Recent Publications
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Marco Giuli authored a chapter on "Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean Resources" in a new Palgrave volume on "Transnational Security Cooperation in the Mediterranean" edited by Robert Mason.
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October 2020 other Contributors: Sung Kyoo Ahn, Maximilian Ernst, Tongfi Kim, Ramon Pacheco Pardo, Riccardo Villa This report sets out to analyse South Korea’s positioning in non-traditional security. Since the end of the Cold War, non-traditional threats have become more central to the national security of countries everywhere across the world. South Korea is no exception. However, most existing analyses of South Korea’s security tend to focus on traditional issues and great power politics, most notably North Korea’s military capabilities or Sino-American rivalry and the threat that each of them poses to South Korea. This report helps to address this imbalance in our understanding of threats to South Korean national security. The report analyses non-traditional security by focusing on four key domains: cyber, energy, maritime and trade.  |
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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. Based on an in-depth analysis of Belgian federal and regional law as well as the relevant EU Directives, the IES - along with the law firms Metha, Blixt and Fieldfisher and with ENGIE - have now released a summary report on "Legislative options and obstacles for energy communities in Belgium". In the report, the team investigates key challenges that Belgian policy makers and energy community organisers may face and suggests concrete steps to address these issues through legislative and organizational adaptations. Sebastian Oberthür, Ólöf Söebech, Carlos Soria Rodriguez and Jesus Moreno have participated in the project for the IES, which coordinated the report and analysed the EU legislative framework.  |
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The post-Lisbon High Representative was supposed to bridge the supranational and intergovernmental facets of EU foreign policy. But Catherine Ashton and Federica Mogherini showed that institutional constraints persist – and their personal leadership skills were significant in achieving a common foreign policy, write Maria Giulia Amadio Viceré and Giulia Tercovich.
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Heidi Maurer and Silviu Piros remind us that there is no silver bullet to meet the challenge of online teaching. Keep it simple, use the tools you are comfortable with, and create meaningful social connections with (and among) students. |
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Abstract We examine to what extent a specific aspect of national culture—uncertainty avoidance—can explain cross‐country variations in (dis)trust in banks. Relying on data from the World Values Survey, we find that trust in banks is lower in countries that score high for Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance index. Similarly, with Global Findex data, we find that financial exclusion due to a lack of trust in banks is high in high uncertainty avoidance cultures. These results highlight the need for a more culturally aware approach when designing consumer protection measures for the banking sector. Ahunov, M. and L. Van Hove, National culture and (dis)trust in banks: cross-country evidence, Economic Notes, Vol. 49, Nr. 3, November 2020, 1-22, e12165  |
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October 2020 other The Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, co-founded by UNESCO and ITU, has launched a comprehensive new research study on one of the world's most difficult challenges: ‘Balancing Act: Countering Digital Disinformation while respecting Freedom of Expression’. The book is published in the context of the Commission’s 10th Anniversary.
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October 2020 other ABSTRACT This paper asks to what extent the European Commission’s stakeholder participation model takes into account non-expert citizen contributions in policy processes pertaining to copyright. In theory, the increasing scale of citizen engagement in stakeholder consultations on copyright could help address the EU’s democratic deficit. The paper analyses the European Commission’s consultation processes in copyright policy across the Barroso 1&2 and Juncker Commissions (2004–2019). It documents the scale and the type of stakeholder involvement in public consultations. Through expert interviews and a survey, the paper gives critical insight into stakeholders’ perception of the Commission’s consultation practices and citizens’ role in policymaking. It concludes that the Commission is inclusive of different types of stakeholders, but casts doubt on the (perceived) motivation and appropriateness of its stakeholder participation model for non-expert citizens. The paper thus sheds light on the attempts and the struggle to engage with citizens in a digital age. |
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In the wake of the speech on the state of the Union by the President von der Leyen, this policy paper sheds some light on what a “geopolitical” Union may mean in more concrete terms. In particular, the paper looks first at the Union's overall strategy – or “grand strategy” – to cope with geopolitical challenges and then at how this grand strategy may be applied through three specific examples: defence (an issue which was largely absent from von der Leyen's speech), industrial policy and, lastly, climate policy. In these three policy domains, the European Union is faced with different types of strategic problems, however. EU defence policy, for example, still progresses essentially "from the bottom up", notably through its economic and capability dimensions, but without being guided by a clear level of political ambition. In consequence, EU defence policy remains ill-suited to deal with contemporary geopolitical upheavals and with the return of great power competition. In the field of industry, the stakes are quite different. While strengthening the Union's industrial policy, it has become necessary to ensure that the latter works well in tandem with its trade and competition policies. The question here is therefore one of ensuring horizontal coordination within the Union. Finally, with regard to climate change, the Union has to deal with a challenge which is the reverse, one could say, of the one it faces with respect to defence policy: it essentially consists in turning a clear and ambitious vision, expressed at the highest level of the Union, into a project that is truly shared across all sectors of the economy and between all member states. In sum, to face the geopolitical marathon that lies ahead, the Union must be able to rally around a common ambition, but without losing sight of how the latter can be tangibly implemented every step of the way. |
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IES is a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence at the 