Common European Approach Research Articles

Forum: Towards a European Nuclear Deterrent

America’s potential strategic disengagement from Europe is leading key European powers – in particular, France, the United Kingdom and Germany – to reconsider the role of nuclear weapons in European security in the absence of extended US nuclear deterrence. Here leading French, British and German analysts offer anticipatory assessments of their countries’ national perceptions, policies and preferences with respect to formulating a common European approach. They discuss, respectively, France’s tentative overture to its European allies, Britain’s willingness against broad constraints, and the tension between Germany’s entrenched caution and its rising threat perceptions. While there are options that could produce a viable European nuclear deterrent, they would require a degree of national flexibility and European financial support that is currently difficult to imagine. This reality check should give European nuclear hawks pause.

Dispersion behaviour of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) nanosheets in different exposure media and determination of its toxicity using in-vitro and in-silico approaches

MoS2 nanocomposites have been used in a wide range of environmental, biomedical, and energy-related applications due to their unique physicochemical properties. On the contrary, fewer attempts were made to understand its environmental sustainability, fate, and toxicity. The present study reports the synthesis, characterisation, dispersion behaviour, cellular uptake, toxicity, and in-silico docking of trigonal prismatic (2H) defect-rich MoS2 nanosheets. The applicability of a common European approach to the regulatory testing of nanomaterials (NANoREG) was employed to understand the dispersion stability of MoS2 nanosheets. Particle size analysis was used to understand the interaction between MoS2 nanosheets and biomolecules present in the environmental matrices. Prolonged exposure (48 h) of MoS2 nanosheets to HepG2 cells resulted in a significant increase in cellular uptake of Mo compared to that in cells exposed for 1 h. Significant reduction in the cell viability was noticed in HepG2 cells exposed to 500 mg/L (p ≤ 0.05) and HL-60 cells exposed to 1000 mg/L (p ≤ 0.01) and 500 mg/L (p ≤ 0.05) of MoS2 nanosheets concentrations for 48 h. Forward/side scatter plots in flow cytometric assays (apoptosis and mitochondrial permeability) revealed alterations in cellular morphology of HL-60 cells treated with higher concentrations (≥100 mg/L) of MoS2 nanosheets for 48 h. Loss of mitochondrial membrane potential (ΔΨm) was observed in cells treated with higher concentrations (≥100 mg/L) of MoS2 nanosheets. The results obtained by in vitro analysis suggest that MoS2 nanosheets are toxic at higher doses and not at environmentally relevant concentrations. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study of its kind that demonstrates the cellular and molecular toxicity of MoS2 nanosheets, along with its in silico interactions with the key sixteen macro-molecules involved in programmed cell death.

Integrative nursing in Europe - A competency profile for nursing students validated in a Delphi-study

BackgroundIntegrative nursing is a framework for providing holistic care and includes complementary therapies and non-pharmacological interventions. There is no common European approach on how to educate healthcare professionals on complementary therapies and non-pharmacological interventions for symptom management. Nurses report a lack of formal education as the main barrier to applying integrative nursing. ObjectivesThe aim of this study is to develop and validate integrative nursing learning outcomes in a competency profile for bachelor nursing students. MethodsA two-round Delphi study was conducted with experts on integrative nursing and/or nurse education from eight European countries. The expert panelists rated their level of agreement with learning outcomes in relation to “Knowledge, Skills, Responsibility and Autonomy” on a nine-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree/9 = strongly agree) and were invited to add comments in an open text field. The Rand manual's description of levels of appropriateness was used, and experts' suggestions were analyzed thematically and used for reformulating or adding learning outcomes. ResultsIn the first round, 19 out of 23 experts participated, versus 18 in the second round. In all, thirty-five learning outcomes within the three areas Knowledge, Skills and Responsibility/Autonomy were rated. After two Delphi rounds, twenty-four included learning outcomes were classified as appropriate, with median levels of appropriateness between 7 and 9; none had been classified as inappropriate. The learning outcomes include general knowledge about selected complementary therapies and non-pharmacological interventions, safety, national rules and regulations, communication and ethical skills and competencies for self-care actions and for applying simple evidence-based complementary therapies and non-pharmacological interventions in nursing practice. ConclusionsThe competency profile consist of validated competencies; the high degree of consensus from the expert panelists makes the learning outcomes relevant for structuring a teaching module for nursing students about integrative nursing.

