The always difficult negotiations are made more difficult by the 75 billion euros the UK is giving up.

ANALYSIS / Pablo Gurbindo Palomo

The negotiations for the European budget for the period 2021-2027 are crucial for the future of the Union. After the failure of the extraordinary summit on 20-21 February, time is running out and the member states must put aside their differences in order to reach an agreement on agreement before 31 December 2020.

framework The negotiation of a new European Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) is always complicated and crucial, as the ambition of the Union depends on the amount of money that member states are willing to contribute. But the negotiation of this new budget line, for the period 2021-2027, has an added complication: it is the first without the United Kingdom after Brexit. This complication does not lie in the absence of the British in the negotiations (for some that is more of a relief) but in the 75 billion euros they have stopped contributing.

What is the MFP?

framework The Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF ) is the EU's long-term budgetary framework deadline and sets the limits for expense of the Union, both as a whole and in its different areas of activity, for a deadline period of no less than 5 years. In addition, the MFF includes a number of provisions and "special instruments" beyond that, so that even in unforeseen circumstances such as crises or emergencies, funds can be used to address the problem. This is why the MFF is crucial, as it sets the political priorities and objectives for the coming years.

This framework is initially proposed by the Commission and, on this basis, the committee (composed of all Member States) negotiates and has to come to a unanimous agreement . After this the proposal is sent to the European Parliament for approval.

The amount that goes to the MFF is calculated from the Gross National Income (GNI) of the Member States, i.e. the sum of the remuneration of the factors of production of all members. But customs duties, agricultural and sugar levies and other revenues such as VAT are also part of it.

Alliances for war

In the EU there are countries that are "net contributors" and others that are "net receivers". Some pay more to the Union than they receive in return, while others receive more than they contribute. This is why countries' positions are flawed when they face these negotiations: some want to pay less money and others do not want to receive less.

Like any self-respecting European war, alliances and coalitions have been formed beforehand.

The Commission 's proposal for the MFF 2021-2027 on 2 May 2018 already made many European capitals nervous. The proposal was 1.11 % of GNI (already excluding the UK). It envisaged budget increases for border control, defence, migration, internal and external security, cooperation with development and research, among other areas. On the other hand, cuts were foreseen in Cohesion Policy (aid to help the most disadvantaged regions of the Union) and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

The Parliament submitted a report provisional on this proposal in which it called for an increase to 1.3% of GNI (corresponding to a 16.7% increase from the previous proposal ). In addition, MEPs called, among other things, for cohesion and agriculture funding to be maintained as in the previous budget framework .

On 2 February 2019 the Finnish Presidency of committee proposed a negotiation framework starting at 1.07% of GNI.

This succession of events led to the emergence of two antagonistic blocs: the frugal club and the friends of cohesion.

The frugal club consists of four northern European countries: Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Austria. These countries are all net contributors and advocate a budget of no more than 1 % of GNI. On the other hand, they call for cuts to be made in what they consider to be "outdated" areas such as cohesion funds or the CAP, and want to increase the budget in other areas such as research and development, defence and the fight against immigration or climate change.

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has already announced that he will veto on committee any proposal that exceeds 1 % of GNI.

The Friends of Cohesion comprise fifteen countries from the south and east of the Union: Spain, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. All these countries are net recipients and demand that CAP and cohesion policy funding be maintained, and that the EU's budget be based on between 1.16 and 1.3 % of GNI.

This large group met on 1 February in the Portuguese town of Beja. There they tried to show an image of unity ahead of the first days of the MFP's discussion , which would take place in Brussels on the 20th and 21st of the same month. They also announced that they would block any subject cuts.

It will be curious to see whether, as the negotiations progress, the blocs will remain strong or whether each country will pull in its own direction.

Outside of these two groups, the two big net contributors stand out, pulling the strings of what happens in the EU: Germany and France.

Germany is closer to the frugals in wanting a more austere budget and more money for more modern items such as digitalisation or the fight against climate change. But first and foremost it wants a quick agreement .

France, for its part, is closer to the friends of cohesion in wanting to maintain a strong CAP, but also wants a stronger expense in defence.

The problem of "rebates

And if all these variables were not enough, we have to add the figure of the compensatory cheques or "rebates. These are discounts to a country's contribution to budget. This figure was created in 1984 for the United Kingdom, during the presidency of the conservative Margaret Thatcher. For the "Iron Lady", the amount that her country contributed to budget was excessive, as most of the amount (70%) went to the CAP and the Cohesion Funds, from which the UK hardly benefited. It was therefore agreed that the UK would have certain discounts on its budgetary contribution on a permanent and full basis.

These compensatory cheques have since been given to other net contributor countries, but these had to be negotiated with each MFF and were partial on a specific area such as VAT or contributions. An unsuccessful attempt was already made to eliminate this in 2005.

For the frugal and Germany these cheques should be kept, on civil service examination to the friends of cohesion and especially France, who want them to disappear.

Sánchez seeks his first victory in Brussels

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is staking much of his credibility in both Europe and Spain on these negotiations.

In Europe, for many he failed in the negotiations for the new Commission. Sánchez started from a position of strength as the leader of Europe's fourth Economics after the UK's exit. He was also the strongest member of the Socialist group parliamentary , which has been in the doldrums in recent years at the European level, but was the second strongest force in the European Parliament elections. For many, therefore, the election of the Spaniard Josep Borrell as High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, with no other socialist in key positions, was seen as a failure.

Sánchez has the opportunity in the negotiations to show himself as a strong and reliable leader so that the Franco-German axis can count on Spain to carry out the important changes that the Union has to make in the coming years.

On the other hand, in Spain, Sánchez has the countryside up in arms over the prospects of reducing the CAP. And much of his credibility is at stake after his victory in last year's elections and the training of the "progressive coalition" with the support of Podemos and the independentistas. The Spanish government has already taken a stand with farmers, and cannot afford a defeat.

Spanish farmers are highly dependent on the CAP. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food: "in 2017, a total of 775,000 recipients received 6,678 million euros through this channel. In the period 2021-2027 we are gambling more than 44,000 million euros."

There are two different types of CAP support:

• Direct aids: some are granted per volume of production, per crop (so called "coupled"), and the others, the "decoupled" ones, are granted per hectare, not per production or yield and have been criticised by some sectors.

• Indirect support: this does not go directly to the farmer, but is used for the development of rural areas.

The amount of aid received varies depending on the sector, but can amount to up to 30 % of a farmer's income. Without this aid, a large part of the Spanish countryside and that of other European countries cannot compete with products coming from outside the Union.

Failure of the first budget summit

On 20 and 21 February an extraordinary summit of the European committee took place in order to reach a agreement. It did not start well with the proposal of the president of the committee, Charles Michel, for a budget based on 1.074% of GNI. This proposal convinced nobody, neither the frugal as excessive, nor the friends of cohesion as insufficient.

Michel's proposal included the added complication of linking the submission of aid to compliance with the rule of law. This measure put the so-called Visegrad group (Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia) on guard, as the rule of law in some of these countries is being called into question from the west of the Union. So, another group is taking centre stage.

The Commission's technical services made several proposals to try to make everyone happy. The final one was 1.069% of GNI. Closer to 1%, and including an increase in rebates for Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Austria and Denmark, to please the frugal and attract the Germans. But also an increase in the CAP to please the friends of cohesion and France, at the cost of reducing other budget items such as funding for research, defence and foreign affairs.

But the blocs did not budge. The frugal ones remain entrenched at 1%, and the friends of cohesion in response have decided to do the same, but at the 1.3% proposed by the European Parliament (even if they know it is unrealistic).

In the absence of agreement Michel dissolved the meeting; it is expected that talks will take place in the coming weeks and another summit will be convened.

Conclusion

The EU has a problem: its ambition is not matched by the commitment of its member states. The Union needs to reinvent itself and be more ambitious, say its members, but when it comes down to it, few are truly willing to contribute and deliver what is needed.

The Von der Leyen Commission arrived with three star plans: the European Green Pact to make Europe the first carbon-neutral continent; digitalisation; and, under Josep Borrell, greater international involvement on the part of the Union. However, as soon as the budget negotiations began and it became clear that this would lead to an increase in the expense, each country pulled in its own direction, and it was these subject proposals that were the first to fall victim to cuts due to the impossibility of reaching an understanding.

A agreement has to be reached by 31 December 2020, if there is to be no money at all: neither for CAP, nor for rebates, nor even for Erasmus.

Member States need to understand that for the EU to be more ambitious they themselves need to be more ambitious and willing to be more involved, with the increase in budget that this entails.

Brexit, with the departure from the EU of a free-market champion, has boosted the coordination of the free-trade countries of northern Europe.

16th century engraving showing a view of Lübeck, when it was part of the Hanseatic League.

ANALYSIS / Jokin de Carlos Sola

Made up of the little people of Europe's northern coast, the Hanseatic League controls the sea and the money that moves across it. This definition applies to two organisations, one medieval and one recently created, ready to make its voice heard on the European stage.

In 2017, eight northern European countries (the Netherlands, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) began the process of creating the New Hanseatic League initiative. Its main objective goal is to maintain and increase economic orthodoxy, now that the United Kingdom - one of its main supporters - is leaving the European Union, and to prevent France from taking advantage of this moment to implement its expansionary Economics policies.

The first League

The First Hanseatic League or simply the Hansa was a commercial and defensive alliance of trading cities and guilds of the major maritime cities of the Baltic and North Atlantic. Founded in Lübeck in 1158, the first alliance consisted of the free German maritime cities of Lübeck, Hamburg, Lüneburg, Wismar, Rostock and Stralsund.

Many other cities later joined the Hansa, such as Cologne, Groningen, Berlin and Stockholm. In addition, the Hansa set up trading posts in ports in almost all of northern Europe, and even established their own quarters - called kontors -in other places such as London, Antwerp, Novgorod and Bruges.

This alliance acquired great commercial as well as military importance. Since its foundation, the Hansa had maintained an almost symbiotic relationship with the Baltic monastic state of the Teutonic Knights. Later it would establish its own fleet. With the growth of the nation states and the decline of the guilds, the Hansa declined until it consisted only of Lübeck, Hamburg and Bremen, and was finally dissolved with German unification.

Creation of the New Hansa

With the enlargement of the European Union, new opportunities arose to balance the power of the dominant Franco-German bloc (also known as the Aachen bloc) on the European committee . Thus, the Visegrad group , the Three Seas Initiative or the Craiova group have been created in Central and Eastern Europe. In recent years, the New Hanseatic League has emerged in the north of the continent.

The latter initiative was born in the wake of Brexit. As the third country in terms of economic weight in the EU, the United Kingdom has had a great influence on the Union's economic policy, defending ideas such as economic stability, deficit reduction, debt reduction, economic deregulation and a stable monetary policy that avoids inflation, as well as a free trade policy.

These ideas clashed with the French economic policy of greater economic dirigisme and interventionism, with its emphasis on social projects and protectionism. Meanwhile, Germany's cautious attitude acted as a balance and middle ground between the two positions. London's positions have also been supported by the Netherlands and Denmark, as well as other countries with a tradition of maritime trade, who, faced with the prospect of the UK's departure from the EU, decided to establish greater coordination among themselves.

Another cause for the training of the New Hansa is the coming to power of Emmanuel Macron and his rise as a strongman in the EU. Macron has abandoned part of the economic speech with which he was elected in 2017 to move closer to traditional French positions, also followed by countries such as Italy and Spain.

A final trigger for the Dutch- and Irish-inspired initiative was the replacement in January 2018 of Jeroen Dijsselbloem as Eurogroup president by Mario Centeno, Portugal's socialist minister. For many northern European politicians, Dijsselbloem's intransigence in the face of the Greek debt crisis in 2015 was correct and a way forward for EU and Eurozone economic and monetary policy.

This group was initially known by names such as "The Vikings" or "Bad Weather Coalition". In February 2018 the finance ministers of the Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania signed the founding document of the New Hanseatic League.     

Political and economic values

The main objectives of the New Hanseatic League are based on free trade ideas, as well as maintaining a balanced budget . Its main objectives are the development of the European Stability Mechanism, established in Luxembourg. The idea would be that this development would eventually turn the ESM into a plenary session of the Executive Council European Monetary Fund, which would redistribute wealth between member states with surpluses and those with trade deficits. The Hansa is also in favour of giving the ESM more power to interfere in national budgets in order to avoid exceeding deficit limits.

However, although the founding document sticks to the European Stability Mechanism, the Hansa does not intend to stop there. Some representatives of these countries have spoken out against a budget for the eurozone, a eurozone finance minister and a common deposit insurance scheme, as proposed by Macron. They also criticised the European Commission for its decision not to initiate a disciplinary procedure against Italy over its deficit and debt.

The Hansa's positions have gained general popularity in their respective countries. On the one hand, the right-wing parties in those places have long advocated free trade approaches, while the left-wing parties do not want the welfare state of their respective populations to be put at risk in order to help the southern European countries.

The ideological origins of the New Hansa could be traced back to British Thatcherism in the 1980s. This political ideology included on the one hand a liberal approach to Economics, advocating ideas such as deregulation, privatisation and free trade. Thatcherism did not advocate the break-up of the EU, but included a sceptical view, advocating a union limited to Economics, without advancing political union. This thinking, in opposition to traditional French dirigisme, has had a clear influence within British politics and within the Conservative Party. However, its influence on other European politicians, such as various leaders in the Netherlands and Denmark, is somewhat less well known.

