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A strike organised by a trade union of the staff of an air carrier that is intended in particular to secure pay increases does not fall within the concept of an ‘extraordinary circumstance’ capable of releasing the airline from its obligation to pay compensation for cancellation or long delay in respect of the flights concerned

Britain has banned people from going on holiday abroad until at least July to avoid Europe's third wave of corona "washing up on our shores", prime minister Boris Johnson said Monday. Violators can be fined £5,000 (€5,900). "The possibility lies that we will have to red-list all of our European neighbours", Lord Bethell of Romford, a health minister, also said, raising the prospect of a ban on all EU travel.

Sweden is preparing to tax high-polluting aircraft in what its government has called a European and world's first such move on climate change. "This means that takeoff and landing fees can be more significant when a plane's climate impact is higher and they can be reduced when the climate impact is lower," the Swedish infrastructure ministry said Monday, referring primarily to choice of fuel, including biofuels.

A Polish novelist could face three years in prison for insulting Polish president Andrzej Duda on Facebook. "Andrzej Duda is a moron," Jakub Zulczyk said, commenting on Duda's reaction to the US election back in January. Prosecutors charged him with "offensive" language under laws that protect also the Polish flag and foreign flags. The Polish ruling party, Law and Justice, has politicised courts in a battle against opponents.

Western powers have shamed China on Uighur abuses in a wall of solidarity, which saw China fire back at MEPs, jeopardising a trade treaty.

Several key virologists in Belgium are pleading for the country to go back into a full lockdown in order to turn the trend of rising infections and hospitalisations. According to top virologist Steven Van Gucht, the situation in Belgium shows "a dangerous cocktail". VUB professor Dirk Devroey said Belgium needs a full lockdown of four weeks, meaning "schools will be closed, workers cannot go to their work ..."

The European Commission on Monday announced the first meeting of its so-called European Contact Group on Search and Rescue for migrants and refugees. Although search-and-rescue is a national prerogative, the commission say it wants the group "to bring clarity" on ways to help. "What we need to improve is our coordination," said EU home affairs commissioner, Ylva Johansson.

Hungary gave the initial approval to two more Covid-19 vaccines from outside the EU's procurement program, officials said Monday. The medicines regulator gave emergency approval to Convidecia, a vaccine produced by China's CanSino Biologics, and to India's Covishield vaccine, a version of the British-Swedish AstraZeneca vaccine. Hungary was the first in the EU to begin using vaccines from Russia and China, and has the second-highest vaccination rate in the EU.

On 25 November 2020, in a surprising move away from its previous positions, the European Parliament voted in favour of making European Union (EU) aid conditional to developing countries’ compliance with migration management measures. This is only the most recent episode in a decade-long process whereby European policy-makers link migration and development policies. As part of a special issue of the Journal of Common Market Studies on the politicization of European development, we analyzed the migration-development nexus through parliamentary discussions around the EU Migration Trust Fund.

Migration has become a highly contested policy issue across Europe. Populist and radical right parties have played a key role in the politicization of the so-called refugee crisis. In contrast, development policy remains a largely technocratic area. To be sure, European aid has clearly become more ‘political’ in the sense of being subordinated to foreign and security policy goals. However, it has barely been ‘politicized’ defined as being a matter of public discussion and polarized opinions.

Then, what happens when both policy domains become intertwined? Following the logic of ‘horizontal politicization’ that the special issue advances, we had expected that the hotly debated domain of migration would contaminate the hitherto shielded discussions on foreign aid. In other words, we thought that the migration-development nexus would spur the politicization of development policy.

However, our research shows that the opposite has happened, and that development policy has instead served as a useful de-politicization device for mainstream political parties in Europe. The study also points to some nuances regarding the extent to which and the way in which the migration-development nexus has been politicized.

Empirically, we focus on debates the Migration Trust Fund – officially the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF) – in eight European parliaments. The EUTF constitutes the most ambitious and comprehensive EU initiative that links migration and development. It was established at the 2015 Valetta Summit to address the ‘root causes of destabilization, forced displacement and irregular migration’ and has since then pooled 4.5 billion Euro of pledged contributions from EU institutions and member states.

