Promoting the agenda for a social Economic and Monetary Union: Attention, credibility and coalition-building. Bruges Political Research Paper No. 37, November 2014

In the aftermath of the crisis, new instruments of economic governance have been adopted at the EU level. Until recently, these have been strongly dominated by what I assume to be the ECFIN coalition. However, at least since 2011, this coalition’s supremacy has been challenged by the competing coalition’s (EPSCO) willingness to rebalance the economic governance so that social concerns are better taken into account. Hence, drawing on the agenda-setting literature in the EU context, this working paper aims at retracing the process that has led to put this issue of the social dimension of the EMU on to the EU political agenda. Three hypotheses are made concerning the rise of this issue, the strategies employed by agenda-setters, and the policy subsystem of the economic governance. First, this study shows that the interest in this issue has been gradually fostered ‘from below’, at the level of the European Parliament and the European Commission. Second, due to its ‘high politics’ nature, this issue could only be initiated ‘from above’ (European Council) and then expanded to lower levels of decision-making (Commission). Specifically, DG EMPL has managed to attract attention to this issue and to build its credibility in dealing with it by strategically framing the issue and directing it towards the EPSCO venue. Finally, I analyze the outcome of this agenda-setting process by assessing to what extent the two new social scoreboards which form part of this social dimension have been taken into account during the 2014 European semester. The result of this analysis is that the new economic governance has not been genuinely rebalanced insofar as its dominant policy core remains that of the ECFIN coalition.

Germany’s ‘refugee’ problem. The most important test for Chancellor Merkel and the grand coalition. OSW COMMENTARY NUMBER 182/11.09.2015 2015-09-11

The rapid increase in the number of immigrants from outside of the EU coming to Germany has become the paramount political issue. According to new estimates, the number of individuals expected arrive in Germany in 2015 and apply for asylum there is 800,000, which is nearly twice as many as estimated in earlier forecasts. Various administrative, financial and social problems related to the influx of migrants are becoming increasingly apparent. The problem of ‘refugees’ (in public debate, the terms ‘immigrants’, ‘refugees’, ‘illegal immigrants’, ‘economic immigrants’ have not been clearly defined and have often been used interchangeably) has been culminating for over a year. Despite this, it was being disregarded by Angela Merkel’s government which was preoccupied with debates on how to rescue Greece. It was only daily reports of cases of refugee centres being set on fire that convinced Chancellor Merkel to speak and to make immigration problem a priority issue (Chefsache). Neither the ruling coalition nor the opposition parties have a consistent idea of how Germany should react to the growing number of refugees. In this matter, divisions run across parties. Various solutions have been proposed, from liberalisation of laws on the right to stay in Germany to combating illegal immigration more effectively, which would be possible if asylum granting procedures were accelerated. The proposed solutions have not been properly thought through, instead they are reactive measures inspired by the results of opinion polls. This is why their assumptions are often contradictory. The situation is similar regarding the actions proposed by Chancellor Merkel which involve faster procedures to expel individuals with no right to stay in Germany and a plan to convince other EU states to accept ‘refugees’. None of these ideas is new – they were already present in the German internal debate.

Mid-term Evaluation of the 2009-14 European Parliament: Legislative activity and decision-making dynamics. CEPS Special Report, 23 July 2012

This special report analyses legislative activity in the European Union and coalition formation in the European Parliament (EP) during the first half of the 7th legislative term, 2009-14. Co-decision is now the ordinary legislative procedure, not by name only: it was deployed on 90% of new proposals in 2010 and 86% in 2011, which suggests that the EP is now more influential than ever. There are differences in the degree of empowerment across committees, however. This report looks at the legislative workload of selected committees as an indicator of change in their influence, identifying which of them won and which lost out in terms of the quantity and type of legislation they tackle.

