European Union

MEPs will hear details of the revised proposal for the EU’s long-term budget and discuss the future of tourism as well as workers’ mobility.

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

The attacks on the rule of law, democracy and fundamental rights in Poland need to be addressed urgently, say a majority of MEPs in the Civil Liberties Committee.
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

The attacks on the rule of law, democracy and fundamental rights in Poland need to be addressed urgently, say a majority of MEPs in the Civil Liberties Committee.
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

The Security and Defence Subcommittee will hold a debate with High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/European Commission Vice-President Josep Borrell Fontelles, on 26 May. The discussion will focus on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on security and defence, including on CSDP missions and operations. The use of military means to support the fight against the pandemic, and the EU response to cyber-attacks and disinformation campaigns will also be looked into.
Meeting agenda and documents
Live streaming
EU Fact Sheets: Security and defence
Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

Hospital cleaner, Hassan Akkad, pulled at the nation’s heartstrings when he Tweeted a video this week with an urgent message to the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.

In the video, shot in his car wearing his NHS hospital scrubs, an emotional Hassan complained to Mr Johnson that he felt “stabbed in the back”.

Why? Because the government had decided to exclude low-paid foreign NHS workers, such as him, from the bereavement scheme.

The scheme ensures that if a migrant NHS staff member dies of Covid-19, their families will still be able to stay in Britain, with ‘indefinite leave to remain’.

Hassan’s video had over 4 million views and caused a media sensation.

Hassan and others – including trade unions, MPs, journalists and members of the public – also protested that NHS migrant staff and their families were expected to pay a ‘surcharge’ to access the NHS whilst they worked for the NHS

The surcharge is rising from £400 to £625 a year each from October.

 VIDEO SUCCESS

Within hours of Hassan’s video being posted, Home Secretary Priti Patel announced a dramatic government U-turn. The NHS bereavement scheme would now be extended to cover cleaners, porters and other low-paid roles, effective immediately and retrospectively.

The next day, the government also announced another major U-turn: at least for the time being, NHS migrant staff and their families would be excluded from the surcharge to use the NHS.

A spokesman for Boris Johnson said he had requested the Home Office and Department for Health to exempt NHS staff and care workers from the surcharge “as soon as possible”.

This was a major U-turn, as only on Wednesday, Mr Johnson had firmly stood by the surcharge, telling MPs he “understood the difficulties faced by our amazing NHS staff”, but said the government “must look at the realities” of funding the NHS.

Hassan Tweeted a new video, saying his faith in Britain has been restored following the U-turns. He said:

“Thanks to all of you who put pressure on the government, they U-turned.”

Overnight, Hassan has become a national hero for his video.

But how many also know that Hassan had to risk his life to get to Britain?

 SYRIAN REFUGEE

Hassan is a Syrian refugee who fled torture and conflict in his country to make a long and arduous journey to Britain, arriving in September 2015.

He was a high school English teacher in Damascus before he was forced to escape in 2012, after being jailed and viciously beaten for taking part in an anti-government protest.

He told CBS News of his ordeal:

“They beat me with iron poles. I always thought I have a lovely face, so I was trying to protect my face, but they ended up smashing my arms.”

Hassan, then 24, was eventually released, reported CBS, but he knew his ‘only choice was to join the human tide of weary refugees making a break for safety in Europe’.

He first stayed in the Middle East, assuming he’d be able to return to Syria, before realising that was impossible. He travelled towards Turkey, hopeful of seeking refuge in Britain, as he spoke fluent English.

Hassan filmed his gruelling travels and the footage was used for a BBC documentary, ‘Exodus: The Journey’ which, thanks to Hassan’s input, won a Bafta award.

From Turkey, he undertook a perilous crossing to Greece in a leaking dingy packed with 68 other refugees, describing it as the “lowest moment of the entire experience”.

Many thousands of refugees – men, women, children and babies – have drowned making exactly the same treacherous journey.

