European Union

AMENDMENTS 1 - Draft report on the draft Council decision on the conclusion, on behalf of the European Union, of the Agreement establishing the EU-LAC International Foundation
Committee on Foreign Affairs

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The 19th EU-Ukraine Summit takes place on 12-13 July 2017 in Kyiv. The European Union is represented by Donald TUSK, President of the European Council, and Jean-Claude JUNCKER, President of the European Commission. Ukraine is represented by President Petro POROSHENKO. The agenda of the summit focuses on three main issues: the conflict in Eastern Ukraine and Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol, including the implementation of the Minsk agreements, the reform process, and the regional and international situation.

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The Venezuelan Government has called an election on 30th July to launch the so called National Constituent Assembly process, aimed at writing a new Constitution for the country. This step is unacceptable both in form and in content, casting serious doubts about its constitutionality and threatening the essential principles of democracy such as universal, free, direct and secret vote.
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will take place on Monday 4 September, 15:00-18:30 in Brussels.

Organisations or interest groups who wish to apply for access to the European Parliament will find the relevant information below.

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Bolagsupplysningen and Ilsjan
Area of Freedom, Security and Justice
Advocate General Bobek considers that a company alleging that its personality rights have been infringed by the publication of information on the internet can take legal action in the Member State where it has its centre of interests for the entirety of the harm claimed

Commission v Spain
Freedom of establishment
Spain is ordered to pay a lump sum of €3 million because of its delay in liberalising the port cargo-handling services sector

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It might not have been immediately obvious, but we are now into the meat of Article 50.  Even with a first cycle of meetings now done, it has taken a press conference from Michel Barnier to make any impression on the British media, and even then only to comparing notes on whistling.

All of which prompts some reflection on how it’s all going and, in particular, why the EU seems to be bossing it so far.

To be a bit less loose in my language, I’m pointing here to the way in which the Union has managed to get its views on all key decisions to date be accepted by the UK. This includes the use of Article 50, the sequencing and structure of negotiations and the content within that structure. By contrast, there is literally nothing that the UK has clearly shaped.

So why is this?

The simple answer is that the EU has followed good negotiating practice from the start, while the UK appears not to have done so.

This breaks down into a number of basic points.

Most importantly, the EU knows what it wants. This boils down to ensuring that the integrity of the treaties is maintained and that membership is a better deal than non-membership.

From that very simple starting point, it has been able to build up everything that follows, by virtue of having these underlying interests in place. Interests are not the same as positions, which are specific and usually rigidly defined, and are really useful because they leave open options, rather than closing them down.

This matters especially in Article 50, because the UK does not have a similar set of interests: wanting ‘the best possible deal’ is not an interest, but a statement of hope, so long as the notion of ‘best’ is not unpacked. In the face of the UK’s uncertainty, the EU is able to adapt and work around what it finds, as the UK finds it. If you spend some time with the negotiating mandate for the Commission, you’ll see that there’s not actually any particular result that it required, only a set of observations about the consequences of anything the UK might desire. Thus, the mandate notes that the four freedoms of the single market belong together, so it’s all in or all out, but the UK can decide which for itself.

Secondly, the EU has largely separated the people from the problem. It has been very largely indifferent to who sits in the negotiating chair, or in Number 10, or how big anyone’s mandate might be, because instead it has been focused on the specifics of resolving the Article 50 to a satisfactory conclusion for all involved. In this it has been helped by its relatively dominant position, and by not having to work its (multiple) domestic audiences, but the difference in tone is very evident, as underlined by this week’s contributions from Barnier and Johnson.

Rather than loosing time and effort to managing personality clashes (and more on that in a bit), the Commission has been able to gather and manage a lot of detailed discussion, generate options and identify preferred outcomes. Consider here how quickly it came to an evaluation of the UK’s proposal on citizens’ right and how this was presented in terms of the proposal, rather than of the people presenting the proposal.

And this is the third point: the EU has done lots and lots of preparation. From the morning after the referendum, work was begun to build teams, gather information, find consensus positions with member states and the European Parliament, so that it was more than ready to go by the time the UK got to submitting notification in March. Think on how the Commission has now issued 9 position papers, while the UK has only one. Sure, the Commission hasn’t produced one on the Irish border question, but the overall impression is of directed and focused problem-solving at work. In all this, it has been helped by having enough resource to pursue this work, without having to set up extensive new structures. While Theresa May spent the autumn touring European capitals finding out what might be possible, the EU was building up a head of steam.