First, there is significant variation in the extent to which the EUTF was politicized in European parliaments. Employing a two-dimensional framework that includes issue salience (i.e. the relative number of actors intervening) and the polarization of opinions (i.e. the scope of conflict), we can discern different degrees of politicization. Whereas the EUTF has been debated considerably in the Swedish and Dutch parliaments, politicization was only medium in Germany and Denmark, and even low in Italy, France, Belgium and the United Kingdom.

These differences between member states might be explained by various factors including variation in their financial contribution to the Migration Trust fund, in their identities as aid donors, and in their parliamentary debating culture. While this remains to be researched further, it seems that politicization has overall been limited compared to other domains of EU (external) policies such as migration and trade. Even in Sweden and the Netherlands, it would be vastly exaggerated to say that the EUTF debates have dominated the parliamentary agenda. Nonetheless, it is noteworthy that parliamentarians in these countries not only had more discussions on the EUTF (‘salience’) but also and more importantly that they displayed more diverse views (‘polarization’) on the nexus than in the other countries of our study.

Second, there are indeed various understandings in Europe on how migration and development policy should be related. In the article we elaborate a framework with five views – discursive constructions or ‘argumentation lines’ – on the nexus. First, the ‘preventive development-oriented’ view stresses that underdevelopment leads to migration and advocates more ‘traditional’ aid. Second, the ‘restrictive migration-oriented’ view emphasizes that (irregular) migration leads to underdevelopment, thereby justifying restrictive migration and migration-oriented development policies. Third, the ‘dominance of national interests’ view problematizes both immigration and development policy, arguing for restrictive national migration governance and abolishment of development aid respectively. Fourth, the ‘development against migration’ view also argues for restrictive national migration governance although development policy can be continued if it becomes migration-oriented. Fifth, and final, the ‘migration as a catalyst for development’ view rejects restrictive migration policies and the use of aid for this purpose.

Interestingly, only the first and second view construct the nexus. At first sight these seem to represent opposing perspectives. Existing studies have indeed depicted ‘preventive’ versus ‘restrictive’ views as two extremes on a continuum. However, our findings suggest that they could constitute a coin with two sides. While the former is ambiguous on how restrictive migration policy should be, the latter allows for continuation of aid as long as it becomes encapsulated in restrictive migration governance. The former’s point that migration is caused by underdevelopment is not incompatible with the latter’s argument that migration causes underdevelopment.

These discursive ambiguities basically allow for the compromise that respectively centre-left and centre-right European parties in government have forged through initiatives such as the Migration Trust Fund: development aid combined with restrictive migration. Meanwhile, our analysis also shows that challenging parties at the right (third view, e.g. Partij voor de Vrijheid in the Netherlands and Swedish Democrats in Sweden; and fourth view, e.g. Vlaams Belang in Belgium, AfD in Germany and Lega Nord in Italy) and left (fifth view, e.g. GroenLinks in the Netherlands and Vänsterpartiet in Sweden) put less effort in constructing a nexus. To the extent that their members of parliament do politicize these matters, they rather seek to politicize both development and migration policies as separate policy domains, without spending too many efforts in spinning stories on how these should be interlinked.

Going back to the original puzzle, the nexus potentially de-politicizes debates on restrictive migration policies, thereby preventing the ‘horizontal politicization’ logic to occur. It remains to be researched under which conditions the de-politicization impact of nexus building takes place and how successful challenger parties’ attempts to politicize development policy may be in the long run.

 

This blog draws on the JCMS article ‘The Politicization of the Migration–Development Nexus: Parliamentary Discourse on the European Union Trust Fund on Migration’.

 

 

Nathan Lauwers is a PhD Fellow at the Department of Political Science at Ghent University (Belgium). His research interests focus on EU external relations, in particular on the ‘nexuses’ between migration, security and development policies.Twitter handle: @Nathanlauwers

 

 

Jan Orbie is Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science at Ghent University (Belgium). His research and teaching activities focus on EU external relations, in particular external trade, development, humanitarian aid, democracy, social and human rights promotion from critical and normative perspectives.