The defence of a liberal and capitalist Europe, contrary to a strong central power, is shared by many countries, all of them located in the northern fringe of the Union. This pits them against the Mediterranean countries, which have required EU aid in recent years.

However, there are other elements that characterise these countries beyond their wealth and geographical position, such as their size and their dependence on trade, derived from their maritime character. This makes them favourable to increased trade treaties and forces them to seek resources they do not have on their own territory.

Leadership of the group

The New Hanseatic League is an initiative and not an organisation as such, so it has no official leader; decisions are taken in unofficial councils of heads of government and finance ministers. However, several personalities have been prominent, notably Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, and Wopke Hoekstra, his finance minister.  

Wopke Hoekstra is considered the architect of the New Hansa. Aged 41, he is a Christian Democrat, a practising Protestant, a member of the Remonstrant Brotherhood and a former student of the Institut Européen d'Administration des Affaires (INSEAD), Europe's most prestigious business school. He has shown the most intransigent side of the Dutch government on economic issues in recent years. It has reached the point that Dijsselbloem himself has criticised the New League's training because, according to him, it damages the idea of solidarity within the Union.

Mark Rutte, on the other hand, has used the creation of the New Hansa to increase the Netherlands' weight in European politics. Rutte is regarded as one of the most active Dutch premiers in foreign policy since the Second World War and has tried to assert the Netherlands in the EU vis-à-vis France and Germany. At the same time Rutte has tried to occupy the British voice in Europe's committee as one of the most Atlanticist leaders.

Other leaders who have shown their involvement in this project have been the Danish finance minister until 2019, Kristian Jensen, and the Irish deputy prime minister, Simon Coveney. On the other hand, the role of Denmark and Sweden was core topic for the Baltic countries to move away from the Visegrad group and join the New Hansa.

Economic, financial and technological weight

The Hansa has managed to bring together an economic weight that other initiatives of the same kind have not been able to muster. Currently, the combined GDP of the Hansa countries is more than 2.2 trillion euros, close to the 2.5 trillion euros of the French GDP, the second largest economic force in Europe.

The group also has clear financial clout. Cities such as Amsterdam, Stockholm and Dublin have been climbing the ranks of Europe's leading financial capitals in recent years, although they have yet to overtake Paris and Frankfurt. Moreover, these are countries where technological innovation exists, especially Estonia and the Netherlands.

The fact that group does not exceed 10% of the European population somewhat mitigates its influence, as the votes of the countries and blocs in the European committee are partly based on issue of inhabitants, but it is nonetheless a relevant political actor in the EU. In contrast, the southern European countries (Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece) account for 30 per cent of the European population, but are considered less decisive.

The Hansa positions represent a break with the EU principle that, for reasons of inter-territorial social cohesion, those countries that have more and are more developed contribute more. The ideas of the more radical sections of the Hansa can even be labelled as a certain neo-colonialism, insofar as they seek to use the supranational mechanisms of the EU to ensure that debtor countries in the South repay loans, which will keep them at certain levels of debt.

The Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Ireland are among the top contributors to the common European budget , behind the top four (Italy, UK, France and Germany). On a per capita basis, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark are at the top of the list. While Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are beneficiaries, they are less so than Poland, Greece or Romania.

Given its greater contribution to the EU, or less dependence on aid, the Hansa is demanding a greater say in the EU's direction. For the time being, it has succeeded in imposing various criteria on budget in 2020, as opposed to those of the recipient countries.

Exercise of influence

One of the main objectives of the New Hanseatic League was to ensure that the two most controlling figures over the European Economics (the presidency of the Central Bank, and the leadership of the International Monetary Fund) were to its liking. In both cases it has failed, largely because of Emmanuel Macron's intervention.

The Netherlands had a particular interest in the appointment of the ECB, as outgoing president Mario Draghi had lobbied the Dutch government to activate stimulus policies. The New Hansa's candidate was Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann, known for his criticism of Mario Draghi's stimulus policies and for advocating a high-interest policy. Macron agreed with Germany that the European Commission would go to a German (Ursula von der Leyen) in exchange for the ECB being chaired by Christine Laguard, who would continue Draghi's policies.

For the IMF, Rutte proposed Dijsselbloem, despite his criticism of the Hansa. The final vote was between him and Bulgarian economist Kristalian Georgieva. Although Germany ended up voting for the Dutchman, Georgieva became the new head of the IMF. 

However, the Hansa has also had some victories, such as holding the Commission firm on the Italian budget , which was going to exceed deficit limits; exerting influence on the European budget , which has suffered a drastic reduction; or slowing down, if not completely blocking, Macron's project for a common budget for the Eurozone.

visit from Dutch Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra (right) to his Irish counterpart Paschal Donohoe (left) at the end of 2018 [Gov. of Ireland].

Expansion strategy and partnerships

One of the problems previously mentioned for the Hansa has been its lack of weight in the European committee . For this reason, its leaders have sought the political alignment of countries with which there may be ideological overlaps.

One of the first countries to establish contact with the Hansa countries was Austria. This makes sense since Austria has a similar economic structure to the other Hansa countries due to its small size and population. In addition, the government of Sebastian Kurz seemed to have a strong programme towards Europe very much in line with the Hansa. Famous is the proposal of several Austrian politicians for the creation of two European currencies, one for the north and one for the south. This subject of connections would be very important for later influencing Germany. In the new von der Leyen Commission, the Finance Committee was won for Austria by the economist Johannes Hahn.

The Austrian courtship also seems to have a strategic goal as a step to also start influencing Germany, which acts as a balancer of the balance. Several German politicians from the CDU and CSU are favourable to the Hansa's thinking and have been very influential throughout Merkel's government. But when Wolfgang Schäuble was removed from the Finance Ministry and replaced by the Social Democrat Olof Scholz these positions lost importance.

Similarly, the Hansa (and above all the Netherlands) has been establishing contacts with the Flemish government in Belgium. Although Flanders is just another state in the Belgian federation, the lack of a government in Brussels gives it great importance, along with the government of Wallonia. In addition, the Flemish control the port of Antwerp and have always been closer to the ideas of the Hansa.

On the other hand, the Hansa also seems to have initiated contacts with Slovakia and the Czech Republic. This was seen when in March 2019 both countries signed a declaration together with the Hansa countries against the Italian budget . It would be unusual to see these countries moving very close to the Hansa because they remain natural recipients of European funds. However, given that they are countries with healthy accounts, they could be seen as allies of the Hansa in some future actions.

In a way we could see Hanseatic diplomacy as a partial evolution of Otto von Bismarck's diplomacy (to push France out of power by training regional alliances). The aim is to form a sufficiently strong bloc that can present itself solidly on the European committee and convince Germany to tilt the balance towards budgetary orthodoxy and the interests of the northern countries. Alongside France are most of the southern countries. One could very generally say that the Hansa's objectives are: "Mobilise the North, seduce Germany, silence the Mediterranean".

Strange alliances in front of the Hansa

The Hanseatic configuration of alliances around Europe and their influence on the new European budget seems to have created curious alliances, the largest of which is undoubtedly the one that may arise between Poland and France.

This may sound strange, because when it comes to foreign policy, social policy and on certain points of European integration, Poland and France have been poles apart. But when it comes to economic policy and the European budget , France and Poland are on the same page, and this may result in a common front against the Hansa.

The reasons for the Franco-Polish rapprochement are varied. Both nations follow the tradition of the social welfare state, France because of its republican fraternity bequest and Poland because of its Catholic heritage, both opposed to the Hanseatic absentee state. Moreover, both countries have reasons to want to avoid restrictive budgets. The Polish government fears that a drastic reduction of investment in Poland would force it to make social cuts, which would lead to instability. France is sample opposed for a more ideological reason: Macron has championed the idea of 'A Europe that protects' and would have trouble sticking to this idea.

Nevertheless, Poland and France have some sticking points, especially with Macron's attempt at a new Ostpolik to calm relations with Russia.

Conclusion

The creation of the New Hanseatic League is ultimately written request a reaction to two movements: the creation of European regional systems and the withdrawal of economic policies favouring Northern Europe. 

If the countries of Europe organise themselves into blocs, it may be easier to carry out certain initiatives because there are fewer interlocutors to negotiate with.

On the other hand, the creation of an initiative with the specific goal purpose of defending northern interests may pose a risk for southern countries, accentuating north-south differences in Europe. This would put Germany, which wants to avoid such a compromise, in a difficult position status .

The smart thing to do would be to avoid these confrontations directly by seeking other sources of revenue for the EU that do not compromise the wealth of the Hansa countries, as Morawiecki expressed and Macron has also pointed out. Thus, some taxes have been discussed, such as those on air travel, financial transactions and the digital world. But again, with the importance of the financial sector and new technologies in countries such as Ireland or Estonia, this may encounter civil service examination. It is not a simple task.

In any case, it should be ensured that European politicians have sufficient vision and understanding to make agreements that take into account all the idiosyncrasies of the European Union.

With the agreement reached between the EU and Johnson and the polls favorable to Johnson in the December 12 election, a possible end to Brexit is in sight.

▲ Installation against Brexit, during a protest in Manchester in 2017 [Robert Mandel, Wikimedia Commons].

COMMENT / Pablo Gurbindo

Since June 23, 2016, the date on which the referendum on the United Kingdom remaining in the European Union was held, the British exit has overshadowed any other topic, such as the momentous past European elections, and has caused the British political spectrum to split between those who support remaining and those who support leaving.

 The "Brexit" has also taken two prime ministers by surprise: David Cameron, after the referendum, and his successor, Theresa May, who left the position after failing to get her agreement reached with the EU to be C by the British Parliament. And it may be her successor, Boris Johnson, the controversial former Mayor of London who campaigned for the vote to leave the Union, who manages to lead his country out of these more than three years of uncertainty.

Johnson's arrival at 10 Downing Street caused great concern in European capitals. From the outset, he stated that he would get his country out of the European Union, with or without agreement , before October 31. And, in September, he did not hesitate to temporarily fail the Parliament so that the civil service examination could not veto a possible exit without agreement. This closure was declared illegal by the Supreme Court and the civil service examination managed to ensure that the hypothetical exit without agreement could only be agreed by Parliament. Despite all this, negotiations in Brussels did not stop and, on October 17, it was announced that an agreement had been reached. agreement.

The agreement reached is, to a large extent, similar to the one reached with Theresa May. The main change has been the Irish "safeguard", the section most criticized at the time by the civil service examination and by the hardest wing of the "Tories". This measure implied that, if the European Union and the United Kingdom did not reach a agreement by 2020, Northern Ireland would remain in the single market and the customs union, while the rest of the United Kingdom would leave.

This system provoked a great rejection, especially in the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). On this Northern Irish Unionist party, May and still Johnson, depended and depend to be able to approve the agreement in the British Parliament. This concern about the new border between the two Irelands responds to the risk it poses to the Good Friday Agreements. Thanks to these agreements, peace was restored to Northern Ireland, which in the last century was at loggerheads between Catholic groups, who advocated unification with Ireland, and Protestant unionists, who advocated maintaining ties with the United Kingdom. The breakdown of these agreements could lead to the return of violence to the island.

agreement reached

This new agreement on Northern Ireland, proposed by Johnson, is based on three main elements, as indicated by the European Union's Brexit negotiator, Frenchman Michel Barnier:

(1) Northern Ireland will continue to comply with certain EU customs rules, especially those related to goods and products. But, in order to avoid any subject border with Ireland, checks will only be carried out on goods arriving at Northern Irish ports. These checks will be carried out by the British in compliance with EU rules.

(2) However, it will continue to be part of the British Customs Union, so any trade agreement reached by the United Kingdom after Brexit will include Northern Ireland. The problem is that these two elements conflict: Northern Ireland would be part of the British customs unions as well as the EU customs unions. In order to solve the problem that this "customs bicephaly" could produce, products from third countries - which will not then move to another country in the common market - will be taxed at UK rates. However, if the products are likely to enter the common market, the UK authorities will apply the EU tariffs.

(3) Finally, the agreement with Johnson will be a permanent agreement unless the Northern Ireland Assembly decides otherwise. The agreement enables this body to vote on whether to maintain or abandon the agreed status once four years have elapsed since the protocol comes into force. In the event that they ratify the agreement it will be extended by four or eight years, depending on whether it is a simple majority or whether it has majority support (with the support of the Protestant and Catholic communities). Otherwise, European laws will continue to apply for two more years, during which time the EU and the UK will have to reach a new agreement.

Extension and call for elections

After the advertisement of the agreement reached, the most complicated part remained: ratifying it in the British Parliament, and in record time, since the deadline was October 31. Johnson was forced by Parliament to ask Brussels for an extension until January 31, 2020, contrary to his wishes to keep his promise to leave on October 31. This request was not without controversy as Johnson sent two letters: one asking for the extension, which he did not sign, and another signed in which he expressed that he would see the extension as a "mistake" and that it would be "deeply corrosive" to his country.

On October 29, the European committee accepted the extension to January 31, 2020 to allow time for the ratification of the agreement Exit. The United Kingdom could leave the Union earlier, on December 1, 2019 (a date that has already passed) or on January 1, 2020 in the event of ratification of the support by both parties. This extension was unanimously approved by the 27, despite France's reluctance. France argued that this long extension should be granted only if there was certainty that there would be elections in the United Kingdom; otherwise, they advocated a shorter technical extension, to allow time to ratify the agreement Exit.

