War for Ukraine and the Rediscovery of Geopolitics
In this analysis paper, Sven Biscop highlights the need for the European Union to rediscover a form of geopolitics that goes beyond the declaration of political intentions, along the lines of the commitment of President von der Leyen to lead a “geopolitical” Commission, but that results in a proper geopolitical analysis before making any decisions that require it.
The author argues that “so many EU leaders today see only the land war in Ukraine” and “disregard, at their peril, that for Russia, one of the vital interests at stake is control over the Black Sea and access to the Mediterranean”. “Europeans are forever debating which flank, East or South, should receive priority”, while “seen from Moscow, this is one vast theatre, where Russia constantly acts as a spoiler, thwarting Europe’s plans, with the aim of weakening the EU and NATO and diverting them from Eastern Europe”, Biscop writes.
As part of a broad geopolitical overview, the author states in particular that “long considered a sideshow, the Black Sea, therefore, must now be central to EU and NATO strategy. That reconfirms the traditional importance of Turkey’s geopolitical position to NATO and the EU: not as a buffer against immigration and other challenges from the wider Middle East, as the EU has been treating it for years, but as a cornerstone of the bulwark against Russian encroachment. If Turkey does not fully assume greater responsibility – and in recent years it has not – then Europe’s South Eastern flank remains wide open (…). Turkey has strictly applied the Montreux Convention that limits the passage of warships through the Straits to and from the Black Sea, and thus the possibilities for an Allied naval presence (in the Black Sea: Ed). The naval capacity of Bulgaria and Romania, as riparian states, could be strengthened though. Ships could perhaps be transferred and re-flagged as Ukrainian to build up Ukraine’s own navy, which will be essential to safeguard its maritime trade. Otherwise, Odessa, currently the only major port in free Ukraine, could be strangled”.
Biscop goes on to urge the EU to “become more explicitly strategic: thinking in terms of interests, ends, ways, and means, and the balance of power between allies and adversaries”. “The changes in the world since the adoption of the Global Strategy 2016 evidently call for an update of the EU’s grand strategy. This should be a priority for the next EU legislature. The grand strategy is Chefsache, because it concerns vital interests and covers all dimensions of power”, he writes, stressing that the drafting of this “Global Strategy 2025” should therefore be led by the President of the European Commission rather than by the High Representative, particularly as the competition and rivalry between the great powers increasingly plays out in the area of geo-economics, in which most competencies are with the Commission. (Olivier Jehin)
Sven Biscop. War for Ukraine and the Rediscovery of Geopolitics. Egmont Paper 123, June 2023. 15 pages. This analysis paper can be downloaded free of charge from the website of the Belgian Institute: https://aeur.eu/f/7f6
Le droit social en dialogue
“After years and years characterised by the stagnation, in some cases erosion, of the social acquis, the European Union seems to be renewing its promise to build a more social Europe as set out in the Lisbon Treaty”, writes Bruno De Witte (University of Maastricht) in this collective publication on the many and various aspects of social rights (our translation throughout).
“The initiative to draw up twenty fundamental principles, in a document called pillar of social rights, played a driving role at political level”, the author goes on to say, adding: “we seem therefore to have entered a new dynamic phase in the long trajectory of European social policy. As regards the fundamental social rights within this trajectory, recent developments are somewhat curious. The rights set out in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU are practically forgotten about in a corner, notwithstanding the occasional case-law episode, while the rights included in the pillar, which have no binding legal value, are – at least to some extent – being implemented through various interesting European legislative projects. The paradox could therefore be (but caution is still called for) that the social provisions of the Charter of Rights will ultimately deploy concrete efforts by dint of the fact that these pseudo-rights are included in the pillar. This does not, however, mean that the actual fundamental social rights should be abandoned to their fate”. Calling attention to the “impetus derived from the European Social Charter” of the Council of Europe, De Witte expresses the view that the EU should sign up to it and, furthermore, to the European Human Rights Convention.
In an article entitled “Les petits pas de la négociation collective transnationale” (The Small Steps of Collective Transnational Negotiation), Isabelle Daugareilh (University of Bordeaux) observes a quantitative downturn in the speed with which new international framework agreements are signed, but argues that collective transnational negotiation is experiencing progress of a qualitative nature.
“The historic normative articulations of collective transnational negotiation remain, while sometimes taking a more coercive turn concerning the components of the global value chain with regard to the fundamental conventions of the ILO”, she writes, going on to explain that “it is unquestionably time for consolidating transnational collective negotiation in businesses that already have international framework agreements (IFA), making the production of standards slower, more complex and more risky in terms of outcome. On the other hand, the innovations of collective transnational negotiation are markers pointing to progress in the form and/or substance of this mode of regulation. This was the case with the Renault agreement of 2004 on fundamental social rights, stipulating a scope of application to the entities of the global value chain, which brought about a step change in commercial relations with suppliers and subcontractors, heralding the target objective with the duty of vigilance of parent companies and those placing orders. The same company blazed a trail with two IFAs concluded in 2019 and 2021 on a globalised enterprise project, in line with the challenges of working the 21st century. By this means, it is the very format of the result of the collective transnational negotiation that is so new, making the new Renault global standards a hybrid agreement, somewhere between an IFA or global framework agreement (to use its own term) and a – global – group agreement, allowing us to speculate that this may be the dawn of a new generation of agreements stretching out new developments in collective transnational negotiation towards a logic that is more instrumental than constitutional”.
Daugareilh goes on to conclude that the “results of collective transnational negotiations have become highly disparate. These can range from IFAs on fundamental social rights via IFAs on CSR (corporate social responsibility: Ed) and those on control and monitoring procedures or multi-party agreements, right up to the recent Renault IFA, which is a company agreement in the true sense, at the service of the management to accompany the effects of the technological transition on work (…). This diversification bears witness to the state of rude health of collective transnational negotiations and the way they are being put to use by company management, having once been the preserve of international trade unions. Notwithstanding, the vast majority of transnational companies are still off the radar of international social dialogue, if not staunchly opposed to it (…). This is why, despite these quantitative advances that have been made over the last three years, collective transnational negotiation is suffering from an absence of real support on the part of the public authorities. Is it not time to give it a leg up by relaunching the idea of its legal regulation, to support its duty of vigilance, the efficiency of which cannot do without transnational social dialogue?”
On related subjects, the work also discusses: - developments in the conflict between transnational businesses and human rights (Renée-Claude Drouin); - the role of unions and workers’ representatives in due diligence processes (Faust Guarriello); - transnational breaches of human rights by multinational businesses (Emmanuelle Mazuyer).
In an article on the definition of “disability”, Maria Esther Blas Lopez and Frédéric Baron, who are both law clerks to the Court of Justice of the EU, stressed that an in-depth reflection on the notion of “disability” remains necessary to “better define not only the scope of application of Directive 2000/78, but also the nature of discrimination based on disability”. “The Union is therefore obliged to clarify its policy in favour of people living with disability and to implement a strategy in this area. In this framework, the Court could, through its case-law, continue to exercise its social function, for instance under the impetus of international law, they add. (O.J.)
Claire Marzo, Étienne Pataut, Sophie Robin-Olivier, Pierre Rodière and Gilles Trudeau (edited by). Le droit social en dialogue – Européanisation, mondialisation, croisements disciplinaires. Bruylant. ISBN: 978-2-8027-7089-3. 604 pages. €150,00
Atlas des inégalités en France
A compilation of more than 120 maps, this Atlas depicts the state of play of inequality in France and its development over time, at all levels: between regions, between urban and rural areas and within cities themselves. In it, demographer and historian Hervé Le Bras stresses that the origin of inequality often long predates the economic crises that shook the world in 1971 and that the two mutually reinforce each other.
“Unemployment increases poverty and the inequality of the division of income: it shatters families. The lack of academic qualifications increases the risk of unemployment. A low income compromises children’s education. Mechanically, the rise in poverty increases the degree of inequality. Inequality therefore tends to snowball”, the author writes, also stressing that “regional differences often refer to events that occurred in the distant past but that have structured habits and customs, for instance the dichotomy between a France of open fields and a France of groves, or between countries with no religious tradition and those of Catholic tradition” (our translation). (O.J.)
Hervé Le Bras. Atlas des inégalités – Les Français face à la crise. Autrement. ISBN: 978-2-0804-1485-4. 96 pages. €24.00
La résistance socialiste française et l’Europe
“European integration is eternally under threat from an anti-European populism that promotes the nebulous idea of a return to a national sovereignty which has, in reality, never existed”, stresses German historian Wilfried Loth, in the introduction to this study on the genesis of the European aspirations of French Socialists during the Second World War (our translation throughout). “By pursuing the reflections of their leader, Léon Blum, on the conditions for a stable peace and discussion of his ideas within the underground party, this study sheds light on the reasons the French Socialists decided to promote and support and is the European unification (…). It also shows that the contemporary anti-Europeanism of populists on both the left and right wings echoes a Gallo-communist alliance opposing the first initiatives of the non-Communist resistance to create a European federation”, Loth adds.
Among things, the author points out that “during the underground days of almost all major resistance organisations and many groups of lesser importance (with the exception of the Communists), from 1942 onwards and particularly in 1943-1944, the same ideas crop up: preservation of universal peace, supranational principles, integration of Germany and the particular affinity of the European region”. “In the south, the group ‘Libérer et Fédérer’ became the first, in June 1942, to issue calls – inspired by Proudhonian federalism – to ‘federate the European peoples to avoid the return of new wars’”, Loth notes, going on to state that “in September 1942, Henri Fresnay, Claude Bourdet and André Hauriou proclaimed, on behalf of Combat, the largest Resistance organisation in the southern zone, ‘the United States of Europe’ as the ‘living reality for which we are fighting’. In January 1943, the second-largest organisation of the southern area, Libération, came out in favour of limiting national sovereignty and for a federation of the nations. In March 1944, Franc-Tireur, the third-largest organisation of the southern area, led by Georges Altman in collaboration with André Ferrat, called for the ‘Union of the democratic peoples of Europe’ as a ‘first step towards the union of all peoples of the world’. Finally, ‘L’insurgé’, the organisation of supporters of Marceau Pivert, rallied in February 1944 behind the concept of a ‘global federation’ and stressed ‘first and foremost the need to create a European federation’. In the northern zone, the organisation Libération, under the leadership of former senior figures of the S.F.I.O. and the C.G.T., echoed the calls of its like-named counterpart from the south in February 1943. Meanwhile, Résistance, which includes Paul Rivet among its founders, and which is also one of the largest organisations of the North, called for the creation of a ‘European community’”.
The author includes as an annex an extract from the brochure ‘À l’échelle humaine’ (At Human Level), written in 1941, in which Léon Blum develops his argument for future peace along with the “contents of the common programme” presented by the leadership of the clandestine socialist party to the central committee of the resistance movements on 11 December 1941.
Wilfried Loth. Léon Blum – La résistance socialiste française et l’Europe. Presse fédéraliste. ISBN: 978-2-4914-2912-6. 101 pages. €15,00