European Union

The Council agreed to allow member states – as a means of preventing VAT fraud – to temporarily apply a generalised reversal of VAT liability.

The Council agreed on adjustments to the EU's VAT rules to fix specific issues pending the introduction of a new VAT system.

Appointment of the First Advocate General of the Court of Justice

The government has drafted in a minister to oversee the protection of UK food supplies following rising fears about the impact of a no-deal Brexit.

Tory MP David Rutley, a former Asda and PepsiCo executive, was appointed to the post of Food Supplies Minister on 3 September, but the appointment was only announced at the end of last month.

Mr Rutley previously ran the home shopping and e-commerce businesses at Asda.

The possibility that the UK will leave the European Union in March next year without having secured a deal has raised serious concerns about food shortages, with some manufacturers stockpiling ingredients.

The UK is not self-sufficient in food and has to import most of it.

Last month, the government published its latest ‘No Deal Technical Notice’ providing further details of the implications of the UK leaving the EU without any deal in place.

Ian Wright, chief executive of the Food and Drink Federation warned that it laid bare “the grisly prospect of a no-deal Brexit.”

This included, he said, chaos at the ports, serious disruption to food supplies, increasing business costs, rising consumer prices and more bureaucratic burdens on producers, suppliers, manufacturers and retailers.

Commented Mr Wright, “While the UK may not run out of food and drink it will certainly be scarcer and more expensive.”

He added:

“UK shoppers, who have become accustomed to all year-round availability of a wide range of safe, high-quality food and drink at all price points, will face a very rude awakening.”

The Guardian reported that food industry insiders welcomed the appointment of Mr Rutley as food supplies minister, after warnings that delays of only half an hour at UK ports and the Irish border would risk one in 10 British firms going bankrupt.

One food industry business leader told the newspaper:

“The issue at the ports is a big threat. The UK always has been a net importer of food. If the ports don’t work then exporters will be struggling and importers will have a challenge too.”

The executive added that while some food manufacturers were already setting aside additional supplies, stockpiling was not possible for products with a short shelf life, such as milk or vegetables.

Many have reacted with shock to the news that Britain needs a minister to ensure the country has enough food.

Commentated writer, Emma Kennedy:

“Oh joy. We’re getting a Food Supplies Minister for when the food chain collapses. Brexit’s just SUPER isn’t it?”

LBC radio presented, James O’Brien added:

“We are about to become the first country in history to impose economic sanctions on ourselves.”

Labour MEP Seb Dance described the move as “bonkers”. He said:

“The government – instead of looking at imminent Brexit food shortages and thinking, ‘It’s our duty to ensure that doesn’t happen’ instead appoints a food-shortage minister to oversee the mess.”

Government ministers have previously considered plans to deploy army helicopters and trucks if a Brexit-deal cannot be agreed.

The army would take food and medical supplies to vulnerable and elderly people, according to news reports.

Whilst the government has tried to play down the risk of such drastic shortage, it is feared that not securing an agreement with the EU could stop imports of food and vital supplies.

Earlier in the summer the Prime Minister, Theresa May, did not deny stockpiling, but told Channel 5 News the Government is being responsible. She said:

“Far from being worried about preparations that we are making, I would say that people should take reassurance and comfort from the fact that the Government is saying we are in a negotiation, we are working for a good deal.

“I believe we can get a good deal – but because we don’t know what the outcome is going to be let’s prepare for every eventuality.”

The news that Britain is to appoint a new Minister to ensure adequate food supplies for the country has brought back memories of when Britain was facing a food shortage because of World War Two.

In April 1940, Lord Woolton, a prominent businessman, was appointed Minister of Food.

His mission was to guarantee adequate food supply. In the dark days of summer 1940, with a German invasion threatened, Woolton was responsible for ensuring food stocks were in place, even if the shipping could not get through.

Although the country is not now at war, the circumstances seem eerily similar to today.

