European Union

Berlioz Investment Fund
DFON
The courts of one Member State may review the legality of requests for tax information sent by another Member State

The free trade agreement with Singapore cannot, in its current form, be concluded by the European Union alone
The free trade agreement with Singapore cannot, in its current form, be concluded by the European Union alone

Landeskreditbank Baden-Württemberg v ECB
Economic policy
The EU General Court dismisses the action brought by the Landeskreditbank Baden-Württemberg against its being under the direct supervision of the ECB

Plenary sessions : Globalisation offers great potential to create wealth and jobs, but it also has the capacity to disrupt. The EU has always tried to make the most of it, while mitigating its negative effects by setting rules and working together with other countries. The European Commission published on 10 May a reflection paper on how the EU should deal with globalisation in the future, which was debated by MEPs in plenary on 16 May. Read on for an overview of what Parliament has already done recently.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

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Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

On 19 May Iranian voters go to the polls for the 12th presidential election since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979.

Contrary to the United States, where the presidential election process begins approximately one year before the election, the official election season is rather short in Iran: all is done in approximately six weeks. But political jockeying for the elections, in the form of mudslinging, begins much earlier.

This year, candidates had five days (from 11 to 15 April) to register their candidacy with Iran’s Interior Ministry, which supervises elections and reports on the results. According to the figures published in the Iranian media, 1,636 people registered to run: 1,499 men and 137 women. The vast majority had no experience in public office, so they were eliminated at the next stage of the process by the Guardian Council – a 12-member judicial body that has the power to veto legislation and which vets election candidates, often on vague and arbitrary grounds.

From this comes the criticism that Iran does not hold free and fair elections, and that the country’s leaders are running a mocked-up democracy. If only that were entirely true. Public opinion is actually rather important to those at the apex of the system precisely because it grants them a measure of legitimacy.

The vetting by the Guardian Council is essentially a process of managed competition, with the traditional clerical establishment having a preferred candidate. But that candidate does not always win. Once the vetting process is completed, the public is left with a handful of candidates to choose from. The campaigning period with live televised debates lasts three weeks.

“This year the election is essentially a referendum on the record of the sitting centrist President, Hassan Rouhani”

Since the disputed re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009, the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has consistently called for a high voter turnout, as this is seen as a vote of confidence in the governing system. With 50 million registered voters, voter turnout tends to range from 60% to 75%.

In last year’s legislative elections, voter turnout was higher than anticipated, indicating that Iranians willingly participate in the electoral process. Not voting is one of the few ways voters can actually express their discontent with the ruling elite, but boycotts have proven to be an ineffective strategy for Iran’s reformists.

So this year the election is essentially a referendum on the record of the sitting centrist President, Hassan Rouhani, who is entitled by law to run for a second term. Until now, every president has been a two-term president, as this allows for a certain amount of stability in the system. So there is every reason for Rouhani to believe that he will govern again.

To obtain a second term, Rouhani must essentially defend his record, which is under fierce attack from his opponents. His primary problem is the promise of economic gain from the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Unfortunately, those expectations have not been met. This has provided the country’s hardliners with means to attack Rouhani and leverage their own position. In addition, Rouhani promised political and social reforms, but instead he invested political capital in the nuclear deal. As a consequence, he has not delivered results on key issues affecting voters – a fact that could cause citizens to cast their vote elsewhere or stay at home on election day.

Surprisingly, a contender to Rouhani is his Vice-President, Eshagh Jahangiri, a pro-reform figure. Jahangiri was a potential candidate in the 2013 presidential election but withdrew in favour of former president Ayatollah Hashemi-Rafsanjani.  Originally, his candidacy seemed like a back-up plan in case Rouhani was disqualified, and so Jahangiri is now widely anticipated to withdraw his candidacy despite emerging as a front-runner following the first two televised election debates. Such speculation was further fuelled when former president Mohammed Khatami called on his followers to vote for Rouhani.

“As Rouhani’s record is not unblemished, it will not be an easy win for him”

The hardline camp has thus far failed to unite around a single candidate, which could possibly lead to a split conservative vote – a challenge they failed to overcome in 2013. The first contender among the conservatives is the Mayor of Tehran, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has in recent months come under fire for a number of incidents including a building collapse in Tehran that led to the deaths of 20 firefighters, and mismanagement and corruption in Tehran city council. That effectively damages his reputation among urban Iranians. Ghalibaf was the runner-up to Rouhani in 2013, and with a populist campaign, it seems unlikely that he would beat him this time either.

