Application of rules or policies in the ECB? Legal and institutional challenges impacting the climate transition

The paper argues that the ECB is far less an independent institution as Treaty provisions portray. This is due to the lack of institutional alternatives at the EU level to effectively and rapidly deal with complex situations make it the only credible solution, even if very imperfect. This state of affairs does not allow a comparative institutional analysis to be conducted, which is crucial to good public policy decisions. Significantly, the ECB has experienced two different periods: a frictionless and a complex one.The latter has been characterized by increasing monetary policy alignment with the European Council’s political decisions, having materialized in intervention in Member States’ bond markets during the financial and covid-19 crises. The overrelianceon the ECB has recently been consolidated, as it decided to address the issue of climate change from a monetary standpoint in order to speed up the climate transition. However, this trend may not be consistent with its primary mandate of maintaining price stability and, in different ways, may hinder its independence.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Next Generation EU and the balancing of economic union through horizontalisation

The EU has developed a vertical relation with its Member States on economic and monetary policies as well as national parliaments. Next Generation EU arguably breaks with this verticalisation, by shifting the focus of the political process from Member State-coordination to EU-led fiscal funding. Facing complex events, such as the covid-19 pandemic and the current security and energy crises, the limits of inter-State coordination became clear. However, NGEU also represents continuity, as verticalisation endures, therefore blurring the transnational nature of the programme. In addition, NGEU pales in comparison with the US response to the pandemic. EU citizens increasingly demand Union-wide policies. However, Member States are not capable of delivering in the European Council, given that Heads of State or Government’s democratic mandate favour the adoption of policies with an eminent national nature. Hence, this participation mismatch needs to be addressed in order to better reflect majoritarian preferences over minoritarian bias as shown in the EU budgetary sagas on juste retour. Therefore, this paper argues that direct taxation of EU citizens is the least imperfect way to achieve it.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Balancing the relationship between the Union and Member States through the market process

There are mainly two paths to fiscal discipline within a federation or within a monetary union: either through markets or through hierarchy. By establishing the no-bailout clause, the Stability and Growth Pact and the Excessive Deficit Procedure, it was thought that the Maastricht Treaty had chosen market mechanisms to achieve that objective. However, the financial crisis showed the severe shortcomings of the model, marking a shift towards surveillance. This article argues that such failure was not due to the market mechanism but by flawed institutional choices. By establishing a procedure for fiscal adjustment, Member States cast doubt on the credibility of the no-bail out clause and took matters into the political realm. As a result, the political process was at the forefront since inception. There are several ways to deliver a certain social goal. Accordingly, goal choice and institutional choice are inextricably linked because it is the institutional choice which connects goals with their legal or public policy results. Importantly, to choose the best avenue comparative institutional analysis needs to be conducted. After briefly considering the political process, this article purports that other processes should be fully explored. When addressing the financial crisis in multi-level governance, some alternatives have already been employed: state default and supranational bailout. Within the EMU, no State has defaulted on its debt obligations prior to receiving a bailout. However, there is room to explore an option that would be based on market mechanisms with judicial elements while reducing dependence on the political process in the long-term: allowing Member States to orderly default on their debts. The article discusses its main problems, constitutional admissibility and democratic necessity.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Competências profissionais no âmbito da prevenção e do tratamento do tabagismo no final da formação pré-graduada dos profissionais de saúde: Estudo de avaliação com os cursos de formação em ciências farmacêuticas, enfermagem, medicina e medicina dentária – Sumário Executivo.

Este documento é o resultado de um estudo de avaliação das competências profissionais no âmbito da prevenção e do tratamento do tabagismo no final da formação pré-graduada dos cursos de Ciências Farmacêuticas, Enfermagem, Medicina e Medicina Dentária. Principais conclusões? 1 - Elevadas prevalências de tabagismo; 2 - Atitudes positivas relativamente ao controlo do tabaco; 3 - Um nível razoável de conscientização sobre as políticas de não fumador nos espaços das práticas letivas e clínicas; 4 - Um alinhamento com o quadro teórico e concetual sobre as temáticas da prevenção e do tratamento do tabagismo, assim como acerca do papel dos profissionais de saúde neste domínio; 5 - Limitadas competências de intervenção ao nível da prevenção e do tratamento do tabagismo; 6 - Necessária introdução de um conjunto de temas teóricos e práticos na formação académica destes profissionais, percecionados como omissos, que suportem o seu pensamento e as suas decisões na atual no domínio do tabagismo

Uma proposta de formação em serviço de professores em interculturalidade para acompanhar estudantes imigrantes

O quadro teórico desta contribuição baseia-se em estudos de migrações, no paradigma das novas mobilidades, nos contributos da educação intercultural crítica e do multiculturalismo, e na aprendizagem colaborativa. Este texto discute o aumento da migração e da diversidade cultural e consequente o desenvolvimento da educação intercultural no contexto espanhol. Esta situação representa o grande desafio da formação de professores para a promoção de uma educação intercultural inclusiva e crítica. O texto está estruturado em torno das contribuições do projeto europeu Quammelot, que desenvolveu pesquisa, intervenção, formação e boas práticas sobre inclusão educacional e social de estudantes imigrantes e Menores Estrangeiros Desacompanhados, com um foco específico no sistema educacional, na faixa etária de 12 a 18 anos, e nas relações entre escolas, população imigrante e território. O artigo oferece uma revisão da literatura sobre a inclusão de estudantes imigrantes e menores imigrantes nas escolas secundárias. Posteriormente, é apresentada a metodologia inovadora do projeto, descrevendo o curso online destinado aos professores do ensino médio. Finalmente, são comentadas as contribuições do projeto sobre cooperação transnacional, inovação na educação formal, melhoria da formação de professores e visibilidade das necessidades dos atores educacionais sobre inclusão e diversidade

