European Union

Right-wing extremists attacked refugees protesting the living conditions in overcrowded hotspots on the Greek island of Lesbos on Sunday night. The resulting street battle lasted into the morning and left several people injured. Greek media conclude that the refugee deal with Ankara has failed and fear that the conflict will escalate.

For roughly two weeks the Russian media watchdog Roskomnadzor has been trying to block the popular messaging app Telegram. To this end it has also blocked 16 million IP addresses of Amazon, Google and other network operators in a bid to prevent Telegram from circumventing the ban. Millions of websites are currently inaccessible. Will the blockade backfire?

Madrid's regional president Cristina Cifuentes resigned on Wednesday after media published a video taken seven years ago allegedly showing her shoplifting. Cifuentes had already come under fire over reports of a faked master's degree. What will be the consequences of her downfall?

French society under Macron’s reform steamroller.

„I do think that we can build efficient politics; politics that escape ordinary cynicism and engrave in reality what must be the foremost duty of political action, I mean human dignity.”

Who would want to contradict Emmanuel Macron on this point? Certainly not the venerable ‘Episcopal Conference of France’, to whom he addressed these words on 9 April. And even less the German-born blogger, whose own Republic, after all, made human dignity (for good reasons) the top priority of its own constitution.

There is, however, a not insignificant number of French citizens who, the President’s noble words notwithstanding, feel violated in their dignity and are making it known on numerous parallel battlefields: from the train stations and universities to the slightly anarchist ecological guerrilla on the fields of the buried airport project in Notre-Dame-des-Landes.

Is it a first revolt against the uninterrupted reform stress after a year ‘en marche’ with Macron? Or is it an echo of the romanticised ‘Révolution’ of May 68, with which a vast majority of the French associates positive social change and the memory of which is currently celebrated on all media channels with great tenderness for those bygone days of innocence?

There is probably a bit of both in the current protest movements. True, the oft-quoted ‘convergence of social struggles’, invoked by the trade unions and conjured up by the Left around La France insoumise, does not seem to occur. Everybody remains focused on their own concerns and demands. Neither do the strikers represent a majority within the SNCF or among the students, quite the opposite.

Macron and his government know this, and they will emerge as the winner from the current battles. The railway reform will be pushed through rather recklessly – just watch the ‘No chance!’ of Macron when asked by Fox News whether he might give in to the strikers. And the universities will calm down again once an improvement of the admittedly imperfect admission procedures will have been commissioned. But it will be a very ambiguous victory, for it will leave behind losers who were not just defeated in a labour struggle, but will fill lastingly humiliated, violated in their dignity.

The key to understanding the sheer bitterness expressed by the railway workers and students lies in the immense perception gap between the citizens and the government. The latter sees itself as ‘pragmatic’, ‘steadfast’, and ‘honest’, since it was announced well before the 2017 elections that citizens would be confronted with a demanding ‘transformation of French society’ and that a high level of willingness for change would be requested. Its arguments are factual, buttressed by the technocratic shrug of those who ‘objectively’ know better.

As for the protesters, they moved almost instantly to a very different semantic field. They are mobilised by what they feel to be ‘contempt’ and ‘humiliation’, no matter whether the cause they defend is the civil servant status of the railway workers, the taboo of non-selection at university entrance, or the vision of a collectivist, ecological agriculture as in Notre-Dame-des-Landes.

The culture model by Geert Hofstede (1991).

They are in coherence with the inner core of Geert Hofstede’s famous ‘culture onion’, where the (most often unconscious) fundamental assumptions of a given (most often national) culture lie, shared beliefs about what is right or wrong, beautiful and ugly, clean and dirty, noble and debasing.

In several books based on his research in comparative anthropology Philippe d’Iribarne has convincingly demonstrated to what extent the perception of what is respectful or demeaning treatment, of what constitutes dignity or ignominy is determined by the ‘mental universe’ of a cultural community. He has been repeatedly perplexed to find out just how much French society represents a special case in this field. In his aptly titled book The French Strangeness (L’étrangeté française, 2006) he shows how French culture has, over centuries, formed a severe hypersensitivity for the ‘rank that is attributed to each individual in society’ (p. 85). A sector in which this is particularly visible is the ‘service public’, which is dominated by ‘the logic of honour’, more precisely: ‘a certain nobleness in being at the service of the common good without being enslaved to it’ (p. 124).

