European Union

Parliament regrets the “significant deterioration” of democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights.
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

Parliament regrets the “significant deterioration” of democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights.
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

On Thursday, the European Parliament adopted three resolutions taking stock of the human rights situation in Eritrea, Nicaragua and Saudi Arabia.
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on Human Rights

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

On Thursday, the European Parliament adopted three resolutions taking stock of the human rights situation in Eritrea, Nicaragua and Saudi Arabia.
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on Human Rights

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

On Thursday, the European Parliament adopted three resolutions taking stock of the human rights situation in Eritrea, Nicaragua and Saudi Arabia.
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on Human Rights

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

With youth unemployment on the rise in the EU, MEPs want member states to take stronger action to counter the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on young people.
Committee on Employment and Social Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

With youth unemployment on the rise in the EU, MEPs want member states to take stronger action to counter the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on young people.
Committee on Employment and Social Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

Parliament supports legislation that aims to ensure the tunnel railway connecting continental Europe and the UK continues to operate safely and efficiently.
Committee on Transport and Tourism

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

Parliament supports legislation that aims to ensure the tunnel railway connecting continental Europe and the UK continues to operate safely and efficiently.
Committee on Transport and Tourism

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

The European Commission signed on Thursday its third contract for a potential Covid-19 vaccine, with the pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson. The deal will allow member states to purchase vaccines for 200 million people - with the possibility to extend that to an extra 200 million doses. The commission has previously sealed deals with AstraZeneca and Sanofi-GSK, but it is also negotiating with CureVac, BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna.

Junqueras i Vies v Parliament
Law governing the institutions
Le pourvoi contre l’ordonnance du vice-président du Tribunal rejetant la demande de référé de M. Junqueras i Vies est aussi rejeté

Yesterday saw Michael Gove and David Frost, the UK leads for the current negotiations with the EU, give evidence to Parliamentary committees. They were very upbeat about it all, pointing to the increasing chances of a deal and sounding conciliatory about compromises on state aid, even as they acknowledged the continuing problems elsewhere. I noted this on Twitter, but expressed some doubt about it too, since I wasn’t clear whether this was actual “things are going to work out”, or more covering-of-backsides in case it didn’t: the space between ‘it’ll happen’ and ‘it’d have happened if only the other lot had tried as hard as we have’ is relatively small. Which provoked this response:

There's a bit of a dbl standard here. When UK doesn't present a view it is 'not engaging'. When it does, and I thought today's session illuminating, it is accused of blame management. The EU is never accused of same even though, in a sense it is constantly engaged in it too.

— John Rowland (@rowlandreport) October 7, 2020 I take the point, since I’m well aware that I’m much harder on the UK than the EU in this process and that several readers constantly assume I think the UK should just do whatever the EU wants. The second point can be dealt with briefly, since my interest is in the parties finding a mutually-acceptable outcome to these negotiations, because that’s the result that will most likely produce stable and constructive relations between them. Where that outcome lies is for the negotiators to decide, not me, but I certainly don’t think it’ll be possible if either side dictates terms. On the first point, some more consideration is merited. John’s last comment is certainly true: the EU is, and has long been, very aware of the reputational management aspects of Brexit. The process matters in of itself, but also as a marker of the EU’s wider objectives with its external partners: concessions to the UK would potentially mean concessions elsewhere. The difficulties of the period since 2016 have only strengthened the concern not to get played by the UK into becoming the villain of the piece. But the two parties have taken very different approaches to the managing of their image in all this. The UK has consistently had a very tight circle of people around the Prime Minister determining policy, with the bare minimum of engagement with those outside government (and not a huge amount within it). Recall the fights to give Parliament, the courts or any sectoral interest a say in the various stages of creating and developing the British position. By contrast, the EU has gone the opposite route, with a very high level of transparency from the start. Sure, that’s partly because of the terrible experience of TTIP, and partly because the EU is a very leaky organisation anyway, but still the decision to have very public binding of member states and EU institutions to the several mandates is striking. Some of this comes down to the representation of Brexit as an existential threat to the EU, driving all on that side towards both high levels of solidarity and to a clear desire for a negotiated outcome (i.e. a deal). The same isn’t true of the UK, where through either calculation or misunderstanding the scale of Brexit wasn’t fully internalised by the government, resulting in much more contestation of the practice and purpose of the exercise. Put differently, while the EU has taken a line that has been consistent both across time and across its constituent elements, taking actions that reflect that line, the UK has none of that. As yesterday’s evidence underlined, much of the work necessary to give effect in the UK to the things already agreed between the two looks doubtful for their 1 January deadline, be that on the Irish protocol implementation or the measures needed for even the British version of what they want from the Future Relationship talks. Chuck in all the other things, like the Internal Market Bill or the continuing unwillingness of Number 10 to talk to anyone about their plans, and a degree of scepticism about the British ‘position’ is warranted. This comes back to the question of trust, which is going to colour strongly the next few years of EU-UK relations: words are cheap, so they need to be backed up by appropriate action, and durably so, before they can have real weight by themselves. And that’s for the good of both the UK and the EU, if they want to find that mutually-acceptable outcome.

