Tag Archives: schengen

Belgium, Flanders

It’s time for Flanders to put up or shut up… and leave

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Citizens in Brussels took to downtown to write messages of love and peace in the wake of horrific terror attacks Tuesday. (Alexander Koerner/Getty Images)
Citizens in Brussels took to downtown to write messages of love and peace in the wake of horrific terror attacks Tuesday. (Alexander Koerner/Getty Images)

At the heart of the tragic jihadist assault on Brussels this week lies what economics and political scientists know as a collective action problem.Belgium Flagflanders flag

Within the hollowed-out central state of Belgium, virtually no one wants to foot the bill for the kind of counter-terrorism, security and police investigation operations that Brussels needed to avert Tuesday’s horrific simultaneous airport and subway attacks. The European Commission, which calls Brussels home, has neither the power nor the inclination to provide a supranational layer of security to the city.

Brussels, a majority French-speaking city, is its own region, though it lies completely outside the borders of the left-leaning, French-speaking Wallonia. Meanwhile, the more economically vibrant Flemish-speaking Flanders has, as a condition for keeping the Belgian union together for the past half-century, increasingly demanded more regional powers from both Wallonia and Brussels.

No one — at the European level, at the national level or at either of the Walloon or Flemish regional level — has a proper incentive to fund what’s obviously become a disproportionate security cost for Brussels, in particular (and not, say, Antwerp or Ghent or Charleroi).

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RELATED: Is Belgium destined for breakup after
another inconclusive vote?

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While there are obviously many reasons for Tuesday’s terror attacks, it’s no surprise that Brussels recurs as the setting for jihadist attacks. Radical Islamists in the Molenbeek community, now an infamous byword for jihadist agitation in Europe, were central to planning the 2004 Madrid attacks, last November’s attacks in Paris and, now, the terrorist strike that Belgian authorities feared four months ago — and that forced Brussels itself into a four-day lockdown as police forces tried to stymie a terrorist plot last November.

Just four months after the Paris attacks, planned from Brussels, brought the Belgian capital to a standstill for 96 hours, and just four days after Belgian police, at long last, captured Salah Abdeslam, the remaining suspect in last year’s Paris attacks, Belgian authorities were already on high alert.

That didn’t matter. Tragedy still struck. Continue reading It’s time for Flanders to put up or shut up… and leave →

Switzerland

Anti-migrant mood brings record win for Swiss People’s Party

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Toni Brunner, the leader of the Swiss People's Party, will celebrate his party's best-ever result in October 18 elections. (Keystone)
Toni Brunner, the leader of the Swiss People’s Party, will celebrate his party’s best-ever result in October 18 elections. (Keystone)

Amid dual concerns about rising immigration and creeping concerns about the reach of the European Union’s writ in non-member Switzerland, today’s Swiss national elections are further evidence of a rightward shift that could complicate governance in a country with a long tradition of consensus-driven government.
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Though Switzerland hasn’t received the deluge of refugees as neighboring Austria and Germany, fears about the largest number of refugees arriving in Europe since World War II, boosted the anti-immigration, right-wing Schweizerische Volkspartei (SVP, Swiss People’s Party), which won a record 65 seats in Switzerland’s 200-member Nationalrat (National Council), the lower house of the bicameral  Bern-based Bundesversammlung (Federal Assembly) — more seats than any other single party has won at any election since 1917. Those gains follow the successes of the far-right Freedom Party in two state elections in the past three weeks in neighboring Austria.

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When one party wins an election in Switzerland, it doesn’t mean that the party controls government. Instead, under the Swiss ‘concordance’ system, the four major parties of both left and right share membership on the Federal Council, a seven-member executive board that governs Switzerland and that is indirectly elected by the Federal Assembly. Historically, the Federal Council prides itself on collegiality and compromise. The Swiss presidency rotates annually among the seven members, though the presidential role is chiefly ceremonial. Furthermore, there’s no equivalent of a ‘prime minister,’ and the strong regional government of Switzerland’s 26 cantons means that executive power in the country has always been particularly weak, dating to the federal system agreed in 1848.

But Sunday’s result is prompting calls for a Rechtsrutsch — a move from a grand-coalition government to a more clearly right-leaning government on the basis of the SVP’s superior result.

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RELATED: Swiss immigration vote threatens access to EU single market

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Both houses of the Federal Assembly will determine the Federal Council’s composition in a secret ballot on December 9. The SVP’s rising strength means that it will take a much more aggressive stand toward shifting the Federal Council to the right, tightening Swiss policy on immigration and the European Union.

In addition to the National Council, Swiss voters were also electing all 46 members of the upper house, the Ständerat (Council of States). Continue reading Anti-migrant mood brings record win for Swiss People’s Party →

Scotland, United Kingdom

Scotland votes: Should it stay or should it go?

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scotlandvotes

Today, residents of Scotland, a region of 5.3 million people, will vote in referendum that’s been scheduled for 19 months, and that will ask one simple question:scotlandUnited Kingdom Flag Icon

Should Scotland be an independent country?

