EU Action Research Articles

Towards an EU Action Plan on Cetacean Bycatch

For decades, cetacean bycatch has been a major conservation and welfare concern in Europe, with high numbers of harbour porpoises, dolphins and whales continuing to die each year. Despite binding legal requirements to reduce bycatch, there has been limited effective monitoring or mitigation. Bycatch is also an important welfare issue. At this critical juncture, with discussion of incorporating monitoring and mitigation of bycatch of protected species in Europe into the Data Collection Framework and Technical Measures Framework taking place to help deliver the reformed Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), a clear, effective strategy could identify the steps that are required by all EU Member States to reduce bycatch towards zero. Here, implementation of current monitoring and mitigation obligations are reviewed. Recommendations are made for the provision of clear EU guidance in order to improve and unify population surveillance and bycatch monitoring, with enhanced implementation and enforcement from Member States. A more regionalised evidence-based approach to monitoring and mitigation is in line with the move to more regionalised management under the CFP, with Member States robustly showing that bycatch levels are decreasing over a set period of time (e.g. 5 years) by a specified amount. To this end, an EU Action Plan on Cetacean Bycatch, comparable to the existing 2012 Action Plan for reducing incidental catches of seabirds in fishing gear, might be beneficial and could ultimately form a model for an international Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) Cetacean Bycatch Reduction Action Plan.

THE EU’S HOTSPOT APPROACH TO MANAGING THE MIGRATION CRISIS: A BLIND SPOT FOR INTERNATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY?

Announced by the European Commission in its 2015 European Agenda on Migration as one of the EU’s priority tools to face the “unprecedented” migration crisis the Union was experiencing, the “hotspot” approach consists of a common platform for EU agencies (namely, the European Asylum Support Office, Frontex, Eurojust, and Europol) to intervene, rapidly and in an integrated manner, in frontline Member States when there is a crisis due to specific and disproportionate migratory pressure at their external borders. The goal was to reduce the pressure at the borders of the most affected Member States to “normal” levels while ensuring the proper reception, identification, and processing of arrivals. The present contribution makes some introductory remarks on issues of international responsibility under international law emerging from the implementation – by State and EU actors – of the hotspot approach. In particular, the analysis will focus on problems related to the attribution of conduct, in light of the large number of subjects involved in the relevant activities. In this respect, this contribution will highlight first the function of hotspots. Then, the discussion will analyze the position of different actors involved in the hotspot approach in light of the international law framework on international responsibility. An assessment of what has been discussed in the preceding sections is contained in the final part.

Making sense of big data in health research: Towards an EU action plan.

Medicine and healthcare are undergoing profound changes. Whole-genome sequencing and high-resolution imaging technologies are key drivers of this rapid and crucial transformation. Technological innovation combined with automation and miniaturization has triggered an explosion in data production that will soon reach exabyte proportions. How are we going to deal with this exponential increase in data production? The potential of “big data” for improving health is enormous but, at the same time, we face a wide range of challenges to overcome urgently. Europe is very proud of its cultural diversity; however, exploitation of the data made available through advances in genomic medicine, imaging, and a wide range of mobile health applications or connected devices is hampered by numerous historical, technical, legal, and political barriers. European health systems and databases are diverse and fragmented. There is a lack of harmonization of data formats, processing, analysis, and data transfer, which leads to incompatibilities and lost opportunities. Legal frameworks for data sharing are evolving. Clinicians, researchers, and citizens need improved methods, tools, and training to generate, analyze, and query data effectively. Addressing these barriers will contribute to creating the European Single Market for health, which will improve health and healthcare for all Europeans.