The brief of our new food supplies minister, Mr Rutley, is also to guarantee adequate food supply.

In the dark days of autumn 2018, with a no-deal Brexit threatened, Rutley will be responsible for ensuring food stocks are in place, even if the shipping cannot get through after March 2019.

But there is one big difference. Brexit is self-inflicted. We don’t have to do it.

Was life in Britain really so bad before 23 June 2016?

Yes, there were many things that needed fixing. But instead of fixing them, Brexit is going to burden Britain with yet more things to fix.

There are no benefits to Brexit. Not even one.

• Photo of Lord Woolton by Yousuf Karsh

• Photo of David Rutley, MP, by Chris McAndrew

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Election of the Presidents of the Chambers of three Judges of the Court of Justice

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When viewed as a normative power, is the European Union (EU) an exceptional actor? Aiste Pagirenaite dissects the Economic Partnership Agreements negotiated between the EU and the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States, and argues that the EU’s norm promotion tools also serve its strategic interests.

© Image by Corgarashu

Two of the most prominent accounts explaining the EU’s role as a global actor are known as Normative Power Europe (NPE) and Civilian Power Europe (CPE). These accounts, introduced by Ian Manners and François Duchêne respectively, are marked by at least one common flaw – they present the EU as a type of exceptional actor, a ‘civilising power’ and value promoter.

It is doubtful to what extent the EU acts in a normative way: the normative dimension of the EU global actorness should not be disclaimed but it is unlikely that the EU has an exceptional normative role in international sphere, as some kind of ‘force for good’.

The ability to spread norms is not a phenomenon unique to the EU – for example, the United States (US) foreign policy has been usually marked by ‘strong normative under-, if not overtones’ and even the Soviet Union sought to adopt a certain kind of ‘normative’ or ‘civilizing’ role.

Interestingly enough, the US international actorness is often presented at odds with normative EU power. However, the US foreign policy has clearly been marked by normative aspects, especially during the first part of the twentieth century when Woodrow Wilson’s announced his Fourteen Points and ‘institutions that would civilise international politics’ were created.

Even events such as the invasion of Iraq, led by hawkish foreign policy, should not be interpreted as merely a manifestation of hard power politics. US actions were also driven by a Wilsonian view of liberal democracy. Wilson’s original objective was similar to the one of the EU today: strengthen peace in the world by incentivising the creation of ‘binding normative commitments’ among countries. However, over time the importance of US military means has overshadowed its normative power, hence it is less surprising that the US image as a norm promoter tends to be met with scepticism.

The US experience is a useful lesson for the EU because it reveals that attempts to justify external action by referring to norms ‘often lead to suspicions of hypocrisy and hidden agendas’. Returning to the example of Iraq invasion: the official rhetoric attempted to justify the US actions as a fight against human rights violations of the Saddam Hussein’s regime. However, ‘many countries, especially non-democratic Arab countries’ perceived the US normative rhetoric as a veil for its self-interested intentions.

The US experience clearly exposes the consequences of promotion of non-reflective and self-gratifying normative image in the international arena.

Although military methods of norm spreading took over in the case of the US, it does not guarantee that the EU’s external relations, which are civilian in nature, protects them from becoming a ‘self-righteous [and] messianistic project’. Therefore, it is argued by scholars Thomas Diez and Sonia Lucarelli that a significant amount of self-reflectivity is needed in EU actorness studies, while paying attention towards perceptions of ‘others’.

The investigation of the EU actorness reveals that norm promotion tools can sometimes be utilised for the EU’s strategic interests. This revelation does not necessarily deny any normative role of the EU, but it should be kept in mind that the organization is not blind to its own needs.

This issue is clear when external perceptions of the EU’s global action are analysed, which reveal that attempts to portray the EU as a type of different normative force are sometimes seen as hypocritical (especially in the Southern countries), thus actually harming the image of the EU, instead of promoting it.

Most of the criticisms towards the EU, coming from the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP), are directed towards inconsistencies between development aid, human rights and trade policies.