To carry out the Brexit, Johnson, faced with "parliamentary obstructionism" called for early elections to change the arithmetic of Parliament and to be able to approve the agreement reached with the EU. This call was rejected twice by Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, the main party of the civil service examination. But after learning that the European committee accepted the extension, it supported the call.

Conclusion

With elections scheduled for next December 12, the wind seems to be blowing in Johnson's favor. The polls favor him with a percentage of 40% of the vote. Far behind, Labour, with 29%, would lose support to Jo Swinson's Liberal Democrat Party, which would rise to 15% (from 7.4% in the previous election). This rise of the "Lib Dems" would be mainly due to their strong support for remaining in the EU, unlike Corbyn, who has maintained a neutral position despite the fact that 70% of Labour voters support remaining. On the other hand, the Conservative majority would allow the "Tories" to stop depending on the DUP to achieve sufficient parliamentary majorities.

As if that were not enough, the leader of the Brexit Party, Nigel Farage, has announced that in order to facilitate a Conservative majority, his party will not stand in the constituencies where the Conservative Party won in the previous elections. In order to ensure the exit of the United Kingdom from the Union and to avoid a new referendum.

If these polls come true Johnson would get his long-awaited majority to be able to approve the exit.

After more than three years, a plausible end to Brexit is in sight.

By blocking some candidates, the European Parliament seeks the prominence denied by the failure of the proclamation of the Spitzenkandidat

▲ Ursula von der Leyen, at the plenary session of the European Parliament in which she defended her candidacy [European Commission]

ANALYSIS / Jokin de Carlos

In 1963, the Elysée Treaty was signed between President Charles de Gaulle and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, ending centuries of Franco-German rivalry and beginning the friendship between the two countries. Over the next few decades, France and Germany, as the leading economies of the Union, would largely mark the diary political and economic. Even in times of crisis, both leading countries avoided giving an image of confrontation.

However, after the European elections last May, there was a public tussle between Berlin and Paris over who should replace Jean-Claude Juncker as head of the European Commission. On the one hand, led by Angela Merkel, there were those leaders who defended the nomination of the Bavarian Manfred Weber, Spitzenkandidat of the European People's Party, made up of conservative formations; on the other hand, led by Emmanuel Macron, there were those who, of liberal or social democratic tendencies, opposed this nomination in preference to the Dutchman Frans Timmermans or the Danish Margrathe Vestager.

After weeks of negotiation and diplomatic tension, Weber's candidacy was withdrawn, in part because of Merkel's political weakness in Germany and the momentary defenestration of Sebastian Kurz in Austria due to Ibizagate. But the position it was not for Vestager or Timmermans but for Ursula von der Leyen, Germany's defense minister and Merkel's Christian Democrat colleague, originally from Hanover and from an aristocratic family. 

And so ends the summer of our discontent, with this Hanoverian sun.

Election

One of the main problems facing the new president of the Commission is going to be how to achieve consensus among the leaders in the committee and between parties in Parliament.

Von der Leyen was unanimously elected in the committee, however, his election to the European Parliament was the closest in history, with only nine votes above the required majority. This vote had several surprises, such as the favorable vote of the Italian 5-Star Movement or the Polish PiS and the rejection of the SPD or the totality of the Greens.

Composition of the Commission

On 9 September, von der Leyen announced her nominees for the new Commission, which is made up of 28 members in the 28 member countries, although the United Kingdom Withdrawal to have a site for its scheduled departure from the Union on October 31.

The von der Leyen Commission has been organised in the form of pillars, each led by a Vice-President and composed of one or more Commissioners with specific portfolios. There are five pillars: (a) agreement European Green, which will cover topics such as energy, transport and agriculture; (b) a Europe ready for the digital age, for issues such as innovation and skill; (c) protecting our European way of life, which will encompass the areas of immigration and security; (d) one Economics to work for the people, destined for commerce, work and finance, and (e) a strong Europe in the world, which will include issues such as international relations or crisis management.

For the composition of this Commission, von der Leyen has tried to integrate two of the Spitzenkandidat who were discarded for the presidency. Socialist Frans Timmermans, a former Dutch deputy prime minister, will remain as vice-president and lead the pillar of the agreement the European Greens, while the liberal Margrethe Vestager, former Danish Deputy Prime Minister, having been Commissioner for skill in the previous Commission, he will lead the pillar of A Europe Ready for the Digital Age. These are two of the most popular Commissioners in the Juncker Commission; in the case of Vestager for her fight against tax evasion by several large American technology companies, such as Google, Amazon or Apple.

Of the rest of the vice-presidents, three will head the other three pillars: the new High Representative of the Union Josep Borrell, former Spanish minister in several portfolios and former president of the European Parliament, will lead A Strong Europe in the World; Christian Democrat and former Latvian premier Valdis Dombrovskis will lead the economic pillar, and Greek conservative Margaritis Schinas will lead the pillar of protecting the European way of life.

Three other vice-presidencies, with smaller areas, will go to the Czech Republic's Verá Jorubá (Values and Transparency), Slovakia's Maroš Šefčovič (Interinstitutional Relations) and Croatia's Dubravka Šuica (Democracy and Demography).

Among the nominees for commissioners are prestigious people who have held important positions in their respective countries, as well as in previous European commissions: Paolo Gentiloni, former Italian premier, will be commissioner of Economics, and Didier Reynders, former Minister of Defence, Finance and Foreign Affairs in Belgium, will be in charge of Justice.

Analysis

There are two characteristics that can be highlighted about this Commission proposal: (1) The first is its more political character and (2) the second is a marked Francophilia. 

(1) On previous occasions the commissioners used to show a profile and in many cases a preference for staying in the shadows. In a way, they could have been considered the secretariat of the committee European. However, the selection made by Von der Leyen seems to want to put an end to this tradition, by opting for more well-known names. Thus, Gentiloni or Dombrovskis have previously governed their countries, while others such as Vestager, Timmermans or Reynders have had a certain previous prominence. It seems that the interest of EU politicians is no longer so much to create the European Federation as soon as possible as to bring Brussels closer to the people. Whether this strategy works or not, time will tell.

(2) The second characteristic of this new Commission is a clear pro-French direction, to the satisfaction of Emmanuel Macron. Many of the members of the Commission are political allies of the French President; the clearest is the case of Ursula von der Leyen herself, despite having been part of Merkel's cabinet and being a co-religionist of hers. It should be remembered that it was Macron who proposed it for the position after the veto of Weber, who was the candidate Merkel's initial. But that's not all. Both Timmermans and Vestager are political allies of Macron (Vestager had been his first choice to chair the Commission). Josep Borrell is also a well-known Francophile, and Didier Reynerds is a French-speaking Belgian whose party is allied with Macron's, as is the Italian commissioner Paolo Gentiloni. So this is a mostly Francophile Commission, which could increase Macron's weight on the Union and advance his vision of Europe.

Outside the Commission, the other officials nominated by the committee They were Christine Lagarde, a former French finance minister, who has stepped down from leading the IMF to head the European Central Bank, and Charles Michell, the French-speaking prime minister of Belgium and Macron's liberal colleague, the new president of the European Central Bank. committee European.

These nominations have also sought to meet a series of objectives:

i) The first and clearest is that the aim is to put an end to the possible alienation of the countries of Central and Southern Europe. Out of eight vice-presidents, four are from Central Europe, in charge of such important areas as the economic pillar or justice issues; two others are from the South, with responsibility for immigration and foreign policy issues.

ii) An attempt has also been made to reach out to groups that may have doubts about von der Leyen or directly voted against her in the parliamentary session. Looking at the greens, the portfolio agreement European Green aims to reduce carbon emissions by 55% from their 1990 levels by 2030 and make Europe the first zero-carbon continent by 2050. The pillar on immigration, called Protecting our European way of life, seems to want to augur a stricter immigration policy with the aim of promoting a more sustainable immigration policy. goal to maintain the support of Poland's PiS and Hungary's Fidesz.

iii) Briefly, it should also be mentioned that the nomination of Gentiloni to the economic portfolio seems to be a way of rewarding Italy for the training of a pro-Brussels government. While the nomination of a left-wing Italian to Economics It seems that the nomination of Austrian conservative Johannes Hahn to the Budget Committee has been made to balance that of Gentiloni.

Challenges and potential complications

The four main challenges facing this new Commission seem to be ecology, Economics, immigration and the construction of a common foreign policy.

As has been said before, the nomination of Borrell and other commissioners may lead to a foreign policy that follows French lines, which at times can lead to conflicts with Poland, the Baltic States or even Germany if tensions between France and the United States lead Washington to question its commitments to NATO and Russia.

Immigration looks set to remain a major issue for the Commission, although not as much as in recent years, largely because the issue The number of people arriving in Europe has dropped drastically. From more than one million in 2015 to less than 150,000 in 2018. Everything seems to indicate that the line on illegal immigration is going to be tougher than in previous years, although an attempt will be made to avoid populist rhetoric. However, the very name of the portfolio, Protecting our European Way of Life, has already come under fire from certain political sectors and civil society in Western Europe.

The Economics will be another element core topic. With a Brexit that could damage the Economics or cause a slowdown.

Another major problem is going to be related to Timmermans and his position. As the head of the pillar agreement The Dutch will be in charge of dealing with countries to reduce their carbon emissions. The countries of Central Europe, especially Poland, are still very dependent on the coal sector, which employs a significant portion of the workforce. Timmermans showed some clumsiness when it came to dealing with Poland and Hungary on justice issues as Juncker's vice-president, so it remains to be seen how he deals with the energy issue.

In relation to the nominations, there has been concern about Parliament's blocking of the commissioners from Romania, Hungary and France, who were rejected for various reasons. In the case of the Hungarian nominee, the veto was attributed to his relationship with a law firm, and in the case of the French nominee, to his relationship with an American think tank . However, the general analysis seems to indicate that these rejections, especially in the case of the French nominee, appear to be a reprisal by Parliament for having been section in the decision on the presidency of the Commission – since the proclamation of the Spitzenkandidat with the most votes was disregarded – by the committee European, especially Emmanuel Macron. The Fall of the Romanian Government and the Establishment of a Government provisional until the 2020 legislative elections may delay the training of the Commission. According to High Representative Josep Borrell, it is to be expected that the training of the von der Leyen Commission is delayed until 1 December.

Conclusion

To say that the von der Leyen Commission is going to be continuist, as many claim, would be partially incorrect. Although the ideology seems to be the same, the objectives set are very different and much more political. It seems that some of the mistakes made by the Juncker Commission want to be solved and it is trying to respond to some of the demands that citizens make to Brussels, on issues such as environmental care, economic improvement, the correct integration of Central Europe, border control, the development of the environment, and the development of the European Union. development of a common international policy and the rapprochement of Brussels with the Europeans.

Whether this will be a failure or a victory, on verra.

essay / Jairo Císcar Ruiz [English version].

In recent months, the open trade hostilities between the United States of America and the People's Republic of China have dominated the main general headlines and specialized economic publications around the world. The so-called "trade war" between these two superpowers is nothing more than the successive escalation of the imposition of tariffs and special levies on original products and manufactured goods from the countries in confrontation. This, in economic figures, means that the US imposed in 2018 special tariffs on US$250 billion of imported Chinese products (out of a total of US$539 billion), while China for its part imposed tariffs on 110 out of US$120 billion of US import products [1]. These tariffs meant an increase of US$3 billion in additional taxes for American consumers and businesses. This analysis is therefore intended to explain and show the position and future of the European Union in this trade war in a general way.

This small reminder of the figures illustrates the magnitude of the challenge for the global Economics posed by this clash between the world's two economic locomotives. It is not China who is paying the tariffs, as Trump literally said on May 9 during a meeting with journalists [2], but the reality is much more complex, and, evidently, as in the case of the inclusion of Huawei in the trade blacklist (and therefore the prohibition to purchase any item on US soil, whether hardware or software, without a prior agreement with the Administration), which may affect more than 1.200 American companies and hundreds of millions of customers globally according to the BBC [3], the economic war may soon start to be a great burden for Economics globally. On June 2, Pierre Moscovici, European Commissioner for Economic Affairs, predicted that if the confrontation continues, both China and the USA could lose between 5 and 6 tenths of GDP, stressing in particular that "protectionism is the main threat to world growth" [4].

As can be inferred from Moscovici's words, the trade war is not only of concern to the countries directly involved in it, but is closely followed by other actors in international politics, especially the European Union.The European Union is the largest Single Market in the world, this being one of the premises and fundamental pillars of the EU's very existence. But it is no longer focused on internal trade, but is one of the major trading powers for exports and imports, being one of the main voices advocating healthy trade relations that are of mutual benefit to the different economic actors at global and regional level. This openness to business means that 30% of the EU's GDP comes from foreign trade and makes it the main player when it comes to doing import and export business. To illustrate briefly, from agreement with the data of the European Commission [5] in the last year (May 2018-April 2019), the EU made imports worth €2,022 billion (a growth of 7%) and exported 4% more, with a total of €1,987 billion. The trade balance is therefore a negative balance of €35 billion, which, due to the large volume of imports and exports and the nominal GDP of the EU (taking the figure of 18.8 trillion euros) is only 0.18% of the EU's total GDP. The USA was the main place of export from the EU, while China was the first place of import. These data are revealing and interesting: an important part of the EU's Economics depends on business with these two countries and a bad performance of their Economics could weigh down the EU member countries' own.

Another data that illustrates the importance of the EU in subject trade is that of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). In 2018, 52% of global FDI came from countries within the EU and the EU received 38.5% of total investment globally, leading on both indicators. It can therefore be said that the current trade war may pose a serious problem for the future European Economics , but, as we will see below, the Union can emerge strengthened and even benefit from this status if it manages to mediate well between the difficulties, businesses and strategies of the two countries. But let us first look at the EU's relations with both the US and China.

The US-EU relationship has traditionally been (albeit with ups and downs) the strongest in the international sphere. The United States is the main ally in defense, politics, Economics and diplomacy of the European Union and vice versa. They share the economic, political and cultural model , as well as the main world collective defense organization, NATO. However, in the so-called transatlantic relationship, there have always been clashes, accentuated in the recent times of the Obama Administration and habitual with Trump. With the current Administration, not only have reproaches to the EU arisen within NATO (regarding the failure of member countries to invest the required budget ; shared criticism with the United Kingdom), but a full-fledged tariff war has begun.

In barely two years we have gone from the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) negotiations, the announced basis for 21st century trade that finally failed in the final stages of Obama in the White House, to the current status of extreme US protectionism and EU response. Particularly illustrative is the succession of events that have taken place in the last year: at the stroke of Twitter, in March 2018 the US unilaterally imposed global tariffs on steel (25%) and aluminum (10%) to protect American industry [6]. These tariffs did not only affect China, they also inflicted great damage on companies in European countries such as Germany. Tariffs of 25% on European vehicles were also in the air. After a harsh climate of mutual reproaches, on July 25, Jean Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, announced together with Trump a agreement to lower tariffs on agricultural products and services, and the US committed itself to review the imposition of metallurgical tariffs on the EU, as well as to support within the World Trade Organization the European calls for a reform of Intellectual Property laws, which China does not respect [7]. However, after the reiteration of the transatlantic friendship and Trump's advertisement of "we are heading towards zero tariffs" [8], soon the intemperate boxes have been rung again. In April this year, on April 9, Trump announced on Twitter the imposition of tariffs on the EU worth US$11 billion for the EU's support to Airbus (skill of the American Boeing, Lockheed Martin...), blowing up the principle of agreement of July last year. The EU, for its part, threatened to impose tariffs of €19 billion for the US state support to Boeing. As can be seen, the EU, despite its traditional conciliatory role and often subjugated to the US, has decided to fight back and not allow any more outbursts on the American side. The latest threat, in mid-July, is against French wine (and due to the European mechanism, against all wines of European origin, including Spanish wines). This threat has been described as "ridiculous" [9], since the USA consumes more wine than it produces (it is the world's largest consumer) and therefore, the supply available could be considerably reduced.

It is still too early to see the real impact that the trade war is having on the US, beyond the 7.4% drop in US exports to China [10] and the damage that consumers are suffering, but the Nobel laureate of Economics Robert Schiller, in an interview for CNBC [11] and the president of the World Trade Organization, Roberto Azevedo, for the BBC; have already expressed their fears that if status and protectionist policies continue, we could be facing the biggest economic crisis since the end of the Second World War. It is difficult to elucidate what the future relationship between Europe and its main exporter partner , the USA, will be like. All indications are that friction and escalation will continue if the US Administration does not decide to tone down its rhetoric and actions against free trade with Europe. Finally, it must be clear (and in the spirit of lowering the sometimes excessively alarmist tone of the news) that between the threats (either by Twitter or spokespersons) from both sides and the actual imposition of tariffs (in the US after the relevant advertisement from the Office of the US Trade Representative; in the EU through the approval of the 28) there is a long way to go, and we must not confuse potential acts and facts. It is clear that despite the harsh tone, the negotiating teams on both sides of the Atlantic are still at contact and are trying to avoid as far as possible actions detrimental to both sides.

On the other hand, the relationship between China and Europe is frankly different from the one with the USA. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) (to which Italy has formally adhered) is the confirmation of China's bid to be the next leader of the world's Economics . Through this initiative, President Xi Jinping aims to redistribute and streamline trade flows to and from China by land and sea. To this end, the stability of South Asian countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan is vital, as is the ability to control vital maritime traffic points such as the Strait of Malacca and the South China Sea. The Asian "dragon" has an internal status that favors its growth (6.6% of its GDP in 2018 which, being the worst figure for 30 years, is still an overwhelming figure), as the relative efficiency of its authoritarian system and, especially, the great support of the State to companies boost its growth, as well as possessing the largest foreign currency reserves, especially dollars and euros, which allow a great stability of the country's Economics . The Chinese currency, the Renminbi, has been declared by the IMF as a world currency reservation , which is another indicator of the good health that is predicted for the future of the Chinese Economics .

For the EU, China is a competitor, but also a strategic partner and a negotiator partner [12]. China is the EU's main importer partner , accounting for 20.2% of imports (€395 billion) and 10.5% of exports (€210 billion). The volume of imports is such that, although the vast majority reach the European continent by sea, there is a railway connection that, under the BRI, links the entire Eurasian continent, from China's manufacturing capital, Yiwu, and the last stop at the southernmost tip of Europe, Madrid. Although some of the imports are still so-called "low-end" goods, i.e. products of basic manufacture and cheap unit price, since China joined the WTO at entrance in December 2001, the concept of material produced in China has changed radically: the great abundance of rare earths in Chinese territory, together with the progress in its industrialization and investment in new technologies (in which China is a leader) have meant that China is no longer thought of only as a mass producer of bazaars; on the contrary, the majority of imports into the EU from China were high-end, high-tech machinery and products (especially telecommunications and processing equipment from data).

In the aforementioned statement press release from the European Commission, China is warned to comply with the commitments made in the Kyoto Protocols and Paris Agreements regarding greenhouse gas emissions; and urges the Asian country to respect the dictates of the WTO, especially in subject on technology transfer, state subsidies and illegal practices such as dumping.

These aspects are vital for economic relations with China. At a time when most countries in the world signed or are part of the Paris Agreements for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, while the EU is making efforts to reduce its pollution (closing coal plants and mines; putting special taxes on energy obtained from non-renewable sources...), China, which totals 30% of global emissions, increased in 2018 by 3% its emissions. This, beyond the harmful effects for the climate, has industrial and economic benefits: while in Europe industries are narrowing their profit margins due to the rise in energy prices; China, which is fueled by coal, provides cheaper energy to its companies, which, without active restrictions, can produce more. An example of how the climate affects economic relations with China is the recent advertisement [13] of AcerlorMittal to reduce by 3 million tons its total steel production in Europe (out of 44 million tons of usual production) due to high electricity costs and increased imports from countries outside the EU (especially China) which, with excess production, are lowering prices worldwide. This internship, which is especially used in China, consists in flooding the market with an overproduction of a certain product (this overproduction is paid with government subsidies) to lower prices. As of December 2018, in the last 3 years, the EU has had to impose more than 116 sanctions and anti-dumping measures against Chinese products [14]. Which sample that, despite the EU's attempts to negotiate on mutually satisfactory terms, China does not comply with the stipulations of the agreements with the EU and the WTO. Particularly thorny is the problem with government-controlled companies (a ban on 5G networks in Europe, controlled by Chinese providers, is being considered for security reasons), which have a virtual monopoly inside the country; and above all, the distorted reading of legality by the Chinese authorities, who try to use all possible mechanisms in their favor, making it difficult or hindering direct investment by foreign capital in their country, as well as imposing requirements (need to have Chinese partners, etc.) that hinder the international expansion of small and medium-sized companies. However,

The biggest friction with the EU, however, is the forced transfer of technology to the government, especially by companies of strategic products such as hydrocarbons, pharmaceuticals and the automotive industry [15], imposed by laws and conditio sine qua non companies cannot land in the country. This creates a climate of unfair skill and direct attack on international trade laws. The direct investment of Chinese capital in critical industries and producers in the EU has caused voices to be raised calling for greater control and even vetoes on these investments in certain areas due to Defense and Security issues. The lack of protection of intellectual rights or patents are also important points of complaint by the EU, which aims to create through diplomacy and international organizations a favorable climate for the promotion of equal trade relations between the two countries, as reflected in the various European guidelines and plans concerning topic.

As we have seen, the trade war is not only limited to the US and China, but third parties are suffering from it and even actively participating in it. The question arises here: can the EU benefit in any way and avoid a new crisis? Despite the pessimistic mood, the EU can derive multiple benefits from this trade war if it manages to maneuver properly and avoid as far as possible further tariffs against its products and keeps the market open. If the trade war continues and the positions of the US and China harden, the EU, being partner the main beneficiary of both, could benefit from a redistribution of trade flows. Thus, to avoid the loss due to tariffs, both China and the US could sell heavily taxed products to the European market, but especially import products from Europe. If a agreement is reached with the US to lift or minimize tariffs, the EU would find itself facing a huge market niche left by Chinese products vetoed or taxed in the US. The same in China, especially in the automotive sector, from which the EU could benefit by selling to the Chinese market. Alicia Garcia-Herrero, of the Belgian think tank Bruegel, states that the benefit for Europe will only be possible if it does not lean towards any of the contenders and remains economically neutral [16]. He also stresses, like the European Commission, that China must adopt measures to guarantee reciprocity and market access, since the European Union still has a greater volume of business and investments with the USA, so that the Chinese offer should be highly attractive for European producers to consider directing products to China instead of the USA. The UN itself estimates at US$70 billion the benefits that could be absorbed by the EU thanks to the trade war [17]. Definitely, if the right measures are taken and the 28 draw up an adequate road map, the EU could benefit from this war, without forgetting that, as the EU itself advocates, coercive measures are not the solution to the trade problem, and hopes that, due to their ineffectiveness and damage caused to both consumers and producers, the tariff war will come to an end and, if differences persist, they will be resolved in the WTO Appellate Body, or in the Permanent Court of Arbitration of the United Nations.

This trade war is a highly complex and nuanced topic ; this analysis has attempted to address many of the issues, data and problems facing the European Union in this trade war. It has been generally analyzed what the trade war consists of, as well as the relations between the EU, China and the USA. We are facing a gray future, with the possibility of multiple and quick turns (especially on the part of the US, as seen after the G20 summit in Osaka, after which it has allowed the sale of components to Huawei, but has not removed the company from its blacklist) and from which, if the requirements and the conditions set out above are met, the EU will definitely benefit, not only economically, but if it remains united and making a common front, it will be an example of negotiation and economic freedom for the whole world.

REFERENCES

Thomas, D. (14-5-2019) Who loses in the China-US trade war. BBC. Retrieved from.

Blake, A. (9-5-2019) Trump's rambling, disappointing Q&A with reporters, annotated. The Washington Post. Retrieved from.

3. Huawei: US blacklist will harm billions of consumers (29-5-2019) BBC. Retrieved from

4. EU warns China and the US: a trade war would subtract 0.6 points of GDP(3-6-2019) El Confidencial. Retrieved from

5. European Union Trade Statistics. (18-6-2019) European Commission.Retrieved from: http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/eu-position-in-world-trade/statistics/

6. Pozzi, S. (2-3-2018) Trump reaffirms protectionism by raising tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. El País (New York correspondent)Retrieved from.

7. Inchaurraga, I. G. (2013). China and GATT (1986-1994): Causes and consequences of the failure of a negotiation. Cizur Menor, Navarra: Aranzadi. pp. 204-230.

8. Tejero, M. (25-7-2018) agreement EU-US: "zero tariffs" on industrial goods; more soybeans and liquefied gas. El Confidencial. Retrieved from.

9. Pardo,P. & Villaécija, R. (17-6-2019) Trump threatens Spanish wine. El Mundo. Retrieved from.

10. A quick guide to US-China Trade War (14-5-2019) BBC. Retrieved from

11. Rosenfeld, E. & Soong, M. (25-3-2018) Nobel-winner Robert Shiller warns of an 'economic crisis' from trade war threats. CNBC. Retrieved from.

12. EU reviews relations with China and proposes 10 actions. (12-3-2019) European Commission- statement de Prensa.

13. Asturias takes 23% of Arcelor's new EU production cut.(6-5-2019) 5 Days Retrieved from.

14. Morales, R. (26-12-2018) EU increased 28.3% its antidumping measures in 3 years: WTO. El Economista Mexico. Retrieved from

15. Warning about forced technology transfer to Chinese government.(20-5-2019) Infobae. Retrieved from

16. García-Herrero, A.; Guardans, I. & Hamilton, C. (28-6-2018) Trade War Trinity: analysis of global consequences. Bruegel (lecture). Retrieved from.

17. European Union, the big beneficiary of the trade war between China and the U.S.(4-2-2019) UN News . Retrieved from

The need for labour has traditionally led Sweden to welcome waves of immigrants; Sectors of society today experience it as a problem

▲ Oresund Bridge, between Denmark and Sweden, seen from Swedish territory [Wikipedia]

ANALYSIS / Jokin de Carlos

Sweden has had a reputation, since World War II, for being a country open to immigrants and for developing tolerant and open social policies. However, the increase in issue The slow cultural adaptation of some of these new communities, especially the Muslims, and the problems of violence generated in areas of greater vulnerability have led to an intense discussion in Swedish society. The view that a generous migration policy may be destroying Swedish identity and making life more difficult for native Swedes has fuelled the vote of some civil service examination The Social Democrats last year revalidated public support for a government that maintains traditional policies with a certain greater emphasis on the expulsion of those whose application has been rejected.

Migration policy

One of Sweden's historical problems has been its leave By the 1960s, the fertility rate had fallen to the threshold of 2.1 children per woman needed for population replacement. That was something that threatened Sweden's notorious welfare state, because of the need for tax revenues to maintain generous public services, so the country promoted the influx of immigrants. At the same time, the need for manpower was also raised by the development of the national industry.

Sweden emerged from World War II in good condition. It did not suffer the destruction of other nations, as it remained territorially on the margins of the conflict, and it was able to consolidate a metallurgical industry that, thanks to the production of its iron mines, had benefited from selling to both sides in the war. That development required a great deal of work that the leave The concentration of the population on the coast and in the south, outside the industrial centres, made it difficult to gather. In addition, Sweden's welfare state and continued decades of peace created a class average that he did not want to work in the new industry because of the low wages it offered to be competitive.

To solve the labor shortage and thus maintain economic progress, Sweden turned to immigration since the 1950s. The government first opened the border to asylum seekers or work and then built clusters of dwellings, usually of leave near industrial areas where newcomers could find jobs without any language. When the cultural impact of these additions was too great in some areas, the government proceeded to close the borders, restricting immigration. When new workers were needed, the government reopened the border.

This system helped to advance economically, but it also isolated many social groups, who were stuck in low-income areas with little possibility of development or social integration.

development historical

Both during and after World War II, Sweden was an important destination for people from Norway, Denmark, Poland, Finland and the Baltic Republics escaping war or the destruction it created; It was also a neutral destination for many Jews. In 1944, there were more than 40,000 refugees in Sweden; While many returned to their countries after the war, a group A considerable number of them remained, mainly Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, whose home nations were incorporated into the USSR.

In 1952, Sweden, Denmark and Norway formed the committee Nordic, creating a area of free trade and freedom of movement, which Finland joined in 1955. With this, thousands of migrants went to Sweden to work in the industry, mainly from Finland but also from Norway, which had not yet discovered its oil reserves. This increased the percentage of the immigrant population from 2% in 1945 to 7% in 1970. All this helped Tage Erlander (Prime Minister of Sweden from 1946 to 1969) to create the project "Strong Society", aimed at increasing the public sector and the welfare state. However, this influx of labour began to harm native Swedish workers, and consequently, in 1967, trade unions began to pressure Erlander to limit labour immigration to the Nordic countries.

In 1969, Erlander resigned from the position and was replaced by his protégé, Olof Palme. Palme was a member of the most radical wing of the Social Democrats and wanted to further increase the welfare state, continuing the project of its predecessor on a larger scale.

In order to attract a larger workforce without angering unions, Palme began using pro-refugee rhetoric, opening Sweden's borders to people escaping dictatorships and war. At the same time, these people would be moved to industrial neighborhoods, built especially for them in nearby industrial areas where they would work. At the same time, Palme sought to make Sweden an attractive country for immigrants through assimilation policies in favor of multiculturalism.

During this period, people of many nationalities began to arrive in the country: from those fleeing conflict in Yugoslavia or martial law in Poland to those fleeing the Middle East and Latin America. These new populations settled far from native Swedish demographics; Because of this, many neighborhoods in the class They became isolated ghettos. In 1986, Palme was assassinated and his successor, Ingvar Carlsson, changed immigration policy and began accepting only those they configured as refugees from the United States. agreement with United Nations standards.

During the 1990s, increased conflicts in places like Somalia, Yugoslavia, and several African nations increased the flow of war refugees, with many of them going to Sweden. The Ministry of Migration and Asylum Policy was established in 1996. However, the two largest movements of people from foreign countries would occur in the wake of the subsequent conflicts in Iraq and Syria. The conservative government of Fredrik Reinfeldt began taking in a large volume of Iraqi refugees, who in 2006 became the country's second-largest minority, after the Finns. In 2015, the Social Democratic government of Stefan Löfven opened the border to Syrian refugees, who arrived en masse, fleeing the Syrian Civil War and the push of Daesh.

This succession of waves of immigrants from the Middle East aggravated some problems: in many neighborhoods, outsiders don't feel like they're in Sweden, mainly because they were built to "not be Sweden"; In addition, difficult integration and low-paying jobs fuel gangs and organized crime. All of this led Löfven to implement a stricter migration policy in 2017, accepting fewer asylum seekers and beginning to expel those whose asylum claims had been denied.

As you can see, the trend in Sweden is to open borders to immigration when it is needed and to close them when it starts to cause social tensions.

Origins of the Immigrant Population

Sweden has become a very ethnically diverse society, where almost 22% of the population has a foreign background. Until 2015, the largest ethnic minority in the country were Finns, who numbered more than 200,000 at the end of the last century. In the wake of the war in Iraq and the Syrian migration crisis, people from the Middle East have become the largest group.

Currently, 8% of the inhabitants of Sweden come from a country with a Muslim majority – mainly from Syria and Iraq, but also from Iran – although only 1.4% of the population practices the Muslim religion (around 140,000 people in 2017), as there are also immigrants from these countries with other religious affiliations. such as Christians, Druze, Yazidis or Zoroastrians. These numbers may have increased slightly, though not to cause very drastic changes in demographics.

Despite not being particularly numerous, the Muslim community has generated media attention as a result of various controversies. In 2006, Mahmoud Aldebe, a member of the committee A Muslim from Sweden, he put forward in a letter to the political parties of the Riksdag and the Swedish government especially controversial demands, such as the right to specific Islamic holidays, special public funding for the construction of mosques, that all divorces between Muslim couples be approved by an imam, and that imams be allowed to teach Islam to Muslim children in public schools. These demands were rejected by the authorities and the class Sweden's politics. It has also been the case that some Muslim associations or mosques have invited radical preachers, such as Haitham al-Haddad or Said Rageahs, whose lectures were eventually banned.

Vulnerable Areas and Organized Crime

The Swedish government has designated some neighbourhoods as Vulnerable Areas (Utsatt Område). They are not strictly "No-Go Zones", because they can be entered by police officers, health services or the media. These are areas of lower security that require greater attention from the authorities.

Some of them are located in Malmö, the city with the highest crime rate in the country, mainly due to its location. Malmö is located on the other side of the Oresund Bridge, which connects Denmark to Sweden and is the only overland route between Sweden and the mainland without having to go around the Baltic. There, various gangs and mafias participate in drug and human trafficking, while at the same time confronting each other in a struggle for control of space. Groups of this subject they also operate in Rotterdam, in relation to the activity generated by its important port.

Despite the impression given by certain anti-immigration messages, crime in Sweden is at levels similar to those of 2006. After that year, the issue crime prices fell, only to rise again in 2010 and 2012. A link could be made between this rise and the economic crisis, which led to an increase in unemployment, but its link to immigration records is less clear. The arrival of Iraqis in 2005 did not lead to greater insecurity on the streets of Sweden, nor has the reception of Syrians in recent years. Sweden's homicide rate is 1.1 per 100,000 inhabitants – below many other European countries – and there are more crimes recorded by native Swedes than by foreigners, according to the committee Swedish National Crime Prevention.

However, the mafias operating in Sweden are mostly made up of certain ethnic groups. His training it stemmed especially from the influx of people from Yugoslavia, both workers in the 1970s and refugees from the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Chief among these groups, known as the Yugo Mafia, is today led by Milan Ševo, nicknamed "The Godfather of Stockholm." Other groups include K-Falangen and Naserligan, composed of Albanians; the Werefolf Legion, made up of South Americans, and the Gangsters, originally made up of the Assyrians (Syria's Christian minority). However, one of the largest is Brödraskapet or the Brotherhood, founded in 1995, with more than 700 members who are all native Swedes and with a large presence in Swedish prisons.

Migratory movements in Sweden between 1850 and 2007. In red, arrival of immigrants; in blue, departure of emigrants [Wikipedia-Koyos]

Terrorism

Since 2011 there have been three terrorist attacks in Sweden; A fourth attack could have been avoided as its preparation was detected in time. The first was made by Anton Lundin Pettersson, a Swedish neo-Nazi who in 2015 attacked the Trollhättan School, killing four people, all of them immigrants. The next was perpetrated by the Nordic Resistance Movement, a neo-Nazi organization, which acted against a refugee center and the café of a left-wing organization; Only one person was injured in the attack. The third, the most well-known, was perpetrated in 2017 by a man from Uzbekistan apparently recruited by Daesh, who rammed a truck into pedestrians in central Stockholm, killing five people and injuring fourteen.

Of the three attacks, only one was jihadist-motivated, unlike the weight that Islamist terrorism has had in other European countries with larger Muslim populations. In any case, the segregation experienced in some communities and the radical indoctrination that takes place in them led young Swedish Muslims to go to Syria to join Daesh and the authorities are closely monitoring their possible return.

Hits and misses

For a long time, the European left held up Sweden as an example of model successful social democrat; Now, from certain right-wing groups, he is held up as an example of failed multiculturalism. Both statements are probably an exaggeration for partisan purposes. However, the truth is that Sweden has a generous well-being that is difficult to maintain, and that in its also generous opening of borders it has made mistakes that have not facilitated the integration of the new population. Everything seems to indicate that Löfven continues the path he began in 2017 and there has been an increase in police presence on the streets as well as a hardening of immigration policies, in turn following the policies made in Denmark.

Time will have to pass to see what results these policies will have in a future Sweden.

In Norse mythology, Valhalla is a huge, majestic hall that, in the afterlife, heroes aspire to enter

Black Blade 2016, under the EU's Helicopter Exercise Programme [European Defence Agency, Fisher Maximilian].

ESSAY / Albert Vidal

The purpose of this paper is to project a potential scenario in the European Union (EU) security and defence field around 2030. The European Commission has already developed a three-legged projection (Mogherini & Katainen, 2017), which presents alternative scenarios, the accomplishment of which will depend on the decisions the European Union and its member states take from now on. Thus, as it makes no sense to describe again the three scenarios, I will be focusing on the most ambitious one: a common security and defence.

To do so, I will begin by briefly depicting where we are today, in terms of EU security and defence. Afterwards, I will introduce the core ideas outlined in the Reflection Paper[1] and develop the 3rd scenario. A variety of issues which include funding, industry capabilities and intelligence, among others, will be tackled. 

EU Security and Defence in 2019

As of 2019, the security and defence policies of the EU are embedded in the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) which, although having the astronomical combined budget[2] of more than $220 billion in 2016(How much is spent on defence in the EU?, 2018), it is far from being the military superpower it ought to be. It is true that the EU Global Strategy[3] provides some guidelines for the development of EU's policies, but for now it is just a vision and hasn't yet had the time to deliver tangible results. The Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), on the other hand, offers the potential to work toward the achievement of those goals.

Meanwhile, we can appreciate a costly fragmentation of resources which is embodied in the multiplicity of weapons systems in the EU (up to 178) compared to the US, which has around 30(Munich Security Report 2017, 2017). Duplication is quite pricey: since every EU Member State has to acquire a little bit of everything to cover its wide range of military necessities, we end up having repeated and useless systems and a lot of money is consequently wasted. The lack of interoperability[4] between different European armies complicates the deployments even more and brings equipment shortages. This gives a strong explanation to why less than 3% of European troops are actually deployed(Defending Europe Factsheet, 2017). Besides, the inexistence of a large fund for military operations and research in technology has hindered the development of European-made equipment and has also prevented large-scale operations. If the member states want to launch a military mission, they need to resort to different sources of funding, such as the Athena Mechanism, the African Peace Facility, the Instrument Contributing to Stability and Peace and several Trust Funds, which causes confusion and a loss of efficiency. The aforementioned examples are not thought to be exhaustive; they are just some examples of today's chaos in the field of security and defence in the EU.

How ambitious is the EU?

The 'Reflection Paper on the Future of European Defence' presents three scenarios of incremental cooperation among the EU member states, with each projection having its own principles and reach (Mogherini & Katainen, 2017).

Scenario A is characterized by the lowest degree of cooperation, which would remain voluntary and member states would not be bound to a common security and defence. The EU would only be able to deploy civilian missions and small-scale military operations; and its defence industry would remain largely fragmented.

Scenario B depicts an EU defence policy with stronger financial resources and a greater ability to project its military power. Duplication would be reduced and cooperation with NATO would increase.

Scenario C is by far the most interesting one, where a real common security and defence policy would be developed, and it would effectively balance the contributions and competencies among the member states (Bierman, 2018). Such will be the main object of analysis of the present paper. 

Ten predictions

Being this section my contribution to the conversation, I hope to be creative enough without falling into vagueness and imprecision.

a) In regards to the structure, the CSDP[5] will remain as a part of the Foreign Affairs Configuration within the Council of the EU and will evolve into the communitarian decision-making-style; that is, intergovernmental decision making (which requires consensus) will become democratic (only requires majority). This inflection point will accelerate development of this field, since consensus will no longer be necessary. In regards to the material capabilities, national armies will begin their transition toward a unified European army. Right now, this may seem crazy. But Europe has taken similar steps before in other areas; and even if states have lost their national decision-making power on economic issues, no big disaster has happened.

