The Malta declaration on SAR and relocation: A predictable EU solidarity mechanism? CEPS Policy Insights No 2019-14/October 2019

The joint declaration of intent signed at the informal summit between the interior ministers of Italy, Malta, France and Germany in La Valletta on 23 September 2019 (the ‘Malta declaration’) has been presented as a milestone in addressing controversies over Search and Rescue (SAR) and disembarkation of asylum seekers and migrants in the Mediterranean. This Policy Insight provides a critical analysis of the declaration, questioning its added value in ensuring a predictable EU solidarity mechanism in the Mediterranean. It underlines how the intergovernmental and extra-EU Treaty character of this initiative raises a number of concerns regarding its compliance with EU Treaties and principles such as the one of equal solidarity and fair responsibility sharing for asylum seekers among all member states

On maximum volume submatrices and cross approximation for symmetric semidefinite and diagonally dominant matrices

The problem of finding a $k \times k$ submatrix of maximum volume of a matrix $A$ is of interest in a variety of applications. For example, it yields a quasi-best low-rank approximation constructed from the rows and columns of $A$. We show that such a submatrix can always be chosen to be a principal submatrix if $A$ is symmetric semidefinite or diagonally dominant. Then we analyze the low-rank approximation error returned by a greedy method for volume maximization, cross approximation with complete pivoting. Our bound for general matrices extends an existing result for symmetric semidefinite matrices and yields new error estimates for diagonally dominant matrices. In particular, for doubly diagonally dominant matrices the error is shown to remain within a modest factor of the best approximation error. We also illustrate how the application of our results to cross approximation for functions leads to new and better convergence results

When mobility is not a choice Problematising asylum seekers’ secondary movements and their criminalisation in the EU. CEPS Paper in Liberty and Security in Europe No. 2019-11, December 2019

The notion of ‘secondary movements’ is commonly used to describe the mobility of third country nationals for the purpose of seeking international protection in an EU member state other than the one of first irregular entry according to the EU Dublin Regulation. Secondary movements are often identified as a major insecurity factor undermining the sustainability of the Schengen regime and the functioning of the EU Dublin system. Consequently, EU policies have focused on their ‘criminalisation’, as testified by the range of sanctions included in the 2016 CEAS reform package, and on a ‘policing’ approach, which has materialised in the expanded access to data stored in the EURODAC database by police authorities, and its future interconnection with other EU databases under the 2019 EU Interoperability Regulations. This Paper shows that the EU notion of secondary movements is flawed and must be reconsidered in any upcoming reform of the CEAS. The concept overlooks the fact that asylum seekers’ mobility may be non-voluntary and thus cannot be understood as a matter of ‘free choice’ or in terms of ‘preferences’ about the member state of destination. Such an understanding is based on the wrong assumption that asylum seekers’ decisions to move to a different EU country are illegitimate, as all EU member states are assumed to be ‘safe’ for people in need of international protectio

Pushbacks and lack of accountability at the Greek-Turkish borders. CEPS Policy Contribution 12 Feb 2021.

Amid escalating geopolitical tension with Turkey, in March 2020 the Greek authorities announced a hardline approach towards asylum seekers attempting to cross its land and sea borders with Turkey. The framing of cross-border movements as a ‘threat’ to the country’s national security served to justify a derogation from the human rights standards and procedural guarantees that are granted to people seeking protection under EU law. Since then, a pattern of systematic pushbacks at the border and informal returns represents the most visible expression of this hardening of border policies at the EU’s south-eastern borders. This paper analyses the negative impact of this heavily securitised approach on asylum seekers’ fundamental rights, in particular its implications for the right to asylum that underpins the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). The paper also reflects on the limits and ambiguities that have characterised the EU’s response to the situation at the Greek-Turkish borders, focusing on the role and responsibilities of the Frontex Agency. It underlines the need for the EU to remedy the shortcomings in existing accountability mechanisms, to guarantee effective remedies for victims of fundamental rights violations at the border. Establishing a sustainable human- rights-compliant management of migration in the eastern Mediterranean also requires that the EU move away from its focus on containing and restricting asylum seekers’ mobility – a focus that has characterised cooperation on migration and asylum with Turkey within the framework of the 2016 EU-Turkey Statement

Supporting the Discoverability of Open Educational Resources: on the Scent of a Hidden Treasury