The bargaining style of the EU’s elites is often perceived as patronising, arrogant and inconsiderate of ACP concerns, thus being more reminiscent of attitudes of colonial patron rather than a normative actor. EPAs (Economic Partnership Agreements) are often blamed by African elites for ignoring Africa’s heterogeneity because of their ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach and efforts to impose the EU’s own model of integration externally. Investigation of EPAs negotiations reveals that critical attitudes regarding the EU’s domineering bargaining style have strong substance.

For example, the EU insisted that EPAs were to be signed with seven regions within the ACP and not with the group as a whole, reducing its negotiating power, since regional groups are smaller and thus it was harder for them to push for agreements favouring developing countries. Moreover, EPAs are based on WTO rules regarding trade ‘reciprocity’ which disadvantages poorer economies (such as the ACP block) because their goods and services cannot compete with the EU’s. In addition, a neoliberal economic model is assumed to be the ‘aspiration’ for the ACP countries without more profound discussion about possible alternatives.

In brief, the EU only vaguely follows its normative rhetoric in its action towards African countries. More often, it adopts harsh bargaining techniques of ‘coercion and manipulation’.

Accounts on the EU actorness contributing to the NPE/CPE discourse often lack careful investigations of the measures used by the EU to spread its norms – sometimes criticised for their imperialist nature. Jan Zielonka compares the EU to an empire because of its aim to ‘assert political and economic control over various peripheral actors through … economic and political domination’.

However, the EU is a different type of empire than the contemporary US or nineteenth-century Britain. Zielonka claims that because of the ‘polycentric’ governance, indefinite borders and ‘soft forms of external power projection’ which resemble the world system in the Middle Ages before the emergence of capitalism and nation states, the EU could be understood as a ‘neo-medieval empire’.

Instead of asserting its power through military instruments, which conventionally could be expected from an imperial power, the EU uses bureaucratic and economic means while also claiming that its norms and policies are ‘right’. Thus, the EU is able to legitimise the use of ‘sanctions, bribes and even coercion’ while achieving its own goals.

Claiming that the EU’s integration model is universal and pushing other actors to accept its norms ‘by applying economic incentives and punishments’ (for example, the EU included conditions regarding democracy into trade agreements with Latin American and North African countries) indeed manifest patronising under-tones.

To sum up, even though the EU can be seen acting as a normative actor in some areas (e.g. the famous Manners example of the EU’s endeavour of international death penalty abolition), the NPE/CPE discourses should be investigated more attentively. A wide range of the EU’s policies towards developing countries and their negotiating processes must be taken into account. Furthermore, the image of the EU as a ‘force for good’ is too idealistic and self-righteous, because the EU also follows its own interests in policy areas.

Please note that this article represents the views of the author(s) and not those of the UACES Graduate Forum, UACES or JCER.

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Aiste Pagirenaite is a Master’s graduate in International Politics and Europe at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. She previously studied Journalism and European Politics at Vilnius University, Lithuania, and Danish School of Media and Journalism, Denmark, where she analysed the EU’s relations with the Visegrád countries. Her master’s dissertation analyses the relationship between EU development policy and issues of global distributive justice while in general her research focuses on European Studies and questions of social equality.

The post The EU as a Normative Power: the Issue of Eurocentric Approaches to EU Action Analysis appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

An opinion by Jolyon Gumbrell

Elections for the European Parliament will take place from the 23rd to 26th May 2019. If the UK leaves the European Union on 29th March 2019 – then the British electorate will not have the chance to vote in the European elections of that year or ever again, and therefore forgo the right to send their elected representatives to the European Parliament. It is therefore quite urgent that Article 50 is rescinded in order to allow the British people the right to participate in European democracy. A true peoples vote would be to allow the British people to vote in the European elections of 2019.

