With Economic and Monetary Union, the European Union has embarked on one of the biggest projects in its history. Previous literature has focused on how EMU came into being and on the policy issues that it raises. This text seeks to move the discussion forwards by offering a systematic evaluation of how it is affecting EU states, both members and non-members of the Euro-Zone. It explicitly situates EMU in the growing literature on Europeanization. It examines the effects on public policies, political structures, discourses, and identities. The book seeks to identify the scope of EMU's effects, the direction that it imparts to political and policy changes, the mechanisms by which it produces its effects, and the role of domestic institutions, political leadership and specific forms of discourse in shaping responses. In addition, the book assesses how, and with what effects, EMU is affecting key policy sectorslabour markets and wages, welfare states, and financial market governance.

This book of essays,the product of a conference held at the University of Birmingham in the spring of 1998, contains contributions from a group of extremely distinguished scholars in the fields of both public and private law. The meaning of proportionality is examined in a number of different contexts, including those of EC law, the domestic law of the Member States of the EU and the law of the European Convention on Human Rights. Its substantive content and procedural implications are analysed and contrasted, in particular, with the concept of Wednesbury unreasonableness. Its use in criminal and anti-discrimination law is also examined, as is its future likely impact in the UK after incorporation of the European Convention. Contributors: Paul Craig, Evelyn Ellis, David Feldman, Nicholas Green QC, Lord Hoffmann, Francis G. Jacobs, Jeremy McBride, Takis Tridimas, Walter van Gerven.

The Irish border is a manifestation of the relationship between Britain and Ireland. When that relationship has been tense, we have seen the worst effects at the Irish border in the form of violence, controls and barriers. When the relationship has been good, the Irish border has become - to all intents and purposes - open, invisible and criss-crossed with connections. Throughout its short existence, the symbolism of the border has remained just as important as its practical impact. With the UK's exit from the European Union, the challenge of managing the Irish border as a source and a symbol of British-Irish difference became an international concern. The solution found in the UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement gives the Irish border a globally unique status. A century after partition, and as we enter the post-Brexit era, this book considers what we should know and do about this highly complex and ever-contested boundary line.

This book provides a timely evaluation of the EU's ability to act internationally and coordinate policy in a time when it also seeks to meet shifting demands of international cooperation. These include global sustainable development, the challenge of multilateralism and the changing geopolitical order. Analysing the networks of officials and policy professionals in EU development policy, the book yields theoretical insights into dominant processes that characterise EU governance in international cooperation and assesses their role for policy coordination. Overall, this book concludes that EU policy coordination evades intergovernmental control and demonstrates how the agency of EU institutions depends on efforts of member state officials to defend their priorities and identities. Finally, it shows the need to better understand the EU as a collective international actor, beyond the widespread concern with institutional adjustments, which continuously fail to produce the intended outcomes. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of European and EU politics, EU foreign policy, EU external relations and more broadly to international relations and international development.

This book explores how the European Union responds to the ongoing challenges to the liberal international order. These challenges arise both within the EU itself and beyond its borders, and put into question the values of free trade and liberal democracy. The book's interdisciplinary approach brings together scholars from economics, law, and political science to provide a comprehensive analysis of how shifts in the international order affect the global position of the EU in dimensions such as foreign and security policy, trade, migration, populism, rule of law, and climate change. All chapters include policy recommendations which make the book particularly useful for decision makers and policy advisors, besides researchers and students, as well as for anyone interested in the future of the EU.

Through its focus on EU Association Agreement negotiations, this book goes beyond the study of traditional EU trade negotiations and puts the spotlight on the increasing number of negotiations where trade relations are discussed alongside political ones. This setting makes both the negotiations themselves and the definition of the EU's positions more complicated, raising the question as to what ultimately determines the EU's behaviour in such complex negotiations spanning multiple of the EU's policy areas. Offering a generalizable analytical model to study such complex EU international negotiations, the book illuminates the preferences and interactions between individual parts of the EU's foreign affairs bureaucracy, and those between the lead actors, the Directorate General for Trade, and the European External Action Service (EEAS), in particular. In doing so, it demonstrates the utility of adapting the concept of bureaucratic politics from Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) to the EU's foreign policy decision-making apparatus across different stages of EU international negotiations. It also discusses how the institutional changes of the Treaty of Lisbon have altered the institutional set-up of the EU's foreign affairs bureaucracy and thereby changed the foundations of the EU's bureaucratic politics. Finally, the book finds that the EU's behaviour in these negotiations is ultimately shaped, on the one hand, by the presence of diverging positions between its institutional actors, and the difficulty to bridge them through policy coordination mechanisms, on the other. Empirically, it explores these dynamics by considering the EU's Association Agreement negotiations on the Latin American continent over the last twenty years before demonstrating the analytical model's utility in the context of the EU's negotiations with Ukraine and Japan. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students, and practitioners in EU foreign affairs/external relations, EU public administration and public policy, EU trade policy, and more broadly to Foreign Policy Analysis and International Relations.

This book questions whether the institutions and practices of the emerging EU diplomatic system conform to established standards of the state-centric diplomatic order; or whether practice is paving the way for innovative, even revolutionary, forms of diplomatic organisation.

Thanks to new transparency rules and increased efforts by scholars, researchers are better equipped than ever before to analyze the decision-making processes of the Council of the European Union and to test old wisdoms. This book covers the most contentious areas and important debates in current research.

This is the first in-depth study of the Committee of the Regions and its role in the European policy process. It is rooted in the theory of European integration, including the 'normative turn', and will be essential reading for students of multilevel European politics.' - Michael Keating, University of Aberdeen, UK'Piattoni and Schonlau s innovative, careful, and multi-disciplinary analysis of the CoR helps us reconsider not only that institution but also EU democracy and governance. It deserves to be widely read by all who seek ways to improve EU governance or to understand the role of sub-state actors in EU politics.' - Alex Warleigh-Lack, Visiting Fellow, UNU-CRIS 'Piattoni and Schonlau's work is that rare combination of careful analysis and passionate argument. As the former, it is easily the most thorough and sophisticated study of how the Committee of Regions fits in the EU's institutional structure and the role it plays in its policy making process. As the latter, it is a theoretically astute, and normatively inspired defence of the way in which the CoR contributes to the articulation of democratic voice within the EU's multilevel structure of governance. As such, it is a reflection on how democratic representation works in complex societies, and it should be read by those interested in the legitimacy of the European Union and the question of democratic legitimacy at large.' - Dario Castiglione, University of Exeter, UK This ground breaking book looks at the way in which the Committee of Regions (CoR) can influence EU policy making from below, despite its relatively weak position in the decision-making process. In essence, the authors argue that the CoR plays a significant role in the EU's political process, going well beyond its formally limited advisory function. By applying theoretical considerations about the expression of judgment and the formation of will in democratic systems, the authors develop a normative argument about why it is opportune that local and regional concerns be involved in shaping European Union decisions. Moreover, by looking at the institutional development of the Committee, and by analyzing its contribution in key policy areas, the book shows why the CoR is already a very important element of the multi-level democratic system of the European Union. Academics, researchers and students will benefit from the up-to-date analysis of the CoR. Functionaries in the EU institutions, European regions and localities, state bureaucracies and political party members will find the new insights provided in this book to be of interest.

This book explores the political and social dynamics of the bilateral relations between Germany and Poland at the national and subnational levels, taking into account the supranational dynamics, across such different policy areas as trade, foreign and security policy, energy, fiscal issues, health and social policy, migration and local governance. By studying the impact of the three explanatory categories - the historical legacy, interdependence and asymmetry - on the bilateral relationship, the book explores the patterns of cooperation and identifies the driving forces and hindering factors of the bilateral relationship. Covering the Polish-German relationship since 2004, it demonstrates, in a systematic way, that it does not qualify as embedded bilateralism. The relationship remains historically burdened and asymmetric, and thus it is not resilient to crises. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of European and EU Politics, German politics, East/Central European Politics, borderlands studies, and more broadly, for international relations, history and sociology.

This book explores the mechanisms of political representation and accountability in the European political system, against the backdrop of multiple crises in recent years in the economic, financial, security and immigration fields, which have triggered strong tensions and centrifugal drives inside the EU and among its member states. Exploiting a rich set of new ad hoc collected data covering elite and public opinion orientations and party positions, it investigates how the current politicization of European issues and the asymmetries among member states can challenge the sustainability of the European Union. It examines how existing policy tools were found largely unable to neutralize promptly the negative effects of these crises on the populations, economies and security of the Union and how this suggests the need to reconsider overarching theoretical frameworks and a more in-depth analysis of some crucial mechanisms of the European political system and to go beyond some of the dominant scholarly debates of the past decades. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of the European Union and more broadly to comparative European politics and international relations.

This book examines the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in the context of internal functions performed with regard to the European Union (EU) political system and its key actors. It argues that the ENP has been formulated not only in reaction to external challenges and threats, but also in response to EU internal legitimacy needs at systemic, institutional and actor level. Looking beyond governance approaches and the power of norms, this book follows a sociological approach to the politics of legitimation. Using Bourdieu's field theory, it bridges the rationalist-constructivist divide inherent in much of ENP scholarship. While analyzing articulations of EU institutions in terms of narrative production, reproduction and reconstruction, it sheds valuable light on where the conflicting goals, ambiguity and incoherence stem from. By highlighting Developing Nations' responses and usages of ENP narratives for domestic and international legitimacy-seeking, the book calls for a more outside-in perspective on EU foreign policy. With the European integration project being increasingly contested, both internally and externally, this book provides a timely focus on the topic of legitimation and delegitimation dynamics with regard to EU foreign policy. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of European integration and EU foreign policy, and, more broadly, EU Studies and International Relations.

European Regulatory Agencies (ERAs) have become increasingly important features in EU decision-making. They aim to provide expert advice independent of political or economic considerations. This book explains whether and under what conditions ERAs comply with this scientific mandate. Expanding on rational institutionalism, Ossege provides novel insights into the behaviour of ERAs, their autonomy from 'undue' external influence, and their impact on EU policy-making. The empirical comparison of three major ERAs - the European Medicines Agency, the European Food Safety Authority, and the European Chemicals Agency - not only shows that agencies capitalise on their expertise and rule-making competences to protect their autonomy. Rather, in making strategic use of their expertise, the ERAs also guard their autonomy in areas of high political salience, though their policy influence in these areas is partially circumscribed. Based on these insights, European Regulatory Agencies in EU Decision-Making locates its subject in the wider system of European Governance and considers the perennial question of how to reconcile the need for expert advice with democratic decision-making.

This authoritative volume traces the creation and development of the EEC as an institution and assesses its impact on the economic development of Europe and the policy areas under its control.The book includes a thorough discussion of the background and origins of the European Economic Community. In the early years of post-war Europe, the continuous search for a multilateral commercial agreement resulted in various plans for European commercial cooperation. These schemes were proposed less in a desire for European integration and supranational institutions, than in response to real economic problems and were the precursors to the formation of the EEC. The next section investigates the process of creating the EEC including the road to integration of the major founding members, and the attitude of the United States to European integration. Finally, it discusses the economic development of the EEC since 1957. It explores major themes including the impact of the Community on trade and agriculture and on competition and financial policy, as well as the effects of its own enlargement. The study ends with the steps towards closer union embodied in the Treaty of Maastricht, which signalled the transformation of the European Economic Community into the European Union.

This important book presents a comprehensive and systematic investigation of the effectiveness of environmental policy within the European Union at the dawn of the twenty-first century.The development of environmental policy, including the policymaking process, is analysed from an historical perspective. The authors then examine implementation and enforcement and present a critical appraisal of the impact of environmental policy throughout Europe. Key issues discussed include: trade and the environment environmental protection and the maintenance of industrial competitiveness agriculture and the environment energy and environmental policy transport and the environment tourism and the environment The authors provide insight into the problems of reconciling differing national interests, and present a number of proposals for environmental policy in the future. They conclude that what is required for effective environmental policy is not more radical measures but the opportunity for the measures already in place to be effectively implemented. This book will be of interest to a wide audience including students interested in environmental issues and the European Union, as well as postgraduates and academics working in the fields of environmental management and environmental studies. It will also be of use to environmental policymakers, consultants, advisers and non-government organizations.

