The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki is dynamically participating in the “Study in Greece” campaign whose aim is to bring international students closer to Greece, by offering challenging and innovative fully English-taught programs (both undergraduate and postgraduate) in a variety of disciplines. The initiative is supported by the General Secretariat of Higher Education of the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs and the General Secretariat for Greeks Abroad and Public Diplomacy of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Among others, special mention should be made to the “European Public Diplomacy” course, the first to be taught in a Greek university at postgraduate level, forming an important part of the School of Journalism and Mass Communications Department’s English language Master’s program on “Digital Media, Communication and Journalism”, especially for the second pathway/specialization on “European Journalism”.

Greek News Agenda⃰ spoke to the program’s Director and Holder of Jean Monnet Chair since 2016, Professor of International Relations Christos Frangonikolopoulos** who gave an insight on the program’s learning objectives and comparative advantages. Professor Frangonikolopoulos also shared his perspective on Greece’s 40 years course in the EU and the EU’s role in a changing world, thus contributing to the public dialogue that was recently launched in Greece and throughout Europe, in the framework of the Conference on the Future of Europe.

Why should a potential student choose the Aristotle University's MA program on “Digital Media, Communication and Journalism”? What are its comparative advantages, taking into consideration the plethora of similar study programs around the world?

The School of Journalism and Mass Communications has in recent years repeatedly featured among the top 50 Media/Communications Schools of Europe and is a member of the European Journalism Teaching Association. Its English-taught MA program builds on its 25-year long experience in training international students in its tailor-made English-taught program for Erasmus students. Above all, it is based on the School’s 30 year-long success in promoting learning through theory-building, cutting edge technical skills, and professional training, and reflects its steadfast commitment to innovation, excellence, interdisciplinary education, and international outlook.

What makes our Master’s program relevant is the consistent integration of the students' study, skills, and projects to the real world. Innovation and thoughtfulness have always been the only route for students, but I can’t think of a more critical time than now, in our highly complex, risk-ridden, globalized, and networked societies, for all thinking to become more methodical, reflexive, and innovative. We look for students who are eager to take on more challenges, to learn more about themselves and about the world, to reach their full potential. Our faculty, all active scholars and researchers, are committed to helping students succeed in their pursuits. Together we work to make each student’s experience at Aristotle University a rich and fulfilling one that broadens his or her intellectual and professional horizons.

You have been awarded twice a Jean Monnet Chair on European Journalism Integration (2016-2019) and European Public Diplomacy (2020-23). Could you provide insight into the Jean Monnet Chair on European Public Diplomacy, regarding the learning objectives of the course and/or other activities planned as part of this prestigious position?

During the last decade, the European Union is often misunderstood and seen in negative terms. The crisis of the Eurozone, the refugee crisis, and the Covid-19 pandemic, exacerbated the criticism on the usefulness of European integration, contributing to the development of a significant gap between what the EU has accomplished and how the wider public, internally and externally perceives it. In fact, given that most of the complex and interlinked crises that trouble the EU have not been resolved, the EU and its members are not only characterized by fragmentation, distrust, increased divergence, social and political cleavages, but also by the inability to fairly balance national interests and frustration with today’s Union.

Bearing that in mind, the Chair on European Union Public Diplomacy has launched a teaching and research program exploring and identifying how to use Public Diplomacy to increase connections and shape perceptions in and outside the EU. The Chair is addressed mainly to the School’s undergraduate and postgraduate students but is also open to students of other Departments of the University.Τhe Chair focuses not only on theoretical issues or descriptive accounts of EU PD, but also pays attention to practical issues and skills that are in short supply.

Through publications, workshops, seminars, and conferences, the Chair brings together students, academics, journalists, and civil society representatives to (a) investigate the role of the media and civil society in contemporary and future EU PD, (b) discuss and explore how to reshape EUPD through regular and informed public dialogue, (c) explore how EUPD can invest in analysis, synthesis and dissemination by creating hubs for discussion, argumentation, counter-argumentation and feedback, (d) develop a reflective process that helps to understand the shortcomings and deficiencies of EU policies, and (e) explore how PD can be expanded to become the means for the improvement of the EU’s domestic and foreign policies.

The past decade has seen major and unprecedented shifts in international politics. In your view, where does Europe stand, today, in a changing world?

The EU has championed multilateralism as the core of its approach to global politics. However, not only do member states disagree on global security and foreign policy issues, but the EU also has to face challenges to the basic philosophy and practices of the international liberal order, like those posed by Russia, China, and populist leaders such as Trump. The EU appears to be vulnerable and weak in the “battle of narratives” regarding the global order. Both China and Russia have stepped up their interference in Europe and its neighborhood to attempt to portray the EU – and democratic systems more generally – as too weak and too slow to contain the pandemic. These efforts fall on fertile ground as the financial crisis, the political controversies sparked by large-scale migration, and the covid-19 pandemic have shaken the core of public confidence. This reality, however, should also provide the opportunity for the EU to work towards a global order that is in line with its strategic interests. This requires not only working on strengthening multilateralism but also on policies that allow the EU to provide stability in its wider periphery, to uphold and protect global trade, to deal more effectively with migration, and to set global standards for emerging technologies.

Pandemics, in particular, have traditionally had a pronounced effect on world politics. From your perspective, what are the main challenges lying ahead for the EU in the post-covid19 era?

The covid-19 pandemic has clearly demonstrated that interdependence is and will remain a central pillar of global politics and European integration. More and enhanced cooperation among member states, citizens, and the institutions of the EU will facilitate a debate and effort to apply higher standards for the protection of the environment and other global public goods (such as human rights, human security, public health). In a world where the borders between what can be defined and understood as foreign and domestic policy are very difficult, the EU with its economic power and global regulatory powers is not only in a position to deal with today’s most urgent challenges but is also in a position to develop an extrovert and outward strategy.

The Conference on the Future of Europe was recently launched. What is to expect from this promising initiative?

The Conference on the Future of Europe underlines that the success of the EU will not only depend on its ability to enhance its engagement in global politics, but also on its ability to reinvent its democratic processes. The EU’s problem in trying to convince, internally and externally, about its positions/policies, is not only related to the content, but also to the way the institutions communicate the content. Its strategic communication is mainly one-sided, focused mainly on the need to provide information. Rationality and promises of a positive future do not sell. And rightly so, as the deep economic, social, and technological transformations of the 21st-century touch on and are related with sensitive questions of identity and community. If the EU desires to assist its citizens to adapt to a rapidly changing world, it can only resolve this disconnection by facilitating support for difficult and collective political decisions.

Greater benefits can be reaped if a discursive approach to political debate and participation is employed. The political debate needs to focus on the principal issues of global politics and engage the public in an open debate, with the aim to communicate standpoints, but also listen and reply to potential counter-arguments and, in some cases, even incorporate some of them into final policies. In the absence of discursive procedures, policies are not thoroughly explicated, and there is an accountability, transparency, and integrity deficit that makes EU politics more obscure and problematic. Discursive procedures can be helpful in three directions: (a) getting across to the broad public arguments and ideas, (b) gaining a deep mutual understanding through the study of the perspectives, and (c) receiving potentially helpful insights.

The use of new technologies can be very helpful in the conduct of such strategic discursive processes in a number of ways. The creation of official sites sponsored fora where citizens of the EU can express their opinions and comments and ask critical questions that will receive replies is one option. Second, online interviews with officials can be organized. This way, citizens would see their queries answered and official policies fully explained. These initiatives could bear several positive effects: (a) they are by themselves a trust-building measure, (b) they allow dialogue to flourish, and (c) shortcomings and contradictions of current policies can be spotted and scrutinized; officials can learn by the exchange of ideas, which may lead to the improvement of policies. At the same time, the governments and institutions of the EU should co-operate closely with NGOs and academic institutions whose activities center on these issues. Creating open access networks of dialogue amongst member states, the institutions of the EU, NGOs, and the public is conducive to profound discursive processes that can help the definition and framing of the parameters of the problem and the designation and implementation of responding policies. In a nutshell, discursive public procedures are an indispensable foreign policy tool for the twenty-first century. They aim to adjust to the changes that have taken place in the international system in the last decades and focus on addressing the public and creating solid partnerships with the less appreciated and reckoned with global actors, the citizens of the EU.

2021 marks the 40th anniversary of Greece’s accession to the EU family. In your opinion, what is the particular relationship between Greece and Europe; what were the main lessons learned so far - what are the ways forward and prospects ahead?  

Greece’s relation and position towards the EEC/EU is complex characterized by many fluctuations and contradictions, determined by internal political developments, the strategies, and perceptions of political leaders, as well as the trends or transformations of European politics. Beginning in the 1970s, when Greece applied for membership in the EEC, a strong anti-European narrative developed, which projected the country as a “victim” of the periphery. This narrative did not succeed in becoming dominant. Following the end of the Cold War, and despite the growing support to a conservative anti-Western/anti-European position expressed by a group of religious/political figures in the 1990s, 60+% of Greek society supported Greece’s participation in the EU. This pro-European position was associated with the economic development, increasing consumption, and affluence that was made possible with the funds injected into the Greek economy by the EU. The debt crisis changed this condition. By 2014, according to the Eurobarometer, only 33% viewed Greece’s participation in the EU positively. It was only in 2019 that support for the EU returned to the level of the previous decades. The vast majority of Greeks, however, maintained that the bailouts damaged, rather than helped the country’s growth and that Greece could have overcome the crisis on its own, without aid from Europe. What does this indicate? It indicates that perceptions of the EU are ambivalent and cautious. This becomes all the more important when considering that the consequences of the pandemic may end up in consolidating new cleavages, with tremendous repercussions, within the political system and society of Greece.

It is clear that Greece can no longer afford to move forward with such misconceptions. Especially, when considering the challenges facing the EU, as well as the debate on the future of the EU. To do so Greece needs to: [1] to recognize its position within the EE as well as the contribution of the EU to its development, (b) decide how the country will deal, comprehend and interpret its past and the contradictions associated with the dominant “underdog” political culture, (c) decide how identity conceptions and roles within the EU must be redefined in light of new regional and global problems. The Prespes Agreement and the resolution of the conflict with Northern Macedonia indicate that Greece desires to emerge and operate as a pillar of stability and cooperation for the EU. A powerful and stable Greece requires a powerful and stable EU. Greece should invest in a strong and cohesive EU, emphasizing the need for: (a) the further integration of the economic and financial union, (b) the enhancement of the EU’s social policies, (c) the promotion of a more cohesive European defense policy, (d) the promotion of a more complete migration/refugee strategy, with emphasis on fairer allocation and the adoption of a common asylum system, (e) the treatment of the democratic deficit and (f) the revision of the Treaties and their replacement with a single constitutional treaty that is understandable by the citizens of the EU.

*Interview by Eleftheria Spiliotakopoulou

**Christos Frangonikolopoulos studied Politics and Government (BA Honors) and International Relations (PhD) at the University of Kent at Canterbury (England). He has worked as a diplomatic newspaper correspondent (1995-2003) and advisor to the Greek Parliament (1997-2003). In 2004-05 he also worked for public television. He combines a significant research output with practical experience. His research interests and teaching have an interdisciplinary character, combining international relations and European Integration with European Journalism. He has published, co-published, edited, and co-edited ten (10) books in Greece and abroad, and academic articles in over 40 edited books and peer-reviewed journals.

Professor Frangonikolopoulos is a Holder of Jean Monnet Chair since 2016. Jean Monnet Chairs are awarded through a highly competitive process by the European Commission through the EU’s Erasmus+ program. The position is awarded based on promoting excellence in teaching and research on EU studies, fostering debate around European issues, encouraging active citizenship, and disseminating knowledge to the wider public, critically and objectively.

MA on “Digital Media, Communication and Journalism” AT A GLANCE

See also on GNA:

• Study in Greece: International Master's Programs taught in English or visit the “Study in Greece” portal
• 40 years of Greece's membership in the EU
• Quo Vadis Europa past interviews

For more info about the Conference on the Future of Europe:

• Visit the EU’s official micro-site, and the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ specially designated digital platform, Facebook page, and Twitter account.
• Read also, the Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs Miltiadis Varvitsiotis’ address at the celebration for the 40 years of Greece – EU and the Conference on the Future of Europe (Zappeion, Athens 27.05.2021).

E.S.

The post Quo Vadis Europa | International Relations Professor Christos Frangonikolopoulos on Jean Monnet Chair, Greece’s 40 years course in the EU and the Future of Europe appeared first on Greek News Agenda.

Xenophon Contiades is Professor of Public Law at Panteion University and Managing Director of the Centre for European Constitutional Law (CECL) - Themistocles & Dimitris Tsatsos Foundation in Athens. He also teaches at the Hellenic Open University. His research areas include constitutional law, fundamental rights, social rights, health rights and policies, and also disability rights and rights of vulnerable groups.

His publications include 23 books in public law, comparative constitutional law and social security law, over 130 articles in Greek, English, German and Italian in the fields of public law, comparative constitutional law, social security law and EU law. He has participated as scientific director, researcher or expert in numerous European or national research programmes and on institution building projects in third countries in the sectors of public law, public policy, social law and health policies.

Our sister publication GreceHebdo* interviewed Xenophon Contiades on the occasion of the recent publication of his book Pandemic, biopolitics and rights. The world after Covid-19 (Kastaniotis editions, May 2020), which also coincided with the Greek Chairmanship of the Council of Europe (May-November 2020), which has placed its focus on human rights, the principles of democracy and the rule of law in the context of the pandemic. In his interview, Contiades talked about the biopolitics of the pandemic, the search for a balance between the protection of public health and of human rights, as well as the future of the welfare state.

