The article uses insights from comparative federalism to reflect upon the structure & functioning of the European Union. The analysis shows that the EU corresponds rather closely to the model of cooperative federalism. The EU's structural deficiencies are revealed by comparison with German federal experience, which helps explain why the EU has maneuvered itself into a double legitimacy trap in which declining problem-solving capacity (output legitimacy) can no longer compensate for the lack of democratic participation & accountability (input legitimacy). The article then assesses whether the Constitutional Treaty will be able to provide an escape route from the double legitimacy trap. 32 References. Adapted from the source document.
This paper examine the development of railway passenger transport in the European Union countries by using criteria related to the transportation process and the level of economic development of the countries. The study proposes a methodology based on the combination of multicriteria methods. In the first step we determine the indicators to be used in evaluating railway passenger development. As main criteria of the assessment we have chosen social and economic factors, infrastructure factors, factors associated with travel and technological factors. In the second step, using the Fuzzy AHP method, the weights of the criteria and sub-criteria have been calculated. In the third step, we have rated the studied countries by means of the PROMETHEE method. The results show that the factors associated with travel and technological factors have great importance in the ranking of the countries and that, when all factors are taken into account, the countries with the most highly developed railway passenger transport are Germany, Britain and France. The results of the method in the fourth step were compared by applying Cluster analysis. The railway passenger transport in European Union countries have been classified into 5 groups.
This report is the first deliverable of Work Package (WP2) Border and Migration Controls of the Horizon 2020 Project RESPOND -- Multilevel Governance of Mass Migration in Europe and Beyond. RESPOND explores the multilevel governance of migration in countries of origin, transit and migration, focusing on the Eastern Mediterranean route. WP2 addresses border management and migration control, including European Union (EU) and domestic legal regimes, policy developments since 2011, the implementation of border management and migration control policies by EU member states and third countries, and how refugees and migrants experience and respond to the EU border management regime. The aim of the report is to provide an overview of the current EU border management and migration control regime in order to contextualise further research on domestic regimes and their implementation. It outlines the key components of the European Union framework on border management and migration controls. It also presents an overview of historical developments, an analysis of discursive aspects of border and migration control on the level of Union institutions between 2011 and 2017, as well as a detailed description of control measures in the different layers of the European Union external border. We use the term border management to refer to the EU's ensemble of legislation, policies, implementation practices, institutions, and actors that are concerned with defining, conceptualising, and policing of the external border of the member states of the European Union. We use the term migration control to capture modes of control that might fall outside the scope of border management, especially as defined by the 2016 European Border and Coast Guard Directive. We elaborate on these definitional issues in Concepts and Definitions section. We then move on to a detailed analysis of these policies and their legal codification and key legislative and policy developments since 2011. We conclude the report with a discussion of the complexities involved in researching this intersection of various legal frameworks, policy fields and implementation challenges in connection to the larger process of Europeanisation.
The article is aimed at analyzing the consequences of debt crisis in European Union. Special attention is paid to changes in economic policy. In the first paragraph theoretical background of public debt is presented. In the second paragraph the level of public debt in European Union is compared with other countries. Finally, changes in the public debt policy are presented.
The article is aimed at analyzing the consequences of debt crisis in European Union. Special attention is paid to changes in economic policy. In the first paragraph theoretical background of public debt is presented. In the second paragraph the level of public debt in European Union is compared with other countries. Finally, changes in the public debt policy are presented.
The European Union's "democratic deficit" and ways that might be found to resolve it are hot issues in both academic debate and practical politics. Democratizing the European Union offers a fresh approach to this subject by bringing together a diverse range of authors who have been actively involved either in analyzing the activities of the European Union or participating in them.The contributors go beyond a primarily institutional approach by highlighting issues having to do with values, participation, and exclusion. Collectively this volume also transcends the limitations of abstract theory. Embracing a range of perspectives, and including discussions of major contemporary challenges, such as enlargement and economic and monetary union, this book contains a detailed analysis of the response of New Labour to the democratization debate. The contributions include: Sue Cohen, "Social Solidarity in the Delors Period"; Sverker Gustavsson, "Reconciling Suprastatism and Accountability: A View from Sweden"; Stefano Fella, "A Europe of the Peoples? New Labour and Democratizing the EU"; John Lambert and Catherine Hoskyns, "How Democratic is the European Parliament?"; Valerio Lintner, "Controlling Monetary Union"; Mary Kaldor, "Eastern Enlargement and Democracy"; Richard Kuper, "Democratization: A Constitutionalizing Process"; and Catherine Hoskyns, "Democratizing the EU: Evidence and Argument."Democratizing the European Union is essential reading for all those with an interest in the EU and broader questions of democracy. It is also particularly useful for students of European Studies and practitioners involved in EU policymaking and lobbying.
Explores consequences of European Parliament elections; whether party system change is to be expected as a result of deficient EU policy representation. Summary in Italian.
In the constellation of international governance regimes, the European Union occupies a singular place, and not merely because it has recently engaged in the process of drafting a document whose title includes the words A Constitution for Europe'. Even if that particular document, or any such document, were never to see the light of day as a fully adopted and ratified instrument (an eventuality I consider to be unlikely), the EU will already have been constitutionalised, albeit in a fashion unfamiliar to those who, like most of us, are accustomed to the constitutions of Nation States. To claim that the EU may properly be understood as a constitutional experiment may be to push quite far the boundaries of what is an acceptable definition of a constitution, but that is what the EU experience challenges us to do. One best begins by not even mentioning the terms constitution or constitutional, but rather by making a simple observation, albeit a seemingly paradoxical one. On the one hand, the EU has in various iterations – the original European Coal and Steel Community, the European Economic Community, the European Community, the European Union – travelled further along the road away from 'pure' intergovernmentalism than virtually any other international governance r6gime, and than one might realistically ever have imagined at the outset. No other international governance regime can even plausibly present itself as governing a 'polity', especially a polity in the most day-today, operational, 'business as usual' sense of the term. And yet, viewed from a greater distance and over time, the EU does seem to be beset by a pattern of vicissitude and more than occasional crisis. Some of these vicissitudes and crises are not altogether unusual or atypical of constitutional r6gimes. (I think, by way of example, of the resignation of the Santer Commission under pressure by the European Parliament.) But others of them are more unusual, and their chronic character inevitably raises the question of just how much it is in the EU that has been 'constituted'. Surely the collapse last December in Brussels of the constitution-adopting project is one of those.
