Ideas on Europe Blog

This summer Europe witnessed unprecedented events as thousands of migrants embarked on dangerous journeys from the Middle East and further afield to reach the shores of Europe. The growing instability in the Middle East, most of all in Syria which has descended into a state of permanent internal civil war, has resulted in an unprecedented flow of migration towards Europe. As with the other major recent crises the EU is ill prepared to respond swiftly and collectively. The response – or the lack of it- towards the escalating migrant crisis resembles how the EU reacted to the sovereign debt crisis which followed the global financial crisis and externally to the standoff with Russia over Ukraine. All these events illustrate that the EU profoundly lacks a spirit of collective responsibility. It is most noticeable in the failure of the big six (Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Spain and Poland) to lead the EU towards effective supranational institutions and policies which are fit to address the various internal and external challenges. For too long national governments in the EU have retreated towards the minimum consensus on policy cooperation. Keen to ensure that they maintain a substantial degree of autonomy on sovereign political decision-making, EU leaders have neglected to determine binding common solutions to crucial areas such as economic and fiscal policy, defence and security as well as justice and home affairs.

The eurozone crisis resulted predominantly from systemic weaknesses in the original design of the stability and growth pact. Before the crisis the SGP operated like a gentleman’s agreement between member state governments and the European Commission. Greece and Italy were permitted to join the eurozone in spite of running a permanent and growing structural deficit of more than 100 per cent of their GDP. France and Germany started breaking the annual borrowing limit of maximum three per cent in relation to the GDP in 2002, the year the euro had come into operation as a hard currency. Both countries also started exceed the 60 per cent structural deficit limit[1]. After a period of political disarray and indecision, eurozone governments were ultimately driven to take action by events. When major credit rating agencies started to downgrade individual eurozone economies there was the risk that this would eventually spill over into a substantial loss of financial market confidence in the euro. As Germany and France became increasingly concerned about the risk of a total collapse of the single European currency, Merkel and Sarkozy embarked on a frantic spree of implementing new coordinative policy mechanisms. These policy mechanisms have blurred the distinction between national and EU-level decision-making even more than had already been the case under the existing arrangements. Moreover, as they are predominantly orientated towards elite-level consultations and decision-making, they have worsened the lack of democratic accountability in the EU. Since the onset of the economic crisis the level of public disillusionment with the ability to influence political decisions in the EU consequently has steadily grown. The lowest point of public confidence in the EU occurred in the autumn of 2014 when only 31 per cent of citizens across the EU-28 expressed trust in the Union’s institutions. At the same time the number of those who disagreed with the notion that their voice would count in the EU had also increased substantially, from 53 per cent in 2003 to 66 per cent in the autumn of 2013. In the first half of 2015 the public levels of trust in the EU’s institutions improved slightly towards 40 per cent.

A smaller percentage of people also expressed the opinion that their voice would not count in the EU (50 per cent)[2]. This can be explained by the new Spitzenkandidaten system for the position of European Commission president which was introduced during the campaign for the May 2014 European parliament elections. The nomination of leading candidates for the post by parliamentary groups in the EP gave the impression that citizens would have a direct influence on the appointment of the new Commission president, although the final decision on the appointment still rests with EU leaders in the Council. Although it was obvious that the EU had emerged from the financial crisis with a legitimacy crisis, there were signs that the public was nevertheless willing to give the EU the benefit of the doubt. The latest Eurobarometer research conducted in May this year actually shows that in spite of widespread reservations about the EU’s democratic accountability, the European public nevertheless expressed support for the deepening of political cooperation on the EU level: 69 per cent of citizens were in favour of directly electing the president of the European Commission and 58 per cent favoured the creation of an EU justice ministry. A majority of citizens also expressed support for transferring the decision-making on major policy areas towards the EU level: Environmental issues (72 per cent), combating unemployment (62 per cent), immigration (59 per cent), health and social security (50 per cent)[3].

The public trust in the joint problem-solving capacity of the EU has however not been matched by the reality of the EU’s response to the migrant crisis. The crisis has made it brutally obvious that EU leaders have for too long concentrated on the internal management of the eurozone sovereign debt crisis. External affairs have consequently been neglected the management. This was already shown during the Ukraine crisis during the past two years, where the EU’s institutional level played practically no role. The EU High Representative and the External Action Service, which the Lisbon Treaty created to support the EU’s external activities, were almost completely sidelined by a joint intergovernmental diplomatic leadership initiative of France, Germany and Poland. The three countries intervened early to try to negotiate the peaceful handover of powers from disgraced president Yanukovych. When the situation escalated into a quasi civil war between the Ukrainian government and pro-Russian rebels over the control of the Eastern provinces of the country, Germany and France once again became active in trying to negotiate a ceasefire. The resulting Minsk agreement between Ukraine and Russia, which came into effect in February this year has so far managed to prevent further major violent clashes within Ukraine. This can nevertheless not conceal the fact that the EU once again repeated the pattern of behaviour it had previously shown over Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Member states remained divided on each of these external challenges member states and failed to uniformly support a common position. In spite of the gradual institutionalisation of the EU external relations since the newly created EU had created a dedicated Common Foreign and Security Pillar in the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, foreign, defence and security policy remains firmly in the hands of national governments.

The same applies to asylum and migration policy, where the EU has practically failed to achieve any substantial institutionalisation. The consensus in the EU in this area has for decades centred on maintaining national regulations. This occurred in spite of the fact that migration has over the years become an increasing burden for the countries who form the Southern borders of the EU. Italy, Greece and Spain have for many years called for greater collective EU support in their struggle to manage the mounting levels of migration from the African continent through the Mediterranean. As in so many other policy areas EU member states were unable to move beyond a lowest denominator consensus which in effect leaves asylum and migration firmly in the hands of national governments. The EU has been working on developing a common asylum system since the late 1990s, which has since developed into a Commission asylum policy plan that member states have now adopted. The plan essentially determines common asylum standards and the need for enhanced cooperation between national authorities on handling asylum applications[4]. In practice the centrepiece of the plan remains the Dublin regulation, which the EU adopted in 1990 in response to an increase in asylum applications. It has been revised twice since with the latest Dublin III regulation having taken effect in January 2013. The core of Dublin is the principle that the member state where an asylum application is first registered remains responsible for administering the case[5]. This provision has shifted the burden of responsibility for dealing with refugees and migrants to the member states at the external borders of the EU. This has been in the interest of the larger member states Germany, France and the UK who were the drivers behind the original directive. The principle of responsibility in the country of first registration has helped to substantially lower the number of asylum applications in the rest of the EU, while the countries at the external Southern border of the EU have had to deal with a flood of new applications. The EU’s policy plan on asylum aspired to put in place as system of ‘well supported and practical cooperation’[6]. In reality the Southern European countries Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Cyprus have expressed their dismay at the lack of collective EU support for dealing with the constant and more recently escalating influx of migrants who started arriving by boat from Libya via the Mediterranean. Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi warned the EU in June this year that it was facing a ‘Mediterranean migrant emergency’. Renzi put the finger in the wound of the EU’s lack of collective solidarity under the Dublin regulation:

“Whoever has the right to asylum must be welcome in Europe, not just in Italy,  despite the EU’s Dublin regime. But it is inconceivable that one country should  tackle the entirety of this problem on its own. Responsibility and solidarity are concepts that go hand in hand (…) We are at a crossroads and we need to decide if events in the Mediterranean are everyone’s problem, or only that of the countries in the region[7].”

 Renzi’s appeal reflected the obvious failure of the Dublin regime to instil a spirit of collective responsibility for asylum and migration matters amongst EU member states. Even more importantly his intervention pointed towards the EU suffering from a profound leadership problem which has been evident for some considerable time. It is the result of increasingly diverging national interests between the former leadership duo France and Germany, combined with the failure of the other larger member states to offer alternatives. Italy and Spain continue to be preoccupied by their internal economic and political problems. Poland has been active in pushing towards progress in a number of policy areas, such as the Eastern partnership under the European neighbourhood policy, as well as on defence and security issues. Polish influence nevertheless remains limited due to the fact that the country is still considered as a transition country, who has yet to master the crucial hurdle of eurozone entry.  The United Kingdom under the leadership of Conservative prime minister David Cameron has increasingly retreated to the sidelines. Since he came to power in 2010, Cameron has chosen not to engage in any substantial EU policy debate except on those issues where he would like to see the renegotiation of the UK’s membership terms. These include the possibility to permanently opt out from the freedom of movement and from a federal political union which may eventually emerge in the eurozone in the future.

France has been reluctantly following what is essentially German unilateral part-time leadership or ‘reluctant hegemony’[8] under chancellor Angela Merkel’s reign. This semi-leadership is characterised by hesitation, short-term and last minute policy decisions and more recently by a lack of willingness to engage in multilateral consultations. Merkel’s leadership style in essence stems from her professional background as a natural scientist. She has shown a tendency to avoid seeking visionary and long-term strategies for the future of the EU. Instead her leadership style has been markedly passive and mechanical and she frequently micro manages EU affairs like a clinical trial in a laboratory. During the eurozone crisis Merkel was clearly driven by events and struggled to take an active role in shaping them. After months of inaction and hesitation she only became active on the EU level late in 2009 when it had become obvious that the loss of market confidence in the future of the euro had become substantial.  What followed was a political approach which presented the focus on budgetary and macroeconomic supervision and rigidity as being ‘without alternative’. The implementation of multiple layers of binding policy coordination under the ‘Six Pack’ mechanisms have substantially strengthened unelected supranational bodies at expense of the policy autonomy of national governments and parliaments. This raises serious questions about the EU’s democratic accountability and ultimately its legitimacy. The approach is most evident in the way the troika (European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF), including the newly created European Stability Mechanism (ESM), conducts itself as an illegitimate semi-government in eurozone sovereign debt countries, most of all in Greece. Concerns about the impact of these mechanisms on national sovereignty and the possibility that they could be extended further by transforming the European Commission into an executive government for the EU were voiced by a number of countries, most prominently by the UK, the Czech Republic and Hungary. Concerns about the federalisation of the EU were the main reason for the decision of the British government to demand the renegotiation of the UK’s membership terms and to let the British public decide on the future of the membership in a referendum. David Cameron hence demanded safeguards against what he called a ‘one size fits all approach which implies that all countries want the same level of integration’[9].

Merkel has also persistently ignored the wider political and social context of the crisis and rejected the repeated Greek calls for a more comprehensive long-term strategy to ensure that the budgetary consolidation process in the crisis countries would not have lasting detrimental social and political effects. The drama surrounding the deepening sovereign debt crisis in Greece has hence turned into a seemingly endless standoff between Germany as the leading creditor and an Greece as increasingly dependent debtor country. This has inflicted serious damage to the EU’s internal political cohesion. Merkel nevertheless shows little concern for the perception that the eurozone and the wider EU has increasingly fallen under a German dictate.

This pattern is replicated in the current migrant crisis, where Merkel surprised the rest of the EU when she reacted to the sudden vast influx of migrants into Greece with the announcement that Germany’s borders would be open to all refugees. On August 19th the German government had announced that it expected around 800,000 refugees to come to Germany in 2015. On August 31st chancellor Merkel publicly stated that German would manage this (‘Wir schaffen das’)[10]. On September 10th Merkel followed this up during a visit to an asylum camp in Berlin where she announced that Germany would not determine an upper limit when considering asylum applications amongst the current migrant wave[11]. Already on September 8th Merkel’s Social Democratic vice chancellor Sigmar Gabriel expressed the view that Germany could accept around 500,000 refugees per year in an interview with the German public TV station ZDF[12]. None of these announcements were previously discussed with Germany’s EU partners, not even with those who are most affected by the increasing influx of migrants via the Balkan route.  After thousands of migrants started to make their way towards Germany via Hungary and Austria on a daily basis the German government again acted unilaterally and announced the temporary suspension of the Schengen agreement by reinstating border controls on September 14th, only a week after Merkel’s and Gabriel’s original statements. At the same time the German government asked the European Commission to develop concrete proposals for the introduction of a refugee distribution quota amongst the EU-28.

