Suchergebnisse

The process of establishing a constitution for Europe came to an end when voters in France and the Netherlands rejected the proposal. Analyzing both media coverage and survey data, this article seeks to disentangle the reasons why a majority of voters rejected the European Constitution. The authors' findings suggest that the campaign played an important role in priming certain attitudes and that vote choices, in turn, were driven by specific issue concerns rather than general dissatisfaction with the European Union or national governments. These findings have implications not only for our understanding of direct democracy in Europe but also for the study of campaign effects. Adapted from the source document.

This paper analyzes the impact of decentralization on overall fiscal performance in the European Union, taking into account fiscal institutional arrangements. We find that spending decentralization has been associated with sizably better fiscal performance, especially when transfer dependency of subnational governments is low. However, subnational fiscal rules do not seem to be associated with better performance

Purpose: The concept of green growth gained in importance as a result of the recent financial and economic downturn. In the opinion of many experts it is a potential way of achieving a long-term goal, that is, sustainable development. An essential role in the context of green growth is attributed to the agricultural sector. The authors attempted to establish a synthetic measure of the level of green growth in agriculture. Design/Methodology/Approach: Research was carried out based on the taxonomic linear ordering method. The reference years 2000-2017 were chosen due to data availability on Eurostat, FAO and OECD database. Due to the existing information gap, 25 EU countries were accepted for analysis. Findings: The analysis showed that Poland is characterized by the highest level of green growth in agriculture, while Cyprus received the lowest rating. Generalizing the results of the study, it can be stated that the level of 'greening' agriculture in European Union countries is insufficient. Practical Implications: The results fill in the existing information gap by providing an answer to the fundamental question: How can green growth in agriculture be evaluated synthetically? The proposed method advances the OECD approach by adding evaluation metrics to assess the performance of each country relative to other jurisdictions by indicator and by a synthetic measure. This allows countries to clearly identify areas where their performance is weak and to prioritize their mitigation measures accordingly. Originality/Value: The proposed method advances the OECD approach by adding evaluation metrics to assess the performance of each country relative to other jurisdictions by indicator and by a synthetic measure. This allows countries to clearly identify areas where their performance is weak and to prioritize their mitigation measures accordingly. ; peer-reviewed

Justice is a contested concept. A more graspable version of it, it is argued in this paper, is an understanding of it in the context of what is deemed as "injustice" rather than justice. As such, the paper takes a markedly different approach than the perspectives which have emerged so far. A main theme of this paper is the disjunction between, on the one hand, strong reactions to injustice, and a desire for some affective dimension to the EU, some normative adhesive that might bind the EU as an ethical entity; and on the other, the very great difficulty in identifying an enforceable concept of justice in an EU that continues to be driven by a market mentality. There will always remain a gap between the aspiration for justice and its achievement. While the notion of an EU that does not aspire to justice is unthinkable, and EU law must at least hold out a prospect of justice, the gap between aspiration and achievement remains huge. However, this paper also argues that it is the very sui generis, supranational status of the EU that creates particular obstacles to the realisation of a shared sense of justice. Due to this structural limitation, it is argued that any agreed concept of justice will remain minimalist. However, human rights remain a powerful symbolic and actual force for justice and a better focus for its achievement, whether we understand them as a singular articulation of justice, or as free-standing moral concepts in their own right. It is also crucial to retain a strong sense of injustice and to assess every element of EU law on that basis. This discussion paper is part of a series of contributions to the conference "Towards a Grammar of Justice in EU Law", which took place on 6-7 November 2014 at VU University Amsterdam, sponsored by ACCESS EUROPE Amsterdam, VU Centre for European Legal Studies and the Dutch Research Council VENI grant. (author's abstract)

This paper analyzes multilateral aid allocation in the European Union (EU). We argue that EU members can influence the aid allocation process toward their national interests if they form powerful coalitions that bias the European Commission's development policies. When EU members' preferences over aid allocation are heterogeneous, the Commission can implement multilateral aid according to its programmatic goals. Greater homogeneity of EU members' goals, however, increases the likelihood that members can form powerful interest coalitions and induce the Commission to allocate aid according to their own national interests. The empirical analysis provides robust support for our theoretical argument, and the findings generally indicate that interest coalitions play an important role in multilateral aid allocation. Adapted from the source document.

This article analyses broadly the European Union's (EU) growing geopolitical ambitions in the context of its shifting stance on China. Within the EU, it focuses on the Germany–China Comprehensive Strategic Partnership by noting the current developments and changes in the Germany–China partnership. Here, the discontinuity between the 'old' and 'new' obstacles in Germany–China trade relations is identified through an analysis of four critical issues: Germany's Federation of German Industries (BDI) policy paper, Made in China 2025, Germany's Industrie 4.0 and Germany's 5G conundrum. Through the above, the article makes the argument that though there are considerable new strains on Germany–China relations and EU–China relations, concrete transformations affecting trade relations have not been observed. The article concludes by noting that the achievement of the new-found geopolitical ambitions of the EU would require a much more concentrated effort by all members rather than mere posturing.

The influence of the Nordic countries on the European Union's (EU's) policy processes has been researched from various angles, but there is a lack of research that comprehensively examines all policy positions advanced by Nordic actors within a given policy context. This article introduces a new design for studying policy positions and influence in the EU and examines the phenomenon from a multilevel perspective using an original data set compiled in connection to three directives: the Floods Directive on the assessment and management of flood risks, the Environmental Liability Directive, and the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive. The analysis reveals that the Nordic countries follow a certain pattern of influencing EU policy that deviates from other states participating in the consultations. Nordic governmental actors exert a strong technical but weak directional influence in the chosen context but are, overall, more successful than Nordic organizational actors at influencing the policy process.

AbstractThis paper asks what explains the creation and comparative features of national Investment Screening Mechanisms (ISMs) in Europe. After providing a brief history and definition of ISMs, we provide descriptive patterns about the similarities and differences in the investment screening features of national ISMs in EU member states. We then explain differences in national screening policies by focusing on the role of public debt, Chinese investment, R&D expenditures and various geographic groupings. Finally, we make three policy arguments about the rise of ISMs in Europe: (1) ISMs have not been designed as protectionist instruments, (2) the politics of inward investment screening reflects a shift from economic to security logic in addressing the fundamental tension between the benefits and vulnerabilities of open markets and (3) the EU can use the 'commercialisation' of security to extend its own competence in the security sphere. We conclude by considering how the rapid expansion of investment screening in Europe could affect economic openness, as well as the role of the EU as a global actor.

THIS ARTICLE SURVEYS WHAT THE DELORS REPORTS CONTAINS AND IN WHAT SENSE IT MAY BE REGARDED AS CONTROVERSIAL. IT REVIEWS WHAT ECONOMIC AND MONETARY UNION WOULD INVOLVE, IT DISCUSSES THE PROPOSED THREE-STAGE APPROACH TO UNION, AND ASSESSES WHETHER AFTER THE CONTROVERSY AND AFTER THE MADRID SUMMIT, THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY HAS COME ANY CLOSER TO ECONOMIC AND MONETARY UNION.