ACADEMIC PREP KIT 21st National Selection Conference of EYP Czech Republic Plzeň 2019
TABLE OF CONTENTS TOPICS CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS CULTURE AND EDUCATION EMPLOYMENT AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS I EMPLOYMENT AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS II ENVIRONMENT, PUBLIC HEALTH AND FOOD SAFETY I ENVIRONMENT, PUBLIC HEALTH AND FOOD SAFETY II INDUSTRY, RESEARCH AND ENERGY TRANSPORT AND TOURISM NOTES
3 4 9 13 20 26 29 33 38 45
TOPICS Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO) Storm behind norm – With a growing number of Member States seemingly undermining independent institutions and core principles of the European Union, what further steps should the EU take to stop this trend and uphold the rule of law as its fundamental value? Committee on Culture and Education (CULT) Grands behind grandeur – With requests to restitute art and property looted and nationalised over the course of the last century recently resurfacing across the continent, what stance should the European Union take in regards to such claims? Committee on Employment and Social Affairs I (EMPL I) Aegis behind proteanism – With the number of people relying on freelancing and other types of non-standard ways of working on the rise, how can the European Union and its Member States guarantee adequate social security for all its workers? Committee on Employment and Social Affairs II (EMPL II) Houses behind homes – With the ever-rising living costs in major cities affecting the employment prospects for millions of young people across the continent, how can the European Union and its Member States ensure fair and accessible housing supply in metropolitan areas for its citizens?
Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety I (ENVI I) Opportunities behind limitations – With China's increased restrictions on impurity of imported waste and low recycling rates among Member States, what measures should the European Union undertake to overcome the downfalls of reprocessing plastics? Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety II (ENVI II) Numbers behind symptoms – With the efforts of the European Union in supporting its Member States to protect and improve health and healthcare, how can Health Economics be implemented to benefit the Member States' healthcare systems? Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) Latitude behind boundary – With the increasing strategic importance of space-related services, what can the European Union do to retain its degree of competitiveness and innovation and meet future demands of its society? Committee on Transport and Tourism (TRAN) Doom behind blessing – With the recent rise of grievance regarding "overtourism" from both local citizens and governments, how can the European Union help protect the Member States' heritage sites while sustaining the benefits they bring?
Before you dive into this booklet and Plzeň, it is important to deepen your understanding of how does the EU function and what are its competences. For this reason we recommend that you visit these two helpful pages: • EU institutions • EU competences
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS Storm behind norm – With a growing number of Member States seemingly undermining independent institutions and core principles of the European Union, what further steps should the EU take to stop this trend and uphold the rule of law as its fundamental value?
by Mia Letić (CZ) I. Description
“Anyone who undermines rule-of-law principles in their own country, or who curtails rights of the opposition and civil society and restricts the freedom of the press, thereby jeopardises the rule of law not only in his or her own country, but for everyone in Europe. Europe as a community of law can of course only function when the law applies – and is respected – equally everywhere.” Angela Merkel’s speech to the European Parliament, Strasbourg, 13 November 20181 In the beginning, the European integration was intended to become solely economic cooperation, but it has, over the years, developed into a much greater organisation with a set of common goals and fundamental values.2 These values prevail in all of its Member States and are stated in the Lisbon Treaty and the EU Charter of fundamental rights. They include human dignity, human rights, freedom, equality before the law, democracy and the rule of law. The EU is based on the rule of law34. This means that every decision and every action of the EU is founded on treaties which were democratically and voluntarily approved by all Member States. It also means that the judiciary in each Member State is independent and impartial, the government is accountable under the law and that the process by which laws are prepared, approved and enforced is transparent, efficient and fair. The rule of law is crucial for upholding and safeguarding these values and by default allows and guarantees the implementation of the EU law.
II.
Explanation
When there is a suspicion the values are endangered, there is a rule of law framework, which can be triggered to address these threats and prevent the application of the mechanisms of Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). 1 Federal Government | News | Speech by Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel to the European Parliament, Strasbourg, 13 November 2018, https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/news/speech-by-federal-chancellor-angela-merkel-to-the-european-parliament-strasbourg-13-november-2018-1550688 2 The EU in brief, https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/eu-in-brief_en 3 Types of EU law | European Commission: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-making-process/types-eu-law_en 4 Rule of Law, European Neighbourhood Policy And Enlargement Negotiations, European Commission https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/policy/policy-highlights/rule-of-law_en
4 | AFCO
Article 7, which has been called the “nuclear option” by many, is designed to address violations that are systemic in nature, meaning the governmental approach and treatment of the fundamental values. The process of triggering Article 7 is not simple. It can be triggered by the European Commission, ⅓ of European Council or upon a proposal by the European Parliament while needing the support of the remaining two institutions. However, the biggest obstacle in determining the existence of a serious and persistent breach by a Member State is the requirement for a unanimous vote by the European Council. Only then it is possible to move forward in the decision making and potentially suspend the voting rights of Member States in the Council. In 2014 the European Commission established the “Framework to strengthen the Rule of Law” to address threats to the rule of law, which were not systemic in nature and were not directly involving Article 7. However, in this way can the European Commission only make non binding recommendations.
III.
Conflicts
There is a noticeable difference in the approach towards EU’s interference in the national governance.5 Some Members States, such as Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, have always been supporters of the supranational law, however, others such as France, Denmark and most notably the Central and Eastern European states, were against the idea. Most of them because they value their recently gained sovereignty and are not willing to surrender it to the EU. Members States also form subgroups according to either regional factors or shared commodities. There are many regional subgroups in the EU such as the Visegrad Four (Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary), Benelux countries or the Nordic members. Other subgroups are formed by having similar commodities or being involved in the same industry such as the agricultural production or fishery, meaning they have the same interests. Heads of governments and Members States tend to overlook other national problems to serve a bigger purpose by solving mutual problems and achieving joint goals. Most of them are reluctant to interfere in others Member States’ problems as they do not wish to initiate a similar action upon themselves. They do not often criticize each other as it might be held and used against them in the future. This can be predominantly seen among the subgroups mentioned above. Other local problems connected to the flawed rule of law include corruption and fraud.6 These are addressed by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) that investigates fraud involving the EU budget and shapes the European Commission’s anti-fraud policy. One major issue is also how the governments present the current situation to their citizens; oftentimes based on fake news aiming to arouse fear among the people and support a more positive view of their government. Just recently, there was a misleading campaign in Hungary criticized by the European Commission, attacking Jean-Claude Juncker for threatening Hungary’s security with migration plans. The Vice-President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans has also raised his concerns7 about the freedom of media in Hungary when he pointed out how a 400 pro-governmental outlets were merged into one and liberated from the inspection and surveillance on a national and media level.
5 Defending EU Values in Poland and Hungary,Carnegie Europe – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2017 https://carnegieeurope.eu/2017/09/04/defending-eu-values-in-poland-and-hungary-pub-72988 6 The EU’s anxieties of guaranteeing the rule of law, Clingendael spectator, 2018 https://spectator.clingendael.org/en/publication/eus-anxieties-guaranteeing-rule-law# 7 Frans Timmermans renews concerns about rule of law in Hungary, Politico, 2019 https://www.politico.eu/article/frans-timmermans-renews-concerns-about-rule-of-law-in-hungary/
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IV.
Says who? - Solid facts
In 2016 Poland was the first Member State against which the rule of law framework was used and in December 2017 also the first Member State against which Article 7 was triggered. The reason being that the current ruling party Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS) introduced8 a series of new laws, which limited the sovereignty of the judiciary and in contradiction to the division of power enabled the government to intervene. Poland argues that the reforms are intended and needed to tackle corruption and to transform the old system affected by the communist era.9 President of Poland Andrzej Duda has criticized10 the European Commission for excessively interfering in the national governance and placing EU above nations themselves. He also claimed that actions of this nature might lead to disintegration of the EU. A problem which emerged was connected to §2 of Article 7 which proclaims the need for a unanimous vote (except for the accused Member State) by the European Council. This becomes an obstacle when two Member States cooperate and block the vote this way. This happened in the Polish case, when Hungary blocked the voting process and Article 7 did not go through. Action against Poland culminated when it was suspended11 from the European Network of Councils for the Judiciary (ENCJ) in September last year. Hungary was the second Member State accused of breaching the fundamental European values.12 In September 2018 the European Parliament voted upon triggering Article 7, because the ruling party Fidesz in lead with Viktor Orban was accused of silencing the media, targeting NGOs and removing independent judges. Hungary’s case brought more light on another problem with the current European legislation connected to Article 7. When the proposal on triggering Article 7 comes from the European Parliament it is up to European Council to respond. This is problematic because the responsibility lies within the hands of the current presidency. Especially now with Romania presiding it would be controversial (next term it will be Finland) to take strong action against the accused Member States as the rule of law situation there is also questionable. Notably, Romania itself is under the microscope for breaching European values in terms of violent interventions of police13, corruption and most notably the current state of legislation which proposes to protect politicians from being prosecuted for corruption14.
8 Separation of powers undermined, Eurozine, 2018 https://www.eurozine.com/separation-powers-undermined/ 9 ‘Sad day’ as Poland banned from EU judicial body, EURACTIV.com, 2018 https://www.euractiv.com/section/future-eu/news/sad-day-as-poland-banned-from-eu-judicial-body/ 10 EU must not stigmatise and divide its member states, Polish President warns, The Independent, 2018 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/poland-president-andrzej-duda-speech-eu-commission-stigmatise-divide-antagonise-member-states-a8155226.html 11 Poland suspended from EU judicial organization, POLITICO, 2018 https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-rule-of-law-suspended-from-eu-judicial-organization/ 12 EU Parliament votes to trigger Article 7 sanctions procedure against Hungary, DW, 12.09.2018 https://www.dw.com/en/eu-parliament-votes-to-trigger-article-7-sanctions-procedure-against-hungary/a-45459720 13 Romania to take over EU presidency amid fears for rule of law, The Guardian, 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/ world/2018/dec/30/romania-to-take-over-eu-presidency-amid-fears-for-rule-of-law 14 Romanian president to try to block government pardons, EURACTIV.com, 2018 https://www.euractiv.com/section/ justice-home-affairs/news/romanian-president-to-try-to-block-government-pardons/
6 | AFCO
V.
Status Quo
Earlier this year the European Parliament has endorsed a law15 which gives the European Commission the competence to, with the assistance of independent experts, assess whether a Member State is failing to uphold the EU principles. This should come into effect in the term of the next EU long-term budget for 2021-2027.16 Many Members of the European Parliament have expressed their disapproval of Member States acting against the EU law and not complying to the rule of law and other values. They have stressed the importance of not only hanging onto the rights but also fulfilling given obligations. There has also been a lot of talk about possibly creating a new conditionality of connecting structural and investment funds and the compliance with the EU law and respect of the EU values. In a current press release the European Commission stated that it will be changing its calculation method of imposed sanctions in the infringement procedure upon a Member State which has failed to implement only a specific EU law.
15  MEPs demand penalties for EU countries undermining rule of law, European Parliament, 2019 http://www.europarl. europa.eu/news/en/headlines/eu-affairs/20190117STO23724/meps-demand-penalties-for-eu-countries-underminingrule-of-law 16  EU commission says it will cut funds for member states that undermine rule of law, Reuters, 2018 https://uk.reuters. com/article/eu-budget-ruleoflaw/eu-commission-says-it-will-cut-funds-for-member-states-that-undermine-rule-of-lawidUKKBN1I32GN
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VI.
Summary
European values are the cornerstone of the EU. The EU is one of the leading organisations in representing democracy, fighting for human rights and freedom. How should the EU balance guarding its values and respecting national governments and their sovereignty? European Union currently stands in front of a crucial decision. Maintaining trust and respect among Member States is a priority. They rely on each other heavily especially in terms of carrying out the rule of law for example when guarding the borders of the Schengen zone or procedures of judicial trials. If this bond falls apart, so might the EU and everything it has been working for. The existing plurality in Member States on the matter, formation of the subgroups, conflicts of interests and many more factors impede the decision making. The current legislative has proven itself to be in some ways counterproductive. Should the infringement procedure be altered to address systemic breaches? What are the benefits and drawbacks of possibly cutting funding of Member States that undermine the rule of law? What alternative means of political pressure could the EU use? Should the change not come from within Member States?
VII.
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8 | AFCO
Where to look
Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs (2019): The EU framework for enforcing the respect of the rule of law and the Union’s fundamental principles and values European Parliament (2018): Rule of law concerns in member states: how the EU can act (infographic) | News | European Parliament Carnegie Europe (2018): Central Europe | Article 7: The Cases of Hungary and Poland (short video) Centre for European Reform (2017): Can EU funds promote the rule of law in Europe? European Political Strategy Centre (2018): State of the Union 2018
COMMITTEE ON CULTURE AND EDUCATION Grands behind grandeur – With requests to restitute art and property looted and nationalised over the course of the last century recently resurfacing across the continent, what stance should the European Union take in regards to such claims? by Martin Šimáček (CZ) I.
Description
Pillaging and plundering are synonymous to all great military conquests of history spanning the Roman empire to the Franco-Prussian wars to the present. Looting valuables has been around for centuries but grew ever so more prolific in the last century. Colonisation, territorial expansion and the rise of alternative regimes caused a paradigm shift across Europe. Land, property and art were ceased throughout the 20th century during the spread of Fascism, the anti-Semitic movement, both World Wars and the Soviet grasp on most of Eastern Europe. Colonialism, the epitome of Europe’s world-centric age, has also taken a toll on international cultural heritage, far outside European borders. While Europe experiences another transition with most countries reverting back to a peaceful democratic state many of the previously looted items are being rediscovered, and property and land claimed back through restitution and court appeals. The stance of the European Union and its Member States will set a precedent for future dealings and decide the fate of billions of euros worth of property and cultural heritage.
II.
Explanation One of the most infamous acts of plundering during the 20th century was the organised pillage of
European countries by the Third Reich. Only in Poland, the estimated theft of art is hovering around USD 20 billion worth.1 A substantial amount of the art is unaccounted for, most likely in the hands of private collectors with no incentives to help recover such masterpieces. Considerable efforts were put into recovering and safeguarding the artworks, starting already during the war2 – during the retreat of Nazi forces in 1945 many of said valuables were hidden in abandoned mines and caves, many of which are still being discovered to this day. After the collapse of the Third Reich, no further large scale concentrated efforts of pillaging of such kind were recorded on the European continent. 1 Could looted art from WWII be hidden under village chapel?, THE first NEWS, Joanna Jasińska, 2018 https://www.thefirstnews. com/article/could-looted-art-from-wwii-be-hidden-under-village-chapel-3713 2 The Real-Life Story Behind “The Monuments Men”, History Stories, Christopher Klein, 2014 https://www.history.com/news/thereal-life-story-behind-the-monuments-men
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Within European Borders, the entrance of the USSR on the world stage and the expansion of Communism meant that the Iron Curtain arose and asset seizures in the name of income redistribution became a common occurrence. The communist regimes nationalised industries and property, confiscating vast assets from individuals, companies and the church alike. The repatriation of looted cultural heritage does not only span borders of European countries, but globally. Recently, a small strand of hair was at the centre of a spat of international proportions heading towards a revolutionary proceeding in the affair of cultural restitution. It belonged to an Ethiopian king who took his own life during a British invasion and the lock of hair stayed in British hands for over a century. Now it is being returned to its homeland.1 Britain, one of the most prolific colonialist nations, looted many artefacts from countries it conquered; Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Spain and others have similar traits and history.
III.
Conflicts
Within the repatriation sphere, many stakeholders arise that have a vested interest in the resolution and stance of the European Union. From Museums and Art dealers who possess looted artefacts to claimants and Member States judicial systems who clash with the aforementioned, the fine arts ecosystem is a rivalrous place. The path to rightful repatriation is a lengthy process with art beholders fighting vigorously against the claimant’s repatriation requests. Usually very powerful individuals and organisations, the EU has to tread lightly when dealing with repatriation claims or face political and internal conflicts. The European Union is a supranational body and since such transgressions are largely happening on a national level, it is currently up to the individual Member States to decide cases regarding claims made in cases of unlawful appropriation, art theft and looting, and each instance can have multiple outcomes depending on which legislation is applied and which approach is favoured. This only underlines the sheer complexity of simply returning stolen artwork and property in general to rightful owners, as the thefts often occurred across borders in multiple jurisdictions.2 So the question arises, under what jurisdictions and governments should the stolen art be retrieved and to whom? With European countries exercising mostly Civil or Common law, the debate tends to veer off to the more appropriate system for legal proceedings. It is paramount to set proper guidelines to prevent fraudulent use of restitution acts, especially in Common Law countries, where the binding force of precedent is much stronger than in continental legal orders.3
IV. •
•
Solid facts There are estimates that the global illegal market for works of art and cultural goods has a value of between USD 6 and USD 8 billion per year. It would thus be the third biggest illegal market following those for drugs and weapons4 In the case of Nazi-looted art, the German Lost Art Database reported 150,000 objects in 2014 and the Object Database of the Central Registry of Information on Looted Cultural Property 1933–1945 contains details of over 25,000 looted and missing objects from more than fifteen countries.
1 Ethiopian Emperor Tewodros II’s stolen hair to be returned by UK, BBC News, 2019 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-47441042 2 Cross-border restitution claims of art looted in armed conflicts and wars and alternatives to court litigations, DGInlt, 2016 http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2016/556947/IPOL_STU(2016)556947_EN.pdf 3 French court orders restitution of looted Pissarro - does this set a precedent?, 2018 https://www.gmw.nl/en/topics/art-culture-law/articles/french-court-orders-restitution-of-looted-pissarro-does-this-set-a-precedent/ 4 Engaging the European Art Market in the fight against the illicit trafficking of cultural property(Rep.) Renold, M., 2018
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V.
Status Quo Even though a substantial amount of time has passed since the Second World War and the
fall of the Soviet Union, the European Union has made little progress with regards to its policies and protocols on restitution claims of looted art and property. After the Second World War, some effort was made to prevent future generations from exploiting acts of war for material gains with the first treaty mentioning such resolutions being the Hague Protocol signed in 1955.5 More recently, the European Parliament put forth a motion for a resolution resolution that serves as a basis for the future stance of the European Union to such claims and notes, among other things, that there is a lack of infrastructure and common practices in the art trade, a unified arbitration system among member states and further education. In the current state of affairs, the European Union mainly focuses on tracking the sale and location of looted artwork in general with little emphasis on property repatriation claims, left to individual governments of members states to sort out. Current efforts are managed jointly through Interpol and Europol, however, are conducted on a much larger scale and generally only focused on international criminal networks and underworld art deals. Furthermore, they omit the existence of calls for property repatriation or the state of affairs in post-communist countries. In addition, the United Nations UNESCO branch has also commissioned several studies and reports to shed a light on the severity of the issue, as well as private institutions and organisations such as the Smithsonian Institute and the Guggenheim gallery.
http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CLT/movable/pdf/Study_Prof_Renold_EN.pdf 5  Hague Protocol – Definition And Meaning, Market Business News, https://marketbusinessnews.com/financial-glossary/ hague-protocol/
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VI.
Summary
Looking back at the points discussed above, what stance should the EU take in dealing with future restitution and art repatriation claims? Since the Member States operate in isolated jurisdictions it is important for the European Union to take a decisive stance and act as a unifying link in the process. From Conquistadors to the Bolsheviks, a myriad of property and cultural heritage artefacts exchanged hands over the centuries, most landing on European shores. As the offended entities liberated themselves throughout the 20th and 21st century they became more aware of the impact their past era had on them and their belongings. Now it is upon to the European Union and its Member States to decide the fate of all that was taken under duress. Claimants spanning the globe with billions of euros in arts and artefacts on the line, deciding the correct course of action is a daunting task. A task that will decide the future of repatriation and the meaning of cultural heritage.