The demand for quota are opposed by a number of EU countries, most of all by the United Kingdom and the Central and Eastern European countries. Since their accession to the EU the CEE countries have mostly been compliant policy-takers who did not try to fundamentally challenge the EU’s policy status quo. Many of the CEEs also have close partnerships with Germany which date back to the Cold War era. They have therefore tended to defend Germany’s leadership during the euro crisis against criticism from other member states. The former Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski publicly supported Germany’s leading role in 2011 when he stated that he feared German inaction in the EU more than its leadership[13]. Slovak foreign minister Lajcak supported this sentiment when he spoke of his country being relaxed about being part of a ‘greater Germany’[14]. The German government is in danger of destroying this good will towards their leadership because of the patronising way it tries to force the rest of the EU to follow its response to the migrant crisis.  Berlin would probably not have to worry too much if it was only the subject of criticism on the part of the Hungarian government led by populist prime minister Viktor Orban. The fact is however that governments across Central and Eastern Europe are alienated by what they perceive as an uncoordinated and patronising approach to the crisis. The Visegrad 4 countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) have collectively rejected the plans for an EU refugee quota. The V4 are especially affronted by the suggestions which emerged from the German government that countries within the EU who oppose the compulsory quotas may face financial penalties. Slovak prime minister Robert Fico publicly declared his intention to vigorously oppose the plan, even if this may mean blocking progress at the upcoming EU leaders’ summit:

“Never before in the EU did it happen that somebody was punished for their  own opinion. We are a sovereign country, we have the right to name things and have different view to tackle the crisis with migrants.”[15]

The Financial Times reports that CEE diplomats have expressed their anger and astonishment at what they perceive as being shut out of the EU’s diplomacy by Berlin as part of an approach of ‘ “passive aggressive bullying” ‘[16]. Berlin’s conduct is all the more astonishing as the German government should be well aware of the fact that the CEE member states in the EU are still in the process of economic transformation. In most cases they have made substantial progress since the fall of the iron curtain but they nevertheless remain between 20 and 40 per cent below the EU-28′s average GDP per capita[17]. The CEE region remains a low-income region with substantially higher levels of material poverty than the EU average. This explains why public and elite level opposition towards an increase in inward migration from outside the EU remains substantial. Germany’s demands for the acceptance of a refugee distribution quota therefore risk overstretching the CEE region and to feed an already underlying potential for a surge in political support for populist and extremist anti-EU and anti-immigration political parties. The same applies to the EU’s Southern European members, where economically and financially weak countries start to feel overstretched under the double burden of sustained austerity and the resource impact of the migrant crisis[18]. The migrant crisis has already played a substantial role in the campaign for upcoming Greek national election, where the neofascist Golden Dawn party currently polls in third place[19].

The at least temporary collapse of the EU’s Schengen system and the now almost daily blame game between member states on their handling of the migration flow shows that EU is dazed and confused by the speed and severity of events. Without swift and determined collective action the EU risks being slowly sucked into the downward spiral of a credibility crisis, which could eventually turn into an irreversible maelstrom that destroys the European project. The crisis has managed to damage intergovernmental relations between member states and the EU’s external reputation quite significantly. As Germany is clearly incapable of leading the EU out of this crisis it is therefore high time for other members and the Commission to step in to ensure that a lasting collective agreement on migration and asylum policies can be established. Especially the Commission has to tread carefully with this and avoid become the advocate of one country’s (i.e. Germany’s) interests.

A refugee quota system may be part of the immediate solution to events but it is definitely not the answer to resolving the crisis. Instead the EU needs to determine an unambiguous joint system of registering and processing asylum applications. This can only be done effectively if the countries at the EU’s external borders receive substantial financial and logistic support from the EU budget.  Collective budgetary resources will be needed to establish collective fast track asylum registration centres in Greece, Italy, Spain, Cyprus and possibly also in Hungary to ensure that asylum applications are processed quickly and a clear disctinction can be made between genuine refugees and economic migrants. The latter may still be able to obtain permanent residence in an EU member state if national governments unambiguously determine the rules of their domestic immigration policies. Here especially Germany will need to move towards the introduction of a immigration law to ease the burden on its already overstretched asylum system. The EU also needs to make sustained efforts to secure its external borders and to combat human trafficking.  In addition to the planned military missions which are aimed at detaining human traffickers in the Mediterranean, the EU’s border management agency FRONTEXT needs to take a more active role in supporting Southern European countries in the policing of the EU’s external borders.

If the EU fails in this momentous task the current practice of reverting to exclusive national solutions will eventually result in the demise of Schengen, which is a cornerstone of the EU’s internal market. Just as with the euro the collapse of a major integration project like Schengen could be the beginning of the end of what the EU has achieved in its more than sixty years long history. The German weekly DER SPIEGEL correctly pointed this out in this week’s leading editorial: ‘Schengen is not any law in the EU’s dense network of regulations. Whoever touches Schengen, the dream of a borderless Europe, touches the Union’s core.’[20] Merkel, Cameron, Hollande and the rest of the EU-28 leaders need to keep this in mind. They must stop dithering and realise what is at stake.

[1] Eurostat, Government Deficit and Debt, available at http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/government-finance-statistics/data/main-tables

[2] European Commission (2015) Standard Eurobarometer 83, available at http://ec.europa.eu/COMMFrontOffice/PublicOpinion/index.cfm/ResultDoc/download/DocumentKy/66896

[3] Standard Eurobarometer 83.

[4] European Commission (2008) Policy Plan on Asylum: An integrated approach to protection across the EU, COM(2008) 360 final, available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2008:0360:FIN:EN:PDF

[5] European Union (2013) Regulation No 604/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council, 26 June, chapter III, article 3, available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32013R0604&from=EN

[6] European Union, Common European Asylum System, available at http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/asylum/index_en.htm

[7] Matteo Renzi (2015), ‘The Mediterranean migrant emergency is not Italy’s. It is Europe’s', The Guardian, 23 June, available at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/23/mediterranean-migrant-crisis-not-italy-but-europe

[8] William E. Paterson (2013) ‘The Reluctant Hegemon? Germany moves centre stage in the European Union’, Journal of Common Market Studies 49 (Annual Review): 57-75.

[9] Prime minister David Cameron’s EU speech at Bloomberg, 23 January 2013, available at https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/eu-speech-at-bloomberg.

[10] Chancellor Angela Merkel summer press conference, 31 August 2015, available at http://www.bundesregierung.de/Content/DE/Mitschrift/Pressekonferenzen/2015/08/2015-08-31-pk-merkel.html

[11] Süddeutsche Zeitung, ‘Das Grundrecht auf Asyl kennt keine Obergrenze’, 10 September 2015, available at http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/bundeskanzlerin-merkel-das-grundrecht-auf-asyl-kennt-keine-obergrenze-1.2643260

[12] Der Spiegel (2015) ‘Gabriel hät 500.000 Flüchtlinge pro Jahr für verkraftbar’, 8 September 2015, available at http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/fluechtlinge-gabriel-haelt-500-000-pro-jahr-fuer-verkraftbar-a-1051862.html

[13] Sikorski, Radoslaw (2011) ‘Poland and the future of the European Union’, Address at the German Council of Foreign Relations, Berlin, 28 November. Available at http://www.mfa.gov.pl/resource/33ce6061-ec12-4da1-a145-01e2995c6302:JCR. Accessed 14 January 2014.

[14] Kristina Mikulova (2013) ‘Central Europe’s Pivot to Germany: What does the U.S. stand to gain’,Huffington Post 1 May, available at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristina-mikulova/central-   europes-pivot-to-_b_3194342.html

[15] Slovakian prime minister Robert Fico statement on official Facebook page, 15 September 2015.

[16] Duncan Robinson and Henry Foy (2015) ‘Migrant crisis sets Germany at odds with neighbours to the east’, Financial Times, 17 September, available at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/09ffbc28-5d46-11e5-a28b-50226830d644.html?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fbrussels%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct#axzz3m0s05AvV

[17] High Level Reflection Group (2014), Central Europe fit for the future: Visegrad Group ten years after EU accession,  p. 12.

[18] Ekatimerine (2015) ‘Migrant crisis overwhelms Greek government’, 7 August 2015, available at http://www.ekathimerini.com/200333/article/ekathimerini/news/migrant-crisis-overwhelms-greek-government;

[19] Henry Foy (2015) ‘Greek far right party rides wave of xenophobia’, 17 September 2015, available at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d88eab00-5d30-11e5-a28b-50226830d644.html#axzz3mCPbbckp

[20] Peter Müller (2015) ‘Der alte Kontinent: In der Flüchtlingskrise ist die EU in Gefahr. Um sie zu bewahren, braucht es Druck und Verständnis’, Der Spiegel 39, 19 September p. 8.

The post The EU’s flawed response to the migrant crisis: Disorientated into the maelstrom appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

This post presents my research paper submitted within the framework of the Russian Politics course at KU Leuven (January 2015). Scenario thinking is based on the assumption of a possible political situation in year 2020.

Scenarios presented were created through the SWOT analysis which constitutes one of the most popular heuristic method of analysis, helping to sort the collected information. It allows to examine the internal and external factors affecting studied phenomenon. In my analysis, I have examined the possible scenarios for Russia and Eastern Partnership countries relations, which are part of EU’s European Neighbourhood Policy (the ENP). The SWOT analysis has been examined and performed from the Russian perspective.

Both sides, the EU and Russia have a strong commitment and strategic interest in the Eastern region, which strongly influence their mutual contacts. Nevertheless, the future situation of this region is currently one of the most important issue on the foreign affairs agenda on both sides. Therefore, it is important to address the greatest importance of Russian future strategic scenarios towards Eastern Partnership countries- Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Belarus and Ukraine, with the relation to EU’s Eastern policy.

The ENP was launched in 2004 with an aim to support partner countries in their political, economic and institutional reforms; to strengthen democracy, good governance, the rule of law and human rights along with economic modernization and liberalization. The main goal of the ENP is to establish a closer relation with non-EU countries and integrate them more with European market and EU sectoral programmes and policies[1]. Within the framework of the ENP, The Eastern Partnership project (the EaP) was launched in 2009 towards six post-Soviet countries, thus it is not hard to imagine that Russia do not support and agree with EU’s actions in Eastern Europe and South Caucasus. These countries, countries of “strategic importance”, are part of Russian increasing assertive foreign policy, with Russian leaders and a Russian public opinion that wanted and strived to stop the Western influence and regain control over its “Near Abroad”[2].

Factors taken into account in the SWOT analysis for Russia were given the weight from - 3, which are the biggest threat and the weakest side, to 3 being the greatest opportunity and the strongest side of the Russian situation. I have removed 0 from the scale, because as a neutral result of studied phenomena, it has no effect on the assessment of the examined situation. Taking into consideration a page limit, the below table presents only part of the key internal and external factors, which were considered as the most relevant for Russia- Eastern Partnership countries relations.

Strengths

Weaknesses

1)      Large country (1)

2)      Common historical and cultural heritage in the Eastern region (2)

3)      Geographical proximity (3)

4)      Energy dependency of Eastern and EU countries from Russia (3)

1)      Authoritarian government (-1)

2)      High rates of unemployment and poverty in many areas (-2)

3)      Crisis on the Russian financial market (-3)

4)      No influence on the EaP policy on the EU level (-1)

Opportunities

Threats

1)      Annexation of Crimea  (3)

2)      Russian minorities in Eastern countries (2)

3)      Economic instability of the EU and Eurozone (1)

4)      Eurasian Economic Union (3)

5)      Armenia and Ukraine did not initial association agreements with the EU (2)

1)      Dependence on oil and gas (-3)

2)      EU’s sanctions (-3)

3)      International conflict with West (-2)

4)      Organized crime and terrorism towards Russians from Eastern countries (-1)

5)      Georgia and Moldova had successfully negotiated Association agreements with the EU (-2)

 Table 1  SWOT analysis of Russia- Eastern Partnership countries relations

Total result of included factors is positive (20-18=2), which means that there is more strengths and opportunities for Russia to develop its policy towards Eastern Partnership countries. It may also be a reason why Russia still intensively develop different incentives for Eastern countries.

The internal factors can be seen as strengths and weaknesses of the current situation and factors coming from outside the country are defining threats and opportunities. Hence we can create four strategies derived from four SWOT quadrants.

 

  Opportunities Threats Strengths Aggressive strategy Conservative strategy Weaknesses Competitive strategy Defensive strategy

Table 2 Four SWOT strategies. Source: http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analiza_SWOT

 

Because of the positive result of SWOT analysis, it seems that Russia would most probably use aggressive strategy towards Eastern Partnership countries and undermine EU’s policy towards this region. Aggressive strategy is a strategy of strong expansion and development of both factors, strengths and opportunities. It is not without significance that Crimea issue is the strongest factor of Russian external factors within opportunities quadrant. The success in the Ukraine conflict and Russia’s annexation reinforced belief that countries of the “strategic importance” would not be easily given up by Putin. Moreover, Russian previous conflicts with Chechnya, Georgia and now with Ukraine can be counted among Russian successes. Putin tries to soothe the loss of Empire and this strategy seems to work at this moment. Hard power versus EU’s soft power in the long-term is the insufficient protection for Georgia’s and Moldova’s frozen conflicts with Russia. According to Raik, “the Eastern Partnership reflects the general tendency of the EU to play down issues of hard security and geopolitics and pursue economic integration as an instrument for enhancing stability and peace[3].” Russia will do not stop with its efforts to attract Eastern countries with the Eurasian Economic Union. Russia’s project is based on common legislation and supranational institutions, in which it resembles European integration. Russia will offer member countries various benefits, mainly of an economic nature, including easier access to the Russian market, financial support and preferential prices for energy resources[4]. The Eastern countries depend on Russian energy, their governments currently more and more decide on some subservience toward Russia: Azerbaijan’s recent article[5], Moldova’s last parliamentary election, Georgian authorities’ new policy and recent events within the government[6], Armenia’s threat of its energy security and joined the Eurasian Economic Union, Belarus pro-Russian approach. Hence, Russia will not be threaten by EU’s policy and will continue with an invasion in Eastern countries. Frozen conflicts, unsolved problems with Georgia, Moldova and Armenia, will be used to achieve Russian interests and gain necessary support from pro-Russian population. The necessary support would be given also for domestic governments- Russia will propose deeper and more comprehensive Eurasian Union’s economic agreements, than the free trade agreements that the EU has already negotiated. The Eastern Partnership countries will not confront themselves with the Russian army and risk their energy and human security. The Ukraine crisis show them that Western countries were not able to hold back Putin, and it is better to join Kremlin, than reject closer integration.

