Ideas on Europe Blog

Anyone in hope of elucidation on Brexit this week will have been a bit disappointed, even by recent standards.

With submissions to the High Court providing no killer arguments either side – and both sides firmly stating that any loss will be challenged up to the Supreme Court and an immigration debate that has sunk to the level of whether someone looks like a child or not, there has not been much advance in our understanding of what might happen, or how.

To underline the point, a discussion this morning at Chatham House on public opinion pointed to further issues.

Put briefly, the British public doesn’t really know what it – collectively – wants from Brexit, except that it wants something substantially different from what currently exists in the UK-EU relationship.

Immigration is important, but less so when placed against assorted trade-offs, and immigration control might be just part of a bigger competence issue about the ability of a government to make decisions for itself. And all of it might collapse or change radically when confronted with some concrete proposition.

This matters for a variety of reasons. Most obviously, if people were voting to take back control, then that becomes very difficult if there’s no consensus about what that control might be used for.  It also complicates matters for a government that is now committed to triggering Article 50, but with no fixed agenda of objectives. And in the end it will mean that a sizeable chunk of the population is going to end up disaffected by how things have turned out, to the detriment of the democratic system as a whole.

But let’s step back, before we end up catastrophizing some more. Politics is always a contingent and conditional process, a series of best guesses about the present and the future. Yes, the scale of the contingency is greater on this occasion, but the principles remain the same. So let’s try to sketch out a muddling-through path for Theresa May.

The starting point is probably the inchoate nature of public opinion. If we assume that people will follow May’s lead, because she seems to know what she’s doing and she has the confidence of her government, then the priority then becomes keeping that confidence. Thus, any Article 50 deal will need to keep backbenchers onside, rather than any particular voter demographic.

Following on from this, we might assume that the public’s attention is limited and will be swayed – in part, at least – by broader concerns over whether one’s job is secure, or the volume of immigration is falling (which it might, given the fragile state of the economy). It’s not such a stretch to suggest that the government might take the view that as long as they look like they are on the Brexit case, people will give them a broad pass.

Based on these assumptions, two paths offer themselves.

The first is the semi-permanent transition. Here, the UK keeps its Brexit wishlist short, when making its notification, focusing on a stronger brake on free movement. The EU27 then take that as a lead and offer a simple deal under Article 50, with the bare minimum of elements. This includes budgeting, staff pensions for UK nationals in the institutions and re-location of EU agencies out of London, as well as a mechanism to set in train a new negotiation for the relationship. In short, the UK becomes a member in all but name, losing representation and voting rights, but with a clear process from moving to a new relationship.

Because that new negotiation will be very big and complex, it will also be slow, with the capacity to last at least a decade. The government would defend itself by saying it had secured formal exit and a limit of immigration and was working now on getting the best deal for the country, and would then largely hope that this would bleed the eurosceptics’ blood. In time, attention would drift and a solution favourable to the UK and EU27 would emerge in its own time, away from the heat of recent years.

The problems are obvious: flashpoints could occur at any stage, and carrying the process out over more than one Parliament would risk some other government taking it somewhere unexpected (or unwanted). In particular, the meagre majority that the Conservatives currently enjoy make it easy to force matters on the Cabinet, which itself is split in various exciting ways.

Also problematic would be that limiting the size of the Article 50 deal to a bare minimum also limits the UK’s leverage, since it pushes the new relationship into a period when it is formally a third state, rather than a member state.

Which leads nicely to the second option, namely the Article 50 splurge. Here, the government puts everything into its Article 50 requests and tries to do it all in one go. This cuts down the transitional problems, maximises what influence the UK has over matters and cuts the backbench grumbles to a minimum.

It also makes any discussion about extension of Article 50 more viable, especially if there is seen to be good progress in resolving issues. Path-dependency suggests that the EU27 will not want to throw away two years of negotiation unless it looks fatally flawed, especially if the rest of the political agenda continues to demand their time. It cuts out the need for transitional arrangements, because the UK would remain a member state until its conclusion.

Which is the obvious flaw in this.

To return to the start of this, the big question is going to be what can be sold by May to her party and (then) to the public. At the moment, the betting would have to be on the former being more of a problem than the latter. As Daniel Korski’s very frank piece today underlines, not having a strategy and a vision can come at a very high price.

The post The Great British Muddle Through appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

In recent years, the UK government has not been particularly adept at negotiating in the EU (see the Fiscal Compact) or navigating the politics of Brussels (see the appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker as European Commission president). Satisfaction with David Cameron’s EU renegotiation was also relatively low on both sides of the referendum debate.

A finais do pasado mes de setembro finou Shimon Peres (Premio Nobel da Paz, Ex Presidente de Israel e Ex Primeiro Ministro por tres ocasións). Dito motivo provocou, entre outros feitos, un gran número de artigos xornalísticos falando da súa relevancia histórica[1].

Mais analizando ditos artigos ponse o acento especialmente nalgúns elementos da súa vida, resaltado a “súa contribución á Paz”[2]. Pola contra, moito menos era mencionado o seu pasado en Haganá[3].

É interesante observar como ao longo do tempo aqueles grupos, como Haganá, que eran considerados terroristas maioritariamente, na actualidade son considerados “organización defensiva hebrea, que operaba bajo las órdenes de la Agencia Judía para Israel, entre 1920 y 1948, predecesora, junto con otras organizaciones paramilitares, del actual ejército israelí conocido como las IDF o Tzahal” (Fuentes y Pellicer, 2016)[4] [5].

¿Cal pode ser a razón deste cambio? Benjamin Walter (2007) dinos “con quién se compenetra el historiador universal nacionalista. La respuesta suena inevitable: con el vencedor. Pero los amos eventuales son los herederos de todos aquellos que han vencido […] Quien quiera que haya conducido la victoria hasta el día de hoy, participa en el cortejo triunfal en el cual los dominadores de hoy pasan sobre aquellos que hoy yacen en la tierra”.

En definitiva, algúns grupos ou Estados que en determinada época foran considerados terroristas, co paso do tempo deixan de selo por diversas razóns e son aceptados como membros efectivos do escenario internacional en pé de igualdade cos demais Estados[6] [7].

No caso español as cousas sucederon doutro xeito. Primeiramente, cómpre destacar que a inclusión de diferentes nacións dentro dun Estado normalmente da lugar ó predominio dunha nación sobre as demais. O conflito é que o que podería ser unha alternativa teórica admisible (o Estado plurinacional), na práctica normalmente conduce a situacións no que o Estado beneficia a unha das súas parte e discrimina a outras. Mentres que todos os individuos son considerados cidadáns, existe unha discriminación á vez derivada do feito de que o Estado intenta inculcar unha cultura e valores comúns co obxectivo de acabar creando unha soa nación[8].

Ante esta falta de coexistencia entre nación e Estado, hai dúas saídas posibles. O Estado pode ter éxito e acabar absorbendo as diferentes nacións, o que supón a eliminación das culturas minoritarias e rematar sendo un perfecto Estado-nación (véxase Francia). Ou ben, non acabar conseguindo acadar o seu obxectivo e activándose un sentimento de ataque por parte das minorías ante un Estado alleo, o que provocaría que “no son las naciones las que crearon los Estados modernos, sino los Estados modernos los que crearon las naciones, tal como las conocemos” (Palti, 2002). Neste contexto, as minorías nacionais elaboran estratexias de rexeitamento, que pasan pola resistencia cultural e/ou a loita armada.

España é un bo exemplo de dificultade de homoxeneización nacional e que conta cunha resistencia tanto cultural como armada. No caso de Euskadi a resistencia foi dobre debido as accións de ETA. Nos casos de Galicia e Cataluña a resistencia foi e é principalmente cultural. Mais durante os anos 70 e comezo dos 90 foran activas en Cataluña as organizacións Terra Lliure, o Exèrcit Popular Català, o Front d’Alliberament de Catalunya  e o Arxiu. En Galicia, o Exercito Guerrilheiro do Pobo Galego a pesar de pequenas accións esporádicas ou de pouco alcance, demostra como en Cataluña que existía espazo para accións violentas. Recentemente, cabe aínda mencionar que a Audiencia Nacional acusou a outro pequeno grupo galego de terrorista, Resistencia Galega.

