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German and Italian leaders Angela Merkel and Giuseppe Conte earlier this year. Photo: Kay Nietfeld/DPA/PA Images

The European Unions response to the coronavirus pandemic has been marked by insufficient acts of coordination and solidarity. Member states have turned inwards, closing their borders and curtailing medical exports. Italy has felt abandoned by its fellow Europeans while the attempts to craft a common fiscal response to the crisis has revived the well-rehearsed north-south battles over solidarity and sovereignty.

This feeble and fragmented response, coming on the heels of multiple other crises that the EU has endured in the past decade, has hastened the already prevalent narratives of growing disunity and inevitable decline. The grimmest projections predict a collapse of the monetary union or an eventual disintegration of the EU. A more common view portrays the EU as a powerless entity that has little to offer to its citizens. Its dwindling influence over world affairs, the argument goes, will further wither away with each crisis.

Yet this narrative is too quick to predict the erosion of the EU. It also rests on an outdated view of what power means in todays world. There is an important aspect to the EUs unity and global influence that remains robust, relevant, and largely unaffected by the crisesthe unilateral ability to regulate global markets.

The EU regulations influence the everyday lives of individuals around the world. They affect the food we eat, the air we breathe and the products we produce and consume. Few realise that EU standards determine the default privacy settings on our iPhones or the type of speech that Twitter will delete as unacceptable. They also determine how timber is harvested in Indonesia, how honey is produced in Brazil, what pesticides cocoa farmers use in Cameroon, what equipment is used in dairy factories in China, what chemicals are used in plastic toys in Japan, as well as how much privacy is afforded to internet users in Latin America.

Despite its well-known inefficiencies, through its regulations, the EU wields unique and highly penetrating power to unilaterally transform global markets, making Brussels a major force in the global economy. All the EU needs to do is to regulate the single market. In search for scale economies and other benefits of uniform production, multinational companies often voluntarily standardise their global operations around the most stringent standard, which is typically the EUs. As a result, powerful global companies ranging from Google and Facebook to Unilever and Dow Inc., design their products to meet European standards.

Regulatory power persists even when many traditional tools of influence have become less deployable. Military power is particularly costly to leverage; few would characterise the US-led wars in Afghanistan or Iraq as examples of successful deployment of power. Economic clout leveraged though sanctions or conditional loans is similarly difficult to project as it can easily be undermined by other governments. In comparison, unilateral regulatory power relies on companies self-interest, allowing the EU to forgo costly coercion and difficult cooperation in projecting its influence globally.

The EUs regulatory strength is also largely unaffected by crises because of its technocratic nature. The commission bureaucrats remain focussed on their assigned regulatory domains without being distracted by the broader crises, allowing the agenda to flourish even when a major political or economic shock hits its core. For example, neither the refugee crises nor the Brexit referendum derailed the GDPR, the EUs stringent data privacy regulation. The commission will similarly likely go ahead and unveil an ambitious Digital Services Act later this year. The pandemic may lead the EU to rethink how to balance the individual right to privacy with the need to harness technology to trace public health emergencies. But Brussels is unlikely to scale back its regulatory ambitions, or allow unmitigated digital surveillance to be entrenched as the new normal.

This regulatory supremacy is not only largely shielded from crises; it may well grow through them. Since the euro crisis, ambitious efforts to reinforce the eurozone architecture have taken place. Brussels has gained rather than lost powers. Migration crises similarly led to the strengthening the role of Frontex, the common European Border and Coast Guard Agency.

Brexit offers another example of how sticky the EUs power is and how this may grow through crises. The UK is struggling to untangle itself and reclaim regulatory sovereignty, with many UK businesses prone to follow EU standards long after UK departure, due to the proximity and importance of the EU market. Meanwhile, after leaving, the UKs pro-market voice will be gone from the table where EU regulations are set. This will open the door for more interventionist regulatory standards advocated by member states such as France and Germany. Brexit may therefore lead to more, rather than fewer, EU regulations emanating from Brussels to London.

Vesting the EU with more powers may well be the ultimate response to the coronavirus pandemic as well. Today, the EU has limited powers to regulate public health, which remains a prerogative of the member states. Post-crisis, member states might conclude that joint diagnosis, testing, procurement of medical supplies, exchange of critical information, and joint research on developing a vaccine are needed to keep Europeans safe in the future.

The challenges the EU faces today should not be underestimated. But this pandemiclike the other crises before itdoes not need to signal the EUs weakness nor its unraveling. The bloc has repeatedly proven its ability to survive, and even grow, through difficult circumstances. Nation states alone cannot fight a global pandemic, manage migration flows, mitigate climate change or respond to the financial crises that shake the deeply intertwined global economy. The strength of the European regulatory state provides a crucial ballast for Europe to weather storms, and the post-pandemic world may well be marked by a more, rather than less, powerful EU.

