In the latter part of a turbulent century for Europe, France and Germany have been at the forefront of the developments that have shaped both Western and Eastern Europe. Having initiated and controlled economic and monetary union, the greater goal is now that of further European integration, and the Franco-German dynamic is likely to be crucial again in the success or failure of achieving this.The Franco-German Axis in European Integration examines the effectiveness and durability of the Franco-German relationship in European integration, tracing this important partnership through many political and economic disparities. This study goes on to assess the role of these two states in the challenges now facing the Union; from EMU, to the process of stabilising its eastern borders, and from enlargement of the Union, to the struggle to agree on a common foreign security policy. This volume will appeal as much to policymakers and interest groups as it will to scholars, students, and researchers in the field of European studies and international relations.

Why has Iceland not sought membership of the European Union? This unique volume uses the case study of Iceland - the only Nordic state to have never applied for EU membership - to explore the complex attitudes of small states to European intergration and provide a new theoretical approach for understanding such relationships. The contributors explain why the Icelandic political elite has been relunctant to participate in European integration. In this context, they analyse the influence that Iceland's special relationship with the US and the fisheries sector have had on their dealings with the EU. Also considered are 'new' variables, such as national administrative characteristics and particular features of the domestic arena of the political elite, as well as the elite's perception of international relations and its political discourse concerning independence and sovereignty. Iceland and European Integration will appeal to all those interested in European integration and the international relations of small states

This book examines the important issue of Turkey's relationship with Europe. The authors uniquely present the Turkish view of integration within the broad context of the debates on Europeanisation and sovereignty, but with a specific focus on the internal debates and issues in Turkey itself. Key issues considered include populism, economic policy design, nationalism, Islam, human rights, business, public attitudes to Europeanisation and the position of the Turkish polity.

The European Union is presently at a crossroad. The prospect of enlargement has led to a project of comprehensive reform. Existing structures - originally designed for just six members - need to change. The Constitutional Convention has succeeded in forging a draft Treaty Establishing the Constitution for Europe but these developments raise fundamental issues of legitimacy and democratic accountability.
This book aims to address the challenge of forging a legitimate Constitution for the EU and explores the questions:
*Does the EU need a constitution and, if so, what is to be constituted?
*Can such a constitution be made by a non-state entity?
*How could the constitution be made and what is the role of the Convention on the Future of Europe?
The authors aim to clarify the constitutional status of the EU, to take stock of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights and Convention of the Future of Europe as vehicles to foster and create a European constitution. Developing a Constitution for Europe should interest students and researchers of European Politics.

This timely book provides an innovative examination of financial integration in the European Union - an issue that has become of paramount importance in view of the commencement of European Economic and Monetary Union. The author begins by assessing three different methods of financial integration in the European Union: interest parity conditions, savings-investment correlations and consumption correlations. He goes on to examine the fundamental determinants of financial integration and analyses the factors likely to influence the movement of capital within the European Union. The blend of empirical and theoretical research provides the reader with a comprehensive account of the progress made in integrating financial markets in the European Union. Integrating Financial Markets in the European Union will be essential reading for students and scholars of monetary economics, international finance and European integration. It will also prove useful to practitioners and policymakers working in central banking and government.

First published in 1998, this volume was formally completed in July 1994, but completing the structure of the market is not all the same thing as having a genuine Single Market. This book explores the difficulties inherent in the concept of the Single Market in Insurance, as well as the practical difficulties of implementation. It looks to the future of the Single Market as well as at the present. It should be of interest to lawyers studying law or EC law, as well as to economists and political scientists interested in the development of Project Europe.

Contents:
Notes on contributors Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations 1. Introduction: Setting the Framework Roland Dannreuther 2. The EU and its Changing Neighbourhood: Stabilization, Integration and Partnership Antonio Missirolli 3. Strategy with Fast Moving Targets: East Central Europe Pál Dunay 4. The EU and Turkey: Between Geopolitics and Social Engineering Gilles Dorronsorro 5. South-East Europe: The Expanding EU Role Ettore Greco 6. Policies Towards Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus Andrei Zagorski 7. The Northern Dimension: A Presence and Four Liabilities? Hiski Haukkala 8. Caucasus and Central Asia: Towards a Non-Strategy S. Neil Macfarlane 9. North Africa: Partnership, Exceptionalism and Neglect Fred Tanner 10. The Middle East: Towards a Substantive European Role in the Peace Process? Roland Dannreuther 11. EU Energy Security and the Periphery John Gault 12. The Transatlantic Dimension William C. Wohlforth 13. Conclusion: Towards a Neighbourhood Strategy

Series Information:
Europe and the Nation State

The end of the Cold War presented a major challenge to Western Europe and to the European Union. It led not only to a whole new set of countries seeking to join the EU but also to a strong demand for a more intensive EU engagement in the broader regional context. This book assesses whether the EU has successfully faced up to this challenge and has adapted its policies towards its immediate neighbourhood in a coherent and strategic manner.

