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The article focuses on the formation of public policy through private law in the European legal systems. Topics discussed include public policy of the Europe; challenges to European Union integration as a result of the financial and political crisis; and European Regulatory Private Law (ERPL) which focuses on regulation of economic activities and commercial importance.

Chapter 9 of the book ``Strategic Survey'' is presented which discusses Britain's decision to leave the European Union, the migration issue, and Terrorism in Europe.

The past decades have witnessed an explosion in the use of experiments. Though experiments have been increasingly applied, their recognition as useful methodological tools to investigate EU-related research questions has lagged behind the rest of the political science community. This article does two things. First, by summarising the use of experiments in EU research, it provides an overview of the evolution of the use of experiments within EU studies. This includes a content exploration of the pioneering sub-areas within EU studies where experimentation is frequently used. Particular focus is paid on election, framing and deliberation studies. Second, the article argues for the promising potentials experimentation provides for EU studies, overcoming problems of causal estimation as well as endogeneity concerns. The article concludes by addressing some of the critiques often made against experimentation, arguing for a renewed view on validity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article presents a study of how institutional constraints affect legislative activism and how legislative activism in turn affects policy change through an analysis of the European Union's legislative process. The argument revolves around the key role of the European Commission in advancing policy change, and emphasises that the Commission can successfully push for increased policy change by increasing its legislative activity when the institutional opportunity space widens. Using a novel panel dataset covering eight policy sectors from the period 1984-2012, the article shows that the number of legislative proposals significantly affects the extent of regulatory reform in the EU. The rise in the number of legislative proposals, in turn, is affected by the extent of gridlock between the EU's legislative bodies. These findings show that the Commission steps up its legislative activity when the institutional opportunity space allows for greater policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of multilevel governance adds a crucial dimension to the debate about political decision-making by conceptualizing policy co-ordination across territorial levels of government. While research on European governance has generated a differentiated analytical concept to understand the varieties of co-ordination, it has not clarified the particular role of administration, although its relevance is apparent. Research on administration in the European context has considered multilevel relations between the administrations of the European Union and its member states, but failed to cover the distinct types of interaction. In view of this state of research, we emphasize the distinct features of multilevel administration and advance the concept towards an appropriate analytical framework. By unravelling the particular role and the distinct modes of administrative interaction and patterns of co-ordination in European governance, our analytical framework should pave the way for a focused research agenda linking approaches to multilevel governance and public administration in the European and international context. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since the 1990s, increasing environmental concerns have spurred the need for information and stimulated the development of numerous indicators, yet without a real impact on corresponding policies. To better account for this weakness, a political sociology approach to analyze how these government tools was developed in two cases: the French generic system of sustainable development indicators; and the implementation of the European Water Framework Directive based on indicators of water status. Comparative analysis shows that in both cases a coalition of actors successfully resisted the effective use of indicators by redesigning them and limiting the impact of quantified environmental information on policy making. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper examines the EU's challenges in the field of migration, and suggests how Brussels and EU governments might promote its own form of order, and suggestions on how to reframe current approaches to facilitate a more effective and appropriate response. For more than 20 years, Europe was encouraged to see the migration as a synopsis of globalization, victory of global economy over territorial order. Today, we are facing a geopolitical competition. States all over around the world, especially in Europe, are not trying only to return the control of its borders, but also to benefit from the migration crisis for geopolitical gains. The paper aims to answer several important questions: is geography today more important than the trade? How Europe can cope with the competition of promoting alternative measures and new forms of power? Why are there alliances between EU member-states regarding the migration crisis and what is their purpose? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the result of the referendum in Great Britain on its withdrawal from the European Union (EU) and its implication for British trade relations with third countries. Topics addressed include the legal ramifications of renegotiating trade agreements with Britain as an EU member and as a stand-alone sovereign state, the uncertainty of a rolling over of the provisions of the existing agreement, and the problems Britain will have to face in international treaty-making.