Hassan later spent two months in ‘the Jungle’ in Calais, the makeshift camp for refugees. Each night he says he attempted to swim from the shore onto one of the ferries crossing the Channel.

He paid £3,500 for a fake Czech passport and an EasyJet ticket to England, but was summoned back by border officials.

Eventually, he managed to fly to Heathrow on 27 September 2015, using a counterfeit Belgian passport.

His asylum application in the UK was granted six months later. He said:

“I picked Britain because I could speak English.”

 “ANYONE CAN BECOME A REFUGEE…”

Hassan told the PBS Frontline newsletter:

“Anyone can become a refugee, anyone.

“It’s not something which you choose. It’s something that happens to you.”

He added:

“People are not fleeing because they’re poor, or because they don’t have smartphones. They’re fleeing for their lives.”

Soon after Hassan arrived in the UK, the Evening Standard described his story as a:

‘quiet testament to the spirit of those who seek asylum here.’

Hassan told the Standard:

“I want to pay my tax. I want to make money, I want to learn. That’s the thing about Syrians — we don’t like to do nothing, we want to be part of any society that we’re in.”

He added that he wanted to get a master’s degree in conflict resolution or development.

He said:

“Because at some point we’re going to go back home. We’re not going to be here for ever. We’re going to rebuild a country that has been destroyed.”

 REFUGEES ARE NOT ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

Many in the British press and beyond would describe Hassan as an illegal immigrant. But there is no such thing as an illegal asylum seeker. And refugees are NOT migrants.

The term ‘migrant’ means a person who moves from one place to another in order to find work or better living conditions. Migrants voluntarily leave their home countries for another, and can voluntarily return home at any time.

That’s not the case for refugees. The term ‘refugee’ means a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution or natural disaster.

They have to leave their homes involuntarily and they cannot return.

The vast majority of those risking their lives across the Mediterranean to reach Europe are genuine refugees, fleeing from war, torture, violence and slavery.

Back in 2015, the year Hassan made it to Britain, William Spindler, Senior Communications Officer for UNHCR told me:

“The approximate recognition rates in the EU for Syrian asylum seekers is around 95 percent and for Iraqis and Afghans it’s over 70 percent.

“In other words, the majority of Mediterranean arrivals will be recognized as refugees by EU countries.”

 SAFE COUNTRY

So, let’s be clear: there is no such thing as an illegal refugee, even if they have to use ‘illegal’ means to reach a safe country to seek asylum.

And contrary to popular myth, there is also no such law that says an asylum seeker must seek asylum in the first safe country they reach.

It is truly terrifying to find yourself unsafe and in mortal danger in your own country because your country has turned against you.

Only those who have experienced it first-hand can have any idea how it feels or its colossal impact.

Escape is the first gnawing, grim thought and ordeal – especially as most don’t manage to escape.

But then what? Once you’ve escaped, where do you escape to?

In many so-called safe countries, you might not speak their language – a huge handicap.

In many so-called safe countries, you might not feel welcome or even safe – especially in some European countries, such as Hungary, that blatantly don’t want refugees.

There are good reasons to want to find a country you can, at least for now, call home and feel safe.

 YEARNING FOR HOME

Hassan chose Britain. He was an English teacher and obviously speaks our language fluently. Making it safely to Britain resulted from his great fortitude and having him here is our good luck.

He has risked his life to get here. And now he is risking his life cleaning Covid-19 wards in a London hospital, helping our nation to get through the pandemic.

A humble role for someone clearly so talented.

Let’s thank and welcome him.

But let’s also not forget that refugees don’t flee from their countries out of choice. They do so because their lives are in desperate danger.

And the ones who make it are the minority. The majority get left behind and live terrible lives or suffer terrible deaths.

Those who flee must find deeply within themselves steely determination and courage, not just to successfully escape, but also to make whatever journey it takes to reach a country in which they feel they can call their new safe home and refuge.

