EU Approach Research Articles

Are ‘carrots’ better than ‘sticks’? New EU conditionality and social investment policies in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy and Spain

This article asks whether the novel EU approach to member states’ economic adjustment strategies constitutes a ‘social investment turn’ by the Italian and Spanish welfare states. The analytical framework combines insights from different strands of the literature on policy change, in particular those devoted to policy legacies and to policy-making ‘conditionings’ (constraints and facilitators). The study assesses the extent of social investment, as advocated by EU country-specific recommendations, of the set of measures introduced to fight the socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and of programmatic documents issued by the Italian and Spanish executives, such as the State Budget Laws for 2021 and National Recovery and Resilience Plans. In order to evaluate the impact of new conditionality on policy outputs, the article then turns to consider the economic, social and policy legacies of the previous economic crisis and what would have been the prospects for a social investment turn in the absence of Next Generation EU funding. Conclusions show that, at least at the level of intentions, ‘carrots’ seem to be working better than ‘sticks’ on the quest for more intense social investment in Italy and Spain.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1057/s41295-022-00281-w.

Towards a stronger EU approach on the trade-labor nexus? The EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement, social struggles and labor reforms in Vietnam

The EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) deviates from the poor track record of ‘trade and sustainable development’ chapters in EU FTAs. Ahead of ratification, Vietnam embarked upon pathbreaking reforms, culminating in a new labor code and accession to outstanding ILO core conventions. This article assesses the role of the EVFTA in these reforms. Building on literatures on the trade-labor nexus and externalization of EU governance, we call for a more comprehensive analysis of power dynamics in partner countries and address this lacunae by embedding FTAs and labor reforms in a strategic-relational conceptualization of states. We argue that the ‘success’ of the EVFTA was the outcome of specific conjunctures of social forces in, and outside of, state institutions in the EU and Vietnam, and their mediation at the transnational level. Amid free trade skepticism in the EU, particular members of the Parliament and the Council wielded their veto powers to negotiate with Vietnam and pull the Commission into a stronger position. In Vietnam, the external pressure resonated with internal struggles and empowered reformists to drive forward labor reforms. Implementation, however, remains uncertain; and, context-dependent as it was, the EVFTA pre-ratification impact does not easily lend itself to replication in other FTAs.

Consistency versus “Gold Plating”: The EU Approach to Implementing the OECD Pillar Two

This article considers the proposed EU Directive to transpose the OECD Global Anti-Base Erosion (GloBE) Model Rules into EU secondary law. It describes the key aspects of the rules, notes the differences between the EU proposal and the OECD Model Rules, and demonstrates how the new charging provisions will operate.

Attaining policy integration through the integration of new policy instruments: The case of the Farm to Fork Strategy

AbstractThis article departs from the assumption that the challenge of putting the Farm to Fork Strategy (F2F) into action stems from the broader challenge of attaining cross‐sectoral policy integration. Policy integration has been part of the EU's policy approach for a long time and has predominantly been achieved in the form of environmental policy integration (EPI). However, the scope of the F2F extends beyond EPI, as it includes the integration of climate‐related concerns into sectoral policies, for instance. Consequently, we contend that attaining policy integration in the case of the F2F is particularly challenging and calls for an innovative approach to policymaking.

Ensuring contestability and fairness in digital markets through regulation: a comparative analysis of the EU, UK and US approaches

ABSTRACT In a society where individuals increasingly spend time on the internet, large online platforms have become, for many, unavoidable actors. As it is increasingly argued that competition policy alone cannot address all the systemic problems that they create in digital markets where quick reactions are indispensable, there seems to be a consensus across the globe that legislative action must be taken against a specific sub-set of these large online platforms in order to foster contestability and fairness. This contribution aims to analyse how the EU, UK and US legislators intend to do so through regulation. First, the scope of the digital platforms that would be subject to these regulatory initiatives, and the potential discrepancies in this regard, will be clarified. Then, the general approach and options taken in each of these jurisdictions to address this dependence issue will be outlined. Finally, the main discrepancies between these different approaches will be summarized.

