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Recent jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) marks a striking shift towards a more restrictive interpretation of EU citizens’ rights. The Court's turnaround is not only highly relevant for practical debates about ‘Social Europe’ or ‘welfare migration’, but also enlightening from a more general, theoretical viewpoint. Several recent studies on the ECJ have argued that the Court is largely constrained by member state governments’ threats of legislative override and non-compliance. We show that an additional mechanism is necessary to explain the Court's turnaround on citizenship. While the ECJ extended EU citizens’ rights even against strong opposition by member state governments, its recent shift reflects changes in the broader political context, i.e., the politicization of free movement in the European Union (EU). The article theorises Court responsiveness to politicization and demonstrates empirically, how the Court's jurisprudence corresponds with changing public debates about EU citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of recycled papers in contact with foods is discussed in detail with respect to regulatory and technical aspects. The legal context is given, and major existing regulations are reviewed. The safety of recycled fibre use is examined with respect to chemical, microbiological and organoleptic contamination. Toxicological testing possibilities on finished paper products are discussed. The harmonization work in progress at the Council of Europe level is presented in detail, and the authors give their personal view on future evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2004 ten Eastern and Southern European countries will join the EU. Agriculture and agricultural policy is an important issue in this EU enlargement process, for several reasons. This paper assesses the implications of the enlargement process for agriculture and agricultural policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assesses the European Union's (EU) Green Paper on its relations with the 71 Lome Convention countries after the millennium. Comparison of the proposals in the Green Paper and the Lome system; Views on the European Commission's thinking about EU-African, Caribbean and Pacific relations; Changes in the political environment; Importance of a gradualist or incremental approach in trying to create a relationship.

EU citizens migrating between EU member states are expected to be self-sufficient movers, with little access to social or integration support for the economically inactive. This generates challenges for both migrant EU citizens and local governments in places of destination. The latter are confronted with new social challenges resulting from migration that balances between mobility and settlement. How local governments respond to this crucially shapes EU citizenship and the evolving EU migration system. This paper looks at local responses to migrant EU citizens' integration needs and how we might understand these. The paper is exploratory and builds on in-depth research in Berlin, Hamburg, Gothenburg and Stockholm conducted in 2015–2016. It demonstrates that responses varied between short-term approaches addressing basic needs and long-term strategies focusing on integration. It argues that the integration strategy identified in Berlin is the result of a national context of bottom-up immigrant policy-making, certain historical experiences of immigration, and, crucially, the work of local policy entrepreneurs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, unfair pricing cases were considered a "taboo" in EU competition policy. During the recent years, however, the European Commission and a number of National Competition Authorities have investigated unfair pricing cases. Therefore, national and EU courts had the opportunity to rule on unfair pricing cases, by thus clarifying the legal test. The paper shows that United Brands is not the "only" legal test to assess unfair pricing cases; the CJEU has endorsed alternative "benchmarking" methods. Recent jurisprudence has also introduced some "safeguard tools" to minimize the risk of false negative errors, such as the requirement for the competition agency to verify its findings under "multiple" tests and the possibility for the dominant firm to put forward "objective justifications". The paper argues that the legal test of unfair pricing cases is becoming "clearer", by thus contributing to a further shift from the traditional non-enforcement paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2009 the European Commission published the art. 102 guidance regarding abusive exclusionary conduct by dominant undertakings. The guidance is based on the more economic approach to competition policy. This paper investigates the welfare implications of the more economic approach to loyalty rebates. First, the paper presents an economic framework linking weights attached to probabilities of false positives and negatives and the legal norm. After that, the paper discusses cases before the guidance paper (i.a. Hoffmann-La Roche), the guidance paper itself, and cases after the guidance paper (i.a. Intel). In the period after the guidance paper, we observe a non-linear increase in the weight attached to preventing false positives. The paper concludes that to further limit welfare losses due to false positives, the category of rebates that is assumed to be abusive should be defined in a restrictive way. Furthermore, in law enforcement priority should be given to cases that, considering all the circumstances, can be expected to be most harmful to consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there have been numerous academic and policy debates on the delivery mechanisms of European Union (EU) funds in member states. Studies focused on issues arising, for instance, during the management and implementation of EU aid at the local level but devoted less attention to the economic and institutional impact of EU funds. To what extent do EU funds act as drivers of socio-economic development and institutional change? Theoretically, this paper contributes to debates about economic convergence and the institutional spillover effects generated by EU aid across national and local settings. Empirically, the paper evaluates the impact of EU aid in Bulgaria and Romania after a decade of EU membership. Firstly, the paper examines a mix of quantitative indicators and secondary sources on the socio-economic impact of EU funds in the two countries. Secondly, using original qualitative evidence, the paper assesses the