Just a few question marks before the 2024 EU elections
State of the Union Speech – special focus
Every year in September, in front of the European Parliament (EP) reunited in plenary, the president of the European Commission delivers the State of the Union, a speech where the achievements of the past year are presented, together with the priorities for the upcoming one.
What is the aim of this practice? To make the definition of priorities at EU level more transparent, and to communicate these priorities to citizens. Moreover, the Commission has an obligation to report to the Council and the Parliament.
But what is this really about? All eyes were on Von der Leyen, as her last speech of this parliamentary term would have revealed her intentions of running again as a candidate for a second term as the head of the EU’s executive power. As expected, this moment was not at all about policy and new projects for the future EU, but rather a self-celebratory speech to present what was done well by the Commission in the last years. But, going back in time, this Commission was affected by multiple crises that ended up shaping Von der Leyen’s agenda. Where do we stand with some of the promises made in 2019, at the beginning of the now concluding term?
Democratisation: although the long-awaited Conference on the Future of Europe had the objective of putting citizens at the core of deliberative processes, all the recommendations coming out of the citizens’ panels, approved by the EP, did not find a space in the Heads of States’ agendas, therefore being stuck in limbo with no exit sign. Was all of this done in vain?
Green Deal: the closer we get to elections, the more that big vision presented in 2019 to make the EU climate neutral is vanishing, being watered down by Von der Leyen’s own party (the European People’s Party), as well as liberal forces inside the EP and in Member States’ governments. Do we have time for this?
Crises everywhere: from the Qatargate scandal to the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this Commission has been put to the test several times, being driven not only by the course of events, but also by Member States’ strong positions inside the European Council. Already in 2020, a general feeling of dissatisfaction towards the EU’s response to the Coronavirus pandemic was registered among EU citizens. According to independent scientific and ethics advisors, the EU should act to build a more strategic crisis management mechanism, including working closely with civil society.
With lots of politics and not enough policy, we still don’t know whether Von der Leyen will run for a second term. What should we hope for?
European Commission reshuffled – what future for Youth policy?
Almost everyone knows that the “EU’s climate czar”, European Commissioner Frans Timmermans, has left his role in the Commission to run for Prime Minister in his country, the Netherlands. His resignation created chaos and uncertainty about finalising the Green Deal before EU elections in 2024. Conversely, right-wing parties, who have recently tried to water down and block important regulations within the Green Deal in the name of farmers’ and industries’ interests, are reacting well to the change.
What is less well known, on the other hand, is that there is a second commissioner who submitted her resignation. The European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth Mariya Gabriel quit her role to become Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister of Bulgaria. She has been replaced by Iliana Ivanova, former MP in Bulgaria, who was recently heard by the EP.
Which topics were on the table? Unfortunately, neither Erasmus+ nor Youth were very present during the hearing, Ivanova having decided to focus on the Research and Innovation dimension of her portfolio. No mention was made of any possibility of increasing the Erasmus+ budget in the next few years, since it has already been doubled, with the Commissioner promising instead to keep it stable. In general, her commitments resulted in quite a generic and poor understanding of Youth, showing an overall lack of expertise in her field of competence.
In the same days as Ivanova’s appointment as European Commissioner, Ministries for Education and Youth met informally in Spain, meaning that they didn’t make any decisions, but just worked on a common statement, which is yet to be published. Following Spain’s priorities – the country will in fact preside the Council until December – ministers focused on three topics: youth engagement in EU decision making; support for students in vulnerable situations, focusing on mental health support and reduction of university drop out rate; and promoting EU values through education. Apart from vague words on the importance of “placing young people at the heart of European policies”, concrete proposals cannot be found.
Specifically the topic of mental health has a special place in the 10th cycle of the EU-Youth dialogue, thus focusing on the third Youth Goal on Inclusive Societies. Youth Dialogues are a mechanism that allows young people to engage with political leaders on topics laid down by the Youth Goals, a total of 11 objectives identified by young people that are meant to guide youth policy-making in EU Member States.
A question, therefore, remains open: how can the Youth Goals, probably one of the few participatory mechanisms that have allowed young people to have a say in setting a political agenda, be concretely achieved if Youth keeps being relegated to a second-order category of policy intervention, at many levels of EU policy-making?
Messy EU migration policy
As we all know, EU institutions are negotiating – or trying to do so – a new overall package of regulations to reshape how the EU processes and relocates migrants between states.
EU states have (basically always) been incapable of finding common ground to push forward new laws on migration management. Within this political crisis, what has been happening during the summer months has led to a burnout on a regulation that should, ironically, be adopted to manage crisis situations.
At the end of July, in fact, the Justice and Home Affairs Council decided not to settle on a mechanism that would lift pressure on EU border countries that face spikes in arrivals of people seeking asylum. Right at the beginning of the season where it’s most common for people to embark on journeys to cross the Mediterranean, due to favourable weather conditions, EU leaders decided that this agreement could be postponed until after the summer break. As a response, the EP decided to put pressure on Heads of State, suspending talks on other key files, like the “screening regulation”, which aims to tighten external border controls for “irregular migrants”.
EU institutions are now stuck in a chaotic loop that, even in the event of being unblocked, would not bring us good news anyway. Meanwhile, people keep arriving on the shores of Europe. The adoption of the crisis regulation has been postponed and border states’ reception systems are completely inefficient. What to do? Pretend to have everything under control and repeat the basics. A 10-point action plan has been presented by the President of the European Commission, together with Italy’s PM Meloni, to face the arrival of 8,500 people to Lampedusa, a small Italian island close to Tunisia. How? By paying 105 million euros to Tunisia for border security, speeding up the processing of asylum requests and returns to countries of origin considered “safe”. At the same time, Italy decides not to register asylum seekers arriving on its territory, implicitly pushing people to leave towards other EU countries. Germany responded by temporarily suspending the relocation of asylum seekers from Italy and imposing checks at the borders with Poland and Czechia, de facto closing its borders. France followed this line, having declared not to be ready to accept people coming from Lampedusa.
Will these temporary and unilateral measures solve the incapacity for migration management within the EU? Will this approach of deterrence, externalisation and forced return stop people from moving? Will representatives of EU institutions stop using migration “crisis management” as a driver of votes? Will we ever have a humane EU migration policy? Unfortunately, there is likely only one answer to all these questions.
