Ideas on Europe Blog

LONDON, MARCH 2019: Hundreds of thousands marched in favour of EU membership.

For all the UK’s five decades in the EU, most Britons were happy for us to stay in. They didn’t want us to leave.

The issue was settled in the 1975 referendum when, by a massive 2-to-1 landslide, the electorate voted to remain in the European Community.

In the years that followed, calls to leave were on the far side lines of politics.

Yes, Brexiters will argue that the 2016 referendum settled the issue for Brexit. But it didn’t really.

Unlike in the 1975 referendum, when all the four countries of the UK positively voted to stay in the European Community, in 2016 half of them didn’t.

And whilst the margin win for Remain in the 1975 referendum was a stonking 35%, in 2016, the margin win for Leave was an abysmal 4%.

A mere 37% of the UK electorate gave their support for Brexit in 2016. A minority, which did not reflect the true feelings of most of the country, and certainly not all the countries of the UK.

Today, poll after poll show that a significant majority of British voters think Brexit is a mistake, and they would now vote to rejoin.

If the 2016 referendum had been held just a year or two earlier, polls indicate that Remain would have won by a landslide, just like in 1975.

Two years before the referendum, in 2014,  Ipsos UK polling showed that Britain’s support for wanting to remain in the EU was the highest it had been in 23 years – 56% in favour of remain, just 36% for leave.

This, despite the apparent rise of UKIP, that the Tories and Labour seemed so scared about.

One year before the referendum, in 2015, the Ipsos poll showed that support for continued EU membership was even higher – a staggering 61% in support of remaining, with just 27% supporting leave.

The 2016 referendum now looks like an aberration, a statistical quirk that didn’t, and now certainly doesn’t, represent the nation’s feelings as a whole.

Every year since the EU referendum, hundreds of thousands of pro-EU supporters have marched in London and other cities.

In March 2019, it’s estimated that the People’s Vote march in London attracted over a million marchers demanding a new vote on Brexit.

Brexiters, be honest: your side never could, and never did, attract such numbers for a pro-Brexit demonstration; not even a small fraction of such numbers.

Why? Because Brexit only ever had minority support, and today, that support has collapsed.

Of course, Britain now needs a new vote on Brexit.

In a democracy, no decision is permanent, and any decision can be changed if that has the support of the electorate.

Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer: Are you interested to know today’s ‘will of the people’? Then ask us.

• Video: Every British Prime Minister from 1957 to 2016 wanted the UK in the European Community.

• We miss EU – short video



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The post Britain is naturally pro-EU. Read why. appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The unveiling of the Windsor Framework this week was important in many ways.

Not only did it provide a set of solutions to the most pushing and tricky problems facing the Northern Ireland Protocol, but it also marked a return to more conventional modes of British diplomacy towards the EU.

To watch Rishi Sunak and Ursula von der Leyen at their press conference on Monday speaking in not only warm tones but also in very coordinated language, as they sought to generate (successfully) buy-in for a package of measures that had been put together under close secrecy.

As someone observed in my presence this week, no more of the leaking and briefing of the Johnson period, when everyone had an agenda and was just using the issue to get ahead.

Even if we still await a final confirmation of acceptance from both Tory backbenchers and the DUP, the signs are that this is the only game in town: evolving the Protocol into the Framework and (hopefully) letting everyone focus on further refinements to its operation and on other points of UK-EU cooperation.

So it matters.

But it’s also fair to say that the drafters of the Framework have decided to go for the ‘let’s make life not easy for the casual reader” approach.

Partly that’s because of the necessary mix of political statements and legal work, but it also conveniently makes it much harder for critics to point to obviously unacceptable language.

With that in mind, I’ve been working on trying to get a clearer picture of what’s going on.

My first graphic today organises the 21 documents by their status and effects: as you’ll see, much of this is about political clarifications and unilateral actions to resolve points.

There is one Joint Committee Decision that is crucial, and we’ll come back to that in coming weeks, not least to explore the new mechanisms of the Stormont Brake and the question of whether the CJEU’s role has actually changed at all (spoiler: not obviously).

PDF: https://bit.ly/UshGraphic117

Secondly, I took a quick go at the most significant obstacle to the Framework’s successful agreement and implementation: DUP approval for it.

Note that even if the DUP accepts the Framework, that does not necessarily mean it will either return to the Assembly or form an Executive under a Sinn Fein First Minister, even if the Stormont Brake is designed to get them to do exactly that.

Given that a functioning Executive is at least as important to Downing Street as making the Protocol work, the DUP’s decision matters.

Their seven tests from 2021 are still their baseline and as you’ll see while the Framework has indeed made progress on all points, none of them are unambiguously resolved to narrow readings of the DUP’s demands.

So still things to be played for and debates to be had.

PDF: https://bit.ly/UshGraphic116

If you have some aspect of the Framework you’ll like me to work on, just drop me a line and I’ll be happy to give it a go.

The post Starting to unpack the Windsor Framework appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

For our weekly “Ideas on Europe” editorial by UACES, the University Association for European Studies, we welcome Dr Daniele Saracino, from the Department of Government at the University of Essex, in Britain. Bonjour, Daniele!

 

Listen to the podcast on eu!radio.

 

 

Your research focuses on the concept of solidarity, one of these ideas or principles that we use every day, but that deserve to be questioned on their meaning.

Solidarity is everywhere in our lives. Solidarity among workers or social movements; solidarity among family and friends; solidarity with your football club or political party; solidarity with a whistle-blower or with refugees; solidarity between states or peoples; solidarity as a core principle of the welfare state or solidarity as the social glue that holds societies together.

This is the vast, multidimensional semantic field in which solidarity meanders as a colorful, but blurry, and seemingly ubiquitous concept. While it seems to maintain a positive connotation throughout, making it so appealing in the political sphere, at the same time it comes across as arbitrary and watered-down. From an analytical research perspective, the fact that there does not seem the slightest agreement on what solidarity actually means is problematic. Even more so on the level of the European Union, where solidarity has been a key concept since the very beginnings of the European project. Just listen:

« L’Europe ne se fera pas d’un coup, ni dans une construction d’ensemble : elle se fera par des réalisations concrètes, créant d’abord une solidarité de fait. »

 

Ah, that’s the voice of Robert Schuman delivering his famous speech of what is commonly considered the founding act of European integration!

That’s right! He called for true, effective solidarity to build a peaceful and unified post-war Europe. Ever since, solidarity has incrementally gained significance over the course of European integration, cumulating in the Lisbon Treaty where it has been settled as one of the central precepts of the EU. It is constantly invoked on the EU level, especially in times of crisis. Nonetheless, there is no agreement in the European legal or political sphere on what the concept entails. It can therefore be assumed that there is an underlying understanding of solidarity in the EU that is embedded in the specific historical context of the concept.

 

So where does it actually come from?

Counterintuitively, the concept of solidarity does not originate in the labour movement or in the classics of political or philosophical thinking. It has its roots in Roman law. The principle obligatio in solidum meant the debt or obligation that every debtor had vis-à-vis the joint community of debtors they are part of. This created a joint liability in which the debtors vouch for a common debt. This principle has survived in several legal systems that are strongly influenced by the Roman law tradition, like France, where solidarity, for the first time, gains further layers of meaning, specifically during the French Revolution where it develops in contrast to and as the political discharge of fraternity.

To cut the conceptual history short, it turns out that the concept of solidarity contains overlapping elements from legal, sociological, political, philosophical, theological, economical, and linguistic spheres.

 

That’s a very complex etymology. How can we use your studies for the European Union today?

Applying these findings to the setup and functioning of the European Union, we find that solidarity is non-universal. It is limited to particular groups wherein actors commit themselves voluntarily to a bond and develop interdependencies to achieve common objectives.

The European Union is such a reference group, and solidarity is the means to achieve its commonly agreed political objectives. Solidarity creates a mutual connectedness between the involved actors who vouch for each other in terms of the common objectives. Ultimately, solidarity creates a reciprocal commitment and mutual responsibility that is expressed by the expectation and discharge of support and assistance.

This is how common goals can be pursued and achieved. Since the common political will of the involved actors in the European Union is cast into law, so is solidarity. Consequently, the European Court of Justice has repeatedly confirmed the fundamental significance of the solidarity principle for the European Union. There are procedural duties that regulate the support and assistance demanded by the solidarity principle.

In short, the readiness to act in solidarity and to honour the outcomes of EU policymaking are necessary conditions for the EU to function effectively. States join the European Union on their own will and accept its precepts and objectives upon accession. If the rule of law to safeguard the outcomes of the political process is not adhered to anymore, the EU loses its purpose. In short: without solidarity, the European Union just wouldn’t make sense. This is why European integration as a whole is shaken to its core when member states decide to stop honouring the rule of law, renouncing European solidarity. And this is why the Union must find ways to remind them of their commitment to solidarity.

 

Many thanks, for this semantic exploration of one of Europe’s key concepts. I recall you work at the Department of Government at the University of Essex, in Britain.

The post Without Solidarity, the EU Would not Make Sense appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

For our weekly “Ideas on Europe” editorial by UACES, the University Association for European Studies, we welcome Dario Mazzola, from the University of Bergen, in Norway. Bonjour, Dario! Listen to the podcast on eu!radio.

 

 

 

In the year since the Russian aggression of Ukraine, many Ukrainians have found refuge in European countries. Dario, you have written your PhD about the border crisis of 2015, before analysing, as a post-doc researcher in the PROTECT project, contemporary crises in the provision of refuge.

When I started my postdoc in 2020, many researchers thought that refuge and migration would no longer be high on the agenda, not least because of the COVID crisis. I argued for the opposite, for a number of long-term reasons, and unfortunately, Ukraine proved I was right.

Seen from the humanitarian prospect of displacement, Ukraine is among the largest crises of all times, and its geographical proximity and political implication with the European Union make it particularly salient for us. We speak of 8 million refugees and asylum seekers, mostly women and children, but actual figures could be higher.

If I had to single out one feature of my research, I would say it consists in putting migration and refuge in context. Even with the exceptionality of the situation of Ukraine, there is a clear pattern: the background of the critically inadequate response by the European Union and other countries to previous waves of refugees, and the systemic degradation of the international community, from economic crises to COVID to the breakdown of international relations in a system of block confrontation reminiscent of the Cold War.

 

So how does Ukraine stand out when compared to previous crises?

There are both continuities and differences. The sudden peak in inflow is not dissimilar from the Syrian refugee crisis. We can also notice that some of the conflicting actors are the same.

And yet the reaction has been very different. Both between and within European countries, controversies over solidarity with refugees from Ukraine have been low or non-existent: unprecedented mechanisms such as the Temporary Protection Directive have been swiftly activated. If we were to look for analogues, we should perhaps look at Kosovo in the 1990s, but comparison has its limits.

 

What are the major differences between the two situations?

To start with, Ukraine is 20 times more populous than Kosovo. And times have changed since then!

At the moment of the Kosovo crisis, European countries were undergoing a period of economic growth and greater historical optimism, both in terms of the European integration process and of the pacification of global relations. Today, economic resources have been strained between the economic crisis of 2008 and the COVID pandemic. Even more important, neither Kosovo nor Syria involved a relevant military effort with an uncertain outcome, contrary to what we have in Ukraine. Finally, I would stress once again that Syria is further away, and Kosovo is much smaller: we should not think about politics and humanitarianism in the abstract, but in concrete numerical and geographical terms.

 

And how do these differences impact the response to refugees?

The implications of these differences are that while we see a commitment to solidarity that reminds us of Kosovo, the magnitude of the crisis recalls Syria. I hope European politicians are doing their math in planning responses for the short and, potentially, for the long term.

 

You sound like you fear this is not the case.

In 2015, the Italian researcher Giandomenico Majone denounced the collapse of the EU’s culture of ‘total optimism’, and his Swiss colleague Sandra Lavenex has aptly applied this concept to the failure that has been the response to the 2015 border crisis.

Wishful thinking is devastating in politics. When we plan and execute solidarity with refugees from Ukraine, which is our duty, we should have all scenarios in mind: a Ukrainian victory, a Russian victory, a stalemate. Refugees may return or may not. Between humanitarian and military support and the cost of sanctions, EU countries are sacrificing 1, 2% of their GDP, or more. Also, solidarity may be tested if fatigue is perceived in the public. When we pledge to support refugees, we do so amidst all these factors.

Europe needs to work on systematizing its Union-level response to refugees, and on developing a united and consistent foreign and global policy stance, with a strategic vision and not merely in response to crises. The EU can no longer afford to be self-centred or short-sighted: it has to articulate a doctrine and adhere to it consistently. But perhaps here I’m trespassing my programmatic realism into utopian thinking.

 

Maybe a bit more of utopian thinking is what we need. Many thanks, Dario, for sharing your research with us. I recall you work at University of Bergen, in Norway.

The post At Europe’s Heart appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The content of this post was presented at the launch workshop of the EUFutures Research Network held at City, University of London on 4 November 2022. This is an amended version of a post originally commissioned by City, University of London, published here.

When the UK went to the polls on 23 June 2016 and voted to leave the European Union, the millions of EU citizens who were resident in the UK but unable to take part in the referendum were suddenly faced with a life-changing loss of rights. The end of freedom of movement threatened their livelihoods and their very status as UK residents in the post-Brexit world.

After several years of uncertainty, many of those EU citizens and their family members were able to secure their UK immigration status following the launch in March 2019 of the Government’s EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS), which sought to protect the rights that EU citizens and their families had previously enjoyed in the UK. By the time the scheme closed in 2021, some 5.75 million individuals had submitted applications and 5.3 million grants of status had been issued – either settled or pre-settled status. The Government lauded the high numbers, describing the process as “hugely successful.”

Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands of people still managed to fall through the legal cracks and failed in their applications, raising questions about whether certain types of applicants were more disadvantaged by the EUSS process than others.

The research that I carried out focused on immigrant women in this process, and I concluded that they were disproportionately represented in the group of unsuccessful applicants and that women who were the most vulnerable fell outside the legal protection that the EUSS was meant to provide. This was my first publication that went beyond just the traditional doctrinal analysis of the law, and instead adopted a critical socio-legal approach.

I applied a theoretical intersectional feminist lens to the plight of two groups of vulnerable immigrant women who were required to apply through the EUSS to remain in the UK after withdrawal – those at risk of or experiencing violence against women and girls (VAWG) and those who were a non-EU family member (NEFM) of an EU citizen. This was to highlight their unique experiences of the law under the EUSS, noting that it was their identities as immigrant women in a post-Brexit Britain which brought about greater vulnerabilities, attributed to the way the law itself applied to them.

The EUSS operated as a fully digital system to make the application process as smooth as possible for those who fulfilled the three main criteria – proof of identity (ID and biometrics), eligibility (residency in the UK) and suitability (proof of good character).

In certain exceptional circumstances, paper-based applications were required – for example, if the applicant did not have digital access, did not have an ID document or whose rights were based on a dependency on an EU citizen (as in NEFMs). By noticing that vulnerabilities arose out of the intersection between one’s immigrant status and gender in this context, I argued that the criteria discriminated against vulnerable women from the VAWG and NEFM groups because they were more likely to have to apply on paper.

I argued that simply extending the criteria under the EUSS did not necessarily achieve the desired take-up of applications because many women would not have understood or even known about the new criteria applicable to them in light of Brexit. By adopting a critical approach that takes into account the fact that vulnerable women are being made more vulnerable by the very reason of their identities, this brought to the fore how intersectional qualities had not been considered by the Government in their design and implementation of the EUSS.

One of the key methodological challenges in analysing the outcomes of applications by women was the absence of any gender breakdown in the quarterly EUSS statistics, while paper applications were not included in the data until more than a year after the EUSS launch, without detailing the success of paper versus online applications. Whilst a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by Professor Catherine Barnard and Fiona Costello revealed that paper applications were significantly less likely to be successful than the online route, my central thesis that vulnerable immigrant women were disadvantaged by the EUSS process was also reinforced through critically assessing how the criteria would apply to the two groups in question. Highlighting their intersectional identities and the vulnerabilities associated with them was a primary part of the central thesis.

I also faced challenges in deciding where to publish this paper, given my decision to adopt a non-doctrinal approach to an area where law and its technical doctrine dominated, and to an extent, still dominates. The area of EU law is largely saturated by scholars engaging in technically precise doctrinal work, and sometimes to the absence of situating the law in its societal context. This is also notable by the dominance of journals privileging doctrinal approaches to matters of EU law, something that proved a challenge in publishing this paper. This led me to a non-EU specialist journal, and instead to a top journal in socio-legal approach to law – Social & Legal Studies.

The area of free movement and associated field of EU citizenship can be more critically analysed with the adoption of methodologies beyond just those which dominate the field of EU law. My paper contributes to uncovering the gendered aspects of free movement, in the context of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU and its associated governance and policies. Given the human aspect of Brexit in regards to its visceral and very real effects on the lives of EU citizens in the UK, I felt it was necessary and important to adopt a critical approach, particularly one looking at intersectionality to highlight the difficulties of the most vulnerable and often overlooked.

To read Dr Yong’s published journal article entitled ‘A Gendered EUSS: Intersectional Oppression of Immigrant Women in a Post-Brexit Britain’ in Social & Legal Studies, please see here.

 

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The following piece is written by Ambassador Erwan Fouéré – Associate Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for European Policy

The flags of the European Union and North Macedonia. Credit: Влада на Република Северна Македонија, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Over the past months, Ireland has been marking the centenary of landmark events in the nation’s struggle for independence and the turbulence surrounding the civil war. It has been suggested by some commentators that not enough has been done to acknowledge the wrongs committed during that period. The Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in his acceptance speech in the Dáil last month referred to the “need to acknowledge and atone for the wrongs that were done on all sides, so we can finally heal the wounds and scars from that time”. The presence of both the leaders of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael at the ceremony marking one hundred years since the assassination of Michael Collins has shown that, even if differences over historical narratives remain, the commemorations can be an occasion for unity and reconciliation rather than division.

To use the words of President Michael D. Higgins, the emphasis should be on the need both to “remember ethically”, and to “respect a pluralism of narratives of shared events”.

History according to President Putin

In the Central and Eastern parts of Europe however, a “pluralism of narratives” when referring to historical events is singularly absent, and often replaced by a re-writing of history to suit mostly nationalist political agendas. Probably the worst offender in this respect is President Putin. His distorted vision of Russia’s imperial past and his almost messianic mission to restore the Russian empire to justify his brutal invasion of Ukraine has had lethal and devastating consequences for the neighbouring country. By invoking the memory of Peter the Great and defining the threats facing Russia as a civilisational struggle, he has sought to rally the Russian people in support of his policy of denying the existence of Ukraine as a nation in its own right and obliterating its culture, history and identity.

Re-writing history in the Western Balkans

This weaponising of history is unfortunately not confined to Russia. In the Western Balkans there are many examples of attempts by political leaders to re-interpret historical events to justify and pursue ethno-nationalist and populist agendas. Whether it is glorifying war criminals convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, or denying massacres that took place during the early and mid 1990s following the break-up of Yugoslavia, or even re-interpreting events before and after the Second World War, they underline the terrible weight of history and the deep divisions within and between the countries of the region.

These trends highlight the enormous work required to promote reconciliation and overcome the prejudices still prevalent throughout the Western Balkans. One would have hoped that since all the countries of the region are destined for accession to the EU at some point in the future, the EU would put forward its own experience of European integration in overcoming the legacy of war and creating a process based on the rule of law. The recent stand off between Bulgaria and North Macedonia does not inspire confidence in this respect. The behaviour of Bulgaria towards its neighbour has shown that it has learned nothing from its fifteen year membership of the EU, and has only deepened the animosity and bitterness between both countries.

Background to the Bulgarian veto against North Macedonia

In March of 2020, the European Council gave the green light for the opening of accession negotiations with both Albania and North Macedonia. To get to this point, North Macedonia already had to overcome many hurdles not least that of reaching an agreement with neighbouring Greece over its constitutional name which Greece objected to. A protracted decades long dispute was finally resolved by the so-called Prespa Agreement of 2018, whereby the Republic of Macedonia would become the Republic of North Macedonia, to distinguish it from the provinces of Macedonia in the northern part of Greece. The agreement was supposed to signal the opening of accession negotiations with the EU. But France put a spanner in the works by insisting on a new methodology for the accession process before the EU’s enlargement agenda could proceed. This was duly put forward by the European Commission and agreed in March 2020.

However, no doubt taking a leaf out of the Greek and French playbooks, Bulgaria decided to impose its own veto by insisting that North Macedonia would have to accept a list of demands relating to the history, identity and language of the country before accession negotiations could start, ignoring the fact that such issues have never been part of the criteria for membership of the EU.