spillover effects of EU aid on domestic institutions and stakeholders, policies and practices. Finally, the paper provides an analysis of the unintended domestic consequences triggered by EU funds. It contributes to growing debates on the impact of European aid and suggests potential avenues for policy development and for further academic research in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to assess whether the European Commission or the European Council shaped the European Union's response to the sovereign debt crisis through their respective agenda-setting powers. The paper uses process tracing complemented with interviews to demonstrate the influence of the European Commission and the European Council in this regard. Theoretically, the paper is anchored by a framework of agenda-setting dynamics which is used to assess the European Commission and European Council's influence in reforming the European Union's economic governance framework. A systematic analysis of the negotiations of these reforms between 2010 and 2013 indicate that the European Council wielded policy influence through its agenda-setting powers. Conversely, the European Commission exercised less influence in those negotiations, despite its position as the European Union's de facto agenda-setter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to show the increased relevance of soft skills in a continuously changing environment. A research was carried out to examine and compare students' and employers' perceptions regarding the importance of soft skills in different European countries. Results show that 86% of respondents indicate an increased emphasis on soft skills over the last 5–10 years and that companies consider soft skills more important than students/graduates. Furthermore, major differences have also been identified in the ranking of the 20 soft skills listed in this paper, indicating different levels of priorities. This paper suggests that companies and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) need to work together not only to increase students' awareness of the importance of soft skills but also to guide them in taking individual responsibility to acquire and develop these essential skills in order to continuously adapt to the changing labour market and improve their employability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the EU-Brazil and EU-Mexico strategic partnerships are still scarce in the academia. In this context, this paper aims to contribute to the academic literature by briefly revisiting the process of establishment of each one of these relationships and assessing the main challenges with which they are currently faced. Moreover, it presents a comparative analysis of both relationships, increasing our understanding of 'strategic partnership' as a foreign policy concept, of EU strategic partnerships with Latin America, and of current trends in EU-Mexico and EU-Brazil relations. The paper argues and demonstrates that whereas the EU-Brazil strategic partnership follows a descending path, EU-Mexico relations find themselves in an ascending and promising direction. These opposite trends are not only caused by the different political and economic conjunctures of Brazil and Mexico but are also due to the degree of expectations from the parties when it comes to the outcomes of the partnership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today the inclusion of non-citizens in the electorate is an increasingly common phenomenon. Yet, we know relatively little about under what conditions some states extend such voting rights to non-citizens earlier than others. In this paper, we investigate the timing of local enfranchisement policies for non-citizens in 28 democracies from 1980 to 2010 using event-history analysis. Adding to the conditions studied in earlier work, we examine the extent to which demographic composition, immigration policy regimes, and political partisanship relate to the timing of non-citizen suffrage. We find that higher shares of immigrant residents delay whereas EU membership and economic openness advance the timing of voting rights for non-citizens. At all demographic heterogeneity conditions, less permissive immigration regimes have been able to enfranchise non-citizens earlier. The findings suggest that, over time, having more left-wing parties in the government accelerates the timing of enfranchisement, while right-wing parties contribute to delays. The article brings forward new data and an original explanatory framework emphasising relevance of partisanship and immigration policy at different demographic contexts. Our analysis sheds light on the idiosyncratic state practices in the timing of enfranchisement reforms adding to the debates in migration and citizenship studies and the broader comparative politics field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present paper, we consider the question of the effectiveness of the remedies imposed by the EC. Our fundamental analysis stems from the reciprocal influence between Competition Law and the Digital Economy. Nowadays, Competition Law has a profound role, affecting not only direct undertakings worldwide but also indirectly by having an impact on our daily life and protecting customers. In recent years, however, the idea of creating a culture of innovation among companies has prevailed. For more than 20 years, the Digital Economy is also part of our life characterizing markets by rapid innovation and technological sophistication. The digital era has introduced the global network of economic activities and commercial transactions enabled by information and communication technologies. Through innovative products/ideas, not only the companies themselves benefit by increasing their productivity and consequently constantly creating new jobs (Alibaba, Amazon), but also consumers having the opportunity to choose a plethora of products at the best possible price. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes approaching the emergence and evolution of the Europeanization of national planning using conceptual frameworks from historical institutionalism in order to shed light on the mechanisms and trajectories of domestic change arising from the influence of EU strategic planning. It seeks in particular to examine Europeanization in terms of the extent to which EU spatial planning has become a driving force for institutional changes in very different national planning systems. Returning to the changes that occurred in the Italian and English planning systems in the last two decades, the author provides insight into the attempts to insert and transpose EU spatial planning concepts and instruments into domestic systems, dealing with path dependency and European influence. By reading these processes from a historical institutionalist perspective, the paper aims to enhance understanding of the relative influence of European spatial planning on national planning systems, identifying mechanisms and trajectories of domestic change in different planning systems. Key findings concern the diverse modes and degree of institutionalization of EU strategic spatial planning, examining tendencies to replace the status quo through displacements in England and to progress through a path-dependent trajectory in Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a historical-institutionalist framework, this paper discusses the emergence and evolution of transnational cooperation initiatives in post-war Europe. A number of critical junctures can be identified at which different goals and approaches were introduced. Due to the path-dependent nature of institutional arrangements, this has resulted in increasingly fuzzy rationales and contradictory objectives for transnational regions in Europe today. The paper concludes with a reflection on the value of historical institutionalism to identify the malleability of such complex policy concepts and the key challenges that transnational regions are facing due to unresolved tensions in their policy design and evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 2000s, both US and EU Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) include social standards that aim to protect workers and the environment. However, the US and the EU have chosen fundamental different approaches for the enforcement of these clauses. While the US pursues a sanction-based approach, the EU solely relies on dialogue and cooperation mechanisms. Hence, to the surprise of many, social standards in U.S PTAs appear to be stricter than the ones in EU PTAs. Why do the two biggest trade powers of the world handle social clauses in PTAs so differently? In this paper, I argue that disparities in domestic politics account for their different strategies towards social standards. Drawing on the principal-agent literature, the paper analyses the PTA negotiations of the US and the EU with Peru and Colombia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to explain the prevalence of informal payments for health services in Southeast Europe through the lens of institutional theory as resulting from formal institutional failures which lead to an asymmetry between the laws and regulations (formal institutions) and the unwritten rules (informal institutions), making informal payments acceptable. Reporting on a 2013 Eurobarometer survey of the propensity to make informal payments for health services in Southeast Europe, a strong association is found between the degree to which formal and informal institutions are unaligned and the prevalence of informal payments. The relationship between informal payments and formal institutional imperfections is then explored to identify the structural conditions which lead to this institutional asymmetry, and thus the propensity to make informal payments. The paper concludes by exploring the theoretical and policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the EU and EU member states’ reactions to the 2015 refugee crisis from an ontological security perspective while arguing that these reactions are the product of three socio-psychological lenses, which have led to various responses to the perceived threat. The first reaction, ascribed especially to the Visegrad Four, is the “securitise-the-self” reaction to feelings of anxiety and ontological insecurity and involves reaffirmation of national biographical narratives and national immigration policies at the expense of supranational European policies. The second reaction is illustrated by the European Commission's response to the refugee crisis and involves “managing securitisation.” Accordingly, the Commission's reaction to ontological insecurity when faced with the challenge of unmanaged migration was to reaffirm the EU's semi-sovereign identity (collective border control competencies) while preserving a global discourse on human rights and refugee-related inclusive norms. The third reaction stemmed from viewing the crisis with the lenses of “empathy” and “desecuritisation” and is best illustrated by Germany's temporary “open door” policy on refugees that was driven by a psychological lack of perceived threat from the “immigrant-other” and a “civilian power” collective identity. The paper argues that recognising these three lenses can help us to understand socio-psychological reactions to immigration in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After 8 years of investigation, the European Commission decided that Google has abused its market dominance by giving prominent placement in its search results to its own comparison shopping service, whilst demoting rival services. This paper discusses the first of these conducts. The paper will assess the harm arising from Google's conduct on consumers and merchants, and will discuss the importance of causality in proving that a conduct is abusive. The paper will also briefly present the remedies for Google's conduct. The argument made herein is that the Commission's decision enters uncharted territories in unilateral conduct enforcement and the decision is subject to criticisms which will be analysed herein. The paper shall assess the implications of the Commission's approach and remedies in this case for future enforcement in unilateral conduct cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper studies the role of path-dependence in the resilience of EU regions. Particularly, employing a nonparametric analysis, the paper demonstrates that historical adjustments of EU regions materialized by productivity improvements, primarily in the manufacturing sector and incidentally in the sectors of construction, financial and non-market services, during the period 1995--2008 secured high(er) levels of regional resilience during the economic crisis period 2008--2013. Such a finding provides implications not only for theory but also for policy. Policies aiming at boosting regional productivity and competitiveness, which through a positive regional performance of high growth rates is concealed, a well-structured and robust production restructuring, might affect regional resilience in a way that shields regional economies not only from current imbalances but also from any future downturns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do interest