Journal articles: 'European Union, EU, European Citizens' Initiative, ECI' – Grafiati (2024)

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Until recently, the political influence of trade unions primarily relied on ties to labour-friendly political parties. Since the 1990s, however, party-union relations have deteriorated, forcing unions to consider complementary political strategies. This article reviews different direct democratic instruments at local, national and EU levels. We distinguish popular consultations initiated by government from above from citizens’ initiatives initiated from below and discuss corresponding trade union experiences in Germany, Italy, Ireland, Slovenia and Switzerland. We also analyse the successful right2water European Citizens Initiative (ECI) of the European Federation of Public Service Unions and the failed fair transport ECI of the European Transport Workers’ Federation at EU level. Whereas unions have successfully used direct democratic instruments to (i) defend social achievements or (ii) as a lever to extract policy concessions, direct democracy is also challenging. Successful direct democratic campaigns require unions that are able to mobilise their own rank-and-file and to inspire larger sections of society.

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AbstractThis Article analyzes the state of democracy in the EU through the study of the European Citizens’ Initiative. The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) represents one of the main ways the European institutions chose during the making of the European Convention, and then reproduced in the Lisbon Treaty, to beat populism by bringing decision-making closer to the citizens and promoting a new legitimization of Europe’s political unity. This Article starts by arguing that if one wants to understand European versions of populism it is necessary to pay attention to the reason why “democratic deficit” and “Euroscepticism” are predominant problems that the European Union is facing. It then analyzes the implementation of the ECI and the main issues of this instrument of democratization pointing at three flaws: a) the problem of e-democracy; b) the difficulty of stimulating large participation of civil society and people for the purposes of the ECIs; c) the cumbersome role of the EU Commission and the difficulties to ensure a real participatory instrument for the European citizens. From the analysis of the ECI this Article first advocates for a more robust public sphere in Europe as indispensable ground for a supranational democracy; second, it supports the revision of the ECI procedural aspects to transform it into a viable channel for amending EU policies in a more democratic way; third, this Article participates in the debate over the brand of democracy most suited to EU governance and polity.

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The Importance of the European Citizens’ Initiative in the Context of Democratic Deficit in the European UnionOne of the instruments introduced into EU law on the basis of the Treaty of Lisbon for the first time, aimed at strengthening the democratic legitimacy of the functioning of the EU, is the European citizens’ initiative (ECI). The regulation on the ECI was adopted and entered into force in 2011 and started to apply from 1 April 2012. It seems, that almost six years of the functioning of the ECI is a sufficient period of time to try to assess its meaning to strengthen the democratic legitimacy of the functioning of the EU. The main aim of the study is to answer the question: whether, taking into account the experiences of the ECI, the European citizens’ initiative contributed to reducing the democratic deficit in the EU and thus to strengthening the legitimization of the European Union institutions and the EU as a whole. The article indicates the objectives of the ECI, which would allow to reduce the democratic deficit in the EU and strengthen the legitimacy of this organization. The most important data illustrating the functioning of the EIO were also presented. The next part of the article is the analysis and assessment of the importance of the ECI in reducing the democracy deficit and strengthening the legitimacy of the EU. The conclusions are included in the summary.

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AbstractAccording to the main element of the legal admissibility test of the European Citizens’ Initiative (‘ECI’) set out in Regulation 211/2011, a proposed ECI cannot collect signatures of support if it ‘manifestly falls outside the framework of the Commission’s powers to submit a proposal for a legal act of the Union for the purpose of implementing the Treaties’. This contribution argues that the interpretation and application of the ECI legal admissibility test has developed since the early years of the ECI’s operation, largely due to the CJEU’s intervention in ECI-cases. It analyses the procedural and substantive changes to the test in light of the relevant litigation and the ongoing reform of the ECI’s legal framework. It illustrates that certain contested procedural aspects of the ECI legal admissibility test have been resolved, while the scope of the ECI has been extended to allow Initiatives in the field of international agreements. The article explores the effects of these developments on current and future ECI practice, including the possibility to bring an ECI in the context of the EU-UK Brexit negotiations.

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Online consultations and the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) are tools that have been put into place by the European Union (EU) in order to increase the participation of citizens and Civil Society Organizations (CSO) in its politics and policy making. The current CSO representation at the system level of the EU is claimed to be biased in favor of the interests of economic producers and CSOs coming from old member states. The central question of this article is whether these tools help make participation more representative of the diversity of societal groups within the EU. The concept of ‘actor representativeness’ as well as ‘discourse representativeness’ will be applied in order to answer this question.

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AbstractDirect democracy exhibits both promise and peril for the EU. The referendum has been deployed by Member States in a way that has shaped and will continue to shape the EU’s geographical boundaries, its constitutional evolution, and salient EU policy matters. The referendum’s promise is to accord a high degree of legitimacy to a political decision, but that promise varies across different types of EU referendum. Their peril for the EU has become increasingly apparent as they have proliferated in number and type and with a growing failure rate. In contrast, the European Citizens’ Initiative is intended to harness the promise of direct democracy for the EU. But current practice raises the question of whether the failure to satisfy the ambitions placed on this novel instrument could, paradoxically, become a source of peril. Contrary to an increasingly pessimistic narrative, it is concluded that practice under the ECI exhibits promise and that the future of this instruments appears bright.

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The European citizens' initiative (ECI) is a new device of participatory democracy, which has its own characteristics, unknown to date at any level of national or trans-national government. It is designed to allow the citizens to take an active role within the law-making process of the EU. The specific features of this process affect the legal nature as well as the functioning of the new participatory device. Both will depend strongly on the European law, which shall determine the procedures and conditions required for the ECI.

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The reform of the entered into force at the beginning of 2020. The changes are intended to popularize and to give effect to the ECI, especially through the strengthening of the position of this tool as an instrument of e-democracy and the reinforcing of the principle of subsidiarity and the model of multi-level governance. The reform is a step in the right direction, however, it is rather unlikely that it could boost the ECI as an instrument of indirect legislative initiative, which so far has had little impact. The sheer scale of this issue can be illustrated by the juxtaposition of the over seventy registered ECIs with the merely two initiatives in which the EC decided to follow up with legislative proposals. Such a situation results from the fact that the ECI is treated as a subsidiary tool to the instruments of representative democracy, generally accepted as the basis of the system. This is also the effect of the way the quasi-monopoly of the European Commission in the area of legislative initiative is interpreted. In consequence, the effectiveness of the ECI is currently perceived through the prism of collecting over one million signatures and conducting noncommittal dialogue. Nevertheless, in this context it should be remembered that the most effective form of encouraging the civil society to participate in political activity is to reinforce its agency. Indeed, increasing the impact of the ECI on decision-making processes is not dependent on potential changes in primary or secondary law. The change of attitude will suffice. Indeed, an increased number of legislative proposals stemming from the ECIs might be the result of a change in EU political culture and a greater respect for democratic rules.

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The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) has been promoted as a way to strengthen citizens’ participation in EU lawmaking. Taking stock of the ECI’s first few years of operation, this article aims to identify the influence of the ECI on EU lawmaking and its position in the EU institutional triangle (Commission – European Parliament – Council). In particular, the article examines whether the ECI has shifted the EU institutional status quo vis-à-vis the Commission’s power of legislative initiative. It focuses on the first few ECIs that have managed to collect the necessary number of signatures to be formally considered by the Commission, and evaluates the Commission’s discretion to respond to these ECIs. It argues that there is currently a mismatch between, on one hand, the expectations of EU citizens from the ECI and, on the other hand, the ECI’s capacity to lead to legislative output. The article addresses the challenges that arise from this mismatch.

