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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > International relations > International institutions > EU & European institutions
European Consumer Policy after Maastricht raises both `horizontal' and `vertical' issues of consumer policy in the European Community and associated countries. The work was prompted by three important `constitutional' events in Europe: the completion of the Internal Market on 31 December 1992, the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty on Political Union, and the conclusion of the Agreement on the European Economic Area (EEA). The `horizontal' papers in Part I are concerned both with analyzing the `acquis' of consumer policy in Europe and with new directions as well as obstacles. The keynote paper by Micklitz and Weatherill gives an overall analysis of the political and legal bases of consumer policy from both the Internal Market and the Political Union perspectives. It is followed by two papers on subsidiarity by Gibson and Dahl which take up and clarify a somewhat confusing and irritating discussion in the EC. Lothar Maier is concerned with the function and role of the Consumer's Consultative Council in the EC of which he is the President; Monique Goyens with the opportunities and especially the shortcomings of consumer interest lobbying in the EC by her association, BEUC. The papers by Schmitz, Micklitz, Wilhelmsson and Kramer raise controversial and still unresolved policy and legal issues which go beyond traditional consumer policy via directives, e.g. in commercial marketing, cross-border litigation, contract law matters and conflicts between consumer and conflicts between consumer and environmental policy. Part II is concerned with national perspectives. The individual country reports relate to the EC and EEA countries and to Switzerland. They document the diverse -- sometimes protective, sometimes disturbing -- impact of EC lawmaking on national legislation, court practice and enforcement. They demonstrate that law harmonization is a painstaking process towards the goal of creating a European legal area with common protective standards.
The European Commission is very much at the heart of the European Union. Its wide variety of roles make it the institution most readily identified with the Union's many different activities. Surprisingly, relatively little has been written about this vital European institution. This book makes a major contribution to furthering understanding of the Commission. A broad range of different perspectives based on new research cover all aspects of its nature and functioning.
Examining peacebuilding through the intersection of security, development and democracy, Castaneda explores how the European Union has employed civilian tools for supporting peacebuilding in conflict-affected countries by working at the same time with CSOs and government institutions.
This first comprehensive study of the EU's diplomatic representation in the world, the EEAS, this book seeks to understand why it has failed to formulate a centralised policy towards external states. It also analyses why the EEAS has more success in centralising diplomatic structures in developing countries than with some economic partners.
In May 2004, after bringing their legislation into accordance with EU regulations, ten more countries joined the European Union. The contributors to this volume assess the impact of this historical development on gender relations in the new and old EU member states. Instead of focusing on either western or eastern Europe, this book investigates the similarities and differences in diverse parts of Europe. Although initially limited, gender equality was part of the original framework of the European Union, an organization often more open than national governments to feminist demands, as this volume illustrates with case studies from eastern and western Europe. The enlargement process thus provides some important policy instruments for increasing equality between men and women.
Stephen Martin* The fourteen essays that constitute this work provide a coherent review of the past and present of the European Community, and consider some of its possible futures. Werner Abelshauser and Richard Griffiths offer separate perspectives on the precursors of the European Community. Abelshauser argues that comparison of the fates of the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Defense Community demonstrate the dominance of political over economic considerations in the integration process. Griffiths considers the stillborn European Political Community, many of the proposed features of which, somewhat transformed, were embodied in the Treaty of Rome. Both suggest that as a practical matter a coming together of French and German interests has been a precondition for advances in European integration. Stephen Martin and Andrew Evans discuss the development of the Com munity's Structural Funds, first envisaged as tools to smooth the transition from a collection of regional economies to a continent-wide single market, now increasingly seen as devices to guide adjustment to long-term struc tural problems. Stuart Holland emphasizes the role of the Structural Funds as one element in a broad range of strategies to ensure social and economic cohesion as the Maastrict Treaty ushers the European Union into the next stage of its development."
In this significant intervention into the academic and institutional debate on European cultural identity, Monica Sassatelli examines the identity-building intentions and effects of the European Capital of Culture program, and also looks at the work of the Council of Europe and the recent European Landscape Convention.
This book offers an assessment of the hopes, fears, expectations and preparedness of Britain, France and Germany at the approach of the 1992 deadline. It examines, both at the national and European level, the three key areas of business and economics, foreign and defence policy, and politics and political culture, both country by country and in a comparative mode. The questions it addresses are the following: to what extent has Europe began to impact on each of these societies? In what ways have national cultures, mentalities and practices begun to change as a result of Europe? Are they changing in the same direction, or are they producing an anti-European reaction, and what is likely to be the effect of such forces?
This book explores the scope and limits of macroeconomic policy in a monetary union. The focus is on pure policies, policy mixes, and policy coordination. The leading protagonists are the union central bank, national governments, and national trade unions. Special emphasis is put on wage shocks and wage restraint. This book develops a series of basic, intennediate, and advanced models. A striking feature is the numerical estimation of policy multipliers. A lot of diagrams serve to illustrate the subject in hand. The monetary union is an open economy with high capital mobility. The exchange rate between the monetary union and the rest of the world is floating. The world interest rate can be exogenous or endogenous. The union countries may differ in money demand, consumption, imports, openness, or size. Previous versions of some parts were presented at the Annual Conference of the Gennan Economic Association and . at the Workshop on International Economics. I have benefited from comments by Christopher Bliss, Volker Clausen, Johannes Hackmann, Bernd Hayo, Jay H. Levin, Reinar Ludeke, Dirk Meyer, Jochen Michaelis, Franco Reither, Gerhard Rubel, WolfScMfer, Michael Schmid, Reinhard Selten, Hans-Werner Sinn, Sylvia Staudinger, Thomas Straubhaar, Bas van Aarle, and Artur Woll. In addition, Michael Brauninger and Michael Cyrus carefully discussed with me all parts of the manuscript. Last but not least, Doris Ehrich did the secretarial work as excellently as ever. I wish to thank all of them. Executive Summary 1) The monetary union as a whole. First consider fiscal policy.
This book presents an examination of one of the first joint actions undertaken by the European Union under the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) provisions of Maastricht. The case-study of South Africa is particularly important as it straddles both the CFSP and the European Political Cooperation (EPC) periods and thus similarities and constraints in policy-making and implementation can be made. The EC/EU policy vis- - vis South Africa is traced from 1977 through to the April 1994 South African elections. The earlier policy period of sanctions and positive measures are compared with the 1990s policies of election observation, the normalization of bilateral relations and development policy. General conclusions about the effectiveness and institutional aspects of joint actions are drawn and recommendations for improved CFSP joint actions proposed. Vice-President of the Commission, Sir Leon Brittan, has contributed a forward to this volume.
What do citizens say about Europe? Before the crisis of 2008 citizens in Britain, France and Francophone Belgium were 'overlooking' Europe by ignoring it in favour of globalisation, economic flows, and crises of political corruption. Innovative focus group methods allow analysis of the nature of their reactions and positions, and demonstrate how euroscepticism is a red herring. Instead they articulate indifference to and ambivalence about Europe contrasting with activists who engage in conflict about European issues. The analysis shows national and social differences. French projection contrasts with British exteriorisation and Belgian incorporation. The social gap is not a matter of deficits: workers have real arguments about issues close to home while managers show more concern about European politics.This book is part of the qualitative turn in European studies and both complements and challenges established knowledge on European attitudes.
Why, despite their similar goals, do the policy preferences of the
European Union and United States diverge on so many multilateral
issues? To answer that question, "Allies at Odds" thoroughly
examines recent international efforts in arms control,
environmental protection, human rights, and military cooperation.
Evidence from twenty separate cases supports the expectations of
the realist approach to international politics, which focuses on
the role of power above all. Neither cultural factors nor
international institutions have as much influence as some expect.
This finding was as true during the Clinton Presidency as during
the current Bush administration, indicating that focusing on
personalities overlooks more substantial and longer-lasting
differences between the Atlantic allies.
