonntag
@albrechtsonntag

The post Ref: France (2017), Campaigns, Elections, Hangover (forthcoming). appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The Swedish minister for climate Isabella Lövin wants to ban fossil fuel cars from 2030. According to several newspapers, the ban should be EU wide and the idea is supported by Norway and the Netherlands. Indeed the Danish newspaper Information[i] reports that the German Bundestag recently adopted a resolution to stop sales of fossil fuel cars by 2030.

An EU wide ban on fossil fuel road vehicles (.i.e. cars, lorries, scooters and motorcycles) will put the EU back on track as a climate leader. Transport has been overlooked by the climate and energy agenda. Importantly, it remains one of the main sources of emissions. Moreover, last year’s Volkswagen scandal demonstrates the length to which car manufacturers have gone to avoid technological innovation to produce low emission cars. However, there are several challenges to banning the sales and use of fossil fuel road vehicles.

The ban on fossil-fuel road vehicles will increase demand for renewable transport fuel, which will put pressure on current energy supply, thereby influencing EU’s 2030 climate and energy targets. According to Eurostat, transport account for 33 per cent of overall energy consumption, and road transport account for 82 per cent of overall transport energy consumption. Furthermore, 94 per cent of all road vehicle rely on fossil fuel and 90 per cent of this is imported. Converting this high volume of fossil fuel into alternative energies by 2030 will be a challenge, especially as electrical and biofuel cars do not have the same reach. In other words, renewable energy cars cannot drive as far as fossil fuel cars and refuelling stations for renewable transport fuels are not readily available over longer distances. According to Eurostat, renewable energy passenger cars represent about 5 per cent of all passenger cars driving on the European roads[ii]. Thus, investment in energy supply and renewable transport fuel is necessary if the EU is to ban fossil fuel road vehicles in 13 years.

The EU transport policy white paper from 2011 aims to curb emissions by 60 per cent (1990 level) by 2050 for the EU to achieve its overall 2050 target of 80-95 per cent reduction for the whole economy, thereby achieving a low carbon economy without curbing mobility [iii]. Transport growth without emissions growth can only be achieved through an increase in the number of renewable fuel vehicles and stronger legislation to reduce emissions from traditional fossil fuel vehicles, something the car manufacturer and certain member states have resisted[iv].

Currently, transport account for around 25-30 per cent of emissions (CO2, GHG and NOx) in the EU and about 70 per cent of this comes from road transport[v]. The Commission’s mid-term report on the implementation of its 2011 Transport white paper recognises the lack of progress towards a decarbonised transport sector. The Commission argues substituting oil is more costly in transport compared to other sectors and “overall GHG emissions from the transport sector in 2013 were higher by 20% compared to 1990”[vi]. Continued transport growth clearly puts pressure on the EU to reform the transport sector as a whole and especially road transport, which represent 72 per cent of all transport in the EU[vii].

Achieving a decarbonised transport sector requires real commitment by member states, who needs to invest in renewable energy supply to ensure the EU achieves its 2030 climate and energy targets. Technological innovation to make renewable fuels better and cars have a longer reach, thereby enabling people to drive further in their electrical cars. Moreover, refuelling stations have to be interoperable so electrical cars can drive out of the city and visit other cities in other EU member states. This requires manufactures to work together to create standardized technologies, which enable vehicles to re-fuel/charge in any EU member state.

Member states need to make renewable fuel road vehicles more attractive to buy and use for example through tax incentives. However, taxes from fossil fuel used by road vehicles are a revenue for national budgets, and to create a decarbonised transport sector, national governments must find alternative sources of revenue. In short, banning the sale and use of fossil fuel road vehicles is complex.

Finally, the introduction of a ban on fossil fuel cars by 2030 requires the support from road vehicle manufacturers and energy producers, who need to deliver in order for the EU to achieve its goals of decarbonising the transport sector. Such an ambitious goal requires cooperation between countries to put pressure on the transport sector as a whole. Thus, neither Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands nor Norway will be able to achieve a decarbonised transport sector by 2030 without the support from the other EU member states. This leaves a central question; will the Swedish climate minister be able to convince her colleagues in the Council, the Commission and the Members of the European Parliament? and how will the industry interest groups respond to the proposal?