The post Sauce for the goose? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The European Commission signed on Thursday a €70m joint-procurement contract with the pharmaceutical firm Gilead for the supply of up to 500,000 doses of Remdesivir - the only medicine with a marketing authorisation in the EU for the treatment of Covid-19 patients needing oxygen. All EU and EEA countries, the UK, as well as six candidate and potential candidate countries are participating in this joint procurement.

Crown Van Gelder
Freedom of establishment
A customer may submit a complaint against the operator of the national grid following a power failure

Union des industries de la protection des plantes
Approximation of laws
France validly informed the Commission of the need to take measures intended, in particular, to protect bees

In the last decade, the EU’s foreign policy practices have grown increasingly complex. For instance, despite the centralisation envisaged by the Lisbon Treaty, informal groups of member states shaped the Union’s policy on Kosovo and Ukraine.

Former and current EU foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini and Josep Borrell. Photo: NTB Scanpix/AP/Francisco Seco

Ten years after its ratification, some believe that the Lisbon Treaty failed to strengthen the EU activities in international politics. Others see the multiple crises the EU has faced as an opportunity to revise the Treaty, so the EU can live up to its ambitions on the international arena.

In principle, the Lisbon Treaty should have rationalized the EU’s institutional functioning, and thus increased the effectiveness of the EU external activities. The new High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and especially the creation of the European External Action Service, should have ensured consistency in EU foreign policy both within and outside the EU institutional framework.

Still, many believe that the EU foreign policy is marred by a ‘leadership paradox’. Added to this, many dimensions of the crises the EU has faced after the Lisbon Treaty relate to the foreign policy sector. How is this possible?

EU Foreign Policy Governance Post-Lisbon

It might be too early to reach a final, encompassing balance of EU foreign policy post-Lisbon. In the meantime, however, given the qualifying institutional features of the High Representative as both Vice President of the European Commission and chair of the Foreign Affairs Council, an examination of this actor can offer insights into the institutional practices underpinning this policy domain.

What seems clear is that such practices do not reflect the intergovernmental-supranational divide formally envisaged in the Lisbon Treaty. Over the past decade, in fact, member states often engaged in patterns of interaction that went beyond such divide.

In particular, the Lisbon Treaty’s implementation seems to have triggered horizontal, informal dynamics of cooperation among member states. Some of these dynamics occurred within the EU institutional system, particularly in the intergovernmental forums. On these occasions, member states integrated their efforts without necessarily devolving discretionary power to supranational bodies, such as the European Commission. Hence, the label ‘new intergovernmentalism’.

Under certain circumstances, however, member states also engaged in informal, differentiated integration outside the treaty framework. EU foreign policy toward the Eastern neighbourhood can provide crucial insights into these dynamics.

In my recently published article, I demonstrate that this is especially so for the cases of Kosovo and Ukraine.

The case of Kosovo

The occurrence of informal differentiated integration has characterized the EU foreign policy towards Kosovo – and the Western Balkans. Ever since the dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, France, Germany, Italy and the UK – alongside the US – coordinated their efforts within an international contact group: the Quint.

