The narrative turn in European studies

The current paper consists of thought exercise that aims at challenging the quasi-universal assumption that only those opposing the multidimensional integration project underlying the construction and expansion of the European Union are populists. Analyzing the European Commission’s president - Ursula von der Leyen - inaugural speech against the backdrop of Ernesto Laclau “On populist reason”, this paper unveils traces of populism in the EU actions and discourse, only to confirm populism as a logic inherent to the political, rather than an ideology per se.

Child death in Germany sparks health-policy review

Collaboration is key to discovery and change. The first Global Gateway Forum enabled connections to be made between different stakeholders. It took place in October 2023 in Brussels, welcoming government representatives from more than 20 countries, financial institutions and business and civil society representatives. Attendees gathered to discuss global investment needs, consider solutions and forge new partnerships. At the Forum investments were committed and new partnerships were announced. Global Gateway is Europe’s international investment programme, which seeks to strengthen connections in links in digital, energy and transport sectors and enhance health, education and research systems across the world. It is at the foundation of the Forum, which provides the setting to showcase progress in the Global Gateway strategy. As Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, stated in her State of the Union address in September 2021, the Global Gateway strategy is ‘a template for how Europe can build more resilient connections with the world’. The aim of the strategy is to secure €300 billion in investments by 2027 to support sustainable projects to push towards global resilience and equity. von der Leyen mentioned key advancements in 90 projects launched in 2023 spanning different sectors. At the Forum, impactful discussions were sparked between leaders about key challenges facing diverse sectors, including green energy, critical raw materials, transport corridors and education. The theme of the Forum was ‘Stronger together through Sustainable Investment’.

The climate policy of the European Union became the key priority for the European Commission, headed by Ursula von der Leyen. This article analyses both its internal and external dimensions, while concentrating on the finances of the European Green Deal, the multiyear strategy for the EU socio-economic development. The methods are demonstrated which the EC employs to mobilize public and private capital for the realization of the green transit, including the financial instruments designed to assist businesses when investing in clean energy and industry. The notion of ‘sustainable’ investment is specified that Brussels is guided by when working out its financial decisions. The EU taxonomy, a green classification system that translates the EU's climate and environmental objectives into criteria for specific economic activities for investment purposes, is presented. The research reveals how the market and regulatory powers of the EU are brought to bear in rolling out its controversial Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. By means of this transnational taxation Brussels hopes to avoid carbon leakage: the situation that allegedly may occur if European carbon-intensive businesses were to transfer production to other jurisdictions with laxer emission constraints. Yet a lack of flexibility in applying the CBAM is causing concern in many countries of the world, including the USA, Brazil, South Africa and China. In EU-Russia relations in particular, it risks increasing political tensions and/or causing trade retaliation due to low levels of mutual trust. Russia developing energy transition plans of her own, her efforts in this respect are now visibly stimulated by the declared EU intention to externalize its regulatory practices. At the same time, Moscow perceives this externalization as an imposition which is most unwelcome and hurts Russia disproportionally. Presumably, the European Union could put more effort in negotiating and developing this latest European initiative with international partners to win new willing ears for it.

As part of the EU Green Deal initiative in 2019, the EU Commission decided to develop a proposal to include emissions from shipping in the EU emissions trading system. This occurred only one year after the Commission had heralded the emissions reduction agreement negotiated in the International Maritime Organization (IMO) as a significant step forward—thereby signalling support for the IMO process. We apply a multi-level reinforcement perspective to explain this apparent policy volte-face, resulting in a Commission proposal in July 2021 which is now moving through institutions in the EU. Such a perspective notes the “friendly” competition for leadership among central actors at various levels in the EU—particularly the Commission, the European Parliament, and leading member states. We find, first, that the inclusion of shipping is in line with the broadening ambitions of the Commission since the start of the emissions trading system. Second, until 2019, the Parliament carried the regulatory torch. A turning point in the policymaking process was the inclusion of the shipping issue in Ursula von der Leyen’s programme for getting accepted by the Parliament and elected as Commission leader in 2019. From then on, the Commission again took the lead. Third, despite the 2018 IMO agreement, progress there was deemed slow, which further motivated EU policymakers to act unilaterally.

In recent years, Kalaallit Nunaat, as Greenland is known in Kalaallisut (Greenlandic), has come under ever intensifying scrutiny — featuring in debates about geopolitics, climate change and natural resources. As US interest in the island continues, the EU is now stepping into the fray, with Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, poised to visit Greenland and the wider Arctic region in March.News reports are bolstered by images of Greenland’s colourful settlements, its icebergs and fjords. This attention builds on a long history. For over a century, Greenland and Greenlandic culture have attracted international filmmakers, particularly from Denmark, which began colonising the island in 1721. The country has functioned as a powerful visual and narrative resource in global screen culture. And yet, for international audiences, knowledge of Greenlandic society itself often stops at ice and strategy; Greenlandic culture itself remains unfamiliar...

The Covid-19 pandemic was a catalyst for the growing systemic crisis of the EU and at the same time gave the Union an impetus towards its qualitatively new development in favor of deeper integration, expressed in a change in the financial and economic space of the EU. Realizing the risks of their internal destabilization, the EU core countries decided to sacrifice the surplus from their economic successes through the socialization of debts in order to save the most affected peripheral Member States to preserve both the integration union and the European idea itself. The purpose of this article is to explain the difficulty of making this decision and its compromise nature, as well as to clarify the likely consequences and suggest options for the further development of the situation. The authors first compare the pros and cons of debt socialization. Then the variables are compared: the Spanish proposal, the Franco-German initiative and the negotiating platform on the "next generation EU" by Ursula von der Leyen with the fundamental points of the European Council compromise decision. It also provides answers to questions about the volume, conditions, mechanism, and control over the expenditure of the financial assistance provided. The breakthrough steps taken by the Member States towards finding an optimal solution are analyzed. The result of the study is a balanced conclusion about the ambiguous nature of the decision adopted by the EU but having a historical significance and opening prospects for the further deepening of integration processes. This is facilitated by reaching an agreement on the need to bring the core of the EU closer to the periphery through the socialization of debts, as well as the importance of structural reforms that would ensure the construction of a harmonious economy of the future based on a new technological platform and formulated in a breakthrough plan called the next generation EU. Success is not guaranteed, as it depends on the behavior of all Member States, but it is real.

The significance of the analysis of medical narrative is determined by its dissemination in recent decades in the context of humanization and individualization of medicine. Comparative content analysis of the texts shows that ‘subjective understanding’ (F. Schleiermacher), ‘inner experience’ and methods of descriptive psychology (W. Dilthey) are essential components of contemporary narrative analysis. The ‘narrative turn’ in socio-humanitarian knowledge became possible only after the questions about the genuine existence of man and the ways of understanding his individuality were worked out in various directions of the continental philosophy of the twentieth century. The growing popularity of the narrative approach in the field of medicine is due to theoretical, methodological, and practical changes that occurred in medicine: the rejection of the priority of the biomedical model of health, the principle of paternalism, objectification of the patient and disease. Changes in the structure of diseases also played an important role in its spread. However, as the analysis of the content and methodological foundations of the medical narrative has shown, one should not absolutize its possibilities in solving the problems of patient individualization, preserving his/her identity and, ultimately, in optimizing the treatment process.

This chapter examines Ursula von der Leyen’s mediative-institutional leadership. It focuses on von der Leyen’s management of the College of Commissioners during her first mandate (2019–2024). The chapter tests rival hypotheses—one from the literature on the Commission’s institutional development, the other from the literature on gender and meetings. Using natural language processing to analyze meeting agendas and minutes from the Prodi Commission (1999–2004) forward, the study’s findings reveal a mixed picture. Von der Leyen’s College meetings have involved stereotypically feminine (cooperative) and stereotypically masculine (assertive) elements, resulting in a “combined leadership style” (Müller and Tömmel 2022). In some respects, her College of Commissioners has been more collective and collegial than its predecessors. But it has also featured hierarchical elements. The findings highlight von der Leyen’s role as a critical actor in developing the College’s modus operandi, balancing increased presidential authority with enhanced participation from fellow commissioners.

Phototherapy

In this paper we present the first results of an ongoing research project focused on examining the European reception of Japanese video games, and we compare it with the reception in Japan. We hope to contribute towards a better understanding of how player perception and evaluation of a game is influenced by cultural background. Applying a grounded theory approach, we conducted a qualitative content analysis of articles from German video gamewebsites, user comments responding to articles, as well as Japanese and German user reviews from the respective Amazon online stores and Steam. Focusing on the reception of three Japanese RPGs, our findings show that considerable differences exist in how various elements of the games are perceived between cultures. We also briefly discuss certain lexical differences in the way players write about games, indicating fundamental differences in how Japanese and German players talk (and think) about games.

Listen to this article As India welcomed European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for Republic Day, attention was on the India–EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA), which both von der Leyen and India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal described as the ‘mother of all deals’. In a post tariff world, the FTA acts as a touchstone […]

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has been promoting the concept of a “geopolitical Commission” since her appointment in late 2019. Since then, successive crises—the Covid-19 pandemic, the ever-worsening climate crisis, and the war in Ukraine—have tested the Commission’s intention to turn the concept into practice. This is particularly evident in the field of energy politics following Russia’s attack on Ukraine. When the war started, Russia was the EU’s largest energy supplier. The EU’s desire to end its energy dependency on Russia called for “geopolitical actorness,” notably swift political and diplomatic initiatives to find alternative suppliers considering the rapidly changing geopolitical circumstances. To what extent and how did this occur? Did the Commission achieve its goal of becoming a geopolitical actor in the field of energy politics? What does geopolitical actorness imply for the EU’s energy policy and low-carbon transition? The article addresses these questions through an analysis of policy documents published by the von der Leyen Commission between 2019–2023, including the communications on the European Green Deal and Critical Raw Materials Resilience, the EU Hydrogen Strategy, the Global Gateway, the REPowerEU Plan, the External Energy Strategy, the Solar Energy Strategy, and the Green Deal Industrial Plan. The article argues that EU policy priorities progressively shifted from a focus on broad multilateral cooperation and open strategic autonomy to more narrowly defined strategic partnerships with “like-minded” Western and neighbouring countries. The 2022 war in Ukraine was a strong catalyst for this shift.

Ursula von der Leyen set out six strategic priorities when she took office, under which the Commission drove forward its political agenda and initiated numerous legislative projects. However, the past five years have been characterised by numerous crises that have brought with them unprecedented challenges. The Commission has had to manage numerous crisis situations without losing sight of its original ambitions. In this anthology, a research team from the Centre for European Integration Studies assesses whether the Commission under von der Leyen was able to manage the crises and at the same time successfully implement its annual work programmes. With contributions by Christoph Bierbrauer | Stephen Calleya | Carlos Deniz Cesarano | Aiveen Donnelly | Christine Neuhold | Henrik Suder | Henri de Waele | Liska Wittenberg

SUMMARYSelect businesses in industry may attempt to compete through distinct strategies. But some may be successful in adopting distinct strategic profiles while others may not prove successful. In this study it was expected that six different groups of businesses might be present in the empirical exploration – those competing successfully with the low cost strategy and those competing unsuccessfully with this strategy; those competing successfully with the differentiation strategy and those competing unsuccessfully with this strategy; and those competing successfully with low cost and differentiation strategies and those competing unsuccessfully with these strategies. The results of the investigation portray the presence of three strategic profiles. They are unsuccessful low cost businesses with the lowest performance, unsuccessful differentiated businesses with the second lowest performance, and successful businesses with combination strategies with the highest performance.