Twitter handle: @janorbie

 

Sarah Delputte is Assistant Professor at the Centre for EU Studies (CEUS) at the Department of Political Science at Ghent University. Her teaching and research interests concern the European Union’s policies and politics towards the so-called ‘Global South’, focusing in particular on  ‘development’ policy and the various ‘nexuses’ with other policy domains (e.g. migration, climate change, fisheries, …).

Twitter handle: @SarahDelputte
Twitter handle of institution: @UGent

The post (De)politicizing the migration development nexus in Europe appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

MEPs will evaluate the funding COVID-19 vaccines purchased in advance with Sandra Gallina, Commission Director-General for Health.
Committee on Budgetary Control
Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

In a week with committee meetings and a plenary session, MEPs will focus on Covid-19 vaccines, the EU’s own resources system and sustainable tourism.

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Strategic Sovereignty (or Autonomy) for the European Union appears to be its ability to decide and act according to its own rules, principles and values. The latter include the promotion of multilateralism, respect for the rule of law, democracy and human rights, openness in trade relations. Given rapidly shifting global geopolitical and technology trends, and the seeming fragmentation of the multilateral order, the EU is being forced to strengthen its own position in the international arena.
The EU needs to secure its values and interests in new (and more determined) ways. If the EU wants to "do it its way" to quote HRVP Borrell's "Sinatra doctrine", several questions needs to be answered.

With the assistance of the EU Institute for Security Studies, and of top-level experts, this AFET workshop/webinar will tackle three important questions: 1- How can the EU deal more strategically with interdependencies in a less cooperative world? 2- How should the EU adapt existing and develop new strategic partnerships? 3- How can EU efforts to strengthen multilateralism both reinforce EU autonomy and global cooperation?
Draft Programme
Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

MEPs will quiz EMA Executive Director Emer Cooke on the latest developments regarding the evaluation and authorisation of COVID-19 vaccines in the EU.
Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Introduction

In my previous articles, I introduced my ideas on reforming the European electoral system (see Reform #2 vol. 1) and the European Parliament (or EP, see Reform #2 vol. 2) as the first steps of the reformation of the European political system. As previously discussed, pan-Europarties are going to be elected to the EP, where seat allocation is going to be defined by the overall election results of the pan-Europarties and by voter turnout and election results of the national branches in the member states. Then, the pan-Europarties of the EP are going to form the European Government (or EG) by appointing the lead candidate of the triumphant pan-Europarty to be the Prime Minister (or PM) of the EG.

In this volume, I intend to introduce the European Government, which would be tasked to govern the Republic of the United Europe (or RUE), co-operating with both the national and the European institutions. In order to make this co-operation as smooth and as prosperous as possible, the EG has to have a broad European authority and a strong national counterbalance at the same time, whilst replacing the European Commission and the Council of the European Union as a natural result.

 

The European Commission of the European Union

The European Commission (or EC) is the executive body of the European Union (since 1965). Originally, the EC was predestined to act as the government of the EU, but it does not own such authority. However, the EC is the only institution that possesses legislative initiative and strong powers regarding competition and external trade policies. The EC is formed by a college of members (or Commissioners) delegated by the member states along the principle of one Commissioner per member state (since the Lisbon Treaty), whose terms of office is limited to five years, which is – since the Maastricht Treaty – renewable. Complete independence is required from every Commissioner in order to serve general European interests, meaning that they can neither seek nor take instructions from any external EU bodies or national governments. Also, they cannot be engaged in any other occupation.

The European Commission holds the powers of full initiative (legislative, budgetary, relations with non-member countries) and limited initiative (recommendation, opinion), of which the latter applies to the Commission’s role regarding the Economic and Monetary Union and to the Common Foreign and Security Policy. The President of the European Commission (the office currently held by Ursula von der Leyen) decides on the internal organisation of the body, which consists of 33 Directorates-Generals. Generally, they are responsible for developing strategies, for drafting legislation, for mediating in the legislative process, for representing the EU in trade negotiations, for making regulations (e.g. competition policy), for preparing the budget of the EU, and for scrutinising the implementation of the treaties and legislation. The EC, as an institution, is collectively accountable to the EP.

