Sweden’s security: The long way towards total defence. OSW Point of View Number 81 Warsaw January 2021.

Since 2008, Swedish security policy has drawn keen interest from the countries of the Nordic and Baltic states, NATO, as well as the US and Russia. The allied member states have hoped to see Sweden join NATO, while Russia has sought to convince the Swedish government and public that it would be better to abandon integration with the trans-Atlantic security structures. Sweden, confronted with the increasingly aggressive policy of the Kremlin, has faced a major challenge in the last decade: how to pursue the security and defence policy of a non-aligned country with limited military capabilities? For a country that is part of the West, but not NATO, would the option of returning to its Cold War neutrality be viable? Or would it be possible for Sweden to become a member of the Alliance? Stockholm has found its own answer to the security dilemmas. It is currently neither neutrality nor accession to NATO. Sweden is weaving an ever tighter network of military cooperation with the Alliance, the US, its Nordic neighbours and others to complement the limitations in defence capabilities of the Swedish Armed Forces, and restoring the ability of its society and economy to function in times of crisis and war. While this is admittedly not an optimal answer, it is nonetheless satisfactory given the domestic political circumstances

Will only a Green Power remain a Great Power? Egmont Security Policy Brief No. 144 May 2021.

When the coronavirus broke out in 2020 the whole world literally came to a pause. The pandemic overshadowed all other major problems and started to shape relations between states. Climate change suddenly disappeared from the international agenda. However, the effects of the global climate crisis are showing faster and more severely than ever before: wildfires in Australia, extreme weather events in Asia, tornadoes in America, a melting Arctic… Secondary effects like climate migration and conflicts have become visible as well. This crisis is more urgent than ever. The COVID-19 crisis has shattered our economies, but lockdown measures taken by almost all governments have had a positive impact on the emission of greenhouse gases. The world took a step forward, even if unintended, towards the goals set in Paris in 2015. COVID-19 has taken away a lot from the world, but it may also have created a momentum to continue this downward trend and make it structural. Even the world’s great powers will have to integrate the green transition in their COVID-19 economy recovery plans in order to not fall off the wagon. But will only a green great power remain a great power

The Strategic Committee on Belgian Defence: How to Read the Report. Egmont Commentary 28 June 2021.

A band of hardliners with a shopping list: that is how we came across after the debate in the media and in the defence committee of the Belgian Federal Parliament last week. We, that is the Strategic Committee on Belgian Defence: ten academics, including the three of us, and two co-chairs who wrote a report at the request of Defence Minister Ludivine Dedonder

Returning to employment following a diagnosis of cancer: An Irish survey. ESRI Survey and Statistical Report Series 103.

Almost half of people returning to work after a cancer diagnosis reported that their diagnosis had a negative impact on their career, a new study reveals. Females, younger workers, the self-employed and those working in the public sector were more likely to report a negative impact

The debate on the future of Europe has a German problem. EPC Commentary 16/09/2021.

After multiple delays, the Conference on the Future of Europe has finally started. But the endeavour still faces numerous hurdles. First, European citizens – who are meant to play a leading role in the upcoming European Citizens’ Panels, national events and the Conference Plenary – are not aware that the Conference is taking place. Second, the complex process needs to gain speed, given that the Conference is supposed to come up with a Final Report in spring 2022. Third, the list of issues to be covered is extensive, even though experience suggests that exercises in citizen participation are most successful when they focus on particular topics and specific questions. But all these challenges are overshadowed by the fact that EU institutions and national governments still disagree on the raison d'être of the Conference and its overall level of ambition. The European Parliament is pushing hard to ensure that the Conference puts political pressure on the (European) Council to implement long-overdue (institutional) reforms. But most national capitals remain sceptical or even outright opposed to the process, thereby undermining the prospects that the Conference will deliver any concrete results

The new ‘Concept on EU Peace Mediation’: boosting EU capacities in crisis response and conflict resolution? College of Europe Policy Brief April 2021.

A decade after the adoption of the ‘Concept on Strengthening EU Mediation and Dialogue Capacities’, the EU presented the new ‘Concept on EU Peace Mediation’ in December 2020. Despite the 2009 concept’s importance for strengthening EU mediation capacities, there had been a persistent plea for updating the mediation concept in order to better outline the EU’s priorities and objectives in peace mediation and adapting them to a new geopolitical context. The new concept clearly delivers on these points. The birth of the EU’s new concept on mediation and its enhanced ambition sensibly align with the EU’s unveiled ambition for a greater ‘geopolitical’ role. As the new concept underlines, the EU’s peace mediation efforts add to its geopolitical power and should not be seen as opposed to a vision of the EU becoming a more assertive global actor. Although the new framework is a positive step towards a politically and operationally more coherent EU mediation practice, open questions remain regarding the political and institutional conditions of an effective practical implementation of the new concept. Going forward, the EU should further invest in institutionalising cooperation with member states in mediation, improve communication practices regarding its mediation activities and mainstream the mediation concept into its strategic and programming documents

The European Parliament and the Right of Initiative: Change Practice, Not Powers. EIPA paper June 2021.