¿Que pasa entón para que estas organizacións non se consoliden e entren en decadencia? A resposta é complexa, pero poderiamos afirmar que as novas iniciativas destes grupos para prolongar as súas dinámicas de protesta conducen a unha espiral de violencia-represión-desalento. O pesimismo abre unha fase de apatía tanto sobre o contido das acción como sobre a súa lexitimidade. Deste xeito, os menos que van quedando vanse radicalizando e illando, e a súa utopía decae. Así, comezan a primar formas de protesta máis convencionais integradas no novo contexto político-social (Tarrow, 1991). Prodúcese pois o esgotamento dos movementos polo fracaso da súa estratexia, pola presión do Estado, ou porque obteñen un éxito parcial ou total das súas reclamacións que se institucionalizaron, ou poden converterse nun movemento diferente (Raschke, 1994).

Xente como Shimon Peres non cometeu ditos erros e por iso non son terroristas, senón liberadores nacionais…

“La nación como problema. Los historiadores y la cuestión nacional”, Elías Palti, Bos Aires: FCE, 2002, p.15

“Sobre el Concepto de la Historia. Conceptos de la Filosofía de la Historia”, Walter Benjamín,  La Plata: Derramar Ediciones, 2007, pp. 68-69

“Sobre el concepto de movimiento social”, J Raschke, Zona Abierta, 69, 1994, pp. 121-134

“Struggle, Politics and Reform: Collective Action, Social Movements, and Cycles of Protest”, Cornell Studies in International Affairs/Western Societies Program, Occasional Paper, S Tarrow, Cornell University, Ithaca: Center for International Studies, 21, 1991, pp. 41-56

[1] Ó día 01/10/2016 ascendían en Google News a 2.580.000 (procura “Shimon Peres”)

[2] Ascendía (“Shimon Peres + Peace”) a 351.000

[3] (“Shimon Peres + Haganah”) 2.620

[4] A modo de indicador, pódese observar que na biblioteca da Universidade de Georgetown as publicacións de “Haganah + terrorist” aumentan no período 1921-1960 de 625 a 2924 no que vai de 1990 á actualidade, isto é un multiplicador de 4,67. Contra isto “Haganah liberation movement” ascende de 27 a 783, ou sexa, un multiplicador de 29,00.

[5]http://www.seguridadinternacional.es/?q=es/content/setenta-a%C3%B1os-del-atentado-del-hotel-rey-david-de-jerusal%C3%A9n#_ftn6

[6] “En 1993, la mayoría de estos artículos [periodísticos] asocian [el terrorismo] con los musulmanes […] (especialmente Libia[non posteriormente á morte de Gadafi], Irak [non trala execución de Hussein] […] Virtualmente ningún artículo en el NYT o en el WP asocia tal acto con otros actores o lugares de la violencia política en el mundo (por ejemplo, El Salvador), como una forma de exclusividad tópica y léxica que en sí misma expresa una posición ideológica” http://segundaslenguaseinmigracion.com/L2ycomptext/Anlisisideolgico.pdf

[7] Fatah, anteriormente considerado terrorista, é agora visto como un actor relevante nos procesos de negociación.

[8] “Nationalisms”, M Guibernau, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996

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Might we see a renewal of the Community method which has retreated somewhat since the banking and euro crisis? If this is not achievable, does this mean there are limitations to free movement of services in the single market that cannot be avoided and will this confirm a turn towards differentiated integration?

Start-ups (formerly unicorns and now decacorns) of the so-called ‘sharing’ economy like Uber and Airbnb have become enormously popular and vehicles for high-value venture capital. Uber, for example, is reported as having received a $3.5 billion investment from the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund making its potential capitalisation at $70 billion equal to that of Daimler and more than BMW, GM and Honda.

‘Sharing’ in these cases is a misnomer. There is little or no element of ‘sharing’ (as in lending/borrowing, or ‘what’s mine is yours’). On the contrary, these are new forms of profit-seeking by mass exploitation of consumer needs or preferences made possible by Information and Communications Technology (ICT) platforms, that would have been familiar to the robber barons of the nineteenth century. Hence their attractiveness for venture capital. While this may be so, some see the new services as a welcome and overdue response to ‘regulatory capture’ by private monopolies in which the state has an interest in preserving.

Why does it matter – now? Two concerns are becoming apparent and are demanding the attention of public policy. The first is the negative environmental and societal externalities caused and which go unpaid by them (e.g. C. Crouch, R. Mejia, European Parliament).

The second, is the incoherent response to them by national jurisdictions. In some EU Member States (MS), such as the UK, Ireland and some Baltic members, these services are permitted or lightly regulated, whereas in others (the majority) they are either completely banned (in the case of Uber) or heavily restricted, although they operate widely ‘under the radar’. This matters because free movement of services and the right of establishment is one of the four pillars of the single market, itself the engine and most tangible expression of EU integration since the Treaty of Maastricht. While this inconsistency has latterly become of concern to the EU institutions, namely the European Commission (EC), the European Parliament (EP; 2015 and 2016), the Committee of the Regions and the European Economic and Social Committee, it has attracted little if any scholarly attention.

It was precisely in order to establish the ‘rules of the game’, that the Services Directive was approved by the co-legislators and transposed into national law throughout the EU by 2009. Its gestation was, however, highly contested politically (recall the storm over the Polish plumbers at the time of the original, ill-fated Bolkestein directive and the final version was the result of an intense compromise, with more areas of economic activity categorised as services being excluded than included). There is also lack of clarity over what is a single market competence and what is reserved for MS authority. Is Uber a taxi service, hence excluded under ‘Transportation’ (although the Treaty is not specific) or is it, as Uber claims, ‘merely’ an IP-enabled information service and therefore should not be excluded. A preliminary ruling sought by the government of Spain is awaited from the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Treatment under national regulations must in any case respect the principles of non-discrimination, proportionality and necessity when exclusion is justified for ‘overriding reasons of public interest’ (ORPI).

A briefing by the EP’s Transport and Tourism Committee acknowledged a ‘European’ dimension to regulating Uber and similar ‘transportation network companies’ rather than leaving it to individual MS, proposing that:

The first novelty brought by TNCs into the legal landscape is that they have a clear European dimension in an area where Member States were traditionally strongly opposed to European legislation. TNCs, as providers of information and communication technology services, are covered by European provisions on free movement of services and freedom of establishment, and their services are a part of the Digital Single Market’  . . .  Therefore, European institutions have the competence to bring together the fragmented response to TNCs which is happening at the national level. This could be done through legislation, regulatory actions or the judiciary.

In June 2016, the EC published an ‘Agenda for the collaborative economy’, setting out guidelines for MS to follow. These guidelines are described as ‘non-binding’ and under them, MS are invited to review their legislation to ensure that it is in conformity with EU law, which, as suggested, is by no means clear. Only ‘in the last resort’ should these services be banned.

The EC has little power of implementation or enforcement. It has suggested that the aforementioned response of the MS will be monitored, that it will defend its stance as guardian of the Treaty at the ECJ and that it will bring forward amendments, if required, to the Services Directive and to the Mutual Recognition Regulation.

Two fertile areas of research are raised by these developments. First, looking backward, why are there such differences in the regulatory position of MS towards the sharing or collaborative economy in general and, specifically, the P2P for-profit model? For these, interesting approaches of socio-economic ideologies and institutional path dependencies which overlap with the Varieties of Capitalism  typology could be employed (e.g. Hall and Soskice, Hanké et al.). Issues of autonomy, sovereignty, legitimacy and trust are also important and there are rich literatures through which to view all of these.

Looking forward from now, how might a regulatory approach emerge which is consistent with the free movement of services pillar? Will the EC’s ‘framework’ guidance, the promptings of the EP and the rulings of the ECJ be sufficient? Wallace (Chapter 4) identified a number of policy modes in the classic Community method, among them a Regulatory mode and Policy Coordination, with which she associated the EU’s flexibility and resilience in dealing with policy diversity among member states. Might we see a renewal of the Community method which has, it is argued, retreated somewhat since the banking and euro crisis of recent years? If this is not achievable, at least in the near term, does this mean there are limitations to free movement of services in the single market that cannot be avoided and will this confirm a turn towards differentiated integration, a hypothesis that has long been proposed (e.g. Howarth and Sadeh, Leruth and Lord) and might also be increasingly observable in other areas of what have been considered to be of common interest?