This preparation has then fed into owning the agenda. The ideas contained in the very first response to the referendum have been reinforced and elaborated consistently and firmly since, presenting the Article 50 path, and its sequencing, as the only viable and acceptable path to follow. Even the issuing of multiple position papers is a reflection of how it keeps the UK on the back foot, constantly having to respond to the latest output rather than advancing its own ideas first. In the court of public opinion, the UK ends up looking like it’s playing catch-up or being curlish about what’s suggested.

The EU has made the most of this advantage by constructing positions that deal with process before results. The financial liabilities paper is a central exhibit here, as it tries to suggest a way of agreeing a sum, rather than suggesting a sum directly. It might seem obvious, but if everyone can agree on a fair way to do something, then they are much more likely to agree that the outcome is fair, and seen to be fair by others. In this particular case, this matters, because it contains a simple way of drawing out some of the inevitable sting from British reactions, especially from the ‘whistling’ end of the spectrum, for whom any sum is too large. Consider a bit of negotiating ju-jitsu by the Commission to appeal to British fair play: alternatively, think of it as top trolling, after all the fuss David Cameron made about fairness during his renegotiation.

Finally, the Commission has one more card up its sleeve, namely that it is structurally inflexible. You might call this its Uruguay aspect, after its move back in 1992 at the conclusion of a long round on talks for the then GATT, where the Commission claimed (largely sincerely) that it couldn’t give any more ground to the US on agriculture because the French wouldn’t let it.

For GATT, so for Brexit. The mandate might have been largely consensual in its formation, but different member states have different interests in the outcome, so the mandate is something of a balancing act. Both the process of its agreement and its content have already hardened what the Commission might give ground on in the talks. Expect a trip back to Blair House at some point.

But there’s another question underlying all of this: if this is all so obvious, why haven’t the British done the same?

Partly, they have. There is much work in DExEU and other units to build up capacity, plans and positions, most of which has yet to see the light of day.

And that’s because of the first point that I discussed, namely the question of purpose. Reading neither the Lancaster House speech or the White Paper produces any understanding of what the UK wants.

This is a theme I have returned to on several occasions, but the point bears repetition: the referendum campaigns were a pursuit of winning the vote, not having a discussion about the future direction of the country. Unless there is a general understanding of that, then the purpose of being out of the EU is unclear and most necessarily remain so.

Until then the Commission will be able to continue to advance its agenda and preferences, knowing that the UK will struggle to engage or push back, because it simply doesn’t know what it wants or what it needs.

 

PS – If you want a manual for all this, try this one.

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The 2017 Western Balkans Summit in Trieste, Italy is the upcoming fourth annual summit within the Berlin Process initiative for European integration of Western Balkans states. The summit takes place on 12 July 2017.

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What is needed to make the Paris Agreement a success? This blog post focuses on one of the most central but underappreciated elements – the periodic reviews of progress.  States must of course make ambitious and credible contributions in the first place.  But if there is no system to ensure that they are monitored and evaluated, the agreement will have very shaky legs.

Article 13 of the Agreement states that the Transparency Mechanism should “provide a clear understanding of climate change action… including clarity and tracking of progress towards achieving Parties’ individual nationally determined contributions… including good practices, priorities, needs and gaps” (p. 27).

Almost all countries have already put forward lists of policies to fulfil their commitments. But how will we know whether all of this will add up to limiting global warming to ‘well below’ two degrees Celsius? Doing this will require concerted efforts in monitoring and evaluating climate action – but how may we best organize these activities across the globe?

Our brand-new paper, published in Evaluation, addresses this very question on how to organize monitoring and evaluation. This issue matters because the European Union and others are already investing significant amounts of resources in climate policy monitoring and evaluation activities, and many different kinds of actors, such as the European Environment Agency, the European Commission, the Court of Auditors and others have become actively involved. Earlier research has already highlighted important shortcomings in climate policy monitoring and evaluation activities. Our paper argues that the organization of these activities is another area that has received far too little attention.

In the paper we argue that there are, in principle, two different axes to think about governing or organizing monitoring and evaluation activities. The first is a distinction between formal, government-driven or funded evaluation and informal, society-driven evaluation. Earlier evaluation scholars have argued that evaluation driven, funded or even conducted by governments may benefit from more detailed knowledge of the policy process, potentially higher levels of resources to conduct evaluations, and perhaps also greater uptake of the findings.

