scholarly journals The migrant crisis in the Mediterranean: A multidimensional challenge for the European Union

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 617-629
Author(s):  
C Anguita Olmedo ◽  
P González Gómez del Miño

The European Union (EU) throughout its history has been the destination of diverse migratory flows. Therefore, migration has acquired special relevance by occupying a prominent position on the EU’s political, economic, cultural, and social agenda. The most recent migration crisis of 2015 represents a multidimensional challenge with severe consequences that affect, first, the institutional foundations of the EU (governance, security, solidarity of member states and institutional stability) and, second, the migratory policies of receiving states and the EU itself. This crisis is characterized, first, by the high number of illegal migrants that cross the Mediterranean, and, second, by the humanitarian tragedy and insecurity, which make the sea a grey area and an international reference in the migratory processes. The migration-security equation became a field of applied research and analysis, and at the same time a focus of political debate and public opinion. The article aims at analysing the crisis of 2015 and its consequences, which is done by means of the methodological approach based on the consequences that this phenomenon entails for the EU and for certain member states. The response of the EU is limited primarily to securitization by strengthening the external borders, turning towards internal security rather than respecting international and Community Treaties and promotion of their values, which contradicts the anticipated leadership of this global actor. The authors believe that it is necessary to implement new mechanisms in addition to ensuring greater effectiveness of the existing ones.

Author(s):  
Anna Elia ◽  
◽  
Valentina Fedele

The paper aims to verify the reproduction of ‘modern coloniality’ through externalising the European borders in Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria, focusing particularly on its discursive and practical articulations. Crossing Critical Border Studies’ approaches and an analytical view on the policies and agreements supporting the externalisation politics, we have tried to trace the evolution of the external dimension of E.U. migration policy from the perspective of both the countries of the Francophone Maghreb and of the member states of the European Union. The results show that beyond the rhetoric of the global approach to externalisation of borders adopted by the EU, Maghrebian states have implemented forms of resistance and accomplishment to make their global political agenda prevail over E.U. attempts to manage the Mediterranean governance migration.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Kapony

The European integration was primarily about economic cooperation, but the European Union’s role in protecting the core values in its Member States. EU values were first mentioned in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty on European Union, and since the Amsterdam Treaty the community law has a sufficiently precise description of this values, which should be respected not only by countries aspiring to the EU but also by the Member States themselves. The Lisbon Treaty defines EU values; however, nowadays the EU has to face the phenomenon when some government apparently violate these values. In recent years, defiance of core EU principles by the Polish and Hungarian governments is turning into a political debate. The European Commission has taken legal action against both governments, and the European Parliament supports this course. This short paper would like to address what the European institutions can do in these cases. Is the current treaty of the EU effective to address these phenomena?


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 9-23
Author(s):  
Marianna Gladysh ◽  
Viktor Viktor

Nowadays the European Union migration policy towards is one of the most important aspects in ensuring internal security of the EU. At the end of the XXth – beginning of the XXI century, Europe faced a new phenomenon – the intensifi cation of migration processes, namely the influx of refugees and migrants-asylum seekers from third countries. Therefore, it led to the creation and development of common migration policy of the European Union. In this regard, it was important to create legislation that could regulate such issues as border security and combating illegal migration, as well as to create a common asylum system. The need to study the legal framework on which the EU policy on migrants and refugees is based, and to study the current state and trends in the migration policy of the member-states of the EU has determined the relevance of this study. The importance of this topic is intensified by the European migration crisis of 2015, which is even described as a humanitarian catastrophe caused by a massive influx of refugees from Africa and the Middle East. It showed the main problems in the sphere of migration policy and policy towards refugees: imperfection of the system of delimitation of the EU competencies; a large number of countries with confl icting interests in various spheres; fragmentation of programs in force at the national level. To address the migration crisis, the EU used a multifaceted strategy: improving and creating new migration management institutions, expanding crossregional dialogue with the countries of the Mediterranean region, Africa and the Middle East; continued to reformat the Mediterranean region (region-building). Potential approaches range from an internal search for strategies in which each member state seeks to defend its own interests (sometimes even against European integration processes) to a more farsighted approach in which member states work together to address a wide range of migration issues.


2020 ◽  
pp. 97-105
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Kusztykiewicz-Fedurek

Political security is very often considered through the prism of individual states. In the scholar literature in-depth analyses of this kind of security are rarely encountered in the context of international entities that these countries integrate. The purpose of this article is to draw attention to key aspects of political security in the European Union (EU) Member States. The EU as a supranational organisation, gathering Member States first, ensures the stability of the EU as a whole, and secondly, it ensures that Member States respect common values and principles. Additionally, the EU institutions focus on ensuring the proper functioning of the Eurozone (also called officially “euro area” in EU regulations). Actions that may have a negative impact on the level of the EU’s political security include the boycott of establishing new institutions conducive to the peaceful coexistence and development of states. These threats seem to have a significant impact on the situation in the EU in the face of the proposed (and not accepted by Member States not belonging to the Eurogroup) Eurozone reforms concerning, inter alia, appointment of the Minister of Economy and Finance and the creation of a new institution - the European Monetary Fund.


2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 1663-1700 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clelia Lacchi

The Constitutional Courts of a number of Member States exert a constitutional review on the obligation of national courts of last instance to make a reference for a preliminary ruling to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).Pursuant to Article 267(3) TFEU, national courts of last instance, namely courts or tribunals against whose decisions there is no judicial remedy under national law, are required to refer to the CJEU for a preliminary question related to the interpretation of the Treaties or the validity and interpretation of acts of European Union (EU) institutions. The CJEU specified the exceptions to this obligation inCILFIT. Indeed, national courts of last instance have a crucial role according to the devolution to national judges of the task of ensuring, in collaboration with the CJEU, the full application of EU law in all Member States and the judicial protection of individuals’ rights under EU law. With preliminary references as the keystone of the EU judicial system, the cooperation of national judges with the CJEU forms part of the EU constitutional structure in accordance with Article 19(1) TEU.


2010 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 399-418
Author(s):  
Elisabetta Lanza

In the 2009 judgment dealing with the Treaty of Lisbon, the German Federal Constitutional Court urges to modify a domestic statute in order to guarantee the rights of the internal rule-making power and also provides a reasoning on the role of the European Union (EU) as an international organization, the principle of sovereignty and the relations between European Institutions and Bodies and the EU Member States. According to the German Court the Treaty of Lisbon does not transform the European Union into a Federal State (Staatsverband), but into a Confederation of States (Staatenverbund). In spite of the 1993 landmark judgment, the so-called “Maastricht Urteil”, the Court steps forward and focuses also the subject-matters that necessarily have to pertain to the Member States jurisdiction, the so-called “domain reserve”. The German Federal Constitutional Court decision on the Lisbon Treaty arouses the reflection on the core of State sovereignty and on the boundaries of the EU legal system and focuses on the force of the right to vote of every citizen, the basis of democracy.Furthermore, the decision of the German Federal Constitutional Court highlights the well-known issue of the EU's identity and the balancing between EU democracy and Member State sovereignty. In the light of the German Constitutional Court statements, the present work aims to understand which could be actually the EU's identity and how could be approached “democratic deficit” of the EU.


2009 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jong-Sue Lee

North Korea conducted 2nd nuclear test on May 25, 2009. It made a vicious circle and continued military tension on the Korean Peninsula. North Korea regime got a question on the effectiveness of the six party talks and ‘security-economy exchange model’. In addition, the North Korea probably disappointed about the North Korea issue has been excluded from the Obama administration's policy position. So the dialogue or relationship recovery with the United States and North Korea through six-party talks or bilateral talks will be difficult for the time being. This paper examines the EU policy on North Korea. Based on the results, analyzes the EU is likely to act as a balancer on the Korean Peninsula. Through the procedure of deepening and expanding the economic and political unification, the EU utilizes their cooperative policies towards North Korea as an ideal opportunity to realize their internal value and to confirm the commonness within the EU members. The acceleration of the EU's unification, however, began to focus on human rights, and this made their official relationship worse. Yet, the EU is continuously providing food as wells as humanitarian and technological support to North Korea regardless of the ongoing nuclear and human rights issues in North Korea. Also, the number of multinational corporations investing in North Korea for the purpose of preoccupying resources and key industries at an individual nation's level has been increasing. The European Union has unique structure which should follow the way of solving the problem of member states like subsidiary principle. It appears to conflict between normative power of the European Union and strategic interests on member states. This paper examines if the European Union is useful tool to complement Korea-US cooperation in the near future.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
N M Mahrouseh ◽  
D W Njuguna ◽  
O A Varga

Abstract Background There is an alerting increase in the population affected by type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in the European Union (EU) with significant socioeconomic burden. According to an estimation by the International Diabetes Federation, by 2030, the total number of diabetic patients will be 38 million in EU. The “screen and treat” strategies that predominantly applied in policies to prevent T2DM have not achieved significant success, as reported by a large systematic review and meta-analysis published in 2017. Although the member states of the EU have almost full responsibilities for actions in the field of health, the EU has to tackle non-communicable diseases by targeting health determinants and lifestyle mostly through non-binding policies. The goal of this work is to review the T2DM prevention policies in the EU and compare with tobacco policies, from a legal perspective. Methods Following the systematic search and screening of policies from EUR-lex, a content analysis was carried out by using MonQcle as publicly available legal text document analysis platform, by two coders. The search was limited for regulations, directives and white papers. Results Our data collection consisted of 19 documents including 10 regulations, 6 directives and 3 white papers with relevance to T2DM, covering the following topics: health infrastructure and services, informational policies, economic policies, environmental policies, command and control and social policies. The identified policies covered the time frame of 1972 to 2020. Diabetes was targeted as part of non-communicable diseases. None of the policies was legally binding addressing T2DM directly which is in sharp contrast to the tobacco control policies in the EU. Conclusions T2DM, in fact, is largely preventable. EU institutions should consider to reframe T2DM prevention strategies and consider applying a wide range of population-level legislative and innovative actions to prevent T2DM e.g. taxes on unhealthy food products. Key messages T2DM is a largely preventable disease, effective legal tools should be created and applied matching the scale of such public health problem. T2DM policies of the EU may be subject to change due to additional value of actions taken by the EU compared to that could have been achieved by member states alone.