Anu Bradford is Henry L Moses Professor of Law and International Organisation at Columbia and author of The Brussels Effect: How the European Union Rules the World (OUP)

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Why the European Union is not doomed to fail - Prospect

Over the past months, no tangible advances have been made on democracy and human rights in Nicaragua. Repression by security forces and pro-government armed groups of political opponents, demonstrators, journalists, civil society organisations and members of the Catholic Church has continued.

In light of this, the Council decided today to include six persons in the list of natural and legal persons, entities and bodies subject to restrictive measures, namely a travel ban and asset freeze. These measures target individuals responsible for serious human rights violations in Nicaragua and are designed not to harm the Nicaraguan population.

The measures follow the EUs consistent position that it will use all its instruments to support a democratic peaceful and negotiated solution to the political crisis in Nicaragua. This was notably outlined in the framework for targeted restrictive measures adopted by the Council on 14 October 2019.

The EU expects the Government of Nicaragua to abide in their entirety by the commitments made in the March 2019 agreements with the opposition. There are three main areas in which tangible progress needs to be made:

The EU recalls that the COVID 19 pandemic reinforces the need for international cooperation and the EU is ready to assist Nicaragua in these difficult times. In this challenging period, the compliance with human rights should not be forgotten and must be at the core of any action.

The EU reaffirms its commitment to support the Nicaraguan people, including by helping strengthening the rule of law and supporting economic and social development for the most vulnerable.

Read more:
Declaration by the High Representative Josep Borrell, on behalf of the European Union, on Nicaragua - EU News

Read this article in German.

Germany will be taking over the presidency of the European Union in less than 60 days. Even a few months ago it looked as if climate neutrality, Brexit and the negotiations over the future EU budget framework were going to be the key topics of the German Council presidency. Now, the presidencys agenda will be dominated by the Covid-19 pandemic and its grave consequences for social cohesion, the economy and the idea of a borderless Europe. The Croatian government, which currently holds the presidency, was hit between the eyes by the impact of the pandemic. It had to give up its carefully planned presidency agenda in favour of crisis management.

The German federal government has more preparation time to bring the EU out of the crisis during its Council presidency with ideas and effective negotiation management. It has to take the opportunity to help shape the new start for Europe, which it set itself as a goal in the 2018 coalition agreement. The current crisis, which has pushed the European economies into economic and societal distress, requires decisive handling by Germany. The aspiration for a future-oriented EU policy has to be implemented in reality. The following subjects should be at the forefront of the Council presidency: First, coordinated efforts to overcome the crises, second, joint reconstruction with a strong EU budget and, third, the initiation of a dialogue about a future Europe that is resilient in the face of crises.

The last German EU presidency in 2007 was played out in calmer waters. The most important point on the agenda was agreement on a reform of the treaty after the failure of the constitutional treaty process. Thirteen years later and the circumstances at the outset of the Council presidency are different. The Covid-19 pandemic has not only revealed our vulnerability to a virus. It has also again shone light on the fact that the EU is not sufficiently resilient to crises when the going gets tough. In March, we saw countries going it alone and uncoordinated restrictions at a time when the virus was spreading across Europe at high speed. Hitherto, strict border controls have been upsetting the operation of the EUs internal market. They put the achievements of a borderless Europe on hold.

In the meantime, the EU has found its way, step by step, back to coordination and solidarity. Patients are being flown out of overcrowded Italian and French hospitals into other EU countries and vital medical equipment is being distributed and jointly procured. The European Council came to an agreement on 23 April 2020 over aid and reconstruction measures and schedules for loosening the restrictions. The German government should use these schedules as guidelines for its presidency so that the loosening of prevention measures is carried out in a coordinated way and internal European borders can be opened again soon. Because then cross-border aid can flow, the security of supply in the EUs internal market can be restored and the fundamental freedoms for European citizens can be safeguarded.

Alongside overcoming the crisis, Germanys EU presidency is also facing a difficult task to moderate the discussions on financing the upcoming Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) of the EU and bringing these to a conclusion by the end of the year. The agreement of the European Council on a financially robust reconstruction fund is, in combination with the next MFF, an important cornerstone for European recovery. But there was already a considerable amount of time pressure in negotiations about the future financial priorities of the EU before the Covid-19 outbreak. Even a specially convened summit meeting in February was barely able to make progress on the EUs financial issues.

The past weeks have shown that the EU is not resilient to crises because its member states have put taking national action above European problem solving.

It makes complete sense that the financing of Europes reconstruction should be anchored in the EU budget. Democratic control of the distribution of the funds can only be ensured by the European Parliament. But that increases the complexity of the MFF negotiations, which, in the face of the loss of the UKs contribution and new political requirements, were already challenging even before the coronavirus pandemic. Germany is facing the challenge of bringing about a quick agreement to raise the future EU budget framework to far more than 1 per cent of the Gross National Income (GNI) of EU member states and to connect this to the political priorities. Considering the current crisis, the distribution of funds must, in addition, be made more flexible in the future seven year budget period and new sources of income must be identified for the EU budget.

The European Commission had already submitted many ideas, such as the European financial transaction tax or a European minimum tax, in its first MFF draft proposal. In the meantime, these also found favour with Germanys Chancellor Angela Merkel. The Commission also announced a proposal to increase the own funds ceiling from 1.2 to 2 per cent of GNI to generate money for the reconstruction fund on the capital market with the additional resources. While the idea is welcome, it will be difficult to structure its implementation. This is because it is not only the Council that has to unanimously agree on increasing own funds but all national and individual regional parliaments must also each approve the decision by majority.

The past weeks have shown that the EU is not resilient to crises because its member states have put taking national action above European problem solving. Dealing with the collapse in solidarity and dialogue about Europes future must therefore come back into political focus. The conference on the future of Europe promised by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen offers the possibility for countries to look beyond their own noses and to openly tackles issues which have been stagnating for years between governments such as the issue of institutional reforms or of voting rights during the European elections. By the same token, future European priorities and the way there should be at the heart of discussions.

It is important that this dialogue is pursued jointly by Europeans and national politicians but also citizens. The European Parliament, the European Commission as well as numerous stakeholders within society have proposed their ideas for issues and for shaping an EU-wide dialogue. Only the Councils position on a future conference is still missing. Even if the conference cannot start as planned on Europe Day 2020 because of physical contact restrictions: the previous weeks have made it very clear that the debate on the future of Europe is, more than ever, necessary.

The two year process must therefore start after the end of the restrictions on physical contact, in the winter of 2020-21 at the latest, if it is to present results by the time of the European elections in 2024. Regrettably, no word on the conference is mentioned in the first draft of the priorities of the German EU presidency. Here it would be important for the German government to change course and anchor a look into Europes future in the presidencys programme. Europe cannot be rebuilt solely via new funds and aid packages. Broad dialogue close to the citizens is needed for a new start in a crisis-resilient Europe!

Original post:
Germany has a lot on its plate during the EU Council presidency - IPS Journal

The UKs last judicial member of the European court of justice is suing the council of the European Union and the EU court over her removal from office because of Brexit.

Eleanor Sharpston QC, advocate general to the court in Luxembourg, has lodged two claims challenging her replacement by a Greek lawyer before her term in office was scheduled to end next year.

Her departure will not necessarily end direct British involvement with the ECJ. A claim has been submitted by a team of London-based lawyers arguing that even though the UK as a nation is leaving the EU, its citizens cannot be deprived of EU citizenship without their consent.

Sharpston, whose mandate was due to end in October 2021, has submitted two claims against the council of the European Union, which represents the remaining 27 EU states, and against the ECJ itself.

At the start of the year, Brussels issued a statement saying the mandates of all UK-related members of EU institutions would automatically end on 31 January. Sharpston was the exception to the rule and was told that she would stay on until a successor could take over.

A Greek replacement for her has now been found. The number of advocates general, who advise the courts judges, is fixed at 11.

A fellow of Kings College, Cambridge and a former joint head of chambers in London, Sharpston has been at the ECJ since 2006. Earlier this year, contemplating the possibility of legal action, she told the Law Gazette: It may be that the very last service I can render to my court is to see whether there is something I can do to push back against the member states intruding into the courts autonomy and independence.

She is understood to be arguing that she should be be allowed to stay in office until her current six-year term expires and that her removal undermines the judicial independence of the court. Court rules, it is said, ensure that judges and advocate generals can only be removed when they reach the end of their mandate or reach the obligatory retirement age.

The ECJ told the Guardian it could not confirm the identity of claimants in the two cases submitted. The courts last British judge, Christopher Vajda, lost his seat in February despite the UK remaining within the single market and customs union until the end of 2020. There are 27 judges sitting on the ECJ one for every member state.

A separate action legal action has been lodged at the ECJ this month by lawyers acting for Prof Joshua Silver, a physicist at Oxford University. The claim is being led by Prof Takis Tridimas of Matrix Chambers and lawyers from the London firm DAC Beachcroft.