What many don’t realise, because they have never been a refugee, is that for most refugees, the country they would most like to call their ‘safe home’ is the one they’ve left behind – where they were born, grew up, have family, their roots, went to school, have friends and often, a professional career.

They miss and yearn for home, their real home; a place that, for many, it may never be safe or possible to return.

 

• Watch 6-minute video which includes Hassan’s message to the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and a trailer of the documentary, ‘Exodus: Our Journey’ showing Hassan’s treacherous journey in a dingy across the Mediterranean:

• Watch Hassan say thank you to the public for their support:

• Follow my journalism page on Facebook: Jon Danzig writes
• And LinkedIn

________________________________________________________

• Join and share the discussion about this article on Facebook:

The post From refugee, to hospital cleaner to national hero appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Besides Parliament’s core activities, President Sassoli has offered EP support to local authorities providing meals, shelter and a COVID-19 testing centre.

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

Besides Parliament’s core activities, President Sassoli has offered EP support to local authorities providing meals, shelter and a COVID-19 testing centre.

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

The European Youth Event (EYE) goes online to engage young people with high-level politicians, experts and influencers and discuss EU role in the COVID-19 crisis.

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

The European Youth Event (EYE) goes online to engage young people with high-level politicians, experts and influencers and discuss EU role in the COVID-19 crisis.

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!

The post Hello world! appeared first on publicaffairs2point0.eu.

Because of Brexit, Britain is rapidly propelling away from Europe, involving the loss of free trade, and free movement of people, with our neighbouring countries. Is that really what Britain wants?

The UK government seems determined to close all possibilities of a successful new relationship with our closest countries on our continent.

Instead, we’re moving away from Europe and getting closer to the USA.

The talks between the UK and EU have so far ended in stalemate – and the prospects of us ending up with a no-deal Brexit now look both plausible and probable.

Does the UK government really believe that they can achieve a satisfactory trade agreement with Trump’s USA to replace our relationship with Europe?

Almost half (around 45%) of ALL UK exports go to EU countries.

By contrast, only around 20% of our exports go to the USA – yes, that’s a lot, but nowhere near the volume of trade we do with the EU.

The irony is that in the EU we could have both – it never needed to be either/or. The EU never stopped us trading with the USA or other countries across the world.

LOSS OF FREE TRADE We didn’t need to leave the EU to have good trade with the USA, or anywhere else.

In fact, leaving the EU means we lose excellent free trade deals covering over 70 countries, successfully negotiated by the EU for its members, with many more on the way.

In addition, according a Financial Times investigation, the EU has secured 759 separate EU international agreements of direct relevance to Britain. These cover trade, regulatory co-operation, fisheries, agriculture, nuclear co-operation and transport co-operation (including aviation) involving 168 countries.

The EU successfully negotiated these international agreements with other countries because it’s is the world’s largest trading bloc and the world’s largest economy, alongside the USA and China.

Furthermore, the EU is the top trading partner for 80 countries. (By comparison the US is the top trading partner for a little over 20 countries.)

So, the EU has the muscle, the reach and the negotiating skills to secure the best deals for its members. Isn’t that just one of the many membership benefits?

If, as now seems likely, we end the transition period with the EU without any ongoing deal, all those trade and international agreements must be torn up, and Britain will have to negotiate them all over again.

It will take many years, without any guarantee that we’ll get new agreements as good as, let alone better than, the agreements we’ve enjoyed as an EU member for decades.

In the EU, we had an equal, democratic say in all trade deals achieved by the EU, and a veto for trade deals directly affecting Britain.

Are we likely to have an equal say and veto with any new free trade agreement with the USA?

As a much smaller economy, we’ll be the junior partner. The UK will be a rule taker, and not a rule maker, in any new deal with the USA.

In any event, if Trump wins the next USA election, he’s already shown that he doesn’t like ‘free trade’ agreements.

It was Trump who halted the free trade agreement, TTIP, between the USA and the EU – that was close to being signed-off before he became President.