The response to the Covid-19 pandemic poses a challenge to human rights. How can the risk of a permanent state of emergency be avoided?

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused the most serious backsliding on human rights in Western democratic societies since WWII. The virus’s high contagiousness and lack of preparedness of the healthcare systems, which were caught off-guard and were unable to suppress its spread, led to the gradual adoption of social distancing measures in most countries worldwide. We also witnessed the introduction of policies aiming at enhancing the healthcare system and supporting the economy, which also infringed on individual and group rights.

The measures and policies formulated at the behest of the World Health Organisation, the relevant advisory bodies, epidemiologists and public health experts, took the form of a state of emergency or martial law with the concomitant suspension of a number of rights, despite the fact that in most countries these rights were restricted by laws or other legal instruments issued by the governments to be used in cases of urgent and unpredictable necessity. Moreover, certain countries effectuated article 15 of the European Convention on Human Rights, suspending the exercise of certain rights under the excuse of a menace to public health, in order to take measures which contravene their obligations under that same Convention. 

In a number of countries, governments used the sanitary crisis as a pretext to claim excessive powers. Such is the case of Hungary, where the illiberal regime of Prime Minister Viktor Orban declared an indefinite state of emergency in the country, allowed the premier to rule by decree and introduced prison sentences for spreading false information, in violation of the freedom of expression and of the Press.

The Council of Europe has (on 7 April 2020) issued a "toolkit" for governments across Europe on respecting human rights, democracy and the rule of law during the health crisis. As far as constitutional guarantees are concerned, it is important that the mechanisms put in place to combat the pandemic be lifted once the health crisis no longer poses a threat. The temporary nature of the adopted measures is one of the foremost factors considered by courts in determining their constitutionality. 

Regarding the subject of biopolitics of the pandemic -in the foucauldian sense of the term, as you discuss it in your book- how could democracies reach a balance between politics and technical/scientific expertise?

The management of the pandemic poses a serious test for the citizens’ trust in political authorities. The incorporation of the technocratic-sanitary discourse in political decisions as a means to face the pandemic is a sensible choice, but does also reflect a credibility crisis in politics.

The depoliticisation of government decisions and their technocratic legitimation are not the sole result of the health crisis; they have actually been in progress for decades as part of post-democratic transformations. In a state of pandemic, biopolitical regulations are founded on a de-ideologised technocratic discourse.

Thus, in post-democracy, biopolitical regulations to combat the pandemic are developed without allowing for divergence from technocratic discourse. After all, the Heads of State who ignored the guidelines of epidemiologists and public health experts, e.g. Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and Jair Bolsonaro, suffered a massive political blow and, most importantly, negatively affected health conditions with their decisions.

In the face of a health crisis, technocratic legitimation of biopolitical regulations is regarded as the obvious choice. Political conflicts thus focus on the relation between biological life and politics, which sets the context for biopolitical regulations worldwide.

In recent years, surveillance and tracing technology are taking on global dimensions. What are, in your view, the biggest threats in the era of a global "Panopticon"?

The transition from traditional electronic surveillance, aiming to fight crime, to a new era, where biometric surveillance will eventually allow the detection of every citizen’s psychological reactions in the name of public health, would represent a shift of historical proportions. In a world where biometric surveillance would be used in the context of specific events, revealing the psychological reactions of the surveilled, the Cambridge Analytica data breach method would look like an obsolete, unsophisticated device.

Privacy violation through biometric surveillance, justified by fear of the pandemic spreading, is likely to be tolerated by late modern societies, when the primordial is reintroduced and systematically cultivated, legitimising "state terrorism" through a manufactured reality.

Just like after 9/11 serious restrictions of civil liberties, especially with regards to privacy and the rights of the accused, were founded on the prioritisation of public safety, we can say that the date of 11 March 2020 -when the pandemic was declared- may similarly serve as a benchmark for the introduction of a new biopolitical paradigm, one of suffocating surveillance of personal beliefs and social behaviours, next to which the human rights infringements of the post-9/11 period would look insignificant.

The pandemic reinstated the central role of the state in dealing with public health issues. How could the Covid-19 outbreak affect the future of the welfare state in Europe?

The most obvious change in work practices brought about by the pandemic was telecommuting, in its various forms. But at the same time, it resulted in tens of millions of layoffs and involuntary furloughs around the world, increasing insecurity and enlarging the "precariat", the social class of those who live in a constant state of insecurity regarding their employment and social position, which includes young people in flexible forms of employment. This is the "class" that was most affected by the pandemic, which also exacerbated phenomena of social exclusion.

Working time reduction and flexibilisation, developing flexible forms of employment, funding active labour market policies, especially through the promotion access to training programmes for the unemployed, as well as through social security and tax incentives for job creation, all that represents one side of the welfare state reform. The pandemic has intensified the development of these policies.

The gradual transition from a passive welfare state to an active one is not presented as a reformist choice guarantying reliable, coherent responses to the economic viability issues of social security systems, in a way that would also ensure a satisfying level of social protection. Thus, deregulation trends continue to gain ground, requiring further privatisation and commercialisation of social services as well as a reinforcement of "employment promotion" programmes as compensation for social benefits, while in effect abandoning the demand for social solidarity.

In the face of these developments, where the welfare state is questioned in terms of its capacity to cover new social risks and to raise sufficient funds for its financing in the post-Fordist model, the pandemic raises the insecurity and pushes workers and companies to further flexibilise work relations.

In your book, you argue that the pandemic and resulting biopolitical regulations highlight as well as increase social inequalities. Could you elaborate?

The pandemic and the ensuing biopolitical regulations highlight, reproduce and exacerbate inequalities. For example, public policies on education through the use of distance learning exclude from the educational process those children who do not have access to the necessary digital media or family members with the necessary skills to support them through this process.

The reproduction of social and economic inequalities and their translation into educational inequalities are made worse by the conditions of biopolitical restraints if critically important public policies do not provide for additional measures for areas with low growth rates and for families of lower income.

The biopolitical regulations of the pandemic have also intensified gender discrimination and contributed to a sharp increase in domestic violence, reconfirming the deficiencies of public policies aimed at reconstructing gender identities, dismantling sexism and ensuring the true emancipation of women. During lockdown, sexist stereotypes, prejudices and practices of gender-based violence were intensified and exposed to their full extent.

Balancing work and family life during the pandemic proved to be a difficult task for women. The distribution of roles between the two sexes seemed to regress to past decades, confirming that the transition from superficial to actual equality calls for an inequality elimination approach to be systemically integrated into all public policies. The expansion of low-paid jobs and job precariousness create social classes on the margins of social exclusion.

To paraphrasing Sartre’s aphorism on the plague, the pandemic only exacerbates the sense of social injustice: it crushes the miserable, and spares the rich. Of course, the most striking inequality is manifested in the circumstances of confinement, in terms of living space available per person, with both class and ethnic inequalities being reflected in geography of urban overcrowding.

Greece currently holds the chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe and has chosen to focus its priorities on human rights, democracy and the rule of law in the times of pandemic. What should the role of supranational entities be in addressing such social and institutional challenges?

The common origins of the pandemic, the similar health management policies and the globality of its economic and social impacts, reflected in the universal biopolitical paradigm of monitored social distancing, should inspire a new strategy for equitable world governance and enhance regional-transnational solidarity projects, such as the Council of Europe.

The pandemic has raised the pressing issue of international cooperation in the areas of health security and public health. The political demand for a "common universal public health", especially in terms of coordination of health systems and financing of pandemic prevention measures on a global level, goes hand in hand with vast changes in the management of globalization, which includes choosing which goods should qualify as "global public goods", based on the absence of competition for their consumption and the non-exclusion of potential consumers.

These goods are found mainly in the fields of environment, access to natural resources, economy, and health, which also cover the policies of prevention and combat against deadly epidemics.

* Interview by Magdalini Varoucha. Translation into English by Nefeli Mosaidi.

Read also via Greek News Agenda: “Prosperity Through Diversity”: International Virtual Conference on Human Rights in Business; Chair of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, Greek Alternate MFA Miltiadis Varvitsiotis, on the pandemic,human rights and the project for a new European Declaration to be signed in Athens by the end of 2020; Dr. Achillefs Kapanidis: "We are working on a rapid diagnostic test for SARS-CoV-2"; Greek initiatives at the EU vs Virus innovation hackathon to tackle COVID-19

The post Professor Xenophon Contiades: Human rights and the pandemic – The world after Covid-19 appeared first on Greek News Agenda.

Ntina Tzouvala is a senior research fellow at the ARC Laureate Program in International Law at the University of Melbourne. Dr Tzouvala has previously worked as a lecturer at Durham Law School, where she also completed her PhD thesis entitled “Letters of blood and fire: a socio-economic history of international law”. Her research places particular emphasis on history, theory, and the political economy of international law, while more recently her work has been focusing on the role of international law in the construction of European peripheries, the political economy of interventionism, and their lasting impact for the region. Greek News Agenda* spoke with Ntina Tzouvala on the multifaceted impact of international law on the history of the Balkans, the intertwinement of legal and economic practices, as well as more recent trends in the field of international law.

Your main body of research has focused so far on the parallel emergence of international law and the expansion of the capitalist mode of production on a global scale starting from the second half of the 19th century. Could you explain how you view this symbiotic relationship and what is the particular position of the Balkans in this historical context?

In the last two decades, international lawyers have become increasingly interested in (and concerned about) the colonial and imperial past of international law. Inspired by postcolonial studies, notably the works of Edward D. Said and Dipesh Chakrabarty, this turn has produced invaluable insights into the way international law justified and rationalised Western imperialism, but also into the fact that core doctrines and concepts of the discipline (including, ‘sovereignty’, ‘territorial integrity’ or even the notion of the ‘state’) are products of the imperial encounter and therefore carry its politics, contradictions and violence to the present day. It is my view that, in order to better understand this symbiotic relationship we also need to factor in capitalism as a truly global system of production and exchange for profit. In this respect, international law did not only (or primarily) manage cultural difference between the West and the ‘rest’ but it mediated, in very messy and complicated ways, the transformation of colonies, semi-colonies and protectorates along the lines of capitalist modernity and facilitated their incorporation into an asymmetrical global economy. The Balkans are in fact a very interesting, but largely neglected, example of this connection. It is a well-known fact that the Great Powers became actively involved in the affairs of the Ottoman Empire, a fact that was both the consequence of and an engine for the Empire’s decline. Often, liberal internationalists trace the origins of ‘humanitarian intervention’ back in the 19th-century engagement of European states with the declining Ottoman Empire. This is not necessarily a very noble genealogy, since it reveals pretty clearly the selectivity of such humanitarian sentiments, the importance of Orientalism or outright racial thinking in the shaping of this form of ‘muscular humanitarianism’ and the impossibility to distinguish between state-lend, armed compassion for the suffering of others and naked self-interest. However, what is less known is that the Great Powers deployed international legal arrangements to make sure that the transition from the Ottoman Empire to nation-states in the region would not disrupt the reproduction and profitability of foreign capital. For example, the 1878 Treaty of Berlin included important provisions that dictated that the newly independent states of Bulgaria, Montenegro, Eastern Rumelia and Serbia would assume a proportion of the Ottoman debt and/or of the Ottoman railway concessions. These provisions were tailored so as to safeguard the interests of British, French, German and Austrian capital, especially since railways constituted one-third of all foreign investments in the region. Therefore, protecting capital and safeguarding legal continuity and uniformity despite political change has been an important function of international law at least since the 19th century (another good example here is Latin America).

In what sense have racial and cultural assumptions of “civility” and “barbarism” been historically intertwined with the selective use of international law? Would you suggest we view those stereotypes in relationship with geopolitical and economic strategies?

Reading international law textbooks published before the 1960s is a supremely uncomfortable experience. This is because the vast majority of authors (even though originating outside the West, were nonetheless often educated in Western institutions or used Western sources), subscribed to the idea that peoples and political communities were divided into three categories: they were civilised, semi-civilised and uncivilised. This was not just a matter of politically incorrect language, but had direct legal consequences, since only ‘fully civilised’ states enjoyed the full range of rights and duties under international law, while the rest had their legal autonomy significantly circumscribed. For example, the imaginary of the Ottoman Empire as insufficiently civilised authorised a wide range of interventions, ranging from the exclusion of foreign merchants and missionaries from local laws to armed interventions. Even though the relationship between race and civilisation was and remains a complicated one, it is beyond doubt that racial imaginaries were inextricably linked to this civilisational ‘scale’. For example, many legal scholars were pretty open about their conviction that certain ‘races’, notable indigenous peoples in white settler colonies or black Africans, were inherently inferior and therefore, the possibility of them becoming civilised at some point was remote or only theoretical. For example, even though slavery in Africa or in Asia were condemned, and were often used as an indicator of insufficient levels of civilisation, slavery in the southern states of the US or compulsory labour in all European colonies were treated with a certain degree of deference by international lawyers, the reason of course being that this form of slavery benefited white masters, plus it was also incorporated in thoroughly modern and capitalist systems of international trade. In fact, the history of international law elucidates the fact that the history of race and racialisation cannot be properly understood unless it is ‘read’ together with the history of capitalism.