While doing so, they essentially shaped the EU approach to Kosovo and the Western Balkans. The members of the Quint have been at the forefront of the Union’s policies on Kosovo in the post-Lisbon era as well.

Simultaneously, German Chancellor Angela Merkel initiated the Berlin Process in 2014 – one of the most prominent informal groups in the post-Lisbon era. The Process involves a small number of member states – Austria, Croatia, France, Germany, Italy, Slovenia and the UK – the Western Balkans countries aspiring to EU membership, and EU representatives.

Indeed, the European Council pre-eminence over the High Representative in decision-making processes has characterized EU foreign policy on Kosovo in the post-Lisbon era. This notwithstanding, when member states believed in the need to devise a collective effort, the High Representative could significantly influence EU foreign policy, as it happened during Catherine Ashton’s mandate and the EU-brokered dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia. On these occasions, informal groups of member states participating in the Quint and in the Berlin Process, contributed to EU efforts in coordination with EU institutions.

Still, when consensus among member states was not an option, the European Council took the lead. It is against this backdrop that the above-mentioned informal groups of member states frequently determined EU approach to Kosovo. For instance, during the suspension of the EU enlargement towards the Western Balkans, Germany prevented the Kosovo–Serbia talks from collapsing through the Berlin Process.

The case of Ukraine

Informal differentiated integration characterized EU foreign policy towards Ukraine as well. The occurrence of the Normandy Format is a clear example of an informal group steering EU approach, without receiving a formal mandate from EU institutions but remaining broadly anchored to the EU framework.

The Normandy Format is composed by the representatives of France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia. It was launched in July 2012, shortly after the outbreak of the Maidan protests and the Russian annexation of Crimea, to ensure a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Ukraine. Notably, it is within this format that France and Germany took the lead in the negotiation of the Minsk Process.

The Central East South Europe Gas Connectivity High Level Group (CESEC) offers another example of how member states integrate their efforts through the formation of ad hoc coalitions in coordination with EU institutions. In the energy domain, including in the Ukrainian policy dossier, the Commission generally conducted its activities in cooperation with an informal group of member states. In February 2015, the Commission decided to establish CESEC alongside Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia.

The Ukrainian case too shows that the formation of a consensus among member states’ representatives within the European Council is a necessary – albeit not sufficient – condition for the High Representative to influence EU foreign policy. When such consensus existed, the High Representative could benefit from the support of informal groups of member states.

However, when Ashton and Mogherini did not benefit from a consensus among member states on the general approach to adopt, they were unable to act as instigators and enforcers of EU foreign policy. Under these circumstances, as the negotiation of Minsk Process shows, informal groups steered EU response to the Ukrainian crisis instead.

The EU at a crossroad

All this considered, the EU finds itself at a crossroad. The occurrence of informal groupings within EU foreign policy on Kosovo and Ukraine reflect the extent of informal differentiated integration in EU foreign policy governance, despite the centralisation envisaged by the Lisbon Treaty.

Indeed, informal groups steering EU foreign policy might serve short-term purposes, and provide a response to conflicts and crises while the EU intergovernmental forums are deadlocked. Yet these distinctive patterns of interaction point towards a fragmentation of the EU foreign policy post-Lisbon.

By doings so, they inevitably put the spotlight on the urgent need to reform EU governance, especially in the foreign policy domain.

The post The cases of Kosovo and Ukraine suggest a fragmented EU foreign policy appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The EU should promote forest management models that seek to ensure forests are environmentally, societally and economically sustainable, MEPs said on Thursday.
Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

The EU should promote forest management models that seek to ensure forests are environmentally, societally and economically sustainable, MEPs said on Thursday.
Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

DRAFT REPORT on the implementation of the Common Foreign and Security Policy – annual report 2019
Committee on Foreign Affairs
David McAllister

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

To protect European consumers’ health, especially those of children, MEPs objected to Commission proposals on food products containing titanium dioxide and acrylamide.
Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP