News, Nannette Cazaubon

Ukraine crisis Macron’s travel diplomacy

(ed/hb, Paris) With the aim of deescalating and mediating the Ukraine crisis, French President Emmanuel Macron, who is currently at the head of the EU Presidency, accomplished a diplomatic marathon. After having met the Russian President Vladimir Putin on 7th February in Moscow, he travelled to Kyiv the next day to The risk of war in Europe photo: ©2014 petrmalinak/Shutterstock discuss with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy before meeting the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz together with the Polish President Andrzej Duda in the Weimar Triangle format in Berlin. During their talks, Macron and Putin agreed that risk of war must be reduced by common efforts to enable a new stability and security order. Putin underpinned Russia’s conditions to collaborate: no extension of NATO towards Russian borders, no stationing of aggressive weapons in former Soviet Union territories and turn back to the geopolitical situation in 1997. Putin refuses for the moment a meeting of leaders in the Minsk format (France, Germany, Russia, Ukraine). In Kyiv, Macron assured Ukraine of the solidarity of the west, and in Berlin, Macron and Scholz, just arriving from his visit to US President Joe Biden in Washington, shared their views on the conflict with President Duda. They stated that their overall goal was avoiding war in Europe by engaging all diplomatic means and showing solidarity with all border states to Russia. But the three leaders also made clear that they would not accept peace at any price. Scholz alerted Russia that in case of an invasion of Ukraine, the consequences would be “political, economic and certainly also geostrategic”. (last update: 09.02.2022) Press conference Macron and Putin https://youtu.be/QHDAYz7g4u4

Citizenship European Year of Youth

(ed/Nils Cazaubon, Saint Germainen-Laye) 2022 was designated by the European Union as the Year of Youth. The idea is to rise awareness about young people’s needs and bring their voices back to the Union’s policies and actions. The youth suffered a lot from the two years of the pandemic, since The Year of Youth wants to give hope to young the restrictive Covid-19 policies of- people in Europe photo: © 2019 encierro/Shutterstock ten ignored the needs and perspectives of young people, negatively influencing their education and the access to jobs, leading to social isolation and increasing mental health problems. Many lost hope. With the Year of Youth, the European Union aims to react to this situation to change young people’s perspectives on their future by creating quality employment, education and training opportunities. The EU also wants to further open political spaces to young people with the goal of systematically including youth in decision-making processes at the regional, national and EU levels, but also at the United Nations level. The EU promotes the participation of youth in UN events and conferences through the organisation of side events. EU Member States are, for example, strong supporters of the UN Youth Delegate Programme (https://bit.ly/3rH2CqO) where young people can participate in intergovernmental meetings at the UN.

Web European Youth Portal https://europa.eu/youth/home_en

Eurobarometer Optimism about the future of the EU

(ed/nc, Paris) The new Eurobarometer survey commissioned by the European Parliament (EP) and having been conducted between 1st November and 2nd December 2021 in all 27 EU Member States, revealed that EU citizens’ support for the European Union and the EP in particular has increased during the Covid-19 pandemic. As regards the European values to defend, nearly one third of respondents (32%) chose democracy as the first, followed by freedom of speech and thought (27%), and the protection of human rights in the EU and worldwide (25%).

The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, welcomed the results of the survey and said: “As the citizens rightly point out, defending democracy is the most important European value above anything else. We cannot take democracy for granted; extremism, authoritarianism and nationalism are today rising threats for our common European project.” 42% of European citizens see public health as a continued top policy priority, followed closely by the fight against poverty and social exclusion (40%) and action against climate change (39%), whereas young people put the fight against climate change as their top priority. A majority of EU citizens (62%) see their country’s EU membership as a good thing and a majority of respondents (63%) say they are optimistic about the future of the EU. Eurobarometer surveys are the official polling instrument used by the EU institutions and agencies to regularly monitor the state of public opinion in Europe on issues related to the European Union.

Video: https://bit.ly/34Ei8ul

Roberta Metsola photo; © European Union 2022, source : EP (Denis Lomme)

Migration and asylum The European Agency for Asylum starts work

On 19th January, the European Agency for Asylum (EUAA) replaced its predecessor, the European Asylum Support Office (EASO). The new agency starts work with a reinforced mandate under the New Pact on Migration and Asylum. The aim is to ensure that asylum decisions are taken in a faster and fairer manner and that reception standards converge across the EU, bringing by that more uniformity in decision-making and alignment between Member States’ asylum systems. Key objectives are: • more efficient asylum systems; • improved assistance through a reserve of 500 experts; • uniform decision-making by developing operational standards, guidelines and best practices for the implementation of Union law on asylum; • greater convergence in the recognition rates by developing country guidance on countries of origin; • better monitoring and reporting on Member States’ asylum and reception systems; • capacity building in non-EU countries to improve asylum and reception systems and support EU and Member State resettlement schemes and • an independent fundamental rights officer and a new complaints mechanism will ensure the safeguard of asylum applicants’ rights. The new agency will receive €172m of EU funds in 2022. It will launch eight operations in Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta and Spain supporting asylum and reception authorities in Member States with almost 2,000 personnel.

Web www.euaa.europa.eu News

Refugees crossing Europe photo: ©2020 Ajdin Kamber/Shutterstock

Climate New office for climate modelling

On 1st March, the World Climate Research Programme will open a new international office in the United Kingdom that will coordinate the programme’s Climate Model Intercomparison Project. The office will be hosted by the European Space Agency’s Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications (ECSAT) facility, alongside its climate office. For scientists, climate models are an important tool to understand the past climate and provide projections of future change. The Climate Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) brings together modelling centres from around the world. It has a large activity with 140 models from 52 institutions representing 26 countries. The project is providing huge impetus to climate science and its outputs provide foundational model datasets used by climate assessments that contribute to global climate negotiations and decisions. The new office, headed by Eleanor O’Rourke, will enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of support for national and international assessments. It will help to coordinate discussions with the scientific and user communities on further standardisation protocols, data policy and quality control of model output and analysis.

Video: Introduction to climate models https://bit.ly/3gz6gfU

Events “La Fabrique Défense”

(ed/hb/nc, Paris) ”La Fabrique Défense” (“The Defence Workshop”) took place from 28th to 30th January at the Grande Halle de la Villette in Paris. It was the second edition of this unique event, organised by the Directorate General for International Relations and Strategy of the Ministry of French Armed Forces. Aimed at contributing to develop a European strategic culture among young Europeans (aged 15-30 years), the event with more than 160 booths, 36 roundtables and 30 career path sessions, featured subjects such as Europe, cybersecurity, nuclear deterrence, energy, climate and the environment, innovation, aerospace, air-maritime and air-land environments, youth programmes, research and training, intelligence, resilience and support. The editors of our magazine partnered with the association EuroDéfense-France and appreciated the possibility to discuss, in a session directed by Cyrille Schott, Regional Prefect (ret), with the association ‘Jeunes IHEDN’ (L’Institut des hautes études de défense nationale), how the young generation could be addressed regarding subjects on European security and defence.

Our magazine was hosted at the booth of EuroDéfense-France photo: © Nathalie de Kaniv