The post How does differentiated integration affect or is affected by policy responses to the disruptive innovations of the ‘collaborative’ or ‘sharing’ economy in the EU’s single market? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Presented below is the text of the Presidential order of the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Junker to the Commission (College, DGs, etc), providing that no negotiations with Great Britain are to take place in relation to its exit from the EU (Brexit) before an official notification of TEU article 50 is received, obtained exclusively by Alexandros Kyriakidis and EU & Democracy.

This is the “Presidential order” (as referenced by the European Commission President Jean-Claude Junker), stipulating “no notification, no negotiation” in relation to Brexit.

You may also view the original on Scribd here.

Brussels, 28 June 2016
Dear Colleagues,
Further to last week’s referendum in the United Kingdom, there is a need for the Commission to be clear and certain in the process that we can now expect to take place. While we expect the United Kingdom to honour the democratic choice of its
people as soon as possible, we also will not agree to any negotiation, formal or informal, before we receive a notification on the basis of Article 50 of the Treaty on the European Union.

I have asked Alexander Italianer, Secretary-General, to coordinate centrally all Commission actions, initiatives or responses related to the follow-up. to the UK referendum. In my Cabinet, this process will be followed by Richard Szostak, my Diplomatic Adviser.

All Directorates-General and services of the Commission are asked to strictly respect the principle of no negotiation without notification and the central role of the Secretariat-General. This covers requests for appearances in the other institutions or bodies, questions from the European Parliament, opinions and inquiries from national Parliaments, intended visits by Commissioners and officials to the United Kingdom, all related correspondence and queries and requests for access to documents. This is, of course, not an exhaustive list and I invite you to remain vigilant and to flag any other issues that may be of relevance.

In the meantime, the work of the Commission will continue and our agenda of priorities and our work programme will be rolled out with determination, in close cooperation with the European Parliament and the Council. We will also continue to make sure that EU law is applied and implemented in the 28 Member States.

Yours sincerely,

[signature]

Members of the College
Cc: Heads of Cabinet, Directors-General

The post BREXIT EXCLUSIVE: The Presidential Order by Jean-Claude Junker for no Brexit negotiation before TEU Art. 50 Notification appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) includes different instances or organs, “the Court of Justice, the General Court and specialised courts” (Article 19 EUT).

Until today there is only one specialised court: the Civil Service. However,on September 1, 2016, the seven positions in the Civil Service, along with its powers, were transferred to the General Court.

The Regulation 2015/2422 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2015 (OJEU 24 December 2015, in force on 25 December 2015) amending Protocol No 3 on the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union establishes a reform on General Court in order to strengthen and allow greater work responsibilities establishing a progressive increase in the number its judges. On 25 December 2015 the number of judges (12) were increased to 40. On 1st September 2016, the seven posts of the Civil Service were transferred to the GC (along with the powers of the CS) and  from 1 September 2019 will be two Judges for each member State and therefore there will be appointed nine, reaching a total of 56.

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Welcome to Ideas on Europe.

This blog is a window to express my thoughts or comments, give news, always related to European integration.

I appreciate your comments and feedback.

All the best.

Joaquín Sarrión.

About me: https://about.me/joaquinsarrion

https://www.linkedin.com/pub/joaquin-sarrion-esteve/37/882/558

SSRN Author Page

The post Hello world! appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Julian L. Garritzmann

Students in Finland and Germany study free of charge. In the U.S. and in Japan, in contrast, they pay tremendous tuition fees, leading to often six-digit student debt amounts after graduation. At the same time, most students in Finland and in the U.S. receive public financial student aid, while the majority of students in Germany and Japan remain dependent on their parents’ financial contributions or their own part-time work. Why is that the case? Why do some countries charge tuition fees while others don’t? Why do only some governments support students financially?

My research (Garritzmann 2015; 2016) investigates these and related questions. Here, I want to summarize three key insights: the four worlds of student finance, how have the four worlds of student finance emerged, and why policy change becomes increasingly unlikely. Interested readers can find much more detailed analyses in my recent book “The Political Economy of Higher Education Finance: The Politics of Tuition Fees and Subsidies in OECD Countries, 1945-2015”.

The Four Worlds of Student Finance

How do the higher education tuition-subsidy systems differ across countries? (How) Have they changed over time? Along which dimensions do higher education systems differ at all? In order to answer these questions, I compiled information on more than 80 aspects of the higher education funding systems of 33 OECD countries between 1995 and 2015. This dataset allows to comparatively answer questions such as: How many students pay tuition fees? Do all, some, or no students pay? How much do students pay on average? Do all students pay the same and if not, how do the amounts vary and why? Who sets the level of tuition fees in the first place? How much public financial support do students receive? Do they have to pay back this money or not? Chapter 2 of my book presents and discusses this data in detail.

A core insight from the detailed analysis of this data is that the advanced economies (OECD countries) fall into four groups:

-          In a first country cluster, hardly any student pays fees, but public financial student aid is also meager at best. This is the case in most continental European countries.

-          In a second country group, students also study free-of-charge, but at the same time they receive large public support. This is mainly so in Nordic Europe.

-          A third group, comprising the USA and other Anglo-Saxon countries, is characterized by the combination of substantial tuition fees and generous public support (at least in the form of student loans).

-          In a final group, students pay similarly high tuition amounts, but the majority does not receive any public support. This is the case in Japan, South Korea, Chile, and other Latin American and Asian countries.

I call these four groups the “Four Worlds of Student Finance”.

How have the Four Worlds of Student Finance emerged?

The main research question that my book seeks to answer is why and how the Four Worlds have developed. Why do the countries differ so considerably? This question is particularly interesting because I also found that when we look back at the 1940s and 1950s, these country differences did not exist at all. In the immediate post-World War II phase the higher education systems of all countries were almost identical: Tuition fees were low or inexistent in all countries, there was no public student aid, and enrollment levels were very low everywhere (about one to five percent of each cohort went on to higher education at this time). So why have the countries developed into four very different directions although they had an almost identical starting point?

My research shows that the reason for this development is political. Detailed qualitative case studies of four countries (Finland, Japan, Germany, the USA) over seven decades (1945-2015) as well as thorough analyses of a large amount of quantitative data show that the emergence of the Four Worlds of Student Finance can be traced back to the respective partisan composition of government. Whether students pay tuition or not and whether they receive subsidies or not depends on which political parties were in government during the postwar period.

More particularly, I show that in some countries (for example in Sweden) progressive leftwing parties were in office for decades, seeking to establish equality of opportunities and socio-economic upward mobility. To achieve this, they banned tuition fees and introduced generous student support systems to facilitate access for children from lower strata. The low-tuition—high-subsidy system was born.

In other countries (for example in Japan), conservative rightwing parties were predominant over a long period of time. These governments pursued very different goals: They tried to keep higher education as elitist as possible and feared that the expansion of higher education would lead to a “massification” and a decline of the quality of higher education. Conservative parties therefore did not install any student aid and “outsourced” the expansion of higher education in the tuition-dependent private sector, safeguarding the elitist character of their public universities. This pushed countries in the direction of high-tuition—low-subsidy regimes.

In still other countries, neither leftwing nor rightwing parties predominated in office, but rather took turns. My analysis shows that in these cases it matters crucially for the higher education systems how long leftwing and rightwing parties were in office. That is, not only the partisan composition of government but also the duration of parties in office matters. This can, for example, explain the development in Germany (low tuition, low subsidies) and the U.S. (high tuition, high subsidy).

“Nothing’s gonna change”: Policy change becomes increasingly unlikely

A third major finding is that over time the higher education systems of all countries have become increasingly path-dependent. That is, while there has been a lot of policy change in the 1960s and 1970s setting countries on their respective paths, no country (with the exception of England) has altered its higher education finance system considerably after the 1980s. Countries that charged tuition at the beginning of the 1980s continue doing so today and – if anything – have raised the amounts. Countries without tuition fees remain tuition free. The same applies to financial student support: Path dependencies prevail and the Four Worlds of Student Finance seem increasingly stable.

Why is that the case? I show in the book (see also Garritzmann 2015) that over time the influence that governments can exercise on higher education finance systems decreases. This is so because of “positive feedback effects”, that is citizens adapt their political preferences to the respective systems that they are socialized in. As a consequence, a public opinion develops that favors the respective status quo over any policy change. It thus becomes politically very costly for parties to change the higher education system fundamentally. The experiences by Labour and the LibDems in England (the only country that has experienced major change) underline this perfectly. We are thus increasingly unlikely to witness any considerable policy change. Put bluntly, Sen. Sanders will not abolish tuition in the USA and Finland will not introduce any (for most of its students).