Reinterpreting the rules ‘by stealth’ in times of crisis: a discursive institutionalist analysis of the European Central Bank and the European Commission

This article examines the ways in which EU actors have engaged in incremental changes to the eurozone rules ‘by stealth’ ‒ that is, by reinterpreting the rules and recalibrating the numbers without admitting it in their public discourse. Using the methodological framework of discursive institutionalism to focus on agents’ ideas and discursive interactions in institutional context, the article links EU actors’ reinterpretation of rules to their efforts to ensure greater legitimacy in terms of policy performance and governance processes as well as citizen politics. Using the normative theoretical framework of EU democratic systems theory, it analyses EU actors’ considerations of legitimacy not only in terms of their policies’ ‘output’ performance and citizens’ political ‘input’ but also the ‘throughput’ quality of their governance processes. The article illustrates this by elaborating on the different pathways to legitimation of the European Central Bank and the European Commission.

The circular economy concept needs to be geared to a resource-saving economic model to avoid running in circles (Statement)

In ‘The 30-year update’ of their Report to the Club of Rome concerning ‘The Limits to Growth’ (first published in 1972), the authors recalled in the preface the fundamental finding of the original report, namely that global ecological constraints related to resource use and emissions will have a significant influence on global developments in the twenty-first century. Resource constraints and the finite capacity of the Earth to absorb pollutants will – as a result of the necessary additional expenses to cope with these constraints – eventually lead to a (not necessarily abrupt) decline of the world economy. The authors initially “hoped that such deliberation would lead society to take corrective actions to reduce the possibilities of collapse”. However, despite all positive developments, the required course correction has not taken place and the global environmental status has become even worse. Some have dismissed the conclusions of a study conducted by a team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) headed by Dennis Meadows, as an overly pessimistic doomsday scenario disregarding the ability of the current economic system to adapt. The important issue is that the resources are finite and, sooner or later, the limits to further growth of material and energy flows will be reached. What matters much more in this context is the missed opportunity to initiate a fundamental change with a view to preventing the overshoot by driving the system in a sustainable direction. These are thoughts that also come to mind when examining the Commission communication, ‘Closing the loop - An EU action plan for the Circular Economy’, published in December 2015. It is rather difficult to see how this action plan could contribute to the desperately needed fundamental change of direction associated with significantly reduced resource use, as opposed to the concept of infinite growth enriched with circular flows. In this contribution the authors articulate ANEC’s perspective on the circular economy concept presented by the European Commission in December 2015.

Policies for a More Dematerialized EU Economy: Theoretical Underpinnings, Political Context and Expected Feasibility

Economic activities affect the environment through a multiplicity of channels. Besides generating GHG emissions that induce climatic changes, every modern economy is connected to the environment throughout a continuous flow of materials. To generate economic wealth, a modern economy demands natural resources, and produces a continuous flow of waste. The scarcity of natural resources and the negative externalities arising along the life cycle of the resources from the extraction of the resources to their transformation, the use of the final products and eventually the final disposal of the latter seem natural motivations for the current policy push towards a more dematerialized and a more circular economy. The EU in particular appears to be approaching a new frontier of the environmental policy. The main contribution of this paper is a qualitative assessment of this strategy. To this aim, we first investigate the theoretical and political rationale for the EU to foster dematerialization, and on this basis, we provide an economic assessment of the effective feasibility of the initiative. From a theoretical economics point of view, the paper provides an overview of the main externalities arising from materials’ extraction, use and disposal. In a policy perspective, the paper reviews the state of affairs of the major world countries (USA, Japan and China in particular) on this issue, and contextualizes the EU action in a global perspective. This paper investigates whether in this policy field the EU can globally play a decisive role by itself or its role may be limited to providing a good example for other countries to follow, as in the case of the reduction of GHG emissions. In the second part of the paper we discuss some of the most promising policies put forward by the DYNAMIX project. On the basis of the qualitative policy assessment performed in DYNAMIX, we illustrate why these measures might be worth serious consideration. A discussion regarding the political economy of the policies under scrutiny complements the analysis of their effectiveness and efficiency.

