Brazilian perspectives on the changing global order and security challenges. CEPS Working Document No. 376, February 2013

This study analyses the current picture and prospects for EU–Brazil relations in the political and security arenas. As actors experiencing relevant changes, albeit in different directions in their respective international status quo, the EU and Brazil have found some common ground for convergence at the macro level on some structural issues, such as the normative framework of a changing global order, the striving for a multipolar world and the relevance and desirability of multilateralism. At the same time, it is argued that they differ significantly as to the strategies pursued in the attainment of those shared interests, resulting in competing, or eventually divergent, policy preferences when addressing specific issues and developments at the international level, limiting the prospects for a deep mutual commitment and engagement in political and security dynamics at the global level.

Russia and the Common Space on Freedom, Security and Justice. CEPS Paper on Liberty and Security in Europe No. 54, 25 February 2013

EU-Russia cooperation in the framework of the Common Space on Freedom, Security and Justice, launched almost a decade ago in 2003, has borne fruit more in the security aspects than the justice and liberty-related policy areas. This study assesses the uneven cooperation on justice and home affairs between the EU and Russia, while delving into the intersection between cooperation on justice, liberty and security and the promotion of human rights, democracy and rule of law in EU-Russia relations. The study concludes by proposing a set of policy recommendations to the European Parliament for playing a more active role in this important field of cooperation between the EU and Russia.

Europe’s most wanted? Recalibrating Trust in the European Arrest Warrant System. CEPS Paper Liberty and Security in Europe 55/21 March 2013

This paper assesses the uses and misuses in the application of the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) system in the European Union. It examines the main quantitative results of this extradition system achieved between 2005 and 2011 on the basis of the existing statistical knowledge on its implementation at EU official levels. The EAW has been anchored in a high level of ‘mutual trust’ between the participating states’ criminal justice regimes and authorities. This reciprocal confidence, however, has been subject to an increasing number of challenges resulting from its practical application, presenting a dual conundrum: 1. Principle of proportionality: Who are the competent judicial authorities cooperating with each other and ensuring that there are sufficient impartial controls over the necessity and proportionality of the decisions on the issuing and execution of EAWs? 2. Principle of division of powers: How can criminal justice authorities be expected to handle different criminal judicial traditions in what is supposed to constitute a ‘serious’ or ‘minor’ crime in their respective legal settings and ‘who’ is ultimately to determine (divorced from political considerations) when is it duly justified to make the EAW system operational? It is argued that the next generation of the EU’s criminal justice cooperation and the EAW need to recognise and acknowledge that the mutual trust premise upon which the European system has been built so far is no longer viable without devising new EU policy stakeholders’ structures and evaluation mechanisms. These should allow for the recalibration of mutual trust and mistrust in EU justice systems in light of the experiences of the criminal justice actors and practitioners having a stake in putting the EAW into daily effect. Such a ‘bottom-up approach’ should be backed up with the best impartial and objective evaluation, an improved system of statistical collection and an independent qualitative assessment of its implementation. This should be placed as the central axis of a renewed EAW framework which should seek to better ensure the accountability, impartial (EU-led) scrutiny and transparency of member states’ application of the EAW in light of the general principles and fundamental rights constituting the foundations of the European system of criminal justice cooperation.

Shifting Responsibilities for EU Roma Citizens: The 2010 French affair on Roma evictions and expulsions continued. CEPS Paper in Liberty and Security in Europe No. 55, June 2013

Despite the ultimatum delivered in October 2010 to the French government by Viviane Reding, Vice-President of the European Commission, to adapt its national immigration law ‘to the letter’ of the Citizens Directive 2004/38, the country has continued to evict and expel Romanian and Bulgarian nationals of Roma origin. This paper examines the state of affairs with respect to France’s policy on eviction and expulsion of Roma and assesses the way in which the controversy has developed and can be understood from the perspective of citizenship of the EU. On the basis of an examination of the subsequent responses by the European Commission and the EU member states involved, as well as of a recent bilateral agreement concluded between France and Romania on the reintegration of families of Romanian citizens belonging to the Roma minority who have exercised their freedom to move, the paper suggests that there has been a paradigm shift in the priorities driving EU policy responses and politics. This shift has led to an ethnicisation of citizenship of the Union, where ethnicity increasingly plays a decisive role in the allocation and attribution of responsibility to secure and safeguard the union freedoms.