A few years ago, all this might have sounded interesting but somewhat parochial. After all, sometime during the Cold War the language of international law stopped being explicitly racist and focused on civilisational differences. However, both the ‘war on terror’ with its overt and covert islamophobia and the contemporary revival of biological racism, including its use to justify reactionary, exclusive policies, indicates that this entanglement between law, capitalism and (overt) racism is not a thing of the past. This, in turn, raises the question to what extent racial or civilisation assumptions are still part of international law, even if they remain implicit. My answer is that international law has become ‘colour-blind’ in a very particular and superficial way, while it is still complicit in the reproduction of racial hierarchies and the unequal distribution of rights, duties and resources. For example, international investment law -albeit nominally a technical, dispassionate field- has played an important role in countering efforts for economic reforms that would help diminish the racial wealth gap in post-apartheid South Africa. Moreover, the idea that certain peoples or states are inherently corrupt, violent, incompetent or weak has been central in the articulation of far-reaching exceptions to the rule that prohibits the use of force amongst states (Article 2 paragraph 4 of the United Nations Charter), which is often considered to be one of the most important rules of the post-1945 international legal order. Therefore, I think that one of the most urgent tasks for international lawyers is to see through the tale of technicality, neutrality and colour-blindness international law tells about itself and think carefully about how our discipline relates to the contemporary rise of the most reactionary strands of the far right on a global scale.

What are the continuities but also any potential points of rupture in the field of international law throughout the 20th century? How would you describe the current situation?

One could write ten PhDs on this topic and just scratch the surface of this question. We could perhaps single out a few. First, I think that the fragmentation of international law in specific fields (international environmental law, international investment law, international human rights law, etc) has been an important defining feature of international law during the last four decades or so. What we have witnessed is the proliferation of a multitude of institutions, international organisations, and specialist bodies (such as the World Trade Organization, the International Criminal Court or various regional and international human rights bodies) with their own procedures, traditions, professional ethos and way of interpreting international law. This is a trend that has important implications not only for international law as a discipline, but also for international politics. For example, it is well-documented that on various occasions powerful states have used this reality to block reforms that would have been beneficial to developing states. For example, in the 1970s developing states launched an initiative known as the New International Economic Order, in order to reform international legal rules pertaining to natural resources, multinational corporations or technology transfers. They did so using their numerical majority in the United Nations. As a reaction to these efforts, rich states channeled economic decision-making toward international institutions where voting rights are proportionate to budgetary contributions (notably, the International monetary Fund and the World Bank). More recently, the controversial mega-regional trade and investment agreements, like TTIP, TTP or CETA, can be partly understood as an effort by the US, the EU and Canada to move decision-making regarding trade away from the World Trade Organization, which -albeit not at all perfect- operates on the principle of one state one vote and has enabled different groupings of developing states to defend their interests. Fragmentation into many sub-fields and institutions is, therefore, a defining characteristic of ‘modern’ international law, and it cannot be ignored by those interested in international politics and global economic justice.

As for continuities, I think it is worth going back to the example of global war on terror, which has put pressure on many core rules of post-1945 international law, including the prohibition on the use of force. Of course, as those caught in the ‘hot’ zones of the Cold War know very well, this prohibition did not stop the USA or the USSR from using force, but it did force them to deny that they ever did so or to put forward particular sorts of arguments on why intervening in foreign states was lawful. 9/11, however, happened in the context of US hegemony and successive administrations (Republican and Democrat) as well as academic lawyers felt that it was an opportunity for a thorough revising of these aspects of Cold War international law that clashed with their strategic interests. Many arguments put forward were genuinely novel, but others sounded uncomfortably familiar to those studying the history of international law. Take, for example, the argument (which is gaining traction amongst governments and academics) that force can be used in the territory of states that are ‘unwilling or unable’ to stop terrorists. This sort of argument does away even with formal legal equality amongst states, and only gives the full range of legal rights to powerful states, or to states that follow specific counter-terrorism policies. This way of organising lawful violence closely resembles 19th-century, imperial international law, which, in turn raises the question whether international law ever became truly post-colonial.

To what extent does the region of the Balkans continue to be “a site of experimentation for international legal techniques” in the 21st century?

As I mentioned earlier, debt has been central in the economic ordering of the Balkans. Ensuring the servicing of debt, in particular, was an important motivation for the assumption of control over the domestic financial policy of Greece or the Ottoman Empire by the Great Powers. Of course, the similarities between this history and Greece’s recent adventures with the IMF and the EU are too stark to miss. Before the 2008 economic crisis, it was the violent dissolution of Yugoslavia and its aftermath that brought the Balkans at the centre of international interest, even though much of the political and legal commentary focuses on the lack of intervention, notably in the instance of genocide in Srebenica, or on the question of (self-styled) humanitarian intervention in Kosovo. What has received, perhaps, less attention is that in the aftermath of these conflicts both Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo were placed under international territorial administration. For example, following the controversial bombing campaign of 1999, the UN Security Council bestowed the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) with essentially unlimited legislative, executive and judicial power. UNMIK performed all the functions of a sovereign state, and for that matter of one that has unlimited functions and is not bound by law. This assumption of full governmental functions by an international authority was justified with more and less explicit invocations of the incapacity of Kosovars to govern themselves and a certain equation of international actors as more rational, benevolent and effective. Importantly, UNMIK implemented a thorough programme of domestic reform along neoliberal lines that included the privatisation of important sectors of the economy, including agriculture, the introduction of flat tax rates, and the promulgation of a constitution that legally entrenched neoliberalism straightjacketing politics.

In some of your more recent publications you have argued that, contrary to a widely held belief, what you term as neoliberalism does not entail less or softer law but, instead, a rather increased legalisation and judicialisation of international trade law. Would you say that this also applies to domestic legal frameworks or are we talking about two opposite phenomena?

Neoliberalism is commonly associated with the retreat of the state, deregulation and deference to private actors, individuals and markets. In reality, both neoliberal theory and practice is not uniformly hostile to the state at all. Rather, neoliberals acknowledge the crucial role of the state in the creation and reproduction of competitive markets and many -however, not all- have been intensely relaxed with the repressive branches of the state, including prisons, the police, the army or border controls. In international law, the global ascendance of neoliberalism in the 1990s was also marked by the judicialisation of trade and investment disputes. Judicialisation and legalisation of economic decision-making has, therefore, been a core characteristic of the neoliberal international legal order. At the same time, we need to also pay attention to the opposite trend: financial or business regulations were relegated to the realm of ‘soft law’ and ‘self-regulation’. Schematically, the limitations to states’ redistributive and planning capacity have become ‘hard’, while limitations to the behaviour of transnational capital remain ‘soft’.

The picture is, of course, much more complicated when it comes to domestic legal orders, not least because of the sheer number of states and the vast differences of wealth, political and legal culture that separate them. Therefore, it would be impossible to draw general conclusions. However, it is worth noting that the enhancement of the role of the judiciary and the promotion of a certain version of the ‘rule of law’ understood primarily as strong protections of property rights and counter-majoritarianism have been at the heart of many ‘structural adjustment’ projects led by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in the post-soviet world and beyond. It might be superficially paradoxical, but the United States have also witnessed a similar trend, although in this instance the origins of the transformation are much more clearly endogenous. Progressives argue for a drastic delimitation of the functions of the courts, and especially of the US Supreme Court, which they (rightly) perceive to be hostile to economic redistribution and to efforts to curtail the political and economic influence of big business interests. I have suggested in the past that the framework of ‘authoritarian statism’, proposed by the Marxist philosopher Nicos Poulantzas, could be a useful lens for theorising this trend and for situating contingent development (be it domestic or international) within a broader structure of transformation of the relationship between the state, international institutions and the political economy.

Being sensitive to such ongoing transformations also means that the present moment needs to be taken seriously. Already since the days of the Obama administration the US has adopted an aggressive stance toward the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization blocking the appointment of new judges and therefore, paralysing its function. On the one hand, this raises the question how unique Trump’s hostility toward international law and institutions really is and whether we should never forget that, party politics and peculiar personal styles aside, the US attitude toward international law has consistently been over-determined by its position as a global superpower. On the other hand, this example combined with the rise of right-wing authoritarians that are to an extent hostile to courts (even though not necessarily to other forms of counter-majoritarianism) raises the question whether this trend of the judicialisation of economic decision-making is about to be stalled or even reversed.

*Interview by Dimitris Gkintidis

D. G.

The post Ntina Tzouvala on the history of international law and its impact on the Balkans appeared first on Greek News Agenda.

Sociologist Nikos Mouzelis, emeritus professor at the London School of Economics, talked to Efimerida ton Syntakton daily (05.05.2019) and Vassilis Kalamaras on the occasion of the publication of his latest book "Perspectives on the Future: Capitalism, Social-Democracy, Social-State " (2018, Alexandria Publications, in Greek). Nikos Mouzelis talks about the future of capitalism and the role of Germany and France in the European project. Greek News Agenda reproduces part of the interview in English.

At the presentation of your latest book you noted that while you cannot foresee the future, capitalism will not collapse in the near future. On what grounds do you base this prediction?

Following the 2007/8 global crisis, prominent intellectuals of the Left anticipated that more crises will follow and that the capitalist mode of production would collapse in the near future. I think that capitalism, although it will not survive forever, will not collapse in the short / medium term. This is because, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and within the global neo-liberal system, three capitalist subsystems have been dominant: the neo-liberal system, whose main representative is the US, the authoritarian capitalist system one of China and the semi-social democratic system of the EU, which, despite the strict fiscal austerity imposed by Germany, remains social democratic because its social state is the most developed in the world, while political and cultural rights survive.

In this context, the global capitalist system will be with us for many years to come, since those who control the means of production and the means of domination are much more powerful than the forces (social movements, unions, mass movements etc) that want to subvert it.

Photo by Pixabay, Source: Pexels.com

As far as social-democratic capitalism is concerned and the way it has functioned in the Scandinavian countries, we bear witness to the impressive rise of the Far Right and the decline of Social Democratic parties. On what grounds do you base your optimism for the resurgence of social democracy?

The way social democracy developed during its so-called golden era in Southwestern Europe managed for the first time in the history of Modernity to humanize capitalism to a certain degree. State mechanisms managed to reduce inequalities and create a developed social state.

We witnessed, in other words, the extension of civil, political and social rights down and across the social pyramid. But then the opening of global markets, especially in the 80s, eased the autonomy of the nation state, since the state was no longer able to control multinational capital within national borders. Strict state control led to the flight of funds to countries where conditions were more favorable for investors.

What we thus have is an intense imbalance of power between capital and employment. In this state and with the end of the Ford model of industrialization that shrank the core electoral base of social democracy, i.e. the industrial proletariat, social democratic parties had to reach out wider and approach the values and practices of neoliberalism. For certain analysts this was necessary for the survival of democracy. For others it was a betrayal.

Nevertheless, I believe in a possible recovery of social democracy through an alliance with political forces that oppose both neoliberalism and nationalistic populism, since the inequalities that the one creates directly feed the other. Forces such as the radical left, ecological, politically liberal and other middle ground parties could provide a serious barrier to the two barbarisms of today's globalization.

Our country has been through a decade of fiscal adjustment programs, with Germany being the dominant player. How stifling is its dominance?

Germany's dominance remains stifling, because at the moment the rest of the EU countries are not ready for the establishment of a supranational federation. Of course, both Germany and France agree on European integration, but they have a very different vision of unification.

Merkel's strategy aims at a step by step consolidation by maintaining the current status quo, meaning a situation where economically strong countries and especially Germany will continue to accumulate huge surpluses while the European regions accumulate deficits. This means a systematic transfer of resources from the less competitive economies of the South to those of the North.

Despite this negative situation, there are no serious attempts for instruments of redistribution. Assistance to the poorest countries is negligible compared to resources directed towards the richest.

On the other hand, Macron’s strategy is different. Despite his neo-liberal policies in his country, the French president aims to create a European federation based not only on competition but also on solidarity.

He stresses, for example, the need for serious redistributive mechanisms to mitigate the North-South divide. Of course, due to his country's economic difficulties, Macron cannot impose his own program, thus Germany will probably manage to impose its own plan, which may lead to the dissolution of the EU.

This is something which is neither in France’s nor in Germany’s best interest. The only way to reduce the power imbalance between the two main players in the European arena is an alliance between France and South European countries, because their interests converge. For the time being, however, this does not seem to progress.

Photo by David Holt, Source: Flickr.com

Brexit is now a fact. Do you think there are risks as to the EU’s dissolution?

I don’t think that Brexit threatens the EU with possible dissolution; quite the opposite. For a number of reasons, it may lead to more cohesion. England always wanted a large market, nothing more, constantly creating barriers for those who aimed at political and social unification, and persistently demanding an “a la carte” participation. Moreover, she did not want Brussels bureaucracy mingling in her domestic affairs.

Brexit has already caused serious problems in England, such as the outflow of companies to Europe. There is no doubt that it will devalue the country, at least in the economic sector. In the medium term, England will develop into a second / third-class economy. All of the above will make Eurosceptics aware of the negative Brexit effects. It’s clear that Brexit does not suit England, but it certainly favors EU cohesion.

F.K. 

Read also: Associate Professor Antonis Tzanakopoulos on Greek Foreign Policy, Brexit and Globalisation, Costas Douzinas: “If Europe does not change fast, then the ‘Finis Europae’ is closer than we think”.

The post Quo Vadis Europa? | Nikos Mouzelis on the future of Capitalism and Europe appeared first on Greek News Agenda.