Taken together, my research shows that when we want to understand why higher education systems differ across countries and time, the answer is politics. Careful attention to the political process also helps understanding which reform potentials are still possible today and how policies could be designed to enable at least incremental change.

Dr.Julian L. Garritzmann is post-doctoral researcher at the University of Konstanz (Germany) and senior researcher at the University of Zurich (Switzerland). His research interests include education systems and policies, political parties and party competition, the interrelation of social policies and educational policies, and public opinion towards social investment and social compensation policies. In addition to his new book, his research has appeared in Journal of European Public Policy, Journal of European Social Policy, and West European Politics.

References:

Garritzmann, Julian L. (2015) Attitudes towards Student Support: How Positive Feedback-Effects Prevent Change in the Four Worlds of Student Finance. Journal of European Social Policy, 25(2):139-158.

Garritzmann, Julian L. (2016) The Political Economy of Higher Education Finance. The Politics of Tuition Fees and Subsidies in OECD Countries, 1945-2015. Palgrave Macmillan.

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In 2002 Romano Prodi, then-president of the European Commission, anticipated the EU to become a ‘real global player’, capturing an era when the European Union (EU) was determined to achieve ‘sustainable stability and security’ within the EU, and, ‘from Morocco to Russia and the Black Sea’.

So what happened to these aspirations?

Today, the EU lacks leadership, frustration grows within the Union, while increasingly failing to make a positive impact beyond. The result of Britain’s referendum was but one example of this wider crisis. Can this be simply attributed to lack of unity? The problem, as the Bratislava summit nears, is somewhat deeper and more alarming. Drunk on its self-perception, the EU has lost creativity of thought, which threatens the survival of the integration project.

Unfortunately, this is not merely a crisis affecting the EU’s policy-makers, but also the academic field and think tanks that provides the Brussels elites with tools to think about Europe. Perhaps, at the core of this problem is the fundamentally dangerous belief in the civilising mission of the European integration (spurred on by the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas and his intellectual heirs), whose thinking has proliferated in Brussels and beyond.

Habermas, as one of the most important thinkers in Europe, can be satisfied –  the combination of his beliefs in emancipation (moving from exclusive state structures towards inclusive universal moral frameworks) and the importance of European integration as its instrument have been heard across the Continent. Few of his heirs would dispute that anything but an ‘ever closer union’ and ‘European values’ are simply but the only means to a brighter future, not only within the Union’s borders, but also beyond.

It is not that Habermas has been uncritical of the EU. After all, on more than one occasion the German philosopher highlighted the lack of institutional legitimacy and democratic participation of the European demos in the political process. However, the core problem here is not merely the problem of critiquing the current state of the European integration (though this too is fundamentally absent). Rather, there is a genuine lack of critique of the EU integration project as an end itself – its aims, intentions and, above all, the increasing inability and, indeed, heresy of diversity. The European Union, for its part, has turned into an instrument of obedience and control, victim of its own normative agenda. Where ‘Europe’ was once supposed to be a project of liberty, it is increasingly turning into a project of subversion.

Consequently, there is a lack of critique of the EU integration project as an end itself – its aims, intentions and, above all, the increasing heresy in diversity. The EU has turned into a victim of its own normative agenda. Where ‘Europe’ was once supposed to be a project of liberty, it has increasingly been turning into a dictatorship of thought, by those who spent decades arguing that the enlightened European project will solve issues that sovereign states no longer can. As a result, there is a little understanding of the internal and external consequences of thinking about the civilising mission of an ‘ever closer union’ as the only vision for the Continent’s future.

In this logic, alternatives have no place in Europe. The question of ‘Brexit’ provides an important case. It is not a question of believing in the UK’s exit from the Union, but rather that the argument for ‘Remain’ must be subject to scrutiny.  Instead, as we have witnessed quite often over the past months, ‘Leave’ has been perceived as a ‘lunacy’ or ‘suicide’.

Perhaps, the path chosen by the British people may well turn out to suicidal. However, there is a need to critique the wider belief that simply more integration is the only rational remedy to on-going crises and challenges – more EU on the external borders, more EU in monetary affairs, more EU in defense policy. Alternatives are side-lined, perceived as either mad or heretical – after all, how could anyone possibly want to willingly live outside this great project without, like Norway, paying a high price for it?

It is not that the ‘Leave’ campaign have provided the right solutions (rather the opposite). Unfortunately, a Union set on simply promoting a singular vision of the future (however bright) merely breeds intolerance to alternative visions rather than ‘unity in diversity’, as the EU’s motto claims. After all, as one of the founding fathers, Robert Schuman made clear: ‘Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan’.

And what of the European integration project’s external dimension?

Potential new members of the Union must conform to EU conditions. This, of course, makes every sense if you wish to join any club, whether this involves a weekly game of squash or a monetary union; but clubs generally provide different membership options, dependent on members’ willingness than the club’s expectation.

But what of those who have little or no possibility (or wish) of joining the club? Must they also conform? According to the believers in the primacy of EUropean values, the answer is an obvious yes. As one EU official put it to me not so long ago with regards to the countries of the eastern neighbourhood – ‘they are our neighbours, and so must be close to our rules’. Our Rules, Our Neighbours. End of conversation.

The tragic case of the small Republic of Moldova provides a good example. Locked between the neighbourhood power struggles of the EU and Russia, Moldova’s internal politics is constantly determined by geopolitics. Yet, the country has been highlighted as the star pupil of the EU’s regional programme, and Moldova is the only eastern neighbourhood country to receive a visa-free regime as a ‘carrot’ for its efforts to follow EU norms.

Due to EU priority conditionality and financial support, Moldovan Border Police is, arguably, the most modern government institution in the country, while irregular migration reaching the EU through Moldova is in the 10s. No doubt, a remarkable success when compared to the dire situation in the Mediterranean, where ‘illegal’ migration is in the 100,000s.

This, however, is a sharp contrast to its socio-economic and political situation. Marred by emigration, corruption, oligarchy and political instability, Moldova highlights the dangers of limiting relations with its neighbours merely to conformity with European norms and values. Again, perceived as the only possibility for reform, the Union arrogantly disregards third countries’ interests and needs. Consequently, Moldova is left with a state of the art border management, and an oligarch-controlled political system that has witnessed 6 governments in 6 years, and €1bn euros stolen from its banks.

The heresy of diversity from an ‘ever closer union’ as an end, therefore, has major consequences. Within the Union, the democratic exercise exemplified in the UK referendum is snared at; externally, the EU pushes it own narrowly-defined reform agenda, as the only means of reaching the paradise.

However, as the Czech priest-reformer Jan Hus (burnt at stake for ‘heresy’ against the Catholic Church) stressed: Obedience is heresy. The EU, in its current state, in much the same way as the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages, requires not obedience, but resistance by questioning the end mission of a narrowly-defined project. It must be recognised that salvation does not merely exist in Brussels-centred catechism.

Resisting does not mean striking down the Brussels Leviathan. Rather, it requires the ability to imagine different visions of Europe, playing closer attention to the needs, interests and, indeed, different understanding of how Europe ought to be achieved – recognising that the challenge to its future existence does not lie in diverging voices, but in seeking conformity. Each club needs rules, but these rules are important only as long as they stimulate productivity or creativity. As soon as they seek to control, they become a hindrance and a threat to the system they seek to uphold.

As history has taught us, a singular vision of the future can have dangerous consequences. To this extent, however potentially costly, the British referendum should serve as a point of departure for a new vision of Europe where critical voices are not simply ignored. Let us, therefore, put behind crusading and search for obedience. The aim, as we move towards the Bratislava summit, must be to kill the necessity of an emancipatory (civilising) Europe, not only to revive our thinking about Europe, but to make Europe again a relevant interplay of productive and dynamic ideas.

Igor Merheim-Eyre is a doctoral researcher at the University of Kent and a visiting scholar at KU Leuven

This article was originally published by EurActiv on 15 September 2016.

The post ‘The European Union has lost its creativity: We need a new vision of Europe’ by Igor Merheim-Eyre appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Mrs May, then Home Secretary, said in a pro-Remain speech in April 2016:

“I believe it is clearly in our national interest to remain a member of the European Union.”

But now Mrs May is going to do something that only half-a-year ago she said clearly wasn’t the right thing to do.

Why hasn’t a journalist asked her why? What’s wrong with journalism today?

