Brussels Internship Final

What is the most pressing long-term challenge facing the European Union?

There are currently seven major challenges facing the European Union. The first is Russia, since the war in Ukraine has everything to do with the European Union. As Western countries continue to encourage democracy in former Soviet states like Ukraine, Putin is concerned that Russians will want democracy too. However, a democratic state would prevent Putin from gaining all the power that he craves. Putin will stay at war against the war to keep his power. A second major challenge is the Balkans because the ethnic conflict in Bosnia has not ended. EU involvement is preventing it from becoming violent, and moving forward, the EU needs to stay involved in the region to prevent another war from breaking out. A third major challenge is the Middle East. This challenge combines three major issues from the one region: migration, Israel-Palestine, and Iran. The Middle East is the primary source of migration into the EU, which has created tension across Europe due to the strain on resources, challenges of integration, and political instability from demographic changes.  The second major issue, Israel-Palestine, is dividing the EU since it cannot come up with a common foreign policy on the issue, with support for each group differing drastically across the continent. The third major issue, Iran, is representative of a larger change across the world. Europe is being left out of global discussions on conflict, and Iran is just one example. Decisions are being made between Middle Eastern states and the US without the EU being included. A fourth major challenge is Turkey. Turkey is in a key geopolitical position between Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. It has helped the EU maintain peace in Bosnia and has helped arm the Ukrainians. However, its tendencies towards autocracy are concerning as the EU does not want to lose its key partnership in Bosnia and Ukraine. A fifth major challenge is Africa, especially the Sahel region. This region is home to many active militant Islamist groups that create instability and support drug trafficking routes. Furthermore, this is another region that Europe is losing influence in, as other partners like Russia and China are gaining influence through working with African states rather than enforcing policy. A sixth major challenge is the anti-EU political movements within Europe. These movements include pro-populist and pro-nationalist groups that are threatening democratic norms and creating geopolitical instability. The seventh and most pressing challenge to Europe is the New America. In all of the challenges above, the US has been a key partner in countering violence and instability around the world while encouraging democratic norms in developing states. However, during Trump’s second administration, the US has moved away from Europe and become more isolationist while dealing with its challenges alone without Europe. With all of these current challenges, Europe is left to stand alone without its longstanding partner. This challenge is the most pressing because Europe needs to quickly figure out if it can handle all of the above challenges on its own without the military, political, and economic support of the US. Without this decisive action, all of the above challenges will strangle Europe and cause further geopolitical instability if Russia and China feel they have an opening to move into further influence around the world.

What are the “internal policies” of the European Union and why do they exist?

The EU pursues competition, regional, social, agricultural, environmental, and Justice and Home Affairs policies as its internal policies because, without cooperation, there would be barriers to having a single market. This economic integration is known as the spillover effect. In the EU’s competition policy, the EU tries to ensure that all markets remain competitive and that everyone competes on the same playing field through anti-trust, mergers, and state aid laws.  This ensures that the EU can achieve all of the benefits of the Single Market. In the EU’s social policy, it focuses on employment policy to fix unequal benefits for different groups of workers. The EU provides grant funding for programs helping workers develop new skills, improving access to youth employment, providing vocational training, and assisting disadvantaged groups in securing jobs. In the EU’s regional policy, it works on closing gaps in economic development. To do this, the EU provides grant funding for less developed European countries and regions to help them catch up by reducing economic, social, and territorial disparities. Agricultural policy is treated as a common internal policy to prevent subsidy wars and to avoid the instability of agricultural markets. Historically, the policy was a system that guaranteed prices to farmers for their products. Now, the EU has decoupled prices and subsidies, targeted subsidies to the farmers that actually need them, emphasized rural development programs, and encouraged environmental regulations The EU treats environmental policy as a common policy since EU action can more effectively address the issue compared to action at the member state level. The EU has adopted legislation on issues like an Emissions Trading System, renewable energy, waste management, air pollution, water pollution, and biotechnology. Finally, justice and home affairs are typically a member state competence, but Single Market spillover effects require cooperation. The EU’s policies include the Schengen Agreement, immigration and border control, and police and judicial cooperation. The Schengen Agreement eliminates all border controls between its member states. The EU has common rules for immigration to coordinate how asylum applications are processed. For police matters, the EU has EUROPOL and EUROJUST for assisting member states in criminal matters. The EU can adopt civil legislation but not criminal.

Why does the European Union exist?