This article focuses on the influence of the latest economic crisis and the Syrian refugee crisis on EU politics, increasing differentiation among the EU member states in terms of their interests and policies. It discusses the move towards further differentiated integration in the EU and its influence on Turkey-EU relations. Firstly, it explains the influence of the economic crisis on European politics, particularly Germany's rising influence, the widening gap between northern and southern Europe, and Brexit referendum in the UK which led to discussions on further differentiated integration within the EU. Secondly, the article explains flexible integration models that were put forward before the economic crisis and it discusses new options for further differentiated integration after the economic crisis, refugee crisis and Brexit referendum. Lastly, the article evaluates the impact of refugee crisis on Turkey-EU relations, the revitalization of Turkey-EU relations, the rising role of Turkey as a 'strategic partner' of the EU and discusses the recent challenges and prospects in Turkey-EU relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses changes in the discourse and practice of the EU external border. Findings of a small-scale research project looking at UNHCR’S Border Management and Protection of Refugees (BMPR) programme will discuss developments taking place at the EU external border and will show a new kind of narrative. Institutional cooperation, access to territory and compliance with the principle ofnon-refoulementseem to have improved. A more empathetic narrative of border security has found its way into institutions of enforcement authorities that primarily follow their mandate of protecting the state’s border and territory. This new narrative is, however, highly politicised and institutionally driven. By taking a more critical view, I introduce the concept ofhumane refoulementtowards the end of the article describing the consequences of this new narrative and denoting it as hypocritical in its nature. [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]

