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The British vote to leave the European Union in 2016 sent a shockwave across the European continent. With a large member state turning its back on the union, it seemed eminently possible that others could follow.

But when the UK was plunged into economic and political turmoil by its decision, however, it seemed that Brexit had set an unappealing precedent. European leaders had feared a potential surge in eurosceptic movements in their own countries but that did not fully materialise.

Now the EU appears to be enjoying a longer-term Brexit dividend. The decade before the Brexit vote had been characterised by political paralysis. Member states appeared divided on how to manage the fallout from the eurozone crisis and the rapid influx of refugees from Syria as well as other migrants in 2015. This led to a slump in public support for the EU.

While the benefits of EU membership are difficult to quantify or observe for ordinary citizens, the UKs departure provided clear benchmark for public opinion in the remaining 27 member states about the costs and benefits of leaving.

I examined whether peoples opinions about the EU changed via two waves of eupinions surveys conducted by my colleagues and I together with the Germany-based think-tank the Bertelsmann Foundation. The data I rely on here is from April 2016 (just before the Brexit vote) and August 2016 (just after). Respondents were asked if they would vote to remain in or leave the EU if a referendum were held today.

Support for remaining in the EU April and August 2016

Overall, support for remaining in the EU was slightly higher in August 2016 than it had been in April, prior to the Brexit vote. The biggest jump in support for remaining in the EU was recorded in Germany.

Support for remaining in the EU was overall quite high, anyway, at an average of about 70% across EU member states. But looking at individual member states, differences become more evident. In Germany, Poland and Spain, support rested at or topped 70% before the Brexit vote and climbed even higher in the months that followed it in Poland and Spain to higher than 80%. While France and Italy also saw a rise after the vote, any change happened at a much lower baseline. In fact, in Italy support for remaining inside the EU hovered between the 50 and 55% mark.

Of course, many things have happened in the years since the 2016 referendum from the COVID pandemic to the war in Ukraine. But generally these events, like Brexit, are associated with increased positivity towards remaining within the EU.

The years following Brexit were characterised by a desire to work together. The various crises had the potential to remind the public in the remaining 27 member states of the raison dtre of the EU and boost support for European project as a result.

And indeed weve seen support for remaining the EU solidifying over this period even after the initial referendum bump. In Spain support for staying in the EU has increased by 7 percentage points and even in Italy it is up by 12 percentage points.

Attitudes towards the EU in August 2016 and December 2022

However, while support for remaining in the EU is healthy, that does not mean people are looking for deeper political and economic integration in Europe. One does not necessarily translate into the other. While around 53% of Europeans wish to see more integration, there is significant variation across countries which is very important for a project that is meant to work well for all its member states.

Support for more political and economic integration is high in Italy and Spain (68%) but low in the Netherlands (37%) and France (38%). In some countries, including Poland, support for more integration went up post-Brexit vote but in others, such as Germany, France and Italy, it went down.

So while Brexit did not trigger further departures from the EU or even a strong movement in that direction in terms of public opinion, it also hasnt delivered increased enthusiasm for more Europe. That suggests the exit risk is not over, particularly if the UK proves able to mitigate the economic and political fallout of Brexit in the longer term or if the EU 27 seems to be worse off politically and economically in the same timeframe. So far, Brexit is seen by much of the European public as a mistake but how long will that last if the tide turns for the UK?

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Brexit didn't trigger the mass exodus from the EU that was once feared but nor did it leave Europeans wanting more from their union - The...

The United States is the only advanced economy that does not guarantee paid time off.

You have entire cultures like France ... where pretty much everybody takes August off, and it's just part of the culture there, said Shawn Fremstad, director of law and political economy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "You don't really see that here in the United States."

The European Union Working Time Directive, which was passed in the early 1990s, requires at least 20 working days of paid vacation in all EU countries.

France provides a minimum of 30 paid vacation days per year. What's more, many European countries have paid holidays as well, giving workers there even more paid days off.

When I came to France, I noticed that vacation is a way of life, said Fatima Cadet-Diaby, an American who has been living in Paris for nearly seven years. People are constantly talking about their vacations.

More vacation time could also equate to overall economic gains in the U.S.

I think people have a stereotype of France in their mind as this kind of lazy culture, Fremstad said. But if you look at the employment rate there for prime age workers, so basically 25 through 54, it's higher than in the U.S. So, they have more people working and they're much more productive per hour.