4.O. Workshop: Using data to save lives in times of COVID-19 and beyond

This presentation will comprise three notable European initiatives on the use and re-use of health data to save lives in times of COVID-19 and beyond the pandemic.Building a European Health Data Space and infrastructures supporting itThe Commission will put forward a legislative proposal on European Health Data Space, supporting the use of data for healthcare, for research and policy making.As part of the European Health Data Space, it will also support the infrastructure allowing patients to share their health data with healthcare professionals when travelling abroad, in the language of the professional, thus avoiding repeating costs or diagnostic and medication errors stemming from misunderstandings.While aiming at creating a vibrant data ecosystem in the European Health Data Space, the Commission is exploring ways to overcome cross-border challenges on re-use of health data for policy, regulatory and research activities. Leveraging on the know-how and experience of national health data permit authorities and established data infrastructures, the EHDS pilot initiative aims at setting up a demonstrator for an overarching federated infrastructure enabling cross-country, cross-domain (health domains: mental health, genomic, cancer, rare diseases, etc.) re-use of health data. A set of use cases (observational studies) will be piloted to assess the value and impact that such overarching infrastructure would entail for EU-wide health data analytical studies.The European Digital COVID CertificateFollowing the start of the vaccination campaign in December 2020, a lot of hope was placed in the use of vaccination certificates as a potential tool for supporting the gradual lifting of travel restrictions. Later, test and recovery certificates were added in the scope of the system, named EU Digital COVID Certificate. A legal proposal was prepared by the Commission, and fast-tracked by both the Council and the European Parliament. Current state of play on the use of EU Digital COVID Certificate will be presented.A common European approach for digital contact tracingOne of the key challenges during the early weeks of the pandemic was the establishment of an effective tracing system given the testing capacity limitations. Several research teams, in the EU and across the globe, started early on developing digital systems for contact tracing that would preserve privacy of users. This led soon to the deployment of the first contact tracing and warning applications that allow automatically alerting users at risk of COVID-19 infection. There are currently over 20 national contact tracing applications rolled out in the EU, and almost all of them are connected at European level enabling citizens to rely on a single mobile application when travelling across the connected countries.Speakers/Panelists Ioana Gligor Digital Health and European Reference Networks, DG Sante, European Commission Licinio Kustra Mano Strategic Advisor, EU Cross-Border eHealth Services, European Commission Konstantin Hypponen Policy Officer, DG Sante, European Commission Ander Elustondo Jauregui Policy Officer, DG Sante, European Commission

The common EU approach to personal data and cybersecurity regulation

Abstract Several sector-specific studies on EU data protection and cybersecurity frameworks can be found in the literature, but their differing legal domains has hindered the development of a common analysis of the different sets of provisions from a business perspective. This article sets out to bridge this gap, providing a systematic review and a cross-cutting operational analysis of the main legal instruments that constitute the common European approach to personal data and cybersecurity regulation for the business sector. We aim to demonstrate the existence of a core of common principles and procedural approaches referring to specific cybersecurity and data security technologies. Analysis reveals a coordinated regulatory model based on five pillars: risk-based approach, by-design approach, reporting obligations, resilience and certification schemes. We also highlight the relationship between the main directives and regulations.

Fleeing from the Global Compact for Migration: A missed opportunity for Italy

This article examines the reasons that in December 2018 led both the Italian Parliament and Government to refrain from the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, which first Italy promoted as a way to revitalize the European Union’s solidarity and coordination, while lessening the uneven burden of migratory inflows into the country. Although it has been argued that ‘the opposition to the Compact has propagandistic objectives, that cannot be negotiated away’ (Gatti, 2018, p. 1) this article aims to demonstrate the wide socio-economic and political benefits that the Global Compact will bring to Italy if adopted, as well as the gains that an instrument of international migration governance will bring to national migration policy. This contribution also highlights the opportunities that the Global Compact offers for a truly common European approach to migration.