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AbstractThe European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) constitutes the Union’s first genuine instrument of direct democracy. The first experiences with regard to its deployment have however proved disappointing, criticism of the instrument is mounting, and suggestions for reform abound. This raises the question whether the ECI holds any genuine potential to enhance the legitimacy of the EU - or whether it should at least in this regard be considered an ineffective, misguided experiment instead. The current paper provides a response by triangulating three types of data: legal insight and argument, empirical information with regard to the functioning of the instrument in the first five years of its operation, and a rational assessment of the procedure, now and in the future. This allows for a comprehensive reflection on the impact the ECI has had, and what impact it may yet have in the long or medium term, on the overall legitimacy of the EU.

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Democratic participation still is the way forward for societies that seek permanent peace through the exercise of active citizenship. Since 2012, the European Citizens’ Initiative instrument has emerged in the process of drafting legislative acts of the European Union. One of the facets of this citizenship is to enable citizens to become involved in decision-making through participation in the exercise of legislative initiative. The Lisbon Treaty introduced the right to the ECI. The aim is to actively involve citizens in the European decision-making, giving them an indirect form of legislative initiative. Information technologies (IT) are the essence of up-to-date organizations in general, and changes in this field are occurring at an uncontrollable pace, interrupting traditional models and forcing organizations to implement new models, new ways of working and communicating. In this context, the European Commission, not ignoring the relevance and transformations inherent in the use of IT, has included its use in several areas, namely in the European Citizens’ Initiative. In this research is analysed how much a platform available in the European Citizens’ Initiative context is used in petitions and the evolution of this same use until the completion of the review in 2018.

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This paper proposes a research design which allows for a comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of the European citizens’ initiative (ECI) – the first EU transnational participatory tool. It provides an analytical framework based on a broader conceptualisation of the notion of “effectiveness” which goes beyond the sole legislative function of the ECI. Consequently, the paper suggests to evaluate the ECI in five different dimensions: as a dialogue and communication enhancing tool, an awareness-raising tool, a deliberative space, a citizen-activating mechanism, as well as an agenda-setting instrument. Operationalisation of the dependent variable through a set of democratic functions that the ECI might perform allows not only to evaluate its capacity to enhance the democratic legitimacy of the EU but also to identify the tool’s limitations and propose ways of improvement. The paper also suggests a qualitative method of testing the hypothesised effects of the ECI.

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The institutionalization of civil society in European Union law is a mechanism created as a result of various political, historical and cultural events. Civic society is the result of a specific historical process, but nevertheless it is constantly subjected to various changes, therefore it can be said that it is constantly being created “before our eyes”. Europe of citizens, understood as a postulate to identify the citizens of the European Union with European structures, is manifested, inter alia, in the institutions of European civil society shaped by these structures. These institutions include, for example, citizenship of the European Union and the rights constituting its constituent element, such as the right to petition the European Parliament, the right to lodge a complaint to the European Ombudsman, and the European Citizens’ Initiative. Therefore, these institutions of EU law are undoubtedly a legislative attempt to implement the idea of a European civil society. The citizens of the European Union are more and more willing to use from the institutions concerned, which to some extent proves their effectiveness. However, a hindrance the ubiquitous EU bureaucracy and far-reaching formalism, which results in, inter alia, declare many complaints, petitions and initiatives inadmissible. The assessment of the institutionalization of the European civil society, based on the analysis of the intensity of use and usefulness of the above-mentioned institutions by the citizens of the European Union, is therefore rather positive, although the European Union still has a long way to go to a state that could be considered satisfactory.

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The subject of the analysis in this article are European citizens’ initiatives, which during 12 months gained the support of over 1 million of the EU citizens from at least seven Member States. The aim of the article is to examine, what actions have been taken in these matters by the European Commission. The following research questions were posed: (1) What was the effect of the Commission’s call to submit, under its power, proposals, for which, in the opinion of the citizens supporting the initiative, the application of the Treaties requires a legal act of the Union? (2) What actions has the Commission taken and what is their justification? The analysis demonstrates that these initiatives have been taken into account by the Commission to a very small extent in the procedures for establishing legislative acts of the European Union. Therefore, it is reasonable to amend the Regulation on the European Citizens’ Initiative.

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The “WiFi4EU” initiative is a proposal for regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council, which amends Regulations (EU) No 1316/2013 and (EU) No 283/2014, each of them on the promotion of Internet connectivity in local communities. This initiative aims to ensure that all Member States of the European Union create high-quality wireless internet access points throughout their territory to combat digital illiteracy and ensure access to healthcare, administrative services, and online commerce. With the following resolution, hospitals, libraries, monuments, museums, and parks will have a public signal available. Therefore, the proposal has a very strong social dimension, since it aims to broaden the internet signal to citizens who live near municipal areas and whose economic statuses are lacking. With a three-year implementation period, the initiative falls within the scope of the Single Digital Market, which is a major political objective and a way for the European Union to attract investments from large economic agents through the “Internet of Things”. It is therefore relevant to give some context and analyze the initiative through the eyes of the Union’s principles and of the notions of competition and regulation, which areessential to the European Union.

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The three European Council meetings which are discussed in these Notes covered a wide range of subjects and included sessions with the new US president and NATO's secretary general. They were nevertheless dominated by the pandemic and more particularly by the efforts of the EU and its member states to vaccinate their citizens as rapidly as possible. It was not an easy task and the EU rollout during the first three months of 2021 was significantly slower than that of either the UK or the US. There were many explanations, including the European Commission's failure to invest enough money early enough, inefficiencies at member state level and the production difficulties of the manufacturers in general and of AstraZeneca in particular. As the months have passed, many if not most of these difficulties seem, however, to be less consequential than they did at the time. The Commission and most of the member states learned from and made good their early failures and, AstraZeneca apart, BioNTech and the other manufacturers succeeded in delivering even more vaccines than they had promised to do. These improvements were already beginning to make themselves felt before the end of the first quarter. They were not widely acknowledged however, either inside or outside the political class. Partly because good news is always slow to drive out bad news, but still more because the debate about the vaccination rollout was driven by forces which were only loosely connected with the pandemic, including in particular the German-German debate in an election year, the British government's need to find and proclaim a post-Brexit success and the blunders of the European Commission's president. The politics of the rollout are indeed as interesting as, if not more interesting than the objective challenges which policymakers grappled with. Above all because the process highlighted once again the significance of the European Council. Despite strong countervailing pressures in the media, which continued to propagate the story of 'Europe's failure' and widespread dislike of von der Leyen's management style, the European Council maintained its commitment to an EU-wide rollout strategy and endorsed a string of initiatives, including an EU certificate, which aimed to defend the Union against the corrosive effects of the pandemic. The non-Covid business which the European Council addressed between January and March may have been overshadowed by the pandemic but it was far from unimportant, and the debates which it provoked anticipated both the concerns and the language of European Council discussions later in the year about the EU's role in a rapidly changing world order. The sessions with Jens Stoltenberg and Joe Biden in February and March respectively were reassuring rather than dramatic, but it was already apparent, particularly in the debate before and during the February meeting, that the lines between 'Atlanticists' and 'Europeans' have shifted significantly and that the buzz words of the emerging EU consensus – 'resilience', 'the reduction of dependencies' and 'a European capacity for autonomous action' – were well on the way to becoming common currency.

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Abstract The following article is dedicated to the topic of human dignity - the human embryos and the legal framework they are regulated by in the EU: The Charter of Fundamental Rights of European Union and the EU Court practice. For the purpose, the authors look first and foremost at the EU Directive 98/44, regulating the legal protection of biotechnological inventions which aim at balancing the human beings' dignity and integrity with the need to preserve the social function of patents as a vector for the competiveness of the European biotech industry. Two key EU Court cases are analyzed, both of which reflecting the evolution of the Court of Justice on the European Union's Case Law on Stem Cell Patents, namely Case C-34/10 Oliver Brüstle v Greenpeace е. V. and Case C-364/13 International Stem Cell Corporation. The article looks then at the European Citizens’ Initiative “One of us”, which aims at securing Juridical protection of the dignity, the right to life, as well as to the integrity of every human being from conception in those areas of EU competence where such protection has a particular importance.

