European Union

MEPs support the ambitious, citizen-driven proposals of the Plenary of the Conference on the Future of Europe to profoundly reform the EU.

Source : © European Union, 2022 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2022 - EP

On Wednesday 27 April 2022 EUHealthGov hosted the fourth event in its quarterly seminar series. We were delighted to be joined by Dr Thibaud Deruelle (University of Lausanne) to discuss the EU’s role in vaccine policy, and how a reputational approach can help to explain the growing relevance and involvement of the EU in this field. 

Dr Deruelle introduced the theoretical approach taken in his work. A reputation is a set of beliefs that observers hold, or judgments that observers make, about an individual or an organisation. A strong reputation can enable an actor to have influence in the absence of coercive power; for instance, it can enable the EU, in the absence of a formal mandate, to have influence in the field of vaccine policy. 

The EU has engaged in reputation-building activities – developing scientific networks, building functions within the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA), supporting the adoption of Council conclusions – to strengthen its reputation, particularly in the aftermath of the H1N1 outbreak. Dr Deruelle explained how these activities put the EU in a strong position in January 2020, when COVID-19 emerged. He outlined the role played by the Commission and the ECDC, in particular, in the early weeks and months of the crisis, as well as the institutionalisation of some of these roles in the subsequent European Health Union initiatives. Addressing the particular issue of vaccine procurement, Dr Deruelle noted the potential for reputational risk, and the possibility of ‘backlash’ from member states which might have undermined further strengthening of the EU’s influence. 

The Q&A explored the wider value of a reputational approach for understanding the EU’s evolving role in health policy, touching on its value in explaining the gradual integration of public health, alongside theories of neofunctionalism and networked governance. Dr Deruelle ended by discussing the potential for the EU’s strengthened reputation in vaccine policy to support the formal expansion of competence, via treaty change. 

A recording of the event will shortly be available via the EUHealthGov website.

The post Summary: Discussing the emergence of the EU in the field of vaccination using a reputational approach, with Dr Thibaud Deruelle appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Alina Constantin / Better Images of AI / Handmade A.I / CC-BY 4.0

Inga Ulnicane

‘… Europe is a unique aspiration. […] It is an aspiration of a world full of new technologies and age-old values’, Ursula von der Leyen, then incoming President of the European Commission, wrote in her political guidelines in 2019. Since then questions of new technologies and European values have been at the forefront of political discussions in Brussels and member states regarding Artificial Intelligence (AI), including preparations for the forthcoming AI Act and recently adopted Digital Services Act. These discussions have not only addressed technocratic questions of economic indicators and legal instruments but also involved soul-searching and reflections on European identity: What is Europe? What does Europe stand for? And how does Europe want to project its identity and power to the rest of the world?

Policy frames and discourses surrounding AI are at the core of an ongoing research programme which I have been leading over the past few years and which had led to a number of publications on AI governance, politics and policy (Ulnicane et al 2021a, 2021b, 2022; Ulnicane 2022a, 2022b).

 

Europe’s power: Single Market based on values?

In my recent publication on AI in the European Union (Ulnicane 2022a), I examine an emerging EU policy on AI, drawing on Europe as a power debate in the European Studies literature. I analyse recent EU documents on AI, asking how the EU is projecting its power in the field of AI vis-à-vis other countries and regions, especially the United States and China. Is it a Normative Power Europe relying on attractiveness of its values, as defined in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union, namely, human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities? Or do we rather see elements of a Market Power Europe exerting its global influence by regulating access to its Single Market?

Close reading of AI policy documents launched by the EU institutions since 2017 reveals elements of both – Normative as well as Market Power. In line with an idea of Normative Power Europe, a lot of emphasis is put on developing human-centric AI that serves human needs and aligns with European values and fundamental rights. A major step in this direction has been an adoption of Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI in 2019. At the same time, EU policy intentions also include elements of Market Power Europe calling for binding regulation, which are followed up by ongoing preparations for the forthcoming AI Act. Moreover, elements of Normative Power and Market Power in AI policy are interconnected, where binding regulation is presented as a way to enforce European values.