Law Enforcement by EU Authorities is the first comprehensive study of a new development in the field of EU law and governance: the proliferation of EU enforcement authorities (EEAs). It offers an investigation into each of the existing eight EEAs, the prospective European Public Prosecutor's Office and how they enforce EU law vis-a-vis private actors together with relevant national enforcement authorities. The study focuses on the interplay between political accountability and judicial protection in the system of shared direct enforcement. It offers a comparative investigation into the EU-national interrelationship in the field of shared enforcement and shows the need for improvement of democratic control and judicial protection in the area of 'shared tasks, but separated controls'. Expert contributors analyze these issues in relation to specific sectors, including financial/banking supervision, aviation, food law, fisheries, fraud, financial interests of the European Union, competition law and pharmaceuticals. This detailed book includes insights from both academics and practitioners, drawing on different national backgrounds and subject specialisms. It provides an important resource for researchers of EU law and governance and officials in the field of enforcement. Contributors include: F. Blanc, A. Brenninkmeijer, F. Cacciatore, M. Chamon, F. Coman-Kund, A. Corini, P. Craig, K. Cseres, T. Duijkersloot, M. Eliantonio, J. Foster, A. Karagianni, F. Kets, R. Kraaijeveld, M. Luchtman, M. Maggetti, G. Ottimofiore, A. Ottow, A. Outhuijse, M. Ratajczyk, E. Schmidt, M. Scholten, B.M.J. van der Meulen, E. van Gelder, M. van Rijsbergen, E. Versluis, J. Vervaele, M. Wasmeier, R. Widdershoven, S. Wirtz
Is the EU multi-level governance system weakening the implementation of policies at a state level? It does appear that a clear gap exists between European Union level policy-making and Member State implementation. All too often, EU public policy content and planning are little more than statements of intent without successful adoption. Policy implementation processes are the key follow-up of policy cycles, as they turn ideas into social output. Simona Milio argues that implementation deficiencies are a direct result of the multi-level structure of European governance. Italy, Spain and Poland are studied in order to identify the main factors undermining implementation process. The findings will help guide future strategies to improve implementation processes both within old and new Member States, thus minimising past mistakes in the multi-level system of EU governance.
This book explores one of the central challenges facing the EU today how to reconcile enlargement with the pursuit of a stronger and more effective European Union. While the relationship between widening and deepening has been recognized for years as one of the big questions in the field of European integration, existing theoretical and empirical analyses of this relationship suffer from a variety of shortcomings. This book brings together a group of EU scholars who significantly advance our understanding of the relationship between widening and deepening. The contributors challenge a variety of common wisdoms concerning the relationship between widening and deepening and offer nuanced theoretical and empirical analysis of the relationship between these two vital dimensions of European integration. Collectively, the contributors to this volume offer the most comprehensive picture available to date of the multi-faceted relationship between widening and deepening. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy."
The Academy of European Law was established by the European University Institute in 1990 and extends the Institute's current programmes into a larger field of interest. It has as its main activity the holding of annual Summer Courses in the law of the European Community and the protection of human rights in Europe. In addition to General Courses, shorter courses are held on subjects of special academic and practical interest in both fields. Finally, special guest lectures on topical issues are given by policy makers, judges and persons who have held or currently hold the highest position in these fields. The courses are published in the language in which they were delivered (English and French).
"The book claims that its primary aim is to reconcile unity and diversity by offering an interdisciplinary approach to questions of European identity/identities. Despite the variety of approaches and themes devel-oped, the book successfully bridges this interdisciplinarity and provides a coherent flow of analysis of European identity which, as the title best illustrates, still remains a puzzle to be explored. The book therefore highlights the complexity of constructing European identity from political and cultural means...Overall it intellectually alerts the reader to some of the most significant challenges facing European identity and will be very useful to experts in the field." . Political Studies Review The twin concepts of "Culture" and "Identity" are inescapable in any discussion of European Integration and yet over the last ten years their meaning has become increasingly contested. By combining an anthropological and political perspective, the authors challenge the traditional boundaries within the issue of the construction of Europe. In the first part, historians and anthropologists from various national traditions discuss the process of the construction of Europe and its implications for cultural identities. The second section examines a number of topics at the core of the process of Europeanization and presents up-to-date information on each of these issues: political parties, regions, football, cities, the Euro, ethnicity, heritage and European cinema. Emphasis is be placed on the political structuring of cultural identities by contrasting top-down and bottom-up processes that define the tensions between the unity and diversity of the European Community. Marion Demossier is a senior lecturer in French and Anthropology at the University of Bath. She is the co-ordinator of a postgraduate Euromasters and Trans-Atlantic Masters course on 'Culture and identity in Europe' which has provided the material for this book. She has published extensively on the Anthropology of rural France and has recently edited a book on Recollections of France: Memories, Identities and Heritage (Berghahn, 2001). Her first monograph Hommes et Vins, une anthropologie du vignoble bourguignon was published in 1999 (editions universitaires de Dijon) and won a prize. She is currently preparing a monograph on Wine Culture and Consumption in France.
The single market has been operating in Europe since 1 January 1993 but the twelve national fiscal systems remain independent. How will this be resolved? Harmonization and coordination or fiscal competition with distortions in the allocation of resources, in factor use, in localization of activities?
