Europe in a Global Context

European Challenges

Module: Europe in Global Context

Author:
Student Number:
Submission Date: 25/04/2021

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Europe in a Global Context

Contents
....................................................................................................................................................1
European Challenges...............................................................................................................1
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
European Environment...............................................................................................................4
Migration Flow...........................................................................................................................5
Skilled shortages....................................................................................................................5
Foreign Students.....................................................................................................................5
Ageing- Demography.............................................................................................................5
Family Reunification..............................................................................................................5
Terrorism in Europe...................................................................................................................6
Terrorist Attacks.....................................................................................................................6
CyberTerrorism......................................................................................................................6
Brexit..........................................................................................................................................7
Rule Britannia, Britannia Rules The Waves..........................................................................7
Why leave?.............................................................................................................................7
Economics..........................................................................................................................7
Sovereignty........................................................................................................................7
Article 50................................................................................................................................7
EU Mandate...........................................................................................................................8
Northern Ireland Backstop.....................................................................................................8
Youth & Unemployment............................................................................................................9
Reinforced Youth Guarantee......................................................................................................9
How the Guarantee Works.....................................................................................................9
Bibliography.............................................................................................................................10

Figure 1 European Youth Form.................................................................................................9

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Introduction

 In this paper, we will briefly look at some of the challenges that are facing Europe and
how they are dealt with. After all, Europe has 27 member states since the UK left in
January 2021, decreasing our population to 446 million inhabitants making it the
third-largest population after China and India. So to have social cohesion, economic
stability, security and a better environment for future generations in all members
states, there will of course be challenges or obstacles along the way.

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European Environment
We will briefly look at Green House Gases (GHG) in European Transport and see what laws,
regulations or directives are in place to make our cities less polluted.
Under the Kyoto Protocol agreement which was set up in 1997 by the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as the world's only legally binding
treaty to reduce GHG, Europe was allowed to reduce its emissions as a block of countries. As
Europe had to reduce its emissions by 8% under the Kyoto Protocol, it would do so through a
system tailored to each countries wealth setting out targets to fulfil on their commitment
period 2008-12 (Commission, 2016). The European Climate Change Programme (ECCP) was
established in 2000 by the European Commission to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG)
through policies and measures, that would be efficient and cost-effective through strategies
coordinated to meet the Kyoto targets. It was then the ECCP introduced the European
Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) (Commission, European Climate Change Programme,
2016). The ETS was responsible for introducing a government-mandated emissions cap,
companies and organisations were given incentives to reduce their emissions, there was a
maximum cap limit to which a company or organisation could emit over a certain period of
time (HUB, 2020). These measures and policies like the introduction of the renewable energy
directive to promote electricity from renewable energy sources was to help Europe reach its
targets with the preparation of 2020 targets in mind (HUB, 2020).
The Paris agreement, like the Kyoto 1 agreement and 2 was introduced by the UNFCCC in
2015 with a focus on reducing the amount of GHG which are emitted to assist in reducing
global temperatures by 2 degrees.
So what does all this mean for Europe, if we look at Germany as an example and how they
have introduced measures to reduces GHG in their transportation networks. Under European
law, citizens have the right to clean air (EC, 2008). With this being said some cities have now
introduced a ban on diesel vehicles within the inner city limits, this has helped improve the
air quality for the people living in the city (Möhner, 2018). This has affected over 15 million
diesel car owners, who may not meet the criteria set out by the (Bundesamt, 2017).
Germany also has a high amount of renewable energy through its wind, solar and biomass
sources. This was achieved through Energiewende making its renewable energy sources more
efficient with renewable energy production overtaking fossil fuel consumption, pushing them
past their 2020 targets (Wettengel, 2021).

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Migration Flow

When we talk about migration people tend to have a perception of people coming to Europe
to flee war-torn countries seeking asylum. However, it is much more than that some countries
in Europe have skill shortages, foreign student or researchers, seasonal workers or people
looking for family reunification.
Skilled shortages
Skilled shortages can be linked to underpaid jobs, shift work and education where core
subjects like science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) are not being
covered by enough people and the ones that do well in these areas tend to emigrate for better
pay and work-life balance causing a brain drain effect (Calleja, 2016).
Foreign Students
The vast majority of universities across Europe have exchange programs with partners in
universities around the world like Japan, China, USA, Australia and Canada. The benefits of
this are to create transferable skills that can be used in the workplace after the exchange
(TCD, 2021). However, non-EU international student exchange programs come at a higher
cost than exchanges within Europe making them more affordable for EU citizens through
various schemes like Erasmus+, where students can avail of grants, scholarships and a
reduction in fees (EC, 2016).
Ageing- Demography
With birth rates consistently falling and life expectancy rising across Europe, there will be a
need for more health and social care workers with an ageing population, this has effects on
governments and labour markets with the possibility of retirement ages increasing to meet
demands (EC, 2020)

Family Reunification
In 2015 Angle Merkle the German Chancellor opened the gates of Europe to allow refugees
to seek asylum in Germany for the first time since 1990 by suspending the Dublin Protocol
(Hall & Lichfield, 2015) Germany then urged other members states to suspend the Dublin
Protocol and follow suit. In the first year alone Germany received almost 1 million first time
asylum seeker applications, if we fast forward five years we can see that half of these people
have found jobs, had families and integrated into society with help from government agencies
(Sekou & Dempster, 2020). However, there will always be issues around integration and
language barriers with mass migration into different cultures. Another issue for families is
that they may have had no choice but to leave a loved one behind while fleeing a warzone.
With that being said when a person has been granted asylum and in possession of a valid visa
for one year, they can then apply to be reunited with their loved ones through the
reunification directive if they meet the criteria (Commisssion, 2014).

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Terrorism in Europe
Terrorist Attacks
During the 1970s and 1980s, Europe was in the midst of a violent campaign of terror attacks,
where numerous fascist groups, left and right-wing extremist raged acts of violence that had
not been seen in Europe since the Second World War. However, this changed in the 1990s,
violence in Northern Ireland had reduced with the signing of The Good Friday Agreement in
1998 and the same year, ETA announced a ceasefire while the German Red Army Fraction
was disbanded. This changed in the 2000s when we seen attacks organized by non-European
organisations like al-Queda with the help of European citizens. Now there was a new type of
terrorism on the horizon which was never seen before, young men were being radicalized and
recruited against the western world. In 2004 we had the Madrid bombings and in 2005 central
London was attacked by suicide bombers causing vast amounts of injury, death and
destruction (Rodgers, et al., 2015). However, these are not the only major cities to be attacked
Paris had the Charlie Hebdo shooting in 2015, Munich and Berlin were also attacked
separately by lone wolf figures in 2016 one of which was a German teenager with Iranian
heritage (Independent, 2017) (News, 2016). This highlighted to member states that there must
be cross-communication to limit and eradicate these attacks from our streets, cities and
countries (Gaub, 2017).
If we look at Europol which was formed in 1999 when the Maastricht treaty came into effect,
this was a big game-changer, now Europe had a task force that was able to share information
with other law enforcement agencies within Europe. However, it wasn’t until 2010 that
Europol officially became an EU agency, since then they have gone on to set up European
Cybercrime Centre 2013, the European Counter Terrorism Centre and the European Migrant
Smuggling Centre in 2016, and the European Serious and Organised Crime Centre and the
EU Internet Referral Unit in 2017. (Europol, 2021)
The counter-terrorism centre in 2019 managed to foil 119 attacks and arrest 1009 people on
terrorist offences. This can only happen through strengthening cooperation between law
enforcement agencies enhancing information exchange, criminalising terrorist offences,
cutting the financing of terrorism, improving firearms controls, preventing online
radicalization, digitalising judicial cooperation and reinforcing checks at external borders
(Council, 2021)

CyberTerrorism
With cybercrime and terrorism on the rise across Europe, would-be attackers tend to take
advantage of covid lockdown restrictions, which have forced people to work from home and
embrace e-commerce as some businesses go cashless or have a click and collect system in
place. The main difference between both of them is that cybercrime focus on personal data
theft and bank fraud with an estimated global cost of 500 billion dollars per annum, this
equates to over 500 million per year (Baggio & Roli, 2016).
Cyberterrorism can be defined as individuals, groups and organisations who are directly
influenced by terrorist leaders or movements. With the desire to impact political or

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ideological change, resulting in violence and psychological repercussions beyond the

immediate victim or target (Zerzr, 2017).
Cyber terrorists use the internet to distribute their training materials via social media
platforms, propaganda, recruitment, data mining, fundraising and planning for future attacks
be it through the dark web or with encrypted devices (Zerzr, 2017). The EU has now adopted
new strategies in cyber counterterrorism to disseminate online terrorist material through new
legislation which will come into effect in 2022. (Council, 2021)

Brexit
Rule Britannia, Britannia Rules The Waves
In 2005 David Cameron the UK's Prime Minister announced that the UK will have a
referendum on its membership within the European Union, the date was set for the 23rd of
June 2016. Now the UK, England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland (NI) would have
their say on whether they stayed or left the EU, surprisingly it was a rather close referendum
52 to 48% in favour of leaving. However, Scotland and NI had voted overwhelmingly to stay,
this would later cause great contention within the UK. Soon after the referendum results
Cameron a pro-remain voter resigned as Prime Minister of the UK (IYENGAR, 2016).
Why leave?
Economics
One of the main points was that the EU had economic problems and was stagnate since 2008,
with high unemployment in southern EU member states at 20% when compared to Germany
who had a rather low unemployment rate of just 4.2%. This spelt disaster for the UK who
thought that staying in a declining economy, would not help elevate British problems.
(Friedman, 2016)

Sovereignty
Now the British perception of the EU, IMF was of distrust due to nationalism being on the
rise. Many argued that these institutions were not fit for purpose anymore, which only added
to the fear of losing control of one nation, where immigration is always a sore talking point
(Friedman, 2016).

Article 50
On the 2nd of October Theresa May is elected as the new Prime Minister of the UK, May must
now enact the EU's Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. This will set the UK's withdrawal from
the EU into motion, in her speech to the European Council she said “We understand that
there will be consequences for the UK of leaving the EU. We know that we will lose
influence over the rules that affect the European economy. We know that UK companies that
trade with the EU will have to align with rules agreed by institutions of which we are no
longer a part, just as we do in other overseas markets. We accept that (Asthana, et al., 2017)”.

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However, the British High Court on the 3rd of November ruled that government cannot
proceed with its withdrawal as Parliament must first give its authorization, this has now
caused another obstacle on the road to withdrawal (White, 2016). The case is sent forward to
the Supreme Court, where a panel of 11 judges made a “judgment of the majority, the
Supreme Court holds that an Act of Parliament is required to authorise ministers to give
Notice of the decision of the UK to withdraw from the European Union (UKSC, 2017)”.
The UK government have now passed the Brexit bill to give Prime Minister May the legal
powers to trigger its withdrawal with Queen's assent (News, 2017).
EU Mandate
In May 2017 the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier is given the task of delivering the EU's
mandate on the UK leaving the single market, in phase one some of the mandate key issues
are the UK's financial settlement, citizens’ rights and arrangements for the Irish border are
identified as key divorce issues, with this in mind a transition date for their departure is set,
March 2019 (DeutscheWelle, 2017).
Northern Ireland Backstop
Essentially the backstop under the Withdrawal Agreement was put in place to prevent a hard
border on the island of Ireland and is intended to protect the Good Friday Agreement, which
will keep an open border system in place without customs checks, therefore, keeping the
border frictionless (Kenny, 2019). At this stage in negotiations, Theresa May has stepped
down as Prime Minister and Borris Johnson is elected to office in July 2019. Johnson has
now made it clear there will be no backstop and the UK will leave the EU on October 31st.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel now gives Borris 30 days to find an alternative to the
backstop (Kenny, 2019).
Subsequently, an agreement was struck that protects the Good Friday Agreement and on the
1st of January 2021, Britain will leave the EU, thereby creating a border in the Irish sea. This
means that all goods from Britain entering NI would be checked as Britain is no longer in the
single market while goods produced within NI can still cross into the Republic of Ireland and
vice versa. However, Unionist in NI have voiced their concerns with Prime Minister Johnson,
stating that they are still part of the UK and that the UK government should invoke Article 16
of the agreement. Which states it maybe suspend any part of the agreement if it causes
economic, societal or environmental difficulties. Also, it must be noted that NI can vote after
four years on whether they wish to keep the existing agreement or leave fully with Britain
(Edgington & Morris, 2021). This would potentially cause a great deal of frustration,
especially after what has been achieved since this saga began in 2005.

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Youth & Unemployment

Youth unemployment in Europe is set to reach over 3 million people following the impact of
Covid19 across the EU, this now puts them more at risk of social and economic exclusion.
Even before Covid19, youth unemployment was growing at a rather alarming rate. If we look
at the figure below we can see from 2019 to 2020 exactly what rate each EU country has
grown (Form, 2021).

Figure 1 European Youth Form

Reinforced Youth Guarantee

The reinforced guarantee is a commitment by all member states to ensure young people 15 to
30 have access to employment, continued education, apprenticeship or a traineeship, if they
are leaving education or unemployed for up to four months. The European Council
recommended the guarantee in October 2020, it was based on a Commission proposal, which
is part of the Youth Employment Support package (Europa, 2020).
How the Guarantee Works
It offers job support and guidance which is then individualised to each person's interest,
whether they need a crash course or upskilling for a specific labour market such as our
accelerating digital and green transitions. This, in turn, can give greater flexibility and
adaptable skills that may lead to them having active roles in our labour markets as part of the
Next Generation EU, where 22 billion euros has been ring-fenced to finance the Reinforced
Youth Guarantee (Europa, 2020).

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