The answer could change the economic, social and cultural outcomes of the lives of both English and Scottish residents for generations to come.

With polls set to open shortly, Suffragio looks at ten policy (and other) issues that Scots are considering as they cast their ballots, either to become an independent state or to remain part of the United Kingdom. Continue reading Scotland votes: Should it stay or should it go? →

Switzerland

Swiss immigration vote threatens access to EU single market

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2007SVPAn infamous campaign poster from the 2007 Swiss election that depicts a flock of white sheep inside Switzerland, with one kicking a black sheep outside — the implication being that the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP, Schweizerische Volkspartei in German; UDC, Union démocratique du centre in French) would tighten immigration policies to keep out migrants and perhaps reverse the trend of greater immigration to Switzerland in recent years.  Critics pointed out the nastier racist undertones of the poster.swiss

It’s that advertisement that I had in mind today as Swiss voters elected by a narrow 50.3%-to-49.7% margin to adopt an initiative ‘against mass immigration’ that would introduce quotas to Swiss immigration, despite the wishes of the Swiss government and Swiss business interests and the warnings of top EU officials.  The result threatens the existing treaties between Switzerland and the European Union that guarantee the free movement of persons, one of the four ‘core’ EU freedoms.

It’s a significant victory for the SVP, which has emerged as a major force in Swiss politics through its forceful advocacy of a nationalist, conservative agenda to restrict immigration and oppose greater EU integration.

The result means that the Swiss government now has three years either to renegotiate or revoke the bilateral agreement finalized in 2002 with the European Union over free movement of persons.  That treaty is part of a larger package that provided Switzerland access to the EU single market in exchange for enacting certain aspects of EU policy, and it’s part of a wider process that has more closely integrated Switzerland with the European Union over the past decade.  The country’s historic independence means that it’s never seriously pursued EU membership — Switzerland joined the United Nations only in 2002, after all.   Continue reading Swiss immigration vote threatens access to EU single market →

European Union, San Marino

Why San Marino (and other microstates) shouldn’t be a member of the European Union

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Voters in San Marino narrowly preferred to pursue an application for membership to the European Union on Sunday in the first referendum of its kind in the tiny Mediterranean republic.European_Unionsanmarino

But despite the narrow approval — 50.3% supported EU membership while 49.7% opposed it — supporters did not reach the threshold for a successful referendum (around 32% of all potential voters).  That’s just as well, because the European Union is not currently designed to admit microstates like San Marino — or Andorra, Liechtenstein, the Vatican City or Monaco.

San Marino is an independent republic that consists of around 61 square kilometers completely surrounded by Italy.  By comparison, San Marino’s population of around 30,000 residents is about 1/22 that of the population of Palermo, the capital of Sicily.

San Marino traces its sovereignty as a republic to the 4th century, and it survived the Napoleonic Wars, papal expansionism, Italian unification and both World Wars (technically neutral in both wars, though its government was controlled from the 1920s until 1943 by the Sammarinese Fascist Party) without being overtaken by the greater Italian state.  Its economy is based largely on banking and tourism, and its GDP per capita of around $36,000 provides the ability to fund generous welfare programs.

Proponents of San Marino’s EU membership argue that the tiny country is already subject to so much EU regulation that its membership would give it more at least marginal influence in making European policy in the future.  But that’s the same argument that pro-EU Norwegians use to make the case that Norway should join the European Union, and that’s not historically been enough to sway Norwegian voters to embrace membership.  It makes more sense in Norway’s case — though the Scandinavian country has just 5 million people, it also has one of the most powerful economies in Europe, and its combination of fiscal discipline and social welfare would make it a touchstone for policymaking decisions.  But no one thinks that we’d see an immediate Sammarinese impact on European regulatory matters if San Marino became the 29th EU member tomorrow.

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The European Council recently considered the relationships between the European Union and the various microstates in a report issued in 2012 with recommendations for a more standardized approach to what is currently quite a helter-skelter set of arrangements:

  • Single market / trade.  San Marino, like Andorra, Monaco and Turkey, is party to a customs union with the European Union, but other states (like Liechtenstein) are actually part of the European single market, and the recent European Council report recommended that the European Union should work to integrate all of the microstates more fully into the European Economic Area.
  • Open borders / Schengen.  Liechtenstein is the only microstate that’s a full member of the Schengen area.  San Marino and the Vatican City have open borders with Italy, just as Monaco has an open border with France, but neither are technically members of the Schengen Agreement.  Andorra has neither membership in the Schengen Area or open borders with France and/or Spain, so maintains border checks with the rest of the European Union.
  • Eurozone / currency.  San Marino uses the euro because, like the Vatican, its pre-eurozone currency was tied to the Italian lira, and Monaco has a similar arrangement, given its prior monetary links to the French franc.  Liechtenstein uses the Swiss franc, while Andorra has a special agreement for issuance of euro coins with the European Union.

