Suchergebnisse

Energy policy has been considered as a "special case of Europeanization," due to its tardy and patchy development as a domain of EU activity as well as its important but highly contested external dimension. Divergent energy pathways across Member States and the sensitivity of this policy domain have militated against a unified European Energy Policy. And yet, since the mid-2000s cooperation in this policy area has picked up speed, leading to the adoption of the Energy Union, presented by the European Commission as the most ambitious energy initiative since the European Coal and Steel Community. This dynamism has attracted growing scholarly attention, seeking to determine whether, why and how European Energy Policy has consolidated against all odds during a particularly critical moment for European integration. The underlying question that emerges in this context is whether the Energy Union represents a step forward towards a more homogenous and joined-up energy policy or, rather a strategy to manage heterogeneity through greater flexibility and differentiated integration. Given the multilevel and multisectoral character­ istics of energy policy, answering these questions requires a three-fold analysis of (1) the degree of centralization of European Energy Policy (vertical integration), (2) the coher­ ence between energy sub-sectors (cross-sectoral integration), and (3) the territorial ex­ tension of the energy acquis beyond the EU Member States (horizontal integration). Tak­ en together, the Energy Union has catalyzed integration on the three dimensions. First, EU institutions are formally involved in almost every aspect of energy policy, including sensitive areas such as ensuring energy supplies. Second, the Energy Union, with its new governance regulation, brings under one policy framework energy sub-sectors that had developed in silos. And finally, energy policy is the only sector that has generated a multi­ lateral process dedicated to the integration of non-members into the EU energy market. However, this ...

Summary presented at the start of the article: " 'Development cooperation' is one of the traditional policy domains of the European Union (EU). Over the years it advanced from an instrument used in colonial times to one of modern partnership, although European self-interest remains a driving force. Jointly, the EU and its member states are the largest development donor in the world and also provide sizable market access and investment to developing countries. Their overall performance record has been assessed fairly positively by internal and external parties, although many possible improvements have been identified. The various enlargements of the EU traceably supported a widening of the geographic and substantive scope of EU development policies and practice. In addition, EU development cooperation was reinforced by the fact that it gradually received a firmer basis in the constituent EU treaties. The 'European Consensus on Development' document, as revised in 2017, laid out the main direction of and emphases in EU development cooperation until the year 2030. The European Consensus prescribed a rights-based approach, and squarely placed the United Nations "Agenda 2030" and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) contained in it, as the main framework and objectives for EU development cooperation. A wide range of actors is involved in EU development cooperation, in part because this is an area of shared competence among the EU member states that pursue their own national policies as well as those specified by the EU. Thus, EU actors such as the European Commission, Council, and Parliament feature in this policy field along with EU member states and individual or collective developing country actors. The most prominent example of this is the African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) Group of States, which consists of 79 countries. Civil society organizations, including non-governmental development organizations, both from the North and the South, also seek to influence or otherwise engage with the policies and ...

Interest representation plays a systemic role in EU policy making and integration, recognised as such in the Treaty on European Union. Interest organisations supply technical and political information to the EU institutions, and EU institutions use interest organisations as agents of political communication. Interest organisations act as a proxy for an otherwise largely absent civil society, with a teeming population of groups advocating for every imaginable cause. Where groups are absent, so EU institutions have stimulated their formation. The result is a pluralist system of checks and balances, although the literature includes findings of 'islands' resembling corporatist practice. EU institutions have designed a range of procedures in support of 'an open and structured dialogue between the Commission and special interest groups,' now largely packaged as a 'Better Regulation' programme. Measures include funding for NGOs, consultation procedures accompanied by impact assessments, a Transparency Register to provide lobbying transparency, and measures for access to documents that enable civil society organisations to keep EU institutions accountable. A multi-level governance system further strengthens pluralist design, making it impossible for any one type of interest to routinely capture the diversity of EU decision making. A key controversy in the literature is how to assess influence, and whether lobbying success varies across interest group type. EU public policy making is regulatory, making for competitive interest group politics, often between different branches of business whose interests are affected differently by regulatory proposals. There are striking findings from the literature, including that NGOs are more successful than business organisations in getting what they want from EU public policy making, particularly where issues reach the status of high salience where they attract the attention of the European Parliament. A key innovation of the Lisbon Treaty involves a European Citizens' Initiative, ...

The implementation of European Union directives into national law frequently triggers extensive parliamentary activities, especially if they are complex, salient, and conflictive. These activities can cause delayed transposition. The literature suggests that early parliamentary involvement may speed up the subsequent transposition process. In this article, it is argued theoretically and empirically shown that this hope is only fulfilled where parliaments are sufficiently strong. On the empirical side, the article looks at the effect of ex-ante scrutiny on the duration of the transposition of more than 650 directives in four weak parliaments as well as in four strong parliaments. It is found that an early involvement of strong parliaments may speed up transposition. By contrast, weak parliaments' early engagement with EU directives may even cause a further delay of the transposition process.

According to the 'opposition deficit thesis' European Union politics is characterized by a conspicuous absence of opposition to the policies promoted by the EU. However, once we start looking for systematic evidence supporting the claim of an opposition deficit in EU politics, we come up surprisingly empty handed. This article seeks to rectify the lacuna in previous research by examining how much and what type of opposition actually exist in EU politics. The study formulates four hypotheses on the state of political opposition in EU politics, and breaks new ground by testing their validity by use of unique data collected from the Swedish European Affairs Committee for the period 1995–2016. The results show there is in fact considerably more opposition present in EU politics than has previously been assumed. The opposition deficit thesis thus seems to be more myth than reality.

This study highlights both the significance and impact of the developing changes in the last decades around Europe, the notion-related adjustments that remain to be carried and in parallel to provide a more general explanation concerning the institution of sovereignty in relation to the process of European integration. The main questions that this article seeks to answer are the following: Who governs who within the EU? How does the European nexus of institutions and governance affect sovereignty? Which are the main consequences of the Maastricht's framework in relation to sovereignty? In order to provide an answer to the above questions, we intend to analyze the relationship of the institution of sovereignty and the ability of exercising independent economic policy within the EMU as well as reexamine the development of this relationship in close regard to the process of European integration. The major contribution of this research is that offers a complementary study in order to understand better the relationship between European integration and state sovereignty. This research integrates sovereignty in the current debates, and provides an exegesis not only for the main factors that affect the transformation of the EMU but also for the limits of the European integration.

Which member states could leave the European Union in the years ahead? To answer this question, I develop the 'EU Exit Index' measuring the exit propensities of all European Union member states. The index highlights that the United Kingdom was an outlier and uniquely positioned to leave the European Union. While all other states are far behind the United Kingdom, the index still reveals substantial variation among them. Moreover, the index allows monitoring the development of exit propensities over time. It shows that the European Union is in better shape today than before the Brexit referendum and that, currently, no further exits are on the horizon. Still, this could change in the future and the EU Exit Index provides systematic and reproducible measurements to track this development.

The personalization of politics is a popular thesis but often challenged when it comes to media personalization. While previous research compared the prominence of different types of political actors across national political contexts, this article situates its research in the context of European Union (EU) politics and, thereby, studies similar reference points across countries. Its focus lies on the European Commission and its members. Personalization is conceptualized as individualization and presidentialization, respectively. The article proposes that the EU integration process provides journalists with the opportunity to report more often about individual politicians, while political developments should further incentivize journalists to personalize their news from Brussels. To test this argument, the article investigates personalization patterns in seven broadsheets from Ireland, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, and Poland. In total, 119,070 articles are analyzed by automated content analysis over a period of twenty-five years. The article finds no pan-European trend toward greater personalization of politics with respect to news coverage of EU executive politics. The findings nonetheless provide important implications for future research. The article particularly discusses the universal applicability of the phenomenon, the time frame for analysis, and journalistic styles in covering European politics.

Decades of liberalization have transformed the original structure of the EC common market, being a synonym of the validity of the Four Freedoms — free movement of persons, goods, services and capital — into an integral instrument for conducting EU economic policy, but not without many constraints, both formal and informal. The process of globalization of the world economy means, in the opinion of EU institutions, that currently the European Union more than ever needs a single market that would support reforms to boost growth and increase its competitiveness. The Single Market Acts of 2011 and 2012 suggest measures to further its development. It is treated as a continuous process. However, for many Member States the evolution of the single market is a kind of a perpetual transaction — a tender, in which a concession to EU group interests is expected equivalent of particular benefit. Quite often all concessions are treated by public authorities as downright harmful to the national interest, especially in times of economic and financial crisis. The aim of this paper is an attempt to answer the question why building consensus on further proceeding to the single market is seemingly more difficult to achieve than ever in the past? The problem looks even more serious, once we accept as a starting point the "bicycle theory", which shows that the halting of the evolution of the single market may cause the opposite process — the disintegration of the EU market.

Decades of liberalization have transformed the original structure of the EC common market, being a synonym of the validity of the Four Freedoms — free movement of persons, goods, services and capital — into an integral instrument for conducting EU economic policy, but not without many constraints, both formal and informal. The process of globalization of the world economy means, in the opinion of EU institutions, that currently the European Union more than ever needs a single market that would support reforms to boost growth and increase its competitiveness. The Single Market Acts of 2011 and 2012 suggest measures to further its development. It is treated as a continuous process. However, for many Member States the evolution of the single market is a kind of a perpetual transaction — a tender, in which a concession to EU group interests is expected equivalent of particular benefit. Quite often all concessions are treated by public authorities as downright harmful to the national interest, especially in times of economic and financial crisis. The aim of this paper is an attempt to answer the question why building consensus on further proceeding to the single market is seemingly more difficult to achieve than ever in the past? The problem looks even more serious, once we accept as a starting point the "bicycle theory", which shows that the halting of the evolution of the single market may cause the opposite process — the disintegration of the EU market.

There is no shortage of would-be leaders in EU climate change politics. The EU institutions (e.g. European Council, Council of the EU, Commission and the European Parliament (EP)), member states and societal actors have all, though to varying degrees and at different time periods, tried to offer leadership in EU and international climate change politics. Importantly, public support for EU environmental policy in general, and climate change policy in particular, has been consistently high (e.g. Eurobarometer 2015). The economic recession which followed the 2008 financial crises triggered only a moderate drop in public support for EU action on climate change, although considerable variation exists between member states.

Research on the European Union over the past few years has been strongly implicated in the crises that currently grip Europe with a failure to ask the pertinent questions as well as a perceived weakness in the methods and evidence used by researchers providing the basis for these allegations. This volume moves the study of EU research strategies beyond the dichotomies of the past towards a new agenda for research on Europe through a rich diversity of problem-solving based research. This new agenda acknowledges the weaknesses of the past and moves beyond them towards greater openness and awareness of the importance of research strategies, designs and methods. The 20 chapters in this collection range from micro-level analyses of identities, single policy studies and European discourse, through meso-level analysis of agenda setting, bargaining, implementation and Europeanisation, to macro-level analyses of the EU as a global actor, European integration and globalisation as well as hard and soft governance, elections and party groups, attitude formation, and new-regionalism. As such, it provides a comprehensive and accessible guide to conducting research on the European Union today.

Denmark's relationship with the European Union (EU) takes its point of departure in the Danish self-perception of being a minor power with a superior societal model. This calls for both adaptation to the power realities of the European political space and resistance against infringements of the Danish societal model, occasionally supplemented by attempts at actively influencing EU policy-making. Denmark's general EU posture is reactive and defensive with a stronger focus on defending autonomy than influencing the future of the EU. It is pragmatic and functionalist, seeking primarily to utilize EU membership to secure the economic sustainability of the welfare state. Danish EU policy is increasingly characterized by dualism, navigating the integration dilemma in a way that allows for simultaneous protection against political integration and uploading of Danish interests to the EU level. ; Denmark's relationship with the European Union (EU) takes its point of departure in the Danish self-perception of being a minor power with a superior societal model. This calls for both adaptation to the power realities of the European political space and resistance against infringements of the Danish societal model, occasionally supplemented by attempts at actively influencing EU policy-making. Denmark's general EU posture is reactive and defensive with a stronger focus on defending autonomy than influencing the future of the EU. It is pragmatic and functionalist, seeking primarily to utilize EU membership to secure the economic sustainability of the welfare state. Danish EU policy is increasingly characterized by dualism, navigating the integration dilemma in a way that allows for simultaneous protection against political integration and uploading of Danish interests to the EU level.

This contribution to the panel on the future to EMU discusses the tensions that arise from the fact that banks are, on the one hand, an essential element of the monetary transmission mechanism and, on the other hand, an integral part of local, regional or national polities. Banking union can eliminate or at least reduce some of the procrastination that has allowed maintained bank weaknesses to persist and harmed the transmission of monetary policy but, whereas the SSM has been fairly successful, resolution is still not working properly and needs further reforms. At the same time, banking union suffers from the problem that interventions from Brussels or Frankfurt are seen as infringements of national sovereignty that lack political legitimacy. The conflict between supranational and national interests is ultimately irresolvable but, if EMU is to survive, measures must be taken to limit its impact.

In international politics, what do the leaders of the European Union (EU) want? How do they understand international relations and how do they see the EU in world politics? The goal of this paper is to provide an introduction to the collective research on 'European Worldviews'. This research applies first-image thinking, in particular Nathan Leites' operational code analysis, to five key figures and office holders of the European Union: Javier Solana, Robert Cooper, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Peter Mandelson and Joseph Borg. We explore these EU officials' worldviews, the set of ideas and values about history and politics which shape their political strategies and their action. First, the paper puts the analysis of European worldviews in a wider theoretical context: the revival of idea-based explanation in International Relations and the rise of realist theories of foreign policy taking policymakers' strategic assessments and problem-solving styles seriously. Second, the paper presents the operational code approach, and explain its added value to analyze European worldviews. Third, it focuses on the relations between worldviews and the EU in world politics. Finally, this paper argues that European worldviews matter because they are deeply embedded in political action and provide identity and power to the EU in world politics. They interact with the individual characteristics of policy-makers, with the institutional context of their action, and with the international environment in which they act. The conclusion spells out a research agenda and suggests some policy implications.