In recent weeks, various commentators, academics and analysts have been busily arguing for various things to be included in Britain’s upcoming strategic defence and security review. Some of these interventions have been interesting, focussed and well-reasoned. Both Chatham House and the Royal United Services Institute have been running a series of lectures and articles putting forward various options for the new coalition government to consider.

Other interventions have been decidedly less helpful. On Friday, Sir Max Hastings, author of several works on military history, called for the scrapping of both Britain’s aircraft carrier construction programme and its sea-based nuclear weapons system. Two new 65,000 tonne ‘pocket supercarriers’ are due to be brought into service in 2016 and 2018, respectively. Over three times the size of Britain’s current aircraft carriers, these vessels will be by far the most formidable warships ever put to sea by a European navy; their only competitors will be the American Nimitz supercarriers. Confirmed to be named HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, Britain’s two new behemoths will enable London to project overwhelming power into any region within range of their onboard air squadron, which will bring approximately seventy percent of the world’s population within reach. They will also improve Britain’s ability to engage in ‘coercive diplomacy’ (what was once known as ‘gunboat diplomacy’) and provide an integrated platform for overseas crisis and disaster response, if required.

But according to Sir Max, aircraft carriers and sea-based nuclear deterrents are unnecessary; Britain is unlikely to face any conventional – that is, State-based – enemy; and the armed forces should be radically re-calibrated to fight only Islamist terrorists and other non-State actors.

This view, not without its merits, has gained increasing traction in recent years, especially since the globalisation hysteria of the 1990s. The argument goes: war and conflict between the great powers is effectively over. Interdependence and democratisation have greatly increased the likely economic and political cost of war, which is further compounded by the fact that there is currently no country strong enough to directly challenge the military reach and wherewithal of North America and Western Europe (or, more precisely, the Americans, British and French). Anyone foolish enough to do so will be struck down fast. The evidence? Britain decisively crushed Argentina’s junta in 1982. Iraq’s Ba’athists were thoroughly quashed in 1991 and 2003 by two different Anglo-American led coalitions. Serbia was undone in 1999 when Slobodan Milosevic initiated genocidal policies in Kosovo. And the Ivory Coast lost its entire airforce in a few hours in November 2004 when its president challenged France.

Further, larger countries, such as China and Russia, while sometimes a nuisance, are still a long way from reaching parity, particularly with the United States. Insofar as they have harmed Europeans or Americans, they have done so using underhand methods, such as industrial espionage, cyber attacks and poisonings, which are better dealt with using effective intelligence agencies than expensive weapons programmes. Meanwhile, the threat from Islamist terrorism is still very real, and this too is increasingly more of an internal threat than an external challenge.

Yet there are several reasons to suggest that Britain still needs its behemoths:

1. The argument that interdependence and democratisation have reduced the likelihood of great power conflict looks very different if we enlarge the context. The world has been getting more interconnected over the past five-hundred years, yet each century has been bloodier than the last. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to assert that the peace between the great powers since 1945 has less to do with interdependence and democratisation, and more to do with the rise of American, British and French power – both spatial and temporal – on a planetary scale. More abstractly: order is not natural; it has to be imposed by a central authority and carefully backed up with an iron fist. The key question, then, is what will happen if European and American power wanes relative to countries like China, India and Brazil, as is currently projected? Given that aircraft carriers and nuclear weapons are a long term investment that cannot be rustled up overnight, and given that other countries are busily building them, surely it makes sense for a country like the United Kingdom, entirely dependent on the sea for its imports and exports, to have them?
2. Sir Max states that it is ‘incredible’ that Britain would use its nuclear weapons to threaten (or deter) countries like Russia and China. Is it? What the world will look like in 2040 or 2050 is impossible to know. In 1900, when the British and French empires seemed almost eternal, few would have foreseen their collapse in less than fifty years. Equally, few people foresaw the demise of Soviet Russia in 1980, and fewer still the full consequences of 11th September 2001, even a year after the event itself. In short: the future is full of surprises and we should be careful not to replace careful calculation with hope. For it is surely the case that countries with international duties to uphold and obligations to discharge must retain the tools of power? Nuclear weapons are proven to deter and aircraft carriers are unlikely to be replaced by anything better – even a new generation of advanced unmanned combat aircraft will need versatile maritime platforms off which to operate.
3. Economically, contrary to the claims of people like Sir Max, a country as wealthy as the United Kingdom can afford to build large aircraft carriers. First, there is little to be gained by cancelling the current vessels and building something smaller, except a whopping fine for breaking the contract with the coalition of shipbuilders constructing the vessels. After all, aircraft carriers become cheaper to operate the larger they get relative to the desired military and political impact they can be deployed to achieve. Second, the cost of these vessels, or the nuclear deterrent, is minimal, insofar as this should be the overriding factor. The cost of the two carriers, including their air squadrons, is around £15 billion (€17.8 billion), and they are projected to last for thirty or more years. Likewise, the nuclear deterrent is planned to cost approximately £20 billion (€23.8 billion) and will last for a similar period of time. Is £1.2 billion (€1.4 billion) per year so expensive for a country with an annual national income of £1.7 trillion (€2 trillion)? That is less than 0.05% per year of Britain’s gross domestic product! This debate therefore has little to do with cost, and everything to do with political priorities.

To scrap Britain’s behemoths – the aircraft carriers or its nuclear weapons system – would reduce both the country’s national power and its options during any potential future crises. As an island, the United Kingdom can be nothing other than a seapower: pruning it of its two greatest military assets would be tantamount to selling future generations down the river. What is more, these behemoths could form the centrepiece of a greatly enhanced Common Security and Defence Policy, which means that their cancellation could have far wider ramifications.

• Image: Royal Navy

I cannot help feeling that it is not only Angela Merkel, the Greek state, and Eurostat who have plenty of egg on their faces after the events of the last year. But also European Studies as a discipline with public responsibility has some hard questions to answer about why it has on the whole failed to criticise publicly the many mistakes that led to the current impasse. To recall: the Eurozone is still faced with an existential crisis, only temporarily eased by the belated financial rescue package to prevent the bankruptcy of Greece and further contagion. Yet another round of Treaty change appears necessary to ensure the survival of the Eurozone, just at a time when it is politically least feasible.

The crisis is essentially about the credibility of the common currency in the absence of political union. It has become abundantly clear that the current situation in which Southern European countries are facing sovereign debt problems, a loss of competitiveness and no opportunity to devalue is unsustainable without fiscal transfers in some form or another from Northern surplus countries to the rest. The alternative is a deflationary spiral in Southern countries with falling wages and brutal austerity measures that can hardly be politically sustained. On the other hand, Northern European and in particular German politicians have found it impossible to tell their compatriots that fiscal transfers to the “Euromed” countries are a price worth paying for the political unity of Europe, the openness of export markets and a common currently that does not cause constant problems for exporters (ask the Suisse how happy they are about the strong Franken).

How did we get there? While the financial crisis and its specific dynamics were quite unpredictable, economists have long argued that monetary union without at least fiscal union is unsustainable, that the Stability and Growth Pact designed to fill the gap was deeply flawed, and that the countries forming monetary Union were not sufficient similar economically to absorb an asymmetric shock. I remember writing a postgraduate essay on it in Cambridge in 1997, which basically arrived at the conclusion that fiscal transfers will be necessary and likely. Kohl would not allow Monetary Union to fail. Merkel said the same recently, but the markets still doubt this commitment given the short-term costs and long-term risks to the German taxpayer.

How come, therefore, that there we so few people that pointed out the fallacy of letting high debt countries join that historically relied on currency devaluations for their competitiveness such as Italy and Greece and which were facing major problems of economic governance? How was it that hardly anyone of note in the discipline raised publicly hard questions about Greece joining at the time and the lack of scrutiny it faced by DG Ecfin, Eurostat, and the ECB?

Why has the critique of the neofunctionalist logic underlying the move to Monetary Union, which is visible now (integrate deeper or fail), not been expressed more vociferously, but outsourced to ideologically Eurosceptic economists? This is not just a question of speaking-up in public, but also about some of the scholarship and its foresightedness.

For instance, just a year ago, the introductory article in a special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy (16:4) on 10 years of EMU by two leading scholars of EMU, Amy Verdun and Hendrik Enderlein, painted a overwhelmingly positive picture of how monetary union had performed in the absence of political union, including its performance during the financial crisis. They acknowledged the potential negative as well as positive effects of the “financial crisis”, but with the benefit of hindsight we must conclude that this was too much praise, too early. In retrospect, also my own writing on this topic (in: Economic Government of the EU, Palgrave, 2007) could have highlighted more the risks and tensions in the current edifice.

