L’Union européenne et la paix
Beyond question, this work will be of great interest not only to lawyers, students of political science and researchers, but also the institutions and bodies involved in the definition or concerned by the evolution of European policies such as international relations. It is a compilation of 25 contributions from various universities that were updated between the end of 2022 and the start of this year, to reflect the most recent developments, prior to its publication in March of this year.
As Laurence Potvin-Solis (University Paris-Est-Créteil) explains, the publication “explores both the objective of peace pursued by the European Union and the means and instruments towards achieving this objective, questioning the Union’s methods and progress towards a European federation” (our translation throughout). “It scrutinises the willingness of the member states to move forward ‘as one’ to tackle the challenges and issues of peace in a context marked by the growing fragility of peace, the diversification of risks, post-Brexit complications and the calling into question of the very essence of the European project due to the many crises in play at international and European level”, she goes on to explain, adding that “it includes multi-sectoral consequences of the Russian armed conflict in Ukraine and invites the reader to take the full measure of Russia’s departure from the Council of Europe. It calls for an approach that is both prospective and retrospective towards the dialectic link between the European Union and peace as set out in the constitutional pillar of the EU and the status of member state”.
In her article on the contribution of the values of the European Union to peace and security, Sophie Perez (University of Toulon) analyses at length the use made by the EU of its trade and common policy and of its policy of cooperation with third countries to promote its values and contribute to stability. She stresses the broad range of instruments used to this end: political dialogue on human rights, sectoral political dialogue, generalised system of preference, the ‘Everything but Arms’ regime and strategies such as the ‘Global Gateway’, which aims to “stimulate intelligent, clean and safe connections in the digital, energy and transport sectors and to reinforce healthcare, education and research systems throughout the world” and tends to promote “the highest standards” in environmental protection, social questions and good governance.
It is, all the same, to be regretted that in her extremely well-documented article, Perez neglects to look into the reasons for the fairly obvious failure of this approach, given that in the space of ten years (2012-2022), the Cotonou agreement has been suspended no fewer than 15 times in response to violence overthrows of governments, an escalation of violence or breaches of human rights. Looking back over the entire period since the signature of the Yaoundé agreement, the successive instruments have unquestionably helped, to a certain extent, to re-establish constitutional forms of government, but they have never contributed to the emergence of genuinely democratic systems or, more modestly, systems of good management of public affairs or prevented coups d’état in Africa, as demonstrated by those that are taking place in Mali, Burkina Faso and, in recent months, Niger and Gabon. Although the ambition to put stability, the rule of law and human rights first is undoubtedly based on a legitimate intention and a mutual interest, it has long been broken down by the former colonial powers and, all too often, served as a facade for the continuation of neocolonial policies on the part of certain member states, despite positive EU-ACP cooperation projects. The challenges dealt to the “Western order” and the “universal nature of values” by China, Russia and, more generally, the BRICS countries will change nothing. It is high time for the evolution of “public opinion” in Africa to be taken into account and for the relationship to be redesigned on the basis of a sincere co-construction model.
In another article on human rights in the context of the European Union’s actions for peace, development, democracy and the rule of law in Africa, Reine Wakote (University of Lorraine) and Mutoy Mubiala (University of Kinshasa) stress that “African reactions to Russian aggression on Ukrainian soil are an invitation to question how deeply the European Union has managed to embed the promotion of peace and human rights in Africa”, they continue, in reference to the recent coups d’état.
Cecilia M. Baillet (University of Oslo) proposes an analysis of the “right to peace” and reiterates that the member states of the European Union have twice failed to block the adoption of the declaration on the right to peace, firstly at the United Nations Council of Human Rights in July 2016, then at the vote of the General Assembly in the November of the same year. On the latter occasion, 116 states, mostly from Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia (including Brazil, China, India and Russia), voted in favour of the text, while 34 countries, comprising the European states, Canada and the United States, Israel and Australia voted against and 16 others abstained.
Pierre-François Laval (University Lyon 3 Jean Moulin) makes the point that the war currently being waged by the Russian Federation in Ukraine has generated a large number of international sanctions in various forms and degrees of intensity. In the framework of the European Union, restrictive measures, adopted firstly in response to the annexation of Crimea in 2014, have notably been stepped up, since the beginning of the invasion of February 2022. He argues that the “legal strategy now set in place by the European institutions brings more than one challenge, starting with the very function of the sanctions adopted against the Russian authorities”. “There is every indication that bringing State accountability into play is no longer the only objective being pursued and that European action is now developing in a more fundamentally punitive mode”, with somewhat relative efficacy and, in some cases, measures of dubious legality from the point of view of national law, the author explains.
In an article on peace in Europe being put to the test by the war in Ukraine, Florent Parmentier (CEVIPOF) explains that the “post-1989 period was marked by the desire to reunify Europe, to ensure peace on the continent”. Gradually, however, “Russia moved away from this peaceful ambition, up to breaking point”. “24 February 2022 marked the return of large-scale conventional war to Europe, calling into question the spirit of an enlarged Europe, American unipolarity at international level and the ‘dividends of peace’ that were taken for granted by the Europeans”, the author explains, adding that “winning the peace means managing to rebuild an international order, sometimes even rebuild a new civilisation, in some cases on the still-smoking ruins of the past. This is why the teleological approach that would make a reunified and peaceful Europe into the definitive culmination of continental Europe should be avoided”. He goes on to explain that “contrary to all expectations, inevitably, the reconstruction of Ukraine and peace should take place with Russia if they are to be permanent”.