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Links and further research and read What Once was Lost: Nazi Art Looting and Allied Restitution, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, MacKenzie Mallon, 2019; video Why art restitution matters, TEDxYeshivaUniversity, Monica Dugot, 2016; video France boosts Nazi-looted art restitution efforts, i24NEWS, 2018; video Art repatriation: Where do African treasures belong?, France 24, 2018; video Legal Issues Related to Restitution of Nationalized Real Estate, European Network Remembrance and Solidarity, Katarzyna Katana, 2013; video Land restitution debate in South Africa, SABC Digital News, 2014; video RESTITUTION OF NATIONALISED REAL PROPERTY ACT, Bulgaria, Promulgated State Gazette No. 15/21.02.1992; Bulgarian legislation Property restitution: What Went Wrong In Romania, SAR POLICY BRIEF No. 34, 2008; overview of policy paper Nazi-looted art: Why are restitutions still the exception?, DW, Luisa von Richthofen, 2018; an article 20 Years On, It’s Time to Admit Our Rules for Handling Nazi-Looted Art Have Failed, observer, Noah Charney, 2018; an article The Restitution Struggle: Malaise, Indifference, and Frustration, Art News, William D. Cohan, 2018 Dutch policy on Nazi-loot restitutions under fire, Art Newspaper, Catherine Hickley, 2018 The Sarr-Savoy Report & Restituting Colonial Artifacts, The Centre for Art Law, Clara Cassan, 2019 Documenting Nazi Plunder of European Art, Bradsher, G., 1997 Nelson, P., 2010
COMMITTEE ON EMPLOYMENT AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS I Aegis behind proteanism – With the number of people relying on freelancing and other types of non-standard ways of working on the rise, how can the European Union and its Member States guarantee adequate social security for all its workers? by Iulia Munteanu (RO) I.
Description
To begin with, it is crucial to understand that each EU country has its own social security laws. The obligations and rights under these laws are the same for all workers in that country, whether local or from abroad. However, EU rules coordinate national systems to make sure people moving to another EU country do not lose their social security1 coverage (for example pension rights and healthcare) and always know which national laws apply to them. As it is stated in Article 4 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), shared competence between the Union and the Member States applies in the areas of internal market and social policy, for the aspects defined in the Treaty. Nowadays, more and more people turn to alternative ways of working, constantly trying to stay away from stable, budgetary jobs and finding their way into non-standard forms of working. Non-standard employment is an umbrella term for different employment arrangements that deviate from standard employment. They include temporary employment, part-time and on-call work, temporary agency work, as well as disguised employment and dependent self-employment. Our understanding of people in work is changing and due to a rapid increase in the number of low paid, self-contracted workers for international corporations, employment laws need to be updated for today’s new labour environment to ensure a change in the way Europe works does not alter the rights afforded to its workers and implicitly, their social security.
II. 1
Explanation Traditionally, labour laws have been based on the “standard” employment relationship. This is
EU social security coordination, European Commission, https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=849&langId=en
EMPL I | 13
defined as a job that is continuous, full-time, with a direct relationship between employer and employee. A job is considered “non-standard” if its features differ from those of standard employment. The following are some examples of non-standard work: Temporary agency work emerged in most European countries in the late 1990s and it is now at around 1.9% of all employed in Europe.1 Evidence from the European Working Conditions Survey shows that temporary agency work is seen as the most insecure of contractual forms. Work can be insecure due to weak contractual rights or exposure to market forces. By definition, temporary contracts are expected to be of limited duration, with low or even no dismissal cost to the employer. Self-employment, particularly those self-employed without employees (own-account workers), remained stable in the EU in the last decade overall. Recent growth has largely been in better-paid occupations, but even here the issue of too few people contributing (paying taxes) in the same way as the rest of those employed in standard employment, to social protection is a significant factor behind this growth; people more often than not choose to put their financial needs over the need of social security. Part-time work is one type of non-standard employment that undoubtedly has grown since the onset of the recession. It now accounts for just under 20% of all jobs in the EU. However, almost half of short hours part-time workers do not consider their main labour status to be that of a worker. Casual work, which includes, according to Eurofound, either intermittent work (very short fixed-term work) or on-call work (employed but with very few guaranteed hours), is arguably the most problematic in a social protection context, as the thresholds of contribution periods, working hours and earnings will often not be met. Disguised employment is when workers are hired as independent contractors but their work is monitored by their supervisors as though they were employees. The real nature of the work relationship is hidden to bypass labour regulations. The emergence of the gig2 or platform economy is one of the most important new transformations in the world of work. An important component of the platform economy is digital labour platforms which includes both web-based platforms, where work is outsourced through an open call to a geographically dispersed crowd („crowdwork”), and location-based applications (apps) which allocate work to individuals in a specific geographical area, typically to perform local and service-oriented tasks. The structure of the market of digital platforms has potentially very important implications for working conditions and to the social security policy. Monopsony in the labour market will tend to lead to relatively lower wages and employ fewer people than in a more competitive labour market.
III.
Conflicts
The need to combine a paid job with child care, elder care or the pursuit of studies can best be satisfied through non-standard practices. But the main reason for using non-standard employment lies with the employers, since it gives them flexibility to adjust their workforce as needed, while also redu1 World Employment Confederation, Key Data, 2017, https://www.wecglobal.org/index.php?id=163 2 Gig economy, EOWF, 2018, https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/observatories/eurwork/industrial-relations-dictionary/ gig-economy
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cing costs. However, non-standard employment practices come with many disadvantages regarding each worker’s social security, seeing as most social security policies currently in place aim to protect only workers in standard employment.
What it means for workers: •
•
• •
•
In most instances, non-standard workers earn less than those in standard jobs, even when factors such as age, sex and education are taken into account. However there are exceptions for some non-standard jobs in high-demand; Shorter working hours can give workers the flexibility much-needed and yet, some workers, such as casual workers have limited control over when and how they work, resulting in income insecurity; Some non-standard workers are at greater risk of injury at work due to poor induction, training and supervision; Social security systems were initially designed for the standard workers. As a result, workers in non-standard employment often contribute less to social security due to a combination of short tenure, low earnings and fewer hours of work. This results in lower social security benefits and coverage for non-standard workers; Workers in non-standard employment often face barriers, both in law and in practice, which makes it harder for them to access all their rights as workers.
What it means for firms: Using non-standard employment provides firms with flexibility to respond to fluctuations in demand and to replace temporarily absent workers. However, when non-standard employment is used intensively by enterprises, the benefits of these arrangements can be outweighed by long-term negative impacts on productivity and innovation.
What it means for the labour market: The coexistence of standard and non-standard workers may lead to labour market segmentation3, or duality, a situation in which one segment of the labour market faces both inferior working conditions and vulnerable employment status, while the other segment enjoys more favourable working conditions and employment security granted by permanent contracts – even if workers in both segments perform the same types of jobs.
3 Labour Market Segmentation, International Labour Organisation, https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/employment-security/labour-market-segmentation/lang--en/index.htm
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IV. •
•
• •
• • •
•
V.
Solid facts Non-standard employment rates have been on the rise since the 1980s and up until they peaked in 2007, after the onset of the recession. Between 2007 and 2015, there was a widespread increase in the share of non-standard work in many countries. The share of part-time work went up from 17.5% to 19.6%, while that of temporary jobs increased in 23 out of 33 countries. When it comes to independent professionals, there has been a major growth in these rates. Numbers have increased by 45% from just under 6.2 million to 8.9 million in 2013, making them the fastest growing group in the EU labour market, as the European Forum of Independent Professionals (EFIP) concluded. Young people, foreign-born workers and those with low educational attainment are prone to work in some form of non-standard employment. Part-time work is now a widespread phenomenon, occurring for all ages, both genders, and among various labour market states, occupations and sectors; accounting for just under 20% of all jobs in the EU. Involuntary part-time work increased from 22.4% of all part-time work to 29.1% between 2007 and 2015; and there are twice as many involuntary female part-timers. Slightly more men than women work via digital platforms and more young than old, particularly among those who do this work intensively. Overall in the EU, the male share of short weekly hours has grown from 1.5% to 2.8% (of all male workers), while the female share has increased from 6.1% to 6.6%; it has risen particularly among the young. Of the self-employed, 18% could be classified as dependent on the basis of their self-perceived and objective economic situation.
Status Quo
As mentioned before, many actors in the non-standard employment economy welcome the benefits of this new work model. To many, it is a means to an additional income, improving one’s quality of life whilst not having to work conventional hours, allowing individuals to pursue different career paths with easier access and greater networking opportunities. Moreover, these companies argue they are providing a cheaper and better service fit for the digital world that is preferable to the current systems of employer-employee, or inaccessible sole-traders. However, there are activist groups and political parties concerned how very little these non-standard practices benefit the local economy and the workers themselves; they are concerned about the impact non-standard employment practices can have on the social security policy. For example, many critics would argue most employers falsely contract the workers in the non-standard employment to avoid paying certain benefits to individuals such as offering them poor health and safety conditions and not paying tax. The International Labour Organisation is one of the biggest entities at the moment which has in mind advancing social justice and promoting decent work. In regards to the non-standard employment practices, ILO provides the Member States with standards, guidelines and statistics concerning collective agreement, trade union membership and industrial disputes. Thus, ILO is one out of a couple organisations at the moment which handles non-standard employment and its reper-
16 | EMPL I
cussions on both the economy and the individual; it tries to adapt the social security policy to the non-standard employment. But when it comes down to the economy and the society as a whole, the rise in non-standard employment puts social security aspects in the European Union at risk of collapsing, in case nothing changes drastically in the course of the next decade. Social security refers to pensions, health care, insurances and many other benefits and taking into consideration the rise in both people in need of those benefits and non-tax payers, the EU must find a way to reconstruct their social security policy. For example, the Wall Street Journal recently did a rather bleak report on public pension funds in Europe.4 The forces which try to improve and expand social security arrangements, at the moment, will remain in a rough equilibrium with the forces that try to economise on social expenditure and to cut back on too generous benefits. However, if monetary policies get the upper hand, the development of social security will largely withdraw; case in which great dangers to the social security system may loom ahead.
VI.
Actors Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (DG EMPL) is responsible for labour law as well as supporting fairer working conditions under the European Pillar of Social Rights. Most recently, it created the European Centre of Expertise for Labour Law (ECE) to assist the Commission in applying EU legislation, analysing the rulings of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and potential disputes, as well as promoting debates on these issues. In addition, the department runs the EU Programme for Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI), which is partly aimed to improve unemployment and working conditions across Europe. Council of the European Union – The Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council (EPSCO) consists of all Member States’ ministers, who are responsible for social and employment policy, along with relevant commissioners. The Council meets twice a year to exclusively discuss social and employment policy topics as well as drafting annual employment guidelines. Eurofound is the EU agency responsible for researching and analysing the development of working and living conditions, labour markets and employment across Europe with the aim of assisting national and EU policy-makers. Member States – Since social and employment policy is considered a shared competence under Article 4 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), Member States are required to implement and interpret basic EU standards in their employment laws. Corporations – With companies such as Uber expanding rapidly into the EU, any changes to the legal status of self-contracted workers and the rights afforded to them will have a dramatic impact on their bottom line. A trade union model, such as the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain, negotiating their rights both with governments and employers, could allow for people in the non-standard work practices to have a stronger voice in agreeing standard rates for these short-term contracts as well as bargaining for certain standards within these new companies.
