Preparing for a post-Assad Syria: What role for the European Union? CEPS Commentary, 2 August 2012

In this CEPS Commentary, Steven Blockmans notes that a prolonged period of instability lies ahead for Syria, with an on-going risk of spill-over effects affecting the entire region. The author argues that the EU’s plans for a post-Assad Syria should extend beyond the half-hearted responses to the monumental changes that have ripped through other parts of the Arab world. In recognition of the geostrategic shifts in the Middle East and the Gulf, and pursuant to the obligation imposed upon it by the Lisbon Treaty, the EU should plan for the creation of a regional space of shared security. Such a plan would fit well into the current efforts to revamp the European Security Strategy.

Obama 2: future implications for EU-US relations. Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series Vol. 12, No. 8, November 2012

Introduction. The week following his reelection, President Obama traveled to Asia – Thailand, Myanmar, and Cambodia –, while facing at home a fiscal cliff, the need to select the next Secretaries of State, Defense, and Treasury, and the resignation of one of America’s most senior and respected generals and Director of the CIA, David Petraeus; all this at the moment wherein the Middle East is burning in flames due to another round of violence between Israel and Hamas. On the other side of the pond, the EU is currently trying to solve or at least contain several crises: the Eurozone, agreeing on the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020, or MFF 2014-2020,2 and saving France.3 For both giants, the American and European priorities are domestic; they both need to do some ‘nation-building at home.’4 The threat of the fiscal cliff in the US and the one of the Eurocrisis in Europe are too important to be ignored and so visceral that they will affect the way both actors behave internationally and interact with one another. The big question since Obama’s reelection has been what will the EU-US relations look like under his second mandate? And will there be any differences from the first one?5 This paper argues that the US-EU relations will remain quite similar as it was under the first Obama presidency. Nevertheless, with the current shift to Asia, the ‘pivot,’ the EU will be required to increase its contributions to global politics and international security. This paper is structured in three parts. First, the economic and political climax of the EU and the US will be presented. In a second a part, the EU and US strategies and foreign policies will be laid out. Last but not least, several core issues facing the Euro-Atlantic community, such as the Asia pivot, Iran, climate change, and the economy will be addressed. Other issues such as Syria, Afghanistan, and the Middle East and North Africa will not be addressed in this paper.6

Manufacturing Europe's Future. Bruegel Blueprint 21, 2 October 2013

‘Industrial policy is back!’ This is the message given in the European Commission’s October 2012 communication on industrial policy (COM (2012) 582 final), which seeks to reverse the declining role of the manufacturing industry, and increase its share of European Union GDP from about 16 percent currently to above 20 percent. Historical evidence suggests that the goal is unlikely to be achieved. Manufacturing’s share of GDP has decreased around the world over the last 30 years. Paradoxically, this relative decline has been a reflection of manufacturing’s strength. Higher productivity growth in manufacturing than in the economy overall resulted in relative decline. A strategy to reverse this trend and move to an industrial share of above 20 percent might therefore risk undermining the original strength of industry – higher productivity growth. This Blueprint therefore takes a different approach. It starts by looking in depth into the manufacturing sector and how it is developing. It emphasises the extent to which European industry has become integrated with other parts of the economy, in particular with the increasingly specialised services sector, and how both sectors depend on each other. It convincingly argues that industrial activity is increasingly spread through global value chains. As a result, employment in the sector has increasingly become highly skilled, while those parts of production for which high skill levels are not needed have been shifted to regions with lower labour costs.

Do Too Many Chefs Really Spoil the Broth? The European Commission, Bureaucratic Politics and European Integration, CES Germany & Europe Working Papers, No. 09.2, 5 August 1999

There is a puzzling, little-remarked contradiction in scholarly views of the European Commission. On the one hand, the Commission is seen as the maestro of European integration, gently but persistently guiding both governments and firms toward Brussels. On the other hand, the Commission is portrayed as a headless bunch of bickering fiefdoms who can hardly be bothered by anything but their own in­ ternecine turf wars. The reason these very different views of the same institution have so seldom come into conflict is quite apparent: EU studies has a set of relatively autonomous and poorly integrated sub­ fields that work at different levels of analysis. Those scholars holding the "heroic" view of the Com­ mission are generally focused on the contest between national and supranational levels that character­ ized the 1992 program and subsequent major steps toward European integration. By contrast, those scholars with the "bureaucratic politics" view are generally authors of case studies or legislative his­ tories of individual EU directives or decisions. However, the fact that these twO images of the Commis­ sion are often two ships passing in the night hardly implies that there is no dispute. Clearly both views cannot be right; but then, how can we explain the significant support each enjoys from the empirical record? The CommiSSion, perhaps the single most important supranational body in the world, certainly deserves better than the schizophrenic interpretation the EU studies community has given it. In this paper, I aim to make a contribution toward the unraveling of this paradox. In brief, the argument I make is as follows: the European Commission can be effective in pursuit of its broad integration goals in spite of, and even because of, its internal divisions. The folk wisdom that too many chefs spoil the broth may often be true, but it need not always be so. The paper is organized as follows. 1 begin with an elaboration of the theoretical position briefly out­ lined above. 1 then tum to a case study from the major Commission efforts to restructure the computer industry in the context of its 1992 program. The computer sector does not merely provide interesting, random illustrations of the hypothesis 1 have advanced. Rather, as Wayne Sandholtz and John Zysman have stressed, the Commission's efforts on informatics formed one of the most crucial parts of the en­ tire 1992 program, and so the Commission's success in "Europeanizing" these issues had significant ripple effects across the entire European political economy. I conclude with some thoughts on the fol­ lowing question: now that the Commission has succeeded in bringing the world to its doorstep, does its bureaucratic division still serve a useful purpose?

The Politics of Budget Consolidation in Britain and Germany: the Impact of Blame-Avoidance Opportunities. CES Germany & Europe Working Papers, No. 05.2, 2005

According to parts of the literature, blame avoidance opportunities, i.e. the necessity and applicability of blame avoidance strategies, may differ among countries according to the respective institutional set-ups and between governing parties according to their programmatic orientation. In countries with many veto actors, a strategy of "Institutional Cooperation" among these actors is expected to diffuse blame sufficiently to render other blame avoidance strategies obsolete. In contrast, governments in Westminster democracies should resort to the more unilateral strategies of presentation, policy design and timing. At the same time, parties of the left are expected to have an easier time implementing spending cuts while right parties are less vulnerable when proposing tax increases. Evidence from the politics of budget consolidation in Britain and Germany does not corroborate these hypotheses. Instead, it seems that party competition conditions the effects institutions and the partisan complexion of governments have on the politics of blame avoidance.