From Civilian Power to Superpower? asserts that a new, distinctive and significant actor has entered the international system. The text explores how the European Union has become a significant international actor without transforming itself into a nation-state. The international context, within which the Union now operates, and the instruments, now available at its disposal, have undergone a convergence to create circumstances in which the relative significance of the Union and its uniqueness in the international system has been enhanced.

Experts present their analyses of historical developments as well as new economic challenges for the European Union. Contributors, representatives from major banks and academia, point out the dramatic economic shifts among and within Europe, Asia, and the United States. At the bottom line of this EU analysis are major implications for investors, managers, policymakers, and the public at large in both the EU and the rest of the world.

The collapse of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union has resulted in a proliferation of discontented minorities. Preventing the violent conflict triggered by such disaffection has become a driving issue in post-Cold War Europe. National Minorities and the European Nation-States System reveals that the contemporary international system is the root cause of the problem and viable solutions to it must acknowledge this structural limitation.

This work offers a fresh perspective to the study of 'Europe' by placing the discussion of 'What is Europe?' and 'What is it to be European?', in a wider context of the study of modernity through a collection of nine case studies.

Divisions in the EU are considered, as well as the conflicts that have arisen from enlargement and foreign policy concerns. Leading specialists on European politics and society reflect on the nature of consensus and competition between elites, and whether the EU may be able to provide a sense of common identity and purpose for its citizens.

This book is distinguished by its use of the antebellum US experience as a foil to address the under-explored question of what makes the EU viable. The nature of political conflict in both cases is defined in terms of four contested rules of the game: state sovereignty, federal competences, political representation and decision-making procedures. Hence, viabilty is conceptualized as the ability to find an agreement over these four elements.
The analysis shows that, to remain viable, the antebellum USA resorted to an ultimately untenable voluntary centralization of these rules of the game. Conversely, the EU has maintained a dynamic equilibrium, although this is not a self-reinforcing process. The transatlantic contrast is then used to examine proposals for reforming the EU, especially its system of political representation. The comparison reveals that, despite high expectations, changing the system of representation is no shortcut solution for the EU's constitutional woes.

This volume provides a thorough analysis of Turkey's accession to the EU and contributes to ongoing debates about the future relationship of the two parties. It focuses on political, economic and cultural dimensions and outlines the prospects of this difficult encounter for Turkey and the European Union. It is a highly dynamic encounter and both questions and answers related to the accession seem constantly in flux. The book provides valuable information on the current state of affairs as well as looking to the years to come.

This fully revised and updated new edition offers a detailed exposition of EC Directives, individual rights, and the protection of those rights in national courts. Three central themes are investigated: the characteristics of EC Directives; the role played by national courts in protecting the rights which individuals derive from Directives; and the 'devices' and means by which the courts may implement this protection. Focussing initially upon clear examples from the ECJ case law, the author then moves on to discuss specific 'lines' within that case law, and to examine how these 'lines' complement or contradict each other. Throughout the text, the author's empirical argument is enriched by discussion of doctrine and theory. Less orthodox ideas are also incorporated through selective use of a comparative approach which illuminates the workings of EC directives from the broader perspective of the EC as a whole. In an updated conclusion, the prospects of Directives in the future and in the light of the nascent European Constitution are discussed. The result is an extensive and in-depth analysis of Directives, the case-law of the ECJ, and legal writing on the topic, which also engages with the more practical issues of implementation and enforcement in the courts.

Protectionism is a major concern in the international trading community. The question that arises is how the emergence of protectionism can be prevented and whether regional trade arrangements are a suitable mechanism to enforce liberal trade policies. This book examines these issues, concluding that the success of regional trading arrangements in enforcing good trade policies depends on the quality of the regional agreement and its implementation--simple free trade area is unlikely to be sustainable in the long-run without firm commitments of members to deeper integration.

The European Union means many different things to its many peoples. In Germany, for example, the European project was conceived mainly as post-national, or even post-sovereign. In France, by contrast, President Emmanuel Macron has pursued the vision of a sovereign Europe; that is, an EU that would become a formidable geopolitical actor. Yet, instead, Europe has struggled to ascertain its values abroad and even domestically, facing a sovereignist rebellion from its newer member states, such as Hungary and Poland, and the departure of Britain. The eurozone crisis has undermined the EU's economic credentials, the refugee crisis its societal cohesion, the failure to stand up to Russia its sense of purpose, and the Covid-19 pandemic its credibility as a protector of European citizens. The key argument of this book is that the multiple crises of the European project are caused by one underlying factor: its bold attempt to overcome the age of nation-states. Left unchecked, supranational institutions tend to become ever more bureaucratic, eluding control of the people they are meant to serve. The logic of technocracy is thus pitted against the democratic impulse, which the European Union is supposed to embody. Democracy in Europe has suffered as a result.