groups have an impact on transposition of European Union (EU) directives? This paper offers an analysis of interest group communities of member states and links the concept of diversity to legal implementation. In order to accommodate diverse interests, member state governments allow for some deviations when transposing EU legislation into national law. Therefore, successful transposition is hard to achieve in member states with diverse interest group environments. This paper tests this argument by applying a large N study including 19 directives and 15 member states. The results show that correct transposition is likely to be negatively affected by high levels of diversity of national interest groups; however, this effect is conditional on the discretion granted to member states by EU legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that links between academia and other economic sectors are increasing, especially through intersectoral mobility of university graduates. Murray [(2010). “The Oncomouse that Roared: Hybrid Exchange Strategies as a Source of Distinction at the Boundary of Overlapping Institutions.”American Journal of Sociology116 (2): 341–388] has identified literature pointing both to blending and continuing co-existence of the academic and commercial worlds. Based on a European-wide study of PhD graduates in the social sciences and humanities (SSH), this paper considers the extent to which intersectoral mobility reflects blending. It finds that intersectoral communities of practice exist mainly in applied fields of knowledge. However, in many areas of the SSH, differences in institutional norms and values inhibit intersectoral mobility, particularly in mid-career stages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU’s initial reaction to the Arab uprisings in the field of energy cooperation was yet another proposal for creating an integrated Euro-Mediterranean energy market, despite the moot success of previous efforts. This paper investigates the policy frame underpinning the EU’s persistent focus on market-regulatory harmonization since the late 1990s and enquires into whether it has experienced any change in the post-uprising context. While the paper finds an enduring dominance of themarket-liberal frame, it also identifies signs of its erosion through processes ofreframingandmisframing, affecting also the EU’s practical engagement with the region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

After the Arab uprisings, the EU designed a new regional programme for the development of the agricultural sector of the European Neighbourhood Policy partners. The European Neighbourhood Programme for Agriculture and Rural Development (ENPARD) is based on an integrated logic for rural development. This new conceptual framework advocates multi-sectoral planning and the active participation of local actors in the decision-making process in order to promote inclusive growth and to support small and medium enterprises. This approach aims to contribute to the security and stability of the rural areas of the Arab Mediterranean partners. This paper analyses ENPARD and it argues that the inclusion of new actors in the design of the programme has partially challenged established views of policy-makers within the EU. However, EU engagement in this area is still determined by a hierarchical mode that puts local actors at the bottom of the decision-making process and it is driven by a technocratic ratchet mechanism that fits new information into existing cognitive frames. Despite some positive changes in national policies, the paper claims that this type of technocratic engineering does not change social relations in rural areas and it undermines the success of the programme. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of the austerity measures that have been introduced in Greece since 2010 in the patterns of local governance, with a specific focus on the case of the Leader approach for rural development in the Greek region of Peloponnesus. It deploys mixed qualitative techniques in order to outline the changes in local governance capacity and autonomy that resulted from the implementation of the two Memorandums of Understanding and the mid-term Fiscal Strategy since 2010. The diminished local governance capacity and autonomy, and the significant trends towards recentralization are revealed. These are more profound in the case of the five Leader programmes implemented in the region of Peloponnesus. The conclusions drawn by the paper put into serious doubt the mainstream assumptions concerning the impact of austerity measures on the patterns of governance in Greece in general and on local governance in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper compares the EU's accession negotiations with Bulgaria and Turkey to assess the conditions under which their negotiations unfolded and the role of bilateral issues in that aspect. To do so, the paper highlights the role of the member state vetoes and bilateral relations in the EU negotiations. It needs to be noted that even though the European Commission condemns the impact of bilateral problems on the accession process, unresolved bilateral issues, nonetheless, emerge as major factors complicating the EU's enlargement process, its effectiveness as well as the pace and nature of the negotiations with multiple applicants and candidates. We look at role of individual member states as veto players on the EU accession negotiations, specifically becoming the most important factor in the Turkish case. We limit our focus to the lack of consensus and commitment among the EU member states towards Turkey as a complicating factor in the EU negotiations. We are able to ascertain that a key difference between Bulgaria and Turkey with regards to their EU accession was the member state vetoes for Turkey's negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU energy strategy is hard-poised to ensure energy security for the Union, mainly due to its fixation on fossil energy imports. This paper argues that energy security can holistically be addressed only in case sustainability becomes a priority goal. Such a re-conceptualisation does not only pave the way for a radical restructuring of the energy systems in Europe that can cater for the EU’s energy needs in a sustainable way, but also theorises energy as a scarce resource that hence should be highly priced. On the basis of a thorough ecological tax reform, energy prices can convey accurate signals to households and enterprises and allow for a smooth function of the economy that is today frequently upset by energy price hikes