The election of the President of the European Commission involves both the EP and the European Council. In accordance with the European election results and consulting with the EP, the majority of the European Council has the right to appoint a candidate for the position. Afterwards, the EP has to vote and decide with a majority of its component members over the candidate. At least, this was the case until 2019, when the Spitzenkandidaten system failed, as the European Council refused to appoint Manfred Weber (President of the winning EPP) to the position, nominating von der Leyen instead – whom the EP accepted.

The fact that the Commissioners are proposed by the Council of the European Union on the basis of suggestions made by the national governments, and then appointed by the European Council after the approval of the EP, affects the nature of the EU’s executive branch to be heavily national. Other complaints regarding the EC’s shortcomings are lack of transparency, unclear lobbyist relations, conflicts of interests, and excessive spending – all were highlighted in a number of reports made by internal and independent auditing organisations. Sadly, these issues were not yet addressed comprehensively in any proposals. Any recommendations regarding the improvement of the EC revolve around its authority, ignoring other aspects.

According to a popular idea, the European Commission could be further developed into a European government – meaning that the national governments would have a great influence on forming a European government, using the EC’s current structure as a first base – and somebody could run for presidency on a direct election, where the voters would decide on the figure of the President of Europe. However, this theory would only broaden the EC’s authority, failing to address its structural failures, thus leaving it unreformed. It is obvious that the EC could not be inserted into the political system of the Republic of the United Europe, as it is not compatible with the new European Parliament, which’s directly elected MEPs are going to determine the consistence of the European executive branch. Therefore, both the European Commission and the Council of the European Union must be replaced by a European government, which would take over most of their responsibilities, whilst taking more tasks and authority to govern the united Europe.

 

The European Government of the Republic of the United Europe

Most importantly, the European Government must be formed by the elected pan-Europarties of the European Parliament. The lead candidate of the winning pan-Europarty could be automatically appointed as Prime Minister of the Republic of the United Europe by the EP – and approved by the President of the RUE. It is in the duties and authorities of the PM of the RUE to appoint ministers, thus forming the European Government, which is going to propose and execute legislation. The EG should have a mandate for five years.

The responsibilities of the ministries of the European Government must be designed along European issues and context. Based on this, the following ministries could operate on a European scale: Climate Protection (including environment and nature protection), Consumer Protection, Culture, Defence (including security policy), Economic Co-operation and Development (including cohesion), Economy and Energy (including competition and trade), Education and Research, Finance, Food and Agriculture, Foreign Affairs, Health, Home Affairs, Immigration, Justice, Labour and Social Affairs (including demography), Regions, and Transportation and Digital Infrastructure. The EC’s current responsibilities could be transferred to the EG. The EG will also be located in Brussels, whilst its procedural languages will be English, French, and German, to which Latin could be added.

In the legal hierarchy, the European Government is superior to the national governments and ministries, meaning that the executive branch of the RUE sets frames and directives regarding policy-making, but the national governments enjoy considerable liberties to accomplish the goals within these frames. The EG is also an administrative institution, which manages the state apparatus of the Republic of the United Europe, ensuring the implementation of law. The PM of the RUE will co-ordinate the functioning of the ministries, and will have a close working relationship with the President of the RUE. At the same time, the PM of the RUE will be the deputy of the President of the RUE, occupying the office of the Vice President of the RUE. The European Government is accountable to the European Parliament.

Amongst the ministries listed above, three of them might need some more explanation or clarification: the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Immigration, and the Ministry of Regions. Many states have ministries that are responsible for taking care of the culture of their communities. The European Ministry of Culture is going to be responsible for preserving the cultural heritage of Europe, focusing on general European elements, but also on the cultural expression of nation-states and subnational regions. The authority of the Ministry of Culture covers a wide range of areas, such as arts (e.g. architectural, cinematographic, literary, musical, theatrical, visual), historic sites (e.g. archaeological sites), national archives of cultural work (e.g. galleries, libraries, public museums), etc. The ultimate goal is to rediscover, maintain, and actively promote our unique European identity and rich European cultural heritage in the entirety of the Republic of the United Europe.