Use of a common European approach for nanomaterials' testing to support regulation: a case study on titanium and silicon dioxide representative nanomaterials.

The European Union (EU) continuously takes ensuring the safe use of manufactured nanomaterials (MNMs) in consumer products into consideration. The application of a common approach for testing MNMs, including the use of optimized protocols and methods' selection, becomes increasingly important to obtain reliable and comparable results supporting the regulatory framework. In the present study, we tested four representative MNMs, two titanium dioxides (NM100 and NM101) and two silicon dioxides (NM200 and NM203), using the EU FP7-NANoREG approach, starting from suspension and dispersion preparations, through to their characterization and final evaluation of biological effects. MNM dispersions were prepared following a refined NANOGENOTOX protocol and characterized by dynamic light scattering (DLS) in water/bovine serum albumin and in media used for in vitro testing. Potential genotoxic effects were evaluated on human bronchial BEAS-2B cells using micronucleus and Comet assays, and pro-inflammatory effects by cytokines release. Murine macrophages RAW 264.7 were used to detect potential innate immune responses using two functional endpoints (pro-inflammatory cytokines and nitric oxide [NO] production). The interaction of MNMs with RAW 264.7 cells was studied by electron microscopy. No chromosomal damage and slight DNA damage and an oxidative effect, depending on MNMs, were observed in bronchial cells. In murine macrophages, the four MNMs directly induced tumor necrosis factor α or interleukin 6 secretion, although at very low levels; lipopolysaccharide-induced NO production was significantly decreased by the titania and one silica MNM. The application of this approach for the evaluation of MNM biological effects could be useful for both regulators and industries.

Integrated Care: A Collaborative ADVANTAGE for Frailty

Frailty is increasingly recognised as a public health priority due to the associated demand for acute and longer term health and social care support, and the impact on the lives of individuals, caregivers and families. Integrated care is widely considered to be most effective when applied to an older population, but there is limited data on outcomes and costs from studies of integrated care to prevent and manage frailty. This paper describes work by the ADVANTAGE Joint Action (JA), co-funded by the European Union and 22 Member States, to develop a common European approach to the prevention and management of frailty. The authors reflect on the emerging evidence and experience of implementing integrated care for frailty, and invite readers to participate in ongoing dialogue on this topic through the ADVANTAGE JA website and IFIC Academy activities.

The influence of the state on the strategic choices of defence companies: the cases of Germany, France and the UK after the Cold War

This article aims to better understand the influence of public policies (and particularly public procurement) in strategic choices by defense companies after the end of the Cold War. Three countries were studied: Germany, France and the United Kingdom. In the early 1990s, governments as well as defense companies had to face various radical changes, such as drastic shifts in the geopolitical environment, major technological disruption (specifically in the field of information and communication) and globalization. Governments were expected to exert their responsibility for national defense in a context of strong incitation to reduce military spending (the so-called “Peace Dividends”). Despite an initial willingness to cooperate and promote a common European Defense approach, public policies varied widely among countries. The article identifies several similarities in the way defense companies responded to these national policies. The studied cases suggest a strong influence of public policy in how these companies re-designed their strategy. We conclude by depicting the complex, multi-dimensional environment of public defense policies and how they affect corporate strategies in an ever-evolving context. A comparison among key influencing factors suggests that the role of the state is not uniform across national borders.JEL Codes: L1, L5, F5, O3

Italy's development policy and the domestic politics of Europeanisation: why Europe matters so little

ABSTRACTIn spite of Italy's extraordinary ratio of foreign aid channelled through the European Union and its support for a common European approach to international development promoted by the European Commission, combined with significant Europeanisation pressures since the early 2000s, the ‘impact of Europe’ on Italy's development policy has been rather limited. Examining the issues of quantity and quality of aid between 2002 and 2014, and the process that led to the adoption of a new development law in 2014, this paper seeks to explain why Europe matters so little in the evolution of Italy's development policy. The central argument is that Italy's propensity to Europeanise its development policy depends on two key factors: domestic politics, in particular the different agendas of governing party coalitions; and the multilateralisation of aid, specifically the set of perverse effects it generates on the bilateral component of development policy, irrespective of changing governing coalitions.

