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On the 25 March 2017, leaders of the EU27 and European Union (EU) institutions ratified the Rome Declaration. They committed to invite citizens to discuss Europe's future and to provide recommendations that would facilitate their decision-makers in shaping their national positions on Europe. In response, citizens' dialogues on the future of Europe were instituted across the Union to facilitate public participation in shaping Europe. This paper explores Ireland's set of dialogues which took place during 2018. Although event organisers in Ireland applied a relatively atypical and more systematic and participatory approach to their dialogues, evidence suggests that Irelands' dialogues were reminiscent of a public relations exercise which showcased the country's commitment to incorporating citizens into the debate on Europe while avoiding a deliberative design which could have strengthened the quality of public discourse and the quality of public recommendations. Due to an absence of elite political will for a deliberative process, as well as structural weaknesses in design, participants' recommendations lacked any clear and prescriptive direction which could shape Ireland's national position on the future of Europe in any constructive or meaningful way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The failure of key EU Member States to respect the provisions of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) a few years after its inception triggered a heated debate on how to reform the framework of fiscal policy coordination in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). This paper analyzes 101 reform proposals presented by professional academic and non-academic economists prior to March 2005, when the Council of the European Union adopted a revised version of the SGP. Roughly four different schools of thought concerning the reform of the SGP are identified. In line with the main findings of the political economy literature, all four schools of thought share the view that in the absence of specific rules fiscal policy would lead to excessive deficits and hence affect the conduct of the common monetary policy. However, beyond this common denominator, there is no consensus on how best to co-ordinate fiscal policy. We present several explanations for the multitude of proposals, the most important being the present lack of a consensus in the economics profession concerning the role of fiscal policy. Economists hold diverging views on the goals, instruments, efficiency and institutions for fiscal policy-making. This state of affairs is in sharp contrast to the case of monetary policy. Also, the euro area is the first case where monetary policy-making is centralized while fiscal policy-making is decentralized to national governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing interest in island economies within Europe. In the European Union (EU) this has led to enhanced Cohesion Policy support for islands, along with a number of other regions facing geographical challenges. Because of major problems with data, comparative research on islands across different EU member states has been of limited extent. This paper explores the use of national data sets to undertake comparative cross-country analysis of islands. The paper concentrates on two member states, Greece and Britain, which have large numbers of offshore islands. Data from national population censuses are drawn upon to allow typologies of the islands to be developed. These typologies are utilised to identify similarities and differences between British and Greek islands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines some of the main geo-economic and geo-political inter-dependencies which are structuring Europe’s relations with the wider world and how various European and European Union (EU) policy frameworks work to create relations of increasing yet uneven inter-dependency between Europe and that wider world. The paper begins with an examination of the economic and financial crisis and its role in transmitting crisis across inter-dependent space, and the consequences for political and urban struggles across Europe and beyond. This is followed by discussion of the entanglement of Europe with the forces which gave rise to the so-called “Arab Spring” in North Africa and the Middle East. The paper then turns to a discussion of the relocation of economic activity outside of Europe to “emerging economies”, of geographical shifts within Europe of elements of value chains in order to cope with increasing competitive pressures from other parts of the global economy by reducing labour costs but ensuring proximity to the main EU markets, and the emergence of new economic players with their origins in emerging economies within European value chains. The paper concludes with a consideration of the primary geo-economic and geo-political dimensions structuring Europe’s urban and regional inter-dependencies with the wider world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the pattern of regional convergence and the determinants of regional growth in Europe, providing a discussion of the issues that are of relevance to the theoretical conceptions and the subsequent design of regional development policy, supported by an illustrative empirical analysis. The analysis covers 249 NUTS II regions of the European Union in the period 1990–2003. Using as its basis the standard framework of (absolute) β-convergence, the paper detects a mirror-image J-shaped relationship between regional growth and regional development levels. This type of relationship indicates that regional divergence factors are getting stronger, and, eventually, dominate, at more advanced levels of development. On the basis of a regional growth model, factors such as agglomeration economies, geography, economic integration and economic structure seem to create an overall unfavourable economic environment for lagging (and, possibly, less favoured) regions. Such an environment generates dilemmas and questions concerning the mix of policies that may promote growth and at the same time reduce regional inequalities in the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides the first systematic assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on the labor market for immigrant workers in Europe. The authors estimate that in 2020 extra-EU migrants were twice as likely and EU migrants were 1.6 times as likely to experience employment loss relative to comparable natives. To understand the determinants of these large gaps, the article focuses on three job characteristics— essentiality, temporariness, and teleworkability —and documents that migrants were overrepresented among essential, temporary, and low-teleworkable occupations at the onset of the pandemic. The authors estimate that pre-pandemic occupational sorting accounts for 25 to 35% of the explained migrant–native gap in the risk of employment termination, while sorting into industries accounts for the rest of the explained gap. More than half of this gap remains unexplained. Although major employment losses were averted thanks to the massive use of short-time work programs in Europe, migrant workers—particularly extra-EU migrants—suffered from high economic vulnerability during the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on an investigation examining