I signed the e-petition to “rescind Art. 50 if Vote Leave has broken Electoral Laws regarding 2016 referendum”, which was later debated by the House of Commons on 10th September 2018, as the petition had gathered almost 200,000 signatures. I do not believe there has to be a second referendum to rescind Article 50 in order for the UK to remain in the EU. It has already been proven that the referendum was a fraud and the public were lied to by both the Vote Leave and Leave.EU compaigns. There are also may questions of the source of the multi-million pound donation made by Arron Banks the founder of Leave.EU, and the contacts he had with the Russian embassy in London in the run up to the 2016 referendum. The result of the 2016 referendum should be proclaimed null and void on grounds of national security, because of Russian government interference in the referendum campaign.

The public were not given the correct information to make an informed choice, and were not told that they would personally be stripped of their EU citizenship – as they would no longer be citizens of an EU member state. They were also not told they would lose many of the rights and freedoms which are offered to citizens across Europe, as well as losing the freedom to travel, study, and work in another EU country without visa restrictions. My view of the referendum is that some dodgy salesmen peddled a dodgy product called Brexit to an unsuspecting British public in 2016.

The Labour Party does not need to go along with this Brexit scam, and I was unhappy that Jeremy Corbyn pushed his party to vote with the government to trigger Article 50 last year, when the public should have been told the uncomfortable truth about the terrible consequences of Brexit.

Many people believe that the UK can remain in the European Single Market and the Customs Union after the UK has left the EU. However this would still be bad for the country as the UK would no longer have representation in the European Parliament, the European Council, or the Council of the European Union. I believe the only option for the UK is to retain its full membership of the European Union or face economic decline and isolation. We also need to remember that the 27 other members of the EU may not wish the UK to cherry pick which parts of the EU it wants to remain in, as that would endanger the integrity of Europe.

The only safe deal is for the UK to remain a full member of the EU along with all of the rights and obligations which that involves. The peoples vote would then be for British citizens to elect their representatives for the European Parliament in May 2019, which would not be the case if the UK leaves the EU in March 2019.

Sources

https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2018-09-10/debates/765648D6-5872-49B6-AA13-4E9AC0DA923C/VoteLeaveCampaignElectoralLaw

http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/images/publications/Democracy_in_the_Crosshairs_.pdf

©Jolyon Gumbrell 2018

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It’s crunch time in Art.50. Or, at least, a crunch time.

Rather than try to follow the individual twists and turns, many of which aren’t in the public gaze just yet, I’d like to step back and consider an environmental factor to these negotiations, namely who carries the cost.

As I’ve discussed before, Brexit is unusual for a negotiation in that it is not a positive-sum, but a negative-sum, exercise: there are costs to be apportioned, on both sides.

(In correspondence about that post, Michael Lipton (emeritus of Sussex) rightly pointed out this actually makes it an “all-round negative game”).

As a result, each side loses from playing.

Quite aside from the question of “why then play?”, the main issue is thus one who carries what cost, and what will they do when they find out about it?

And that’s why this matters now, since assorted pigeons are coming home to roost, pennies are dropping and any other metaphor you care to use is occurring, as the potential points of compromise come into focus.

But one thing I’ve not really done here yet is set out the potential set of losers and their veto powers, i.e. what they can do to slow or block decisions being made against them.

So let’s have a try.

The UK

We can start by looking at those who will be carrying costs, but who have no immediate power over the negotiations, because they have no formal role. That includes the general public, economic operators and civil society in general. Not everyone loses in this, as the reconfiguration of economic and social relations with the EU will allow some to thrive: however, globally-speaking, they will be outweighed by those who have to soak up transitional costs and opportunity costs on future behaviour.

For those who do have a formal role, there is a distinction between those who have a simple veto role – to just block – and those who can get ideas taken up. Of course, the former should derive some of the latter’s powers from their veto-player role, but I’d argue that is limited by the practice of the process.

To illustrate, let’s think about the parties in the Commons other than the Conservatives.

