European view

This article looks at the impact of the novel coronavirus crisis and increased remote work on cybersecurity and the priorities for EU action. Actions should include improving the cybersecurity of businesses, critical infrastructure and users, and creating an EU cybersecurity industry. As more and more aspects of our lives happen online, we are becoming more vulnerable to malicious attacks. This was demonstrated in 2020 when cyber-attacks increasingly disrupted the work of hospitals, service providers, government services and businesses across the globe. The frequency and scale of the attacks created a sense of urgency to improve our cybersecurity resilience. This article argues that the EU should reap the benefits of cybersecurity by pursuing a more ambitious cybersecurity agenda and putting EU values at the core of its approach. It also calls for cybersecurity to be included in all EU pillars, including the EU industrial research and innovation policy, as well as in EU investment p...

Ex-post investigations of major terrorist attacks in Europe have highlighted the contradiction between the seemingly free movement of terrorists across Europe and the lack of EU-wide intelligence sharing. In response, EU policymakers have repeatedly promised to improve intelligence sharing across Europe, and some have even floated the idea that Europol should be turned into a centralised EU criminal intelligence hub, akin to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. In this article, I argue that despite the clear need for borderless intelligence sharing as a response to borderless terrorism, Europol is highly unlikely to become a genuine intelligence agency in the foreseeable future. Experience to date with Europol suggests that it is one thing for Europe's policymakers to make public promises to improve the fight against terrorism via better intelligence sharing across Europe, and quite another thing for them to persuade the relevant national agencies to comply.

For centuries the Western Balkans region has been a place of origin for migration into Europe as well as a transit route to Europe for migrants coming from other regions of the world. The 2015–16 migration crisis brought the region into the spotlight as large numbers of migrants used the Balkan migration route on their way to Western Europe. Individual countries and the EU institutions developed weak and often contradictory responses to the crisis. This has had a negative effect on the Balkan peoples' perception of the EU, which had previously been positive. On a symbolic level the migration crisis has revealed the fragile relationship between the EU and the Western Balkan states. In the future, EU policy should focus on developing an integrated strategy for managing its external borders and migration, one that prevents member states from pushing back migrants at their borders.

This article argues that similarities between jihadism and far-right radicalism are increasing, particularly with regard to the spectacularisation of violence. Spectacularisation means representing and performing violence in the form of a show, for instance through live-streaming, with a renewed emphasis on captivating symbols and much less attention paid to the ideological foundations on which the radical project is supposed to rely. After the March 2019 shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, the spectacularisation of racist, anti-Islamic and anti-Semitic violence increased, thus consolidating that event as a turning point in the evolution of the contemporary far right and the history of jihadism—which has far-right affinities. Lured by the performance of violence, the number of contemporary far-right sympathisers is steadily growing in a virtual environment that closely resembles that of jihadists, where patterns and mechanisms of online recruitment and grooming are proliferating.

The author presents an in-depth examination of Turkey’s development. This essay briefly covers the history of secularism in Turkey, the secular revolution of the early 1920s and today’s multi-party system. The Turkish model has both strengths and weaknesses: while the system succeeds in setting limits on authoritarian regimes, it has failed to implement a full liberal democracy.

This article examines the possibilities for negotiating the UK–EU health-security relationship after 2020. Health security, in the sense of measures to prevent and mitigate health emergencies, had played a marginal role in the UK–EU negotiations, but COVID-19 has greatly amplified this policy area’s significance. At the beginning of the pandemic, Brussels introduced significant measures to promote public health sovereignty, notably joint procurement and stockpiling of personal protective equipment. The UK went against the grain by limiting its involvement in joint procurement at a time when other countries were rushing to participate. UK participation in some EU health measures is possible on existing terms, but not joint procurement. This leaves the UK facing an uncertain future because of the potential risks associated with not participating in EU programmes, notably in terms of access to personal protective equipment supplies and possible market distortion resulting from new EU p...

Since the launch of the Eastern Partnership (EaP) in 2009, the scope and content of democratic reforms has varied significantly across the six partner countries despite the EU’s increased interest in and commitment to differentiated bilateral relations. The quality of democracy in Ukraine continuously declined between 2010 and 2014, but has significantly improved since then. Armenia has long been considered a semi-autocratic state, but since its Velvet Revolution in 2018 the new government has embarked on promising democratic reforms. Moldova, a country once considered the front-runner of the EaP, has experienced democratic backsliding since 2014, while democratic reform progress in Georgia has slowed considerably. The autocratic regimes in Azerbaijan and Belarus have further consolidated their power, without showing signs of democratic change. The article outlines some of the key issues and developments pertaining to democratic reforms in each country and assesses the factors that ...

This article argues that ethics need not be toothless or side-lined in the technology governance debates. Rather, moral evaluation is necessary, even when legal compliance is already possible. Moral evaluation supplies answers not only to what is legal or illegal, but also to what is good and better for society. The article first defends a pragmatist ethics approach to uncovering the inevitability of values and norms embedded in digital technologies and related to their design and use. It then makes the case for policymakers engaging in the anticipatory ethics of technology. This approach provides a toolbox to tackle moral dilemmas and better understand what trustworthiness and ethics mean in certain contexts. The convergence of ethics and policy is not only worth pursuing but a necessity for good technology governance if we are to achieve a Europe fit for the digital age.

The gains made by the European People's Party (EPP) in the 2009 European Parliament elections have given the party a new opportunity to advance its message. In the face of the weaknesses of current social models made apparent by the recent economic crisis, globalisation and changes in European society, Christian democracy could provide an alternative that balances the demands of a globalising world order and the desire to preserve the European social model. Further policy research is needed; however, recent socio-economic challenges and the political success of the EPP have shown that Christian democracy has a bright future.

The European Union has witnessed substantial changes in religion and politics since the advent of eastern enlargement. Religion continues to affect ethical convictions and the exercise of political power in spite of the functional separation of religious and political powers. This paper explores how religion has been used on the one hand as a motive for conflict as well as a powerful weapon in times of conflict, and on the other hand as a basis for peace and prosperity. Given that globalisation is continuously bringing various communities of different cultural backgrounds closer together, often leading to disorder, the author raises the important question of whether such conflicts may be overcome by engaging in intercultural and interreligious dialogue for the purpose of peacebuilding.

Online platforms are drivers of innovation, growth, employment, creativity and information exchange. But new advantages can also bring new risks, or further entrench existing issues. Europe’s current rules have enabled the birth and growth of these companies, and of the free and open Internet as we know it. But they have not been designed to anticipate the challenges brought about by the growth of the digital economy, such as the spread of disinformation, and they are not fully adapted to the nature of competition in the digital markets. As the heart of its ambitious digital agenda, the EU is proposing new regulatory frameworks to maintain and improve its competitiveness, innovation and growth. This approach aims to protect its market from the side effects of digital markets dominated by large non-EU tech companies which, in some respects, are shielded from the rules of the game that the EU wants to set. It also aims to protect citizens and democracy. This is clearly a time to act, ...

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has affected the countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in different ways, and the varying political structures, economic conditions and civil-crisis preparedness of the states in this region have resulted in it being handled in a variety of ways too. Even if it is difficult to assess how the crisis has affected the MENA region in more detail due to the region’s general volatility and ongoing conflicts in Libya and Syria, current trends have so far not shown a diminution in regional conflicts. Nor have the pandemic’s consequences in the Middle East lessened Europe’s problems with the region. Thus the article argues that COVID-19 has not really led to a decrease in the conflicts and wars plaguing the MENA region, and that, therefore, the effects for Europe—both short- and long-term—will still be felt, as existing problems will continue to affect Europe.

Travis Bradford explores different policies which have proven to be successful in stimulating the development and deployment of renewable energy technologies, in particular photovoltaic (PV) electricity. Case studies from Asia, Europe and the US are compared and analysed in order to demonstrate the positive aspects of different programmes and policies used to successfully adopt and distribute PV electricity. Market-responsive programmes,

This article analyses the potential benefits and drawbacks of artificial intelligence (AI). It argues that the EU should become a leading force in AI development. As a goal that captures the public imagination and mobilises a variety of actors, the EU should develop mission-based innovations that focus on using this technological leadership to solve the most pressing societal problems of our time whilst avoiding potential dangers and risks. This leadership could be achieved either by adapting the EU’s available instruments to focus on AI development or by designing new ones. Be it seeking a visionary future for AI or addressing concerns about it, progress should always be driven with the human-centred perspective in mind, that is, one that seeks to augment human intelligence and capacity, and not to supersede it.

The current international situation presents significant security challenges to Europe and its allies. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has served as the linchpin of Europe–US security cooperation over the last 60 years and continues to play a significant role in their shared defence and in promoting their political aims in the wider world. The importance of NATO was reaffirmed last year by the agreement of the New Strategic Concept. However, this agreement also left many issues unresolved. These include, among other issues, NATO’s future role as the United States concentrates on global challenges, mainly in Asia, rather than on Europe; Europe’s weakened determination to play an adequate role in facing those challenges together with the US; the effects of military spending cuts amplified by the economic crisis; and the future of US military presence in Europe. It is therefore critical that Europeans, now more than ever, consider their capabilities and contributions to N...

This article discusses whether Christian social thinking is obsolete in the age of globalisation or whether it continues to provide answers to the challenges of the modern world. Some people believe that the heydays of a Christian social alternative to capitalism or to state socialism are over following its successes in the middle of the twentieth century. Social protection and the emancipation of the working class have been achieved, and the distribution of wealth and income has reached a fair level throughout Europe. This article rejects this view and argues that Christian social thinking and its translation into political positions do not belong exclusively to a specific socio-economic phase of history or to a specific socio-economic system. The article also provides Christian social remedies for five aspects of globalisation: financialisation, the distribution of the fruits of globalisation, automation, control mechanisms and environmental protection.