4 Europe Faces Pension Predicament, The Wall Street Journal, Juliet Samuel, 2016, https://www.wsj.com/articles/europe-faces-pension-predicament-1457287588?utm_campaign=JM-305&utm_medium=ED&utm_source=for
EMPL I | 17
VII.
Summary
Non-standard employment has been recognized for several decades as a phenomenon worthy of analysis by social scientists. It includes several forms of employment including part-time, fixed-term contracts, agency work and self-employment, some of which are voluntarily chosen, well-paid and secure, and others which are involuntary, insecure, are generally poorly compensated, have generally low, minimal or non-existent social protection and the absence of collective representation. Legislation is an important tool for securing better employment terms and working conditions for non-standard workers; it should ensure that all workers – regardless of the nature of their employment – can both contribute to and benefit from social security programmes such as health insurance and pension funds. Collective bargaining is another useful tool for regulating non-standard employment and can address the specificities of particular enterprises or economic sectors. In times of economic instability, businesses are more likely to rely on non-standard work arrangements. Countries must adopt fiscal policies that foster opportunities for full employment. Many workers – mostly women – must juggle employment with the responsibility of caring for young, sick or elderly family members. Societies can support these workers by mandating parental and care leave for both women and men, and by making it easier for all workers to transition between full-time and part-time work. Regulation through national legislation, collective bargaining, and comprehensive social protection systems is key to ensuring that non-standard employment is decent work in the interest of both workers and enterprises. Thus, there are many measures which can make non-standard workers’ lives better, while also securing the labour market and the economy, and all actors must work together towards creating a comprehensive policy in regards to non-standard workers.
Links and further research and read • • • • • • • •
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Non-standard employment around the world, ILO Aspects of Non-Standard Employment in Europe, Eurofound, 2017 Employing people, European Commission Social security, Your Europe, 2019 SYSTEM FAILURE: SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC (IN)SECURITY IN EUROPE, Green Europe Journal, Guillaume Duval, Philippe Lamberts Social Security and Solidarity in the European Union, Joos P.A. van Vugt, Jan M. Peet Labour market Statistics at regional level, eurostat, 2018 Access to social protection for people working on non-standard contracts and as self-employed in Europe, European Commission, 2017
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COMMITTEE ON EMPLOYMENT AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS II Houses behind homes – With the ever-rising living costs in major cities affecting the employment prospects for millions of young people across the continent, how can the European Union and its Member States ensure fair and accessible housing supply in metropolitan areas for its citizens? by Christian Gruber (AT) and Jakub Rech (CZ) I.
Description
Everyone has the right to affordable housing. Yet, we are witnessing the peak of housing prices and it is becoming harder and harder for the citizens to be able to afford a place for living in the metropolitan areas. Although not all of Member States are equally affected, current situation is still alarming and relevant for all of the EU citizens, considering that inhabitants of 26 out of 28 capitals report, that it is difficult to find an adequate place to live.1 This mainly affects the young citizens and newcomers to the cities, mainly because they are not yet so economically independent. On the other hand, increasing prices of the real estate favour older generations, since the most of the house owners are of age higher than 35.2
II.
Explanation
In 2017, 10.4 % share of the population of the EU lived in a households that spent 40% or more of their equivalised disposable income on housing.3 Although this number is slowly declining (compared to 2016 it is 0.7% lower), the number of citizens affected by unaffordability of their dwelling is alarming. On one hand, the fact that the differences between Member States are considerable; on the other, there are countries as Malta, Cyprus or Ireland, where this number does not exceed 5%. To illustrate, two of the highest ranking Member States – Bulgaria and Greece – reached 18.9% and disturbing 39.6% respectively. 4Such a disparity makes the issue of affordable housing hard to tackle on the whole EU level. There are also noticeable variations on the national levels. 1 EU Faces Affordable Housing Crisis Excluding Young People From Top-Quality Job Opportunities, Says World Bank https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2018/11/08/eu-faces-affordable-housing-crisis-excluding-young-people-fromtop-quality-job-opportunities-says-world-bank 2 Living and Leaving, Figure 2.24b http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/507021541611553122/Living-Leaving-web.pdf 3 Young people - housing conditions, eurostat, 2018 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?oldid=356776 4 Housing cost overburden rate, eurostat, 2018 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/graph.do;jsessionid=dhRemDKPjZ8VyFl_AbMfFwArC6RifU-4C06fN-h5VrFwC7y8wvZ4!198186973?tab=graph&plugin=1&pcode=tespm140&language=en&toolbox=data
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It is the metropolitan areas, that are in majority negatively influenced by the high prices of housing. Since most firms and high-productivity jobs are concentrated there, the prosperity of such regions is bigger. The prosperous companies offer higher wages, thus attract potential employees, which leads to increase of population of the particular place. The increased income of the citizens usually results in higher living costs across the area, especially the housing market. Unfortunately, this time, the housing prices have increased rapidly due to high demand while the economic growth in general was not sufficient enough to allow for a proportionate increase in the salary of the people. Since the rural areas or the smaller cities do not usually experience such a growth, they happen to be less economically developed, but at the same time more affordable to the citizens. The problem comes when the citizens from these places decide to move to the metropolitan areas, with a vision of better future, higher income and overall better living standard. The starting salary does not usually compensate for the costs of living, so the newcomers often find themselves in the situation, where they spend most of their income on inadequate dwelling. Therefore are the people, originally from the rural areas, often discouraged from moving. This reduces internal migration, which is important especially for the balancing of labour market.
III.
Conflicts
Firstly, it is important to realise that the price of housing units is dependent on multiple factors, such as both labor and housing markets and regulations made by individual governments. Since the late 18th century, with the beginning of the first industrial revolution to be exact, countries all around the world experienced a major development. Since then, the percentage of people living in urban areas has grown continuously. As factories and other job opportunities were usually placed in cities, people started for the first time moving into towns. Before the industrial revolution, the primary reasons for living in a city were political and or safety reasons. However, times have changed and so have the reasons for urbanisation. Although one could still consider job offers as very influential in the topic, it has become the infrastructure, which has simply become more accessible for people living in urban areas. Educational institutions such as schools and universities, hospitals, public transport, social aspects, etc. do play a major role of both individuals and families now when considering to move to a more urbanised area, as rural areas often cannot provide enough infrastructure. Over the last few decades, it has more and more also become a lifestyle choice, if to move into urban areas or not. While urban areas can perhaps persuade with a variety of cinemas and supermarkets, peace and proximity to nature are often connected with rural areas. With an increasing amount of people living in an area, firms also tend to invest more and hence leads to a greater variety of services and opportunities. However, simultaneously, the costs of living, the rent/ cost per square meter in an apartment will increase as well. Especially cities with a very high standard of living(a lot of opportunities, good infrastructure, well-paid jobs, etc.) tend to have difficulties dealing with the skyrocketing housing prices. While landscape planning authorities might oppose the thought, boosting the construction industry considerably would help popular cities to reduce rent prices. Another possibility would be to set a limit to housing prices, which on the other hand would make construction less profitable and reducing investments in the area.
EMPL II | 21
The reasons for high housing prices can be cut down to four major actors:
1. Corporate influence on housing The economic point of view, the imbalance of supply and demand is a crucial factor of determining the price of real estate. More workers with higher income mean more people wanting to live somewhere in the area – higher demand. Ideally, the developers should react with offering more housing opportunities – increasing the supply. Balance of these two factors should lead to stable prices. These days however, the supply does not often respond, therefore the prices grow, in order to compensate. This responsiveness varies across the Member states, with Slovenia and Croatia leading the statistics and United Kingdom, Romania and Denmark on the last spots.5 This diversity is due to different approach by each member state to the problematics of housing.
2. Building Regulations One of the reason of the low responsiveness are multiple building restrictions issued by local and national authorities. For example height restrictions can sometimes discourage the developers from ambitious projects, forcing them to either not starting them or locating them somewhere else. In addition, the efficiency of the process of obtaining the building permit, is yet another influencing aspect. The complexity of these procedures negatively impacts the will of developers to start new projects.
3. Inclination towards owning or renting? Another element to consider is the amount of rent control by the governments. Most of the states favour house ownership over the renting6, which may not be an issue by itself. However, since the housing prices are too high, many people have no other choice than renting. The governments have lately focused on promoting the ownership, yet the tenants are still overlooked. Therefore, it is no surprise that the tenants paying rents are 30% more likely to be overburdened than the owners.7 Although the governments choose this approach for a good reason - promoting settling and creation of new families - the renting is becoming more popular each day and the states should keep up.
4. Corporate interest in the market S ince popular metropolitan areas usually experience an increase of apartment prices, many firms start speculating on the market and thus further increase the prices. As these real estate firms are usually primarily focused on return, they further increase prices on the market, leading to a vicious circle.
5 Living and Leaving, Figure O.5 http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/507021541611553122/Living-Leaving-web.pdf 6 7 in 10 people in the EU live in a dwelling they own https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/DDN-20171102-1?inheritRedirect=true 7 Living and Leaving, Figure 2.23b http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/507021541611553122/Living-Leaving-web.pdf
22 | EMPL II
IV.
Solid facts
•
Increases in housing prices have often outpaced wage increases metropolitan areas throughout the European Union. (Living-Leaving, 2018).
•
In a survey conducted in late 2017, citizens out of 26 of 28 Member States’ capitals confirmed that it is difficult to find adequately affordable housing.
•
“Land and housing assets are a source of wealth inequality, have an important impact on spatial inequality, and could potentially determine the degree of intergenerational mobility within a society.” (Living Leaving, 2018)
•
The cumulative growth of house prices in 2015 and 2016 exceeded 20% in Member States such as Finland, Hungary and Sweden, whereas in Greece and Italy, housing prices experienced a decline.
•
Housing prices in Member States often fluctuate independently from each other and often go through over/under-evaluation of the market itself. Although most countries are within a sizeable misevaluation range of 10%, some exceed that evaluation and are under special pressure, since the market cannot be corrected easily. (European Commission, 2014)
•
Housing prices (including rural areas) have increased a whopping 4,5% in 2017 throughout the European Union, while inflation was set at about 1,7% and wage increase at 0,7%. (Euronews, 8.1.2018)
•
According to the World Bank, housing prices are often an overburden for large parts of the population, as can be seen in the following infographic. (worldbank.org, 8.11.2018)
•
Density and height restrictions implemented by the local and regional decision makers often lead to a decrease in affordability for the population seeking for a home in reasonable distance from their workplace and schools, hospital, etc.