THE INFLUENCE OF MIGRATION CRISIS IN EUROPE ON EU-TURKEY RELATIONS (2015–2016)

The paper examines the impact of the migration crisis in the EU on the European Union's relations with Turkey. It is shown that for a number of reasons, including a result of EU actions taken from 2011 to 2015, EU has experienced an influx of migrants on a number of routes from the Western to the Eastern Mediterranean. The largest of them fell on Turkey, which has tried to use this factor to exert pressure on the EU in order to obtain economic and political preferences. The author examines the development of the EU migration policy in the context of the crisis, its trying to bring Turkey to cooperate and difficult negotiations, which took place at the summits of the EU-Turkey at the end of 2015. There have been disagreements among the EU countries, and the time factor, which Turkey took advantage of, advancing conditions for the closure of borders to Europe for migrants. Facing the influx of migrants the EU had to agree with a number of conditions, though not with all. The author shows that the agreement reached by the country in March 2016 is not universal, and a number of issues important to the resolution of the crisis, are waiting to be decided upon. However, according to the author, the development of the current crisis can lead both to the reform of the migration and border policy within the EU, and to restarting relations with Turkey. Though guessing on possibilities on Turkey's entry to the EU in the near future is still premature.

The EU-Turkey Refugee Agreement of Autumn 2015 as a Two-Level Game

The Syrian refugee crisis has put EU-Turkey relations under pressure for action, as in 2015 hundreds of thousands used the Turkey-Balkan route to entre central Europe. However, with some countries as Germany, Austria, and Sweden ‘suffering’ more than others under the influx, pressure for action including Turkey was especially high in these countries. Against this background, the article aims to analyse the EU-Turkey negotiations of autumn 2015 as a ‘two-level game’, with special interest on domestic factors possibly to impact on Turkish or German bargaining power. In both countries, the need for an agreement in the refugee issue at international level was accompanied by specific domestic conditions such as the contested ‘open-doors policy’ introduced ad hoc by chancellor Merkel on September 4, 2015, as well as the hung parliament after the June elections on the Turkish side. Against this obvious entanglement of domestic and international issues, the article applies the basic logic of ‘two level games’ as introduced by Robert Putnam on the EU/German-Turkish negotiations leading up to the ‘refugee deal’ (EU action plan) of November 2015. Among others, it turned out that significant veto powers in both countries were not in sight and that a non-agreement would have raised the political costs for Germany more than for Turkey, thus enlarging the German ‘win-set’ size of acceptable solutions.

EU Policies in the Arab World: Update and Critical Assessment

This article provides an update and critical assessment of EU action in the Middle-East and North Africa (MENA), a region frequently referred as to the European Southern Neighbourhood. It examines the different instruments and approaches, which are put at work by a variety of institutional actors (EU Commission, Directorate-Generals (DGs), Development Cooperation (DEVCO), EU’s Humanitarian Office (ECHO) and Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (NEAR); as well as the EEAS and the Member States), and which in their combination are shaping the EU’s MENA policy. The particular focus is on the politico-organizational interplay between the EU’s institutional architecture, and the effects of EU policies on the political order in the Middle-East and the ArabWorld. The questions are: What can we reasonably expect from EU external action in MENA? Does EU foreign policy-making at all affect power and governance structures in the MENA region? To what extent, and under what conditions is the EU likely to contribute to promoting democracy and stability? Adopting a case study research strategy, the article analyses the design and implementation of individual policy issues in the areas of security, crisis management, international cooperation and development, and studies the effects thereof in three countries within the region. Based on document review, interviews with policy makers and direct observation, taking into account the local context in recipient countries, as well as the regional and geopolitical dimension, the article contributes to empirical research on EU action in a global hotspot area, undergoing turbulence and violent transformation. Results point to an overstrained Europe, ill-prepared underperforming in the face of the colossal challenges in a radically transformed socio-political and security context. The consequence has been a series of uncoordinated ad-hoc actions by individual member states and the general sense of disunity.