These demands included an insistence that North Macedonia accept that its language has Bulgarian roots and that a ‘Macedonian language’ or ethnicity did not exist before 1944. There was also an insistence that it endorse a Bulgarian version of the region’s past history, despite the fact that both countries had negotiated a Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighbourliness, and Cooperation in 2017 which established a Joint Multidisciplinary Expert Commission for Historical and Education Issues.

By agreeing to this Treaty, the Macedonian government had hoped it would create a framework for building trust between both countries and help to overcome lingering bilateral disputes. It did not bargain for the hardline attitude adopted by Bulgaria in the work of this Commission which has now dominated the Treaty’s implementation.

By insisting on its own version of the turbulent events during and after the two World Wars in the Western Balkan region, and demanding that Macedonian history textbooks remove any reference to Bulgaria as the ‘fascist occupier’ during the Second World War, the Bulgarian negotiators are reflecting a reluctance by the political establishment in Bulgaria to confront its own troubled history, in particular its role during the Second World War. ( Bulgaria supported the Axis powers and conquered Macedonia it had lost during the First World War. During its occupation, it deported all 7,000 Jews living there and handed them over to the Nazi regime, where they virtually all perished in the Treblinka concentration camp. At the same time however, most of the Jews living in Bulgaria itself were spared such a fate. In October 1944, Bulgaria switched sides and declared war on Germany. It was forced to withdraw from Macedonia following the end of the war ).

Other demands imposed by Bulgaria included North Macedonia renouncing any claim to the existence of a Macedonian minority in Bulgaria, despite the repeated judgements by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg calling on Bulgaria to recognise the existence of Macedonian minority groups in Bulgaria, which the country has studiously ignored.( The number of ethnic Macedonians living in Bulgaria is a matter of controversy with, according to the Minority Rights Group International, evidence of these citizens being subject to harassment and intimidation. The 1992 census showed there were over 10,000; from the latest census in 2021, that figure has gone down to just over 1,000 ).

The so-called ‘French Proposal’

During the final days of the French Presidency of the European Council in June 2022, President Macron put forward a proposal for the negotiating framework which would lift the Bulgarian veto and guide the accession process with North Macedonia. The proposal basically endorsed all of Bulgaria’s demands, which caused fury among the Macedonian citizens who saw it as another insult to their nationhood and a betrayal of the EU’s repeated promises to the country.

As part of the proposal, North Macedonia would have to amend its constitution so as to include a reference to the existence of a Bulgarian community in the country. There was no mention of any reciprocity. The judgements of the European Court of Human Rights on the existence of a Macedonian community in Bulgaria were completely ignored.

This left the Macedonian government with a terrible choice – ‘damned if we do, damned if we don’t’. In the end, the proposal, endorsed by the EU, was accepted, and Bulgaria lifted its veto. The first Intergovernmental Conference marking the formal opening of accession negotiations with both Albania ( blocked since 2020 because of the Bulgarian veto against North Macedonia ) and North Macedonia took place in July 2022. However the actual negotiations with North Macedonia can only start once the amendment to its constitution has been adopted by the Macedonian Parliament. For the moment there is no majority in the Parliament to support this.

Furthermore, because of the unanimity rule over enlargement issues within the EU, Bulgaria will be able to exercise its veto power at any time to block any advance in the negotiations if it feels that the bilateral issues under the Friendship Treaty are not dealt with to its satisfaction by North Macedonia. The Bulgarian Government got a taste of its own medicine when Austria recently vetoed the accession of Bulgaria and Romania to Schengen, which caused Bulgaria to complain of Austrian obstruction. The fact that it was at the same time obstructing North Macedonia’s prospects of EU accession did not seem to register.

As if to underline it is the stronger party in these disputes by virtue of its EU membership, the Bulgarian government proceeded to openly support the setting-up of so-called cultural clubs in North Macedonia named after controversial figures from the Second World War who supported the Nazi regime. Three have already been established during 2022. Some of the Bulgarian MPs present at these events have used language similar to that used by President Putin against Ukraine, thus fuelling the deep insult and animosity felt by Macedonian citizens. While the EU has remained largely silent, nationalist elements on both sides have used the controversy to whip up ethno-populist sentiments with the burning of flags and frequent incidents of hate speech. True to form, there is evidence that Russia’s malign influence is never far behind these events, with supporters of Russia within the current Bulgarian government itself.

This outcome has set a dangerous precedent which will certainly come back to haunt the EU in the pursuit of its enlargement agenda with the Western Balkans, a region replete with similar bilateral disputes. It has shown once again the the EU’s lack of understanding of the sensitivity linked to minority issues and its underestimation of the dark shadow of history over a region where the past is ever present

The EU needs to change its approach

The EU will need to radically change its approach to the Western Balkans to take account of these deep rooted societal issues. Failure to do so will allow the many fault lines within and between the countries of the region become more entrenched with any hope of reconciliation being lost. By taking sides in the Bulgaria/North Macedonia dispute, the EU has already forsaken many hearts and minds in the region.

Greater focus on supporting reconciliation projects such as people to people contacts and history teaching could help to avoid the distortions and revisionism promoted by nationalist agendas. The Thessaloniki Centre for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe had achieved significant success in this respect with the development of joint history teaching programmes, but had to close down due to lack of funding. There are, however, a number of other mechanisms that could be used, such as the History Observatory for Peace in Europe, established by the Council of Europe ( of which North Macedonia, Ireland and other EU countries are members, but Bulgaria is not ), and the European Association of History Educators ( EUROClio ) established in 1992.

The experience of the EU’s Peace Fund for Northern Ireland, established by Commission President Jacques Delors in 1995 to support the peace process offers valuable inspiration for the Western Balkans, in particular projects on shared education and fostering a greater role for civil society in post conflict nation building and reconciliation. The EU funded Cross Border Cooperation Programmes within the Western Balkan region could also ensure greater focus on joint history teaching projects and more programmes promoting reconciliation.

Above all what is required is to convince countries in the region, in particular EU member states such as Bulgaria, that debates over centuries of history between neighbouring countries, cannot be resolved over one or two years or even decades or by imposing artificial deadlines to reach agreement. As with the EU, divergent views of past events and differences will remain, but they should not block the accession prospects of Western Balkan countries from advancing.

It is only by pursuing a “pluralism of narratives” that reconciliation can begin in a region that it has often been said has produced more history than it can absorb.

Ambassador Erwan Fouéré is Associate Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS). Prior to joining CEPS in 2013, he was Special Representative for the Transdniestrian settlement process during the Irish 2012 Chairmanship of the OSCE. During his 38 year career with the European institutions, he was the first to assume joint responsibilities of EU Special Representative and Head of Delegation in the EU External Service when he was appointed in this double capacity in North Macedonia ( 2005-2011 ), the first Head of Delegation in South Africa ( 1994-1998 ) and the first Head of Delegation in Mexico and Cuba ( 1989-1992 ). He was awarded the Order of Good Hope, Grand Officer, by President Nelson Mandela in 1998.

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I am participating in the University of Tartu Course “Digitaalse sisuloome alused” (Foundations of digital content creation) from 2 January to 26 February 2023. The participating students received the task to post a link to a website with their uploaded content.

I was thinking of posting the link to my blog on Ideas of Europe because my content is research-based. I also thought that maybe someone could find it useful to see how the European human rights protection systems were introduced to the students of the University of Tartu from 2004 to 2011.

The task was creating or revising a study material – a video, a presentation, a study guide, a test, a simulation, a textbook, an assessment model, a syllabus, a draft project, etc., and uploading it.

I picked the syllabus of the course that I had worked out and was reading at the Faculty of Law of the University of Tartu from 2004 to 2011 “Protection of Human Rights under EU Law”.

The course based on my M.A. Dissertation “Põhiõiguste ja -vabaduste areng ning kohtulik kaitse Euroopa Liidus” (Development of fundamental rights and their judicial protection in the European Union) that I defended in the University of Tartu in the year of 2004.

I read the course for the last time in spring semester 2011. When I revised my old syllabus, I interestingly found out that although I have not read the course since 2011, all the topics discussed then are still actual. Therefore, I have shared the syllabus with the other ESIL members at the ESIL Teaching Corner at https://esil-sedi.eu/teaching-corner/ 

I think that the structure of the course could remain the same. I should only add some recent articles and remove some of the compulsory articles (to the optional literature).Protection of Human Rights under EU Law

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Last week’s third anniversary of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU also means it’s the third anniversary of the Trade & Cooperation Agreement (TCA).

The TCA is the oddly overlooked counterpart of the Withdrawal Agreement (with its troublesome Protocol), oddly because it is the much more substantial treaty, structuring the full breadth of current relations and containing space to include pretty much all the future relations too.

Of course, such a significant text comes with a degree of complexity, which we’ve looked at before on the OUatEU blog (here and here, for example).

One part of that complexity comes from the changing situation over time: we still have a number of transitional arrangements in place (both by mutual agreement and by unilateral proclamation) and a raft of reviews and sunset clauses to come in the next years.

The graphics below set out all of this, together with references to relevant information. Sadly, there’s nowhere that has a definitive resource for TCA matters (unlike Queen’s excellent Protocol tracker); both the EU and UK have rather dispersed bits and no simple way to pick up all the non-hard law decisions. Maybe if there’s a clamour from you, the readers, I might get to making such a thing myself.

In the meantime, take in the notion that we already know some things that will be happening in 2035.

PDF: https://bit.ly/UshGraphic77

PDF: https://bit.ly/UshGraphic65

This post was brought to you via a request from someone who uses these for teaching: I’m always happy to take requests like this, so just pop me a line or put a comment below and I’ll see what I can do.

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EUHealthGov started 2023 with its seventh quarterly seminar on 25th January – a roundtable on EU pharmaceutical activity which encompassed challenges from the much-awaited revisions to the EU pharmaceutical strategy and beyond. We were delighted to be joined by a range of experts to consider different aspects, notably solidarity and vulnerability in access to pharmaceuticals; how the EU regards pharmaceuticals through the lens of competition policy; and global access to medicines through EU action. 

Dr Mary Guy (LJMU) introduced the discussions with an overview of the development of EU activity regarding the pharmaceutical sector – from responding to the Thalidomide crisis in the mid-1960s to the revision of the EU pharmaceutical strategy in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In contrast to health and healthcare more generally, the pharmaceutical sector has highlighted specific tensions, being located between public health and the internal market.  

