scholarly journals THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE EUROPEAN GREEN DEAL

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melita Carević
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
European Union ◽  
Growth Strategy ◽  
Economic Recovery ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Public Investments ◽  
Environmental Objectives ◽  
Legislative Proposals

This paper aims to explore how the COVID-19 pandemic influenced the implementation of the European Green Deal and to which extent have the European Union’s green growth and sustainable development goals been incorporated into its COVID-19 Recovery Strategy. The European Union’s Green Deal, a ‘generation defining’ growth strategy, which lays down the strategic pathway of the European Union’s economic development for the upcoming two decades, has been faced with a major challenge shortly after its adoption in December 2019. However, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, which has continuously been putting all European Union member states to a harsh challenge during the past year, climate change and the green transition have been at the top of the political agenda in the European Union and have managed to occupy the attention of the mainstream politics and European Union citizens. Furthermore, the unprecedented levels of public financing which have been mobilised due to the pandemic have provided an opportunity for speeding up the green transition, without which the achievement of the Green Deal’s main aims and the fulfilment of the European Union’s obligations under the Paris Agreement would likely be put in question. In order to analyse how the has the COVID-19 pandemic influenced the implementation of the Green Deal, the paper first examines how the member states and the European Union institutions initially reacted to the idea of pursuing the implementation of the Green Deal simultaneously with economic recovery. This is accomplished through an analysis of statements given by the European Union and member state officials and the adopted measures and legislative proposals. The paper then focuses on publicly available data on legislative delays in regard to the implementation of the Green Deal which took place due to the pandemic and concludes that no significant postponements occurred. It subsequently turns to examine which measures have been adopted at the European Union level that link the economic recovery and the green transition. In this regard, special attention is paid to the Recovery and Resilience Facility and its measures aimed at ensuring that member states pursue climate change and environmental objectives in their recovery plans. Given the size of the public investments which will take place in the following years, the paper emphasises the importance of stringent environmental standards in order to ensure that they contribute to the green transition and avoid a fossil fuel lock-in.

scholarly journals BREXIT IMPACT ON THE EU’S CLIMATE DIPLOMACY

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-61
Author(s):  
William Sulisyo ◽  
Hendhia ◽  
Ivonne ◽  
Ellica ◽  
Andhika Raflie ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
European Union ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Leading Position ◽  
Economic Union ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Eu

European Union is a political and economic union of 27 member states. Britain is one of the leading members of the EU. The UK decided to leave the European Union. The EU struggled with the project that was being worked on called Climate Diplomacy. EU and its member states are part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The EU has built a significant and potentially a leading position in global governance on climate. Brexit is only one factor that could change the dynamics of its role. In this case, The EU has a negative impact as well as positive impacts due to Brexit. It turns out that the negative implications are more dominant than positive effects. European Union will lose the financial contribution made by the UK to the EU budget.   Keywords: European Union, UK, Brexit, Climate Diplomacy.

scholarly journals Governance and Institutions for Stability and Growth in the Eurozone

2018 ◽  
pp. 108-125
Author(s):  
Daniele Schiliro
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Euro Area ◽  
European Monetary Union ◽  
Economic Recovery ◽  
The European Union ◽  
New Governance ◽  
Member States ◽  
The Face ◽  
Consistent Approach

This chapter aims to contribute to the debate on which kinds of governance and institutions are needed to ensure stability and growth in the Eurozone. Despite the economic recovery, the Eurozone does not have effective institutions to ensure stability in the face of a new economic crisis (without forgetting legitimacy, transparency, and the ability to meet the expectations of greater prosperity for Euro-area citizens). This chapter supports the view of a deep rethinking of the European monetary union (EMU) with a different governance and institutions. The new governance should imply a renewed political agreement among member states in both the Eurozone and the European Union (EU). This political agreement must lead to a reconsideration of the Maastricht parameters, a different approach of European institutions, and a change of the EU treaty. This chapter also discusses the role of institutions in balancing European interests with those of member states to provide a consistent approach to stability and growth.

scholarly journals THE GOVERNANCE OF MIGRATION THROUGH THE MEDITERRANEAN: A TRANSNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Elia ◽  
◽  
Valentina Fedele
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Migration Policy ◽  
Border Studies ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Global Approach ◽  
Member States ◽  
External Dimension ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Eu

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.

scholarly journals EU Citizens, Foreign Family Members and European Union Law

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 358-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elspeth Guild
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Family Reunification ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The European Union ◽  
European Union Law ◽  
Member States ◽  
Family Reunion ◽  
Eu Member States

Abstract While international human rights law enshrines family life as a cornerstone of society, when it intersects with migration, issues and problems arise in countries where migration is high on the political agenda. This is true in a number of EU states. Both EU law and European human rights commitments, however, require states to provide for family reunification subject to a margin of discretion to the state. While family reunification for refugees and beneficiaries of international protection has been at the top of some political agendas in Europe, this article looks at family reunification (generally known as family reunion) for another group—nationals of the Member States. In particular it poses two questions: do EU Member States accept their own nationals to come back to their home state with third country national family members they have acquired while abroad? Secondly, to what extent do EU Member States discriminate against their own nationals in comparison with the generous EU rules of family reunion for nationals of other Member States who have exercised a free movement right in their country. This article is based on reports by experts from all EU Member States in light of the 2014 judgment in O & B (C-456/12) by the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Setting the threshold: An analysis of different approaches for the definition of exemptions to water quality objectives in the European Union

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Bolinches ◽  
Lucia De Stefano ◽  
Javier Paredes-Arquiola ◽  
Carlotta Valerio ◽  
Alberto Garrido
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
European Union ◽  
Wastewater Treatment ◽  
Water Framework Directive ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Water Bodies ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Nitrogen And Phosphorus ◽  
Member States ◽  
Environmental Objectives