In an entirely different register, Anna Stadler (University Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas) argues that the “European Union is standing out as a true player in cyberspace in the related fields”, albeit with major weaknesses: “with the conjunction of a chaotic cyber-conflictualisation of cyberspace, calling for a genuinely international response, limits based upon its competence and the decisions made by the member states, it is failing to prevail in areas subject to cooperation”. She goes on to make her killer point: “disclosing and accentuating a deep identity crisis, this breach in its apprehension of cyberspace – which is specifically characterised by the interconnection of various sectors of activity – is weakening it and making it a simple space subject to the cyber-conflicts that are leaving it behind”.
The work also comprises a large section on the protection of the fundamental rights by the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union and an article on the European Union’s support for the International Criminal Tribunal. (Olivier Jehin)
Laurence Potvin-Solis (edited by). L’Union européenne et la paix. Bruylant. ISBN: 978-2-8027-7156-2. 619 pages. €92,00
Five Pathways to a More Democratic Europe
Published by a working group on European democracy comprising various figures such as British Labour politician and former member of the European Parliament, Richard Corbett, former French minister Harlem Desir, former European Commissioner Cecilia Malmström and serving MEPs Eva-Maria Poptcheva (Renew Europe, Spain) and Sophie in ’t Veld (Renew Europe, the Netherlands), this work puts forward a few original ideas, many of them not short on controversy, and recycles many other good ideas have never come to fruition.
The report presents five pathways for improvement, the first of which concerns transparency and probity, including: (1) establishment of a pan-European register of lobbies via a European law on lobbying, to apply both to the European institutions and, on European matters, to lobbying activities in the member states, in order to correct a situation in which, while the work of interest representatives is gradually becoming more strictly governed at the Parliament and Council, the lobbying activities that influence the work of the Council fly under the radar as they take place in the capitals; (2) preparatory work for good governance in the candidate countries upstream of enlargement ; (3) improving the transparency of trilogue sessions ; (4) greater transparency of the legislative work of the Council, making the national documents and positions accessible; (5) in the wake of Qatargate, creating an EU ethical supervisory authority independent of the other institutions. The Commission proposed such a body, but made no provision for it to have investigative or sanctioning powers, the report laments.
The second pathway concerns crisis governance. Over the course of the numerous crises that it has faced, the EU has shown that it is capable of reacting efficiently, but it does so by using inter-governmental procedures and article 122 TFEU to adopt acts of a legislative nature, or decide on expenditure likely, as is now the case with Next Generation EU, to affect the general budget through the servicing of debt, which is mushrooming as a result of spiralling interest rates. In particular, the report proposes that the European Parliament be given a right of co-decision whenever article 122 is invoked.
The third pathway is making the most of the European elections. This section includes ambitions of encouraging each national party to refer to its European party during the election campaign period or for an agreement be reached on voting to take place on the same day, as well as the introduction of trans-national lists, a move that remains controversial, even within the group itself. As regards the procedure to appoint the President of the Commission, the members of the group seem to have encountered difficulties in agreeing on consensual wording. Even so, the report suggests that the Parliament and European Council agree on the procedure before the next elections so as to reach an inter-institutional agreement either to confirm the Spitzenkanditaten system, which they would like see renamed “lead candidate” or “party candidate”, considering that most Europeans would struggle to understand the German term (whereas everybody is supposed to speak English!), or introduce an electoral college made up of the same number of representatives of the European Council and European Parliament (27 from each) to elect the President. This is accompanied by the idea that in the event of a trans-national list, it should in all cases conducted by the party candidates. The authors of the report optimistically believe that there is time to reach an agreement before the elections of June next year.
The fourth pathway concerns the relationship between the national parliaments and Europe. This includes: (1) incentives for the national parliaments to carry out exchanges on best practice in parliamentary controls on their governments’ activities at European level; (2) the introduction of a mechanism allowing the national parliaments to present proposals legislative initiatives directly to the Commission; (3) setting up a regular working session between the national parliaments and the European Parliament, either in Brussels or in the country holding the six-month Presidency of the Council.
Finally, the fifth pathway is the inevitable “participative democracy”, with such suggestions as: (1) the launch of a major European debate to encourage the national authorities to agree to the introduction of lessons on democracy and the decision-making process in primary schools; (2) the creation of a “permanent citizens’ assembly”, although it is not clear what it will actually be as it would have only a consultative role and there are already many actors that are more expensive than effective on this register, in particular the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee; (3) the introduction of a “preferendum” at EU level, a kind of multiple-choice referendum so as to convince anyone with misgivings of its non-plebiscitary nature. (OJ)
Kalypso Nicolaidis, Nicolai von Ondarza, Sophia Russack. The Radicality of Sunlight – Five Pathways to a More Democratic Europe. This report of the high-level group on the Centre for European Political Studies (CEPS) and the Stiftung Wissentschaft Und Politik (SWP) on reinforcing European democracy was published in October and can be downloaded free of charge from the respective websites of the CEPS and the SWP.