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The EU-MERCOSUR Trade Agreement, will it ever reach a Green End?

Author(s): Benedetta Milani / Language(s): English

The current geopolitical scenario due to the war in Ukraine has marked a strong division between West and East, by overturning the equilibrium of the global supply chains, specifically related to basic raw materials, such as grain, and fundamental energy sources. The interruption of imports of energy resources from Russia,and the reduction of trade in foodstuff from Ukraine constitute for most of the EU countries, in particular for Germany and Italy, a harmful threat to their energy and food supply, which force them to reconsider new partnerships for the diversification of their supply chains. According to Eurostat, the EU before the war imported 90% of its total sunflower oil from Ukraine, 39% of its maize demand, and 10% of wood, a bit lower comparing to its 25% wood trade with Russia

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2022 Czech Presidency: a Surprising Success

Author(s): Vít Havelka / Language(s): English

The second ever Czech presidency of the EU Council took place in the second half of 2022, a period in which the EU was under considerable pressure following the Russian invasion in Ukraine. What many predicted would be another regular presidency, became a half a year of crisis management. Over and above these new challenges, the Czech Republic’s 2009 presidency had ended in disarray following the collapse of its centre-right government halfway through the term, effectively evaporating any credibility that had been built. Hence, prior to the 2022 term, Czechs had not proven their ability to handle the responsibilities imposed by the presidency, nor their capacity to set aside internal disputes while leading the EU.

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Quo Vadis? Ensuring fair Taxation in the Digital Economy

Author(s): Silke Maes / Language(s): English

The increasing digitalisation of the economy poses fundamental challenges to tax systems. The growing reliance on intangible assets, which are easy to move but hard to value, exacerbates old problems of tax avoidance and competition while also creating new problems as certain activities completely escape taxation. Recently, the emergence of highly profitable digital business models, combined with the covid crisis – which put a financial strain on governments – has led to a renewed interest in fair taxation. As a result, several measures are currently being discussed at the OECD, EU and national levels to ensure that companies pay taxes in the jurisdictions where they generate profits.

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Will the Future of the EU be driven Top-Down or Bottom Up?

Author(s): Markéta Pekarčíková / Language(s): English

The policy paper looks at possible approaches and proposals the European Union could follow or at least be inspired by. It provides a theoretical view of the future of the European Union as perceived by the previous European Commission under Jean-Claude Juncker. The EU27 was to decide its future by 2025. Discussions on the future shape of the European Union are followed by the current European Commission under Ursula von der Leyen. The previous and current European Commissions have different views on the future of the European Union. Still, changes are necessary, and the European Union will agree on the direction it will eventually take.

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2024 and Beyond: How to Future-proof the Transatlantic Alliance

Author(s): Danielle Piatkiewicz,Huga Blewett-Mundy / Language(s): English

This background paper seeks to understand and to identify additional areas of convergence and conflict among the transatlantic partners. It delves into their joint efforts to navigate a Europe entangled in conflict, with a particular focus on supporting Ukraine's victory, which is intrinsically linked to establishing security assurances for Central and Eastern Europe. In addition, it will examine the diverse perspectives regarding economic resilience amidst China’s growing influence, which encompasses finding common ground in areas, such as the future of Technology and Trade Cooperation and energy resilience enhancement.

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Overcoming barriers to unlock potential for a Just Transition in Czechia

Author(s): Jonathan Lyons / Language(s): English

The impacts of the climate change have become increasingly apparent in the past years, as the extensive greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide and methane, released by burning fossil fuels are warming our atmosphere more than necessary. This warming is taking a catastrophic toll on our planet and our daily lives and is getting worse every year. The European Environmental Agency warns of extreme drought, flooding, heatwaves and forest fires across Europe.2 These events are increasing in frequency and intensity because of climate change and are causing significant damage and loss. In the summer of 2022, over 60 000 people died from heatwaves3, an area more than twice the size of Luxembourg burned in forest fires4, the bed of the river Loire dried up completely forcing nuclear power plants in France to close down and Czechia experienced flash flooding over summer which destroyed people’s property, infrastructure, human health and food costing billions in damages. These are just a few examples showing how Europe and Czechia are ill-prepared for the consequences of climate change.

