Beyond Foreign Policy? EU Sanctions at the Intersection of Development, Trade, and CFSP

In the wake of unsettling conflicts and democratic backsliding, states and organisations increasingly respond with sanctions. The European Union (EU) is one of them: Brussels makes use of the entire toolbox in its foreign policy, and its sanctions appear in different forms - diplomatic measures, travel bans, financial bans, or various forms of economic restrictions. Yet, there is little debate between different strands in the literature on EU sanctions, in particular concerning measures under the Common Foreign and Security Policy and those pertaining to the development and trade policy fields. Our thematic issue addresses this research gap by assembling a collection of articles investigating the design, impact, and implementation of EU sanctions used in different realms of its external affairs. Expanding the definition of EU sanctions to measures produced under different guises in the development, trade, and foreign policy fields, the collection overcomes the compartmentalised approach characterising EU scholarship

The European Parliament as a driving force of constitutionalisation

Study for the AFCO CommiteeThis report analyses the increasing role played by the European Parliament (EP) in the EU decision-making process. In the first part (Sections 2, 3, 4 and 5), it describes how the EP acquired more power in legislation, comitology, in the appointment of the European Commission and in the budgetary field. In the second part (Sections 6 and 7), the report illustrates the EP’s role in two relevant policy fields: economic governance and external trade agreements. The report demonstrates that EP’s formal and informal powers in legislation, comitology, Commission investiture, the budgetary process, economic governance and international agreements have increased strikingly since the Treaty of Rome. This empowerment is partially explained by the concern for democratic legitimacy on the part of some member states’ (and the Commission). To another important part the empowerment may be explained by the fact that treaties frequently contain ambiguous provisions and thus allow room for informal rules to emerge through bargaining specifying the details of treaty provisions

The Resource Curse and Rentier States in the Caspian Region : A Need for Context Analysis

Although much attention is paid to the Caspian region with regard to energy issues, the domestic consequences of the region’s resource production have so far constituted a neglected field of research. A systematic survey of the latest research trends in the economic and political causalities of the resource curse and of rentier states reveals that there is a need for context analysis. In reference to this, the paper traces any shortcomings and promising approaches in the existent body of literature on the Caspian region. Following on from this, the paper then proposes a new approach; specifically, one in which any differences and similarities in the context conditions are captured. This enables a more precise exploration of the exact ways in which they form contemporary post-Soviet Caspian rentier states.Obwohl der Region am Kaspischen Meer im Zuge von Energiediskursen große Aufmerksamkeit zuteil wird, stellen die innerstaatlichen Folgen der Ressourcenproduktion in der Region ein bislang vernachlässigtes Forschungsfeld dar. Ein systematischer Überblick über die jüngsten Forschungstrends zu wirtschaftlichen und politischen Kausalzusammenhängen des Ressourcenfluchs und zu Rentierstaaten offenbart die Notwendigkeit von Kontextanalysen. Hierauf Bezug nehmend, analysiert der Aufsatz sowohl die Mängel als auch viel versprechende Ansätze in der betreffenden Literatur zur Region am Kaspischen Meer. Der Aufsatz stellt letztendlich einen neuen Ansatz vor, der Unterschiede und Gemeinsamkeiten in den Kontextbedingungen erfasst, um zu erforschen, wie diese die gegenwärtigen post-sowjetischen Rentierstaaten in der Region am Kaspischen Meer tatsächlich prägen

TRIM27 Negatively Regulates NOD2 by Ubiquitination and Proteasomal Degradation

NOD2, the nucleotide-binding domain and leucine-rich repeat containing gene family (NLR) member 2 is involved in mediating antimicrobial responses. Dysfunctional NOD2 activity can lead to severe inflammatory disorders, but the regulation of NOD2 is still poorly understood. Recently, proteins of the tripartite motif (TRIM) protein family have emerged as regulators of innate immune responses by acting as E3 ubiquitin ligases. We identified TRIM27 as a new specific binding partner for NOD2. We show that NOD2 physically interacts with TRIM27 via the nucleotide-binding domain, and that NOD2 activation enhances this interaction. Dependent on functional TRIM27, ectopically expressed NOD2 is ubiquitinated with K48-linked ubiquitin chains followed by proteasomal degradation. Accordingly, TRIM27 affects NOD2-mediated pro-inflammatory responses. NOD2 mutations are linked to susceptibility to Crohns disease. We found that TRIM27 expression is increased in Crohns disease patients, underscoring a physiological role of TRIM27 in regulating NOD2 signaling. In HeLa cells, TRIM27 is partially localized in the nucleus. We revealed that ectopically expressed NOD2 can shuttle to the nucleus in a Walker A dependent manner, suggesting that NOD2 and TRIM27 might functionally cooperate in the nucleus. We conclude that TRIM27 negatively regulates NOD2-mediated signaling by degradation of NOD2 and suggest that TRIM27 could be a new target for therapeutic intervention in NOD2-associated diseases.Funding Agencies|German Research Foundation (DFG)|SFB670-NG01|Swedish Society of Medicine||Regional Research Council of South-East Sweden (FORSS)||Swedish Research Council division of Medicine||Gustav V 90th anniversary foundation||Italian Telethon Foundation||DFG|SE 1122/2-1|</p

The time has come to look at Brazil : the EU’s shift from interregional negotiations with MERCOSUR to a bilateral Strategic Partnership with Brazil

In 2007, the EU launched a Strategic Partnership with Brazil despite the EU’s commitment to multilateralism and despite the long-lasting interregional relationship between the EU and MERCOSUR since 1995. By singling out Brazil, the EU shifted from the EU-MERCOSUR interregional negotiations on an Association Agreement (1999-2004) to a bilateral track. In view of the EU’s inconsistency in multilateral, interregional, and bilateral approaches towards South America, the paper will analyze why the EU shifted to a Strategic Partnership, and it will compare the interregional negotiations (1999-2004) with the bilateral talks with Brazil (since 2007). The comparative analysis will rely on original data from 29 semi-structured elite interviews conducted in Brussels, Belgium, and Montevideo, Uruguay, and on grey literature and the news portal Mercopress. The paper argues that the EU switched from interregional to bilateral talks because it feared losing Brazil to its competitors, the U.S. and China. In its endeavor to prevent this loss, when interregional negotiations seemed fruitless because of MERCOSUR’s increasing fragmentation, the EU privileged Brazil as a strategic partner. Although the EU has committed itself to supporting regional integration in South America, material interests have sidelined this commitment. This paper looks at these – to date little studied – material interests that have rendered the EU’s foreign policy towards developing regions vulnerable to international factors

Competing for economic power : South America, Southeast Asia, and commercial realism in European Union foreign policy

Defence date: 13 June 2016Examining Board: Professor Adrienne Héritier, EUI (Supervisor); Professor Ulrich Krotz, EUI/RSCAS; Professor Alberta M. Sbragia, University of Pittsburgh; Professor Eugénia da Conceição-Heldt, TU Dresden.Since 2006, the European Union (EU) has increasingly made use of bilateral trade relations, and thus departed from its earlier commitment to interregionalism and multilateralism. Two examples for this are the EU's shift from interregional to bilateral relations with the Mercado Común del Sur (MERCOSUR) and its regional power, Brazil, and with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its economically most important member Singapore. This turn to bilateralism is particularly puzzling in the cases of MERCOSUR and ASEAN because of the EU's long-lasting relationship with these regional organizations and because of the EU's financial support for their regional integration. Drawing on realist theorizing, this turn to bilateralism can best be explained by the EU's motivation to secure its economic and regulatory power in South America and Southeast Asia, and by the regions' varying levels of cohesion. Factors rooted in the international system rather than inner-institutional characteristics have shaped the EU's trade policy which calls the explanatory power of liberal approaches into question. Testing an alternative theoretical model coined commercial realism against commercial liberalism and the principal-agent framework, the analysis sets out the scope condition of theorizing and analyzing EU external economic policy from a realist perspective. Employing original data from 165 media press articles, 48 standardized interviews from a survey by Dür and De Bièvre (2007), 44 standardized interviews from an original survey with interest groups enrolled in the Civil Society Dialogue, 66 consultation sheets of the European Commission's consultation on EU future trade policy, and 46 elite interviews, this thesis analyzes the EU's recent switch in approach in a comparative fashion. A combination of primary and secondary cases, triangulation of data and methods, and a combination of research strategies, including rigorous process-tracing, maximizes the research design's external and internal validity

Has interregionalism failed? : the EU-ASEAN negotiations

Este ensayo analiza por qué la Unión Europea y la Asociación de Naciones del Sudeste Asiático (ASEAN) comenzaron negociaciones para el libre comercio interregional en 2007 y por qué, y hasta qué punto, estas fracasaron tan solo dos años después. Para ello, la autora se basa en análisis de documentos y en entrevistas semiestructuradas a altos funcionarios de la UE y de estados miembros de la ASEAN; y se fundamenta en un enfoque realista clásico, que sostiene que la UE intentó asegurar su poder económico y normativo en la región. El interregionalismo parecía, inicialmente, el camino más lógico, ya que la UE percibía a la ASEAN como un bloque cohesionado. No obstante, la UE chocó con la heterogeneidad manifiesta de los estados de la ASEAN. El fracaso de la estrategia interregional es un resultado del delicado equilibrio de la UE entre los intereses políticos y económicos en el Sureste Asiático.This essay analyses why the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) began negotiations on free interregional trade in 2007 and why, and to what extent, they had failed just two years later. The author’s study is based on document analysis and semi-structured interviews with senior officials in the EU and the ASEAN member states and takes a classical realist approach which maintains that the EU was attempting to ensure its economic and regulatory power in the region. Interregionalism seemed, initially, to be the most logical path, with the EU seeing ASEAN as a cohesive bloc. Nevertheless, the EU came up against the manifest heterogeneity of the ASEAN states. The failure of the interregional strategy is the result of a delicate balance in the EU between political and economic interests in Southeast Asia, a balance that it pursues through specific commercial activities

A case of failed interregionalism? : analyzing the EU-ASEAN free trade agreement negotiations

In 2007, the European Union (EU) and the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) started interregional negotiations on a free trade agreement, which failed 2 years later. Relying on document analysis and elite interviews with officials from the EU and ASEAN's members, this article addresses why and the extent to which the interregional negotiations failed. By rooting the theoretical model in a power-based approach, the analysis demonstrates that the EU has attempted to secure its economic and regulatory power in Southeast Asia. In striving for such power, interregionalism was initially the intuitive way because the EU perceived ASEAN as a cohesive bloc. However, the EU's ambitious vision for comprehensive agreements clashed with the actual heterogeneity of ASEAN member states. The failure of the interregional approach is, thus, a result of the EU's delicate balance between political and economic interests in Southeast Asia, which it pursues with trade-specific issues