After having being condemned to silently watch over record-long #EUCO, the EU Parliament WON’T miss the opportunity to highlight shortcomings of such as deal on #MFF and #RecoveryPlan
EU leaders give up their attempt at subjecting disbursement EU funding on respect of #RuleOfLaw with vague commitment to ‘rapidly’ set up new regime governed by QMV. It’s yet another victory for #Orbán & co. & consolidation of authoritarian equilibrium @rdanielkelemen#MFF#EUCO
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🆘 As ~150 million Europeans are homeconfined, Germans & Belgians walk freely across their cities. British kids still go to school. Shops are open in Sweden.
How to make sense of these conflicting realities when we — EU citizens — are all equally affected by #COVID2019 ? THREAD
How do we assimilate that each European country and people contributing differently to the attainment of a shared aim: the containment of the disease in a border-free Europe? #COVID2019#CoronavirusOutbreak
But who’s really to blame for the current EU uncoordinated situation on #COVID2019 ? The EU cannot close schools, or lock down European cities. It cannot even close borders to curb the spreading of the virus. Only its member countries can do that (and some just did) #COVID2019
🆘 What scares me the most about #COVIDー19 ? Disregard for Risk vs Risk trade-offs: 1. if you close schools kids stay with grandparents (sensitive group) 2. if you recommend masks people wash less their hands 3. If you announce red zones, people flee with the virus #Coronavirus
A case study of total disregard for risk vs risk tradeoffs is: Italy, where no #COVID2019 measure has been considered against its unintended consequences. An illustration? Think of the increased risk exposure of senior population to virus generated by school closures #Italy
Conference on the Future of Europe: after the European Parliament & the Commission, now it’s the Council set to prepare its blueprint. Here’s an initial analysis based on council first discussion document THREAD #CoFoE#EUCO
If the European Parliament proposed a top-down blueprint, leaving aside NGOs’ participation in exchange for citizens’ agoras, the Commission watered down that model by invoking the “successful citizens dialogues” as THE approach to follow
The Council discussion document on #CofoE departs even further from the EP blueprint:
- no explicit reference to Agoras or other form of citizens’ assemblies (but citizens’ dialogues mentioned at template)
What to expect for Europe in 2020? As the EU enters a new policy cycle, here’s to a few predictions that I’ve shared with @euronews#THREAD 1/9
The new EU political leadership overpromised by generating outsized expectations that might reveal too difficult to manage:
1. Defend EU interests vs US & China 2. Take the lead on climate change 3. Tackle rebellious EU illiberal democracies 4. Tame big tech 5. Overcome Brexit
1. The #Suleimani assassination is already putting to test the self-proclaimed first EU ‘geopolitical’ Commission, which has lost in few hours the major EU foreign policy legacy of @JunckerEU@FedericaMog : the nuclear deal #JCPOA | the EU will be bystander of #iran situation
(Spoiler): The Conference is in essence a Constitutional Convention model PLUS, but whose 'plus' is so tiny that fails to capture the unprecedented vivacity of EU civil society and mismanage expectations after #EP2019#CoFoE
Despite its constitutional ambitions, #CoFoE won’t be a grandiloquent Convention entrusted to draft Constitution for EU. Yet a closer look suggests it'll play a similar role: to prepare a set of “concrete recommendations” that may be turned into legislative and/or Treaty changes
🤔Why did the EU Commission decide to open an infringement proceeding against the UK for failing to nominate a Commissioner?
Far from being a belligerent or retaliatory act, this is legitimate use of prerogatives to speed up vote on @vonderleyen Commission 1/5 THREAD
First, this is NOT (yet) a legal action, but the first step of a iterative process between the EU Commission and UK, with the former being expected to respond by Nov 22 2/5 #brexit
Second, before bringing the UK to Court, the Commission has to prepare a reasoned opinion against the UK defining the alleged breach before the Court. Only in case of non satisfactory or non response, the Commission may start legal action 3/5 #brexit