There is a glaring imbalance between the impressive amount of research into first-tier EU decision-making by the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament and the limited research into second-tier EU rule-making by the Commission and the comitology committees. This book seeks to redress that imbalance and find answers to fundamental unresolved questions about the comitology system. It looks at why the system was created, how it has evolved over time and how it functions day to day. The EU Comitology System in Theory and Practice applies a novel theoretical approach, the delegation perspective, and provides answers by analysing a plurality of data sources, including EU legislative databases, survey data of comitology committees, legal documents and news reports. The book argues that member states use the comitology system to strike a balance between delegating powers to the Commission and controlling it.

This volume addresses the problem of cohesion in the European Union. It examines EU cohesion policies and other policies which significantly reduce the likelihood of cohesion being achieved, and also challenges the idea that regional policy is a form of wealth distribution. It argues that cohesion, rather than being an objective in its own right, has been systematically redefined as a tool of competitiveness, and that neo-liberal economic priorities have led to the privileging of regional autonomy over cohesion.

A fast reduction of regional disparities within the EU is unlikely. Regional policy will thus remain an important European topic. This text analyzes regional policy and its co-ordination with other European and national public policies, namely investment grants, research and development policy and transport policy. The analysis identifies shortcomings within EU regional policy as well as co-ordination, problems with other public policies, and demonstrates how cohesion problems are often due to a lack of policy co-ordination at the domestic level.

Germany has played a leading role in the development of the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union. This study assesses the influence of German policy makers on EU policy and the impact of EU membership on foreign policy making at the national level. The book concludes that limitations remain on the Europeanization of German foreign and security policy and Germany's ability to play a leading role in military crisis management.

This work examines European democracy, showing how it has developed through key episodes in the long history of the process: precursors in the Low Countries, the founding of British parliamentary, then American federal democracy, post-revolutionary France, post-war Germany, and the European Parliament. It explores the significance of each episode in the development of national or federal democracy and concludes with a positive assessment of the prospects of liberal democracy. This book should be of interest to political scientists, historians and others concerned with the development of democracy in Europe and beyond.

This work examines the British government's negotiation of the Treaty on European Union which took place between December 1990 and December 1991. On the basis of documentary and interview-based evidence of leading participants from Britain and Europe, it offers an insight into the objectives and motivations of the British government. The author analyzes the various constraints and pressures that impinged on the British government and sets its successes and failures in the Maastricht negotiations in a broader context of British European policy. general interest

Is the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) an effective and legitimate tool in European social policy-making? Milena Buchs analyses the goals and instruments of the OMC, discusses approaches which theorize its functioning, examines its policy content and develops a framework for its evaluation. Through the examination of a case study the author demonstrates how policy actors apply the OMC in employment in Germany and the United Kingdom. The book concludes that the OMC pursues contradictory goals and is unlikely to achieve them simultaneously.

The debate on the EU's legitimacy has long suffered from a number of serious misunderstandings. Supranational politics, Jurgen Neyer argues, is not about the making of public order in Europe but about internalizing external effects and fostering the individual right to justification. The concepts of 'state' and 'democracy', he suggests, are essentially useless for understanding and justifying the EU's structures and practices. The European Union is a dualistic polity that is not replacing but supplementing its member states. Its modus of operation is the joint exercise of pooled competencies on the normative basis of the principle of mutual recognition. He goes on to show that the EU provides an important cure to many of the problems that modern democracies are facing in a globalizing world. Legal integration internalizes external effects and democratizes democracies by transforming strategic international bargaining into a justificatory transnational discourse. The EU promotes the cause of justice by providing an effective remedy to horizontal and vertical power asymmetries, and to the arbitrariness of untamed anarchy. The EU is far from perfect, however. European politics is still deeply embedded in a culture of integration by stealth and closely connected to a deep mistrust in the capacity of ordinary citizens to understand politics. A major change in the constitutional set up of the EU is required. It should build on a new understanding of the EU's institutions as catering to the individual right to justification and give national parliaments a strategic role in further developing its constitutional design.