Too cold to handle: EU accession talks with Iceland. CEPS Commentary, 3 June 2013

Recent opinion polls suggest that most Icelanders are against joining the EU. By the same token, however, a majority of those polled are in favour of continuing accession talks. These results show that Iceland’s relationship with the EU is a deeply divisive issue within the country. Although no date for the referendum has been set, the new centre-right coalition may thus want to settle this matter as soon as possible. Should there indeed be a majority in support of continuing negotiations, then Iceland’s accession process will become a complicated and cool affair in the hands of an anti-EU membership coalition government.

Political crossroads ahead in Sweden: The signs are red-green. EPIN Commentary No. 20, 31 July 2014

The political balance in Sweden was upset in this year’s elections to the European Parliament (EP). The far-right ‘Sweden Democrats’ almost tripled their vote-share and the Greens gained enough votes to become the second-largest Swedish party in the EP after the Social Democrats. Support for the current government incumbents, the Moderates, fell beyond expectation. The party will not recover in time for the national elections in September, whereas both the Greens and the Sweden Democrats are likely to repeat their EP election success. Since the Sweden Democrats are unlikely to form part of the coalition government – the election-winners will be the Greens and Social Democrats – Sweden’s political landscape is set to undergo a shift to the left.

Reshaping politics of the left and centre in Greece after the 2014 EP election. EPIN Commentary No. 21/10 September 2014

The political landscape in Greece is confused and volatile at the moment; the right and extreme- right-wing parties are accorded a disproportionately large place in political debate, while the radical left-wing SYRIZA party is attempting to maintain a ‘leftist’ profile and demonstrate its capacity to govern through a strategy of image normalisation. These tensions make it very difficult for the Greek government to stick to the EU’s tough reform agenda. The governing coalition is trying to conceal the social effects of implementing structural policy reforms, even postponing some measures to avoid bearing their political cost. At the same time, it is adopting a very rushed, and thus quite worrying, attitude towards a fast-track growth agenda, without taking into consideration the conditions for sustainable economic development.

Moldova – Heading into a hot autumn. EPC Policy Brief, 6 October 2014

After four years of negotiations, Moldova signed an Association Agreement (AA) including a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) Agreement with the European Union (EU) on 27 June 2014. Ratified in the Moldovan Parliament on 2 July it came into provisional application on 1 September. While this development represents an important milestone in Moldova’s relations with the EU, the journey has not been easy. Russia has increased its presence and pressure in the region, as the country gets closer to bettering relations with the EU, Russia has increased its activities in Moldova, including in the autonomous region of Gagauzia and in the breakaway region of Transnistria. Alongside pressure from Russia, the next few months will be very politically challenging for Moldova, with internal and external developments continuing to shape Moldova’s future. Not only will Chisinau need to move ahead with the difficult and expensive implementation of the DCFTA, the ruling coalition simultaneously needs to campaign for the elections with very importantly, a united front. In this Policy Brief, Amanda Paul presents the state of play and the prospects of Moldova since signing the Association Agreement with the EU and explores the effects of Russian bans on exports and services, access to energy and trade as well as the role of the EU

The strength of the Christian Democrats, the weakness of the opposition. Germany before the parliamentary elections. OSW Commentary No. 114, 12.09.2013

The political campaign before Germany’s parliamentary elections to be held on 22 September has in all its glory reflected the trends visible during the last four years of the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel – the strength of the Christian Democrats, the weakness of the opposition and the increasing marginalisation of the coalition partner, the FDP. The CDU/CSU remains the most popular political choice in Germany, largely because Angela Merkel has consistently remained the most popular German politician. Everything indicates that the CDU/CSU will win the election, even though it has been running a passive campaign and the Chancellor herself has been avoiding confrontation, presenting herself as a kind of cross-party representative of the interests of all social groups. The Christian Democrats’ main competitors, the Social Democrats, have been unable to play to their strengths and present themselves as a serious alternative to the CDU/CSU. The Christian Democrats, despite their difficult cooperation with the liberal FDP, have declared their willingness to continue doing so during the next parliamentary term. If the numbers make that impossible, and the Social Democrats and the Greens have too few votes to be able to form a government, a grand coalition of the Christian Democrats and the SPD will be formed in Germany.