The USA cannot replace Europe as our closest and most important trading partner.

And yet, a hard Brexit means we lose free AND frictionless trade with our most valuable customers and suppliers across the EU – by far the MOST lucrative market for Britain in the entire world.

We know for sure that Brexit means we lose frictionless trade with Europe – upon which so many UK businesses, especially our car manufacturers, vitally depend.

But if as now anticipated, we leave the EU Single Market at the end of the transition period this year without any new trade deal between us, we’ll also lose free trade with Europe, with devastating consequences for the UK.

Is that really what you want? Did you ever specifically vote for THAT?

LOSS OF FREE MOVEMENT For decades, Britain has enjoyed free movement of people – both ways – with the EU. But now, the UK government has introduced a new bill to kill it.

Just as the UK is drifting away from Europe – at least politically, at least economically – our government wants to move away from the people of Europe too.

On Monday 18 May, the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill passed its initial stages in the House of Commons by 351 votes to 252.

With the Tory government enjoying a sizeable majority of 80 seats, the bill will almost certainly soon receive Royal Assent.

When it becomes law, it will end EU freedom of movement and introduce new rules, yet to be fully specified, on who can come to Britain in future.

Migration to the UK will be on a complicated points system, and anyone earning less than £25,600 a year will be automatically categorised by the government as ‘unskilled’ and therefore unwelcome.

Nor will migrants be welcome who haven’t already got a job lined up before they arrive.

The new rules would have excluded practically ALL EU citizens who are already here as care workers, refuse collectors, NHS ancillary staff, delivery drivers, transport staff and local government workers – to name but a few.

They arrived on easy-to-understand EU free movement rules and, as key workers, are essential to keeping the country going during the pandemic lockdown. (Some have lost their lives doing so).

Free movement has worked for Britain and for Europe. It’s meant that citizens of our continent can easily move between neighbouring countries, filling job vacancies as needed, here or there.

Free movement has allowed Britons to live, work, study or retire anywhere in the EU, as well as Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.

Millions of Britons have made use of these freedoms over the decades.

And under EU free movement, British pensioners have had the right to move to sunnier climes in Europe, and enjoy their FULL UK state pension, and access to FREE STATE HEALTHCARE in their new country, paid for by the NHS.

Free movement was never broken, and it didn’t need fixing.

 Under the rules, EU citizens couldn’t just arrive in another EU country and claim benefits – they had to have sufficient funds to travel and to stay.

 Under the rules, EU citizens could be rejected or ejected if they were considered to pose certain risks to the country.

 Under the rules, EU citizens could enjoy the right to stay in another EU country for up to three months only, so long as they didn’t become a burden to the state.

 Under the rules, EU citizens could only legally stay longer in another EU country if they were jobseekers; workers; self-employed; students; self-sufficient; permanent residents (i.e. legally here for more than five years); or family members of one of the above.

What a brilliant system, that has served our country well – either for citizens coming here, or our citizens going there.

Now to be killed off, because the government interpreted the referendum Brexit vote as meaning the end of ‘free movement’.

Even though, just as for non-EU countries Norway and Switzerland, we could have kept free movement without having to be an EU member.

And even though, the country was never specifically asked if we wanted to end free movement with our continent.

The government just assumed we did.

 But polls show that most Britons would rather retain our freedom of movement with Europe.  Just as polls show that most Britons would rather have a close trading relationship with the EU than the US.

 

• Watch this 2-minute video that outlines what we lose with the end of free movement.