A European Perspective on the Higher Education in Romania

This paper aims at offering an overview and a theoretical framework of the national specific of the Romanian Higher Education and the challenges that lie ahead for a common European approach to education (the Bologna process and the European Higher Education Area- EHEA). We examine the National Qualifications in the EHEA Framework by addressing aspects such as degree cycles; qualification levels; types of diplomas; quality assurance; credit transfer system and Diploma Supplement. A critical argumentation in terms of learning outcomes translatability and recognition of academic and professional qualifications is addressed. Also, we shortly present some challenges concerning the student population (underrepresented groups; student fees and scholarships; student mobility).The research methodology comprises a thorough literature review of the national policy as it is the decisive factor for the Romanian education system (the National Law of Education from 2011 and the latest Governmental Decisions; the National Qualifications Authority’s Self-certification Report 2011; and data produced by other accredited Romanian Agencies, such as the Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance and the National Centre for Recognition and Equivalence of Diplomas). Also, a main piece of literature that was of great importance is the European Union’s institutional perspective (data provided by the European Commission Eurostat- the statistical office of the European Union; Information Centres, and European Students’ Union), along with scientific studies in the area of higher education. Understanding the comparability mechanisms in tertiary education provides a common ground for bettering students and work-force mobility around the Globe.

The European Approach to Privacy

This paper critically assesses the character of European (Union’s) privacy law and policy in the field of online media and electronic communications. Contrary to current understanding, this field of law is more fragmented and ill-developed than is often assumed, in particular by those discussing privacy law and policy in an international and transatlantic context. In fact, some of the most challenging regulatory issues in the field of online media and electronic communications still lack a well-developed common European approach and remain the subject of regulation at the level of the different member states of the European Union. Drawing on historic insights, the paper shows how EU policy making in the field of privacy and data protection is and remains strongly influenced by the EU institutional setting. In particular, the paper shows that the specific substantive outcome of European privacy law and policy is strongly influenced by and can only be understood properly through the lens of the ongoing project of European integration more generally. The paper will develop its main thesis by focusing on three important and current privacy issues and their treatment by EU lawmakers and the EU legal system. These are: (I.) the question of retention of communications meta-data (e.g. traffic and location data) in the field of electronic communications; (II.) the legal framework for liability of search engines for privacy and reputational harms in the online environment, including a 'right to be forgotten', and (III.) the question of the security of and the potential lawful access by foreign governments to data in the cloud. After discussing these substantive privacy policy issues and the legal frameworks that have developed (and are developing) to address them at the EU level, the paper will analyze these frameworks in view of the apparent interplay of the substance of privacy law and policy at the EU level on the one hand and the broader constitutional and institutional dynamics related to EU competency and integration. The paper starts with a discussion of the basic underlying motivations, rationales and competences for addressing privacy issues at the European level, which until recently were predominantly economic in nature. The implication of this is that some of the most pressing data privacy issues which are primarily non-economic in character, have been addressed at the fringes of what could be called the European approach to data privacy, in which the establishment of a functioning European internal market and the free flow of personal data under sufficient safeguards relating to data privacy are the dominant concerns. More recently, the adoption of the Lisbon treaty, the establishment of a binding right to data protection and privacy in the EU Charter and a new legal basis for the establishment of data protection rules at the EU level, EU privacy law and policy has become increasingly connected to the furtherance of the protection of privacy and data protection as fundamental rights more generally. Through the case studies in the paper, this dynamic of how policy rationales end up playing out at the EU level and inform the substance of privacy policies adopted, is illustrated in detail. In particular, the analysis shows how EU policy making tends to strive towards a common and comprehensive European approach, but typically fails to take account of some of the leading concerns, and is often simply not equipped or even allowed to include them in the process. For instance, there is significant disagreement about the weight that should be attributed to freedom of expression concerns in the online environment and the role of the EU with respect to media and the proper balancing of freedom and privacy in the media remains limited. With respect to national security concerns there are no European harmonization of national approaches at all. The result is that important policy concerns from the perspective of privacy in electronic communications end up being addressed indirectly, inefficiently and incompletely, through the European data privacy frameworks that may aspire to be comprehensive but would need significant reforms to achieve this aim. The article will discuss possible reforms but will warn against aspirations of further harmonization and unification of European Privacy Law. In the absence of fundamental institutional reform of the EU, further harmonization could end up being detrimental to other important policy goals currently addressed largely outside of the EU legal framework, including the issues of media freedom, criminal procedural justice and the protection of privacy and information security in relation to foreign intelligence agencies specifically discussed in this paper.