provision of physical education continuing professional development (CPD) in European countries undertaken to identify the types of practices being employed. We begin by providing a brief overview of what we currently know about CPD internationally in general education and physical education. Data are reported to reflect Parker and Patton's (2017) key characteristics of CPD that highlight effective CPD, summarise current trends and issues in physical education, and are intended to serve as a guide to how teachers learn and how they might be better served in that learning in these European countries. Studying current practices in CPD provision identified in this study provided modest insight to inform teacher education programmes and CPD providers on the current status of physical education CPD currently being employed in Europe. We propose these findings might inform international and comparative education with respect to CPD and set the foundation for physical education colleagues in Europe to develop a CPD network where endeavours such as sharing of CPD practices, engaging in discussion of those practices, and the design of collaborative research on such CPD practices are based. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although much has been written on the process of Europeanization, there is a lack of research on its nuances and implications. The academic literature to date focuses on debating the contradictions inherent within the politics of Europeanization without attempting to conceptualize what those contradictions mean in actual practice. This paper draws upon the work of Beck and Grande to analyze the myriad of contradictions shaping all levels of European space. To do so, this paper examines concrete instances of cosmopolitan practice that actually promote the maintenance of the nation-state reality currently characterizing the European Union. These examples show that, at the intersection of the subnational/supranational and supranational/national levels, contradictions are instrumentalized, creating bottom-up and top-down flows of power and influence between all European scales. The evidence presented in this paper indicates that these flows are unintended side-effects that drive Europeanization processes in a way that allows for the simultaneous promotion and regulation of European diversity. This implies that carefully managed and instrumentalized contradictions are powerful engines of Europeanization that actively transform European governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the determination of receipts from the EU budget by considering a richer institutional structure than in earlier studies. The member states have self-interested objectives in CM trying to minimize their contributions within the given framework of the EU budget, whereas EP supports benevolent objectives using its competence to decide on non-compulsory expenditure covering structural spending. CM exerts power in the allocation of both compulsory expenditure, mainly consisting of agricultural spending, and in non-compulsory expenditure. The purpose of this paper is not, however, to evaluate EP's direct influence but rather how the assumed benevolent objectives of EP and income differences turn into member states' budget receipts in a power politics based model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The way the EU budget is funded is often criticized, especially in the light of the increasingly complex devices used to limit net contributions. In addition to the formal UK rebate, there are reduced rates of take-up of different funding streams for certain other countries, all of which makes the funding side of the EU messy. Calls for the budget to be funded by a tax (or taxes) assigned to the EU level have repeatedly been articulated. However, the system has one over-arching attraction which is that it assures the EU of sufficient revenue to fulfill its spending commitments. This paper offers a critique and assessment of the current system for raising the revenue for the EU budget and considers the conceptual case for a move to a tax of Europe. It appraises the case for abandoning the current system in favor of a tax-funded one and concludes that although the case may be conceptually robust, political economy considerations suggest that change is unlikely for the foreseeable future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Commission produces the European Core Health Indicators (ECHI), a database containing different tools used to compare European Union (EU) countries and recommend policy changes. The ECHI feeds multiple reports and documents and finds its way into health policies. From this arises the main research question addressed in this paper: How is health in Europe influenced by ECHI data practices? Specifically, we look at how some health issues or populations are prioritized or dismissed, which ultimately shapes the meaning of and knowledge about health in Europe. To do so, we first develop the conceptual framework of "data performativity," underlining how data practices shape their object/subject. We then explore the politics of evidence behind the ECHI health data that materialize into (1) the absence of some health issues and populations and (2) the hypervisibility of neoliberal health. In the end, we argue, the ECHI serves as a site of individual, collective, and political identity enunciation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 1990s there was great attention and debate in the European Union (EU) and in OECD countries outside the EU on the use of voluntary agreements to attain environmental and sustainable energy policy goals. At the time there was a lot of theoretical analysis and discussions on this policy instrument and in particular on its effectiveness and cost efficiency. Before the debate was over, a number of important voluntary agreements to improve energy efficiency or reduce CO, emissions were implemented in Europe both at national and European levels. These voluntary agreements cover end-use equipment and appliances (e.g. cars, electric motors, residential appliances, etc.), industrial processes, and industrial energy management policies and practices. The paper classifies and analyses the different types of voluntary agreements aiming at improving energy efficiency in Europe, and reviews voluntary agreements and other initiatives of similar nature (voluntary programmes, unilateral commitments, self-regulation) in industrial sectors in a number of Member States of the European Union. The paper also examines some successful European initiatives of voluntary nature, including unilateral agreements for improved energy efficiency of end-use equipment, such as the European agreement on energy consumption of washing machines, and the European agreement on power consumption in standby mode of televisions and video cassette recorders (VCRs). The paper concludes that, if set up under the right institutional framework (as presented and discussed in the paper), voluntary agreements can deliver energy savings in a flexible and cost effective manner and could represent an important instrument for improving energy efficiency and climate change mitigation, in addition and co-ordination with other important policy instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies theories of international socialization to examine the impact of European Union contact on the professional socialization of public officials in Central and Eastern Europe. Based on a survey of officials in seven new member states, the paper finds that daily work on European Union issues is associated with favourable attitudes towards merit-based civil service governance. The distinction between types of European Union contact shows that officials dealing with ‘reception’-related European Union activities such as the transposition and implementation of European Union policies develop more meritocratic attitudes. By contrast, ‘projection’-related activities that involve personal contact with European Union officials have no effect. The paper concludes that the small but consistent impact of European Union contact on professional socialization promotes the silent professionalization of public administration in Central and Eastern Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study effects of energy market uncertainty shocks on energy transition on the 28 European Union countries from 1990 to 2015 using annual frequency data. We assess the effects of oil price as well as the energy market supply, demand, and residual price shocks using a time-varying parameter panel data stochastic volatility model. We show the importance of reducing energy market uncertainty for the success of a clean energy transition in Europe as uncertainties have strong time-varying effects on the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. The oil price and residual energy price uncertainties are the key factors encouraging renewable energy transition that reduces the vulnerability of economies to energy shocks. Energy supply shocks affect the transition negatively while the demand shocks work similarly to residual energy prices shocks, requiring a robust energy base that is less volatile. The paper also discusses policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper challenges the assumption of separable preferences that has been applied throughout the existing empirical research on European Union (EU) legislative politics. Yet our analysis reveals that non-separable preferences are in fact a widespread phenomenon in EU politics. In many cases actors’ spending preferences are conditional upon the expected policy outcome, but not vice versa. In order to appropriately model such non-reciprocity, we propose a simple modification to the standard Euclidean utility function. Applying simulation techniques, we demonstrate that overlooking non-separable preferences may have caused a substantial bias in the empirical evaluation of competing models of EU legislative politics. Specifically, models that constrain the set of feasible outcomes to either the Winset and/or the core must rely on a correct specification of actors’ utility functions. Therefore, a false assumption of core separable preferences significantly disadvantages these models vis-à-vis unconstrained models. Moreover, our findings underline the agenda-setting power of the European Commission for proposals that involve either a spending decision or the delegation of power from the national to the European level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses certain issues of regional development theory in combination with long-forgotten conditions of uneven geographical development in the context of the current financial and debt crisis in the eurozone. The dominant explanations of the crisis are mainly macroeconomic and financial but this paper argues for its geographical components/foundations. After a short descriptive comment about the current debt crisis in the eurozone and particularly in Southern Europe as part of the wider global crisis of over-accumulation, an alternative interpretation is provided based on uneven geographical/regional development among Euro-regions, especially since the introduction of the euro. The paper also discusses the shift towards what we may call the neoliberal urban and regional development discourse, which is responsible for a de-politicized shift in regional theory and hence downplaying or simply overlooking questions of socio-spatial justice. The discussion about justice and solidarity goes beyond the controversial rescue plan introduced by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, which was supposedly designed to help one of the so-called – in a typical colonial way – PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain), namely Greece. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current European policy agenda strongly accentuates the importance of research and development (R&D) as a driver of economic growth. The basic assumption is that high European wage levels make it unlikely that less research-intensive parts of the economy can withstand competition from low-wage countries with increasingly skilled labour forces. Thus, the inferior growth of the European Union (EU) in the 1990s compared with the USA has been explained by the latter’s higher rate of R&D investments. The paper challenges this rather simplistic view of innovation and examines the regional consequences of such policies. EU growth has caught up with that of the USA during recent years and low-tech industries continue to have considerable economic importance in Europe in terms of jobs and value added, especially outside the main growth regions, but also in the major urban regions. Empirical evidence from Denmark and the UK provided in the paper suggests that low- and high-tech industries are closely interconnected because low-tech firms play important roles both as partners in the innovation processes of high-tech firms and as buyers of high-tech products. Therefore, EU industrial policy is not appropriate because it overlooks the continuing significance of low-tech industries. Furthermore, the rather uniform focus on R&D is associated with a strong emphasis on large city-regions where research-intensive industries are concentrated and, thus, increasing regional inequality in Europe is being produced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

faces a growing import dependency over the next decades. Europe's neighbouring regions are endowed with substantial reserves and resources which can cover the increasing European import requirements in the medium to long term. With the development of its different uses, especially for power generation, gas is increasingly gaining importance for European energy security of supply. A substantial captive demand has indeed developed during the past decade, which explains the essential role the EU gives to natural gas in its energy policy. Securing and increasing gas supply will, however, require huge investments on all the segments of the gas chain, namely exploration and development, international transit and downstream infrastructures (gas lines and storage). These investments will be realised by energy companies and will, therefore, require an appropriate investment climate, which not only involves economic considerations but also a stable environment, a clear regulation and the possibility for operators to develop necessary strategic partnerships. This paper assesses the future long term (2010-2020-2030) gas import requirements and external supply potential for Europe, and identifies future gas corridor infrastructure needs taking into account a reserve/resource analysis, production and demand outlooks, export infrastructure and projects, supply costs as well as institutional, strategy and geopolitical issues, etc. Finally, the paper identifies investment barriers for different types of gas corridor infrastructure projects and proposes issues to be addressed by policymakers in order to put in place a favourable environment regarding investment promotion and to create a sustainable gas market for the long term. The paper is based on the work carried out by OME in the framework of the ENCOURAGED (Energy Corridor Optimization for the European Markets for Gas, Electricity and Hydrogen) project financed by the European Commission DG-Research 6th Research and Development Framework Programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of recent studies on taxation in the presence of externalities in a second-best framework consider the implications of taking into account the feedback effects of environmental quality. This paper explores by means of GEM-E3. a computable general equilibrium model .for the EU countries, the importance of the ,feedback effects of the health related benefits from an environmental policy. The modelling framework implemented in GEM-E3 allows for three channels through which the feedback can occur: a decrease in medical expenditure, an increase in the consumers' available time and an increase of labour productivity in the production sectors. The results show that the explicit modelling of the health related effect of air pollution on consumers and producers allows for a more precise evaluation of the impact of environmental policies on private consumption and employment. Relative to the included benefits the feedback effects are large. However, in terms of global effect, the impacts of the feedback are small, compared to the standard GEM-E3 model where the health related benefits are evaluated ex-post. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the European economists' view on energy policy statements made by the Commission of European Communities. The European Union issued energy policy statements including "Green Paper: A European Strategy for Sustainable, Competitive and Secure Energy," "The Energy Challenge: Energy Review Report 2006," and "Global Energy Security." The said statements have certain similarities and pertinent distinctions. The common feature is that they attempt to appeal to all interest groups. Each claims to aim an achieving goal concerning energy efficiency, global energy security, and protection of the environment.

The European clothing industry faces a number of important challenges which have been at the forefront of policy thinking across the European Union and beyond. This paper provides a set of reflections on the European Commission's recent Communication on the future of the industry in Europe in the light of pressures of liberalization, globalization and EU enlargement Based upon ongoing research on the restructuring of the Central and East European clothing sector, the paper highlights the limits of the outward-processing model of production that has dominated east-west interactions in this sector. It also examines the uneven role of upgrading and emerging design capacity in the industry the role and limits of clothing-industry clusters in the new member states, and considers the role of 'countermarkets' in the pan-European clothing-contracting system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers whether political business cycles existed in East European accession countries during the period 1990-9. Based on the Mundell-Fleming model expanded in Clark and Hallerberg (2000), we argue that the type of exchange rate regime and the relative independence of the central bank affects the instruments governments use to influence the economy before elections. In our empirical analysis, we find that accession countries with dependent central banks and flexible exchange rates have looser monetary policies in electoral periods than in non-electoral periods. If a country has a fixed exchange rate regime, it manipulates its economy in election years through running larger budgets instead of through looser monetary policy. The presence of such cycles in Eastern Europe has implications for the introduction of the euro in EU accession countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to show how the European Union (EU) and the Swedish government have recently become co-producers of education policy that increasingly emphasises compulsory education. The paper draws on the following two kinds of empirical material: 1) an analysis of central official policy documents produced by the EU and the Swedish government; and 2) documents related to the development, communication and implementation of country-specific recommendations within the EU, using Sweden as the national policy arena. Theoretically, the paper is inspired by discursive institutionalism and uses critical discourse analysis for the systematic analysis. The result shows that beginning around the mid-2000s, both the EU and the Swedish government have demonstrated an increased interest in compulsory education as a solution to a wide range of societal and individual problems. Initially, the coordination of policy concerned with compulsory education was communicated implicitly, discursively embedded into a variety of policy areas. From 2013 onwards, however, the result shows the emergence of a new and more explicit European policy discourse on compulsory education, which is discussed as an interesting area of research still in its infancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fight against unwanted sea migration in Southern Europe has triggered the territorial redefinition of European Union (EU) borders and transformed the relationship between sending and receiving countries in the region. This paper focuses on the strategies that the EU and Spain adopted to seal the maritime border around the Canary Islands between 2005 and 2010. According to the primary and secondary data used here, the closure of the Atlantic route that happened in this period was the result of the combination of defensive and preventative measures along and beyond this section of the EU border. Initiatives aimed at promoting economic development, creating jobs at origin, and temporary migration programs paved the way for cooperation among governments, thus making possible the deployment of military resources along the border, the return/deportation of unwanted EU-bound migrants, and the externalization of migration control responsibilities. Cooperation and the mixture of proactive and reactive initiatives seen in this case study are likely to become the hallmark of a new kind of global anti-immigration border that extends beyond the territory of the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the tools and strategic options for policymaking of two European intergovernmental organisations in the area of citizenship education. The first section analyses the policy tools used to date, whereas the second section presents current global, political and education-specific challenges in the field. The third section investigates options for how the two organisations might develop their policymaking in future years with a view to formulating recommendations to enable these organisations to make the best use of the policy tools and resources at their disposal. Overall, the article suggests that both the Council of Europe and the European Union are facing significant legal and resource restraints – to a greater extent where the Council of Europe is concerned and to a somewhat lesser extent for the European Union – that limit their capacity to shape and enforce citizenship education policymaking at national levels. Both institutions therefore rely heavily on informational and, to some extent, financial and organisational tools to influence policymaking. Finally, the paper presents a set of clear and actionable goals for improving the power and impact of the informational and organizational policy tools at the disposal of both institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the economic and financial crisis that has ensnared Europe from the late 2000s has been instrumental in reshaping employment and social relations in a detrimental way for the majority of the European people. It argues that the crisis has exacerbated the socio-economic position of most Roma people, immigrants as well as of other vulnerable groups. This development is approached here as an outcome of the widening structural inequalities that underpin the crisis within an increasingly neoliberalised Europe. Through recent policy developments and public discourses from a number of European countries I show how rising inequalities nurture racialised social tensions. My account draws on classic and contemporary theoretical propositions that have been propounded about the nature of capitalism, its contemporary re-articulation as well as its ramification for the future of Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2004, eight formerly communist East Central European states acceded to the European Union, an event which was celebrated as the final overcoming of the post-war division of Europe into East and West and the ‘return to Europe’ of those states which had been ‘kidnapped’ by the Soviet Union. To mark the accession, an Austrian film production company commissioned five East Central European directors to make short documentary films under the collective title Über die Grenze: Fünf Ansichten von Nachbarn (Across the Border: Five Views From Neighbours). Drawing on geopolitical analysis of the dichotomy of Europe and Eastern Europe which underpinned the European Union enlargement discourse, this paper examines the Czech episode České Velenice Evropské as a film which explores the ways in which borders have been conceptualized and identities (re)framed in the context of European Union enlargement. At the moment when the Central European states’ symbolic ‘return to Europe’ is being realized, director Jan Gogola reflects on the meaning of European Union accession for Central Europeans, on shifting borders and their implications for the construction and understanding of identities of self and other, and on the dynamics of openness and closure in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines how power generation in the European Union (EU) can be modernised along the lines of a sustainable solution pursuant to WEC principles. This means a re-design with the goal of implementing the EU's internal market and far-reaching decarbonisation.The example of Germany's energy U-turn shows one possible route, one that is marked by a massive expansion of renewable energies coupled with a phase-out of nuclear energy. Other European countries are pursuing different strategies. Current developments show that solutions chosen in any one country have direct implications for its neighbours. This is because electricity markets are continuing to grow together. In a spirit of solidarity between the member states, the closest possible review and coordination and/or harmonisation of policies are needed. This will allow the conversion process, which is associated with macro- economic costs, to be shaped on a cost-efficient basis.For utilities, the energy turnaround brings with it a multitude of challenges. Utilities must convert their generation portfolio and, in particular, perceptibly increase their share of low- carbon energies. Conventional power plants must be designed flexibly, so that - besides volatility in consumption - fluctuations in the feed-in of renewable energies, too, can be offset. In addition to this technical requirement, energy suppliers are facing a situation in which the utilisation period of conventional power stations is falling as a result of the growing feed-in of renewables. On top of this comes the fact that wholesale electricity prices on sunny days are pushed down despite high demand owing to the growing feed-in of electricity from photovoltaic systems. Both factors limit the options for obtaining the necessary contributions to cover fixed costs on the market. This raises the issue of the market design of the future. The launch of capacity mechanisms, ie remuneration for the product 'firm capacity' supplementing the income obtained from the sale of electricity, could help. At the same time, capacity mechanisms could be a suitable instrument for coping with power failures.This brings politics into the game. With electricity markets growing together, the central requirement to be met by a capacity-market mechanism is that harmonised regulations, a discrimination-free design and technology neutrality are ensured throughout Europe. This is regarded as indispensable for creating a level playing field.Also as regards reaching the goal of Europe's climate policy, viz. a lowering of greenhouse- gas emissions by at least 80% by 2050 compared with 1990, the rule must be to prioritise European solutions over any national regulation. In addition, a procedure in climate policy that is more stringently reviewed at international level is considered unavoidable. Cost efficiency in reaching climate goals means backing market instruments. CO2 emissions trading should be accorded the role of leading instrument in climate protection. The instrument can be used to achieve agreed quantity targets for CO2 emissions reliably and at the least possible costs.One argument in favour of anchoring the trade in emissions as leading instrument to shape a sustainable energy supply is that the costs of transforming the energy system can be kept within bounds. Renewable energies enter the system with rising CO2 prices on a market- driven basis. The various technologies compete with one another and with other CO2- avoidance technologies, like increases in efficiency, utilisation of nuclear energy and CO2 capture and storage (CCS).One current study says that the expected growth in electricity consumption in the EU by some 1,000 TWh by 2050 will be covered by adding renewable energies if the focus is on trade in emissions as leading instrument. This doubles the share of renewables in power generation by 2050 to about 50%. After 2030, with rising CO2 prices, CCS, too, becomes profitable. If we were to rule out this technology for lowering CO2, much higher costs for the aimed-at decarbonisation of power generation would have to be accepted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we explore the current politico-economic tensions surrounding Iceland’s application for EU membership provoked by the state’s financial trauma of 2008. Through access to high level diplomats, politicians and EU Commission staff involved in preparing and negotiating Icelandic accession to the EU, we examine the difficulties for both sides of overcoming the country’s long-standing antipathy towards European political integration and appeasing the vociferous sectoral interests, especially in farming and fisheries, ranged against membership. The significance of this application far outstrips the size of this small island state since Iceland’s relationship with ‘EUrope’ is long-standing and complex. This national drama is given greater political salience as it is projected against the backdrop of ‘EUrope’s own existential struggles over the post-1945 political project of integration currently underway. Ultimately the saga of Iceland’s membership of the EU may be a relatively short one if Iceland refuses ‘EUrope’, which would effectively mark the final frontier of ‘EUropean’ expansion northwards. This would also mark a distinct stage in the history of ‘European ‘external relations; a candid assessment by a small island state of the value of adopting the structures and policies of an alleged ‘New ‘EUrope’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights the ways in which the emerging models of migration management are producing new geographies of the European Union’s borders that complicate notions of a tightly bounded and easily delineated ‘Schengen space’ or ‘Fortress Europe’. Under policy frameworks such as the European Neighbourhood Policy and the EU’s Global Approach to Migration, a process of economic and political regional integration is under way that is beginning to transform the ways in which non-accession neighbours and neighbours of neighbours in North Africa and beyond are articulated with the EU. Central to these changes are programmes, institutions and practices of both regional economic development and border routes management. This changing geopolitical and geo-economic approach to regional integration and the nature of European borderlands has at its heart a series of new spatial imaginaries, institutional actors and cartographic experiments that point to a project in process in which the relationships between territory, state and population are being reconfigured to produce new notions of sovereignty across more complex and multiple borders and, in some cases, beyond borders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing literature on the EU's participation in the agricultural negotiations of the Doha Round assumes that EU policy-makers develop autonomous preferences in favour of liberalising agricultural trade, thus going against the preferences of the agricultural sector. This article challenges this view and argues that WTO judicialisation-the strengthened enforcement of rules introduced with the creation of the WTO-affects the domestic politics of trade in WTO members. My key contention is that WTO judicialisation confronts societal interests and public authorities with legal vulnerability, and that this elicits a willingness to co-operate with other WTO members and thus pre-empt foreign challenges to domestic policies. Empirically, the article shows that negotiations centred on offsetting the potentially disruptive effects of foreign legal challenges to EU farm policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a new data set enumerating the population of organizations listed and/or registered as lobbyists in the European Union. In the first part of the paper we describe how we arrived at the population data set by drawing on three independent sources (CONECCS; Landmarks; European Parliament registry). We briefly discuss the validity of these registers in the context of recent substantial changes to each of them. In the second part, we present descriptive information on the number and type of groups as well as their territorial origins. In the final section, we outline potential research questions that can be addressed with the new data set for further research on the role of groups in the EU policy process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing mainly on qualitative evidence gathered from interviews with migrant handymen and with labour-using households in the UK, this paper analyses how this migration typifies economic and social divisions within Europe and embodies conflicting tensions between economic and social policies at an interpersonal level. By supplying household services, migrant handymen enable labour-using households to alleviate time pressures and conflicts in time priorities arising from tensions between economic expectations regarding working hours and work commitment, and social expectations regarding contemporary ideas of active parenting. Similarly to the outsourcing of feminized domestic labour and care, these tensions are in part resolved for labour-using households by extending class divisions across national boundaries while leaving gender divisions changed but not transformed and in some instances exacerbating work/ life tensions among the migrants. These broad findings are complicated by differential desires and capabilities around fathering practices among fathers in labour-using households and among the migrants, and economic differentiation among the migrant population. Although we cannot tell from our study whether such movement reinforces or redresses uneven development, what we can say is that existing cohesion policies are insufficient to redress uneven development, and individual responses including migration can reinforce existing social divisions. Further, existing social policies for promoting gender equality fail to recognize or redress the deeply embedded gendered norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of a European public sphere, and the emergence of a transnational media within this space, has been the subject of debate in recent years, yet little attention has been given to investigating the functioning of the media that currently occupy this space. This article provides an empirically based insight into the organizational context within which transnational newspapers produce coverage of the European Union (EU). Material collected in interviews with journalists from four transnational newspapers (Wall Street Journal Europe, International Herald Tribune, Financial Times Europe and European Voice) is presented, and the way in which a range of internal and external factors shape transnational coverage of the EU is discussed. The findings suggest that as a consequence of the diverse range of approaches adopted by transnational newspapers, the EU remains unreported as a polity in its own right, and is predominantly covered from an external point of view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

EU policies seek to bring the EU territory closer to resembling a 'level playing field'. The paper first discusses efforts to inject a territorial dimension into EU policies, including the European Spatial Development Perspective. During its preparation, the same issue of national sovereignty has been dominant as in the subsequent debate concerning the European Constitution. Had it been ratified, the Constitution would have given European planning a boost. The paper discusses its rejection and reviews literature that presents views of the EU as an unprecedented, dynamic construct, with transnational learning as the engine. Next, the paper discusses the application of the European Spatial Development Perspective, during which planners have been learning about territory and territorial governance in the context of an integrating Europe. Like with European integration generally, European planning can thus be understood as a learning machine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we seek to understand why attitudes vary among individuals regarding the issue of income distribution in European Union member states. We believe that the issue of income inequality is a potentially significant political cleavage that may have an important influence in meaningful ways in European politics. Rather than focusing on the national context to explain variation in citizen attitudes toward income inequality, we control for national context and explore the relative influence of various individual-level characteristics in shaping how Europeans think about the distribution of income in their countries. We assess how individuals' political attitude, economic self-interest, and general attitude toward society affect how they think about income equality in their own society. To test these propositions, we devise a series of hypotheses that are tested in an ordered probit model using data from the 2000—1 wave of the World Values and European Values Surveys. It is our contention that the way people think about income inequality in their society is largely a product of the ideas that they hold about politics and society, and not principally a product of their economic self-interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents panel unit root tests for price convergence of different petroleum products over the last decade. We distinguish consumer and producer price convergence and test for the absolute versus relative version of the law of one price. Comparing the speed of convergence as well as its development over time indicates that price arbitrage in the common EU markets is not sufficiently strong to level the price differentials, mainly caused by different excise taxation. We show that taxation alone leads to market segmentation and that discretionary national tax policy by EU member states is not (yet) threatened by the observable level of cross-border shopping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 1 May 2004, the European Union (EU) welcomed its new member states from Central and Eastern Europe. This paper considers to what extent one of the most widely tested and supported theories of voting behavior in Western Europe, the second-order election model, applies in the enlarged EU. We test the model using election data from the new member states and find that voters do not cast protest votes against their incumbent national governments in second-order elec tions, that is, elections where voters believe little to be at stake. This finding contradicts one of the model's basic propositions and runs counter to the empirical reality in the old member states, with potentially significant implications for inter and intra-institutional politics in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a norms-based account of institutional change. It compares two cases of attempted change, one successful and one unsuccessful. The argument advanced is that norm-based change occurs when the norms are congruent with the perceived interests of the actors who have the power to take on the decision. Norms affect the process of institutional change not only by providing legitimacy to some forms of political action, but also by shaping the actors’ perception of their interests as well their strategies. It is argued that norms, in that sense, help political actors combine Max Weber's zweckrational (goal-orientated) and wertrational (value-orientated) categories of behaviour. Empirical evidence drawn from the context of the evolving European Union supports this argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the ways in which government activity, or demand-side forces, influence interest mobilization and formal inclusion in the policy-making process in the European Union. Drawing on an original dataset of nearly 700 civil society groups active in the European Union, the paper provides empirical evidence of three routes by which the EU institutions influence interest group activity: (1) direct interest group subsidy; (2) manipulation of the establishment and composition of formal arenas of political debate; and (3) broader, system-wide expansion of competencies and selective development of chosen policy areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discursive construction of security in the European Union (EU) candidate states has received little attention. One effect of this gap is to discreetly frame EU applicants as learners or adopters of Western concepts of security. This overlooks the key role of local intellectuals of statecraft in the making of security both in the candidate states and in the Western institutions with which these states integrate. Based on the case of Estonia, this paper exposes the essential obscurity and fluidity of security in Estonia, and highlights the role of Estonian intellectuals in the making and operationalizing of this fluidity. The paper thereby emphasizes the capacity of East European intellectuals of statecraft to influence the problematizations of security in these states themselves and in Western writings about them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A comparative analysis of Euroscepticism explores what it means in two nations and what is then articulated in specific newspapers. The theoretical terrain, Italy’s and Britain’s post-war relationships with the European Union, the countries’ media structures and the specific context of Il Giornale (owned by Silvio Berlusconi’s family) in Italy and The Times in the United Kingdom (owned by Rupert Murdoch) are mapped out. Some 21 interviews were conducted with relevant journalists and politicians (including reporters covering Europe for the aforementioned) offering further context. A critical discourse analysis of news stories and commentaries then spans the last decade. Although there is some Euroscepticism in Il Giornale, it has historically been localised, yet now seems to be growing in intensity. In The Times, however, the Euroscepticism conveyed is more pervasive and deeper. Its fact-based news can actually be very persuasive – ironically more akin to the commentary-laden news of Il Giornale – as the debate looms ahead of the planned 2017 UK referendum on European Union membership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the responsiveness of women's labor supply to their husband's job loss--the so-called added worker effect. The authors contribute to the literature by taking an explicit internationally comparative perspective in analyzing the variation of the added worker effect across welfare regimes. Using longitudinal data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) survey covering 28 European countries from 2004 to 2013, they find evidence of an added worker effect, which, however, varies over both the business cycle and the different welfare regimes in Europe. The latter result might be explained, in part, by differences in the design of the unemployment benefit system across countries, which create different incentives for the labor supply of wives of unemployed men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we conduct a case study of EU-level debates on universal basic income (UBI) trials, as part of which we examine core contributions in the Conference on the Future of Europe, the election manifestos produced by European party groups, as well as European Parliament debates since 2009. The results indicate that parties and politicians are far more hesitant than citizens to demand UBI, while also relying proportionally more on proposing trials rather than policies. Interpreting the results, we develop a conceptual framework designed to better understand how political decisionmakers at the EU level can deal with the uncertainties involved in European social policymaking. We argue that these actors face legal, political, and suitability risks when proposing policies that would integrate the EU's social dimension. Unlike in national settings, the potential to pursue various strategies of risk reduction is limited at the EU level. However, we argue that empirical trials of social policies are particularly well-suited to insuring politicians at the EU level against risks. This insurance function is based not only on the scope of empirical trials to reduce uncertainties about policy outcomes, but also on the fact that they are inherently non-binding. By simply proposing empirical trials, actors can influence agendas, benefit from public demands, or reduce public pressure without having to take on the risks associated with implementing a fully-fledged policy proposal. We conclude that empirical trials can be understood as buffers against risks that might be used strategically by politicians, and which have the potential to break stalemates in the future development of a "Social Europe". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European agriculture has undergone considerable structural changes in the last two decades, with a decreasing number of farms and increasing farm size. One important question is whether these changes have been translated into improvements in technical efficiency. The paper provides a comparative analysis of farm technical efficiency in eight EU member states. More specifically, the authors focus on the relative performance fluctuation over time - namely, whether poorly performing farms ahvays remain inefficient whilst some farms are always efficient. The most striking results are as follows. First, there is a remarkable robustness of farm efficiency stability across countries: on average, 60% of farms maintain their efficiency ranking in two consecutive years, while 20% improve and 20% worsen their positions. Second, there is a clear difference between the mobility indicators with respect to farm technical efficiency ranking between the EU15 and the new member states (NMS) included in the study. Due to unstable economic conditions, farms in NMS are more mobile than those in the EU15. Finally, using second-stage regression of mobility scores on a set of farm-specific explanatory variables, some explanations of the mobility patterns are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates whether public preferences for European solidarity are associated with vote choices in the 2019 European elections. After multiple crises, the politicisation of European Union affairs has increased, polarising voters and parties between those favouring the redistribution of risks across member states and those prioritising national responsibility in coping with the consequences of the crises. We expect pro-solidarity voters to be more prone to vote for green and radical-left parties and less prone to vote for conservative and radical-right parties. Testing these hypotheses in 10 European Union countries with original survey data, we find that green and radical-left parties profited from European solidarity voting only in some countries, while being pro-solidarity reduced the likelihood of voting for both moderate and radical-right parties in each sample country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the solidification of the discourse of integration of the Gypsy/Roma in the European press following the fall of Communism. A discourse analysis focuses on the British and Romanian press between 1990 and 2006, and it suggests that, in the midst of opening of EU borders and talks of a European Constitution, the idea and necessity of integration grew in political popularity as a means to peaceably alleviate interethnic conflict. However, the discourse of integration has continuously shifted between assimilationist voices and projects that attempt to change the Gypsy other into a non-Gypsy, on the one hand, and human rights-inspired defense and advocacy for the Roma, on the other. This article further suggests that the press does more than confirm stereotypes; instead, uncertainties, contradictions, and changes mark press writing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The flexicurity approach to labour market policy may offer advantages for trade unions but also poses challenges, given their weak situation in policy formulation at EU level and in many member states. This article explores unions’ capacity to mobilize around flexicurity issues and to influence policy debates and outcomes in two member states. In the UK, flexicurity has low political salience and unions have little capacity for mobilization or influence, although they have linked flexicurity to campaigns on agency workers and restructuring. In France, unions have developed alternative proposals on making employment pathways secure and have succeeded in shifting debate towards these proposals rather than the Commission’s flexicurity recommendations, although differences with the positions of employers and the state have limited outcomes to date. EU policies provide only weak leverage, since trade unions’ ability to influence labour market policy depends on their position within domestic institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The expansion of the European Union (EU) to include Greece and Spain in 1981 and 1986 respectively led to an expansion of sectors protected under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which included cotton. In the subsequent decades, the EU's cotton policy has undergone several revamping attempts. By bringing cotton production and processing under the EU umbrella, EU policy makers admitted the role and significance of its production for the agriculture and economy of southern Europe. Nevertheless, the course of this policy has been highly contentious, and will probably remain so for years to come. This paper offers a retrospective view of the EU's cotton policy and then considers current and future perspectives of the cotton sector, as cotton, a commodity that is produced worldwide and a basic input for the textile and clothing industry, attracts the interest of both EU and world agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European political leaderships have responded to the emergence of global finance with a sustained drive to integrate Europe's own financial systems on the basis of a switch from classical bank credit to tradable securities. In itself, this was a rational response. However, financial integration was pursued at breakneck speed and in disregard of important public goods including economic stability and social justice. Reforms were undertaken in a climate of moral panic, in the false belief that the EU faced a serious problem of external competitiveness. In consequence, Europe's banks and institutional investors were badly exposed to the sub-prime crisis, the Eurozone has been radically disorganized and the EU has had little influence on the evolution of global financial structures and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]