Die Re-Regulierung der Schlachthofarbeit in der Corona-Krise

Die prekären Arbeits- und Beschäftigungsbedingungen in der Fleischindustrie sind seit geraumer Zeit Gegenstand von Regulierungsversuchen. Eine dreifache Krise – der europäischen Integration, der Arbeitsbeziehungen und der Naturverhältnisse – zog in der Vergangenheit jedoch keine substanzielle Regulierung nach sich. Unser Artikel zeigt, dass die pandemiebedingte Ausweitung der Konsequenzen auf Betroffene außerhalb der Fleischindustrie (etwa Anrainer:innen von Schlachthöfen) die Relevanz und den Handlungsdruck erheblich erhöht hat. Auch die symbolische Relevanz des Themas stieg im Zuge der Corona-Krise, weil die Regulierungen im Zusammenhang mit der Pandemiebekämpfung der Bundesregierung insgesamt gedeutet wurden. Unsere These lautet, dass sich die bemerkenswerte Geschwindigkeit der Re-Regulierung nur auf Basis der vorgängigen, dreifachen Krisendynamik der Fleischproduktion erklären lässt. Die Analyse des Policy-Wandels hat ergeben, dass die Debatte um Arbeit und Beschäftigung in der Fleischindustrie bereits seit 2007 geführt wird. Zögerliche Regulierungsversuche sahen zwar bereits 2014 einen branchenweiten Mindestlohn vor, der jedoch großflächig unterwandert wurde. Ob die neuen Regulierungen der Bundesregierung dies nun verhindern können, indem sie Leiharbeit und Werkverträge schrittweise verboten, bleibt abzuwarten.Alternate :The precarious working and employment conditions in the meat industry have been the subject of regulatory attempts in the past. A triple crisis – of European integration, of labor relations and of social nature – was not followed by regulation in the past. Our article shows that the extension of the consequences to persons affected outside the meat industry (as neighbors of slaughterhouses) due to the pandemic has significantly increased the relevance and pressure for action. The symbolic relevance of the issue also increased in the wake of the Corona crisis because regulations were interpreted in the context of the federal governmentʼs overall pandemic response. Analysis of policy change reveals that the debate about meat industry regulation has been ongoing since 2007. While tentative attempts at regulation included an industry-wide minimum wage as early as 2014, it was widely undermined. It remains tobe seen whether the federal governmentʼs new regulations can now prevent this by gradually banning temporary work and service contract work (Werkvertrag).

The COVID-19 pandemic and the European Union: politics, policies and institutions

The COVID-19 pandemic posed unprecedented challenges to the European Union (EU) and its member states. In the EU, health policy competence has been and remains largely with member states. However, faced with a major external crisis, which more or less affected all member states at the same time, the EU developed a framework within which the member states (and their subnational units) could respond together to the crisis. This introductory article to the Special Issue 'The COVID-19 Pandemic and the European Union,' briefly examines how EU institutions, policies and politics were affected by the crisis. Contrary to earlier crises, the EU responded speedily and effectively this time around. The EU has become increasingly important in crisis management, in part due to the nature of transboundary crises. The EU proved itself to be a good crisis manager on some dimensions, but certainly not on all. The crisis created momentum for collective action and for fast decision-making, even though the legitimacy of some these actions has been subject to limited public scrutiny. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of European Public Policy is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

European Sentiment in time of crises. The point of view of young university students

The latest emergencies – economic, refugee, and the pandemic of Covid-19 – has impacted in European collective identity construction, especially in Southern Europe. This article investigates if the pandemic crisis has activated in young Italian and Spanish university students nationalistic or/and European responses. The analysis, based on an online survey, uses the partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) statistical method to perform an exploratory analysis of the explanatory theoretical model of European sentiment. The results show that young people attribute several meanings to Europe during the pandemic, which are based mainly on making informed decisions and recognizing a common space of interaction as an opportunity of peace, security and democracy. The findings highlight the role of EU communicative actions in increasing trust in national and European institutions.

RETHINKING STRATEGIC AUTONOMY IN TIMES OF NEXT GENERATION EU: NEW DIGITAL AGENDA

The digital transformation of the global economy and society has accelerated after the Covid-19 pandemic. The European Union (EU), compared to China and the United States, is losing its capacity for innovation and control over data and fundamental raw materials and could even lose ground in the regulatory power it has in the digital realm. This paper pays special attention to the situation and progress toward a new European policy to achieve digital strategic autonomy. It also briefly outlines the Recovery Plan for Europe as a possible incentive for its promotion. Both descriptive and analytical methods were employed to gather the data from secondary sources and provide reliable research results. The major findings of this article are that strategic autonomy is an imperative requirement for sustaining and encouraging European integration, forcing the EU to advance faster toward developing critical digital technologies. There is also an urgent need to secure critical parts of supply chains and data protection, intellectual property, and defense against disinformation. Finally, the European Union must improve its resilience to face new crises and lead the digitalization of its economy.