V.
Status Quo
Since the financial and the following economic crisis kicked in in 2008, governments across the EU have decimated their public spending on housing for its citizens. A drastic cut in public spending lead to an underfunding of construction, especially in metropolitan areas, since they are also facing another problem: urbanisation. Thus, facing two independent factors for increased housing prices, urban areas have to tackle a combined issue with increased level of difficulty. It is especially difficult for the European Union to implement strategies, which all Member States can impose, as cities like France, Paris in comparison to Munich, Germany might in fact face completely different obstacles. While the outcome might be indistinguishable from each other, the root of the problem may vary greatly. In this example, Paris is primarily struggling to spend enough money on additional living spaces, while Munich is sought for by international investors who buy into the market with vast financial resources. In both cases however, prices increase disproportionately to the average net salary of the cities’ citizens. It is also important to point to the fact, that different Member States also take diverse approaches in tax policies when it comes to housing. More than a third of the Member States favor ownership. These Member States subsidise mortgages (for example for young families), by decreasing the interest rate on said mortgage. However, steps have been taken to reduce this so called mortgage deductibility, since it favors high-income households and increases overall indebtedness per household. Low property tax is also seen as ownership-friendly. Taxes on transactions are more closely related
EMPL II | 23
to a property’s market value. Such taxes favour long-term ownership, hence contributing to the reduction of speculative bubbles. However, they may also discourage potential buyers and sellers and therefore reduce mobility. The rental market can have a huge impact on the housing market as well. Because renting is a path towards affordable housing, rental markets are usually subject to strong public intervention. Beyond such social measures, market rents themselves can be controlled, notably through caps on annual rent increases. In the past, the European Commission has recommended a series of changes in the national laws of the Member States. Since the housing markets of the Member States vary greatly from each other, the EC has tried to adapt its recommendations accordingly, since not all countries are affected in the same way. Housing policy is a competence of Member States. Nevertheless, housing markets are attracting more attention from policymakers at EU-level than in the past. One important reason for this is the strengthened role of the European Commission in macroeconomic surveillance since the financial and economic crisis. The Macroeconomic Imbalances Procedure and the Alert Mechanism Report aim to identify and address imbalances that could hinder the functioning of the economies of Member States, thus including the housing market. On the basis of these reviews, recommendations can then be given under the European Semester for implementation of the Europe 2020 Strategy. Ultimately, if corrections are not made, sanctions can be issued under the Excessive Imbalance Procedure. In 2014, reviews were prepared for Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Croatia, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden and the United Kingdom. In 2015, the Alert Mechanism Report announced In Depth Reviews for Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Spain, Finland, France, Croatia, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden and the UK. With the knowledge of said reviews, some recommendations were made, including investment in rental housing, taxation of vacant property, more flexible supply of land for construction, less favorable tax regimes for home-ownership, and ensuring that social housing reaches the most vulnerable.
VI.
Actors
The following graphic shows you how alterations in diverse fields of the housing market affect it. As the housing market is much more complex than a simple infographic may ever show, please do not consider this graphic as a full representation of all actors, but rather an aid to improve your understanding of the topic. To emphasize the complexity of the issue, it should be pointed out that, each of the following components can individually interact with each other, since the housing market in itself is very flexible and can change even to small alterations in other markets etc. High in the hierarchy you will be able to spot the two main groups which have a large say in what is going on in the housing market in general, namely the Ownership and Rental Departments. They are primarily controlled only by the local and national authorities. When taking a closer look, you will find that ownership is affected especially by the taxation policies in place, whereas the rental market is not, as Member States tend to claim little to no taxes on rented property for the tenants. Supply is mainly controlled by the construction industry and investment firms. However, public spending in the sector can further persuade firms to invest further in the area. Also demand in ownership has shown how generally external investment and the people themselves increase housing prices.
24 | EMPL II
The current state indicates a massive increase in cities’ populations due to urbanisation but also in the large majority of times, when migrating to another country, people settle in urban areas. The rental side, is not affected by investments in the first place, as rentals usually go along with actually using the rented space. Therefore it is even more important to provide these people the space they need. In general you are able to see, that both established strings have very similar properties and requisitions, which makes it even harder for authorities to satisfy both sides’ wishes.
VII.
Summary
As previously discussed, the housing market is a very vulnerable market and can affect millions of households throughout the European Union, no matter if they are home-owners or renting into apartments in metropolitan areas. According to market analysts, there seems to be no halt to the current trend of increasing prices. Therefore, rapid actions to relieve parties involved seem to be adequate. Furthermore it is important to note, that the European Commission is in no place to directly impose regulations onto the major metropolitan areas of the European Union. Therefore its job is rather directional than policy-making. Since the metropolitan areas across the EU differ from each other in respect to general structure and jurisdiction, regulations to serve all MS would hardly improve the overall situation. However how should different cities react in such diverse circumstances? How can they improve their own situation? For example, would it help the situation, if the property tax would increase? Or would it rather deflate regional development? In this committee you are going to experience how a market, in our case the housing market can be corrected and influenced in order to provide as many citizens as possible a fair share of the pie and a high standard of living in metropolitan areas.
VIII. • • • • • •
Links and further research and read Housing market developments as described by the European Commission in 2014 Article about Housing prices across the EU Useful statistics A very detailed report by the World Bank on the Housing issue across the EU National expenditures on construction developments Helpful infographics about the EU’s citizens’ housing issues
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COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT, PUBLIC HEALTH AND FOOD SAFETY I Opportunities behind limitations – With China's increased restrictions on impurity of imported waste and low recycling rates among Member States, what measures should the European Union undertake to overcome the downfalls of reprocessing plastics? by Jorden Kent (LU) I.
Description
The EU is one of the world’s biggest waste producers, accounting for 25 tonnes of plastic waste1 every year. What they do with this waste is often very varied. While one would think that most of this plastic is recycled, the reality shows that only an average of 30% is actually reused. The largest amount of EU waste is, in practice, shipped off to foreign countries in East Asia and Africa, where it is either recycled or landfilled. With China, the previously largest plastic waste importer, banning 24 types of waste products from entering their country, the EU is at a loss as to what to do with its vast quantities of plastic. What now needs to be answered, is what can the EU do to turn the situation around and strive for better environmental decisions.
II.
Explanation
In a world where climate change remains one of the most persistent issues, it is imperative that all necessary measures are taken to combat this global phenomenon. The EU itself has set up goals to reduce its waste output, however in practice much of waste is still exported to less developed countries. As most plastic waste currently produced is of low quality and low value, which means it is not as cost efficient to recycle it, European countries export large quantities of waste to other countries, where the the waste is supposed to be recycled. However, there are not measures and regulations in place to supervise this once the waste has been exported. According to Zero Waste Europe, Europe’s ways of dealing with plastic waste are the following: incinerators (roughly 40%), landfills (around 30%) and exports (more or less 12%), primarily to China and other countries in the Global South.2
1 Changing the way we use plastics, European Commission, 2018 http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/pdf/pan-european-factsheet.pdf 2 Europe at crossroads: After the Chinese ban on plastic waste imports, what now?, Zero Waste Europe, Rosa Ferran, 2018 https:// zerowasteeurope.eu/2018/02/europe-after-chinese-plastic-ban/
26 | ENVI I
It is difficult to see Europe as a leading figure in combating waste, when it produces a large amount thereof, to later export it to other countries who deal with their waste. In addition, incinerators (burning of waste) also contribute to global CO2 output3, which in turn has a negative impact on climate change, as these emissions enlarge the carbon footprint of the world. Additionally, plastic additives may have many adverse health effects.4 Polystyrene, for example is a carcinogen, contributing to the development of cancer. This should incentivise all parties involved to lower plastic consumption, if not for health reasons, than for the sake of the environment, as these additives do not only affect people. Indeed, these additives also pollute our environment5, leading to the destruction of both flora and fauna.
III.
Conflicts
One of the main issues regarding plastic waste and recyclage is that the EU only has shared competences in areas of legislation covering the environment. This means while the EU can propose measures, Member States are entitled to implement their own rules and regulations. Because of this, Member States have different ways of dealing with plastic waste. While countries such as Germany, Finland, the Czech Republic and Belgium have a pfandflask system (paying a refundable deposit for certain kinds of bottles), other countries are not as evolved in recycling. Through the differing legislation, there are large disparities between the different Member States, leading to eastern European countries, where recycling regulations are not as evolved, at an increased risk of becoming landfilled (deposit of waste into or onto land). As these countries’ labour costs are oftentimes cheaper than the Western European countries that primarily export the waste, this could be the new cost efficient solution after China has refused to be a dumping ground, which would negate the need to find a better environmental solution. Another issue that causes conflict is that due to low oil prices, producing new plastics is cheaper than recycling old ones.6 Because of the lack of economic incentive, many business owners and consumers are dissuaded from using recycled plastics, which is counter-productive for lowering both plastic consumption and production, one of the EU’s current objectives.
IV. • • • •
Solid facts Average 31,1kg of plastic waste produced per EU citizen7 87% of EU’s plastic waste is exported to China8Plastic waste makes up 85%of worldwide beach litter9 Plastic items can take up to 1000 years to decompose10 An estimate of 250 000 tons of plastic currently floats in our oceans11
3 Emissions from Waste Incarceration, Bernt Johnke https://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/gp/bgp/5_3_Waste_Incineration.pdf 4 Adverse Health Effects of Plastics, ecology center, https://ecologycenter.org/factsheets/adverse-health-effects-of-plastics/ 5 Impact of plastics on human health and ecosystems, News Medical, 2010 https://www.news-medical.net/ news/20100320/Impact-of-plastics-on-human-health-and-ecosystems.aspx 6 The one thing that makes recycling plastic work is falling apart, Business Insider, Sarah Kramer, 2016 https://www. businessinsider.com/low-oil-prices-hurt-plastics-recycling-2016-4?r=US&IR=T 7 Plastic waste: Who is responsible – and who recycles, IW Medien / iwd, 2017 https://www.iwkoeln.de/fileadmin/_processed_/b/0/csm_iwd-2017-24-11-Plastikmuell_englisch_ef958783a6.png 8 Global recycling markets: plastic waste, ISWA, Costas Velis, 2014 https://www.iswa.org/fileadmin/galleries/Task_Forces/TFGWM_Report_GRM_Plastic_China_LR.pdf 9 A European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy, 2018, http://ec.europa.eu/environment/circular-economy/pdf/ plastics-strategy.pdf 10 The Decomposition of Waste in Landfills: A Story of Time and Materials, SMB, Rick Leblanc, 2018 https://www.thebalancesmb.com/how-long-does-it-take-garbage-to-decompose-2878033 11 A global inventory of small floating plastic debris, IOP Publishing, 2015, https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/12/124006;jsessionid=123F0E078E457FC6106D3ACEE956F209.c3.iopscience.cld.iop.org
ENVI I | 27
V.