Health policy and health systems: a growing relevance for the EU in the context of the economic crisis

Health systems in Europe were hit by the economic crisis to various degrees. Evidence from worst affected countries shows detrimental consequences for health systems and health outcomes. EU member states face an increased risk of cross-border health threats given the growing difficulties to prevent and control infectious disease outbreaks with resources limited by cuts to public spending on health. Although health systems constitute a core national competence, the crisis has triggered the extension of EU economic surveillance over this field. The related debate focuses on the added value of EU action to support health systems in coping with the crisis challenges vs. the constraints imposed by stricter EU fiscal governance on national health policymakers. This paper provides an analysis of the changes triggered by the economic crisis. The analysis focuses on the EU level, exploring the changes in the output of EU institutions and their (possible) implications for health systems.

The (Il)legitimacy of EU state building: local support and contention in Kosovo

This article investigates legitimacy of EU state building and conflict resolution as a continuous and collective process through which local stakeholders, as the direct bearers of EU policies, ascribe meaning and support for the EU actors and actions on the ground. Contrary to the static and narrow understanding of legitimacy in the EU literature, the article offers a dynamic framework of legitimacy based on two main aspects: (i) sources of legitimacy (input and output) and (ii) objects of legitimacy (diffuse and specific support) in order to trace the complicated relationship between the EU and different local groups (the government, parliamentary opposition, local NGOs and public opinion) in Kosovo. The main argument is that the EU fails to generate local consent and faces a worsening erosion of support in Kosovo due to the limited participation of local stakeholders into the EU-promoted political decision-making structures and the contested ability of the EU to foster outcomes that have salience for local actors.

Should the European Union regulate commercial arbitration?: Table 1.

The European Union (EU or ‘Union’) does not regulate commercial arbitration. This article reflects on whether regulation of commercial arbitration by the Union is appropriate, necessary, and warranted. It reviews the background to, and the context in which, this issue has arisen, discusses the historical reasons why arbitration has not been separately regulated by the EU, and examines the scope of existing regulation of arbitration in Europe, both internationally and at Member State level. Additionally, this article considers whether the EU is competent to regulate this area and whether such regulation is warranted with reference to core principles of EU constitutional law. In particular, it considers whether the introduction of EU regulation of arbitration would be a proportionate response to perceived gaps. The article also reviews the potential scope of EU regulation. It concludes that such regulation would only be justified to the extent that conflicts issues could be meaningfully addressed by EU action, in furthering the creation of an area of freedom, security, and justice, in a number of discrete areas. The article suggests that legislators ought to avoid harmonizing unnecessarily the law of arbitration in the EU, in light of the comprehensive coverage already provided by the New York Convention and the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Model Law, and recommends that the EU should encourage its Member States to adopt the Model Law to the fullest extent possible, which, together with the New York Convention, should serve to further the harmonization of arbitral regulation within the EU.

Shaping the ‘Energy Union': between national positions and governance innovation in EU energy and climate policy

The ‘Energy Union' can be seen as the most significant policy idea that seeks to reform European energy governance, policy and regional cooperation. However, so far the concept is mostly an empty box in which every stakeholder tries to put whatever is on the top of their priority list. This article reviews three major theoretical approaches to the analysis of European integration and EU policy that can be used to study the ongoing process of Energy Union formation. It then tries to structure the discussion by showing the evolution of the Energy Union concept, focusing on proposals by D. Tusk, J-C. Juncker and the European Commission, followed by a comparative analysis of four country cases representing different energy mixes and energy policy directions: Germany, France, Poland and Norway. All of these proposals are described and assessed according to their emphasis on the three dimensions of energy policy: security, affordability and sustainability. We sketch two possible scenarios for the future of EU energy policy, as suggested by the intergovernmentalist and supranationalist approaches and emphasize the potential impact of the governance mechanism of the Energy Union, which could reach far beyond what is expected and provide welcome coherence in Europe's energy and climate policy.Policy relevanceThe article structures the policy debate on the Energy Union, discussing the different elements and instruments proposed by key EU actors and provides a useful overview of national interests of some important players, set in the context of their wider systemic conditions and policy goals. The framework for comparing the different proposals and national positions is built around the ‘energy policy triangle'. The article concludes with a discussion of possible future scenarios, as well as an in-depth discussion of the potential role of the governance mechanism.

