Ambassador Stavros Lambrinidis represents the interests of the European Union in Washington, DC.
Ambassador Lambrinidis has held previous positions as the EU Special Representative for Human Rights, the Greek Foreign Minister, and Vice-President of the European Parliament. In our discussion, Ambassador Lambrinidis provides insights into the EU’s relationship with the US, the positive contributions of the EU to European prosperity, and some of the challenges of “dual citizenship” within EU member states.
Click here for the video:A Conversation with EU Ambassador to the US Stavros Lambrinidis
Dig DeeperTake a look at some of our favorite articles that we came across while researching this topic:
Delegation of the European Union to the United States, EU
The European Union: Ongoing Challenges and Future Prospects, Congressional Research Service
The European Union: A Guide for Americans, Delegation of the European Union to the United States

Women in the European Union still earn on average 16% less than men, a slight improvement from last year’s 16.2%. This year the European Equal Pay Day falls on 4 November. It marks the day when women symbolically stop getting paid compared to their male colleagues for the same job.
Ahead of this symbolic day, First Vice-President Frans Timmermans, Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility Marianne Thyssen and Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality Věra Jourová stated:
“It is 60 years since the equal pay principle was written into the European Treaties, and yet women across Europe still don’t see the laws matching the reality of their daily lives. European women still work for two months for free compared to their male colleagues and the progress is too slow.
While we have made some steps in the right direction in the past five years, more needs to be done and faster. Our citizens expect us to do better.
Nine out of ten Europeans – women and men – think that it is unacceptable that women are paid less than men for the same job.
Knowledge is power, and therefore, the more we can improve transparency around the underlying causes of the pay gap, the better we will be able to tackle it. The pay transparency is important, so we can detect cases of pay discrimination and the employees and customers can draw their own conclusions and take action. In fact, 64% of Europeans have stated that they are in favour of the publication of average wages by job type and gender at their company.
Pay transparency, combined with other solutions such as an equal distribution of caring responsibilities between women and men – enabled by new EU Directive on parental and carers’ leave – would help us tackle the root causes of the gender pay gap.
We therefore welcome the announcement of President-elect von der Leyen to table measures introducing binding pay transparency in the first 100 days of the new mandate.
We must continue to fight the gender pay gap, for a more effective workforce and for a more just society.”
Background
The factors behind the pay gap are multiple: women more often work part-time, they are confronted with the corporate glass-ceiling, they work in lower paid sectors or often have to take the primary responsibility for care of their families. One way to address these factors is to improve the work-life balance of working parents and carers. The Commission made a proposal to that end in April 2017, which was adopted by the European Parliament and the Council in January 2019.
Pay differences also depend on gender stereotypes and discrimination. The relative weights of these causes cannot be known without more pay transparency.
At EU-level, different initiatives have been taken during the past 5 years of the Juncker Commission. In 2014, the Commission adopted a Recommendation on strengthening the principle of equal pay between men and women through promoting concrete pay transparency measures, including the right to information, pay audit, pay reporting inclusion of equal pay issues in collective bargaining. The 2017 Report on the implementation of the Recommendation found insufficient implementation and effectiveness of the measures.
In November 2017, the Commission launched an EU Action Plan to tackle the Gender Pay Gap. The Action Plan takes a holistic approach and addresses all the different root causes of the gender pay gap, including by improving pay transparency.
Until now, €14.2 million of funding has been granted to projects combatting stereotypes, regard to career guidance and career choices, on women in decision-making and work-life balance, on closing gender gaps over the course of one’s life and on how to address the gap in employment, pay and pensions.
In 2018, the Commission launched an evaluation of the equal pay measures and is currently finalising the evaluation. EPSCO Council Conclusions from June 2019 call on the European Commission to actively follow up on the ongoing evaluation.
From January to April 2019, the European Commission conducted a public consultation to gather input from a broad range of stakeholders on the functioning and implementation of EU equal pay laws. The summary of the results is available online. The European Commission is now working on the evaluation of the ‘equal pay’ principle, as outlined as one of the deliverables in the Action Plan.
Moreover, the European Commission is publishing today an overview of national and European case law and good practices on equal pay, which are deliverables of the Action Plan under alerting and informing about the gender pay gap. They provide insights about functioning of the equal pay but also point to the shortcomings to the enforcement of equal pay principle in practice.
For more information
Webpage on the Gender pay gap, including:
Factsheet on gender pay gap
Factsheet on pay transparency
Report:  National cases and good practices on equal pay
Guide on European Court of Justice case-law on equal pay
Compliments of the European Commission

Freedom of expression, in all its forms, is the very essence of democracy. Only with a thriving, free and independent media landscape, we can hold governments, businesses and society at large accountable. And precisely for this fundamental right, far too often, journalists and media workers are attacked, persecuted, harassed, or intimidated for carrying out their work. Most journalists are not wounded in the heat of war coverage, but suffer violence in our immediate surroundings. In 2018 alone, 94 journalists and media staff were killed in work-related incidents as reported by the International Federation of Journalists. Hundreds more have been subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention without ever having been tried in a court.
Time and again, governments fail to protect journalists, hesitate to prosecute perpetrators or even perpetrate the crimes themselves. Impunity for these crimes multiplies their impact and erodes democratic societies by fuelling fear, mistrust, and anxiety.
Only last month we remembered the killing of Saudi national Jamal Khashoggi, whose case still awaits court handling, and the murder of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in the midst of Europe, proving that no region of the world is immune to such crimes. On this day we reiterate our commitment to combat impunity for crimes against journalists and to continue using all appropriate means possible to respect and protect freedom of expression and to ensure the safety of journalists and media workers.
The EU provides support and legal assistance via the EU-funded mechanism for Human Rights Defenders, a network that delivers fast response to human rights defenders under threat, including journalists. The EU also funds the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom (CMPF) and its important Media Pluralism Monitor that continues to measure threats to media pluralism in the EU and in neighbouring countries and informs our policy-making processes. In 2019, the European Commission has earmarked a budget of more than €8 million to support projects geared at promoting quality journalism, cross-border cooperation between media professionals and self-regulatory bodies, as well as funding cross-border investigative journalism and protecting journalists under threat​. In many countries, we provide financial and expert support to foster protection of journalists, bloggers and media workers.
On this day dedicated to the end of impunity for crimes against journalists, we pay tribute to all those who lost their lives and suffered attacks in the exercise of their freedom of expression online and offline and stand by all those who have the courage to speak up for all of us.
Compliments of European Council

The European Council has adopted a decision to extend the period under Article 50.3 (of the Treaty on the European Union), in the context of the UK’s intention to withdraw from the EU.
The extension will last until 31 January 2020 to allow more time for the ratification of the withdrawal agreement. The withdrawal can take place earlier on 1 December 2019 or 1 January 2020, if the withdrawal agreement is ratified by both parties.
For the duration of the extension the United Kingdom remains a member state with all the rights and obligations set out in the treaties and under EU law.
The decision was taken unanimously by the European Council by written procedure, with the agreement of the UK. This agreement was set out in a letter from UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to President of the European Council Donald Tusk. The European Council also agreed a declaration accompanying the decision.
 
Compliments of the European Council

Make no mistake about it, the latest version of Brexit is a very hard Brexit.
The UK Government has abandoned the legally binding commitment in the previous deal to align with EU regulatory standards to the greatest extent possible. That is now dropped in favour of a political aspiration.

The more the UK diverges from EU standards the greater is the likelihood that the EU will have to place tariff and other barriers in the way of UK imports to the EU, and now also to Northern Ireland. The problem will be particularly acute for agricultural goods.
The EU/UK trade negotiation has yet to begin, but I believe it will be both lengthy and difficult. This is a direct result of the “red lines” for Brexit chosen by the UK (no custom union membership, no single market membership and no ECJ jurisdiction). This was a legitimate choice for the UK to make, but the costs of the choice are yet to be revealed and understood. When they are, it will be too late to change course. 
Many in the UK say they just want to “get Brexit over with”. The impatience is understandable, but the truth is that agreeing the Withdrawal Treaty will not actually get Brexit “over with”. The additional bureaucracy will be permanent. If there is not to be a no deal crash out, the transition period will have to be much long than the end of 2020, because the trade negotiation will only be in its early stages by then.
The only way to get  the agony of Brexit over with, would be to revoke Brexit. There is little popular support for that, so Brexit will drag on and preoccupy British politics for years.
By choosing a harder Brexit than Mrs May, and agreeing that the controls will be in the Irish sea, Boris Johnson has chosen to prioritize the interests of  hardline Brexiteers in England over the interests of the DUP in Northern Ireland. Such a choice was inherent in Brexit, which is why it will remain a puzzle for historians to discern why the DUP chose to support Brexit with such enthusiasm in the first place.
 THE WORLD AFTER BREXIT
I would like to turn now to the world after Brexit, and about the European Union, of which we will continue to be a member and in whose success we will now have a disproportionate interest.
The world has become a much more unpredictable place than it was 10 years ago. The era of easy decisions may be over.
A European country, Ukraine, has been successfully invaded by it neighbour, Russia, breaking solemn undertakings that had been given. We have been reminded of the importance of defence.
There is widespread evidence of interference in elections and democratic processes by authoritarian regimes in other parts of the world. Voting software is being infected. Campaigns are being hacked. National rules on election spending can be circumvented via the social media.
The United States has created doubt around its defence commitments to Europe. It has walked away from its Kurdish allies in Syria, and Europe was not able to fill the gap, although the refugees from that conflict are more likely to end up in Europe than in America. In fact Europe is dependent on Turkey and North Africa to curb mass migration to the southern shores of the EU.
The EU has not developed a migration policy, which, if properly organised , could bring dynamism to our continent to compensate for the loss of dynamism that will inevitably flow from the ageing of the native European population.
The US is undermining the rules based international order in the field of trade. It is refusing to allow the appointment of replacement judges to the WTO’s appellate court, which will soon lead to that court ceasing to function. This is happening just at the time that our nearest neighbour may find itself relying on the WTO once its post Brexit transition period expires. 
THE RISE OF CHINA
China is returning to the dominant position it held in the world economy in the two millennia up to 1800.
It is doing this on the strength of its human capital, not its physical capital. It is educating more engineers that the US and the EU combined.
It is doing it through its competitive and  innovative firms, not through its monopolistic state enterprises. Chinese R and D spending will exceed US Rand D this year and far exceeds EU R and D. It is ahead of everyone in 5G communications, at the time the world economy is becoming ever more digital.
Chinese firms own Volvo, Pirelli and recently bought the firms supplying robots to the German car industry. EU could not buy the equivalent Chinese firms.Chinese military spending exceeds that of all EU states combined and is already half that of the US.
If the US thinks it can use trade policy to arrest Chinese development, it is probably making a mistake. 
But the US is right to insist on fair competition. China must be treated in the WTO as a developed country, and not get concessions intended for much poorer countries. In its response to the Chinese challenge, the EU should maintain its robust competition policy and should not try to pick industrial winners from Brussels.
THE RESPONSE OF EUROPE
Europe would be much better placed to defend its own interests, and to act as a balancing power in the world, if the euro functioned as a global reserve currency. To achieve that, we need to create a Capital Markets Union and complete the Banking Union. This requires a harmonisation of company insolvency rules throughout the EU or the eurozone.
The Eurozone must have a capacity to cope with localized shocks and to prevent contagion.  We need viable proposals for a eurozone wide reinsurance of bank deposits, and eurozone wide reinsurance of the unemployment  benefit systems of member states..
BREXIT IS A SETBACK FOR EUROPE……..STAGNATION MUST BE AVOIDED
There is no doubt but Brexit has been a setback for Europe. True, the EU had maintained its unity and stability, in stark contrast to the way in which the UK system has been convulsed by the divorce. But that does not take away from the fact that we are losing a relatively young, diverse and creative member state. 
The EU’s strategic weight in the world will be reduced by the absence of the UK.
The population of the remaining members of the  EU are, in global terms, relatively elderly, pessimistic and risk averse. This could lead the EU to make big mistakes.
I give some examples of this.
Many member states refuse even to contemplate the amendment of the EU Treaties because of the risk of defeats in referenda. If that remains the attitude, the EU will simply stagnate. Every successful human organisation must have the capacity to change its rules if this is demonstrably necessary. The US is unable to amend its constitution and we can see the problems that has led to.
Unlike the US, the EU has been able to attract and accommodate new member states over the last 50 years. At last week’s Summit, France the Netherlands and Denmark blocked the opening of accession talks with North Macedonia even though that country has done everything the EU asked to qualify, even changing its name, which was a highly sensitive matter. 
The fact that this rejectionism was led by President Macron, who makes great speeches about European integration, is particularly disquieting. I hope he changes his mind. Yes, we need tougher means of ensuring that the rule of law in respected in the most rigorous way but that could have been dealt with in the negotiations with North Macedonia, which would have gone on for years any way.
 THE SINGLE MARKET
We must defend the integrity of the EU Single Market, at the borders of the European Union and throughout its territory. 
Ireland must be seen to be, fully compliant with EU Single Market rules. Otherwise Ireland’s geographic position will be used against it by competitors for the investment.
The EU Single Market is not complete. There is much more to do.
An April 2019 Study “Mapping the Cost of non Europe” estimated that 
    + completing the  classic single market would add  713 billion euros to the EU economy. 
    + completing Economic and Monetary Union would add a further 322 billion, and    
    + completing a digital single market a further  178 billion euros. 
A more integrated energy market would save a further 231 billion and a more integrated EU approach to fighting organised crime would be worth 82 billion.
Cross border VAT fraud is costing 40 billion. This will be an area of special concern in regard to traffic between Britain and Northern Ireland.
These are some of the reasons why we must complete the Single Market.
Services account for three quarters of EU GDP. 
But  we have been very slow in creating a single EU market for services. 
In the field of Services, only one legislative proposal had been adopted during the term of the outgoing Commission, a proportionality test for new regulations on professions.
All other proposals are blocked.
I think that a major obstacle is vested interests in national or regional governments, who do not want to give up power.
By completing the Single Market, the EU can show that it has much more to offer to the world than a post Brexit Britain.
To help complete the Single Market, Ireland should be open to qualified majority voting on energy and climate matters.
We should also be open to carefully defined individual amendments to the EU Treaties if they can be shown to the public to deliver real benefits.
A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD
The existing Withdrawal Agreement protects UK environmental, product and labour standards, in a way that a mere Trade Agreement will never do. In any trade negotiation with a post Brexit Britain, maintaining a level competitive playing field will be vital.
No subsidies, no cartels, and no undercutting of EU standards must be insisted upon.
Likewise the UK must not be allowed to undercut the EU on worker protection, environmental and product quality standards. The UK will have to set up bureaucracies to devise and enforce UK standards. 200 EU environmental laws will have to be replaced by the UK. Westminster will be busy.
EU WIDE DEMOCRACY
It is over 40 years since the first European Parliament election.
While the  EP elections are hotly contested, the contests are often really about national issues.
A genuine EU wide debate does not take place, because the elections are confined within in national constituencies. An EU “polis” or public opinion has not yet been created.
My own view is that the President of the Commission should be elected separately from the Parliament, using a system of proportional representation (PR). We must have strong national democracy if we are to have a strong EU, and we must have strong national democracy if we are to have strong states.
There are remarkable differences in the level of confidence people in Europe feel in their own national democracy. According to a recent Pew Poll, 72% of Swedes have confidence in how their national democracy works. Within the Netherlands confidence in their system was  68%, in Poland it was 61% and in Germany 65%. 
But , at the other end of the spectrum, only  31% of British, and 32% of Spaniards and Italians had confidence in their own democratic systems.To build confidence in the EU, we also need to rebuild confidence in democracy itself, at every level of governance.
With Compliments of John Bruton