However, the EU’s activities in this field have also received criticism. For example, Ethics guidelines for Trustworthy AI have been portrayed as a potential ethics washing where talk about ethics serves as a way to delay binding regulation (Ulnicane et al 2021b). Moreover, critics have pointed out strong presence of business interests in the EU AI initiatives and questioned if EU funding for new technologies always lives up to its own values. Furthermore, some of the key EU policy documents on AI omit addressing issues of defence AI, which the EU itself is funding. While the implementation of EU political intentions to support human-centric AI remains an important issue to be followed-up in the years to come, recent cases of the General Data Protection Regulation and Digital Services Act can serve as examples how the EU’s focus on protection of its values is advanced through binding legislation.

 

Europe & global AI race: racing for what?

Emerging EU policy for AI draws not only on well-know values but also on some well-known political discourses such as transformation, revolution, and global competition (Ulnicane et al 2022). In particular, the discourse of global competitiveness is well-known in European integration. Already since the 1950s and 1960s concerns about the technological gap and Europe lagging behind the US have been a powerful driving force for the emergence and expansion of EU research policy. While this discourse of global competitiveness has received important criticisms over the years about depicting technological development globally as a zero-sum game where one country/ region wins and others lose, its persistence is remarkable. A new version of it can be seen in AI policy. EU policy documents for AI mention how AI development takes place ‘amid fierce global competition’ and how the investments in AI in the EU are lagging behind the US and China.

While admitting a strong global competition in AI among the US, China and Europe, the EU tries to position itself as a Normative Power, emphasising its values-based, human-centric and ethical approach to AI. In addition to global competitiveness and ‘new space race’ discourse in AI (Ulnicane 2022), there is also interest in global cooperation initiatives. The EU policy demonstrates a strong interest in global cooperation initiatives, in particular when they can help to promote the EU’s trustworthy and human-centric approach to AI. The EU has contributed to a number of international initiatives, such as the development of the OECD ethical principles for trustworthy AI, the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, and EU-US Trade and Technology Council.

The main ideas from this research have been discussed in a number of invited talks. You can watch a recording of my recent talk ‘Can Artificial Intelligence be governed? Multiple challenges and some opportunities’ on YouTube.

Click here to view the embedded video.

 

EU policy for AI remains a moving target. Ongoing policy and technological developments are co-shaping each other with new initiatives and capabilities to be expected in the short and long term. More research is under preparation to examine these ongoing developments. Some of it will be discussed at the panel ‘Power, Politics, and Policy of Artificial Intelligence’ at the ECPR conference this summer. We look forward to discussing new insights on this topic then and on other occasions.

 

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

 

References:

Ulnicane, I., W. Knight, T. Leach, B. C. Stahl and W.G. Wanjiku (2021a) Framing governance for a contested emerging technology: insights from AI policy, Policy and Society 40(2): 158-177 https://doi.org/10.1080/14494035.2020.1855800

Ulnicane, I., D. O. Eke, W. Knight, G. Ogoh and B. C. Stahl (2021b) Good governance as a response to discontents? Déjà vu, or lessons for AI from other emerging technologies. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 46 (1-2): 71-93  https://doi.org/10.1080/03080188.2020.1840220

Ulnicane, I. (2022a) ‘Artificial Intelligence in the European Union: policy, ethics and regulation’, in T. Hoerber, I. Cabras and G. Weber (Eds) Routledge Handbook of European Integrations, Routledge, pp.254-269. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429262081-19

Ulnicane, I. (2022b) Against the new space race: global AI competition and cooperation for people. AI & Society https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-022-01423-0

Ulnicane, I., W.Knight, T.Leach, B.C.Stahl and W.G. Wanjiku (2022) ‘Governance of Artificial Intelligence: Emerging international trends and policy frames’, in M.Tinnirello (Ed.) The Global Politics of Artificial Intelligence. CRC Press, pp.29-55. https://doi.org/10.1201/9780429446726-2

The post Artificial Intelligence and Europe: New tech & old vibes appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Tag: FRONTEX

The Monthly Highlights publication provides an overview, at a glance, of the on-going work of the policy departments, including a selection of the latest and forthcoming publications, and a list of future events.
Source : © European Union, 2022 - EP

A short post this week, to update the trackers for meetings of the assorted committees of the EU-UK’s Withdrawal Agreement and Trade & Cooperation Agreement.

As you can see, things have been quiet so far this year. WA activity has been winding down (although that might change should the UK follow through on its reported plans for disapplying parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol).