[i] https://www.information.dk/telegram/2016/10/svensk-klimaminister-forbyde-benzinbiler-2030?utm_source=emailet%20artikel&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=send%20til%20ven

[ii] http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/proportion-of-vehicle-fleet-meeting-4/assessment

[iii] https://ec.europa.eu/transport/sites/transport/files/themes/strategies/doc/2011_white_paper/swd(2016)226.pdf

[iv] http://www.euractiv.com/section/transport/news/eu-parliament-backs-tougher-car-emissions-limits/

[v] https://ec.europa.eu/transport/facts-fundings/statistics/pocketbook-2016_en

[vi] Page 18 https://ec.europa.eu/transport/sites/transport/files/themes/strategies/doc/2011_white_paper/swd(2016)226.pdf

[vii] https://ec.europa.eu/transport/facts-fundings/statistics/pocketbook-2016_en

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Which is exactly what we have now.

In America they have a saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. So why does Mrs May want to fix something that isn’t broken?

Mrs May says it’s because that’s what the British people want. Well, that’s a moot point.

Yes, 17 million people voted for Britain to leave the EU – but that’s 17 million out of a population in Britain of 64 million.

And two of the four countries that comprise our Union of the United Kingdom – Scotland and Northern Ireland – don’t want Britain to leave the European Union at all.

What’s strange is that Mrs May also didn’t want Britain to leave the EU. In a keynote speech during the Referendum campaign, she said:

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

And as revealed in an exclusive report by The Guardian, during a private and secretly recorded meeting with Goldman Sachs a month before the Referendum, Mrs May warned that companies would leave the UK if the country voted for Brexit.

What’s more strange is that, including herself, 70% of Mrs May’s Cabinet – 16 out of 23 members – voted to Remain in the EU. All of them said during the Referendum that leaving the EU would be bad for Britain.

So now they’re going to take Britain on a path that they all claimed just a few weeks ago would be against the interests of the country.

During Prime Minister’s questions last week, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn compared the Prime Minister’s plan to those of Baldrick, from the comedy series Blackadder, who said that his “cunning plan” was to have no plan.

Continued Mr Corbyn:

“Brexit was apparently about taking back control, but the devolved Governments do not know the plan, businesses do not know the plan and Parliament does not know the plan. When will the Prime Minister abandon this shambolic Tory Brexit and develop a plan that delivers for the whole country?”

Mrs May replied:

“We are going to deliver on the vote of the British people. We are going to deliver the best possible deal for trade in goods and services, both with and operationally in the European Union. And we are going to deliver an end to free movement. That is what the British people want and that is what this Government are going to deliver for them.”

Well, that’s the other thing. The British people didn’t vote for “an end to free movement”. That wasn’t on the referendum ballot paper. The only choice was to ‘Remain’ a member of the European Union, or to ‘Leave’.

Mrs May is assuming that all the people who voted for ‘Leave’ did so for the same reasons. But to guess answers to questions that were never asked, is effectively to undermine the entire function of democracy.

Many who voted for ‘Leave’ didn’t necessarily want an end to ‘free movement’, either for themselves, or for our European neighbours.

And most definitely many who voted for ‘Leave’ did not want to end Britain’s full and privileged access to the EU Single Market, where just under half of Britain’s exports go to, and just over half of Britain’s imports come from.

We know it’s possible to leave the European Union and still be part of the EU Single Market – the world’s biggest, richest marketplace, and the source of considerable wealth for Britain and Britons.

After all, Norway and Switzerland are not members of the EU, but are still part of the EU Single Market. Voluntarily. Because much of the wealth of those countries is also intrinsically linked to the Single Market.

However, it’s not possible to enjoy being part of the EU Single Market without also accepting free movement of people.

Mrs May is being arrogantly presumptuous in claiming that Britain voted against ‘free movement of people’ (even though we never had a vote on that).

But by ending ‘free movement’, as she has now promised to do, it will be impossible for Mrs May to deliver on her other promise of delivering “the best possible deal for trade” with the EU.

She cannot have one, without the other.

Britain currently has the “best possible deal for trade” with the EU Single Market. We cannot possibly get any better, either in or out of the EU. We have the best now.