Hostages to Moscow, clients of Beijing. Security in Central Asia as the role of the West diminishes. OSW Study 10/2014

The goal of this publication is to attempt to assess the thirteen years (2001- -2014) of the West’s military presence in the countries of post-Soviet Central Asia, closely associated with the ISAF and OEF-A (Operation Enduring Freedom – Afghanistan) missions in Afghanistan. There will also be an analysis of the actual challenges for the region’s stability after 2014. The current and future security architecture in Central Asia will also be looked at closely, as will the actual capabilities to counteract the most serious threats within its framework. The need to separately handle the security system in Central Asia and security as such is dictated by the particularities of political situation in the region, the key mechanism of which is geopolitics understood as global superpower rivalry for influence with a secondary or even instrumental role of the five regional states, while ignoring their internal problems. Such an approach is especially present in Russia’s perception of Central Asia, as it views security issues in geopolitical categories. Because of this, security analysis in the Central Asian region requires a broader geopolitical context, which was taken into account in this publication. The first part investigates the impact of the Western (primarily US) military and political presence on the region’s geopolitical architecture between 2001 and 2014. The second chapter is an attempt to take an objective look at the real challenges to regional security after the withdrawal of the coalition forces from Afghanistan, while the third chapter is dedicated to analysing the probable course of events in the security dimension following 2014. The accuracy of predictions time-wise included in the below publication does not exceed three to five years due to the dynamic developments in Central Asia and its immediate vicinity (the former Soviet Union, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran), and because of the large degree of unpredictability of policies of one of the key regional actors – Russia (both in the terms of its activity on the international arena, and its internal developments).

Government failure, opposition success? Electoral performance in Portugal and Italy at the time of the crisis. Jean Monnet Occasional Paper 05/2014

The costs of the crisis in Southern European countries have not been only economic but political. Economic crises tend to lead to government instability and termination while political challengers are expected to exploit this contingent window of opportunity to gain an advantage over incumbents in national elections. The current crisis seems to make no exception, looking at the results of the general elections recently held in Southern Europe. However, this did not always lead to a clear victory of the main opposition parties. In most of the elections, in fact, the incumbent parties’ loss did not coincide with the official opposition’s gain. The extreme case is represented by Italy, where both the outgoing government coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi – setting aside for the moment the technocratic phase – and its main challenger, the centre left coalition, ended up losing millions of voters and a new political force, the Five Star Movement, obtained about 25 per cent of votes. On the opposite side there is Portugal. Only in Portugal did the vote increase for the centre right PSD, in fact, exceed the incumbent socialists’ loss. The present work aims at exploring the factors which might account for this significant divergence between the two cases.

State-building in Iraq since 2003: the Challenges and Lessons. Jean Monnet Occasional Paper No. 12/2014

Introduction. In 2003, Iraq was invaded by the US coalition forces that ousted Saddam Hussein’s regime from power before occupying the whole country. The intension, declared by the then American George W. Bush, was to ‘build a decent and democratic society at the centre of the Middle East’ that ‘will become a place of progress and peace.’1 In 2014, three years after the withdrawal of the last American soldier, however, it is difficult to overestimate or exaggerate what is at stake. National unity and territorial integrity have never been so seriously threatened since the country is experiencing the internal fighting in its modern history. Many parts of Iraq, including the northern oil city of Kirkuk, long claimed as an integral part of the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan, are out of the control of the central government. Large areas in the north including the strategic city of Mosul were seized by the fighters of the Islamic State, an Al-Qaeda offshoot, formerly known as ISIS, who threatened to invade the Kurdistan region before being attacked by airstrikes by the US. They proclaimed a caliphate on both sides of the border with Syria, where they also control vast territory.