A second contender among the conservatives is cleric Ebrahim Raisi, the current custodian and chairman of the Astan Quds Razavi, a religious foundation that manages several of Iran’s holiest sites. Although Raisi is not viewed as a popular figure and is accused by the opposition of authorising a crackdown against them in the 1980s, he is rumoured to enjoy the support of the Supreme Leader and the traditional clerical establishment. Confronting Rouhani’s economic performance head-on, his campaign has focused on improving the economic situation by tackling unemployment and by means of the ‘resistance economy’.

As Rouhani’s record is not unblemished, it will not be an easy win for him. The outcome will depend on whether voters turn up or not. However, in case a conservative wins, an unlikely scenario, a different attitude may emerge towards the West in Tehran.

IMAGE CREDIT: CC/Flickr – Asia Society

The post Will Rouhani win a second term? appeared first on Europe’s World.

Perhaps the only phrase more stultifying than “any other business” is “General Affairs Council”. But that could change later today. Frans Timmermans will park the European Commission’s long-running fight with Poland over the rule of law in front of ministers during an “AOB” at the unfortunately named “GAC”. For the first time, member states will have a chance to officially respond – or not – to the growing problems surrounding Poland’s Law and Justice government. It is a small, but significant step from the commissioner responsible for fundamental rights. The long-term concerns about rule of law in the country – and the wider worries about democracy in countries such as Hungary – are arguably an even larger problem for the bloc than Brexit. It is hard to have a single market if there are fundamental worries about, say, the justice systems in some member states. For the past 18 months, it has been the commission leading the charge on the Polish issue. Exchanging letters, arguments and occasionally insults with peers in Warsaw. Now ministers will have their chance, too. 1648 and all that Historically, ministers have been reluctant to interfere in the affairs of other member states, especially when sat around a table in Brussels. Whether those who have been privately or informally critical of Poland will pipe up will be clear only later today, although the latest indications are that many will. (One thing is certain: Poland’s minister will offer a comprehensive retort to Mr Timmermans’ points.) There is some unease at the topic being raised with ministers at all. After all, if the commission thinks Poland has a problem, it has a power to act by itself. The commission can trigger Article 7 – the so-called “nuclear” (by bureaucrat standards) option – which could eventually result in Poland losing its right to vote as a member state. But this drastic move would still have to be approved by national capitals. To be blunt: involving ministers now keeps open the option of further action later. Email duncan.robinson@ft.com Twitter @duncanrobinson

Change on treaty change Emmanuel Macron met Angela Merkel met in Berlin. After cries of “Macron, Macron”, the two leaders opened the door to treaty change.

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Since 2010 the Eastern Mediterranean region has become a hotspot of international energy discussions due to a series of gas discoveries in the offshore of Israel, Cyprus and Egypt. To exploit this gas potential, a number of export options have progressively been discussed, alongside new regional cooperation scenarios. Hopes have also been expressed about the potential role of new gas discoveries in strengthening not only the regional energy cooperation, but also the overall regional economic and political stability. However, initial expectations largely cooled down over time, particularly due to delays in investment decision in Israel and the downward revision of gas resources in Cyprus. These developments even raised scepticism about the idea of the Eastern Mediterranean becoming a sizeable gas-exporting region. But initial expectations were revived in 2015, after the discovery of the large Zohr gas field in offshore Egypt. Considering its large size, this discovery has reshaped the regional gas outlook, and has also raised new regional cooperation prospects. However, multiple lines of conflict in the region continue to make future Eastern Mediterranean gas activities a major geopolitical issue. This study seeks to provide a comprehensive analysis of all these developments, with the ultimate aim of assessing the realistic implications of regional gas discoveries for both Eastern Mediterranean countries and the EU.
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Plenary sessions : “Today we celebrate the International Day of Families”, said EP President Antonio Tajani at the opening of the Strasbourg plenary session, on Monday. The UN-established Day focuses this year on the role of families and family-oriented policies in promoting education and the overall well-being of family members.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