My diagnosis is the following: Most people doing European Studies, including myself, are Europhiles. They have an emotional attachments to the European “project”, the joys of cultural diversity, the idea of overcoming centuries of violent rivalry and parochial nationalism, for the benefit of its own citizens and possibly even as a force of good in the world. It is true that many people have seen the many flaws of design and practice and even formulated critique of integration and governance in general and EMU in particular in academic papers (Hodson, Begg, de Grauwe, etc). Overall, however, I feel there is still too much of what I call “the delicate plant syndrome” in European Studies: It is common norm that pro-Europeans most somehow spare “the project” harsh and public critique for fear of strengthening Euroscepticm, especially those working in a UK context. This is of course a flawed proposition as critique could help to improve the project, rather than dismantle it.

Despite all the writing about the EU legitimacy deficit, the flaws of the Lisbon Strategy and the mislabelled Constitutional Treaty, or the calls for more visible conflict and politics in EU governance, we have not cultivated the kind of hard but fair criticism of EU institutions and national governments needed to prevent some of the major mistakes that are haunting European elites now. Such public critique by leading figures of the discipline could have also sparked the kind of debates that might have countered citizens’ impression of the European integration as a plot of like-minded elites that do not wish to hurt each other. It is high time for introspection, but also to be more open about the failures of European integration and how they may be remedied.

Is the European Union – or even its Member States – still a key ally for the United States? Is the Atlantic Alliance in decline? To be sure the alleged crisis over the planned European Union-United States Summit in Madrid in the Spring of 2010, in which President Obama declined to participate, was largely exaggerated. Yet there undoubtedly is a growing feeling of marginalisation in Europe – marginalisation in international affairs, as experienced in Copenhagen, and of marginalisation in transatlantic relations, as illustrated by the fall-out over the Madrid Summit. Whether this perception is founded is not really the point: Europeans sense a growing gap with their American ally, and Washington should be aware of it.

The recent publication by the White House, in May 2010, of the National Security Strategy (NSS) is likely to emphasise that perception. Indeed, the document only mentions the European Union twice. In comparison, the European Union was mentioned eleven times in the 1998 NSS of Bill Clinton, three times in the 2002 NSS and five times in the 2006 NSS of George W. Bush. And do not even look for the word ‘transatlantic’, for you will not find it.

The context in which the European Union is mentioned is evolving as well. In 1998, the European Union was referred to essentially as a major economic pole and as a security-political actor with limited potential in its neighborhood. George W. Bush depicted the European Union as a full global security and political actor active in counterterrorism, nuclear counter proliferation, and post-conflict reconstruction. It is true that in the meantime, the European Union had further integrated and had created the European Security and Defence Policy, triggering large (and perhaps exaggerated) expectations of European Union global power.

In contrast, President Obama shows more moderation in his assessment of the European Union. The 2010 NSS does say that ‘Building on European aspirations for greater integration, we are committed to partnering with a stronger European Union to advance our shared goals, especially in […] responding to pressing issues of mutual concern.’ But the European Union is mentioned as just one actor among many now exerting power and influence.

The declining centrality of the European Union (and Europe) in American strategic thought can be explained by the rise of emerging powers on the global stage, notably Russia, India and China, which increasingly attract Washington’s attention, and by a more realist reassessment of the European Union’s limited power potential, in spite of the expectations generated by the Treaty of Lisbon. To some extent, it is a luxury problem: if Europe is not high on Washington’s list of priorities, it is because the Old Continent no longer presents any major problems for American security. The real problem is that the European Union is not really seen as a significant partner in addressing the problems that do exist in other parts of the world.

In a changing global environment, with a new global order in the making and new global challenges, the strategic attention of Washington is increasingly diverted away from the Atlantic Alliance. Yet precisely in these challenging times collective action is required to deal with global threats, under the impulse of global leaders. And who else can be up to the task than the United States and the European Union? Surely, nobody expects Russia, India or China to share the Western project to the same extent. In such an environment, therefore, the transatlantic relationship should be renewed, not marginalised.

In order to shape a new global order based on universally shared norms, rules and values, we need a renewed transatlantic leadership for a new grand bargain in which the emergence of new powers demanding power and recognition, and the emergence of new challenges requiring global responses, can be reconciled through an effective multilateral approach. As the European Union’s own Security Strategy says: ‘Acting together, the European Union and the United States can be a formidable force for good in the world.’ A joint effort will be required if they are to retain global influence in this new world order.

The United States should therefore not forget about its ‘old’ allies. European are not simply on call for when the United States needs them, but ought to be treated as an equal partner that can bring creative strategies and a comprehensive toolbox to address global problems. Obviously, Europeans should do what it takes to be an equal partner: make full use of its new institutions under the Treaty of Lisbon, set clear strategic priorities, and proactively pursue them. Then next time Barrack Obama meets Herman Van Rompuy they should have a true strategic conversation.

