scholarly journals Algorithmic Vulnerability in Deploying Vaccination Certificates in the European Union and China

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 332-342
Author(s):  
Janet Hui XUE
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Mutual Recognition ◽  
Algorithm Design ◽  
Risk Groups ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
The Social ◽  
Digital Certificates ◽  
The Eu

This article further develops the concept of algorithmic vulnerability. The analysis is built on empirical evidence of the Chinese Health Code System (HCS), compared to similar plans for the “COVID-19 Certificate” in the European Union (EU). Implementing the HCS has shown two-sided regulatory implications: improving social protection (a national strategy, a common mutual-recognition standard, scaled-up public–private cooperation) and increasing risks of social exclusion (non-digital and digital forms of vulnerability). This article argues that algorithmic vulnerability is caused by mismatches between biased databases, unfairly pre-designed algorithms and dynamically changed risk groups in reality in the context of COVID-19 vaccination. It contributes a framework for deploying plans for digital certificates in the EU concerning minimising the social risks associated with algorithmic vulnerability. The framework consists of (1) reinforcing existing vulnerability inherited from non-digital society (eg caused by intersectional factors of race/ethnicity, gender, age and health) and (2) introducing new forms of vulnerability generated by algorithm design and implementation (eg excluding the risk groups of individuals who are un/mis/overrepresented in the databases, such as those defined by nationality plus COVID-19 status).

Free Movement and Discrimination: Evidence from Europe, the United States, and Canada

2013 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willem Maas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
European Union ◽  
International Migration ◽  
Mutual Recognition ◽  
The United States ◽  
Free Movement ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Good Test ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Eu

Abstract This article surveys some general lessons to be drawn from the tension between the promise of citizenship to deliver equality and the particularistic drive to maintain diversity. Democratic states tend to guarantee free movement within their territory to all citizens, as a core right of citizenship. Similarly, the European Union guarantees (as the core right of EU citizenship) the right to live and the right to work anywhere within EU territory to EU citizens and members of their families. Such rights reflect the project of equality and undifferentiated individual rights for all who have the status of citizen. But they are not uncontested. Within the EU, several member states propose to reintroduce border controls and to restrict access for EU citizens who claim social assistance. Similar tensions and attempts to discourage freedom of movement also exist in other political systems, and the article gives examples from the United States and Canada. Within democratic states, particularly federal ones and others where decentralized jurisdictions are responsible for social welfare provision, it thus appears that some citizens can be more equal than others. Principles such as benefit portability, prohibition of residence requirements for access to programs or rights, and mutual recognition of qualifications and credentials facilitate the free flow of people within states and reflect the attempt to eliminate internal borders. Within the growing field of migration studies, most research focuses on international migration, movement between states, involving international borders. But migration across jurisdictional boundaries within states is at least as important as international migration. Within the European Union, free movement often means changing residence across jurisdictional boundaries within a political system with a common citizenship, even though EU citizenship is not traditional national citizenship. The EU is thus a good test of the tension between the equality promised by common citizenship and the diversity institutionalized by borders.

Migration, Social Protection, and the (Re)Production of Inequalities in the European Union

2018 ◽  
pp. 134-153
Author(s):  
Thomas Faist
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Individual Member ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Transnational Social Space ◽  
The Eu

Europe, and the European Union in particular, can be conceived as a transnational social space with a high degree of transactions across borders of member states. The question is how efforts to provide social protection for cross-border migrants in the EU reinforce existing inequalities (e.g. between regions or within households), and lead to new types of inequalities (e.g. stratification of labour markets). Social protection in the EU falls predominantly under the purview of individual member states; hence, frictions between different state-operated protection systems and social protection in small groups are particularly apparent in the case of cross-border flows of people and resources. Chapter 5 examines in detail the general social mechanisms operative in cross-border forms of social protection, in particular, exclusion, opportunity hoarding, hierarchization, and exploitation, and also more concrete mechanisms which need to be constructed bottom-up.

Two Charters and a Pillar

2020 ◽  
pp. 191-202
Author(s):  
Bruno de Witte
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Lisbon Treaty ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Social ◽  
Charter Of Fundamental Rights

This chapter retraces the post-enlargement trajectory of the protection of fundamental social rights in Europe. The chapter selects three years that signpost this trajectory: 2000, when the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights was adopted, with the inclusion of a social rights chapter; 2009, when the Lisbon Treaty seemed to contain a renewed promise of social progress in the Union; and 2017, when the European Union launched a European Pillar of Social Rights, as part of an effort to revitalize the social protection agenda of the European Union after the disappointing post-Lisbon years.