Author(s):  
Ivan Yakovyuk ◽  
Suzanna Asiryan ◽  
Anastasiya Lazurenko

Problem setting. On October 7, 2021, the Constitutional Tribunal of the Republic of Poland ruled in favor of Polish law over European Union law, which in the long run may violate the principles according to which the Union operates and the rights enjoyed by citizens of the state. Such a precedent can further serve as a basis for identical decisions of the bodies of constitutional jurisdiction of those states that have problems in fulfilling their obligations in the European community. Analysis of recent researches and publications. The problems of the functioning of the bodies of the European Union, the implementation of their decisions and the general status in EU law are widely studied in national science. In particular, many scholars have studied the legal nature of the EU, including: TM Anakina, VI Muravyov, NM Ushakov, A. Ya. Kapustina, NA Korolyova, Yu. Yumashev, BN Topornin, OYa Tragniuk, SS Seliverstov, IV Yakovyuk and others. Target of research is to establish the foundations of EU law in the functioning of Union bodies, especially the Court, as well as to determine the hierarchy of national law and EU law. Article’s main body. Over the years, the Court has, within its jurisdiction, issued a large number of judgments which have become the source of the Union’s Constituent Treaties and of EU law in general. Over the last two decades, the powers of the Court of Justice have changed significantly. In particular, this is due to the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty, which amended the EU’s founding treaties on the powers of the Court, then the reform of the European Court took place in 2015-2016, which concerned a change in the organizational structure of the Court. Despite the generally well-established case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union on the unification of the observance by the Member States of the basic principles of the European Union, the Constitutional Tribunal of the Republic of Poland adopted a decision on 7 October. Conclusions and prospects for the development. Following the decision of the Constitutional Court, the Polish authorities found themselves in a situation that significantly complicated its internal and external situation. The way out of which requires answers to fundamental questions about the legal nature of the EU. Undoubtedly, this is an issue not only between Poland and the EU, but also between other member states.


Author(s):  
Christian Klesse

The accession of ten new member states has opened up new political and discursive spaces for challenging homo-, bi-, and transphobia in the new member states and the European Union (EU) as a whole. There has been widely felt sense of hope that the accession will ultimately increase the possibilities of political action, result in democratisation, and better the political conditions for sexual minorities to fight discrimination and struggle for equal treatment before the law (ILGA Europe 2001, Vadstrup 2002, Pereira 2002, Neumann 2004, ILGA 2004, Stonewall 2004). Such sentiments were also expressed in the call-for-papers for the Conference ‘Europe without Homophobia. Queer-in(g) Communities’ that took place from May 24 to May 26, 2004 at Wroclaw in Poland, for which I wrote the first draft of this paper. Participants were asked to reflect upon ‘how we can contribute to making sexual minorities in the European Community visible, heard, safe, and equal before the law’ and to ‘investigate the practical ways (including legal actions, information campaigns, political participation, etc.) of achieving the bold vision suggested in the title: Europe without homophobia’ (Organizing Committee 2004). Human rights groups and lesbian and gay organisations both in the (prospective) new and the already existing member states sensed that access to funding by EU bodies and the ability to address political and/or legal institutions of the EU (and/or the Council of Europe) opened up ‘new space’ for political activism and enabled access to a new range of political discourses and strategies (cf. Stychin 2003). Already many years before accession, human rights organisations and lesbian and gay campaigning groups started to utilise the transformative potential of this prospective economic-political and socio-legal change for campaigns against human rights abuse and legal discrimination on the grounds of gender and sexuality in states applying for accession. ILGA Europe, for example, emphasised that accession should be made dependent on the applying states complying to the high human rights standard that the EU is supposed to stand for. Due to the uneven power structure between the institutions of the EU and the states applying for membership, the logic and rhetoric of ‘enlargement’ structured the negotiations about accession. The power imbalances at the heart of the process are further indicated by the fact that accession is frequently discussed in the scientific literature in the terminology of ‘Europeanization’ (cf. Schimmelfenning and Sedelmeier 2005a). In this context, ‘Europeanization’ signifies ‘integration’ into the economic organisations and politico-legal institutions of the EU, a process that, according to Schimmelfenning and Sedelmeier, can be characterised as ‘a massive export of EU rules’ (2005b: 221). Because accession has been such a recent moment in history, research on the effects of the EU enlargement on the national polities of the new or prospective member states is still scarce. In particular, sexual politics has remained an under-researched topic (for an exception, see Stychin 2003). However, there is sufficient reason to speculate that accession will significantly affect the discourses and strategies of social movements struggling around sexuality and gender in the new member states. Even if it cannot be predicted at this stage, how political actors and social movements will respond and position themselves with regard to these newly emerging ‘political opportunity structures’ (Kriesi et al. 1995), the evolving institutional, economic, and discursive context will without any doubt impact on their politics.


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