Antonis Tzanakopoulos is Associate Professor of Public International Law at the Faculty of Law and Fellow in Law at St Anne's College, University of Oxford. He has taught as a visitor at the Universities of Paris (Paris X – Nanterre), Angers, London (King's College), Athens (National and Kapodistrian), at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya, and at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing. He was previously lecturer in international law at University College London and at the University of Glasgow. Antonios has also delivered a special course at the Xiamen Academy of International Law in 2017 and has been invited by the Curatorium of The Hague Academy of International Law to serve as Director of Studies in 2021. 

Tzanakopoulos studied law in Athens, New York, and Oxford, during which time he also worked as a Researcher for the Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Athens and New York and for the UN Office in Geneva, and as a Graduate Teaching Assistant for the Faculty of Law at Oxford. He is a general international lawyer and has published in a number of areas reflecting his varied research interests. His books include Disobeying the Security Council (OUP 2011) The Settlement of International Disputes (Hart 2012), The UN Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and their Property (OUP 2013) and the Research Handbook on the Law of Treaties  (Elgar 2014). He has also published in the fields of the law of the sea, international investment law, and others. 

In his interview with the Press and Communications Office of the Embassy of Greece in London, Antonis Tzanakopoulos talks about the Prespes Agreement, issues of Greek Foreign Policy, the Brexit perils and globalization.

Professor Tzanakopoulos, you have developed a long and illustrious career in Public international Law both as an academic and as a state and international organisations and private entities expert and advisor on international law issues. What has motivated you to develop such a keen interest in international law? What challenges does each of these capacities (academic and expert) pose to you?

Thank you for your warm words. It is difficult to trace exactly where the interest in international law came from. I guess it is due, in equal measure, to an early fascination with the vocabulary used by lawyers, this exotic language that is not understood by outsiders, and to an interest in (international) politics and history developed during my secondary education. In school I participated in Model United Nations competitions, and then in the first year of law school in Athens I had some fantastic professors teaching international law. This pretty much sealed the deal early on. Since then, I have been in a love-hate relationship with the subject, which continues to fascinate me.

As for my two distinct roles, that of an academic and that of a practicing international lawyer, the biggest challenges that they pose are the pressure that is put on my time, leaving space for little else, and the care that is required that neither is ‘left behind’. But being able to act as both is hugely rewarding, as doctrinal analysis, legal practice, and teaching are in a constant feedback loop with one another. Each informs and is informed by the other, and this allows one a good and inclusive view of the whole field.

You have had an extensive academic career in the UK. How do you compare the academic environment and educational system of the country to the Greek equivalent?

A very difficult question. Each have their own significant upsides and downsides. Trying to be diplomatic (this is an Embassy newsletter after all), I would say that, when it comes to tertiary education, UK facilities and organisation are an obvious plus (which, it could be said, is quite a minus in Greece), but on the other hand it cannot be ignored that this comes at what I think is an enormous cost to the students in terms of fees (and consequently also access). Greece, despite various problems including chronic underinvestment, has excellent – and indeed consistently excellent – quality in the education provided at the tertiary level. This is evident in the disproportionate number of Greek-university-educated students accepted for postgraduate degrees in top UK universities.

Greek PM Alexis Tsipras and North Macedonia PM Zoran Zaev (Wikimedia Commons)

Despite the international community considering the Prespes Agreement to be an important step in promoting peace and stability in the Balkan area and an ideal way to resolve an almost thirty-year-long bilateral dispute, some Greek political groups and part of public opinion did not accept this view. What do you think about the future of this agreement? Which factors do you think will influence the agreement’s success in the future?

The Prespes Agreement is a very significant achievement, not only for Greece, but also for the Balkans. And even beyond our immediate neighbourhood, it provides a blueprint for the resolution of highly politicised and highly sensitive disputes between states that touch upon such sensitive areas as history, ethnic origin, culture, and so on. In my view, the Prespes Agreeement is extremely beneficial for Greece on a number of levels: not only does it reverse a situation where the vast majority of States in the world had recognized our neighbour with its former constitutional name, ie the Republic of Macedonia, it also safeguards Greek history and culture (in particular through Article 7), and opens up a great number of areas for cooperation with one of our closest neighbours.

Now, it is true that, as you say, some political groups and a part of public opinion were not ‘convinced’. However, I should distinguish between the two, as I do not think that both are ‘unpersuaded’ for the same reasons. As far as part of the political establishment is concerned, it is clear to me that they have no substantive reason for being unpersuaded. They raise hollow legalistic points, which have been responded to convincingly by both local and international legal scholars (eg with respect to the term ‘nationality’ and what it means, or with respect to provisions regarding trademarks etc). But they use these points, which are necessarily obscure to the great majority of lay people, not because of genuine concern (as the points are baseless), but rather in order to avoid proper political engagement with fundamental points about what Greece is and how it should be conducting its policies towards its neighbours, as well as about how we as Greeks understand ourselves and our history. Their nationalist rhetoric is rather aimed at provoking sentimental reactions, and parts of the Greek population have fallen for that. This is understandable, but very very dangerous indeed. However, I think there has been a serious attempt on the part of those who are in favour of the agreement to lay to waste the legalistic arguments of the deal’s opponents, and to explain and expose the deep insecurities that we must address as a people. The way to do this is not to take it out on a small state to our north, but rather to seek peaceful cooperation.

As for the deal itself, I think it is a blueprint for the resolution of relevant disputes globally. It contains a number of mechanisms in order to safeguard its full and fruitful implementation, and these constitute an excellent insurance policy for the future. These include cooperation commissions in various subject areas, as well as carefully calibrated dispute settlement mechanisms. The agreement is already seen as a paradigmatic achievement, and in a few years it will have proven its worth, even for those in Greece that are currently criticizing it.

How would you comment on the efforts of the Greek government both to develop a more outward looking foreign policy and upgrade Greece’s role in the Balkans and East Mediterranean? Based on your experience as a scholar living in the UK, how do you think Greece’s efforts to play an active role in the East Mediterranean are viewed by British foreign policy that historically has had an interest in this area? Do you think that there may be a revived interest of the UK in the region of East Mediterranean?

Outward-looking foreign policy is, in my view, the only proper policy for a state like Greece, with its strategic geopolitical position in the Eastern Mediterranean. It is an excellent opportunity for Greece to take initiatives at a time of turmoil in the region, and to show itself as the trusted, stable partner that conducts itself in accordance with international law and in a cooperative spirit. The UK will certainly welcome a stable European regional power taking an initiative in what has traditionally been a turbulent area of the world.

What will, in your opinion, be the challenges for Greece’s foreign policy in the coming years?

I think a major challenge will be to capitalise on this new outward-looking foreign policy and its initially fruitful results. Resolving disputes with our neighbours, in particular maritime delimitations that will enable us to make use of resources in the sea that have been ‘locked into’ disputes, the Cyprus problem, and so forth, should be at the forefront of our policy, as indeed it is, and will present challenges, but not challenges that we cannot deal with. With each issue we resolve, each challenge that we deal with, we strengthen Greece’s profile and reputation, as we strengthen the country’s development potential.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The referendum on the UK’s future in the EU has brought an extended political dispute to the country, which after three years is still an unresolved issue. What is the cause of this delay and do you think that the situation could be considered a “constitutional crisis”? And if so, what does this crisis entail?

Another huge question (or rather set of questions) that I will try to deal with as succinctly as possible. First of all, the cause of the delay lies in the fact that the UK government made undeliverable promises in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum. The adoption of a hard Brexit stance, promising that the UK would exit both the common marked and the customs union, all the while ensuring access to that market on favourable terms, basically meant that the UK government had to achieve the unachievable. While this bought the government some time domestically, at the level of negotiations with the EU it became clear very quickly that the UK could only achieve a deal along the lines of the one it presented to Parliament at the end of 2018. Such a deal would (and did) ultimately alienate both the hardliners, who wished for a clean break (which would come with enormous economic pain) and who had been placated and encouraged by the government’s initially hard stance, and those who would looked to a soft Brexit in order to honour the referendum result but also to ensure continuity and close cooperation with the EU for a minimum of economic harm to the UK.

All this came to a head in Parliament when the latter came to vote (repeatedly) on the deal, with the government playing for time in the hope that a looming no-deal Brexit would force MPs to ‘hold their nose’ and approve the deal. This strategy failed, and for a number of reasons: the expectations that the government’s hard stance had created in the hard-Brexiteers, the disastrous decision of Theresa May to go to an election in 2017 which resulted in her loss of a parliamentary majority, the further disastrous decision not to try and foster some sort of cross-party cooperation in view of the wholly foreseeable split between hard and soft/no Brexit in the ranks of MPs from both major parties, and the general lack of flexibility for Tory party-political reasons. All this has led us in the midst of a full-blown constitutional crisis which has harmed the image and reputation of the UK and its political system, and which it will take a long time to recover.

The crisis, however, was not inevitable, as should be evident from what I have already said. A more sensible policy would be a far less rigid interpretation of the referendum result, with a concomitant attempt to achieve some sort of national and parliamentary consensus as to what the national line of negotiation would be. Here is a counter-example, which, if it did not avoid vigorous parliamentary battles, did in the end achieve the ratification of a major deal: Greece established a national negotiating line as to how to resolve the Macedonian name issue in 2008, and the Greek government delivered on this fully in 2018. This led to the ratification of the Prespes Agreement in parliament despite the SYRIZA government also being a minority government, as is the Tory government in the UK.

What do you think will be the consequences (economical and political) of Brexit to the European entity? In particular, do you think that Greece could be seriously affected by Brexit?

This question is difficult to answer, as it is currently still unclear what form Brexit will take. Barring any sort of no-deal Brexit, the consequences for the EU will be minimal, even if they will be significant for the UK. Greece will not be seriously impacted in any such situation.

What is at stake as regards to the outcome of the EU Parliamentary election in May?

Quite a lot, in particular in view of current polling, which shows a significant rise in the representation of anti-European voices from the right and far right in the next European Parliament. I fear that this will be detrimental to the European project, whatever view one might take of its development and success thus far. I would say that it is important to respond to such extremist, nationalist, divisive views as those coming from the far right not by reiterating how fantastic the European project and the EU really is, but by acknowledging that many things need to be revisited, re-discussed, and potentially changed in the European Union. It is ok to be pro-Europe and take a critical stance towards the manner in which the European project has developed and what it has become. Unfortunately, politicians think that people have little appetite for nuance and for complex arguments. This is where they lose to the far right: the far right will make a simplistic, clear argument against the status quo which is far more convincing than any attempt to make a simplistic, clear and convincing argument in favour of the status quo—this will just alienate all those who are clearly unhappy with it and for good reason. It is thus upon those of us who are serious about Europe to put forward a nuanced argument in favour of Europe, recognizing its shortcomings and the need for fundamental reform. This is the only way to get those who are currently disenchanted to dismiss the extremist anti-European voices and to join in an attempt to construct a Europe that works for the European peoples.

For more than 2 decades globalisation and the fierce opposition against it has seemed like an unstoppable phenomenon. This can be seen in interactions on a commercial, transactional, governmental, cultural and societal level. What is your opinion on the phenomenon?

Well, to the extent that anybody could have an opinion on a fact, and globalization is a fact, not a policy, I would say that it is obviously here to stay. However, we should be careful when using the term globalisation, in particular when also coupling it with ‘opposition’ to it. I am not aware of any serious opposition to the increasing interaction of people, governments, traders, professionals, cultural groups, political groups, etc, beyond borders—unless of course you are referring to marginal communities that refuse to use electricity and eschew contact with modern technology and the outside world.

Globalisation as a phenomenon is neither good nor bad. It is just a fact of life, given the tremendous technological advances in all areas and types of communication over the last decades. There is of course opposition, but it is opposition to particular kind of globalisation: globalisation of capital, globalisation of one particular political agenda, globalisation of certain economic actors who dominate areas of economic activity around the world, globalisation, in short, that is neoliberal in character. I think that this is understandable, and indeed right. People should fight against the type of globalisation that they do not want, and seek to promote the type of globalisation that they do wish to see—such as for example the globalisation of environmental standards of protection, of equal rights, and of equality and solidarity more generally.

Globalisation has set some important dilemmas to nations, governments, political actors, public opinion influencers and social communities: is it possible to bypass the national sovereignty of a country when there is a human rights violation taking place? How legitimate is the intervention of the international community as regards the reinstitution of democratic institutions and the protection of freedom and human rights?

This is a question on which I could be talking for a very long time, as I have written about it and it is close to my heart. Legally, and in short, we do have means of intervention in cases of violations of human rights, humanitarian norms, and other rules of international law. It’s called the United Nations, and the Security Council has the power to take significant measures, including through armed force, in order to maintain or restore international peace and security wherever this is threatened. And even the UN General Assembly can intervene when the Security Council is unable to act due to the veto of a recalcitrant permanent member of the Council, through the process established by the Uniting for Peace resolution.

Even states can individually or in groups take measures that put pressure on states that violate human rights, whether lawful but unfriendly measures (such as downsizing diplomatic representation, withdrawing voluntary aid, refusing to invest or to make trade deals etc), or even countermeasures, ie violations of the law towards the target state that are taken in response to that state’s violations of human rights or other international legal obligations.

