European Union

The press conference following the EU-Kazakhstan Cooperation Council will take place on 4 October 2016 at 16:10 in the main press room of Justus Lipsius building. The press conference will be given by Miroslav Lajčák, Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of Slovakia and Erlan A. Idrissov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan.

Webcast of the press conference

Media accreditation

David Cameron started his career as party leader with a simple wish: to get the Conservative Party to ‘stop banging on about Europe’. However, he did not have a strategy for making his dream come true. Instead, he took a series of tactical decisions in hopes that each would silence Tory Eurosceptics committed to ‘banging on about Europe’ until Britain left the EU.

When canvassing for support in the 2005 party leadership contest against David Davis, Cameron promised to take the Conservative Party out of the largest political group in the European Parliament, the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP). After becoming leader, he fulfilled his pledge. An incidental consequence was that this denied him the experience of periodically meeting with leaders of centre-right parties whose support he subsequently sought in a vain effort to secure a renegotiated membership deal for the UK prior to the EU referendum.

A second stop to Eurosceptic demands was the 2011 European Referendum Act requiring a national ballot on any future transfer of powers from the Westminster Parliament to Brussels. The Foreign & Commonwealth Office regarded this as a harmless symbolic measure unlikely to be invoked because of disagreements among EU member states about whether or how the EU’s powers should be increased.

Despite these measures, Eurosceptic MPs banged their drum even harder. In the last Parliament, a private members bill was introduced to authorize an In/Out referendum. At the time, the Coalition government of Conservatives and pro-EU Liberal Democrats would not accept the bill and it died. However, pressured by his MPs, Cameron pledged to call a referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU after the 2015 election. Instead of producing another Coalition government that would not countenance an EU referendum, Cameron won an outright majority.

Cameron’s dream turned into a nightmare as the calling the referendum resulted in even louder ‘banging on about Europe’ and Tories disagreed about the direction in which to march. Cameron tried to march in two directions at once, stating that the case for remaining in Europe rested on his success in repatriating powers from Brussels to the British Parliament. This was dream, because it violated a fundamental doctrine of the EU, the acquis communitaire. It postulates that once very lengthy intergovernmental negotiations give a certain power to the EU, no member state can claw that power back.

Cameron sought to win the referendum by getting the EU to suspend the UK’s treaty commitment to accept the free movement of EU citizens to Britain. To secure a deal, he turned for help to his new-found friend Angie. However, his eyes were opened when the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, made clear that she did not want to risk German political capital in what would likely be a vain attempt to get an unprecedented derogation from the EU treaties that went against the national interest of many member states.

To promote his wish, last November Cameron met with Theresa May and Philip Hammond. Both the then Home and Foreign secretaries told him that the deal on free movement he wished for was simply not practical. According to an eye-witness advisor’s account, Cameron was surprised and denounced them as ‘lily-livered Cabinet colleagues’ for not joining him in his wishful pursuit. They were realists, recognising that Cameron’s strategy would lead to a public defeat that would strengthen the Brexit cause.

Cameron returned from the February European Council with temporizing statements about possible future EU changes that he trumpeted as a major set of concessions. But Tory MPs were not taken in. Given the choice between defending symbolic promises and firming up support from their voters, many MPs came off the fence and endorsed Brexit.

Theresa May acted consistently with Cameron’s initial goal: she avoided banging on about Europe. She lined up in favour of remaining in the EU on the grounds of loyalty to the Prime Minister while not actively campaign for remaining in. She thus avoided George Osborne’s fate of making her political future dependent on a majority vote to remain in the EU. The pledge she made to become Prime Minister, that ‘Brexit means Brexit’ – was a realistic commitment to accepting the referendum result without raising specific expectations about the UK’s future relationship with the EU.

In Downing Street Theresa May has so far avoided encouraging dreams about a cost free soft Brexit or about the UK being able to rebuild long-gone Imperial ties immediately upon leaving the EU. The announcement that the negotiations triggering the countdown to Brexit will not begin for up to 15 months gives her time to prepare a set of negotiating goals that are not the stuff of dreams.

May has also sought to distance herself from Brexit by placing Boris Johnson, David Davis and Liam Fox in key roles for negotiating what happens after the UK leaves the European Union. Placing these three in the roles of Foreign Secretary, Minister for Brexit, and a new International Trade post means that they, rather than she, will be the public face of Brexit. They will thus be responsible for any failure to secure hoped for concessions from the EU and such rude awakening that follows when the UK leaves the European Union in 2019.  Meanwhile, Theresa May will be not be dreaming about Europe but carefully laying the groundwork for winning the 2020 British general election.

The post Be careful what you wish for: a tale of two prime ministers appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Sarah Glück and Charoula Tzanakou[i]

 

“Researchers love what they do. It is not entirely clear to us that the systems in which we work love us.” (Bratislava Declaration of Young Researchers)

 

How can we attract young students to a career in science and how can we retain them? Those were the leading questions of the first workshop of the Bratislava Declaration of Young Researchers, held in Brussels in the beginning of the year. Initiated by the Slovak Presidency of the Council of the European Union (July-December 2016) and the Directorate General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission, the workshop brought together researchers from diverse career stages, including high school, undergraduate, PhD, postdoc and professor. At this meeting, it was not clear where this would all lead to, but despite our different experiences and backgrounds, we soon realized that we share similar problems and we all see the need of radical structural changes within the EU as well within the national research and higher education systems.

 

Press conference on the Bratislava declaration. From left: Sarah Glück, author of the declaration; Carlos Moedas, Commissioner; Peter Plavcan, Slovak Minister; Emilia Petrikova and Miguel Jorge, authors of the declaration. Photo credits: EU2016 SK.

 

The Bratislava Declaration of Young Researchers is a document written by researchers from various fields of science, different nationalities and research experiences (including the authors of this blog), expressing their aspirations for future research and higher education systems and calling on policy makers to take actions to:

-       reorganize funding streams to trust and empower young researchers,

-       incorporate research and scientific skills into high-school education through radical reform of curricula and methods of assessment,

-       create sustainable and effective funding schemes for young researchers,

-       urgently enhance employment stability and provide structured opportunities for non-traditional career trajectories,

-       fulfil their duty of care with respect to the training and the career development of young researchers,

-       support an EU-wide equality and diversity charter,

-       act on ideas that span traditional disciplines and sectors,

-       develop policies that enforce free sharing of data and ideas,

-       implement supportive and better childcare provisions, parental care, flexible working practices and provide dual-career opportunities, and

-       put in place mechanisms to facilitate and equally reward diverse forms of mobility.

 

These issues are known for a long time but the high level of political attention and the inclusion of the Declaration in the Conclusions of the Council of Ministers are novel. Furthermore, the Declaration highlighted the significance of including scientific methods and thinking early in school curricula, and aims at engaging individuals – before the PhD level – in research endeavours and constitute them relevant stakeholders in research systems. This initiative came  from high level actors such as the European Commission and the Slovak Presidency, but soon was given into the hands of the researchers, who dictated the content. The encouragement of these high level actors to articulate our aspirations and concerns and their support throughout this process has enhanced our optimism that the Declaration could actually lead to addressing the issues raised at the level of national and EU policy makers.

 

The content of the declaration was influenced by a survey from the Young European Associated Researchers network YEAR. This survey provided an insight into the obstacles young researchers face, the reasons for becoming a scientist and the extent of satisfaction with their current situation as researchers. The main ideas of the Declaration were then presented and discussed at the Young Researchers Conference 2016 in Brussels on 13th June together with representatives of research (funding) organisations, the EU Commission and the Slovak Presidency. This Conference enabled the authors to consult different stakeholders and get useful feedback which clarified further the content of the Declaration for the meeting with ministers.

 

At the informal meeting of the Council of Ministers on 19th July 2016 a representation of the authors of the Bratislava Declaration of Young Researchers were then invited to present their concerns to the ministers and ask for their commitment to support the Declaration. The ministers welcomed this initiative and engaged enthusiastically with the authors acknolwedging the significance of the challenges and aspirations. They were thus asked to endorse the Declaration as a whole and include it it the Conclusions of the Council of the Ministers, which will be adopted on 29th November 2016.

 

During the preparation of the Bratislava declaration. From left: representatives of the Slovak Presidency Daniel Straka and Andrej Kurucz, authors of the declaration Lynn Kamerlin, Emilia Petrikova, Charoula Tzanakou, Bruno Gonzalez Zorn and Miguel Jorge. Photo credits: Dusan Sandor.

Since then the group of researchers authoring the Declaration have undertaken various efforts to enhance the visibility of this initiative, engage individuals, relevant staekholders and policy-makers to support the Declaration and identify ways for its implementation. Considering the urgency and importance of this issue, we would like to involve individuals who are affected by the current research and (higher) education systems and those who are able to change the situation, namely EU and national politicians, as well as research (funding) organisations and higher education institutions. Therefore, we have developed a website with the Declaration where it can be endorsed. So far around 400 signatures and 100 comments of interested and supportive researchers and research organisations have been reached.

 

We hope that the next European Research Framework Programme would reflect most of the issues addressed in the Declaration, to ensure that the next generation of researchers will be able to pursue their research endeavours and to establish research systems where care and responsibility towards young researchers is at the heart of such systems, implemented in national and EU legislation.

 

A recurrent question we get is who are the young researchers the Declaration refers to? There was a great deal of discussion about what a young researcher is and the dimensions of age and career stage were central to this. However, we soon realised that this could become a minefield. Some of the authors of the Declaration are young in age and have started conducting research at high school and/or in their undergraduate studies so this term would be inclusive of them. The issues that the declaration brings up are especially problematic for researchers at their early career stages due to the lack of experience, contacts/networks and they need to be supported, trusted and cared for in a special way. But the structural barriers the declaration tries to emphasise on, are an obstacle to any researcher and the discussion until which exact age a researcher is young and therefore covered by the declaration isn’t taking anyone further.

 

It is hoped that this initiative will be the starting point for a continuous dialogue between young researchers and policy makers about the future of science and research. From our personal perspective, we think that “young” researchers should be involved at an even more critical and challenging stage of such initiatives which is the implementation and fulfilment of the aspirations described in the declaration.

 

Sarah Glück is Research Fellow at the Zeppelin University (Germany). Dr.Charoula Tzanakou is Research Fellow at the Warwick University (UK). They both are among the authors of the Bratislava Declaration. The content of this blog represents only the opinions of the both above mentioned authors.

 

 

[i] Sarah Glück and Charoula Tzanakou are among the authors of the Bratislava Declaration of Young Researchers.

The post Bratislava Declaration of Young Researchers appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

General : United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will travel to Strasbourg on Tuesday to attend the final vote of the European Parliament on whether to grant consent to the ratification of the Paris Agreement by the EU.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

General : United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will travel to Strasbourg on Tuesday to attend the final vote of the European Parliament on whether to grant consent to the ratification of the Paris Agreement by the EU.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Plenary sessions : Torture and the death penalty still take place in many countries around the world and the EU should play no part in delivering services or goods to make this possible, according to Marietje Schaake. The Dutch ALDE MEP is in charge of steering an updated version of the EU's anti-torture regulation through Parliament. MEPs debate her report on Tuesday and then vote on it the same day. We talked to her about why the regulation is necessary ahead of the vote.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Plenary sessions : Torture and the death penalty still take place in many countries around the world and the EU should play no part in delivering services or goods to make this possible, according to Marietje Schaake. The Dutch ALDE MEP is in charge of steering an updated version of the EU's anti-torture regulation through Parliament. MEPs debate her report on Tuesday and then vote on it the same day. We talked to her about why the regulation is necessary ahead of the vote.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

*Apologies to those who usually receive this Brussels Briefing by email. We’ve had some technical problems this morning

Sunday was probably a defining moment for Brexit. Far from procrastinating or playing for time, Theresa May appeared to make a big strategy call. From the hubbub of the Conservative party conference has emerged clarity on when she will start Article 50 exit talks (by March 2017) and what her goals will be.

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The Committee on Culture and Education will hold an inter-parliamentary committee meeting to share ideas about the way forward in the cultural and creative sectors in the EU, which promote cultural and linguistic diversity, strengthen European and regional identity, and substantially contribute to growth, innovation and employment in the EU economy. This thematic digest provides selected publications provided by Parliament’s Policy Departments which are relevant to the topic of this meeting.
Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

The European Parliament will vote on Tuesday to give its consent to the ratification of the Paris climate agreement by the European Union, after Council gave its green light on Friday. For Environment Committee chair Giovanni La Via (EPP, IT) the decision allows the EU to remain a leader in climate action ahead of the next round of talks to take place in Marrakech in November.
Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

The European Parliament will vote on Tuesday to give its consent to the ratification of the Paris climate agreement by the European Union, after Council gave its green light on Friday. For Environment Committee chair Giovanni La Via (EPP, IT) the decision allows the EU to remain a leader in climate action ahead of the next round of talks to take place in Marrakech in November.
Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Wednesday 5 October 2016
Brussels Conference on Afghanistan
09.00 Opening statement
10.30 Family photo

Thursday 6 October 2016
10.30 Presentation of letters of credentials of ambassadors
14.00 Meeting with Prime Minister of Andorra Antoni Martí (photo opportunity)

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

On 30 September 2016, in view of the gravity of the situation, the Council prolonged the sanctions against Libya targeting three persons for six months.

On 1 April 2016, the Council added three persons to the list of people subject to EU restrictive measures against Libya.  Agila Saleh, president of the Libyan Council of Deputies in the House of Representatives; Khalifa Ghweil, prime minister and defence minister of the internationally unrecognised General National Congress; and Nuri Abu Sahmain, president of the internationally unrecognised General National Congress, are viewed as obstructing the implementation of the Libyan Political Agreement of 17 December 2015 and the formation of a Government of National Accord in Libya.

The Council remains concerned about the situation in Libya, and in particular about acts that threaten the peace, security or stability of the country, and that impede or undermine the successful completion of Libya's political transition. 

In view of the unabated violence in Syria the tone on the international diplomatic stage is growing harsher: Merkel and Obama have condemned the airstrikes on Aleppo, describing them as "barbaric" and UN representatives have accused the Syrian army and its allies of committing war crimes. But why is the West still doing nothing to end the war?

After a long period of wrangling the members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) have agreed to cut production by 700,000 barrels per day. The cartel's decision will mainly affect oil prices and the global power game in the energy sector, commentators conclude.