By the same token, governmental actors may be under pressure to ‘look good’ and thus shy away from critically evaluating one’s own policies, particularly the ones that may not be working as envisaged. Thus, more informal, societal actors (such as NGOs, foundations, trade unions and others) may be able to step in and provide a more critical eye, provided that they have the interest and resources to do so.

The second way to view the governance of evaluation runs along centralized and de-centralized approaches. On one hand, evaluation may be organized in a centralized way with clear standards that evaluators use everywhere, and where essentially one evaluation actor (governmental or non-governmental) organizes and potentially funds/conducts evaluation. In other words, resources are pooled in order to conduct evaluation tasks.

An advantage of this approach may be higher levels of comparability given more uniform evaluation standards and potentially higher level of resources. On the other hand, scholars from the polycentric governance tradition[1] would argue that such centralized evaluation systems may be prone to failures (what if one picks the wrong or incomplete standards?) and is often insensitive to the vital contextual factors from which policies emerge and contribute significantly to success or failure. Thus, another way of organizing evaluation may be in a much more de-centralized way with many different kinds of actors involved in evaluation.

Taking these two axes, we created a new typology in our paper that considers them both at the same time in Figure 1. Doing so opens up new combinations and thus ways to think about governing evaluation. We then drew on existing evidence from climate policy monitoring and evaluation in the European Union to assess to what extent we can detect empirical patterns that chime with our typology.

Figure 1 – Source: Schoenefeld & Jordan, 2017.

The European Union has been a long-standing leader in efforts to monitor and evaluate climate policies, and there are indeed many ongoing efforts, and certainly challenges, in monitoring climate policies. Looking at these activities from the perspective of our typology shows that we can indeed detect patterns that relate to the four quadrants in the typology in the context of the European Union. The new typology is thus a useful way to comprehend evaluation activities, and we hope that it will open up ways of governing them.

For example, the Monitoring Mechanism for climate policies and measures operated by the European Environment Agency, contains negotiated standards and methods, but once these are set, operates in a fairly hierarchical way. Both the European Commission (formal) and more informal evaluation organizations have endeavoured to create evaluation standards, which could be extended to the climate domain. Last, a meta-analysis[2] of climate policy evaluation in the EU has revealed a vast number of studies that used a range of different standards and methods (à la carte). As states are currently hammering out the details of transparency in the Paris Agreement, they should keep these different options and trade-offs in mind.

What then is necessary in order to implement the Paris Agreement? We argue that part of the answer to this question lies in considering how to build successful and enduring systems to monitor and evaluate ongoing climate policy efforts, and that it crucially matters how to organize these activities. Our paper reveals that there are range of organizational choices and options in the climate policy monitoring and evaluation domain and that different options have implications for the practice and results of evaluation. It is worth thinking carefully about how and who organizes the review processes, in order to generate systems that capture the full extent of knowledge and understanding on our climate policies.

This post has also been published on the INOGOV Blog.

[1] Ostrom, E. (2010). Polycentric systems for coping with collective action and global environmental change. Global Environmental Change, 20(4), 550-557.

[2] Huitema, D., Jordan, A., Massey, E., Rayner, T., Van Asselt, H., Haug, C., … & Stripple, J. (2011). The evaluation of climate policy: theory and emerging practice in Europe. Policy Sciences, 44(2), 179-198.

 

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On the eve of Donald Trump’s arrival in Paris,

Mike Ungersma recalls the first visit by an American President

His achievements were many –

• The first President to visit Europe while in office
• The first President with an earned doctorate degree
• The first President to hold press regular conferences
• The first President to win the Nobel Peace Prize

We cannot be certain of how President Trump will be received in the French capital on Friday July 14 – Bastille Day – but we know exactly how Woodrow Wilson was greeted.  From the moment in December of 1918 his party arrived in Brest aboard the former German passenger ship renamed SS George Washington, to his arrival in Paris for the talks at Versailles among the victorious Allies, Wilson had become an international hero.

When the President disembarked at Brest on December 13, he met sunny streets lined with flags and laurel wreaths, listened to the warm drone of Breton bagpipes filling the air, and heard shouts of “Vive Amerique! Vive Wilson!” echoing above the crowd.  Huge numbers of people, many resplendent in their traditional Breton costumes, covered every inch of pavement, every roof, every tree.  Even the lampposts were taken.

Margaret MacMillan, Six Months That Changed the World

The ‘Six Months’ historian Professor Margaret MacMillan refers to represents a time today’s ‘jet age’ politicians would find extraordinary.  After appointing himself and three other members of his Administration official delegates to the Paris gathering, Wilson said he wanted to focus on ‘Big Picture’ ideals at the meeting, and not get bogged down in details.  But bogged down he became, so much so that apart from a brief return to the States from mid-February to mid-March, Wilson stayed in Paris for an amazing six months.

Perhaps no other American President before or since has enjoyed such international popularity.  It arose because of Wilson’s appealing if scholarly idealism and the eloquent and visionary promises he made as he reluctantly led the United States into a war that was to – in his words – “make the world safe for Democracy”.  The hopes and aspirations of literally millions rested on Wilson.  His reticence to become involved was summed up in his insistence that the U.S. was not an ‘ally’ of the British and French in the conflict; it was an ‘associate’.  But once committed, Wilson became an uncompromising and determined statesman who, while regarded dismissively as naive by many European leaders, was seen as a saviour to those who had suffered the ravages of the world’s first global war.

It is worth remembering what had taken place in those awful four years leading up to the peace conference.  Professor MacMillan, whose new book, The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914, is published in August, told a Canadian interviewer:

. . . we still don’t know what to make of it. We’re still horrified by the loss, by the sense that it may have all been a mistake, by the sheer waste, and by what happened afterward. Nothing much was settled, it helped to brutalize European society, to breed ideologies like fascism and Bolshevism, to prepare the way for the horrors that came in the 1920s and 1930s and the Second World War. It’s also a war that created the modern world. It had its greatest impact on Europe, of course, but it shaped Canada and Australia, helped to speed the rise of the United States to superpower status, and redrew the map of much of the world. It was a watershed that remains one of the greatest historical puzzles.

Donald Trump, invited by President Emmanuel Macron to watch as American soldiers parade with their French counterparts down the Champs-Elysées, will in a sense become a ‘bookend’ to his respected predecessor.  One hundred years will have passed by then, commemorating the entry of the U.S. into what Professor MacMillan and many other historians regard as Europe’s first ‘civil war’.  It was an occasion poignantly marked by General John J Pershing’s declaration before the tomb of Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis of LaFayette: “LaFayette, nous sommes ici” –  “LaFayette, we are here”.  Pershing, made commander in chief of the American Expeditionary Force by Wilson, was acknowledging an old debt about to be repaid to the French soldier and statesman who had hugely assisted America in its War of Independence against the British.

If, as some argue, President Trump is ill-prepared for the vagaries and intricacies of international diplomacy, none of these shortcomings applied to Wilson.  Well into his second term, Wilson had the mind and manner of an academic and an intellectual.  The author of four scholarly books on American history and government, he already had one war ‘under his belt’ before he faced the consequences of the European conflagration.

Ironically, given President Trump’s insistence on building a “big, beautiful wall” along America’s lengthy border with Mexico, a century earlier Wilson had taken a far more aggressive approach to the United States’ southern neighbour.  He assumed office during the Mexican Revolution, and didn’t like the outcome – the victory of Victoriano Huerta.  Demanding democratic elections to replace what he rather indelicately called a “government of butchers,” Wilson showed no hesitation in interfering with the affairs of Mexico and other regimes in Latin America.  Indeed, when Huerta arrested a handful of U.S. sailors in the port of Tampico, Wilson sent the navy to occupy Veracruz.  War was averted, but there was more to come.

A new threat had arisen from ‘South of the Border’ –  Pancho Villa.  In the turmoil, Huerta had fled the country, and a new leader – Venustiano Carrranza – had taken control.  It was a signal to his subordinate, Villa, to act.  He raided a town in New Mexico, now part of the U.S., killing several Americans.  Wilson reacted with fury, ordering General Pershing – then virtually unknown – to cross the border with 4,000 troops.  It was the beginning of a campaign that would hugely boost Pershing’s profile, lead to more violence, and ultimately to negotiations between the two countries.  As the war in Europe entered its second year, threatening to suck in the U.S., Wilson moved to end the Mexican adventure, recognized Carranza’s government, and turned his attention east, across the Atlantic.[i]  He was about to abandon his policy of neutrality for a crusade.