Although member states are now fearful of transferring defence competences to the Union, I believe this will eventually occur. Many worry because member states will be losing sovereignty and control of their own army, and they will be at the mercy of the EU's will. The problem is that defence is a very dear issue to states and there will be little progress toward efficiency and interoperability unless the EU takes complete control. Europe needs to continue advancing in its integration project to face increasingly challenging crisis; staying still will be synonymous with collapse.

b) Funding will be unified under a single European defence fund that will have a dual purpose. Firstly, it will be devoted to research and development; secondly, it will finance all kinds of operations and cover its costs, be it civilian or military ones[6] (a similar idea to the European Peace Facility). Existing funds such as the Athena Mechanism or the APF would obviously disappear. Ideally, all EU member states would devote the equivalent of a 0.4% of the GDP to such fund, which would account for more than $75 billion[7].

c) Apart from that, EU member states should spend a minimum of 1.1% of their GDP in defence, which accounted for $206 billion in 2018. A superior body will coordinate the efforts to ensure that duplication doesn't take place, and that all materials that are produced, acquired and used are interoperable. Thus, member states will have to follow certain guidelines when investing their resources. If we want to avoid having too many radar stations or minesweepers, the superior body will draft a list with the quotas that each unit, vehicle or system will have and will distribute it among the member states. It will probably be the case that only certain countries will be spending on aircraft carriers, but that won't mean that such carrier belongs to the country that built it. The novelty is that all the equipment and units will be controlled by a unified European Command Center. Defence will be a policy concerning the community of member states.

d) The multiplicity of systems will be drastically reduced and the EU will only produce a small amount of tanks, battleships and aircrafts models. Such specialization and the optimized production will lower the costs of manufacture[8]. This will bring competition among the different actors in the defence industry, which will definitely produce higher quality technology and equipment. The EU could enhance its cooperation with the industries by inviting such companies to the military exercises; so that they can see which gaps they do they have and develop innovative ideas.

e) Relations with external actors will change profoundly. As the national external action will be subsumed under the CFSP, the EU will have an even stronger negotiating power when facing foreign threats, such as Russia. Its relationship with NATO will become awkward, since the EU will have its own army capable of performing high-end operations and will be perfectly fitted to deter Russia. At the same time, the EU will be able to pursue a foreign policy that might not suit the interests of the US, so NATO might become a parallel corpus which, although awkwardly separated from the EU, will maintain its ties with it. In some cases, certain countries will find themselves belonging simultaneously to both NATO and the EU CSDP. What will happen is that EU member states may change their membership status to NATO partners.

f) Other improvements will include a readjustment of the training areas and the recruitment processes[9], which will be brought to an EU scale; this will in turn improve the integration among European soldiers, since they will train jointly from the beginning. Language barriers will be broken and cultural differences will be easily overcome.

g) Nuclear weapons will also be crucial to the future of the CSDP: although it may sound naive that France will give its sovereignty over nuclear weapons to the EU, it still is a possibility that we should not ignore[10]. Maybe we could design a special mechanism on the usage of nuclear weapons by the EU, in which France would have a sort of veto. The UK, on its part, will not be included in the CSDP, and its nuclear weapons and conventional capabilities will continue under their sovereignty.

h) An emphasis will be put on cyber security, Artificial Intelligence systems, quantum technology, laser weapons and autonomous weapons. This is too wide of a topic to be developed here, but what is certain is the need to invest extensively in research. Once all funds come together, research labs and facilities should also start collaborating between them, and this should improve the return on investments.

i) A redesigned Battle Group (BG) concept will impact the way the EU understands its security. Since conflicts after the Cold War have tended to be very localised and asymmetric, it makes little sense to have only such big and numerous forces prepared for combat. What I propose is to create smaller high-readiness special operations forces, which can be deployed in less than 3 days, instead of the 15 days that it takes for Battle Groups[11]. Again, smaller units with cyber support and advanced technology will be a lot more efficient, silent and precise. War is evolving, the EU should as well.

j) Africa will change a lot in the coming years. Right now it is the EU's primary foreign policy concern and it will probably continue to be in 2030. The EU has realised how dangerous another major crisis in Northern Africa might be, because if mixed with the massive population growth and poverty it may provoke colossal migration waves, as we have never seen. To avoid it, the EU should ideally adopt a double-pronged strategy: on the one hand, it should focus on the development of the region. On the other hand, it should address one and for all the chaos present in certain Northern African countries. I am aware of how complex this is, since regional factions, terrorists and liberation groups are often mixed up. Training the police forces through capacity-building missions and strengthening the judicial system and other governmental institutions is a needed step, which should be followed by more development-focused approaches.

Conclusion

I have laid out in this paper where we are today in terms of EU Security and Defence, and I have then further developed the ideas proposed by the 3rd scenario of the Reflection Paper, the most ambitious one. But, what is the utility of projecting such scenario? Well, the EU is facing today multiple challenges that range from terrorism, to migration and a potential internal disintegration. Brexit means that the strongest European army is leaving and the EU now needs to rethink itself. This is a critical point for the future of Europe: crisis means a crucial time in which a decisive change is impending. We need to think extreme during onerous times and consider proposals that would have otherwise remained in the shade.

▲ Protest in London in October 2018 after the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi [John Lubbock, Wikimedia Commons]

ANALYSIS / Naomi Moreno Cosgrove

October 2nd last year was the last time Jamal Khashoggi—a well-known journalist and critic of the Saudi government—was seen alive. The Saudi writer, United States resident and Washington Post columnist, had entered the Saudi consulate in the Turkish city of Istanbul with the aim of obtaining documentation that would certify he had divorced his previous wife, so he could remarry; but never left.

After weeks of divulging bits of information, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, laid out his first detailed account of the killing of the dissident journalist inside the Saudi Consulate. Eighteen days after Khashoggi disappeared, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) acknowledged that the 59-year-old writer had died after his disappearance, revealing in their investigation findings that Jamal Khashoggi died after an apparent "fist-fight" inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul; but findings were not reliable. Resultantly, the acknowledgement by the KSA of the killing in its own consulate seemed to pose more questions than answers.

Eventually, after weeks of repeated denials that it had anything to do with his disappearance, the contradictory scenes, which were the latest twists in the "fast-moving saga", forced the kingdom to eventually acknowledge that indeed it was Saudi officials who were behind the gruesome murder thus damaging the image of the kingdom and its 33-year-old crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). What had happened was that the culmination of these events, including more than a dozen Saudi officials who reportedly flew into Istanbul and entered the consulate just before Khashoggi was there, left many sceptics wondering how it was possible for MBS to not know. Hence, the world now casts doubt on the KSA's explanation over Khashoggi's death, especially when it comes to the shifting explanations and MBS' role in the conspiracy.

As follows, the aim of this study is to examine the backlash Saudi Arabia's alleged guilt has caused, in particular, regarding European state-of-affairs towards the Middle East country. To that end, I will analyse various actions taken by European countries which have engaged in the matter and the different modus operandi these have carried out in order to reject a bloodshed in which arms selling to the kingdom has become the key issue.

Since Khashoggi went missing and while Turkey promised it would expose the " naked truth" about what happened in the Saudi consulate, Western countries had been putting pressure on the KSA for it to provide facts about its ambiguous account on the journalist's death. In a joint statement released on Sunday 21st October 2018, the United Kingdom, France and Germany said: "There remains an urgent need for clarification of exactly what happened on 2nd October – beyond the hypotheses that have been raised so far in the Saudi investigation, which need to be backed by facts to be considered credible." What happened after the kingdom eventually revealed the truth behind the murder, was a rather different backlash. In fact, regarding post-truth reactions amongst European countries, rather divergent responses have occurred.

Terminating arms selling exports to the KSA had already been carried out by a number of countries since the kingdom launched airstrikes on Yemen in 2015; a conflict that has driven much of Yemen's population to be victims of an atrocious famine. The truth is that arms acquisition is crucial for the KSA, one of the world's biggest weapons importers which is heading a military coalition in order to fight a proxy war in which tens of thousands of people have died, causing a major humanitarian catastrophe. In this context, calls for more constraints have been growing particularly in Europe since the killing of the dissident journalist. These countries, which now demand transparent clarifications in contrast to the opacity in the kingdom's already-given explanations, are threatening the KSA with suspending military supply to the kingdom.

COUNTRIES THAT HAVE CEASED ARMS SELLING

Germany

Probably one of the best examples with regards to the ceasing of arms selling—after not been pleased with Saudi state of affairs—is Germany. Following the acknowledgement of what happened to Khashoggi, German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared in a statement that she condemned his death with total sharpness, thus calling for transparency in the context of the situation, and stating that her government halted previously approved arms exports thus leaving open what would happen with those already authorised contracts, and that it wouldn't approve any new weapons exports to the KSA: "I agree with all those who say that the, albeit already limited, arms export can't take place in the current circumstances," she said at a news conference.

So far this year, the KSA was the second largest customer in the German defence industry just after Algeria, as until September last year, the German federal government allocated export licenses of arms exports to the kingdom worth 416.4 million euros. Respectively, according to German Foreign Affair Minister, Heiko Maas, Germany was the fourth largest exporter of weapons to the KSA.

This is not the first time the German government has made such a vow. A clause exists in the coalition agreement signed by Germany's governing parties earlier in 2018, which stated that no weapons exports may be approved to any country "directly" involved in the Yemeni conflict in response to the kingdom's countless airstrikes carried out against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in the area for several years. Yet, what is clear is that after Khashoggi's murder, the coalition's agreement has been exacerbated. Adding to this military sanction Germany went even further and proposed explicit sanctions to the Saudi authorities who were directly linked to the killing. As follows, by stating that "there are more questions unanswered than answered," Maas declared that Germany has issued the ban for entering Europe's border-free Schengen zone—in close coordination with France and Britain—against the 18 Saudi nationals who are "allegedly connected to this crime."

Following the decision, Germany has thus become the first major US ally to challenge future arms sales in the light of Khashoggi's case and there is thus a high likelihood that this deal suspension puts pressure on other exporters to carry out the same approach in the light of Germany's Economy Minister, Peter Altmaier's, call on other European Union members to take similar action, arguing that "Germany acting alone would limit the message to Riyadh."

Norway

Following the line of the latter claim, on November 9th last year, Norway became the first country to back Germany's decision when it announced it would freeze new licenses for arms exports to the KSA. Resultantly, in her statement, Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ine Eriksen Søreide, declared that the government had decided that in the present situation they will not give new licenses for the export of defence material or multipurpose good for military use to Saudi Arabia. According to the Søreide, this decision was taken after "a broad assessment of recent developments in Saudi Arabia and the unclear situation in Yemen." Although Norwegian ministry spokesman declined to say whether the decision was partly motivated by the murder of the Saudi journalist, not surprisingly, Norway's announcement came a week after its foreign minister called the Saudi ambassador to Oslo with the aim of condemning Khashoggi's assassination.  As a result, the latter seems to imply Norway's motivations were a mix of both; the Yemeni conflict and Khashoggi's death.

Denmark and Finland

By following a similar decision made by neighbouring Germany and Norway—despite the fact that US President Trump backed MBS, although the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had assessed that the crown prince was responsible for the order of the killing—Denmark and Finland both announced that they would also stop exporting arms to the KSA.

Emphasising on the fact that they were "now in a new situation"—after the continued deterioration of the already terrible situation in Yemen and the killing of the Saudi journalist—Danish Foreign Minister, Anders Samuelsen, stated that Denmark would proceed to cease military exports to the KSA remarking that Denmark already had very restrictive practices in this area and hoped that this decision would be able to create a "further momentum and get more European Union (EU) countries involved in the conquest to support tight implementation of the Union's regulatory framework in this area."

Although this ban is still less expansive compared to German measures—which include the cancellation of deals that had already been approved—Denmark's cease of goods' exports will likely crumble the kingdom's strategy, especially when it comes to technology. Danish exports to the KSA, which were mainly used for both military and civilian purposes, are chiefly from BAE Systems Applied Intelligence, a subsidiary of the United Kingdom's BAE Systems, which sold technology that allowed Intellectual Property surveillance and data analysis for use in national security and investigation of serious crimes. The suspension thus includes some dual-use technologies, a reference to materials that were purposely thought to have military applications in favour of the KSA.

On the same day Denmark carried out its decision, Finland announced they were also determined to halt arms export to Saudi Arabia. Yet, in contrast to Norway's approach, Finnish Prime Minister, Juha Sipilä, held that, of course, the situation in Yemen lead to the decision, but that Khashoggi's killing was "entirely behind the overall rationale".

Finnish arms exports to the KSA accounted for 5.3 million euros in 2017. Nevertheless, by describing the situation in Yemen as "catastrophic", Sipilä declared that any existing licenses (in the region) are old, and in these circumstances, Finland would refuse to be able to grant updated ones. Although, unlike Germany, Helsinki's decision does not revoke existing arms licenses to the kingdom, the Nordic country has emphasized the fact that it aims to comply with the EU's arms export criteria, which takes particular account of human rights and the protection of regional peace, security and stability, thus casting doubt on the other European neighbours which, through a sense of incoherence, have not attained to these values.

European Parliament

Speaking in supranational terms, the European Parliament agreed with the latter countries and summoned EU members to freeze arms sales to the kingdom in the conquest of putting pressure on member states to emulate the Germany's decision.      

By claiming that arms exports to Saudi Arabia were breaching international humanitarian law in Yemen, the European Parliament called for sanctions on those countries that refuse to respect EU rules on weapons sales. In fact, the latest attempt in a string of actions compelling EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini to dictate an embargo against the KSA, including a letter signed by MEPs from several parties.

Rapporteur for a European Parliament report on EU arms exports, Bodil Valero said: "European weapons are contributing to human rights abuses and forced migration, which are completely at odds with the EU's common values." As a matter of fact, two successful European Parliament resolutions have hitherto been admitted, but its advocates predicted that some member states, especially those who share close trading ties with the kingdom are deep-seated, may be less likely to cooperate. Fact that has eventually occurred.

COUNTRIES THAT HAVE NOT CEASED ARMS SELLING

France

In contrast to the previously mentioned countries, other European states such as France, UK and Spain, have approached the issue differently and have signalled that they will continue "business as usual".

Both France and the KSA have been sharing close diplomatic and commercial relations ranging from finance to weapons. Up to now, France relished the KSA, which is a bastion against Iranian significance in the Middle East region. Nevertheless, regarding the recent circumstances, Paris now faces a daunting challenge.

Just like other countries, France Foreign Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, announced France condemned the killing "in the strongest terms" and demanded an exhaustive investigation. "The confirmation of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi's death is a first step toward the establishment of the truth. However, many questions remain unanswered," he added. Following this line, France backed Germany when sanctioning the 18 Saudi citizens thus mulling a joint ban from the wider visa-free Schengen zone. Nevertheless, while German minister Altmeier summoned other European countries to stop selling arms to Riyadh—until the Saudi authorities gave the true explanation on Khashoggi's death—, France refused to report whether it would suspend arms exports to the KSA. "We want Saudi Arabia to reveal all the truth with full clarity and then we will see what we can do," he told in a news conference.           

In this context, Amnesty International France has become one of Paris' biggest burdens. The organization has been putting pressure on the French government for it to freeze arms sales to the realm. Hence, by acknowledging France is one of the five biggest arms exporters to Riyadh—similar to the Unites States and Britain—Amnesty International France is becoming aware France's withdrawal from the arms sales deals is crucial in order to look at the Yemeni conflict in the lens of human rights rather than from a non-humanitarian-geopolitical perspective. Meanwhile, France tries to justify its inaction. When ministry deputy spokesman Oliver Gauvin was asked whether Paris would mirror Berlin's actions, he emphasized the fact that France's arms sales control policy was meticulous and based on case-by-case analysis by an inter-ministerial committee. According to French Defence Minister Florence Parly, France exported 11 billion euros worth of arms to the kingdom from 2008 to 2017, fact that boosted French jobs. In 2017 alone, licenses conceivably worth 14.7 billion euros were authorized. Moreover, she went on stating that those arms exports take into consideration numerous criteria among which is the nature of exported materials, the respect of human rights, and the preservation of peace and regional security. "More and more, our industrial and defence sectors need these arms exports. And so, we cannot ignore the impact that all of this has on our defence industry and our jobs," she added. As a result, despite President Emmanuel Macron has publicly sought to devalue the significance relations with the KSA have, minister Parly, seemed to suggest the complete opposite.

Anonymously, a government minister held it was central that MBS retained his position. "The challenge is not to lose MBS, even if he is not a choir boy. A loss of influence in the region would cost us much more than the lack of arms sales". Notwithstanding France's ambiguity, Paris' inconclusive attitude is indicating France's clout in the region is facing a vulnerable phase. As president Macron told MBS at a side-line G20 summit conversation in December last year, he is worried. Although the context of this chat remains unclear, many believe Macron's intentions were to persuade MBS to be more transparent as a means to not worsen the kingdom's reputation and thus to, potentially, dismantle France's bad image.

United Kingdom

As it was previously mentioned, the United Kingdom took part in the joint statement carried out also by France and Germany through its foreign ministers which claimed there was a need for further explanations regarding Khashoggi's killing. Yet, although Britain's Foreign Office said it was considering its "next steps" following the KSA's admission over Khashoggi's killing, UK seems to be taking a rather similar approach to France—but not Germany—regarding the situation.

In 2017, the UK was the sixth-biggest arms dealer in the world, and the second-largest exporter of arms to the KSA, behind the US. This is held to be a reflection of a large spear in sales last year. After the KSA intervened in the civil war in Yemen in early 2015, the UK approved more than 3.5billion euros in military sales to the kingdom between April 2015 and September 2016.

As a result, Theresa May has been under pressure for years to interrupt arms sales to the KSA especially after human rights advocates claimed the UK was contributing to alleged violations of international humanitarian law by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. Adding to this, in 2016, a leaked parliamentary committee report suggested that it was likely that British weapons had been used by the Saudi-led coalition to violate international law, and that manufactured aircraft by BAE Systems, have been used in combat missions in Yemen.

Lately, in the context of Khashoggi's death things have aggravated and the UK is now facing a great amount of pressure, mainly embodied by UK's main opposition Labour party which calls for a complete cease in its arms exports to the KSA.  In addition, in terms of a more international strain, the European Union has also got to have a say in the matter. Philippe Lamberts, the Belgian leader of the Green grouping of parties, said that Brexit should not be an excuse for the UK to abdicate on its moral responsibilities and that Theresa May had to prove that she was keen on standing up to the kind of atrocious behaviour shown by the killing of Khashoggi and hence freeze arms sales to Saudi Arabia immediately.

Nonetheless, in response and laying emphasis on the importance the upholding relation with UK's key ally in the Middle East has, London has often been declining calls to end arms exports to the KSA. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt defended there will be "consequences to the relationship with Saudi Arabia" after the killing of Khashoggi, but he has also pointed out that the UK has an important strategic relationship with Riyadh which needs to be preserved. As a matter of fact, according to some experts, UK's impending exit from the EU has played a key role. The Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) claims Theresa May's pursuit for post-Brexit trade deals has seen an unwelcome focus on selling arms to some of the world's most repressive regimes. Nevertheless, by thus tackling the situation in a similar way to France, the UK justifies its actions by saying that it has one of the most meticulous permitting procedures in the world by remarking that its deals comprehend safeguards that counter improper uses.

Spain

After Saudi Arabia's gave its version for Khashoggi's killing, the Spanish government said it was "dismayed" and echoed Antonio Guterres' call for a thorough and transparent investigation to bring justice to all of those responsible for the killing. Yet, despite the clamour that arose after the murder of the columnist, just like France and the UK, Spain's Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, defended arms exporting to the KSA by claiming it was in Spain's interest to keep selling military tools to Riyadh. Sanchez held he stood in favour of Spain's interests, namely jobs in strategic sectors that have been badly affected by "the drama that is unemployment". Thusly, proclaiming Spain's unwillingness to freeze arms exports to the kingdom. In addition, even before Khashoggi's killing, Sanchez's government was subject to many critics after having decided to proceed with the exporting of 400 laser-guided bombs to Saudi Arabia, despite worries that they could harm civilians in Yemen. Notwithstanding this, Sánchez justified Spain's decision in that good ties with the Gulf state, a key commercial partner for Spain, needed to be kept.

As a matter of fact, Spain's state-owned shipbuilder Navantia, in which 5,500 employees work, signed a deal in July last year which accounted for 1.8 billion euros that supplied the Gulf country with five navy ships.  This shipbuilder is situated in the southern region of Andalusia, a socialist bulwark which accounts for Spain's highest unemployment estimates and which has recently held regional elections. Hence, it was of the socialist president's interest to keep these constituencies pleased and the means to this was, of course, not interrupting arms deals with the KSA.

As a consequence, Spain has recently been ignoring the pressures that have arose from MEP's and from Sanchez's minorities in government—Catalan separatist parties and far-left party Podemos— which demand a cease in arms exporting. For the time being, Spain will continue business with the KSA as usual.

CONCLUSION

All things considered, while Saudi Arabia insists that MBS was not aware of the gruesome murder and is distracting the international attention towards more positive headlines—such as the appointment of the first female ambassador to the US—in order to clear the KSA's image in the context of Khashoggi's murder, several European countries have taken actions against the kingdom's interests. Yet, the way each country has approached the matter has led to the rise of two separate blocks which are at discordance within Europe itself. Whereas some European leaders have shown a united front in casting blame on the Saudi government, others seem to express geopolitical interests are more important.

During the time Germany, Norway, Denmark and Finland are being celebrated by human rights advocates for following through on their threat to halt sales to the kingdom, bigger arms exporters—like those that have been analysed—have pointed out that the latter nations have far less to lose than they do. Nonetheless, inevitably, the ceasing carried out by the northern European countries which are rather small arms exporters in comparison to bigger players such as the UK and France, is likely to have exacerbated concerns within the European arms industry of a growing anti-Saudi consensus in the European Union or even beyond.

What is clear is that due to the impact Saudi Arabia's state of affairs have caused, governments and even companies worldwide are coming under pressure to abandon their ties to the oil-rich, but at the same time, human-rights-violating Saudi Arabian leadership. Resultantly, in Europe, countries are taking part in two divergent blocks that are namely led by two of the EU's most compelling members: France and Germany. These two sides are of rather distant opinions regarding the matter, fact that does not seem to be contributing in terms of the so-much-needed European Union integration.

ESSAY / Marina Díaz Escudero

Since 2015, Europe has been dealing with an unprecedented scale of migration from different parts of the world, mainly from MENA (Middle East and North Africa). People flee their countries due to war, bad living conditions or a lack of opportunities for wellbeing.

Although Europe characterises itself for its solidarity, liberty, values and respect for other countries and cultures, such a large flow of immigration seriously tests the European project. For instance, the Schengen system of passport-free travel could collapse as fearful countries enhance their border controls, to the disadvantage of European citizens. "The Schengen system is being more and more questioned and most opinion polls highlight the correlation between the fear of immigration and the distrust of the citizens of the member states towards European institutions. "1 The migration crisis is also considered a "threat for the European project's constitutional stability and for its fundamental values" (Spijkerboer, 2016). 1  

Divisions between northern and southern EU countries, and between them and the Visegrad countries have clearly intensified due to this problem, especially after the approval, in 2015, of some quotas of relocation of refugees that were critisised and voted against by Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Due to this lack of consensus but also due to the delay of other EU countries in complying with the quotas, a treaty was signed between the EU and Turkey in March 2016 so that most refugees arriving to Europe through Greece would be immediately returned to Turkey2. 

Understandably, EU countries are mostly concerned with the prevention of illegal immigration and with border-control policies, as well as with the need of reaching an agreement for an egalitarian distribution of arriving migrants, most of them being asylum seekers and refugees. Nevertheless, this will probably not be enough to satisfy both the European citizens and the migrants: root causes of migration may need to be solved as soon as possible to prevent people from fleeing their homes. This gives the EU food for thought: addressing the migration problem without focusing on the prevention of migration in the countries of origin may not be a lasting, long-term solution. "The instability, insecurity, terrorism, poverty, famine and climate change besetting large parts of Africa and the Middle East are the root causes of migration, but the European Union (EU) governments have come around to this too late, engaging essentially in damage-limitation exercises at our borders. "3  

According to World Bank data, in 2017 over 8 million migrants came from "the Arab world" and from these, 6 million fleed the Syrian Arab Republic4. The war in Syria, originally between Bashar al Assad's regime and the rebel opposition, and currently a proxy war involving various international actors, turns the country into one of the greatest sources of migrants. The fact that over a million of them live in Lebanon (currently accounting for a 30% of the population) , a country who didn't sign the 1951 Refugee Convention and who has been trying to deport the migrants for years now, is worrying. Due to the "fuelling tensions between Lebanese host communities and the Syrian refugees" the Lebanese government has taken some more restrictive measures towards migrants, such as the banning of the construction of formal refugee camps. This for sure puts additional pressure on the EU5.

In order to comprehend the European Union's vision and strategy on Syria, and whether the institution and its members are willing to fight the root causes of its situation, one must consider the words of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, in her speech at the Conference of Brussels in April 2018:

"[In this conference] we had representatives of over 85 countries and international organizations, international and Syrian civil society. [...] We identified common ground on at least 2 or 3 issues: one is that there is no military solution to the war in Syria and that there is a need that everyone recognizes to relaunch the political process. The second element on which I have not found any divergent view is the key role of the United Nations in leading this political process. This is extremely important for us, the European Union, because we have always consistently identified in the UN and in Staffa de Mistura the only legitimate leadership to ensure that the political process represents all Syrians in intra-Syrian talks and happens along the lines of the United Nations Security Council resolutions already adopted. The third element is the need to support Syrians inside Syria and in the neighbouring countries, with humanitarian aid, financial support but also to support hosting communities, in particular neighbouring countries".6

The Vice-President of the European Commission basically makes three clear statements: the European institution will by no means intervene militarily in Syria, neither will it take the initiative to start a political process or peaceful negotiation in the country (it will only support the UN-led process), but it will clearly invest economically both in the country and in its citizens to improve their conditions.

Defence of the UN-led political process

Once a solely-European military intervention has been discarded (due to a lack of consensus among countries on a common defense policy and to the already effective existence of NATO in this regard), the EU considers its role in a political solution to the Syrian conflict, which would clearly reduce migration numbers.

According to the European Council in its conclusions on Syria of April 2018, "the momentum of the current situation should be used to reinvigorate the process to find a political resolution of the Syrian conflict [...] A lasting peace in Syria is the ultimate objective of the EU".7 The Council makes clear that it will not create a new EU-led political process but that it will support the UN's: "...any sustainable solution to the conflict requires a genuine political transition in line with UNSCR 2254 and the 2012 Geneva Communique negotiated by the Syrian parties within the UN-led Geneva process."