<p>Continental water ecosystems and human water uses may be jeopardized by degradation of water quality.  To prevent this degradation, the maximum concentration of pollutants for freshwater bodies may need to be set in the legislation. In some cases, the actions needed to achieve those environmental objectives may be technically challenging or financially overburdening. In the case of the European Union (EU), the Water Framework Directive (WFD, Article 4) requires the achievement of the good status of water bodies but allows for the declaration of exemptions due to lack of technical feasibility or disproportionate costs. Twenty years after the WFD approval, the conditions to declare exemptions remain unclear and in practice their declaration  is highly discretional.</p><p>The extant scientific literature suggests several methods to formulate the justification of exemptions. Although the methodologies are diverse, they all require to select a threshold (e.g. in terms of cost disproportionality) above which a relaxation of the environmental objectives may be accepted. This threshold should be uniform across the EU River Basin Districts in order to guarantee a fair distribution of efforts across Member States. To date, however, there are very few studies that compare the application of exemptions in different regions to assess the uniformity of approaches to the declaration of exceptions.</p><p>When defining actions to achieve the good status of water bodies, the quantification of the different pressures, their interactions and the effects on receiving water bodies can be challenging. In the case of physico-chemical pollutants, however, it can be easier to define policy actions as pressures can be quantified (point loads of wastewater treatment plants, diffuse loads emanated by different land uses) and the evolution in receiving waters can be modelled.</p><p>In our research, we analyzed over one thousand water bodies in the River Basin Districts of five different Member States of the European Union (Estonia, a transboundary Ireland-United Kingdom basin, Italy, Spain and Portugal), using the available databases on Digital Elevation Models (Copernicus EU-DEM), land use (CORINE land cover), urban pressures (European Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive dissemination platform and reported data), runoff and gauged flows (Water Information System for Europe, national gauging networks) and WFD exemption databases. Each water body was characterized according to the level of nitrogen and phosphorus pressures deriving from point and diffuse loads, and the declaration of exemptions to the environmental objectives for those nutrients. The exemption threshold is assessed for each River Basin District, allowing for a critical review of the different water policies in this significant aspect of the Water Framework Directive implementation.</p>

The European Phoenix 2.0

2021 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-174
Author(s):  
Lars P. Feld ◽  
Ekkehard A. Köhler
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
European Union ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States

In this article we analyze the economic and political challenges that the European Union and its member states have to face regardless of the COVID-19 pandemic: We differentiate between the medium and long-term challenges of demographic, digital and climate change and the general need to further develop the institutions of the European Union.

scholarly journals The practice of climate change policy evaluations in the European Union and its member states: results from a meta-analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Noriko Fujiwara ◽  
Harro van Asselt ◽  
Stefan Böβner ◽  
Sebastian Voigt ◽  
Niki-Artemis Spyridaki ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
European Union ◽  
Climate Change Mitigation ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Change Mitigation

Abstract Background This article presents the main findings from a meta-analysis of how climate change mitigation policy evaluations have been undertaken in the European Union (EU) and six of its Member States: Austria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece and the United Kingdom. It aims to provide insights into how policy evaluations are carried out and how those practices might be improved. As a first step, this article reviews the literature on the theory and practice of policy evaluations to guide our methodology and further analysis. Results Our sample of 236 policy evaluations in the EU and six Member States covers the period 2010–2016. Compared with the results of a similar meta-analysis carried out covering the period 1998–2007, formal evaluations commissioned by government bodies have been on the rise in 2010–2016. Most evaluations focus on effectiveness and goal achievement and usually forgo a deeper level of reflexivity and/or public participation in the evaluation process. The analysis also reveals the dominance of the energy sector in the sampled evaluations. The article finds that the low number of any policy evaluations in the agriculture, waste or land-use sectors is an area for further investigation. Conclusions The exercise of identifying, coding and categorising these evaluations for 7 years helps to provide insights into the potential use of ex-post evaluations in support of future EU legislative proposals and accompanying impact assessments. Having a good understanding on how a certain policy performed particularly according to evaluation criteria might form the basis for more ambitious climate change mitigation policies in the future. Our analysis further shows that it is crucial and urgent to allocate sufficient resources to the coverage of relatively under-represented sectors, such as land use, land-use change and forestry, and waste.

A New Agency Is Born in the European Union: The European Asylum Support Office

2010 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 373-405 ◽  
Author(s):  
Françoise Comte
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
European Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Monitoring Centre ◽  
European Regulatory ◽  
Legislative Proposals ◽  
Institutional Landscape ◽  
The Eu

AbstractOn 19 May 2010, the Spanish Minister for the Interior, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba and the President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, signed the Regulation establishing the European Asylum Support Office. This Regulation allows the creation of a new European regulatory agency into the EU institutional landscape. The Office, a fledgling agency, is one of the active agencies in the home affairs sector: FRONTEX, the Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, EUROPOL, CEPOL and EUROJUST. The founding regulation of the Office is the first legal instrument, adopted as part of legislative proposals recently introduced by the European Commission in the asylum area. This allows an old project to achieve its purpose, by creating a structure primarily designed to support Member States of the European Union in their efforts to bring closer national practices in the field of asylum. If EASO’s founding Regulation can meet this first concern of the Member States, it can also in many ways be considered as a breakthrough in European law, from an institutional, as well as from a substantive point of view. This article intends to examine these elements.

Political aspects of security of the European Union Member States

2020 ◽  
pp. 97-105
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Kusztykiewicz-Fedurek
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Political Security ◽  
New Institutions ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
The Eu

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.

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