Dr Éloïse Gennet (Aix-Marseille) and Dr Aurélie Mahalatchimy (Aix-Marseille) discussed their experience of working with the European Association for Health Law and the European Health Policy Platform (DGSANTE) to establish a 2021 Thematic Network (now permanent) on an inclusive and equitable pharmaceutical strategy. This network produced webinars and a Joint Statement against the backdrop of pre-existing health inequalities highlighted since COVID-19, and unprecedented EU solidarity and renewed efforts to promote equitable access to medical supplies and vaccines. The main recommendations of the Joint Statement include targeting unmet medical needs by identifying vulnerability situations, increasing institutional dialogue and cooperation beyond emergency situations, and promoting affordability throughout the pharmaceutical lifecycle. 

Professor Wolf Sauter (VU Amsterdam) outlined how competition works in the pharmaceutical sector across four stages: monopoly, oligopoly, generic/biosimilar competition and multi-source competition. This set the scene for a review of EU competition policy in pharma, from DGCOMP’s 2008/9 sector inquiry and the 2012 AstraZeneca case, via pay-for-delay cases at EU level, to more recent interactions between the Commission and national competition authorities. What emerges is a particular focus on excessive pricing, which has seen an evolving approach in cases from United Brands to AKKA/LAA, with cases at both EU and national levels, leading to the identification of trends of price hikes, consumer lock-ins and an emphasis on niche generics (and one orphan drug). Overall there is scope for both competition and non-competition remedies which may be explored beyond wider considerations of EU competition law and pharmaceuticals. 

Dr Katrina Perehudoff (University of Amsterdam) focused on the EU Pharmaceutical Strategy to draw attention to challenges ahead for the EU’s role in global health. These challenges fall into three categories. Firstly, the conceptual challenge of why the EU should have a strong voice globally, which can relate, inter alia, to investment (in the EU), as well as health security and social justice (for EU citizens). The second challenge is theoretical, framed around the question of how the EU will achieve its aims globally. This sees the identification of three pathways of EU influence: unilateral EU action influencing third countries; bilateral trade, accession and aid agendas, and multilateral influence. A final challenge is empirical: what will the EU do? Here considerations encompass regulatory standard-setting and technology transfer.  

We look forward to developing this discussion in the future! 

A recording of the event is available here.

The post Summary: EU Pharmaceutical Activity Webinar January 2023 appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

For our weekly “Ideas on Europe” editorial by UACES, the University Association for European Studies, we welcome Vanja Smokvina, Jean Monnet Chair for EU Sports Law, Policy & Diplomacy at the Faculty of Law of the University of Rijeka, in Croatia. Listen to the podcast on eu!radio.

 

 

 

Six weeks after the final, the dust has settled on the football world cup in Qatar. That’s a good moment to take stock of what will remain from this event.

Yes, I agree. During the World Cup itself, the focus was on lots of things going on before or even during the tournament. The feeling is that it was definitely one of the most unusual World Cups, if only for the calendar. From the beginning, the event certainly raised a lot of discussions, and it ended with Argentina’s captain Lionel Messi lifting the trophy in a black bisht.

 

As a researcher in sport diplomacy, would you say this World Cup was a diplomatic success?

Well, that’s the million-dollar question! I would say it was a great opportunity for FIFA and the Arab world. Has that opportunity been taken? Probably yes, but not fully.

For instance, if we take the example of Budweiser, the beer company, one of the main long-standing partners of FIFA. Denying Budweiser the right to sell their products in areas that were previously contractually agreed is a bad message. I am not saying that the policy should be to sell alcoholic drinks at sports venues, but if it was planned to be like that, you cannot simply change it during the tournament. The impression is that such an outcome would not have been possible in other countries. In this sense, it is evidence for the ‘diplomatic power’ of Qatar.

The same goes for the iconic and highly symbolic picture of Messi in a bisht. It’s a picture that will remain. FIFA here made an extreme exception for the host country, which probably would not have been allowed anywhere else.

 

It sounds like Qatar got everything they wanted out of this World Cup. Did they really?

The truth is we do not know with absolute certainty what they wanted from the event. What is sure is that it is impossible that such a small country, which does not even have an important sporting footprint, will organise such an important event in the future again. I mean, together with the Olympics, it’s the most important sports mega event on this planet, which means a lot to many people, and the message was: if you are rich enough, you can buy it. I am not sure this is a good message, neither for FIFA nor for Qatar. It was just a demonstration of diplomatic muscle, based on economic power.

 

Do you think FIFA will have learnt something from the event?

I think they would be well advised at FIFA to press the ‘restart button’ and I really hope that we will not have to focus anymore on the breach of human rights, on wrongdoings and criminal offences of sports governing bodies top officials, and disregard for players health etc. We can only hope everybody learnt a lesson.

 

How powerful, as a transnational diplomatic player, is FIFA actually?

FIFA is a sports governing body with important ‘diplomatic’ and organizational powers. And it should be more active in promoting basic human rights and fundamental freedoms.

We must never forget that FIFA and also UEFA are more powerful than some countries, sometimes more influential than the United Nations. When FIFA suspends a member – one national football federation due to the breach of some rules – the politicians of that country are keener to settle the problem than if they received a ‘slap on the wrist’ by the UN, the International Labour Organization or whatever other international organization. This is the tremendous power of FIFA.

But we must also acknowledge FIFA or UEFA for imposing positive developments. Only because of the football power’s system, we have seen women attending football matches in Iran and campaigns against ‘hate speech, xenophobia and racial insults’ at football matches! Sports governing bodies are extremely powerful, and they know that. All we can do is hope they will continue to use their powers for the development of their sports but also of the good of humanity.

 

Many thanks, for sharing your thoughts on the fallout of this event. I recall you are the holder of a Jean Monnet Chair at the University of Rijeka, in Croatia. And you are about to publish the very first issue of a new scientific journal, the Sports Law, Policy and Diplomacy Journal, in collaboration with the already long-standing Association for the Study of Sport and the European Union.

 

 

Entretien réalisé par Rune Mahiee.

 

 

 

The post The Qatar World Cup and its Diplomatic Outcomes appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

For our weekly “Ideas on Europe” editorial by UACES, the University Association for European Studies, we welcome Alicja Próchniak, from Loughborough University, in London. Listen to the podcast on eu!radio.

 

 

 

 

Your PhD research deals with the role and function of political myths and their impact on foreign policy. That sounds very theoretical. Can you tell us more about it?

The concept of political myth is understudied in academic research, and the existing scope of literature is scattered across several scientific disciplines. An important author, considered to be a pioneer of this concept, is Roland Barthes, with his well-known book Mythologies, published in 1957. He was building upon the original sign analysis, often referred to as ‘semiology’, developed by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure.

 

How do myths work? Can you give us a concrete example?

Sure. Let’s start with Sisyphus, the character from Greek mythology, condemned to repeat the same task of rolling a large stone up a hill for eternity. In English, we have the expression ‘Sisyphean work’. Normally, ‘work’ means an activity or task that involves the use of mental or physical effort to achieve a specific objective. However, the expression ‘Sisyphean work’ means an endless and futile task. This is exactly the nature of myth as described by Barthes. The meaning goes beyond what is actually said.

 

How does this fit into politics? After all, you are writing a PhD at an ‘Institute for Diplomacy and International Governance’!

Myths are everywhere in political discourse. According to Christopher Flood, a political myth is ‘an ideologically marked narrative’ which claims to give, I quote: ‘a true account of past, present, or predicted political events and which is accepted as valid in its essentials by a social group’.

Other researchers have explained that myths go beyond narratives or ideology, as they contribute to a ‘sacralisation’ of politics. They frame discourse in quasi-religious terms, and they contain sacred elements that elevate the power of narrative to the range of religious authority.

 

Can you provide an illustration of such mechanisms of sacralization?

A good example is American exceptionalism, which is not a religious phenomenon in itself, but has very important religious roots and connotations. Joanne Esch, a researcher from Colorado, has identified three main ideas of the American myth of exceptionalism:

First, America as ‘God’s chosen nation’. This myth provides meaning to the country’s political and historical experience and the general direction of its politics.

Second, the United States as a ‘nation with a calling’. This refers to America as a special mission in the world, given by God, the creation of a global order of democracy and freedom. The use of such a myth in official political rhetoric helps to legitimize policies that do not always comply with international law, like for instance the ‘War on Terror’ launched by George W. Bush.

And third, America represents the forces of good against evil. The myth of ‘God’s chosen nation’ leads to stipulating that the country represents the ‘forces of Good’ against ‘the forces of Evil’. It’s the myths that create the quasi-religious underpinning of the country’s image of itself and its place in the world.

 

The United States are perhaps a quite extreme example in their permanent reference to religious myths?

All countries have their political myths. Just think of France as ‘the country of Human Rights’. Or the way in which the European Union refers to its mission as ‘peace-builder’ on the continent. The difference between them is the extent to which these myths are critically discussed.

Given the important domestic and international implications of myths, the topic of political myths has received surprisingly little attention in the studies of International Relations. We are now starting to understand that they are especially influential in shaping security and foreign policy. And that’s what I am working on in my PhD research.

 

Thank you very much, for sharing your original research with us. Keep us posted on the progress of your work! I recall you are based on the London campus of Loughborough University.

 

Entretien réalisé par Rune Mahiee.

 

 

The post Why Political Myths Matter appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

I will freely admit that I have shied away from getting into the whole question of Retained EU Law, primarily because it’s much more about law in the UK than it is about EU law per se. I know enough to know that I don’t know much.

However, the question is one that cannot be ignored.

Firstly, the extent of Retained EU Law is such that how it is dealt with will have significant consequences for British legal systems, UK businesses and politics. The Retained EU Law (Revocation & Reform) Bill gives huge powers to the government to make changes to rules within effective Parliamentary oversight, for example.

Secondly, the headlong rush to sunset rules by the end of 2023 contains significant implications for the UK’s compliance with its obligations under the Withdrawal Agreement and (especially) the Trade & Cooperation Agreement, the latter with its Level Playing Field requirements. Given that the UK government is still unclear as to quite what falls into the Retained EU Law classification, even their intentions are to comply, the danger of accidental divergence is evident.

And finally, the entire shift on the matter speaks to the continuing uncertainty about what relationship with the EU the UK might want.

Almost from the off after the referendum, there was a recognition that something would have to be done about all of the internalised and semi-internalised legislation (and practice) that came from the EU. Not just the regulations and the directives, but also the principles of supremacy and direct effect and the extensive case law of the CJEU.

Given the unclear boundaries of all of this, the only viable option at the time of the Withdrawal Agreement negotiations was the one taken by the EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2018, which just rolled over the membership-era system created by the European Communities Act 1972 and let the government take its time over resolving matters.

As I’ve been showing in my REUL Tracker (last discussion here and data files here), there has been some work to review and adapt to life after membership, but at a rather slow pace. Perhaps as a mark of that slow pace, the fancy visualisation tool first published in September last year has just undergone a big reworking, making it now very hard to keep track of what’s happened [one for next week I think].

However, the EU(WA) Act approach clearly caused issues for some in government, hence the flip over to the new Bill.

This drops methodically working through the pile to saying that anything not explicitly addressed by the end of 2023 will be sunsetted (sunsat?), even as any general principle of EU law is also removed from the practice of law in the UK.

The issues with this approach are both multiple and major, as set out in the graphic below.  Even if liberal use of the ‘exceptional’ extension to 23 June 2026 (not an insignificant date) would still likely result in a large percentage of Retained EU Law being dropped without the level of scrutiny one might hope for (assuming that the civil servants and MPs involved might also have other things that need their attention).

The Bill’s approach speaks to a desire to divest the UK of any vestige of having been an EU member, regardless of whether any part of it might have intrinsic value: a measure’s EU origin is enough to make the presumption that it must be removed.

This is of course a worldview that resonates with the notion of ‘taking back control’ and of British otherness; only we can know what is right for us, only we can make decisions for us. As political sells go, it’s not the hardest banner to run on, at least in a campaigning mode.

But politics is also about governing: our shiny ideas quickly tarnish in the glare of day as we start to use them.

And so it is here. The Bill might make good headlines, but it doesn’t obviously make things better for citizens, for traders or for relations with the European Union that (annoyingly) continues to sit on the UK’s doorstep. As I touched upon the other week, we don’t get to make unilateral decisions about our relationships, however much we’d like that.

At a moment when the government seems (maybe, perhaps) to be working towards some kind of deal with the EU on Northern Ireland, it would be ironic if it simultaneously opened up a new point of tension over an issue that only it seems to think is an issue.

PDF version: https://bit.ly/UshGraphic114

PDF version: https://bit.ly/UshGraphic115

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Inga Ulnicane

New technologies are usually developed with the best intentions in mind. However, as history shows this does not prevent from afterwards using them in problematic ways. For example, internet was initially associated with hopes that it will foster openness and democracy around the world but later became used as a tool of surveillance and discrimination. How to facilitate development of technologies for social benefit and minimize potential to use them for problematic purposes? One of the approaches that has gained popularity in Europe over the past decade is the so-called Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) (Stahl 2021) that aims to align research and innovation with societal interests, needs and values. An important element of the RRI approach is boundary spanning collaborations involving researchers not only from STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) disciplines, but also from social science and humanities (Aicardi 2020). Such collaborations also involve a broad range of stakeholders from civil society and private sectors.

 

The RRI approach aims to go beyond just legal compliance and getting ethics approvals for research. It recognizes that rather than a priori establishing a list of potential concerns, uncertainty and complexity of emerging technologies require an ongoing dialogue among diverse stakeholders, as technology develops (Stahl 2019). Emerging and unpredictable concerns can be better captured by an open and flexible dialogue rather than by some pre-set checklists and box-ticking exercises. An important feature that differentiates RRI from earlier approaches to ethical and societal aspects of research and innovation is that responsibility is not seen as an individual responsibility of scientists but rather as a feature of research governance. Thus, it is not just up to scientists to make the right choices but responsible research and innovation should also be encouraged and facilitated by a research policy, funding and reward system. Moreover, it should not be just an afterthought or an add-on but needs to be considered upfront when designing new research programmes and initiatives.

 

Among the issues that needs to be considered when developing technologies for good, dual use of concern and misuse are of particular importance. All powerful technologies like artificial intelligence, neurotechnology or nanotechnology can be used for socially beneficial as well as harmful purposes. Dual use is a relatively little known and contested concept. Traditionally, dual use has been understood as civil-military dichotomy when technologies developed for civilian purposes are also used for military applications and vice versa (Ulnicane 2020). Recently this term is understood more broadly considering a range of potentially problematic uses in political, security, intelligence, military and other domains (Ulnicane et al 2022). To identify and address such a broad range of concerns, it is important to have an ongoing interdisciplinary dialogue that provides a safe space and allows for experimentation, dialogue and learning. Of particular importance is raising awareness about these issues and including training on societal aspects of technologies in STEM education.

 

Dr. Inga Ulnicane is Senior Research Fellow at De Montfort University, UK. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on governance, politics and policy of science, technology and innovation. She has published on topics such as Artificial Intelligence, dual use, Grand societal challenges and European integration in research and innovation.

 

References:

Aicardi, C., S.Akintoye, B.T.Fothergill, M.Guerrero, G.Klinker, W.Knight, L.Klüver, Y.Morel, F.O.Morin, B.C.Stahl and I.Ulnicane (2020) Ethical and Social Aspects of Neurorobotics. Science and Engineering Ethics 26(5): 2533–2546 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-020-00248-8

 

Stahl, B.C., S.Akintoye, B.T.Fothergill, M.Guerrero, W.Knight and I.Ulnicane (2019) Beyond Research Ethics: Dialogues in Neuro-ICT Research. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 13, 105 https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2019.00105

 

Stahl, B.C., S.Akintoye, L.Bitsch, D.Eke, M.Farisco, K.Grasenick, M.Guerrero, W.Knight, T.Leach, S.Nyholm, G.Ogoh, A.Rosemann, A.Salles, J.Trattnig and I.Ulnicane (2021) ‘From RRI to Responsibility by Design’, Journal of Responsible Innovation 8(2): 175-198 https://doi.org/10.1080/23299460.2021.1955613

 

Ulnicane, I. (2020) The Governance of dual-use research in the EU: The case of neuroscience, in A.Calcara, R.Csernatoni and C.Lavallée (eds) Emerging Security Technologies and EU Governance. Actors, Practices and Processes. Routledge, pp.177-191. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429351846-12

 

Ulnicane, I., T. Mahfoud and A. Salles (2022) Experimentation, learning, and dialogue: an RRI-inspired approach to dual-use of concern. Journal of Responsible Innovation. https://doi.org/10.1080/23299460.2022.2094071

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To respond to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, we at UACES wanted to bring our community together. And we went the same way everyone is going right now: online.

The second virtual coffee meeting encouraged our community to talk about their mental health and how to look after it while working from home. Different perspectives were shared but we could also observe, a few struggles are the same for everyone.

Photo: ©Jakob Lawitzki – Balance, via Flickr

What has changed

Academics are often well equipped to work from home and student life often means to study either in the library or at home, writing on an essay or paper. Now, everyone is forced to work from home and that is a different context. Finding a good balance is not that easy as possibilities as well as equipment might suddenly be limited.

The pandemic demands a constant adjustment and no one has certainty on how long the pandemic will last. What has been decided yesterday might not count next week anymore. Deadlines for a paper or an essay is in constant change; and universities, students and professors are caught in between. You might end up spending a lot of time working on something for a deadline, a class or and event and all you do is preparing for something that might get cancelled or postponed. Keeping the motivation high is hard. The pandemic demands a lot of flexibility from everyone.

Many started to bake and cook loads, but even there is a real struggle: finding basic ingredients, like flour or eggs. This makes everyone a little nervous. It probably doesn’t mean that everyone bakes every day, but flour is that thing, that everyone usually has in their shelves. This phenomenon probably embodies security and signals, I could make something if I had to…
Others became motivated runners or endless dog-walkers. A restriction can also motivate in a different way. We often want, what we can’t have and we are observing this around us now.

Fear became more present and simple life administrations harder. People with a second house are facing difficulties in taking care of the other place where they not currently at. Letter correspondence is limited. How can I even send a letter to authorities? What if you are waiting for an important document but it’s being addressed to the other place? Journeys to the hair dresser, the garden centre or even the dentist might seem unimportant at first, until you feel a bit of pain in your teeth.

Whilst it all concerns this one topic: COVID-19. How can we escape all the questions that we have about this virus and its impact? It occupies our minds and affects our work, our everyday life so drastically that it is really hard to switch off. Depending on the individual situation everyone is in, the effect might be distinct in different ways. But we also observe that many do experience the same changes even if we are separated and in different countries or continents.

 

At least we can all stay connected. Or can we?

This might be more of an effort than you would believe. Just think about: How often do you interact with others throughout a normal day? It probably comes down to less than half of that number now. It is more of an effort to stay in touch. Simple interactions in between, like a coffee break and a 10-minute chat, are rare or non-existing.
Additionally, in an international environment, people travelled home to be with their families and might be in a different time zone now. Some haven’t spoken to colleagues in a little while.

Others checked on their colleagues and friends to make sure they are ok, because this gives oneself a good feeling and maybe even the certainty that everything will be ok, too. It might also be the need to exchange experience and hear what stage another country is in. Then, again, COVID dominates the conversation and our minds and our thoughts are lost in that one topic. We end up talking about worries and fears and it might feel that everything else to talk about has just disappeared.

In a family environment, how can we keep, date nights alive? This might not be so easy, but with a little imagination we might find ways. Like a dad experienced who pretended to serve dinner to his children. He and his wife planned a Saturday date night but the kids wanted to take part in this spectacular. Instead of letting his children serve them (which might have resulted in a kitchen disaster), he served his kids in a little role play for the evening.

 

There is also this thing about ‘time’…

Most people do not feel they have the time to start a new hobby, learn a new skill or do more reading, as so many suggest. Use the time to slow down, some say. If you work full-time from home you might find yourself continuing to work longer hours or even on the weekend. Many have experienced this already. A reason this happens is because work gives your day structure and avoids that we are losing the sense of time.
However, it could also mean, we haven’t finished our workload for the day. Many feel unfocused, are checking the media more often, and are caught up in calls with family and friends. And then, as mentioned, conversations are mostly about the COVID-19 pandemic. How can we avoid this?

Many suggest setting goals during self-isolation helps with your mental health. And if time is an issue, building up little challenges could make a little goal, like, how many steps am I doing a day at home? Can I walk 24 miles in my garden? Or like the artist Max Siedentopf suggests: get creative. ‘There are so many opportunities to create new and exciting work and turn this into something positive’. Every day, he challenges people via social media to do little tasks and to photograph and share their results. So, maybe trying to do small little things is a better idea than starting a new hobby to distract us from the realities that the pandemic confronts us with every day.

 

So, how can we look after ourselves?

Keeping a routine and structure is important for most people. It helps with motivation and productivity. Have you tried to break down your day? Something like the following might help to tick the tasks you set for your own day and which might make you feel better (because these are the things you can accomplish):

Breakfast – long walk – lunch – baby naps – 4 pm video chat with family – dinner

or

Spend the morning working on research – afternoon set aside for reading or lighter admin jobs – go for a run and/or do some kind of craft activity – Listen to podcasts (ideally not news-related)

Walks are helpful for almost everyone. Fresh air, the change of space, clearing the mind… The lucky ones are those who live in the countryside or close to the sea. In the city, a walk might still be a bit stressful. More people are around you and you are constantly trying to get around them while keeping 2 metres distance. But maybe, it is just based on finding the perfect time, the perfect walkway, the quiet part of the park.

 

And on maternity leave?

For colleagues on maternity leave (or about to embark upon it) one piece of advice is not to check your emails. There is an inordinate amount of emails being sent by university departments at the moment and they can be very stress-inducing; and even not relevant anymore once you return to work. However, if you think that you will be away from the university for a significant amount of time it may be better not to look at them or worry unduly about them since they will very likely not apply to you once you return.

 

And have you tried:

• to read the News only once a day?
• getting back into your research topic by talking about it to others? Maybe there are virtual meet-ups that can offer that? If not, why not start one in your network?
• relax with the tools you relax best. Don’t pressure yourself that you have to do a certain thing that all the others on social media are doing. Just because you see all your friends baking doesn’t mean you have to bake if it doesn’t give you joy.
• avoid social media for a bit. Plan calls to stay up to date with friends and family. Maybe start with deleting notifications or even apps from your phone.
• make a ‘Coronafree’-zone. Set a time or a location in your house which is exclusively for non-Corona topics. Involve your household in this, too and talk about books, movies or your current research instead. There are more things to talk about than the pandemic.
• to re-read a book? If you find it hard to concentrate, maybe try your favourite book that you have read before. It doesn’t need your full attention but might help to distract you or calm you by remembering the full story of the book.
• cooking shows? Get inspired about what you can cook in the evenings. There are plenty of shows on Netflix.
• puzzles, sudoku, crosswords?
• using the current situation for your research? Select those bits that are interesting for your professional career, maybe collect articles that you find interesting and can maybe use later for a research topic, a class or a debate.

 

The next #MidweekMeetup will address the work-life balance more deeply.
Register here to join the conversation – as usual at 11 am or 2 pm (BST).

 

 

The post UACES #MidweekMeetup – How to look after your mental health while working from home appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Neil spots an answer. Possibly

As you might have noticed, I have recently become a Senior Fellow of the ESRC-funded UK in a Changing Europe initiative, working on UK-EU relations. For present purposes, it mainly means I carry on doing this work, but now with more access to resources, and with a plan.

That plan is basically to try and make sense of relations, which feels like a bit more of a challenge now I’m actually getting into it. As such, it’s forced me to think more systematically about how to tackle this.

A key part of that is trying to unpack the various things we talk about when looking at this subject. So consider this a first stab.

Objectives

Long-time readers of this (and other) blogs will know that I have always placed a lot of attention on the question of objectives in the relationship.

In the simplest terms, what are we trying to do here?

Simple and obvious as that might sound, it’s very rare to hear this voiced by participants in the debate, beyond some boilerplate stuff about wanting ‘good’ or ‘constructive’ relations. Those things are nice, but hardly a well-developed conceptualisation of anything.

What do you need those good and constructive relations for? How do they fit into your wider foreign relations? How do they fit with your idea of what you want to achieve domestically?

These are the big questions that need to asked to get towards a better sense of any of the rest of what follows.

Processes

More common is discussion of how we build and run a relationship.

This starts by focusing on the types of instruments being used – UK-EU treaties; UK bilateral treaties with member states; MOUs; informal venues, etc. – each of which has its own range of options and flexibilities.

There’s also a process issue relating to who decides about the relationship. How much do you involve different political and social actors in this? Are you consulting widely, or trying to keep things tight?

These things all matter, both because of the future implications they carry (on flexibility, on the extent and nature of obligations) and because of the contemporary political values they contain (on legitimacy, on the seriousness of intent).

Content

This is the one we almost always discuss: what’s in the deal?

As I’ve already suggested, this kind of thing should really be driven by higher-order considerations about objectives, but in practice a lot comes down to specifics. Especially if you have a thing you think is important.

Scope clearly is consequential, also because a wider scope also tends to mean more people are affected/involved, which also has process implications.

Principles and Norms

This last category is slightly different in that it captures a number of ideas that inform the rest of the elements discussed here. Three examples might make this a bit clearer.

First up is the notion of good faith. Yes, it’s a principle of international treaty law, but it’s also good politics to be seen as (and actually to be) straight up, doing what you say you will. This speaks to trust, albeit in a more focused and applied manner.

Second we have the value placed on resilience and durability of agreements. As much as we have seen plenty of expediency in post-referendum British policy, there has also been an underlying effort to build some that will last. If nothing else, it hopefully means not having to spend so much time on things down the line.

And thirdly there is a notion that precedent-setting is important. This is more on the EU side, who don’t want to open the door to other third states popping up to demand the same treatment as the UK, but you also find in London, where particularities in dealings with the EU aren’t simple either (part of why CJEU powers are contentious).

Each of these suffuse the rest, even as they matter in their own right and deserve our attention.

Putting that together again

As I say, this is a first effort to systematise my thinking on this, but the main takeaway for now is that if we want to reach any equilibrium – high or low – in UK-EU relations, then we are going to have to make sure that we take proper account of all four parts of this, or risk falling another cycle making-it-up-as-we-go.

Which would be nice.

The post What do we talk about when we talk about negotiating a UK-EU relationship? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

For our weekly ‘Ideas on Europe’ editorial by UACES, the University Association for European Studies, we welcome Prof Georgiana Ciceo, from Babeș-Bolyai University, in Romania. Bonjour, Georgiana! Listen to the podcast on eu!radio.

 

 

30 years ago, the Maastricht Treaty anchored the principle of subsidiarity in the functioning of the European Union. Difficult to pronounce, and also difficult to understand for many citizens. Can you remind us of its origins and meaning?

You may be surprised, but the principle of subsidiarity actually received a first consecration from the Catholic Church in 1891, then again in 1931, in the Encyclical ‘Quadragesimo Anno’, entitled ‘On the Reconstruction of the Social Order’.

Established as a principle governing the distribution of competences between a ‘higher association’ and ‘lesser and subordinate organizations’, the principle of subsidiarity attempts to address the question of what lawyers call ‘the appropriate locus of political and legal authority’ in a multi-layered system of governance.

 

And when did the EU pick it up, and for what purpose?

The first expression of subsidiarity in the EU treaties surfaced in the Single European Act of 1986, in relation to environmental policy.

It was seen as a response to the centralizing tendencies that emerged in the context of the Maastricht Treaty negotiations. On the one hand, Member States were concerned about the seemingly endless growth of the Union’s powers. And on the other hand, regions became alarmed that centralist backsliding could lead to a diminution of their own powers.

As a result, the principle of subsidiarity was codified in Article 3b of the Maastricht Treaty, accompanied by the principle of conferred powers and the principle of proportionality, which were supposed to establish not just common principles for action, but also rules for less intrusive EU governance.

 

But is it actually a solution to a problem?

In some well-known federalist systems, as in Germany or Switzerland, it is expressly stated in the constitutions, as a safeguard against centralizing tendencies.

In the EU, it has become associated with the concept of ‘doing less more efficiently’ or ‘being big on big things and small on small things.’ Expressed along these lines, it eventually took the form of an alternative scenario in the debate over Europe’s future.

 

You’re speaking of the five scenarios drawn up by the former Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker?

Absoutely. The ones from the White Paper on the Future of Europe in early 2017, only six years ago. Juncker was concerned that for many Europeans, the Union was, I quote, ‘either too distant or too interfering in their day-to-day lives’.

But there are other interest groups who refer to the same idea. Remember ‘the Frugal Four’? This informal grouping of fiscally conservative Member States was opposed to higher budget contributions and to the idea of taking mutualized debts within the EU.

And there is the ‘Visegrad Group’, composed of four Central European countries – Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic – who share common concerns about migration and sovereignty.

In each case, there is always a certain ambiguity about where the equilibrium is to be found between ‘doing less’ in more policy areas and doing ‘more efficiently in fewer: ‘doing less’ suggests we have to reckon with an increased role assumed by the Member States, and ‘more effectively in fewer areas’ brings us to consider increased action by the Union.

 

What are the chances that the principle of subsidiarity will remain relevant in discussions on the future of Europe?

Since 2019, the principle lost important supporters, like Jean-Claude Juncker, or the former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. Moreover, there seems to be a preference for the alternative scenario of ‘Those who want more do more.’ In the European Parliament, only the ‘Conservative and Reformist’ group gives ’Doing less, but better’ as its motto.

In the current context of states turning to subsidies, export controls and economic self-sufficiency in an attempt to reduce dependencies in strategic industries, the principle of subsidiarity may become attractive again, in the sense of ‘better tackling certain priorities together’, by doing more ‘in a reduced number of areas’, rather than ‘doing less.’

The principle will remain central in the debate. But how it is interpreted also depends on the solutions that need to be found in the responses to each new crisis the Union faces.

 

Many thanks, for reminding and enlightening us on this concept. I recall you are professor at Babeș-Bolyai University, in Romania.

 

 

The post The Principle of Subsidiarity, 30 Years Later appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

by Johannes Jarlebring

The EU is currently mobilising its market power through a range of new policy tools. Examples include the Climate Border Adjustment Mechanisms (CBAM), the International Procurement Instrument and the Anti-Coercion Instrument. The general aim, as explained in the EU’s trade policy review and the recent industrial strategy, is to make the EU stronger, more assertive and more geopolitically relevant.

However, the actual implications of this mobilisation are largely unknown. Can the latent powers vested in the internal market really be transformed into effective, market-powered external action? There is an urgent need to understand how the EU machinery actually works when it comes to the use of market power. Which factors drive, constrain and condition the EU’s actions, thereby determining how, why and when the EU actively projects its market powers externally?

My recent article in the Journal of Common Market Studies addresses these questions by studying the EU’s use of blacklisting. Blacklisting is a coercive technique by which the EU threatens to restrict access to the internal market by assessing third countries’ regulatory regimes in specific sectors.

Three blacklisting schemes are currently in operation making it a relatively rare practice. However, blacklisting belongs to the broader family of trade-based sanctions – a prominent foreign policy tool. Moreover, it is an example of a coercive variant of so-called regime vetting, a technique frequently used by the EU to influence regulatory regimes in third countries.

Based on an examination of blacklisting in two policy areas, fisheries and taxation, the article finds that two main factors can explain why and when the EU uses blacklisting. When combined, these factors generate external action that is strikingly inconsistent.

 

Why and when blacklist?

EU elite actors act to promote the rule of law internationally, which explains why blacklisting schemes emerge. In both fisheries and taxation, EU external action was initiated by EU elite actors who undertook to develop international law with the purpose to define criteria for regulatory good governance. In fisheries, the responsible DG of the European Commission took action internationally to shape the first legally binding international convention on Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fisheries. In taxation, senior European officials engaged in the OECD to anchor EU criteria regarding ‘unfair’ corporate taxation. When blacklisting schemes were eventually introduced in EU law, they were explicitly linked to the same international law that EU elites had contributed to developing.

Domestic stakeholder interests also heavily condition and constrain the EU’s use of blacklisting, which largely explains when this technique is used. To begin with, the EU set up blacklisting schemes only when domestic stakeholders had clear commercial motives to support these schemes. In both fisheries and taxation, blacklisting was introduced as part of regulatory packages that included stringent internal market rules. These rules threatened to have a negative impact on EU producers as third countries could engage in regulatory arbitrage or rule deviation. Secondly, when it comes to the actual exercise of the blacklisting schemes to third countries, the EU almost exclusively blacklists very small third countries, while avoiding blacklisting large countries that blatantly violate EU criteria.

 

The EU as an inconsistent power

The general lesson from these finding is that the EU is institutionally predisposed to actively promote norms internationally and to break the norms it sets out to defend.

EU integration has generated dense networks of EU elites, often centred around the European Commission. These networks are central to the policy-entrepreneurship that drive EU external action in various sectors, be it climate change, labour rights or – as in the case of blacklisting – fisheries and taxation. A key insight is that their aims are not shaped by aggregated domestic interests or EU level capabilities, but rather follow from the interests and ideas represented by the networks. As their main tools and opportunity structure is constituted by supranational law, the networks of policy entrepreneurs will act to promote the development of such law.

EU integration has also generated an effective machinery for national control, mainly centred on the EU Council. When it comes to economic and regulatory issues, this machinery is activated when initiatives risk generating cost, in particular asymmetric costs. Only when the benefits, in terms of reduced negative externalities from abroad, outweigh the costs, does the national control machinery allow the EU to act.

This shapes not only the EU’s use of blacklisting, but its use of market power more generally, for instance when it comes to sanctioning violations of human rights or sustainable development clauses in its trade agreements. In cases like these, EU sanctions norm infringements almost exclusively in relation to very small countries and avoid moving against large countries.

This means that the EU is neither a ‘normative power’ promoting international law, nor a ‘superpower’ pursuing domestic interests, nor a ‘regulatory power’ engaged in functionalist extension of internal policies. Rather, the EU can be considered a ‘liberal power’, whose external action is driven and constrained by factors that are tightly associated with its identity as a union of liberal states.

 

Ill-suited to play geopolitics?

The findings indicate that the EU is not institutionally wired to use its market powers to play advanced geopolitical games with other large powers, through so called economic statecraft or ‘weaponised’ interdependence. Not only is such cross-sectoral action beyond the perspective of the networks of policy-entrepreneurs generated by EU integration, but it is also costly and therefore difficult to push through the national control machinery.

This institutional wiring is further illustrated by the ongoing development of the new wave of market-powered instruments. In fact, few of them concern outright foreign policy, geopolitics or geoeconomics, and most are tightly associated with specific aspects of the EU’s growth agenda; this is currently centred on the twin transition to climate neutral and digital societies. Rather than demonstrating a shift towards a ‘realist stance’, there is evidence of a liberal Europe assertively externalising its regulatory policies and progressively learning to calibrate power projection in ways that fit its complex, composite nature.

For instance, the recently agreed Deforestation Regulation illustrates how the EU fine-tunes its regime vetting schemes to avoid overly impacting (legitimate) trade. The new regulation sets tough requirements on timber exporting third countries, but rather than blacklisting poor performers, the Commission is empowered to flexibly impose gradually strengthened due diligence requirements on firms that import from countries with poor regulatory regimes.

Other examples illustrate how learning can allow the EU to play a geopolitical role. For instance, the Commission struggled to declare the U.S.’s data rules adequate under the GDPR, as its decisions were invalidated by the European Court of Justice. Staying clear of such troubles, the EU’s new Artificial Intelligence Act includes no adequacy clause but lays the basis for mutually recognizing third country regimes. This has allowed the EU to engage in intense and highly geopolitical discussions with the US on a global AI regime. The CBAM may offer similar opportunities, potentially allowing the EU to engage with third countries to set criteria for the governance of climate intensive industries.

Provided that this type of calibration can reduce costs sufficiently to avoid triggering national control mechanisms, the EU may be set to significantly strengthen its role as a global regulator, including in sectors of major geopolitical interest.

 

 

Author:

Johannes Jarlebring is a PhD candidate at Uppsala University. He has previously served many years as a civil servant and consultant specializing in EU matters. Twitter handle: @jjarlebring

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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French-German commemorations are a reassuring routine, especially on the governmental level. They are the occasion of some shoulder-tapping, large smiles that are not even unsincere, welcome obligations to bask in the sunshine of what has been achieved over all these years rather than in the shadow of the challenges that lie ahead. And contrary to the endless cycle of war-related anniversaries – terrifying battles and atrocious crimes, aggressive invasions and humilitating occupations – commemorating 60 years of a friendship Treaty comes as a relief, a rather enjoyable occasion to socialise.

Over the decades, celebrating the Elysée Treaty has become a ritual of both taking stock and expressing concerns over worrying trends of divergence between French and German politics, especially with regard to their role and influence in the European integration process. The latter has been described as declining for as long as I can remember. With always the same metaphors: it’s either the ‘engine’ that stutters, or the ‘couple‘ heading for divorce.

Europe, and geopolitics, being complicated, there are of course always challenges that strain the French-German relationships. How could they not? This is a permanent clash of two very different, historically path-dependent political cultures, governance structures, and philosophical heritages. Doing things together, finding common ground on existential questions, requires considerable effort from both of them. And some moments in time are more stressful, more demanding than others.

Thirty years ago: a critical moment

In January 1993 – at half-time of the currently celebrated 60 years of partnership – the moment was particularly rough. It was the first really big bilateral post-reunification event, and it had been preceded by some nasty developments. Germany had rediscovered economic frailty and a surge of xenophobic crimes that revealed the existence of a worrying extremist fringe. And over most of 1992 France had gone through a referendum campaign for the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty that had been marked by some very shrill Anti-German overtones in the speeches of leading politicians.

No wonder the media were much concerned. Le Monde covered the event to a large extent, mobilizing its finest experts, like Henri de Bresson or Daniel Vernet. The latter saw simultaneously ‘a battered French-German couple’ and an ‘island of stability’ in an increasingly destabilized environment, marked by both the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the resurgence of ethno-nationalism in its wake. Anyway, he concluded, there was ‘no alternative to French-German cooperation’.

Le Figaro, which at the time was a serious newspaper, diagnosed the need for the ‘restart of an exhausted engine’ that had lost a lot of steam during the painful negotiations on the future monetary union. The different researchers mobilized by the paper were more sanguine, demonstrating trust in the inertia of institutional bonds: sure, French-German relations were entering ‘a period of doubt’ but were also marked by ‘advanced interdependence’, which would continue to produce pragmatic initiatives.

In Germany, there was recognition that over the thirty years since de Gaulle and Adenauer, the political leadership in both countries had been up to the historical task. But, as Jürgen Wahl wrote for Die Zeit, there were also regular signs of ‘marital crisis’.

At this critical moment of uncertainty, public opinion, just like in the post-war years preceding the Elysée Treaty, already seemed one step further than the professional observers:  according to an IFOP survey on mutual perceptions, only 11% of the French were left with a ‘bad opinion’ about Germany, while two thirds of the Germans declared having a ‘good opinion’ about their French neighbours (with another third, including most likely many East Germans, opting for ‘neither good nor bad’). Reconciliation was considered ‘irreversible’ or at least ‘solid’ by 60% and 71% respectively. Over half of the respondents in both countries declared the other to be their ‘most reliable ally’, significantly above the US or the UK. And 89%, in both countries, esteemed ‘necessary to further strengthen cooperation’ between the two countries. I have doubts Adenauer and de Gaulle would have expected such an overwhelmingly positive trend in their wildest dreams (not that they were known to be dreamers anyway).

Football metaphors

Luckily, life is not exclusively made up of grave and far-reaching historical milestones. Even in January 1993, people had other preoccupations, among which, obviously, football.

Always prone to indulge in a nice pun, the Monday morning headline of L‘Equipe – the number one selling daily newspaper in France, way above Le Monde or Le Figaro – on 11 January read « Les Deutsch marquent ». Playing with the homophony of the verb marquer (in football: ‘to score’) in its conjugated form and the German currency, the title referred to the total of seven goals scored over the weekend by the two German world champion strikers Rudi Völler et Jürgen Klinsmann, playing for Olympique Marseille and AS Monaco respectively.

What a lovely way to take the hot air out of the hysterical debate about the Bundesbank’s alleged tyranny! And a tongue-in-cheek reference to the introduction of the single market ten days earlier, with its promise of free movement of people. Only two years before Jean-Marc Bosman took European football to court and launched a revolution.

Three decades later, the Euro is already over twenty years old. My current students have never known the big bad Deutsche Mark. Would they still get the point of the L’Equipe headline?

The 60th anniversary of the Elysée Treaty, despite all the current dark clouds hanging over Europe, could be a good moment to innovate in terms of metaphor. Rather than take the eternal ‘engine’ or ‘couple’ out of the drawer, it’s an opportunity to turn to football, one of the best providers of metaphors and allegories I can recommend to journalists. Why not compare France and Germany as two particularly indispensable players, without whom there’s no chance of winning, but who in turn would be nothing without the team? Feel free to develop the semantic field further, from the obvious allusions to ‘defence’ and ‘attack’ to more sophisticated skills like ‘counter-pressing’ and ‘give-and-go passing’.

