European Union

Plenary sessions : The EU needs a better coordinated policy on volunteering, to give volunteers a proper legal status and help them join programmes, say MEPs in a resolution voted on Thursday. Almost 100 million EU citizens have taken part as volunteers in education, culture or arts, sport events, humanitarian and development aid work. Young people should take advantage of volunteering schemes to develop skills and acquire experience that helps them to find jobs afterwards, stresses the text.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Plenary sessions : Worsening relations between nuclear-armed states, such as Russia and the US or India and Pakistan, but also Russia’s threats to use nuclear weapons or to deploy them to more territories in Europe, are making the EU’s security environment ever more tense, say MEPs in a resolution voted on Thursday. They call on these states to reduce nuclear weapons, move them away from deployment into storage and to diminish their role in military doctrines.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Plenary sessions : Worsening relations between nuclear-armed states, such as Russia and the US or India and Pakistan, but also Russia’s threats to use nuclear weapons or to deploy them to more territories in Europe, are making the EU’s security environment ever more tense, say MEPs in a resolution voted on Thursday. They call on these states to reduce nuclear weapons, move them away from deployment into storage and to diminish their role in military doctrines.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

General : Yazidi survivors and public advocates Nadia Murad and Lamiya Aji Bashar are this year's joint laureates of the European Parliament Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, following a decision by Parliament President Martin Schulz and the political group leaders on 27 October. The Sakharov award ceremony will be held in Strasbourg on 14 December.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

General : Yazidi survivors and public advocates Nadia Murad and Lamiya Aji Bashar are this year's joint laureates of the European Parliament Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, following a decision by Parliament President Martin Schulz and the political group leaders on 27 October. The Sakharov award ceremony will be held in Strasbourg on 14 December.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Plenary sessions : "Release journalists being held without compelling evidence of criminal activity", MEPs urge the Turkish authorities in a resolution voted on Thursday. Since the failed coup d’état on 15 July, the Turkish government has arrested at least 99 journalists and writers, revoked the press credentials of at least 330 journalists, and closed the offices of more than 100 media outlets, leaving over 2,300 media workers without jobs.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Plenary sessions : "Release journalists being held without compelling evidence of criminal activity", MEPs urge the Turkish authorities in a resolution voted on Thursday. Since the failed coup d’état on 15 July, the Turkish government has arrested at least 99 journalists and writers, revoked the press credentials of at least 330 journalists, and closed the offices of more than 100 media outlets, leaving over 2,300 media workers without jobs.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Plenary sessions : The Iraqi operation to liberate Mosul from jihadi group ISIS/Daesh was backed by MEPs on Thursday. They called on Iraqi authorities to make every effort to protect civilians, hospitals and schools, as they progress towards Mosul. Daesh atrocities and genocide against Christians, Yazidis and other minorities should be referred to International Criminal Court, added MEPs.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Plenary sessions : The Iraqi operation to liberate Mosul from jihadi group ISIS/Daesh was backed by MEPs on Thursday. They called on Iraqi authorities to make every effort to protect civilians, hospitals and schools, as they progress towards Mosul. Daesh atrocities and genocide against Christians, Yazidis and other minorities should be referred to International Criminal Court, added MEPs.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

On 9 November, the Subcommittee will exchange views on the Transatlantic Security Partnership from the Canadian perspective with Daniel J. Costello, Ambassador of Canada to the European Union. Canada is one of the nations in NATO leading the implementation of defensive assurance measures on Europe’s Eastern flank.
Further information
Draft agenda and meeting documents
Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

In the hours after the dramatic news of the UK’s vote to leave the EU, Federica Mogherini, the EU High Representative, had a decision to make. She was due, days later, to publish the Union’s new “Global Strategy’” for foreign and security policy – the first since Javier Solana published the initial European Security Strategy thirteen years ago.

Her decision to go ahead was not an obvious move. Some may have thought it was yet another instance of the EU’s detachment from political reality. Indeed, in the months leading up to the UK’s referendum, many of us in the High Representative’s office thought that we would delay in the event of a Leave vote. As the devastating news of Brexit hit home, I assumed it would all be called off – and this was Mogherini’s first inclination. Yet as the hours went by, it became clear that the months ahead would see the EU all-consumed by Brexit, and the magnitude of the earthquake risked being so great that the Global Strategy, known as the EUGS, would probably have been dropped if it were delayed.

Mogherini felt that scrapping the EUGS would have done a grave injustice to the Union, given the depth and breadth of its internal crisis. The EUGS has been the outcome of almost two years of EU-wide strategic reflection that has seen the active involvement of all member states and EU institutions, along with the broader foreign policy community. The process involved input from academics and students, human rights NGOs, defence industryassociations, think tanks, trade unions, business associations and religious organisations. As Mogherini put it to me on 24 June, ‘the work is done’. And after all, isn’t it an act of political responsibility, precisely at such times of crisis, to show the world that Europe can still be united?

“Scrapping the EUGS would have done a grave injustice to the Union, given the depth and breadth of its internal crisis”

The content of the EUGS was never going to change because of the UK’s decision to leave the EU. The first purpose of the strategy was to engage in a broad strategic reflection, an extensive and in-depth process that achieved unity among all players. What we must do in the Middle East and Africa, in Latin America, or at the United Nations; what we should aim to achieve on defence, trade, development, climate or migration; this has not fundamentally changed. The second purpose of the EUGS was to outline our common action. And this is the most important reason why the
EUGS could not be postponed. It had to be published to start the engine on implementation, with or without the UK.

There is no doubt that Brexit has altered our capacity to deliver. By losing the UK, the EU has lost one of its largest member states, perhaps the one with the most global outlook, be it in terms of trade, development, defence or diplomacy. The UK’s diplomatic network, defence capabilities, development budget and outward-looking trade agenda have been critical assets of Europe’s projection abroad. But likewise, without the EU, the UK has lost the ability to magnify its global voice and priorities. Successes such as the Paris climate agreement, the Iranian nuclear deal, reconciliation between Serbia and Kosovo, or the work towards a national unity government in Libya are all examples that have seen the EU, and the UK within it, occupy centre stage. Perhaps even more importantly, both the EU and the UK have already suffered a major blow to their respective soft power capabilities. The EU, which for decades has prided itself on its power of attraction, has repelled one of its largest member states. The UK, which has long prided itself on its openness, multiculturalism and tolerance, is now seen as a country stuck in a time warp, lured by the illusion of retrenchment and the return to a grandiose past that cannot be rediscovered. The extent to which these perceptions reflect reality is of secondary importance. In today’s world, perception is as important – if not more so – than reality.

“The time has come to discover the extent to which the UK was the real block to deeper security and defence integration, or whether other member states hid behind the British”

Others may argue that without the UK, the EU will finally be able to press the accelerator on integration in a number of key areas, most significantly security and defence. There are a number of issues on which the UK has acted as a brake in recent years. These include the establishment of a permanent headquarters and common financing for Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) missions and operations, permanent structured cooperation between groups of member states on security and defence, and the institutionalisation of deeper defence cooperation. Whereas the UK has cooperated on defence with other member states, notably France, it has resisted doing so within an EU framework. More broadly, it has opposed moves that would question national sovereignty on defence matters or rival NATO’s role in collective defence. The time has come to discover the extent to which the UK was the real block to deeper security and defence integration, or whether other member states hid behind the British. The onus is on the remaining 27 member states to demonstrate how far they are now willing to go.

Both the EU and the UK will, in any case, have an interest in developing a structured relationship on the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the CSDP, among other areas. Back in the early 2000s there was a lively debate regarding the participation of non-EU NATO members, such as Norway and Turkey, in the CSDP. The debates revolved not only around their participation in CSDP missions and operations, but their involvement in decision-shaping (not decision-making). After the 2004 enlargement, those ideas and plans were shelved. But there is no reason why some
of them could not be dusted off today. This would benefit both the EU and the UK, and could offer a model for other non-EU European partners too. In other words, the blow to the EU and the UK’s standing in the world can be tempered over time – if Brexit is well managed.

The interests and goals that the EUGS set out remain vital after Brexit. The EU has more, not less, of a duty to keep its citizens secure, free and prosperous, and to do so by being united and engaging responsibly in the world. If the EU and the UK succeed in developing a structured relationship on foreign and security policy, both will gain, and the prospects for successful implementation of the EUGS will grow. In many ways, now is when the real work starts.

IMAGE CREDIT: Gajus/Bigstock.com

The post Facing the world, together and apart appeared first on Europe’s World.

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The "European Union-NATO Declaration on the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP)" and the "Berlin Plus" arrangements are the basic documents for the EU-NATO strategic partnership.

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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.

The post Heathrow expansion in the shadow of Brexit appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

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Without much fanfare – without even a press conference – Margrethe Vestager on Wednesday slipped out one of the most important decisions of her time as competition commissioner. Known for her flinty approach to the likes of Apple and Google, Ms Vestager showed a different side: restraint. And this was no ordinary antitrust case. It was Gazprom.

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Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

On 27 October 2016, the Council added 10 persons to the list of those targeted by EU restrictive measures against the Syrian regime for being responsible for the violent repression against the civilian population in Syria, benefiting from or supporting the regime, and/or being associated with such persons. 

This decision follows the Council conclusions of 17 October 2016 and the European Council conclusions of 20-21 October 2016. 

The persons added to the list include high-ranking military officials and senior figures linked to the regime. This decision brings to 217 persons the total number of persons targeted by a travel ban and an asset freeze for the violent repression against the civilian population in Syria. 

In addition, 69 entities are targeted by an asset freeze. More broadly, sanctions currently in place against Syria include an oil embargo, restrictions on certain investments, a freeze of the assets of the Syrian central bank within the EU, export restrictions on equipment and technology that might be used for internal repression as well as on equipment and technology for the monitoring or interception of internet or telephone communications. These measures were last extended on 27 May 2016 and are in place until 1 June 2017.

The EU remains committed to finding a lasting solution to the conflict in Syria, as there is no military solution to the Syrian civil war. The EU is determined to save lives and continues its intense humanitarian diplomatic effort to deliver aid to Aleppo and wherever needed, and to evacuate the wounded.

The legal acts adopted by the Council, including the names of the persons concerned, are published in the Official Journal of 28 October 2016. The decision was adopted by written procedure. 

The EU-Canada Summit will take place on 30 October 2016 in the Justus Lipsius building in Brussels. The Summit will start at around 10.30 and the press conference will be at +/- 12.15.

Procedure

• If this is your first registration, please make sure you have a recent ID-size photograph in JPEG format (.jpg) and the number of your passport or identity card ready before starting the online process.
• You will receive an acknowledgement of receipt by email. Please read it carefully as it includes the list of original documents you will be asked to provide when collecting your badge. Depending on your profile, the requested document will include: Passport or ID card, press card and/or a letter from your editor-in chief as well as the signed original of your authorisation for security screening (only for media representatives of Belgian nationality or resident in Belgium). The press centre may contact you to request additional information if necessary. No accreditation badge will be issued if you cannot provide all required documents.
• Under certain conditions it is possible to organise a group registration/collection of badges for journalists working for the same media. Select group registration at the beginning of the accreditation process and follow the instructions.
• Trainees with media organisations who do not possess a press card are not entitled to request accreditation

Journalists holding a 6-month badge (30.06.2016 - 31.12.2016) do not need to register

6-month badges can be collected at the accreditation centre of the LEX building during summits. Please ensure that you have all the required documents when collecting your badge.

Collection of badges

Accreditation badges must be collected in person from the LEX building (145 rue de la Loi, Brussels)  

• Sunday 30 October from 07.00 to the end of the press conference

For more details on the European Council meeting, see the meeting page.

AMENDMENTS 248 - 508 - Draft report Implementation of the Common Foreign and Security Policy
Committee on Foreign Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and of the EU and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy met in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic on 25-26 October. Ministers assessed the state of play of the implementation of the CELAC-EU programmes and actions adopted by the Heads of state and government Summits. They adopted a document describing the results of EU-CELAC cooperation in sectors covered by the EU-CELAC action plan adopted by the Summit of 2015, and drawing conclusions and recommendations for future action.