 

• Follow my journalism page on Facebook: Jon Danzig writes
• And LinkedIn

________________________________________________________

The post Do we want to be a part of Europe or apart? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Nord Stream 2 v Parliament and Council
Energy
The General Court of the European Union declares that the actions brought by Nord Stream AG and Nord Stream 2 AG against Directive 2019/692, which extends certain rules of the internal market in natural gas to pipelines from third countries, are inadmissible

By Adina Maricut-Akbik, Hertie School, Berlin

Since the euro crisis, the European Central Bank (ECB) has expanded its powers from monetary policy to banking supervision in the Eurozone. In the framework of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), established in 2013, the ECB became responsible for the direct supervision of the largest banks of Eurozone countries. The goal was to rebuild trust in the European banking system by ensuring consistent supervision and thus increasing the resilience of banks. Smaller banks remained within the purview of national supervisors, under the indirect supervision of the ECB. The expansion of ECB powers in banking supervision was accompanied by the institutionalization of new accountability obligations vis-à-vis the European Parliament (EP), separate from monetary policy. The purpose of the article was to assess the functioning of the new accountability relationship between the ECB and the EP in banking supervision based on the practice of parliamentary questions and answers exchanged between the two institutions in the first years since the establishment of the SSM (2013-18).

 

The idea that parliaments can and should hold central banks accountable is part of the general principles of legislative oversight in democratic settings. This type of political accountability is seen as the counterpart to delegation: if a specialized task (such as banking supervision) needs to be carried out in a specific setting (like the Eurozone), the task is delegated to an actor with the expertise and policy credibility to do so (in this case the ECB). From a democratic perspective, the act of delegation needs to be countered by accountability mechanisms that seek to check whether the actor performs its tasks as intended at the moment of delegation. In the SSM, the EP does not have at its disposal the full toolbox of accountability mechanisms available to national parliaments overseeing specialized agencies. For example, the EP cannot sanction the ECB by changing its legal framework in banking supervision – a competence that belongs to national governments in the Council. However, the EP can use the tool of parliamentary questions to call the ECB to account for its supervisory decisions. Such questions can either be addressed orally in regular public hearings with the ECB’s Chair of the Supervisory Board, or in writing through letters – to which the ECB is obliged to respond within five weeks (SSM Regulation, Article 20).

 

The article shows how an interactionist approach to accountability helps to investigate the exchange of questions and answers between Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and the ECB. The interactionist approach is premised on the idea that in practice, accountability interactions presuppose a back-and-forth exchange between two parties: the first, known as the forum (here the EP), is legitimized to ask questions and contest the activity of the second (the actor, here the ECB), which in turn is required to engage with the contestation of the forum and justify its conduct. Accordingly, accountability interactions are envisaged in three steps, where: (I) the forum contests the decisions of the actor, (II) the actor silences, rejects or engages with said contestation and (III) the forum follows up on the issue (or not), thus continuing or ending contestation on the matter. Contestation can be weaker, when forums merely request information or justification of decisions from an actor, or stronger, when forums request changes of decision or sanctions to be applied to the actor. The interactionist approach proposes to keep an inventory of the type of questions posed by forums and the type of answers provided by actors in order to evaluate the extent of a forum’s contestation and the degree of an actor’s responsiveness within a given accountability relationship. The dataset behind the article includes 337 written questions and 369 oral questions (and as many corresponding answers) identified during the period November 2013-April 2018.

 

In the case of the EP and the ECB in banking supervision, the analysis identified a frequently-used infrastructure for political accountability that is however limited in ensuring a stronger contestation of ECB supervisory decisions. The vast majority of questions were categorised as ‘weak’ according to the interactionist approach, for various reasons: some were mere requests for policy views about legislative initiatives in the field of banking supervision, others were outside the scope of ECB competence in the SSM, and many more were demanding transparency regarding the situation at specific banks supervised by the ECB. In respect to the latter, the problem comes from the tight confidentiality rules in the SSM, which allow the ECB not to disclose information about supervisory decisions concerning individual banks. And yet these are the questions that feature most often when MEPs contest something about ECB supervisory conduct. Notwithstanding the confidentiality requirements, the ECB is generally open to engage with questions from MEPs – especially when it comes to the internal organization of the SSM or the decision-making process thereof. Moreover, in the few cases where MEPs demanded a change of conduct, the ECB demonstrated willingness to address their requests and subsequently made the required adjustments. So far, it seems that the EP can exercise more accountability when it has evidence – provided by internal parliamentary services – that the ECB acted outside the limits of its mandate in the SSM, as was the case of the 2017 Addendum to the ECB Guidance on non-performing loans.

