Pax academic

pax*

* from Latin pax /pæks/ - peace, harmony

academic issue

content3. ITRE by Yulia

4. SEDE by Bill

7. INTA by Iryna

8. AFET by Michael

11. LIBE by Alina

12. AGRI by Kyrylo

14. CULT by Mari

15. DROI by Iuliia

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Yulia (ITRE)

The EU’s Easterly Neighbor: Potential Enemy or Partner?Russia, the geographical, political and economic giant lies on Europe’s doorstep. After decades of Europe being divided into East and West, relations between the two spheres of influence improved after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. This improvement and new sense of peace was evident in European Security Strategy (ESS) of 2003. The document opened with «Europe has never been so prosperous, so secure nor so free» and pushed for military

transparency and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons through multilateralism. Sadly Europe has met hardship in the last years. The 2008 financial crisis damaged Europe’s economy and prosperity. Furthermore the conflicts in South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Ukraine have weakened the EUs and Europe’s sense of security. As a result of the EU facing different threats and challenges the High representative of the European Union, Frederica Mogherini,

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The EU’s Easterly Neighbor: Potential Enemy or Partner?

has initiated a revision of the ESS. What revised strategy should the EU adopt when it is presented in 2016? Will it continue focusing on soft power and multilateralism or lean towards excising hard power and an increased military budget? Lastly, in which degree should the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) be involved?Advocates for the latter strategy, such as the President of the EU Commission, argue that a lack of military investment would be naïve . An important aspect to consider is the increase of military spending in countries outside the EU. Russia for instance has increased its military spending by 51% since 2007. To contrast; EU members have decreased spending by 17%. This deprioritizing of military spending is likely to be a consequence of recent financial turmoil. If you look countries heavily affected such as Spain, Italy and Greece one can see a higher percentage of decreased budget. Perhaps the cutting on spending is a necessity to balance a fragile economy and as the EU recovers so will the military spending.

There are also those who oppose an increase in military spending. The Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) has since 1991 help reduce the military build ups. Described as “… a darn good treaty”, by James A. Baker III, US Secretary of State, it de-escalated tensions between the Warsaw pact and NATO. Over 70 000 pieces of military equipment were destroyed and limits to military equipment and personnel were successfully imposed. With this successful treaty in mind one

could ask: will increasing military funding work against the accomplishments of this treaty, possibly leading to another arms race? The state of EU and world security has surely been better since the end of the cold war and implementation of the CFE. Therefor perhaps maintaining a policy of excising soft power and military de-escalation will be more beneficial.

A solution proposed by the European Defense Agency is the Pooling and Sharing concept. This intense cooperation and sharing of resources could maintain a strong and capable military despite budget decreases. There are problems with this concept though. Countries such as Germany which contribute greater with military resources feel that there is not enough giving and too much taking. That is a fundamental problem concerning the concept. It is based on helping the Union as a whole, not the individual member. Perhaps the recent rise of threats to the EU will alter members not contributing as much as others, as explained by General Middendorp, Dutch Chief of Defense “the cooperation works quicker if everybody feels the need to cooperate, and that need if being felt more and more at this moment”. This concept would optimally cut costs, yet improve on the military capabilities of the EU army.

The EU and its member states have a fundamental responsibility for the safety and security of its people. It is important for Europeans to understand that so does the Russian federation. Security is

Bill (SEDE)

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therefore a common goal. This perspective is important to prevent fear against nations with conflicting interests. Fear that hinder rational thinking and peaceful solutions. Optimally these two actors would not look at each other as threats but cooperate against common threats such as the five key treats singled out in the ESS . Furthermore, with Russia being the EU’s third largest trade partner, 326,000 million EUR is earned through financial cooperation. If this greater mutual understanding and trust is not reachable perhaps the EU can look elsewhere for security and trade. The EU already cooperates with NATO on both European and global security. This cooperation comes from there being 22 EU member states in NATO, leading to European security being a common goal. The nature of the EU being a Union of individual member states makes this cooperation a debated topic. Some members are positive to cooperating closely. Having the EU army backed by the significantly larger US army gives security. Some even wish for closer cooperate by complementing each other’s forces. NATO Chief Jens Stoltenberg suggests: «It’s important to avoid duplication and I urge Europe to make sure that everything they do is complementary to the NATO alliance,»

The security given my having NATO and US forces help keeping Europe safe comes at a price. Does it make the EU dependent on the counterpart? Would following Jens Stoltenberg suggestion lead to the EU army losing it ability to stand on its own? Losing independency could pressure the EU to support and cooperate in issues that are not in its interest. An example is the US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan forced many nations such as Germany to rethink their support to American foreign policies. Further problems come from member states investing in NATO for security,

instead of the EU. This can lead to the weakening of European security in the future as key NATO member the USA moves away from a foreign policy of direct involvement. Washington now expects the EU and the European countries to take greater responsibility for European security. The Ukraine conflict is an example demonstrating both a shift in US policy and that the EU has troubles independently filling the security vacuum left by the US shift in policy.

The revised ESS presented in 2016 may not start with «Europe has never been so prosperous, so secure nor so free», yet there is still reason for optimism. For those affected by EUs security challenges, especially the Ukraine conflict, the situation might look dire. What is important to remember is that many unforeseen events lead to the conflict and todays security challenges. This also means that there are more unforeseeable events are to come. The events will offer both opportunity and consequence. A diplomatic and understanding mind set, which is not clouded with fear, is essential to successfully take advantage of these future opportunities. Furthermore this mind set in need in further discussing whether or not the upcoming ESS should involve budget increases, more intense EU-NATO cooperation or an effective pooling and sharing concept. If that is done the EU’s easterly neighbor will once again become a partner, as they were after the cold war.

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DCFTAs Iryna (INTA)

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We have been here before. March 2015, has marked the first anniversary of Ukraine’s military conflict. Year of violent confrontations has resulted in thousands of innocent victims and over a million of internally displaced Ukrainian citizens. The Russian leader, V. Putin, in his recent public statement has confirmed that Crimean military operation has been ordered and personally supervised by Russian secrete service and military forces. Without a big surprise this statement, has re-confirmed the fearless attitude and understanding of impunity for previous actions in front of the international system of justice. While most of the western media and political elite has been spreading the panic ‘tornado’ of the potential mas-scale military confrontation, which may lead to the ‘World War III’, only few has questioned themselves, whether we have seen this sort of scenario before?

Indeed, current set-up of the Ukrainian political and military confrontation is just an old wine in a new bottle. The war in Ukraine is just a stark reminder of Russia’s long-established geopolitical influence in the EU-Eastern Neighborhood, which cannot be overruled or negotiated within the peaceful democratic framework, so easily as it may sound in theory.

In early 1990’s with implicit blessing from the Moscow political elite, military groups of the Moldovan Republic of Transnistria has officially declared the independence on the strategic territory of the left-bang of the Dniester River. This wish of self-determination was not welcomed by the official form the Republic of Moldova, who in 1992 has authorized the concerted military actions against rebel forces. Yet, the rebel groups were backed by the Russian military contingent which transformed clashes into the open military conflict and a state of emergency. After few month

of fighting, the so-called, Joint Control Commission (JCC) of Moldova, Transnistria and Russia has announced the ceasefire yet the official status of the Transnistrian Republic has remained unregulated until now.

After the ceasefire was reached Moldova was trying to negotiate the demilitarization of the Trasnistiria, especially the withdrawal of the Russian 14th army battalion. Even though the agreement was reached in 1994, Russian Parliament has never approved this line of action, which de-facto transformed the region into a ‘frozen conflict’ zone with a dislocation of the 1,500 Russian soldiers and heave weapons.

Previous military confrontation was largely met with a collective yawn in the international community of that time. This has allowed Moscow to remained the deniability status of conflict’s principal instigator and simultaneously dictate its own scenario of the future events.

The script and playbook of the Transitrian confrontation, has been extensively copy pasted in the Caucasus scenario of South-Ossetia and Abkhazia. In the same the, certain international actors claimed that the precondition of the conflict, especially during the first part in early 1990ies, was predominantly described as ethnically based confrontation of various militarized groups in the region. Yet, the ethnically based position has been refuted by the vast amount conflict management scholars who argued that the ethnic tension between groups was a necessary but not sufficient for the conflict, while the chaotic Russian military involvement in the run-up of the first Abkhazian and South Ossetia wars, has turned tensions into violence. One cannot put all the blame for Caucasian bloodshed

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We have been here before. Michael (AFET)

only on the Russian political elites, yet their impact in triggering the ethnic divide in order to ensure a tight control over artificially created Matryoshka-type federal territorial’s entities has maintained Russia’s key geopolitical influence in the region.

The outcomes of the Caucasian military conflicts in 1990ies were quite drastic,

in case of Abkhazia up to 250, 000 Georgians were forced to flee Abkhazia and approximately 30, 000 civilians were killed. While the scale of the Ossetian confrontation was less lethal the outcome was more than 1,000 victims and around 60,000 internally displaced persons and refugees from both Ossetian and Georgian side (UNDCR, 2000).

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Since the official ceasefires were announced and the peace agreements has practically created another ‘frozen conflict’ in both Abkhazia and Ossetia, Moscow retained for itself a status of neutral intermediary in both regions until Russia-Georgian War, which erupted in 2008. The issue of second Georgian-Ossesitan confrontation would require another analytical peace to explain the reasons and consequence of this conflict. However, the scale of the conflict in 2008, has demonstrated that ‘frozen’ conflicts in the absence of the peaceful solution in long term, may resume and escalate even more then previously.

With regard to the position of the Western communities, one cannot say that there was real involvement, especially during the first military clashes in early 1990ies. Motive for such a late and passive reactions were multiple, firstly Western communities, EU in particular, were much more concerned with the immediate security threat form Balkans wars. Secondly, directly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, West was trying to avoid any direct intervention into the ‘backyard’ of Russian geopolitical sphere of influence in order to settle a new reasonable cooperation with one of the biggest nuclear powers.

However, the times has changed and in the the current geopolitical set-up EU has become more influential actor, especially from the perspective of peacekeeping and conflict resolutions. Close proximity of crises causes negative consequences for the EU itself, therefore EU is especially interested in a peaceful neighborhood. Undoubtedly certain lesson from the crises of 1990s have been learned. As a result, the police mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina 2003 and monitoring mission to Georgia in 2008, has become a first step of the EU crisis response mission.

The EU has transformed its strategy of the active observer to active engagement, with an aim to stabilize the existing status-quo and facilitate the democratic peacebuilding

process. A vivid example of this approach is the, European Security Strategy (ESS) 2003, which notes that ‘frozen conflicts’ in the Eastern Neighborhood threaten regional stability and increase the likelihood of organizer crime, hence, the EU should create the institutionalize form of political dialogue and stabilize the cooperation in trade, economy and technology related matters.

So-called, soft power mechanism and technical aid of the EU has earned wide respect from most actors in the region. Long term strategy that represents the model of the unity, peace and welfare, may be the ultimate solution for previously mentioned conflict zones. Mainly because it aims to satisfy all the actors and their demands on the basis of mutually beneficial partnership and sustainable cultural exchange. Nevertheless, all previously mentioned strategies may be achieved under one simply condition of ‘fair play’ without the use of military force.

Aforementioned facts have proved that current situation in Ukraine is similar experience of proxy wars but on bigger scale. The EU and other global actors have seen this scenario before and after a series of failures it may be the high time to introduce more active strategy and prevent the current crisis form the condition of ‘frozen conflict’. Knowing the threat that a frozen Donbas conflict would be for the Ukrainian statehood, Kyiv most likely would prefer to keep it hot. In light of the new climate of east-west antagonism, it would be extremely hard to implement new strategy for preventing the ‘frozen conflict’. Yet, this is the only way that may save the stability of the neighborhood and the security of EU in the upcoming future.

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KEY QUESTIONS

NO PRIVACY21ST

Personal data

Search engines

Advancement in computer technology along with newtelecommunications networks is allowing personal data to travel across

borders with greater ease. As a result, data concerning the citizens of oneMember State are sometimes processed in other Member States of the EU.Therefore, as personal data is collected and exchanged more frequently,

regulation on data transfers becomes necessary.

to respect for his private and family life, his home and hiscorrespondence.

Everyone has

THE RIGHT

YOUR RIGHTS AS A DATASUBJECT

WHAT CAN YOU DO IF YOURRIGHTS ARE VIOLATED?

You have the right to be informed of any dataprocessing when you are the data subject.

You have the right of access data about you.

You must also have access to the logic onwhich automated decisions are based.

Your first step, if you fear that your rights have been violated, is to contact the person who appears to be the source of the violation in orderto find out who the Data Controller is. If you don’t get a satisfactory result from this, you could contact your national data protection

authority. According to the Directive, each Member State must provide one or more public authorities to ensure the proper application ofthe data protection law. This authority, often referred to as the supervisory authority, is competent to hear complaints lodged by any personor business. The supervisory authority must investigate the claim and may temporarily ban the processing. If the supervisory authority findsthat the data protection law has been violated, then the supervisory authority could, among other things, order the erasure or destruction of

the data and/or ban further processing.

EXCEPTIONSIt is up to the Member States to establish exceptions in their data protection laws inorder to strike a balance between these different but equally fundamental rights.

Derogation from the right to access data may be granted fordata processed for scientific or statistical purposes.

National law might allow other exceptions to provisions such asobligation to inform the data subject; the obligation to respect the

basic principles of good data management practice and etc.

W E A R E A L L D A T A

S U B J E C T S .W H E N E V E R Y O U

B O O K A F L I G H T ,A P P L Y F O R A J O B ,

U S E A C R E D I TC A R D , O R B R O W S EO N T H E I N T E R N E T ,

- - Y O U D I S C L O S ES O M E P E R S O N A L

D A T A .

WHO CAN BEA DATA SUBJECT?

P R O G R A M S T H A TS E A R C H

D O C U M E N T S F O RS P E C I F I E D

K E Y W O R D S A N DR E T U R N S A L I S T

O F T H ED O C U M E N T SW H E R E T H E

K E Y W O R D S W E R EF O U N D .

WHAT CAN BE SEARCH ENGINES?

Alina (LIBE)

Relevant Employment Trends for Agriculture and Rural House Holding

FACT: Over 1 billion people are employed in world agriculture, representing 1 in 3 of all workers

(Retrieved from World Development Indicators, the World Bank Annual Report, 2014)a

51 50,5 50 49,5 49 48,5 48 47,5 47 46,5

42

44

46

48

50

52

54

56

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Population3in3Areas,3Global

Rural0Areas0(%0of0total0population)

Urban0Areas0(%0of0total0population)


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(Retrieved from ILO Global Employment Trends: supporting data sets, 2014)

FACT: In the period 2000-2012, 4.8 million full-time jobs in the EU agriculture disappeared, 70% of them in the new MS and 93% corresponding to non-salaried

workers

(retrieved from Eurostat Website, 2014: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/agriculture/statistics-illustrated)

1001364;'32%

724371;'23%

1418996;'45%

Total'Population'Employed'(thousands)

Agriculture

Industry

Services

Figure'1')'Agriculture'Employment'Rates'in'2000' Figure'2')'Agriculture'Employment'Rates'in'2014'


Kyrylo (AGRI)

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Education Mari (CULT)

In today’s competitive world education is a necessity for every man, . It is a solution to any problem that each and every young individual is facing on daily basis. Education promotes good habits, values and awareness towards anything like terrorism, corruption and much more. It is the only fundamental way by which a desired change and uplift in the society can be taken into effect.

Education plays an important role in shaping individual’s career. Undoubtedly it is both, socially & personally an indispensable part of human life. Accordingly, each EU country is responsible for its own education and training systems. Hence, EU policy is designed to support national action and help to address common challenges, such as ageing societies, skills deficits, and global competition. However, different level of the educational standards is still a major issue that needs to be solved as soon as possible.

In order to assess educational inequalities and their causes, we need a common measure of educational outcomes and set of determinants of these educational outcomes. Programme for International Student Assessment provides information, a study conducted by OECD every three years, since 2000 in order to obtain internationally comparable database on 15-16 years old students in reading, math, science and problem solving across the countries. PISA results show what students in the highest-performing and most rapidly improving educational systems can do. This is widely used dataset for analysing educational performances in European countries. PISA results depict how the combination of culture, ethnicity, history educational development and political factors can be responsible for the levels

of disparities in various national systems. In addition to standardised test scores PISA provides information on variety of individual, family and school characteristics for each student.

According to PISA, analyses have consistently shown that in almost all participating countries, students with a migrant background achieve significantly lower test scores than native student. Although most analyses account for the individual socio-economic backgrounds of students when comparing native and immigrant students. Furthermore, judging from PISA test score differences, some countries seem to perform better than others. Specifically, the degree of social inequality in education varies widely between EU member states. There are striking differences in educational inequality between the western Europe and former communist countries .

The committee on Culture and Education (CULT) will try to find proper solutions and find out how the EU can support its member states to alter above mentioned issues and provide more equal and comparable educational foundation for young people in Europe. Education is the backbone of everyone’s life and the importance of education in our life cannot be ignored at any cost

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Iuliia (DROI)

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Pax academic