Quite likely if she had been asked, she would have replied with one of her stock answers, as she did in her speech yesterday at the Conservative Party’s annual conference:

“The referendum result was clear. It was legitimate. It was the biggest vote for change this country has ever known. Brexit means Brexit – and we’re going to make a success of it.”

So, does that mean, whatever your principles and beliefs, if people vote against them, you will then turn your principles upside down and on their head (in this case, on her head)?

On that basis, if Labour wins the next general election, shouldn’t Mrs May then join the Labour party?

In April this year Mrs May gave a speech of almost 6,000 words fully supporting Britain’s continued membership of the European Union. She said then:

“We export more to Ireland than we do to China, almost twice as much to Belgium as we do to India, and nearly three times as much to Sweden as we do to Brazil. It is not realistic to think we could just replace European trade with these new markets.”

“If we.. leave the European Union, we risk bringing the development of the single market to a halt, we risk a loss of investors and businesses to remaining EU member states driven by discriminatory EU policies, and we risk going backwards when it comes to international trade.”

“In a stand-off between Britain and the EU, 44 per cent of our exports is more important to us than eight per cent of the EU’s exports is to them.”

“Remaining inside the European Union does make us more secure, it does make us more prosperous and it does make us more influential beyond our shores.

“I believe the case to remain a member of the European Union is strong.

“I believe it is clearly in our national interest to remain a member of the European Union.”

Now Mrs May says:

“Brexit means Brexit and we’re going to make a success of it. There will be no attempts to remain inside the EU.

“There will be no attempts to re-join it by the back door; no second referendum. As Prime Minister I will make sure that we leave the European Union.”

If someone tells you it’s a mistake to do something, and then goes ahead and does it, can you ever trust them again?

The late Tony Benn used to classify politicians as either ‘signposts’ or ‘weathervanes’.

• Signposts indicate the way ahead, resolute and unchanging in the face of criticism or challenge.
• But weathervanes spin on their axis, responding swiftly and unthinkingly to changes in the prevailing wind.

Is Mrs May someone who just swings in the wind, whichever way it blows?

___________________________________________________

• The EU is not the USSR
• Boston wasn’t always against migration
• It’s not undemocratic to challenge Brexit
• List of the latest articles by Jon Danzig

To follow my stories please like my Facebook page: Jon Danzig Writes

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— Jon Danzig (@Jon_Danzig) October 3, 2016

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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.

Yesterday, I was working on a new academic paper on how to do research on EU leaks. And then first the Greens presented their EUleaks platform and later EurActiv published this article about the new Commission anti-leak strategy. So below I publish an internal  Council document with its measures to prevent leaks.

My interest on EU leaks is based on my PhD thesis where I studied how information, and in particular leaked Commission documents, were spread. Earlier this year, I published a first article on EU leaks and how the TTIP leaks were different (free version here). But I continue working on this.

Since POLITICO Europe featured my blog this morning, let me share with you something that you haven’t probably seen.

The EU Council also has (kind of) an anti-leak strategy and has been discussing the issue in its Security Committee earlier this year:

• Council Document “Leaks of EUCI and the GSC’s response” (May 2016, PDF)

When preparing for my current paper, I stumbled over this and made a freedom of information request to the Council. I got access to this document last months, so its not secret but free to share. And I guess this is of interest now – so I’ll share it with all of you even before finishing my latest academic research.

What do you learn from that document? Well, the TTIP leaks and other leaks seem to unnerve the EU institutions, and the Council Secretariat is even actively searching for leaks on the internet to prevent leaks. The Council is looking into further means to prevent leaks, but question is whether any of these measures will do the job.

As this 2015 academic paper by Christopher A. Bail argues, leaks most of the time represent conflict within government, and they reveal that something is incoherent between the public face of institutions and what’s going on on the inside. And as long as you don’t get disagreement out of the Commission and its many department or the Council and its many member states, leaks will always happen, no matter what you do.

So, it’s a great time to do EU leaks research, and I’ll present an early draft of my new paper at an upcoming academic workshop here in Munich titled “The Politics of Secrecy in Europe” (hosted by Berthold Rittberger and Klaus H. Goetz). Stay tuned!

The post EU leaks are back on the agenda – also in the Council appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Παρατίθεται παρακάτω η επιστολή (μεταφρασμένη στα Ελληνικά από τον Αλέξανδρο Κυριακίδη – μπορείτε να βρείτε εδώ την αρχική Αγγλική έκδοση στην οποία συντάχθηκε η επιστολή) που απέστειλαν προς τον Έλληνα Υπουργό Οικονομικών Ευκλείδη Τσακαλώτο (κοινοποιήθηκε επίσης στον Πρόεδρο του Eurogroup Γερούν Ντάισελμπλουμ) στις 23 Αυγούστου 2016 οι:

• Valdis Dombrovskis, Αντιπρόεδρος της Ευρωπαϊκής Επιτροπής για το Ευρώ και τον Κοινωνικό Διάλογο, υπεύθυνος για τη Χρηματοπιστωτική Σταθερότητα και την Ένωση Χρηματοπιστωτικών Υπηρεσιών και Κεφαλαιαγορών
• Marianne Thyssen, Ευρωπαία Επίτροπος Απασχόλησης, Κοινωνικών Υποθέσεων, και Κινητικότητα Εργατικού Δυναμικού
• Pierre Moscovici, Ευρωπαίος Επίτροπος Οικονομικών και Δημοσιονομικών Θεμάτων, Φορολογίας και Τελωνείων.

σχετικά με την υπόθεση του πρώην Προέδρου της Ελληνικής Στατιστικής Υπηρεσίας (ΕΛΣΤΑΤ) και άλλα δύο άλλα ανώτερα στελέχη της ΕΛΣΤΑΤ, και την αναφορά του ελλείμματος κατά το 2010, αποκλειστικά από τον Αλέξανδρο Κυριακίδη και το EU & Democracy.

The post ΑΠΟΚΛΕΙΣΤΙΚΟ: Η Επιστολή της Επιτροπής προς τον ΥΠΟΙΚ για την Υπόθεση ΕΛΣΤΑΤ appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Presented below is the letter sent to the Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos (Carbon Copied also to the Chair of the Eurogroup Jeroen Dijsselbloem) on 23rd of August 2016 from

• Valdis Dombrovskis, European Commission Vice-President for the Euro and Social Dialogue, also in charge of Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union
• Marianne Thyssen, European Commissioner on Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility
• Pierre Moscovici, European Commissioner on Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs.

regarding the ongoiong court case of the former President of the Greek statistical service (ELSTAT) and two other senior ELSTAT members on the reporting of the deficit during 2010, obtained exclusively by Alexandros Kyriakidis and EU & Democracy.

The post EXCLUSIVE: The Letter Sent from the Commission to the Greek Finance Minister for the ELSTAT Case appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

A Brexiteer in the BBC Question Time audience last Thursday compared the EU to the Soviet Union. It’s an entirely false and unfounded comparison.

There is absolutely no resemblance between the EU and the USSR. Such comparisons are reckless, childish and nonsensical.

It shows no understanding or respect for those people who truly suffered and were horribly murdered in their millions under both the Communist and Nazi regimes.

The EU has democracy, human rights and free market trade as the non-negotiable membership requirements for all members.

All member states of the EU volunteered to join, and all are free to leave.

The USSR was not a democracy, but a one-party state. There were no human rights, or respect for life. There was no free market, but a state controlled one.

Member states of the Soviet Union were forced to join, under threat of violence that was often used to bludgeon any member state that didn’t comply.

No countries caught up the Soviet sphere of control were free to leave, until the Soviet empire itself collapsed.

Far from being a one-party state, the European Union is made up of many governments, and democratically elected MEPS, from right across the political spectrum.

The EU is a democracy with free movement of its people, unlike the sealed borders and oppressive one-party state that represented the now defunct Soviet Union.

Membership of the EU is open to any European country which respects the inherent values of the EU, as laid down by the Treaty of the European Union (TEU).

Anyone who’s lived in a Soviet Union controlled country will immediately recognise the profound differences between USSR values and EU values.

The EU values include, “respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities.”

Before becoming a member, a country has to demonstrate that it has a stable government guaranteeing, “democracy, the rule of law, human rights, respect for and protection of minorities, the existence of a functioning market economy, and the capacity to cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the Union.”

Furthermore, unlike the Soviet Union, which consumed member states, countries applying to join the EU didn’t do so fearing the loss of their national identities and cultures; quite the opposite.