Even though a majority of Americans do have some kind of paid time off, nearly half of workers report not using all of those days. About half worry they might fall behind on their work if they take time off, with close to 20% thinking it could hurt their career growth and 16% saying they fear losing their job, according to data from the Pew Research Center.

There's a certain fear we don't have any legal protections and people have been fired for taking vacation time, said John de Graaf, author of the book Take Back Your Time.

Watch the video above to learn more about why Americans arent going on vacation even though they have the days off and what we can learn from our counterparts in France.

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Why U.S. vacation policies are so much worse than Europe's - CNBC

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3D chemical structure of bisphenol A. Credit: Wikipedia.

Two European Union watchdogs strongly disagreed on Wednesday about the threat to health posed by the chemical Bisphenol A, which is used to make plastic for some food and drink packaging.

Bisphenol A (BPA) has already been banned in the EU and US from being used in baby bottles and children containers after research suggested it could be linked to a range of health disorders.

After its experts re-evaluated the scientific evidence, the European Food Safety Agency said in a statement that dietary exposure to BPA "is a health concern for consumers across all age groups".

The EFSA, which has an advisory role to the European Commission and the 27 member states, suggested the bloc drastically lower the maximum daily intake of BPA allowed for consumers.

However the European Union's drug watchdog disagreed with the advice, causing a rare public rift in the opinions of two EU agencies.

"It is not possible to achieve convergence for the differences of opinion" about how to assess the health risk of BPA, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said in a dueling statement.

The EMA is responsible for approving drugs, and its opinions are regularly waved through by Brussels.

It criticized the EFSA's methodology, suggesting the food safety watchdog had been too hasty "given that a causal link has not been demonstrated in a study in animals or humans".

The disagreement in particular concerns the tolerable daily amount of BPA that can be consumed over a lifetime without an "appreciable health risk".

The EFSA slashed its recommended maximum daily intake by 20,000 times to 0.2 billionths of a gram, down from four millionths of a gram.

BPA is used in a range of plastics including drink bottles, can coatings and other protective coatings, meaning that most people are potentially exposed to it while consuming food and drink.

It had long been used to make baby bottles, until its use in children products was banned in the EU, United States and other nations around a decade ago.

The EFSA said that the hundreds of studies its experts reviewed suggested that BPA was associated with an increase of a type of white blood cell, which "could lead to the development of allergic lung inflammation and autoimmune disorders".

The experts also "took into account other potentially harmful health effects on the reproductive, developmental and metabolic systems," it said.

In France, the only country to have entirely banned BPA, consumer rights organization UFC-Que Choisir seized on the EFSA's report to call for all bisphenolsnot just Ato be prohibited.

The group said its own tests had detected bisphenols in dozens of products for babies, including baby bottles.

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EU watchdogs disagree about health risk of Bisphenol A - Medical Xpress

The European Union, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan have organised a School Symposium on Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation measures. The symposium took place at the Modern Educational Complex, located in the capital Baku, and provided a platform for high school students to showcase their research projects on climate change mitigation and adaptation measures.

The participants presented their projects developed as part of The Future Starts Here contest, which attracted approximately one hundred schoolchildren from 13 schools. The winners were awarded at the Symposium.

The event was part of the EU-funded EU4Climate project and the Green Climate Fund-funded National Adaptation Plan (NAP), both implemented by the UNDP.

Under the EU4Climate Programme as part of the strong partnership between the EU and the Government of Azerbaijan, the European Union supports Azerbaijan in its commitment to update and enhance the countrys Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement, to build national capacities to integrate low-emission and climate-resilient actions into the national development plan as well as align climate change legislation with the EU standards, said Peter Michalko, EU Ambassador to Azerbaijan.

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Press release

See more here:
EU4Climate: EU and UNDP conduct School Symposium on Climate ... - euneighbourseast.eu

The European Union's enlargement and its capacity to prepare for systemic shocks and to counter foreign interference in its information space were the focuses of attention when the Commission for Citizenship, Governance, Institutional and External Affairs (CIVEX) met on 18 April.

Enlargement, strategic foresight and foreign interference are all subjects of opinions that the European Committee of the Regions will adopt in the coming months.

Members also discussed how the public and private sector are cooperating to help the inclusion of refugees from Ukraine, with contributions from the OECD and Eurochambres, and on how the EU can follow up in the longer term on the lessons about democratic innovation learned from the Conference on the Future of Europe.