This volume examines EU policy from all its major regional dimensions including assessments of:
· the enlargement process to East Central Europe
· the increasing engagement of the EU in conflict resolution, most notably in the Balkans but also towards the Arab-Israeli conflict
· policies towards the countries of the former Soviet Union, such as Russia, Ukraine and the Caucasus
· the complexities of EU policy towards Turkey and the rest of the Middle East.
· the transatlantic dimensions of the EU's neighbourhood policies.

First published in 1999, this volume why Europe's arguably most successful political party, the Swedish Social Democratic Party, become so divided over European integration. Why were its grass-roots so reluctant to embrace EU membership and why did a Social Democratic government decide to stand aside from the launch of the single European currency? What connection is there between Europe and the Swedish model of political economy? While much has been written in English on Swedish Social Democracy, little of this literature has dealt with its difficulties during the 1990s and especially with its acute problems over Europe. This book fills that gap. Using original, primary data, Nicholas Aylott addresses the topic from macro and micro-political perspectives, taking account of historical, cultural, geopolitical and economic constraints, but also the interests and calculations of key individuals at critical junctures. It places the experience of Swedish Social Democracy into a broad comparative framework, drawing especially from the experiences of its Scandinavian sister parties. Up-to-date analysis of the party's debate on EMU is included.

This book covers the key themes related to the introduction, growth development and future of European Works Councils: the European Works Council Directive itself, European Works Council Agreements, Employers' strategies for managing European Works Councils in practice and trade union strategies for the development of European Works Councils. The book features contributions from key writers in the field and covers both theoretical models and questions of practice.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203408004

This book explains why the EU is not a 'normative actor' in the Southern Mediterranean, and how and why EU democracy promotion fails. Drawing on a combination of discourse analysis of EU policy documents and evidence from opinion polls showing 'what the people want', the book shows EU policy fails because the EU promotes a conception of democracy which people do not share. Likewise, the EU's strategies for economic development are misconceived because they do not reflect the people's preferences for greater social justice and reducing inequalities. This double failure highlights a paradox of EU democracy promotion: while nominally emancipatory, it de facto undermines the very transitions to democracy and inclusive development it aims to pursue.

Series Information:
Routledge Advances in Comparative Politics

The European Union has been a key actor in promoting democratization and providing assistance to encourage political change. This book assesses the EU's contribution to democratization by looking at the failures and states that offered resistance to EU pressure to reform, aiming to understand how the EU overcame or failed to overcome the numerous barriers blocking democratic progress. The book features studies on Slovakia, Romania, Croatia, Turkey, Ukraine, Morocco and Latvia.

This book describes, analyses, explains and compares the role performance of different presidencies. The expert and international authors ask why member states have different approaches and play the role differently, prioritising different functions and using a variety of strategies to realise their aspirations. The book consists of three parts i) describes the functions of the presidency, ii) compares nine different presidencies and iii) a concluding section comparing media images, and summaries looking at member state characteristics and behaviour.

The euro crisis is tearing Europe apart. But the heart of the matter is that, as the crisis unfolds, the basic rules of European democracy are being subverted or turned into their opposite, bypassing parliaments, governments and EU institutions. Multilateralism is turning into unilateralism, equality into hegemony, sovereignty into the dependency and recognition into disrespect for the dignity of other nations. Even France, which long dominated European integration, must submit to Berlin's strictures now that it must fear for its international credit rating.How did this happen? The anticipation of the European catastrophe has already fundamentally changed the European landscape of power. It is giving birth to a political monster: a German Europe.Germany did not seek this leadership position - rather, it is a perfect illustration of the law of unintended consequences. The invention and implementation of the euro was the price demanded by France in order to pin Germany down to a European Monetary Union in the context of German unification. It was a quid pro quo for binding a united Germany into a more integrated Europe in which France would continue to play the leading role. But the precise opposite has happened. Economically the euro turned out to be very good for Germany, and with the euro crisis Chancellor Angela Merkel became the informal Queen of Europe.The new grammar of power reflects the difference between creditor and debtor countries; it is not a military but an economic logic. Its ideological foundation is 'German euro nationalism' - that is, an extended European version of the Deutschmark nationalism that underpinned German identity after the Second World War. In this way the German model of stability is being surreptitiously elevated into the guiding idea for Europe. The Europe we have now will not be able to survive in the risk-laden storms of the globalized world. The EU has to be more than a grim marriage sustained by the fear of the chaos that would be caused by its breakdown. It has to be built on something more positive: a vision of rebuilding Europe bottom-up, creating a Europe of the citizen. There is no better way to reinvigorate Europe than through the coming together of ordinary Europeans acting on their own behalf.

This book examines the influence of the European Commission and the European Court of Justice in the political and legal enforcement of member state compliance in the EU. The authors show how the EU's supranational institutions have played an independent role in the creation of a European enforcement system that is exceptionally effective compared to that of other international organizations.