 

Under the circumstances, the question is what can be done to improve the record of accountability interactions in the SSM. In line with the interactionist approach, what is needed is for MEPs to contest relevant issues regarding ECB conduct in banking supervision and, in turn, for the ECB to engage with contestation and change its decisions under specific circumstances. These two conditions require minimising the asymmetry of information between the two institutions, which is not an easy task. One possible solution is for MEPs to develop in‐house expertise on banking supervision in order to ensure that their questions are addressed to the relevant institution while substantively contesting [something about] the ECB conduct in the SSM. Another avenue of reform is to revise the SSM confidentiality rules by identifying specific conditions under which supervisory decisions can be disclosed, for example after a sufficient period of time has passed or after a bank was declared failing or likely to fail. The idea to completely reform professional secrecy standards applicable in the SSM is not novel, although its feasibility under the current circumstances remains low. Such a reform would require a review of the SSM legal framework, but more importantly a change of approach from the ECB leadership. The political feasibility of this reform will be decided in the years to come.

 

This blog post draws on the JCMS article,  Contesting the European Central Bank in Banking Supervision: Accountability in Practice at the European Parliament

 

 

Adina Maricut-Akbik is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Hertie School in Berlin. Her current research focuses on political accountability in EU economic governance and EU integration theory. Her interests also include informal politics in the European Council and the Council and inter-institutional decision-making in justice and home affairs.

@MaricutAkbik @thehertieschool

The post Can the European Parliament make the European Central Bank accountable? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

One million out of eight million species globally are threatened with extinction. Find out which and how many species in Europe are endangered or extinct.

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

One million out of eight million species globally are threatened with extinction. Find out which and how many species in Europe are endangered or extinct.

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

There are lessons to be learned from the EU’s responses to the Covid-19 crisis. The pandemic reveals the absolute need for further cooperation in the EU if the member states are to manage these types of health crises effectively. Importantly, the crisis has shown that the social and economic costs of not being able to react – or reacting too late – can be enormous for the EU and its member states.

 

What is clear is that Covid-19 is unlikely to be the last of this type of health challenge to EU countries and its citizens. Antimicrobial resistance – AMR – is increasingly seen a problem that will become one of the biggest challenges for global and European public health during the next twenty to thirty years.  Like Covid-19, AMR, knows no borders. Resistant bacteria move across countries along with people, animals and goods.

 

It is estimated that AMR causes around 33,000 deaths per year in the EU, and global AMR deaths are estimated to reach 10 million deaths per year by 2050. More people are expected to die due to AMR in 2050 than due to cancer.

 

In humans, antimicrobials – like antibiotics – are being used to combat various types of bacterial infections (e.g., pneumonia) and for prophylactic purposes in connection with surgery (e.g., heart transplants or hip replacement surgery). In the veterinary sector, antimicrobials are used to combat or prevent bacterial infections among livestock animals (pigs, cattle, chickens, etc.), and even among our pets. Use of antimicrobials is an integral part of modern human medicine and modern livestock production.

 

Approximately one-third of the consumption of antimicrobials in the EU is used within the human sector, while two-thirds is used in the veterinarian sector. However, every time antimicrobials are used to combat bacterial infections, the bacteria tends to become more resistant. Today, most bacterial infections can still be treated with antimicrobials, but in the near future, there is good reason to believe that we will be facing ‘superbugs’ for which antimicrobials will have no effect.