Indeed, the motto of the European Union is, “United in diversity”.

This signifies how European countries have come together, in the form of the EU, to work for peace and prosperity, while at the same time being enriched by the continent’s many different cultures, traditions and languages.

Frankly, the differences between the European Union and the Soviet Union couldn’t be more stark. Indeed, the former Iron Curtain countries who became members of the EU have seen their nations transformed for the better.

These erstwhile Soviet-sphere countries who voluntarily joined the EU include the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.

These countries suffered decades of Nazi and Communist rule, and it will take time for them to fully recover.

However, their return to the family of Europe will, I believe, reap great rewards in future, as these countries restore their dignities, independence and wealth-creating abilities.

In time, they will be sufficiently recovered to become net-contributors to EU funds, helping our continent to be safer and more prosperous.

And the signs are looking exceptionally good. These countries are now among the fastest growing economies of Europe.

Poland, for example, sailed through the world-wide economic crisis unscathed. Since 2007 its economy has grown by a third, and it now has Europe’s fastest growing number of millionaires.

And Romania was recently described by The Economist magazine as ‘the tiger economy of Europe’.

Both Poland and Romania are economically stable countries, with low inflation, relatively low public debt (public debt of Romania is only at 39% of the GDP), low interest rates and a relatively stable exchange rate.

GDP growth in Romania is around 4% and in Poland around 3.5% – rates that our British government could only dream about. British businesses are significantly benefiting from the export markets in both Poland and Romania.

Research from KPMG shows wealthy Poles spend 18% of their income on luxury goods, and aspirational Poles spend 13% on luxury goods – representing great export opportunities for British businesses.

Poland is Tesco’s largest Central European market, with over 440 stores and nearly 30,000 employees, and serving more than 5 million customers per week.

Romania is also a successful export market for British businesses, currently worth about £1 billion a year.

Commented Enterprise Network Europe, “Romania represents a high-growth market close to home, offering the prospect of major new business partnerships and considerable catch-up potential within the European Union.”

Former USSR member, Estonia, has become the world’s most advanced country in the use of internet technologies. Just a generation ago, it was still under Soviet domination as a very poor backwater on the Baltic Sea. Now it is a developed country and a member of both the EU and NATO.

According to the Cato Institute, “The Estonians now have the rule of law, the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the EU, a balanced budget, free trade, and a flat-rate income tax — all of which have led to their high economic growth and prosperity.

“The Estonians now rank globally number 22 out of 152 countries on the Human Freedom Index, number 8 out of 186 economies on the Index of Economic Freedom, and are in the number 1 category in the Freedom in the World report.”

Without becoming members of the EU, it’s highly unlikely that any of this could have been achieved.

Britain has also hugely benefited from EU membership. We first applied to join the European Community back in 1961, when it became clear that we were no longer a super power.

Our Empire was finished, our Commonwealth diminished as was our relationship with the USA, together with our reduced standing in the world following the failure at Suez.

It was seen by successive Conservative and Labour governments that our future economic survival depended on becoming part of the European Economic Community (later to be called the European Union).

We eventually joined in 1973, following the democratic agreement of Parliament, and confirmed by a decisive referendum in 1975.

Britain has prospered during its membership of the EU.

In 1962, one year after we applied to join the EEC, Spain also applied. The country was then ruled by military fascist dictator, Franciso Franco.

The application was flatly and unanimously rejected by all EEC members. The reason? Because Spain wasn’t a democracy.

Doesn’t that say something about the difference between the EU and the USSR?

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• Churchill wrongly recruited for Brexit
• Boris Johnson hits rock-bottom with Hitler claim
• Never again? It’s happening again
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• The Reasons2Remain Facebook Community continues to support the case for Britain’s membership of the EU, and now, the actual impact of the Brexit vote. Join us!
  
• Join and share the discussion about this article on Facebook and Twitter:

#Brexit supporter in #BBCQT audience wrong to compare #Britain in the #EU with the #USSR. My response: https://t.co/j54NaZ0JrI pic.twitter.com/sAU80of7nP

— Jon Danzig (@Jon_Danzig) September 25, 2016

The post The EU is not the USSR appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

There is nothing else like it on the internet: the unique and growing portfolio of over 300 graphics and articles continuing to present the case every day for Britain to remain in the EU.

I started the Reasons2Remain Facebook Community Campaign on Monday 4 April 2016. With a small team of supporters, for the following 11 weeks, we put forward clear-cut evidence-based facts, arguments and heart-felt opinions on why Britain’s future would be better and brighter staying in the EU.

Of course, it wasn’t enough.

We lost the Referendum, and woke up early on Friday morning of 24 June dismayed and distraught. Brexit had won.

But we haven’t given up.

Today, we continue to present the compelling case for Britain to remain in the EU. We sincerely hope that there may be opportunities in the future for Britain to reconsider the Brexit decision.

Some have called this ‘undemocratic’. On the contrary, it would be undemocratic if the Referendum result meant that over 16 million people who voted for ‘Remain’ simply had to give-up their beliefs and principles.

No. Democracy doesn’t end with one vote. Anything democracy decides, democracy can also undecide if enough people so desire. That’s called ‘democracy in progress’. If that wasn’t the case, nobody would ever have the chance to change their minds.

Yes, we accept the Referendum returned a slim majority for Brexit. But we’re concerned that the campaign for ‘Leave’ made promises that can never be fulfilled.

In time, we believe that the electorate will increasingly realise that they were conned, and that Brexit will be a tragedy for Britain that we should do our very best to avoid.

How could we reconsider Brexit? Only by legitimate, democratic means.

We look to Parliament to carefully assess the Referendum result, bearing in mind that it was only ever meant to be an advisory exercise; that only a very slim majority voted for ‘Leave’, and that the electorate was grotesquely misinformed during the Referendum campaign about the benefits of Brexit.

We hope and push for another Referendum to vote on what type of Brexit we’re going to get, and whether on reflection, it’s what we really want.

And we hope that, whether there’s a General Election as scheduled in May 2020 or sooner, opposition parties will offer us a credible alternative to Brexit, and that the electorate will positively decide that Britain’s future remains in Union with our European allies, rather than snubbing them and ‘going it alone’.

None of our hopes, beliefs and actions can be described as ‘undemocratic’.

Democracy is about persuading others to the merits of one’s beliefs. We sincerely believe that Britain’s future is better served as a modern, prosperous, cosmopolitan member nation of the European Union, playing a full and active part in the running and future direction of our continent.

With other pro-Remain groups, political parties and individuals, using the legitimate power and provisions of democracy, we hope to persuade the nation that Britain should reject Brexit and remain in the EU.

_________________________________________________

• Tim Farron versus Nigel Farage
• The UK government is trying to pass Brexit by bypassing Parliament
• Sir Bill Cash falsely claims the EU outlawed imperial measure in the UK
• List of the latest articles by Jon Danzig

To follow my stories please like my Facebook page: Jon Danzig Writes

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• The Reasons2Remain Facebook Community continues to support the case for Britain’s membership of the EU, and now, the actual impact of the Brexit vote. Join us!

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It’s not undemocratic to challenge #Brexit. My blog explains why: https://t.co/jAJotAVPVJ pic.twitter.com/DjhHoeAb1e

— Jon Danzig (@Jon_Danzig) September 20, 2016

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Martina Vukasovic

Section chair Mitchell Young. Photo credits: Meng-Hsuan Chou

The 2016 edition of the General Conference of ECPR (European Consortium for Political Research) took place in Prague, 7-10 September 2016. Approximately 2000 participants presented their most recent work in political science, policy analysis, public administration and related areas of inquiry in almost 70 different sections. The newly formed ECPR Standing Group on Politics of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, for the fifth time in a row organized a section dedicated to knowledge politics and policies.

The section consisted of eight thematic panels comprising 3-5 papers each, spread over the three conference days. First, ‘Applying Complex Systems Theory to Higher Education and Research Policy’ panel looked beyond the commonplace description of political and policy phenomena as complex and discussed the possibilities of using complexity theory for public policy analysis. It featured presentations by Graham Room about agile actors on complex educational terrains (author of the 2011 book on Complexity, Institutions and Public Policy) , Sandra Hasanefendic about using complex adaptive system theory for analysing behaviour of higher education institutions, Mads P. Sørensen on complex policy conditions conducive to scientific breakthroughs and research excellence and Mitchell Young on the linkages between policy dynamics and biological systems.