And international civil society can also take measures to intervene in such situations and put pressure on states that violate international law. What is however illegal, and in my view never legitimate, is unilateral intervention by states into other states through the use of armed force. Forcible intervention under the pretext of protection of human rights or of democracy has always proved to be simply a cover for far less honourable intentions, and—more importantly—has always singularly failed to protect democracy or human rights. Note that I am talking about unilateral intervention, ie intervention by one or a few states deciding for themselves, and not about intervention by the international community through the collective decision of a global organisation such as the UN.

Would you say that we are currently living in an increasingly inward-looking world, with a tendency to protectionism, strict borders, nationalism and traditionalism, or on the contrary do you believe technology and international shared interests will boost the ‘global village’ no matter what?

There is nothing ‘natural’ or deterministic about where we are and where we are going. This will be determined by the political decisions that we make, about whether we will understand that we need global action to protect the environment, to reverse the trend of ever-expanding growth and neoliberal policies which hurt both the people and the planet, and so forth. Action to address these issues will hopefully lead to a global village living in peace, equality, and solidarity. This is within reach. But continuing on the current trend will just lead to a global village of capital in increasing contrast to centrifugal, nationalist, tribalist, and far-right forces.

There is a growing perception that international law is impotent, that there is no effective sanction for its violation. As one reads about civil wars, humanitarian crisis, abuses of human rights, torture and mistreatment of prisoners, we see a very casual attitude taken towards the Geneva Convention, as if this is not binding legislation. Would you agree with such a perception? What threats would such an attitude provoke for the international community?

I do not agree with this perception. International law is a peculiar area of the law. It deals with states, that is to say with quintessentially imaginary entities, entities that do not actually exist except in our minds and constituted there as entities by the law itself. This is the concept of a legal entity, of which the state is one. We tend to anthropomorphise the state, to imagine it as being a unitary entity that acts, feels, and thinks like a natural person, like me and you. This leads most people to imagine that states ought to be ‘punished’ when they violate the law, and that law which does not lead to court cases and to corporeal sanctioning of sorts is not really law. This is a fundamental error in thinking if one wishes to understand how international law operates.

Sanctions do exist, and while they are not always as effective as we might wish, they do serve to induce compliance with international law. Violations of international law, however, are best averted through the fear of sanctions, reputational costs, financial costs, cooperation costs, and others (which is the case, by the way, with all law). This is a long discussion, which I do hold with my students in Oxford at the start of each academic year. It would take too long to discuss further here, but I am happy for those interested to join us in Oxford for a course on public international law!

Finally, it is important to highlight how the expression ‘international law is impotent’ tends to anthropomorphise not the state this time, but the law! International law cannot be powerful or impotent. International law is simply rules made by states, and its content depends on the decisions and behaviour of the states, who are the makers of international law. So whatever qualms we may have regarding the power and content of international law, we only have our states, and thus ourselves, and the policies that we enable in our states, to blame.

Given the disputes among UN Security Council members (US-Russia, US-China, UK-Russia, UK-France concerning Brexit), how effective could the Council be in deciding to maintain international peace and security, in developing friendly relations between countries, in cooperating to solve international problems, in promoting respect for human rights and in coordinating the actions of member states?

The Security Council is legally awesomely powerful. The UN Charter gives the Council very significant powers of intervention in all sorts of issues. Also, the Security Council has demonstrated, that it can use that power to good or bad effect, as well as that it may be relegated to impotence because of political and legal disputes between its permanent members. I have written a whole book on this issue, called Disobeying the Security Council and published by Oxford University Press, and given relevant lectures, one of which is available for all to watch on the website of the United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law. There I argue that the Security Council can be a fantastic and a terrible tool, and it depends on how states decide to use it, if at all. In short: the Security Council can harness enormous power when states decide to act together. But please do not assume that when states, and in particular the permanent members, decide to act together, this is necessarily for what you or I would consider a ‘good cause’. Sometimes disagreement between the states means precisely that there are issues that need to be resolved and agreed upon before these awesome powers of the Council are used.

To conclude, what do you think are the biggest challenges to both the international law and International law organizations at the moment?

I think the greatest challenge of our time is climate change and the protection of the environment. But this also relates to the dominant economic model around the world, which is not sustainable. Our fixation with growth and profit will be detrimental to the planet and to all of us. But this is not a challenge for international law: it is a challenge for international and national politics. International law has the tools, very effective tools, for dealing with these issues. What is lacking is not international law, but political will to use it to address global challenges. It is this political will that we should work towards creating, and international law will be there to give us the tools that we need to put it into effect.

Source: Press and Communications Office of the Embassy of Greece in London

The post Quo Vadis Europa? | Associate Professor Antonis Tzanakopoulos on Greek Foreign Policy, Brexit and Globalisation appeared first on Greek News Agenda.

Filip Stojanovski is the Director for Partnership and Resource Development of Metamorphosis Foundation. Since 1995 he has been active in the civil society of North Macedonia through volunteer projects in the area of consumer protection and e-publishing, and through professional involvement as an IT expert and contributor to media on digital rights issues. From October 2012 to April 2017 he served as the Chief of Party of the Media Fact-Checking Service. This was the first project of its kind in the region, and among the first in the world, that systematically tackled the issue of role of media in the political discourse, using specially designed methodology based on the ethical standards of journalism, which had since served as model by several other projects in the Balkans (Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro) and Middle East (Egypt). Since January 2018 Stojanovski is serving as Project Manager of EU-supported Critical Thinking for Mediawise Citizens – Crithink project. As representative of civil society he served as a member of the Task Force for National Strategy for Information Society Development in 2005 and in 2018 he was appointed by the Parliament as a member of the Council for Civic Oversight of the state surveillance services. He holds a BSc Degree in Computer Science from Graceland University (USA) and Masters in e-business management from Université Paris 1 - Panthéon Sorbonne (France).

Filip Stojanovski spoke* to Greek News Agenda about fake news the period prior and following the signing of Prespes Agreement noting that “in an attempt to appear more ‘patriotic’, many mainstream media in North Macedonia tried to mimic or ironize the perceived Greek denial of the country’s name, by refusing to use the word “Greece,” and instead used the term “the Southern Neighbor… An ordinary citizen of North Macedonia, would receive conflicting information about Greece”

1) One of the ways to understand a country’s public opinion is through media. Can fake news create a distorted image of a country’s public opinion? Could you mention a case of how the media in your country created a fake image of the Greek people?

It seems to me that in the last three decades, willful ignorance is the main source of media manipulation across Balkan borders. It’s kind of a paradox that we have technological means to be more connected than ever in history, while engrained editorial policies have imposed a virtual self-isolation of each country’s media sphere.

Very often the cross-border media coverage is slanted only towards news about ‘high politics’ and some disasters in the neighborhood, failing to convey all other aspects of life. News about culture, economy, social situation, sports, human interest stories are almost absent, unless they have some aspect that can be exploited for domestic political purpose (to show how bad these ‘others’ are). This lack of factual knowledge paves the way for dehumanization of the neighbors that is done by nationalist political actors, and amplified by unprofessional media.

Under repressive regimes, when the majority of the media is controlled by the government, those media become tools to “manufacture” public opinion, rather than to reflect it. The actual opinions of citizens are not voiced, and remain hidden under a veil of propaganda. Thus, for the period of state capture between 2011 and 2016—with the exception of several outlets that defied the prevailing spiral of silence—analysis of media production in North Macedonia would provide mostly positions and editorial policies that had been published with approval of the ruling parties. As late activist Roberto Belichanec (1971-2012) would often say, we had “plurality of media outlets but not pluralism of opinions.”

In an attempt to appear more “patriotic”, many mainstream media in North Macedonia tried to mimic or ironize the perceived Greek denial of the country’s name, by refusing to use the word “Greece,” and instead used the term “the Southern Neighbor.” Over time this became quite widespread, even though it incited ridicule by some citizens in everyday talk.

Another practice was misinterpreting events in Greece. Very often, threatening statements by extreme right wing forces in Greek society would be presented as position representative of all Greeks. Media close to right-wing populists would also prefer news about incidents of violence, or relentlessly repeat stories about historical injustices. In this vein, the government spent huge amounts of money on so-called “documentaries about Macedonian struggle,” produced through the Public Broadcasting Service, and advocating the ideological dogmas of the ruling party. They were given for free to private TV stations to fill in the quota for domestic production.

In effect, an ordinary citizen of North Macedonia, would receive conflicting information about Greece. The negative effects of the embargo and the veto in NATO and EU were felt by all, and this was reinforced by nationalist propaganda. Then there was the (mostly pleasant) real-life experience of repeated vacationing on the Greek coastline, which in most cases was not used as opportunity to establish contact and friendly rapport with the real ordinary Greeks. The lack of language skills and apprehension of being subjected to harassment would result in a tendency to avoid conversations with the hosts on any topics that could be considered controversial. Very few tourist spending a weekend in Thessaloniki would use the trip for more than coffee or food by the sea or shopping – for instance to partake in the famous film festival or the Comicon. I believe we have similar situations from the other side, with tourists crossing from Greece to North Macedonia to gamble or shop, but not to get more knowledge about the people or society.

photos by Creative Commons

2) “Greece agreed on the name issue in return of no further pension cuts”, “Dead protester the day the Prespes Agreement was signed”, “Soros is funding Greece’s former Minister of Exterior”. Allthis fake news was broadly circulated prior and following the signing of the Agreement. In most cases, the primary reason for fake news was nationalism. How do things stand in your country?

Nationalism as we know is a tool, a technique for politicians to gain access to (more) power. The people of North Macedonia had been subjected to open nationalist indoctrination since the breakup of Yugoslavia, and it took many forms. In the late 1980s and 1990s the blueprint was the pro-Milošević propaganda originating in Serbia, which influenced the domestic political parties and media.

Some of the still present anti-NATO and anti-EU narratives also have roots in this era, especially those sowing discord between different ethnic and religious communities, and inciting xenophobia towards neighbors and others. Over time the propaganda developed a cycle with different domestic or foreign „enemy of the day” used for ‘appropriate’ political context.

In our experience, such toxic nationalism leads to the demise of rule of law. When a government supports the notion that a group in society is entitled to privileged treatment, it leads directly to impunity for corruption and criminal behavior, such as hate speech (which is a crime in North Macedonia). End result of allowing hate speech to fester is war, either external conflict with “accursed” foreigners or civil war against the “internal enemies.” As a country we faced this prospect twice in recent years, in 2015 with the staged clash in Kumanovo, and in 2017 with the attack on the parliament.

In North Macedonia, Prespa Agreement has historical significance because it resulted from real change in approach bya major political party which came into power thanks to support by a multi-ethnic citizen movement that far exceeded its usual voter base. It was based on widespread demand for justice and desire for normal life in our European home.

This example of compromise solution is considered as major threat by nationalists, because it undermines the basis of the „us versus them“ worldview. Such “divide and rule” methods has proven very profitable for instigators, but on the long run devastate social cohesion. Many of the positions taken by the opponents of Prespa Agreement in Greece were mirrored in North Macedonia, with misinterpretations about its contents and logical fallacies about its supposed effects.

Even though the government published online the original text of the agreement and its translations, the right-wing populist campaign and the media supporting that agenda refused to inform the citizens about it, feeding them with misinformation and speculations by politicians and their surrogates. In this case, transparency had limited effect due to information dominance of the entrenched nationalist interests, but was a very good start because the educated segment of society could see for themselves the real contents.

However, the general public received a flood of untruths, from misinterpretations about the nature and the outcome of the consultative referendum, and false claims that legislative changes resulting from the Prespa Agreement are unconstitutional or an act of treason. In this context, various malicious actors cast a wider web of fabrications about meaning of NATO and EU membership. For instance, lies about radioactive pollution from future NATO exercises in the country. Some of the fabrications were tailored to appeal to religious people, like the outrageous claims that getting into EU would result in forcing their children to become LGBTI.

3) You are director for partnership and resource development of Metamorphosis Foundation. Can you tell us a few words about the work of Metamorphosis?

Metamorphosis was formed by a group of digital rights enthusiasts in 1999 and first served as an e-publishing center and think-tank helping NGOs and municipalities use the digital technologies for the advancement of democracy and prosperity. In 2004 we became a foundation has been helping build capacities of civil society, media and institutions, as well as instigating policy changes enabling information society development.

Due to the unfortunate circumstances of backsliding from democracy during the previous decade, the focus of our work in North Macedonia has been on upholding human rights in the digital sphere, in particular freedom of expression and privacy, and promoting good governance and fighting corruption through watchdog journalism and fact-checking. We have invested a lot of efforts in helping online media regain their role as a pillar of democracy, and engaging the citizens in this fight, by educating them and helping them use social networks and other technologies to voice their opinions.

As means towards these ends we’ve founded two independent media outlets: Portalb.mk (in 2012) which has become the leading Albanian-language online news outlet in North Macedonia and the News Agency Meta.mk in 2014, which operates in several languages. Addressing the need for political fact-checking Metamorphosis established the Truthmeter.mk in 2011, and the first Media Fact-Checking Service in our region in 2012.

On a regional level we also work in this direction, for instance by co-establishing the regional Openness Index with several leading pro-accountability organizations from the Western Balkans joined as the ACTION SEE network. As members of international networks like EDRI, the IFEX, APC, and International Fact-Checking Network – IFCN, as well as partner of Global Voices we work on aligning our target areas with the global trends.

4) Has there been a shift in North Macedonia’s public opinion prior and following the Prespes Agreement?