AMENDMENTS 27 - 152 - Draft opinion Setting up a Union regime for the control of exports, transfer, brokering, technical assistance and transit of dual-use items (recast)
Committee on Foreign Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Plenary sessions : Some 88 million tonnes of food are wasted in the EU every year, equivalent to 173 kilos per person. Not only is this a waste or resources, it also contributes to climate change. Parliament is working on new measures to cut food waste in the EU by 50%. Check out our infographic to find out which sectors and countries waste the most food and read what is being done at EU level and what you can do yourself.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

AMENDMENTS 1 - 162 - Draft report EU political relations with ASEAN
Committee on Foreign Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

AMENDMENTS 1 - Draft recommendation on the draft Council decision on the conclusion of a Framework Agreement between the European Union and Kosovo on the general principles for the participation of Kosovo in Union programmes
Committee on Foreign Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

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EU Ministers of Foreign and European Affairs meet in Brussels on 16 May 2017 to start preparations for the June European Council, assess how former European Council conclusions have been implemented and be informed by the Commission on how it intends to proceed with its white paper on the future of the EU.

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Bilateral relations between Tajikistan and the EU are governed by a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) since 2010. Financial assistance is provided by the EU's Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI).

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For over forty years, since Maurice Duverger coined the expression in 1974, ‘The Republican monarchy’ has no doubt been the most frequently used metaphor for the Fifth Republic. In countless books, essays and articles, the presidential system and all its corollaries –power, pomp and protocol – have been portrayed as a legacy of pre-Revolutionary, absolute monarchy. It is not by accident that yesterday’s ceremony of transfer of power between François Hollande and Emmanuel Macron was spontaneously referred to as ‘enthronement’ (‘intronisation’).

It is true that the French presidency is more than a political job description. As pointed out on these pages last December, the capacity of ‘incarnation’ or ‘embodiment’ of the function is a primordial asset among the check-list of qualifications required for the job. (A quality Marine Le Pen worked hard to obtain over years before throwing everything away in a particularly misguided fortnight between the two election rounds).

Emmanuel Macron, if only for his age and the narrative of pragmatic, liberal revolutionary he has created from scratch, seems to be predestined to be a different kind of Republican monarch. But unlike other candidates, like Jean-Luc Mélenchon for instance, Macron has never publicly promoted the idea of a Sixth Republic. Not only because he has identified more urgent reforms to carry out, but also because he owes the system a great deal: it is only the hyper-personalised campaign mode of the presidential election that made it possible for him in the first place to overthrow the entire political spectrum in record time without the backing of an established party and a network of local office holders across the country. In a full parliamentary democracy like Germany he would hardly have succeeded in achieving a similar upheaval (or ‘coconut shy’, as Laurent Fabius so nicely said yesterday in his official, and yet very personal, proclamation speech).

‘At the same time’ (to use Macron’s favourite conjunctive adverb), he has repeatedly announced that, if elected, he would interpret the presidential function in a very Gaullist manner, situating himself above party politics, defining the overarching political objectives, and letting the prime minister and his government do the nitty-gritty work.

That leaves us with an institutional framework, where everything remains in place and the only major factor of change may be the style in which the functions are ‘embodied’. In other words: the manners and behaviour of the president, the frequency and tone with which he addresses his citizens, the kind of personalities he chooses for top positions (starting with his first Prime minister today), the leadership style with which he manages his collaborators, the dignity of his private life.

Much has been written over the decades about the behavioural legacy of the court society in contemporary France, and much of it is perfectly pertinent. Whoever took the time to go through Norbert Elias’s painstakingly detailed, seminal analysis of The Court Society dating from the 1930s or Alexis de Tocqueville’s retrospective account of social interaction in L’ancien regime et la revolution (1856) can only be bewildered by the many behaviour patterns shaped in Versailles, which have survived all the disruptions and caesuras since 1789.

In resigned exasperation.

More recently it has become increasingly common to link the persistence of the court ‘habitus’ in French social and political culture to the shortcomings of the Fifth Republic. Former Prime minister Dominique de Villepin theorised, in a quickly drafted, somewhat disappointing little book, about ‘The Court Spirit’, which he considered to be ‘the French malediction’ (2010). More recently, the renowned political journalists Thomas Legrand and Ghislaine Ottenheimer invested significantly more in-depth field work, only to come to a similar conclusion, shaking their heads in disbelief over the enormous mismatch between what the country needs and what it is stuck with. The respective titles of their books nicely sum up their quiet exasperation with the Republican monarchy: ‘Let’s stop electing presidents!’ (2014) for the former; ‘Presidential poison’ (2015) for the latter.