Fiscal discipline is a highly discussed subject in EU politics, media and the general public. But, as a part of a bigger picture - the fiscal integration process, fiscal discipline doesn't appear from sudden; instead it evolves over time through carefully thought steps and decisions. In this paper we discuss the evolution of fiscal discipline components over time and how they correlate inside the EU framework, sample period being 1994-2015. As our analysis proves, EU governments are more than ever committed in maintaining sound public finances and fiscal discipline through the implementation of fiscal rules at a national level, and also by accompanying the rules with independent enforcing and monitoring institutions. In order to make the commitment more credible, EU states have also introduced sanctions for noncompliance and automatic correction and sanction mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on Foucault's concept of governmentality in order to challenge the view of EU counter-terrorism as simply a response to terrorism. Rather than focusing on the policies directly targeting terrorism, it is concerned with technologies designed to improve the governance process. The article examines three technologies designed for shaping the conduct of government. These technologies are not value-free but underpinned by specific assumptions of what governing can achieve and, as such, they are implicated in the (re)production of insecurity rather than, as institutionalist accounts do, locating the source of insecurity as external to these institutions. In other words, insecurity is in part brought about by the governance process. The article looks at three technologies targeting the gap—this latter term referring to the difference between a current state of affairs diagnosed as undesirable and the ideal situation (lagging policy implementation for instance). The technologies—the action plan, the timetable and the Counter-Terrorist Coordinator—are premised on the understanding of bridging the gap as instrumental to the provision of security. This mode of governing fuels a circular logic whereby the need to perform better leads to calls for improved monitoring and vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Foucault’s shift from an analytical focus on discipline to governmentality saw the theme of visibility move into the background of his attention. In this article we ask how the debates about governmentality and visibility can be brought into a mutually productive relationship. Building on recent arguments for greater rigour in conceptualising visibility, we proceed to examine what visibility means and does in the context of migration control in Europe. Focusing on the EU’s recently deployed programme of border surveillance, EUROSUR, we elaborate how multiple forms of visibility are at play. We conclude that the politics of visibility is an important theme for future studies in the governance of migration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Ports and port systems have historically been pre-eminent global sites. Their role, which transcends that of connecting landed with maritime domains, is one without which the historically specific global connectedness and disconnectedness of cultures and regions such as Europe could not be understood. They are, however, largely forgotten as sites for the scholarly study of power and International Relations. Inspired by Foucault's work, connectivity is here understood as an outcome of governance, the result of the strategic combination of practices of power that presupposes agency. The connectivity that ports afford constitutes a rich empirical space from which to interrogate how global and regional spaces such as Europe are actively constituted. The analytical challenge, however, is how to render port connectivity as an empirical site. The metaphor of knots is explored in this article as a way to explore how port governance as the result of actively combining disparate interests into a coherent whole provides such a site. To do so the figure of the port authority as a governing structure in the context of the European Union is explored. The case in point is that of the Hamburg Port Authority whose role is analysed as that of a “smart knot”. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The NATO/EU countries and the Russian Federation have a common neighborhood in Eastern Europe, which includes the Black Sea region. This area could be defined as a "security complex", whose security architecture is made by the interaction of the various state and non-state actors, or as a geopolitical region. The riparian states are very heterogenous, they greatly differ in territory, population, economy and strategic affiliations. One important problem is that these countries - Bulgaria, Romania, Russia, Georgia, Ukraine and Turkey, plus the nonriparian ones - the Republic of Moldova, Armenia and Azerbaijan - do not have the same strategic culture, or similar national interests, they do not perceive themselves, at the level of political and economic elites, as being part of the same area and having a common regional identity. No regional organisation plays the role of EU or NATO and this increases the insecurity perceptions among rival actors. Moscow wants to create a "buffer" area by putting pressure on the NATO/EU states to stop the enlargement process and proposes political and economical alternatives like the CSI Collective Security Treaty and the Eurasian Economic Union, while the West wants the Black Sea countries to remain NATO partners (via the PfP) and possible members (Ukraine and Georgia were promised NATO membership in April 2008 at the Bucharest Summit), and also economic/political partners for the EU via the Eastern Partnership and the free trade agreements. The lack of trust and even fear between Russia and the Western states generated, since 2014 (when Crimea was illegally annexed by Russia), accusations, provocative actions and arms building, economic sanctions, thus fostering a "security dilemma" mechanism which is to be explained not only by structural factors like systemic power polarity, predominance of offensive/defensive weapons, but also by psycho-cognitive perceptions of decision-makers. The fact that some states' leaders perceive the balance of power in the Black Sea as being in a process of rapid change in economy, military, demographics may generate attempts to take profit of or close the windows of vulnerability, increasing the likelihood of regional military or "hybrid" conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent efforts to accelerate regionalization in Romania, driven by the willingness of the central government in 2012 to cope with the European Union conditionality and to boost the economic recovery with the help of EU funding, have put forward new constraints and limitations that have been previously neglected. Whereas previous attempts to boost regionalization have been hampered by ethnic and electoral issues, this time the essential factor that slowed down the process was the interaction and conflict between local actors. When for the first time the process of decentralization was open for the access of local elected officials and local organisations of national parties, negotiations regarding social innovation in regional design and competing geographies have seriously constrained the ongoing top-down decision style of the regime. Unable to contain local actors, who were engaged in the defence of local identities and interests, the central government blocked the process and postponed regionalization for a more favourable future context. Despite the failure of the 2012 regionalization initiative, the Romanian case is instructive for the way local actors may use windows of opportunity, which have been created by external pressure, in order to transform inertial regimes, as it is the case with the long-lasting administrative centralist regime in Romania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While some observers have claimed that the European Council has become the key institution in European Union politics, others have argued that the Council's role has remained relatively stable over time. In this article, we argue that an analysis of agenda formation dynamics in the European Council may help us understand better how the European Council works and how its role has evolved over time. Building on theories of agenda-setting, we identify two ideal-typical modes of agenda formation: selective targeting and routine monitoring. Based on a comprehensive dataset of coded European Council Conclusions in the period 1975-2011, we show that the substantive content of the European Council agenda shows little change over time. However, in terms of agenda formation dynamics, we find a marked shift toward routine monitoring of issues. This supports the claim that the European Council is developing into the EU's de facto government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite significant optimism surrounding the European Citizens' Initiative (ECI), its success between April 2012 and December 2015 has been limited. This paper aims to determine why the ECI has had limited success and how it can be improved. Using a case study methodology composed of semi-structured qualitative interviews with ECI organizers and document analysis, it identified two sets of causes through the lens of governance theory (i) legal, practical and logistical and (ii) theoretical. While the former are more technical in nature and thus might be easier to solve, the latter reveal structural limitations, especially linked to the ECI's priorities. The research reveals contradiction into how these objectives are interpreted by different actors and how the underlying power structure of the community method remains unchanged despite the narrative of innovation. I outline two alternative models to the ECI, the participative and deliberative initiative by drawing on David Held's theoretical models of democracy. They outline improvements to the ECI by suggesting clearer priorities citizen inclusion in the decision-making process or continent-wide public deliberation on EU issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution argues that although the latest EU treaties formalized the Commission presidency to substantial degree, it remains a constitutionally weak office for the provision of political leadership. The capacity to lead thus still strongly depends on the individual incumbent. As a first step, the article examines the legal-procedural structure of the office before and after the Lisbon Treaty came into force. Secondly, it analyzes the political leadership performance of the Commission president José Barroso in comparison with his predecessor Jacques Delors. In bridging formal institutional rules with concrete performances this article contributes to the understanding of the relationship between structure and agency in international institutions as well as to the growing literature on political leadership in the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Stockholm Programme sets new challenges for the Area of Freedom Security and Justice (AFSJ). The development of external relationships with European Neighbourhood Policy and the Euro-Mediterranean Economic Area countries will prove problematic. The treaty boundary lines between the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the AFSJ will need to be negotiated. In addition, the full range of EU provisions with regard to policing, investigation and prosecution, and fundamental and due process rights, all required to obtain safe convictions, which will need to be part of the EU external relations legal framework for the AFSJ. EU legal agreements for the AFSJ could be either directly with a particular third country, or via Europol. Europol counterparts could be the South-East European Law Enforcement Centre (SELEC) or the Central Asian Regional Information and Coordination Centre (CARICC). This paper will critically analyse the problems likely from an EU legal framework and policy perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on the interpretation of the substantive provisions of the Race Equality Directive (RED). It focuses on the issues that bring new developments to the European Union (EU) equality law that can have more significance in shaping this area of law in the future. It clarifies the concept of ethnic origin, the distinction between direct and indirect discrimination and the extension of the concept of discrimination by association.

The article discusses the Taricco case involving value added tax (VAT) fraud where the Court prioritized the primacy and effectiveness of European Union (EU) law. The case discusses the duty to provide effective criminal sanctions for serious cases of VAT fraud, the Court's interpretation of the legality principle and the relationship between EU fundamental rights and more protective national standards. Defendant Ivo Tarricco was accused of having committed VAT fraud through trade in champagne.

The article discusses the case Commission v. Council (U.S. Air Transport Agreement) regarding the constitutionality of "hybrid decisions" adopted by the Council and Member State governments meeting within the Council. The judgment is said to represent a shift in emphasis in European Court of Justice's (ECJ) foreign case law towards a more introspective focus on the appropriate balance between unity and diversity in the foreign affairs constitution of European Union (EU).

This contribution explains the European asylum policy crisis from three structural weaknesses of the Common European Asylum System: its reliance on coercion within the EU, its unrealistic expectations of what borders can achieve and the premise of prohibition of refugee movement in its external dimension. The article then critically reviews the proposals that the EU has submitted since the publication of the European Migration Agenda in May 2015, in the light of recent developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses the three different "rule of law" problems faced by the European Union (EU) which should give cause for concern. These include the challenge of securing respect for the rule of law within the Union, the problem of securing respect for the rule of Union law in the face of the willingness of some Member States to qualify or repudiate obligations that should be regarded as legally binding and the problem of securing respect for the rule of law by the Union itself.

70 years since the Second World War, the European construction is confronted to severe political or economic crises, which are far to be settled, at least at short and medium term. All these crises occurring after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty reveal strong persistence of institutional dysfunctions at the European level as well as significant increase of the democratic deficit with a view to the relations between Brussels and the 28th Member states governments. Even though the last European treaty was intended to enhance the democratic life of the Union as a whole, the effects of its application are far to be positive, given the successive economy failures and refugees waves, both having putting Europe in a long and difficult blockage. This article would like to highlight some the main current constraints acting upon EU, which, in the author's opinion, would affect more and more its political strength over the next period of time, unless member states understand to have a more direct and realistic approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ex-post investigations of major terrorist attacks in Europe have highlighted the contradiction between the seemingly free movement of terrorists across Europe and the lack of EU-wide intelligence sharing. In response, EU policymakers have repeatedly promised to improve intelligence sharing across Europe, and some have even floated the idea that Europol should be turned into a centralised EU criminal intelligence hub, akin to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. In this article, I argue that despite the clear need for borderless intelligence sharing as a response to borderless terrorism, Europol is highly unlikely to become a genuine intelligence agency in the foreseeable future. Experience to date with Europol suggests that it is one thing for Europe's policymakers to make public promises to improve the fight against terrorism via better intelligence sharing across Europe, and quite another thing for them to persuade the relevant national agencies to comply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines why the EU should finance defence research. The answers are found in the role the EU increasingly plays in guaranteeing its own security and providing security in Europe's neighbourhood. Against this backdrop, and to compensate for the steady decline in defence research and technology investment, in 2013 the European Commission suggested undertaking preparatory action in this field. This initiative has received support from the European Council and the European Parliament on several occasions. The Parliament put itself in the driving seat for establishing a pilot project in the fiscal year 2015. All the ongoing efforts serve the purpose of establishing a fully fledged European Defence Research Programme starting in 2021. This programme could have the added value of catalysing future cooperative defence programmes, thus delivering urgently needed capabilities for European armed forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both the EU and NATO have greatly expanded efforts to address the frozen conflict in Transnistria since 2003. These efforts by and large fall neatly into the category of ‘soft balancing’ actions against Russian influence in the conflict and in Moldova more generally. Given that soft balancing is normally seen as a strategy undertaken by relatively weak actors vis-à-vis a global or regional hegemon, this behavior is puzzling. The actions of these institutions demonstrate that soft balancing is a logical strategy for stronger actors when the conflict is not as salient as for the weaker actor. The EU and NATO’s desire to resolve the conflict is not salient enough to warrant a costlier hard power strategy. Recent developments in Ukraine also demonstrate the limitations of this strategy. Specifically, the application of this soft power has done little to change the incentives for separatist leaders or their Russian backers, meaning they have little ability to resolve the conflict. They have also fallen short of creating a permanent pro-Western consensus in Moldova. They do, however, augment Moldova’s ability to adapt to the challenges posed by the conflict and provide a paper wall against more aggressive Russian ambitions in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses how the migration crisis is challenging the governance of the European Union. Topics discussed include movement of more than a million refugees and migrants; member states struggle with the pressures of mass movement of displaced people; and shortcomings in the application of European fundamental rights, humanitarian law, and neighborhood policy.

EU politics has long been portrayed as an elite affair in which technocratic deliberation prevails. As a consequence, information supply by interest groups has typically been viewed as part of an expertise-based exchange with policy-makers. Less attention has been devoted to whether the supply of information is also used to exert political pressure. In addition to expertise-based exchanges between interest groups and policy-makers, can we identify the prevalence of information supply that aims to put pressure on EU policy-makers? And under what conditions are different modes of information supply likely to occur? My analysis relies on interviews with 143 lobbyists who were active on a set of 78 legislative proposals submitted by the European Commission between 2008 and 2010. The results demonstrate that expertise-based exchanges are dominant in interactions with civil servants, while political information is predominantly communicated to political officials and often the key substance in outside lobbying tactics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the author's views about global trade ethics and the principle of subsidiarity which deals with the allocation of decision making between different levels of governance. Rebuttable presumptions and local governance are addressed, along with the World Trade Organization (WTO) and various struggles involving the U.S. and European Union governments. Global economic governance is assessed, along with the legitimacy of governments and the concept of embedded liberalism.