Status Quo
Many supermarkets have started initiatives to limit the use of plastic packaging. The “Cactus” supermarket chain in Luxembourg has started initiatives such as reusable vegetable bags, and nut, cereal and dried fruit dispensers with biodegradable bags to reduce the use of plastic bags. Another way that is used to incentivise individuals to cut down on plastic bag use, is by charging extra for their purchase. Since 2015, the UK has implemented a policy paper that required large companies to charge 5p per disposable plastic bags, which as a consequence, has reduced the consumption by 80%. In addition to this, the money raised was donated to organisations aimed at environmental protection, making this a viable solution for the future.
VI.
Summary
In summation, the EU needs to strive towards finding new, environmentally friendly ways to combat waste. It needs to work with the different Member States, as environment is a shared competence. Through this collaboration, they should incentivise both the larger companies/agencies and individuals to cut down on plastic waste they produce to ensure that everyone can play a part in combating plastic waste and, in extension, global warming as a whole. Many good initial steps have been made, but we now need to build up on these initiatives for them to have a bigger impact on an EU scale. The environmental state can not be significantly changed if only a handful of people is willing to do something. The impact of our current ways should be used as an explanation for the change that is needed.
VII.
Links and further research and read
Facts on the topic: • The world is scrambling now that China is refusing to be a trash dumping ground CNBC, 2018 • THE FACTS: CHINA’S TIGHTER RESTRICTIONS ON WASTE IMPORTS wrap • China’s trash ban forces Europe to confront its waste problem Politico, 2018 • Europe at crossroads: After the Chinese ban on plastic waste imports, what now? Zero waste Europe, Ferran Rosa, 2018 Institutions and competences: • EU competences and European Commission powers Citizens initiative, 2019 • Institutions and bodies Europa, 2018
28 | ENVI I
COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT, PUBLIC HEALTH AND FOOD SAFETY II Numbers behind symptoms – With the efforts of the European Union in supporting its Member States to protect and improve health and healthcare, how can Health Economics be implemented to benefit the Member States’ healthcare systems? by Elīna Jekale (LV) I.
Description
The sustainability trend has spread across different industries, and healthcare industry has not been left out. In the latest Health at a Glance: Europe issue, the importance of reducing wasteful spending in the healthcare industry is highlighted; and this is not just because the European Union (EU) wants to be trendy. According to the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimates, over one fifth of the expenditure in the healthcare if industry could be eliminated.1 Put it in other words, the Czech Republic would use the existing budget for healthcare systems thoughtfully, a healthy Czech person would live 10 years longer. This, however, only emphasises a threat known as aging population. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that Member States apply policies for sustainable healthcare system management.
II.
Explanation
For our purposes, we can say that health economics means sustainable management practices in the healthcare systems, and sustainable management would imply that we take care of resources so that they give their best today, tomorrow and 100 years from now. This means that we have to use resources as much as we can, but we cannot overuse them. Nurses and doctors must rest, there should not be queues for equipment, rooms have to be cleaned and hospitals refurbished. When talking about healthcare system, sustainability would also imply that hospitals make the most out of the financing they receive. In the case of hospitals, one must remember that they are by a large margin government-funded institutions. In fact, on average the second biggest expenditure of Member States is healthcare; and this expenditure is growing and will continue to do so. One of the most obvious reasons is the aging population. The biggest expenditure category within the healthcare system is the budget for hospitals. Thus, to achieve significant cost reductions and eliminate large part of the wasteful spending, we should focus on improving the work in hospitals. In the recent years, hospitals have failed to reduce their costs, on the contrary, they have increased their spending. 1
Health at a Glance: Europe 2018: State of Health in the EU Cycle Report https://doi.org/10.1787/health_glance_eur-2018-en
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Hospitals: • purchase expensive medical equipment that oftentimes does not bring much value to the hospital; •
hire expensive specialists when they are lacking nurses, sanitation workers and people that in total bring more value2;
•
have poorly planned schedules regarding workforce on the spot, meaning that people that are hospitalised on weekends, have to spend extra time at the hospital, this phenomena even has a name – “the weekend effect”3.
Another interesting aspect to look at is the eHealth action plan 2012-2020. The main purpose of the action plan is to implement an online system for the storage of patients’ records, it would allow the doctors to better track the patient’s health and make prescriptions online. The patient would also benefit from faster information flow. The biggest benefit to a person, however, would be the possibility for a doctor to faster diagnose an illness, and, by having fast access to the patient’s health records, the doctor could then find a better solution for curing the patient. This would reduce days one would have to spend in a hospital and the finances a person would have to spend on medication. Thus, this all implies significant cost cuts for the healthcare industry.4
III.
Conflicts
When looking from the patients view point, it is clear that they want to get the best care possible when being ill. It is in the patient’s interests to have a good balance of nurses and doctors, good specialists and all the needed equipment in a hospital; and all of that must be in a reachable distance. Then there are the hospitals, all of them want to have a competent staff and good equipment, however, they are aware that they cannot be specialised in all of the areas of medicine. Hospitals are striving to be the best, however, some of them lack nurses, some of them lack doctors. Hospitals that are in populated areas often do not have enough space for all their patients. While hospitals cooperate with other hospitals in the country, they are fighting with each other for the good specialists and for the budget. At the end of the spectrum there are the governments of Member States. It is in the government’s best interests to have healthy citizens, thus, a great healthcare system. However, when deciding about the budget they also have to think about education, defence and many other sectors that need support. Since healthcare expenditures keep growing, governments struggle to find ways how to split the budget between all of the sectors. This leaves hospitals in the crossroad – nurses and doctors are working more shifts than they should, patients are lining up and in some Member States the situation is so bad that some patients have to sleep in the hallways. It is more than clear that one hospital cannot deliver on patients’ expectations, there should be a harmonised system within a country, even more – within the EU. Nevertheless, how to decide which hospital would specialise in which part of medicine? Would it really be fair to leave hospitals in some areas with only some basic functions? Another aspect to keep in mind is the eHealth action plan. It could significantly reduce the expenditure burden on hospitals, however, implementing the system has proven to be more difficult than it would seem. First of all, the start-up costs are massive. Second, the internet access across the EU is 2 Where hospitals are losing money? https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertpearl/2017/11/07/hospitals-losing-millions/#6c9ac8d47b50 3 The “weekend effect” https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertpearl/2013/10/10/why-being-hospitalized-on-a-weekendcosts-more-lives-health-care-dollars/#803b53e1ea8d 4 eHealth action plan 2012-2020 https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/ehealth-action-plan-2012-2020innovative-healthcare-21st-century
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not the same, there are rural areas with bad network connections, there are also resorts on the Alps that also struggle with the quality of the service. Lastly, there is a lack of trust in the eHealth system among citizens, patients and healthcare professionals.
IV.
Solid facts
•
The average Member State spends around 9% from its GDP on healthcare5, which is the second biggest expenditure category
•
However, there are large inequalities in the healthcare system6 that should be expected since some countries spend less than 5% of GDP on healthcare while other spend more than 11%
•
Such discrepancies should be eliminated through the European Pillar of Social Rights that puts an emphasis on the right to timely access to affordable, preventive and curative healthcare of good quality
•
There are 19 countries that have agreed to share the health data7 to improve healthcare as such, nevertheless, the systems are not yet working in all of the countries
V.
Status Quo
Within the European Union, the area of public health policies falls under a category called “shared competences”. This means that every Member State can decide what to do in the specific area unless the European Commission has not taken any action. In the case of sustainable healthcare system management, each Member State can decide what to do because there is nothing significant from the European Commission apart from recommendation on effective, accessible and resilient health systems. When talking about the eHealth specifically, there is, of course, the eHealth Action plan 2012-2020. There are other organisations as well that are helping Member States to address the sustainability issues. One of such is the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO provides assistance in managing financial resources8, monitoring and assessing policy changes. The WHO also has a Health Systems Governance Programme that helps to define and implement the policy changes, and helps to boost the capacity of the industry. Besides the actual help of the WHO, the European Commission together with the OECD have prepared extensive reports on healthcare system as such, while the latest Health at a Glance issue also stresses the importance of the economics side of healthcare systems. Lastly, there has been created the European Health Economics Associations (EuHEA). Not all of the European Union Member States have joined the association. As for now the EuHEA organises conferences once every two years, their main goal is to facilitate cooperation between countries, and to foster health economics at European universities.
5 Healthcare expenditure statistics, eurostat, 2018 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/ Healthcare_expenditure_statistics 6 Report on inequalities in access to healthcare across the EU released, European Commission, 2018 https://ec.europa. eu/social/main.jsp?langId=en&catId=754&furtherNews=yes&newsId=9238 7 Latvia becomes the 19th EU country to join eHealth cooperation for personalised healthcare, Picante Today, 2018 https://picante.today/europe/european-commission-press-releases/2018/11/14/9846/latvia-becomes-the-19th-eu-country-to-join-ehealth-cooperation-for-personalised-healthcare/ 8 Health Systems Financing, the WHO http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/Health-systems/health-systems-financing
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VI.
Summary
Authorities and Member States are becoming more aware of the wastefulness happening in the healthcare systems, thus, health economics is an emerging topic which has gained recognition just recently. Nevertheless, the findings about how wasteful the health sector is at the moment are alarming. This all points to the importance of understanding how to adapt the existing system to more sustainable approaches to save billions of euros. As for now the greatest challenges are being faced by the hospitals. Hospitals are operating on tight budgets due to their increasing expenses. Because of the limited budgets many health sector workers are underpaid and work more shifts than necessary. This leads to greater errors when treating the patient which ultimately means more resources spent than was needed. While there are many tools that could help to reduce the expenses, one specific is the ehealth system. What are other ways to improve the sustainability of the healthcare systems? How to better redistribute the patients between hospitals? How to increase the trust for the ehealth system? These and many more questions we will have to tackle.
VII.
Links and further research and read
•
Health at a Glance: Europe 2018 – chapter 2 is directly related to health economics and it is not that long, I highly recommend to read at least this one
•
Why hospitals are losing money? – an interesting read by Forbes that points at some inefficiencies in the healthcare industry
•
Communication from the Commission – On effective, accessible and resilient health systems – key points from the recommendation from the European Commission on how to make healthcare systems more resilient towards challenges
•
eHealth system – this is a video about the possibilities of the eHealth system. This is specifically about Estonia, nevertheless, the idea is roughly the same for all Member State
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COMMITTEE ON INDUSTRY, RESEARCH AND ENERGY Latitude behind boundary – With the increasing strategic importance of space-related services, what can the European Union do to retain its degree of competitiveness and innovation and meet future demands of its society? by Julia Kozłowska (PL) I.
Description
Space technology, data and services are one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy. From 1957 to 2019, there has been a sharp increase in its significance. They can help to deliver on EU’s policy priorities: security, climate change, transport, data economy and management of natural disasters, as space data helps to manage borders and save lives at sea, improves response to earthquakes, forest fires and floods, allows farmers to plan ahead, helps to protect the environment and monitor climate change. Moreover, in everyday life, it allows people to use mobile phones, drive cars with a navigation system, take the plane or watch satellite TV. However, due to its dynamic character, maintaining a strong and innovative space industry requires constant adjustments to the alternating market situation. Because of the work of the European Space Agency (ESA), Europe is the leader in many areas of Space development. However, with other countries, such as China and India, rapidly developing their Space Agencies, there is a need to intensify efforts towards creating an independent structural system necessary for space exploration.
II.
Explanation With the world progressing through the 21st century, humanity expanding into and utilising space
is the next step. The major environmental concern of our time is the increasing consumption of Earth’s resources to sustain our way of life. As more and more nations make the change from agricultural to industrial nations, their standard of life will improve, which will mean that more and more people will be competing for the same resources. One of the most promising routes for development is moon mining – for Helium-3 to power fusion reactors1, and rare Earth elements (e.g. uranium, yttrium and thorium) that are crucial in the electronics production. At the moment, 90% of them is sourced from China, but their reserves are estimated to run out in 15 to 20 years2. Besides those, platinum-group elements, that are applicable in electronics and jewellery industry, can be found on the Moon. Colonizing the Moon and mining those resources would allow 1 Helium-3 mining on the lunar surface, European Space Agency, 2015 https://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Preparing_for_the_Future/Space_for_Earth/Energy/Helium-3_mining_on_the_lunar_surface 2 Rare earth elements facts, Government of Canada, 2018 https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/mining-materials/facts/rare-earth-elements/20522
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humanity to travel further into space, thus exploring other planets of the Solar System and utilizing their resources. Moon colonization has been humanity’s dream for decades. If we can solve the medical dangers posed by microgravity and the high levels of radiation to which the astronauts would be exposed after leaving the protection of the Earth’s atmosphere, the colonists could take advantage of the plentiful raw materials, unlimited solar power, vacuum, and microgravity to make products that we are not able to create while inside the cocoon of Earth’s atmosphere and gravity. Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX is aiming to colonize Mars, with a plan to send first humans there in 2024. With the development of Starship and Super Heavy, the world’s first fully-reusable launch vehicle and spacecraft, the company is also planning to revolutionize transportation as we know it, allowing people to travel outside of the Earth’s atmosphere.3 Taking into consideration the increasing data demand, it is important to provide sufficient access to it while at the same time - lower the cost per megabyte. It can be achieved by increasing the number of satellites orbiting Earth and reducing the cost of production and launch. There is no single area of industry that could not be modernized by the research in the field of space activities, the only limit to those possibilities is human imagination and the amount of money people are willing to invest in the necessary research. Another important branch of space-related activities is tourism. Since 2001, only seven people have visited space as tourists, but this number is expected to grow rapidly in the forthcoming years. Recently, three big companies – SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic – increased their efforts towards reducing the costs of such trips. The latter has already sold hundreds of tickets for the flights that are yet to happen, with the first set to take off in 2019.4
III.
Conflicts
Space has been called “the final frontier”, it is resourceful – and at the same time – very expensive. While some believe, that any price is reasonable for the development, others point at Earth’s problems like poverty, hunger, armed conflicts and prioritize those over uncertain gains of developing space-related technologies and space exploration. At the moment, the USA is an indisputable global leader in utilizing space potential. However, it is never safe to be dependant on another country, no matter how good the relations are. Because of that, there is a belief that Europe should focus more on developing independent space fleet, not to fly to the International Space Station (ISS) only with NASA and Roscosmos, or further developing its own Galileo system to use it instead of the GPS. One of the most controversial lunar resources is Helium-3, an isotope of helium which gets embedded in the upper layer of lunar regolith by the solar wind over billions of years. It could power still-to-be-built nuclear fusion reactors on Earth. However, with the world phasing off fossil fuels, for many people it doesn’t seem like investing in it the amount of money that could as well be used to develop genuinely renewable energy sources on Earth is a rational decision.1 Despite companies efforts to lower the costs of space journeys, they still remain very expensive. For now, the space tourism industry is targeting the wealthiest 1% of humanity. However, in the future, the prices should lower, which would lead to an increment in potential customers. Current research says, 3 Making life multiplanetary, SpaceX, 2019 https://www.spacex.com/mars 4 Are billionaires’ space travel plans out of touch with reality?, Christine Blau [National Geographic], 2018 https://www. nationalgeographic.com/travel/features/future-of-travel/desire-interest-space-tourism/
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that only 42% of responders “would definitely or probably be interested in orbiting the Earth in a spacecraft in the future”5 which makes people doubt the reasoning behind developing a service, that over a half of potential clients is not interested in. Ethical beliefs are sometimes held against space exploration and moon colonization. For example, some argue, that the visual impact mining will have on the moon when combined with its importance to the human culture is too high of a price for the resources we can get.6 Another important factor to consider is lunar heritage – the remains of past lunar missions imprinted on the Moon surface, that might get destroyed in case of any surface activity that is more invasive than research.7
IV.
Solid facts
•
The Space Sector is valued globally at USD 360 billion in 2018, predicted to grow to USD 558 billion by 20268 and to USD 1 trillion by 20409
•
The European space sector employs over 231 000 professionals, with an estimated value of €53-62 billion in 201710
•
Apart from ESA, there are 5 space agencies in Europe – French Centre National d’Études Spatiales, the UK Space Agency, Italian Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, German Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. and Spanish Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial
•
Currently, it costs about USD 10,000 to put a pound of anything into a near-earth orbit, with private entrepreneurs attempting to lower that price to USD 4,000 by 202411; the cost of sending a satellite to the outer space is around USD 60 million 9
•
V.
It is estimated that satellite broadband will represent 50% of the projected growth of the global space economy by 20409
Status Quo
The European Space Agency was established in 1975, currently, it is cooperating closely with its United States of America counterpart, NASA.12 Its space flight programme includes, among others, the participation in the ISS program, the launch and operation of unmanned exploration missions to other planets and the Moon; Earth observation and maintaining the Guiana Space Centre. The vision of the European space industry able to withstand the growing global competition and major technological shifts is composed based on the Space Strategy for Europe and the Industrial Policy Strategy. It aims to tackle challenges such as fighting climate change, helping to stimulate 5 Space tourism? Majority of Americans say they wouldn’t be interested, Mark Strauss and Brian Kennedy [Pew Research Center], 2018 http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/06/07/space-tourism-majority-of-americans-say-they-wouldnt-be-interested/ 6 Managing heritage values in lunar and asteroid mining: what are the issues?, Alice Gorman, 2013 https://www.academia. edu/35157910/Managing_heritage_values_in_lunar_and_asteroid_mining_what_are_the_issues
7 Lunar Heritage Sites, NASA, 2013 https://moon.nasa.gov/resources/53/lunar-heritage-sites/ 8 Global Space Industry Market and Technology Forecast to 2026, ReportBuyer, 2018 https://www.reportbuyer.com/ product/5471992/global-space-industry-market-and-technology-forecast-to-2026.html 9 Space: Investing in the Final Frontier, Morgan Stanley, 2018 https://www.morganstanley.com/ideas/investing-in-space 10 Space: EU budgets €16 billion for space programme, European External Action Service, 2018 https://eeas.europa.eu/ topics/economic-relations-connectivity-innovation/46673/space-eu-budgets-%E2%82%AC16-billion-space-programme_ en 11 The Cost Of Space Exploration, Michio Kaku [Forbes], 2009 https://www.forbes.com/2009/07/16/apollo-moon-landing-anniversary-opinions-contributors-cost-money.html#72cd4c6a1d04 12 Memorandum of Understanding Between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the United States of America and the European Space Agency Concerning Cooperation on the Civil International Space Station https://www. nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/nasa_esa.html
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technological innovation, and providing socio-economic benefits to citizens. For the years 2021–2027, the European Commission proposes to devote €16 billion to help maintain and further enhance the EU’s position in the area of space-related activities. It is almost 50% more than in a previous period. That money will be spent on improving existing Galileo, EGNOS and Copernicus systems as well as creating new ones and maintaining EU’s autonomous access to space.13
VI.
Summary Some feel like the space era is over, that there should be more focus put on Earth that so-
13 EU Budget for the Future: The EU Space Programme, European Commission https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/ beta-political/files/budget-june2018-space-policy_en_0.pdf
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mewhere high in the skies. Notwithstanding, there is nothing else that can provide humanity with comparatively broad opportunities to space. Europe’s access to space underpins the implementation of many EU policies, the competitiveness of European industry and businesses, as well as its security, defence and strategic autonomy. Space reinforces the role of Europe as a stronger global actor. Governmental agencies are less efficient than the private sector. Although they are almost irreplaceable for research, when it comes to finding the best and most efficient, market-applicable solution, nothing works better than private companies. Because of that, it is crucial for the European Union to ensure the best possible conditions for start-ups and private investors, to strengthen European position in the “modern space race”.
VII.