Russia still continues to define the post-Soviet area as its sphere of influence. The main objectives of this policy is to maintain the status of the Kremlin’s power confronted with the growing power of China and a stable position of the US as a world leader. The confrontation with the EU on the disputed East area is inevitable, but on the other hand, Russia cannot afford EU’s sanctions and to back out from the economic and modernization cooperation with the EU. Through well-defined economic incentives Putin will go toward Eastern countries and undermine the EU’s policy using state-controlled media not only to deliver messages, but rather to spread rumours and create confusion.

Conservative strategy- the studied subject is not able to develop intensively in the existing external environment, because the strengths factors do not correspond with the opportunities of the external environment, thus it is necessary to wait for the improvement in external conditions. This strategy was true before Putin’s first presidential elections. Currently, Russia does not want to wait for the improvement of external affairs, but to create them.

Competitive strategy in case of Russia is not a perfect solution. This strategy comes up when there is an advantage of weaknesses over strengths, but the studied subject acts in a friendly environment, which allows him to maintain his position. Competitive strategy should in that case focus on the elimination of internal weaknesses and use opportunities from the external environment. But Putin does not see any weaknesses in Russia. Russian identity and civilization are the greatest value in the society, and Russia is exceptional because it is not coming from the West. Vladimir Putin wrote in 2012 in a government newspaper, that Russia is not just an ordinary country but a unique “state civilization”, bound together by the ethnic Russians who form its “cultural nucleus”[7]. He will not cooperate with the external West environment which do not understand and tolerate Russian identity. In Putin’s view, it is the West’s intention to interfere with Russia’s historic mission and to thwart the rightful “integration of the Eurasian space”[8].

Defensive strategy: weaknesses are strongly linked to external threats, there is a high risk of state’s collapse. This strategy is focused on the internally and externally survival. Russia is not a state which would collapse, so this strategy can be rejected. Although, if economic and demographic problems will prevail, Russia as a result of the increasing difficulty of administering such a large territory and a lack of adequate resources for investment, slowly begins to give up its colonial heritage in the east of the Urals and the Caucasus.

In 2020 we cannot excluded that the Eastern Partnership Policy may change its current shape and Armenia, Belarus and Azerbaijan would withdraw from the cooperation with the EaP. The EU is not able to forbidden Eastern countries to resign from this policy. Moscow, without strong pressure from the West, strengthens the cooperation with China in Central Asia. Also puts bigger effort on the cooperation in the BRIC group. In fulfilling this scenario, I assume that Moscow will seek to restore its sphere of the influence in the Eastern Europe (Caucasus, Belarus, Moldova), and even head to recover some impact on countries in the Central Europe. Even because of economic problems, Putin will not change his course in the Eastern region and the EU’s widespread condemnation would not change his mind. Instead of military actions, which constitute the last possible option of Russian influence, the economic incentives will gradually undermined the strategic planning in Eastern countries.

[1] Delreux, T. and Keukeleire, S. (2014). “The Foreign Policy of the European Union.” Palgrave Macmillan, p. 251.

[2] Delreux, T. and Keukeleire, S. (2014). “The Foreign Policy of the European Union.” Palgrave Macmillan, p. 260.

[3] Raik, Kristi (2013). “Eastern Partnership as Differentiated Integration: The challenges of EaP Association Agreements.” The Post-Vilnius Challenges of the Eastern Partnership in The Eastern Partnership Review No. 15.

[4] Sadowski, Rafał (2013). “Partnership in Times of Crisis. Challenges for the Eastern European countries’ integration with Europe.” Point of view No. 36. Warsaw: Centre for Eastern Studies. pp. 44-45.

[5] On 3 December the Azerbaijani media published an article, by Ramiz Mekhtiyev, the head of the presidential administration and de facto the second most important person in the state. Among other statements, Mekhtiyev blamed the USA and the EU for trying to create a fifth column in Azerbaijan and stoking a desire to cause a ‘colour revolution’, and also specifically named individuals and organisations supported by the West. The article promotes the idea of a multipolar world consistent with the Russian vision, and emphasises the right of sovereign Azerbaijan to conduct a foreign policy which focuses on the development of bilateral relations. Source: http://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/analyses/2014-12-10/azerbaijan-closer-to-russia-further-west

[6] Some Georgian politicians stress that Prime Minister Irakly Garibashvili is dismissing some ministers due to politically motivated reasons and is trying to undermine supporters for better relations with the West.

[7] Aron, Leon (2014). “Why Putin Says Russia Is Exceptional.” The Wall Street Journal, http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-putin-says-russia-is-exceptional-1401473667.

[8] Ibidem.

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Autre temps…

It’s not been often that I’ve had cause to write about Labour and the EU in the past four or five years: apart from Ed Miliband’s semi-drift into referendum commitments last year, there hasn’t really been much of a policy. A general sense that it’s A Good Thing, but largely a continuation of the positional policy-making that has characterised British EU policy more generally – we like it because the other lot don’t.

However, Labout has always had a more complicated relationship with European integration than the popular memory often admits. Recall that until the 1980s, it was Labour that was more instinctively anti-membership of the EEC/EC, with the Tories pushing forward because of the trading opportunities it offered, while Labour worried about workers’ rights. Labour triggered the 1975 referendum, with Wilson only side-stepping internal opposition to his renegotiation by offering a free vote. With the possible exception of Tony Blair, there has been a certain sense that Labour leaders have always found the EU more useful as a stick to beat the Tories over the head with (more accurately, to let the Tories beat themselves with the stick) than as a central or fundamental plank of their programme.

And so we end up with Jeremy Corbyn, the great white hope of the Left.

Corbyn represents that long-standing part of the party that never really found an accommodation with European integration. While the leadership and most members turned in the 1980s under Kinnock and Smith, as workers’ rights came to the fore, the old Left (including many parts of the Trade Unions) merely skulked in the corner, biting lips, rather than expressing any enthusiasm. From the 1990s onwards, there were repeated formations of campaigning groups from this constituency, against the Euro, against the Constitutional Treaty, and now against membership.

That Corbyn secured as large a majority as he did last week points both to the relative lack of importance that the party attaches to European matters and to the latent constituency of sceptics that he has been able to mobilise: witness the TUC setting out their stall this week.

Corbyn himself has been very ambivalent about his position. From an initial refusal to give unconditional support to membership – which cost him some potential members of his shadow cabinet – we now have a statement that he couldn’t see himself campaigning to leave.

At one level, this is all just very Corbyn-esque: unspun, truthful and, in its way, reasonable. One would struggle to find anyone who would say that whatever it did they would support the EU (or anything else, for that matter). It’s bad politics and a bad way to live your live saying that your mind is made up and will never be changed, even if that’s often how things go. Of course, the EU is somewhat particular in that it’s a highly bargained system, with checks, balances and internal inconsistencies: from Corbyn’s perspective, Cameron doesn’t look like a man to be renegotiating more social or environmental protection, or to be stepping back from trade liberalisation, internally or externally.

But this reasonable position has its limits: as I’ve noted elsewhere, if Corbyn chooses not to be part of the ‘Remain’ campaign, then it becomes much harder to create the impression of a broad church of support. Certainly, his actions of the past weeks have already made it harder to take the whole Labour movement with him on this: it’s difficult to see him going down the road of a Damascene conversion in six month’s time. He’s Jeremy Corbyn, not Tony Blair.

The basic dilemma here is that the political life of the country is more than just EU membership, and Corbyn is entirely right to look at the big picture – a man who crowd-sources his interventions for PMQs is a man who wants to represent the people and their concerns. However, most people – including most politicians – don’t appreciate the extent to which the EU shapes, supports and constrains other areas. While the costs to the Left seem apparent – TTIP, austerity and the rest – the benefits are less clear, even more so the costs of non-membership.

The historic split of the Left came between those who decided to break the system and those who decided to shape it. The latter group, the socialists, might usefully recall that moment when they look at the EU: it is neither intrinsically good or bad, but rather a mechanism to be operated. The best way to get the EU they want, is to get stuck in, not to turn their back.

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Last year, India held it’s general elections and as usual there was a smattering of political parties, all with something different to offer approximately 700mn adults registered or eligible to vote at least. The newly chosen (by public) members of the national parliament have had some time to spend on the budgets and they should feel proud of having been elected by a bigger democracy than most in the West. Elections in the country are a regular thing, despite insurgencies in Kashmir, and numerous piecemeal episodes of border struggles. India is a gigantic country in South Asia – both demographically and politically, and the picture of rule here is one of reasonable stability because unlike in neighbouring Bangladesh, there has been no issues of autocratic rule, and a break with civilian government. Regionally, this is not an unnatural occurence: in Nepal, autocratic rule with a constitutional monarch was supposed to be the order of the day, as it has been since 1990. In 2008, however, Nepal became a republic, as a party convinced of ways of the armed revolution based on the Maoist model became the single-most dominant force in parliament. In retrospect, India did plenty of things with its newfound freedom from the British Empire, such as introduce the rights to vote for both men and women, all together. Democracy is an experiment sometimes in this region, even though the thought process is aligned with the creation of effective democratic governance. Right after independence, democracy was tried to be made into a popular political choice for a nation of mostly illiterates and poverty-stricken people. It has been tough to forge national unity in a land divided by language and religion, which is why even though a population diaspora might dictate the dominating language of the land, it cannot ascertain the sense of belonging that one single language is supposed to give one land. Democracy exists to provide citizens with the right to choose and replace their leaders, the right to speak up against misgovernance or be openly supportive about government decisions. In order for a government to function democratically there needs to be multiple political parties, and a constant presence of free, fair elections, the press needs to have freedom to conduct matters nationally. Democracy in India has often been viewed with sceptism, particularly where Kashmir is concerned. The people of Kashmir have often voiced their anger at the constant injustices they have had to face because of repeated accounts of corruption in a localised rule. Violence sometimes escalated and because of these numerous political disagreements the region has constantly been subjected to conflict. Although, from time to time Kashmiris have toyed with the idea of abiding by the local government’s customs and traditions, the response to the whole situation hasn’t always been positive. Regional development has almost always been forsaken but what has been astonishing to learn off is how the violence has often forced people to resort to military struggle. The scenario has been present both in Kashmir and in those Nepal locales where armed guerrillas are also equipping themselves with a greater awareness and learning about Maoist traditions and battling to remove the sophisticated manner of doing things. They want to do this by spreading the seeds of revolution and striving for independence from Nepal. It is difficult to imagine that Kashmiris should arm themselves to demand basic necessetities. But on certain days, that is the tallest order of the day because the region cannot afford to live relatively peacefully, when you compare it to it’s neighbouring Bhutan. In Bhutan, the most politically eventful episode to have occured in recent times was the dethroning of a king by choice in favour of his son ruling. In Kashmir, citizens must arm themselves to protect and to practice the kind of politics they would like to see in government, because the state is being far too harsh on them. When you step out of Kashmir, and into the rest of India, the picture of democracy is fully intact and functional because the national assemblies, the state assemblies all conduct themselves with freedom and fairness. Capital, labour, and goods can move about the country unperturbed, but there is no denying that the nation is still a weak democracy. There are illiberal idealogies spreading through political corridors, and there is also a lack of thoroughness in governance. A peaceful solution to Kashmir is possible, which would contribute to a better notion of democracy in India than the one present. Both the state and it’s citizens with demands need to co-operate on democratic matters, conduct more open dialogue about regional security, have more regular and fair elections, nurture the language and culture of minority groups and there needs to be a greater understanding of how more more power needs to be given to the people of Kashmir to shape their politics.

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September 2015: Border controls between Germany and France.

It is difficult not to be impressed by the remarkable breadth and multidisciplinary outreach of contemporary European Studies that was exposed at the UACES conference in Bilbao. Paper and panels were fed and underpinned by the political sciences, but also by economics, law, sociology and anthropology.

Yet the newspapers read during the return flight from Bilbao were a good reminder that in twenty years’ time (or less) European Studies might have become a preserve of historians. The latter will then analyse the reasons for the collapse of what will have been, all in all, a rather short parenthesis in our continent’s long history. Perhaps they will identify the summer of 2015 as the tipping point, from which on everything went surprisingly quickly.

Those who find this overly pessimistic should remind themselves that as late as spring 1989 not a single voice believed the Berlin Wall would come down any time soon. Let alone the reunification of Germany would occur. Let alone the collapse of the Soviet Empire.

I cannot remember any moment in my life as European citizen where the EEC, then EC, then the EU (not to mention the Eurozone) were not reported to be in a serious crisis. I have even repeatedly amused audiences with a very nostalgic and pessimistic quote from Le Monde about how European integration had completely lost its appeal, which actually did not refer to the present situation, but was written in 1958!

But I cannot remember either any moment over the last decades where as many indicators for a possible disintegration of the European community were converging like they seem to be doing in the second half of 2015. The concomitance of the Greek drama, the Ukrainian tragedy, the refugee crisis and the ongoing noise about a looming Brexit may well be too much for to handle for both our political leaders and their voters.

Especially the refugee question acts like a litmus test for the oft-invoked community of values. A test that is likely to reveal, in a rather painful manner, the absence of such a community. And from this observation it is only a small step to put into question the basic assumption of solidarity within what Churchill called ‘the European family’ in his famous speech of 1946.

It is no longer far-fetched to speculate on the funeral of the Schengen Agreement. Today I heard about the reintroduction of border controls between Germany and France, which I was (half) joking about only a few weeks earlier. I take the (small) risk of predicting that full sovereignty over the state’s border will be a major, hysterically discussed, issue in each national election campaign of the two years to come, including France and Germany.

It is no longer taboo to openly threaten others with financial consequences for their lack of solidarity. In other words, to play around with the idea of putting an end to redistributive policies. ‘Who needs structural funds?’ might become a recurrent question. ‘Just look at how they were used in Greece over decades!’, a convenient answer. And who needs a Common Agricultural Policy that even French farmers hate?

It is no longer implausible to see in David Cameron a sorcerer’s apprentice that will be completely overpowered by a wave of Europhobic discontent which he unleashed without need in the first place. And who can exclude today that a Brexit, however messy and unsatisfactory, would produce a domino effect? Not only in traditionally Eurosceptic places. Let’s face it: is it so absurd to anticipate that even German public opinion may turn massively Euro-sour, forcing whatever government it will elect in 2017 to commit to the repatriation of a maximum of competences (and money)?

Maybe still add a question mark?

As they say in France: history does not pass around the dishes twice. It is perfectly possible that the EU historians of 2040 will have warm words for their object of study: ‘Was absolutely worth a try’, they might tell us, ‘it’s just that the times were not ripe yet for a supranational community of interests, let alone values’.

 

Albrecht Sonntag, EU-Asia Institute, ESSCA School of Management.

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Last Wednesday, Jean-Claude Juncker delivered his first State of the European Union (SOTEU) address. This speech – the longest since Barroso started yearly SOTEU back in 2010 – is a key agenda-setting moment for the Commission President, providing the opportunity to set out a personal vision on the major issues facing the European Union today. While most media coverage focused on how Juncker grappled with the refugee and economic crises, this post sheds light on whether and how EU environmental and climate policies figured in the address.

Looking at the environmental side of the speech is key for two reasons: first, since the very start of his Commission, Juncker has been criticised as side-lining environmental issues[1] (in his Commission’s architecture, through his continuation of REFIT, etc.). Second, with the Paris Climate Summit (COP21) only three months away, the European Union (and the Commission in particular) will have to swiftly decide whether it wishes to remain a leader on climate change – or whether it is unwilling to bear the costs associated with leadership (e.g. maintaining credibility through well-functioning internal policies, well-funded external support for developing economies etc.).

A speech exists in two forms – the planned, written words, and the actual spoken words delivered on the day. Difference between the two is common, but the delivered version trumps the written one. The two versions are widely different when it comes to Juncker’s treatment of environmental issues. Hence, Jeremy Wates (EEB) drew attention to how the strong environmental rhetoric on how “the planet we share (…) cannot cope with the use mankind is making of it”, present in the written version of the speech was not delivered. Similarly, mentions of ‘sustainability’ were left out of the spoken version. This, Wates argued, shows that the environment is simply not high enough on the Commission’s agenda – when pressed for time, Juncker had no calms remaining silent on the topic – in 9929 words, he never mentioned ‘environment’.

Yet, looking in details at what Juncker said on the Paris negotiation reveals a more complex picture. Hence, while Juncker remained silent on general environmental issues (biodiversity, sustainability, pollution etc.) he chose to speak about climate change – highlighting a narrowing down of what environmental issues are considered relevant, or highly salient by the Commission. Furthermore, Juncker did again depart from his written speech when talking about Paris, but far from toning down his environmental rhetoric, he was more frank, and crucially, more critical of EU action.

The two versions show significant overlap – links between climate change and the on-going refugee crisis, need for a binding deal in Paris – but Juncker’s written speech is much more positive on the EU’s ability to lead on climate change. Instead, the actual, delivered speech, draws attention to remaining tensions within the EU, and the need to drum up support not only outside of the EU’s borders but within them. Recognising that the EU’s contribution is “probably not enough” is also a major departure from conventional EU rhetoric of climate leadership. But what does it mean? Should we read much into it? Does it indicate a split within the Commission, which would see Juncker as the (unlikely) proponent of greater ambition – or a simple slip of the tongue?

Timing is key – Juncker said he wanted “the European Union and the Member States to be as ambitious as possible on the way to Paris”: now is the time to put these words into action. Finance ministers were asked to consider their level of climate finance on Tuesday and Environment ministers are meeting this Friday to discuss the EU’s negotiation position – we will soon find out whether Juncker and his team are serious about further ambition and tackling internal divisions.

 

 

[1] Čavoški, A. (2015) A post-austerity European Commission: no role for environmental policy? Environmental Politics, 24(3), pp. 501-505

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Dorota Dakowska and Robert Harmsen

Why are Central and Eastern European countries said to be particularly exposed to European and international organizations? How did the Bologna Process become a central reference in many domestic reform projects in the region?  This special issue of the European Journal of Higher Education (Volume 5, Issue 1, 2015) aims to refine our understanding of higher education (HE) transformations in a post-authoritarian context. It further contributes to debates on Europeanization and policy transfer in the field.

 

This special issue brings together an international and interdisciplinary team of contributors.  Particular attention is focused on the different actors, who appropriate international norms in the cause of domestic reform, or conversely develop strategies of resistance.  The range of national and thematic case studies included, spanning both EU member states and the wider post-Soviet area, allows for the drawing of a comparatively broad-based portrait of both the ‘uses’ and the ‘users’ of international norms in domestic debates. 

 

Central and Eastern European countries may adopt different positions facing European HE policies. Some of them eagerly adopt European policy prescriptions, while others prefer a more selective approach. In any case, the Bologna Process and the European Higher Education Area are noticed, debated or even integrated in domestic political games. This being said, Europe is neither the only nor necessarily the main external reference in these countries. The interplay between the different external factors and actors is also highlighted in this issue.

 

Background

The special issue derives from an international research collaboration, launched with a conference organised at the University of Luxembourg in November 2010 and continued with a two-year research and training project funded by the Interdisciplinary Centre for Studies and Research on Germany (CIERA): ‘Rebuilding Academia: The Transformations of Central-East European Universities since 1989’ (2011-2013). The current issue derives from a workshop held in Strasbourg in 2013 (‘Bologna and Beyond: Experts, Entrepreneurs, Users and the Internationalisation of Higher Education Institutions’). Further collaborative work was made possible owing to the funding secured through the Strasbourg School of European Studies ‘Excellence project’ and the University of Luxembourg’s ‘Global-Uni’ project (2013-16).

 

Inside the Central European Academic Laboratory

In the introductory article Dorota Dakowska and Robert Harmsen deal with higher education (HE) transformations in Central and Eastern Europe in the context of democratization and globalization. The authors briefly survey the wider canvas of reform since 1989, probing the extent to which the countries of the region may be treated as a distinctive or a cohesive group. Diverging experiences with communism, international organizations and the European Union are highlighted, while attention is also focused on the differing degrees of marketization exhibited by academic systems across the countries of region. Notwithstanding their differences, the latter emerge as distinctive ‘laboratories of reform’, privileged sites for understanding the interplay of external and domestic influences in the reshaping of the HE sector. The introduction then turns to understanding the domestic mediation of the processes of Europeanization and internationalization, identifying a series of key factors broadly discussed in terms of structures, norms and actors.

 

In the first article that follows, Michael Dobbins analyses developments in Polish public higher education (HE) based on historical institutionalism and organizational isomorphism. The author argues that Polish public HE has been characterized by fragmentary state-driven attempts to inject more competition into the system and altogether relative policy inertia, despite an internal and external environment which is highly conducive to policy change and in particular marketization.

 

The second contribution, by Ligia Deca, focuses on the uses of international norms in the Romanian higher education reforms. By focusing on three phases of policy change, the author observes when, why and by whom the international influences were strategically used in Romanian public discourse on higher education reform. She draws a balance sheet across the two decades of higher education reforms in Romania to provide insights into wider problematics of reform, Europeanization and internationalization in a context of transition and peripherality.

 

In the third article, Liudvika Leisyte, Rimantas Zelvys and Lina Zenkieneexplore the implementation of selected Bologna action lines in Lithuanian higher education institutions (HEIs) from an organizational perspective. Although the Bologna process is likely to be normatively accepted by institutions in the context of high uncertainty, a phenomenon of national re-contextualization can be observed depending on the type of HEIs and the competitive horizons of academic disciplines.

 

In the fourth contribution Renáta Králiková sheds light on the domestic translation of international models basing on the Romanian and Lithuanian case of university governing boards. First, she stresses the importance of path dependent logics that go back to the transition period in the early 1990s. Second, she confirms that actors’ perceptions of institutions influence policy translation.

 

The fifth article written by Olga Gille-Belova, deals with the case of Belarus, which challenges the limits of the European Higher Education Area as the country is the only one that had at the time of writing not been accepted to join the Bologna Process. The contribution examines the strategic uses of the Bologna Process. The initial refusal of the Belarusian application reveals a complex interplay between the increasing importance of ‘technical’ criteria inside the EHEA and EU external policy considerations.

 

In her concluding comments Martina Vukasovic identifies a number of transversal themes and highlights the interplay between international, European and domestic influences on national policy changes. She then sketches a research agenda, outlines a theoretical framework and suggests topics for further research.

 

 

Dorota Dakowska is Professor of Political Science at the University of Lyon 2. She has published on EU Eastern Enlargement, German and European political foundations and the Europeanization of Polish Higher Education. Her current research project deals with the international dimension of academic reforms in Central and Eastern Europe.

 

Robert Harmsen is Professor of Political Science at the University of Luxembourg, where he directs the Master in European Governance. He has published extensively in the areas of European Politics and Public Policy, and is an editor of the Brill/Rodopi European Studies series.  His publications include Debating Europe (Nomos, 2011; co-edited with Joachim Schild).

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What a difference a summer makes. Only last June the Evening Standard’s front page lauded that Britain’s support for continued membership of the European Union was the highest ever. Yesterday, the Mail on Sunday’s front page turned that around, with a poll showing that for the first time most British people want to quit the EU.

The Mail cited the ‘migrant crisis engulfing the continent’ as a major reason for Britain’s change of direction on the contentious EU in/out issue. According to this latest poll, if a referendum was to be held tomorrow on whether Britain should remain a member of the EU, 51% of people would vote, ‘No’.

It means that the nation is pretty much split down the middle. Not ‘one nation’ as the new Conservative government promised the country, but clearly two nations almost exactly evenly divided on whether Britain’s future should be in the European Union or not.

In last June’s poll by Ipso Mori, 75% of British people were in favour of Britain’s continued membership of the EU, with only 25% wanting to leave. The poll meant that support for the EU was at its highest at the beginning of the summer since the European Community was renamed the European Union in 1993.

The Independent newspaper commentated then, “The latest poll will alarm Eurosceptic campaigners as the Government raises the prospect of an early EU referendum.”

Now, as the summer draws to a close, it’s the turn of pro-EU campaigners to feel alarmed. In the latest poll, by pollsters Survation, the gap between those who want to stay in the EU and those who want to leave has dramatically narrowed from 75/25 in favour to 51/49 against. The poll also revealed that if the “current migration crisis gets worse”, 22% in the ‘Yes’ to European camp might switch sides.