They can use their votes on the Bill to implement the Withdrawal Agreement (WA) to block its progress. However, both the government and the EU say that amendment of the WA can’t happen, because no re-negotiation is acceptable to the EU. This means the Bill is largely a take-it-or-leave-it proposition.

It’s clear that part of Theresa May’s strategy to make sure that this means those parties (and her own) are faced with a choice of the deal she brings back or leaving with no-deal. As much as parties might not like the deal, if the only alternative is no-deal, then the calculation is that bad is better than worse, so one buys into it.

For the DUP, there’s the added frisson of whether breaking the confidence and supply agreement is worth voting against a deal that might then get approved in any case.

Of course, Parliament could decide to go down the second referendum route, but this does not – in of itself – change the shape of the WA, except possibly re-opening the revocation pathway. But it also opens right up the dangers of a public voting to leave with no-deal, at a time when no party is looking particularly competent on matters Brexit.

Which brings us to the Tories. individual MPs can vote against the WA, but again with the danger of producing a motion of no-confidence that could take Parliament into a snap general election, where May might not look like the same kind of credible leader they had in 2017 [sic].

Alternatively, they could push for a leadership contest, but with no certainty about whether they could remove May, or replace her with someone more amenable to their objectives.

As a result, much of the action in the party seems to have been to let May get on with crafting a deal, while simultaneously getting arguments in early about why they could change course after 29 March, when they move to replace her: whoever’s in charge has poor choices to make, so let May make them, then blame her further down the line.

This also seems to apply to Cabinet, given May’s tight control of the negotiations (via Olly Robbins) and her rhetorical steadyfastness in defending ‘Chequers’: there seems to be enough division among Ministers to make a December 1990 move against the PM unlikely.

The EU

Things are a bit simpler on the EU side, in part because the costs look more manageable (especially compared to the UK’s): in all the viable outcomes, EU costs are markedly outweighed by those to be borne by the UK.

In attention, the most crucial concentrations of costs have become key parts of the EU’s mandate. Ireland is central in this, with the backstop intended to protect against worst-case scenarios.

Of course, what’s not clear is whether the Joint Report commitments given by the UK could still be made to apply in the event of no-deal: this is, at best, debatable. Hence the relatively advanced state of no-deal contingency planning in Ireland.

More protected is the protection of the integrity of the single market within the EU, which continues to be challenged within and without.

There’s also the ring-fencing of Article 50 from the rest of the negotiations that the EU and UK will have on their future relationship. By demanding resolution of the end of membership issues, the EU has hoped to increase its leverage and ensure that the future isn’t too entangled in the past. However, once again, it’s not clear if that will work, especially the likely difficulties of transition.

All this comes before we even get to the outlines of any WA deal. That’s going to set up a path to a reduction in market access and alignment with the UK, plus potential knock-on effects in non-economic domains of policy. Plus there’s the wider reputational cost of losing a key member state.

The danger still remains that if Brexit is just treated as ‘oh, those Brits’ then the EU will miss how it is also a reflection on the state of European governance and a call for further action to address political and social disconnection and discontent.

To pull this together, no-one really comes out of this looking better than before. The question is whether that’s enough to push local or general status quos into question, in which case we’ll be seeing the effects of Brexit reach very much further than they already have.

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DRAFT RECOMMENDATION on the draft Council decision on the conclusion, on behalf of the European Union and its Member States, of a Protocol to the Euro-Mediterranean Agreement establishing an Association between the European Communities and their Member States, of the one part, and the Arab Republic of Egypt, of the other part, to take account of the accession of the Republic of Croatia to the European Union
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Ramona Nicole Mănescu

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Election of the Presidents of the Chambers of five Judges of the Court of Justice

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Ms Rosario Silva de Lapuerta is elected Vice-President of the Court of Justice of the European Union

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned in its Special Report on Global Warming that the world is heating up faster than previously believed and with more drastic consequences. But the panel claims it is still "technically and economically possible" to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Commentators look at what needs to be done to achieve that goal.