The post Half-time talk appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

On 22 January 2023, France and Germany celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Elysée Treaty, rightly praised as a milestone in Europe’s post-war history. But the Treaty only institutionalised on governmental level a process towards reconciliation that civil society had already initiated without waiting for politics. This is the third post of a series of four personal musings about a remarkable achievement.

A German road sign in Western France.

Is there a better illustration of the bottom-up dynamic of post-war French-German reconciliation than the story of the town twinnings?

As I write, 2317 French cities, towns and villages are twinned with a German municipality of similar size. That’s a total of 4634 places big and small with friends across the border. Unimaginable? Unbelievable? Mind-boggling? Feel free to choose your adjective.

Of course, not all of these ‘partnerships’ as they are called by the Germans are filled with the same intensity. In smaller municipalities, much depends on tireless individuals, as well as demography. And language skills, which have declined over recent decades in both countries outside the border regions. Still, the number of the twins has never decreased. It actually keeps growing, albeit, obviously, at a very moderate pace nowadays.

Once again, like we already observed in the two previous posts (here and here), civil society preceded or paved the way for political institutionalisation. At the same time civil society initiative was also facilitated and legitimised by major political acts like the Schuman Declaration or the Elysée Treaty.

Knowing that 130 French municipalities were already engaged in friendly exchange with German counterparts necessarily was a reassuring piece of intelligence for Charles de Gaulle, when he scheduled his first state visit to Germany in September 1962, following the solemn ceremony in Reims Cathedral with Chancellor Adenauer in July. The triumphant welcome he received in the German cities he visited revealed both the public’s gratitude for these symbolic acts and a longing for further bilateral steps of reconciliation, in addition to and beyond the economic cooperation embodied in the Treaties of Rome.

Before taking off in France, the post-war twinnings were an English idea at first. As early as 1947, Bonn and Oxford, Düsseldorf and Reading, Hanover and Bristol engaged in official contacts.

The French were in need of just a bit more time, and a good mediator. The latter was found in a group of Swiss intellectuals, namely the writers’ association of Berne. In 1948 they invited some French and German mayors to what today would no doubt be called a ‘kick-off meeting’ at Mount Pèlerin on Lake Geneva. As leading historian Corine Defrance points out, French civil society was nudged ‘from abroad (Switzerland) and from above (intellectuals)’.

The third such meeting was the breakthrough. In June 1950 – note: right after the Schuman Declaration – Stuttgart welcomed thirty mayors from each country, many of whom were former resistance fighters, possessing a high level of legitimacy.

Lucien Tharradin

The main driver of the twinning idea was Lucien Tharradin, a former prisoner of war, deported to Buchenwald, now mayor of Montbéliard, in Eastern France. He persuaded his counterpart from Ludwigsburg (Baden-Württemberg) to launch an informal partnership, based on the pretext of historical affinities dating back several centuries.

Tharradin was well aware of the remaining difficulties to obtain the backing of a majority of citizens. In a report on the Stuttgart meeting, he conceded that ‘naturally, the wounds of this horrible war are not healed yet. Too many bad memories remain in our hearts. The road is long and steep.’ But this did not stop his confidence in the initiative. ‘The Germans I met (…) ask us to help them consolidate their democracy. I am absolutely convinced of their goodwill.’

Montbéliard and Ludwigsburg were the first ones in what has become a very long list. But they were not massively imitated right away. Many French mayors preferred to wait prudently before asking their municipal council for the permission to engage contacts in view of a twinning. It is only in the years 1957 to 1963 – between the Treaties of Rome and the Elysée – that the idea really took off. And the creation of the Franco-German Youth Office in the summer of ‘63 provided additional drive, grafting an increasing number of school exchanges on existing twinnings or helping to create them where no twin town was available yet.

It’s a remarkable success story, the secret of which is very fortunate timing, and the presence of a critical number of French actors stubborn enough to convince their fellow citizens that a humanist, confident approach towards their neighbours was worth while trying out. The Germans contributed their part. As so often in post-war history, the citizens of the young Federal Republic were offered an unexpected (some would say: undeserved) opportunity and managed to seize it for their benefit.

Sound bilateral relations on an intergovernmental level are a good thing. But the underpinning of French-German cooperation in Europe by a dense, lively network of people, keeping a general atmosphere of good neighbourhood alive and tangible, is more than that: it’s one of Europe’s jewels, precious and unique.

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On 22 January 2023, France and Germany celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Elysée Treaty, rightly praised as a milestone in Europe’s post-war history. But the Treaty only institutionalised on governmental level a process towards reconciliation that civil society had already initiated without waiting for politics. This is the second post of a series of four personal musings about a remarkable achievement.

La Cambe is a small village on the coastline of Lower Normandy, with 546 inhabitants. Alive, that is. They cohabitate with over 21,000 German soldiers buried in the war cemetery that covers seven hectares of their land. They are part of the 155,000 killed between the landing of the Allied troops on 6 June 1944 and the end of the fighting in Normandy roughly three months later. The story of this place is an interesting case study that helps understanding why French-German reconciliation worked out the way it did.

When the department of Calvados extended the National Road 13 between Caen and Cherbourg in the mid-1990s to a four-lane highway, they needed to deviate it in some places. As a result, the war cemetery in La Cambe found itself separated from the main road by a 100-meter patch of land filled with a spoil heap from the road works.

The authorities offered these extra square metres to the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge, a long-standing charity organisation tending war graves and identifying the buried all across the continent. The idea was floated to create a small information and documentation centre and a ‘Peace Garden’ made of trees sponsored by individuals or organisations, with the aim of both nicely landscaping the heap and generating revenues to be put to use in the cemeteries of Eastern Europe, which had all of a sudden become easily accessible at the beginning of the nineties.

Sponsorship for a tree was tentatively fixed at 500 D-Mark (250 Euros). Each tree would have a little green sign attached, with the date and name of the sponsor, and two lines of text. One of my second-year students from the business school in Le Havre was perfectly happy to do a summer internship on site carrying out a ‘market study’ : with her little questionnaire she simply tested the idea and the price range with the visitors. The echo was overwhelmingly positive, a lot of people wanted to be shortlisted right away. Consquently, the idea was implemented.

On 21 September 1996 the first 21 maple trees were planted during the inauguration of the peace garden. Space was available for a total of 235 trees. As of November, the garden was already completely overbooked, prompting the French authorities to grant the use of another heap hill at the new highway ramp, and while they were at it, they also offered a whole alley of trees along the small cul-de-sac road between the ramp and the cemetery. By early 1998, the garden was full with 1,127 trees. Today, the cemetery draws around 100,000 visitors each year, and since 2019 the exhibition in the small information centre has been remarkably well renewed and updated.

In the 21st century, the easygoing exchange between a German charity and French authorities does not come as a big surprise. What is more surprising is the calm toleration of all these enemy bodies in the French soil in the immediate aftermath of the war and during the post-war years. According to the archives, no incident of protest, let alone vandalism, has been noted, ever. Although there would have been some good reasons, since the cemetery not only contains the remains of kids aged 17 and 18, sent to the front in order to give their lives to the Führer, but also several hundreds of ‘Waffen-SS’ members, and a handful of truly evil war criminals, among whom the officer who had ordered the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre, an emblematic landmark of cruelty.

Obviously, the Volksbund made sure to keep a low profile, while brainstorming about how to deal with this necropolis, one of five in Normandy. In an internal memo of 1949, the future design of the cemetery was discussed. ‘Thousands of crosses’, as for instance in the well-known American graveyard in Saint Laurent/Colleville – the one made famous by Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan – located 15 km to the east of La Cambe, were considered an ‘unsatisfactory solution’ with a ‘massifying’ effect and definitely to be avoided. The best option was esteemed to be groups of five symbolic crosses above the countless, but discreet flat stones in the ground bearing the names of the buried.

The creation of the Federal Republic allowed for intergovernmental talks on the issue of war cemeteries. A convention was signed by Chancellor Adenauer and Prime Minister Pierre Mendès France in 1954, jointly expressing the wish to make these cemeteries ‘permanent’ and ‘ensure the dignity of the graves’. The French authorities would support the civil society organisation designated by the German government. La Cambe, like many other sites, was handed over to the Volksbund.

As early as 1957 – six years before the Elysée Treaty was signed – it was thus possible to launch the redesign of the cemetery in carrying busloads of volunteers to the first International Youth Camp organised on site. The archives report that many local French kids dropped by for curiosity’s sake, then came back the next day with their own shovel and helped for a week or two.

‘Reconciliation over the graves.’

The risk of an emotional backlash against such a German monument could never be fully excluded, though. The minutes of an exchange between the Volksbund and the French Ministry of Veterans and War Victims prior to an official inauguration ceremony of the fully completed landscaped cemetery in 1961 shows how the latter insists on the purely religious, low-key character of the event in order to avoid any embarrassing incident. Which did not exclude a political bilateral ceremony within the halls of the Préfecture de Caen, including representatives of civil society from both sides. And it was insisted that the good understanding between the officials should by all means be underpinned by contacts between the visitors and the local population.

‘Reconciliation over the graves’ became the motto of the Volksbund and entered the mainstream vocabulary through countless speeches and editorials. When I discussed with the Volksbund officials during the work on the La Cambe peace garden in 1995-96 how to explain that a place like this had never been the object of negative attitudes, we came up with the ‘profoundly human and universal character’ of an activity that consists of caring for graves, the low profile of the German cemeteries far from any heroic discourse, and the unwavering positivity of the ‘peace narrative’.

But La Cambe is also a relevant case study for the conditions under which such a reconciliation is possible in the first place. It is enabled by an unambiguous recognition of wrongdoing on one side and a willingness to believe in its sincerity on the other side. It is facilitated by an overwhelming tiredness and a shared understanding that the ‘never again!’ principle needs concrete realisations to be meaningful. And it is greatly helped by the consistency between bottom-up field work and governmental orientation. There is a link between the Schuman Declaration and the acceptance of soldiers buried in Norman soil.

This being said, as one of my American students wrote in an essay after a day trip to the Normandy beaches, French-German reconciliation, even before the Elysée Treaty of 1963, ‘is nothing short of a miracle’. Needless to say, she got an excellent grade.

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