European Union

Austria's government is planning to introduce a ban on headscarves in kindergartens and elementary schools. Chancellor Kurz said the move was aimed at preventing "parallel societies". Is this pure populism or a sensible contribution to the emancipation of girls?

The victory of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's national-conservative ruling party Fidesz in Hungary's parliamentary elections on Sunday is seen by many as a foregone conclusion. Polls put its share of the vote at more than 50 percent. The opposition is trying to forge a cross-party alliance to prevent this outcome. How long can Fidesz continue to dominate Hungary's political landscape?

REPORT on the implementation of the EU external financing instruments: mid-term review 2017 and the future post-2020 architecture
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Marietje Schaake

Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

REPORT containing a motion for a non-legislative resolution on the draft Council decision on the conclusion on behalf of the Union of the Framework Agreement between the European Union and its Member States, of the one part, and Australia, of the other part
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Francisco José Millán Mon

Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

RECOMMENDATION on the draft Council decision on the conclusion on behalf of the Union of the Framework Agreement between the European Union and its Member States, of the one part, and Australia, of the other part
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Francisco José Millán Mon

Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

OPINION on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a framework for screening of foreign direct investments into the European Union
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Geoffrey Van Orden

Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

Feedback is important for a research project, and it is central to student project work at Roskilde University, both as peer-feedback between students and feedback from supervisors.

Feedback enables the students to engage in a dialogue with peers and with their supervisor about how to progress with their project ideas, develop coherent research strategies and write up research projects.  We all know from our own research how useful it is to get comments from colleagues and often we hear ‘you have at least two papers in this paper’. Giving and receiving feedback enables the students to reflect on how to improve their projects. The Danish word for feedback is ‘konstrutiv kritik’ (constructive criticism), which have negative connotation for many. It is important that feedback is giving through an open dialogue, where comments are received as suggestions for how to develop the project further.

The problem area seminar is one of the first opportunities the students have for receiving feedback on their research statement, a two-page document outlining the group’s research topic, research questions, proposed methods and possible theories. The problem area seminar consists of three to four groups and one supervisor. The supervisor’s role is to facilitate the feedback between the groups and to give comments to all the groups.  In advance of the problem area seminar, the students receive a guidelines about what they should emphasise in their feedback. Not all students are familiar with giving feedback, so the guideline aims to help the groups identify gaps in the research statements.  The aim of peer-feedback is for students to learn how to give feedback and learn from other students. Moreover, strong groups sometimes complain that the feedback they received was not useful. Other students get confused if the supervisor present during problem area seminar is not their supervisor, and might offer different advice from their supervisor. Indeed, one of the key lessons of receiving feedback is to understand which comments are useful – just think of some of the comments we sometimes receive from reviewers!

Importantly, the groups are required to take contact to their supervisor and set up the first supervision meeting. The onus on the students to contact their supervisor is instrumental in the pedagogical principle of being responsible for own learning. However, some supervisors contact their groups first to let them know of his/her availability.  In supervision meetings, students often ask questions about the role of methodology, which reflects the interdisciplinary element of the degree, where the BA programme requires the students to carry out interdisciplinary projects. For example, the second semester project must include two of the four basic courses (political science, sociology, economics and human geography) thereby ensuring that the projects are interdisciplinary.

Students might write a sociology project one semester and an economic project another semester, as a result they will have supervisors from different disciplines. Similar the students become good at navigating between different disciplines, but they struggle to understand that interdisciplinary projects do not involve one economic chapter and one political science chapter. Indeed, I spent considerable time during project group formation and teaching qualitative methods to explain that inter-disciplinary research is a marble cake not a layer cake! Hopefully, the students got the message and have developed inter-disciplinary research statements and thus projects.

Other students just want to study one subject and struggle to develop interdisciplinary research projects, here, the role of the supervisor is important to make sure the students fulfil the project requirements. Moreover, the supervisor helps the students with literature suggestions, gives comment on draft chapters, and helps the students to use the feedback from the problem area seminar constructively in their project progress. Overall, feedback, both from fellow students and supervisor, aim to give the project group suggestions for finishing their project.

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In my last blog entry of 1st March, I talked about the possibility of Hungarian opposition political parties’ uniting forces against Fidesz in this General elections of 8th April and have speculated if Fidesz would live up to its statement that it would not use ‘Soros’ in their election campaign.  So what happened in the past four weeks? Did the opposition political parties form alliances? Is Soros still part of Fidesz’ election campaign material? How is Fidesz doing in the opinion polls? Is Jobbik losing ground on this election trail? Are Greens and the Socialists doing better? What pledges have been made in relation to the EU?

So far the opposition political parties did not form any alliance between them. The major opposition political party Jobbik refuses to negotiate with the Socialist Party (MSZP) and the Democratic Coalition, but suggests that it could talk to the LMP Green and the Momentum after elections. Likewise the Left and the socialist parties reject to have any form of interaction with Jobbik. I believe this means that the opposition political parties will not unite against Fidesz, at least not before the elections, but there is hope for post-elections.

George Soros is still at the top of agenda in Fidesz’s election rallies and is the most mentioned about during this election campaign. This will probably continue to be the case until the end of the elections. At the same time Fidesz remains to be the most popular in the opinion polls, it is polling around 50 % among the decided voters; hence is very likely to form the next government. However this is not because the opposition political parties are least popular, but because they are most divided, making the opposition significantly weak, unable to have the necessary number of seats to stand strong against Fidesz. Also it is not because Fidesz is pledging policies that would make some serious changes in the way the country is run, but because it is turning a blind eye to Hungary’s social, political and economic problems. On the contrary, immigration and Soros are the two single and intertwined issues that make up the rhetoric adopted by Fidesz at this election campaign. When it comes to immigration, Fidesz’s Viktor Orban can go as far as to reject EU’s migrant quotas and the United Nation’s Global Compact on Migration plan in its current form. He said that if migration becomes a human right, this would be a recipe for destroying the Earth, leading to a primitive humanity.

Whereas Jobbik that was once recognised as a radical and nationalist political party, which has now shifted to centre-ground, happen to find Fidesz’s position on immigration and Soros as extreme, suggesting that Fidesz is using Soros as a tool to scare the people and distract them from important problems. Furthermore Jobbik makes innovative policy promises that both could attract young people and could benefit the Hungarian people. For instance Jobbik’s leader Gabor Vona promises instead of party-political or communications political governance, they would introduce expert governance, and who would give the leading positions to those who have the most relevant expertise. And he proposes to introduce e-referendum and e-consultations as a means for soliciting social feedback. Political commentators predict that Jobbik will do much better in the election than it is expected, undecided voters are likely to opt for Jobbik this time, it is suggested. I think however that the unsavoury past of Jobbik will make voters think twice in the voting booth, while doubting sincerity of Jobbik’s leadership.

The Green LMP and the Socialists do not entirely seem to be part of this election campaign; there is not much media coverage on what they are proposing or on what they are up to. There may be many reasons for this, but this is not the right platform to speculate. I think these parties most probably will maintain their low profile/small party position in the Hungarian politics post-elections.

As for European Union, 4-6 weeks ago, Orban refused to take part in Macron’s consultation on the future of the EU, but now he said that ‘let’s hold them and each nation should make the best use of its national practices’. It is promising to see that Orban can change his mind on this matter and be part of the crowd. Moreover while the EU wanted to decide on the migrant quote issue in the current cycle of the European Parliament, Orban wishes that he could prevent that from taking place, pointing to the European Parliament elections of 2019, suggesting that the anti-immigration forces are to make advances and change the face of the EU on immigration. Fidesz is already forging alliances with other EU anti-immigration political parties such as the Italian Five Star Movement and the Austrian Social Democratic Party and Freedom Party. This means that if Fidesz wins this general election, which is very likely, then its anti-immigration stance and rhetoric will only get stronger and more effective with its newly formed alliances both at domestic and at the EU levels.