Diarists of the court: Saint-Simon and Patrick Rambaud.

No one, however, dealt with the phenomenon in a funnier and more revealing manner than Patrick Rambaud. A well-known author, laureate of the Prix Goncourt and accomplished master in pastiche and parody, Rambaud has been the 21st-century ‘chronicler of the court’ since the ‘enthronement’ of King Nicolas I in 2007. What started, according to the author, as a ‘therapy against the depression’ into which Sarkozy’s election had thrown him, finally became a series of a total of eight ferocious, hilarious, and at the same time desperate diaries of the Fifth Republic’s own kind of court decadence, covering the entire two quinquennats of Sarkozy and Hollande. Lovers of classical French literature could take great delight in the wonderful imitation of the Duke of Saint-Simon’s lucid and indiscreet ‘Memoirs on the reign of Louis XIV’; others could simply marvel at the incredible human pettiness of today’s sycophants and toadies humming around his  mediocre majesty in the Elysée.

A hilarious series of eight chronicles. Not to be continued.

Over ten years Rambaud offered a most welcome cathartic laughter about the ridicule of French democracy and its wildlife populated by cynical spin doctors and vain careerists, dangerous ideologists and ruthless populists, evil corrupters and stupid corrupted (which are of course species for which France may be the best biotope, but of which is certainly does not have a monopoly).

Given the remarkable ease with which Emmanuel Macron responded to behavioural expectations during the long ceremonial liturgy yesterday, while bringing a whole new freshness and sincerity to the mandatory coronation rituals, chances are that Patrick Rambaud will have no reason to continue his chronicles. He may even be able to come off his anti-depressants.

One of the most interesting aspects of the next quinquennat will thus be to observe whether this atypical, visibly determined president will be able to change the style of the Republican monarchy from within or whether the function will inexorably impose its ‘habitus’ under the weight of tradition, apparatus, and decorum. In other words: will the new King modify the behaviour of the court, or will the court culture, slowly but mercilessly, tame the new King?

Style is not nothing. Eliminating the ridicule from the top-tier of French politics was not an official programme point in the electoral platform of En marche! It would, however inject an unexpected new stability into a ramshackle system, and shift the focus away from form to substance, open the minds for renewal. Although non-quantifiable, it would be one of the new monarch’s most outstanding and lasting achievements.

Albrecht Sonntag
@albrechtsonntag

This is post # 22 on the French 2017 election marathon.
All previous posts can be found here.

The post France 2017: The end of ridicule? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

General : Globalisation offers great potential to create wealth and jobs, but it also has the capacity to disrupt. The EU has always tried to make the most of it, while mitigating its negative effects by setting rules and working together with other countries. As MEPs debate on Tuesday 16 May a reflection paper by the European Commission on how the EU should deal with globalisation in the future, we take a look at what Parliament has already done recently.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Plenary sessions : Globalisation offers great potential to create wealth and jobs, but it also has the capacity to disrupt. The EU has always tried to make the most of it, while mitigating its negative effects by setting rules and working together with other countries. As MEPs debate on Tuesday 16 May a reflection paper by the European Commission on how the EU should deal with globalisation in the future, we take a look at what Parliament has already done recently.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

General : Globalisation offers great potential to create wealth and jobs, but it also has the capacity to disrupt. The EU has always tried to make the most of it, while mitigating its negative effects by setting rules and working together with other countries. As MEPs debate on Tuesday 16 May a reflection paper by the European Commission on how the EU should deal with globalisation in the future, we take a look at what Parliament has already done recently.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Plenary sessions : Globalisation offers great potential to create wealth and jobs, but it also has the capacity to disrupt. The EU has always tried to make the most of it, while mitigating its negative effects by setting rules and working together with other countries. As MEPs debate on Tuesday 16 May a reflection paper by the European Commission on how the EU should deal with globalisation in the future, we take a look at what Parliament has already done recently.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP