At the beginning of our rather exceptional COVID-19 summer, thirty international students participated in the Inter-University Summer School on EU Policy-Making. This was the 17th edition of our long-standing summer programme, but different from previous years, the intensive two-week course was held online from 6-17 July 2020. 

The summer school attracts students and young professionals who wish to broaden their knowledge of the European institutions, European law and the European decision-making process in general. The summer school can be taken as a stand-alone course (5 ECTS) or as part of the Post-Graduate Programme on EU Policy-Making. 

On 9 October 2020 Laura Westerveen successfully defended her PhD thesis entitled "Ethno-racial (In)equality in Belgium and Germany: Understanding Policy Frames”. Laura’s dissertation explores the framing of inequalities along ethno-racial lines in policy discourses. In particular, it identifies different types of ‘policy frames’ surrounding these inequalities in Belgian and German education and employment policies. 
 

On Tuesday 29 September, the ITU/UNESCO Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development launched their global report, “Balancing Act: Countering digital disinformation while respecting freedom of expression.” This research was led by Prof. Kalina Bontcheva (University of Sheffield)  and Dr. Julie Posetti (International Center for Journalists) along with international researchers and contributing authors, including Prof. Trisha Meyer (VECO-IES). The work charts the wide range of responses to disinformation across the world, focusing on the effects of these measures on freedom of opinion and expression.

In September 2020, the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) published its Roma and Travellers Survey 2019, covering six countries: Belgium, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the UK. The survey includes interviews with almost 4,700 Roma and Travellers, collecting information on more than 8,200 individuals living in their households. IES Postdoctoral Researcher Serena D’Agostino is the author of the Country Report on Belgium, in which she outlines that the access to both justice and education is particularly problematic for Roma and Travellers. Travellers children are, for instance, highly affected by the existing Dutch and French speaking education systems, where the lack of inclusive education based on case-by-case assessments contributes to their marginalisation. She also highlights that in the reported period the evictions of Travellers have repeatedly occurred in the three Belgian regions - such as in July 2019, when the commune of Anderlecht (Brussels) sent in police to clear out a site where some 30 people, including...

Governments around the world are responding with extensive economic stimulus packages to the crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. The design of these economic stimulus packages will also determine central framework conditions for future climate policy: The stimulus packages can either provide a strong impetus for a climate-friendly economy or cement unsustainable economic practices. In their new article "Harnessing international climate governance to drive a sustainable recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic," Sebastian Oberthür (IES), Wolfgang Obergassel and Lukas Hermwille (both Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy) discuss how international climate policy can contribute to a green recovery.

The article was published in the journal Climate Policy and is a further developed version of a ...

The European legislation establishing the climate and energy policy framework for 2030 introduces 'energy communities' as a major innovation in order to advance renewable energy and the energy transition. Under the relevant EU Directives, the applicable provisions have to be transposed into national law this year. To support this process in Flanders and Belgium, part of the Flemish funded Flux 50 project called ‚ROLECS‘, or, Roll Out of Local Energy Communities, explores the existing legal frameworks for energy communities at national level and how these could be adapted to comply with European requirements and to facilitate the creation and development of energy communities.

The European Commission has selected the RePAST project as one out of six success stories of EU social sciences and humanities funded projects. The selection of RePAST reflects the high quality of research work done at Vesalius College and the Institute for European Studies (IES). Prof. George Terzis conducts research for the project on the role of art and cultural diplomacy in conflict resolution and writes policy recommendations for an EU strategy on the above with the engagement of a large number of stakeholders. The project has already received coverage in quality European press and it was the only one awarded funding in one of the...

The GOVTRAN project partners are delighted to share the latest Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law (RECIEL)  special issue on Assessing the EU 2030 Climate and Energy Policy Framework. The Special issue and the 10 articles, all of them open access publications until the end of November, is a result of a GOVTRAN workshop that was organised in Helsinki in the summer of 2019.

On 4 September 2020, IES PhD Candidate Klaudia Majcher successfully defended her PhD thesis on “Coherence between EU Data Protection and Competition Law in the Digital Market”. Klaudia’s PhD supervisors were Prof. Dr. Harri Kalimo (LLM Programme Director & Research Professor at the IES) and Prof. Ben Smulders (Director and Principal Legal Advisor in the European Commission). The committee was also comprised of VUB Prof. Caroline Buts and VUB Prof. Christopher Kuner, and jury members Dr. Orla Lynskey (Associate Professor of Law at the London School of Economics) and Prof. Peggy Valcke (Professor of Law at KU Leuven Center for IT & IP Law).