The second panel – ‘Market-Making of, in, and around European Higher Education’ – focused on marketization of higher education, both as a process and as an outcome. Janja Komljenovic presented her work on actors involved in the process of construction of ‘diverse, variegated, processual and relational’ markets. Christopher Pokarier focused on expansion and downscaling of higher education market in postwar Japan, while Lukas Graf focused on decentralized cooperation in skill formation. Eva Hartmann then shed light on international coordination service firms (European Quality Improvement Systems (EQUIS) and their role in privatization of higher education. Finally, Susan Robertson focused on contradiction between the global trade agreements in the making (e.g. TTIP, TPP) and a creative and dynamic knowledge-based economy.

This was followed by a panel on ‘Policy Failures and Achievements in the Knowledge Domain’ which focused on policy success and failure in conceptual terms (what constitutes failure?), in terms of implications of failure for the policy process as well as in empirical terms (focusing on specific cases). For example, Damien de Blic and Anne Marijnen presented how universities in France reacted to the refugee crisis and how limited initiatives in this respect (largely by individual universities) shaped the political agenda on this matter. Mari Elken focused on the concept of policy failure as such, as well as in particular in relation to the European level policy coordination. The panel concluded with Daniel Kontowski’s presentation on antecedents and consequences of several (largely failed) attempts to introduce liberal education in Poland.

As is becoming tradition, the section also included a panel more explicitly focused on ‘Researching the Governance of Knowledge Policies: Methodological and Conceptual Challenges’. First, Teele Tõnismann presented her work on plurality of external influences on research policies in the Baltics, in particular highlighting the necessity for careful consideration of similarities and differences between systems when conducting comparative research. This was followed by Inga Ulnicane’s work on researchers’ motivations for collaboration that builds on an expansive data set including interviews, site visits, longitudinal case studies, publication and citation data, and CVs.

The final day of the conference started off with the panel on ‘The Contentious Politics of Higher Education. Students as Political Actors in Times of Crisis’. Four papers were presented: (1) Thierry Luescher’s work on student movement in South Africa, in particular focusing on recent #FeesMustFall protests, (2) Cesar Guzman-Concha’s work on student protests in Chile, in particular on their outcomes and impact on Chilean HE policy, (3) a paper by Lorenzo Cini on student mobilizations in Italy and their policy influence and, finally, (4) Alexander Hensby’s work on the 2010 student demonstrations in UK and how mediation of highly charged ‘moments of excess’ influenced the student mobilization and public visibility of tuition fees as a contentious policy issue.

This was followed by a panel on ‘The Impact of Changing Knowledge Policies’, which featured presentations by (1) Mounia Driss on higher education and welfare regimes – in particular concerning the (possible) alignment between de-commodification efforts and social security policies, (2) Karel Sima’s work on demographic changes in Central and Eastern Europe and how they may affect the politics of access to higher education and (3) Beverly Barrett’s work on higher education attainment in the context of the Bologna Process, specifically concerning Portugal and Spain.

In the afternoon, the panel on ‘The Politicization of Knowledge Policies: Actors in National Arenas’ highlighted the role of different political actors in the process of knowledge policies. First, Jeniffer Chubb presented her work on perspectives of academics from UK and Australia to an increasingly present ‘impact’ focus in research funding policies. This was followed by Alexander Raev who discussed transnational higher education projects (some of which are profit-oriented) and the actors involved in designing them, specifically focused on their (sometimes diverse) interests. Then, Miguel Antonio Lim focused on university rankings as ‘active instruments’ and in particular the actors which created them and the actors which use them in their own national contexts, illustrating these processes with examples from Denmark and India. Margarida Chages Lopes presented her analysis on Portuguese higher education reforms and the panel ended with Jens Jungblut’s (co-authored with Deanna Rexe) comparison of approaches to federal coordination of higher education policy in Germany and US.

The section was concluded with the panel ‘Transnational Actors in Knowledge Policies – Ideas, Interests and Institutions’, i.e. various non-state actors operating on macro-regional (e.g. Europe, South-East Asia) level and their role in knowledge policy-making. The panel comprised: (1) Pauline Ravinet and Meng-Hsuan Chou’s presentation on how a specific instrument of cross-region cooperation – ‘EU Support to Higher Education in ASEAN Region (SHARE)’ – is framed, (2) Didem Turkoglu’s comparison of student groups and unions in England, Germany and Turkey, (3) Que Anh Dang’s analysis of so far under-researched actors – Bologna and ASEM Education secretariats, (4) Tore Bernt Sorensen’s work (co-authored with Susan Robertson) on inclusion of non-state actors in the work of OECD and (5) Martina Vukasovic’s theoretical paper on European stakeholder organizations (EUA, ESU, EI etc.) as meta-organizations.

Standing Group meeting. Photo credits: Mari Elken

Apart from these eight panels, the members of the Standing Group on Politics of Higher Education, Research and Innovation also attended some of the panels in other sections, as well as the roundtables and took part in the annual meeting of the Standing Group on Friday, 9 September. The latter was an excellent opportunity to take stock of the development of this research community (currently comprising more than 200 members) as well as publication outlets and plans for the future, including the next year’s ECPR General Conference in Oslo, 6-9 September 2017.

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As academic coordinator of the European Union in International Affairs (EUIA) conference that took place in Brussels this May, Lisanne Groen introduced Young Researchers’ Masterclasses into the fifth edition of the biennial conference. The masterclasses, deemed successful, saw senior scholars give pointed feedback on both papers and presentations of younger scholars, and enabled them to establish connections with both senior scholars and fellow presenters. In future, running the masterclasses before the conference, as a separate event, might enable postgraduates to get even more out of the conference as a whole.

The aim of the EUIA 2016 masterclasses was to provide PhD and early postdoc researchers with feedback on both their papers and presentation (skills) from senior scholars in a friendly environment. Three masterclasses were included in the conference programme: on economic governance and the environment; migration; and foreign and security policy.

Each masterclass included three to four paper presentations and feedback from a senior scholar with expertise in the issue area. The masterclasses took place simultaneously on the first day of the conference in the morning. The participating junior researchers were allowed to attend the rest of the conference, but not present in a non-masterclass panel, so as to allow a larger number of academics to take part in the conference.

The masterclasses were perceived as a success for several reasons. First, they provided an opportunity for postgraduates to interact with fellow young researchers working in the same issue area and facing similar problems at the early stages of their academic careers. This allowed them to share experiences and to stay in touch during and after the conference, and to continue to share best practice and broaden their networks.

Second, the postgraduates received detailed feedback from senior scholars who are experts in their field. They also had the opportunity to speak with their reviewer after the session and to stay in touch after the conference (in order to receive more feedback with a view to preparing their conference paper for publication).

It was essential to the success of the masterclasses that the senior scholars had taken the time to prepare substantive feedback and were relatively familiar with the topics, so that the early career researchers would receive useful comments on their work. As a paper giver in a normal academic conference panel, by contrast, you can never be sure that your discussant has actually taken the time to read your work and prepare detailed feedback.

Third, the senior scholars commented on issues that are particularly relevant for early-career researchers, such as how to present your conference paper in a convincing manner. In one of the masterclasses, for example, the senior scholar advised the presenters to always face the audience while speaking, to put down only the key points of the paper on the slides and to practice the presentation at home beforehand to make sure it stays within the allowed time limit. The senior scholars were also prepared to answer any early academic career-related questions based on their own experience.

To improve the integration of postgraduates into a future edition of the conference, we might consider organising the masterclasses before the conference, as a separate event – for instance, on the day before (following the example of EISA). This would create space for the junior participants and senior scholars from all the masterclasses to interact with each other before the conference – for example, at a common reception or dinner.

If the masterclasses are billed as a separate event, the junior scholars will be able to take part both in a masterclass and in the normal conference as paper givers and can interact with more scholars. In that way, they get the best of both worlds.

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Since 2010, the EU’s political institutions have often been slow to respond to the challenges of the sovereign debt crisis, banking crisis and economic recession in much of the EU. In this context, the European Central Bank (ECB) has attempted to compensate for the political inertia with the adoption of a range of new unconventional monetary policies. This approach has, however, generated problems of its own, notably by undermining the ECB’s legitimacy: it has resulted in the ECB stretching its mandate, has led to an increasing politicization of the ECB’s decisions, and has undermined the transparency of both the ECB’s monetary policy and national macroeconomic policies.