• A slightly amended version of this article was first published by the New Atlanticist.

Published every 4 months, Europe’s World’s purpose is to stimulate the much needed debate over topical policy issues by encouraging citizens and stakeholders within civil society, media, academia, business and government, to engage in a series of informed political debates which reach beyond the “Brussels village.”

To date over 600 authors, including Heads of State, corporate chiefs, top academics, leading NGO activists or policymakers, have contributed articles, firmly cementing Europe’s World’s reputation as a platform for new thinking and ground-breaking ideas.

Europe’s World’s newly extended website, EuropesWorld.org, is designed to further promote debate on the policy challenges facing Europe. It spans articles and reactions to articles published in Europe’s World, but is not limited to the journal since it also features studies and reports from think tanks throughout Europe.

Its aim is to give readers direct access to the latest in policy thinking across the EU, and encourage visitors to submit their own reports and comment on any of the contributions featured on the website.

New Summer 2010 issue is ready, as always many interesting articles can be found here:

http://www.europesworld.org/NewEnglish/Home_old/ArticleIssue/tabid/183/IssueID/231/Default.aspx

The European Union was supposed to abolish internal geopolitics through the establishment of pan-European institutions predicated on ‘civilian power’. However, this has delivered Europeans into a nasty trap: we still rely on the United States to provide the ultimate guarantee for our security, through its nuclear weapons, aircraft carriers and air squadrons. Yet as America’s geostrategic focus shifts further away from Europe in response to events since 2001, what will Europeans do? In short, the continent’s main powers have been positioning themselves to fill the vacuum left by the United States. Unless the United Kingdom – of all powers – steps in to moderate this process in the interests of security, the European Union will be undermined, leading to general geopolitical disorder across our continent.

In some ways, this is a radical argument. For both America’s global decline and its complete departure from the European continent are not yet inevitable. But the fulcrum of world power does seem to be shifting from the Atlantic basin to the Indo-Pacific rim at an accelerating pace, and Washington’s geostrategic focus has continued to move in response. Europeans have not yet realised just how much this is going to affect the security of their own continental homeland and their worldview – least of all the British.

Four inter-related developments are starting to undermine the existing European security order:

1.) Russia is moving back into Europe. As American power is moved away from Europe and towards the Middle East and Central Asia today, and the Indo-Pacific rim tomorrow, a vacuum in Eastern and Central Europe has emerged. Moscow has been quick to re-establish its position in an area of historical geopolitical significance to its own well-being. It has used its position as an energy supplier and its military power to undo the Western backed post-Cold War reforms in countries like Georgia and Ukraine since the early 2000s. Russia is also attempting to ‘divide and rule’ Europeans through the pursuit of new partnerships with countries like Germany, France and Italy.

2.) Germany has sought to create for itself through diplomacy what it has failed to do again and again militarily: a pan-European penumbra where it forms the political, economic and cultural heart. With the enlargements of 2004 and 2007, Germany is finally surrounded by friendly, wealthy and increasingly dependent states, to which it can export its manufactured goods. Key to Berlin’s design is the co-opting of its vast eastern neighbour – Russia – into the German continental enterprise. Germany has sought to appease Russia by agreeing to block, albeit tacitly, the expansion of the European Union, and particularly the Atlantic Alliance, into regions where Russia once ruled, while simultaneously building up closer and closer economic and commercial relations.

3.) France – eager to keep up with Germany and freer of the constraints imposed in the past by American power – has sought to deepen its own relations with Russia. Paris has proclaimed 2010 the ‘Year of Russia’ in France and has sought deeper economic relationships with Russian energy corporations in a bid to keep up with its German counterparts. Equally, and critically, France has agreed to sell Russia advanced helicopter carriers (the Mistral class), which will greatly enhance Russian power in the maritime regions of the European Neighbourhood. This will inevitably undermine European influence in this zone, as well as those domestic forces fighting for democracy.

4.) The United Kingdom, once Europe’s leading power, has grown geostrategically lazy and complacent. This is born out of two misunderstandings: firstly, that a permanent European geopolitical settlement has been established; and secondly, that Britain’s most important relationship will always be with the United States. British leaders have placed all their eggs in a single basket, but this basket is close to breaking point. Indeed, their attachment to the Atlantic Alliance has led to the very things they have sought for so long to prevent: a nearly-helpless and de-militarised Europe that can add little of value to overseas NATO operations in places like Afghanistan.