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European Union Values and Member States: Crises, Solidarity, and the Role of the Rotating Council Presidency

Author(s): Darlo Čepo / Language(s): English

The objective of this paper is to encourage dialogue about the understanding of European values in the societies of Europe and to explore the influence of these values on specific segments of public life. The immediate goal of the paper is to increase the level of understanding and awareness of the impact of membership in the EU on the preservation and promotion of fundamental European values, as well as the contributions of member states (and especially Central and Eastern European member states) to the changing tapestry of the values that the European Union espouses, with the final goal of removing the democratic deficit as a valid criticism against the European project of ever closer union. This will be done by reassessing their presidency programmes in order to see their own interest in impacting the value-building narrative of the European integration process through concrete policy-setting these countries are proposing.

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EU Better Regulation Agenda: Contested Policy in Central European Perspective

Author(s): Zuzana Picková / Language(s): English

The purpose of this paper is to examine the current state of play of the European Commission’s Better Regulation Agenda (BRA) and highlight its key elements. Following the logic of the BRA, it looks at it primarily through the business lens while introducing the civil society viewpoint on the most contested issues. In addition, the perspective on the BRA of the Visegrád Group countries (V4) is explored and several policy recommendations suggested. The analysis is based on interviews with Brussels-based representatives of businesses and civil society organizations, with better regulation experts of the V4 governments and with independent experts, as well as on publicly available primary sources. The paper points to the fact that the most contentious characteristic of BRA is regulatory simplification – craved by businesses as a precondition for competitiveness and condemned by NGOs as a threat to social protections.

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The EU Emissions Trading System: Time for a radical overhaul?

Author(s): Kateřina Davidová,Christian Kvorning Lassen / Language(s): English

This policy paper proposes a set of recommendations, which would help to overcome some of the system’s most serious inefficiencies, namely its inflexibility, the problem of allowance over-allocation and continuously low prices of CO2 emissions, while keeping in mind the need to strike a balance between EU’s ambitious action on climate change while not jeopardizing its economic competitiveness.

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What price do Serbia and Macedonia have to pay to save the EU?

Author(s): Michal Vít / Language(s): English

The Balkan route used by migrants coming to Europe was closed in mid-March 2016 with a stricter regime placed for border protection between Greece and Macedonia, Bulgaria and Serbia, and between Serbia and Hungary. In order to limit the flow of migrants on the external border of the EU– in Serbia especially - and to some extent between specific EU states, Serbia and Macedonia were put into an unenviable situation. Even though the route is officially closed for those who do not have guaranteed the right of asylum, the Arbeiter Samariter Bund (ASB) estimates that the number of migrants crossing the border into Serbia still grows daily by about 100 people. These people were detained by the Serbian police and army or, decided to register themselves in one of the Serbian asylum centres; there are also some who decide not to register with the Serbian authorities and to stay in a “grey zone”.

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Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development: A troubleshooting guide for reluctant EU donors

Author(s): Ondřej Horký-Hlucháň / Language(s): English

The inclusion of the Policy Coherence for Development (PCD) in the Sustainable Development Goals as Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development (PCSD) created a conceptual and institutional confusion that overloaded implementation capacities of many EU member states. The Visegrad Group and other ‘reluctant’ aid donors should primarily pursue both PCD and PCSD separately as a recognition of their logic of action in foreign and domestic policy-making respectively. Due to the complexity of the agendas, they should also focus on the low hanging fruits. To promote Policy Coherence for Development, the Ministries of Foreign Affairs should reclaim full ownership for the PCD agenda and keep National Focal Points for PCD with dedicated capacities. They should select one or at maximum two policy areas with the highest potential and focus on the already existing intra-ministerial procedures and inter-ministerial Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) to tackle transboundary effects in the related domestic policy proposals. They should ally with the civil society, academia and media to bring positive and/or negative evidence and mediate personal experience of the impact of national policies on the global South