and slumps. The paper aims to make a timely contribution to the current debate on the shape and priorities of the Energy Union by making a strong case for a re-ordering of priorities in EU energy strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 2014, Commission President Juncker was elected because he was Spitzenkandidat of the winning party in the European elections. Observers agree that the procedure’s impact on the turnout was low, but that it had an effect on the inter-institutional power play. This paper investigates whether the more legitimised Commission President and the European Parliament (EP) had a greater influence on the constitution of the Commission, understood as the selection of Commissioners and the internal organisation. It is based on the classic debate between supranational and intergovernmental approaches. The paper analyses data on Commissioners, press reports and official documents. It concludes that the Spitzenkandidaten procedure had mixed effects. The selection of Commissioners still follows national logics. Member states aim to maximise their interest by sending loyal politicians, who might secure an important portfolio. The selection of Commissioners follows national, rather than European party-politics. Juncker exerted a limited influence on the selection of Commissioners regarding his quest for more female candidates. The President’s power is limited to the influence prescribed by the Treaty, namely the organisation of the Commission and the allocation of portfolios. Here, his close relation to the EP and his legitimacy derived from his role as Spitzenkandidat played a significant role. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper focuses on the Turkish political parties’ attitudes towards the country’s European Union (EU) membership. It intends to analyse the concerns and demands of the political parties as the parliamentary debates shape government policies. The paper considers the parties’ positions in the parliamentary power matrix (incumbency or opposition), their ideological tendencies and electoral concerns; and their relations with the social classes, all of which influence the party strategies and policies. It begins with outlining the politicized social cleavages and the characteristics of the party system. Next, it discusses the foreign policy orientation of the parties, their perceptions on Europe and the EU, the preferred type of integration with the EU and the ways they interpret the policies of the EU towards Turkey’s membership. The paper finds that the secular social democratic parties have been the strongest supporters of membership mostly due to their historical pro-Western tendencies and their relations with republican big business. Their economic policies have been modelled on the European welfare state provisions. The nationalist parties have been consistently sceptical for cultural and nationalist reasons. The most interesting case emerges as the pro-Islamists, whose ideological reserve and scepticism disappear only temporarily and for practical reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper aims to discuss polycentrism and its implications. Polycentricity plays a key role in EU Cohesion Policy and has done so since 1999 when the notion was included in the European Spatial Development Perspective. Politically, it emerged as a key tool because of its ability to fuse together the two primary and conflicting perceptions of spatial-economic development, cohesion and competitiveness. No agreed definition of polycentricity exists. Furthermore, different actors and disciplines define polycentrism differently. The absence of a concise and coherent definition makes it difficult to measure polycentricity. Moreover, several studies have concluded that it is difficult to identify empirical evidence to support the positive claims made in its name. Polycentrism is assumed toolbox to reduce regional disparities, but polycentric countries display higher regional disparities than monocentric countries. Polycentric countries do not perform better than monocentric countries with regard to competitiveness and GDP/cap. As such, this paper concludes that not only does the political meaning of polycentricity struggle over aims with the inherit dichotomy at its heart, it also struggles in terms of basic credibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the practice in France since the 1990s in working towards decisions on major infrastructure. Whilst in some European countries the drive since that time has been to press faster decision-making and deregulation, in France the response to difficulties in progressing large infrastructure schemes was to move to more deliberative approaches, both at the project level and in relation to environmental issues as a whole. The paper considers these approaches alongside the growing literature on deliberative democracy, particularly that on deliberative systems. It is suggested that there is much scope to learn from the accumulated experience in these fields, which could help to provide a more considered, open and pluralist approach to infrastructure decisions, genuinely taking account of all alternatives, as against the tendency to move to a more demand driven and limited democracy approach which has been promoted in England and Wales in the UK and to a certain extent at EU level as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

External costs have been a key issue in the last years of transport research. In Europe, this trend is in line with the political willingness to internalize externalities in transport pricing policies. This paper has two purposes. It first identifies the recent work achieved in the field of external costs of road and intermodal freight transport, where each paper is assessed in terms of its perspective (academic or project oriented), its objective (prescription, application, projection), the type of externality (air pollution, climate change, noise, accidents, congestion) and the type of cost (marginal, average, total) that is considered. The literature review reveals a gap in the development of generic mathematical functions for external costs of transport. The second objective of the paper is thus to highlight the usefulness of such functions by identifying the main parameters that influence freight transport competitiveness in terms of external costs, and by determining which of these parameters should be incorporated in further research works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous scholars have argued that economic governance in the European Union (EU) has undergone an undemocratic shift