Although interest in spatial growth regressions has been growing in recent years, formal theoretical approaches that acknowledge the role of space in economic growth have been sparse. In particular in a regional context, the assumption of independent, non-interacting closed economies can lead to misinterpretations. This book fills the void by discussing neoclassical growth theory in a spatial context, in order to examine growth both theoretically and empirically in a system of N regional economies. A formal model is presented that allows for interregional fixed capital relocations, which are in turn determined by the economies' relative locations in space. It is shown how initial endowments with human capital play a decisive role regarding the evolution of output, and how both convergence and divergence processes may occur. Using a spatial econometric model specification, the theoretical model is tested empirically for 255 European regions.
This book provides an evaluation of the European Community's transformation from a rather uncoordinated small group of member states, with a barely visible foreign policy, into a relatively cohesive and independent foreign policy actor, that is today known as the European Union. The EC's extensive and hitherto undocumented intervention in the high-profile Central American conflict of the 1980s demonstrates a coherence and convergence around a policy that was different from that of the United States and, in the end, more effective. The book also discusses how four key member states - Britain, the Federal Republic of Germany, France and Spain - reacted both to the growing crisis in Central America and to West Europe's conflictual relations with the US. The EC's foreign policy success will not easily be emulated in another international crisis. While the EU remains a non-unitary, non-state actor, it is only in 'non-crises' that the EU, particularly an enlarged EU, will be able to operate an effective foreign policy post-Maastricht.
Through the application of public opinion, interview, and print-media analyses, this book provides evidence that the state of transnational identification among citizens in the EU as a result of post-Maastricht integration measures, such as the completion of the Common Market, the introduction of the Euro, the initiation of the Common Foreign and Security Policy etc. in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Germany had limited effects in the member states to the extent that national political cultures and mass media orientations are compatible with the goals of EU integration. Policy recommendations are derived by reviewing the complex relationship between EU policies and structural factors such as immigration, ageing and the mediatization of politics in which European integration occurs.
When the initiative of Andrea Ott to write a Handbook on the legal aspects of the next enlargement of the European Union was f ir s t brought to my attention, I must confe ss my initial reluctance and even scepticism at its feasibility. Of course, I did s e e the great merits of the concept of such a venture. A handbook implies precision, simplicity and a great deal of mental discipline in order to cover the full breadth of the topic and thus facilitate the readers' understanding, especially by providing the necessary source material for further research. The European Union had already declared its read iness to embark upon a massive enlargement eastwards and this will be the largest ever. It is the EU's official position that enlargement, after all, is vital to achieving the ideals of prosperity, peace and security in Europe as a whole . If all goes according to plan, in 2004 the EU anticipates extending its borders to take in eight Central and East Eu- pean countries as well as Cyprus and Malta. Moreover, the Union's enlargement policy reaches even further afield to include the Balkan countries . Seen in this context, the enlargement process is a complex and ever changing one and any attempt to demystify it, such as that involved in putting together a handbook on the subject, is most welcome. But the pitfalls of enlargement cannot be ignored .
Over the past 40 years, the European Union has been a great force of attraction for new members. At the same time it has entered a host of bilateral and multilateral regional agreements with non-member countries. The result of these developments is a rather unique form of regionalism in Europe, consisting of deep integration within the European Union and a network of sometimes overlapping arrangements involving the Union. Regionalism in Europe: Geometries and Strategies After 2000 brings together a collection of studies of the nature and the implications of this unique regionalism in Europe written by a group of renowned economists from various countries. The issues discussed in this book range from theoretical and institutional aspects to empirical studies of the EU's regional policy, the regional implications of European Monetary Union, and empirical studies of the trade and welfare effects of regional arrangements between the EU and other countries.
This book presents 14 case studies of lobbying campaigns recently directed toward influencing policy and decisions in the EU, and illustrates the effects of recent wide-ranging change. Company lobbying has changed as cross-border mergers have concentrated their activity. The balance of power between member state governments and their devolved regions has shifted, and the regions are increasingly active players. The ability of NGOs to take a recognized part in policy formulation has increased and this change is accelerating. The included cases have been selected to illustrate the range of interest groups who lobby, and to broaden the coverage of lobbying cases in Europe.
This book explains the creation of the European Union's Security
and Defence Policy--to this day the most ambitious project of
peacetime military integration. Whether hailed as a vital step in
the integration of Europe or berated as a wasteful threat to U.S.
power, European citizens are increasingly interested in the common
defense policy. Today, "European Defence" is more popular than the
European Union itself, even in Great Britain. |
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