What is the impact of institutional reform implemented by the Nice Treaty on European Governance? What should be done to enhance democratic legitimacy in the EU? This book provides an up-to-date guide to understanding the European Union as an institution. Globalisation has led to enormous changes in the international environment which, in turn, have demanded institutional reform of the European Union in the form of the Nice Treaty. European Governance After Nice scrutinises how, and to what extent, the treaty will contribute to the solution of existing problems, examining both its positive effects and its limitations and examines the reforms within the EU through political science, law and economics, in order to express the full extent of the different effects of the Nice Treaty on non-member as well as member countries. The contributors suggest that the threat of varying exchange rates in the future, when the Treaty has an expansionary effect on economic scale, will lead to a deepening interdependence between the excluded countries.

The European Union is one of the world's biggest economies. However, its role as an international actor is ambiguous and it's not always able to transform its political power into effective external policies. The development of an 'assertive' European Union challenges the image of an internal project aimed at economic integration and international relations theories based on unitary state actors. This book systematically links the EU's external relations to existing political theories, showing how existing theories need to be modified in order to deal with specific characteristics of the EU as an international actor.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203391446

This book seeks to answer the question 'Which institutional architecture for which kind of democracy for the EU?' by bringing two important recent debates together- the institutional analysis of the Union and its democratic assessment. The book examines a series of institutional architectures in light of the democratic quality of the processes and decisions generated by them. The discussion of these various institutional architectures is preceded by an analysis of the democratic values and principles according to which institutional architectures and governance structures should be assessed. The first part of the volume starts from key democratic principles and indicates which institutional architectures are most likely to embody them. The second part is dedicated to those institutional architectures that best describe the current state of the European Union and its likely future development, particularly given the impact of the current economic crisis. The fundamental belief that animates this volume is that it is only by paying attention to the democratic legitimacy of the Union that the process of European integration may hope to be sustainable, particularly in the face of the difficult economic crisis that the members of the Euro-area and the Union in general are experiencing.

China's immersion in the world economy and trading system is a continued source of great interest throughout the globe.
The book is divided into three parts, the first being an overview of the Chinese investment environment and the development of foreign direct investment (FDI) over the last twenty years. The second part then goes on to focus specifically on the characteristics of European companies involved in FDI into China. The third part looks at different management aspects of EU invested enterprises within China, using newly acquired data.
This comprehensive overview of European direct investment in China will be of great interest to both students and academics in the fields of Chinese Economics and Business, Organisational Theory and the Theory of the Firm. The concluding business and policy implications of the book will also make it very useful to professionals and policy-makers.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203505972

This textbook provides an explanatory and contextual view of EU law and its impact in a simple and easily accessible yet analytical manner. It illustrates the power struggles behind a given EU law act, to allow for full understanding of how it developed. This allows the student to understand EU law as a force in the increasingly globalized world, rather than as technical and doctrinal subject. The textbook begins by setting the scene of EU integration, how we got there and why it is important. Thereafter it explores the constitutional framework for understanding EU law in context and by discussing inter alia, division of competences, accountability, legitimacy, enforcement, human rights, participation rights and so on as well as the general principles of the EU and citizenship rights. Subsequently the textbook explores the essentials of the internal market as well as the principles of competition law. It also discusses free movement rights and links to the growing "Area of Freedom, Security and Justice". Finally the textbook offers fresh insights on the external dimension of EU law and the role of the EU in the world today before concluding with an outlook on the future of EU law including the consequences of events such as Brexit.

This book examines the extent to which spatial economic convergence has taken place in the European Union and analyses the effectiveness of regional policy. The authors examine the differing economic features of the European regions and provide an institutional background to regional policy at both the national and Union level. Theories of economic growth are discussed and assessed in terms of the relative performance of regional economies in Europe. The authors then analyse the extent to which economic convergence, for example in terms of income and employment, has materialized across regions using a variety of techniques including mean reversion and time varying parameter procedures. The analysis is both at the level of the entire EU area and at more disaggregate levels that look at specific regions of the Union and at specific sectors. The book offers an assessment of some of the key regional policy instruments used and pays particular attention to the role of infrastructure investment as a tool for enhancing regional growth. It also considers the extent to which some non-regional specific policies impact upon the development of regional economies and explores the implications of closer monetary ties between member states. This book will be of interest to academics and policymakers concerned with regional science, European studies and macroeconomics.

As retailing becomes an increasingly important part of economics worldwide, the similarities and differences of retailing from country to country are now more evident. Retailing in the European Union is a unique and timely study of the difference retail structures across Europe, offering an insightful overview of the internationalisation of retailing and asking important questions about the effectiveness of different retailing sectors.

International trade policy, including the trade policies of the European Union (EU), has become controversial in recent years. This book illuminates the politicised process of the EU's contemporary trade negotiations. The book uses the notion of 'contentious market regulation' to examine contemporary EU Free-Trade Agreements (FTAs) with industrialised countries: the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the USA (TTIP), the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with Canada (CETA), the EU-South Korea Agreement (KOREU), and the EU's agreement with Japan (EU-Japan). It also analyses cross-cutting issues affecting trade policy, such as business dimensions, social mobilisation, parliamentary assertion, and investment. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of European Integration.