Taking Flight or Crashing Down? European Common Foreign Policy and International Crises

What was the level of commonality in European foreign policy for recent international crises? This article assesses the level of commonality by conducting a chronological comparative content analysis to bring to light the rhetoric of European powers (United Kingdom, France and Germany) and EU actors. It focuses on the crises between Russia and Georgia in 2008 and the civil war in Libya of 2011. The article argues that states often converged in their positioning on a wide range of issues, even in moments of crisis. However, it also reveals that they remain in control of the timing of their statements and that EU actors were weak. This paper puts forth a novel tool to assess European foreign policy in times of crisis, it provides empirical data on the subject and highlights the importance of different types of issues in the assessment of commonality.

Why Union Law Can and Should Protect Stateless Persons

This contribution argues that the European Union can and should establish a legal framework for the identification and protection of stateless persons who reside in one of the Member States. Our proposal for EU legislative action is based on the observation that the post-war international legal framework for protecting stateless persons has failed to take root in a majority of EU Member States. This contribution analyses the potential of the EU to address protection failures stemming from legislative inactivity of Member States. We argue that the EU is competent to address the issue and that EU action need not conflict with Member States’ prerogatives in nationality matters. The key elements of an EU directive on statelessness would consist of common criteria for i) a fair procedure for determining whether a person is stateless; ii) the standard of treatment to be accorded to stateless persons; and iii) the conditions of residence for stateless persons.

Euro-Mediterranean Gas Cooperation: Roles and Perceptions of Domestic Stakeholders and the European Commission

The EU external energy policy has triggered heated debate among policymakers, regulators, academia and industrial stakeholders over recent decades. This article maintains that the gas sector has been of less interest to all these parties, because of its inertia and relative backwardness, compared to the electricity and renewable energy industries. However, since the Russia-Ukraine gas disputes, matters related to Euro-Mediterranean gas cooperation are back at the forefront of the energy agenda. The ever-changing nature of the EU external energy policy in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is analysed in this paper by looking at the influence that EU economic interests and approach have had on the southern neighbourhood. The paper provides an overview of the political economy of gas industry development in the EU and its relationship with exporting countries in the Mediterranean basin. It further explores how EU actions and influence as rule promoter are able to provide a valid template for the emerging regulatory framework in the region. While the changing relationship with its southern neighbourhood can be described as part of the process of progressive securitization of energy matters, EU influence can hardly be described as the focal point of gas dynamics in the Mediterranean region. Member States’ gas policies appear to have a greater traction, in consideration also of their vast and long term economic commitments.