In response to these developments, only one power has the means to keep the European train on the rails: the United Kingdom. Britain’s island geography means that it is Europe’s natural offshore balancer, the final arbiter of European affairs. In the aftermath of World War II, London had two objectives in order to maintain this role: keep Germany down and keep Russia out. This required an unbreakable alliance with the United States and France so that a formidable amalgamation of American, British and French power could be fused together to empower other democratically-minded states to uphold a favourable balance of power in the heart of Europe.

However, with the decline of American power, Britain will have to overcome its Atlanticist ‘default setting’. London must become more aggressive again: it must find a new means to maintain a balance of power within Europe that is favourable to Britain’s geopolitical position and national interests. There is only one way to do this: refashion the European Union under a common military policy and a reformed political architecture. The new British government must re-establish Britain’s power in mainland Europe: London needs to provide the vision and political will necessary to keep Europe orderly and united.

A reformed, British-led, European Union, with its own foreign and military policies, would bring Germany firmly back into the Atlantic system and coax France away from Russia. And in the face of new, large and unpredictable powers, it would empower the European Union to help maintain the wider liberal maritime trade system on which Europeans and Americans both depend for their prosperity and well-being.

• This commentary is a shortened version of our article, entitled ‘The return of European geopolitics: All roads lead through London’, which was published in the July edition of RUSI Journal. The above shortened version was published yesterday by Global Europe.

• Credit to Paul K for use of the comical map of European geopolitics.

In the last couple of months various insular Regional administrations repeated their demand for a stronger inclusion of ‘insularity’ in the EU agenda. The claim is more than ever timely due to the ongoing economic crisis that affects sensitive insular areas more than the mainland regions.

EU islands constitute mostly small, remote and scattered communities which have to deal with high costs of transport. The current economic crisis hits tourism which is the main source of income for most of the EU islands. The financial crisis creates high levels of unemployment and consequently, causes the weakening of social cohesion in insular areas. Agriculture is another source of income for insular areas. However, due to the high costs of transport, the exportation of local products (which are none the less high in quality) remains uncompetitive. 

It is a fact that, being small entities, the islands constitute the ‘weakest link’ in the EU. Many of them are located on the periphery of the EU, far from metropolitan regions and/or urban centres. EU islands are characterised by sensitive environmental, social and economic structures. They are underepresented in the Brussels-based lobbies. In addition, many EU islands are close to conflict zones and are exposed to clandestine immigration or other kinds of trafficking. They are also vulnerable to accidental or deliberate marine pollution. For all these reasons, islands indeed require special attention by the EU.

Insularity adds further difficulties when it comes to competing with other advantageous regions. The EU has already acknowledged the delicate state of islands through the recognition of the special status of insular territories in its Treaties (see also the EU Lisbon Treaty). What remains to be done though, is the transformation of this recognition to a fully fledged EU policy framework that will address the problems of insularity in various policy areas that are important to insular territories.

                                                 Conferences on Insularity

Three recent Conferences on insular related topics emphasised the fact that EU policies should include an element of insularity in their agendas. A basic summary of some of the ideas that were developed in these conferences follows below.

1.   The Mallorca Summit on the recognition of insularity in the European Regional Policy (26^th April 2010)

The first major event on EU insular politics was the Summit on the recognition of insularity in the European Regional Policy which was organised by the Baleares Regional Government in Palma de Mallorca on 26th April. The government of the Balearic Islands has recently presented a Declaration called ‘Proposals for improving the way island territories are dealt with by European Regional Policy’. The document came in the form of a Final Declaration after the conclusion of the Summit. The Summit was attended by a large number of elected officials and civil servants, mainly from islands of the EU territory.

The Summit Declaration claims that a better assessment of the impact of insularity is necessary and that various insular conditions should be taken into account in the framing of EU policies. It also states that particular attention should be paid to islands when considering policies aimed at reducing the backwardness of the least favoured regions. This demand is in accordance with the Lisbon Treaty which recognises that islands suffer from a severe, and permanent, natural handicap.

According to the Declaration, GDP per region has been one of the main indicators in the shaping of European Cohesion policy. However, new social and environmental indicators must be used in the case of islands, in order to assess the state of insularity. The importation of goods or services, the absence of scale economies and the geographical handicaps that characterise many of the EU islands generally imply higher costs when it comes to policy implementation. Besides the mere acknowledgment of insularity, the EU should recognise that the resulting insularity handicaps have a cost. As the implementation of EU policies is more costly in an insular territory, the EU should therefore bare the extra costs. This recognition should lead to a better use of resources available in proportion to the severity of the particular disadvantages of each island. Nevertheless, implementing an EU insular dimension is not an easy task. Measures and solutions cannot be uniformly applied to all EU islands without taking their diversity into account. One should bare in mind the complex conditions of EU islands (e.g. archipelagos, mountainous islands with low density population, off-shore islands). Particular care should be taken in order to avoid a situation where islands situated geographically close to a mainland are included in a larger statistical unit at Nuts 2 level, thus losing various benefits.

The Declarations suggest that at the EU level, a first step towards such an integrated approach would be the setting up of an “inter-services” group within the European Commission with responsibility for the islands, or more generally for all territories which suffer from severe and permanent natural or demographic handicaps.

Some issues related to insularity have been already integrated in the field of maritime transport policy. However, a coordinating ‘all inclusive’ approach is necessary to cover other policy fields such as transport, education, research, the environment, agriculture/fisheries, health care, migration and culture. Such a practice would facilitate a better implementation of EU policies and would limit the side effects of damaging economic factors on insular territories. It would also lead to a better synergy and efficiency among different EU policy tools.

Overall, the Summit Declaration is a well-written and self-explanatory document. It provides various sound policy suggestions that should be taken into account by the EU. The Declaration constitutes a positive contribution on how EU Regional Policy can become more effective vis-à-vis insular territories. EU islands possess considerable potential for growth which remains underexplored. The Declaration makes some practical recommendations which, if implemented, will ensure that insularity becomes less of a handicap.

2. ‘How can islands seize new opportunities in the prospect of a sustainable development?’, 20-21^st May, Azores (Ponta Delgada)

The CPMR Islands Commission and the Autonomous Region of Azores organised a conference with the title: ‘How can islands seize new opportunities in the prospect of a sustainable development?’ which adopted a ‘self-empowering’ logic. This adds a crucial element to the EU-insular debate: although EU policies have an important role in insular development, islanders should not only rely on the EU but also assume a leading role in the shaping of policies.

In his speech, Alex Mac Donald, President of the CPMR Islands Commission Bureau argued in favour of the study of the applicability of EU legislation for those territories which are beset by insular handicaps. Mac Donald suggested that the European Commission should set-up an Inter-Service group whose duty would be to coordinate the framing and the implementation of EU policies in territories beset by permanent handicaps, as well as to suggest possible modifications or adaptations (a claim also made at the Mallorca Summit). The President of the Islands Commission also claimed that the principle of “positive discrimination” should be applied in the case of EU islands.

Opportunities in the field of Renewable energy, transport, communications and tourism were discussed in detail during the conference. The Azores Government also presented various plans on the Green development of the Azores with a special focus on geothermal projects. 

The conference also covered the issue of forming ‘insular statistics’ (another claim that was also made at the Mallorca Summit) with officials from Eurostat and the Azores Statistical office presenting their ideas on the issue.

Adding a positive spin to insularity was another idea that was developed by Professor Spilanis (University of the Aegean) who mentioned the idea of insular ‘attractiveness’. According to Professor Spilanis there are various island advantages waiting to be developed. Some of these are: the authentic, high quality and safe food production, the small-scale societies and rhythms of life in a low human print environment as well as the use of cultural and natural heritage as resource of artistic, scientific and technological creation with high added value.

It is also my personal view that islanders should indeed invest in the attractiveness of insularity as they have a lot to be proud of. Islands constitute important cultural spaces that have inspired many artists in the past and continue to do so today. Due to their historic trajectories, many of them constitute idyllic examples of multi-culturalism and multi-ethic co-existence. In addition, due to their remoteness and natural conditions, islands constitute important spaces of bio-diversity.

Not all is gloom and doom. Tourism is quite developed in many insular territories. Nevertheless, there is an urge for a re-orientation of tourism towards a greener eco-friendly model. Furthermore, the use of new technologies and the internet can help to diminish the distance between the islands and the rest of mainland Europe.

3.   The Forum for Outermost Europe 2010

The third conference on issues related to insular regions was the “Forum for Outermost Europe 2010,” which took place on 27th and 28th of May. The conference was hosted by the European Commission and featured representatives of territories belonging to France, Spain and Portugal. Outermost territories include the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthelemy, along with Reunion island in the Indian Ocean and French Guyana. Spain’s Canary islands and Portugal’s Azores and Madeira in the Atlantic Ocean are also included in this the group.

One of the main claims of the Speakers was that certain EU policies on free trade, agriculture and fisheries do not take into account the interests of the Outermost Regions. For instance, the EU’s free-trade agreements with other countries which are close to the Outermost islands often jeopardise small producers, who remain dependent on the cultivation of few concrete crops. Furthermore, it was argued that due to their extreme remote conditions, the handicaps of insularity have exacerbated the fragile economies of these islands.

Under a special provision in the Lisbon Treaty, Outermost Regions can apply for special exemptions from some policy areas that may impact their economy. In addition, according to the Lisbon Treaty, Denmark, the Netherlands and France have reserved their right to recognise other territories as “Outermost Regions”. This may help to promote the cause of the Outermost Regions as only three EU countries out of 27 have such territories. Nevertheless, the Outermost Regions of the EU can become more influential if they unite their voices with those of the other EU islands.

It is worth noticing that the Council of the European Union adopted the Council Conclusions on the Outermost Regions (14th June 2010) after taking notice of the results of the conference. In its Conclusions, the Council highlighted the important role of the natural and cultural heritage in the Outermost Regions, in terms of economic development and creation of employment. The Council also called for the need to promote initiatives that have a clear added value for the Outermost Regions, for example in the field of Research and innovation, renewable energies, biodiversity, agriculture, fishing, health, information and communication technologies, cultural industries, maritime affairs and territorial cooperation. The Council also stressed that the EU 2020 Strategy should be fully applied in the Outermost Regions by taking into account the special characteristics and constraints of these regions. Finally, the Council invited the Commission to present a renewed strategy for the Outermost Regions and to evaluate the effects of EU policies on the Outermost Regions, in particular when carrying out impact assessment studies.

Conclusions

Many challenges lie ahead for the islands of the EU. The three conferences that took place in the last couple of months underlined the problems of insularity and presented various solutions to insular-related problems. In short, some of the most interesting policy proposals that were made are the following:

1.  The development of new statistic data packages for the islands that would take into account the peculiarities of insularity when it comes to the shaping of major policy areas.

2. No mere reliance on GDP growth when it comes to shaping the EU Regional Policy for insular territories. An extension of EU data parameters is necessary in order to include social, cultural, educational, environmental standards in the regional development of insular territories.

3. Adopting an ‘all inclusive’ policy approach is necessary in order to address issues of insularity. EU initiatives must cover policy fields such as transport, education, research, the environment, agriculture/fisheries, health care, migration and culture.

4. The implementation of EU policies is more costly in an insular territory.  The EU should therefore bare the extra costs of transport of the imported materials and social services aimed to fulfil the potential of the EU-run scheme/policy in order to balance the gap between insular and mainland territories.

5. The development of green, eco-sustainable insular communities through the development of innovative technologies is an imperative task.

6. The promotion of an ‘attractive’ dimension of insularity by an emphasis of the advantageous aspects of island life may contribute to positive economic, social and environmental developments.

7. The establishment of an EU Observatory on EU islands and insular policies will help to tackle some the failures of EU policies in insular territories and will lead to a better understanding of insular problems in EU institutions.

It is now up to the EU to adopt some of the ideas which were developed in the three conferences so that the insular dimension can be fully incorporated in EU policies. A development of this kind will be a proof that the EU is listening to the demands of its citizens. Adopting an EU insular approach will help to improve the public image of the EU as it will bring positive publicity to the European Union.

Vasilis Margaras

Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)

Key words: insularity, EU Regional Policy, EU Cohesion Policy, EU islands,

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Australia boasts a successful record in fighting tobacco consumption: tough government regulations on tobacco advertising have reduced smoking in Australia from 30.5 per cent of the population in 1988 to 16.6 per cent in 2007. This bill finds its origin in the National Health Taskforce discussion paper issued in 2008, which put forth recommendations as to how to address a number of health issues over the next decade. The stated goal of the plain packaging as enshrined by the Australian Federal Government is to:

(a) reduce initiation of tobacco use, tobacco consumption and quitting relapse;

(b) enhance the effectiveness of package warnings; and

(c) remove the package’s ability to mislead and deceive consumers.

Yet, plain packaging raises both legal and health-related tricky issues. Indeed, not only its legality is all the time more disputed by the tobacco industry, but also its public health effectiveness in reducing consumption levels is increasingly challenged today.

On the one side, supporters of plain packaging argue that this innovative way of marketing cigarette packs would make them look not only less attractive but also contribute to make health warnings (“Smoking can kill you”) more visible. Warnings on plain white packages may be more effective at getting attention and enhancing recall than warnings on regular packages.  On the other side, tobacco companies argue that plain packaging represents an encroachment on the rights of trademark owners and their ability to properly and lawfully use their trademarks.