Enlargement Package 2022

The CIVEX commission adopted, with some amendments, an assessment of the European Commission's 2022 Communication on EU Enlargement Policy. The draft opinion emphasises the importance of advancing reforms of public administration and building up the capacity of local and regional administrations, noting that 70% of the EU's laws require implementation at the sub-national level. The debate included a number of interventions specifically related to Trkiye, which will hold general elections on 14 May. The opinion does not cover Ukraine and Moldova, which became candidates for EU membership in June 2022.

The rapporteur, Anna Magyar (HU/ECR), member of the County Council of Csongrd Megye, said: "There is a consensus on the EU side that enlargement policy is a strategic instrument that contributes to peace and security in Europe. The current war has only highlighted this approach. The most important task in the current geopolitical situation is for the European Committee of the Regions to contribute to a common reflection on how the enlargement process can be put at the service of the EU's strategic objectives. The added value of the Committee of the Regions is that we can see what the application of EU legislation entails at the local level. This valuable knowledge must be passed on to the candidate countries, and EU institutions must be made aware of the importance of taking into account the experience of regional and local governments when making decisions."

The European Committee of the Regions will on 4-5 May hold its annual Enlargement Days, a conference that brings together local and regional politicians from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Trkiye and for the first time Ukraine and Moldova.

Strategic foresight as an instrument of EU governance and better regulation

Members of the commission held a preliminary exchange of views on how strategic foresight a structured, systemic and collective way to anticipate change can be used to be used to improve EU governance and regulations. The exchange lays the ground for an opinion that is scheduled for adoption in October. The European Commission has been investing a strategic foresight to build up resilience and capacity to adapt to change, shocks and crises. The CoR's opinion will explore how local and regional authorities and the CoR can contribute to a system of 'anticipatory governance'.

The rapporteur, Piero Mauro Zanin (IT/EPP), President of the Regional Council of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, said: "The dramatic events of the last few years (from the pandemic to Russia's aggression on Ukraine) make clear that applying strategic foresight is a fundamental need for regional and local policy-makers, in order to implement 'future-proof' policies and regulations. Through this opinion, the CoR can strengthen its role and underline how LRAs can adopt a new anticipatory governance" model, based on the capability to identify and assess the next events and trends since their first weak signals". The opinion also aims at stressing the importance of strategic foresight as a governance and policy-planning tool, and especially as one of the most essential parts of better regulation. The CoR can moreover promote some ad-hoc educational and training actions, also targeted at LRAs officers, to develop a common mind-set so that all Europe's regions approach foresight consistently, and can effectively share their experiences and best practices."

The role of local and regional authorities in countering foreign information manipulation and interferenceThe meeting saw an initial debate on an own-initiative report by the European Committee of the Regions on countering foreign interference in the information space. The opinion is being fast-tracked, and will build on recent CoR opinions on European democracy action plan, supporting media, countering disinformation, reinforcing the integrity of elections, and adding hate speech and hate crimes to the list of EU crimes.

The rapporteur, Gustaw Marek Brzezin (PL/EPP), President of Warmisko-Mazurskie Region, said: "Local and regional media play important role in countering disinformation and therefore they should be supported by local and regional authorities. Only by working together, European, national, local and regional level, we can prevent, detect and expose manipulation of information. We must broaden the knowledge of representatives of local and regional authorities in raising public awareness to the mechanisms of disinformation."

Debates on Ukrainian refugees and the follow-up to the Conference on the wFuture of EuropeThe work areas of the CIVEX commission include among other topics the EU's institutional affairs, migration, and external affairs. These were topics that were in focus in two separate debates held at the meeting.

A discussion about "New avenues for European democracy: lessons learnt from the Conference on the Future of Europe" considered how to embed participatory democracy into the EU decision-making cycle. The CoR is building on the Conference on the Future of Europe, a year-long exercise in which citizens contributed to debates on the future of Europe, through projects and initiatives that support democratic innovation at the local and regional level and through its consultative works and political debates.

The second thematic debate was on how the public and private sector can cooperate to help the inclusion of refugees,

The second thematic debate was on how the public and private sector can cooperate to help the inclusion of refugees, and will contribute to a study commissioned by the CoR and the OECD. The study, 'Action by sub-national governments to address Ukrainian refugees' needs', will feed into the CoR's Annual Report on the State of Regions and Cities in the European Union, which will be presented in October.

Thecommission meeting can be re-watchedon the event page.

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A larger and more resilient EU in spotlight at CIVEX meeting - European Committee of the Regions