It is of course perfectly possible to shake one’s heads – as do most media in Northwestern Europe – about the eternal striking of the French, who simply don’t seem to get the rules of late capitalism. In Britain, there is always someone to observe that ‘what France needs is a Margaret Thatcher’. Meanwhile in Berlin, the political and economic elite condescendingly adds that ‘Germany has done its homework’…

But sorry, that’s simply beside the point. (And might well backfire one day). It makes much more sense to understand France in 2018 as the most fascinating experiment in cultural change, conducted in real time on a national scale. In this perspective, the current convulsions of a part of French society are a perfectly logical backlash against a major cultural disruption that is imposed on them.

The ‘Macron Project’, which, as Simon Kuper recently observed, seems to consist in turning one of Europe’s oldest nations in record time into a kind of ‘Scandinavia with sunshine and vineyards’, is an immeasurable civilizational stress test. In fact, it is astonishing that so many French citizens are indeed willing to complete this kind of demanding ‘homework’.

The open question is: for how long?

The final result of the experiment will depend on their stamina and their level of frustration tolerance. For the time being, the President, whose working capacity, tempo, and rhetoric brilliance in the face of adversity is even respected by the sceptics, seems to keep them on board. Yet, there are good reasons why his nordic-liberal revolution may still fail.

First, as outlined above, the flexibilisation of the labour market, the changes in the educational system, the modernisation of the public service, the transformation of fiscal policy, and the dismantling of corporatist privileges, are more than just reforms. They touch the cultural underpinnings of French society. But where fundamental concepts of honour and dignity are anchored, a violently bent twig – to borrow Isaiah Berlin’s famous metaphor – may spring back and lash out even more violently at the forces that bent it in the first place.

Secondly, Emmanuel Macron is finding himself, slowly but surely, entangled in the defaults and ambiguities of the political system of the Fifth Republic, which he so masterly used to his own purposes during the election campaign. The first-past-the-post system in two rounds provides incredible freedom of design, but it is a treacherous distorting mirror about the real balance of power in society. At the same time, the sheer extent of the power in the hands of the President, and the expectations that come with it, virtually force the Head of State to govern above the heads of a weak parliament, which in turn inevitably leads to the shifting of power struggles to the streets (or rails, for that matter). And the typically French technocratic centralism, cultivated and consolidated over centuries, which Macron’s vertical government embodies, is losing legitimacy by the minute in an age of increasingly horizontal and digital networks.

The so-called ‘pedagogical’ initiative launched by the President over recent weeks – with two long TV interviews on channels watched by ‘target groups’ plus a public debate and even a longer discussion with angry citizens in the street, reveals that he is aware of the dangers. Will his explanations and persuasions be sufficient to calm down the uncertainty triggered by the destabilisation of deep-rooted core values?

France in spring 2018 – the experiment enters its next stage.

This post was initially published in German
by the Berlin-based think-tank Zentrum Liberale Moderne.

The post The railwayman’s dignity shall be inviolable. appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Messi Cuccittini v EUIPO - J-M.-E.V. e hijos (MESSI)
Intellectual and industrial property
Lionel Messi may register his trade mark ‘MESSI’ for sports equipment and clothing

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ANGED
Freedom of establishment
Regional taxes in Spain on large retail establishments are compatible with EU law

It’s reported that record numbers of migrant nurses and midwives from EU27 countries left Britain last year, exacerbating fears that a Brexit ‘brain drain’ will worsen the NHS’s already chronic staffing crisis.

According to the Nursing and Midwifery Council, a total of 3,962 such staff from the European Economic Area (EEA) left their register between 2017 and 2018.

Reported The Guardian today:

‘The number of departures was 28% more than the 3,081 who left in 2016-17 and three times higher than the 1,311 who did so in 2013-14, the first year the NMC began keeping data on such departures.

‘At the same time, the number of EU nurses and midwives coming to work in the UK has fallen to its lowest level. Just 805 of them joined the NMC register in 2017-18. That total is just 13% of the 6,382 who came over the year before.’

Janet Davies, the chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing said, “It feels that efforts to boost the number of nurses are being dragged down by a botched Brexit.”

She added that the government’s refusal to detail the rights that the 3 million EU citizens living in Britain will have once the UK leaves the EU in March next year is a key cause of the loss of EU staff.

“Nurses returning home, or giving Britain a miss entirely, are doing so because their rights are not clear enough.”