The Political Economy of the EU Approach to the Rohingya Crisis in Myanmar

European institutions have repeatedly represented the EU as an actor that can use the attractiveness of its market to promote human rights internationally. From this perspective, EU trade sanctions represent a hard power tool to push the government of states accused of major human rights violations to abide by international law. In its reaction to the Rohingya crisis in 2018, despite the European Parliament’s call for the lifting of Myanmar’s trade preferences, the Council of the EU stated that it would rather tackle the problem by taking a “constructive approach” based on dialogue. We provide a political-economy explanation of this choice, making a plausible case that the political pressures from European importers and exporters, not to jeopardise trade relations with Myanmar, prevailed over the demands of European protectionist groups and NGOs advocating a tougher position. The firms interested in maintaining preferential trade relations with Myanmar were primarily motivated by a desire to avoid a disruption of trade and investment links within global value chains (GVCs) so that they could continue competing with Chinese enterprises.

Brexit and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement: Implications for Internal and External EU Differentiation

ABSTRACT Brexit represents a unique process of European disintegration. It has introduced a new model of external differentiation that is likely to have future implications for existing differentiation both within the EU and between the EU and third countries. An analysis of the new thin, distant and unfinished EU-UK relationship points to likely growing divergence over time. The technocratic governance structure of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) is strained by high-friction politics, and its effectiveness, sustainability and legitimacy remain highly contested. The TCA is a testament to a more hard-line EU approach towards third countries, attempting to signal strongly that membership matters, with flexibilities only benefitting those that sign up to the EU’s core principles.

Geopolitics Matters: Insights for Updating the EU's Approach to International Research and Innovation Cooperation

Geopolitics Matters: Insights for Updating the EU's Approach to International Research and Innovation Cooperation

The digital “militant democracy”: An analysis of platform regulation in Germany and at EU level

Germany introduced with the Network Enforcement Act in 2017 and the Interstate Media Treaty in 2021 a novel approach to platform regulation which goes further than in many other jurisdictions that have few or no or comparable measures in place. The new provisions could be seen as either ambitious or as going too far in meddling with the workings of private online actors. This paper examines the relevant measures in light of the notion of a “militant democracy”. Germany has been classified as a militant, democratic state given how its constitution and regulatory frameworks respond to anti-democratic threats. A link can be made between the objective of militant democracy and the German approach to hate speech. The foundation for both is the protection of human dignity, which constitutes an absolute value under the German constitutional law and may not be balanced with other fundamental rights. Examining the Network Enforcement Act and the Interstate Media Treaty, this paper finds that the classification of Germany as a militant democracy holds true in an online context. These measures are direct responses to novel threats to a fruitful public discourse, to the human dignity of individuals and ultimately to the democratic system at large. In its response to these threats, the German legislator adopts a divided approach towards online platforms, regarding the latter both as a potential ‘breeding ground’ for online hate, as well as potential allies when it comes to actions against infringements by individuals. This paper will discuss the nuances and challenges of the German approach and draw a comparison with the relevant provisions of current and future EU law, such as the E-Commerce Directive and the Digital Services Act. Despite sharing many of the same objectives, points of (potential) collision between the German and EU approaches are identified. Ultimately, both legislators have identified the need to act against online hate and online threats to a democracy, including a need to provide a stricter framework for platforms. The legislative measures discussed in this paper are some of the first instruments which pursue these goals in the field of platform regulation and oftentimes precision is still lacking in the formulation of relevant provisions.

Protection of Weaker Parties in Smart Contracts: The EU Approach

Protection of Weaker Parties in Smart Contracts: The EU Approach

The EU's Capacity to Lead the Transatlantic Alliance in AI Regulation

In the face of Chinese advances in AI in terms of technological prowess and influence, there has been a call for collaboration between the EU and the US to create a foundation for AI governance based on shared democratic beliefs. This paper maps out the EU, US, and Chinese approaches to AI development and regulation as we analyze the capacity of the US and EU to establish international standards for AI regulation through channels such as the TTC. As the EU rolled out a proportionate and risk-based approach to ensure stricter regulation for high-risk AI technologies, it laid the foundation for international rule-shaping in the AI domain. The important question is whether the EU can effectively collaborate with the US in response to China’s aggressive AI initiative and, more importantly, lead the transatlantic effort to become the “world-leading region on developing and deploying cutting-edge, ethical and secure AI.”

Comparative Collectivity - EU and US Approaches

Comparative Collectivity - EU and US Approaches

The European Regulatory Approach on Supply Chain Responsibility

The article presents four categories of EU approaches on regulating supply chain responsibility. Sometimes, like in the case of the Kimberley process for conflict diamonds or with respect to illegally fished fishery products, the EU enacts restrictions or prohibitions that are specifically targeted at the import of foreign products. These import regimes are distinguished from marketing prohibitions for unethically produced goods. The prime examples are the European bans on cat and dog fur and seals products, as well as a possible future ban on goods made from forced labour. While these categories impose negative duties for EU importers and producers, the author also looks at EU regulations imposing positive obligations of EU companies. They may either be required to report about supply chain responsibility or need to entertain due diligence with respect to their import activities. For the latter category, the author discusses the EU regulations on tropical timber, conflict minerals, deforestation and general due diligence. Hoffmeister shows how these regimes fit into the normative framework of the European Union’s foreign policy objectives and argues that they are WTO compatible. He also provides a short comparative assessment about their effectiveness.

РЕГУЛЮВАННЯ ЕНЕРГЕТИЧНОЇ СФЕРИ УКРАЇНИ В ПЕРІОД ЄВРОПЕЙСЬКОЇ ІНТЕГРАЦІЇ: НОРМАТИВНО-ПРАВОВІ ЗАСАДИ

The article defines the aspects of the regulatory foundations of the regulation of the energy sector of Ukraine, which are possible conditions for the European integration of the state. Investigating the issue of regulation of the energy security system of the state, it is worth noting the complete lack of systematicity, as well as the lack of orderliness of regulatory and legal documents that ensure regulation of the energy sector. Regulatory and legal acts of the specified industry function under conditions of lobbying by individual subjects, under conditions of inconsistency in the priority directions of their development; the existence of regional energy markets, isolation of security positions of energy enterprises, ecological and technological requirements, standardization, licensing, etc. An essential aspect of forming physical protection of energy facilities is relying on business entities. The costs of ensuring the appropriate security are included in the gross costs upon prior agreement with the Regulator of Energy Markets. However, the Regulator currently does not have the legal authority to take into account such categories of expenses, which makes it impossible to legitimize the source of defense funding. It is worth noting that the energy infrastructure is not protected at the departmental level beforehand without appropriate coordination and coordination with other priority strategies and measures to ensure national security. The mentioned circumstances testify to threats to the energy security system due to the non-regulation of the legislative basis and foresee the need for significant improvement of mechanisms and tools of protection from the side of regulatory and legal support. The current circumstances of the economic system of Ukraine have caused changes in the energy legislation. At the moment, a new energy environment is being formed, which cannot be clarified by rigid regulatory documents. The implemented changes affect not only the peculiarities of the relationship between energy market subjects (producers, consumers, and the state) but also put pressure on the principles of regulation of the latter's activities; it refers to the application of EU approaches, the rejection of administrative levers for regulating the activity of markets and state paternalism, etc. The result is the emergence of new threats to the uninterrupted functioning of the country's energy sector due to the use of energy methods as an analog of "energy weapons." In turn, the previously accepted mechanisms and tools of management activity in the energy security system should be reviewed.

European Union interaction with South-Eastern Mediterranean: From “Ring of friends” to “Ring of fire”

The Mediterranean region is key in the policy of the European Union, and the countries of the Middle East and North Africa are singled out in the group of Southern neighbors. Over the past decade, the region has undergone a profound transformation. Large-scale challenges - political instability, terrorism, migration, environmental problems and natural disasters - are beyond control. Crisis trends in the Middle East and most of North and Central Africa cause unpredictable and, most importantly, significant side effects that affect not only the security and stability of Europe, but also the functioning of the world system. Destabilizing events have led to the fact that the Mediterranean is now viewed as a source of existential threats. Moreover instability in the Southeast Mediterranean has dramatically changed the EU's perspective of the regional partners from a “ring of friends” to “a ring of fire”. This trend is recognized at the official level in the states of Europe, as well as in the EU and NATO. The lack of progress in various EU Euro-Mediterranean Partnership initiatives since the onset of the Arab Spring crises has resulted in a loss of MENA public confidence in EU. The article examines the conceptual foundations of the European Union for their policy towards the countries of the Southeast Me-diterranean, as well as identify the key EU approaches in countering the threats and challenges that arise in the region.