The fact that over six thousand citizens or 95% of participants voted yes on the consultative referendum in September was a strong indicator of the approval of that political act. The attempt by opponents of the agreement to portray those who didn't vote as opponents failed, especially because the non-participation in electoral processes due to emigration or apathy has been a problem for more than a decade, and still is.

With increased bilateral contacts there has been some more media coverage of the actual situation, and more people are able to see that as societies we have many more similarities than differences. For instance, Meta.mk has been running a project for debunking cross border disinformation and fact-based context explanations in several Balkan languages, including Greek, as basis for increased understanding.

The positive trend includes increased public discussion about the damaging effects of disinformation on democracy, by political leaders and media professionals. This could lead to policy changes that would tackle the underlying causes affecting the role of the media.

5) How can we protect ourselves from fake news? How important is fact checking?

At Metamorphosis we view fact-checking as integral part of the ability to apply critical thinking. It should be an essential part of everyday life and of practicing journalism. However, it has been somewhat absent in both areas, firstly due to lack of critical thinking and media literacy within the education system, and lack of resources or will by decision makers in the media.

However, ascertaining the facts is an essential factor, but not enough if it’s on its own. Political manipulators have been applying lessons from commercial marketing, and much of the nationalist propaganda is based on manipulation of emotions, not just facts. That’s why it’s important to increase media literacy not only for the youth, by mainstreaming it within the schools and university curriculums, but also for the more senior generations.

We have to take into account cultural factors too – introspection and acknowledging one’s mistakes are not widespread features in the Balkans. This plays a major role on social networks, where people feel personally offended when reproved for sharing false claims. Such issues can only be tackled by fostering a culture of conversation.

One way to do it is to increase the educative role of the media, making them part of the solution instead of the problem.

When we started with media-fact checking in 2012 we hoped individual outlets would establish fact-checking departments within their newsrooms. This has not happened yet, as most professional media in North Macedonia struggle with issues of basic survival, partly due to the devastating impact of the former regime on the media market. And that is on top of the general challenges faced by media worldwide, resulting from the changing digital environment.

Democracy can’t survive without the truth. If it’s polluted by lies, it turns intoan autocracy or something worse. We simply need the truth to make good decisions.

In my opinion, the first step is acknowledging that all of us, as mortal human beings, are not infallible. We can make mistakes, we can get our facts wrong and should be modest enough to allow others to help us find the truth through proven empirical methods. This is the basis of science, and the same notion is the basis of both good journalism and democratic citizenship.

*Interview by Christina Fiorentzi

Read also: Misinformation and the Prespes Agreement, Sissy Alonistiotou: "Media literacy is a fundamental tool for combating bias and hate speech", Nikos Smyrnaios on the Internet oligopoly and its political implications

The post Filip Stojanovski on Fake News and Prespes Agreement appeared first on Greek News Agenda.

Vincenzo Le Voci is the Secretary-General of the Club of Venice, the network of the communications directors from the European Union member states and institutions and from countries candidate to the EU membership. He has fulfilled this role since 2011. He is a longstanding European civil servant, having worked for the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU for 26 years. Since 2001 he is in the Directorate-General of Communication, where he is currently responsible for Transparency and Information Policy matters. Before joining the EU he worked 7 years for NATO in administration management and logistics, as a US Air Force - DOD official. He owns a Master degree in foreign languages and literatures and attended courses of modern history, European Integration and management in Belgium and at Maryland and MIT universities. He is giving lectures to universities and contributes articles and essays for communications books and magazines. In 2018 he was conferred by the University of Calabria and the Municipality of Ventotene (the home of Altiero Spinelli's Manifesto) the Europa Prize in recognition of his high commitment to communication and information aimed at encouraging and strengthening public and diplomatic relations between government and institutional communicators.

Vincenzo Le Voci spoke* to Greek News Agenda about the Club of Venice, “government communication”, European elections, euro-skepticism and migration. Asked about the migration crisis he stated that “you cannot solve such big crises with one-shot intervention. You need to make sure you resolve contingencies, emergencies, but at the same time you need to be able to stop the occurrence at its roots”.

What exactly is Club of Venice, what is its purpose and what has it achieved so far?

The Club of Venice is the informal network of the communication directors and other senior communication specialists, founded in 1986. Basically this is the 33rd year of its activity. It was the term of the Italian presidency of the Council of the EU, and the Director General of the Press and Information Service of the Prime Minister had this idea to convene with his colleagues from the other countries of the EU to share information and best practice in the field of communication. The member-state countries were 12 at that time, including the newest members of the family: Greece, Spain and Portugal.

The Club consists of communication directors, senior communication executives and senior communication specialists. Its main objective is to strengthen cooperation and work in synergy, drawing inspiration from the respective plans and activities, to improve the way each country communicates with their own citizens about both national policies and the EU agenda.

How does Club de Venice cooperate with EU member states and Greece in particular?

We have a set plan of plenary meetings (twice annually) and thematic seminars (usually two or three times every year). The Club aims to bring these professionals on board and exchange information about what would be the best instruments for communication, what they are developing alone or in cooperation with other countries or institutions in order to see what models best to apply to their countries. So I would say that this is basically an exchange of ideas of specific partnership models, which could help increase cooperation as well asbenefits for citizens in both the communication of policies and citizen participation. Communication also facilitates the rapprochement of different players in the business.

Club of Venice thematic seminar at the Ministry of Digital Policy, Telecommunications and Media, (Athens, GREECE 5-6/4/2019)

Could you elaborate on the term ‘government communication’?

Each country has different priorities and different political agendas, supposedly based on a perception of citizens’ expectations and needs. On that basis, ideally each government should prepare a short action plan of whatever needs to be done with regard to specific priority topics and of course these policies need to be communicated so that citizens understand what goes on, what the government wants to do to meet their expectations, and, to the degree possible, to involve citizens as individuals or as civil society from a wide spectrum. It’s not a one way action but an issue of cooperation, so that citizens feel represented in an appropriate way and feel that they have an input, with their view being truly taken into account.

You mentioned Greece. It’s clear that Greece as a Mediterranean country has certain type of prospects, future plans about how to develop its own economy, its wealth and other sectors like education, investments, possibilities to offer a better future to its people and specifically the younger generation as well as to set in motion initiatives that can help the country grow. After all, one of the main objectives of the EU is sharing, alleviate imbalances, and assist in areas where the economy is not adequately developed so that citizens are offered more opportunities for mobility, investments and to choose their own future here or somewhere else. The same philosophy applies to every country.

The future is undeniably digital. How does Club of Venice promote issues such as cyber security, transparency, and open data?

Since 2009, meaning ten years ago, the Club of Venice has been holding events to discuss what we call in general terms ‘capacity building’, which means enabling governments to communicate and to better identify the right instruments for the job. We all know that digital era is expanding rapidly. At the same time, we need to make sure that digital capabilities become available to everyone, so outreach needs to be assessed. We know that not every person in every periphery of a country can benefit from the digital era. So, first of all, we need to take into account all different kinds of existing communication tools and try to ensure inclusiveness, so that all categories of people are involved. We have developed a kind of doctrine to follow developments on social media and other new internet strategies especially launched by member states and institutions and we are trying to broaden the discussion about how to exchange best practices concerning multimedia projects that are promoted, either at European level or in specific countries. For this purpose, we organize specific seminars and workshops focused on web communication, open data and open government. "Open Government" constitutes a future opportunity for governments to be much closer to citizens, to offer better chances through open data portals and other web improvements to reuse the information in a better format. This could also be an incentive to create more job opportunities, to have better availability of the same data to more people, to enrich communication and definitely to reinforce outreach and participation. We will continue to do this in our plenary and in our seminar events. Last but not the least, regarding cyber-threats, we need to keep the discussion alive on this subject and we are doing this in the context of counter disinformation approaches at European, national or multinational, cross- border level.

On the road to European elections, the agenda of most EU parties seems to focus on national issues -such as pension cuts rather than on European ones. As a result, European elections end up being a vote of confidence to national governments. How can the EU effectively communicate the message that European elections should be considered as such and not as national elections?

This has always been the big issue. The EU has been there since the fifties. However, there has always been a huge difficulty in bringing the European agenda into the national agenda. This is a kind of historical issue; a historical problem because governments always consider that discussing less popular issues would affect their own national political image. So very often in the past, the present and maybe also the future, many governments will continue to hesitate in bringing into the agenda items that are difficult or controversial. It’s important, though, to note that this is not done as some kind of political depreciation of the European agenda. It’s only domestic political pragmatism. And I don’t think that this should be considered a controversial issue to which we cannot find a solution. Take for example the three main institutions, i.e. the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council of the European Union. When people are represented in each of these institutions they need to be able to connect with their own respective authorities which are in the countries. For instance a member of the European Parliament should be sure that, through his constituencies and through his connection with the European Parliament, she/he is able to convey the message and push the European agenda that it is on the table. They have to spend all their energy in doing this, because otherwise it will be difficult also for the new generations to understand what is going on. And whilst it is true that, through the internet, youngsters can be quickly acquainted and understand what is happening, it is quite a different feeling having someone representing your country in such an institution. Having this person talk to you and provide evidence of what goes on in the EU, show his involvement, the objectives and the challenges, you feel a little bit more responsible, engaged. And only then you can see that kind of call coming for your support. I’m talking about the European parliamentary representatives, but it’s exactly the same with the European Commission. Once the Commissioner is elected, he/she by definition becomes neutral. We are not talking about an Italian or a Greek commissioner, but someone representing the EU for a specific policy - and that person is responsible for all of Europe. And when taking part in any debate or event, he/she needs to speak concretely, showing as much as possible his/her knowledge and the capacity to grasp the problem - I mean, being well prepared in relation to the expectations of that country. You cannot handle an event facing citizens and talk in abstract about general values because everybody knows values such as democracy, solidarity and so on. You need to connect with facts, connect with the reality. And the same goes for the Council. The Council is basically governments, governments who have their own representatives referring to their own Ministry of European Affairs or Foreign Affairs or Ministry for a specific policy.. They need to be able to convey clear and inclusive messages and enable their citizens to understand and feel involved in the public debate. In other words, when they are called at national level to discuss in public and address audiences, as well as when they feed digitally their own platform, they need to be clear about what is happening and communicate the position of the government so that people understand what the challenges are.

(pexels.com)

Greece has experienced various crises, such as the economic and the refugee crisis. Is Greece’s foreign communication policy sufficiently addressing these issues?

It’s true that you had one crisis after the other. But the crises have never been a Greek crisis; they have always been European crises. The thing is that communication policy needs to be revisited and reassessed and we need to go back to the roots of each and every crisis, understand why it happened, who the people or organizations responsible for the crisis are, where the problem comes from. Once you identify this, once the government clearly identifies the causes, you need to find what the possible means to solve the crisis are and what the necessary resources are. Once you identify the roots, if you identify the objectivesand then understand who could be the potential players that could help us solve the problem internally and externally at EU level, then you basically need to set up a plan. Without planning you cannot solve any crisis, not even help through communication, because you cannot solve such big crises with one-shot intervention. You need to make sure you resolve contingencies, emergencies, but at the same time you need to be able to stop the occurrence at its roots. It may be about migration, it may be about the economy, it may be another issue that that is even more complicated and dangerous such as terrorism. You need to prepare yourself, to prevent, to monitor, because if you don’t do that you will never be able to attack and counter the phenomenon at its root. You need to build a solid platform and plan around this; otherwise the problem will never be solved definitely.

Euroscepticism is rising given recent developments such as the refugee crisis or Brexit. Additionally, issues such as migration are dealt with at a national rather than at European level. What tools does the EU have in order to address this?

The tools are of a different nature. You have, first of all, monitoring tools of public opinion, such as Eurobarometer, but you also have other relevant surveys which have been run by private organizations and by national institutes. Thus a communicator needs to know how to analyze all of these, without necessarily trusting only one of these instruments in isolation, but several of them combined: you need to cross check, to come out with a neutral and objective idea about what public opinion expects and how it perceives Europe. Then of course you cannot deny that, in several countries, attitudes towards the EU have recently changed because of the several crises, but I think also because the old generation of real believers, the ones who founded the EU, have gone. This generation does not exist anymore and unfortunately there was no continuity in a way, we were not essentially able to transmit these principles to the new generation. This is one thing that’s absolutely necessary because it’s there, whether you see people’s euro-skepticism or not. The problem also concerns governments, not only people, some governments that were always pro-European and have lost their impetus. Europe has lost pro-European leaders of caliber and I’m not talking about the ones who founded Europe but about people like, for instance one person who really stays in my mind forever is Vaclav Havel, the former Check Republic President. He was not even a politician, he was a man of culture, of theatre, of arts and after being imprisoned for his ideas he became president of his country; like Lech Walesa, who is still alive but not in politics any more. So these were people who could pass the message to the younger generations, who could communicate what is happening. To deal with euro-skepticism, you have to trust the right people to counter it and of course you have to hope that governments don’t take extreme positions, because if a government is officially against Europe then it becomes an issue. You need to find other possibilities to inform public opinion, use all the different communication tools to convey the message, make sure that you can balance the message - that you convey the real facts and the real values. Then it will be up to the citizens to decide. We all know what is happening in some countries that the EU is closely monitoring. There is a kind of drift basically towards a certain non-EU line. And there are legitimate means also to recall these countries, like the European Parliament has been recently doing, to certain values that were subscribed within the so-called "acquis communautaires" as pre-condition to acquire EU membership.

Does the EU have a common policy regarding migration? If so, how is it communicated?