Commented today’s Mail on the latest poll, “Significantly, it is the first measure of public opinion since the Government changed the wording of the referendum question, lending weight to the claims that the new phrasing boosts the chances of victory for the Out campaign.”

Last May the new Conservative government announced that the referendum question would be, “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union?”

But following advice from the UK’s Electoral Commission, the referendum question is now going to be amended to, “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?” It means that instead of a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answer, voters will be asked to answer ‘remain’ or ‘leave’.

The Survation poll was the first one which gauged the public’s opinion in response to the new referendum question.

It’s thought likely that the referendum will be held this time next year, and since the mood of the nation has changed so dramatically over the summer, it might yet change again in the space of twelve months. So both the ‘remain’ and ‘leave’ campaigners have all to play for. It’s likely to be one of the most hotly contested political campaigns in living memory.

Leaving the European Union is a right of every member; no country was forced to join the European Union and all members are free to leave. The rules of leaving are set out in the Treaty of European Union Article 50.

If Britain does decide to leave the European Union, it will be the first time that a member state will have left, although in 1975 Greenland left by default when it won independence from Community member Denmark. In a subsequent referendum, Greenland voted against membership.

Britain’s departure wouldn’t happen overnight as there would be a period of ‘exit’ negotiations which could take up to two years, although commentators believe that there would be many more years of uncertainty on a wide range of issues.

For example, what would be the status of EU migrants living in Britain and British migrants living across the EU? There have been plenty of suggestions, but nobody yet can know for sure because negotiations to leave haven’t taken place.

Also, Britain’s trade agreements that are currently ‘legislated through the European Union would have to be individually re-negotiated with each of the world’s countries. Regarding ‘free trade’ that Britain currently enjoys with the rest of the EU, in theory that would be lost upon leaving the EU and we may be back to customs duties and import/export tariffs.

UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, is currently negotiating with other EU heads of states to agree changes to Britain’s membership of the EU, including a proposal to curtail ‘free movement of people’, a core tenet of the EU that gives all EU citizens the right to live, work, study or retire in any other EU or EEA state.

Today the Mail reported that relations between Mr Cameron and Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, were not exactly getting closer. According to a new book being serialised by the paper, ‘Cameron at 10’ by Anthony Seldon and Peter Snowdon, Merkel accused Cameron at a private dinner at 10 Downing Street of being ‘too forceful’ in demanding concessions from the rest of the EU.

She is reported to have told the Prime Minister that was why, “we all hate you and isolate you”. Mr Cameron was reported to have responded, “I could walk away from the EU.”

With probably a year to go before the referendum, both the ‘remain’ and ‘leave’ campaigns are limbering up for a blistering, all-out fight. The referendum is likely to be the defining moment for all those allowed to vote – which will not include most citizens here from the rest of the EU, but will include citizens with leave-to-remain in the UK from Britain’s ex colonies. The outcome of the referendum will affect the country’s future for decades or maybe hundreds of years to come.

Unless something dramatically occurs to change my mind by the day of the referendum, I will be voting for Britain to ‘remain’ in the European Union.

But I do think it’s important that both sides of the argument are carefully listened to. The issue is too important for anybody to answer the question, “should we stay or should we go?” without careful consideration of all the implications.

Other articles by Jon Danzig:

• The value of being citizens of Europe
• The referendum – who can and can’t vote?
• We should stay in the EU says Virgin boss

To receive regular updates on this and other ongoing stories, please click the ‘Like’ button on my new Facebook page: Jon Danzig Writes

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Following the financial crisis of 2007/2008 and initial attempts to stimulate the economy through increased government spending, austerity has become a dominant narrative in many developed nations. Government spending has been significantly reduced in a number of European countries, as part of efforts to reduce both public deficits and debts. After several years of such austerity measures, what has been the impact of this policy approach on the environment.

In the short-term, the financial crisis has resulted in a reduction in the production of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. However, the development of austerity policies which tend to favour the economy at the cost of the environment, combined with a reduction in the ambition of policies designed to protect the environment, are likely to result in significant environmental damage over the medium-to-long-term. Attempts to understand the impacts of austerity on the environment have barely scratched the surface so far. Vital questions remain unanswered: What measures are most useful for measuring the existence of austerity? How has austerity altered environmental policy? Have the environmental policy approaches of different European states differed in response to austerity? A forthcoming panel at the UACES (University Association for Contemporary European Studies) Annual Conference seeks preliminary answers to these very questions.

Taking place on the 7th of September 2015 and hosted in the stunning city of Bilbao, Spain, this panel will develop conceptual debates and examine recent empirical studies on European cases to assess the lasting legacy of austerity on the planet. The panel is chaired by Dr. Charlotte Burns of the University of York, who recently secured funding for three years to examine the impact of austerity on European environmental policy.

The panel begins with a paper by Viviane Gravey, investigating 20 years of attempts to dismantle EU environmental policies. Building on policy dismantling studies, her paper asks what could drive European actors to target the EU’s “green acquis”, and analyses the strategies EU actors deploy in order to cut policies in a highly consensual political system. It provides an historical background to the panel discussions, highlighting how calls to cut policies and remove policy proposals predate austerity. The paper argues that these repeated calls for dismantling have had broad effects – affecting existing policies, how proposals are produced and the culture of the Commission as a whole – paving the way for austerity at EU level.

From here, Paul Tobin and Charlotte Burns seek to answer the question, ‘how do we measure the impact of austerity on the environment?’ Their paper assesses whether budgetary amendments, institutional alterations, and both qualitative and quantitative changes to legislation can be possible impact indicators, finding that a triangulated approach which encompasses a variety of methods would enable the best assessment of austerity’s influence. From here, the co-authors provide the latest findings from three months of elite interviews in Brussels, identifying a change of narrative that has occurred with the selection of the new, pro-austerity EU Commission led by Jean-Claude Juncker. This new narrative of ‘jobs and growth’ has given the EU a new niche with which to build credibility amongst European citizens, but appears to have developed to the detriment of the EU’s former identity as an environmental pioneer.

Having assessed changes at the EU level, John Karamichas’s paper examines the impact of austerity at the nation-state level, focussing on the case studies of Greece and the UK. Greece has been at the centre of austerity politics in Europe since the financial crisis, acting as the clearest example of ‘austerity by imposition’ by an external actor, in this case, the troika of the IMF, European Commission and European Central Bank. The UK, on the other hand, has pursued austerity economics for ideological purposes as a result of its centre-right government.  The paper argues that regardless of the two states’ differences prior to the adoption of austerity measures, they have both entered a downward spiral where economic growth has become completely disengaged from environmental parameters.

Finally, the paper by Duncan Russel and David Benson focuses further on the UK situation. Their paper examines how green budgeting can be used as a means of stimulating sluggish economies. Here, competing discourses within environmental politics seek to minimise the impact of austerity politics by rival political institutions. By using veto player perspectives, the authors show how rival environmental policy discourses are used in bargaining games to minimize the impact of austerity politics by rival political institutions pursing their wider policy goals.

By demonstrating the development of austerity politics in Europe, establishing a methodology with which to understand the phenomenon and exploring two case studies, this panel promises to shine a spotlight on an otherwise neglected – but hugely important – contemporary issue in European politics.

 

 

 

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(Photo: L’Equipe)

Over the last twenty years ‘Europeanisation’ has become a key concept in European Studies, almost a research field of its own. The current meaning of the term must have been introduced around 1994 in a seminal JCMS article by Robert Ladrech (possible that there are some earlier occurrences that I am unaware of). Prior to this rather recent semantic shift, ‘Europeanisation’, both in its English and French version, was a term used mainly in the 19th century, in contexts of cultural hegemony. The Oxford English Dictionary of 1989, for instance, defines it at ‘to make European in appearance, form, habit, or mode of life’ and cites some literary quotes concerning the ‘Europeanisation’ of India, Egypt or Japan.

I was therefore quite surprised to bump into it in a newspaper article dated 5 September 1955. The text in question is the report on the first football match of a pan-European club competition, known then as ‘The European Champions Clubs Cup’ and today as ‘The Champions League’. At the end of his match analysis in L’Equipe, the French sports daily who was behind the whole idea of this competition, Gabriel Hanot expressed his fear that ‘national competitions might be sacrificed to the Europeanisation of football’.

Funny enough, the ‘Europeanisation of football’ has now become a serious object of study. And the fear that the Champions League might one day eclipse all other competitions and become a closed league of ‘super-clubs’ is still regularly voiced today. In 1955, the match between Sporting Portugal and Partizan Belgrade (final score: 3-3) was of interest to insiders only. Major media did not care at all. In comparison, the space devoted last week across all media in France, Germany, Britain or Spain, to an event as secondary as the simple draw for the first round group stage gives testimony to the degree this Europeanisation of the football horizon has reached.

One aspect of the match in question deserves to be mentioned in particular: the fact that in its very first official game the European Cup was able to cross Cold War borders and bring together a team from the Western edge of the Continent with one from behind the Iron Curtain. Salazar’s Portugal and Tito’s Yugoslavia did not even have diplomatic relations, which complicated the travelling (the Partizan players had to insert a stop-over in Paris) but by no means prevented the match from taking place. For the Cup’s organisers, it went without saying that Central and Eastern Europe needed to be present in this new competition, and besides Partizan, teams from Budapest and Warsaw also competed (Dynamo Moscow had declined the invitation, apparently for meteorological reasons).

Today we’re in a miniature Cold War again, with Russia and the EU imposing sanctions on each other. France will have to reimburse around a billion Euros to Russia for not delivering the two Mistral war ships it had already built on command of the Russian marine. But that will not keep Paris Saint-Germain from travelling to Donezk (of all places) this autumn to play their Champions League game against Chaktior, while Olympique Lyon will play Zenith Saint Petersburg.

But as in 1955, football somehow manages to ignore the political circumstances. It pursues its own Europeanisation agenda, kicked off in Lisbon exactly sixty years ago.

Albrecht Sonntag,
The EU-Asia Centre at ESSCA School of Management, Angers

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Let’s now turn to some efforts to, and ways to categorize or describe a taxonomy of organizations. One way is to look at their geographic scope. Some organizations are global in scope. Of course, the United Nations is global in scope. How many member states do we have in the United Nations today? If you said 193, you would be correct. From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe there are presently 193 member states of the United Nations. Of course, other organizations are global in scope. The specialized agencies, like the World Health Organization, or the Food and Agriculture Organization, or the World Food Program, or the World Trade Organization. International organizations like International Committee for the Red Cross and the Red Crescent, are also global in scope.

Other organizations are regional. We think of ASEAN, or the European Union or the African Union, for example. There are even subregional international organizations. Such as ECOWAS, the political subregional organization covering west and parts of central Africa. Or the Mekong Group, or the Southern African Development Community. The annual yearbook of international organizations lists more than 200 international organizations, ranging in size from three, like the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, to organizations with hundreds of members.

What then do we consider to be a definition of international organization? You may wish to develop a view of your own on what you think is an appropriate view, because it’s not black and white, and there are options for interpretation. In fact, there as many definitions of international organizations, almost, as there are such organizations. The OECD, the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, itself an international organization, puts forth really, a very narrow definition of international organizations. And I quote, international organizations are entities established by formal political agreements between their members, that have the status of international treaties. Their existence is recognized by the law in their member countries and they are not treated as resident, institutional units of the countries in which they are located, end quote. Let’s look at another definition, one that considers international organizations to be those whose members have at least three states, that have activities in several states, and whose members are held together by a formal intergovernmental agreement. Many commentators consider such an inter-governmental agreement to be an essential quality, an essential characteristic of an international organization. A sine qua non, if you will, of being in the category of international organizations.

International organizations are recognized subjects of international law, and have a separate legal standing from their member states or other members. Why do I say member states or other members? Because, over time, international organizations have evolved and some have become more inclusive.

So, the governance of international organizations has evolved over time and we’ll look at that in a little bit. A simple, broader, more inclusive definition of international organization would be something like an organization with an international membership, an international scope, or an international presence. And we can think of two main types or categories of international organization.

The first, inter-governmental organizations. Most closely associated with the term international organization, and these are those that are made up primarily of sovereign states. And examples, as I said, include the United Nations, the specialized agencies of the United Nations, the OSCE, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Council of Europe, the European Union, as I mentioned earlier, the African Union, other regional bodies.

The second major type of international organization is, of course, international non governmental organizations. Those that are usually non-profit. And examples include so many around the world and here in Geneva. The International Scouting Movement, the International Committee of the Red Cross.  We should note also, that intergovernmental organizations are usually considered public in nature. While NGOs fall into the category of private organizations. We of course, are not today addressing or including in our discussion, other kinds of entities that have an international presence. Coca Cola, Toyota, other multinational corporations are certainly present in villages, towns and cities all around the world, in more than what we think of as international organizations.Let me also note that a number of governments codify the definition of international organizations in their own domestic law, in their own domestic statutes. But let’s turn back again to the methodologies for thinking about or classifying international organizations.

We spoke already about geographic scope. Another basis for classifying, in our taxonomy of international organizations, is the purpose of the organization. Is the purpose general, like the United Nations or the Organization of American States? Is it specific, like specialized agencies of the United Nations? The founders of the UN envisaged that functional agencies would play key roles and carry out key activities, for example, in economic and social development. Indeed, the Charter, Articles 57 and 63 call for affiliations of the UN, with various organizations that are established by separate international agreements to deal with particular issues. Such as health, the World Health Organization. Or food, the World Food Program. Or science, education and culture, UNESCO. Or refugees, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Or economic and social development, such as the UN Development Program, or the World Bank, or the International Monetary Fund. It’s very interesting how the purposes of these organizations have evolved over time since their creation.

What are the functions of international organizations? Informational, gathering, analyzing, disseminating data. Providing a forum for exchange of views and decision making. Normative functions, defining standards of conduct or of service. Rule creating, such as drafting legally binding treaties. Operational functions, allocating resources, providing technical assistance and relief, deploying forces. And dispute resolution, settling criminal or civil claims. Of course, some organizations can have many, or all of these functions.

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Beverly Barrett

Last week we convened in Montreal, Canada for the 9th general conference of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), which took place from 26-29 August at University of Montreal.  This was the first general conference of the ECPR to take place outside of Europe, and the francophone region of Quebec welcomed participants from around the world. The conference program included 59 sections, 372 panels and 1430 papers.

 

Panel on Ideas in the Global Governance of Knowledge (Photo credit: Mari Elken)

The Global Governance of Knowledge Policies: Europe of Knowledge in Context was the title of the Section 54. This section was organized by the UACES’s European Research Area – Collaborative Research Network (ERA-CRN) and co-chaired by Meng-Hsuan Chou (Nanyang Technological University in Singapore) and Mitchell Young (Charles University in Prague) who facilitated the nine panels among research and higher education policy scholars.

 

Mitchel Young and Meng-Hsuan Chou (Photo credit: Mari Elken)

An overview of some of the panel topics includes Regionalism and multi-level governance of higher education and research.  This panel made comparisons between the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) of the Bologna Process and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) higher education policies on degree compatibility, quality assurance, and recognition of degrees.  Global collaboration and competition in science, technology and innovation addressed international initiatives for research policy across countries in Europe and beyond.

 

The panel Researching the governance of knowledge policies: methodological and conceptual challenges made further comparisons among countries engaging in research innovation and explored ways to avoid methodological nationalism.  The panel Trade agreements and the supranational shaping of knowledge policies discussed the progress of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations while explaining the relationship to the services sector of higher education. Themes on higher education governance, international cooperation in education, and research policies were dominant throughout the session over three days. All panels were well-attended and led to lively, high-quality discussions.

 

ERA CRN lunch meeting (Photo credit: Mari Elken)

Next year the 10th general conference of the ECPR will take place in Prague, Czech Republic at Charles University from September 7 to 10, 2016.  We welcome scholars at various stages in their careers to participate in the ECPR and the ERA-CRN workshops and activities in the future. At the moment the network is preparing an application for the ECPR Standing Group ‘Politics of Higher Education, Research, and Innovation’; if you would like to join, please sign up here.

 

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Some of the media seem to be in a state of panic this week with the news that the number of foreign-born people living in Britain has reached 8 million, and net migration to the  UK has reached record levels.

So what’s the big deal here?

Not all those born abroad can be described as ‘foreigners’, contrary to the alarmist reports splashed in newspapers such as The Express, The Telegraph and the Daily Mail.

For example, London Mayor and Conservative MP, Boris Johnson, was born in the USA. Ashes winning cricketer, Ben Stokes, was born in New Zealand.

Actress Emma Watson was born in France. Mo Farrah, Olympic gold medallist for Britain, was born in Somalia. Actress Joanna Lumley was born in India. And the Queen’s husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, was born in Greece… to mention just a few.

In any case, why does it matter? Where we live is surely more important than where we’ve come from.

We have all arrived from a long ancestral journey that spanned the planet for tens of thousands of years. We are, actually, all descended from migrants.

But it’s not only the record number of foreign-born residents in Britain that has been targeted as ‘bad news’ by much of the media and many politicians this week. The word ‘migration’ now seems to have become toxic. So also presented as ‘bad news’ this week was the report that net migration to the country reached a new record high in the year to March 2014, with 330,000 more migrants coming to the UK than left.

This was reported as presenting a big headache for UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, because he had promised to bring down ‘net migration’ to tens of thousands from the current level of hundreds of thousands.

But why is migration here considered such a terrible thing? Instead, the record numbers of people wanting to come to Britain could be celebrated as a huge success story.

The fact is that most migrants come to Britain to work or study – and that’s primarily what they do. Most migrants who come to work in Britain are in gainful employment, making significant net contributions to our treasury and helping the British economy to thrive.

And those migrants coming here to study are contributing billions to the running costs of our colleges and universities – foreign revenue which those educational establishments very much need, and which the wider community also benefits from through extra spending by foreign students.

The reason so many migrants are currently coming here to work is because the British economy is doing so well compared to other European countries – resulting in many new vacancies being created which cannot simply be filled by those unfortunate to be registered as unemployed.

Benefit tourism? Where’s the evidence for that? The proportion of migrants claiming benefits is considerably lower than for British citizens. Three times the European Commission asked the British government for evidence of so-called ‘benefit tourism’ by EU migrants coming to work in the UK. Three times the British government failed to provide any.

And migration is not a one-way trip. Many British people also migrate to other countries mostly for the exact same reason that migrants mostly come here: to work. Britain is the biggest exporter of people to the rest of Europe, and the world’s third biggest exporter of people across the planet.

Isn’t it a bit odd that people in Britain should consider migration here to be such a bad thing, when British people make fuller use of ‘free movement of people’ across Europe than any other EU nationality?

And another thing: many migrants quoted as coming to Britain were actually British people returning home from living abroad. How many newspapers reported that?

The British government has pledged to reduce net migration to less than 100,000. Why? I cannot find any economic reasons for such a policy. And in the absence of an economic reason, what other reason could there be to want to reduce migration to the country? Could it simply be that the government has been responding to an irrational fear and dislike of foreigners?

Has anyone actually considered that reducing net migration to Britain to less than 100,000 might make the country – and all of us – poorer? Do we really want to deter workers and students coming to the UK who are making such a significant contribution to our economy?

Rather than continually trying and failing to stem the flow of natural and legal migration here in pursuit of jobs and studies, wouldn’t it be more cost effective for the government to invest considerably more in our infrastructure, such as homes, schools and hospitals? In that way, the residents of Great Britain – of whatever nationality – could be properly accommodated, allowing them to get on with what most of us want to do: work or study.

Other articles by Jon Danzig:

• Eurosceptic plan to stop Brits retiring to Spain
• Fact: Most migrants come to work or study
• The free movement of people: it works both ways

To receive regular updates on this and other ongoing stories, please click the ‘Like’ button on my new Facebook page: Jon Danzig Writes

_________________________________________________________

When I ask racists if they believe the descendants of immigrants should ‘go home’, they invariably reply, ‘Yes’. Watch the video to hear my withering response. (1 minute):

Click here to view the embedded video.

Media in panic because 8 million foreign-born live in Britain. So what? See my Facebook post: http://t.co/QfDdquebx5pic.twitter.com/suEOToSbFN

— Jon Danzig (@Jon_Danzig) August 28, 2015

Click here to view the embedded video.

The post Why is Britain so against migration? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The European Union very often likes to remind us that it is a community of values – solidarity, non-discrimination, human rights, and so on. This is all very well but, as Khrushchev once reminded Marxist enthusiasts in the Politburo, you cannot simply put theory into your soup. The question therefore is, what do these values mean in practice?

European citizenship is perhaps an area that raises eyebrows on all sides: it confuses eurocrats, while EU citizens merely understand its meaning beyond having the same coloured passport, or the right to vote in the European Elections, including in Member States they might be residing that are other than their own. Consular assistance to EU citizens is, however, one area that clearly deserves more publicity than it is given. Why? Well, numbers speak for themselves: according to the Commission, 90 million EU citizens travel annually outside the EU, of which 7 million travel or work in third countries where their Member State has no consulate or an embassy. Now, with a new Council Directive in place, this under-estimated but extremely important (and, it is safe to say, sensitive) area of European cooperation deserves a few words from an analyst who has been following its development now for a number of years.

Although consular cooperation in one form or another has been in existence since the Single European Act (1986), it was the Maastricht Treaty that explicitly stipulated that ‘every citizen of the Union shall, in the territory of a third country in which the Member State of which he or she is a national is not represented, be entitled to protection by the diplomatic or consular authorities of any Member State, on the same conditions as the nationals of that Member State’.

In 1995 the Council agreed on a Directive (95/553/EC) which included basic provisions on issues such as stolen passports, detention, victims of crime and repatriation. The Directive, however, was not ratified by Member States’ legislatures until after the September 11 Attacks in the US brought the security of EU citizens abroad high on the agenda.

The post-9/11 debate opened two big questions. Firstly, string of man-made and natural disasters (Asian Tsunami, Bali bombings, Mumbai bombings or the 2006 war in Lebanon) shifted a focus on cooperation to post-disaster response, such as immediate humanitarian relief and repatriation away from the disaster area.

With lack of coordination between Member States (for example, planes carrying aid South East Asia in the wake of the 2004 tsunami have been accused of flying back to the EU empty), the Civil Protection Mechanism within the European Commission’s Directorate General for Humanitarian Aid & Civil Protection (DG ECHO) was re-organised to provide support in case of consular emergencies. This included a monitoring centre, and the possible dispatching of EU-funded transport and medevac planes.

Secondly, from 2006 and, in particular, from the coming into effect of the Treaty of Lisbon, further debate emerged on the possibilities of shared or even EU consulates in EU delegations. When the European External Action Service (EEAS) was created, a Consular Crisis Unit was put together in order to create a monitoring centre and work on possible EU-level synergies.

True, EU delegations (also backed up by the EEAS’ inherited Consular Online communication system) have provided armoured buses to evacuate 100 EU citizens from Gaza in 2009, and in March 2011 the EU Delegation in Tripoli provided important assistance on the ground to Member States’ evacuation efforts, as well as the Civil Protection Mechanism’s sponsored flight.

However, the possibility of the EEAS and its Delegations abroad to receive any formals role in consular assistance remained wishful thinking. The fact of the matter was that (except for obvious legal challenges) the EEAS continuous to have neither the funding nor the expertise to provide such service. Delegations abroad continue to be the reflection of their former past in DG RELEX, and their staff work on technical projects, rather than being representatives as in the case of national embassies or consulates. Quite frankly, the setting up of fore-mentioned monitoring centre within the EEAS was a useless duplication that Catherine Ashton sought to unsuccessfully address through a merger with DG ECO structures.

Further, while Member States continue to wrestle with falling foreign ministry budgets, very few have been prepared to give up sovereignty over an area where the foreign ministries have direct access with the public. Nevertheless, through the period, and as was reflected in the lengthy negotiations over the new Directive, financing remained a big issue.

Bigger Member States, in particular, became increasingly afraid that they will bear much of the burden of ‘open access’ consular assistance. Some Member States, including the United Kingdom, refused to formally accept consular assistance as a ‘right’ of EU citizens (despite it being enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU), but merely an ‘entitlement’, stipulating neither the minimum nor maximum level of protection a Member State consulate is obliged to provide.

Not surprisingly, the new Directive reflects this pain-staking development. Firstly, the consultation was launched by the Commission in 2006 and a proposal to the Council and the European Parliament was only published in November 2011. The Directive was eventually concluded in April of 2015, and a long road of ratification in Member States is expected.

At the same time, the Directive sees a shift from the debates of the previous decade; speculations about the role of the EEAS and its network of Delegations have been put to rest. Enthusiasts of a truly European diplomatic and consular service (including the former French foreign minister and EU Commissioner Michel Barnier) will be disappointed to find a mere supporting role of the EEAS, including provisions for providing relevant information on their rights to EU citizens, and organising local consular cooperation.

The Civil Protection Mechanism has clearly been highlighted as an important tool to be used in crisis situations. However the Mechanism’s most important input is the financial reimbursement mechanism, which the Hungarian Presidency used in March 2011 to dispatch a plane to Tripoli. In practice, however, dispatching and coordination of transport or consular teams remains more practical on the Member State level, where a designated Lead State is responsible in particular third country, without the necessity to community back and forth with Brussels.

Finally, financing was solved two-fold. Firstly, an EU citizen cannot be charged for assistance by a consulate more than the citizens of the Member State assisting them. Secondly, if costs cannot be paid immediately, the Member State of his or her nationality will pay the costs incurred, but only once the citizen signs an undertaking to repay such costs to his or her Member State upon safe return.

The question then remains, was this low-profile Council Directive part of a long-term strategy or a vision, or did it symbolise a loss of interest in cooperation? In short, there is no loss of interest, but grand ideas are missing. Michel Barnier will clearly not see his vision of EU consulates fulfilled any time soon, nor will we necessarily see EU-hatted rescue teams appearing too often.

The Directive is, however, an important step in clearing up a technical mine field. The 95/553/EC Directive was vague and opened more questioned than it helped to answer. That the new Directive has 14 detailed pages, in comparison to 4, is a testament to this. They are not 14 pages of delightful bed-time reading that will stand proudly on one’s book shelf, but they are 14 pages of important details that help to pave a way towards a better organised cooperation in the next decade.

Grand visions might be buried for now, but a more practical framework has been created instead. Writing this piece in a day dominated by terrorist attacks in France, Tunisia, Kuwait and conflicts across the globe, providing better protection to EU citizens has never been more important. That this new Directive has not been given a fanfare is more a testament to the EU’s awful ability to communicate with the citizens, than its capacity to provide a better managed system to save and protect well-beings of those travelling further and farther.

It is a welcomed decision that deserves a better recognition but, nevertheless, a telling reflection of our ability to create a Europe serving its citizens and, perhaps, making people proud of their burgundy-coloured passports. Overall, a positive conclusion for a debut article!

Igor Merheim-Eyre

This piece was originally published in the Vocal International (July 7, 2015)

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I have been crossing the river Rhine north of Strasbourg between Iffezheim (Germany) and Roppenheim (France) for as long as my driving licence can remember. In the late 70s and early 80s, passport control and the usual question whether there was anything to declare were part of the ritual (although in a much more relaxed manner than on the checkpoints on the border to Eastern Germany…).

Some years later the border guards were still there but they did not control anybody any more, except some suspect lorries. There were no barriers any more either. What remained, though, was the habit, on the way back, to get rid of your last French Francs in small shops in unlikely places like Soufflenheim, Roeschwoog or Bischwiller. It was only logical that at the beginning of the 1990s, when the guards had left, their post was temporarily turned into a small money exchange house.

Former border post near Roppenheim, August 2015.

Obviously, once the Euro had come, even the exchange house had no reason of being any more. Since then, the building has been waiting, shutters down, in a kind of wasteland nearby a roundabout where mother nature has taken over.

For more than a decade it did not seem to have a future. But who knows? Now that daily news from the refugee drama that is taking place between Lampedusa and Calais are putting the border issue centre stage again, it has become fashionable among politicians across Europe to put the Schengen agreement into question again and ask for tougher border controls. Clearly the tide has turned since the 1980s when the abolition of borders was celebrated as a civilizational progress and a logical step in the process of European integration.

This is not surprising. The control of territorial borders is a central component of the legitimacy of the classical nation-state. Losing this control – even if on a voluntary basis – is by definition a wound to sovereignty, a phantom pain that fear mongers of all political colours may reactivate any time. It is most likely that in the current circumstances speaking out publicly against Schengen will become (of it has not already) a compulsory rhetorical figure in electoral campaigns in many member states.

While unlikely for the time being, it cannot be totally ruled out that in my driving licence’s lifetime systematic border controls may be reintroduced along the Rhine. If Schengen was to be dismantled, why should Roppenheim be different from Calais?

‘The Style Outlets’ Roppenheim: clearly ‘designed to provide you with a unique and unforgettable shopping experience’. Postal address: 1, route de l’Europe.

A nightmare vision for many, especially for all the commuters and travellers between Iffezheim and Roppenheim. If they have recently started to slow down again on the border, it is not (yet) in order to show their passports, but rather their credit cards in the posh factory outlet village that was built right next to the abandoned border post (where ‘more than 100 must-have brands offer you a minimum of -30% off’).

Might as well benefit from the single market as long as it lasts.

Albrecht Sonntag, EU-Asia Institute, ESSCA School of Management.
A French version of this blog can be found here.

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Meng-Hsuan Chou

In July 2015, UACES’s (The Academic association for contemporary European studies) European Research Area collaborative research network (CRN) held its second workshop at the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) in Cambridge. Knowledge policies continue to be at the forefront of contemporary global politics. There is an accepted belief among policymakers that knowledge is the foundation on which societies coalesce and economies thrive. Indeed, the competition for knowledge can be said to be driving the global race for talent. Building on the theme of the CRN’s first workshop, which explored the diverse roles of the ‘four I’s’ – ideas, interests, instruments and institutions in the ‘knowledge area building exercise’, this workshop invited contributions to examine the politics of knowledge policies in Europe and beyond.

 

ERA CRN workshop participants (From left: Hannes Hansen-Magnusson, Julie Smith, Inga Ulnicane, Mari Elken, Luis Sanz-Menendez, Laura Cruz-Castro, Pauline Ravinet, Peter Erdelyi, Hannah Moscovitz; Seated: Meng-Hsuan Chou and Mitchell Young) (Photo credit: Mari Elken)

Opening the session on ‘International policies, norms and knowledge policies’, Hannes Hansen-Magnusson (University of Hamburg) proposed a way to account for knowledge in practices of responsibility. In this co-authored paper (with Antje Wiener and Antje Vetterlein), he argued that researchers should uncover meso-level norms in order to ‘increase long-term sustainable normativity under conditions of globalisation’.

 

Is education policy an ‘internal consolidator or foreign policy vehicle? Amelia Hadfield (Canterbury Christ Church University) and Robert Summerby-Murray (Saint Mary’s University) asked. Using the EU and Canada as their examples, they highlighted how education policy has been co-opted to serve multiple purposes—as the modus operandi for cultivating notions of statehood and belonging, and as an extension to others of prevailing national cultural norms and understanding.

 

Turning to the session on ‘Regions and the re-configuration of knowledge policy areas: Examples from Canada, Europe and South East Asia’, Hannah Moscovitz (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev) compared how Quebec and Wallonia used higher education as a tool for identity promotion. She found that their approaches were distinct: whereas Quebec used knowledge policies to consolidate and foster its distinct identity, Wallonia used higher education policies as a promotional tool (the image of ‘Wallonia-Brussels’) to place itself on the global higher education map.

 

Pauline Ravinet (Photo credit: Mari Elken)

Offering another comparative perspective, Meng-Hsuan Chou (NTU Singapore) and Pauline Ravinet (Université Lille 2) discussed the rise of what they called ‘higher education regionalisms’ around the world. They showed how the supranational and national policy actors in Europe and South East Asia articulated their ambitions to establish common higher education areas in similar ways, but ultimately they adopt very different institutional arrangements for achieving their goals. Chou and Ravinet argued that there are varieties of ‘higher education regionalisms’ around the world and encouraged researchers to examine them empirically.

 

In the session ‘Studying Europe’s open labour market for researchers’, Inga Ulnicane (University of Vienna) presented the research design for a study for on the European Research Area. Her study will combine academic research and published studies to identify the shortcomings and gaps in priority areas of the ERA such as effective national research systems and transnational cooperation and competition.

 

Peter Erdelyi (Photo credit: Mari Elken)

In the penultimate session—‘Knowledge policy instrumentation: from failure to reform?’—Péter Erdélyi (Bournemouth University) discussed the rise and fall of UK’s Business Link, a policy instrument the government adopted for furthering its knowledge economy. In this co-authored paper (with Edgar Whitley), he showed the implementation challenges associated with Business Link the UK government faced in its attempts to address market failures impeding the growth of SMEs.

 

Examining the relationship between ideas and instruments, Mitchell Young (Charles University in Prague) argued that policy instruments embed politics. Using the cases of the new Swedish and Czech performance-based funding tools, along with EU’s framework programmes, he showed how studying policy instruments reveal the ideas and narratives steering politics.

 

Is there standardisation in higher education? Mari Elken (NIFU and University of Oslo) asked. Taking the case of the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) and its subsequent translation through National Qualifications Framework (NQF), she showed how the EQF has generated standardisation pressures across Europe. The most surprising element, Elken revealed, has been the voluntary nature of the instrument.

 

Closing the workshop with the session ‘The institutional design and implementation for excellence’, Thomas König (Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna) presented three aspects concerning peer reviewing: (1) how it is defined; (2) when it entered the world of research funding; and (3) how the notion is applied in academia and research funding. He showed that peer review plays a very different role in research funding than in academia. In research funding, peer review is used to legitimise funding decisions and is greatly valued for its procedural flexibility.

 

Finally, in a co-authored paper (with Alberto Benitez-Amado), Luis Sanz-Menendez and Laura Cruz-Castro (both CSIC Institute of Public Goods and Policies) analysed the participation of Spanish universities in the European Research Council (ERC) funding calls. Studying a representative sample of eighteen universities across Spain, they found that Spanish higher education institutions did not respond to the calls in the same way. Put simply, there is no homogeneity in how Spanish universities approach ERC funding calls.

 

The European Research Area CRN would like to thank UACES and POLIS (University of Cambridge) for their generous support in the hosting of this workshop.

 

For further information: http://eracrn.wordpress.com

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Carb-loading for the autumn ahead

In these dog days of summer, there’s not much happening in the world of EU politics. Except the on-going debates on the third Greek bailout, arguments about managing asylum applicants and immigrants and the simmering British renegotiation. And the third of these is very much the least, certainly in Continental terms.

To date, the renegotiation has been very low-key: a round of visits to capitals by David Cameron, the briefest of discussions at a European Council and now more substantive talks about nuts and bolts. With most of the British principals on holiday, fighting leadership contests or generally keeping a low profile, it’s an opportunity to see some of the underlying currents more clearly.

This week’s mini-revelation was an article in the Times, claiming that former health secretary, Andrew Lansley, had told a private meeting that the government’s plan is to have a confected ‘row’ with the French, which would be ‘won’ by the British, about the time that the renegotiation was coming to a head, so that the British public could be presented with a stronger-looking package on which to vote (in September 2016, according to Lansley).

Cue much comment from those on the ‘no’ side, decrying the cynicism and the brazenness of the claims.

On the face of it, this is an odd state of affairs. Lansley is one of the more pro-EU figures in the party,  and not obviously a fool, but it’s hard to see how he couldn’t have foreseen his comments being used by others against him. Perhaps he intended his words to be comfort to his audience, in that there would be something to show for the government’s efforts, but one has to wonder.

However, whatever his intentions, the leaking of Lansley’s comments are indicative of the way this renegotiation and referendum campaign have been going.

To date, the main thrust of debate has been procedural, rather than substantive. Cameron has kept his list of objectives deliberately vague, leading to the odd situation where his actual words bear little difference to the rhetoric of reform found in other capitals or in Brussels. Consequently, different groups produce their own wishlists of reforms, but without producing any public debate, beyond that linked to specific issues in the news (most obviously immigration).

Instead, the talk has been about how things are being organised: what’s the wording of the question? what’s the franchise? what limits on campaigning will there be? what about purdah?

The reason for this is two-fold. The first, already mentioned, is that there’s little of substance to discuss. The second is the neither side has any great trust in the other. Certainly, the ‘no’ side seem to hold a genuine fear that each and every opportunity that the government and the ‘yes’ side can take to win some advantage, they will do just that.

Now, one could argue that this is all just part of the way that referenda work, especially when they are within the gift of the government. As the old (political) truism goes, you only hold a referendum when you know what the result is going to be. In this case, Cameron’s hand was forced somewhat, but that doesn’t change the basic calculation, namely that he needs to win this vote and he will do what he can to achieve that. Put like that, one could imagine a sceptical government in this position entertaining similar ideas about generating some helpful outrage as a prelude to a vote on leaving the EU. That doesn’t make it right – certainly in the eyes of voters who are already pretty disillusioned with politicians – but it does make it more understandable.

Of course, by printing Lansley’s comments, the Times has done something more cunning. It has closed down much of the benefit of the potential opportunities to create a positive story around the renegotiations. Imagine that the government does genuinely have a spat (journalese alert) with another member state, which it genuinely resolves to its advantage: even if everyone says it wasn’t contrived, it will be easy for the ‘no’ camp to point to this week’s story and say “I told you so.” In short, this is a lovely bit of political jujitsu, turning a ‘yes’ gain into a loss.

The upshot of this is that no-one is talking about the referendum as a point of resolution, but as a staging post to the next round of the debate. Short of a very substantial majority on a high turnout, the losing side will be able to claim that the vote wasn’t ‘fair’ and that they must fight on – and both sides are willing to do that.

As noted before on this blog, if that meant that there was a national debate about what the UK’s role in the world should be, then that might be alright, but so far this referendum smells of party politics and opportunism. All might well be fair in love, war and referenda, but it doesn’t address the long-term problems confronting the country or the state of democracy.