They argue that while the withdrawal agreement between the UK government and the EU has resulted in the UK as a nation leaving the EU, the fundamental status and rights of the British citizens of the European Union cannot be removed without their consent.

Stephen Hocking, a partner at DAC Beachcroft, said: In the withdrawal agreement, the EU council purported to remove fundamental individual rights from a group of citizens of the European Union, namely UK nationals, without any due process and without any reference to them. In doing so it acted unlawfully.

EU citizenship is a citizenship like any other, and it confers individual rights on citizens that cannot be taken away by an agreement between governments.

If he is successful, UK citizens would retain their rights as EU citizens, for example the right to live and work in EU member states.

This week Guy Verhofstadt, the former Brexit coordinator for the European parliament, tweeted in support of the legal action: People received European citizenship with the treaty of Maastricht. Will be interesting to see, if a government decides to leave, its citizens automatically lose their European citizenship. They shouldnt do!

The case, for which more than 67,000 has already been raised, is being supported by crowdfunding through the website Crowdfunder.

The rest is here:
British lawyer sues EU over her removal from its court due to Brexit - The Guardian

Irish peoples trust in institutions during the Covid-19 crisis - most notably the healthcare system and the government - remains high when compared to the European average, new research shows.

However, European survey data also shows the employment impact of the crisis, with almost a third of Irish respondents saying they lost jobs or contracts, either temporarily or permanently, compared to an EU average of 28 per cent.

The statistics from Eurofound, the EU employment and working conditions agency, shows that trust in the Garda, the healthcare system, the government, the European Union and the news media is ahead of the EU27 average.

This is despite Europeans in general reporting dramatic fall in trust in the EU and their national governments, with low levels reported across many countries.

The data was gathered from 85,000 people during April. With 8,700 respondents, Ireland was the most responsive country to the EU-wide survey. The responses suggest that trust in the Irish government is among the highest in the EU, rated at 6.3 on a scale of 1-10, compared with a European average of 4.8.

Trust in the European Union itself remains strong, at 6.0 versus an average of 4.6. Only Finland had higher trust in the EU. Data from Irish responses also show trust in the Garda is very high, at 7.2, compared to a European average of 6.2. Trust in the news media was also higher than the average at 5.5 in Ireland versus 4.6 elsewhere in Europe.

The findings buck a series of trends evident elsewhere in the survey, according to Eurofound. The first results show a Europe grappling to respond to the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, with many respondents reporting high levels of loneliness coupled with low levels of optimism about their future.

Some 59 per cent of Irish respondents expressed optimism about the future compared to an overall figure of 45 per cent for the EU. Nine per cent of Irish respondents reported feeling downhearted and depressed, versus a European average of 13 per cent. They also reported feeling lonely less often (12 per cent versus 16 per cent) than the European average.

Despite cocooning measures, people aged 50 or over had the highest mental wellbeing in the State, similar to trends in other countries. Students had the lowest mental wellbeing, even lower than unemployed people.

Younger people were also more likely to report feeling tense all or most of the time, with the figure for younger cohorts 20 per cent, significantly higher than the overall population at 13 per cent, and higher than the EU average of 18 per cent.

The impact of the crisis on employment is also reflected in the survey, with 32 per cent of Irish respondents saying they lost their jobs, or contracts in the case of self-employed people, either temporarily or permanently. Some 72 per cent of people who lost their jobs were self-employed.

Almost half reported that their working hours had decreased. Women were more likely to have had their working hours increase than men, while 15 per cent of those in work said it is either very likely or rather likely that they would lose their jobs. Work-life balance among Irish respondents was reported to be somewhat better than the EU average.

However, Irish women reported being too tired after work to do necessary household jobs at a higher rate than men, and also found it difficult to concentrate on their job or give it more time. Working from home with children present may account for at least some of the gender differences, with women on average continuing to do more housework and childcare, Eurofound suggested.

A higher level of teleworking was reported by Irish workers, at 43 per cent compared to an EU average of 37 per cent.

The impact of Covid-19 on personal finances is also becoming clear, with 16 per cent of respondents reporting difficulties in making ends meet. However, this is lower than the EU average of 23 per cent. Irish savings are in a worse state than the European average, with 22 per cent of Irish respondents stating they have no savings at all. Around one third (35 per cent) said their savings could keep the household going for up to three months, and 11 per cent stated they could afford to live off savings for a year or more, less than the EU average of 14 per cent.

People over 50 or over were most likely to have savings, while 30 per cent of people aged 35-49 had no savings at all. Accommodation insecurity and mortgage arrears in Ireland were similar to average EU levels in the survey.

More:
Irish publics trust in institutions during Covid-19 above EU average - The Irish Times