Suchergebnisse

Political Science; European Union - De serie 'Werkdocumenten' omvat stukken die in het kader van de werkzaamheden van de WRR tot stand zijn gekomen en die op aanvraag door de raad beschikbaar worden gesteld. De verantwoordelijkheid voor de inhoud en de ingenomen standpunten berust bij de auteurs.

1996 was a y ear of both gridlock and reform for the European Union. The EU experienced one of its major institutional crises with the Mad Cow Disease. ltwas equally confronted with only minor progress in the ongoing Intergovernmental Conference for institutional reform as no major breakthroughs could be expected before the UK elections of May 1997. However, some major achievements occured as well. The adoption of the Stability Pact at the Dublin Summit in December increased the credibility of the EMU-project seriously. At the same time, the EU intensified its efforts to improve its trade relations with different parts of the world, especially South and South-East-Asia. At the same time however, the Commission bas been confronted with increasing disputes on the way in which it uses its prerogatives in competition policy and the enforcement of implementation.

In 1995 the newly enlarged European Union has proved to be capable to handle its problems and to take decisions in a large array of issues. The EU tried to cope with unemployment, continued the preparation of the third stage of the Economic and Monetary Union, adopted its 1996 budget decisions relatively smoothly, and intensified its relations with different parts of the world. On the other hand however, enlargement itself is increasingly affecting the Union as it preparing itself for the upcoming accession of some of its Central European and Mediterranean neighbors. The northern member states look with some suspicion at the budgetary consequences and already show a lot of restraint in paying more to the EU-budget, for the sake of their southern counterparts. Some member states are looking for a balanced enlargement in which the eastern enlargement would be counterbalanced by a Mediterranean one, and for a balance in the financial support that is provided by the EU to third countries. The biggest issue is however, the institutional adaptation of the European Union to a new enlargement. The preparations of the 1996 Intergovernmental Conferencethat took place in 1995, have shown however, that this process will be a difficult one. With the 1995 enlargement, the European Union has increased the number ofmember states that perceive the process of European integration primarily as an economic one. This will make institutional adaptations more difficult and risks to paralyze the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the Union even more than it already did in the past few years. Stated differently, 1995 has left a number of question marks on the EU's future. Whether these will disappear soon, 1996 will show.

In view of the pessimism on the two EU presidencies (Greece and Germany) before 1994 and ofa number ofpolitica[ breakthroughs that has been reached during that year, one can say that the last year of the Tweve (since 1995 the EU consists of fifteen members) has been relatively succesful. It was a year in which the economic recession came to an end, in which the enlargement negotiations have been concluded, and in which the Europe Agreements entered into force. At the same time, however, 1994 showed the first signs of future problems with which the enlarged EU wilt have to cope. The expected eastern and southern enlargements wilt necessitate institutional adaptations and wilt intensify the already bitter discussions on the EU's budget. At the same time, the EU wilt have to find ways to cape with rising unemployment. This will have to happen in a period during which the member states are having difficulties to fullfil the budgetary conditions of Maastricht. In other words, the difficult years are not yet over for the process of European integration.

After the disappointments of 1992, however a year that engendered a lot of expectations, it was not difficult for the European Union to perform better in 1993. But even then, the European Union has not been spared from serious difficulties. The economic recession raged through the old continent as never before and the stability and the survival of the ERM came under severe pressure. Only the last three months seemed to provide the first indications of a slow recovery. The Maastricht Treaty came finally into force, monetary stability came back and the first signs of the end of the recession showed-up. In the light of the serious political and institutional burdens of the enlargement of1995, one can only hope that this recovery will continue further.

During the past year, the European integration process steadily continued along familiar as well as less familiar paths. This contribution gives an overview of the core decisions made within the three pillars of the European construction in the year 2000. Although the vast majority of these decisions were closely linked to the approaching Eastern enlargement of the European Union, new avenues have been followed during the past year as well. The debate about the finality of the European integration process gained, by way ofspeeches of European leaders like Joschka Fischer, Jacques Chirac, Tony Blair and Guy Verhofstadt, fifty years after the Schuman declaration, a new momentum.

In spite of its importance in European Union decision making, research on the functioning of the Council is scarce (Wessels, 1991). Based on empirical findings this article gives some new insights in the way Council decision making is institutionalized. The first part focusses on the characteristics of Council working groups and the different positions of actors in the decision making network. Our findings confirm the definition of the Council as a highly bureaucratized institution. Interesting is that the diversity of tasks of the different actors(working groups, Coreper, CSA etc.) strengthens the impact of national administrations in Council decision making. The second part explores the reasons for this impact. This article adds to the functional approach, which over-emphasizes the adaptive character of the Council, the perception of the Council as an intergovernmental component in a supranational system.