In an extraordinarily fancy and content-loaded website, Philip Morris International states that “we are a supporter of regulation of tobacco products but believe that plain packaging is ineffective legislation, not proven to have any effect in reducing smoking. We believe that adult smokers should be able to see, identify and select the brands they prefer”. Rather than playing on the consumer choice argument, BAT prefers to amplify the scientific argument : “We are strongly opposed to plain packaging of our products. There is no proper evidence to suggest that plain packs would have any effect on smoking uptake by anybody, including children”. On the other side of the spectrum, the Smoke Free Partnership, on of the most vocal tobacco control advocacy and policy research at EU and national levels, welcomes the Australian bold regulatory move by emphatically declaring that: “thetobacco package is the silent salesman to recruit young people and women to a lifetime of tobacco addiction”. In the meantime,  the  Australian initiative won praise from the World Health Organization, which welcomed the measures as “a new gold standard for the regulation of tobacco products”.

Besides the legal argument, tobacco companies argue that plain packaging would push the affected market in the opposite direction to mainstream government policies of helping consumers make informed decisions, providing high levels of consumer protection, empowering consumers, promoting innovation and promoting competitive markets.

As the battle on plain packaging is on, Enrico Bonadio and I are currently working on an independent analysis aimed at exploring the legality of such a practice in both the WTO and EU legal orders. Regardless of whether you smoke or you don’t, plain packaging is a fascinating issue at the intersection of law, regulatory science and behavioural economics.

Since the polls first started to indicate that any election result other than a Hung Parliament was highly unlikely, politicians from the two major parties in particular have warned ominously of the inherent instability that would ensue if theirs was not returned with a clear majority.  Meanwhile, pundits and the “commentariat” have looked to our European neighbours for comparisons, with Germany and Italy perhaps the two most frequently cited examples of what coalition government might mean. 

Throughout these debates, there has been an undertone first that sharing power is something that is simply “not done” here (one commentator declared on Thursday night that coalitions are what they do “over in Europe”); and second that somehow having a smaller party in the position to make or break any potential new government is inherently illegitimate.  Why should the Liberal Democrats, with just 23% of the vote and 57 seats in the House of Commons (fewer, lest we forget, than they had in the previous Parliament) be able to somehow hold the country to ransom?

The reality, I would argue, is somewhat different.  If the last few elections in the UK have shown us anything, it is that the mass, tribal politics of old are rapidly becoming a thing of the past, while the 3-digit majorities delivered to New Labour in 1997 and 2001 are evidence simply of how anachronistic and inherently disenfranchising the ‘first-past-the-post’ system has become. 

Membership of the two big parties is in long-term decline.  Meanwhile, no party has won over 50% of the vote since the Conservatives in 1935 (with 53.5%), while the landslide victories of 1983 and 1987 for the Tories, and 1997 and 2001 for New Labour saw them receive 42.4% and 42.25, and 43.2% and 40.7% respectively – not the proportion of the vote that their massive Commons’ majorities would imply. 

Perhaps more importantly, as a consequence of devolution over the last 13 years regional governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland either are – or have been – governed by coalitions (indeed, in the case of Northern Ireland this has been a prerequisite for peace), elected using systems incorporating some form of proportionality.  The results may have been awkward and at times uncomfortable, but rather than leading to chaos and instability, they have been characterised by compromise, negotiation and the abandonment (or at least postponement) of parties’ more ideologically-driven or extreme policy positions – a situation, moreover, that would be recognised in many local councils around the country.       

So will 2010 be remembered as the election where the political system finally caught up with what the voters actually want?  Potentially, yes.  One of the main messages that the various party leaders sought to communicate over the last month was that the UK needed a new type of politics, and the electorate seems to have taken them at their word.  Against a back-drop of economic turmoil, rising unemployment and anxiety over the future, our political leaders find themselves in a position that many of their European counterparts will be only too familiar with: one where they have no choice but to talk to each other in order to govern, and to do so on the basis of consensus. 

Such a change should not be dismissed as merely the politics of convenience.  And while the more doom-laden predictions may yet come true that the new government is bound to collapse before its 5 years are up, with the Liberal Democrats cast into the outer darkness and two-party politics returning with a vengeance, such outcomes are not inevitable, particularly if a referendum on the Alternative Vote is successful.  Like it or not – and it may indeed be anathema to many of David Cameron’s MPs as well as to significant sections of the British media – May 6^th may be the day that British politics became a little more ‘European’.