European Union

Turkey will be present in Bosnia and Herzegovina but only if Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats unite and say they want Turkey as a mediator, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told local reporters upon his return from last week’s visit to...

Germany's centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) extended their lead over chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives in the latest poll published, Reuters reports. The poll showed support for the SPD and their chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz jump by 2 percentage points to 25 percent, the highest reading in the survey in four years. CDU's Armin Laschet lost 3 points to reach a record low at 20 percent. The Greens stood at 16.5 percent.

The European Commission has reiterated its threat to withhold EU budget funds from companies, such as Agrofert, clandestinely controlled by Czech billionaire-prime minister Andrej Babiš due to fears that he breached conflict-of-interest rules. The Commission "will interrupt any future payment claims in respect of such companies pending the implementation of system improvements to address this risk," a spokesman said Monday. The European Parliament, in June, also urged a grant freeze.

The UN Security Council Monday failed to take up France's proposal to create a UN-controlled "safe zone" at Kabul airport for people trying to leave Afghanistan. It called for a "safe, secure, and orderly departure from Afghanistan of Afghans and all foreign nationals," however. China and Russia abstained from the vote. Russia also called on the US to unfreeze Afghanistan's gold and foreign currency reserves at the Word Bank.

Maltese journalist Manuel Delia, a fierce critic of his government's handling of a notorious journalist-murder in 2017, has said he feels afraid to continue working after being targeted with a fake-email campaign designed to make him look corrupt and mentally ill. "If anyone tells you they are fearless, that none of this stuff affects them ... I'm not. I do feel fear," he said in The Times of Malta.

EU countries are preparing to stop Afghan refugees from potentially entering Europe en masse, amid fears of a repeat of the 2015 migration crisis.

The spokeswoman of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, one of his last close associates remaining in the country, has fled Russia, Interfax reported. Kira Yarmysh's reported departure comes amid a growing exodus of opposition-leaning journalists and dissidents that The New York Times calls "the biggest wave of political emigration" in Russia's post-Soviet history. Critics point to a widening crackdown on dissent and independent voices ahead of September's election.

In a statement published on the Telegram messaging platform, the IS-K group (IS-Khorasan) said that it had fired six rockets, targeting Kabul airport. The "Islamic State" affiliate in Afghanistan also said some people were injured in the attack, Deutsche Welle writes. The global coalition of countries against the so-called "Islamic State" condemned the attack.

Germany's foreign minister said €500m was "ready for immediate aid" to support Afghanistan's neighbouring countries as they receive Afghan refugees, Deutsche Welle writes. "We will support the countries of the region and the people in Afghanistan," Heiko Maas said in Tajikistan — part of his four-day trip to countries that could host Afghans seeking to flee.

US president Joe Biden will welcome Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy to the White House on Wednesday in a show of solidarity between the two countries, the White House said in a statement, Reuters reports. "This visit will affirm the United States' unwavering support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia's ongoing aggression," the White House said.

The World Health Organisation and Unicef have called on European countries to keep schools open despite the pandemic, by making teachers a target for vaccination programmes and implementing new anti-infection measures.

An EU Commission spokesperson called the situation's origins as "an attempt by a third county to instrumentalise people for political purposes, which we very firmly reject and described as a form of aggression".

The parliamentary elections set for 17-19 September could be an opportunity for democracy in Russia - amidst voter dissatisfaction over economic recession, growing inflation, environmental problems and an unfolding health crisis.

