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2008
The book aims to portray and understand variety of modes and methods of European Union activity. The EU is addressed here as an entity, a centralised political power centre, as well as decentralised implementator of legislation (Member States). It attempts to compare and juxtapose the variety of modes and methods of the EU action in order to find common links between policies and possible ways of improving EU activity by showing similarities and differences among its policies.
This fully revised, second edition of the Ever-Changing Union provides a concise overview of the EU’s history, institutional structures and decision-making processes. It looks at the fundamental principles of European integration and describes the progress of this integration from its beginning. It also covers the EU’s main institutions and how they interact in the decision-making process as a whole. This new edition focuses on the changes introduced by the Lisbon Treaty and explains how the EU’s external action is conducted by the post-Lisbon EU. Other additions to this second edition are new sections on the EU budget, the euro and its governance, lobbying and interest representation.This book is written for those with an initial or occasional interest in European policies and politics. More particularly, the authors believe it will be useful for civil servants, diplomats, business and NGO representatives, as well as students and scholars who encounter the EU in their work.
1995
When referring to this work, the full bibliographic details must be given as follows: Boyce, B. (1995). Policy-making in the European Union: a study of the nature of the European Union through the examination of its policy process. PhD thesis. Oxford Brookes University.
JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 2007
Schmidt's book is a valuable and well-written contribution to the analysis of the impact of European integration on national democracies. According to the author, democracy has become an issue for Europe and the suspension of the ratification process on the Constitutional Treaty, following the failures of the referendums in France and the Netherlands, shows that it will remain a problematic issue in the near future. The institutional reforms envisaged in the Constitutional Treaty may reduce the problem of EU democracy, but they would not solve the democratic deficit at the national level. The problem at stake refers to Europeanization, which means that national conceptions of democratic power and authority, access and influence, vote and voice remain mostly unchanged. National leaders have failed to initiate ideas and discourse that would engage national publics in the discourse about the EU-related changes to national democracy. Therefore, a key question here is 'how should national leaders proceed in such a discourse?' Firstly, they should decide what the EU is, in order to assess what their countries are becoming. Thus, the fundamental assumption of Schmidt's book is the idea of the EU conceived as a regional state. It is a regional union of nation states, where sovereignty is shared with Member States, boundaries are not fixed, identity is understood in terms of 'being' and 'doing', governance is dispersed. Schmidt argues that in such a fragmented democracy, the EU's legitimacy is in question because it is compared to the ideal of the nation state. However, if it is conceived as a regional state, the democratic deficit would not be so great. But the problem is much more significant in relation to national democracy. The author convincingly argues that this is because while the EU makes policy without politics, its Member States realize politics without policy. National citizens have little direct input into the EU policies that affect them. This results in the problems of voter disaffection and political extremism characterizing the EU Member States nowadays. To solve this problem, Member States have to come up with new national ideas and discourse in order to adjust the EU-related changes to the traditional performance of their national democracies. But firstly it is necessary to conceive how institutions affect European democracy at EU and national levels. Thus, Schmidt's book is about the nature of the EU governance system and its impact on national democracies. In Chapters 2-4, the author examines the impact of the EU upon national institutions, taking into account in turn the policy-making processes and the representative politics of the EU and the Member States. A special merit of Schmidt's work is that the author illustrates her argument with examples of four countries: Britain and France, as
This paper aims to analyse the situation in the European Union about the EU Foreign Policy, the constitution, and the consequences of the use of the European power and the possible solutions.
Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, SAGE Publications, 2021
JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 2007
This contribution to a series on the 'state of the art' in various fields of political study has dual aims. On the one hand it invites its contributors to survey European Union Studies-and not, as the editors insist, of 'integration' or 'European Area' studiesas they are today, so as to help postgraduates and teachers worried by the expanding scope and complexity of the field. Save in one chapter it does not do this by statistical assessment of publications and structures devoted to the Union, rather it works by analysing the intellectual content of some of the field's specific political aspects. On the other hand, to justify the concern for 'advances', it looks more normatively for new contributions suggesting where the field might, or should, go. In practice, this attracts less attention than the first aim, although Warleigh makes a strong case for mixing theories, an idea echoed by other chapters. Half the chapters are devoted to specific theories presently used in EU studies, the traditional run through from functionalism to inter-governmentalism being wisely discarded. Of the rest most is given over to dimensions of EU activities such as enlargement, foreign policy, political economy and identity and the ways these might be theorized. Europeanization, being both a process and a possible research agenda, sits between the two. There are also chapters on historical and grand theoretical approaches together with a rounding off piece by Wessels. As is often the case, the contributors adopt a variety of strategies. Some, like Scully and Warleigh, keep helpfully close to what the editors wanted, setting out the theories, showing where they have been applied to the EU and considering future developments. Others concentrate more on the theories themselves, sometimes defensively so. Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier do a great job in creating a structure for theorizing enlargement-something which was virtually ignored not so long agowhile Laffan and Gillespie bring out the importance of identity questions. Overall, although Jupille argues that while it is coming back in, 'grand theory' is much less present than tactical insights, many of which will help academics in the field. Most of the contributors do well in unbundling, classifying and developing their topic. This makes it a very useful tool box for academic studies of the EU and will no doubt be cited in many PhD theses. And the lenses offered here may well affect the way future research is carried out. However, the book offers less the snapshot desired by the editors and more a kaleidoscopic view. The optimum mix, if it exists, is not easy to grasp. Researchers will have to make choices and decide which approach, or mixture, they wish to adopt. And, as the contributions often hint, these approaches can still be in conflict and are not as open as the editors might wish.
2011
EU enlargement will depend on many factors and challenges that will determine not only the pace of this process but also will carry alongside the settlement of many open problems in various forms, between Western Balkan countries and member states of EU. The purpose of this text is to provide a better approach, as the enlargement process, especially with the Western Balkan countries, not forgetting Turkey, as one of the most powerful and influencing country not only in the Balkan Peninsula, but also in the Middle East and beyond. The question whether the traditional strategies and actions of EU enlargement process are satisfactory for this changed geostrategic environment, needs to be researched in different ways. It will seek to answer in a separate process, reforms and problems that need to be faced by all acceding and candidate countries for integration into this organization. Only if we take the basic and processing milestone of EU enlargement with the countries of Central and E...
2011
The discussion on the European Union (EU) issues has often been focused on broad questions regarding its fundamental character, theoretical concepts behind the European integration and international co-operation, fundamental principles regulating the relationship between the member states as well as the union and its citizens, motivation and interests of the member states in the integration process etc. Issues related to the EU institutions are mainly considered as practical aspects, guaranteeing the every-day functioning of the European Union and, thus, not deserving as much attention as e.g. fundamental concepts explaining the dynamics of the integration, the mechanism of the current financial crisis or other long-term challenges of the European Union. At the same time, the relative power and actions of the individual institutions of the European Union have always played a remarkable role in the context of the European integration. For example, without the initiatives of the European Commission in 1970s and 1980s we could hardly imagine European Union as we are facing it right now – the internal market including free movement of goods, services, labour and capital. Thus, also the characteristics of the individual EU institutions, analytical background behind their structures as well as the division of roles between the institutions should be discussed.
Jcms Journal of Common Market Studies, 2008
2003
Series aims to provide advanced textbooks and thematic studies of key public policy issues in Europe. They concentrate, in particular, on comparing patterns of national policy content, but pay due attention to the European Union dimension. The thematic studies are guided by the character of the policy issue under examination. The European Policy Research Unit (EPRU) was set up in 1989 within the University of Manchester's Department of Government to promote research on European politics and public policy. The series is part of EPRU's effort to facilitate intellectual exchange and substantive debate on the key policy issues confronting the European states and the European Union.
This course will introduce to the history & main political features of European integration, the political system of the European Union, European parties & policies, and current issues of democracy in Europe. We will seek to understand and examine the political institutions, historical development, and philosophical foundations of the EU, and its relationship to the EU member states in comparative perspective. Students will become familiar with the history and the contemporary polity, politics, policy-making and policies of the European Union.
1999
List of tables page viii List of abbreviations ix Foreword xi Introduction xiii The theoretical setting 1 New directions in theory-building 40 The Amsterdam reforms: partial offsets and unfinished business 67 The Treaty of Nice and its critics 94 Geopolitical imperatives of system change: order and security in post-Cold War Europe 122 Institutional imperatives of system change: the evolving European security architecture 152 Debating the future of Europe: new polity dynamics 196 Bibliography 224 Index 239 Contents 3.1 A typology of European constitutional choice page 3.2 Areas in the Treaty requiring co-decision 3.3 New areas in the Treaty where Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) is applicable 3.4 A Union closer to its citizens 3.5 Areas of action by the Community: co-decision and unanimity in social policy 82 3.6a Concurrent majorities 86 3.6b Categories 3.6c Voting thresholds 86 3.7 Main items discussed within the Reflection Group 87 3.8 Negotiations on the third pillar 89 4.1 Treaty provisions related to the Commission 98 4.2 Proposed changes in Art. 217 98 4.3 Member state positions on the Commission 99 4.4 Summary of the provisions on the Commission in the Treaty of Nice 4.5 Weighting of votes and population of the member states 4.6 Informal population threshold since 1958 4.7 Existing QMV system projected for EU-27 and EU-28 104 4.8 EU-28 4.9 EU-27 4.10 Double majority systems 4.11 Double majority system with features of existing QMV arrangements 4.12 EU-15: new weighting of votes in view of enlargement 4.13 EU-27: weighting of votes 108 4.14 Views of the European Parliament (EP) 4.15 Allocation of seats in the EP 4.16 New allocation of seats for the Economic and Social Committee (ESC) and the Committee of the Regions (CoR) 4.17 From unanimity to QMV 4.18 Enhanced cooperation 120
Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 2011
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
The unique creation in the history of the relationships between states, the European Union is an innovative construction whose structure is based on a number of institutions representing, as the case may be, the interests of the citizens of the European Union, of the Member States and of the Union itself, all of wich are involved in the decision-making process at the Union's level. The positions of the States that are expressed in the representative institutions are carried out after certain internal procedures, which are capable of offering a legal and legitimate nature, from a democratic point of view. Also, in the exercise of parliamentary supervision over European affairs, national parliaments are becoming a link in a complex institutional chain; these elements, in fact, are the subject of our study. In order to accomplish this, we propose to use the analysis of the primary sources, more specifically to identify the primary sources of European Union law (TEU, TFEU and its Pr...
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