Instead of getting the best deal, Mrs May is going to end the best deal.

• Nobody in Britain voted for Mrs May’s new administration, which UKIP’s Roger Helmer, MEP, claimed this month has adopted “about 90% of UKIP’s programme”.
• Nobody in Britain voted to end ‘free movement of people’.
• Nobody in Britain voted to end Britain’s privileged access to the EU Single Market.

But that’s what Mrs May says that the British people want, so that’s what Britain is getting.

Democracy. RIP.

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• Is Britain sure about Brexit?
• Mrs May takes control, without a ballot or a bullet
• It’s not undemocratic to challenge Brexit
• List of the latest articles by Jon Danzig

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What does Brexit mean for the UK?

The results of Brexit has been shocking to say the least because the polls were revealing a tougher battle, with hopes that the United Kingdom would choose to remain in the European Union. But the 23 June result was a clear signal that the 52-48 win for the Leave camp, has highlighted many underlying problems with UK: Scotland and Northern Ireland overwhelmingly voted to remain in the United Kingdom, but the slim margins for England and Wales decided it for the UK that it should opt out of the European Union.

Many Britons are greatly worried that remaining would mean millions of Turkish people could soon cross shores and end up in the United kingdom; indeed, immigration was a key concern-point that in all likelihood has influenced votes in favour of leaving the EU for the country because people would forsake freedom of movement if it meant that immigration numbers from Europe could be brought down. The economic status quo of Britons wishing to remain was inclusive of middle classes and the youth. It is widely expected that Turkey will soon join the European Union, and another major concern in the aftermath of the Brexit is how the economy is expected to perform – there might be a further downturn than the days leading upto the referendum.

Financial markets felt the impact of Brexit immediately, followed by shaky stock market performances, as international markets experience a frenzy of sorts that is set to affect United Kingdom, much like China, but this is not relative to the Eurozone because the UK leaving the EU is only going to affect it in a minor sense. In addition, the UK lost it’s AAA credit rating, which is expected to spike up government spending, so it is hoped the latest Tory cabinet reshuffle, which has brought in a whole host of ”Tory Leave” figureheads into the spotlight, from Boris Johnson to Liam Fox, manage to maintain the single market at least, with the European Union.

Export figures are expected to increase for the United Kingdom as the economy manages to steer through troubled waters to next year, and this is happening as manufacturing exports peak but exports for capital goods suffers. There is no denying that export trade with the EU will get tougher for the UK post-Brexit, and a significant portion of the trade for it was with the EU so it is hoped that trade barriers will now be individually established with fellow European nations, as well as selected nations all over the globe. Trade deals between the UK and European countries should be redrafted to include possibilities of trade for the country following Brexit, and a country elsewhere that would also be a relatively good and faster option, given what’s in the pipeline about trade for the EU, is Canada.

A very small percentage of people in the United Kingdom are against the idea of welcoming skilled workers into the country; in fact, for skilled workers the most demand is for professions such as IT, science, business and medicine (which would classify it as pro-migration topics for the United Kingdom) and less for engineering but most Britons are against the idea of creating a safety haven for refugees in the country. It is a growing worry that despite the scrapping of freedom of movement that membership of the EU had granted the UK, the country will be unable to meet it’s migration targets; most European citizens in the United Kingdom are expected to not be affected by it but it is anticipated that fresher such prospective candidates (and vice versa) will be governed by a new set of rules. It would be important to note that figures for net European migration to the United Kingdom had consistently been on a high for the period of 2013-2014, and the British identity is a lot more important to Britons than the European identity, which in the context of the United Kingdom, seems dispassionate and remote.

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After decades of debate on where – and whether – to expand airport capacity in south-eastern England, the UK government announced two days ago that it would favour building a third runway at Heathrow Airport. This option, highly criticised on environmental grounds (notably due to the air pollution caused by road transport to the airport) has been presented by Prime Minister Theresa May as key to show the world that the UK is ‘open for business’ after Brexit.

Brexit is not just a handy justification for expanding Heathrow: it will also make it easier, although still highly complicated, to build the third runway. While political obstacles to expanding Heathrow remain –  from local authorities affected and divisions within the Conservative Party – Brexit is likely to remove the principal legal obstacles to the plan.

