Drivers of differentiation between EU Member-states in the UN General Assembly

Published online: 03 October 2024The European Union (EU) has laboured hard to gain the right to make oral interventions in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in pursuit of a more active international role. At the same time, though, EU member-states continue to take the floor to make their own interventions, thus differentiating – but not necessarily distancing – their stance from the officially expressed EU position. In that respect, it is important to examine the drivers behind the differentiating activity of EU member-states and their engagement in UNGA deliberations. We identify structural, institutional, political and thematic drivers. They relate to resources, the EU system of external representation in the form of the EU rotating Council Presidency and the opportunities that it provides during each country's period in office, national political aspirations for greater influence, as well as issue-specific assertiveness. We operationalize and control for these drivers by looking at the size and economic resources of EU member-states, their individual statements while holding the EU rotating Council Presidency, their membership in the UN Security Council (UNSC) or candidacy for it, and the issue specificity of each UNGA Main Committee. Our analysis is based on a three-level longitudinal multilevel random intercept model and relies upon a new dataset that compiles the oral interventions made by representatives of EU member-states and by EU officials in UNGA through an automated content analysis of the verbatim records of the UNGA meetings from 1998 to 2017.This article was published Open Access with the support from the EUI Library through the CRUI - Wiley Transformative Agreement (2024-2027

The EU and the world : tuning to be heard

On 28 June 2016, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini presented the “The Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy” (EUGS) to the European Council. The EUGS’ main objective is to articulate and sustain a coherent vision for the external action of the EU. As such, it sheds some light on the matter of the EU’s strategy in world affairs, its effectiveness, the variables affecting it, and Europe’s reaction to them, particularly as regards the emergence of a “strategic autonomy” as the means to pursue Europe’s goals. This chapter attempts to provide an assessment of the first three years of the EUGS by examining the EU’s relations with its major partners. We discuss the concept of strategic autonomy and how the EU’s relations with its partners contribute to this debate. In doing so, we first provide a brief overview of the EUGS and discuss what “strategic autonomy” entails. We then examine the relationship between the EU and the United States (US) in the context of NATO. We continue our analysis with EU-Russian relations, current EU-Turkish relationship, EU-China cooperation and the outlook of the Western Balkans in joining the EU. We conclude by examining Italy’s foreign policy agenda towards the EU security and defence policy and the development of a European strategic autonom

Revisiting the effect of income on health in Europe : evidence from the 8th round of the European social survey

First published online: February 2020This study provides new evidence about the effects of income on population health. To do so, our first research question controls for the absolute income hypothesis : Has the recent deterioration of individual income had as a result a lower health status in population across European countries? : We assume, as the bulk of the associated studies have found, that the lower the income of an individual, the lower his/her health status. Our second research objective is to examine the validity of the relative income hypothesis. To shed light on this issue, we test two different questions : What is the relationship between an individual's health status and a country's wealth and how self-rated health is associated with the degree of income inequality in a society? : We expect that the population in wealthier countries report higher health status and individuals who live in countries with higher income inequalities report lower health status. By employing a multilevel binomial model and treating data from the latest European Social Survey Round 8 (2016/2017) from 23 countries in Europe, we have found strong evidence in favor of the above-mentioned hypotheses

The Global Conflict Risk Index 2022: Revised Data and Methods

This report introduces the revised Global Conflict Risk Index (GCRI) and documents the changes and improvements made in the latest update. Our work involved a thorough revision of the GCRI's input data and methodology that resulted in the following changes: (1) We adopted a new set of conflict definitions for the outcome variable. (2) Significantly reduced missing values by replacing several input data sources. (3) Selected a new modelling framework for conflict intensities following a systematic comparison of 14 probability and intensity models. (4) Improved the GCRI's forecasts by incorporating short-term projections of predictor variables. We demonstrate that these revisions improved the GCRI's predictive performance. We conclude with a discussion of limitations and tasks for further research.JRC.E.1 - Disaster Risk Managemen

Sarcomatoid Carcinoma of the Urinary Bladder: A Clinicopathological Study of 4 Cases and a Review of the Literature

Sarcomatoid carcinoma (SC) of urinary bladder is a rare tumor exhibiting aggressive behavior. Here we are reviewing the pathologic and clinical characteristics of 4 consecutive cases of this rare tumor. Three out of 4 patients were males and one female. The median age was 72.8 years (range, 60-79 years). Patients underwent transurethral resection of bladder tumor and the diagnosis of bladder SC was established on the pathologic examination of the resected bladder tissue. Despite treatment all patients died within 22 months of the diagnosis of SC. SC of the bladder are true biphasic malignant neoplasm exhibiting morphologic and immunohistochemical evidence of epithelial and mesenchymal differentiation with the presence or absence of heterologous elements. The aggressive of the tumor precludes radical therapy whenever possible, since adjuvant therapy seems to have little effect

Cross-border and emerging risks in Europe

In this report, the Joint Research Centre (JRC) expands its exploration of complex disaster risks that transcend national borders and introduce novel challenges to the European Union. Taking stock of previous JRC flagship reports on understanding risks (Science for Disaster Risk Management Book Series and the Recommendations for National Risk Assessment Versions 0 and 1), this document addresses the multi-faceted nature of cross-border and emerging risks in Europe. The report collects the contributions from expert teams across 8 JRC directorates and external partners. It analyses the current landscape of risks characterized by their potential for widespread impact across the continent, necessitating a coordinated European response. The work leverages historical data and recent scientific advances that address both cross-border risks such as natural disasters and anthropogenic crises, and emerging risks that include technological and socio-economic challenges. This comprehensive assessment helps in understanding and managing cross-border and emerging risks, including environmental, health, and technological threats. It emphasizes the importance of integrated approaches and improved data sharing to better anticipate and prepare for potential disasters. The findings advocate for the incorporation of transboundary considerations in risk management strategies to effectively handle the interconnected and complex nature of today's risks. Emerging from an increased need for an integrated approach in disaster risk management (DRM), this report underscores the importance of the EU's continued research on understanding the root causes of risks and in adaptation and mitigation strategies to enhance resilience.JRC.E.1 - Disaster Risk Managemen

Factors and parameters of the EU performance in international organisations : a theoretical framework

The formulation of a distinctive and visible profile on the international stage is one of the central, challenging issues that the European Union has faced over recent decades. Developing this profile is essentially determined by (a) how the EU negotiates in diverse international contexts and (b) what are the outcomes of these negotiations. This paper aims to unravel the negotiating approach the EU follows in different circumstances. To do so, we employ an inductive approach, examining the EU’s negotiating behaviour in: (a) the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) and (b) the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). The case-studies pertain to the EU’s involvement in international human rights negotiations, thus offering valuable input both to the specific literature and to the literature on the EU’s international performance. We propose an ex post theoretical framework on the EU negotiating tactics in the United Nations (UN), identifying the factors and the parameters which condition its negotiating strategy and its international performance

Xenophobic manifestations, otherness and violence in Greece 1996-2016 : evidence from an event analysis of media collections

Research on xenophobia in Europe has recently received much attention in various academic disciplines. The existing scholarly debate focuses more on older patterns of xenophobia emerging as forms of ‘non-violent discrimination and segregation’ but pays less attention to xenophobia as a violent practice per se. This study attempts to examine xenophobia in Greece by employing an event extraction technique: we track violent attacks by Greek citizens on any kind of ‘foreigners’ by analysing a vast amount of text data available from newspapers and news websites over a twenty-year period: 1996-2015. We explore specific manifestations of xenophobic attitudes – physical and verbal attacks – to identify the actors involved and the targets of these violent xenophobic acts. Our results conform with previous studies in the field, first by highlighting the violent anti-immigrant behaviour of two actors, the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party (GD) and the police, and second by identifying the targets of xenophobic violence. Our contribution to the literature is twofold: a) an application of an innovative methodological tool – event extraction analysis – to the study of a significant social phenomenon; and b) a mapping of the actors and targets of xenophobia in Greek society over the last twenty years

Is Artificial Intelligence threatening democracy?

In a democracy, human beings make decisions with the aim of serving the will of the people and promoting the collective welfare of society. While machines can learn from data and generate potential democratic solutions, they fall short in grasping the intricacies of the subjective reality of democratic politics. Entrusting Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems with decision-making carries the risk of following optimal solutions shaped by falsified objective realities that AI algorithms aim to optimise. Even if the data were comprehensive and sufficient, modelling approaches struggle to fully encapsulate the complexities of subjective realities within global democracies and societies. In essence, leaving democratic politics to be governed by ostensibly logical AI classifiers is a significant gamble. In the second high-level policy dialogue that took place on the 22 and 23 of May 2023 in Florence under the auspices of the STG Chair in Artificial Intelligence and Democracy, scholars and policymakers discussed and shared their ideas to map multiple available solutions for how democratic politics can live with an AI-powered world and, more than that, how AI can turn to a beneficial tool for democracy. Most of the participants agree that AI can be formed and transformed to a useful tool for democracies. In this policy brief, we summarise the key ideas that emerged from the discussions in this high-level policy dialogue