The foundation for the European Union was laid after World War II with the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community between six member states from the 1951 Treaty of Paris. This was intended to prevent another conflict between France and Germany by placing the coal and steel industries of all six nations under a shared authority. It prevents any state from mobilizing for war without another member state noticing. In the mid-1950s, the founding ECSC member states signed the Treaties of Rome, which established the European Economic Community, for further development of an integrated Europe. This significantly expanded the economic integration of the six member states as it created a single market for the free movement of goods, services, capital, and labor across borders. It also introduced a common external tariff. As the EEC grew in importance, other states wanted membership. In the 1960s and 70s, Britain, Denmark, and Ireland were admitted for the economic benefits and concerns about over-reliance on security from the US. In the 1980s, Greece, Portugal, and Spain also joined after transitioning to democratic governance. In the late 1970s, Europe faced an economic period with low growth and high unemployment that could not compete with economic powerhouses like the US and Japan. As a result, they signed the Single European Act to require the abolition of the remaining economic barriers within the next five years. Due to slow progress after this act, France, Germany, and the Benelux states signed the Schengen Agreement to remove border controls between them. Finally, this evolved into the European Union after the Cold War and the reunification of Germany. In 1992, member states signed the Maastricht Treaty to create the European Union to anchor the newly unified Germany and accelerate the progress of European integration. The Maastricht Treaty set the groundwork for a single currency and expanded cooperation into foreign policy and justice. In 1995, Austria, Finland, Norway, and Sweden joined the EU as it grew into an important political and economic community.

What are the Foreign, Security, and Defense policies of the European Union?

Since foreign and defense policies are a member state competence, the policy of the EU is to coordinate the policies of the member states and to get them to agree on a common foreign policy. The objectives of EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy are to safeguard the EU’s values, interests, security, independence, and integrity; preserve peace, prevent conflict, and strengthen international security; promote democracy, human rights, and the rule of law; promote economic and social development of developing countries; integrate all countries into the world economy; improve the quality of the environment; assist populations, countries, and regions facing natural or man-made disasters, and promote multilateralism and international law. To achieve these objectives, the EU develops a strategic concept that contains the foreign policy, security, and defense strategies. The EU works continuously through international organizations and bilateral relationships, and in crises. In this work, the EU specifically focuses on Eastern Europe into Central Asia, the Mediterranean, Africa, the Western Balkans, the Middle East, and the Arctic. In all other areas of the world, the EU looks to cooperate with others. To create peace in these areas, the EU relies on the integrated approach. This approach emphasizes that each crisis is unique and requires different strategies. The Integrated Approach assembles the right mixture of instruments to solve each crisis or potential crisis. These instruments include sanctions, humanitarian assistance, economic reform, and others to tailor the approach appropriately. Examples of how these policies work are EUAM UKRAINE, EUMM GEORGIA, and EUPM Moldova. Each of these missions is related to Russia but they are targeted at different aspects to help each individual state with its exact needs. EUAM UKRAINE happened after the 2014 annexation of Crimea to help Ukraine transition into a Western democracy. EUMM GEORGIA happened after the 2008 Russian encroachment in Georgia as it provided border monitors to prevent further encroachment. These are both examples of countering Russia, but two very different missions because the EU emphasizes how each crisis requires different strategies. Finally, EUPM Moldova counters the technological misinformation done by Russia in Moldovan society. It is a third example of how to counter Russia in that it trains Moldova in counterinformation tactics and encourages reform to protect Moldovan technology. The EU has so many different instruments to be effective and those are just three examples.

What is the European Union?

What is the European Union’s economic “model”?

The European Union’s economic model is an economic and monetary union. There are three other types of economic integration that the economic and monetary union has built upon, and adds a single currency shared across participating members with a unified monetary policy. The first is a free trade area, which eliminates tariffs between the member states but does not have a common external tariff. The customs union does take it a step further and still eliminates tariffs between member states but also includes a common external tariff on any goods entering the union. The third form, a single market, builds upon this by eliminating all non-tariff barriers such as safety, health, and environmental standards. A single market is known to have the four freedoms: the free movement of goods, services, capital, and labor. The EU has the free movement of goods in three ways: Cassis de Dijon, the Old Approach, and the Global Approach. Cassis de Dijon is the principle of mutual recognition, where member states must recognize each other’s health and safety standards unless they prove there is a legitimate threat. The Old Approach is where the EU has a single set of regulations that is applicable in all member states and replaces the member states’ policies. The Global Approach is where the EU sets minimum health and safety standards that each member state must meet but they can also build upon. The EU integrates the services market in two ways: adopting legislation for specific sectors and using the Services Directive. The Services Directive applies the principle of mutual recognition, so each member state must recognize each other’s policies and cannot discriminate against each other. Capital movements are completely free across the EU. For labor, member states may not discriminate based on the nationality of EU citizens in all employment decisions. Within the European Union, there is also the eurozone, which uses the euro as its currency. This was adopted in the late 1990s. For a country to be able to use the euro, its central bank must be independent of political control and meet the convergence criteria to make sure a country is economically stable before the European Council makes the final decision by QMV. Monetary policy is a competence of the European Central Bank and its main objective is to maintain price stability.

What is the European Union’s legal system?