SARS-CoV-2 introductions and early dynamics of the epidemic in Portugal

Genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal was rapidly implemented by the National Institute of Health in the early stages of the COVID-19 epidemic, in collaboration with more than 50 laboratories distributed nationwide. Methods By applying recent phylodynamic models that allow integration of individual-based travel history, we reconstructed and characterized the spatio-temporal dynamics of SARSCoV-2 introductions and early dissemination in Portugal. Results We detected at least 277 independent SARS-CoV-2 introductions, mostly from European countries (namely the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Italy, and Switzerland), which were consistent with the countries with the highest connectivity with Portugal. Although most introductions were estimated to have occurred during early March 2020, it is likely that SARS-CoV-2 was silently circulating in Portugal throughout February, before the first cases were confirmed. Conclusions Here we conclude that the earlier implementation of measures could have minimized the number of introductions and subsequent virus expansion in Portugal. This study lays the foundation for genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal, and highlights the need for systematic and geographically-representative genomic surveillance.We gratefully acknowledge to Sara Hill and Nuno Faria (University of Oxford) and Joshua Quick and Nick Loman (University of Birmingham) for kindly providing us with the initial sets of Artic Network primers for NGS; Rafael Mamede (MRamirez team, IMM, Lisbon) for developing and sharing a bioinformatics script for sequence curation (https://github.com/rfm-targa/BioinfUtils); Philippe Lemey (KU Leuven) for providing guidance on the implementation of the phylodynamic models; Joshua L. Cherry (National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health) for providing guidance with the subsampling strategies; and all authors, originating and submitting laboratories who have contributed genome data on GISAID (https://www.gisaid.org/) on which part of this research is based. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the view of the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Health and Human Services, or the United States government. This study is co-funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia and Agência de Investigação Clínica e Inovação Biomédica (234_596874175) on behalf of the Research 4 COVID-19 call. Some infrastructural resources used in this study come from the GenomePT project (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-022184), supported by COMPETE 2020 - Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation (POCI), Lisboa Portugal Regional Operational Programme (Lisboa2020), Algarve Portugal Regional Operational Programme (CRESC Algarve2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Cuidados biomédicos de saúde em Angola e na Companhia de Diamantes de Angola, c. 1910-1970

Pretende-se caracterizar a prestação de cuidados biomédicos em Angola durante a atividade da Companhia de Diamantes de Angola. Uma análise comparativa de políticas e práticas de saúde pública de vários atores coloniais, como os serviços de saúde da Companhia, sua congénere do Estado e outras empresas coloniais, revelará diferenças de investimento na saúde, isto é, instalações e pessoal de saúde, e tratamentos. Este escrutínio bem como as condições de vida iluminarão o carácter idiossincrático e central dos serviços de saúde da Companhia em termos de morbimortalidade em Angola, e a centralidade destes para as representações de um império cuidador

Judicialization of economic and monetary union: between a rock and a soft place?

The European Central Bank has been active since the sovereign debt crisis that struck European Union Member States by putting in place several asset-purchasing programmes such as Outright Monetary Transactions and Public Sector Purchase Programme. As much as these decisions have proven the pivotal importance of this institution within the monetary union, they have also spurred controversy on potentially having exceeded the competences attributed to the Union. The german federal constitutional court heard challenges to both and requested the Court of Justice to decide on their validity within the framework of a preliminary ruling. The decision of the former court to declare the Public Sector Purchase Programme ultra vires -in this way countering the preliminary ruling decision- as well as its argumentation could produce many institutional consequences to both the European Central Bank and Court of Justice of the European Union. Finally, it has shown the limits of European Union integration and will inevitably propel discussions on which way to go in the future: It is time for this discussion to come out from courtrooms into the public sphere.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Genomic detection of a virus lineage replacement event of dengue virus serotype 2 in Brazil, 2019

Zika virus (ZIKV) has caused an explosive epidemic linked to severe clinical outcomes in the Americas. As of June 2018, 4,929 ZIKV suspected infections and 46 congenital syndrome cases had been reported in Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil. Although Manaus is a key demographic hub in the Amazon region, little is known about the ZIKV epidemic there, in terms of both transmission and viral genetic diversity. Using portable virus genome sequencing, we generated 59 ZIKV genomes in Manaus. Phylogenetic analyses indicated multiple introductions of ZIKV from northeastern Brazil to Manaus. Spatial genomic analysis of virus movement among six areas in Manaus suggested that populous northern neighborhoods acted as sources of virus transmission to other neighborhoods. Our study revealed how the ZIKV epidemic was ignited and maintained within the largest urban metropolis in the Amazon. These results might contribute to improving the public health response to outbreaks in Brazil