The Ministry of Immigration is going to be responsible for the issues related to immigration and integration in the whole of the RUE. Due to the lack of proper family support in the past, some member states lack labour force today. The real and lasting solution to this problem is the strong political support of families (e.g. in Hungary), but it is not going to bear fruits in the next two decades or so. Therefore, Europe needs a short- and mid-term answer to this urgent demographic challenge. The primary remedy is the potential redistribution of European unemployed from member states that struggle with high unemployment to those that grapple with labour shortage. Only as a secondary solution and only temporarily might Europe need professional labour force from outside of Europe as well. The Ministry of Immigration is going to be responsible to find a legal way to attract youth, who already speak the language of the welcoming member state, educated, and have a clean record. Should these criteria be fulfilled, and the welcoming member state is taking them voluntarily, the immigration is approved and the immigrant is permitted to have a temporary visa. Any sort of illegality (e.g. illegal immigration, committing crimes) results in an immediate expulsion. In order to promote legal immigration, the Republic of the United Europe could set up agencies (Bureau) in those countries, where it is willing to take immigrants from. The potential immigrants can proceed with their application in these agencies, which are going to make the decisions. These agencies would belong to the Ministry of Immigration, which could provide only a temporary working visa, and only then, if the applicant fulfils a job vacancy, what a European citizen cannot. Permanent residence permit and citizenship can be granted only by the welcoming member state (former needs to be approved by the relevant European institution as well). The member states could set up agencies under the leadership of the RUE (Ministry of Immigration) in those safe countries, where the demand is high (e.g. Bureau of Germany in Thailand of the Republic of the United Europe). These agencies could run various programs, such as language courses, culture educational courses, job adverts, relevant training, etc. in order to prepare the immigrant for the European way of life. The current form of illegal immigration – especially in masses and uncontrolled – is madness, which benefits neither the Europeans nor the arrivals.

The Ministry of Regions is going to be the official and direct link between the European and national ministries, co-ordinating the functioning of the various ministries between the EG of the RUE and the nation-states – similarly to the Council of the European Union. This method helps to discover and clarify every legal issue and complaint. Should it be required by a member state, the RUE’s relevant ministry could settle issues in the related area via an expert delegate of the Ministry of Regions working together with the relevant minister of the given member state (e.g. the RUE’s Minister of Finance sends a delegate to Austria to work with Austria’s Minister of Finance). The Ministry of Regions could legitimise the decisions of the EG by working together with the national institutions, whilst it could also prepare a forum for professional debates between the relevant ministries of the EG and the member states at the same time. Therefore, the Ministry of Regions could enhance quick and effective communication between the European Government and national governments, whilst increasing and ensuring professionalism and legitimacy.

 

Conclusion

The responsibilities and authorities of the European Government are going to be similar to the ones of the European Commission and the Council of the European Union, but going to be put into a broader context, gaining control over the national governments to some extent by setting frames and directives based on common and general European interests. The provision of official channels and forums will ensure that complaints are heard and dealt with, highlighting legitimacy and fairness (e.g. Ministry of Regions). The most significant improvement of creating the EG is the fact that its members are not going to be nominated by the national governments of the member states, but formed by the MEPs directly (via a new enlightened electoral system). The creation of the European Government (and its ministries) is going to supersede the European Commission (and its portfolio system) and the Council of the European Union automatically – or shady institutions, such as the Eurogroup. The result is a legitimate, efficient, transparent, and truly Europist executive branch, which’s power is far from infinite, as it is accountable to the European Parliament, whilst its decisions could be vetoed thus blocked by the highest institution of the European executive branch: the President of the Republic of the United Europe.

The post Reform #2: Political system (vol. 3) – European Government appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Main agenda items, approximate timing, public sessions and press opportunities.

President Michel and President von der Leyen had a videoconference today Friday 19 March 2021 with President Erdoğan of the Republic of Turkey.

The EU issued a declaration ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on 21 March 2021, to confirm its unabated commitment to the elimination of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance including its contemporary forms.

Main agenda items, approximate timing, public sessions and press opportunities.

As part of a series of engagements with leading European policy research centers, Eurogroup President Donohoe spoke on 19 March at a webinar organised by the Hertie School in Berlin on "Coordinating euro-area fiscal policy to drive an inclusive recovery.

The adoption of these rules will be the final legislative step required for the setting up of ETIAS, which is expected to be operational by 2022.