Pershing’s arrival in Europe turned the tide.  Although he came with only 14,000 troops, their numbers would soon swell to a million, and with them incalculable amounts of American military hardware.  While late to participate in the conflict, the American presence was critical.  Military historian Edward M Coffman:

. . .beginning September 12, 1918, Pershing commanded the U.S. First Army, comprising seven divisions and more than 500,000 men, in the largest offensive operation ever undertaken by United States armed forces. This successful offensive was followed by the Meuse-Argonne offensive, lasting from September 26 to November 11, 1918, during which Pershing commanded more than one million American and French combatants. In these two military operations, Allied forces recovered more than 200 sq mi (488 km2) of French territory from the German army. By the time the Armistice had suspended all combat on November 11, 1918, the American Expeditionary Forces had evolved into a modern, combat-tested army.

Edward M Coffman, The War to End All Wars: American  Military Experience in WWI (1998)

Whatever Wilson brought to the table in Paris, less than a month after the war had ended, it was not a lack of experience.   While President Trump has had his challenge in the form of Vladimir Putin, Wilson faced two wily and well-rehearsed politicians – Britain’s Lloyd George and the French Premier Georges Clemenceau.  Neither were adverse to ‘backroom’ deals.  Moreover, Wilson confronted a staggering array of representatives from virtually every national group in Europe and beyond – and there were dozens.  All expected a hearing from the author of the new doctrine of ‘Self Determination’ – what they saw as a sacred text.  From Arab chieftains to Balkans revolutionaries, and even the man who was to later become Ho Chi Minh – the lobbies of the Versailles Palace were crowded.  All had huge expectations of Wilson. It would not end well.

Wilson had already expressed some doubts – privately.  He realized what awaited him in Paris while still on board the George Washington, steaming toward Brest.  He told George Creel, America’s first propaganda chief, “whether you have not unconsciously spun a net for me from which there is no escape . . .what I seem to see – with all my heart I hope that I am wrong – is a tragedy of disappointment.”  It was to be a prescient remark. Nothing was to go to plan in the talks that followed.

Wilson finally left Paris in the summer of 1918, ill and profoundly disappointed at his own failure. The French and the British had carved up the Middle East, imposed crippling sanctions on a defeated enemy, presented Germany with reparations the country could not meet, retained and strengthened their colonial possessions, all of which set the stage for the tragic drama that was to playout for virtually the remainder of the century.  Few of those who had lobbied the conference achieved anything – leaders of the Arab revolt in the desert, Polish nationalists in Warsaw, rebels in the Greek islands, Koreans trying to shake off Japan’s control – all failed.  And they blamed Wilson.

In his only break from the deliberations in France – his brief return to Washington in February – Wilson knew he was grappling with the flames he himself had ignited.  He told Congress:

Well-defined national aspirations should be satisfied without introducing new or perpetuating old elements of discord and antagonism that would likely in time to break the peace of Europe, and consequently of the world.

In contrast to the present occupant of the White House, Wilson had no hesitancy in admitting to his own ignorance and failings.  The next year he told Congress: “When I gave utterance to those words – all nations had the right to self-determination, I said them without the knowledge that nationalities existed, which are coming to us day after day.”  In fairness, Wilson cannot be held responsible for the surge of European nationalism – Marx had railed against it more than a half-century before, and, correctly predicted its eventual outcome.  Nor can he be be blamed for the behind-the-scene machinations of the British and the French.  Wilson had unwittingly become the focus of the aspirations of millions.  He – in his idealistic innocence – had given it voice.

And the League of Nations, the other major strand of Woodrow Wilson’s dream?  The League was to be a new and pioneering way of managing the affairs of the world’s nations.  He believed the balance of power did not work.  Nor should there be a vindictive settlement to the war – no retribution, unjust claims, indemnities and fines.  Ironically, there would be all of this but no League of Nations with American participation, Congress saw to that.  Wilson’s fault? He certainly had not brought Congress along, especially his Republican opponents whom he had intentionally slighted even though many supported his goals in Paris.  Meanwhile, his illness worsened – some thought he had suffered a stroke while in Paris – leaving his vision lacking its author and chief supporter.  His wife, Edith, became virtually the de facto President during his long absences as he lay isolated in his sick bed.

Today, in contemplating the legacy of Wilson, the list of the President’s critics is long, some savage in their condemnation.  Sigmund Freud: “. . . the impression of the method of Christian Science applied to politics.”  Or this scathing comment by economist Maynard Keynes, a British adviser at Versailles:

He (Wilson) could not, all in a minute, take in what the rest were saying, size up the situation with a glance, frame a reply, and meet the case by a slight change of ground; and he was liable, therefore, to defeat by the mere swiftness, apprehension, and agility of a Lloyd George. There can seldom have been a statesman of the first rank more incompetent than the President in the agilities of the council chamber.