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MEPs from the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Committee on Development and the Delegation for relations with Afghanistan will discuss the situation in the country with the EEAS and the European Commission on 1 September.
This follows the extraordinary meeting which took place on 19 August 2021 with Josep Borrell Fontelles, High Representative/Vice President of the European Commission, where MEPs expressed their concern with developments in Afghanistan and called for urgent action to address the pressing needs on the ground as well as highlighting the implications for international migration.
The meeting on 1 September will focus on the political and security situation in Afghanistan, including the humanitarian dimension and the regional stability.
Webstreaming
Video recording 19 August 2021
Statement by leading MEPs on the situation in Afghanistan - 16 August 2021
Press Release 19 August 2021 "Afghanistan: provide humanitarian help to locals, MEPs urge"
Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

During the meeting of 1-2 September, Members of the Committee on Foreign Affairs will discuss situation in countries and regions confronted with political, economic or humanitarian crises, including Afghanistan, Lebanon, Mozambique and at the EU's external border with Belarus. The Committee will also have an exchange of views on the draft report on Cooperation on fight against organised crime in the Western Balkans and will vote on a Recommendation on EU-Taiwan Political Relations and Cooperation and on the amendments to the EU 2022 Budget.

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

The entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty in 1999 reshaped cooperation in justice and home affairs (JHA) thus marking a new phase in EU asylum and migration policymaking. A primary goal of the Treaty was to progressively establish an area of freedom, security and justice (AFSJ). Consequently, issues related to asylum, migration and external border controls were transferred from the third pillar, which required unanimity in an intergovernmental setting, to the first pillar, falling under the shared responsibility of both EU member states and institutions. In addition, the Treaty formally incorporated the 1985 Schengen Agreement and 1990 Implementing Convention into the EU legal framework as the Schengen acquis.

At the same time, however, decision-making in the Council required unanimity and the European Parliament (EP) did not gain co-decision powers, meaning that the Treaty did not lead to full implementation of the ordinary legislative procedure. Furthermore, Denmark, Ireland and the UK secured the right to ‘opt out’ of the treaty’s provisions as regards JHA, allowing them not to take part in the adoption of measures relating to the AFSJ and hence not to be bound by measures adopted by the other member states. Nevertheless, Amsterdam represented a significant step forward in the development of common asylum and migration policies, reflecting the political commitment to enforce European integration in this sovereignty-sensitive policy domain. Most notably, Article 63 laid down a 5-year programme to develop the necessary measures on asylum and migration and set out objectives for the first stage of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS).

With the ground set for Community decision-making, the 1999 European Council in Tampere was dedicated to the creation of an AFSJ. Under this initiative and the ensuing Tampere Programme, which provided ‘the political mandate and the overall policy agenda for initial action towards establishing the AFSJ’, negotiations started on the creation of a CEAS comprising a set of legislative instruments (Buono 2009, p. 333).

In keeping with the aim to establish a CEAS, the need arose to replace the Dublin Convention with a Community instrument. The Dublin II Regulation, which replaced the largely identical 1990 Convention, entered into force in 2003 prior to the then-approaching ‘big bang’ enlargement (prospected in May 2004 with the joining of 10 new members). The negotiations leading up to the ratification of the Dublin System (comprising the Dublin Regulation and the Eurodac Regulation, which went into operation in 2003 and established a biometric database for comparing fingerprints of irregular migrants) were, however, characterised by political deadlock for years.

Also adopted in 2003, the Reception Conditions Directive (RCD) laid down minimum standards for the reception of asylum seekers while their claim is being examined. The Directive has been heavily criticised for the wide discretion left to member states, which undermines the creation of a ‘level playing field’. In this regard, the southern states have most notably been in the limelight. Greece failed to provide reception conditions for asylum seekers on a par with the requirements of the directive, as stated in the ECtHR’s 2011 landmark judgment in M.S.S. v. Belgium and Greece.

Italy and Malta have also been accused of failing to provide adequate reception conditions for asylum seekers, in violation of the minimum requirements of the directive (Langford, 2013).

It is important to point out that the aim pursued in the first phase of the CEAS (1999-2004) involved harmonising national asylum systems through the adoption of Directives and Regulations on the basis of ‘common minimum standards’ (Wagner et al. 2019). The approach of adopting minimum standards (instead of genuinely common ones) was dictated by its political feasibility, yet it included the objective of harmonising legislation. In practice, the adoption of minimum standards set in motion a ‘race to the bottom’ across EU member states with regard to harmonisation of such policies, exacerbated by the introduction, in most member states, of restrictive migration policies to prevent irregular migration.

This harmonisation ‘ad minima’ was further reinforced by the influence of the Council on the drafting of the CEAS instruments. While the Commission proposed rather ambitious drafts in order to draw the layout of the CEAS in conformity with the Tampere Conclusions, the Council negotiations compromised the substance of such instruments (Chetail, 2016). The reforms achieved in Amsterdam in the context of EU asylum and migration policymaking thus did not go as far as intended. Given the number of institutional issues left unresolved, a solution became more pressing in view of the upcoming ‘big bang’ enlargement of 2004. This led to new negotiations, in 2000, over the future of the EU, culminating in a new agreement amending the Treaty of Maastricht and the Treaty of Rome.

 

References

Buono, L. (2009) From Tampere to The Hague and beyond: towards the Stockholm Programme in the area of freedom, security and justice, ERA Forum, 10 (3), pp. 333-342.

Chetail, V. (2016) The Common European Asylum System: Bric-à-brac or System? In: Chetail, V. et al. (eds.) Reforming the Common European Asylum System: The New European Refugee Law. Boston: Brill Nijhoff, pp. 3-38.

Convention Implementing the Schengen Agreement. The Schengen acquis – Agreement between the Governments of the States of the Benelux Economic Union, the Federal Republic of Germany and the French Republic on the gradual abolition of checks at their common borders, 14 June 1985 [OJ L 239, 22.9.2000]

Council Directive 2003/9/EC of 27 January 2003 laying down minimum standards for the reception of asylum seekers [OJ L 31, 6.2.2003] (‘Reception Conditions Directive’).

Council Regulation (EC) No 343/2003 of 18 February 2003 establishing the criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an asylum application lodged in one of the Member States by a third-country national [OJ L 50, 25.2.2003] (‘Dublin II’).

Langford, L. M. (2013) The Other Euro Crisis: Rights Violations Under the Common European Asylum System and the Unraveling of EU Solidarity, Harvard Human Rights Journal, 26, pp. 217-264.

M.S.S. v. Belgium and Greece, European Court of Human Rights, Application No. 30696/09, 21 January 2011.

Presidency Conclusions, Tampere European Council, 15-16 October 1999.

Wagner, M., Baumgartner, P. and Mouzourakis, M. (2019) Harmonising asylum systems in Europe – a means or an end per se? CEASEVAL research on the CEAS, no. 25, April. Available from: http://ceaseval.eu/publications/25_WP2_HarmonisationWP.pdf

The post The Treaty of Amsterdam: first steps towards a Common European Asylum System appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Photo of the University of Melbourne by Kon Karampelas on Unsplash [https://unsplash.com/photos/tqixYTzO_Ug]

Alexander Mitterle

Working in academia comes with adapting to different timeframes: some universities use semesters, others quarters or terms. A course at a German university can be timed in semester weekly hours (SWS) or in credit points. In both cases they differ – with a usual time-span of 45 minutes – from the U.S. equivalent: the credit hour, which lasts 60 minutes. As academics we rarely ponder over the question why a timeframe here is different from elsewhere. We accept different academic timeframes as idiosyncratically institutionalized.

We do this in an institution that in the last decades has been increasingly attributed with organizational agency (Meier and Krücken 2006; Ramirez 2006): universities define goals, aspirations and missions, and plot their way to student numbers, third party funding, re-accreditations, or even world class. As Philipp Altbach (2003) put it, the two basic credentials to successful university building are time and money.

The strategic, linear idea of time in such managerial perspectives sets aside the university as an institution and treats it as a projectable body. A body that flourishes precisely because it sets aside the heterogenic forms of time within and outside the university. Time is a proxy for ceteris paribus: given sufficient money, and no invading French revolutionary troops (University of Cologne), or a Soviet protectorate (The University of Prussian Enlightment, Koenigsberg), universities can become great in time.

After all it is not only the organization that strategizes time: modern higher education is itself first and foremost a time project. Academic timeframes induce social values, professional norms, and symbolic meaning, and they rationalize merit-based inequality (Becker 1964; Luhmann 1998; Meyer 1977). Educational timeframes are the building block for career success, and the way they are structured is recursively formed through their environment. Universities as institutions have their own time(s).

What I try to trace in “Time, the university, and stratification” (Mitterle 2021) is thus where these various institutionalized timeframes come from and how they correspond with distinct strategies of educational or/and organizational progression and positioning practices. I understand time not as a detached and neutral form of measurement but as a specific duration associated with a specific place and regulation (cf Latour 1987; Massey 1999). I am thus interested in the history and politics of academic time.

Starting in the middle ages, the paper traces how semesters, terms, and later quarters became institutionalized, how they corresponded with church, government, or market policies, and how they became more and more fine-grained as productive strategic resources in the organization of the university. Covering Germany, the U.S., and the UK, the study overextends what can be done in a chapter. And as research on the institutionalization of academic timeframes is scarce and scattered, the study is explorative in nature. Yet, it is possible to carve out five phases in the institutionalization and strategizing of academic time that correspond with changes in the social role of universities: the Sequencing (1), Habitualizing (2), Disciplining (3), Organizing (4), and Optimizing (5) academic time.

 Sequencing time traces the medieval roots of terms and semesters, how religious and scholarly rhythms and practices structured the academic year in medieval universities. Next to feast days, the reading of a canon of books and the accommodation of extra canonical works structured the studium generale. In reaction to enrollment peaks that corresponded with harvesting and sowing periods, and the office periods of deans and rectors, partitions became habitualized as semesters and terms. On the European continent, and especially in the German-speaking territories, they were increasingly enforced for advertising the university as part of territorial states in course catalogues. In light of a mercantilist state competition and an over-regulation and observation of the Policey-state the often over-expansive individual timeframes of academic lectures were aligned to semester-time periods. Later nation states disciplined academic timeframes to allow for synchronized mobility between universities at defined times during the academic year.

With the growing importance of the research University for Professional Careers during the 19th century the need to structure and organize higher education increased. In the late 19th century the University of Chicago invented the quarter. It was used to re-organize the learning pace of students in order to improve their abilities but also to achieve competitive advantages compared to established U.S. universities. Such university-led organizing endeavors were matched by a wider development that aimed at organizing higher education as a layered system and which established comparable time categories of progression. While in Europe a stronger bureaucratization of degree programs was initiated by the states, in the U.S. the prospect of Carnegie financed pension funds established a hierarchy between high schools and colleges that also led to a stronger standardization of academic time. What in Germany was called semester weekly hours to describe recurring time frames, the U.S. introduced as (semester/quarterly) credit hours. The broad timescales of semester, quarter, and term became dissected into smaller time units that allowed to accommodate the growing differentiation among degree programs, anticipate student/teacher workload as well as academic progression and mobility. It thereby improved management efficiency.

In the 1980s European higher education institutions were increasingly framed as acting entities. What had been the case for U.S. Universities since the late 18th century and what manifested the co-existence of a wide range of timescales in the U.S., now increasingly took hold of European universities. The discourse shifted from improving higher education systems as a whole to fostering differentiation and the competitiveness of individual institutions. Management reforms first allowed and later forced universities to implement modular credit point systems. These provided more leeway regarding the timescales universities used. While the old timescales and -frames predominantly organized time within the university, credit points homogenized and totalized all student workload. Rather than just visualizing student progression it now could be optimized: courses could be accelerated, or shortened and content intensified. In favor of optimizing in-program student progression, the paces of universities diverged and de-synchronized. While in Germany this differentiation took place along private/public lines, U.K. universities diverged in their starting dates, timeframes and –scales (See Fig 1).  The possibility to move between timeframes during an academic year decreased.