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Relations between Switzerland and the European Union are in bad shape and the Swiss are tearing each other apart on this issue. There are two major issues at stake. First, the Swiss government is dithering over whether or not to initial a new Institutional agreement with the European Union (EU), although it was finalized by the negotiators in November 2018. In the event of non-acceptance by Switzerland, the European Union has already announced retaliatory measures. Secondly, in September 2020, Swiss citizens will have to vote on a popular initiative to scrap the agreement on the free movement of persons between Switzerland and the EU. A positive vote would sound the death knell for the bilateral treaties between both entities as they are bound together by a guillotine clause. These difficulties between Switzerland and the EU are certainly not new. But two fresh developments have arisen. On the one hand, the support of the socialists and trade unionists for the bilateral way is waning. On the other hand, the European Union has become less flexible than it previously was. The worst should, logically, be avoided because the Swiss have always been a pragmatic people and solutions are relatively easy to find. But an accumulation of blunders, combined with misperceptions of the actual power relations, could prove fatal. Switzerland, EU external relations, EU external agreements, European Free Trade Association (EFTA), European Economic Area (EEA), Institutional agreement, Free movement of people, immigration, referendum, Brexit

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The article is devoted to the analysis of the perception of European integration and the regional policy of the European Union (EU) among the citizens of modern Spain. Particular attention is paid to the comparison of periods before the COVID-19 pandemic (2019) and after it (October 2021). The purpose of this paper is to identify the opinion of Spanish society on the EU regional policy. The first part of the article presents the analytical framework of the study. The second part describes its methodology. The third part analyzes the opinion polls in Spain, conducted by Eurobarometer. According to the Eurobarometer database, on the one hand, the author notes despite the pandemic, citizens positively assess the impact of the European Union bodies on their everyday life. On the other hand, the pandemic has shown that the states are key actors in the EU decision-making process. The initiative to shape the development of the EU's regional policy still belongs to the Member States, but not to the regions and/or supranational bodies. The scientific significance of the article is that the results of Eurobarometer public opinion polls are generalized. This is the first time when this approach has been used in the study of this topic.

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This study aims to analyze the correlation between radical-left Euroskeptic (RLE) activity and European Union (EU) trade policy by focusing on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). At the beginning of TTIP negotiations, the agreement was not high on political agendas and was not a major concern within European society. Thus, its salience was low. This initial lack of interest stemmed from the fact that the TTIP, as an economic and technical issue, did not draw public attention. This study shows that RLEs profoundly affected public opinion on the TTIP by increasing its salience during the European parliamentary elections in 2014 in France and Germany. Second, RLEs involved social actors and non-governmental organizations in anti-TTIP campaigns and channeled European anxieties into the STOP TTIP European Citizens’ Initiative. Third, RLEs used this proposed agreement between the EU and the United States to increase polarization within European society and ideological cleavages within the European Parliament. Finally, we can assume that an anti-TTIP campaign promoted by radical-right Euroskeptics would have had different drivers. Thus, my findings have implications for understanding the correlation between RLE activity and the politicization of EU trade policy, and they suggest some avenues for future research.

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This article endeavours to explore the glyphosate saga through the prism of a socially acceptable risk approach to the governance of public health and environmental risks in the European Union. After a brief overview on the nature and rationale of socially acceptable risk approaches, the article analyses the controversial case of glyphosate’s renewal of approval, casting light on the position of the agencies and institutions involved throughout the risk assessment and risk management phases. Against this overall backdrop, the article deconstructs the European Commission’s artificial legal narrative on ‘sound’ science and glyphosate and contends that the Commission had scientific and legal grounds, as well as compelling political reasons, to accept the requests put forward by the ‘Ban Glyphosate’ European Citizens’ Initiative and the European Parliament. The Commission relied on a narrow evidence-based approach, disregarding the widespread public perception that the uncertain risks posed by glyphosate are socially unacceptable, and ignoring the argument that the existing risk management measures are insufficient to achieve the intended EU level of public health and environmental protection. In so doing, the Commission has ultimately lost a crucial opportunity to re-legitimise and re-democratise EU risk regulation.

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This article covers those minority-related developments, important events and “missing” steps of the eu Institutions, especially the ep and the European Commission, throughout the year of 2014 that relate to traditional national minorities, regional language groups, and national communities. The year 2014 cannot be separated from 2013, thus the study covers one and a half years and analyses—among others—issues such as the first results of the European Citizens Initiative, the adopted resolution on endangered European languages and linguistic diversity in the European Union, the successful re-establishment of the “Intergroup for Traditional Minorities, National Communities and Languages” and the challenges the European Commission faces in this field. The study provides an analytical evaluation of this period. Throughout 2013 and 2014 a few minor steps forward were made within the European institutions on the field related to national minority protection; however, none of these should be over- or underestimated.

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The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) Right2Water asked for guaranteed water quality and quantity all over Europe, and demanded that water services remain in the hands of public entities. Support for Right2Water was particularly pronounced in Germany. The German organisers managed to collect 16 times more signatures than the minimum necessary to be counted towards the quorum. How have the German political parties reacted to the overwhelming public support for Right2Water? To answer this question, we examined the election manifestos of the main political parties, published for the federal elections in 2005, 2009, 2013, and 2017, and the elections to the European Parliament in 2004, 2009, 2014, and 2019. We concentrated on one specific goal of Right2Water, which refers to preventing the liberalisation of water services in the European Union. We expected the attention to and positioning of the liberalisation of water services to vary across the individual German parties. Since Right2Water was organised by public service trade unions and pursues an anti-liberalisation agenda, we expected left-wing parties to have laid a greater emphasis on this issue than right-wing parties, and for them to have adopted positions that aligned with the goals of the ECI. Our empirical findings show that a left–right division exists among the parties concerning the attention they paid to this issue as well as how they positioned themselves.

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European Union is facing challenges of ageing societies and changes in structure of economy, thus labour shortages turn into an urgent issue that ultimately affects labour market sustainability. In its attempt to recruit highly qualified workers EU has strong international competitors, e.g. USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and pursues a variety of initiatives at national level of the Member States and at the EU level in general. This article aims at assessing the EU policies related to migration of highly qualified workers. Statistical data analysis has revealed that labour mobility is increasing in EU. Thus the EU Mobility directive could be evaluated as bringing benefits, yet with a room for improvement, because highly qualified workers still make up just a small part in all the mobile citizens’ population. National initiatives are more effective in fostering the migration of highly qualified workers, but this has the threat of unequal benefits in different EU regions; the effectiveness of EU Blue Card initiative is weak but with a high potential, thus it needs further improvements in its issuing policies. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ppaa.16.3.19345 An erratum to this article is available at: DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ppaa.16.3.24731

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Alongside other actors such as the European Ombudsman, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) plays what looks like, at first sight, a key role in improving the transparency of EU legislative procedures. To take two relatively recent examples, the <em>De Capitani v. European Parliament</em> (2018) judgment was perceived as a victory by those in favor of increased transparency of EU legislative procedures at the stage of trilogues, as was the <em>ClientEarth v. European Commission</em> (2018) judgment regarding the pre-initiative stage. Both rulings emphasize the need for “allowing citizens to scrutinize all the information which has formed the basis of a legislative act…[as] a precondition for the effective exercise of their democratic rights” (<em>ClientEarth v. European Commission</em>, 2018, §84; <em>De Capitani v. European Parliament</em>, 2018, §80). Nevertheless, while the CJEU’s case law may indeed contribute to improving the legislative process’ transparency, its impact on the latter is inherently limited and even bears the potential of having a perverse effect. This article sheds light on the limits of the CJEU’s capacity to act in this field and the potential effects of its case law on the EU institutions’ attitudes or internal organization.

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Purpose – This paper aims to examine the primary fundamental rights concerns related to biometrics and their use in automated border controls (ABCs), as well as how these issues converge in the European Commission’s Smart Borders proposal. Design/methodology/approach – This paper draws on extensive background research and qualitative in-depth interviews conducted in 2013 for the European Union (EU) FP-7 project “FastPass – A harmonized, modular reference system for all European automatic border crossing points”. Findings – The Smart Borders proposal not only compounds the individual concerns related to the use of biometrics in border controls and automatisation thereof, but also has serious issues of its own, premier among which is the imposition of a two-tier border control system. Social implications – The paper is a catalyst for open debate on the fundamental questions of how we got to this point and where do we want to go. It questions the process by which the increased use of IT in border controls has become the norm and policy trend in Europe, and discusses where the limits could be drawn from a fundamental rights perspective. In particular, it warns against the institutionalisation of a two-tier border control system among third-country nationals. Originality/value – Little attention is given to the fundamental rights concerns raised for EU and non-EU citizens as related to biometrics and their use in ABCs, and how these issues are reproduced in the Smart Borders proposal. The paper fills this gap by taking a bottom-up approach: examining the implications of individual elements of the proposal to see their impact on the broader policy.

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On 14 October 2015, the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (EAACI), the European Rhinologic Society (ERS) and the European Medical Association (EMA) organized a symposium in the European Parliament in Brussels on Precision Medicine in Allergy and Airways Diseases, hosted by MEP David Borrelli and with active participation of the European Respiratory Society (ERS), the European Federations of Allergy and Airways Diseases Patients Associations (EFA), the Global Allergy and Asthma European Network (Ga2len), Allergic Rhinitis and Its Impact on Asthma (ARIA) and the Respiratory Effectiveness Group (REG). MEP Sirpa Pietikainen, Chair of the European Parliament Interest Group on Allergy and Asthma, underlined the importance of the need for a better diagnostic and therapeutic approach for patients with Allergies and Chronic Airways Diseases, and encouraged a joint initiative to control the epidemic of Allergy and Asthma in Europe. The socio-economic impact of allergies and chronic airways diseases cannot be underestimated, as they represent the most frequently diagnosed chronic non-communicable diseases in the EU. Despite the fact that 30% of the total European population is nowadays suffering from allergies and asthma, more than half of these patients are deprived from adequate diagnosis and treatment. Precision Medicine represents a novel approach in medicine, embracing 4 key features: personalized care based on molecular, immunologic and functional endotyping of the disease, with participation of the patient in the decision making process of therapeutic actions, and taking into account predictive and preventive aspects of the treatment. Implementation of Precision Medicine into clinical practice may help to achieve the arrest of the Epidemic of Allergies and Chronic Airways Diseases. This report summarizes the key messages delivered during the symposium by the speakers, including the EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Vitenys Andriukaitis. The Commissioner underscored the need for optimal patient care in Europe, supporting joint action plans for disease prevention, patient empowerment and cost-effective treatment strategies leading to a better health status of European citizens.

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Referendums are one of the pillars of Swiss democracy. Due to them, citizens have the opportunity to directly express their opinion on particular issues of the political life. One of these referendums was held on September 27, 2020. The most discussed issue was the initiative «For proportionate immigration», put forward by the nationalist Swiss people’s party (SVP). It assumed the return of control over migration processes to the jurisdiction of Bern and, accordingly, the termination of one of the seven sectoral agreements between Switzerland and the European Union. The main political forces of the country (Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, Liberals, Greens), as well as trade unions and employers' associations did not support the proposal of the nationalists. They formed a Committee of resistance. In the end, the «For proportionate immigration» initiative received only 38,29% of electoral support and, consequently, was not adopted. The author comes to the conclusion that the main reason for the failure of the SVP initiative was the awareness of the Swiss that the break of one sectoral agreement with Brussels will lead to the denunciation of the entire package of agreements and, consequently, to a sharp decrease in the degree of interaction between Switzerland and the EU member-states. Thus, the referendum became a serious political defeat for the nationalists, and Switzerland retained its former level of relations with the EU.

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This article examines the extent to which the inclusion of the European Union (EU) Charter of Fundamental Rights in the Treaty of Lisbon, which gives legal force to socio-economic rights as well as civil and political rights, will succeed in helping EU member states meet international treaty obligations to implement socio-economic rights. Will the EU’s renewed commitment to developing the social sphere, post-Brexit, be more successful and will British citizens lose out on so-cio-economic rights in the long term if the EU succeeds in creating a better social or public dimension? Member states of the EU that have ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) have obligations to progressively realise economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights. Progress on this has been slow and potentially made more difficult by the economic direction adopted by the EU since the 1980s. Although the EU, from the beginning, saw itself as a “social market” it struggled to embed the “social” to the same extent that it embedded the “market”. Critics argue that the economic policies of the EU and key judgements of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) successfully dis-embedded the market from its social context. Additionally, the regulatory regime of the EU developed in a direction that limited the capacity of nation states to ameliorate the consequences of market-led policies for the least advantaged. However, the Charter of Rights, which places socio-economic rights on an equal footing with civil and political rights, is a novel and bold initiative. It has stimulated debate on whether the Charter could rebalance the EU’s economic agenda by paying attention to the social consequences of predominantly market-led policies. This paper examines the potential impact of the EU Charter, in the context of member states international human rights obligations, to create an environment where member states of the EU have fewer obstacles to the “progressive realization” of ESC rights.

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Participation in EU governance has been largely kept outside the realm of law. Article 11 TEU has the potential to change this status quo, despite the fact that, with the exception of the European citizens' initiative, it represents more the recognition of previous institutional practices than an innovation proper. This contribution presents a normative interpretation of Article 11 TEU and analyses the implications of the distinct transformation this Treaty article postulates: the transition from participation based on a logic of participatory governance to participation that concretizes democracy as a "value" or a founding principle of the Union, and that responds to the respective normative yardsticks, such as equality and transparency. This is the main challenge posed by Article 11 TEU. While acknowledging that law is not the only way of giving effect to the prescriptions of this Treaty article, this contribution discusses the role of law in operating the normative shift mentioned. It analyses why different EU institutions may be urged to reconsider the role of law with regard to participation, in view not only of Article 11 TEU - as law may be needed to guarantee the conditions that ensure participation as a source of democratic legitimacy in the EU - but also of other Treaty provisions.

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Abstract The organization - WEC Hungarian Young Professionals in Energy (HYPE) - in line with WEC’s (World Energy Council) visions aims for the dissemination of the principle of sustainable energy development in Hungary. The HYPE’s goals are to represent the Hungarian energy sector’s viewpoint at national, regional and international events; to introduce and evaluate the key energy issues by preparing studies; and to foster the development of future energy professionals. Sustainable development and the strongly related secure supply is one of the most important questions arise among energy engineering issues. One of the first answers for the above complex problem is renewable energy sources. To achieve success, that is to integrate renewable systems, it is essential to design, control and support engineering and financial background of electrical engineering structures. (The question is even more important for Hungary, where neither energy nor financial resources are abundant at all.) The long term energy politics of the European Union aims to provide well-being for its citizens. It can be derived to several sub-notions which the EU would also like to support therefore, such as the appropriate operation of the economy, access to electric energy for both households and corporate consumers on reasonable prices and attention to environmental protection and sustainable growth in the meanwhile. As of the above mentioned goals, the EU is committed to maintain the Europe 2020 strategy (20-20-20 initiative) which aims to reduce green-house gas emission by 20%, increase renewable energy sources to 20% (from 8.5%) and increase energy efficiency by 20% until 2020. The EU has launched several actions to achieve the 20-plans. Integration of electricity markets, development of networks and establishing investment capital is in progress. In the followings a chronology and overview will be presented to give a better understanding the aims, subsidy systems and energy politics’ targets. The study of WEC Hungarian Young Professionals in Energy brings opinion on the National Action Plan as well which is especially recommended to our readers.

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Notwithstanding the apparent exit of the United Kingdom, the European Union (“EU”) has grown in membership and power since its modest beginnings after World War II, now rivaling the U.S. in economic strength. With the goal of promoting the security and prosperity of all the citizens of the countries that belong to it, the EU is pressing ahead to adopt laws that will promote their political and financial integration. Along those lines, it has also recently acknowledged a deficiency in the legal systems of its member states when it comes to allowing collective actions for victims of various types of economic harm. To address that, the EU is now developing guidelines for such procedures that can redress those injuries. In the area of securities fraud, establishing such measures has taken on more importance after both a spate of financial frauds by European companies and a significant decision from the United States Supreme Court, Morrison v. National Australia Bank. That ruling cut back on the jurisdiction of American courts to adjudicate these claims against foreign defendants—even when a significant amount of the wrongdoing has occurred in the U.S. This EU initiative to develop a collective jurisprudence to redress securities fraud also supports another goal that would foster European economic well-being. It would promote a shift in the financing of businesses there from debt to equity. That would particularly help small- and medium-size firms by giving confidence to investors in those enterprises that if they were cheated they would have an effective means to remedy that wrong. As it is now, such stock frauds can typically involve a large number of investors, many of whom have relatively small holdings. Individual actions in those situations are not only too expensive to maintain but are often inadequate to compensate all their victims and deter future misconduct. The availability of effective collective remedies would help Europeans overcome their reluctance to make equity investments and therefore provide more flexible capital structures to businesses. The European Commission10 (“Commission”) is therefore trying to fashion legal tools to address that problem. This involves enhancement of the EU’s mechanisms for stockholder litigation—what one commentator defines as “an umbrella term for various forms of suit and a range of claims brought by shareholders against the company in which they hold shares or against its directors and officers.” The EU’s proposals in that regard seek to encourage what it calls “collective actions,”—its analog to U.S. class actions—where many stockholders with small claims can join together and adjudicate them in one suit. Without such a corrective mechanism, the costs of litigation would be too great for those individuals, and they would not be able to counter the substantial resources that the defendants typically have. The EU’s proposals, however, lack features that have made American class actions so effective. The Commission is reluctant to embrace that model because of what it calls our “abusive practices.” Chief among them are contingent fees that compensate lawyers who represent shareholders harmed by these frauds. In addition, the Europeans appear determined to hold on to several rules that discourage lawyers from taking these cases. One is “loser pay,” which makes those who are unsuccessful in litigation liable for the legal fees of their counterparties who prevail. The potential of that heavy extra charge is a disincentive for lawyers who would take these cases. Another is that only plaintiffs who directly consent to be parties can be part of these actions (opt-in), as opposed to the more generous opt-out practice which includes all victims of the common fraud as plaintiffs unless they specifically choose not to participate. This Article will therefore offer comment on those deficiencies in the developing European model and encourage our friends across the Atlantic to take a more realistic approach to their reforms. The American experience with securities class actions certainly has its detractors and may have had some failings which have now been corrected. All and all, however, the U.S. approach has served our economy well by protecting investors, checking corporate wrongdoing, and affording compensation to defrauded investors. First, this Article will give a brief overview of the historic problems that European companies have had with an over-reliance on debt financing. It will then discuss how reforms like better redress for fraud can change that by giving equity investors a stronger belief that they will get a fair shake. The EU’s proposals are a step in the right direction to address that concern, and the Article will go on to describe the current state of their development. After that, it will use an American perspective to point out their shortcomings with the goal of highlighting the benefits of the U.S. model to European policymakers.

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We live in a fast-changing world, where breakthrough technological advances have not just disrupted industries but also changed the way we live, work and learn to a degree humankind has never experienced before. As the modern workplace becomes ever more global and interconnected, proficiency in foreign languages (FL) assumes a fundamental role in international business relations. Simultaneously, being able to navigate culturally diverse environments, i.e., understanding how international stakeholders think, work, and express themselves through their attitudes and behaviours is of paramount importance as well. These challenges also raise pressing questions: How can we prepare learners for a global world in constant evaluation? How can we help them develop 21st-century skills as important as critical thinking, creativity, communication, adaptability, digital literacy and cross-cultural understanding? In May 2018, the Council of the European Union (CEU) adopted a Recommendation on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning, a framework that attempts to establish a common understanding of competences needed in the present moment and the future, by emphasising the inter-relatedness of knowledge, skills, attitudes and values. An important reference tool for education and training stakeholders, this recommendation identifies the following key competences: 1) Literacy competence; 2) Multilingual competence; 3) Mathematical competence and competence in science, technology and engineering; 4) Digital competence; 5) Personal, social and learning to learn competence; 6) Civic competence; 7) Entrepreneurship competence; and 8) Cultural awareness and expression competence. The EU Member States are, thus, encouraged to prepare their citizens for changing labour markets and active citizenship in more diverse, mobile, digital, and global societies, and to develop learning at all stages of life. While teacher-guided approaches will remain an important pedagogical practice, the main approach to teaching key competences is through providing learning environments that facilitate active learning, i.e., student-centred settings where open-ended problems and challenges can be solved through debate, experimentation, exploration, and creativity. This paper aims to narrate a non-formal activity carried out within a Business English Communication course taught at the Higher School of Technology and Management of the University of Aveiro (Portugal), in collaboration with an international group of volunteers from the European Solidarity Corps. This initiative sought to contribute to the development of some of the key competences for lifelong learning, especially multilingual skills and cultural sensitivity and expression, but also digital skills and personal and social skills of the participants.

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The article deals with a topical problem – a general description of the features of administrative-legal support of the calculation of time in Ukraine. In particular, the author emphasizes that the proper provision of public needs in the field of time calculation in Ukraine is entrusted to the executive authorities - the government and its relevant structures. Public administration relations arising from the above needs, based on the content of the subject of administrative law, belong to the scope of this branch of Ukrainian law. It has been noted that the history of the problem shows that during the stay of Ukrainian lands in other countries, the definition of time for Ukrainians, as well as for other European nations, was not stable and still has not become final. Time zone (UTC + 2) was introduced on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR as a component of the USSR on May 2, 1924, and maternity time was introduced on the territory of the Soviet Union on June 20, 1930, after which the time of the third zone (UTC + 3) on the territory of Soviet Ukraine became also year-round. The attention has been paid that from July 1, 1990 on the territory of the USSR the maternity time was abolished and the UTC + 2 time zone was restored, from September 29, 1991 summer time was also abolished. However, by the Resolution of March 6, 1992, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine restored the validity of this time. Thus, after the above-mentioned government decisions, Kyiv time became equal to the corresponding zone UTC+2, and during summer time - UTC+3. Another attempt to change the time took place last year, when at the initiative of R.O. Stefanchuk, the bill № 4201 of 09.10.2020 «On the calculation of time in Ukraine» was submitted to the parliament, which provided for the waiver of the seasonal transition of time from 2021. It has been emphasized that at least six factors, namely political, economic, international, physiological, socio-domestic and geographical, should be the basis of government decisions to change the time in the country (including in Ukraine). Peculiarities that characterize the current process of administrative and legal support for changing the procedure for calculating the time mine in our country are: its significant politicization, low level of preparedness, implementation in conditions of significant time lag, lack of proper communication between government and the people, the need for coordination and synchronization with EU, the implementation in the traditional format of legal (administrative-legal) regulation, in which, as a rule, is sufficiently simplified without due regard for the nature and characteristics of certain social relations is their legal regulation. The attention has been paid to the fact that there is a high probability that the 17 EU countries that currently live in the first time zone (GMT + 1) may permanently stay in summer time – GMT+2. According to the legislative initiative of R.O. Stefanchuk, at the same time GMT+2 as a year-round is proposed to be introduced in Ukraine. That is, 17 EU countries will remain in the summer, and we in the winter. As a result, Kyiv time will be equal to Warsaw, Berlin or Paris, which, given the significant actual difference in real time, can bring significant inconvenience to most Ukrainian citizens, and our country has major, including security problems. The author has stated that the administrative-legal support of the calculation of time in Ukraine is characterized by a number of features, the main of which is its actual absence. Instead of providing groups with relevant social needs, our state continues to use an outdated and ineffective format of legal regulation of social relations. This leads to one-sidedness, simplification and haste in the preparation of relevant regulations. Under the conditions of immediate introduction of a more effective scheme of providing administrative legal needs, the issues of time calculation in Ukraine will most likely be solved systematically, comprehensively with proper scientific substantiation, taking into account all specific social needs and significant features that characterize this important component of public life.

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Political participation is considered an essential feature of democracy. The European Union (EU) aimed to foster political participation with the introduction of European citizenship, which gives the right to vote and stand as a candidate in municipal and European Parliament elections in whichever EU country the citizen resides. However, from the few figures available, registration and turnout rates among mobile EU citizens seem very low. In this article, we investigate the effectiveness of a proactive campaign in order to promote the participation of European non-national residents in municipal elections by focusing on a specific initiative: the VoteBrussels Campaign. Focusing on Brussels, and in the general on the Belgian case, offers us the opportunity to carry out a quasi-experimental design. Our findings suggest that a mobilisation campaign has a positive regionwide effect on the participation of mobile EU citizens.

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The article analyzes the approaches to the interpretation of the term "democracy deficit", which takes place in the modern European discourse of integration. It is concluded that in the framework of the first approach, the "deficit of democracy" is linked to the problem of the legitimacy of decisions taken by the "pan-European center". As part of the second with a number of distortions that are prone to a democratic form of government in developed democracies. The causes and conditions of the "democracy deficit" are considered. The peculiarities of legal instruments of citizens' influence on the functioning of the European Union and the problem of the "democracy deficit" at the present stage of its development are considered. The reasons and conditions of "deficit of democracy" emerged, ways of solving this problem were analyzed. The particularities of legal instruments of citizens’ influence on the functioning of European Union and the problem of «democratic deficit» at the modern stage of its development. It is emphasized in the article, that the problem of «democratic deficit» remains a key problem of the EU institutional system and EU decision-making. Legal amendments of the EU founding treaties were provided to minimize the problem of «democratic deficit». The most important changes were determined with the Lisbon Treaty, which fixed several effective legal remedies. For instance, the legislative power of the European Parliament as the unique legitimist institution elected directly by citizens was increased. Changes included the change in calculating such a majority to a new double majority based on in the principle of representation of citizens in the Council of Ministers. The Treaty of Lisbon expanded the role of Member States’ parliaments in the legislative processes of the EU by giving them a prior scrutiny of legislative proposals before the Council and the Parliament can take a position and some control powers. One of the major innovations introduced by the Lisbon Treaty and aims at involving citizens more closely in agenda-setting at EU level is the European citizens’ initiative. The specific character of the EU institutional system and lack of some legal mechanisms of citizens’ participation in the process of EU decision-making, similar to those of national level, demonstrates the existence of the problem of «democratic deficit». Nevertheless modern legislation of EU proves that there is no ground to make a conclusion about weakness of political scope of the European citizenship.

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uropean Union is facing challenges of ageing societies and changes in structure of economy, thus labour shortages turn into an urgent issue that ultimately affects labour market sustainability. In its attempt to recruit highly qualified workers EU has strong international competitors, e.g. USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and pursues a variety of initiatives at national level of the Member States and at the EU level in general. This article aims at assessing the EU policies related to migration of highly qualified workers. Statistical data analysis has revealed that labour mobility is increasing in EU. Thus the EU Mobility directive could be evaluated as bringing benefits, yet with a room for improvement, because highly qualified workers still make up just a small part in all the mobile citizens’ population. National initiatives are more effective in fostering the migration of highly qualified workers, but this has the threat of unequal benefits in different EU regions; the effectiveness of EU Blue Card initiative is weak but with a high potential, thus it needs further improvements in its issuing policies.

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uropean Union is facing challenges of ageing societies and changes in structure of economy, thus labour shortages turn into an urgent issue that ultimately affects labour market sustainability. In its attempt to recruit highly qualified workers EU has strong international competitors, e.g. USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and pursues a variety of initiatives at national level of the Member States and at the EU level in general. This article aims at assessing the EU policies related to migration of highly qualified workers. Statistical data analysis has revealed that labour mobility is increasing in EU. Thus the EU Mobility directive could be evaluated as bringing benefits, yet with a room for improvement, because highly qualified workers still make up just a small part in all the mobile citizens’ population. National initiatives are more effective in fostering the migration of highly qualified workers, but this has the threat of unequal benefits in different EU regions; the effectiveness of EU Blue Card initiative is weak but with a high potential, thus it needs further improvements in its issuing policies.

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Abstract Background During the last decade, the European Union initiated several projects in the domains of public and environmental health. Within this framework, BRIDGE Health (Bridging Information and Data Generation for Evidence-based Health policy and Research) and HBM4EU (European human biomonitoring initiative) have been implemented. Whereas, the focus of BRIDGE Health was towards a sustainable and integrated health information system (HIS), the aim of HBM4EU is to improve evidence of the internal exposure of European citizens to environmental chemicals by human biomonitoring (HBM) and the impact of internal exposure on health. As both, environmental and public health determinants are important for health promotion, disease prevention and policy, BRIDGE Health and HBM4EU have overlapping aims and outcomes. In order to improve health information regarding public health and environmental health issues, best use and exchange of respective networks and project results is necessary. Methods Both projects have implemented health information (HI) and HBM tasks in order to provide adequate environmental and public health information of the European population. Synergies of the projects were identified in the working progress and because of overlapping networks and experts a focused analysis of both projects was envisaged. This paper elaborates on the aims and outcomes of both projects and the benefit of merging and channelling research results for the use of better health information and policy making that may be of relevance for any other project in these research fields. Results The need for focused exchanges and collaborations between the projects were identified and benefits of exchanges were highlighted for the specific areas of indicator development, linkage of data repositories and the combination of HBM studies and health examination surveys (HES). Further recommendations for a European wide harmonisation among different tasks in the fields of public health and environmental health are being developed. Conclusions Lessons learned from HBM4EU and BRIDGE Health show that continuous efforts must be undertaken, also by succeeding projects, to guarantee the exchange between public health and environmental health issues. Networks covering both are essential to provide better evidence of knowledge. The experiences from BRIDGE Health and HBM4EU give a valuable input for any future activity in these domains. Avoiding overlaps and streamlining further exchange of public health and environmental health contributes to best use of research results and allows to develop new strategies and tools for improvement of health information and thus enhances people’s health and well-being.

