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Abstract. Competition policy has become a salient issue in the last decade. The purpose of this article is to widen discussion amongst political scientists of an issue that has been dominated by the disciplines of economics and law. The concept of a competition policy is the foundation stone of the entire European Union. It lies at the very heart of efforts to establish a common market and within the EU competition policy arena the decision making powers have laid firmly with the supranational institutions. This article provides an overview of the issue; it traces the constitutive foundations of policy and discusses the functions of the core EU competition policy actors. It is primarily concerned with the European Commission, in particular, DGIV. The paper accounts for DGIV's metamorphosis in the 1980s and the myriad of problems now confronting its procedures and efficiency in the 1990s. Whether these defects can be resolved will ultimately determine the fate of DGIV. Arguments for institutional reform are raging through the European institutions and DGIV provides no exception. The paper concludes with a discussion on the plausibility of the creation of an independent European Competition Office, modelled on the role of the German Federal Cartel Office.

THE CURRENT SO-CALLED "PRAGMATIC" EU POLICY TOWARDS THE CYPRUS PROBLEM IS NOT PRODUCING ANY RESULTS AND IN FACT IS COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE BECAUSE IT UNDERMINES DECLARED EU PRINCIPLES, SUCH AS THE PROMOTION OF DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE WORLD. IT ALSO CREATES DOUBLE STANDARDS WHICH UNDERMINE THE EMERGENCE OF A TRULY EFFECIENT CFSP FOR THE EU. A MORE DEMOCRATIC AND ETHICAL APPROACH BY THE EU WOULD NOT ONLY FACILITATE A SOLUTION TO THE CYPRUS PROBLEM BUT HELP PROMOTE A MORE EFFICIENT EUROPEAN FOREIGN POLICY. EXISTING INTERNATIONAL DEMOCRATIC THEORY SUPPORTS THIS KIND OF ALTERNATIVE APPROACH TO THE CURRENT "PRAGMATIC," BUT UNFRUITFUL, EU POLICY TOWARDS CYPRUS.

In Europe and around the world, social policies and welfare services have faced increasing pressure in recent years as a result of political, economic, and social changes. Just as Europe was a leader in the development of the welfare state and the supportive structures of corporatist politics from the 1920s onward, Europe in particular has experienced stresses from globalization and striking innovation in welfare policies. While debates in the United Kingdom, Germany, and France often attract wide international attention, smaller European countries-Belgium, Denmark, Austria, or Finland-are oft

The relevance of the topic has been summed up by the migratory crisis, the emergence of recent conflicts and the occasional instability near the cordons of the EU, as a result, he is forced to strengthen supranational governance in various fields. One of such areas is foreign policy, which in the context of changing the nature of security interactions plays an important role in the process of European integration. The object of the study is the EU as an international actor in the process of its formation and development. The subject is the foreign policy dimension of the EU's functioning, its conceptual, institutional and instrumental aspects.The aim of the article was to consider a number of approaches with different emphases in the interpretation of the European Union's foreign policy, definitions of "sovereignty" and "supranationality", the difference between normative and implementing supranationalism, the historical attitude of member states to the full preservation or delegation of sovereignty. in the formation of EU policy, the creation of new authorities and positions in the process of EU formation in the context and the factors influencing member states on the formation of common EU policy and determine the attitude of member states to the supranational level of governance, advantages and disadvantages for them.Conclusions. Member states are ambivalent about deeper integration in foreign policy. On the one hand, foreign policy cooperation can serve as a tool that allows Member States to pursue their national interests more effectively. However, in the absence of leadership in the EU, the supranational level can become an instrument of regulatory justification for projecting the priorities of individual member states on other members of the union. At the same time, the possibilities of its use remain limited due to serious differences in the strategic culture of the EU member states.