EU has a specific policy about certain issues, like the Dublin convention. But we had to deal with a huge phenomenon like the migration waves in the last three years. Europe clearly was not prepared to face with a phenomenon of such wide dimensions. But at the same time I have to say that progress has been made. There was a migration package, there were agreements made with other countries and there are operations being run in the Mediterranean to monitor the process. This is a way just to monitor what is going on and try facing the problem knowing all its features. First of all, identify where the contingencies are, where the migration flows continue to remain. Then you have the multiple aspects of the refugee issue and the huge issue of fighting the phenomenon in its roots. That is a sort of multi-action plan that Europe has put together. It is not easy, because the phenomenon has massive components and of course migration is not the only priority we have. Meanwhile, you have to work for the EU citizens in terms of offering them better job perspectives, employment and investments, to relaunch the economy and to recover, given that in some areas there is still difficulty in creating the framework for people to stay in their own country, to avoid the brain drain and so on. So the priorities are numerous as regards migration and they are to be handled while taking care of the other national priorities of a strong social connotation. I think there are certainly a lot of things going on and the European migration agenda was the mix of knowledge and action in all different aspects of the phenomenon - through the European Council and the Council of Foreign Affairs the momentum is there. We need to convey all these actions into one single package; we need to see if people can understand and appreciate the EU’s actions. And of course adjust each and every part of this plan to all the needs depending on how the issue is progressing. Because again you need to form alliances basically with the countries that the phenomenon derives from, you need to monitor what is happening now. In the Mediterranean for instance, you need to know what to do with people that are already here. It’s really a huge issue, which of course includes the humanitarian aspect strictly linked to contingency, and I believe that responding to the different sides of the question is already a good step, and recalling from time to time the principal values determining how this job must be done, together in alliance, this is also the other important issue, without which Europe would not have been able to handle the problem for a long time.

*Interview by Christina Fiorentzi

Read also: Kevin Featherstone on LSE's Hellenic Observatory and the concept of 'union' in the EU

The post Quo Vadis Europa? | Vincenzo Le Voci on Club of Venice and the European Union appeared first on Greek News Agenda.

Axel Sotiris Walldén (born 1949) studied economics in Sweden and France and was awarded a PhD from the University of Athens. From 1996 to 2014 he was an official at the European Commission, mostly dealing with EU enlargement. Previously, he had served, inter alia, as secretary-general at the Hellenic Ministry of National Economy and as a visiting professor at the Panteion University, Athens. He has also served as an adviser at the Greek Foreign Ministry.

He presently teaches a post-graduate course at the Institut d’Etudes européennes of the Université Libre de Bruxelles. He is the author of a large number of books and articles on EU enlargement, Balkan issues, Greek foreign and domestic policy and recent history. Walldén took an active part in the struggle against the Greek dictatorship (1967-74) and has since held leading posts in parties and organisations of the Greek Left. Being of Greek and Swedish nationalities, he has recently released three books on the issue of Greek-Swedish relations during the Axis Occupation and the Greek military junta (1967-74).

These books are From Lapland to the Acropolis : the European itinerary of a Swede in the 20th century (in Greek by Polis editions), Humanitarian Assistance to Occupied Greece. The Swedish Red Cross Mission 1942-1945 and Dictatorship and Resistance 1967-1974; a Personal Testimony (both by Themelio editions). Thanks to the first two of these publications, Walldén was awarded the 2018 prize of the Association of the Friends of the Swedish Institute in Athens (Föreningen Svenska Atheninstitutets Vänner) for his contribution to cultural exchange between Sweden and Greece. On this occasion, he granted an interview* to Greek Νews Agenda.

You were recently awarded the 2018 prize of the Association of the Friends of the Swedish Institute in Athens (Föreningen Svenska Atheninstitutets Vänner) for your contribution to the promotion of cultural exchange between Sweden and modern Greece. The basis for the Association’s award were your two recent books (From Lapland to the Acropolis and Humanitarian Assistance to Occupied Greece). Both these deal with Swedish-Greek relations during the Axis Occupation of Greece. Could you elaborate?

Greece and Sweden have a long-standing history of friendly relations. Two ‘moments’ of this history were crucial for the shaping of a positive image of Sweden in Greek collective memory: Sweden’s role in alleviating the famine in Greece during the Axis Occupation and its solidarity to the struggle against the Greek military junta in 1967-1974.

Sweden, as a neutral country during World War II, was mandated by the belligerents to lead what proved to be the largest humanitarian operation during that conflict: bringing food from the Americas to the starving people of occupied Greece and managing its distribution in cooperation with the Geneva-based International Red Cross. The two books of mine you mention focus on this operation, still little known, and hence they hopefully contribute to a better knowledge of its extent and details.

The book From Lapland to the Acropolis is a biography of your father. Tell us about it.

My father, Gottfrid Walldén, was a Swede born at the beginning of the 20th century in Swedish Lapland, who came to Greece during World War II with the Red Cross and eventually settled in Athens where he stayed until his death in 1967.

His biography falls under the category of ‘people’s history’, a narrative that attempts to account for historical events from the perspective of common people, rather than political or other leaders. The reader can follow his rather unusual itinerary, which includes early years in northern Sweden, two years at a high school in Normandy just after World War I and life as a bank accountant during the inter-war period in Central Sweden. However, the largest part of the book covers his stay in Greece in the 1940s, first as a neutral delegate of the Swedish Red Cross mission and then as a businessman, having decided to settle in Greece, a country which he comes to adore.

In my book, I try to picture the atmosphere and social environment of the respective periods and places where my father stayed, most crucially of Greece in the 1940s. The perspective of a Swedish national of modest origins who lands in the conservative upper-class Athens society during the Occupation, Liberation, the December 1944 uprising and the ensuing Civil War in 1946-1949 is, I believe, quite revealing.

The book also provides a concise picture of the Swedish Red Cross mission to Greece. In fact, my research on this topic went far beyond the biography of my father and led me to edit another volume, which deals with the humanitarian relief mission itself.

From the award ceremony at the Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities (Medelhavsmuseet) in Stockholm

Let us come then to your book on the Swedish Red Cross mission to Greece during World War II. Could you briefly describe this operation?

The relief mission brought to Greece 650,000 tons of food from Canada and Argentina and organised its distribution to millions of people in most of occupied Greece. It was thus instrumental in avoiding a repetition of the deadly famine of the first winter of the Occupation. Sweden provided the ships that transported the food through zones of warfare and the Allied blockade of continental Europe. It also contributed witharound 30 delegates who, together with the Swiss, managed the vast organisation needed to ensure an efficient and neutral distribution of the goods throughout the country.

My book is a comprehensive description of that operation. The first part is a detailed account of the mission, written by Emil Sandström, the head of the Relief Committee (1943-1945). In a second part, I explore, based mostly on archival material, what I call ‘the sensitive issues’ of the operation. These include inter alia the often difficult relations between the Swiss and the Swedes in the mission, the issue of irregularities and corruption, but also a section on ‘the neutrality of the neutrals’, i.e. the attitude of the Swedish delegates towards the belligerents and towards the parties of the internal Greek divisions. Finally, the third part comprises documents, mostly unpublished and translated from Swedish archives, with reports and views of Swedish delegates and diplomats on the situation in Greece and the unfolding of the humanitarian mission.

Your two books rely on research in mostly Swedish archives. How relevant were these for the study of the history of Greece?

Indeed, I relied extensively on a number of Swedish archives, notably those of the Swedish Red Cross, the Swedish Foreign Ministry and the Legation of Sweden in Athens, all of which are deposited at the State Archive (Riksarkivet) in Stockholm. I also worked at the archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva. All of these sources provide precious information on the Red Cross mission, but also on the situation in Greece during the Occupation through the eyes of Swedish (and Swiss) delegates and diplomats. The Swedish archives, in particular, are not easily accessible to foreign researchers for linguistic reasons.

From the book presentation at the Greek Cultural Centre (Grekiska Kulturhuset) in Stockholm

Let me now come to your book on Dictatorship and Resistance 1967-1974, which is a narrative of how you experienced that period as well as of your participation in the resistance movement against the military junta. Tell us about your activities then, including during your stay in Sweden.

A military dictatorship ruled Greece between 1967 and 1974 in what was the darkest period in the post-war history of the country. At the time, I was a high school and then university student in Greece, Sweden and France and I actively participated in the resistance and solidarity movements from the ranks of the Greek Left. My book is a testimony of that experience which I still consider as my ‘finest hour’.

The book focuses mostly on the resistance in Greece, both underground and ‘legal’, with a key chapter on my role as the liaison between the student organisation ‘Rigas Feraios’ in Greece and the Party leadership abroad, during the student mobilisations that led to the Athens Polytechnic School uprising in November 1973. However, I also deal with the anti-dictatorship activities abroad, including in Sweden, where I was based from 1968 to 1972.

Sweden was probably the country that supported most the fight for democracy against the Greek military regime. The Swedish Government opposed the junta in the Council of Europe and supported the resistance movement. There was a broad and very active solidarity movement in the country, coordinated by a ‘Swedish Committee for Democracy in Greece’ where all parliamentary parties except the Right were represented. A bulletin on Greece, the Grekland-bulletin, was published in Lund and circulated in the whole of Scandinavia. Public opinion was favourable to our struggle and ordinary citizens participated in demonstrations and fund raising for the Resistance. My book provides a taste of all these activities.

I should maybe add that my book illustrates the fact that the struggle against the military dictatorship forged an anti-fascist unity of democratic forces throughout the political spectrum, despite important differences among them. This legacy is very much pertinent today, when we see extreme right and nationalist forces again on the rise just about everywhere in our continent.

*Interview by Nicky Psychari, Head of Press and Communication Office of the Embassy of Greece in Stockholm

Read also Sotiris Walldén’s interview with Greek News Agenda on the SYRIZA experiment and the crisis of the European project

Read also via Greek News Agenda: “12 October 1944 - Free Athens” The city commemorates the 74th anniversary of its liberation; 12 October 1944 - Free Athens: Interview with historian Yannis Skalidakis; “The Unknown Famine: Athens 1941-1942” Exhibition & Conference; Greece under the Nazis: The German soldiers' perspective; Military Dictatorship (1967-1974) in retrospect: New historical approaches; Military Dictatorship (1967-1974) in retrospect: The Greek visual arts scene

N.M.

The post Axel Sotiris Walldén on Greece and Sweden during the Axis Occupation and the military dictatorship appeared first on Greek News Agenda.

Vicky Pryce is a Greek-born economist. She is currently Chief Economic Adviser and a board member at the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR). She was previously Senior Managing Director at FTI Consulting, Director General for Economics at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and Joint Head of the UK Government Economic Service. Before that she was Partner at the accounting and consulting firm KPMG after senior economic positions in banking and the oil sector.

Vicky Pryce holds a number of academic posts and is a Fellow of the UK Academy for Social Sciences and of the Society of Professional Economists. She sits on the Council of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, on the Advisory Board of the central banking think-tank OMFIF and on the Economic Advisory Group of the British Chambers of Commerce. Her books include: Greekonomics: The Euro crisis and Why Politicians Don't Get It; It's the Economy, Stupid- Economics for Voters, with Ross and Urwin; Redesigning Manufacturing, with Nielsen and Beverland; and Why Women Need Quotas, with Stefan Stern. She is also co-founder of GoodCorporation, a company set up to promote Corporate Social Responsibility.

On 20 August Greece exited its final three-year bailout programme. The Press & Communications Office at the Embassy of Greece in London arranged an interview with Vicky Pryce, where she spoke about the challenges that Greece and Europe face in the post-bailout era, the potential impact of Brexit and the opportunities presented to Greece after the deal with FYROM on the name issue.

On 20 August Greece exited its final three-year bailout programme. Greek economy is returning to growth and Greek unemployment has dropped below 20% for the first time in the last seven years. In your opinion what are the prospects for Greece’s economy and the challenges that the country faces in the post-bailout era? How can Greece secure a sustainable recovery?

The exit from the bail-out has to be celebrated and was long overdue. Greece has achieved a remarkable turnaround in its public finances achieving a budget surplus on its normal revenue and spending transactions and also a primary surplus when debt servicing is excluded. All other countries that had bailouts such as Ireland, Portugal, Ireland and Cyprus had exited some time ago. The situation in Greece had been more extreme. However while other countries' debt burden remains significant their return to 'normality’ was helped by them being able to participate in the ECB's vast Quantitative Easing operations since 2015, which have kept the rates at which they can borrow in the capital markets low and the debt manageable. This was not the case for Greece. The credit rating for Greek bonds has been improving in anticipation of the end of the bail-out . But, despite the lengthening of maturities, interest rate reductions and payment holidays Greece has managed to negotiate for part of its debt, the 180% debt to GDP is likely to remain a constraint on growth.

In addition, the requirement to continue to produce substantial primary surpluses for decades to come will mean that it will be difficult to see how Greece can escape further austerity and low growth. Growth has been picking up mainly as a result of improved tourism receipts and higher exports generally, but it will take decades at current rates for the lost output to be made up. Further debt relief measures will have to be negotiated at some point to consolidate the foundations for future growth and prosperity. What Greece also needs is considerably more investment and infrastructure funding from the EU, more help to tackle the migrant crisis, a lessening in bureaucracy and a lowering of the tax burden on businesses and individuals to encourage spending and investment. It also needs to produce a properly, evidence - based industrial strategy. A proper partnership needs to develop between the public and private sectors on the back of a well thought-out and evaluated industrial strategy to ensure that Greece can exploit its strengths - such as in agriculture, energy and high tech- as well as consolidate its geographical position as a major trading and tourist centre with attractive offerings for visitors throughout the year and not just in the summer months.