The post Ahead of Hungarian General Elections—issues, pledges and campaign rhetoric (II) appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

It’s one year ago today that Prime Minister Theresa May triggered the Article 50 notice for the UK to leave the EU.

29 March 2017 will not be celebrated in history. It’s the day that Britain’s interests were betrayed.

Almost all of Theresa May’s current cabinet said during the EU referendum campaign that Brexit would damage Britain, make us poorer, put our security at risk, and could undo our own union of the four countries of the United Kingdom.

But the Prime Minister and her ministers went ahead with Brexit anyway, against their own strong advice to the nation not to.

This is how I reported the triggering of Article 50 this time last year:

TRIGGER HAPPY THERESA HAS BETRAYED THE COUNTRY

SHE’S GONE AND BLOODY DONE IT – the one thing she said just one year ago would not be in Britain’s best interests. She’s triggered Brexit.

Theresa May has gone against her own advice that Britain shouldn’t leave the EU.

Not just her advice. But the strong advice of 70% of her cabinet ministers, who also less than a year ago urged the country not to Brexit.

Why are they doing it? Because people told them to? Does that make any sense? If people told you to jump off a cliff, would you do it? Would you volunteer to do it?

Because Mrs May and most of her cabinet have volunteered to do something they all said would be bad for Britain. In doing so, they are betraying our country.

They are doing something that, by their own admission, will not be in the nation’s best interests, but on the contrary, most definitely against our interests.

Two-faced Theresa today formally wrote to the European Union to trigger Article 50, starting two-years of gruelling divorce proceedings that could forever ruin our relations with the mainland of our continent.

She should listen once again to the speech she gave on 25 April last year. Then she said:

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

And she also said then:

“My judgement, as Home Secretary, is that remaining a member of the European Union means we will be more secure from crime and terrorism.”

As for replacing the trade we do with the EU with other markets, she asserted that this would be an unrealistic route. She said:

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

And there were other serious risks too.

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

And other risks too.

“Outside the EU, for example, we would have no access to the European Arrest Warrant, which has allowed us to extradite more than 5,000 people from Britain to Europe in the last five years, and bring 675 suspected or convicted wanted individuals to Britain to face justice.”

And leaving the EU, she said, could lead to the disintegration of the EU, resulting in “massive instability” with “real consequences for Britain.”

In addition, Brexit might prove fatal to “the Union between England and Scotland”, which she did not want to happen.

And if Britain left the EU, she argued, we might not be successful in negotiating a successful divorce settlement.

Explained Mrs May,:

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

She added, “The reality is that we do not know on what terms we would win access to the single market.

“We do know that in a negotiation we would need to make concessions in order to access it, and those concessions could well be about accepting EU regulations, over which we would have no say, making financial contributions, just as we do now, accepting free movement rules, just as we do now, or quite possibly all three combined.

“It is not clear why other EU member states would give Britain a better deal than they themselves enjoy.”

And in summary, Mrs May said:

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

Most of Theresa May’s cabinet were of the same view: Leaving the EU would be against Britain’s interests, it would represent a disaster for our country.

• Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond said: We will be safer, stronger and better off if we remain in the EU.

• Home Secretary Amber Rudd said: I passionately believe it is best for us all and our country if we remain a member of the EU.

• Justice Secretary Liz Truss said: I don’t want my daughters to grow up in a world where they need a visa or permit to work in Europe.

• Defence Secretary, Michael Fallon said: Make no mistake – a vote to Leave would be payday for Putin.

• Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt said: We will be better off and more secure by remaining in the European Union.

• Education Secretary, Justine Greening said: Staying in the EU is smart diplomacy and smart economics.

• Culture Secretary, Karen Bradley said: If you want a stronger, safer, better off Britain, then the positive choice is to vote Remain.

• Work and Pensions Secretary Damian Green said: Leaving the EU would cause huge economic damage.

And so on, ad nauseam. The Prime Minister, and the majority of her government ministers, strongly urged Britain to remain in the EU in the interests of the country’s prosperity and security.

So, what’s happened to them all? Were they stupid then and clever now?