Likewise, the TCA seems to be heading for annual meetings of most bodies, with a few exceptions. The Parliamentary Partnership Assembly has still to meet at all, suggesting that its scope for building more links between the parties is going to be – at best – a long-term prospect.

As always, you can click through the PDF links below to get a version with clickable links to minutes, agendas and reports.

 PDF: https://bit.ly/UshGraphic78

 

PDF: https://bit.ly/UshGraphic85

The post WA/TCA meeting tracker: April 2022 appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Length of video : 38'

Disclaimer : The interpretation of debates serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic record of proceedings. Only the original speech or the revised written translation is authentic.
Source : © European Union, 2022 - EP

Length of video : 41'

Disclaimer : The interpretation of debates serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic record of proceedings. Only the original speech or the revised written translation is authentic.
Source : © European Union, 2022 - EP

On 25 March, SEDE Members will exchange views with Chris Peeters, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank, on the EIB's Strategic European Security Initiative, aimed at supporting, via financing of up to 6 billion, dual-use projects seeking to develop security and defence systems in Europe in areas such as cybersecurity, emerging and disruptive technologies, space technologies or artificial intelligence. At the same time, the eligibility criteria for financing have not been modified, excluding investments in the armament sector and all purely military investments. In the face of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the debate will focus on possibilities for the EIB to support access to financing for the European defence industry, drawing on priorities included in the Strategic Compass.

Meeting agenda and documents
Live streaming
EU Fact Sheets: Security and defence
Source : © European Union, 2022 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2022 - EP

The question of whether and how Ukraine joins the EU ranks relatively low on the list of priority topics right now, for reasons that are both too obvious and too horrific to discuss right now.

However, it is still a question that demands attention. The rapid return of the Commission’s preliminary questionnaire by the Ukrainian government – 11 days after receiving it – sets the stage for a rapid publication of the Commission’s opinion, to then allow the June European Council to declare the country an official candidate.

For comparison, Bosnia & Herzegovina took over three years to get that status. Even Finland – the all-time record-holder for speediest accession – took eight months. Ukraine is on track for half that time.

So it’s all good. Right?

Not really.

As I set out in the thread below, speed now has come by avoiding some difficult questions (data here):

Some more comparative data on speed of EU accession

tl;dr speed now for UKR probably means delays later

Data: https://t.co/yrfS96O7ZF

1/ pic.twitter.com/IpQMM5C4Me

— Simon Usherwood (@Usherwood) April 20, 2022

Crucially, the EU has side-stepped the Copenhagen criteria, which is has used for the past 30 years to gatekeep accession. Whether you accept the official line that the criteria are for everyone’s benefit, or see them just as another barrier that member states use to brush off awkward applicants, they still speak to the crucial question of what the EU stands for.

Remove the current war from the equation and the Commission would likely have spent an age on screening and scrutinising Ukraine over the robustness of its political system, the effectiveness of its anti-corruption work and the capacity of its economy to cope with being dropped into a huge and much-richer single market. The war adds another huge challenge on top of all that (not least because of the Art.42 TEU obligations to mutual defence).

However, the war has undoubtedly also thrown all that over.

The geopolitical – maybe even civilisational – imperative to support and protect Ukraine has already engendered huge shifts in the EU, both politically and in policy terms. The hard push to get to candidate status is reflection of that, and rightly so.

But the EU is also well-aware of the limits to its powers. In particular, securing internal reforms is much more effective when you can dangle membership as a reward, as compared to the limited tools available for sanctioning those inside. Take your pick of contemporary examples.

So does the EU continue to push that to one side and work out the problems once Ukraine is inside? Or does it press for changes beforehand?

In either case, Ukraine might well lack the capacity to make the requested reforms, especially in the context of the on-going conflict. Plus any concessions on reforms you make for Ukraine will be taken up by other states as a demonstration that the EU doesn’t really need to be quite so difficult and intrusive.

As I conclude in my thread, none of this should stop the EU and Ukraine working together hard to get to the latter’s accession: morally, strategically and politically it is the right thing to do. But that will also require frank and deeply engaged discussions about how to square the circle that both sides face. Ukraine needs membership, but membership of an organisation that is still worth joining: the EU needs to protect its interests, but not if the price is the collapse of a democratic state.