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EU’s Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising: Good Intentions but Clarifications and Amendments still Needed

Author(s): Katarína Klingová / Language(s): English

The development information technologies, including social media platforms with possibilities of micro-targeted campaigns quickly transformed the concept of political communication and electoral campaigning. The negative impact on electoral system and democratic political processes was revealed with Cambridge Analytica and its scandal, which was just one of many companies offering such services. Online political advertising has not only opened up new possibilities for democratic dialogue and creative engagement, it has also become a relatively cheap and easy way of amplifying information manipulation as well. The impact of such online information manipulation was possible to observe, among others, during the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, the Brexit Referendum in the UK as well as the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in January 2021. As these new vulnerabilities have emerged with the rise of online political advertising, the European Commission’s aim to tackle them and limit their impact on the quality of democracy should be recognized. On November 25, EU Commission published a proposal for a regulation on the transparency and targeting of political advertisement . This paper attempts to provide a constructive feedback on the proposed draft bringing into attention observed practices in information landscaped and election campaigns from Central Europe. Facebook, as the most used and thus the most influential social media platform in the region, is the focus of this paper.

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Between Pragmatism and Principles – EU and the Consolidation of Authoritarianism in its Southern Neighbourhood

Author(s): Sara Nowacka / Language(s): English

The way the EU policy towards its southern neighbourhood was changing after the Arab spring emphasises efficiency of Arab leaders’ consolidating authoritarian rule in the region. Although these autocrats are important EU partners in areas of security and migration, it is likely that their regional interventionism and increase in repressions will influence further destabilisation. To counter the challenges these autocrats’ actions pose for the EU, it could develop a special kind of partnership for its reform-prone neighbours and acknowledge conflicting interests with some of Arab most powerful and authoritarian states.

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Czechia’s Policies within the EU in the Context of the Upcoming Presidency to the EU Council

Author(s): Łukasz Ogrodnik / Language(s): English

As Czechia will hold its rotating presidency to the EU Council in the second half of 2022, the government in Prague will have an increased influence on setting the EU’s agenda. This paper is an attempt to describe priorities of the upcoming Presidency in relation to the Czech European policy, and most probable challenges (both for Czechia and the EU). The article will also find common points between Czechia’s policies in the EU and stances of other V4 members.

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Challenges of regulating innovative technologies

Author(s): Michala Stupková / Language(s): English

Modern technologies are an inherent part of today's world and research is advancing at a rapid pace. The disruptive technologies such as AI, DLT, IoT, VR or robotics are currently booming for instance in healthcare, transportation, agriculture, energetics, or finance. Although the use of these innovative technologies undoubtedly provides many benefits to various subjects, it might also potentially pose certain risks. Regulators all over the world are therefore challenged to find the most efficient regulatory approaches that would not only achieve the intended regulatory objectives but also wouldn’t result in unnecessary administrative barriers or in prevention of a further development of innovations. Some of the obstacles the regulators face are, however, the rapidly changing environment, the length of the legislative process or limited understanding of the technology. This policy paper therefore identifies the regulatory challenges and demonstrates a few legislative techniques used by the European union in the recent legislative proposals which aim to tackle these challenges. Furthermore, the policy paper summarizes the key principles that the EU should adhere to when regulating new technologies to ensure the appropriate protection of users, businesses, investments, or financial stability while at the same time supporting technological innovation. Robust but reasonable regulation without unnecessary and overly burdensome obligations seems to be the solution for the EU to be a global regulatory standard setter and to stay at the forefront of the tech development.

