The current political, economic and financial crises facing the EU reveal a deeper cultural, indeed spiritual, malaise - a crisis in 'the soul of Europe'. Many observers are concluding that the EU cannot be restored to health without a new appreciation of the contribution of religion to its past and future, and especially that of its hugely important but widely neglected Christian heritage, which is alive today even amidst advancing European secularization. God and the EU offers a fresh, constructive and critical understanding of Christian contributions to the origin and development of the EU from a variety of theological, national and political perspectives. It explains the Christian origins of the EU; documents the various ways in which it has been both affirmed and critiqued from diverse theological perspectives; offers expert, theologically-informed assessments of four illustrative policy areas of the EU (religion, finance, environment, science); and also reports on the place of religion in the EU, including how religious freedom is framed and how contemporary religious actors relate to EU institutions and vice versa. This book fills a major gap in the current debate about the future of the European project and will be of interest to students and scholars of religion, politics and European studies.

"The book is highly impressive in its range, integrating such issues as the impact of the Cuban missile crisis into its account of Franco-American relations and the implications for France's position in Europe. It is also impressive in its command of intricate detail in the technical, economic sphere and in high-level negotiations, as well as in behind-the-scenes maneuvers taking place in parallel to more overt diplomacy." . French Studies

"Sutton's important work has the merit of making known a whole range of French historiography that, because of not being available in English translation, is not accessible to scholars who do not read French. At the same time, he brings together, in an original manner, the main results of historical research on the role of France in Europe, a theme that is of vital importance still today." . Modern & Contemporary France

" The author] has written an excellent chronicle of the central episodes of European construction, from the invention of the ECSC to the Maastricht Treaty and beyond, keeping French initiatives, breakthroughs, and missteps clearly in view. He has also made the more recondite economic complexities of the story intelligible to general readers. As a result, Sutton has produced an important overview of European integration that highlights the influence French leaders exerted in building what by the 1990s had become the fundamental structures of the European Union we know today." . H-France

"Sutton has a feel both for the ongoing manoeuvres of the main protagonists and for the continuities of the broad picture. He keeps the context constantly in geopolitical focus, drawing upon a wide range of reliable secondary sources. His] scrupulous study will allow both protagonists and antagonists to recognize why the European show is still on the road, but now arouses fears rather than hopes." . European History Quarterly

."an excellent overall view." . Georges-Henri Soutou

In the second half of the twentieth century France played the greatest role - even greater than Germany's - in shaping what eventually became the European Union. By the early twenty-first century, however, in a hugely transformed Europe, this era had patently come to an end. This comprehensive history shows how France coupled the pursuit of power and the furtherance of European integration over a sixty-year period, from the close of the Second World War to the hesitation caused by the French electorate's referendum rejection of the European Union's constitutional treaty in 2005.

Michael Sutton is Professor Emeritus, Modern History and International Relations, at Aston University. He has written regularly on France for The Economist Intelligence Unit - part of The Economist newspaper group - since 1985, and worked in Brussels from 1973 to 1993 monitoring European Community developments. He is also a specialist in twentieth-century French political thought and philosophy."

This book is the first full-spectrum analysis of Russian and European norms of political action, ranging from international law, ethics, and strategy, to the specific norms for the use of force. It brings together leading scholars from these various fields, examining the differences in norm understanding between Russia and Europe. In light of the 2014 occupation and annexation of Crimea by Russia, and its subsequent covert participation in the internal affairs of Ukraine, including aggressive flying and major military exercises, Russia seems to be a classical revisionist power, intent on changing the balance of power in Europe in particular. It also reaches beyond Europe, inserting itself as the key actor in the Syrian war. The book therefore considers how we should understand Russia. It also questions whether or not the West, in particular Europe, responds adequately in this delicate and dangerous new situation. The book concludes that at present Russia acts strategically and with considerable success whereas Europe is reactive in its response.

European institutions are either loathed or underestimated. This book analyses the role of EU institutions in the area of European internal security. From Justice and Home Affairs, this area has become more like a European Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. In this process, the European Commission has demonstrably played the role of an `engine of integration' in areas such a counter-terrorism, policing, asylum, migration and border management. This book uses the framework of supranational policy entrepeuners (SPE), those who stand at the policy window in order to propose, lobby for and sell `their' policy proposal, and synthesises it with insights from the literature on norm entrepreneurship. This book will be of great interest to scholars and practitioners interested in European internal security, European integration, terrorism, security studies and international relations. -- .