PDF: https://bit.ly/UshGraphic100

The post Ukrainian accession to the EU: run now, walk later? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

For our weekly “Ideas on Europe” editorial by UACES, the University Association for European Studies, we have the pleasure to welcome Dr Dorina Baltag, from Loughborough University, in London. Bonjour, Dorina!

 

 

 

 

euradio · The Future of Peace on Our Continent – Ideas on Europe

 

 

The Russian war in Ukraine questions some of the basic principles on which peace on the European continent has been constructed since the end of the Second World War. Dorina, you are a researcher at the Institute of Diplomacy and International Governance at Loughborough University London, which recently organised an event on this topic. What came out of it?

It sounds counter-intuitive to talk about peace when there is a war happening on the European continent, but Russian military aggression, invasion and war in Ukraine is a turning point for politics, economics, society, and, of course, the world order. The legacy of this war will be long-lasting.

What we are witnessing now is a European Union that has responded with exceptional unity, resolve and speed. At the same time this war reveals the sensibilities of the different countries and highlights the need to account for global interdependencies. So, any consideration of a sustainable future of peace must consider the way in which the interconnectedness between geopolitics and geoeconomics will be addressed.

 

Let’s start with the geopolitical dimension.

In geopolitical terms, we can say that the European Union had an ‘awakening’.

For the first time EU leaders did not hesitate but acted immediately by sending military equipment to a third country. A few days only after Russia’s invasion, the EU agreed on spending €450 million in arms for Ukraine and an additional €50 million in non-lethal aid. We even witnessed a stimulation of the EU military drive and a U-turn in German’s foreign and security policy. Putin managed to produce what was unimaginable in the post-Cold war era: Germany stepped up its own defence capabilities by setting up a special fund for the modernisation of its armed forces.

 

It is clear that the war in Ukraine has radically changed the EU’s position on Russia.

And it has pushed member states to commit to support the future membership of Ukraine. On the fourth day of the war already, we watched the Ukrainian president Zelensky applying for EU membership!

At first, it looked like there was a positive response – the resolution from the European Parliament and the statement from the European Council were confirming that ‘Ukraine is one of us’. But, there is also an intra-EU divide: Central and Eastern European countries who are pushing for fast-tracking Ukraine’s candidate status versus Germany, the Netherlands or France who are more reluctant, emphasizing the long process of deep internal transformations and scaling full integration back to the “Association Agreement” which does not automatically offer membership perspective.

That’s the situation. The question is: how will it be possible to ensure peace in the future?

It is up to the EU to decide where it wants to stand in the new world order. An awakened EU as a regional security actor is long overdue and, in this role, the EU needs to balance-out geopolitics with geoeconomics. This means it can no longer embrace a politics of double standards. To ensure peace, the EU’s ambiguous approach in external relations – where the democracy promotion agenda is often overtaken by member-states’ national economic interests – needs to stop.

In the long-term, peace on the European continent depends on the EU’s political will of providing security guarantees to its neighbours. And in the EU’s normative vein, this means nothing else than membership perspective. Probably, the best way forward in giving Ukraine a message regarding its own perspective is to no longer slow down the association process in Western Balkans!

 

Many thanks, Dorina, for sharing the insight from your event with us. “Ideas on Europe” will be back next week, and we will welcome Mechthild Roos again, from the University of Augsburg, in Germany.

 

First published on eu!radio.

 

The post The Future of Peace on Our Continent appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Given the amount of political anguish caused already by the Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP) since its conception during the Withdrawal Agreement (WA) talks, it might seem odd to write today about one provision that can’t be used until late 2024 at the earliest.

However, the Art.18 provisions on consent represent a key safeguard for the Protocol’s long-term survival, whatever comes of the endless debate about what should happen.

As a reminder, the NIP can only be amended or revoked by the joint agreement of the signatories – the EU and the UK – something that appears deeply unlikely, either now or for the foreseeable future. Likewise, the Art.16 provision on safeguards only allows for a temporary and limited suspension of some parts of the NIP while the signatories find a solution: as discussed elsewhere, it’s not a unilateral (or long-term) solution.

So the only mechanism available to just one party to make a lasting change to the Protocol is Art.18.