as part of the crisis, with accountability moving from parliamentary to executive powers. This paper challenges this view, arguing that the crisis has led to a shift from economic to political accountability. I define economic accountability as the market-led accountability regime enshrined in EU Treaties and contrast it to the current political accountability regime, by which creditor states and monetary institutions have supplanted markets as a forum for rewarding and disciplining market actors. This 'substitution effect' has been sustained by European Court of Justice (CJEU) jurisprudence, with the CJEU positing a functional equivalence between market-driven pressures and political conditionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Notwithstanding the lack of a theoretical elaboration at the EU level, hub-and-spoke arrangements are increasingly surfacing at national level as useful smokescreen to hide anticompetitive conduct. Due to their features favourable to collusion, hub-and-spoke arrangements may represent the future of Article 101 TFEU. This paper aims at providing an analysis of the characteristics of hub-and-spoke arrangements and their interpretative challenges to allow interpreters and courts to correctly deal with them in real-life. The morphology of these arrangements and the indications provided by the available case-law will be first addressed. Then, following a description of the limited EU relevant case-law, the black areas of the EU hub-and-spoke elaboration will be singled out and its relationship with the case-law on information exchange will be investigated. Finally, a proposal of a EU legal assessment of hub-and-spoke will be made and tested with respect to the hub-and-spoke based on information gathered from the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy diplomacy, regulation of the single energy market and the export of this regulatory model to EU's vicinity govern EU energy affairs. This governance nexus, however, suffers from three distinct shortcomings. This paper addresses these in the context of EU external energy governance vis-à-vis Egypt. Firstly, it highlights how geopolitical rationales blur the commercial logic in pipeline politics, derail gas schemes, and marginalize Egypt despite its pivotal energy role. Secondly, it showcases how the three governance modes contradict each other and add layers of contingencies in EU-Egypt gas trade. Thirdly, it questions EU's hierarchal approach to Egypt, demonstrating how the EU suffers from a clear misconception of Egypt's role and interests, and hence fails to tap into Egypt's gas assets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysing data from an original cross-national survey conducted in 2015 in nine European democracies covering five different types of welfare regime and asking individuals a variety of questions on their deprivation during the crisis, this paper shows that there are important cross-national and cross-class inequalities in deprivation as reported by individuals in different social classes. Cross-nationally, deprivation patterns reflected the welfare regimes of the nine countries as well as the severity of the economic crisis. Working class individuals in countries that were not so deeply affected by the crisis were generally found to be worse off than middle class individuals in countries that were more deeply affected. Semi/unskilled manual classes were found to be the most deprived and class differentials were diminished but not accounted for in multilevel models including a series of controls linked to risk factors and socio-demographic position. At the macro-level, higher inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient was associated with higher levels of reported deprivation. However, cross-level interaction tests did not provide evidence that being in semi/unskilled manual occupations has a further heightened effect on reported deprivation in contexts of higher inequality or lower social spending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities and financial constraints. Our panel dataset consists of 397 European companies listed in the STOXX Europe 600 during 2009-2014. The findings reveal that firms with higher CSR performance exhibit lower degree of financial constraints. In addition, the link between CSR performance and financial constraints is a fully mediated relationship. The negative effect of CSR performance on financial constraints follows the path through mitigating agency conflicts of free cash flow and information asymmetry. The findings suggest that one mechanism linking CSR performance and financial constraints is a reduction of capital-market imperfections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are a growing phenomenon in the USA and Europe. A few big American platforms lead the field in terms of numbers of learners, institutions and courses on board. These platforms act as transnational platforms, and attract many European institutions because of the opportunities for visibility and branding they offer. Similarly in Europe, many platforms have emerged but no single pan-European initiative has found its own space. This is probably because of the complexity involved inaccommodatingdiverse languages, cultures and teaching approaches within the rigid structure of a Learning Management System (LMS). This paper looks at one possible response to the challenge of creating a single learning space via a multilingual and multicultural MOOC platform called EMMA, European Multiple MOOC Aggregator. It presents the results of two learner surveys with qualitative and quantitative data analysis collected within the EMMA project which aimed to assess user satisfaction with the learning experience on the platform, and whether it addressed the issue of "cultural diversity." Initial indications suggest that learners appreciated and used the inbuilt translation systems in a multilingual approach, and that learners perceived the features and tools offered by the EMMA platform as European in feel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between economic crises and social policy change for 13 European countries. Based on the degree of policy expansion and dismantling, we identify three potential crisis-coping strategies, namely ‘Muddling Through’, ‘Social Protectionism’ and ‘Austerity’. By means of multinomial logistic regression analysis, we test the effect of various factors on governments’ choice of crisis-coping strategies for 45 economic crises between 1980 and 2013. Our analysis reveals that Austerity becomes a more likely scenario in crisis times. Moreover, we demonstrate that governments in consensual systems do not deviate from their true policy preferences when facing economic hardship. In majoritarian systems, by contrast, this pattern is strikingly reversed. Here, left-wing governments resort to Austerity, while right-wing parties opt for Social Protectionism. This indicates that both blame avoidance and the capabilities to mediate unpopular reform decisions can convert political parties from ‘Saul to Paul’ and vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution introduces a selection of the best papers presented at the 2015 European Union Studies Association’s biennial conference. It uses these papers as a jumping off point to consider whether European Union (EU) studies suffers the same ‘gap’ with real-world problems that is seen to afflict some portions of the academy and to ask whether EU studies is at an inflection point. It argues that EU studies are closely linked to the substance of the European project. It identifies how the contributions to this collection speak to different aspects of the EU: closer co-operation; policy-making within a ‘normal’ political system; the implications of European integration for its member states. Given this link between the substance of the European project and the focus of EU studies, this contribution argues that the challenges currently confronting the EU – the lingering eurozone debt crises; the migrant/refugee crisis; the prospect of a British exit; and recent terrorist attacks – may mark an inflection point in EU studies. The reason is that for the first time ‘less Europe’ has emerged as a serious option in response to crisis. This possibility reignites questions of (dis)integration and calls into question the assumption the EU policy only accumulates. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

All over Europe, EGTCs (European Grouping for Territorial Cooperation) are mushrooming. Between 2006, when the EU regulation entered into force, and 2014, 51 EGTCs have been established. Conceived as a legal tool to facilitate cross-border, interregional or transnational cooperation, the EGTC was established after years of lobbying from cross-border organisations. Apart from practical guidelines mostly dedicated to the legal possibilities and limitations of this tool, few academic studies examine the significance of this tool for cross-border governance as such. This paper develops such a perspective, using the case study of the Greater Region SaarLorLux, (Lorraine, Luxembourg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland and Wallonia), where two existing EGTCs are operating. The EGTC INTERREG IV A Greater Region is the only EGTC managing an EU programme; the EGTC Secretariat of the Summit supports the main political organisation in this area. This contribution argues that the EGTC tool can facilitate the emergence of a supraregional scale of governance. This paper examines how this instrument allows the institutionalisation of a cross-border entity in terms of its capacity to embody and perpetuate the cross-border region, and to implement its strategy. It then applies this conceptualisation to the specific context of the Greater Region. The empirical analysis shows that although the two EGTCs institutionalise the cooperation, they are rather conceived as administrative and operational tools. The paper concludes with possible explanations of such a mismatch between the potential of this tool and the effective use of it. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Migration is comparatively weakly regulated at the international level. States are reluctant to cede sovereignty over international migration and negotiations between rich destination countries in the north and sending countries in the south must overcome asymmetries of interests. For this reason, issue-linkage is typically required to achieve north–south cooperation. This paper examines the European Union's (EU) Global Approach to Migration and Mobility as a framework for international migration cooperation. The paper argues that institutional complexity and political dynamics internal to the EU limit its capacity to reach agreement with third countries. Three internal factors are examined: contrasting approaches of the Commission and Council to the external dimension; diversity of member states’ interests in migration policy; and the different policy agendas of the European agencies. These factors result in an approach to external migration relations that is limited in scope and characterised by variable participation. Despite its apparent potential to leverage agreements from third countries, the EU emerges as an unpromising vehicle for international migration cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sheds light on the development of the Irish alcohol industry and its regulation since the 1980s by situating it within the politico-economic context of neoliberalism at the national, European and global scales. First, a conceptualisation of neoliberalism is presented and the alcohol industry is related to it. Second, the connections between neoliberalism, the drinks industry and alcohol legislation are explained and illustrated at the three spatial scales mentioned above, emphasising the following components of neoliberalism: deregulation, liberalisation, commodification, free trade agreements and transnational capital flows. The paper provides a theoretical template for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper contributes to our understanding of post-crisis financial regulation by reasserting the centrality of domestic politics in defining government preferences and explaining regulatory outcomes. It draws on Robert Putnam's two-level game approach and Foreign Policy Analysis to develop a model of a three-level informal ratification game. This adds value to existing approaches by capturing the contested nature of government preferences and delineating the causal mechanisms through which domestic groups shape international negotiations. The model is used to explain the UK's pivotal role in the reform of bank capital requirements in the European Union (EU). It demonstrates that governments are able to take advantage of a narrowing domestic ‘win-set’ by marginalising the influence of industry and building political momentum for regulatory reform. In particular, the paper shows how UK negotiators were able to exploit the increased domestic costs of agreement and synergistic strategies between negotiations to successfully oppose the maximum harmonisation of capital rules across the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is concerned