EU Donor Policies in Situations of Fragility: Promoting ‘Resilience’?

In recent policy papers on developmental statebuilding, for example in the European Report on Development in 2009, the concept of ‘resilience’ has been introduced as an alternative to ‘fragility’ and ‘fragile states’. This concept even offers the possibility of forging a ‘common European approach’. Although a considerable number of donor agencies (and, in particular, the European Commission since 2012) have adopted the concept and are applying it in some of their guidelines and strategies, the state of implementation in concrete interventions is unclear at present. Taking the development cooperation of the European Union and its member states in South Sudan as an example, this article assesses the current status of resilience in statebuilding efforts to be ambivalent: although there is little explicit reference to the concept in current country strategies and concrete programming, some components of resilience inform interventions.

An Additional Protective Layer: The Case of Religious Discrimination in the United Kingdom and Germany

This paper compares how two closely related remedies, freedom of religion and the belief discrimination, are applied by domestic courts in the United Kingdom and Germany. It concludes that the current practice of the courts in these two countries differs considerably and questions why that is so given that the courts in both countries operate under essentially the same European legal framework determined by the ECHR and the EU law. It is suggested that decision-making by domestic courts is still influenced by traditional domestic remedies and that domestic courts seem to find it difficult to adapt to new remedies. The article then gauges the potential for a common European approach, which, while theoretically possible, is unlikely to be triggered by either of the two European courts. This is because cases dealing with religion often touch on core constitutional values, which both courts usually respect.

The Guidelines Management of Work-related Asthma as an example of necessary international collaboration

It is a pleasure to write this in honour of Xaver Bauer’s Festschrift. Xaver Baur’s enthusiasm and persistence carried this project to a very successful conclusion, providing the first European evidence-based guidelines for the management of occupational asthma (Baur, Sigsgaard et.al. 2012). The problems to overcome were considerable; the project had 13 contributors from 8 political administrations, speaking 7 native languages with one leader. The guidelines define occupational asthma as “a disease characterised by variable airflow limitation and/or hyper-responsiveness associated with inflammation due to causes and conditions attributable to a particular occupational environment and not to stimuli encountered outside the workplace” (Baur, Sigsgaard et.al. 2012). European countries interpret this differently as reflected in national statistics. The numbers (per million workers/year) recorded with occupational asthma is shown in figure 1 (Baur, Aasen et al 2012). It is very unlikely that the incidence of occupational asthma differs more than twentyfold between European countries. The differences are much more likely to reflect the rules for compensation and access to specialist centres. Defining a disease legally rather than medically is a dangerous way forward and unlikely to lead to the best care for patients and the necessary control of exposures needed to reduce occupational asthma. Finland probably has the best services and standards of care for workers with occupational asthma, and some of the better working conditions. The high numbers (which they believe are an underestimate) are likely to reflect countrywide standards of diagnosis and care, rather than rely on pockets of enthusiasm which is the more common European approach.

