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The harmonization of indirect taxes in the European Community can be seen as a three-stage process (Guieu and Bonnet, 1987). The first two stages — the establishment of fiscal neutrality in intra-Community trade and the simplification of administrative procedures in this trade — are more or less completed. The third stage is the creation of the Internal Market. We focus on this last stage, complementing the article by Guieu and Bonnet in two respects: by assessing the recent (August 1987) specific proposals of the European Commission, and by including excise duties in the analysis. Our main conclusion is that the fiscal part of the Internal Market programme is feasible, but both national and sectoral interests will have to be subordinated to some degree to the European interest in the abolition of all internal borders. The political will of the Member States to take (sometimes unpleasant) decisions and measures in the field of indirect taxation will be of decisive importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europe and Asia find themselves increasingly connected. Why then do we find limited knowledge mobility in the study of Europe throughout Asia? What factors drive this immobility? This article takes account of the existing literature and complements it by offering a more global picture of European Studies in Asia. Throughout, we assume a decidedly political perspective. The study of Europe, we claim, is not only an academic affair, but subject to a politics of (im‐)mobility driven by state and non‐state funders and influenced by local as well as domestic diplomatic, trade‐related, and strategic factors. The article aims at contributing to our understanding of how Europe is studied in Asia and highlights the importance of non‐educational factors for future debates about knowledge mobility and the possibility of a global science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research suggests that the rise of populist radical right parties (PRRPs) is contributing to the politicization of European domestic and external policies. However, whether this is also the case for European development policy is unclear. Building on a new dataset that analyses government positions and coalition agreements across European countries since the 1990s, we investigate whether, and if so how, the strength of PRRPs affects European governments' framing of the relationship between migration and development policy. Research on PRRPs suggests that they influence other parties' positions directly when they are in government, or indirectly by framing topics such as migration differently from other parties, thereby pushing government and opposition parties to modify their own positions. We find (moderate) support for PRRPs' indirect influence on the framing and salience of the migration–development policy nexus, via their vote and seat share. The effect of PRRPs in government on the formulation of development aid policy goals is smaller. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union's development policy has become increasingly intertwined with other policy fields, which erodes the objectives of this policy domain in their own right. We specifically look at the linkages with migration policy, which has been a highly politicized EU policy domain. This article assesses the EU migration–development discursive linkages by addressing two related questions: how and to what extent has this nexus been politicized in Europe? We focus on two dimensions of politicization, namely salience and the polarization of opinions within the context of national parliaments. Through a conceptualization of argumentation lines this article sheds light on how the nexus has been translated into political communication by political actors. We conclude that there are varying, often opposing, argumentation lines on how the migration–development nexus is conceived – that are more complex than the distinction between 'preventive' and 'restrictive' approaches as identified in the literature on EU external migration policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2013, internal EU climate policy has also included an adaptation strategy, in recognition of the fact that climate change is having an impact within the EU, as well as, more obviously, elsewhere. III Gender and EU Climate Policy Taking a gender lens to EU climate policy reveals, firstly, that much of it remains resolutely gender blind. It states that the Gender Equality Strategy will aim to achieve 'a Europe where women and men, girls and boys, in all their diversity, are equal [...] The Commission will enhance gender mainstreaming by systematically including a gender perspective in all stages of policy design in all EU policy areas, internal and external. EU policy documents call for climate change to be mainstreamed throughout all EU activities. [Extracted from the article]

Emphasizes the limits to the influence upon public policy of a directly elected European Parliament. Advent of direct elections.

Recent scholarly works on memory practices in Europe often appeal to the notion of the East‐West memory divide or, more dramatically, to the European memory wars which have been allegedly raging at least since the Eastern enlargement of 2004. These terms are supposed to stand for the heated debate between the East and the West, between the countries on the opposing sides of the former Iron Curtain, about what the appropriate memory for Europe should be. In this article, I challenge this simplistic division and I argue that it completely disregards the role of agency. In contrast, I conduct an agent‐centred empirical analysis and show that the social actors involved in the debate are far more diverse, the fault lines are far less clear and the sides of the debate are far more heterogeneous than the carelessly used notion of the East‐West memory divide would have us believe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This article argues for a fresh approach to debates on democratic backsliding and European Union (EU) influence in East Central Europe (ECE), drawing on the discursive institutionalism of Vivien Schmidt. Underlying assumptions about backsliding in CEE largely reflect a set of ideas derived from the rational institutionalist and historical institutionalist schools. Moreover, the same theoretical assumptions were previously deployed to explain the apparent success of democratization and EU leverage in CEE. A discursive institutionalism perspective, stressing the role of actors and their discourses in making and unmaking institutions, suggests that democracy in CEE was always less secure than assumed. It also highlights the key role of liberal mainstream parties in embodying democratic institutions. Case studies of the liberal centre‐right in Bulgaria and social democrats in the Czech Republic highlight the way background ideas of ethnically exclusive titular states have increasingly impinged on foreground ideas of liberal pluralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of re‐conceptualizing a European social market economy, this contribution considers competition law's position in the European economic constitution. The economic constitution captures the economic foundation of European integration as based on the market mechanism. The contribution asks whether the change towards a 'more economic approach' to competition law implies an alienation of competition law from societal challenges. The contribution considers whether this interpretation, with competition law being such an integral part of the European economic constitution, should change in light of the constitutional goal of a European social market economy. To do so, the article sketches the fundamental place of competition law in the European economic constitution and shows how its interpretation has become more economics‐based. It highlights some of the problematic aspects of this change and analyzes these findings from the perspective of an economic constitution serving a social market economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the professionalization of the European Union (EU) studies and the dilemmas of Integration in the 21st century. Topics include 2017 looks like going down as the year in which the European Union (EU) faced several crises associated with the Eurozone, the management of refugee flows, the politics of Brexit, twists, turns and the professionalization of EU Studies such as treaty reform, institutional change, enlargement, and addressing the three dilemmas of integration is paramount to opening spaces that make a different Europe possible through research agendas that actively connect questions of public interest, democratic sovereignty and transnational solidarity.

The article focuses on the right wing populist momentum and reviews the results of electoral contests that took place in 2017 in France, Norway, Bulgaria, the Great Britain, the Netherlands, Austria, Germany and the Czech Republic, and examines them in comparative perspective. Topics include most right wing populist parties that competed in the various electoral contests that took place across Europe in 2017 increased their support including French Front National (FN), the Party for Freedom in Netherlands (PVV), the Alternative for Germany (AfD), Great Britain's UK Independence Party (UKIP) stated to have decreased its electoral support, the Bulgarian Patriotic Front in Bulgaria received the 9.07 percent of the votes cast in 2017.

The article focuses on European economic governance in 2017 and the growth and recovery that the European Commission, amongst others, deployed in 2017. Topics include how European Union (EU) economic policy plays a key role in establishing gendered and racialized hierarchies in the EU, several prominent indicators show a growing economy, with unemployment continuing its downward trajectory, debt low and confidence among the business community high, and the European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker in his State of the Union address to the European Parliament, celebrated the recovery and growth, delighting in the fact that growth in the EU has outstripped that of the U.S. for the past two years as of 2018.

Abstract: Higher education policy has long had important domestic, intergovernmental and values‐based features. However, through the Bologna Process, the European Union (EU) has influenced these traditional features and helped to develop an external dimension to higher education policy in and beyond Europe. Despite these significant changes, scholarship on the EU has not yet interrogated directly the external dimensions of Bologna and the influence the EU wields through this process. This article employs Market Power Europe (MPE) as a conceptual framework to examine the Bologna Process and the EU's role in these important changes. Focusing on the notion of externalization, the article reveals the importance of market factors, multiple means (externalization tools) and actors (beyond intergovernmental) through which the EU influences other actors in higher education policy. The findings contribute to the MPE conceptual framework and encourage further research into the causal mechanisms at play in the under‐studied external dimensions of this policy area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The present article argues that the current crisis of the European Union (EU) is much deeper and more profound than many EU officials and analysts care to admit. Taking the so‐called sovereign debt crisis and the refugee crisis as illustrative case studies it is argued that the crisis needs to be reframed as a Complex Adaptive System which is self‐organizing in a deeply incoherent manner and which current EU policies are not only not addressing but exacerbating. As an alternative, the article suggests using Adaptive Action as a framework to identify the conditions which sustain the current dysfunctionality of the European Union and makes concrete suggestions on how these conditions can be altered. Areas of further research are also identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Contrary to earlier predictions, communitarization in the area of asylum policies has not led to an erosion of refugee rights. Instead, there is growing evidence that EU asylum harmonization has safeguarded existing standards and even enhanced the rights of asylum‐seekers and refugees in Europe. We seek to explain this by building on the insights of principal‐agent theory. We argue that delegation to supranational institutions can strengthen non‐majoritarian policy dynamics and shield EU policy‐makers from populist pressures for further immigration restrictions that national governments are often confronted with. We support this argument empirically through a systematic longitudinal analysis of the evolution of EU asylum policies. In particular, we seek to assess the motivation for and impact of greater delegation to EU institutions on rights developments for asylum‐seekers and refugees. We also explain to what extent EU policy‐making has changed with the EU's response to the ‘Syrian refugee crisis’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Preserving the trust of bond markets is crucial for the world's many indebted countries, but it is still unclear when and how national or international actors can contribute to this goal. We present a set of arguments addressing this question and test them on the case of the eurozone debt crisis. Distinguishing between actors' capacity and willingness to avoid defaults, we argue that the crisis was marked by a lack of capacity at the national level, and limited or uncertain willingness at the European level. Accordingly, we find that European‐level efforts to reassure markets had considerably stronger effects than similar efforts at the national level. Furthermore, national efforts appear to have mattered the least in countries with the least capacity. These findings are based on a comprehensive new dataset of political events and relevant news, and they hold across a number of robustness checks and placebo tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on Moravcsik's Liberal Intergovernmentalism, I offer an explanation of the non-decision on permanent EU refugee quotas. Some traditionally influential Member States in EU asylum politics, such as Germany, Austria and Sweden, received large numbers of refugees and faced strong domestic pressures to engage other Member States in responsibility-sharing. Yet, governments of Member States with small application numbers (among whom several Eastern European governments were particularly vocal) had incentives to undercut responsibility-sharing to avoid similar pressures. Having a better alternative to the potentially negotiated agreement, these governments successfully blocked the introduction of permanent refugee quotas. Besides explaining the absence of an effective response to one of the root causes of the asylum crisis (unequal strains) through asymmetrical interdependence, the article further develops Liberal Intergovernmentalist arguments and shows how national electorates influence positions taken by governments at the EU level when they are mobilized by right-wing populist parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2015/16, Europe faced the largest inflow of refugees since World War II. This inflow highlighted systemic deficiencies in EU asylum co-operation which provoked a state of crisis. Together with the Eurozone crisis, this crisis has the potential to seriously damage the overall project of EU integration. The goal of this Special Issue is to provide a first systematic assessment of the crisis, applying and further developing key theoretical approaches to the sequence of events. In empirical terms, we advance original empirical evidence in order to deepen our understanding of the crisis and how it has been managed. In theoretical terms, we seek to (re)assess the usefulness and limitations of some important theoretical perspectives to European integration at a critical juncture of the EU's history. After presenting the sequence of events and assessing the EU's crisis response, the introduction will summarize our main findings and present avenues for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article starts with discussing principles for a globally just system of refugee protection to which states contribute either by admitting refugees for resettlement or by supporting refugee integration in other states. Such a system requires relatively strong assurances of compliance by the states involved, which are absent in the international arena. In the European Union, however, the Member States form a predetermined set with prior commitments and supranational institutions that facilitate effective burden sharing. The article traces the failure of the EU's relocation scheme to meet this expectation to misconceptions how to determine fair shares, to incomplete prior harmonization of normative standards, and to contradictions between the Dublin Regulation's principle of assigning responsibility to first countries of entry, on the one hand, and the Schengen principle of open internal borders, on the other hand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at securitization/humanitarianization dynamics in the EU external sea borders to track and critique the substantial transformation of the role played by human rights in the Mediterranean. Mapping the evolution of maritime engagement up to the 'refugee crisis', it is revealed how the invocation of human rights serves paradoxically to curtail (migrants') human rights, justifying interdiction ('to save lives'), and impeding access to safety in Europe. The result is a double reification of 'boat migrants' as threats to border security and as victims of smuggling/trafficking. Through a narrative of 'rescue', interdiction is laundered into an ethically sustainable strategy of border governance. Instead of being considered a problematic (potentially lethal) means of control, it is re-defined into a life-saving device. The ensuing 'rescue-through-interdiction'/'rescue-without-protection' paradigm alters the nature of human rights, which, rather than functioning as a check on interdiction, end up co-opted as another securitization/humanitarianization tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The malfunctioning of the Common European Asylum System can be traced back to the principle of responsibility established by the Dublin regime. To attenuate its problems, the EU has delegated regulatory competences to Frontex and the European Asylum Support Office (EASO), which have been given a 'right to intervene' in those Member States that put the system at risk. This article expands Majone's typologies of agents and trustees to explain why and how power has been delegated and the resulting consequences. It includes cases of failed delegation and argues that, although Frontex and EASO should operate as trustees - to prevent co-operation from breaking down - they have not been provided with enough autonomy, which exposes them to capture by particular interests. The reforms show that EU agencies are likely to be used as proxies by a group of strong Member States to monitor and intervene in weaker Member States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes how Member States have used the opportunities and avoided the constraints of the EU's multilevel governance architecture to return unwanted migrants. Drawing on sociological approaches to the EU and a broad understanding of return policies, we investigate the ways in which the northern Member States, notably Germany and Austria, have increasingly relied upon the EU's operational and financial resources to achieve their goal of pursuing a bold return policy. A key 'usage' of Europe has been the pooling of political and financial power to externalize and informalize its return policy. At the same time, the northern Member States' deliberate - yet widely under-researched - 'non-use' of Europe, such as using and maximizing national leeway, has been an equally important strategy to reduce migratory pressure and achieve higher return rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the impact of the eurozone crisis on the foreign policy of an EU Member State, Cyprus. Drawing on the literature on Europeanization of national foreign policies, it is argued that Cypriot foreign policy, despite the general frustration caused by the financial crisis within broader society, has actually undergone further Europeanization. We show that leadership is a critical intervening variable in this enhanced Europeanization, as well as pointing to the salience of the explanatory mechanisms of social and instrumental learning. The contribution of the article is twofold. It offers an empirical account of contemporary Cypriot foreign policy and contributes to the discussion of the impact of the Eurozone crisis on national foreign policy. Both, we contend, remain relatively neglected topics in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last three decades have seen the development of the European Union (EU) as a security actor. The transnational character of the security threats and the challenges identified by the EU have led to progressive integration between internal and external security concerns. These concerns have often led to calls for greater coherence within EU security policies. The literature, however, indicates that this need for coherence has, so far, not been systematically operationalized, leading to a fragmented security field. This article has two main aims: To devise a framework for the analysis of the EU's coherence as a security actor, and to apply it to the cybersecurity field. By focusing on EU cybersecurity policy, this article will explore whether the EU can be considered a coherent actor in this field or whether this policy is being implemented according to different and unco-ordinated rationales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of China as a global power has significantly reshaped its global ambition. Under the leadership of Chinese president Xi Jinping, China has proposed a series of diplomatic initiatives - most notably 'new type of great power relations' and 'one belt one road' - in order to shift the international order in its favour. Does Europe matter in China's major initiatives under the leadership of Xi Jinping? How does Europe (and the EU) fit into China's strategic narratives? This article aims to address these questions by analyzing Chinese scholarly writings and conducting interviews in China. It also explores the evolution process of China's strategic narratives with a focus on the gradual appearances of Europe. This article argues that the EU/Europe is a second order concern for China, and Europe only plays a marginalized role in China's policy discussion. Appreciation of the internal dynamics of China is essential for Europe to develop a more accurate understanding of EU-China relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the help of the Immigrant Inclusion Index (IMIX), a quantitative tool for measuring the electoral inclusion of immigrants, we demonstrate that European democracies are much more exclusive than they should be. All normative