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Czech-Russian Escalation as a Case of Deeper EU-Russia Crisis: Time for a United and Credible Action

Author(s): Pavel Havlíček / Language(s): English

It is essential to see the Czech-Russian crisis not as an isolated incident (or accident) but rather as a part of a wider series of crises between the West and Russia, of which this is just the most vivid example of how far things might go. Similar escalations have recently appeared in bilateral ties of Bulgaria, Germany, Poland, Spain, Lithuania or Ukraine and other countries too. They are a part of a deeper and more structural issue, which does not necessarily have anything in common with behaviour of individual European states, but rather Russia’s revisionist perception of the world. This fact is also connected to the Russian appetite to confront the West in order to regain its great power status for which an effort to undermine and divide the West is an obvious tactic.

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The Future of Energy Poverty: Will the Social Climate Fund be enough for a Just Transition?

Author(s): Katharine Klačanský / Language(s): English

A just transition towards a green economy is one that leaves no one behind. In 2020, a European Union (EU) wide survey concluded that over thirty-million people within the EU population are unable to properly heat their homes. On the one hand, decarbonising the EU’s energy system is critical in reaching the EU Green Deal’s climate objective of carbon neutrality by 2050 and reducing emissions by at least 55% compared to 1990 levels, as presented in the Fit for 55 package by 2030. On the other hand, vulnerable citizens in low-income families, who are already feeling the brunt of the incline in energy prices, will be impacted even more as they have less resources and finances to move away from fossil fuels. The ecological transition, therefore, is not cost-free and comes with several challenges that need to be addressed to ensure the social and economic welfare of all European Member State (MS) citizens are met.

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Evaluating Transatlantic Relations in Times of Conflict

Author(s): Danielle Piatkiewicz / Language(s): English

The transatlantic relationship has faced many trials and tribulations over the years, often questioning the strength and resilience of the alliance. However, on February 24, 2022, the allies found quick resolve and newfound purpose in response to Russia’s illegal invasion into Ukraine. The global response to the conflict was, and remains, unprecedented. Instead of dividing, the war has reunited global allies and put aside grievances to provide decisive and swift reactions. The war has demonstrated unparalleled level of political will and unity but also displayed a rejuvenated NATO (The North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and displayed the European Union (EU)’s advancing security capabilities. This background paper will evaluate the current transatlantic agenda and goals of both the EU and US as they, for the first time since World War II, navigate a war-time Europe. It will assess how the two sides can work closer together as the EU establishes its new security architecture, tackle geopolitical challengers such as Russia and China, pursue strategic economic and energy autonomy, and reinforce the democratic values that bind the allies. Finally, the paper aims to provide insights on how to strengthen the transatlantic relationship with special emphasis placed on how the Central and Eastern European can play a pivotal role.

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Soaring Electricity Prices and Development in the EU; the Electricity Market Design under Scrutiny?

Author(s): Tereza Stašáková / Language(s): English

The current situation, when dependence on one leading supplier has turned out to be a dire mistake, contributes to the decision to accelerate the energy transition away from fossil fuels and, above all, decrease import dependence. Contrary to the preliminary assumptions we can already say that the current situation has further accelerated the European energy transformation towards renewable energy sources (RES) as they represent a self-sufficient and low-cost resource in terms of operating costs. However, more than this is needed, as reducing dependence on fossil fuels and replacing them with other sources is a long-term process, not to mention that the EU does not have the production capacities or rare materials for the massive development of RES. Thus, European regulatory framework will need to adjust and, in an effort, to address the current crisis it is already happening.

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Czech Public Opinion: European Energy Crisis

Author(s): Vít Havelka / Language(s): English

The energy crisis is a serious problem with extensive implication in social cohesion as well as economic performance of the EU. Afterall, stability of every political system is based on its performance and ability to provide citizens with wealth and stability. Skyrocketing inflation and energy prices cause the exact opposite, and might eventually lead to political instability and rise of populism and radicalism. For this reason, it is important to study the development of public opinion in real time, and use the research’s results in every day political work. As part of this discussion, the EUROPEUM institute in cooperation with STEM Institute conducted an extensive quantitative and qualitative public questioning at the beginning of October 2022 focusing on Czech attitudes towards the EU and the energy crisis as such. The following article will inform the reader about our results and outline potential problems for the EU’s reputation in the future.

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