Figure 1 Mitterle 2021: 224

Ironically, at the same time in which the fine-grained timescales and time-paces diverged, time-frames became more similar. The global diffusion of modular credit point systems was accompanied by the semester as the operating time container of these new time systems.

 

Conclusion

Academic institutional time “effectively compel[s] us to live in multiple periods at once” (Levine 2015: 60). There are only few institutions in the world that have built and maintained their own timescales throughout centuries. We encounter an array of timeframes in universities today. These have been established, structured, and strategized very differently across the centuries – from within and outside the university. The various phases overlap and start again but they seem to follow a teleological progression that increasingly makes it possible to use ever more granular time-frames as strategic resources. While the German universities very early and rigidly adhered to the semester timeframe, U.S. universities were the first to strategize different timeframes for competitive reasons, and U.K. universities then were the first among the three to implement totalizing modular time systems that induced wide differentiation among degree programs. A de-politicized time-projection indeed allows to frame strategy as if the university (and its goals) was immutable within time, but a close look shows that the university evolves strategically through academic time. Multiple timeframes co-exist and organize everyday academic life. These are increasingly part of political and strategic progression.

 

Alexander Mitterle is research associate at the Center for School and Educational Research and the Institute for Sociology at the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg (Germany). His research explores the way in which (institutional) stratification unfolds in higher education in light of declining state regulation. This includes the historical formation of distinct organizational arrangements and their vertical effects, the interaction of sizing devices, the borderlands of admissions, intensifications of time and the idiosyncrasies of disciplines. He is currently working on a research project on the academization of work funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). His most recent paper (together with Manfred Stock) “higher education expansion in Germany: between civil rights, state-organized entitlement system and academization” has just been published in the European Journal of Higher Education.

 

This blog post is based on the paper that won the 2020 Award for Excellent Paper from an Emerging Scholar from the ECPR Standing Group ‘Knowledge Politics and Policies’. The award is celebrated during the 2021 ECPR General Conference. This was the fifth time this prize was awarded. Previous winners are Justyna Bandola-Gill, Emma Sabzalieva, Olivier Provini and Que Anh Dang.

 

References:

Altbach, P. (2003). The Costs and Benefits of World-Class Universities. International Higher Education (33), 5–8. https://doi.org/10.6017/ihe.2003.33.7381

Becker, G. S. (1964). Human capital: A theoretical and empirical analysis, with special reference to education. Midway reprint. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Latour, Bruno (1988). A Relativistic Account of Einstein’s Relativity. Social Studies of Science 18(1), 3-44. DOI: 10.1177/030631288018001001.

Levine, C. (2015) Forms. Whole, Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Luhmann, N. (2002). Das Erziehungssystem der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

Massey, D. (1999). Power-geometries and the politics of space-time: University of Heidelberg Hettner-Lecture (Vol. 2). Heidelberg: Franz-Steiner-Verlag.

Mitterle, A. (2021) Time, the University, and Stratification: The Historical Making of Institutional Time as a Strategic Resource In Vostal, F. (ed.) Inquiring into Academic Timescapes. Bingley: Emerald Publishing, pp. 213-231.

Meyer, J.W. (1977). The Effects of Education as an Institution. The American Journal of Sociology, 83(1), 55-77.

Ramirez, F. O. (2006). The rationalization of universities. In M.-L. Djelic & K. Sahlin-Andersson (Eds.), Transnational Governance: Institutional Dynamics of Regulation (pp. 225-244). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 

The post From semester to credit hour – the historic making of academic time as a strategic resource appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

MEPs will discuss the situation in Afghanistan, the state of the rule of law in the EU as well as the delay in proposals for new sources of revenue for the EU.

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

MEPs will discuss the situation in Afghanistan, the state of the rule of law in the EU as well as the delay in proposals for new sources of revenue for the EU.

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP