European Union

We are often told that feeding the world requires more efficient agro-industrial units, further genetic modification of plants, or cloning of ever-more productive animals. The facts speak otherwise: we already produce enough food for 14 billion people – double the global population – but around 40% of it goes to waste. What we really need is a more sustainable and coherent food policy. That policy should cover all aspects of food production and consumption to minimise waste and ensure a more equitable distribution of global food supplies.

The European Commission had taken a step towards a common European food policy by drafting a Communication on Sustainable Food, but unfortunately its publication has been postponed and risks being withdrawn altogether. As co-chair of the European Parliament’s Sustainable Food Systems Group, I believe future food policy should incorporate health, sustainability, ethical production, food safety, productivity, affordability and quality.

The world’s obese now outnumber the malnourished. With rapid increases in the prevalence of heart disease, adult diabetes and other chronic diseases related to diet and nutrition, food policy needs to encourage healthier eating. That means more vegetables and fish instead of red meat, and vegetable oils instead of animal fat for cooking.

But buying healthy food isn’t always an easy task. Whole-wheat bread can be poor in fibre, healthy-sounding breakfast cereals can give kids their daily quota of sugar, and canned guacamole may contain just 2% of avocado.

“Future food policy should incorporate health, sustainability, ethical production, food safety, productivity, affordability and quality”

The popularity of organic and locally produced food shows that consumers want to know what their food is made of. To help consumers make informed choices, we need to improve the way food is labelled in Europe and to introduce minimum health standards for food authorised for sale in the EU market.

We also need to bear in mind that unhealthy food increases health inequalities since underprivileged people eat the unhealthiest diets and pay relatively more to get the nutrients they need. Seasonal vegetables offer a way to strike a balance between nutritional needs and the weekly food budget. Instead of having everything available throughout the year, we should give more priority to seasonal, locally produced ingredients. We don’t need to eat fresh strawberries every day of the year; and besides, they taste much better during the summer season.

Turning to ecologically sustainable food, we have to change the globalised production methods which leave enormous carbon footprints through excessive transport and inefficient land use. Intensive farming and pesticides impoverish the soil. We need to put more effort into recycling nutrients that protect our ecosystems. Instead of giving cattle access to pasture, we keep them indoors, growing huge amounts of soya to keep them fed. Through genetic modification we alter ecosystems without knowing all the long-term consequences.

 “Labelling schemes that clearly indicate origin and respect for welfare standards should be made mandatory”

Most Europeans want to eat animal products from animals that have led happy lives. Although our animal welfare standards are higher than in many places, Europe needs to do more to ensure livestock production is ethical. Long distance transportation, inhumane housing conditions and the demands of high productivity remain the dark side of livestock farming in Europe.

The answer here is again to give consumers the power to choose. In addition to strengthening wider legislation on animal welfare, labelling schemes that clearly indicate origin and respect for welfare standards should be made mandatory. A succession of food safety scandals have produced a wide consensus in Europe on the need for stricter and more harmonised rules. Yet long and often opaque food production chains are still vulnerable to fraud.

Stronger safety rules are also needed to control the use of chemicals in food. Current restrictions on residues are not set at sufficiently low levels, and are not keeping pace with scientific data on issues such as the negative effects of endocrine disruptors.

On a larger scale, millions of people are fed through public procurement arrangements. Schools, hospitals and other public institutions offer lunch based on public tenders where all too often price is the dominant criteria, to the detriment of environmental, ethical and health standards. Public procurement processes need to be adapted also to ensure that farmers who commit to produce sustainable food are rewarded. Europe-wide indicators to better define sustainability in food production would help.

Finally, it goes without saying that eating should be a pleasure. I believe that, if we stick to the criteria mentioned above, we can lay the foundation for sustainable food production for generations ahead, while treating ourselves to food that’s healthy and delicious – just like my favourite dish of Broccoli-cashew salad with cucumber and feta.

 

IMAGE CREDIT: CC / FLICKR – Alison J-B

The post How to make our food sustainable, healthy, affordable and delicious appeared first on Europe’s World.

http://tvnewsroom.consilium.europa.eu/uploads/council-images/thumbs/uploads/council-images/remote/http_7e18a1c646f5450b9d6d-a75424f262e53e74f9539145894f4378.r8.cf3.rackcdn.com/851c536e-10d7-11e5-bc01-bc764e083742_34.31_thumb_169_1434095864_1434095838_129_97shar_c1.jpg

The 7th EU-Mexico summit takes place in Brussels on 12 June 2015. This is the first bilateral summit since 2012, and the first one to be chaired by Donald Tusk, President of the European Council.

Download this video here.

On 6 March 2015, the Finnish Parliament passed the Finnish Climate Change Act (FCCA), the first of its kind in Finland. Pro-environmental organisations and political parties generally heralded the act as a symbolic success, as it enshrines the goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. However, the act has also been described as relatively unambitious[1], given that it focuses mainly on administrative procedures and monitoring and does not require, for example, interim carbon budgets – a specific amount of carbon dioxide equivalent that can be emitted over a 5-year period, a key aspect of the related UK Climate Change Act.[2] The FCCA thus reflects Finland’s role as a follower, rather than leader, on climate change in Europe. But does this ‘backbench approach’ reflect the attitudes of the Finns or merely of their political elite? In this post, we consider to what extent the FCCA is in line with climate policy preferences among the Finnish public. Drawing on nationally representative survey data from the Finnish Climate Barometer 2015[3], we focus on the design of the Act, as well as the public’s preferences for Finland’s role in international climate change politics.

Climate Change in the Finnish Mind

A good starting point to gauge general attitudes towards climate change is how concerned people are about the issue. In the Finnish Climate Barometer survey, 69% of the Finnish population indicated that they were either concerned or very concerned about climate change (Figure 1). This finding squares with a 2014 Eurobarometer survey on climate change where, compared to other European countries, nearly a quarter of the Finnish population ranked climate change as the ‘single most serious problem facing the world as a whole’. A similar survey focusing on climate change attitudes among Finnish businesses found similar results.

Figure 1. Responses to ‘I am concerned about climate change’

This high level of baseline concern about climate change translates into an even higher sense of urgency to address it. 78% of the Finnish population – an overwhelming majority – indicated that addressing climate change was either urgent or very urgent (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Responses to ‘Addressing climate change is urgent’ 

These high levels of concern about climate change and a clear sense of urgency to do something about it generally provide fertile ground for strong climate policy. It is thus not surprising that the previous Finnish Parliament approved the FCCA and that the newly-appointed government’s programme promises active measures to mitigate climate change. But to what extent is the FCCA in line with general policy preferences among the Finnish population? 

Mandatory interim targets?

As we discussed above, the FCCA is mainly procedural and largely symbolic. For example, it clarifies Ministerial responsibilities and specifies regular planning activities for long-term, mid-term and adaptation policy plans, but fails to enshrine clear, stepwise targets to reach its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050.[4] However, it has also been pointed out that the Act does provide for more transparency – which could in turn create “political pressure for more effective policy measures if monitoring shows a discrepancy between objectives and performance”.[5] But is this approach in line with general policy preferences in the Finnish population? To this end, one survey question asked people whether they would prefer a carbon budget approach similar to the one used in the United Kingdom, where there are absolute limits on carbon emissions over five-year periods. Results indicate that 65% of Finns would prefer a stronger approach to climate policy similar to that of the UK, while about 15% did not know (Figure 3). Thus, the new legislation falls short of a more ambitious and serious climate approach based around interim targets favoured by most Finns.

Figure 3. Responses to ‘Finland should imitate the UK’

Finland as a climate leader?

How does this desire for greater climate ambition fare when Finns consider what other countries are or should be doing? Figure 4 reports to what extent Finns thought that Finland should reduce its greenhouse gas emissions regardless of what other countries do. Again, a clear nearly two-thirds majority of the Finns surveyed (60%) agreed or strongly agreed that Finland should address climate change regardless of what others are doing. These responses thus indicate Finns wish to see Finland as a leader, rather than a follower. This vision is clearly out of sync with the rather unambitious FCCA and the national energy and climate strategies adopted so far. 

Figure 4. Responses to ‘Finland should mitigate regardless of others’ 

Where next?

A new government has just taken office in Finland and is currently in the process of specifying its policy priorities. So far Finland has been a backbencher on national climate policy, indicated by a willingness to accept EU-level climate targets, but with little ambition to exceed them and take leadership. A weak signal of greater ambition can be detected in the new government’s programme that sets as its target to reach the EU 2020 climate goals by the end of the current legislature in early 2019. The FCCA can support this, but is in itself a very cautious step to develop climate policies. The survey data presented here indicate a strong desire in the general public for Finland to become a real forerunner in addressing climate change. Indeed, vast majorities of the population are concerned about climate change and would prefer their government to take much more decisive, carbon budget-driven steps to address the issue. Future evaluations of Finnish climate policies will show if the relatively unambitious FCCA can support such radical change.

 

[1] Pölönen, I. (2014). The Finnish Climate Change Act: Architecture, Functions, and Challenges. Climate Law, 4(3-4), 301-326.

[2] Benson, D., & Lorenzoni, I. (2014). Examining the Scope for National Lesson‐drawing on Climate Governance. The Political Quarterly, 85(2), 202-211.

[3] The survey was commissioned by the Ministry of the Environment, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the Ministry of Employment and the Economy, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation (Tekes) the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE), the independent fund reporting to the Finnish Parliament (Sitra) and an independent think tank Demos Helsinki. TNS Gallup Oy collected a sample of 1005 persons between 15–74 years of age across Finland using Gallup Forum – (Response Panel 5.–14.3.2015). The margin of error is approximately +/- 3 percentage points.

[4] Pölönen, I. (2014). The Finnish Climate Change Act: Architecture, Functions, and Challenges. Climate Law, 4(3-4), 301-326.

[5] p. 314 in Pölönen, I. (2014). The Finnish Climate Change Act: Architecture, Functions, and Challenges. Climate Law, 4(3-4), 301-326.

The post The Finnish Climate Change Act – In Line with What Finland’s Public Wants? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Plenary sessions : EU-Russia relations were high on Parliament's agenda this plenary week in Strasbourg. In two separate resolutions, MEPs called on EU member states to maintain their unity following Russia´s illegal annexation of Crimea and drew attention to the militarisation of the Black Sea basin. Meanwhile the debate and vote on Parliament´s recommendations for the ongoing Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations were postponed due to the high number of amendments.

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

On 11 June 2015 the Latvian Presidency of the Council of the European Union in close cooperation with the Commission organized in Luxembourg the first Eastern Partnership Ministerial Meeting on Digital Economy. The meeting was co-chaired by the Minister of Transport for Latvia Mr Anrijs Matīss, and Commission’s Vice President Andrus Ansip.

The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the European Union (EU) follow with attention the current situation in Guatemala and call on all political, economic and social actors to exercise a constructive and balanced role in order to strengthen democracy in the country.

The CELAC and the EU reject any threats of constitutional order rupture and reiterate its firm commitment with the full respect of the democratic and constitutional framework, the rule of law and of all human rights and value the commitment of the Guatemalan government for implementing a free and transparent electoral process.

- This article was originally published with ‘E-International Relations (www.e-ir.info)  on     11 June 2015-

British politics has gone through turbulent times since the public referendum on Scottish independence took place in September 2014. A majority of Scottish voters narrowly backed remaining part of the United Kingdom after the opinion polls in the weeks before the referendum had indicated that the Scottish National Party (SNP) would succeed in its ambition to make Scotland independent from the rest of the UK (Nardelli, 2014). The 55 per cent no vote against Scottish independence was essentially achieved through a concerted effort made by the leaders of the three main Westminster parties. Conservative prime minister David Cameron, Labour leader Ed Miliband and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg signed a vow which was printed in the Scottish daily newspaper Daily Record on September 16th 2014, two days before the referendum took place. In the vow the three leaders publicly committed themselves to devolving ‘permanent and extensive new powers’ to Scotland (Clegg, 2014). Most significantly, the Labour Party in Scotland decided to throw their weight firmly behind the ‘no’ vote, with former prime minister Gordon Brown acting as an outspoken advocate of maintaining the Union in the final days of the campaign. In his firebrand speech for the pro-union ‘better together’ campaign Brown compared Scottish independence with an ‘economic trapdoor’ from which there would be no escape once the decision had been made (Watt, 2014).

Prime minister Cameron swiftly backtracked on the pledges made in the vow. Already in his first statement on the morning after the referendum he emphasised that the devolution of further powers to Scotland should only occur if voting rights of Scottish MPs in the House of Commons on English laws were restricted:

So, just as Scotland will vote separately in the Scottish Parliament on their issues of tax, spending and welfare, so too England, as well as Wales and Northern Ireland, should be able to vote on these issues and all this must take place in tandem with, and at the same pace as, the settlement for Scotland. (Cameron, 2014)

This statement resulted in a surge of SNP support in Scotland which most of all damaged Cameron’s referendum allies, the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats. Both parties lost all their seats but one to the SNP in the UK general election on May 7th. The SNP landslide and the almost complete collapse of electoral support for pro-union parties in Scotland could indeed be an indication that, as long as Westminster fails to deliver further devolution of powers, public support for independence will grow. Alistair Crighton argues that the long-term goal of the SNP is to hold a second referendum which, in the post-general election absence of strong and credible pro-union voices North of the border, is almost certain to result in a resounding ‘yes’ for independence (Crighton 2015).

The re-election of David Cameron as prime minister with a narrow Conservative majority has made it certain that a referendum on Britain’s EU membership will be either held next year or by 2017. If the majority of voters in England opt for Brexit while a majority of Scots decide to stay in the EU, the SNP is almost certain to demand another independence referendum to be held in Scotland. SNP leader Nichola Sturgeon has warned the British government of a ‘groundswell of anger’ if Scotland was forced to leave the EU on the basis of a UK-wide overall majority. Sturgeon demands that the Brexit should only be possible if  in all four regions of the UK (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) a majority is in favour of leaving the EU (BBC News, 2015). Scotland has traditionally displayed a more pro-European attitude than many parts of England, which is reflected in opinion polls on EU membership. The latest major survey on attitudes towards EU membership in the UK, which was conducted by Populus in April this year, shows that 48 per cent of Scots would back staying in the EU. Support in English regions for staying in ranges between 34 and 44 per cent, with the Midlands showing a clear majority for Brexit (Populus, 2015). It is therefore quite possible that the EU referendum may result in a split between an overall majority support for Brexit in England and against in Scotland.

It is obvious why Scotland shows a stronger affiliation with the EU than most English regions. Britain’s reputation as an ‘awkward partner’ in the EU (George, 1998) emerged mainly from the sceptical attitude of the English political class towards the project of institutionalised European integration. For the English eurosceptics, who can be mostly found in the Conservative Party and the English nationalist party UKIP, engagement in the EU’s system of multi-level governance boils down to a constant and difficult battle to defend national sovereignty (Usherwood 2015). In the Westminster-focused and London-based media the perception that the EU’s policies and regulations undermine Britain’s national interest has been promoted for decades. At the same time no British government  has been bold enough to make a sustained and outspoken argument in favour of the economic and political benefits EU membership offers to the UK.­­­ In contrast to the predominantly negative English public debate, people in Scotland seem to be more aware of the political and economic benefits that being part of the EU Single Market has for their region. These range from the export market for the Scottish whisky industry, gas and oil production (Springford, 2015) towards benefits for Scotland’s business, society and the country’s infrastructure provided by the financial support under the EU’s Structural Fund Programmes. Scotland continues to receive substantial financial support under the EU’s Social Fund and Regional Development Programmes (Scottish Government 2014).

Like in the case of the Irish Republic, Scotland seems to perceive EU membership as an indispensable tool to maintain economic and ultimately also political independence from England. For the Irish Republic joining the European Community in 1973 was an important symbolic political step to re-emphasise their political independence from the UK (Fitzgerald and Girvin, 2000, p. 273). Ultimately the significant financial support from the EU Ireland received since its accession in 1973 provided the platform for the development of its investment-friendly Celtic Tiger Economy in the 1990s. EU funds helped Irish governments to keep corporation tax on the lowest level in the whole of the EU and to invest in the infrastructure of business parks across the country (FitzGerald, 2004, p. 72). These attracted major North American high-tech companies in the computing sector as well as in the pharmaceutical industry. Major companies such as Dell, Google, Facebook, Bayer, Glaxo SmithKline and Roche positioned their European headquarters in the Irish Republic.

Former SNP leader Alex Salmond hence not only controversially compared Scotland’s pro-independence movement to the ‘Irish freedom struggle’ (Peterkin 2015). Salmond also argued that an independent Scotland in the EU could replicate the pre-financial crisis economic dynamism of the Celtic Tiger by creating a ‘Celtic Lion’. In his speech at Harvard University in 2008 Salmon argued that as a small nation Scotland, like the Irish Republic, could achieve economic success by offering investors a flexible environment that is built on a strong political consensus on the country’s national interest and overall economic strategy. The crucial factor for this success would however be membership of the EU:

Where this occurs within the framework of a European Union and single market place of 600 million people, it creates the ideal environment within which small nations can take the most of their comparative advantage. (Salmond, 2008)

Scotland can of course not assume that it would automatically remain in the EU if another independence referendum was held in the aftermath of a Brexit decision. Former EU Commission president Barroso warned the Scottish government in 2014 that it would be ‘extremely difficult’ for an independent Scotland to join the EU (BBC News 2014). Barroso’s intervention was nevertheless widely considered as an attempt to strengthen the pro-union camp in the September 2014 referendum rather than a statement of legal facts. In their assessment of the road to EU membership for an independent Scotland, constitutional experts Stephen Tierney and Katie Boyle from the Centre on Constitutional Change in Edinburgh point out that an independent Scotland would have to apply to join the EU. Accession of a independent Scottish state would ultimately depend on the unanimous agreement of all existing EU members (Centre on Constitutional Change 2014). The concerns raised in the report about potential hostility of the UK and other EU member state towards an the accession of an independent Scotland’s appeared in the context of the circumstances of the 2014 referendum. If Scotland held another independence referendum after the UK referendum had opted for Brexit, the situation would be entirely different. The departing rump United Kingdom, consisting of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, would certainly no longer have the ability to veto Scottish accession to the EU. Moreover, it can be expected that the remaining 27 EU member states will show a positive attitude towards gaining Scotland as the new 28th member state. Rejecting Scotland would not only be against the EU’s general spirit of national self-determination and devolution of power which it has been promoting under the subsidiary principle since the 1993 Maastricht Treaty. Most obviously the collective EU Council is unlikely to reject the application of a small country which has been part of the internal market since 1973 and could help to partly fill the economic gap that will be opened up by Brexit (Keating 2015, p.  204).

Brexit within the next two years, followed by another Scottish independence referendum is not an inevitability. The British public may overall turn out to be pragmatic about EU membership and decide to vote in support of continuing membership. This outcome is of course more likely if David Cameron manages to achieve the substantial renegotiation of British membership terms and possibly even wider institutional reform through the revision of the Lisbon Treaty. The latter is, however, unlikely to be achievable within the short timeframe of the next two years. It is therefore more realistic to assume that Cameron will return from Brussels with a half-baked compromise deal on the freedom of movement and further safeguards for the UK to be sucked into the deepening of political integration in the eurozone. The hard-line eurosceptics in the Conservative Party, UKIP and in large parts of the UK’s foreign owned tabloid press are unlikely to be satisfied with such a deal. Cameron will therefore encounter great difficulties to sell a weak negotiation result to both his party and the British public, even more so because he will be a lone voice amongst what has become a rather deserted pro-European camp. In the absence of charismatic pro-European voices, such as Robin Cook, Mo Mowlam, Charlie Kennedy but also David Miliband, who continues to remain in the political exile in the US, the pro-EU camp will struggle to make its voice heard against a barrack of eurosceptic voices. If British pro-Europeans fail on this historic occasion to make the convincing case for staying inside the EU the days of the United Kingdom as we know it may indeed be over for good.

References

BBC News (2014) ‘Scottish independence: Barroso says joining EU would be “difficult”‘, 16 February.

BBC News (2015) ‘Nicola Sturgeon warns of EU exit “backlash”’, 2 June.

Cameron, D. (2014) Scottish Independence Referendum: statement by the Prime Minister, 19 September.

Centre on Constitutional Change (2014) ‘An Independent Scotland: The Road to Membership of the European Union’, 20 August.

Clegg, D. (2014) ‘David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg sign joint historic promise which guarantees more devolved powers for Scotland and protection of NHS if we vote no’, Daily Record, 15 September.

Crighton, A. (2015) ‘The UK is now a failed state: Why the SNP’s unprecedented landslide victory means an end to Union’, Aljazeera, 11 May.

Fitzgerald, R. and Girvin, B. (2000). ‘Political Culture, Growth and the Condition for sucess in the Irish Economy’, in Nolan, B., O’Connell, P.J. and Whelan, C.T. (eds), Bust to Boom? The Irish Experience of Growth and Inequality, Dublin, Institute of Public Administration: 268-285.

Fitzgerald, G. (2004), ‘The Economics of EU Membership’, in Hourihane, J. (ed), Ireland and the European Union: The First Thirty Years, 1973-2002, Dublin: Liliput Press: 67-80.

George, S. (1998) An awkward partner: Britain in the European Community. Oxford, University Press.

Keating, M. (2015) ‘The European Dimension to Scottish Constitutional Change’, The Political Quarterly, 86 (2), April-June: 201-208.

Nardelli, A. (2014) ‘Were Scottish independence opinion polls misleading?’, The Guardian, 19 September.

Peterkin, T. (2015) ‘Scottish independence referendum: Salmond claims links to Irish freedom struggle‘,The Scotsman, 4 June.

Populus (2015) ‘EU Exit, Party Leaders, and the Budget Deficit’, April.

Salmond, A. (2008) Free to Prosper: Creating Celtic Lion economy, Speech at Harvard University, 31 March.

Scottish Government (2014) European Structural Funds: Approved Operational Programmes 2014-2020.

Springford, J. (2015). ‘Disunited Kingdom. Why “Brexit” endangers Britain’s poorer regions’. London, Centre for European Reform, April.

Usherwood, S. (2015), ‘Britain and Europe: A Model of Permanent Crisis’, in: Demetriou, K.N. (ed), The European Union in Crisis: Explorations in Representation and Democratic Legitimacy, Heidelberg, Springer: 3-14.

Watt, N. (2014). ‘Gordon Brown makes passionate appeal to Labour voters in final no rally’.

The post The UK after the 2015 General Election: Doomed to Be a ‘Failed State’? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Welcome to the Brexit Blog. This blog is not simply about British debates over the UK’s future in the EU. It is more about what Britain’s debate, attempted renegotiation, referendum and the outcome of that referendum could mean for the rest of Europe. As a start I’ve compiled below an overview of the literature that exists on what the ‘British question’ could mean for the rest of Europe.

The Conservative party’s victory in the May 2015 UK general election leaves the EU facing its British question sooner than many were expecting. It also means the EU faces an issue that only a few have given much in-depth thought about. This is not to say the idea of a British renegotiation, referendum and exit have not been hot topics of discussion for some time. They have been much discussed over dinners in Brussels or coffees in Berlin, Paris and elsewhere. There has also been a range of short pieces in the media, blogs and comments by politicians, sometimes at a series of events in the UK and elsewhere held to discuss the subject. The governments of some other EU member states, along with allies such as the USA, have undertaken private discussions and analysis.

Detailed publicly available analysis, on the other hand, has been more limited. This is especially so when compared to the plethora of research about what a Brexit or renegotiation might mean for the UK (the House of Commons Library has produced a short bibliography of the literature and its own review of the potential policy implications of a Brexit). Talk about what a Brexit might mean for the EU and people soon shift discussion to what it might mean for the UK. Undoubtedly the consequences for the UK would be far greater. But the question of what it might mean for the EU still stands.

This does not mean there has been no detailed analysis on which to prepare for the forthcoming negotiations and referendum. There exists a range of English language reports and papers that specifically analyse the EU’s position vis-à-vis the UK. There also exist a range of sources (often shorter than full reports, but more focused on specific issues) that provide broader insights. Further reports will emerge over the course of the renegotiation and referendum. Taking into account the EU’s perspective will also be of direct interest to the UK. Deadlock and failure will come from the UK failing to appreciate what is and is not in the interests of the EU and therefore what is a plausible relationship for Britain either as a member of the EU or for UK-EU relations if the UK leaves.

• A good overview of what a Brexit could mean for the EU is the September 2013 30-page report by the SWP entitled ‘Europe without Britain: assessing the impact on the European Union of a British withdrawal’. It covers everything from what the UK contributes to the EU to what a Brexit might mean for Europe’s geopolitics.

• In February 2014 Nicolai von Ondarza of the SWP published a 31-page report (in German) entitled, ‘Großbritannien und die EU-Reform: Empfehlungen für den Umgang mit den britischen Forderungen an die Europäische Union’ (Britain and EU reform: recommendations for dealing with British demands for EU reform). It examines in detail how to approach any UK attempt to renegotiate its relationship.

• The DGAP’s September 2014 report – ‘The UK and the EU: what would a Brexit mean for the EU and other states around the world’ – which I edited with Almut Möller, is made up of 26 views of a Brexit written by people from research institutions and universities from sixteen EU member states (France, Germany, Poland, Ireland, Slovenia, Austria, Romania, Bulgaria, Denmark, Hungary, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Finland, Greece, the Netherlands) nine non-EU countries (Canada, USA, China, Norway, Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand, Japan, Singapore and Brazil), and a view from the EU’s institutions in Brussels. It provides the most wide-ranging overview of how a variety of EU and non-EU countries might respond to the UK’s demands for reform or exit from the EU.

• Mark Leonard of the ECFR published a 2015 report ‘The British problem and what it means for Europe’ which examines what is driving demands for reform or exit, what a Brexit could mean for the EU, and how the EU might respond.

• In December 2013, Open Europe ran the first ever simulation – a war-game – of a UK-EU renegotiation followed by a negotiation over a UK exit. The online archive contains videos and a final report of the day’s proceedings. Open Europe have also written extensively on what the impact of a Brexit might be for the UK, with some of this analysis touching on possible implications for the rest of the EU.

• In September 2014, Deutsche Bank published a 20 page report analyzing the possible implications of a Brexit, especially economic ones, for the EU. A similar but shorter 8 page report was published by the Bertlesmann Foundation in April 2015.

• In 2013 the RUSI Journal published several short pieces on the possible defence and security implications for Europe of a Brexit. A January 2013 report from the International Security Information Service and NATO Watch also considered the defence implications. Europeangeostrategy.org has produced a series of posts (here, here and here) about the possible geopolitical implications of a Brexit.

• The legal side of a Brexit has been covered by a range of authors writing on how a member state might withdraw from the EU. See here for a report by Phoebus Athanassiou for the ECB examining the legal side to a withdrawal with attention in particular on Greece. Adam Lazowski of Westminster University has written in academic journals on the legal side of the UK exiting the EU, and has a forthcoming book on the topic. The UK and Article 50 is also examined in a blog piece by Steve Peers. Phedon Nicolaides 2013 article for the Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law also considers the effects of Article 50 on a withdrawing state. In April 2014 Clifford Chance undertook a legal review of the implications of a Brexit for the UK and EU financial sectors.

