Essays

European Challenges of Migration and Integration

Confrontational Mutual Perceptions and Images: Orientalism and Occidentalism in Europe and the Islamic World
George Joffé
Europe' reactions to its recently-constituted Muslim communities reflect its implicit self-image of cultural homogeneity, despite a long tradition of endless cultural adaption. This, in turn, is a facet of the persistance of an Orientalist vision which stimulates its opposed mirror-image, Occidentalism or Orientalism-in-reverse, as those communities react with a sense of profound alienation. The two interact to generate the cultural and political confrontation that typifies inter-communal relations today, constructing a new inter-communal socio-political boundary that could harden into a permanent divide of mutual hostility. It is this, far more than globalised salafi-jihadism, that explains the political extremism confronting European states today.
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Informalising Readmission Agreements in the EU Neighbourhood
Jean-Pierre Cassarino
A number of factors explain why some EU member states, particularly France Italy and Spain are gradually opting for informal patterns of cooperation on readmission issues with Mediterranean and African countries. This adaptive inclination is more of a necessity than an option. It reflects the more urgent need of some EU member states to find flexible solutions for cooperation on readmission rather than to conclude bilateral readmission agreements. The agenda remains unchanged, but there has been a shift in priority actions with regard to these countries. The operability of cooperation on readmission has been prioritised over formalisation.
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Italy in World Affairs

The Foreign Policy of Italian Regions: Not Much Ado About Something?
Francesco Palermo
What does regional external power mean? To what extent is it allowed? What are the limits for its exercise? And how is it carried our in today's quasi-federal Italy? Not only is regional foreign policy a litmus test for the legal development of a compound system; it is also extremely telling as far as the political maturity of the actors in a multi-level governmental system is concerned. In the present constitutional and political framework in Italy, there is a cleavage between the rather developed normative framework and the immature practical reality. Regional foreign policy is something very important about which too little ado is made.
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Foreign Policy of Federated Entities

Federal Regions and External Relations: The Belgian Case
M. Theo Jans and Patrick Stouthuysen
The Belgian regions and communities have an unparalleled external role. Their treaty-making powers and their representation in the EU policy process require extensive coordination efforts to ensure coherence. Paradoxically the regional quest for external autonomy has actually forced the regions/communities to cooperate much more than was initially expected. Few intergovernmental conflicts have emerged and those that have arisen have been settled in a pragmatic (technocratic) fashion.
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The International Security Involvement of Federated States: Comparing Massachusetts, Illinois and Flanders
Bruno Coppieters
Application of the federal principle of shared sovereignty to external security policies directed against foreign states can easily give rise to a situation in which the federation ceases to be an indivisible subject in an international setting. This can in turn lead to conflicts between the two levels. A comparison of three instances of sanctions adopted by federated states - the sanction policies of Massachusetts in support of the democratisation of Myanmar/Burma (1996-2000), the divestment policies of Illinois in opposition to the governmental policies of Sudan (2006- ), and the participation by Flanders in Belgian and European sanctions in protest against the Freedom Party's participation in the Austrian government (2000) - confirms this thesis.
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Greek-Turkish Rapprochement under New Democracy
James Ker-Lindsay
New Democracy's victory in the March 2004 Greek elections immediately raised questions about the continued development of the process of rapprochement between Greece and Turkey, which had started five years earlier in 1999. However, concerns were misplaced. The incoming administration made it clear that it intended to maintain the policy of détente. Like the previous PASOK government, it sought to minimise the role of Cyprus as a factor in bilateral relations and continued to support Turkey's membership of the European Union. Where differences did arise between New Democracy and PASOK, they appeared to be more a result of the differing styles of George Papandreou and Petros Molyviatis, the two foreign ministers, than as a result of any significant disparity in basic foreign policy principles.
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Europe Forum

How to Relaunch Europe - The Reasons for Flexibility
Gian Luigi Tosato
The European Union's difficulty in functioning is a result in large measure of its decision-making mechanisms, which expose any measure to a veto by a scant minority or even a single state. The flexible model of Europe, and that is of differentiated integration, attempts to overcome this deadlock. The flexible model is based on the simple and reasonable idea that a member state which dissents is not obligated to associate itself with a certain initiative, but cannot block the others from carrying it out. In certain "virtuous" conditions, flexibility does not imply a risk of breaking up the Union. On the contrary, it offers a dynamic instrument to reconcile the requirements of unity and diversity and promote the process of European integration.
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Growing without a Strategy? The Case of European Security and Defence Policy
Gianni Bonvicini and Elfriede Regelsberger
Contrary to the expectations of many experts and politicians, one of the politically most sensitive sectors of the European integration process, the common foreign and security policy, has seen remarkable growth in recent years. The pressure of crises and conflicts beyond the EU's borders and the need to deal with them in a unitary way has driven the governments of member states and the community institutions to take development of CFSP/ESDP more seriously. The process has been pragmatic, establishing the mechanisms and policies required to respond to the challenges: a bottom-up, disorderly growth which the Constitutional Treaty had attempted to rationalise in a coherent framework, completing the work of the preceding treaties. This growth has continued in spite of the stalled ratification of the CT. But it cannot go on indefinitely. In order to bring order and coherence into CFSP/ESDP bodies and procedures, the substance of the Constitutional Treaty must be saved and approved rapidly.
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