On February 15, 2018, the DCU Brexit Institute held an event on “Brexit, Climate and Energy Policy” organised in partnership with the Irish Environmental Protection Agency and the Political Studies Association of Ireland. The event was hosted by Arthur Cox.
Opening Keynote Speech by Enrico Letta (former Italian Prime Minister and Dean of the Paris School of International Affairs, Sciences Po Paris)
Enrico Letta spoke about Brexit being one of the most important challenges of our times, even though, as he reminded the audience, it is not as important in France and Italy as it is in Ireland. Before continuing, he gave warning that the topic is complicated and he cannot see a happy end of Brexit. The Union risks and will lose most in the area of energy and climate. In these topics the UK had a big leading role and therefore losing the UK is a loss for the EU.
On February 15, 2018, the DCU Brexit Institute held an event on “Brexit, Climate and Energy Policy” organised in partnership with the Irish Environmental Protection Agency and the Political Studies Association of Ireland. The event was hosted by Arthur Cox.
Opening Keynote Speech by Enrico Letta (former Italian Prime Minister and Dean of the Paris School of International Affairs, Sciences Po Paris)
Enrico Letta spoke about Brexit being one of the most important challenges of our times, even though, as he reminded the audience, it is not as important in France and Italy as it is in Ireland. Before continuing, he gave warning that the topic is complicated and he cannot see a happy end of Brexit. The Union risks and will lose most in the area of energy and climate. In these topics the UK had a big leading role and therefore losing the UK is a loss for the EU.
Opinion: Brexit is causing deep uncertainty across a range of policy spheres so what will it mean for Europe’s efforts to combat climate change?
The scale of the decarbonisation challenge facing the world is nothing short of daunting. According to the UN Environment Emissions Gap Report 2017, climate change policy pledges made by governments around the world cumulatively amount to only approximately one-third of what is required to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius, a key danger threshold set by climate scientists.
On January 25, 2018, the DCU Brexit Institute held its Inaugural event on “Brexit, Ireland and the Future of Europe”, organised in partnership with European Movement Ireland and Dublin City University. The event was opened by a Keynote Address by his Excellency Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland, followed by keynote speeches by Hillary Benn, Chairman of the UK House of Commons Committee on Exiting the EU, and Herman Van Rompuy, first President of the European Council. After a panel of academics and representatives of civil society, the event will be concluded by a final Keynote Address by Simon Coveney, Tánaiste and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Public procurement refers to the purchase of goods, works and services by the public sector (and organizations funded in the main through public monies).
In Ireland, as undoubtedly in many other countries, interest in public procurement appears to be inversely related to the fortunes of the economy. In times of economic prosperity the procurement of goods and services by public sector organizations has tended not to be a primary consideration for politicians, policy makers or industry representative groups. However, in recent years public procurement has moved center stage for both the public and private sectors of the economy. For central government, the strategic management of procurement across the public sector has assumed priority status. Expenditure by public sector organizations on a range of goods and services is coming under increasing scrutiny with a view to realizing cost savings.
On 7 December 2017 the DCU Brexit Institute organised, in partnership with Ibec, a workshop on “Moving on? From the Divorce to Future EU – UK Relations”. This was a general survey of the first phase of the Brexit talks, concluding a series of workshops addressing the three key issues which had to be addressed before moving on to the second phase. (As it happens, on 8 December, the morning after the workshop, it was revealed that an agreement had been reached that apparently signalled sufficient progress to allow the talks to move on to Phase 2.)
Next week, on 14-15 December 2017 the European Council is set to decide whether sufficient progress has been made in the negotiations on the UK withdrawal from the EU to begin a discussion on the terms of the future relations between the UK and the EU. As is well known, the European Council concluded in October 2017 that, given the uncertainties of the UK Government, not enough progress had taken place by then in the negotiations and that therefore the beginning of phase 2 in the Brexit talks had to be postponed.
On November 23, the DCU Brexit Institute organized a workshop on the subject, “Brexit, the Financial Settlement and the Future of EU Finances.”
This was the third in a series of workshops addressing the three key issues of the first stage of the Brexit talks. The previous two workshops were concerned with citizens’ rights (October 6) and the Irish border question (October 26).
The question of the financial settlement is looming large over the Brexit negotiations. At its December summit, the European Council must decide whether ‘sufficient progress’ has been made on this question (along with citizens’ rights and the Irish border) in order to proceed to the next stage of the Brexit talks. Here is a short introduction to the UK’s contribution to EU finances, the likely effect of Brexit and the possible contours of the ‘divorce bill’.
On the 4th October 2017, the European Commission referred Ireland to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for failing to collect tax debts from Apple, following a Commission decision deeming the tax reliefs provided amounted to a breach of EU Competition Law. Ireland allowed Apple to pay between 0.05% and 2% in tax from 2003 to 2014, which, according to the Commission, amounted to up to €13 billion in illegal state aid. Luxembourg was also referred to the ECJ, after giving Amazon €250 million in tax breaks was also deemed to be illegal state aid. Neither country collected the debt, resulting in the recent referrals, and Ireland has appealed the decision to the ECJ.
The DCU Brexit Institute hosted an event on “Brexit, the Border and the Internal Market” on 26 October 2017, supported by the European Commission Representation in Ireland. The event addressed the issue of the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is arguably the most sensitive of the three items in the withdrawal negotiations, and considered also questions concerning the access by the UK to the EU internal market post Brexit.
TThe processes initiated by the UK government to withdraw from the EU and the search for separation from their original states of Catalan and, to a certain extent, Scottish secessionists, possess several similarities.
Firstly, both show a similar degree of dissatisfaction with accommodation within multilevel polities or multilevel governance. In fact, both show the limitations of the policies of accommodation within these multilevel polities. The UK had obtained partial derogations of the EU acquis (starting with the European Social Charter and continuing with all other treaties since then). Regions (either Catalonia or Scotland) has also seen their devolved powers increased significantly in the last decades. Yet, in neither of these two cases were these mechanisms for accommodation of their differences enough to contain the desire for a total exit from the polity.
In 2016, some would claim that the European Union was doomed. The UK vote for Brexit was seen as the trigger for others to follow, in particular those where national elections were due to be held and where anti-EU populists were perceived to be gaining ground.
Reality proved them wrong.
The DCU Brexit Institute hosted an event on “Brexit, Citizens Rights and their Protection” on 5 October 2017, which was organised jointly with the European Parliament Representation in Dublin. The event addressed one of the three main issues which are currently being negotiated between the United Kingdom and the European Union: the rights of EU citizens in the UK and those of the UK citizens in the EU after the withdrawal.
Exactly one year ago, Prime Minister Theresa May expatiated on the subject of citizens’ rights in the post-Brexit EU and UK, memorably telling the Conservative Party Annual Conference that “if you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere. You don’t understand what citizenship means.” Taken in the context of a conference dominated by the decision of the British public to leave the European Union, the audience was left with no doubt that Brexit would represent a re-casting of citizens’ rights, a re-assertion of the exclusivity of United Kingdom citizenship, and a rejection of the creeping internationalism of citizenship that the EU was seen to represent, though the form this transformation would take was still a matter of some conjecture.
If you want to keep up with Brexit news, but find you have limited reading time, try listening to podcasts.
There are already a number of podcasts exclusively devoted to Brexit. The oldest (A Diet of Brussels, with 200+ episodes) has been around since May 8, 2015, the day after David Cameron’s Conservatives won a parliamentary majority, the event which made it inevitable that there would be a referendum on Brexit. Many more sprang up after the referendum, and they have chronicled the various twists in the Brexit story – the triggering of Article 50, the subsequent UK election and the resulting hung parliament, and the ongoing negotiations with the EU.
At the conclusion of the third round of Brexit negotiations on Thursday, 31st August 2017, there was a palpable sense of frustration evident between both sides during the joint press conference, with little indication that any substantive progress has been made in respect of citizens’ rights once the United Kingdom leaves the European Union.
On 20 July 2017 it became clear that the European Commission and in particular its chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, is becoming frustrated with the United Kingdom and its lack of preparation. In order to make progress, both sides need to know the positions and proposals of the other. The EU has done this, through various policy papers, it’s now the UK’s turn, seemed to be the implication. In the joint press conference Michel Barnier called for clarification on the UK’s understanding of its financial obligations in any separation agreement and how it may be calculated. Without this, there is, Barnier implied, little point in continuing to discuss on this issue. The so-called ‘Brexit Bill’ was the issue in need of clarification most stressed by Barnier but he also flagged to the lack of detail on Northern Ireland and the Common Travel Area and the issue of disentangling current legal arrangements.