Focus: Workers mustn't pay for Brexit

INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 3 Volume 23 Issue 2 2016 FOCUS ❐ BREXIT Workers mustn’t pay for Brexit In response to EU requirements, the government had to legislate to protect rights that would have been difficult to secure in the UK and are particularly vulnerable to attack because of Brexit The government should also act to protect working people’s pensions. The shock experienced by investment markets since the referendum risks inflating pension scheme deficits and undermining trustees’ funding plans. The Pensions Regulator should allow maximum flexibility in scheme funding to ensure that short-term volatility doesn’t lead to a fresh round of pension fund closures and a hit to both the long-term savings of UK workers and the capacity of British companies to invest for the future. Rights at work UK workers should also not pay the price of voting to leave the EU in terms of reduced rights at work. The European Union has played a central role in protecting working people from exploitation , combating discrimination and promoting good employment practices. Politicians from both sides defended these rights as part of the referendum campaign. The government should commit not to repeal any of the rights which are guaranteed by the EU. Watering down or dismantling this legislation would amount to a direct attack on the basic rights, security and standards of living working people and a denial of campaign promises. It would also risk further damaging confidence and spending, when it is vital not to let demand in the economy weaken. Since the mid-1970s, action taken by the European Union has played a central role in maintaining employment, in protecting of working people from exploitation, in combating discrimination and social exclusion and promoting good employment practices. In response to campaigns by trade unions in Britain and the rest of Europe, the EU adopted a diverse range of treaty provisions and directives that provide important employment protections, safeguard health and safety, and promote equality in the workplace. In some areas where the EU has legislated the UK already had laws in place such as equal pay, maternity rights, sex, disability and race discrimination, and health and safety. Even so, EU action in these areas has improved and extended rights and now underpins them, making it more difficult for the UK government to undermine them unilaterally. In other areas, the UK had to legislate for the first time in response to EU requirements. In some cases laws that resulted directly from EU directives are now broadly accepted, for example around sexual orientation, age and religion or belief discrimination. But other rights would have been difficult to secure in the UK and are particularly vulnerable to attack because of the referendum result. For example, UK governments strongly resisted equal treatment rights for agency workT he voters have been clear that they want the UK to leave the European Union. The task for the UK’s leaders is to work out how that can be achieved without working people paying the price. Years of uncertainty will be unhelpful for investment and would leave working people unable to plan their own futures. Investors will postpone job-creating investment until they know the UK’s future path, and people will put off major life decisions such as whether to marry, change jobs, start a family or buy a home. The government must urgently bring together a team of people to plan Britain’s next steps. This team must be cross-party, and have members not only from the London, Northern Ireland, Scottish and Welsh administrations but also representatives of employers and unions. The top priority is to protect access to the EU’s single market, to which nearly half of our manufacturing and much of our services are exported. We need to build the growing consensus in favour of an arrangement that would guarantee jobs and rights at work, while respecting the wishes of the electorate to leave the EU. It may not be possible to secure consensus for an existing model of such relationships: we may need a specifically ‘British model’. But there are some key areas we can already map out – about wages, rights and taking back control of...

Energetická bezpečnost Evropské unie a její vztahy s Íránem

The current instability in Ukraine associated with the crisis in relations with the Russian Federation sparked between the Member States of the European Union fears about their own energy security. In this situation, the political leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran have repeatedly said that Iran is ready and able to deliver large amounts of EU natural gas. The main aim of this article is through the basic criteria of the EU actorness to analyze the external dimension of energy-security relations of the European Union against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In the shadow of fortress Europe? Impacts of European migration governance on Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia

ABSTRACTThis article analyses European integration's effects on migration and border security governance in Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia in the context of ‘governed interdependence’. We show how transgovernmental networks comprising national and EU actors, plus a range of other participants, blur the distinction between the domestic and international to enable interactions between domestic and international policy elites that transmit EU priorities into national policy. Governments are shown to be ‘willing pupils’ and ‘policy takers’, adapting to EU policy as a pre-condition for membership. This strengthened rather than weakened central state actors, particularly interior ministries. Thus, in a quintessentially ‘national’ policy area, there has been a re-scaling and re-constitution of migration and border security policy. To support this analysis, social network analysis is used to outline the composition of governance networks and analyse interactions and power relations therein.

EU, US and ASEAN Actorness in G20 Financial Policy‐Making: Bridging the EU Studies–New Regionalism Divide

AbstractThis article compares the European Union's (EU) actorness in foreign financial policy to that of the US and ASEAN. It thus contributes to the dialogue between EU studies and the New Regionalism by putting it into practice through comparative research. It argues that a process‐oriented interpretation of the actorness concept can be used to compare the EU to both nation‐states and international organizations at the same time. This makes it possible to examine the ‘nature of the beast’ in specific foreign policy contexts on empirical grounds. The case study analyses EU, US and ASEAN actorness in the IMF reform negotiations within the G20 framework. The findings suggest that a ‘two‐way comparison’ of the EU is not only possible but also provides valuable empirical insights into the role of informal politics in the EU and other regions.