EU-US relations may be at a turning point

Significance Trump first snubbed the EU on April 30 with a mere postponement of possible tariffs and then humiliated the E3 (Germany, France and the United Kingdom) on May 8 with his decision to withdraw from the Iranian nuclear deal. This sends a highly symbolic message from the US president to his European allies: buckle or face penalties. Impacts Trump’s decisions reinforce a growing realisation in the EU that he will interpret their search for compromise as weakness. The EU faces a difficult road ahead with multiple pressures increasing, both within and outside the bloc. The growing divide between the EU and the United States will please Russia.

Subject MiFID II implementation and compliance Significance The EU’s flagship investor protection reform -- the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II) -- will come into force on January 3, 2018, Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU Commissioner responsible for financial stability, confirmed on October 17, saying that there would not be a further delay. Despite already having been given an extra year's extension, banks are struggling to comply in time because of the directive's complexity. Regulators, too, are behind in expanding their capacity to enforce it. Impacts Firms across the world that do any of their business within the EU will have to comply, not just those registered in the EU. All firms trading in financial instruments must comply but those where this is a small part of their business may be caught unawares. MiFID II will come into effect before the United Kingdom leaves the EU and is likely to be written into UK law post-Brexit. The United States is keen to deregulate, but US firms whose EU activity is not compliant will be punished, possibly harming US-EU relations.


Subject Outlook for the Five Eyes alliance. Significance The stability of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing partnership between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States is under stress over Chinese participation in the members’ 5G telecommunications networks. Impacts Possible US concessions on the supply chains of Chinese firms would ease strain within the Five Eyes alliance. European corporates will redouble efforts to burnish their security credentials to capture 5G market share. London’s eventual decision on Huawei will influence the EU and Asian democracies.


Significance The aim is to maintain some political distance from the US policy towards Iran. The United Kingdom will be hoping for support from France, Germany and Spain, among others. Impacts European powers will be more inclined to support Hunt’s plans as they avoid direct alignment with the United States. Washington could put pressure on the Europeans to toughen their position on Iran in return for shipping security support. Iran will continue to apply pressure on the international community through additional threatening actions in the Gulf.


Significance Despite the increasing risk and the implications of a no-deal Brexit, Ireland and the EU remain united in support of the main issue preventing a Brexit deal, the backstop. Impacts A time-limited backstop is the most likely prospect for a Brexit deal compromise. Under a no-deal Brexit, Ireland would be under pressure to implement border checks and controls in order to protect EU rules. No deal would make it harder for the United Kingdom to negotiate free-trade agreements with the EU and the United States.


2006 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 243-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Muirhead

Abstract The articulated foreign economic policy of the Conservative government of John Diefenbaker following its election in June 1957 was to redirect trade away from the United States and toward the United Kingdom. This policy reflected Diefenbaker's almost religious attachment to the Commonwealth and to Britain, as well as his abiding suspicion of continentalism. However, from these brave beginnings, Conservative trade policy ended up pretty much where the Liberals had been before their 1957 defeat-increasingly reliant on the US market for Canada's domestic prosperity. This was a result partly of the normal development of trade between the two North American countries, but it also reflected Diefenbaker's growing realisation of the market differences between Canada and the United Kingdom, and the impossibility of enhancing the flow of Canadian exports to Britain.


Author(s):  
David Cannadine

Sir John Plumb was a commanding figure, both within academe and also far beyond. He was as much read in the United States as in the United Kingdom; he was a great enabler, patron, fixer and entrepreneur; he belonged to the smart social set both in Mayfair and Manhattan; a race horse was named after him in England and the stars and the stripes were once flown above the US Capitol in his honour; and he appeared, thinly disguised but inadequately depicted, in the fiction of Angus Wilson, William Cooper and C. P. Snow. Yet one important aspect of Plumb's career has been repeatedly ignored and overlooked: for while his life was an unusually long one, his productive period as a significant historian was surprisingly, almost indecently, brief.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 233-245
Author(s):  
Yasmine Dominguez-Whitehead ◽  
Felix Maringe

PurposeThis paper provides a cross-national analysis of PhD supervision models, milestones and examination procedures in order to compare PhD programs and their practices.Design/methodology/approachA comparative approach is employed, which systematically interrogates PhD supervision models, milestones and examination procedures in the United Kingdom, South Africa and the United States via a comprehensive review of the practices and literature.FindingsThe findings indicate the ramifications of the different approaches and highlight the benefits and drawbacks associated with the different models.Originality/valueBy making explicit the dominant supervision models, milestones and examination procedures that exist in the United Kingdom, South Africa and the United States, the authors shed light on the somewhat obscure path to earning a PhD degree.


Significance The government is aligning itself with the emerging international strategy against ISG in Syria. Its push to participate in airstrikes in part reflects a wish to reassert the United Kingdom's role as an international security partner, especially to the United States and France. Impacts The government envisages airstrikes as being needed for at least 12-18 months. The United Kingdom will be important but secondary in the anti-ISG coalition, with the United States continuing to conduct most operations. In the interests of its anti-ISG strategy, the government will temper its insistence on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stepping down. The risk of an Islamist terrorist attack in the United Kingdom will increase. If Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn comes to be seen as correct in his anti-airstrikes stance, it will further envenom relations on the left.


2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 558-572 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wyn Rees

The Obama administration played a surprisingly interventionist role in the UK referendum on membership of the European Union (EU), arguing that a vote to leave would damage European security. Yet this article contends that US attitudes towards the EU as a security actor, and the part played within it by the United Kingdom, have been much more complex than the United States has sought to portray. While it has spoken the language of partnership, it has acted as if the EU has been a problem for US policy. The United Kingdom was used as part of the mechanism for managing that problem. In doing so, America contributed, albeit inadvertently, to the Brexit result. With the aid of contrasting theoretical perspectives from Realism and Institutionalism, this article explores how America’s security relationship with the United Kingdom has helped to engineer a security situation that the United States wanted to avoid.


Subject The prospects for finalising TTIP. Significance While the EU as a whole -- the European Commission, most member states and a majority of members of the European Parliament (EP) -- appears to remain committed to a wide-ranging agreement with the United States, there are growing indications that public opposition may render the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreement politically unviable. Impacts TTIP is estimated to raise the EU's GDP by 0.5%. European governments may decide that such a modest growth boost is not worth the political problems generated by the negotiations. If implemented, its terms could serve as a blueprint for future trade agreements between the EU and other countries. The deal's prospects will be diminished by the US election cycle's appeals to protectionist sentiment.


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