The enlargement of European-based organisations has reached a near terminal point. The Council of Europe and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) currently cover virtually all states of Europe (Belarus still remains excluded from the first of these). The EU and NATO have experienced extensive processes of enlargement and the scope for continuing enlargement is now limited largely to the Balkans and the European neutrals. Given this state of affairs it is now pertinent to think of a Europe characterised not by enlargement but by post-enlargement. In International Relations (IR) conceptual thinking on Europe (as opposed just to the EU) has been undertaken using a range of scholarly tools. In this volume, attention to Europe proceeds from English School (ES) thinking, and specifically its three-fold distinction between international system, international society and world society. It is the international society element (the development/institutionalisation of shared interests and identities buttressed by rules and norms) which signifies in their most concrete form different patterns of interaction or integration between states. This book will be of interest to international relations scholars, as well as practitioners within the European Union and other intergovernmental institutions. It was published as a special issue of the Journal of European Integration.

The conceptual uncertainty when dealing with processes of integration and disintegration in Europe is striking because traditional notions of the nation-state, constitutionalism, sovereignty, and federalism do not account for emerging realities in either Western or Eastern Europe. This volume explores the complex inter-relationship between federal arrangements and their effects on integrating multi-ethnic societies in Europe, and takes stock of current debates on the effects of federalism on integration and disintegration in Eastern and Western Europe. For the first time federalism is addressed in a pan-European context and an attempt is made to look for remedies to overcome nationalism in both East and West within a federalist institutional framework.

This book aims to assess what the changes of the Treaty of Lisbon envisaged and whether these ambitions have materialised since the Treaty entered into force. It offers analyses of the past, as well as what might be the future (because some provisions will only enter into effect in the years to come). To what extent has the current decision-making process been able to address the shortcomings and challenges of the past? What has been the impact of aspects of the Lisbon Treaty that clarified pre-existing norms and structures, in some cases formalizing them, rather than introducing new changes? The authors of this book look at the interaction between formal rules and informal practices, seeking to point to the interaction between the two. They find that informal practices to date typically still dominate formal rules. This book was published as a special issue of West European Politics.

In September 1988, Margaret Thatcher, then British Prime Minister, delivered a speech in the Belgian town of Bruges. It opened a great debate on the future of Europe. For the first time in post-war European history a British politician proposed widening the ideal of European political union, to throw European countries on the side of international free trade, willing co-operation between nations and individual liberty. The Bruges Group, formed in February 1989, is concerned to argue for these broader objectives within the debate on the future of Europe. All the papers in this volume are written from that viewpoint.

This book examines the ability of citizens across ten European countries to exercise their democratic rights to access their personal data. It presents a socio-legal research project, with the researchers acting as citizens, or data subjects, and using ethnographic data collection methods. The research presented here evidences a myriad of strategies and discourses employed by a range of public and private sector organizations as they obstruct and restrict citizens' attempts to exercise their informational rights. The book also provides an up-to-date legal analysis of legal frameworks across Europe concerning access rights and makes several policy recommendations in the area of informational rights. It provides a unique and unparalleled study of the law in action which uncovered the obstacles that citizens encounter if they try to find out what personal data public and private sector organisations collect and store about them, how they process it, and with whom they share it. These are simple questions to ask, and the right to do so is enshrined in law, but getting answers to these questions was met by a raft of strategies which effectively denied citizens their rights. The book documents in rich ethnographic detail the manner in which these discourses of denial played out in the ten countries involved, and explores in depth the implications for policy and regulatory reform.

Several events in the past few years have dramatically shown how the interests of European citizens are directly affected by the stability, security and prosperity of their neighbouring regions. At the same time, the European Union and its member states face many challenges and dilemmas in designing and pursuing policies that not only effectively promote these interests, but also build stronger partnerships with neighbouring countries based on the values on which the Union is founded. First the Arab revolts and then Russia's assertiveness in the eastern neighbourhood prompted reviews by the EU of its European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), in 2011 and 2015, respectively. These reviews, in turn, have renewed scholarly interest in the ENP. By deliberately focusing on the recent literature (since 2011), this book by CEPS identifies the factors that explain the (lack of) effectiveness and coherence of the ENP. This exercise has resulted in a rich overview of and deep reflection on a wide variety of ENP-related themes, such as conditionality and leverage, the interests vs values dilemma and the role of third parties. The study identifies where there is consensus among scholars and where perspectives and judgements differ. It also identifies important gaps in the literature where further research is needed. This book will be of interest to a wide audience of officials, diplomats, parliamentarians, researchers at think tanks, civil society organisations, university teachers, trainers, students and journalists who want to know more about the challenges and dilemmas arising from the ENP. The work has been carried out by a team of researchers from CEPS in Brussels, with the support of the Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands.

Deciphering the European Investment Bank: History, Politics and Economics examines the European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Union's financial institution and the largest lender and borrower among the International Financial Institutions. Since its establishment in 1958, the EIB has developed without becoming front-page news and has remained highly invisible. By putting together 14 chapters that analyze topical and meaningful moments and aspects of the bank, this edited book offers the first comprehensive analysis of its origins and its evolution in terms of its mandate, governance, structures, policy activity, and performance. Written by acknowledged experts from various disciplines, the chapters weave together history, economics, law, and political science to provide a multidisciplinary examination and capture the complexity of the EIB. The book is a timely initiative for understanding the EIB, whose role has been ever increasing for contributing to the recent global economic challenges, including the economic and financial crisis, climate change, and COVID-19 pandemic. The chapters are written at a level which will be comprehensible to undergraduates in economics, history, and international political economy. It will also be a valuable source of reference for academics, policy makers, bankers, and other practitioners interested in regional development banks and their role in the global economy.

This book, first published in 1973, analyses the European Community in a global perspective. It asks and answers two main questions: what does the European Community mean to the masses of the world, and what does it mean to the world community in general? Most critical studies of the EC were made from an internal point of view, and this book is rare in having an external perspective. The author discussed the EC with diverse audiences in 16 countries, and his analyses are invaluable in putting the European project in an international context.

This volume brings together contributions that conceptualize and measure EU perceptions in the strategic regions around the world in the aftermath of the UK referendum. Contributors assess the evolution of EU perceptions in each location and discuss how their findings may contribute to crafting foreign policy options for the "new EU-27". Brexit is very likely to have a substantial bearing on EU external policy, not merely because of the loss of a major member state with a special relationship to the US and the Commonwealth, but also because it challenges the integrational success story that the EU strives to embody. This book thus serves a dual purpose: on the one hand it broadens the recent studies on Brexit by focusing on external partners' reactions, and on the other it allows for an innovative evaluation of policy options for EU foreign policy. Based on a solid theoretical foundation and empirically rich data, it constitutes an innovative and timely addition to the evolving debate on Brexit and its consequences. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of European politics, Brexit, British politics, EU politics, comparative politics and international relations.

This book examines how European issues have played out in Serbian and Croatian party politics since 2000, in the context of significant challenges brought by European integration of the Western Balkans. It provides a comprehensive analysis of how political parties in these countries have determined and shifted their positions on the EU, by exploring the effect and interaction of party ideology and strategy, position within the party system, relations with the general public and voters as well as transnational party linkages. The author argues that the particular nature of European issues, closely related to crucial identity and statehood dilemmas in these post-conflict societies, largely determined party stances on the EU, feeding significant Eurosceptic sentiments. At the same time, a number of core parties underwent a rapid pro-EU conversion, pragmatically responding to internal and external incentives in the context of dynamic electoral competition and strong EU presence, and aimed at maximising their chances of securing executive office. The book will be of interest to advanced students and scholars in the fields of comparative politics, Western Balkan politics, and EU studies.