Links and further research and read •
A Brief History of Space Exploration – How it all began
•
A Definitive History of Space Tourism & Human Spaceflight – Where are we in terms of space tourism
•
How Could Moon Mining Work? – An introduction to the topic of Moon mining
•
European Space Agency – Everything there is to know about the work of ESA
•
ESA Satellite Missions – What is already planned?
•
Space – The Next Investment Frontier - An interesting podcast from Goldman Sachs
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COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORT AND TOURISM Doom behind blessing – With the recent rise of grievance regarding „overtourism” from both local citizens and governments, how can the European Union help protect the Member States’ heritage sites while sustaining the benefits they bring? by Natan Mitros (PL)
I.
Description
Overtourism has become a real problem in the recent years.1 With the develop-
ment of fast and cheap means of transport through the EU Member States, like low-budget airlines, it is really easy for most people to get to a city on the opposite side of the continent within 3 or 4 hours. Cities like Venice (Italy), Barcelona (Spain), Santorini (Greece) or Palma de Mallorca (Spain) are wide-known as perfect tourist destinations either because of their historical value, beautiful and sunny beaches; or for a huge amount of the EU citizens (and non-EU citizens, too). Therefore with a huge demand of travelling there, low-budget airlines companies can afford to create very cheap connections to most of these tourist destinations, because a plane there will always be full of people. While some cities are wide-known and they are constant victims of mass tourism (especially during the summer season), others, equally beautiful and worth-seeing but lesser known places, could still gain from the benefits tourism brings. Who have heard anything about Aveiro (Portugal) – a city that is called Portugal’s Venice, Toruń (Poland) – a cozy, beautiful city with a huge amount of gothic architecture, or Playa de los Muertos (Spain) – a tremendously beautiful beach located in the Almeria’s region of Spain? All those places mentioned above are located no farther than 70km from a closest airport and surely they could take some of the tourist willing to travel to Barcelona or Venice.
II.
Explanation Overtourism is creating bizarre situations in which there are more tourists in some areas than local
citizens. The native culture of places so overcrowded by tourists is disappearing together with its uniqueness. The easiest way to observe it is in the linguistic field of the problem. For example in Spain they are entire neighbourhoods in which the main language used on the signboards of the restaurants or in the restaurants’ menu is English, German or Russian. Spanish names are written in the small letters under the foreign langu1 Overtourism: a growing global problem, Claudia Milano, Joseph M. Cheer, Marina Novelli, The Conversation, 2018 http://theconversation.com/overtourism-a-growing-global-problem-100029
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age name, if written at all. This situation can be a real problem for the monolingual citizens of Spain or any other countries where this phenomenon occurs. Mass tourism already causes environment devastation and when overtourism comes to play the consequences of nature’s pollution can be enormous. It all starts with the beginning of the journey – while travelling long distance, most people will choose already aforementioned airlines as a fast and cheap mean of transport. Unfortunately, it generates a huge amount of carbon dioxide that creates carbon footprint1, which can be responsible for the greenhouse effect. It may not have a direct impact on any tourist city in the EU right now, but it is said that Venice could be underwater due to the possible climate changes by 2103.2 More direct danger to the environment nowadays is the amount of waste left by tourists. When on holidays for only a week, most people do not really care about disposing of their litter responsibly, because they are going to leave this place soon.3 Too much waste left on the streets is a problem that is unsolvable for the citizens. It is simply too much to deal with it. Because of this, places can lose their pristine aesthetic value and, as a result, such places can lose tourists and therefore income. Such extreme situation is not present Europe yet (the loss of income has not begun), but we could look for examples that we do not want to follow outside of European Union – in Maldives, there is an entire island called Thilafushi just full of waste and nothing else.4 Tourists are also a great source of noise. A noise of luggages or a noise of loud parties is present every day in cities like Ibiza Town or Barcelona.5 This can be a real struggle for the locals that want to rest or go to sleep after a difficult day in their day-to-day life. Another aspect worth mentioning is the general rise of prices in touristic places. That means that while going to a restaurant you will need more money to buy anything in Prague than while doing it in Ostrava; this means that you will need more money living in Prague than in Ostrava while simultaneously maintaining the same level of living. An estimated price of meal for 2 people in an average restaurant is about 300,- Kč (about 12 euro) higher in Prague than in Ostrava.6 Costs of buying and renting a house or a flat are also much higher in places with high number of tourists.
III.
So what While walking in Venice you will see many delivery guys just shouting “Permesso!” all the
time, asking for a place to walk. The crowd in Venice is so big that people simply cannot work without difficulties. The crowd of tourists. There should no surprise that people living there are getting angry at tourists, even though the financial benefits of tourists can make breadwinning much easier. That situation is present in many cities of the EU. Locals are protesting and sometimes their protests are becoming to have extreme forms. For example in Barcelona in 2018 an organisation called “Arran” hijacked the tourists bus and hung a huge sign over the bridge that was saying “Stop mass 1 What is a carbon footprint, Time for change https://timeforchange.org/what-is-a-carbon-footprint-definition 2 Will Venice really disappear within 100 years?, Alok Jha, The Guardian, 2003 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2003/sep/18/science.climatechange 3 Managing waste in tourist cities, Jennifer McDowall, resource, 2016 https://resource.co/article/managing-waste-tourist-cities-11319 4 Thilafushi: the “Rubbish Island”, Mordy, Atlas obscura https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/thilasfushi-the-rubbish-island 5 Sound bites, Amanda August, Metropolitan Barcelona, 2011 https://www.barcelona-metropolitan.com/features/ sound-bites/ 6 Cost of Living Comparison Between Ostrava and Prague https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities. jsp?country1=Czech+Republic&city1=Ostrava&country2=Czech+Republic&city2=Prague
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tourism in the Catalan countries”.7 On the other side tourism is bringing huge income and when speaking about overtourism, the income is astronomical. For example in 2017 there where 2.7 million cruise passengers in Barcelona which left a lot of money just to go on this cruise.8 Another benefit of tourism is that it makes the lesser-known, monocultural places multicultural and that it allows cultural exchange. Multiculturalism is good because it battles ignorance and xenophobia and shows that all the people are equal, regardless of their country of origin or skin color.9 Obviously overtourism is bringing the case to its most extended form – when the cities are too multicultural, too overcrowded and locals start hating tourists – like it is happening right now in Cinque Terre10. In the past it was a city with only Italians living there and right now there so many tourists in that city that people would rather live without them than embrace the benefits of cultural exchange which is slowly taking over the local culture. However on a smaller scale this phenomenon is good because of the already mentioned spread of acceptance towards people of different cultures.
IV.
Says who Solid facts
•
Europe was the most popular tourist destination as a continent in the last decade, with a number of visits being 670.6 million11 in 2017
•
Tourism in the EU made 1,786.7 billion USD in 2017 (10,3% of total GDP of the Member States)
•
Tourism has created 11,888,000 jobs12 (2017) in the EU, which is a 5.1% of total employment within Member States
V.
Status Quo
Several actions have already been taken all over the EU to stop the overtourism and prevent the consequences of the overtourism. For example the authorities of Mallorca have launched the action called “Better in winter” that was using media campaigns to regulate the tourism flux and encourage tourists to visit the island in winter. Nevertheless, the action did not reach the goal – in summer they are still much more tourists than in winter. Also it is worth mentioning that the airport of Palma de Mallorca invested more than 296,840 million EUR to enlarge its facilities by 2021. Tourism equals money, so instead of regulating and gradually de-marketing tourism and use of the airport, authorities of the airport are working in the other direction. Another measures that have been taken by Member States were laws and their enforcement directed to tourists with focus on alcohol and drug consumption, real-time information for tourists on crowdedness, transport options and optimal times to visit, awareness campaigns directed at tourists to prevent or stimulate certain behaviour, increase of prices (at specific times, places, or for specific groups) via taxation and preventing uncontrollable development by measures such as zoning systems, laws, and 7 IS IT SAFE TO TRAVEL TO SPAIN AFTER VIOLENT PROTESTS AGAINST TOURISM?, Ravneet Ahluwalia, The Independent, 2017 https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/spain-travel-safe-holiday-violent-protests-barcelona-arran-attacks-hotels-restaurants-catalan-a7882481.html 8 Overtourism in European destinations - Statistics & Facts, The Statistic Portal https://www.statista.com/topics/4316/overtourism-in-european-destinations/ 9 The value of multiculturalism, Louis MacPherson, The Star, 2007 https://www.thestar.com/opinion/2007/01/01/the_value_of_multiculturalism.html 10 5 REASONS WHY CINQUE TERRE IS THE WORST PLACE EVER, paradise, This Way to Paradise-Beaches, Islands, and Travel, 2014 http://www.thiswaytoparadise.com/cinque-terre-worst-place-ever/ 11 Number of international tourist arrivals worldwide from 2005 to 2017, by region (in millions), statista The Statistics Portal https://www.statista.com/statistics/186743/international-tourist-arrivals-worldwide-by-region-since-2005/ 12 TRAVEL & TOURISM ECONOMIC IMPACT 2018 EUROPEAN UNION, World Travel & Tourism Council https://www.wttc.org/-/ media/files/reports/economic-impact-research/regions-2018/europeanunion2018.pdf
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stops on hotel and Airbnb capacity extensions13. With all those actions taken, the problem has not yet been solved and it creates a real danger to the well-being of the people living in the popular areas as well as the environment.
VI. Summary Tourism in Europe is something inevitable. We cannot stop it and we have to remember the the free flow of people is one of the principle values of the EU. But we definitely can prevent the consequences of overtourism. Just looking outside of the EU it is possible to see how overtourism can transform paradises into (literally) trash (Thilafushi island at the Maldives). The focus should be paid on how tourism should stay tourism without a transformation into mass tourism nor overtourism. The heritage present on this continent needs to be protected, so that everyone could see it without local citizens being annoyed and environment destroyed. The important aspect of tourism that cannot be ignored is the monetary factor as it is giving a huge amount of financial benefits. Especially the overtourism – regardless of its destructive nature – is supporting local communities with money and job opportunities.
VII.
Links and further research and read
• How mass tourism is destroying cities, TRT World, 2018 • Spain: „We have the right to rest!” Frustration grows over mass tourism, FRANCE 24 English, 2017 • Research for TRAN Committee – Overtourism: impact and possible policy responses, European Commision, 2018 • Hard truth about summertime in Santorini, tripadvisor
13 Research for TRAN Committee - Overtourism: impact and possible policy responses, European Parliament, 2018 http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2018/629184/IPOL_STU(2018)629184_EN.pdf
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