 

Over the past decade, the EU has taken a number of steps to combat AMR at the global and European level. In many ways, the EU is taking the lead in this effort, collaborating with UN organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO). The European Commission has launched two actions plans to combat antimicrobial resistance within the EU countries. The first Action Plan was launched in 2011, and the second in 2017. Both action plans contain a number of initiatives that can help ameliorate the AMR threat.

 

The basic aim of these initiatives has been to reduce overall consumption of antimicrobials in the EU. These include a proposal to increase testing of patients before they are given antimicrobials, increased antimicrobials stewardship systems at hospitals, and limiting the use of antimicrobials in livestock production. There is a close correlation between the level of antimicrobial use and the level of AMR. Countries with high levels of antimicrobial use, such as Italy, have high levels of AMR, while countries with low levels of use of antimicrobials, such as Denmark, also have low levels of AMR. Reducing overuse of antimicrobials is therefore a central goal in the EU Commission’s action plans.

 

A major challenge to the development of a common EU AMR policy is that health policy is primarily an area of national competence. The national control over health policy is explicitly stated in the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union (Art. 168 No. 7 TFEU). This national competence has also been the case for EU policies aimed at reducing the risk of developing AMR.

 

Consequently, the Commission is prevented from initiating regulation on antimicrobial use unless there is clear support from the member states. The Commission has thus based a number of their initiatives in the AMR action plans on ‘soft law’. Hence,  instead of laws and directives, they use ‘recommendations’ and ‘methods of open coordination’ as the regulatory instrument for reducing overuse of antimicrobials among, for example, physicians or  pig farmers. Binding legislation such as EU ‘regulations’ or ‘directives’ are seldom used in the AMR context, unless these can be directly related to the single market. From the Commission’s perspective, the use of soft law within the field of AMR can be seen as a strategic way of dealing with the lack of EU competence in this policy field in situations where there is a clear need for transnational initiatives.

 

The action plans to combat AMR launched by the Commission have definitely increased focus on AMR problems among the EU member states. Most member states have developed their own plans for how to reduce the use (and overuse) of antimicrobials at national level.

 

Yet, the overall consumption of antimicrobials in the EU remains high. One explanation for continued overuse of antimicrobials is probably that the EU actions plans are rather new, and that a number of member states until now have not been so active in the combat against AMR. Another reason could be that the use of soft law reduces the effects of the EU initiatives. Member states might feel a normative pressure to act in line with the Commission’s recommendations, but at the end of the day, they decide for themselves whether they wish to follow the recommendations. In that respect, pressure is on the member states as they have the main responsibility for reducing the consumption of antimicrobials.

 

The Covid-19 crisis has laid bare the interdependence of the EU member states when it comes to vulnerability to different types of transnational health challenges. Both Covid-19 and in the long term the risk of AMR have put pressure on the member states in order to accept a higher degree of EU policy development in relation to health policy.

 

This blog post draws on Carsten Strøby Jensen, ‘While We Are Waiting for the Superbug: Constitutional Asymmetry and EU Governmental Policies to Combat Antimicrobial Resistance,’ published in JCMS.

 

 

 Carsten Strøby Jensen is an associate professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen. His work has mainly focused on political sociology, labour market and processes of EU integration. Recently he has increasing worked with different societal aspect of the consequences of antimicrobial resistance.

 

 

 

The post Combating Antimicrobial Resistance in EU appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The Employment and Social Affairs Committee will debate with the Commission on Wednesday how to classify SARS-CoV-2, responsible for COVID-19, to protect workers’ health and safety.
Committee on Employment and Social Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

The Employment and Social Affairs Committee will debate with the Commission on Wednesday how to classify SARS-CoV-2, responsible for COVID-19, to protect workers’ health and safety.
Committee on Employment and Social Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

In an EP webinar on the EU’s long-term budget and response to the crisis, MEPs urged that the recovery fund must be set up as soon as possible to prevent a major recession.
Committee on Budgets

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

EU countries are relaxing Covid-induced border controls. Parliament wants a coordinated effort to restore a functioning Schengen zone as soon as possible.

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP