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Yugoslavia. Welch argues that the problems and failures of the EU’s Stability Pact for South-eastern Europe will widen the chasm between the EU and those parts of the Balkans that remain, at least in the short to medium term, outside the Union. Politically and economically, the EU must learn the lessons of past failures and encourage the development of a political and economic climate not based on
Does European integration contribute to, or even accelerate, the erosion of intra-party democracy? This book is about improving our understanding of political parties as democratic organisations in the context of multi-level governance. It analyses the impact of European Union (EU) membership on power dynamics, focusing on the British Labour Party, the French Socialist Party (PS), and the German Social Democratic Party (SPD). The purpose of this book is to investigate who within the three parties determines EU policies and selects EU specialists, such as the candidates for European parliamentary elections and EU spokespersons.
The book utilises a principal-agent framework to investigate the delegation of power inside the three parties across multiple levels and faces. It draws on over 65 original interviews with EU experts from the three national parties and the Party of European Socialists (PES) and an e-mail questionnaire. This book reveals that European policy has largely remained in the hands of the party leadership. Its findings suggest that the party grassroots are interested in EU affairs, but that interest rarely translates into influence, as information asymmetry between the grassroots and the party leadership makes it very difficult for local activists to scrutinise elected politicians and to come up with their own policy proposals. As regards the selection of EU specialists, such as candidates for the European parliamentary elections, this book highlights that the parties’ processes are highly political, often informal, and in some cases, undemocratic.
, as its advocates had promised, EMU brought more unemployment both before and after it started; the costs borne by banks and taxpayers therefore greatly exceeded the promised benefits; at first, the euro was rated strong in the financial markets – stronger than expected or was desirable;11 the ‘stability pact’ agreed at the Dublin and Amsterdam summits in 1996/7 added to austerity measures in the EMU economies lowering growth instead of raising it; as the consequent political pressures mounted, EMU states began to put national priorities above those of monetary
Council are convinced that the EU shall play its full role on the international stage’). Meanings at the EU level concerning the nature of EU actorness can therefore not be said to be fixed. POLICY PRACTICE The policy activities of the EU have so far concentrated on the civilian aspects of foreign policy (stability pacts, trade and cooperation agreements, political conditionality, declaratory
success depends on them . . . you will perhaps concur that an increasing threat to the regional stability prompts us to think in this direction as well.15 At the same time, four leaders in the region – Heydar Aliev (Azerbaijan), Robert Kocharian (Armenia), Eduard Shevardnadze (Georgia) and Suleyman Demirel (Turkey) – supported the development of some kind of stability or security pact for the Caucasus. Following up on this proposal, the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels drafted a Stability Pact for the 212 2504Chap11 7/4/03 12:41 pm Page 213 The Black
-Montenegro took place in the context of the EU’s 1999 Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe and its Stabilisation and Association Process (SAP) of November 2000. These activities aimed to encourage democratisation and economic development in the region as a whole, and did not incorporate specific defence reform assistance programmes to any great degree. The OSCE established an office in
taken, it is up to the competent representatives of the bodies receiving them to decide what, if anything, should follow from them. • Regional Anti-corruption Initiative: Previously the Stability Pact Anticorruption Initiative (SPAI) and renamed in 2007. SPAI was set up in 2000 on the initiative of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, an entity which, since 1999, has brought together the states of the region (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Macedonia), the EU member states and a range of other states and
commitment to bring France back within the criteria of the Maastricht Stability Pact. Once installed as president, Macron exploited a favourable set of circumstances to lend leadership credibility to his claim that France is back. The book The book is divided into two main parts. Part I, ‘Out with the old’, focuses mainly on the events of 2016 and 2017, as experienced by key actors of the ‘old’ world: the then President Hollande, former President Sarkozy and former premier (and 2017 LR candidate) François Fillon. Chapter 1 interprets 2016 as
futures: unachievable goals? The normative bases of the Dayton agreements, UNSC Resolution 1244 and the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe all promote democracy in conjunction with a civic model of nationalism that is distant, if not alien to, ethnic national identities in South East Europe. On this crucial issue of nationalism, the gulf in understanding between the recipients and givers of norms lies at the crux of
Treaty. Despite this opposition the first draft of a European stability pact by the German finance ministry from November 1995 also proposed the creation of additional coordination structures. The then German deputy finance minister Jürgen Stark (2001: 88) summarises the draft provisions as follows: The member states form a European Stability Council within the ECOFIN Council, which decides on whether these self-imposed restraints have been violated and, if necessary, enforces them. It meets at least biannually, either on presentation of the deficit figures by the