EU health policy in the aftermath of COVID-19: neofunctionalism and crisis-driven integration

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic shook the European Union (EU). The EU responded to the multifaceted challenge with an integrative leap forward. Member States substantially increased their investment in existing health policy tools such as civil protection and financing for health initiatives. There was innovation in EU law, where a process of redefining public health began, and in strategies for vaccines and pharmaceuticals, where the EU took on a direct and significant role in medicines procurement for the first time. We use the framework of neofunctionalism to analyse developments in health policy during the pandemic to further understand the dynamics of integration and, in particular, to understand why EU Member States opted for further integration in response to the pandemic. As neofunctionalism might predict, Member States solved problems born of integration with more integration: preserving the internal market, insuring against disasters, preventing border closures and enhancing EU power in vaccine development and procurement. Reflecting decades of entrepreneurs who had created various mechanisms, they primarily built on pre-existing, if often weak, structures and enhanced EU governance more than competences. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of European Public Policy is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Crisis management performance and the European Union: the case of COVID-19

A seemingly continuous stream of crises in Europe has turned scholarly agendas towards assessment of the EU's management of crises. Those assessments vary widely, depending on the analytical focus and criteria used. This paper introduces three assessment criteria drawn from crisis research that pertain to the detection of a crisis, the mobilization of necessary resources, and the nature of the public debate about critical choices made in times of crisis. We relate these crisis management insights to long-standing debates in European integration theory to help link traditional crisis management assessments with EU-focused theorizing. The article offers a framework for assessment of the EU's performance as a crisis manager. We illustrate the utility of the framework with a brief application to the EU's response to Covid-19. We assess the EU's performance in positive terms: the Union acted quickly after a somewhat slow start and was very effective in mobilizing a variety of resources. At the same time, we note that major policy choices were made without a significant public debate about potential effects on the future character of the Union. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of European Public Policy is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

"Laws of Fear” in the EU: The Precautionary Principle and Public Health Restrictions to Free Movement of Persons in the Time of COVID-19

COVID-19 has demonstrated the fragility of EU free movement rules when we are faced with an unknown virus of such magnitude and strength that it threatens our lives, health systems, economies and society. The aim of this text is to show the dynamics between the threat of COVID-19 and the rules imposed as a response to the pandemic, which have impacted the functioning of the EU internal market and the Schengen area. The text will concentrate on the application of the precautionary principle and public health restrictions, caused by COVID-19, to free movement of persons in the EU. The analysis will lead to three conclusions. First, it will be shown that the decisions to apply free movement restrictions and the logic followed in the EU COVID-19-related documents can be viewed as a triumph of the precautionary principle. Second, it will be argued that implementing the precautionary principle has a transformative effect on the application of the principle of proportionality in EU law. Finally, it will be shown that COVID-19 has emphasised and increased the difference between the conditions for the applicability of public health restrictions when compared to restrictions based on public policy and public security grounds.

Explaining EU integration dynamics in the wake of COVID-19: a domain of application approach

This article explores the heterogeneous and uneven EU response to the COVID-19 pandemic across policy fields and examines how integration theories can contribute to explaining the presence (or absence) of new integration steps and their varying nature. To analyse European activities in three policy fields, namely fiscal policy, centralised European vaccine procurement, and border politics, we develop a ‘Domain of Application' approach (DOA). Instead of testing integration theories against each other, DOA allows bridging different theoretical traditions by making use of their complementary explanatory power to derive better explanations of complex empirical issues. We find that Liberal Intergovernmentalism and Neofunctionalism offer complementary explanations for several empirical puzzles, which together provide a more compelling picture of the effects of the pandemic on European integration. In addition, DOA advances our understanding of the scopes of both theories. © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the European Union: politics, policies and institutions

The COVID-19 pandemic posed unprecedented challenges to the European Union (EU) and its member states. In the EU, health policy competence has been and remains largely with member states. However, faced with a major external crisis, which more or less affected all member states at the same time, the EU developed a framework within which the member states (and their subnational units) could respond together to the crisis. This introductory article to the Special Issue ‘The COVID-19 Pandemic and the European Union,' briefly examines how EU institutions, policies and politics were affected by the crisis. Contrary to earlier crises, the EU responded speedily and effectively this time around. The EU has become increasingly important in crisis management, in part due to the nature of transboundary crises. The EU proved itself to be a good crisis manager on some dimensions, but certainly not on all. The crisis created momentum for collective action and for fast decision-making, even though the legitimacy of some these actions has been subject to limited public scrutiny. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

THE EUROPEAN UNION AND BREXIT: ANALYSIS FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE VISEGRAD GROUP COUNTRIES

The article aims to analyze Brexit from the perspective of the Visegrad Group countries in the context of the future of the European Union. Addressing this issue is important from the point of view of assessing the role of the EU for the Visegrad countries. The main thesis of the research is that Brexit will not lead to a reform of the EU in the coming years, which is what some of the Visegrad Group countries are trying to do. The article is provocative, because, during the migration crisis, the Visegrad Group was shown as a brake on the European integration process. After Brexit, it was considered that some of EU Member States could follow Great Britain and leave the EU. The article complements the scientific achievements in this field, as it presents the view from the country of Central and Eastern Europe.