During the crisis many young professionals and academics left Greece to try and build their lives abroad. How could this ‘brain drain’ be reversed? How could the experience of young Greek academics abroad be used to benefit Greece?

Outfits like 'Reload Greece ' which, backed by Greek academics at the LBS and elsewhere are trying to encourage young Greek entrepreneurs through training grants and other inducements to engage in new activities and link up with the Greeks of the diaspora are beginning to make a difference. But this is still a relatively small endeavour compared with the challenge of engaging the large number of young and qualified individuals who have left. There needs to be an active policy of re-engaging young professionals, possibly with a system of preferential funding arrangements to encourage investments in innovative ideas, supported by some of the international institutions. But again, reducing bureaucracy and allowing new start ups to flourish without crippling tax burdens is a must. Greece rates particularly poorly globally in relation to the ease of starting and doing business. A way of getting that talent to return must be found urgently.

Eurozone leaders hailed Greece’s exit from the bailout programme as the end of the eurozone crisis. In an interview for the Handelsblatt newspaper, Olaf Scholz, Germany’s finance minister, noted that “The bleak predictions of the prophets of doom have not come true”, adding that “Greece’s salvation is also a sign of European solidarity.” Has Europe emerged stronger from the crisis? What are the lessons to be learnt from the crisis for both Greece and the EU?

It is true that the need to save the Euro as Mario Draghi, the head of the European Central Bank (ECB), had promised he would in 2015 also meant keeping Greece in the Euro and the EU. But the single currency had problems from the very beginning in that it had not built the proper institutions to deal with a crisis of the type we saw in the late 2000s. Greece suffered from that lack of institutional framework. When the crisis hit, countries found themselves in difficulty and unable to borrow in the capital markets and their banks teetering on the brink of insolvency with no proper funds transfer mechanism, no immediate risk sharing and the ECB not a lender of last resort which the markets had assumed (wrongly) that was the case . The burden was therefore borne by the taxpayer in each country which has left a legacy of debt burdens and a period of severe austerity, none of course as severe as in Greece. Greece like other crisis-hit eurozone countries was unable to lower its own interest rates or depreciate its currency as a way to improve competitiveness and its finances. Instead it was left with no option but to cut salaries and pensions, reduce public spending and increase taxes in exchange for a series of bail-outs. As a result the severity and duration of the Greek depression was unparalleled in any European country since the war. But fear of the domino effect of a possible 'Grexit' on the rest of the eurozone finally led to decisive action to deal with it in a more sustainable way. There has been an increasing acceptance of risk sharing. In addition to QE there is now a European Support Mechanism, a move to a banking union with a new bank resolution fund, a reinforced regulatory role for the European Central Bank, which is now also effectively finally a lender of last resort, a move towards a capital markets union and talk of a eurozone budget, eurozone finance Ministry and possibly turning the ESM into a European IMF. I think that indeed we could see the crisis in Greece and the eventual more positive response of the Europeans as demonstrating the commitment to keep the EU together.

The UK is heading for an EU exit. In a recent event at LSE you spoke of a possible positive impact of Brexit on Greece. How is Brexit expected to affect the UK, Greece and the EU?

Much of what I said in response to the previous question also applies here. But Brexit has certainly had an impact. The EU has been at pains to ensure that advantages of being in the EU are clear during the Brexit negotiations. The example of the way Greece seems to have fared in the eurozone was and is still being used by pro-Brexit campaigners as a reason for not wanting to be in the EU. In a way I do think that the need to keep the EU against the threat that Brexit presents to the integrity of the EU has led to a greater show of solidarity towards Greece and a greater willingness by other eurozone countries to help broker a solution.

Having reached a deal with FYROM on the name issue, Greece has drawn praise abroad and aspires to play a leading role in the stabilisation and regional cooperation in the Balkans. What potential for economic growth does this deal offer to Greece and South Eastern Europe?

It’s good news that the name deal has gone forward. Assuming agreement by parliaments and a referendum, this opens the door to the Western Balkan nations to join the EU and its single market. Open frontiers from the Aegean to the Alps can only be good for Greek businesses who know how to do business in the region.

Turkey’s economy has recently shown signs of volatility, with the Turkish lira losing value and the country’s inflation and debt causing concern. What could the implications of a potential Turkish financial crisis be for the economies of Greece and the EU?

There are increasing concerns about any domino effect from the Turkish financial crisis. With a number of banks in the eurozone already having to cope with a high level of non-performing loans, the fall in the lira is adding to problems given the very large percentage of foreign currency denominated loans in Turkey. Moreover it could sour investors' views of highly indebted countries and therefore make it more difficult for Greece to borrow in international markets.

N.M.

The post Vicky Pryce: “Greece has achieved a remarkable turnaround” appeared first on Greek News Agenda.

Ricardo Cabral is assistant professor of Economics, former Vice President, and former Economics and Management Department Head of the University of Madeira, Portugal. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of South Carolina.

His research interests include the euro crisis, banking, EMU architecture and governance, and sovereign debt restructuring. He has published several articles and policy papers. He has participated as a speaker in more than 50 conferences and authored or co-authored more than 500 opinion and analysis pieces in national newspapers such as Público and online platforms such as VoxEU.org and eu.boell.org.

He is the co-author of two different proposals to restructure Portugal’s debt, one of which as a member of a Government-nominated Working Group on the sustainability of Portugal’s debt. He has appeared before the ECON Committee of the European Parliament and before the COFMA Committee of the Portuguese Parliament.

Cabral talks to Greek News Agenda*about the post memorandum era for Greece stressing that the Eurozone adjustment programs were quite destructive to debtor economies like Greece’s and Portugal’s, because their objective was to make sure that these countries could service their debts in the short and medium term, regardless of whether the debt was sustainable and or could ever be fully repaid. Further on, Cabral elaborates on the necessary measures for the enforcement/ deepening of monetary and economic union. He also comments that the recent and current Eurozone reform agreements, not only regarding migration, but particularly regarding economic and financial issues, signal a heightened level of distrust between member states and if Eurozone policy makers “stay the course”, as they seem intent on doing, the Eurozone is bound to experience a crisis unprecedented in the developed world.

The recent European agreement on migration was a minimal compromise which could hardly conceal the profound discord between the 28 EU member states. What is your view on this agreement and what does it mean for the EU?

It is difficult to address this complex topic in a few words, a topic that is really outside my field of expertise. It is illegal to refuse entry to war refugees, which many of these migrants are.

But the theory and the laws clash with the will of many of the peoples of Europe who have little sympathy or understanding for the horrors experienced by many of these migrants and who are perceived by many as a threat.

The problem in Europe is aggravated by the architecture of the European Union. Most political negotiations are zero sum, in the sense that for one country to benefit, all other countries must bear the costs.

Given this, I am not surprised about the disappointing agreement over migration achieved by the European Council.

Greece, after the historic Eurogroup agreement which foresees the conclusion of the assistance programmes and guarantees a “clear exit” to the markets, is preparing for its post memorandum era. Could Greece become a success story, following the Portuguese example? Can Portugal serve as a role model for post-memorandum Greece?

The short answer is no. Neither Greece nor Portugal will become success stories in the medium and long term. However, in the short term the economic situation can improve markedly, particularly in Greece’s case, if the ECB expands the Quantitative Easing programme to also buy Greece’s public debt, though this seems unlikely.

Portugal and Greece are both economies condemned to ‘debtors’ prison” by Eurozone authorities. Note that the end of ‘debtors’ prison” was a significant and positive civilizational development (the writer Charles Dickens was no doubt inspired by the ‘debtors’ imprisonment of his own father).

The Eurozone adjustment programmes were very destructive to debtor economies like Greece’s and Portugal’s. Their objective was to make sure that these countries could service their debts in the short and medium term, regardless of whether the debt was sustainable and of whether their debt could ever be fully repaid, i.e., the proverbial “kick the can down the road”.

The adjustment programmes could have failed. Their “relative” success was strongly aided by favorable external conditions, namely the fall in the price of oil, the devaluation of the euro vis à vis the dollar, the more expansionary course of the US economy, the willingness of China to lower its current account surplus through expansionary domestic policies, and the low interest rate environment.

In sum, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and to a less extent Greece, have been able to massively improve their current account, because the rest of the World was willing to run larger trade and current account deficits.

When the current account deficits return, Portugal, Spain, Greece and Italy will face difficulties again. Moreover, the austerity measures adopted have reduced the growth potential of these economies particularly in the long run, namely due to the large emigration of young professionals and the high levels of youth unemployment, which have negative quasi-permanent effects on growth potential.

Europe is facing a series of challenges that relate to the common currency architecture as well as its own structural weaknesses and shortcomings. Which measures do you deem necessary for the deepening of monetary and economic union?

The key Eurozone reform occurred in the second half of 2012 with the launch of the Outright Monetary Transactions programme (OMT), whereby the ECB announced it was ready to buy unlimited amounts of a member state public debt. Unfortunately, the OMT was defined as a programme with strict conditionality to be controlled by the European Stability Mechanism (ESM).

Separately, the quantitative easing programme of the ECB since 2015, particularly the Public Sector Purchase Programme, contributed to a marked improvement in the Eurozone macroeconomic conditions and to bring about a stark reduction in the financing costs of member country governments, with a permanent effect that represented several points of GDP.

Nonetheless, these were among the few reforms since 2010 that contributed to an improvement of the resilience of the Eurozone architecture.

All other main reforms that occurred in the Eurozone since 2010 have had a stated rationale that significantly diverges from their main effects. Thus, one could argue that the stated rationale differs from the true objectives of the reforms. Public policies always have different objectives and effects. The issue is what is the dominating objective and effect.

In my view, the main reforms that were enacted in the Eurozone since 2010 aimed to:

(1) close loopholes so as to prevent financing of government deficits, fiscal transfers, or “stealth bailouts” (e.g., Banking Union);

(2) force debtor member states to service their debt in the short- and medium-term, i.e., put these economies in a sort of debtors’ prison (e.g., Fiscal Stability Treaty and the “adjustment” programmes); and

(3) to prevent debtor member states from a potential “debtors’ prisonbreak”, that is prepare for the eventual disintegration of the Eurozone and otherwise to prevent debtor member states from unilaterally restructuring their sovereign debts or from exiting the euro (e.g., creation of the European Stability Mechanism, the introduction of “euro-CACs”, the recently approved new powers for the ESM, the sovereign debt restructuring mechanism, the proposed harmonization of insolvency laws, the proposed reforms to TARGET2, banking sector risk weights for member state sovereign debt, etc.).

Though there are positive features to all of these reforms (e.g., the lower interest rates on ESM loans), in the whole, these reforms weakened the resilience of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU).

A separate question is what reforms are necessary if the Eurozone is to survive and thrive, which, given the format of this interview, it is not possible to fully address here.

In short, I believe, the EMU architecture is flawed and dysfunctional. The EMU can only properly operate if all member states run on average current accounts roughly balanced or in surplus.

To become sustainable the Eurozone needs much larger open-ended fiscal transfers between member countries, particularly in the form of automatic fiscal stabilizers.

These could be based on a new Eurozone (or EU) federal budget with its own fiscal revenues, for example based on a minimum alternative tax for both personal and corporate income taxes. Other possibilities include taxes on income obtained from residents of one member state in another member state or contributions based on member state current account surpluses.

A new Federal Treasury (a potential successor to the ESM) should issue the Eurozone (or EU) federal debt in the markets. This Eurozone federal debt should not be mutualized. This way, if the Eurozone was dissolved, the federal debt would not be repaid.

The Eurozone should run a small recurring deficit at the Federal level, which would increase its spending capacity without direct costs to member state budgets.

The Eurozone budget spending should target foremost fiscal transfers to member states as well as a common Eurozone investment programme.

Can Europe make a fresh start based on a real monetary and economic union, when member states turn against each other, as the migration crisis management proved?

It is difficult to believe in a new beginning in the present. But a new beginning is always possible through political will and vision.

In my view the recent and current Eurozone reform agreements, not only regarding migration, but particularly regarding economic and financial issues, signal a heightened level of distrust between member states. It is as if, in the technocratic details of innocuous sounding accords, member states were already preparing for the disintegration of the Eurozone and for economic conflict between member states.

Is Europe going through an identity crisis?

The European Union and particularly the Eurozone is confronting again its original sin and its dystopian objectives. Its policy makers have wanted to create a single economic and monetary union, a Federal Union, without fiscal transfers.

This is an impossible political objective. Every single functioning economic and monetary union that we know of has large levels of fiscal transfers and significant fiscal stabilizers.

Otto von Bismarck once said “Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best”. The converse is that politics should not be the art of the impossible nor the art of the unattainable – ‘arts’ in fact that Eurozone policy makers of the last two decades have sought and imposed by sheer will power (‘Machtpolitik’). The decision to practice the policy of the impossible has had disastrous economic consequences and has caused unnecessary hardship to millions of Eurozone citizens.

If Eurozone policy makers “stay the course”, as they seem intent on doing, the Eurozone is bound to experience a crisis unprecedented in the developed world.

* Interview by Margarita Adamou, Head of Press and Communication Office, Embassy of Greece in Lisbon, Portugal.

F.K.

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