• In July 2013 the House of Commons Library produced a lengthy research paper examining how the UK might leave the EU, examining issues such as procedures and some passing analysis of possible implications for the EU, although the report’s focus is largely on the UK.

• The potential consequences for the EU have also been covered in some of the UK’s pro-withdrawal literature. Admittedly a great deal of the literature gives scant thought to the issue. They are more interested in what end Britain should seek in leaving the EU, meaning they can overlook analysing the ways and means by which to secure this, something only possible if the EU’s likely positions are also taken into account. Nevertheless they do offer some interesting insights. The IEA’s 2014 €100,000 Brexit prize produced a series of proposals. The winner by Iain Mansfield can be found here with a wider-ranging report by the IEA here. There also exist other proposals – to name but a few – such as Richard North’s proposal for a ‘Flexit’, David Campbell-Bannerman MEP’s ‘Time to Jump’, Dan Hannan MEP’s proposals (for the Centre for Policy Studies), proposals from Fresh Start, the Mayor of London, and Civitas, (click here for a second 2015 Civitas report and here for a report by them on the potential impact on the UK and EU car industries).

• The UK has also been the source of numerous proposals for how to reform the EU. Especially notable here is the work of the CER with its many reports. Its director, Charles Grant has written extensively on how the UK-EU relationship could develop in ways beneficial to all.

• One reason for there being so little analysis of what UK positions could mean is because there is a lack of clarity over what the UK itself is seeking. The UK’s Balance of Competences Review provides not only some insights into what may be up for renegotiation, but also one of the most detailed analyses ever undertaken of the EU’s powers. The best overview of the review is by Michal Emerson (ed.) for the Centre for European Policy Studies.

• In the academic literature the idea of European disintegration remains largely under-researched, the assumption being integration is a forward moving process. Douglas Webber’s January 2013 article in the European Journal of International Relations, ‘How like is it that the EU will disintegrate? A critical analysis of competing theoretical perspectives’ provides an excellent overview of what different theories of European integration can tell us. My own attempt, written for an academic conference, to apply a Brexit to Webber’s approach to the theories can be found here. There is also Hans Vollaard’s ‘Explaining European disintegration’ for the JCMS, and the Journal of Democracy October 2012 special issue on European disintegration. Later this month the Global Society will be publishing my article ‘Europe’s British Question: the UK-EU Relationship in a Changing Europe and Multipolar World’. The work in this area has built on some discussions at several academic conferences.

• Analysis of differentiated integration and opt-outs has been covered by a range of authors, for example Rebecca Adler-Nissen’s 2015 book ‘Opting out of the EU: diplomacy, sovereignty and European integration’.

• Some books and reports discussing the UK’s European debate include brief discussion of the possible implications for the EU. The book by Roger Liddle, Tony Blair’s former special adviser on Europe, ‘The Risk of Brexit’ (for Policy Network) provides some insights into how the rest of the EU may respond to British demands. Some other national perspectives can be found in the Foreign Policy Centre’s 2014 report ‘Renegotiation, reform and referendum: does Britain have an EU future?’, edited by Adam Hug. In May 2015, The Guardian asked five journalists from other European countries to give their thoughts on what a Brexit might mean for their states and the rest of Europe. The Guardian’s report on what might happen if the UK leaves the EU touches on some of the possible implications for the EU. As the UK and the EU move through a renegotiation and referendum we can expect more pieces such as that by The Telegraph examining how other EU member states are responding to British overtures.

It is not clear how much more time there will be to prepare further research on what a Brexit or renegotiated relationship might mean for the EU. Cameron is moving quickly to get a referendum bill through Parliament.  A referendum in 2016 instead of 2017 looks difficult, but is a possibility.

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Informal meeting of Ministers of Labour and Social Affairs alongside the 104th International Labour Conference agreed on renewed efforts to improve working conditions in small and micro enterprises.

On Thursday, June 11, the Minister for Transport Anrijs Matīss chaired the meeting of the EU Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council.