Europe Programme - [04/16/2008] The CIDOB Foundation is to be the coordinator for an international project funded by the European Commission's Framework Research Programme. The Commission's research department has contacted CIDOB with the aim of commencing negotiations for a project with a budget of almost 1,200,000 €, involving three years of work. The project, known as EU4Seas, will be executed by institutions in Estonia, France, Italy, Iceland, Turkey and the Ukraine, and will be directed by CIDOB and coordinated by Dr. Jordi Vaquer, the head of the Europe Programme. EU4Seas aims to study the impact of EU policies on multilateral cooperation around Europe's enclosed seas ─ the Baltic, the Black Sea, the Mediterranean and Caspian. During the three-year joint research project, the EU4Seas team will examine this impact on the areas of security and good governance, energy and transport, environment and maritime policy, and the four freedoms of the common market (free circulation of persons, goods, services and capital). The 7th Framework Programme is the main support instrument for research and development activities in virtually all the scientific disciplines. It represents one of the largest research support programmes in the world, and there is stiff competition for organisations wishing to participate, given that the Programme includes the participation not only of the leading research centres and universities in the EU, but also those of many of the third countries taking part in the Programme. Seminar 28-29 January 2009 With this seminar, the CIDOB Foundation marks the launching of the EU4Seas project, funded by the EU's 7th Framework Programme. EU4Seas will be analysing, over a three-year period (2009-2011) the sub-regional cooperation in and around four maritime basins in the continent of Europe: the Mediterranean, the Caspian, the Baltic and the Black Sea, as well as the impact of EU policies (enlargement, neighbourhood and multilateral cooperation) on these spaces. The aim is to define strategies for political action at different levels (policy and security, environment and maritime policy, energy and transport, and the four freedoms) that can be adopted by the Union in its relations with these regions. The project will be carried out by a consortium of eight research centres, coordinated for the first time by CIDOB: CES-METU (Ankara, Turkey), ICDS (Tallin, Estonia), ICPS (Kiev, the Ukraine), IAI (Rome, Italy), IIA-CSSS (Reykjavik, Iceland), CPMR (Rennes, France) y CNIS (Baku, Azerbaijan). Within the framework of this, the first seminar, academics, experts and diplomats will spend two days analysing the importance of some regional cooperation and how the EU should approach this small-scale multilateralism. Working language: English ************************************************************************************************************************* This below comes from a booklet in which I invite you to see what was on the agenda.-just a glance through will do just to see the different subjects that are for discussion. ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/fp7/ssh/docs/ssh_20081216_en.pdf Human rights research: still needed or obsolete? Knowledge creation can be considered a ‘public good’ in itself; at the same time, for research to be considered as policy relevant and worth public spending there must be a problem to be better identified, understood and addressed. While human rights are 'prima facie' a taken-for-granted concept and value in Europe and other democratic countries, their violation occurs not only in totalitarian regimes but also in/by democracies indicating that they are far from uncontested and surely are not universally shared in practice. This is also why fundamental rights figure so prominently in EU enlargement processes and external relations, and why a European Charter of Fundamental Rights was established and will become binding with the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. Not only the problem is persistent; it is also changing features. Therefore we need to build on past and present knowledge, but also to investigate such changes and identify ongoing patterns and future trends. For example, while wars have always lead to abuse of rights of minorities, children and/or women, the concepts and legal instruments related to 'crimes against humanity' were identified quite recently. Similarly, it may seem obvious that all human beings are entitled to human rights while only some of them are entitled to citizenship rights in each country/polity, but the complementarity or tension between the two is becoming more acute in connection, for example, with significant migration flows. Also, the metaphor of 'balancing' fundamental rights and security measures features prominently in policy discourse and legal analysis especially since 9/11 but its interpretation is diverse in both theory and practice. Last but not least, globalisation carries important implications as to the enhanced access to -or, on the contrary, increasing gap in- access to basic resources and services that are at the basis of the enjoyment of fundamental rights. Examples of research in progress are provided below. •News
CIDOB Foundation to coordinate research programme within the European Commission's 7th Framework Programme
The EU and sub-regional multilateralism around Europe’s closed seas: the Baltic, Caspian, Mediterranean and Black Sea Basins.
Tuesday, 10 February 2009
EU-CONSENT 15 Pages
Look out for this one EU4SEAS
A later entry
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