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Newsletter
- February
2014 | |
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___________________________________________________________________________________
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17
February
The
Health Working Group will meet for a third meeting to
review and refine the list of 80 recommendations to
improve Europe’s health systems which were identified by
the group in November. Discussions will also continue
on specific case studies related to public health and
healthcare. The Health Working Group brings together 30
senior experts, including EU and national policymakers,
senior officials from international organisations,
medical and social care professionals, academia, civil
society and business
representatives. Read
more
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27
February
Connectivity
is crucial for ASEAN integration. The movement of goods,
capital, people and services across borders in Southeast
Asia is on the rise as the region seeks to establish an
ASEAN Economic Community. Better physical infrastructure
– such as railways, road and ports – is important but
connectivity also means investing in technology as well
as human capital development. On the sidelines of the
first ASEAN-EU Dialogue on Connectivity, Friends of
Europe will organise a Policy Insight debate with
top ASEAN experts to discuss the outlook of the ASEAN
Master Plan for Connectivity and assess the challenges
and opportunities it opens up for
Europe.
Read
more
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10
March
Japan
and the EU are deepening and expanding relations,
including through negotiations on a Strategic
Partnership Agreement and a parallel trade-expanding
comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement. What more
can both sides do to take EU-Japan relations to a truly
strategic level? Are the EU and Japan engaged in serious
discussions on global and regional security
challenges? Friends of Europe will analyse the
future of the multi-faceted EU-Japan relationship with
Kristalina Georgieva, EU Commissioner
for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and
Crisis Response and Shigehiro Tanaka,
Director-General of the Multilateral Trade System
Department at the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade
and Industry (METI). Read
more
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26
March
The
Working Group will meet in the wake of the March
European Council and pursue the discussion on reviving
Europe’s industry and boosting economic competitiveness
while keeping European climate and energy ambitions
alive. The last meeting of the Working Group focused on
energy prices and economic competitiveness, in the
context of the European Commission’s new energy/climate
package of proposals. A concluding report with
recommendations to the incoming European Commission and
European Parliament will be published in autumn
2014. Read
more
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___________________________________________________________________________________
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Paper:
The year ahead will be critical in determining the
European Union’s standing on the global stage. The EU
remains a potent international actor despite the damage
to its reputation caused by the Eurozone crisis and
intra-European squabbling over the best recipe for
economic revival. There is no room for complacency,
however. In a rapidly-changing world, as the United
States reassesses its multiple foreign commitments and
emerging nations, including China and India, compete for
power and influence, the EU must constantly renew its
foreign policy credentials or face irrelevance. A
stronger commitment to building a truly European common
defence and security policy is also necessary.
Vivien Pertusot,
IFRI, Ronja Kempin and
Ronja Scheler, SWP, and
Shada
Islam
reflect on the key challenges facing “Global Europe” in
2014. Read
more
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Australia
and the G20: Jobs and growth to get
priority
Report:
As
chair of the G20 in 2014, Australia will focus on a
global growth and jobs agenda and put the emphasis on
free trade, tax collection and infrastructure
investments, said Heather Smith, the
Australian G20 Sherpa, at a “Policy Insight” meeting
organised by Friends of Europe in cooperation
with the Australian Mission to the EU.
“EU priorities
for the G20 fit in very well with Australia’s agenda,”
said Antonio Jose Cabral, the EU’s G20
Sherpa. “We would like to add the question of
climate change,” he added. Read
more
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Report:
“China and the European Union must build on their
relationship by promoting greater two-way
investment as well as cooperation in areas such as
finance, technology and urbanisation, Chinese
Premier Li Keqiang said in a special
message sent to the third Europe-China Forum last
November. “In the coming decade, China and the EU will
strengthen strategic mutual trust and embrace another
decade of even more impressive growth,” the Chinese
leader added. Herman Van Rompuy,
President of the European Council, called for more joint
work in international security. “More dialogue is
necessary to continue communicating EU positions on
Syria, on the Arab Spring process or even on actions in
the Sahel,” he said. Read
more
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Ten
years on: Rebooting the EU-China strategic
partnership
Report:
EU-China relations need a reboot after ten
years of strategic drift with fresh impetus on trade,
investments and in areas such as security, urbanisation
and renewables. Leading academics and policymakers from
China and Europe engaged in a wide-ranging,
off-the-record roundtable discussion, organised in
cooperation with the Chinese Mission to the EU, on ways
of taking the relationship into a new era of practical
cooperation. “How can we reduce apprehensions towards
each other? We need to be honest about the problems
facing relations between the EU and China,” said one
participant. The roundtable recommended that China
and the EU engage in discussions on global governance,
encourage European study of Chinese, do not allow trade
disputes to colour overall relations and underlined the
importance of stronger cooperation on green
growth.
