European Union

The United States on Tuesday (2 March) imposed sanctions to punish Russia for what it described as Moscow’s attempt to poison opposition leader Alexei Navalny with a nerve agent last year, in President Joe Biden’s most direct challenge yet to...

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The demand for more European sovereignty within the EU is strong despite disparities between countries, according to a study published Tuesday (2 March) by the Jean Jaurès Foundation and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, in partnership with the Ipsos polling institute. EURACTIV France reports.

In mid-December the European Commission announced two draft laws on the regulation of the IT market. The Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act are intended to limit the influence of global Internet companies in the EU.

European officials define these initiatives as a tool that can ensure fair competition in the European IT market. The main “do’s” and “don’ts” for digital giants have been developed within these laws. There are some quite interesting positions in the documents:

• companies are prohibited from “mixing” personal data from various platforms and using them for their own purposes without the consent of citizens;
• platforms that refuse to obey and “threaten the lives and safety of people” may be temporarily banned;
• users will be allowed to delete pre-installed software on their devices;
• users can download software not only from official app stores (for example, iPhone owners will be no longer tied to the AppStore);
• IT giant products should be available for users separately without any synchronization (for example, Gmail is not more required to create an Android account);
• companies will have to inform the EU about planned mergers or takeovers.

For violation of the law the European Commission proposes fines up to 10% of the annual turnover of the company. For repeated violations regulators may force the IT giant to sell one of its enterprises or part of it.

The Acts also introduce a new term for large companies that provide access to digital products and services. In the legal language of the EU Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook will be called «gatekeepers». The list of such companies will be regularly updated: the main criteria is 45 million active users in the EU countries.

The document aims not only to protect business and fair competition. The Acts also regulate the storage of personal data, and other important issues which allows us to consider it as the first timid step of Brussels to disassociate itself from global Internet platforms in favor of digital sovereignty.

What is digital sovereignty?

With no doubts, independence from global IT companies has become one of the most pressing issues on the political agenda of most modern states. Countries define digital sovereignty in different ways and, according to the interpretation, form a set of measures to ensure it. The classic definition looks like this:

Digital (information) sovereignty is the right of the state to formulate information policy independently, manage information flows, and ensure information security regardless of external influence.

In modern conditions the independence of the state in this sphere is determined by the ability to ensure the safety of citizens’ personal data, force transnational IT companies to act within the national legislation and limit the distribution of banned content.

Anyway various governments began to think of strengthening digital sovereignty after the events of the Arab Spring. In 2011 the series of protests and coups in the Middle East was actively coordinated through social networks with offices in the United States while the Arab national governments had absolutely no control over the dissemination of often unsound information.

The discussion escalated in the beginning of the year, due to the storming of the U.S. Capitol when Twitter blocked the account of President Donald Trump. The de-facto private company closed the important communication channel of the current head of the state with the millions of his voters. This event divided American society into supporters and opponents. However, other governments, without any doubts, have concluded that it is necessary to control IT giants on their territory.

The experience of other countries

On October 1, Turkey adopted a law regulating the activities of social networks in the country. According to the new rules, platforms with a number of users of 1 million and more are to open representative offices in Ankara. By the decision of the Turkish court, resources also have to “clean up” illegal content within 48 hours. For violations social networks will be fined up to €4.3 million, advertising may also be blocked or access speed may be limited.

Turkey is also actively promoting its own payment system. The national TROY card was launched in 2016. Through TROY, Turkish citizens can pay for purchases or cash in ATMs. The number of transactions in 2018 amounted to 100 million for a total of $3.3 billion. Turkish leaders also plan to ensure the possibility of using its own system outside the country.

Russia is also taking active actions to implement the concept of digital sovereignty. Moscow is promoting its own payment system «Mir», stimulating the development of domestic IT products (for example, Yandex and Sber), localizing the storage of personal data within the country. Russia has its popular social platforms VKontakte and Odnoklassniki which are able to compete with foreign social networks.

As for foreign IT giants, the Kremlin has not yet found a universal tool for establishing control over them on its own territory. The Russian authorities have repeatedly fined American platforms for distributing objectionable content which social networks refused to remove. According to Russian law, the amount of fines for such violations is from $11 000 to $54 000. However, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are in no hurry to pay the fines.

Poland intensified work on national legislation in the field of digital sovereignty right after ban of Donald Trump’s accounts. The authorities have developed a package of laws. The part of the initiatives is the creation of the Council for the Protection of Freedom of Speech. The Council will monitor the observance of the constitutional rights of users of social networks. It will consider pre-trial cases of blocking content on the Internet and the reasons for deleting a particular publication. The Polish bill provides the possibility of filing a complaint in e-format for the removal of content which should be considered within seven days. The court’s decision must be implemented immediately. Otherwise the platform may be fined from $13 thousand to $13.5 million.

Is there anything like this in Ukraine?

As for now the Ukrainian authorities have not developed either a universal method of control over foreign platforms or a national payment system. In Ukraine there are no analogues of popular American social networks or other IT products of a national scale that could compete with world-famous brands. Ukraine uses regulation in the Internet only to ban Russian platforms. For example, Russian services Yandex, Mail.ru, VKontakte and Odnoklassniki have been banned in 2017. Moreover, relations with other well-known foreign platforms are not regulated at all.

At the same time, there are enough examples of how foreign social networks influenced the social and political processes in Ukraine, in particular, they provoked the growing popularity of neo-Nazi organizations. In January, the «Time» published an article examining the activity of Azov battalion in Facebook.

The authors noted that new members of the organization were recruited via social network. For a long time, the administration of the world’s largest platform turned a blind eye to the spread of radical ideology by Ukrainian users. Only in 2016, Facebook began to take measures against Ukrainian radicals and block accounts for “hate speech”. Despite this, many of them are still active and continue to split the Ukrainian society into “friends” and “foes”.

In mid-February, in the first reading the Verkhovna Rada approved a bill proposing to tax non-resident companies providing electronic services. Experts note the positive impact of the initiative in terms of unification of taxation and increased competition in the digital services market, but for users it can lead to higher subscription cost. Talking about the digital sovereignty, the law cannot be called a step forward. It does not regulate the distribution of content and does not make foreign platforms dependent on the Ukrainian state.

The realization of digital sovereignty is one of the most important question for governments with political will. Otherwise, the “keys” to the largest channels of communication, financial sphere and personal data will remain in foreign hands. And this, as Americans say, is a “threat to national security”. If Ukraine decides to regulate this undoubtedly vital sphere, the leaders of the country have much work to do.

The post Europe chooses Digital Sovereignty. What about Ukraine? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

University of Edinburgh. Photo credits: University of Edinburgh

Justyna Bandola-Gill

The quest for usable science is one of the defining challenges for contemporary universities. One of the key drivers of this change is the rise of the so-called impact agenda, in which research funding is directly linked to the socio-economic value of produced knowledge. This change in research funding – and the financial stakes involved in it – has had important consequences for the incentive systems of universities in the UK. One feature of this change is the upsurge in a new practice – termed in the British context ‘knowledge exchange’. In less than a decade, knowledge exchange has become a commonplace in UK universities – from a newly emerged category of professional services supporting these activities, through dedicated institutional formations, such as Knowledge Exchange and Impact Offices and strategies, and finally to the inclusion of impact in career progression criteria.

 

Yet, despite this expansion of the idea of knowledge exchange across university structures, the concept itself is often undefined and used vaguely. In the paper drawing on my doctoral work which was awarded the 2019 Excellent Paper Award, I addressed this topic by exploring knowledge exchange as a problem of practice: knowledge exchange seen from this perspective is not a set of universal strategies but rather a malleable phenomenon that changes its meaning in different contexts. Building on this insight I empirically explored the practice of knowledge exchange in two large initiatives funded by UK Research Councils – initiatives which, although located at universities, were charged predominantly with mobilising knowledge and working towards research impact. Through qualitative interviews and document analysis I aimed to answer the question: what meanings of knowledge exchange emerge in this context?

 

The key finding here was the fact that knowledge exchange is a multicultural practice which requires navigation, integration and translation between different paradigms of science. Academics who identified more strongly with traditional academic values (such as autonomy, impartiality and intellectually-driven inquiry) saw knowledge exchange as a knowledge-focused practice, the outcome of which could be a new policy framework (the ‘Challenge’ framing of knowledge exchange) or social learning of different actors in deliberative forums (the ‘Facilitation’ framing). Academics who saw themselves as ‘new’ scientists – sometimes referring directly to Mode-2 science – saw knowledge exchange as an engagement-based practice. They perceived knowledge exchange more instrumentally as an action-oriented and utilitarian practice, the effects of which were envisioned as concrete changes in policy. Here, for example, the academics referred to collaborative research (the ‘Co-production’ framing) or promotion of specific solutions (the ‘Advocacy’ framing). Knowledge exchange was therefore an area of intensive boundary work, where the spheres of science and policy were re-drawn across different value-laden lines.

 

Despite drawing on different academic traditions, these framings were malleable and the academics mixed-and-matched different strategies. The choices of strategy depended on multiple factors.

 

Politicisation of the problem

The choice of strategy was shaped by the level of politicisation of an issue. When dealing with contested issues (e.g. DNA testing, genetic databases, health inequalities), academics prioritised knowledge-based strategies (over the engagement-based ones). In particular, when faced with contentious issues, the academics opted for repertoires of knowledge exchange which were aligned more closely with the notions of impartial and autonomous science, as this was perceived to be more effective at broadening the debate.

 

Process characteristics

The interviewees pointed out that some stages of policy development were more conducive to specific repertoires of knowledge exchange. In particular, the early stages of policy formulation were conducive to strategies aimed at expanding the scope of policy options. Nevertheless, the interviewees saw the biggest opportunity for contributing to evidence-informed policymaking at the level of implementation of policies, particularly at the local level. One of the reasons for this focus was a perception that it was easier to develop close relationships and trust between actors at the local level, thus enabling models of co-production based on engagement, such as learning facilitation and co-production models.

 

Changes in the research funding system

With the introduction of Research Excellence Framework (REF) in the UK, academics became incentivised to produce more traceable (and consequently auditable) forms of impact. The interviewed academics reported that, since the introduction of REF, they had seen the system of incentives evolve to support practices resulting in such impact; for example, Co-production or Advocacy (rather than the more conceptual and open-ended practices of Challenging and Facilitating).

 

Overall, my research points to the fact that ‘knowledge exchange’ is in fact an umbrella term, containing a broad – both epistemically and practically – variety and multiple types of interactions between various types of knowledge and their uses. Even though the importance of close relationships for knowledge exchange are central to the effectiveness of the initiatives, this research highlights that some forms of interactions – such as critical or advocacy action – in fact benefit from looser connections to policymakers, instead gaining legitimacy, credibility and usefulness from academic evidence. The four repertoires of knowledge exchange reinforce existing arguments on the variety of roles academics can employ in the policymaking process, ranging from a greater focus on the autonomy of researchers, to closer engagement with the policy process. The forms of engagement were shaped by the variety of contextual factors, supporting claims for the central role of context as both the determinant of knowledge exchange and the key element of the process of evidence uptake in policy.

 

Dr. Justyna Bandola-Gill is a Research Fellow in Social Policy at the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh. Justyna works at the intersection of Science and Technology Studies and Public Policy. Her research explores the interactions between research and policy, especially the ways in which knowledge is organised, governed and mobilised across different settings in order to achieve political goals. Currently, Justyna is working on an ERC-funded project, METRO, exploring the global rise of metrological fields, where her research focuses on the rise of Sustainable Development Goals.

 

This blog post is based on the paper that won the 2019 Award for Excellent Paper from an Emerging Scholar from the ECPR Standing Group ‘Knowledge Politics and Policies’. The award was celebrated during the ECPR 2020 General Conference. This was the fourth time this prize was awarded. Previous winners are Emma Sabzalieva, Olivier Provini and Que Anh Dang.

 

The post Evidence to do what? Emergence of Knowledge Exchange as an Academic Practice in UK Higher Education appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Judges applying to join Poland’s Supreme Court should have the right to appeal against the opinions of a body which reviews candidates, the EU’s top court said on Tuesday (2 March), underlining a rift over the rule of law between Warsaw and Brussels.

The largest stadium in the French city of Toulouse that hosts mostly football and rugby matches announced its partnership last month with Time for the planet, an initiative that allows citizens, investment funds, banks, and companies to invest as little as €1 in the fight against climate change. EURACTIV France reports.

The recent overhaul of Italy's Five Star Movement (M5S) and its likely stable positioning on the centre-left side of the political spectrum could open the door for them to join the socialist group in the European Parliament.

Ammonia has until now been used chiefly in the fertiliser industry as a way to return nitrogen to the soil. But it also has potential in boosting renewables – both as a replacement for hydrogen in long haul shipping and as a way of storing and transporting hydrogen.

The European Commission has expressed doubts about a planned €4.35 billion compensation scheme for German energy companies, agreed as part of the country’s plan to phase out coal by 2038, saying the sums involved are “likely to constitute state aid” under EU law.

The European Citizen’s Prize recognises initiatives that contribute to European cooperation and the promotion of common values. Apply or nominate a project before 15 April.

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced on Monday to three years in prison, two of them suspended, for bribery and influence-peddling. The judges considered it proven that in 2014, after his time as French president, Sarkozy unlawfully gained access to judicial files about an inquiry being conducted against him. What are the implications of the verdict?