For San Marino, at least, its current relationships with the European Union and Italy mean that it has de facto or de jure access to the single market, benefit of the Schengen free-movement zone and participation in the eurozone. Continue reading Why San Marino (and other microstates) shouldn’t be a member of the European Union →

European Union, United Kingdom

Cameron pledges 2017 EU referendum: ‘It is time for the British people to have their say’

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UK prime minister David Cameron, calling the democratic legitimacy of the European Union ‘wafer thin,’ has this morning pledged to renegotiate a new settlement with the European Union for the United Kingdom, and then a straight in-or-out referendum within the United Kingdom by 2017.European_UnionUnited Kingdom Flag Icon

Well, then.  Today’s address was probably the most important speech of Cameron’s career and perhaps the most important turning point on UK-EU relations since Britain’s hard-fought entry 40 years ago into what was then the European Economic Community.

Less than a month after the EU fiscal compact treaty goes into effect, and on the day that France and Germany are celebrating 50 years of friendship –as cemented by the Élysée Treaty — no less, Cameron is pledging the referendum that neither his Conservative predecessors as prime minister, Margaret Thatcher nor John Major dared to hold.

Given that the United Kingdom is not (and will not anytime soon) be a member of the eurozone, there’s a rationale for the UK to negotiate a role where it is not subject to the ever-closer political union that the eurozone crisis has required, and it should be clear that the UK won’t cede fiscal and banking policymaking to Brussels when it hasn’t ceded monetary policymaking.  But it doesn’t follow that the UK needs to renegotiate those issues; after all, given the ‘Europe at multiple speeds’ approach that’s now reality, the UK has opted out of many EU initiatives — not only the single currency, but also the Schengen Agreement that eliminates internal border controls within the EU.

I’ll have plenty of longer thoughts on Cameron’s gambit later this week.

But for now, as I listen to his speech in real time, here are some initial reactions.

Cameron has ended his speech with a note of caution that the United Kingdom is not Norway and it is not Switzerland, and he’s discussing the benefits of membership in the EU — ‘more powerful in Washington, Beijing, Delhi’ by remaining in the EU — not to mention the free trade benefits of the single market.

By 2017, if there’s actually a referendum, and Cameron’s Tories have won the 2015 general election, I predict that Cameron will be arguing for a ‘yes’ vote on such a referendum.

It’s worth noting that no member-state has ever left the European Union (although Greenland, part of the Danish realm, voted to pull out of the EU in 1985 in order to protect its fishing rights — an issue that’s snagged Icelandic and Norwegian membership in the EU as well).

In the meanwhile, this seems like a political masterstroke — Cameron has pulled a play directly from the political playbook of Labour prime minister Harold Wilson, who held his own referendum on the United Kingdom’s EU membership in 1975 (it won 67,2%).

Consider:

  • In giving the euroskeptics a clear referendum on Europe, Cameron has now given them a reason to work hard for a Tory victory in 2015.
  • Given the relatively anti-Tory and pro-Europe view of the Scottish, the referendum, scheduled for 2017, need not spook the Scottish toward independence, given the scheduled 2014 referendum within Scotland on Scottish independence.
  • He will have quieted the euroskeptic right within his own caucus, notably his former defense minister Liam Fox and other anti-Europe Tories.
  • He will have managed to draw some daylight between his party and his coalition partner, the Liberal Democrats, who are incredibly pro-Europe, thereby giving the Lib Dems something with which to distance themselves from the Tories.  That will only help win votes away from Labour in 2015.
  • He will have taken the steam out of the rising United Kingdom Independence Party, not only for 2015, but for next year’s elections to the European Parliament.
  • By keeping the terms of renegotiation vague, Cameron can take any concessions from Europeans and declare victory (say, an opt-out from the working time directive), and push for a ‘yes’ vote in 2017.

France

Schengen silliness

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With French flags waving (as shown above) to the tune of La Marseillaise at a campaign rally in Villepinte on Sunday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy threatened to pull France out of the Shengen zone, calling for a French defense to the “European way of life.”

Don’t worry — you shouldn’t believe for a nanosecond that Sarkozy will ever take concrete steps to pull France out of the 25-member Schengen zone in a second term.

You should believe, however, that it’s the next logical step in a populist campaign to consolidate right-wing voters in advance of the first round of France’s presidential election.  Recall that Sarkozy opened his reelection bid with a call for a referendum on immigration.  Last week, he declared there were “too many foreigners” in France and called for the country to halve the number of immigrants permitted annually from 200,000 to 100,000.

The Schengen Agreement, signed in 1985 but which took effect in 1995, allows for free travel without internal border controls throughout the EU countries (except for Ireland and the United Kingdom), plus non-EU members Iceland, Norway and others.  Even the sovereignty-conscious Swiss are members as of 2008.

It’s the agreement that allows outsiders to visit any number of European countries (again, except for Ireland and the U.K.), while going through passport control and customs just once — at the port of entry.

Taken together with the EU Directive on services in the internal market, promulgated in 2006 with implementation taking effect in 2009, which aims to create a single market for services throughout the EU, Schengen is also the agreement that nudges freer movement of workers across the European continent, subject to the labor regulations of each member state.

In any context, Schengen must be counted as the chief achievements of the entire European project.

Continue reading Schengen silliness →