Any changes? The future agenda of Sweden's security policy. OSW Commentary No. 126, 28.01.2014

Sweden’s annual security and defence conference, which this year focused on the future of the country’s security policy, was held in Sälen on 12-14 January. It was attended by almost all the leaders of Sweden’s ruling and opposition parties. The discussions have revealed whether and how the mindset of the Swedish elite has changed following the heated debates on defence issues in 2013. The opposition parties (Social Democrats, the Green Party, and the Left Party), which are likely to form a coalition government after the election to the Swedish parliament in September 2014, were given the opportunity to present their own priorities. The discussions have brought to the surface conflicting perceptions within the political elite concerning the threats and challenges to Swedish security, and divergent positions on the future direction of the country’s security and defence policy. It is highly likely that, due to a coalition compromise, the current course of Sweden’s security policy (namely, a policy of non-alignment along with close co-operation with NATO) will be maintained following the parliamentary election, albeit with new “leftist” influences (a greater involvement in the United Nations). Big changes that could lead to a significant strengthening of Sweden’s defence capabilities, or a decision on NATO membership, are not likely. Paradoxically, polls suggest that in the long run a more radical change in Stockholm’s security policy may be shaped by a gradual, bottom-up evolution of public opinion on the issue.

Georgia- between a dream and reality. OSW Commentary no. 133, 15.04.2014

Following several years of political turmoil triggered by constitutional reform (a shift from a presidential to a semi-presidential system) and electoral reshuffles (parliamentary elections in 2012; presidential elections in 2013), the political situation in Georgia has stabilised: key posts in the country are now in the hands of democratically elected members of the Geor-gian Dream coalition. Despite its mosaic-like structure and internaltensions, Georgian Dream remains strong and enjoys high levels of public support. This puts it in good stead to play a central role in Georgian politics in the foreseeable future, including securing victory in the local government elections scheduled for June. However, local billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili does not currently hold a political office - despite the fact that he is the founder, sponsor and undisputed leader of the coalition, as well as former prime minister and the most popular public figure in Georgia (besides Patriarch Ilia II). This raises several questions, for example: Who is really at the helm of the Georgian state? What is the lon-g-term vision of the current government? The past achievements of the politically heterogeneo-us Georgian Dream - dominated by Mr Ivanishvili - offer little help in answering these questions. In addition to a series of challenges on the domestic front, the new Georgian leadership is also facing strategic geopolitical challenges, compounded by the current conflict in Ukraine. These include the future of Georgia’s relations with the West (including the process of EU and NATO integration) and with Russia (in response to repeated attempts to re-integrate the post-Soviet republics). The scale and dynamism of the changes in both the geopolitical order in the post-Soviet region and in the relations between Russia and the West are causing further questions to be raised about their impact on the position of the Georgian political elite and about their consequences for the entire country.

Russian sanctions against Moldova. Minor effects, major potential. OSW COMMENTARY No. 152, 2014-11-06

Russia has been Moldova’s main trade partner and Russian capital has accounted for a large part of its foreign investments, dominating in the energy and the banking sectors. Moreover, Russia has been a key job market for Moldovan expatriate workers. In the economic sphere, this is making Moldova unilaterally dependent on Russia. Moscow has been attempting to exploit this situation to put pressure on the authorities in Chișinău for quite some time. In recent months Russia has increasingly used instruments for exerting economic pressure on Moldova, as a means of responding to the current authorities’ pro-Western policy. A key element of this policy was Moldova’s signing on 27 June 2014 of the Association Agreement with the EU (which came into force on 1 September 2014). Over the last year, Russia has implemented a number of import restrictions on Moldovan goods. The aim of the Russian actions is to fuel social disappointment, and ultimately – to prevent the pro-European coalition currently in power from winning the parliamentary elections scheduled for 30 November 2014. Another aim might be to convince the Moldovan authorities to suspend the implementation of the Association Agreement – a plan openly put forward by Vladimir Putin during the CIS summit in Minsk on 10 October 2014. So far, however, the Russian economic sanctions have failed to produce the expected results. Support for the pro-European parties has been high, and there is little chance that the pro-Russian groups might achieve a parliamentary majority. It is not inconceivable, then, that in the upcoming months Moscow might decide to resort to other, more potent instruments of economic pressure such as speculation on the financial market, carried out as part of its de facto control over the banking sector. Another possibility is further tightening of trade restrictions, issuing expatriate workers from Russia or using Moldova’s dependence on Russian energy.