John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of Peace (1919)

Thursday night, before the annual celebrations to mark France’s most important national holiday, Emmanuel Macron will treat Donald Trump to dinner in what some regard as the finest restaurant in the French capital, the Jules Verne on the second floor of the Eiffel Tower.  As they gaze out from a facility that allows probably the best views of the ‘City of Light’, one wonders if the ‘War to End All Wars’ will even be mentioned.  Certainly the Wilson legacy is unlikely to be a topic.

Let the last word be his, this dreamer, this romantic who became President:

We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter’s evening. Some of us let these dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days till they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come true.

[i] This skirmish with Mexico had more than one bizarre result.  Not only did it provide the U.S. Cavalry with one of its last chances for a mounted charge, it also produced the notorious Zimmermann Telegram.  In January of 1917, British cryptographers deciphered a telegram from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to the German Minister to Mexico, von Eckhardt, offering United States territory to Mexico in return for joining the German cause. This message helped draw the United States into the war and thus changed the course of history. The telegram had such an impact on American opinion that, according to David Kahn, author of The Codebreakers, “No other single cryptanalysis has had such enormous consequences.” (U.S. National Archives)

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We watch in despair as one terror attack after another kills and maims innocent people in the name of Islam. The self-styled ‘Islamic State’ group, or Daesh, which has ostensibly established an Islamic caliphate, often claims responsibility without shame. No wonder Europe has a crippling affliction of Islamophobia.

A growing number of European countries are electing far-right nationalists into various positions of power. The Alternative for Germany (AfD), which states that ‘Islam does not belong in Germany’, attracted up to one in four voters in state elections last year. Geert Wilders of the Dutch Party for Freedom, who has likened the Quran to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, leads the polls ahead of the general elections. Marine Le Pen, tried and acquitted of anti-Islam hate speech last year, dominates France’s presidential election.

Islamophobic rhetoric has transcended the extreme right and made its way into private and public institutions. For example, cities across France are clutching onto bans on the ‘burkini’, a body-covering swimsuit, despite adverse court rulings. At the European level, the European Court of Justice has issued a non-binding ruling that a workplace ban on headscarves is not religious discrimination.

The 2015 European Islamophobia Report states that “the refugee-migration-Islam-terrorism nexus became the standard argument justifying a number of domestic and international measures”. But it is a flawed argument, one that brings us no closer to mitigating the real problem of violence and one that risks tearing apart the social fabric that binds Europe. For example, in 2016 we saw the near-breakdown of the Schengen system following the refugee influx, threatening the freedom of movement that so defines Europe.

“Muslim refugees and Muslims living in Europe are often victims of both Islamophobia and terrorism”

But we must not misdiagnose Islam as the root cause of the EU’s problems; the Schengen problem is more likely a symptom of a much deeper breakdown, and should lead Europeans to ask themselves a more fundamental question about whether Islam is just a bogeyman for an already-disintegrating Europe.

The fact is that Muslim refugees, and Muslims living in Europe, are not causes of strife but often victims, of both Islamophobia and terrorism. With the number of Muslims growing (in 2010 Muslims made up six per cent of Europe’s population; by 2030 this proportion is predicted to reach a formidable 30%), Europe needs to address both issues and look for a new approach to religious diversity.

To do so, Europe — its leaders, religious institutions, and people — must neither ignore nor vilify adherents of the religion. It must engage with progressive Islamic scholars (ulama) who fully support religious coexistence: a meaningful dialogue with the Muslim world is a crucial first step in ending the scourge of terrorism.

Daesh is a media leviathan, churning out slick videos, sophisticated graphics and round-the-clock tweets. Some critics argue that traditional scholars are ill-equipped to compete with Daesh’s social media-savvy ways.

But Islam has influential and respected thought leaders who can trigger change. One is Sheikh Abdullah Bin Bayyah, renowned for his denunciation of Daesh’s religious extremism. The Mauritanian professor of Islamic Studies caught the world’s attention when former United States president Barack Obama quoted him in an attempt to advocate moderate Islam: “We must declare war on war, so the outcome will be peace upon peace”.

