Tuesday, July 11, 2023

A Trade Policy for the Middle Class Will Not Save US Manufacturing

Jul 11, 2023

DANIEL GROS

The Biden administration has turned its back on free trade, arguing that decades of globalization have not benefited US manufacturing workers. That may be true, but its new plan for a “fairer, more durable” international economic order is unlikely to improve their wages or job prospects.

MILAN – US trade policy is on the cusp of a major transformation. In a recent speech at the Brookings Institution, Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, outlined the administration’s strategy to “build a fairer, more durable global economic order.” At the heart of this new approach is the belief that, although the world has reaped the benefits of free trade over the past several decades, American workers got a raw deal.

Focus on Productivity, Not Technology
DANI RODRIK points out that innovation is not sufficient to deliver sustainable growth in living standards.

Sullivan’s first piece of evidence is that “America’s industrial base had been hollowed out.” While most analysts focus on manufacturing’s declining share of GDP – 11% in 2021, compared to 28.1% in 1953 – the decline of manufacturing is also reflected in the composition of US trade. Around the turn of the century, manufactured goods accounted for more than 80% of US merchandise exports. By 2022, this share had shrunk to below 60%.

It is unlikely that globalization and free trade were the primary catalysts of this de-industrialization of US trade. After all, manufacturing’s share of exports has remained close to 80% for the European Union and hovers around 93-95% for China. Compared to other major developed exporters, the US is an outlier. This implies that China’s rise as the world’s leading manufacturing powerhouse is not the cause of the relative decline in US manufacturing exports.

A more plausible driver is the combination of high energy prices and the increase in energy production, particularly oil and natural gas, which first supplanted imports and then provided the United States with an alternative source of export earnings. Economists refer to this phenomenon as the “Dutch Disease,” named for the decline of manufacturing in the Netherlands after the discovery of natural-gas fields in 1959 led to windfall profits and rapid currency appreciation.

While energy prices have come down from their 2022 peak, they remain elevated, especially for natural gas. Crude and refined petroleum and natural gas are thus expected to remain the top three US export products, with automobiles and semiconductors occupying the fourth and fifth spots, respectively.

The US economy also benefits from a robust services sector, including the unrivaled dominance of Silicon Valley giants, which represents a rapidly expanding source of export earnings. Services exports are now almost on par with manufacturing exports, and the US currently runs a large and growing surplus in services trade.

Over the past two decades, this shift has led to an increasing share of productive resources going toward resource extraction and services, crowding out manufacturing. Many Europeans envy the US for its shale-energy boom and thriving tech industry. But the flip side of US dominance in these sectors was the relative decline in domestic manufacturing.

Thus, the frequently cited claim that increased imports from China led to pockets of unemployment and social decline across the American heartland is misleading. The rise in US imports of manufactured goods from China occurred because the shale and tech booms boosted national income and consumption. Chinese imports were a symptom of this general trend rather than the root cause of domestic challenges. The EU, a much more open economy than the US, has not experienced the same social dislocations and hollowing out of manufacturing as a result of the “China shock” – further evidence that China is not to blame for the decline of US manufacturing.

The fact is that no single factor can fully explain a complex phenomenon like the decline of manufacturing. The share of the economy devoted to the production of goods has undergone a secular decline across the developed world. What sets the US apart is the sector’s contribution to exports. Other US-specific factors, such as the state of the American education system and the absence of apprenticeship programs to train workers in manual tasks, may have also played a role. But this shift was driven primarily by macroeconomic forces.

The obvious implication is that reviving US manufacturing through trade policy will be extremely difficult. Tariffs targeting specific goods or categories have only limited effectiveness, as evidenced by former US President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs on imported Chinese goods. For this reason, the Biden administration is not considering imposing new ones, although it has retained those inherited from Trump. Today’s policymakers seem to favor “Buy American” policies as their primary tool. But the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Biden’s signature legislation, illustrates the limits of this approach.

One goal of the IRA is to establish a US industrial base for certain minerals deemed critical for the production of batteries and renewable energy. This would entail strengthening resource extraction relative to manufacturing. But, given that resource extraction is capital-intensive and requires fewer workers – roughly 500,000 compared to the manufacturing sector’s 11 million – relying on it is inconsistent with creating more manufacturing jobs.

To offset the support for mineral extraction, the IRA includes generous subsidies for domestic battery production, along with local content requirements for electric vehicles and renewables. But, apart from tariffs and local content requirements, there is very little that trade policy can do to protect the US manufacturing sector.

Moreover, any attempt to foster a resurgence of US manufacturing through access to cheap energy will create its own macroeconomic headwinds. Lower energy costs could provide US manufacturing with a temporary advantage. But in the long run, it will always be more profitable to export cheap energy directly rather than use it to produce manufactured goods, because the income from cheap energy will drive up incomes and wages. It is worth remembering that the Dutch manufacturing sector shrank because of – not in spite of – an abundance of natural gas.

Sullivan may have been correct in his observation that free trade has not delivered for American workers. But it is doubtful that the Biden administration’s “trade policy for the middle class” will significantly improve their situation.

DANIEL GROS
Writing for PS since 2005
Daniel Gros is Director of the Institute for European Policy-Making at Bocconi University.

Biden administration proposes making child care more affordable for working families

By Tami Luhby, CNN
Tue July 11, 2023

CNN —

The Biden administration unveiled Tuesday a series of proposed measures to make child care more affordable for certain working families.

The proposal, which stems from an executive order President Joe Biden signed in April, would make adjustments to the federal Child Care & Development Block Grant program, which provides states with funding to help low-income, working households pay for care.

It would cap child care copays at no more than 7% of a family’s income and encourage states to waive copays for families at or below 150% of the federal poverty level, or about $37,300 for a family of three in 2023.

The measure also aims to make it easier for families to apply for aid by encouraging states to accept online enrollment applications and to make siblings of children who receive the subsidy presumptively eligible for benefits.

Plus, it would help child care providers by ensuring they are paid when services are provided, as opposed to weeks later, and basing their payments on program enrollment rather than attendance. This will encourage more providers to participate in the grant program, according to the administration.

Nearly 80,000 families would pay less for child care, thanks to the 7% cap, according to the administration. Also, nearly 200,000 providers would get paid earlier, and more than 100,000 providers would start getting paid based on enrollment so their payments aren’t adjusted downward if children miss days.

The block grant supports 900,000 families and 1.5 million children. However, federal funding falls short of allowing every eligible family to be served.

Low-income families often spend one-third of their yearly income on child care, more than on rent or their mortgage, Vice President Kamala Harris told reporters on a press call.

“No family should have to choose between high-quality care for their child or to give up their career or put food on the table,” Harris said.
Covid-19 pandemic relief funds expiring soon

The Biden administration’s announcement comes as billions of dollars in Covid-19 pandemic relief funds for the child care industry is set to expire at the end of September.

The American Rescue Plan Act, which congressional Democrats passed in early 2021, provided about $24 billion in child care stabilization grants and about $15 billion to help families afford care.

Some 3.2 million children are expected to lose their slots when the stabilization funding ends this fall, according to a recent report from The Century Foundation.

More than 70,000 child care programs will likely close, the report found. The industry is projected lose 232,000 jobs.

In Washington, DC, and five states – Arkansas, Montana, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia – at least half of licensed child care programs could be cut. In another 14 states, one-third of centers could close their doors.

The local economies would also take a hit. Millions of parents may have to quit their jobs or reduce their hours, costing them $9 billion a year in lost earnings, the foundation found. The loss in tax and business revenue could cost states $10.6 billion in economic activity annually.

Relief funds helped centers stay open

The child care stabilization program assisted more than 220,000 child care providers, which helped as many as 9.6 million children as of the end of 2022, according to a Department of Health and Human Services report. More than 8 in 10 licensed child care centers received funding.

The average award to child care centers was about $140,000, and providers most commonly used the funds to pay for workers. They could also use the money for rent, utilities, program materials and cleaning.

Family child care providers received awards of about $23,000, on average, which they often used to help with rent, utilities and mortgage payments.

Separately, states also received $15 billion to expand child care aid to families so they can pay for the programs. That funding will continue through September 2024.

Nationally, child care cost an average of nearly $11,000 a year in 2022, according to Child Care Aware of America. But the price tag can vary widely by location.

WATCH: Green algae protest against farming in France

Updated: 11/07/2023 -

Greenpeace activists in France dumped nearly a ton of green algae outside the Finistère administrative headquarters in Quimper on Monday, in protest over the amount of green algae off the Brittany coast caused by industrial and factory farming.

