The 'European Union in International Affairs' (#EUIA20) has taken a next step in its organisation. It has accepted or rejected paper and panel proposals based on a thorough blind review process involving the members of our national and international steering committees. Each proposal was reviewed anonymously by at least two experts and graded independently each time, taking into account scientific quality, novelty and fit with the conference theme. The overall acceptance rate was 51 percent. #EUIA20 will take place from 27-29 May 2020. Regular updates on the organisation are provided at the conference website.

On 13 February 2020, IES President Karel De Gucht delivered a speech on the future relationship between the EU and the UK at the University of Warwick’s premises at the Shard in London, where this prestigious UK university’s Business School is located. In his speech, Mr De Gucht put to the audience that even though few people expected the road to withdrawal to be as long and as bumpy as it actually was, that was the easy part. 

The Security and Defence subcommittee (SEDE) of the European Parliament is organizing a public hearing on “Opportunities and challenges of the use of Artificial Intelligence - enabled systems in security and defence”. The aim of the hearing is to assess the possible impact of AI on security and defence. AI is viewed as a new strategic enabler that can present a number of opportunities, but also challenges. In CSDP missions and operations, AI-enabled systems can be used in multiple ways to enhance EU’s capabilities. At the same time, the use of AI-systems in defence can also have non-desirable legal and ethical implications, in particular the potential lack of human oversight on the functioning and use of AI-enabled weapons could lead to actions violating international norms, and raise accountability concerns. The hearing will therefore look into ways on how to ensure ethically and legally sustainable use of AI in security and defence, taking into account recent EP’s call for the prohibition of lethal autonomous weapons.

Marie Lamensch, Research Professor of International and European Tax Law at the Institute for European Studies and the Law Faculty of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, has co-authored the second edition of the book “Taxing Global Digital Commerce”, with Arthur Cockfield (Queen’s University) and Walter Hellerstein (Georgia Law School). This new book includes a detailed and up-to-date analysis of income tax and VAT developments regarding digital commerce under the OECD and G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) reforms.

In December 2016, the Horizon 2020 project “COP21: Results, Implications, Pathways and Policies for Low-Emissions European Societies (COP21-RIPPLES)” officially started. The project was running for three years, until November 2019 and it was coordinated by the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI) in Paris. The project aimed to provide interdisciplinary analysis of the conditions of EU climate policy in the strategic context of the Paris climate change agreement concluded in 2015.

The VUB’s Institute for European Studies (IES) was among 17 leading universities and institutes that joined forces to produce climate policy guidelines and the IES was one of the main partners of the project. Under the lead of Prof. Sebastian Oberthür, and with valuable contributions of IES Project researchers Tomas Wyns and Gauri Khandekar, the IES cluster on Environment and Sustainable Development was in particular co-coordinating Work Package 4 of the project that...

In her speech to the European Parliament on 27.11, Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen highlighted the need to make the European internal market work better. She highlighted the need to open up the markets, while at the same time not leaving anyone behind. The challenge is to support a better functioning EU market, in particular on services, while making sure that the workers’ rights and professions are governed in fair and transparent fashion. A balance needs to be struck between the free movement of workers, services and establishment, on the one hand, and the regulation of professions, on the other. These themes were explored in great detail in 2-day training sessions on Free movement in the context of Professional Qualifications, offered by IES Professor Harri Kalimo, Professor Vassilis Hatzopoulos (Pantheion University, Athens) and researcher Lea Mateo, on 22.-23.10. and 4.-5.12. at the IES. The trainees were experts from the SOLVIT network, established by the Commission in 2001 to help companies and individuals with problems to operate across the borders.