INTeg-Risk project: concept and first results

In 2012, the iNTeg-Risk project (www.integrisk.eu-vri.eu) has successfully finished its first 3 years of work. At this point, the project has already yielded a part of large set of results envisaged for its 4.5 years long work plan. This paper recalls the main goals of the project and analyzes the results delivered; as for instance, the work done in single emerging risk representative applications, the work on the development on the iNTeg-Risk paradigm, framework and methodologies of/for emerging risk management, the work on ‘iNTeg-Risk 1StopShop’ (the platform for integrating project results) and its main elements –Risk Atlas, RiskEars (the database of early emerging risk indications/notions), the database of key performance indicators, the work on Safetypedia, etc. The work on harmonization of practices when dealing with emerging risks is certainly the most relevant result in the first years of work on the project. The work has been based on (a) the comparison of different application areas and (b) definition of the elements needed for building the ‘common European approach’ to emerging risks. Some real-life events which took place in the first 2 years of the project (e.g. oil spill in Gulf of Mexico, Fukushima disaster accident in Viareggio, incidents caused by unmanned devices, natural hazards in populated areas, …) have clearly justified some of the choices made in the definition phase of the project. In addition, they have confirmed the need to strengthen the efforts needed to achieve a common understanding about principles of dealing with emerging risks on the broader level – e.g. in the area of EU standardization where the respective preparatory work has started, too.

The Europeanization of France's foreign policy towards the Middle East conflict – from leadership to EU-accommodation

France's prominent role in Europe's policy towards the Arab-Israeli conflict represents an interesting case study for the evolving research on Europeanization. While France's involvement in the CFSP is frequently described as a case of national projection through the EU, this view needs qualification. Proposing a novel conceptual categorization of different member state approaches to European foreign policy cooperation, this article shows that France's involvement in Europe's Middle East policy has gone through different phases. Guided by de Gaulle's politique arabe, France assumed a ‘leadership’ role in Europe's common foreign policy, leaving a strong mark on its collective diplomacy. Since the 1990s, however, a number of complementary changes have weakened France's capacity for leadership, challenging well-established French foreign policy positions. France's response to the mounting constraints of EU-level cooperation has oscillated between ‘re-nationalization’ and efforts to ‘facilitate’ a common European approach, displaying a considerable degree of pragmatism and tactical adaptation.

The rise of the European corporate elite: evidence from the network of interlocking directorates in 2005 and 2010

The emerging European corporate network is becoming increasingly established. Here I compare the network of board interlocks among the largest stock listed European firms in 2005 and 2010. The findings show that, by 2010, the European network of corporate board interlocks was stronger than five years earlier. Whereas the European political elite was unable to counter the financial crisis through a common European approach, Europe is a fait accompli for the corporate elite. An analysis of the robustness of the network, its core, the central directors and the political geography suggests that there is a structural basis for overcoming the present Euro crisis that has been handled primarily at the political level.

Analysis of the determinants of sports participation in Spain and England

This article investigates the role of sociodemographic characteristics, educational and economic variables on sports participation in a comparative way in two European countries: Spain and England. Adopting a broad concept of sport, as in the common European approach, we analyse the determinants of sports participation in 40 different professional and nonprofessional sports and recreational activities in both countries. The research involves a comparative analysis between the data of England and Spain based on two logistic regressions. The regression equation of every country tests the effect of 17 binary explanatory variables on a dependent binary variable for participation. Higher education level, professional occupation, younger age and being male are all factors associated with more sports participation. Although there is no difference in the direction of the factor effects on participation between England and Spain, there is considerable variation in their relative strength, which has sport policy implications in the two nations.

Bilateral Relations with Russia and the Impact on EU Policy: The Cases of Cyprus and Greece

This article aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of how two EU Member States, Greece and Cyprus, have influenced the evolution of common EU positions on Russia. Moreover, it exposes how the policies and positions taken up by Greece and Cyprus inside the EU have either undermined or reinforced a common European approach towards Russia across different policy themes.