theories of democracy share the conviction that it is imperative that democracies include long-term immigrant residents into the demos - either by granting citizenship or by introducing alien voting rights. But even the 20 most established and stable democracies within the EU are far from fully realizing the ideal of 'universal suffrage'. This is true independently of whether we count in- and excluded people in numerical terms, or whether we evaluate the relevant laws and regulations. Therefore, we diagnose a substantial democratic deficit on the level of European nation-states. By requiring its member states to enfranchise non-national EU citizens on the local level, the EU, for once, plays a positive role in reducing one of the most fundamental democratic deficits in times of migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extensive research suggests that political factors bias the domestic allocation of the European Structural and Investment Funds (SIF) in ways that may not be in line with EU goals. This article offers the first systematic and comparative analysis of the role of electoral institutions in shaping county-level allocations of SIF. Drawing on theories of distributive politics and federalism, this article argues that electoral institutions provide politicians in the executive branch of national government with incentives to use at least a part of the SIF to buy votes in NUTS 3-level counties, whereby vote-buying is more common under majority voting than under proportional representation. The results of a statistical analysis of SIF allocations across 202 Italian and French NUTS 3-level counties during 2007-13 confirm this argument. The article concludes by discussing the findings and their implications for future research on EU budgetary implementation and cohesion policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the evolution of public support for the single European currency, the euro, from 1990 to 2014 for a 12-country sample of the euro area (EA-12), focusing on the most recent period of the financial and sovereign debt crisis, starting in 2008. We find that citizens' support for the euro on average was marginally reduced during the first six years of the crisis, and that support has remained at high levels. While the pronounced increase in unemployment in the EA-12 throughout the crisis has led to a marked decline in trust in the European Central Bank (ECB), it is only weakly related to support for the euro. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A mechanism to restructure the debt of an insolvent euro country is a missing element in the emerging institutional architecture of the euro area. The introduction of an insolvency procedure for sovereigns faces a dilemma: in the foreseeable future, its introduction would risk pushing Europe back into acute crisis; but the indefinite postponement of reform would impair the credibility of a future regime change. Against this background, this article reviews arguments and existing blueprints for sovereign insolvency procedures in the euro area and develops a Viable Insolvency Procedure for Sovereigns. This procedure avoids any sudden measures which could destabilize the present fragile situation but carefully designs an irreversible transition toward the new regime. The proposal comprises two pillars: an insolvency procedure for the long run and a credible bridge toward that system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the possible business cycle linkages between CEECs (Central and Eastern European countries) that were candidates to enter the EMU and the euro area for the period 1993 to 2014. We analyse business cycle (a)symmetries for these countries by using Markov switching autoregressive models and synchronization tests. By analysing the correlations between the cyclical fluctuations for these countries, we examine the existence of common features between the individual cycles. By distinguishing between different regimes, we show that the indications of business cycle synchronization are quite high in the recession regime, but lower in the normal and high growth regimes, with the exceptions of Hungary and Poland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of European identity today seems to be all the more pressing, as the current financial crisis is not only quickly developing into one of internal political cohesion for the Union, but has also certainly aggravated the long-standing problem of a lack of identification with the European political project among European populations. This article seeks to discuss this disenchantment with Europe through a concept of political myth. It argues that political myths entail both narrations of communal origins and utopian horizons of the communal future. Drawing on insights from Lacanian psychoanalysis, it connects the utopian dimension of myth to the level of affective investment in political communities, and suggests that the disenchantment with the European project might be partly due to the fact that its original utopian horizon - that of peace in Europe - today seems to have been achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Short-term theories on the determinants of fiscal consolidation underestimate that fiscal regimes are as entrenched as any other institution of a political economy. The case of Italy's fiscal adjustment in the run-up to EMU is used to show that external constraints and well-functioning institutions may well be just auxiliary. The success factor in the country's macroeconomic stabilization was that competing socio-economic interests, while all in favour of disinflation, could eventually agree on the size and composition of the adjustment thanks to side-payments in the form of a devalued currency. These are unavailable under EMU, which explains why the fiscal reform momentum slowed down, notwithstanding EU fiscal rules. Domestic preference formation goes back a long way: it is associated with an incremental process of institutional change that started in 1981 with the enhanced independence of the Bank of Italy and continued with labour market and budget reform in the late 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reconfiguration of political space lies at the heart of the European project and is the subject of manifold studies on the new shape of the European Union, but relatively little attention has been paid to the ways in which borders are de- and reconstructed in a pan-European labour market. In a pan-European labour market, state borders shift. Postings made via subcontractors and agencies providing temporary workers also rearrange the borders of the firm. However, we know very little about how these bordering practices interact within the pan-European labour market. This study argues that while borders have become porous, their porousness is one-directional, in the sense that it is in favour of capital but impacts negatively on labour rights. In developing a framework for understanding the relationship between changes in sovereign borders and changes in employment relations in the EU, this article integrates insights from international relations, political economy and border research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the European Council's adoption of Strategic Guidelines following the 2009-2014 Stockholm Programme for the development of the 'Area of Freedom, Security and Justice' (AFSJ). Topics discussed include increase in asylum applications from refugees from Syria and Ukraine, legislative package of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), European Commission's funding of the newly operational Asylum, Migration and Integration (AMIF) Fund in co-operation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Also mentioned are European Union's (EU) border management, EU's Visa Information System, and internal judiciary and security co-operation.

This article investigates euro changeover-related inflation using disaggregated price-level data. The differences-in-differences approach is used, and the control group for the treatment country, Estonia, is built from 12 eurozone countries. The Nielsen Company disaggregated price data are employed at product, brand and shop-type levels. The results indicate that while the overall inflationary effect of euro adoption was modest, the effects were significantly different across various market segments. Changeover-related inflation was higher for products that were relatively cheaper than the eurozone average. Inflationary effects were stronger in smaller shops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The post- Maastricht period is marked by an integration paradox. While the basic constitutional features of the European Union have remained stable, EU activity has expanded to an unprecedented degree. This form of integration without supranationalism is no exception or temporary deviation from traditional forms of European integration. Rather, it is a distinct phase of European integration, what is called 'the new intergovernmentalism' in this article. This approach to post- Maastricht integration challenges theories that associate integration with transfers of competences from national capitals to supranational institutions and those that reduce integration to traditional socioeconomic or security-driven interests. This article explains the integration paradox in terms of transformations in Europe's political economy, changes in preference formation and the decline of the 'permissive consensus'. It presents a set of six hypotheses that develop further the main claims of the new intergovernmentalism and that can be used as a basis for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does banking union exacerbate the European Union's democratic deficit? Using Scharpf's 'input' and 'output' legitimacy concepts, it is argued in this article that its design does worsen the democratic deficit. There are good reasons to limit 'input legitimacy' for politically independent institutions. 'Output legitimacy' is then even more relevant. Transparency is a key part of 'output legitimacy'. It enables actors to judge whether the regulator is acting in the public's interest and can improve their outputs. This article focuses on the banking data that the supervisors collect. Data available to the European public is evaluated and compared to America's banking union. European practices are not comparable in terms of availability or detail. An original survey of relevant officials is conducted, which results in the finding that only 11 of 28 Member States release any information on the banks they supervise. Both EU and national supervisors should provide publicly available, timely and consistent individual bank data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The bulk of the literature on 'social Europe' has suggested that social policy at the level of the EU remains to be characterized by the interplay of courts and markets. While we do not disagree with this argument, our objective is to shed light on the European Commission's entrepreneurship, an element which appears to be somewhat bereft of scholarly attention. We show how, by displaying social acuity, defining problems and building teams, the Commission has actively promoted a policy agenda focused on liberal market building at the expense of socially minded regulation. This was however only made possible by a new constellation among the Member States after 2004. We substantiate this claim by documenting the activity of the Commission in two crucial policy domains of the post-Lisbon era: the liberalization of service provision, and the impact of the new macro-economic governance on social policy after the financial and debt crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the cradle to the grave, social protection is the major bond between citizen and national authority. European integration challenges the social boundaries of nation-states and this phenomenon is not without consequences for individual attitudes. Within public debate, there are many discussions about the impact of European integration on the welfare state, but conclusive analysis of the consequences on individual support for Europe is still lacking. This article provides an empirical test of the relationship between support for Europe and attitudes towards the welfare state. The findings show that both welfare regimes and welfare issues have a strong impact on individual support for Europe. When it comes to social protection, the European Union works like a distant, albeit strong, threat for individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the expansion of the European Union (EU) since 2004. Topics included are the opposition of Russia to more republics of the former Soviet Union like Armenia and Ukraine establishing closer association with the EU, the triumph of western democracy in Central and Eastern Europe and the addition of North Atlantic Treaty Organization members, and the struggle to contain rent-seeking politicians in central Europe and lack of leverage in bilateral disputes.