Fifteen members of the environmental group unfurled banners reading "Green algae: asphyxiated Brittany" and "Brittany polluted: the state is guilty".

Rotting green algae fuelled by these farms releasing nitrogen from fertiliser and animal waste can cause noxious gases and pose a danger to both the environment and to public health, according to activists.

Mexico's Rising Femicides Linked to Organized Crime

GENDER AND CRIME/11 JUL 2023 BY LARA LOAIZAEN

Increased militarization and the so-called “war on drugs” have played a key part in the recent increase in gender-based violence in Mexico, according to a policy brief published by the Wilson Center.

Violence against women in Mexico has been growing steadily for years. Between 2006 and 2021 almost 43,000 women were killed in Mexico according to official numbers from the National Public Security System, which also show the number of femicides and female homicides increasing steadily year by year.

Feminist and civil society organizations like Intersecta and Data Cívica, as well as scholars in Mexico, have argued that the rise in femicides and female homicides is directly related to organized crime and Mexico’s security policies, which have become more focused on militarization during this period and have changed the ways and spaces in which gender-based violence occurs.

SEE ALSO: Introduction to Gender and Organized Crime

InSight Crime spoke with the authors of the recent policy briefing on new trends in gender-based violence in Mexico and the gendered impacts of the country’s war against organized crime. Gema Kloppe-Santamaria is a Mexico Institute Global Fellow at the Wilson Center and Assistant Professor of Latin American History at George Washington University. Her research focuses on violence, crime, religion, and gender in Mexico and Central America. Julia Zulver is a Marie Curie Research Fellow who specializes in high-risk feminism, examining how and why women in Colombia and Mexico mobilize despite the high risk of violence.

InSight Crime (IC): What role has organized crime played in the increase of gender-based violence in Mexico?

Gema Kloppe-Santamaria (GKS): Women have become more vulnerable as a result of confrontations between criminal organizations, and confrontations between state actors and non-state armed actors. There has been a very important shift in terms of more overt involvement of state security forces, like police or military, in fighting organized crime that is putting women at risk. In the process of militarizing security, which is increasing the circulation of weapons, the lethality of violence against women has increased.

But the mechanisms behind these killings are not entirely clear. I haven't read any research pointing to a linear cause-effect relationship between organized criminal organizations openly targeting women. I think it's more of an indirect effect of confrontations between these groups.

Julia Zulver (JZ): We know that women and their bodies have been strategically targeted with violence as a way to control communities. We see this in conflict zones around the world. But this is not something that I have necessarily found to be as clear-cut in the communities where I've been working in Mexico.

SEE ALSO: Femicides in Tibú, Colombia: Cocaine, Gunmen, and a Never-Ending War

What we do see is that, where there is heightened violence between communities and organized crime, where there are clashes with the state, there are patterns around who is criminalized. So many of the women and the mothers I've worked with, their children have nothing to do with organized crime. And yet they were disappeared and killed because they were young, poor, and of a certain skin color.

We also see that hyper-violence is normalized through hyper-militarization. Violence is seen every day in newspapers, in popular culture, on TV. As it becomes more and more normal, we see a transition into how this is impacting the home in terms of domestic partner violence and murders.

IC: How has gender-based violence in the country changed in recent years?

GKS: Femicides and overall killings against women have been increasing in Mexico since the 1980s. The biggest change is that homicides against women didn't necessarily follow the same tendency as homicides against men. But with the war on drugs, especially starting in 2007-2008, recent studies suggest the graph of homicides against men and homicides against women has the same shape. That's an indicator that the drivers behind the killings against women and the killings against men are becoming similar.

The other more qualitative aspect of these killings, which has been pointed out by feminist organizations in Mexico, is that more than half of them happen with a firearm -- which wasn't the case before -- and they happen in the public space. That indicates that the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim has changed. This has important policy implications: it is not enough to increase prevention efforts at the level of domestic or intra-family violence. Women are now being killed in the public sphere, suggesting that this whole militarization of security responses and the war on drugs is affecting them directly.

There are also things that haven't changed, in the sense that the public perception is that these women were “involved in something,” that they were perhaps connected to organized crime, or they were somehow related to criminal networks that put them at risk.

So it's this very toxic cocktail between the criminal organizations that are targeting women or women that are just in the crossfire of these encounters between criminal organizations and the state. And then on top of that, the continuity of these cultural dynamics.

IC: How is gender-based violence in Mexico measured? Do the numbers reflect reality accurately?

GKS: Data gathering -- especially from a feminist viewpoint -- needs to improve. There is an issue of under-reporting. And different levels of government have different data collection practices. They classify femicides differently in different states and at the federal level. That complicates our understanding of the phenomenon.

JZ: Having more data doesn't necessarily mean that there's going to be a change in response. All the way back into the 1990s, we saw that one of the first data collection efforts around femicide in Ciudad Juárez was by a mother who started to hear about all these cases -- missing daughters and missing women -- and saw that they weren't being registered. So she started making her own files and taking a very grassroots approach to documenting what was happening.

We need to try and bring together both the quantity of data, in terms of registering the cases, and also the quality, in terms of giving us more information about the circumstances of femicides and disappearances.

IC: Are the ways in which women are dealing with the presence and actions of criminal groups changing?

GKS: Very recently we have seen a trend of mothers of the disappeared working with activists who are in dialogue with criminal groups to call for a truce to allow them to search for their disappeared family members. Allegedly there has been a positive response on behalf of these criminal organizations. There was even one video that circulated where this criminal group was asking President AMLO to engage in a dialogue for a ceasefire. This trend adds nuance to the narrative that simply says that these women are being victimized by these groups.

JZ: It’s a very complicated dynamic when women have to make these kinds of deals or agreements with criminal actors in order to be allowed permission to go and look for children who potentially have been killed by these same actors. It's very uncomfortable for a lot of these women.

But again, it's not as though it's simply drug trafficking or criminal organizations that are responsible for disappearances and murders. There are huge levels of complicity between criminal actors and the state.

IC: What can be done to address gender-based violence in Mexico?

GKS: Femicides and disappearances are strongly concentrated in certain municipalities. There is an opportunity there for targeted interventions, where investigative policing and prevention programs are strategically designed in order to work with high-risk communities.

JZ: So much of the work that I've seen in terms of policies that have been designed to address this gendered violence are responsive or reactive. Someone is missing, someone has been murdered, a body has been found. But in my view, it’s a question of prevention. How do you look at these multi-pronged factors, at culture, at social norms, and at education, at different alternatives around conceptualizing masculinities and femininities? Those kinds of projects are expensive, long-term, and hard to measure in terms of quantifiable results. But we know how effective they can be in terms of bringing down some of the driving factors behind femicides and disappearances.

*This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
GENDER AND CRIME MEXICO

Catalan And Basque Pro-Independence Parties Propose Simultaneous Referendums

ERC and EH Bildu strengthen alliance, advocate for coordinated self-determination votes

El Nacional En
July 11, 2023 2 min read

(L-R) The president of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Père Aragones; the president of ERC, Oriol Junqueras and spokesperson of the party, Marta Vilalta, during the closing of the congress of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, in Catalonia, Spain in January 2023.ERC and EH Bildu's collaboration became clear a few weeks ago when they decided to run together in the senate elections.

MARC TRILLA/ EUROPA PRESS PRESS VIA GETTY IMAGES.

BILBAO, Spain — The good relationship that pro-independence parties the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) and EH Bildu have maintained during this last legislature – one with a Catalan support base and the other, a Basque one – became clear a few weeks ago when they decided to run together in the senate elections and held a joint event in the Basque Country with the presence of Oriol Junqueras and the Republican candidate for Congress Gabriel Rufián. And this Monday, the ERC president reinforced his commitment to a new self-determination referendum, with the proposal to hold simultaneous votes on the independence of the Basque Country and Catalonia. “If we do it simultaneously it will be much more difficult for them to defeat us, and we will open the doors to the international community, which knows that it cannot turn its back on peoples who peacefully and democratically demand that their individual and collective rights be respected,” said Junqueras.

Arnaldo Otegi would not put a date on Junqueras’ proposal.

(L-R) ERC congressional candidate Gabriel Rufian; EH Bildu general coordinator Arnaldo Otegi; ERC president Oriol Junqueras and EH Bildu Senate candidate Jasone Agirre during a political act of EH Bildu and ERC, on 10 July 2023 in Durango, Biscay, Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain. ERC and EH Bildu are running in coalition on the lists for the Senate in the next general elections. They will do so under the name ‘Left for Independence’.

H.BILBAO/EUROPA PRESS VIA GETTY IMAGES.

The Catalan Republican Left leader was speaking in Durango, a city in which EH Bildu achieved recent electoral success, but where the more conservative Basque Nationalists of the PNV took the victory away from them thanks to the votes of the Basque Socialists (PSE) and the Spanish conservatives, the PP. Junqueras didn’t mention these aspects, but rather focused on recalling the self-determination processes that Basques and Catalans have followed, regretting that until now they have followed separate paths, a fact that has resulted in defeats. For this reason, he opted to promote new sovereignty processes at the same time that should culminate in two simultaneous self-determination referendums.

For his part, Arnaldo Otegi, general coordinator of EH Bildu, has agreed to describe the Basque Country and Catalonia as two nations that aim for independence and a republic, but preferred not to put a date on this proposal by Junqueras: “When there is an opportunity, we will vote. When that arrives, we will decide and build the republic, and we will be independent states, and they will not be able to prevent it no matter how many repressive prescriptions they put in place,” said Otegi.

Advanced microvascular surgery at Sheikh Shakhbout Medical City reconstructs patient’s amputated hand

ABU DHABI, 11th July, 2023 (WAM) – Sheikh Shakhbout Medical City (SSMC) has successfully reconstructed a patient’s hand following an accident, which led to the amputation of all of the digits of his dominant right hand.

The accident occurred when a vehicle engine was accidentally turned on while the patient was repairing it, leading to the traumatic amputation of his thumb and all four fingers.

The patient was admitted to SSMC where he underwent microvascular replantation of his fingers during an all-night operation. Microvascular surgery is a very complex surgical technique which is used to re-connect very small blood vessels and nerves in the fingers and restore circulation to the amputated digits before they die from lack of blood supply.

Dr. Roderick Dunn, Chair of the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at SSMC, explained, “On arrival at SSMC, the patient was taken straight to the operating theatre and underwent microvascular replantation of the index, middle, ring and little fingers in a 12-hour operation throughout the night. Unfortunately, the thumb was too damaged to replant.”

Dr. Dunn added, “This was an extreme injury the digits were avulsed from the hand rather than being amputated by a clean cut, making surgical replantation much more difficult. Following the lengthy procedure, the index, middle, and ring fingers survived.”

After successful microvascular replantation of three of the patient’s fingers, further options for thumb reconstruction were discussed between Dr. Dunn, the team, and the patient. The patient later underwent a microvascular toe transfer, using the second toe from the left foot to make a new thumb in his injured right hand. This procedure was performed successfully three weeks after the initial injury and enabled the patient to have a functional hand with three fingers and a thumb.

Currently, the patient, who is undergoing regular hand therapy rehabilitation and is able to use his hand for some day-to-day activities, will eventually be able to return to work. Dr. Dunn asserted that without this surgery, the patient would have been condemned to life as a hand amputee, unable to work or look after his family.

When the patient came in for his follow-up visit a month after the second surgery, the toe-to-thumb transfer was clearly a success, and the reattached fingers were all healthy. X-rays showed the bones were healing, and his hand is moving properly

Dr. Ateq Al Messabi, Deputy Chief Medical Office and Consultant General Surgeon at SSMC, said, “This is another example of outstanding multidisciplinary teamwork. It reflects our ability to act quickly when presented with serious trauma to ensure the best possible outcome.

“Our model of care at SSMC puts the patient’s needs at the centre and draws on the expertise of our world-class professionals to offer integrated, cutting-edge care that is exactly what the patient needs at every step of their treatment journey.”

Tariq Al Fahaam/ Muhammad Aamir

UAE weather: Air quality in Dubai and Abu Dhabi 'hazardous' this week

NOT CANADIAN WILDFIRE SMOKE
Wind speeds could reach up to 40kph across the Emirates

Hazy and dusty weather, seen around Abu Dhabi city centre on Saturday, is expected to continue.

Khushnum Bhandari / The National

The National
Jul 09, 2023

Air quality in parts of the UAE has been rated “hazardous” as a result of increasing wind bringing dusty conditions over the weekend.

High winds across the UAE are expected to kick up dust throughout the week, with temperatures reaching as high as 48°C in Abu Dhabi on Thursday.

The National Centre of Meteorology said northern and eastern emirates would experience winds of up to 40kph, causing dust to cover parts of the country.

IQ Air Index, a global indicator of air quality, said levels in Dubai and Abu Dhabi were rated as “hazardous” again on Sunday.

“Fair to partly cloudy and dusty at times during daytime,” the NCM said of Monday's forecast in its weekly weather bulletin.

“Clouds appear over some eastern and northern areas with a probability of light rainfall.

“Light to moderate south-easterly to north-easterly winds, freshening at times causing blowing dust and sand, especially over some eastern and northern areas, with a speed of 10-25 [but eventually] reaching 40kph.”

Similar weather is expected to continue throughout the week.

Temperatures in Dubai and Abu Dhabi on Sunday will reach highs of 44°C and lows of 33°C in the late evening.

High winds blow dust across the UAE, reducing air quality

UAE doubles number of cloud-seeding flights in six years in bid to boost rainfall

It will be slightly hotter in Dubai on Monday, while the temperature in Al Ain will reach a high of 47°C.

Temperatures will continue to hover around the mid-40s in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, with humidity also expected to rise.

Thursday could be the hottest day of the week, with temperatures peaking at 48°C in Abu Dhabi and 46°C in Dubai.

Updated: July 09, 2023, 4:57 AM

Why are so many in the West faulting the UAE for hosting Cop28?

Western countries have developed over hundreds of years, which makes the spite unwarranted

OMAR AL BUSAIDY

THE NATIONAL

The Cop28 logo launch at the World Future Energy Summit 2023 in Abu Dhabi, on January 17, 2023. EPA

In 2015, students from public and private schools in the UAE filled several halls in Adnec, one of the busiest event spaces in the heart of Abu Dhabi. On screens around them were beamed images of hope and anticipation of what the future would hold for this young group of people.

Not a whisper could be heard as they all looked up to their future leader, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, President of the UAE. He took the stage and casually walked up to the podium alone with only his notes in his hand as the name of the event glimmered behind him: the Mohamed bin Zayed Majlis for Future Generations.

In an inspiring and motivating speech that lasted almost an hour, in a calm and confident tone Sheikh Mohamed asked: “In 50 years, when we might have the last barrel of oil, the question is – when it is shipped abroad, will we be sad?”

“If we are investing today in the right sectors,” he added, “I can tell you we will celebrate at that moment.”

This statement quickly drew applause and cheers from the young crowd because they knew that a masterplan was going to unfold as the UAE, one of the world’s major oil-producing countries, was going to transition to other energy sources and, most importantly, rely on alternative revenue streams.

Fast forward to 2023, and one of the most important events that the UAE will host is Cop28. There are two narratives that are capturing the world’s headlines – one led by the optimists and the other led by bullies.

In the optimists’ camp, it is very clear that this important event will bring world leaders, businesses, NGOs and others together. They will discuss and produce a clear plan on energy transition, balancing and cutting emissions to safer levels, as well as putting a strategy in place to support both developed and developing countries with their energy needs. Doing this in an Opec member country is exactly what needs to happen to have more accountability from oil-producing nations.

Meanwhile, the bullies are a combination of conspicuous agenda activists, click-bait hungry journalists, virtue-signalling cynics and high-horse western tyrants whose main argument is that the leader of an oil company cannot be the president of a climate change conference and that this event on climate action should not be taking place in a country that produces one of the products that impacts climate change.

It is quite clear that they are choosing to miss the point, because here are the facts. Dr Sultan Al Jaber’s career really took off when he championed one of the UAE’s largest clean energy initiatives, which is building a sustainable city – Masdar. Masdar grew from strength to strength as it developed clean energy projects across the world, including in Asia, Africa and Europe.

COLUMN

The dangerous decline in the EU's 'moral compass'

By SHADA ISLAM

BRUSSELS, TODAY,

European Union policymakers are proud of their "strategic compass" to boost the bloc's defence and security.

The rapid and dangerous decline in the EU's once-impressive moral compass needs similarly urgent attention.

The next EU commissioner for equality must also be a vice president of the European Commission, with a powerful mandate to ensure that the EU and all member states work together to fight racism, including on issues related to migration

The EU's new military swagger and solidarity for Ukraine are certainly important for the security of Europe.

Once decried as an allegedly listless soft power, the EU now takes pride in providing all kinds of military assistance to Ukraine. Increased spending on defence is a top priority.

Ambitions are high, with the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell insisting that Europeans are poised to become "reliable global security providers" … well, just about anywhere in the world.

The rush to fulfil the EU's newly-minted manifest destiny is impressive.

But it cannot hide — or excuse — the EU's parallel disregard for the human rights of millions of black and brown Europeans as well as of thousands of racialised refugees and migrants.

Fortress Europe policies, which include illegal pushbacks and also the allegedly deliberate sinking of a refugee ship by coast guards, make a mockery of the EU's claim to be a Union of Values.

Persistent racism and discrimination — including police brutality — against Europeans of colour are also too widespread and too frequent to be ignored.

The loss of Europe's moral compass gets little attention.

Yet history will not be kind to those who choose short term political gain over morality, compassion and yes, even kindness.

It's a strange Europe where harshness and cruelty towards the world's weakest and most vulnerable people is seen as a strength.

Where systemic racism, police violence and institutionalised discrimination prevail despite the EU's human rights obligations enshrined in multiple European and international conventions.

Where EU policymakers are constantly — and rightly — berating other governments on their violations yet fail to comment or even discuss repeated breaches of the same norms by their own member states.

And where the EU talks of promoting a "European Way of Life" even as emboldened far-right parties march into governments, are shamelessly courted by the traditional centre-right — including in the European Parliament — and where the populists' no-holds-barred xenophobic agenda becomes the inspiration for numerous EU policies.

Over the years, EU leaders have become skilled practitioners in denial and selective outrage.

The most recent refugee ship disaster off the coast of Greece — probably the worst ever tragedy in the Mediterranean — would once have sparked serious soul-searching and reflection.

No longer.

After the initial outrage — and despite reminders by the EU's Fundamental Rights Agency of EU obligations to protect the right to life and prevent deaths at sea — deaths of refugees are quickly brushed aside with bland expressions of regret.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and others have put the blame on ruthless people smugglers. Yet legal EU pathways are unavailable to most non-Ukrainians fleeing war and conflict.

Fortress Europe is protected by so-called 'technical obstacles' including border walls, surveillance technologies, and increasingly sophistical aerial surveillance. Volunteers and humanitarians working on rescuing refugees in distress face increasing hostility and court cases.

Delays in EU rescue operations in the Mediterranean have become strategic — and deliberate — elements in the current system of European migration governance. Time is being "weaponised" says Maurice Stierl, researcher at Osnabruck University's Institute for Migration Research.

Dunja Mijatović, the Council of Europe's fearless commissioner for human rights, has warned of the EU's "alarming level of tolerance to serious human-rights violations" of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants.

The violations are "now so frequent that they hardly register in the public consciousness," she says.

A similar public numbness is in evidence when it comes to the failure to create a truly inclusive Europe.

The EU Fundamental Rights Agency has repeatedly warned that ethnic minorities in Europe frequently experience racist harassment and violence, including at the hands of the police.

Yet the killing by police in Nanterre of Nahel Merzouk, a young Frenchman of colour, did not prompt a genuine nationwide — or Europe-wide — reflection on "deep racism" in policing in France, as suggested by the United Nations.

Instead, as riots protesting the killing erupted in France, Nahel's death was rapidly overshadowed by even more police brutality and toxic victim-shaming.

It could get worse.

The far-right's xenophobic agenda-setting discourse is likely to be amplified even further ahead of elections to the European Parliament next June.

Urgent action must therefore be taken now to ensure that building a Union of Equality is a priority, not a footnote in Europe's political programme.

The next EU commissioner for equality must also be a vice president of the European Commission, with a powerful mandate to ensure that the EU and all member states work together to fight racism, including on issues related to migration.

Progressive members of the European Parliament must become more vocal and persistent in demanding more accountability from EU leaders on racism and on issues like funding for Tunisia and other foreign governments in the name of migration management.

Building an inclusive Europe and changing Eurocentric "Brussels So White" mindsets cannot be left to a few organisations and even fewer individuals.

It requires courage, collective mobilisation and public action. Above all it demands compassionate leadership because as Manga artist Takehiko Inoue points out: the strong are always kind.

AUTHOR BIO

Shada Islam is an independent EU analyst and commentator who runs her own strategy and advisory company New Horizons Project. Shada recently won the Catalonia European Journalist Association's prestigious Career Award 2023 for her work on EU affairs and focus on building an inclusive Union of Equality.

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The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author's, not those of EUobserver.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

Tuesday, July 11, 2023

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The dangerous decline in the EU's 'moral compass'

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