The UN currently takes part in two parallel processes: inter-Syrian conversations in Geneva and the Conversations in Astana. The first looks for a dialogue solution to the conflict and participants are the Syrian government, a delegation from the opposition and the UN Special Envoy for Syria. Until now, 9 rounds of talks have taken place, the last focused on the elaboration of a new constitution for the country. The second process is promoted by Russia, Iran and Turkey, guarantors of the peace process in Syria. Conversations started in 2017 with the aim of consolidating the cease-fire and preparing the way for a political solution to the war. The last round of talks took place in Sochi this past July8.

But things aren't as easy as they seem.

UN special envoy for Syria will soon be replaced by the Norwegian Geir Pedersen making future lines of action unpredictable for us. We know, however, what the starting point will be. In the ordinary UN session held on the past 20th December, de Mistura stated that they had "almost completed the job of starting a constitutional commitee to write a constitutional reform, as a contribution to the political process, but still have to go one more mile. "9

Such a commiteee would be composed of 150 persons, a third of which should be appointed by the Syrian regime, another third by the opposition and the last one by UN designated persons. This last point has been repeatedly opposed by Syria. The biggest problem at the moment is that the UN is not fully comfortable with the 50-name list proposed by Iran, Russia and Turkey9.

On the other hand, the strategy of the US, a very relevant actor in this process due to its position in the UN as a permanent member of the Security Council (with veto power on resolutions), has been unclear for a long time. US Special Envoy to Syria Joel Rayburn stated in November that the objectives of the US in Syria were three: the defeat of the Islamic State, the withdrawal of all Iranian-commanded forces and "a political settlement under the auspices of the UNSC Resolution 2254 and the political process supported by the UN in Geneva. "10   

In other words, it seemed that unless the first two objectives were covered the US wouldn't wholeheartedly compromise for a definitive political settlement in Syria and given US relevance, the UN would have it very difficult to advance the political process anytime soon. Most recently however, there was a turn of events: in December the US declared its intention of gradually withdrawing its troops from Syria. "We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump presidency. "11

Does this mean that the US is finally willing to head its efforts towards the third objective? US diplomat Rodney Hunter said: "the US is ready to impulse the political process, to isolate more the regime diplomatic and economically, we are willing to do it". 9

Although a positive answer would facilitate discussions for peace and thus, EU involvement, a reduction of violence in the region (and therefore a reduction of migration to Europe) is not assured for two reasons: the US now leaves Turks with free hands to attack Kurdish militants and, although ISIS has lost 95% of its territory, "2,500 Isis fighters remain [...] The group retains the capacity to do even more damage, especially if let off the hook now." 11

Soft power: humanitarian aid and investment

Given the fact that the EU can not really influence the military and political/diplomatic decisions regarding the Syrian conflict, it has been focusing, since the beginning of the war in 2011, on delivering humanitarian aid and development support to the country and its nationals. The next phrase from the European External Action Service summarises very well the EU's aims on this respect: "Our objective is to bring an end to the conflict and enable the Syrian people to live in peace in their own country. "12

Although bilateral, regional and technical assistance cooperation between the EU and the Syrian government came to an end due to the violent situation that was emerging in the country, the international organization directly supports the Syrian population and its neighbours13.

Through the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), the EU worked hand in hand with its neighbours to the East and South (including Syria) with the aim of fostering stabilization, security and prosperity and achieving cooperation in key areas like the "promotion of democracy, rule of law, respect for human rights and social cohesion. "14 After the cease of cooperation between the EU and the regime, support to the ENP countries is given through the European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI), with a predicted budget of 15 billion dollars (2014-2020)15.

Under the financing og the ENI, the Commission approved in November a special measure "to help the Syrian population to cope with the effects of the crisis and prepare the grounds for a sustainable peace. "16 The main action has been entitled as "Preserving the prospects for peace and stability in Syria through an inclusive transition" and counts with a maximum contribution of EUR 31 million. According to the European Commission, if the Syrian situation turns into a "post-crisis state-building and reconstruction scenario," special measures will be revised in order to suit the new needs of the population14.

The ENP is part of the EUGS or European Union Global Strategy (for the European Union's Foreign and Security Policy) presented by Federica Mogherini to the EU Council in 2016, and whose main aim is to achieve an integrated approach and a "coherent perspective for EU's external action. "15 As part of this broader strategy, the EU wishes to prevent fragile contexts from becoming serious humanitarian crises17. 

Within this, another particular strategy for Syria was developed in 2015, the EU Strategy for Syria. Some of its most important objectives are "saving lives by addressing the humanitarian needs of the most vulnerable Syrians across the country," "promoting democracy, human rights and freedom of speech by strengthening Syrian civil society organisations" and "supporting the resilience of the Syrian population and Syrian society. "18 The European Council, in its Conclusions on Syria of 2018, agreed that the objectives of the "European Union Strategy on Syria" remain valid.

Although all these initiatives are well-intentioned and show that the EU is not only concerned about the end of the war but also with how it will be done and its aftermath, history has proved that Western political intervention in the Middle East is far from optimum for the region. In the 1916 the Sykes-Picot agreement between France and the UK drew an artificial political line on the territory that would later trigger the Arab-Israeli conflict and promote present ISIS action. Later on, the US-leaded intervention in Iraq in 2003 (one of its objectives being the "liberation" of the Iraqi people) has caused an increase of Sunni-Shiite tension, the rise of Al-Qaeda and the strenghtening of Iran in the region.

The point here is that the EU might be interested in helping Syria and its citizens in ways that improve living conditions and welfare opportunities without messing up with the country's cultural, social and political system. Imposing the notion of democracy in these states, knowing that they have a completely different historical and cultural background, might not be a feasible solution.

Thus, other types of EU initiatives like the New Partnership Framework (NPF, June 2016), focused on the role of economic development in fighting the root causes of migration, might be more effective in the long-term. "It will address all aspects of this migration crisis, from its root causes to the daily tragedies that occur in the Mediterranean. These ambitions [...] illustrate EU's willingness to address specific migratory challenges, but also the long-term drivers of migration. "19

Through the NPF, the EU explains how private investment can be a very useful tool for promoting the economic growth and development of Syria, which would in turn improve the living conditions of its citizens making it less necessary to flee their homes in search of a better place to be. "Instead of letting irregular migrants risk their lives trying to reach European labour markets, European private and public resources should be mobilised for investment in third countries of origin. If deployed intelligently, leveraged use of the limited budget resources available will generate growth and employment opportunities in source as well as transit countries and regions [...] This should address the root causes of migration directly, given the high impact of those investments in terms of employment and inequality reduction". This is what the EU calls innovative financing mechanisms.

This project is called the External Investment Plan and is being organized in three steps. First, the mobilization of scarce public resources in an attractive way to attract private investment. Then, helping local authorities and private companies to be known in the international investor community. Finally, the EU would try to improve the general business government by putting a solution to some corruption issues as well as some market distortions. "The EU, Member States, third countries, International Financial Institutions, European bilateral development institutions, as well as the private sector, should all contribute." The EU hopes to collect, through this External Investment Fund, a total of 62 billion euros.

Long story short, European countries believe in the expansion of this type of innovative financing "in those fragile and post-conflict countries which are often important for migration flows but where the potential for direct private or public investment is currently limited."

An interesting factor to take into account in this matter is who will be the most involved international actor in the project. Will it be the US, allowing us to compare the current situation with the 20th century Marshall Plan? (where investments in infrastructure and the spread of domestic management techniques was also a key element). Or could it be Russia? As the President of the Russian Chamber of Commerce stated in March 2018, "$200 billion to $500 billion will be needed for the reconstruction of the Syrian economy, and the first priority will, as President Bashar al-Assad has said, be given to Russian businesses. "20 What is clear is that investing in Syria will clearly give the investor country some important influence on the newly-recovered state.

Conclusions and forecast for the future

Since the beginning of the crisis in 2011, Syria has been one of the major sources of migration towards Europe. Although EU members currently need to discuss the prevention of illegal immigration and the distribution of legally coming asylum seekers, some attention must also be given to the elimination of factors that activate migration in the country of origin.

While it is true that a definitive end to the war between the regime and the opposition would be the best and most immediate solution for disproportionate fleeing from Syria, the EU doesn't seem to be able to intervene more than it already does.

Not having an army of itself (and not seeming to want it in the near future) and being the "assistant" of the UN in the political and diplomatic resolution of the conflict, it can only apply its soft power tools and instruments to help to the country and its citizens.

Although humanitarian aid is essential and the EU is sparing no expense on it, the institution has come to realise that the real key to improving Syria's situation and the wellbeing of its citizens may be investment and development. This investment could be "short-term", in the sense that foreign countries directly invest in Syria and decide what the money will be used for (i.e reconstruction of buildings, construction of new infrastructure...) or "long-term", in the sense that the main role of the EU is improving the country's business governance to facilitate the attraction of private investors in the long-term.  

Regarding the last option it is very important that "the recipient countries establish transparent policies, broad and effective that propitiate an appropiate atmosphere for investment, with the consequent formation of human resources and the establishment of an appropiate institutional climate. "21 Taking this into account, Syria will be a difficult challenge for the EU, as in order to achieve an appropiate institutional climate, a diplomatic solution to the conflict and a peaceful political transition will be required, as well as the collaboration of the future government in promoting political transparency.

All in all, the EU is clearly aware of the root causes of migration and is developing feasible strategies to counter them. The rate of progress is still slow and it may be due to the fact that, in order to effectively apply many of these soft power strategies (except for the humanitarian aid), the recipient country must be stable and ready to collaborate. In other words, EU investment and development plans will most probably bear fruit when the war is over, a peaceful political transition is on the move and the general atmosphere is favorable for economic growth and innovation.

Political stability in Syria could be achieved through two scenarios: the success of the UN-led process and the drafting of new constitution for the country; or the victory of one of the sides (most probably the Syrian regime) and its establishment in power. Meanwhile, the EU and its members will have three challenges: developing the forementioned long-term investment strategies in the view of a future peace (while maintaining already-functioning soft power initiatives), dealing with the refugee crisis at the European borders, and preserving the European project and unity by avoiding major disagreements on migration policy and an exacerbated fear of immigration.

Moreover, one of the key issues that will need to be followed closely in the following months is the effect that the, maybe early, withdrawal of US troops can have on the region and on the power dynamic between the actors, together with the potential changes in US strategy with regards to the UN-led process.

References

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2. López, E. (2018). Refugee crisis: The divergence between the European Union and the Visegrad Group/ GLOBAL AFFAIRS, UNAV. Retrieved from

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[Bruno Maçães, The Dawn of Eurasia. On the Trail of the New World Order. Allen Lane. Milton Keynes, 2018. 281 pp]

review / Emili J. Blasco

The discussion on the emergence of Eurasia as an increasingly compact reality, no longer as a mere geographical description that was conceptually a chimera, owes much to the contribution of Bruno Maçães; particularly to his book The Dawn of Eurasia, but also to his continuous proselytizing to different audiences. This Portuguese diplomat with research activity in Europe notes the consolidation of the Eurasian mass as a single continent (or supercontinent) to all intents and purposes.

"One of the reasons we have to start thinking about Eurasia is because this is how China is increasingly looking at the world (...) China is already living a Eurasian age," says Maçães. What is new about it, he says, "is not that there are such connections between continents, but that, for the first time, they work both ways. Only when the influence flows in both directions can we speak of an integrated space." The Silk Belt and Road Initiative, especially its overland route, sample that China is no longer looking only to the Pacific, but is also contemplating new routes to Europe.

Maçães urges Europe to adopt a Eurasian perspective, for three reasons: because Russia and China have one; because most of the big foreign policy issues of our time have to do with how Europe and Asia are connected (Ukraine, refugee crisis, energy and trade); and because all the security threats of the coming decades will play out in a Eurasian context. Maçães adds a final reason why Europe should become more actively involved in the Eurasian integration project : it is the way to combat the forces of disintegration that exist within Europe itself.

From the various considerations included in the book, some suggestive ideas could be highlighted. One is that Russia's historic problems of identity, straddling Europe and Asia - seeing itself as different from the Europeans and at the same time being attracted by the modernity of the West - are now being replicated in the East, where China is on its way to creating a second pole of economic growth and integration in the supercontinent. If Europe is one of the poles and Asia (China and the other successful countries of the Far East) the other, then what is Russia, if it does not fully respond to the European and Asian identities?

The Silk Belt and Road Initiative gives geopolitical importance to Central Asia, as Maçães reviews. Thus, China needs a clear dominance of Xinjiang, its westernmost province and the gateway to the Central Asian republics. The land route to Europe cannot exist without the Xinjinag segment, but at the same time the exhibition of this Uyghur-majority territory to trade and modernization could accentuate its separatist aspirations. Just northwest of Xinjiang is the ex-Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, a vast country of great agricultural value, where Chinese attempts to buy land are being viewed with high suspicion from its capital, Astana. Maçães estimates that if Russia were to try to reintegrate Kazakhstan into its sphere of influence, as vehemently as it has done with Ukraine, "China would not stand aside."

Not only are the East Coast (European peninsula) and the West Coast (Pacific coast) moving closer together, but the connections between the two also improve logistical conditions in the interior of the supercontinent. This is precisely one of the objectives of the Silk Belt and Road Initiative: as Chinese companies have moved away from coastal business hubs to lower labor costs, they are moving farther away from ports and therefore need better land connections, thus contributing to the shrinking of Eurasia.