European Union

DRAFT REPORT on the 2019-2020 Commission Reports on Montenegro
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Tonino Picula

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell told MEPs Tuesday he would propose a list of Russian names to blacklist over the jailing of opposition figure Alexei Navalny. "I will put forward concrete proposals using the right of initiative that the high representative [for foreign affairs] has," Borrell said, referring to new EU human rights sanctions. He indicated it would be by the next EU foreign ministers' meeting on 22 February.

The Subcommittee on Security and Defence will go over the new EU-US agenda for global change on 27 January. It will also look into perspectives for a future bilateral dialogue in security and defence that would allow the US to participate in EU military initiates and operations. Representatives of the EEAS, the German Marshall Fund and the Penn Biden Center will participate.
Meeting agenda and documents
Live streaming
EU Fact Sheets: Security and defence
Summary: Towards a new EU-US Security and Defence Dialogue
Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

German economy minister Olaf Scholz offered to spend €1bn of German taxpayers' money to subsidise US liquid gas imports last year, if the then US president Donald Trump quashed Congressional sanctions against Russia's Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Scholz did it in a letter to Trump's treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, dated August last year, and published by German green NGO Deutsche Umwelthilfe Tuesday, amid heightened EU-Russia tensions.

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Russia's TurkStream pipeline with Turkey to south-east Europe, which began work in January, has seen Bulgaria and Greece get almost all their gas via the new route this year, instead of via Ukraine, as before, according to UK energy consultancy Platts. Bulgaria received some 6.4 billion cubic metres via Ukraine last year, and "almost zero" this year. Russia is also building a pipeline to Germany to bypass the pro-Western Ukraine.

Britain called on Monday for a reset in relations with the European Union and the "refinement" of a Brexit deal covering trade with Northern Ireland, Reuters writes. Relations between Brussels and London strained by years of bruising Brexit talks took a turn for the worse last month when the EU threatened to use emergency measures to stop coronavirus vaccines going into Northern Ireland.

The EU and UK, backed by the US, have called for an emergency session of the UN human rights council in Geneva Friday to discuss the coup and anti-coup protests in Myanmar, amid fear the new military junta could turn to violence. "We must respond urgently to the plight of the people in Myanmar and the rapidly deteriorating human rights situation there," Julian Braithwaite, the UK's ambassador in Geneva, said.

Russia has cast doubt on EU top diplomat Josep Borrell's account of his "tense" talks in Moscow, as more than 70 MEPs called for his resignation.

EU foreign relations chief Josep Borrell voiced "strong concern" about China's "treatment of ethnic and religious minorities, in particular in Xinjiang" in a videoconference with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi Monday. Borrell also "underlined the EU's strong bonds with the US", amid China-US trade and military tensions. Wang complained about "disinformation" on China's treatment of the Uighur minority in Xinjiang, despite credible reports of mass-scale forced labour and rape.

AMENDMENTS 1 - 66 - Draft opinion EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030: Bringing nature back into our lives
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Bettina Vollath

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

In the last decade, a number of European donors, including the EU, has framed their development policy within a human rights-based approach. Donors have also increasingly been willing to sanction their partners for non-compliance with human rights. Recently, the promotion of LGBTI human rights have been subsumed in several donors’ development policies. The EU, for instance, adopted in 2013 Guidelines to promote and protect the enjoyment of all human rights by LGBTI persons.

The EU’s expansive LGBTI rights frame has, however, been politicized, both within Europe and in beneficiary states. EU heads of delegations have been expelled from the Gambia and Tanzania because they criticized the treatment of LGBTI persons in these countries, and aid has been cut back as a result. In a recent article we shed light on why and how politicization of LGBTI human rights promotion occurs within donor states and in partner countries.

Our findings add nuance to the debate on human rights promotion by showing that it is primarily not the validity of a universal LGBTI human rights norm that is politicized, but rather the way in which this norm is applied in a conditional strategy that causes politicization.

 

Politicization in beneficiary states

In beneficiary states, contestation of LGBTI human rights promotion is based primarily on grounds that it challenges the principle of state sovereignty. The more human rights issues are stringently applied in a conditional strategy, the more such rights norms are exposed to politicization. Postcolonial studies have argued that universal justice and principles developed in the Global North constitute a form of neo-colonial intervention in the Global South. Such efforts may in turn result in an outright rejection of LGBTI human rights among some actors in the Global south, where LGBTI human rights promotion is perceived as the imposition of ‘homocolonialism’.

