FEPS Weekly Newsletter 8 July 2022

FEPS Weekly Newsletter Share Tweet Share Share Preview 📅 Strategic Autonomy week, PP magazine, new […]

08/07/2022
FEPS Weekly Newsletter
Preview
📅 Strategic Autonomy week, PP magazine, new podcast, Oxford Symposium & more
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Upcoming Events
This week, the research project on #EUStrategicAutonomy met important milestones. A policy breakfast series around its three building blocks took place and four new publications were launched.

More coming soon, stay tuned! And find out more about our work around this topic!

Events
STRATEGIC AUTONOMY BREAKFAST SERIES
Security & Defence
5 July, Online

We discussed ways towards Strategic Autonomy through military capacity, but also conflict prevention, mediation and post-conflict peacebuilding. Twitter | Linkedin

🎤Speakers: Pol Morillas, Director of the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs and author of An Architecture fit for Strategic Autonomy; and Ana Juncos, Professor of European Politics at the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies at the University of Bristol, and author of Elevating the EU’s added value as a security provider.

📚We also presented the new policy brief
Partnerships and EU Strategic Autonomy.

STRATEGIC AUTONOMY
6 July, Online

With MEP Kathleen Van Brempt and Elina Ribakova, Deputy Chief Economist at the Institute of International Finance, we discussed policy measures to defend the autonomy of EU foreign economic policy and ensure that it can pursue progressive goals abroad. Twitter | Linkedin

📚We also launched two new policy briefs:
1️⃣ Countering economic coercion: how can the EU succeed?,
by Elina Ribakova & Jonathan Hackenbroich.
STRATEGIC AUTONOMY
7 July, Online

🎤Speakers: Julia Anderson, Economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; Paul Timmers, Research Fellow at Oxford University and author of Strategic Autonomy Tech Alliances; and Guillaume Klossa, Founding President of EuropaNova and EC former special Adviser on Digital.

📚We explored the need for strategic autonomy tech alliances, as well as ways to address the lack of high-tech skills in Europe. Twitter | Linkedin

We presented the new policy brief Europe needs high-tech talent, by Julia Anderson.
STRATEGIC AUTONOMY
Partnerships and European strategic autonomy: How to turn them into a win-win approach
by Alessandro Marrone Claudia Major

The EU has to better use its global partnerships to become more strategic and autonomous. The pressure on the EU to deliver in the field of international security is only growing and the US focus on the systemic rivalry with China remains a structural trend that risks turning US attention away from Europe soon again.

In order to deliver, EU partnerships with NATO, the US and the UK have to be prioritised and pushed forward. The EU should focus on identifying its interests, engage partners and invest in implementation
. Read more


By Elina Ribakova and Benjamin Hilgenstock

This policy brief assesses how the EU can bolster its response and defence mechanisms against foreign economic coercion. At its inception,
the EU benefited from a world order where economics, foreign policy, and geopolitics were less intertwined than they are today.

However, as global economic power has shifted, these lines have been blurred. Furthermore, many global economies have decided to look after their interests outside multilateral frameworks and increasingly see multilateral institutions as outdated. Read More

STRATEGIC AUTONOMY
Leveraging trade policy for the EU’s strategic autonomy

by Elvire Fabry

In the context of the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the objective of strategic autonomy for the EU is becoming pressing to:

1️⃣ Prevent supply disruptions
2️⃣ Ensure the resilience of value chains

While strengthening European production capacities for certain essential goods, this paper calls for a shift in European trade policy, to secure access to essential inputs when foreign markets are closed. Read More
STRATEGIC AUTONOMY
Europe needs high-tech talent: Investing in people to counter oligopolistic dynamics and dependencies in technology markets

by Julia Anderson

This policy brief underlines the need for digital skills if the EU is to achieve digital strategic autonomy. The EU has too few digitally skilled graduates, and too many leave for other tech hubs. This makes the EU more dependent on big tech firms outside the EU.

To address this, the EU needs more granular digital skills policies – aiming for 20 million ICT specialists by 2030 is far too generic. Moreover, it will require a coordinated approach within and between EU countries – one that leverages a range of policy areas and exploits linkages between them. Read More

3 – 5 July, Oxford (UK)

The 8th Oxford Symposium, organised by FEPS with the support of Progressive Britain and the Renner Institut, took place at St. Catherine’s College premises.

This two-day closed seminar gathered 50 outstanding academics, front bench politicians, and stakeholders from the UK and all over the EU, who jointly explored five key challenges identified as critical for social democrats to answer in a short, medium, and long-term perspective.
Almost five months into the war, and against the backdrop of soaring energy prices, rising inflation, a changing international order, rampant disinformation, the Ukrainian refugee emergency, and all the other consequences triggered by the Russian war against Ukraine, the EU finds itself at a historic turning point. It must choose between sticking together, taking bold decisions, and acting accordingly – or, on the other side, allowing indecisiveness and divisions to gain the upper hand.

In this new issue of the Progressive Post, the Special coverage section looks at Europe’s energy challenge, and in particular at the disruption of the energy market caused by the war. The war has also had an impact on the prospect of EU enlargement. In the Focus section Western Balkans: a rough route to EU integration, the Progressive Post sets out the current state of reform in this region.
Read more
PROGRESSIVE PAGE
by Arancha González Laya

When, back in 2021, as the Foreign Minister of Spain, I approached NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg about Spain hosting the 2022 Summit, I could not anticipate the very specific circumstances that the alliance faces today.

I could not have imagined how decisive the Madrid summit would be for peace and stability in Europe.
Read more
#123 FEPS Talks Podcast
FEPS Talks: Universities in war and peace

Julia von Blumenthal, President of the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder) and FEPS Secretary General László Andor discuss the effects of the Russia—Ukraine war on universities, especially in the case of the institution she leads which plays a special role in German – Eastern European relations.

They highlight the humanitarian as well as the educational aspects of Viadrina’s response to the shock of Russian aggression, and explore the possibilities of opening a new chapter in the academic relations between Germany and Ukraine. They find it hard to be optimistic regarding the end of the war in Ukraine or the normalisation of cultural relations with the Russian-speaking world.

🎧 Listen to this podcast on Spotify | Apple Podcast | Website
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