No.

Before the referendum, these politicians said what they sincerely believed to be in the best interests of Britain. But after the referendum, these politicians are saying and doing what they insincerely believe will be in the best interests of themselves.

Future history books will have a collective noun for them. Hypocrites.

Fortunately, it will prove to be their downfall.

Unfortunately, it’s likely to lead to our country’s downfall too.

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Brexit has two-faced double-standards and nobody knows what or who to believe.

On the one hand, the Prime Minister, Theresa May, says that three million EU migrants in the UK are too many; they take our jobs, they cause a burden to our housing and hospitals; they have zero value.

On the other hand, she said in an open letter to all EU migrants that we need you all; we’ll be poorer without you; please don’t go.

Yesterday, Home Secretary, Amber Rudd MP, said that the government was “committed” to reducing the numbers of EU migrants, despite Theresa May’s Christmas letter to them all saying the country would be poorer without them.

Ms Rudd told MPs:

“I’m still focused on making sure we reduce net migration to sustainable levels.”

But in an open letter in December to all EU migrants in the UK, Theresa May wrote:

“I greatly value the depth of the contributions you make – enriching every part of our economy, our society, our culture and our national life. I know our country would be poorer if you left and I want you to stay.”

So, what do you believe? That too many EU migrants have been coming to the country, or that we need them all and we want them to stay?

No wonder the country is confused. Brexit means forked-tongue nonsense.

Mrs May previously said that Britain has too many EU migrants, and we need to bring numbers down to a trickle.

But if that had happened, we wouldn’t now have the three million EU migrants that she recently said the country can’t do without.

Many people believed Mrs May when she said Britain has too many EU migrants.

Many voted for Leave for that very reason. They voted so we would have fewer migrants.

They voted because Mrs May said she’d bring the numbers down.

But then just three months ago, Mrs May said we needed all the numbers of EU migrants that are here.

There weren’t too many after all. The country will be poorer without them.

Does Mrs May and her Brexit government really know what they’re doing?

They’re messing with people’s heads; and their hearts, and their lives.

If Mrs May sincerely thinks that all the hard-working, upstanding, law-abiding, tax-paying EU migrants in the UK are needed and wanted, why didn’t she say so before the EU referendum?

Instead, at the Tory conference immediately prior to the referendum, she said the current numbers of EU migrants in the UK are of zero value. Yes, she did.

As Home Secretary, in her speech to the Tory Party faithful in October 2015 she said, “..at best the net economic and fiscal effect of high immigration is close to zero.”

High immigration to her then represented the three million EU migrants in the UK.

The front-page headline in the Telegraph the next day was her mantra that migration is “harming society”, causing ‘thousands of British people to be forced out of their jobs.’

She said then that, “when immigration is too high, when the pace of change is too fast, it’s impossible to build a cohesive society.”

She added:

“It’s difficult for schools and hospitals and core infrastructure like housing and transport to cope. And we know that for people in low-paid jobs, wages are forced down even further while some people are forced out of work altogether.”

She blamed too many foreign students (how can she possibly call students migrants?) and too many EU migrants.

She said, “The numbers coming from Europe are unsustainable and the rules have to change.”

She quoted her party’s manifesto, ‘we must work to control immigration and put Britain first’.

But just this last Christmas Mrs May said,

“As Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, I am proud that more than three million EU citizens have chosen to make your homes and livelihoods here in our country.”

She add, “I know our country would be poorer if you left and I want you to stay”.

Oh, so now those three million EU migrants are welcome here, when Mrs May previously made clear that she didn’t want them here (at least not in those numbers).

Mrs May said at Christmas that she is proud that those three million EU migrants made their homes and livelihoods in our country

But she previously said they were stealing our jobs and putting pressure on our schools, hospitals, homes and wages.

Does Mrs May and her cabinet really understand what is true and untrue?

The fact is that Mrs May, her government, and her Brexit are entirely two-faced.

Brexit involves double standards. Is that really what Britain voted for on one summer’s day in June 2016?

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