Adding to this literature, we find a more nuanced applicatory contestation in partner states. Human rights activists from the Global South contest the practice of aid conditionality but also insert themselves as change agents aiming to reshape the policies of international norm promoters. For instance, a coalition of civil society organisations in Uganda managed to influence several donors on how to shape their response to a harshly anti-LGBTI bill that was passed in 2014. While Norway, the Netherlands and Denmark adopted aid-cuts immediately, civil society’s influence on Swedish and UK authorities contributed to shaping their responses in a way that would cause less harm to the LGBTI population on the ground in Uganda.

At the same time, when local human rights activists increasingly cooperate with Northern states, they play into the homophobe pretext of the Ugandan government and their supporters, which politicize the LGBTI human rights norm based on the norm itself.

 

Politicization in donor states

In donor countries, politicization occurs through the application of the LGBTI human rights norm. Domestic civil society groups and parliaments tend to call for an accountability-driven approach towards development partners in order to show to their constituents and voters that they are actively ‘doing something’. EU diplomats, on the other hand, often argue for behind-the-scenes political dialogue with partner authorities. And some member states have historically conditioned interests that may lead them to be more stringent in specific cases at the same time as the EU aims at generalized LGBTI rights policy prescriptions

Our research also shows that there is a marked difference between the positions of domestic audiences in member states despite their similar degree of influence, and also that such pressure is much less visible at the EU level. This has resulted in the Council of the EU taking deliberate steps to depoliticize aspects of LGBTI human rights promotion in response to its contestation, aiming to respond with more context-sensitive solutions. This conciliatory approach has been contested by the European Parliament but the EP’s contestation was not as effective as in member states. Hence, policies are significantly more affected by political pressure from constituents ‘at home’ in the member states, which corresponds to domestic development and LGBTI rights policy priorities.

In sum, our case study of EU-Uganda relations finds that while the application of aid conditionality based upon LGBTI rights depoliticizes development aid within the EU as it makes it seem more accountable to domestic audiences, it politicizes aid externally because of the pressure exerted. In this case, our results indicate that that the promotion of human rights norms is contextual and not necessarily universal – unlike the claims themselves.

 

This blog post draws on the JCMS article ‘The politicization of LGBTI human rights norms in the EU-Uganda development partnership’

 

 

Johanne Døhlie Saltnes is post-doctoral researcher at ARENA Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo. Her research focuses on EU development policy, rights-based approaches to development and EU-Africa relations.

Twitter: @johannesaltnes

 

 

Markus Thiel is associate professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Florida International University, Miami and director of FIU’s Jean Monnet Center of Excellence. Dr. Thiel’s research interests are the political sociology of the EU and European (Union) Politics more generally, as well as Nationalism & Identity Politics.

The post Does the promotion of LGBTI human rights cause the politicization of International Development Partnerships? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

In the context of the exponential growth of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the President of the European Parliament has announced a number of measures to contain the spread of epidemic and to safeguard Parliament's core activities.

The current precautionary measures adopted by the European Parliament to contain the spread of COVID-19 do not affect work on legislative priorities. Core activities are reduced, but maintained to ensure that the institution's legislative, budgetary, scrutiny functions are maintained.

The meetings will be with remote participation for Members (being able to view and listen to proceedings, ask for the floor and intervene in the meeting). Other participants are invited to follow the meeting through webstreaming.

Following these decisions, the next meeting of the Subcommittee on Security and Defence (SEDE) will take place on 24 and 25 February 2021 (online).

SEDE meetings' calendar 2021
EP calendar 2021
Press release: Chair of the Security and Defence Subcommittee welcomes extension of the New START Treaty - 5 February 2021
Press release: MEPs to discuss security and defence priorities with Minister Gomes Cravinho - 28 January 2021
Press release: MEPs call for unity in Common Security and Defence Policy - 4 December 2020
Press release: MEPS to examine prospects of the EU space defence sector - 27 November 2020
Common Security and Defence Policy: Disinformation targeting EU missions and operations - 16 November 2020
Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

To raise global climate ambition and prevent ‘carbon leakage’, the EU must place a carbon price on imports from less climate-ambitious countries, say Environment MEPs.
Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

MEPs will deal with the EU’s Covid-19 vaccination strategy, the Recovery and Resilience Facility and events in Russia and Myanmar during the February plenary.

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Parliament’s Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee calls for a fact-based approach to the EU vaccines rollout to avoid disinformation.
Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

DRAFT RECOMMENDATION on the draft Council decision on the conclusion, on behalf of the Union, of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community, of the one part, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, of the other part, and of the Agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland concerning security procedures for exchanging and protecting classified information
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Committee on International Trade
Kati Piri, Christophe Hansen

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP