Suchergebnisse

"The Common Agricultural Policy: A Case of Embedded Liberalism" published on by Oxford University Press.

In the system of multilevel democracy emerging from the Lisbon Treaty, the ordinary legislative procedure (OLP) embodies the idea that it is possible to have democratic law-making in a polity characterized by a plurality of organized demoi. This article takes stock of this idea by examining what role democratic aspirations played in the invention of the OLP and how this procedure has affected EU policy-making processes, legislative outputs, and political participation in critical new areas of market regulation. Though the OLP is no silver bullet for EU democracy, it embeds the EU policy-making process in a rule-based logic. Its democratic effects are intimately bound up with the evolving institutions of the so-called legislative trilogues.

This article takes stock of Europe's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP),
the single largest common policy in today's European Union. Change
and continuity are examined in light of past political pacts and the
upcoming enlargement of the Union to ten new European countries. Two iron
pacts—between France and Germany, and between national governments
and their respective farm constituencies—have cast a long shadow
over European farm policy. The article shows how consumer groups,
proponents of agricultural trade liberalization, and the enlargement
process have affected these pacts and opened avenues for reform. While
reform will continue to be incremental in the medium term, two
trajectories of change are discernible in the long term: a "great carve
up" scenario, where the CAP will progressively be dismantled as a policy
and institution, or a "save the CAP by reforming it" scenario, where
the CAP will remain in existence, but rebuilt on different principles.

AbstractStudies of agricultural change in the EU have disregarded the European Parliament on the grounds that it enjoys limited formal policy‐making prerogatives in this domain. Contrary to perceptions of parliamentary powerlessness, it is argued here that European Parliament committees can steer change by manipulating the formal institutional parameters defining their actions. The analysis shows how shifting patterns of farm politics in the last 15 years have enabled the European Parliament to promote key public concerns on the EU farm agenda. It fits one more piece into the puzzle of agricultural change by shedding light on the work of parliamentary committees.