Defensive integration through cooperative re-bordering? How member states use internal border controls in Schengen

Following the refugee crisis in 2015 and the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the use of internal border controls within the EU expanded considerably. This change seems to be at odds with the freedom of movement within the Schengen Area, a cornerstone of European integration. Previous research has been inconclusive as to whether this re-bordering signals a move towards renationalisation and disintegration or if it should be understood as a reconfiguration of European cooperation. This article takes a long-term perspective on the use of internal border controls and compares, through content analysis, the prevalence of renationalisation and European integration themes in member states' notifications of internal border controls from 2006 to 2020. While controls have become more extensive in duration and scope over time, the results show that, contrary to expectations, increased focus on national security was not accompanied by less commitment to European integration in these notifications. Thus, rather than a sign of disintegration, it is argued that internal border controls can be understood as a reconfiguration of the European border regime towards cooperative but defensive integration.

Transboundary crises and political development: why war is not necessary for European state-building

Kelemen and McNamara (2022) have reinvigorated the debate on European state-building. Adopting a 'bellicist' perspective, they argue that the European Union is 'incomplete, uneven, and dysfunctional' due to the historical lack of an existential military threat. We take issue with this claim. War, in our view, is not a necessary condition for European political development, and 'transboundary crisis' acts as its modern-day functional equivalent. Whether a polity can uphold its provision of public goods in the face of such crises, and whether it does so more effectively than its competitors on the 'market for governance', decisively affects its further development. European integration, too, has progressed substantively in response to recent non-military threats. We demonstrate this on the Euro and Covid-19 crises, in which the EU has engaged in incremental and issue-specific capacity-building aimed at preserving and consolidating the regulatory state rather than approximating the Westphalian nation-state. The resulting capacity-building shores up the EU's crisis prevention and crisis management capacities, without overcoming its fundamental regulatory nature. It is misleading to dismiss the resulting political development from a bellicist perspective that takes the nation-state as its implicit point of comparison.

Eurobonds versus Coronabonds: Same Idea, New Context, Different Outcome?

Since the outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the European Union has taken tentative steps toward the issuance of joint debt. This progress is significant but puzzling: the technical value of such instruments has never been in doubt;however, the political will to move forward has always been lacking. What changed? This short article argues that contemporary political economy research points us toward the role of ideas and identity in explaining this shift.

From the Lehman Brothers crisis to the Covid crisis. European institutions and banking regulation to the test of the stress test

[En]: The paper describes the evolution of financial regulation in Europe from the Lehman Brothers crisis to the Covid crisis. It focuses on the initial regulatory uncertainties related to the emergence of the EBA and the transfer of banking supervision to the ECB. Notes the difference in reaction, both in qualitative and temporal terms, of Europe following the Covid crisis. Concludes by noting how the economic emergencies of the last decade have made a significant contribution to the process of European integration. © 2022, Societa Editoriale Federalismi s.r.l.. All rights reserved.

L’Unione Europea di fronte alla pandemia Covid-19

The thesis of the essay is that the Sars-Cov-2 pandemic, which could have unraveled the European Union (or at least worsened its internal divisions), has, on the contrary, triggered a response of collective solidarity of citizens and European institutions that have made the EU stronger. To support this thesis, the sequence of interventions decided to face the health and socio-economic crisis is reconstructed, analyzing the main divergences, compromises, forms of conflict and cooperation among the actors of European governance and among the member states. Particular attention is focused on the genesis and implementation process of the Next Generation EU, the ambitious program intended not only to respond to the immediate challenges of Covid-19, but to transform them into an opportunity for long-term sustainable and inclusive development, examining the most significant steps forward in the process of European political integration: innovative sources of funding such as Eurobonds and new taxes flowing directly to the center (carbon border tax, digital tax), distribution of outright grants and loans to member states most affected by the pandemic, demanding requirements for the development of national recovery and resilience plans, rigorous procedures for monitoring the use of funds, and conditionalities in the disbursement of funds based on respect for the rule of law). The essay concludes with two paragraphs dealing, respectively, with the effects of the NGEU on the Italian economy and the changes in the functioning and relations between the Council, the Commission, the Parliament and the Central Bank. © 2022, Societa Editoriale Federalismi s.r.l.. All rights reserved.

Nordic-Baltic Cooperation: Old-New Trends or Possible Balance for Challenged European Integration Processes?

The transnational cooperation is seen as important research object especially in the light of today's world challenges such as war in Ukraine, Covid-19, Euroscepticism, migration and others. In this context intensive cooperation among the Nordic and Baltic countries can be discovered as new normal for transnational de-velopment. The rationale of Nordic and Baltic countries cooperation is common interest in stability, security and welfare in the Baltic Sea region and beyond, and has existed for quite some time. It should be empha-sized that the cooperation in the Nordic and Baltic region has overcome many challenges. Nevertheless, the idea of cooperation in this region is stronger than ever. In the light of global and regional political instability, it is crucial to maintain political dialogue, strengthen and develop cooperation between the Nordic and Baltic countries. A spread of stronger populism uncovered an existential tension of European integration processes. In response to the European-wide crisis it is the possibility for Nordic States react to emerging challenges by deepening the integration between the Nordic countries in the light of European integration processes during their critical moment. With reference to the context described above, the purpose of the research is to identify the added value of cooperation of Nordic and Baltic countries for further regional development. The tasks of the research were set as follows: 1) to identify benefits of cooperation among countries in the context of different theories and practices;2) to analyse the cooperation of the Nordic-Baltic countries in the period from 1990 -2020 and its implications for growth of Baltic sea region;3) to discuss the EU macro-regional strategies and identify their added value for further regional development.RESEARCH METHODS: scientific literature analysis, analytical interpretations of the EU documents as well as future prognosis on cooperation in the Nordic-Baltic region.

EU Public Procurement Policy During Covid-19: A Turning Point for Legitimate EU Governance?

Public procurement is a policy area located between two contradictory tendencies. On the one hand, the European Commission strives for greater competition to widen procurement markets. On the other hand, the boosting of competition encounters resistance among the member states. This article investigates how these colliding tendencies played out during the initial stages of the Covid-19 crisis and, more specifically, how changes in the field of procurement affected legitimate governance in the EU. Based on institutionalist and EU governance theories, the study contributes to the literature with three principal findings. First, it demonstrates that the pandemic enabled exogenously driven changes in the field of public procurement with new policies and guidelines, while the EU’s overall aims in this field were upheld. Second, the study demonstrates that the Commission was the main driver of change and that it enhanced the harmonisation of procurement rules and supranational integration despite the crisis. Third, while these changes strengthened the role of supranational actors, the study demonstrates that the changes introduced allow member states increased flexibility when it comes to the implementation. In practice, however, this flexibility has the potential to undermine the EU’s initial aims, thereby jeopardising the EU’s legitimacy.

How not to manage crises in the European Union

EU policy-makers should learn lessons from key policy failures during the eurozone crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. The mistakes were a result of delayed action and a gap between research and policy. If comprehensive reforms can't be made, policy-makers should find a middle ground between supranationalism and intergovernmentalism in crisis situations. The process of European integration has often been used as either a model or an anti-model for other regional integration experiences. This article discusses the European Union's shortcomings in crisis management, arguing that valuable 'how not to' lessons can be drawn by dissecting the initial stages of the eurozone crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic as 'moments of truth'. The main policy mistakes committed at the onset of both crises are explored devoting special attention to the role played by the hiatus between research and policy, as well as the inadequacies, biases and hubris of academic analyses. Ideally, comprehensive reforms would be required to equip the EU with the competences and tools needed for effective crisis management. The article concludes that, in the absence of such comprehensive reforms, the only option left to policy-makers engaging in crisis management will be to seek a pragmatic middle ground between supranationalism and intergovernmentalism on a case-by-case basis.

Strategic interdependence and preferences for debt mutualization in the eurozone

Existing research argues that a 'democratic constraint' blocks the path towards fiscal integration in the eurozone: Voters in creditor countries are fundamentally opposed to debt sharing, while voters in debtor countries are unwilling to leave the euro, which constrains the ability of their politicians to negotiate a more equitable distribution of the burden of adjustment. However, this literature neglects that preferences are strategically interdependent across countries and are affected by the type of information processed by individuals. Based on two linked survey experiments in Germany and Italy, conducted at a crucial moment during the COVID-19 pandemic, we show that Germans respond to information that highlights the possibility of a break-up of the euro as a result of Italexit by increasing their support for debt mutualization. In contrast, Italians are more affected by information about the costs of remaining in the euro than of exiting it and drastically reduce their support for the euro if they are told that austerity and structural reforms are required to remain in it. Our results help to explain why German politicians relaxed their hostility to joint debt and agreed to the introduction of the EU's pandemic recovery fund in 2020.