International Abuses, EU Solutions: Using EU Structures to Address the Challenges of International Antitrust

Modern markets are increasingly international, online and unrestricted by geographic borders and territoriality. Competition regulation remains decidedly domestic in nature, restrained by principles of jurisdiction and state sovereignty in a way that multinational business is not. With the rise of online markets and transnational trade, legislators and regulators are increasingly expected to grapple with abuses of dominance which span multiple jurisdictions. However, traditional approaches to state sovereignty and prescriptive jurisdiction present fundamental challenges to the effective implementation of competition policy in these modern markets. In particular, abuses of dominance by international or online firms have the potential to profoundly impact national economies. Yet unlike other competition ills, such as cartels, abuse of dominance is not the subject of widespread international regulatory cooperation or legislative uniformity. Against this background, substantive convergence emerges as a potential solution to jurisdictional clash but, as this article explores, it faces legal, sociopolitical, and practical obstacles that make its success not only unlikely, but not necessarily desirable. While recognising the unique political context of the EU legal system, in particular the role of market integration and its place at the core of policy decisions, this article explores what practical guidance may be found in the EU competition law framework. It explores EU horizontal, administrative measures which could be repurposed in order to bring further predictability and clarity to international jurisdictional issues. It concludes by proposing that EU approaches to case allocation, horizontal best practice standards and peer review may be meaningfully adapted by the international competition law community, in order to alleviate jurisdictional issues in competition regulation. jurisdiction, antitrust, EU, regulation, international, competition, convergence, cooperation, multinational markets, EU, abuse of dominance

Poland ∙ The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection Investigates Vertical Restraints in the IT Sector - Does the EU Approach Prevail?

Poland ∙ The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection Investigates Vertical Restraints in the IT Sector - Does the EU Approach Prevail?

Re-examination of EU normative power in light of the revised enlargement methodology towards the Western Balkans

The aim of this article is to re-examine the concept of ?EU normative power? in the revised EU approach to enlargement policy announced in 2020. Drawing on conceptualisation of power in Foreign Policy Analysis the article applies the reading of the EU?s soft and hard power - both as capability and as influence - to EU normative power. The empirical part thus identifies above four elements within the EU?s promotion of its particular norms and within the EU?s strife for international normality via enlargement policy. The results show that the new enlargement methodology does offer change of EU normative power. The EU could more effectively condition the respect of its particular norms by an exemplary domestic practice assuring its own domestic and foreign policy legitimacy and in turn by developing and applying the needed capabilities for achieving attractiveness. Even though a plan of positive conditionality and better-defined conditions in direct negotiations carries such potential, a risk exists that the biggest novelty - the ?phasing-in? paradigm - would only explore EU?s norm-related hard market power capabilities by keeping the Western Balkans countries as candidates forever, thus undermining EU?s legitimacy and hard power influence of negative conditionality. To promote international normality, however, the EU needs to activate other elements of soft power influence, namely agenda setting and persuasion.

The EU Approach to Cultural Heritage in Conflict and Crisis: An Elephant in the Room?

This Note considers the Conclusions on EU Approach to Cultural Heritage in Conflicts and Crises, which were adopted by the Council of the European Union on 21 June 2021. It starts by analysing the shift in the way cultural heritage has been perceived since the introduction of cultural heritage within the EU’s external relations’ strategy. It then considers how the role of cultural heritage as a vector of peace and development could be strengthened and consolidated through a better articulation of its linkages with climate change.

Деятельность Евросоюза в Арктическом совете: проблемы и перспективы

Since 2008, the European Union has unsuccessfully tried to obtain permanent observer status in the Arctic Council, the central cooperation forum in the Arctic. The analysis shows that the EU's failures in this area are connected both with its location mostly outside of the region and remoteness from the northern realities, as well as global geopolitical tensions. However, the EU has had de facto observer ad hoc status since 2013, allowing it to participate in almost all formats of interaction in the Arctic Council. Considering this fact, the permanent observer status has rather a symbolic meaning and is equivalent to joining a kind of “privileged Arctic club”. An analysis of the EU's functioning in its relations with the Arctic Council and its members shows that the EU is ready to adapt and listen to the opinion of the Arctic countries in order to become a legitimate Arctic actor. The Arctic Council is of uneven importance for the different EU member states: Denmark, Finland and Sweden are full members, several countries are permanent observers, but most EU countries are not interested in the Arctic issues. Because of this multifaceted nature, the collective EU is more of an extra-regional player on the platform, but one with serious Arctic claims. The EU is actively working on a common Arctic policy. It is represented in the Arctic Council by the Ambassador-at-Large for Arctic Affairs, introduced in 2017, who acts in coordination with the European Commission and the member states concerned. The EU's overall approach is not unsuccessful: it has managed to engage more member states on the Arctic vector, and European expertise and input on sustainable development issues is already becoming an integral part of the AC's work and promises to evolve further.