Three important hurdles to Heathrow expansion stem from EU law, and all three could be eased or even removed after Brexit, once the ‘Great Repeal Bill’ is enacted.  Plans for this ‘Great Repeal Bill’ were presented last month in the run-up to the Conservatives Party Conference as a legal copy-pasting exercise aiming to “end the authority of EU law by converting all its provisions in British law on the day of exit from the bloc.” This focus on ending the authority of EU law over the UK appears to indicate a choice for a ‘Hard’ Brexit, out of the European Economic Area. Such a Brexit would give the UK the opportunity to rewrite broad swathes of its (formerly EU-based) environmental legislation.

The first obstacle to expansion takes the form of EU air pollution targets. These have been at the heart of the rival case from Gatwick Airport. While the latest Heathrow plan argued expansion would not increase pollution due to efforts to increase the use of public transport, Transport for London and the then-Mayor of London Boris Johnson appeared less-than-convinced. Critically, once the ‘Great Repeal Bill’ is passed and EU law is ‘copy-pasted’ across to UK law, it will be much easier to weaken existing targets. This is because it is difficult to dismantle policy in the EU — a political system in which decisions require large majorities to be made — which means that decisions, once made, tend to stick. This makes the EU particularly suited to addressing major environmental challenges as it provides legal certainty allowing public and private actors alike to plan ahead. Conversely the UK is characterised by sharp changes in policy directions from one government to another. Concerning the environment, Heathrow’s expansion is a case in point: it was supported under Labour, shelved under the Coalition government, and put back on the agenda by Theresa May’s government.

But would the UK government really weaken current air quality rules? While the move may prove unpopular – and, as EU targets already fall short of most recent World Health Organisation targets, would increase health hazards linked to air pollution – outside of the EU the government would be free to weaken these pollution standards. And even if bluntly easing the pollution standards proved too unpopular, the ‘Great Repeal Bill’ offers further opportunities to pave the way for the third runway.

A second obstacle to Heathrow’s expansion is EU planning law.  Land use planning is one of the least Europeanised area of UK environmental policy, which means that the UK government has retained a high degree of initiative. Recent UK governments have used that control to gear planning regulation towards increasing competitiveness and development and not environmental protection. European legislation on Environmental Impact Assessment and Strategic Environmental Assessment has offered some safeguards which could now be weakened, despite a number of international agreements, as these lack the ‘bite’ of EU legislation. EU law binds member states: not complying with the law opens countries to law suits in both domestic and EU courts, as well as potential fines and levy imposed by the European Court of Justice.

A third obstacle to Heathrow’s expansion is thus the very nature of EU legislation and the legal remedies it opens for civil society to hold governments accountable, as exemplified recently by Client Earth with great success against the UK government concerning its clean air plans for London. The decision to expand Heathrow will face multiple legal challenges, many focusing on whether the expansion breaches environmental law.  But after Brexit, meeting environmental targets and respecting environmental rules will become a moral, not legal duty. Removing the ‘EU’ nature of the air pollution or planning standards would effectively close down a legal remedy route for civil society which had allowed holding the UK government accountable.

In conclusion, Brexit and the proposed ‘Great Repeal Bill’ could make the arduous journey toward Heathrow expansion easier for the UK government. Transferring EU policy into UK law makes it both easier to repeal and safer to ignore. But Brexit is not yet around the corner – why then, announce a decision to expand now? By doing so, the May government ensures Heathrow’s most vocal opponents can still use the strength of EU environmental law to attack the decision. In an interesting twist of fate, key opponents to Heathrow’s expansion such as Zac Goldsmith (who stepped down as an MP in protest of the decision) or Boris Johnson, strongly supported the Leave camp. A Hard Brexit, which appears increasingly more likely, will eventually remove the strong EU rules and legal remedies that may help Heathrow expansion opponents block the plan. Hence in order to defeat the third runway expansion, it is now in the interest of key ‘Leavers’ to make sure Brexit and the ‘Great Repeal bill’ is not enacted before all legal challenges against the expansion are exhausted. Sometimes, taking back control is not all it is cracked up to be.

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