Latest Blog Posts

As a parting gift before a summer break, I’ve pulled together the various legal pathways currently available to changing the Protocol. This is based on the text of the Protocol/Withdrawal Agreement itself, plus a bit of customary international law, and covers both modification and disapplication of the Protocol itself. As the graphic suggests, there are […]

Accepting half a loaf in international negotiations is always difficult. This has been especially notable in European debates over refugee policy, in which different countries have divergent interests and a mutually agreeable consensus is hard to form. However, recent developments suggest a thaw, with Mediterranean countries taking a pragmatic approach that could allow for real […]

Alina Felder Convening virtually over the course of three days (30 June – 2 July 2021), twelve PhD students from six countries exchanged about current research and challenges to researching the area of higher education. The workshop on ‘European higher education in times of uncertainty’ comprised two keynote lectures by senior researchers – Jeroen Huisman […]

Introduction The united and strong Europe – reformed along the principles introduced previously (see Enlightened Europism) – is going to be able to defend and promote its achievements globally only through a wise and decisive foreign policy with clear strategic aims. However, in my view, the necessary precondition of a successful foreign policy and diplomacy […]

In the world economy, the European Union (EU) is often portrayed as a ‘market power’, able to leverage the large size of its internal market and its considerable regulatory capacity to influence international trade negotiations and shape global market regulation. Moreover, the EU often favours stringent regulation for products and production processes. In finance, after […]

The publication on 21 July of the UK government’s Command Paper came just before the end of the Parliamentary session. Flagged for several weeks, it was presented as the culmination of a long push to secure changes to the Northern Ireland Protocol. Undoubtedly, the Paper does cap the numerous public statements of Lord Frost, Brandon […]

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, EU Member States managed to agree on key financial instruments to support the economic recovery of Europe. The decision to manage these instruments within the existing European Semester procedure has put this procedure into the spotlight. Adequate parliamentary involvement in this procedure is crucial. The pandemic can serve as […]

The Treaty of Maastricht (1993), which established the EU and introduced a three-pillar system of policymaking, formalised intergovernmental cooperation in the field of asylum and migration between the 12 EC states. The first pillar, also known as the European Community, was the only pillar with a legal personality and covered the vast majority of EU […]

by Taro Nishikawa This article is based on research presented at the UACES Graduate Forum Research Conference 2021 (17-18 June, online)   After the European Community (EC) launched the Common Commercial Policy (CCP) in 1970, the question of who influences EC/EU positions in international trade negotiations became an important scholarly research topic. On the one hand, greater control […]

by Magdalena König This article is based on research presented at the UACES Graduate Forum Research Conference 2021 (17-18 June, online)   Counter-terrorism policy has never been such a prominent policy area in EU enlargement as it currently is. In recent years, the EU has put security policy, and in particular counter-terrorism policy, high on the agenda […]