As the graphic below sets out, the Northern Ireland Assembly gets to vote in late 2024 on whether to continue the main substantive elements of the NIP (excluding citizens’ rights) for another four years (eight if majorities of both unionist and nationalist designated MLAs can be found).

This not only accords with the intention of the Good Friday Agreement to make the Northern Irish the deciders of their situation, but also provides a way for both the EU and London [sic] to distance themselves from any repudiation of the Protocol

The coming Assembly elections will be a test of this, both in the campaigning approach of unionists (who seem very determined to push for the NIP’s collapse) and in the likely shifts in MLA numbers.

This latter point is not only about the likely rise in the number of Sinn Fein MLAs (which will help with the basic overall majority requirement), but also the potential growth of ‘other’ designated MLAs. Under Art.18(6), these do not count in the ‘cross community support’ calculations, possibly making it yet harder to achieve the necessary threshold for an eight year continuation.

However, to return to the present, consent isn’t the main topic of debate around the Protocol right now. The EU’s easement on medicine supply this week points to the on-going efforts to demonstrate how the NIP can be made to work better through engagement, but this will not be the rhetoric of the DUP and other unionists in coming weeks.

At the same time, if the current Art.16 ‘shall we, shan’t we’ argument is outridden, then Art.18 will come much more sharply into view and the way voters split this May might turn out to be crucial in deciding the outcome.

PDF: https://bit.ly/UshGraphic102

The post A problem for 2024? Consent in the Northern Ireland Protocol appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Source : © European Union, 2022 - EP

A European Parliament delegation, which travelled to the Republic of Moldova against the backdrop of a worsening security situation in Europe, finalised its visit on Saturday.
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on Security and Defence

Source : © European Union, 2022 - EP

There is a general perception in Western countries that the role of values as a foreign policy driver is currently on the decline. This study in the series ‘global trends in external policies’ seeks to contribute to the debate by investigating what is meant by ‘values’, whether their importance is on the wane and, if so, how this manifests itself, and how the European Union (EU) can respond to these trends. The broad concept of values has therefore been split into five categories. Socio-cultural values are implicit drivers of foreign policy. In the case of the EU, these are characterised by diversity. ‘Political values’ is used as a term to describe the fundamental principles of political and public action, defining the relationship between the state and its citizens. For the EU, these are often referred to as the triad of human rights, democracy and the rule of law. Economic values characterise the nature of the prevailing economic system in a country. The EU advocates a social market economy. The term ‘Earth values’ refers to the inclusion of environmental considerations in external policies. The EU has become a leader in promoting sustainability. Resulting from the preceding four are ‘international order values’, which characterise the overall international outlook of actors. The EU’s international order value is ‘principled pragmatism’. This study compares the EU’s values with those of four reference countries: the US, Turkey, Russia and China. The US in the West comes closest to many of the EU’s values, but does not overlap completely. Turkey and Russia are in the EU’s Eastern neighbourhood and increasingly disagree with the EU on values. Chinese values overlap least with the EU’s values. The study confirms a decline in the influence of the political values preferred by the EU. This decline appears to correspond to a clear West-East spectrum. However, the study also notes an opposite trend of increasing influence of Earth values. For these, a Eurocentric spectrum appears more adequate. For economic values, the definition of trends depends on benchmarks and methodology. The international order notion of ‘principled pragmatism’ has been extended to ‘EU strategic autonomy’. Values are often considered as part of EU strategic autonomy and some policies, such as EU accession or trade policy, incorporate them. A values-based approach to external policies should differentiate according to the partner country and the value category concerned. Whereas cooperation on political values does not appear to be fruitful with certain countries, continued efforts on economic or Earth values may still be possible. The study explores what such a differentiated approach could mean for the four reference countries in the near future. Such an approach should also take into account the differing perceptions of partner countries. Although positive avenues of cooperation on, for example, Earth values are still possible, geopolitical tensions, partly rooted in differing values, are overshadowing this path.
Source : © European Union, 2022 - EP

MEPs from the Foreign Affairs Committee and Security and Defence Subcommittee will visit Moldova from 31 March to 2 April, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on Security and Defence

Source : © European Union, 2022 - EP

Length of video : 95'

Disclaimer : The interpretation of debates serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic record of proceedings. Only the original speech or the revised written translation is authentic.
Source : © European Union, 2022 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2022 - EP