Sheikh Bin Bayyah’s ‘war’ is not a literal one, but a contest of ideologies. He argues that today scholars are necessary, albeit incapacitated. They lack not the message, but the means of communicating it. Europe can help, such as by inviting moderate ulamas to deliver Friday sermons or public lectures.

These scholars can also help change the current Western narrative, which disproportionately portrays terrorism as the hallmark of Islam. This has denied everyone — Muslims and non-Muslims alike – the opportunity to objectively appraise contextual interpretations of Islam as well as perversions of Islamic belief.

If Europe instead chooses to tolerate (or even celebrate) the presence of Islamic scholars, both sides of Islam’s conflict on extremism can be directly compared. The ideological faultlines of extremism can be confronted and quashed. To quote Bin Bayyah, “[Daesh’s brutality] is challenging [Islam’s] existence, and its treatment has to come from Islam itself, using the same language that the extremists understand.”

The notion of letting thought leaders be heard is shared by Sheikh Hamza Yusuf Hanson, an American Islamic scholar who argues that religious literacy and knowledge will inoculate young people against extremist ideologies. Over the years the media has reported story after story of Muslims (and non-Muslims) who fall prey to the dangerous ideologies of radical Islamists on the internet. These terrorists poison the minds of young, naïve, alienated people, creating ‘foreign fighters’ in Syria and elsewhere. 30% of these foreign fighters are estimated to return to their home countries. The very least Europe can do is lend a voice to the moderates as an early intervention measure.

“Today’s Islamic scholars lack not the message, but the means of communicating it”

For non-Muslims the presence of rational, moderate scholars will begin to erase misperceptions of Islam as inherently violent. Like people of all faiths, Muslims need guidance and support, not victimisation. Expulsions of Muslims from Europe will not solve terrorism but instead feed the conviction of a minority that Europe is not their home. Bans and discrimination play directly into the hands of terrorist groups.

While it is clear that Muslims face Islamophobia, they also bear the brunt of terrorism. Several studies show that most of Daesh’s victims are moderate and peaceful Muslims. The US State Department found that between 2007 and 2011 Muslims suffered between 82% and 97% of terrorism-related fatalities in attacks where the religious affiliation of casualties could be identified. More recently, Daesh has attacked many Muslim-majority countries: Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Indonesia. Muslims are equally – if not more – vulnerable to terrorism.

So we have a paradox, as identified by former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan: the victims of terrorism – helpless refugees, mainly Muslims, are seeking salvation in Europe; the people of Europe, safely within its embrace, are increasingly considering breaking away. Indeed, according to the Spring 2016 Global Attitude Survey by Pew Research Centre conducted across ten EU nations, nearly half of the respondents have unfavourable opinions towards the EU. As Annan noted, “Europe is a symbol of freedom, prosperity and justice that attracts immigrants. At a time when the EU is not popular within its own borders, Europeans should reflect on the significance of their popularity abroad.”

Even in troubled and fearful times, Europe and Europeans must remember that among the 1.7 billion Muslims worldwide, terrorists are an exception rather than the rule. There is much expertise in the Muslim world for Europe to leverage, and so many Muslim hearts and minds that Europe is capable of influencing for the better.

IMAGE CREDIT: FS-Stock/Bigstock

The post Europe must empower moderate voices to change the story on Islam appeared first on Europe’s World.

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On Thursday 13 July and Friday 14 July, the Informal Meeting of Environment Ministers is held at Tallinn Creative Hub (Kultuurikatel). The informal ministerial meeting focuses on eco-innovation, as well as on climate change in discussions on the expectations, opportunities, and potential challenges related to the promotion of the transformative vision and goals of the Paris Agreement in collaboration with non-state actors.

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EU Finance ministers meet on 11 July 2017 in Brussels to adopt conclusions on a mid-term review of the EU's capital markets union action plan, and on non-performing loans in the banking sector. The Estonian presidency work programme and transparency rules for tax intermediaries are also on the agenda.

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Good evening everyone and welcome to this Eurogroup press conference.

Today, we had a lot of guests in our meeting: Danièle Nouy, the Chair of the ECB Banking Supervision; Elke König, Chair of the Single Resolution Board; Professor Niels Thygesen, Chair of the European Fiscal Board; Sharon Donnery, she is the deputy governor of the Bank of Ireland and chairs a working group on NPLs in the ECB. In addition to Commissioner Moscovici and Vice President Dombrovskis who join us on a regular basis, this time we also had the benefit of the company of Commissioner Vestager.