Laboratory medicine in the European Union

2015 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wytze P. Oosterhuis ◽  
Simone Zerah
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Mutual Recognition ◽  
Clinical Chemistry ◽  
Laboratory Medicine ◽  
Patient Treatment ◽  
European Federation ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Important Challenge ◽  
The Eu

AbstractThe profession of laboratory medicine differs between countries within the European Union (EU) in many respects. The objective of professional organizations of the promotion of mutual recognition of specialists within the EU is closely related to the free movement of people. This policy translates to equivalence of standards and harmonization of the training curriculum. The aim of the present study is the description of the organization and practice of laboratory medicine within the countries that constitute the EU. A questionnaire covering many aspects of the profession was sent to delegates of the European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (EFLM) and Union Européenne de Médecins Spécialistes (UEMS) of the 28 EU countries. Results were sent to the delegates for confirmation. Many differences between countries were identified: predominantly medical or scientific professionals; a broad or limited professional field of interest; inclusion of patient treatment; formal or absent recognition; a regulated or absent formal training program; general or minor application of a quality system based on ISO Norms. The harmonization of the postgraduate training of both clinical chemists and of laboratory physicians has been a goal for many years. Differences in the organization of the laboratory professions still exist in the respective countries which all have a long historical development with their own rationality. It is an important challenge to harmonize our profession, and difficult choices will need to be made. Recent developments with respect to the directive on Recognition of Professional Qualifications call for new initiatives to harmonize laboratory medicine both across national borders, and across the borders of scientific and medical professions.

Social Policy and European Union Politics

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Daly
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Policy Model ◽  
The Social ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
The Eu

Social policy has a particular character and set of associated politics in the European Union (EU) context. There is a double contestation involved: the extent of the EU’s agency in the field and the type of social policy model pursued. The former is contested because social policy is typically and traditionally a matter of national competence and the latter because the social policy model is crucial to economic and market development. Hence, social policy has both functional and political significance, and EU engagement risks member states’ capacity to control the social fate of their citizens and the associated resources, authority, and power that come with this capacity. The political contestations are at their core territorially and/or social class based; the former crystalizes how wide and extensive the EU authority should be in social policy and the latter a left/right continuum in regard to how redistributive and socially interventionist EU social policy should be. Both are the subject of a complicated politics at EU level. First, there is a diverse set of agents involved, not just member states and the “political” EU institutions (Parliament and Council) but the Commission is also an important “interested” actor. This renders institutional politics and jockeying for power typical features of social policymaking in the EU. Second, one has to break down the monolith of the EU institutions and recognize that within and among them are actors or units that favor a more left or right position on social policy. Third, actors’ positions do not necessarily align on the two types of contestation (apart perhaps from the social nongovernmental organizations and to a lesser extent employers and business interests). Some actors who favor an extensive role for social policy in general are skeptical about the role of the EU in this regard (e.g., trade unions, some social democratic parties) while others (some sectors of the Commission) wish for a more expansive EU remit in social policy but also support a version of social policy pinned tightly to market and economic functions. In this kind of context, the strongest and most consistent political thrust is toward a type of EU social policy that is most clearly oriented to enabling the Union’s economic and market-related objectives. Given this and the institutional set-up, the default position in EU social policy is for a market-making social policy orientation on the one hand and a circumscribed role for the EU in social policy on the other.

The Slow Road to the Social Investment Perspective in the European Union

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannon Dinan
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Research Experience ◽  
Member States ◽  
The Social

The European Union has no unilateral legislative capacity in the area of social policy. However, the European Commission does play the role of guide by providing a discursive framework and targets for its 28 Member States to meet. Since the late 1990’s, the EU’s ideas on social policy have moved away from the traditional social protection model towards promoting social inclusion, labour activation and investing in children. These new policies represent the social investment perspective, which advocates preparing the population for a knowledge-based economy to increase economic growth and job creation and to break the intergenerational transmission of poverty. The EU began the gradual incorporation of the social investment perspective to its social dimension with the adoption of ten-year strategies. Since 2000, it has continued to set goals and benchmarks as well as offer a forum for Member States to coordinate their social initiatives. Drawing on a series of interviews conducted during a research experience in Brussels as well as official documents, this paper is a descriptive analysis of the recent modifications to the EU’s social dimension. It focuses on the changes created by the Europe 2020 Strategy and the Social Investment Package. By tracing the genesis and evolution of these initiatives, the author identifies four obstacles to social investment in the European Union's social dimension.   Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v10i1.263

THE EASTERN PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM IN THE POST-COVID PERIOD. KEY FEATURES AND FUTURE PROSPECTS

2021 ◽  
pp. 28-37
Author(s):  
Boris P. Guseletov ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Economic Consequences ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Future Prospects ◽  
Eastern Partnership ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Partnership Program ◽  
The Eu

The article is dedicated to the analysis of the European Union’s Eastern Partnership program in the post-COVID period. It considers the main features of that program in modern conditions and further prospects for its de- velopment, taking into account the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for the European Union and the countries participating in this program. The author analyzes the EU leadership attitude to the individual participants of the program and identifies priorities in relation to the various countries represen- ted in it. To overcome the social and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Commission decided to provide financial assistance to the participating countries, but the amount of the assistance for individual countries depended on the state of relations between the European Union and the leadership of those countries. It is proved in the article that the European Union currently has the most favorable relations with three countries parti- cipating in the program: Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, which have openly declared a policy of rapprochement with the European Union in the political and economic fields. The author outlines positions of all the countries and their expectations of participating in the program in the nearest future as well as in the longer term.

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