Open Educational Resources (OERs), now available in large numbers, have a considerable potential to improve many aspects of society, yet one of the factors limiting this positive impact is the difficulty to discover them. This thesis investigates and proposes strategies to better support educators in discovering OERs. The literature suggests that the effectiveness of existing search systems, including for OER discovery, could be improved by supporting users, such as teachers, in carrying out more exploratory search activities closer to their existing methods of working. Hence, a preliminary taxonomy of OER-related search tasks was produced, based on an analysis of the literature, interpreted through Information Foraging Theory. This taxonomy was empirically evaluated to preliminarily identify a set of search tasks that involve finding other OERs similar to one that has already been identified, a process that is generally referred to as Query By Example (QBE). Following the Design Science Research methodology, three prototypes to support as well as to refine those tasks were iteratively designed, implemented, and evaluated involving an increasing number of educators in usability oriented studies. The resulting high-level and domain-oriented blended search/recommendation strategy transparently replicates Google searches in specialized networks, and identifies similar resources with a QBE strategy. It makes use of a domain-oriented similarity metric based on shared alignments to educational standards, and clusters results in expandable classes of comparable degrees of similarity. The summative evaluation shows that educators do appreciate this strategy because it is exploratory and – balancing similarity and diversity – it supports their high-level tasks, such as lesson planning and personalization of education. Finally, potential barriers and opportunities for the uptake of OER discovery tools were investigated in a structured interview study with experts from the OER field. Identified issues included how to work across multiple OER portals, variability in the use of metadata and how to align with the working practices of teachers. The findings of the thesis can be used to inform the research and development of methods and tools for OER discovery as well as their deployment to serve the needs of educators

Search and rescue, disembarkation and relocation arrangements in the Mediterranean. Sailing Away from Responsibility? CEPS Paper in Liberty and Security in Europe No. 2019-10, June 2019

Search and Rescue (SAR) and disembarkation of persons in distress at sea in the Mediterranean continue to fuel divisions among EU member states. The ‘closed ports’ policy declared by the Italian Ministry of Interior in June 2018, and the ensuing refusal to let NGO ships conducting SAR operations enter Italian ports, has resulted in unresolved diplomatic rows between some European governments and EU institutions, and grave violations of the human rights of people attempting to cross the Mediterranean. This paper examines how current political controversies surrounding SAR and disembarkation in the Mediterranean unfold in a policy context characterised by a ‘contained mobility’ paradigm that has materialised in the increasing penalisation of humanitarian SAR NGOs, a strategic and gradual operational disengagement from SAR activities by the EU and its member states, and the delegation of containment tasks to the Libyan coast guard (so-called ‘pullbacks’), a development that has been indirectly supported by EU institutions. These policies have contributed to substantially widen the gap in SAR capabilities in the Central Mediterranean

The EU’s Role in Implementing the UN Global Compact on Refugees Contained Mobility vs. International Protection. CEPS Paper in Liberty and Security in Europe No. 2018-04, April 2019

The Global Compact on Refugees (GCR), adopted in December 2018 by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, expresses the political will of UN member states and relevant stakeholders to foster responsibility sharing for refugees and their host countries. Among GCR key objectives is that of expanding mobility and admission channels for people in search of international protection through resettlement and ‘complementary’ pathways of admission. The GCR provides a reference framework to critically assess European Union (EU) policies in relation to two main issues: first, the role and contribution of the EU and its Member States towards the implementation of the GCR in ways that are loyal to the Compact and EU Treaties guiding principles; second, and more specifically, the main gaps and contested issues of existing resettlement and complementary admission instruments for refugees and would-be refugees implemented at the EU and Member State levels. This paper argues that EU policies in the field of asylum and migration have been driven by a ‘contained mobility’ approach, which has been recently operationalised in the scope of EU third country arrangements like the 2016 EU-Turkey Statement. Under this approach, restrictive and selective mobility/admission arrangements for refugees have been progressively consolidated and used in exchange of, or as incentives for, third country commitments to EU readmission and expulsions policy. The paper concludes by recommending that the EU moves from an approach focused on ‘contained mobility’ towards one that places refugee’s rights and agency at the centre through facilitated resettlement and other complementary pathways driven by a fundamental rights and international protection rationale

Variety, economic growth and knowledge intensity of European regions: a spatial panel analysis

Although the theoretical framework on agglomeration externalities and the channels through which they influence the regional economy appear well established, the empirical evidence on their magnitude and impact has been rather ambiguous and inconclusive. Applying the concepts of related and unrelated variety to an interregional European dataset and using spatial panel analysis, this paper provides critical information on the type and functioning of agglomeration externalities in relation to regional heterogeneity in knowledge intensity and innovation. We demonstrate that modeling this regional heterogeneity in a spatial panel setting is a crucial condition for identifying the positive agglomeration effects of (un)related variety on regional growth. The outcomes hav