We started with a discussion on insolvency frameworks which is a topic that is on our agenda very often, sometimes in general terms and sometimes very specific when we talk about specific banks. This was a more general discussion we had on the basis of the introduction that Sharon Donnery gave us on the work the ECB has been doing on insolvency framework - and I don't have to tell you how important it is to make progress in dealing with legacy issues in the banking system and to support macro-economic adjustment transmission of monetary policy. We will continue the work on that, building on the different reports we are getting from the ECB, from the Commission. The Commission is working on a system of benchmarking and peer reviews and we will come back to that next year. Of course, also ECOFIN will be discussing non performing loans tomorrow, where these issues are also very relevant.

Then, we discussed specific bank cases. Last month, we discussed Banco Populare, the Spanish bank. This month, we discussed the two Venetian banks and we were informed by the different institutions on their role in the decisions that were taken on these banks. I think it is good to point out that the coordination between the institutions is also new for them. The coordination between the institutions involved was efficient and that experience is being built-up as we go along. We are still in the early days of actually putting to work the new resolution frameworks.

Clearly, to put emphasis first of all on the positive sides, we welcomed the ongoing work with the banks. The ongoing positive restructuring of banks having to deal with legacy issues in different banks makes it more complex and more challenging. Each case is different and has to be assessed individually. We welcomed the information provided by the institutions on the confirmation by the institutions that all decisions were taken in full respect of the European legal framework.

However, there is still work to do and lessons to be learnt in terms of possible policy implications. The recent cases have raised a number of issues today, and there may be other areas for improvement and fine-tuning, including the need to ensure consistency.

A couple of topics that were brought up in this context: the importance of harmonising national insolvency frameworks - there are still big differences there which have again come forward in the Italian cases. There is the topic of establishing sound buffers of bail-inable capital, the MRELs. A very important topic is the hierarchy of creditors, getting a very clear creditor hierarchy in the eurozone area, and the proposals of the Commission are being pushed forward at this point. The topic of protecting retail investors: this was of course part of the legacy issues that had to be dealt with. The importance of having sound asset evaluation in the process of dealing with banks to allow also outside investors to participate. They are helped by maximum transparency on the quality of assets. So having an AQR, when possible, is also very important.

And finally, all of this could be put on our agenda to finalise the banking union. Some of the elements we have mentioned, the lessons that we can learn, can be taken forward when we finalise the banking union. Inevitably, that requires both risk reduction and risk sharing.

The institutions have also said that, later on, they will perform a post-mortem analysis of these resolution cases, in more details, and the Commission will review the BRRD in 2018.

After that, the next topic was the post-programme mission to Ireland which already took place in May. We congratulated the Irish authorities on their continued strong economic performance and welcomed that repayment risks, as assessed by the institutions, remain very low.

The next topic was the euro area fiscal stance for 2018. We now have 16 consecutive quarters of growth in the euro area. So we had some debate on whether we can still talk about the recovery phase or whether we are now in the expansion phase. Of course, it depends a little on what perspective you take, but the fact that we have this discussion is a very positive sign. The output cap is closing, and for some countries has already closed. The risk of deflation is disappearing and there is no direct sign of overheating in our economies. So that is where we stand economically. On that basis, both the Commission and the European Fiscal Board advised a broadly neutral stance. So that is what we are taking into consideration when we prepare our draft budgetary plans at national level. We will come back to that later on, after the summer, but this is the starting point of our budgetary processes.

The final topic and our last discussion was on the deepening of the economic and monetary union (EMU), on the basis of the Commission's reflection paper. We had a first general round of discussion with the Ministers. We will have a second round for the EU ministers, but a more broad discussion in Tallinn, when we have the informal Ecofin after the summer. So this was just a first kick-off. We talked about the importance of convergence and what is needed to strengthen and speed up the process of convergence. Some elements are, of course, about finishing off what we have started. So this is about the banking union, the capital markets union, deepening the single market. Second strand: structural reforms. How we can get the incentives right to support and push the structural reform agenda in the different member states. That can be supported by investment instruments, by using the EU budget, using benchmarks, etc. We have also talked, which is sort of the second big issue, about creating long-term stability and shock-absorption - of course, a number of proposals in the Commission's paper regarding the shock-absorption of our member states individually but also the Eurozone as a whole. We had a first exchange on those topics. We will come back to that after the summer in Tallinn.

Thanks and pass floor to the Commission.