Elections are not the only source of legitimacy
In democratic systems, legitimacy can stem from (at least) three different sources: First, it can stem from the participation of citizens in the election of political elites or the formulation of policies (input democracy). Second, it can be derived from policies that serve the general good (output legitimacy). And third, throughput legitimacy can come from the ‘quality of EU policymaking processes, judged by their efficacy, accountability, transparency, and inclusiveness’. This third concept is particularly relevant for non-majoritarian technocratic institutions (like central banks), that by nature perform poorly in terms of input legitimacy.

But what are the conditions of legitimacy in the case of an institution like the ECB? In the case of delegation to non-majoritarian institutions like the ECB, the mandate and powers of the institution should be clearly and narrowly defined and its policy-making should be characterized by a high level of ‘expertise, procedural rationality, transparency and accountability by results’. Similarly, Moravcsik finds a high level of ‘insulation’ of EU policy-making acceptable provided that the policies are regulatory, economic and fairly depoliticized. Before the sovereign debt crisis, academics often felt that the ECB’s precise mandate and policy output generated sufficient legitimacy (Majone, Moravcsik, Tallberg). The ECB could be criticized for lacking operational transparency, as its accountability to European institutions and national governments had been limited to ensure its independence. However, it could compensate for this by creating more transparency in national macroeconomic policy-making through its low-inflation policy, which prevented governments from using inflation as a tool to hide economic problems.

In the course of the sovereign debt crisis, many of these conditions for legitimacy were eroded. Specifically, the unconventional monetary policies of the ECB led to three problems.

Mandate stretching
The ECB’s policies stretched its original mandate in two respects. First, the mandate of the ECB as set out in the Maastricht Treaty defines the pursuit of low inflation (price stability) as the bank’s primary goal. Second, the Maastricht Treaty prohibits the monetization of member state debt and the ‘bail-out’ of one member state through another member state.

The inflationary effects of the ECB’s unconventional monetary policies became the subject of intense disagreement. This concerned especially the impact of the ECB’s liquidity boosting measures (notably, the purchase of covered bank bonds) and the ECB’s Securities Markets Programme (SMP) — specifically the purchase of sovereign debt on secondary markets of those euro area member states most at risk of default and facing high bond yields. Prior to mid-2012 euro area inflation remained well above the 2 per cent target and the ECB was frequently unable to neutralize the inflationary impact of its sovereign debt purchases. In Germany, in particular, the perceived departure from the ‘low inflation’ focus exposed the ECB to widespread criticism.

Second, the ECB pursued a course that arguably contradicted the treaty prohibitions on the monetization of sovereign debt and government bailout. Four nonconventional policies have had significant fiscal implications: the SMP, the Long Term Repurchase Operations (LTRO), the announced but yet to be activated Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) Programme and, most recently, Quantitative Easing (QE). With the exception of the OMT Programme, these policies undermine both the transparency of national fiscal and macroeconomic policy and the strength of national structural reform efforts.

Under the SMP (2010-2012), the ECB bought sovereign bonds in an effort to bring down debt yields, thus enabling governments to fund themselves at lower rates. The SMP was widely criticized for breaking the ban on the monetary financing of debt and transforming the ECB into, de facto, a ‘lender of last resort’.

In early August 2011, the ECB extended bond purchases beyond the three ‘Programme countries’ — that is the euro area member states that were subject to macro-economic policy programmes monitored by the ‘troika’ of the European Commission, the ECB and the International Monetary Fund — to two countries (Spain and Italy) that were not subject to ‘troika’ monitoring. Thus, the ECB acted as de facto ‘lender of last resort’ without the quid pro quo of fiscal / macroeconomic policy constraint, despite ECB’s claims that the SMP was adopted to restore the effective transmission of its monetary policy throughout the euro area.

LTRO involved lending to commercial banks at a very attractive 1 per cent fixed rate with unlimited access to central bank liquidity subject to the provision of adequate collateral. Collateral requirements were in turn eased a number of times and the maturity of LTROs was lengthened. The principal impact of LTRO was that euro area banks — especially those in the periphery — borrowed funds to purchase sovereign debt with higher yields — notably that on the periphery. In addition to contributing very directly to the dangerous sovereign debt-bank doom loop, the ECB’s LTRO operations effectively helped to lower sovereign debt yields by increasing demand, thus allowing the cheaper financing of governments.

Third, the OMT Programme consists principally in a promise to conduct unlimited interventions in secondary sovereign debt markets to purchase the debt of a country on the condition that the member state government concerned accepts the conditions of a European Stability Mechanism (ESM) programme. In effect, OMT allowed the ECB to act potentially as a ‘lender of last resort’ in government bond markets.  It also amounted to a significant form of ‘slippage’ in terms of the potential fiscal policy powers that the ECB assigned itself — albeit via the ESM.

Finally, on 22 January 2015, the ECB launched its QE programme with the purchase of up to €1.1 trillion in mostly government bonds. Officially, the ECB sought to diminish the risk of euro area deflation and bring the inflation rate up closer to target (ECB 2015). In practice, the desired and real effect of ECB policy was to lower government bond yields — albeit this time throughout the euro area — although the impact on different government debt varied, with yields on bonds already at historic lows.

The politicization of ECB policy-making
With the stretching of the ECB’s mandate, its decisions became increasingly politicized, in the sense that they attracted vocal internal and external criticism. Politicization took three main forms. First, dissent within the Governing Council and the opposition of the German Bundesbank and other Northern European Governing Council members to the ECB’s decision to engage in emergency bond buying exposed deep divisions over policy approaches. Northern European members argued that nonconventional monetary policy reduced the pressure on euro periphery governments to introduce much needed reforms.

Second, the tendency of governments to question ECB policy intensified. Government criticism focused on the ECB’s role in the Troika, but its unconventional monetary policies also attracted vocal criticism from the German government and especially Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble.

Third, the public took a greater critical interest in ECB policy-making and national political debate intensified. Public awareness of the ECB rose from 71 per cent in the autumn of 2007 to 85 per cent in the spring of 2015. In the meantime, public trust in the ECB declined from a high of 53 per cent in the Spring of 2007 to a low of 31 per cent in the Spring of 2014. The European Parliament also expressed concerns (ECB Annual Reports 2011 and 2012) over the ability of the ECB’s unconventional monetary policies to achieve their goals as well as over the risk of unintended consequences.

Non transparent monetary policy
In the course of the crisis, the ECB undertook a number of measures to improve its process legitimacy as it realized the increasing salience of its policies. For example, it moved to improve transparency through the publication of summaries of its meetings from 2015 onwards. However, at the same time, unconventional monetary policy arguably had the effect of creating less transparency on the ground. ECB unconventional monetary policy — by lowering bond yields — has undermined structural reform efforts in member states, thus directly contradicting stated ECB preferences on structural reform and the explicit objective of the Maastricht Treaty of avoiding the possibility of ‘fiscal dominance’. Furthermore, ECB monetary policy has undermined the transparency-inducing effects of EMU at the national level that Erik Jones vaunted.

Conclusion
Over the course of the sovereign debt crisis, both the ECB’s policies and the public perception of these policies changed. As a result, many arguments that had been used to support the democratic legitimacy of the ECB’s policies became less obviously valid. For a start, EU monetary policy is no longer regarded as a purely technocratic matter with limited (re)distributive effects. The ECB’s unconventional monetary policies supported certain member states while creating difficulties for other member states — notably Germany, given the impact of low and then negative real interest rates upon the country’s savers, pensions and banking sector.

The European Central Bank is at a crossroads. Its original mandate was to be an independent technocratic institution, the legitimacy and credibility of which was set in terms of meeting its price stability mandate — output legitimacy. However, from the outbreak of the sovereign debt crisis, ECB unconventional monetary policies had a significant impact upon the direction of euro area member state macro-economic policies — and in a manner that contradicted the ECB’s terms of delegation as outlined in the Maastricht Treaty, thus also undermining its input legitimacy. In light of the political salience of these policies and their impact, it is questionable whether the independence of the ECB remains democratically viable. ECB policy-making has become problematically controversial and politicized. At the very least, the reinforcement of European parliamentary scrutiny over ECB policy making is more urgent than ever.

Based on A.L. Högenauer and D. Howarth. 2016. “Unconventional Monetary Policies and the European Central Bank’s Problematic Democratic Legitimacy,” Journal of Public Law/Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht 71(2): 425–448.

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