EU enlargement continues in the Western Balkans in the 2010s because the underlying dynamics remain largely unchanged: EU Member States still see enlargement as a matter of national interest, bringing long-term economic and geopolitical benefits. The risk of instability in the Western Balkans has made the dividends from the EU's 'democratizing effect' especially substantial. I argue that the enlargement process continues to have a 'democratizing effect,' as Western Balkans candidates and proto-candidates respond to the incentives of EU membership: political parties have changed their agendas to make them EU-compatible, and governments have implemented policy changes to move forward in the pre-accession process. Yet the EU is taking on candidates with difficult initial conditions. I explore the changes the EU has made in order to exercise its leverage more effectively in the Western Balkans and check whether these helped overcome the pre-accession process' earlier problems with expertise, consistency and legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aviation is a prime example of a policy area where the clash over supranational regulatory responsibilities had pronounced economic repercussions. In this article, we examine the economic effects of the European Commission's struggle to obtain competences in international air transport. Stock market reactions to key events in the political conflict between 1995 and 2004 unravel whether investor beliefs about the distribution of power in the EU follow the basic conjectures of neofunctionalism, intergovernmentalism or institutionalism. The event studies show that particularly judicial proceedings and the involvement of the ECJ send credible integration signals to financial markets. This supports the hypothesis that investors consider the subtleties of the EU's decision-making apparatus carefully and only react to developments that definitively alter the political regime and thus also the market situation. These findings are in line with an institutionalist interpretation of a reform that has radically changed the international aviation regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using an event study approach, this article examines whether crisis meetings of European heads of state and government, as well as their agreed and communicated results, had a significant impact on Europe's financial markets. The analysis is based on daily data for seven Member States of the eurozone ( France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain), starting in autumn 2008 and covering the time period until April 2012. To summarize the findings, the high-profile meetings appear to have only minor effects that ceased quickly. Therefore, it can be concluded that investors consider Europe's economic and political crisis management insufficient and its communication strategy little convincing. While controlling for additional effects, it was found that European Central Bank policy measures may have had short-run effects on bond returns and the exchange rate, but no intended influence on stock prices, except for Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Closing the technology gap to reduce labour productivity disparities across Europe is crucial for the European cohesion policy. This article explores the sources of labour productivity growth in Europe over the period 1993-2007 in light of the enlargement process. Labour productivity growth has been mostly driven by capital accumulation. New Member States have significantly reduced their inefficiency and their technology gap. Disparities in the levels of labour productivity are still substantial and, to a considerable extent, they can be attributed to technology gap differences. This raises concerns about the process of convergence in labour productivity in Europe and suggests further policies aimed at reducing the technology gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transatlantic co-operation and conflict over air passenger information, financial transactions records and maritime container security illustrate the European Union's reaction to the transboundary assertion of US counter-terrorism regulation in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11. A close examination of the cases suggests that the EU- US agreements on the transfer and use of PNR and SWIFT data were made to safeguard the integrity of the EU data protection regime and more importantly the European norm of data privacy from the undermining effects that might arise from the extraterritorial exercise of authority by the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]