Gueldry analyzes the substantive transformations brought upon the French state by European integration through an incremental and cumulative process generally described as Europeanization. This restructuring is characterized by the erosion of traditional political and economic parameters, the emergence of new means and models of public action, and a general paradigmatic redefinition, including a search for renewed political legitimacy by French elite.

Covering the period from 1957 to the present, Gueldry examines how regional integration affects French governmental structures, public policies, political processes, and culture. He emphasizes the post-Single European Act (February 1986) period because of the accelerating momentum of the integration process after this milestone treaty. Students, scholars, and policy makers involved with EU history, institutions, and policies will be particularly interested in the work.

With the launch of the European integration process after World War II, a new type of administration emerged which was neither an international organisation nor a national administration. Drawing on extensive archival records and oral history interviews, this book is the first comprehensive study of the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the Commission of the European Economic Community (EEC), and their personnel, the European civil servants. This administrative elite was to have a vital influence on the European integration process, devising and administering key European policies such as the Common Agricultural Policy. Katja Seidel combines administrative and biographical history and provides significant insights into the origins of Europe's supranational institutions and the administrative cultures that developed in them. She effectively shows how European administrative elites and supranational administrations are vital to understanding the process of politics in Europe. This book will be invaluable for scholars of politics, history and the development of European integration.

The European Court of Justice once stated that the European Community is governed by the rule of law in as much as member states, Community institutions and individuals are bound to the basic constitutional charter, the Treaty. The purpose of this book is to answer the question whether this statement is still valid for the European Union, and to analyze which features best define the rule of law at the European level. In order to define the principle of the rule of law at the European level, this book undertakes a comparative analysis of what the principle means in different legal systems. An analysis is also made of the implications for national legal orders, specifically for judges. The conclusion reached as a result of the research undertaken for this book is the co-existence of two visions of the rule of law within national legal orders: the traditional view of each legal order by itself, and the new vision of the principle as defined by the Court of Justice. This legal phenomenon involves what is defined as "the paradox of the two paradigms of law", which determines a share of concepts, tools and remedies amongst legal systems.

By describing and analysing the process which precedes decision-making in the Council of Ministers, an insider's view is presented in this book of the process of decision-making in the European Union. The main subject is the Permanent Representatives Committee, comprising Ambassadors of the Member States to the European Union, the Permanent Representatives. Coreper has the general responsibility for preparing the work of the Council.

The book is based on a legal thesis, which was published in Dutch at the end of 1993. For the English version the text has been revised and, where necessary, updated. The content, which is largely derived from practical experience, should provide a clearer picture of the current state of affairs of European integration in general, and the functioning of the European institutions in particular. To this extent the book serves the political objective of creating transparency in the decision-making of the European Union.

Audience:

All those working in the public services, international organizations, universities, liberal professions and economic life whose everyday work brings them into contact with aspects of the European Union and its institutions.

In May 2004, a series of countries, most of them in Central and Eastern Europe, will become new member states of the EU. The institutional reforms necessary to cope with this enlargement of the EU are prescribed by The Treaty of Nice of 26 February 2001. This volume contains the papers discussed at a conference held at Brandenburg University of Technology, on the guidelines, instruments and programmes available to facilitate the accession of CEE countries to the EU, taking Poland as an example. The main topics of the conference were EC law, particularly EC administrative and environmental law and their incorporation into national law, organizational and administrative mechanisms necessary to carry out this process, as well as the latest EU development programmes for CEE accession countries.

The Council of Ministers provides a comprehensive analysis of the Council of Ministers: how it works, its varied activities, functions, and its relationships with the other key EU institutions and the member states. It is a key legislative institution which lies at the fulcrum of decision-making in the European Union.

This book examines EU discourses on Turkey in the European Commission, European Parliament and three EU member states (France, Germany and Britain), to reveal the discursive construction of European identity through EU representations of Turkey. Based on a poststructuralist framework that conceptualizes identity as discursively constructed through difference, the book applies Critical Discourse Analysis to the analysis of texts and argues that there are multiple Europe(s) that are constructed in talks over the enlargement of Turkey, varying within and between different ideological, national and institutional contexts. The book discerns four main discourse topics over which these Europe(s) are constructed, corresponding to the conceptualization of Europe as a security community, as an upholder of democratic values, as a political project and as a cultural space. The book argues that Turkey constitutes a key case in exploring various discursive constructs of European identity, since the talks on Turkey pave the way for the construction of different versions of Europe in discourse.