In interviews conducted by the NMC, Brexit was cited as the main reason why EU-trained staff are stopping working in the UK. Almost 3,5000 people who left the register between June and November 2017 were included in the survey.

In addition, mistreatment of the Windrush generation by the British authorities is “raising anxieties” among EU citizens hoping to settle in the UK after Brexit, a group of MEPs warned British officials in Brussels,

The delegation, led by the European Parliament’s Brexit co-ordinator, Guy Verhofstadt, met officials from the Home Office to summarise concerns they have about transition and post-Brexit arrangements for EU citizens who wish to live in the UK after Brexit.

The European Parliament has expressed concern for some time about the provisions on citizens’ rights set out in the Withdrawal Agreement between the EU and UK, in particular about the difficulties involved in applying for residence.

Commented Mr Verhofstadt, MEP:

“The treatment of the Windrush generation under UK immigration law has unfortunately created renewed anxiety among EU citizens in the UK and shows why we have to get this right.”

Brexit is causing distress; it’s making migrants settled here no longer feel welcome.

‘You’re talking about us as if we’re not in the room’, is how many EU and non-EU migrants have expressed their hurt and alarm at how some British people have displayed dislike for them during and following the EU referendum.

Too many EU migrants was cited as one of the main reasons people voted for Brexit.

The feeling of not being welcome in Britain was compounded by the speech of Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, at the Conservative Party’s first annual conference following the EU referendum.

She announced that foreign workers should not be able to “take the jobs that British people should do”.

After Brexit, she said, companies in Britain could be forced to publish the proportion of “international” staff on their books. It was a proposal that would effectively “name and shame” businesses which fail to hire British workers.

This Tory idea represented discrimination plain and simple – something that’s not allowed under EU rules or principles.

And even though the policy idea was quickly withdrawn (because of public outrage) it told us something about the true feelings of those in the Tory regime

Both the Home Secretary, and Prime Minister Theresa May, pledged during last year’s general election to reduce net migration to just tens of thousands. The message was clear: we don’t want EU migrants here.

None of this makes sense. Why make EU migrants feel so unwelcome here, when they give and do so much for our country?

After all, these EU migrants represent only 5% of our population – that’s small, and can hardly be described as ‘mass migration’.

And almost all of the EU migrants here are at work, spending most of their earnings here, paying taxes, and making a substantial net contribution to our Treasury.

They enrich our country economically and culturally.

Britain has a record number of people at work, and record numbers of job vacancies – currently around 800,000 vacancies (source ONS).

That’s far more than can be filled by British workers, so EU migrants here are vital.

They not only help on our farms and in our factories, and care for our elderly and infirm, but they also do highly skilled work too.

Such as scientists, doctors, dentists, nurses, lawyers, accountants, teachers, pilots, engineers, architects – skills this country urgently needs.

Since we have more vacancies than can be filled by the indigenous workforce, and since most EU migrants are gainfully employed here, it must show that the numbers already here are about right.

EU migration to Britain is already efficiently controlled by the jobs market, and businesses want to be free to choose the best people.

That isn’t always necessarily a British worker. If it was, why doesn’t Manchester United only choose British footballers?

In summary, EU migrants are a boon to this country, not a burden.

They are filling job vacancies that mostly Britons can’t or don’t want to do. They are making a significant contribution to the wealth of Britain.

They have become our work colleagues, friends and partners.

If all EU migrants here took the day off tomorrow, Britain would come to a standstill.

Maybe that’s what’s going to happen with this Conservative government’s nasty, xenophobic, Brexit policies.

It’s time to appreciate EU and all other migrants here. Let’s hug them, not hate them.

The evidence is all around us that Brexit promotes hate. Is that really the kind of country we want Britain to be?

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The post Migrants: hug them, don’t hate them appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

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Donald TUSK, President of the European Council, travels to Tirana, Podgorica, Belgrade, Sarajevo and Skopje from Tuesday 24 to Friday 27 April 2018. The main purpose of the trip is to prepare for the EU-Western Balkans summit in Sofia on 17 May and to participate in the Brdo-Brijuni summit in Skopje.

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As the situation on the ground in Syria deteriorates, the second Brussels Conference on "Supporting the Future of Syria and the region" focuses on humanitarian support and bolstering the UN-led political peace process in Geneva. The conference takes place on 24 and 25 April 2018 and is co-hosted by the European Union and the United Nations.

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