with the problem of “society” and in particular with the notion of “European society”. Rather than reject the possibility of society, it draws on theories of the social as networks. The thesis proposed is that the concept of society should rather be understood as a relational field of interconnections. It is argued that this is highly relevant to the analysis of Europe conceived of in terms of a society. This approach can be seen as an alternative to methodological nationalism. The paper applies a network conception of society to Europe with the emphasis on the nineteenth century. In this account, European society is not something that was produced by European integration. Rather than see European society as a recent development, it is argued that the field of tensions between capitalism and democracy constituted the major elements that shaped a European model of society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently proliferating practice- and people-centred accounts have offered useful insights on cross-border regionalism and cooperation in the European Union. However, the assumption of these studies concerning the dominantly national character of people’s ‘spatial socialisation’ and practices has produced a subtle but problematic bias towards nation-state (re)bordering and, relatedly, has implied a lack of recognition for the formation of transnational subjectivities and spaces. Inspired by fieldwork observations made in the Dutch-German-Belgian borderlands, the aim of this paper is to sketch a research agenda that comes to grips with the emerging transnational dimension of cross-border cooperation. Key to this agenda is the reconsideration of the notion of practice so as to acknowledge that cross-border cooperation entails simultaneous rebordering and debordering processes and is constituted through situated and embodied actions. The paper discusses discourse theory and practice theory as two useful perspectives for such a rethinking and outlines the key methodological implications for future research on cross-border cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper interrogates the structural conditions, macropolitics and governmentality of family ‘regroupement’ in France in an era of shifting immigration policies in Europe and the imaginative possibilities that Senegalese immigrants exercise to maintain family and kinship ties with those left behind. It argues that while the need to maintain ties from diasporic locations is mediated by policies, material and emotive transnational practices, the materiality of displacement as well as the state's politics of immigration render more elusive possibilities of maintaining family in situ. What tensions and creative strategies emerge? How is ‘home’, the primordial site of family structure, reimagined and reconstituted? Taking into account state's politics and immigrants’ entrapment within multiple spheres of power and their active agency as determinants, this paper uncovers how displacement gives rise to multiple ruptures while simultaneously motivating a search for active agency to reconstruct and reimagine kinship, family and conjugality across multiple temporalities and spatialities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper seeks to shed light on the interactions between public institutions and global production networks (GPNs) through a case study of the 2012–2013 European Union anti-dumping investigation on Chinese solar panels. Drawing on trade data and interviews, as well as press reports and position papers, I analyze the facts of the case and the debate around it and explore the impacts on the geography of production. The case draws attention to two issues which deserve greater attention in research in the GPN tradition. First, the position of companies within a GPN may dictate their political interests more clearly than their nationality. Second, GPNs are seen to be malleable. They can adjust their structures in reaction to new trade restrictions. This fact draws attention to the need to incorporate institutional factors, like trade policy, more effectively into GPN analysis. I propose some criteria to help researchers to do so. Finally, in terms of broader political economy, the case illustrates how, in the post financial crisis context, their domestic market is becoming an important lever for the Chinese government in international negotiations. Thus, at least in the trade sphere, the rise of China as a consumer market is changing global power relations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The EU is clearly in the process of developing an external dimension to the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ). This paper focuses on ex. Police and Judicial Cooperation in Criminal Matters (PJCCM) provisions. These developments pose specific legal basis issues for the EU, given its complex EU–member state legal relationship, and the inter-institutional balance, all reflected in the treaty framework post-Lisbon. New Court of Justice rulings are now emerging which will assist in this issue. Equally the approach to be taken in developing these relationships will be crucial. This paper proposes the adoption of an Onuf style constructivism in order to best capture the reality of the process that is developing, and has developed for the ex. PJCCM measures internally. This then needs to be allied with a constitutionalism model to ensure a balanced development of all three aspects of the AFSJ. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper discusses the problem of the Southern European (SE) capitalism and its difficult path into the EMU (European Monetary Union), looking at the remote causes of the crisis that hit these economies. For this reason, we consider European countries as a set of asymmetrically integrated variety of capitalism. The institutional configuration chosen by Europe to aggregate the many varieties of capitalism not only reduced the political autonomy of the single states, but effectively hindered the specific coordination mechanism of Southern European (SE) capitalism which was importantly based on state intervention as a structural element and on inflationary policies. Despite the deep market-oriented reforms this change caused both structural and macroeconomic unbalances. The aim of the paper is to integrate some principles of the variety of capitalism and the dynamics of institutional change with some insights inspired by the work of Arrighi to supply a synthetic and ‘alternative’ perspective on the difficult role that Southern countries are experiencing in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]