First published in 1997. This book provides an extremely detailed analysis of the national decision-making processes of two of the principal players in the Maastricht negotiations, and a comprehensive discussion of the national, subnational and transnational actors central to the negotiating process.

Successive Enlargements to the European Union membership have transformed it into an economically, politically and culturally heterogeneous body with distinct vulnerabilities in its multi-level governance. This book analyses core-periphery relations to highlight the growing cleavage, and potential conflict, between the core and peripheral member-states of the Union in the face of the devastating consequences of Eurozone crisis. Taking a comparative and theoretical approach and using a variety of case studies, it examines how the crisis has both exacerbated tensions in centre-periphery relations within and outside the Eurozone, and how the European Union's economic and political status is declining globally. This text will be of key interest to students and scholars of European Union studies, European integration, political economy, public policy, and comparative politics.

Social cohesion is one of the declared objectives of the European Union and, with some 16% of EU citizens at risk of poverty, the need to fight poverty and social exclusion continues as a major challenge. This book provides an in-depth analysis of the EU Social Inclusion Process, the means by which it hopes to meet this objective, and explores the challenges ahead at local, regional, national and EU levels. It sets out concrete proposals for taking the Process forward. The book provides a unique analysis of policy formulation and assessment. Setting out the evolution and current state of EU cooperation in social policy, it examines what can be learned about poverty and social exclusion from the EU commonly agreed indicators. Taking the position of outside, but informed, observers, the authors explore the further development of the common indicators, including the implications of Enlargement, and consider the challenges of advancing the Social Inclusion Process - strengthening policy analysis, embedding the Process in domestic policies and making it more effective. Proposing the setting of targets and restructuring of National Action Plans and their implementation, they emphasise the need for widespread "ownership" of the Process at domestic and EU level and for it to demonstrate significant progress in reducing poverty and social exclusion. The book will be invaluable to academics, students and policy-makers at sub-national, national and EU levels as well as to social partners, and NGOs working towards a more inclusive society.

In a deeply iniquitous world, where the gains from trade are distributed unevenly and where trade rules often militate against progressive social values, human health, and sustainable development, NGOs are widely touted as our best hope for redressing these conditions. As a critical voice of the poor and marginalized, many are engaged in a global struggle for democratic norms and social justice. Yet the potential for NGOs to bring about meaningful change is limited. This book examines whether improvements in participatory opportunities for progressive NGOs results in substantive and normative policy change in one of the major trading powers, the European Union. Hannah advances a constructivist account of the role of NGOs in the EU's trade policymaking process. She argues that NGOs have been instrumental in providing education, raising awareness, and giving a voice to broader societal concerns about proposed trade deals, both when they take advantage of formal participatory opportunities and when they protest from the streets and in the media. However, the book also highlights how NGO inputs are mediated by the social structure of global trade governance. Epistemes-the background knowledge, ideological and normative beliefs, and shared assumptions about how the world works-determine who has a voice in global trade governance. Showing how NGOs succeed only when their advocacy conforms broadly to the dominant episteme, this book will be of value to scholars and students with an interest in NGOs and international trade negotiations. It will also be of interest to policymakers, national trade negotiators, government departments, and the trade policy community.

This book examines the process of Poland's accession negotiations to the European Union between 1998-2003. An empirical study based on Robert Putnam's two-level game model, it charts the influence and role of key domestic actors and groups on the negotiations especially in three critical, controversial, areas - areas where EU accession threatened to bring about a profound transformation to Polish life - agriculture, with particular emphasis on direct payments and production quotas; the purchase of real estate by foreigners; and the free movement of labour. This book demonstrates the complex interaction between the domestic and international level of negotiations and furthermore, shows how critical this link can be to negotiation outcomes at the international level. It reveals how susceptible Poland's negotiation process was to domestic pressure, particularly public opinion and interest groups. Drawing heavily on qualitative analysis - such as press releases, news wires, policy documents, as well as quantitative analyses, such as the use of opinion polls, and supported by in-depth, unrestricted interviews with key Polish decision-makers, this book examines the dynamics of policy formation in Poland and shows how this translated into the final conditions of accession.

This book investigates the perceptions of political actors towards the creation of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) in Europe. The research is largely based on personal interviews conducted with key informants in central banks, finance ministries, employers' organizations and trade unions in Britain, France and Germany. It examines why actors perceived EMU to serve or frustrate their interests. It concludes that actors favoured EMU for a variety of reasons. The book contributes to the literature of European integration and incorporates economic, political and historical facts.

The notion of the European Social Model (ESM) has been one of the fastest growing in European political and academic discourse in recent years. It is conventionally used to describe the European experience of simultaneously promoting sustainable economic growth and social cohesion. However, the concept has suffered from a lack of clear definition. And where definitions have been found in the literature, they do not necessarily converge. This book presents the outcome of a project coordinated by the European Trade Union Institute in which experts from different countries and social scientific disciplines (sociology, political science and economics) were invited to reflect on both the meaning and political status of the concept of the ESM. In addition to analysing the ambiguities and multiple meanings attributed to the concept, the authors unpick the underlying assumptions and make use of a new approach - the ESM as political project - with which European countries can build consensus and share a common understanding. Offering a new analytical framework and with new empirical evidence, "Unwrapping the European Social Model" is essential reading for all those involved in European social policy research, education, policy and practice.

This study analyzes foreign policymaking in reunified Germany. The contributors examine not only classical foreign policy institutions like the Chancellery, Foreign Office and Ministry of Defense, but also other organizations such as specialized ministries, the Länder Parliament, political parties, NGOs, and the media. Built on the insights of practical experience in diplomacy, administration, and Parliament as well as academic research, this volume offers an invaluable guide to German foreign policy since reunification and project its future development at the dawn of the 21st century.

The book is one of the few in-depth investigations into the nature of EU legal translation and its impact on national legal languages. It is also the first attempt to characterise EU Polish, a language of supranational law and a hybrid variant of legal Polish emerging via translation. The book applies Chesterman's concept of textual fit, that is how translations differ from non-translations, to demonstrate empirically on large corpora how the Polish eurolect departs from the conventions of legal and general Polish both at the macrostructural and microstructural level. The findings are juxtaposed with the pre-accession version of Polish law to track the 'Europeanisation' of legal Polish - recent changes brought about by the unprecedented inflow of EU translations.

Translated by Ciaran Cronin.

In the midst of the current crisis that is threatening to derail the historical project of European unification, Jurgen Habermas has been one of the most perceptive critics of the ineffectual and evasive responses to the global financial crisis, especially by the German political class. This extended essay on the constitution for Europe represents Habermas's constructive engagement with the European project at a time when the crisis of the eurozone is threatening the very existence of the European Union. There is a growing realization that the European treaty needs to be revised in order to deal with the structural defects of monetary union, but a clear perspective for the future is missing. Drawing on his analysis of European unification as a process in which international treaties have progressively taken on features of a democratic constitution, Habermas explains why the current proposals to transform the system of European governance into one of executive federalism is a mistake. His central argument is that the European project must realize its democratic potential by evolving from an international into a cosmopolitan community. The opening essay on the role played by the concept of human dignity in the genealogy of human rights in the modern era throws further important light on the philosophical foundations of Habermas's theory of how democratic political institutions can be extended beyond the level of nation-states. Now that the question of Europe and its future is once again at the centre of public debate, this important intervention by one of the greatest thinkers of our time will be of interest to a wide readership.

The financial crisis posed new challenges for the administrations of Eurozone countries, including: how to respect EU obligations when the economy is under stress? How to improve the overall implementation of EU policies and domestic reforms? How to negotiate effectively with the Troika and then quickly and efficiently fulfil the requirements of the Memoranda of Understanding? This volume offers the first analysis of EU coordination by national executives in the light of the legal and political consequences of the crisis, using case studies of five severely affected Member States: Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Italy, and Portugal. It examines from an interdisciplinary perspective how they have adapted their coordination systems since the outbreak of the crisis, shedding light on the adjustments undertaken by domestic administrations. The comparison reveals that in this process Prime Ministers and Ministers of Finance were empowered in a common shift towards the centralization of EU coordination.