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Collectives bring people and their concerns together. In the twenty-first century, this assembly happens across different material and virtual spaces that, together, establish connective layers of society. A kind of politics has emerged that seeks new forms of communication and expression and proposes new modes of (co)existence. Riots in the suburbs of metropolitan areas, the repair of a public village centre, railway workers’ strikes, green activists’ protests, songs in support of tsunami victims… These are some examples of collective actions that unite people and places. But very often these kinds of events and social practices take place and fade away too quickly without visible traces of becoming collectives. This article focuses on the contingent spaces that enable collective action and provide possibilities for “peripheral” concerns and communities to become public. The concept of “diasporas” is widened to permit discussion of how emerging (international) communities make their voices heard through political events. Some theoretical concepts will be illustrated, using two examples of collective action on 1 May 2009 that demonstrate different initiatives concerning the global (economic) crisis. Assembling Collectives and Affective Events Building a house/centre and singing for something: these are examples of practices that bring people and their ideals together in a collective action or event. This article discusses the different communities that evolve within spaces that enable collective action. These communities are formed not only on the basis of nationality, occupation, or race; elements of (temporal) membership are created out of a wide spectrum of affiliations and a sense of solidarity. Hinchliffe (13) argues that collective action can be seen as a collection of affects that link together disparate places and times, and thus the collective is a matter of considerable political interest. The emergent spaces of collective action publicise particular concerns that may connect already existing but (spatially) dispersed communities and diasporas. However, there is a need to discuss the affects, places, and temporalities that make the assemblage of new collectivities possible. The political potential of collective spaces needs careful elaboration in order that such initiatives may continue to grow without extending the influence of existing (capitalist) powers. Various communities connected “glocally” (locally and globally) can call new publics into existence, posing questions to politics which are not yet “of politics” (Thrift 3). Thus collective action can invent new connecting concerns and practices that catalyse (political) change in society. To understand the complex spatiality of collective action and community formations, it is crucial to look at processes of “affect”. Affects occur in society as “in-becoming” atmospheres and “imitation-suggestions” (Brennan 1-10) that stimulate concerns and motivate practices. The “imitation” can also be an invention that creatively binds existing know-how and experiences into a local-social context. Thinking about affects within the spaces of collective action provides a challenge to rethink what is referred to simply as the “social”. Massumi (228) argues that such affects are virtual expressions of the actually existing things that embody them; however, affects such as emotions and feelings are also autonomous to the degree that they exceed the particular body within which they are presently confined. The emerging bodies, or spaces, of collective action thus carry the potential to transform coexistence across both intellectual and physical boundaries, and communication technology has been instrumental in linking the affective spaces of collective action across both time and space. According to Thrift, the collision of different space-times very often provokes a “stutter” in social relations: the jolt which arises from new encounters, new connections, new ways of proceeding. But how can these turbulent spheres and trajectories of collective action be described and discussed? Here the mechanisms of “events” themselves need to be addressed. The “event” represents, abstractly, a spatio-temporal locus where different concerns and practices are encountered and negotiated. “Event” refers to an incoming, or emerging, object (agent) triggering, through various affective responses, new ideas and initiatives (Clark 33). In addition to revolutions or tsunamis, there are also smaller-scale events that change how people live and come together. In this sense, events can be understood to combine individual and social “bodies” within collective action and imaginations. As Appadurai has argued, the imagination is central to all forms of agency, is itself a social practice, and is the key component of our new global order (Appadurai 29-30). Flusty (7) argues that the production of the global is as present in our day-to-day thoughts and actions as it is in the mass movement of capital, information, and populations which means that there should be the potential to include more people in the democratic process (Whatmore). This process can be seen to be a defining characteristic of the term cosmopolitics which Thrift describes as: “one of the best hopes for changing our engagement with the political by simply acknowledging that there is more there” (Thrift 189). For many, these hopes are based on a new kind of telematic connectedness, in which tele- and digital communications represent the beginning of a global networked consciousness based on the continuous exchange of ideas, both cognitive and affective. Examples of Events and Collectives Taking Place on 1 May 2009 The first day in May is traditionally dedicated to working people, and there are many public gatherings to express solidarity with workers and left-wing (“red”) policy. Issues concerning work and various productions are complex, and recently the global economic crisis exposed some weaknesses in neoliberal capitalism. Different participatory/collective actions and spaces are formed to make some common concerns public at the same time in various locations. The two following examples are part of wider “ideoscapes” (official state ideologies and counter-ideologies) (see Appadurai) in action that help to illustrate both the workings of twenty-first century global capitalism and the translocal character of the public concern. EuroMayDay One alternative form of collective action is EuroMayDay, which has taken place on May 1 every year since 2001 in several cities across (mainly Western) Europe. For example, in 2006 a total of about 300,000 young demonstrators took part in EuroMayDay parades in 20 EU cities (Wikipedia). The purpose of this political action is “to fight against the widespread precarisation of youth and the discrimination of migrants in Europe and beyond: no borders, no workfare, no precarity!” (EuroMayDay). This manifesto indicates that the aim of the collective action is to direct public attention to the insecure conditions of immigrants and young people across Europe. These groups may be seen to constitute a kind of European “diasporic collective” in which the whole of Europe is figured as a “problem area” in which unemployment, displacement, and (possibly) destitution threaten millions of lives. In this emerging “glocality”, there is a common, and urgent, need to overcome the boundaries of exclusion. Here, the proposed collective body (EuroMayDay) is described as a process for action, thus inviting translocal public participation. The body has active nodes in (Western) Europe (Bremen, Dortmund, Geneva, Hamburg, Hanau, Lisbon, Lausanne, Malaga, Milan, Palermo, Tübingen, Zürich) and beyond (Tokyo, Toronto, Tsukuba). The collective process marks these cities on the map through a webpage offering contacts with each of the “nodes” in the network. On 1 May 2009, May Day events, or parades, took place in all the cities listed above. The “nodes” of the EuroMayDay process prepared posters and activities following some common lines, although collective action had to be performed locally in every city. By way of example, let’s look at how this collective action realised its potential in Berlin, Germany. The posters (EuroMayDay Berlin, "Call") articulate the oppressive and competitive power of capitalism which affects everyone, everyday, like a machine: it constitutes “the permanent crisis”. One’s actual or potential unemployment and/or immigrant status may cause insecurity about the future. There is also a focus on liminal or transitional time, and a call for a new collectivity to overcome oppressive forces from above that protect the interests of the State and the banks. EuroMayDay thus calls for the weaving together of different forms of resistance against a deeply embedded capitalist system and the bringing together of common concerns for the attention of the general public through the May Day parade. Another poster (EuroMayDay Berlin, "May"), depicting the May Day parade, centres around the word “KRISE?” (“crisis”). The poster ends with an optimistic call to action, expressing a desire to free capitalism from institutional oppression and recreate it in a more humanistic way. Together, these two posters represent fragments of the “ideoscope” informing the wider, collective process. In Berlin in 2009, thousands of people (mostly young) participated in the May Day parade (which started from the public square Bebelplatz), backed by a musical soundtrack (see Rudi). Some people also had posters in their hands, displaying slogans like: “For Human Rights”; “Class Struggle”; “Social Change Not Climate Change”; and “Make Capitalism a Thing of the Past”. Simultaneously, dozens of other similar parades were taking place across the cities of Europe, all bearing “accelerated affective hope” (Rosa) for political change and demanding justice in society. Unfortunately, the May Day parade in Berlin took a violent turn at night, when some demonstrators attacked police and set cars on fire. There were also clashes during demonstrations in Hamburg (Kirschbaum). The media blamed the clashes also on the economic recession and recently dashed hopes for change. The Berlin May Day parade event was covered on the EuroMayDay webpage and on television news. This collective action connected many people; some participated in the parade, and many more saw the clashes and burning cars on their screens. The destructive and critical force of the collective action brought attention to some of the problems associated with youth employment and immigration though, sadly, without offering any concrete proposals for a solution to the problem. The emotional character of the street marches, and later the street fighting, were arguably an important aspect of the collective action inasmuch as they demonstrated the potential for citizens to unite, translocally, around affective as well as material grief (a process that has been given dramatic expression in more recent times with events in Egypt, Libya, and Syria). Further, although the recent May Day events have achieved very little in terms of material results, the network remains active, and further initiatives are likely in the future. “Let’s Do It! My Estonia” On 1 May 2009, about 11,000 people participated in a public “thought-bee” in Estonia (located in north-eastern Europe in the region of the Baltic Sea) and (through the Estonian diaspora) abroad. The “thought-bee” can be understood as a civil society initiative designed to bring people together for discussion and problem-solving with regards to everyday social issues. The concept of the “bee” combines work with pleasure. The bee tradition was practised in old Estonian farming communities, when families in adjacent villages helped one another. Bees were often organised for autumn harvesting, and the intense, communal work was celebrated by offering participants food and drink. Similarly, during the Soviet era, on certain Saturdays there were organised days (obligatory) for collective working (e.g. to reconstruct sites or to pick up litter). Now the “bee” concept has become associated with brainstorming in small groups across the country as well as abroad. The number of participants in the May 1st thought-bee was relatively large, given that Estonia’s total population is only 1.4 million. The funding of the initiative combined public and private sources, e.g. Estonian Civil Society Foundation, the European Commission, and some companies. The information sheet, presented to participants of the May 1st thought-bee, explains the event’s purpose in this way: The main purpose of today’s thought-bee is to initiate as many actions as possible that can change life in Estonia for the better. My Estonia, our more enjoyable and more efficient society, will appear through smaller and bigger thoughts. In the thought-bee we think how to make life better for our own home-place... Let’s think together and do it! (Teeme Ära, "Teeme", translated from Estonian) The civil society event grew out of a collective action on 3 May 2008 to pick up and dispose of litter throughout Estonia. The thought-bee initiative was coordinated by volunteers. The emotional appeal to participate in the thought-bee event on May 1st was presented and circulated in newspapers, radio, television, Internet portals, and e-mails. Famous people called on residents to take part in the public discussion events. Some examples of arguments for the collective activity included the economic crisis, the need for new jobs, self-responsibility, environmental pressures, and the general need to learn and find communal solutions. The thought-bee initiative took place simultaneously in about 500 “thought-halls” all over Estonia and abroad. Small groups of people registered, chose main discussion topics (with many suggestions from organisers of the bee) and made their groups visible as nodes on the “initiative” webpage. Other people had the opportunity of reading several proposals from the various thought-halls and of joining as members of the public brainstorming event on 1 May. The virtual and living map of the halls presented them as (green) nodes with location, topics, members, and discussion leaders. Various sites such as schools, clubs, cultural centres, municipality buildings, and theatres became part of the multiple and synchronous “space-times” within the half-day thought-bee event. Participants in the thought-bee were asked to bring their own food to share and, in some municipalities, open concerts were held to celebrate the day. These practices indicate some continuity with the national tradition of bees, where work has always been combined with pleasure. Most “thought-halls” were located in towns and smaller local centres as well as on several Estonian islands. Moreover, these thought-halls provided for both as face-to-face and online encounters. Further, one English-speaking discussion group was organised in Tallinn so that non-Estonian speakers could also participate. However, the involvement of Russian-speaking people in the initiative remained rather limited. It is important to note that these embodied spaces of participation were also to be found outside of Estonia—in Brussels, Amsterdam, Toronto, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Prague, Baltimore, New York, and San Diego—and, in this way, the Estonian diaspora was also given the opportunity to become involved in the collective action. Following the theories of Thrift and Clark cited at the beginning of this article, it is interesting to see an event in which simultaneously connected places, embodying multiple voices, becomes part of the communal present with a shared vision of the future. The conclusions of each thought-hall discussion group were recorded on video shortly after the event. These videos were made available on the “Let’s Do It! My Estonia” webpage. The most frequently addressed topics of the thought-bee (in order of importance) were: community activities and collaboration; entrepreneurship and new jobs; education, values; free time and sport; regional development; rural life; and the environment and nature conservation (PRAXIS). The participants of the collective action were aware of the importance of local as well as national initiatives as a catalyst for change. The initiative “Let’s Do It! My Estonia” continued after the events of May Day 2009; people discussed issues and suggested proposals through the “initiative” webpage and supported the continuation of the collective action (Teeme Ära, "Description"). Environmental concerns (e.g. planting trees, reducing noise, and packaging waste) appear as important elements in these imaginings along with associated other practices for the improvement of daily life. It is important to understand the thought-bee event as a part of an emerging collective action that started with a simple litter clean-up and grew, through various other successful local community initiatives, into shared visions for a better future predicated upon the principles of glocality and coexistence. The example indicates that (international) NGOs can apply, and also invent, radical information politics to change the terms of debate in a national context by providing a voice for groups and issues that would otherwise remain unheard and unseen (see also Atkinson and Scurrah 236-44). Conclusions The collective actions discussed above have created new publics and contingent spaces to bring additional questions and concerns into politics. In both cases, the potential of “the event” (as theorised in the introduction of this article) came to the foreground, creating an additional international layer of temporal connectivity between many existing social groups such as unemployed young people or members of a village union. These events were both an “outcome” of, and an attempt to change, the involuntary exclusion of certain “peripheral” groups within the melting pot that the European Union has become. As such, they may be thought of as extending the concept of “diasporas” to include emerging platforms of collective action that aim to make problematic issues visible and multiple voices heard across the wider public. This, in turn, illustrates the need to rethink diasporas in the context of the intensive de-territorialisation of human concerns, “space-times and movement-trajectories yet to (be)come” (Braziel and Mannur 18). Both the examples of collective action discussed here campaigned for “changing the world” through a one-day event and may thus be understood in terms of Rosa’s theory of “social acceleration” (Rosa). This theory shows how both to the “contraction of the present” and the general instability of contemporary life have given rise to a newly affective desire to improve life through an expression of the collective will. Such a tendency can clearly take on far more radical forms as has been recently demonstrated by the mass protests and revolts against autocratic ruling powers in Egypt, Libya, and Syria. In this article, however, cosmopolitics is better understood in terms of the particular skills (most evident in the Estonian case) and affective spheres that mobilised in suggestions to bring about local action and global change. Together, these examples of collective action are part of a wider “ideoscape” (Appadurai) trying to reduce the power of capitalism and of the state by encouraging alternative forms of collective action that are not bound up solely with earning money or serving the state as a “salient” citizen. However, it could be argued that “EuroMayDay” is ultimately a reactionary movement used to highlight the oppressive aspects of capitalism without offering clear alternatives. By contrast, “Let’s Do It! My Estonia” has facilitated interactive public discussion and the practice of local skills that have the power to improve everyday life and the environment in a material and quantifiable way. Such changes in collective action also illustrate the speed and “imitative capacity stimulating expressive interactions” that now characterise everyday life (Thrift). Crucially, both these collective events were achieved through rapid advances in communication technologies in recent times; this technology made it possible to spread know-how as well as feelings of solidarity and social contact across the world. Further research on these fascinating developments in g/local politics is clearly urgently needed to help us better understand the changes in collective action currently taking place. Acknowledgements This research was supported by Estonian Science Foundation grant SF0130008s07 and by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (Center of Excellence CECT). References Appadurai, Arjun. “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy.” Theorizing Diaspora: A Reader. Ed. Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003. 25-48. Atkinson, Jeffrey, and Martin Scurrah. Globalizing Social Justice: The Role of Non-Governmental Organizations in Bringing about Social Change. 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