The EP does have an extremely limited direct right of initiative, in three cases also being able to adopt the legislative act. The first-ever such ‘Regulation on its own initiative’, the new statute of the Ombudsman, was in fact adopted on 23 June 2021, although another proposal, on the EP’s powers of inquiry, remains blocked. The EP also has an indirect right of initiative, meaning that it can request the European Commission, which has a near-monopoly of legislative initiative, to submit a proposal. The Commission is not obliged to do so. This right has been exercised more frequently in response to Ursula von der Leyen’s greater stated openness, and the Commission has responded with political correctness. This Paper reviews these developments in the perspective of strengthening democratic European governance. It concludes that the most important issue is not to consider changing current arrangements in the direction of greater formal powers for the EP. This is not only unlikely but can be seen as inappropriate. The priority is rather to discuss how the EP’s formal roles as the directly representative institution can be made to interact more effectively in practice both with the Commission and with other forms of participation by citizens and stakeholders. Coupled with the technical and legal assessments conducted by the Commission, this kind of interaction does represent a new and promising way in which representative and participatory mechanisms may interact in a structured way to contribute to a democratic upgrade of EU policy-making

EU crash course in geopolitics: Navigating the transatlantic minefield. EPC Commentary 01/10/2021.

The recent hot summer has been another reckoning for Europe on what geopolitics really means. The debacle in Afghanistan and the AUKUS spat have put a spotlight on transatlantic relations, and it doesn’t look good. It is high time the EU and US restore their diplomatic channels and engage in meaningful exchanges about where both sides converge or diverge in geostrategic terms

Optimal climate policy with fat-tailed uncertainty: What the models can tell us. ESRI Working Paper 697 March 2021.

We present a modification of the most commonly used integrated assessment model (IAM) of climate change (DICE-2016), AD-DICE2016, which is designed to address three key aspects of climate economy models: treatment of uncertainty, the use of more appropriate utility functions, and including adaptation policies to climate change. These modifications ensure that two of the key difficulties identified with IAMs, the choice of the risk aversion parameter and the underestimation of damages, are also directly addressed. The use of a bounded (Burr) utility function ensures that the model is able to appropriately assess the effects of parameters whose distributions have “fat tails”. Uncertainty is accommodated via the state-contingent approach enabling us to include more state (seven) and control variables (four) than recursive derivatives of DICE. Our approach to uncertainty ensures that the optimal climate policies account for outcomes in every possible state, unlike the Monte Carlo approach. Our treatment of uncertainty is extensive: eight parameters are allowed to be random, with distributions –many “fat tailed”– identified using current knowledge. Our model suggests that uncertainty regarding damages and climate sensitivity are key drivers of climate policy. We also find that uncertainty leads to increases in both optimal mitigation and adaptation, with adaptation and mitigation reacting differently to uncertainty over different parameters. Finally, our estimates of the social cost of carbon are larger when uncertainty is allowed for and significantly affected by adaptation

After Brexit: Could bilateral agreements facilitate the free movement of persons? EPC Discussion Paper 07/09/2021.

Some of the millions of EU nationals in the UK and British nationals in the EU are already suffering from Brexit’s drastic curtailment of the right to free movement. How can migration now be governed and facilitated between the two parties? Although an EU-wide agreement with the UK that ensures free movement remains the ideal solution, it is currently unrealistic. This calls for an evaluation of possible alternatives. Bilateral agreements should be explored and examined as a possible alternative to an EU-wide agreement with the UK to facilitate and govern cross-border mobility. Various bilateral free movement agreements across Europe show that their use is not only legal but also habitual. They offer flexibility when it comes to the rights of entry, residency and work, as well as other important rights. And they could also be used as a foundation upon which to build an agreement between the EU as a whole and the UK, if not to facilitate the rebuilding of mutual trust. Migration law expert Diego Acosta makes a further case for Spain being the first possible candidate for a post-Brexit bilateral free movement agreement concluded between an EU member state and the UK. Spain is the most important EU destination for British emigrants, and British migrants residing in Spain constitute the latter’s third-largest non-national population. In turn, the UK is the most important migrant destination for Spanish nationals worldwide, who represent the fifth-largest migrant group from the EU. He offers concrete suggestions as to what a bilateral treaty between Spain and the UK could include. In addition, governments of EU member states that have important reciprocal migration flows with the UK, as well as the UK government, should consider the following recommendations when exploring the possibility of adopting bilateral agreements on migration: The negotiating parties should place the rights and interests of both short-term and long-term British and European nationals residing in each other’s territory at the centre stage. In negotiating a possible treaty, both the respective EU member state (e.g. Spain) and the UK should take the pre-Brexit status quo as the departing point. The status of mobile nationals could be improved beyond that enjoyed by EU citizens pre-Brexit. For example, political rights could be extended beyond the municipal level. Certain categories of individuals (e.g. retirees, young workers) could benefit from special provisions which also depart from the pre-Brexit situation