Recent failures and rescues of large banks have resulted in colossal costs to society. In wake of such turmoil a new banking union must enable better supervision, pre-emptive coordinated action and taxpayer protection. While these aims are meritorious they will be difficult to achieve. This book explores the potential of a new banking union in Europe. This book brings together leading experts to analyse the challenges of banking in the European Union. While not all contributors agree, the constructive criticism provided in this book will help ensure that a new banking union will mature into a stable yet vibrant financial system that encourages the growth of economic activity and the efficient allocation of resources. This book will be of use to researchers interested in Banking, Monetary Economics and the European Union.

"As the most comprehensive scholarly venture to use the memory concept for a broad assessment of the dark legacies of Nazism, Communism, and World War II for a common European identity, the volume has no equal. It overwhelms the reader with a plethora of both new and well established information and reflection...The overall direction coincides with the current trend towards internationalization of national histories. It can be considered a strong contribution to this important and worthwhile trend." . Frank Trommler, University of Pennsylvania

An examination of the role of history and memory is vital in order to better understand why the grand design of a United Europe-with a common foreign policy and market yet enough diversity to allow for cultural and social differences-was overwhelmingly turned down by its citizens. The authors argue that this rejection of the European constitution was to a certain extent a challenge to the current historical grounding used for further integration and further demonstrates the lack of understanding by European bureaucrats of the historical complexity and divisiveness of Europe's past. A critical European history is therefore urgently needed to confront and re-imagine Europe, not as a harmonious continent but as the outcome of violent and bloody conflicts, both within Europe as well as with its Others. As the authors show, these dark shadows of Europe's past must be integrated, and the fact that memories of Europe are contested must be accepted if any new attempts at a United Europe are to be successful.

Ma gorzata Pakier has recently received a PhD from the European University Institute in Florence, Department of History and Civilization. She has published articles in Polish and English on discourses and images of the Holocaust in popular culture and film.

Bo Strath was Professor of Contemporary History at the European University Institute in Florence (1997-2007) and is currently Academy of Finland Distinguished Professor of Nordic, European and World History at Helsinki University. His research concentrates on questions of modernity and the use of history in a European and global perspective."

The European Union (EU) has emerged as a key actor in the global investment regime since the 1980s. At the same time, international investment policy and agreements, which govern international investment liberalisation, treatment and protection through investor-to-state dispute settlement, have become increasingly contentious in the European public debate. This book provides an accessible introduction to international investment policy and seeks to explain how the EU became an actor in the global investment regime. It offers a detailed analysis of the EU's participation in all major trade and investment negotiations since the 1980s and EU-internal competence debates to identify the causes behind the EU's growing role in this policy domain. Building on principal-agent and historical institutionalist models of incremental institutional change, the book shows that Commission entrepreneurship was instrumental in the emergence of the EU as a key actor in the global investment regime. It refutes business-centred liberal intergovernmental explanations, which suggest that business lobbying made the Member States accept the EU's growing role and competence in this domain. The book lends support to supranational and challenges intergovernmental thinking on European Integration. This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of European and regional integration, EU foreign relations, EU trade and international investment law, business lobbying, and more broadly of international political economy.

The question of how political parties are, and ought to be, regulated has assumed an increased importance in recent years, both within the scholarly community and among policy-makers and politicians as the state assumes an increasingly active role in the management of, and control over, their behaviour and organisation This book concentrates on the regulation of political parties in the EU post-communist democracies, and on Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Romania, in particular. In analysing the various dimensions of party regulation, it builds on the main premises derived from the neo-institutionalist literature in political science, concerning the ways in which the (formal and informal) rules and procedures may influence, constrain or determine the behaviour of political actors. In doing so, it provides a comprehensive overview of the regulation of Eastern European political parties provided by leading experts in the field and casts theoretical and empirical light on the manner in which the constitutional and legal regulation of party organizations and finances have had an impact (or not) on the consolidation of party politics in post-communist Europe since 1989. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of Political Parties and Behaviour, East European and Post-Communist Politics and Comparative Politics.

While Turkey in recent years has experienced an exhaustive accession process to join the EU -a long desired aim-, at the same time it has been increasing its involvement across the Middle East, leading to a debate over whether it is altering its focus from West to East. This book reveals that a shift in focus can be seen through analysis of the Turkish political elites' definitions of "self" and "other" that were established as part of the EU accession process. Melek Saral uses these definitions to help us better understand the shift that Turkey is currently undergoing.

Africa's association with the European Union has long been hailed as a progressive model of North-South relations. European officials, in particular, have represented the Africa-EU 'partnership' as a pro-poor enterprise in which trade interests are married to development prerogatives. Applying a moral economy perspective, this book examines the tangible impact of Africa-Europe trade and development co-operation on citizens in developing countries. In so doing, it challenges liberal accounts of Europe's normative power to enable benevolent change in the Global South and illuminates how EU discourse acts to legitimise unequal trade ties that have regressive consequences for 'the poor'. Drawing upon the author's own fieldwork, it assesses the difference between norms and the actual impact of EU concessions in relation to: budget support; aid for trade; private sector development (PSD); decent work. It concludes by considering the value of a moral economy approach in the assessment of free trade structures more widely. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of Africanist IPE, European studies, and more broadly international political economy, international development, and international relations.

Europe Un-Imagined examines one of the world's first and only trans nationally produced television channels, Association relative a la television europeenne (ARTE). ARTE calls itself the "European culture channel" and was launched in 1991 with a French-German intergovernmental mandate to produce television and other media that promoted pan-European community and culture. Damien Stankiewicz's ground-breaking ethnographic study of the various contexts of media production work at ARTE (the newsroom, the editing studio, the screening room), reveals how ideas about French, German, and European culture coalesce and circulate at the channel. He argues that the reproduction of nationalism often goes unacknowledged and unremarked upon, and questions whether something like a European "imagination" can be produced. Stankiewicz describes the challenges that ARTE staff face, including rapidly changing media technologies and audiences, unreflective national stereotyping, and unwieldy bureaucratic infrastructure, which ultimately limit the channel's abilities to cultivate a transnational, "European" public. Europe Un-Imagined challenges its readers to find new ways of thinking about how people belong in the world beyond the problematic logics of national categorization.

Modern constitutionalism as an idea and practice is facing great uncertainty in current times. Scholarly debates focus predominantly on constitutions beyond the state, while the predicament of domestic constitutionalism is much less considered. This volume contributes to a theoretically informed analysis of the key challenges and changes affecting domestic constitutionalism in Europe and beyond, departing from the idea of 'constitutional acceleration' or the increased propensity of different actors to engage in (formal) reform of the constitutional order. The volume points to a fundamental change in the function of constitutions in that constitutions themselves are increasingly subjects of political contestation rather than framing political debates. The collection of essays addresses a range of critical challenges - including societal acceleration, depoliticization, civic engagement, multi-faceted constituent power, modernization, populism and nationalism, and transnationalization. The volume includes a variety of disciplinary, and in some cases interdisciplinary, approaches, including (political) sociology, political science, constitutional law, and constitutional and legal theory, and will be of interest to researchers and students in any of these areas. Case studies focus on the EU and the wider European context, and include highly relevant but little known or ill-understood cases, such as the recent constitutional events in Iceland, Italy, or Romania, and cases of democratic reversal, such as Hungary, while also engaging with traditional but rapidly changing cases of constitutional interest, such as the UK.

The book gathers a group of scholars interested in both public international law and EU law to cover different facets of the relationship between the European Union and customary international law. Considering the distinct perspectives taken by international law and EU law, while also looking into the space in between the two, individual chapters tackle complex questions such as whether and on what bases the European Union is bound by customary international law as a matter of international law and EU law; how the European Union contributes to the development of international custom; and how different stakeholders - the Court of Justice of the European Union, the EU's political organs and EU citizens - rely upon customary rules. The book thus offers a systematic account of the relevance of customary international law for the external relations and internal functioning of what is no doubt the most remarkable regional international organization of our time.

Since 2010 Greece has been experiencing the longest period of austerity and economic downturn in its recent history. Economic changes may be happening more rapidly and be more visible than the cultural effects of the crisis which are likely to take longer to become visible, however in recent times, both at home and abroad, the Greek arts scene has been discussed mainly in terms of the crisis. While there is no shortage of accounts of Greece's economic crisis by financial and political analysts, the cultural impact of austerity has yet to be properly addressed. This book analyses hitherto uncharted cultural aspects of the Greek economic crisis by exploring the connections between austerity and culture. Covering literary, artistic and visual representations of the crisis, it includes a range of chapters focusing on different aspects of the cultural politics of austerity such as the uses of history and archaeology, the brain drain and the Greek diaspora, Greek cinema, museums, music festivals, street art and literature as well as manifestations of how the crisis has led Greeks to rethink or question cultural discourses and conceptions of identity.