Read
more
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Report:
Negotiations for accession to the EU are notoriously
technical but enlargement is a political process, noted
Miroslav Lajčák, Slovakia’s Deputy
Prime Minister at Friends of Europe’s 12th
European Policy Summit on the Balkans. As Serbia and
Albania demonstrated recently, moving into the fast lane
towards EU accession takes political will and
determination. But EU Commissioner for Enlargement
Stefan Füle added that Europe is now
facing tough economic and political situation and there
are growing concerns about taking on new Member States –
people focus on the negative aspects and overlook the
benefits. At the same time, in the enlargement
countries, there is a need to do more to deliver on
reforms and meet the accession criteria. Read
more
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Report:
Dealing with organised crime and corruption in
Europe requires a comprehensive and multi-sectoral
approach, according to participants who attended a
roundtable organised in Berlin last month by Friends
of Europe and Security and Defence Agenda in
cooperation with the European Commission Directorate
General for Home Affairs to discuss the post Stockholm
programme framework. Other recommendations include
enhanced cooperation with the private sector to develop
more effective anti-corruption monitoring mechanisms and
the development of ethics classes in education systems
in Europe.
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Guest
Contribution by Wendel Trio: The European
Commission proposals to reduce Europe's greenhouse gas
emissions by 40% by 2030 and to end current renewable
energy targets for member states has been described by
many as an indication of reduced ambition to tackle
climate change. But it is more than that - the
Commission goes against the promise EU Member States
have made repeatedly since 1996, namely to keep average
global temperature rises below
2°C. Read
more
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Guest
Contribution by Oliver Bräuner: More than ten
years after the establishment of the ‘comprehensive
strategic partnership’ between China and the European
Union, cooperation on global security issues remains
underdeveloped and both sides have a poor record of
joining their diplomatic forces to tackle for instance
the ongoing conflict in Syria. Read
more
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___________________________________________________________________________________
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Who are the
presidential candidates for the European
Commission?
For
the first time ever, European political parties are
putting forward candidates for the position of President
of the European Comission, giving citizens a real say on
who runs the EU's executive arm.
So,
who are these candidates? Over the coming weeks,
Debating Europe will be profiling each of them in turn.
We have started last week with a look at José
Bové and Ska
Keller, both of whom were nominated by the
European Green Party.
In the run-up to European
Parliament elections, Debating Europe has launched Vote
2014, the first ever pan-European online e-Vote,
specifically designed as a high profile barometer of
voter's intentions ahead of the real elections. The vote
count is updated in real time via a dynamic infographic
of the European Parliament hemicycle,
and a weekly report captures the voting trends
throughout the initiative. At the moment the Social
Democrats are leading with 23%, followed by the Liberal
Democrats in second place with 22%, the Radical Left in
third place with 16.6% and the Centre-Right only in
fourth place with 16%.
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The
Social Democrats and Liberal Democrats are powering
ahead!
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See
the full picture here.
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___________________________________________________________________________________
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Europe’s
World has launched a revamped website EuropesWorld.org,
designed to further promote debate on the policy
challenges facing Europe. We feature articles from the
print issue, web exclusive content and publications from
our 150-plus partner think tanks.
Europe's
World is the only independent Europe wide policy
journal, produced in association with some 150 leading
European think tanks and academic
institutions.
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Leszek
Balcerowicz, Deputy Prime Minister of Poland
(1989-1991, 1997-2000) and chairman of the National Bank
(2001-07) comments on the wide use of rhetoric while
presenting solutions for European political and
economic issues.
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Yanis
Varoufakis, Professor of Economics at
University of Athens and the Lyndon B. Johnson School of
Public Affairs, University of Texas on Europe's
inability to tackle its internal challenges.
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Pascal
Lamy, Friends of Europe Trustee,
Director General of the World Trade Organization
(2005-2013), former EU Commissioner for Trade
(1994-2004) examines the obstacles and assesses the
chances of strengthening world countries'
co-operation. | |
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___________________________________________________________________________________
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___________________________________________________________________________________
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©
2014 Friends of Europe
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