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2444Ch1 3/12/02 1 2:01 pm Page 3 Wolfgang Wessels, Andreas Maurer and Jürgen Mittag The European Union and Member States: analysing two arenas over time Our puzzles: traditional approaches and beyond Fifteen into one? takes up traditional approaches to political science. Since Aristotle it has been considered useful to compare constitutional and institutional dimensions of polities and not least to discuss ‘optimal’ models of policy-making. In view of the European Union’s multi-level and multi-actor polity, we add to a vast literature1 by highlighting the
10 Martin Dangerfield New member states’ economic relations with Russia: ‘Europeanisation’ or bilateral preferences? This chapter examines connections between economic issues and the various challenges to, and conundrums of, Europeanisation associated with the EU’s relations with Eastern neighbours. It focuses on trade between EU member states and Russia, which until recently had been growing steadily, with particularly rapid expansion after the EU’s eastward enlargement in 2004. The significance of the Russian market means that disruptions to trade caused by
The European Union and its member states are investing in ambitious programmes for ‘better regulation’ and targets of regulatory quality. This book lifts the veil of excessively optimistic propositions covering the whole better-regulation agenda, and provides a conceptual framework to handle the political complexity of regulatory governance. It approaches better regulation as an emerging public policy, with its own political context, actors, problems, rules of interaction, instruments, activities and impacts. Focusing on the key tools of impact assessment, consultation, simplification and access to legislation, the chapters provide empirical evidence on the progress made in the member states and in Brussels, drawing on an extensive research project and an original survey of directors of better-regulation programmes in Europe. They show how indicators define, measure and appraise better-regulation policy, linking measures to policy processes in which the stakeholders learn by monitoring. Although better regulation is a top priority for competitiveness in Europe and the legitimacy of EU policy, the level of commitment and the development of tools vary considerably. The major challenge for better regulation is institutionalisation—this calls for clear choices in terms of what the EU wants from better regulation.
This book explains how and why the European Union has started to intervene in the cultural policy sector—understood here as the public policies aimed at supporting and regulating the arts and cultural industries. It is a comprehensive account of the Communitarisation process of the cultural policy sector. Before 1992, no legal basis for EU intervention in the field of culture appeared in the Treaties. Member states were, in any case, reluctant to share their competences in a policy sector considered to be an area of national sovereignty. In such circumstances, how was the Communitarisation of the policy sector ever possible? Who were the policy actors that played a role in this process? What were their motives? And why were certain actors more influential than others?
How does the European Union affect devolution and nationalist conflict in member states? Does the EU reduce the scope of regional self-government or enhance it? Does it promote conflict or cooperation among territorial entities? These are pressing questions in Spanish politics, where devolution has been an important tool for managing nationalist disputes, and for the Basque Country, where protracted and sometimes violent nationalist conflicts persist. Addressing these issues, this book explores prospects for an autonomous Basque role in EU politics; institutional arrangements for autonomous community participation in EU decision making; Basque government alliances with other regions and the EU's supranational bodies; EU incentives for collaboration among Basque and central state authorities; the impact of EU decisions on politically sensitive Basque competencies; and the incidence of EU issues in nationalist disputes. It presents a theoretical framework for analysing the impact of the EU on regional power.
Can Russia, the European Union and the three major EU member states adopt a unified policy line in the global arena? This book investigates the cohesiveness of ‘greater Europe’ through the detailed scrutiny of policy statements by the leadership elites in the UK, France, Germany, Russia and the EU in connection with three defining events in international security. The crisis in Kosovo of 1999; the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the Iraq crisis of 2003. This extensive empirical enquiry results in a critical constructivist response to neorealist understandings of European security. The book contrasts the EU's new way of ‘doing security’ with the established, competitive bilateral interplay in the European security sphere and provides a clue to the kind of security politics that will prevail in Europe. A joint Moscow Brussels approach would improve the chances of both increasing their relative strength vis-a-vis the USA, but serious cleavages threaten to undermine such a ‘greater European’ common view on security. The book considers the extent to which the major European players pursue similar objectives, and assesses the possible implications for and the chances of greater Europe emerging as a cohesive global actor.
This book a study on the work of the Eurogroup—monthly informal meetings between euro area finance ministers, the Commission and the European Central Bank. It demonstrates how this small, secretive circle of senior decision-makers shapes European economic governance through a routinised informal policy dialogue. Although the role of the Eurogroup has been contested since before the group's creation, its actual operation has never been subject to systematic evaluation. This book opens the doors of the meeting room and shows how an understanding of the interplay of formal provisions and informal processes is pivotal to the analysis of euro area governance. The book advances the conceptual understanding of informal negotiations among senior European and national decision-makers, and provides an in-depth analysis of historical episodes of policy coordination. As other areas of European decision-making rely increasingly on informal, voluntary policy coordination amongst member states, the Eurogroup model can be seen as a template for other policy areas.
In the decades following Europe's first total war, millions of British men and women looked to the League of Nations as the symbol and guardian of a new world order based on international co-operation. Founded in 1919 to preserve peace between its member-states, the League inspired a rich, participatory culture of political protest, popular education and civic ritual that found expression in the establishment of voluntary societies in dozens of countries across Europe and beyond. Through the hugely popular League of Nations Union (LNU), this pro-League movement touched Britain in profound ways. Foremost amongst the League societies, the LNU became a pioneering advocate of democratic accountability and popular engagement in the making of foreign policy. This book offers an account of this popular League consciousness, revealing the extraordinarily vibrant character of associational life between the wars. It explores the complex constituencies making up the popular League movement and shows how internationalism intersected with class, gender, religion and party politics during a period of profound social, cultural and political change.
At the heart of the European integration process is the political economy debate over whether the EU should be a market-making project, or if it should combine this with integration in employment and social policy. What has been the impact of the 2004 and 2007 rounds of enlargement upon the political economy of European integration? EU enlargement, the clash of capitalisms and the European social dimension analyses the impact of the 2004 and 2007 enlargements upon the politics of European integration within EU employment and social policy. This book analyses the main policy negotiations in the field and analyses the political positions and contributions of the Central and Eastern European Member States. Through an analyses of the negotiations of the Services Directive, the revision of the Working Time Directive and the Europe 2020 poverty target, the book argues that the addition of the Central and Eastern European states has strengthened liberal forces at the EU level and undermined integration with EU employment and social policy.
The European Union (EU) has emerged as an important security actor qua actor, not only in the non-traditional areas of security, but increasingly as an entity with force projection capabilities. This book investigates how the concept of security relates to or deals with different categories of threat, explores the relationship between forms of coordination among states, international institutions, and the provision of European security and the execution of security governance. It also investigates whether the EU has been effective in realising its stated security objectives and those of its member states. The book commences with a discussion on the changing nature of the European state, the changing nature and broadening of the security agenda, and the problem of security governance in the European political space. There are four functional challenges facing the EU as a security actor: the resolution of interstate conflicts, the management of intrastate conflicts, state-building endeavours, and building the institutions of civil society. The book then examines policies of prevention, particularly the pre-emption of conflict within Europe and its neighbourhood. It moves on to examine policies of assurance, particularly the problem of peace-building in south-eastern Europe. EU's peace-building or sustaining role where there has been a violent interstate or intrastate conflict, especially the origins and performance of the Stability Pact, is discussed. Finally, the book looks at the policies of protection which capture the challenge of internal security.