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A popular saying goes that ‘all politics is local’. While public debate on climate change often focuses on international summits and the political drama of negotiations, the real steps to address climate change will be have to be implemented at a much more local scale. Ultimately, the way we lead our lives – how we use energy, design our communities, how and how far we travel, to name but a few examples – drives our personal climate impact and that of our communities. But although scientific insights indicate that climate change impacts are much closer than one may think, many of us still envision it as a far-away problem that will affect other parts of the world in the future. [1] Unfortunately, we don’t care much about problems that will happen later and mainly to others. But we need to care. Scientists, journalists and communicators have thus turned to highlighting the local consequences of climate change – such as extreme weather events, sea level rise and the like – with the assumption that doing so will persuade people, and their policy-makers, to act. For example, in 2003, Rajendra Pachauri—then the Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—stressed that “I am aware that there is an opportunity for much political debate when you start to predict the impact of climate change on specific regions. But if you want action you must provide this information”.[2] In a recent study, we tested this assumption about the effect of local climate information empirically. Our research[3] suggests that simply highlighting local climate impacts may not be enough stimulate action and could in some cases even backfire.

In an experiment, we asked people, who live in the U.S. state of Vermont, to what extent they care about other communities/people (self-transcendent values), or their own status and power (self-enhancing values). Prior research suggests that people with self-transcendent values tend to be more concerned about environmental issues and act on them compared with their self-enhancing peers. After assessing value orientations, our study participants received information about climate change. One group[4] received information on local climate impacts (in the Vermont region), while another group received information on global climate impacts (focusing on other regions in the world – i.e., not in Vermont). A control group received no climate information. Following this stage, we asked participants how important they thought climate change was, the extent to which they were willing to make changes in their lives to reduce their personal contribution to climate change (e.g., driving less), and their support for climate policy measures. As we expected, regardless of the kind of information (global or local), participants who held a strong, versus weak, self-transcendent values were more concerned about climate change, more willing to engage in pro-environmental behaviour (such as switching to public transportation), and more supportive of climate policy. However, the focus of the climate information – local or global – greatly mattered for individuals with strong self-enhancing values. For these individuals, hearing about likely local impacts of climate change was demotivating. Instead of spurring action, hearing the local projections about increased flooding and other likely local outcomes made self-enhancing people care less than their similar self-transcendent value oriented peers who read about global outcomes.

We had expected that giving self-enhancing people information about local climate impacts that could affect their personal status (e.g., through reduced incomes in the Vermont skiing industry) would highlight the importance of climate change and thus lead to increased action. But perhaps those high in a need for status, enhancement, and power, feel particularly threatened by reading about the local impacts of climate change.  This is a reminder that any connections among caring, values, and proximity are complicated and that there is not one message that will work for everyone. However, recent research hints at approaches that could prevent this backlash. Researchers from Columbia University’s Center for Research on Environmental Decisions  found that simply asking people to consider their legacy can increase environmental concern[5].  Perhaps if we had simultaneously grounded our self-enhancing individuals in local outcomes while asking them to consider their personal legacy, our findings would have been different. Future research should further explore the effects we identified, particularly in other regions of the world. But until we have better knowledge, we would caution against simply assuming that local information frames will increase concern and action, because doing so may prove ineffective or even counter-productive with some people.

Please note: this article has also been published on Talking Climate and the Tyndall Centre‘s website.

[1] E.g., Leiserowitz, A., Maibach, E., Roser-Renouf, C., Smith, N. (2011). Global warming’s six Americas. Yale University and George Mason University.

[2] Schiermeier, Q. (2003). Climate panel to seize political hot potatoes. Nature, 421(6926), 879-879.

[3] Schoenefeld, J. J., & McCauley, M. R. (2015). Local is not always better: the impact of climate information on values, behavior and policy support. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 1-9.

[4] Group assignment was random.

[5] Zaval, L., Markowitz, E.M., & Weber, E. U. (2015). How will I be remembered? Conserving the environment for the sake of one’s legacy. Psychological Science, 26, 231-236.

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The car is important for our personal mobility; it gives you freedom and independence. In rural areas and small towns a car is necessary to be able to get around, whereas people living in cities often do not own a car as their mobility is orientated towards walking, biking or public transport within the urban environment. The following blog post explores how our choice of place to live influences our personal mobility, especially the difference between car owners and users of public transport, and our orientation towards the urban or rural.  Many of the observations are based on my personal experience as a non-car owner, which are linked to my research interests in mobility and politics of sustainable mobility.

Currently, new students across Europe are moving away from home and looking for accommodation near their universities. Roskilde University (RUC) is located 24 min by train from Copenhagen central station, although there are halls of residence available next to RUC most students prefer to live in Copenhagen because the capital offers lots of opportunities e.g. cafes, bars and shops. Some students even think the train journey from Copenhagen to RUC is too long or too expensive instead their personal mobility is orientated towards their local neighbourhood instead of their place of education.  (Please note most RUC students do come to university, my comments refer to a small minority). After graduation, some RUC students move to Roskilde[i] to live with their families because the town gives them a better quality of life compared to central Copenhagen. Throughout our lives we have different life style preferences, different use of infrastructure changes together with these stages and the choices we make about which life style we want.

Living in Roskilde; I have always seen myself as having a broad mobility horizon, yet not owning a car does limit my mobility.  I often take the train to Copenhagen to use cultural opportunities available in the capital and to visit friends. Crucially the public infrastructure mainly feed traffic between the capital and surrounding towns instead of connecting urban and rural areas. Consequently, I have neglected exploring the rural area west of Roskilde[ii], partly because it is not well connected by public transport – typical 1 bus per hour or 1 bus every 2 hour. Interestingly, when I was living in Leeds (the UK) I would often take the bus to Ilkley and go hiking in the Ilkley moors[iii], something I have missed whilst living in Roskilde for the past 3 years.  Thus I have certain mobility biases, which are shaped by my interests, social network and lack of car-ownership!

This spring a friend invited me to a fruit wine festival in Falster, which is a 2 hour drive from Roskilde. The farm can only be reached by car. In Australia, the USA or Germany people travel for several hours to watch a football match or visit friends/family. The size of Denmark makes it possible to reach most corners within a 5 hour drive, but in most countries non-car owners are restricted by availability of public transport, which mainly connects the territorial core and urban areas because it is not economic sustainable to run public transport is rural areas. Hence, due to my non-car ownership I had missed out tasting some amazing apple ciders!

It can be challenging to visit a friend if you do not have a car, unless the friend lives in an urban area with good access to public transport. It takes 24 min by car from Roskilde to visit a friend, who lives 26 km away in a small town in the rural area of Zealand (the same distance to Copenhagen city centre) yet by public transport it takes either 45 min or 1h 14 min depending on which route you take, just as there is only one connection an hour and only during the day.  It can take just as long to reach friends living in suburbs near Copenhagen, yet there are more connections, which makes it more accessible. Interestingly, the main climbing wall in Copenhagen is located on Refshaleøen, which is an island in central Copenhagen, yet there is limited public transport after 6pm. By comparison the climbing club in Hvalsø, south west of Roskilde, is accessible by hourly train from Roskilde. Thus, urban areas have pockets which are inaccessible by public transport.

The above three examples tie into the ongoing Danish political debate about rural versus urban (udkantsdanmark), which essentially is about the economic core versus economic periphery. The debate has mainly focused on housing market and investment in transport infrastructure. Our choice of living is structured by our work place, income, social network, children’s day care facilities and accessible infrastructure. Yet we have agency to choose where we live, our preference for a rural, village, town, suburban or city life style influence our choice of place to call home. Importantly, an urban/city dweller can still enjoy nature and a rural dweller still enjoys the cultural attractions of the city. Life is not static, as a student you have different preferences compared to a family, a single person or a pensioner, so it is natural to move between city, suburban and rural living. Indeed I know several people who have made the transition between city and rural lives successfully. Each type of life style and stage in your life require access to infrastructure, and our patterns of mobility will be affected by our choice of place to live. Here the question of car ownership and availability of public transport is important for us as individuals, yet our personal mobility is also influenced by political priorities in relation to investment in road infrastructure versus public transport.

(I would like to thank fellow kayaking enthusiast E.B. for inspiration and challenging my urban non-car ownership life style)

[i] http://www.visitroskilde.dk/roskilde-lejre/turist and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roskilde

[ii] Skjoldungelandet (Sagnlandet, Boserup skov og Bognæs), several local microbreweries

[iii] http://www.ilkleymoor.org/

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The failure of the 2009 Copenhagen climate conference marked a shift in international climate governance. As the system of agreeing international emissions reductions targets and then negotiating individual country contribution towards that target proved increasingly unworkable, there has been a drive towards a much more bottom-up form of climate governance. In preparation for the Paris summit later this year, countries are submitting Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to the international community, hoping that together, these contributions will add up to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius. These national pledges are—at least in part—backed up by a range of decentralized activities by countries, regions, cities, as well as businesses, civil society and others, who have been taking their own initiatives to address climate change. But what do we know about this bottom-up approach to climate governance and can it work?

In a recent article published in Nature Climate Change[1], we seek to shed some light on the distribution, the origins and the consequences of these bottom-up approaches to addressing climate change. Past research highlights a proliferating number of initiatives at various levels and in various places. For example, studies have documented a great number of international initiatives, transnational approaches[2], as well as a significant growth in national legislation to address climate change with 500 laws and policies addressing climate change in 66 countries in 2013, up from only 40 in 1997. We also know that there is a range of motivations for politicians, business leaders and others to engage in mitigation of climate change – some financial, some non-financial incentives. However, while this body of knowledge has accumulated, we know comparatively little about the consequences, or effects, of these bottom-up approaches. A key question is does bottom-up climate governance add up to something significant? And does it deliver? And by which criteria should it be evaluated?

Evaluating the performance of these bottom-up forms of governance raises a range of technical and political challenges. The international climate regime has struggled to consistently evaluate performance, such that much depends on self-reporting by states and other actors. In these compliance exercises, the focus has often been on whole countries and sometimes whether certain country characteristics, such as institutions or democratic governance drive performance, but often not individual policies. For instance, while we know that the European Union has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions, much less is known about the causal factors behind this – was it simply a renewal of old industries (e.g., after German reunification or the switch from coal to gas in the UK), the economic crisis, carbon leakage to countries not bound by emission reductions or policies that created incentives for renewable energy, legislation for energy efficiency, emissions trading, or a combination of all these factors? The ever-increasing number of bottom-up approaches, with some reaching beyond national borders, exacerbates these evaluation challenges.

There is very little comparative data on individual climate policies and initiatives, particularly on a range of intended or unintended (and often important) side effects beyond greenhouse gas emission reductions. In particular, while the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) focuses on ex-ante predictions of actual policy effects, there is currently a dearth of information on ex-post (i.e., retrospective) evaluations of policy effects. Technical difficulties and low resources may partly explain this lack of knowledge. But policy-makers may lack incentives to provide such information, because it could potentially highlight the ineffectiveness of ‘their’ policies.[3]

We know even less about the effects of transnational approaches, where an energetic debate is underway regarding the criteria to use for evaluation. Evaluation research has taught us that complex activities need to be evaluated using multiple criteria.[4] ‘Hard outcomes’ such as greenhouse gas emission reductions are the ultimate proof, but they may not materialize immediately, and ‘soft’ outcomes such as building trust and learning may be necessary to create conditions for significant reductions of emissions. But to learn more we need to investigate effects from multiple perspectives and with multiple tools, including an examination of some very simple features, for example whether new initiatives incorporate monitoring and evaluation that support learning from all the new efforts. Another important question to ask is whether these approaches last long enough to have enduring effects.

Taken together, we conclude that much remains to be learned on the effectiveness of bottom-up climate governance. The jury is still out on whether it can fill the gaps left by the Kyoto-based international climate regime. To make robust conclusions possible we need a concerted research effort on the merits of these new approaches to climate governance. Policy-makers would be well advised to support new approaches, but not to abandon the more traditional international negotiation processes before we know more about what actually can be achieved through bottom-up climate governance.

[1] Jordan, A.J.; Huitema, D.; Hildén, M.; van Asselt,H.; Rayner, T.J.; Schoenefeld, J.J.; Tosun, J.; Forster, J.;  Boasson, E.L. Emergence of polycentric climate governance and its future prospects Nature Climate Change. Available at http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2725.html

[2] Bulkeley, H. (2014). Transnational climate change governance. New York: Cambridge University Press.

[3] Hildén, M., Jordan, A., & Rayner, T. (2014). Climate policy innovation: developing an evaluation perspective. Environmental Politics, 23(5), 884-905.

[4] Mickwitz, P. (2013). Policy evaluation. In A. Jordan, & C. Adelle (Eds.), Environmental policy in the EU: Actors, institutions and processes (pp. 267-286). London; New York: Routledge.

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