An introduction is presented in which the author discusses various reports within the issue on topics including global governance, the concept of subsidiarity which deals with a presumption for local-level decisionmaking, and the allocation of power in European Union nations.

In this article, we examine how European authorities have responded to reported threats to aviation resulting from individual terrorist tactics. We do so by applying the notion of political resilience and drawing on Palonen's “policy, polity, politicking, and politicization” model as well as on Malcolm Anderson's concept of “politics of the latest outrage.” We argue that the European Union response to aviation terrorism has created polity transformation and generated a long list of new policies but has also in the process become politicized and subject of politicking, with some high-profile measures being criticized for having a deleterious impact on passengers' rights. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This Conclusion revisits the key ideas put forward in the Introduction, examines the evidence presented in the articles as a whole, and identifies some avenues for further exploration. It focuses on four areas: first, the extent of agency evident in EU development policies at the level of the EU itself; second, the mediating factors that can modify, reinforce or undermine EU policies at the national or the global level; third, the variable impact of the EU framework on policy, polity and politics at the national level; fourth, the extent and depth of the transformation brought about by EU development policies. It is suggested that processes of globalisation and (re)nationalisation are at least as important as EU development policies in shaping the pattern of development assistance in the EU, and that linkages between the three levels are likely to form a fertile basis for future research in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article asks to what extent the European Union (EU) and its member states actually pursued and implemented comprehensive approaches in relation to crisis management in Africa. It also asks what can explain the lack of full implementation of the comprehensive approach in the cases of South Sudan, Mali and the Central African Republic. It is shown that EU member states saw the added value of the common EU approach while at the same time they pursued national interests at odds with the common goals of the EU. The flaws in implementation of the comprehensive approach are mainly explained by member states' preoccupation with taking care of national interests rather than joining ranks with other member states and the EU institutions. There appears to be an exception to the rule: when Europe's security is perceived as being high on the agenda, the implementation of the comprehensive approach may follow policy declarations more closely. The comprehensive approach nevertheless indicates an emerging Europeanisation norm influencing policy approaches to the sensitive nexuses that link security, development and crisis response. Evidence from country-level interventions reveals that this norm is yet to impact on the member state political will required to Europeanise country-level implementation where important national interests are perceived to be at stake. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article examines the evolution of Eastern and Central European party systems from the previous communist/anticommunist conflict to the emergent division between pro-EU and Eurosceptic forces and puts forward a revised view of the traditional center-periphery cleavage in six countries: Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania. The first part addresses the question of “stateness” and the second the Rokkan spatial approach while the third develops a revised view of the center-periphery cleavage in relation to space at the national (minority ethnic groups vs. state), regional (EU vs. Eastern European member states), and global (USSR vs. satellite countries during the bipolar system) levels. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article scrutinises the freedom of choice of Member States regarding methods of transposition of EU directives. It is argued that this freedom is significantly limited and that its limits are influenced by several factors, which have their origin in both EU law and the national legal systems of Member States. The article identifies and assesses these factors. The analysis focuses on the main methods of transposition of EU directives: copying, elaboration, minimalistic transposition and gold-plating. The aim is to design a comprehensive systematic framework within which the choice of transposition methods and the real limits of this choice can be conceptualised. The article stresses that, owing to a number of limiting factors, the choice between the main methods of transposition can never be exercised in a mechanical manner. The choice has to be based, instead, on a systematic and targeted analysis of the content of the directive concerned, relevant national laws, as well as directly applicable EU acts. The article also points out that the choice between available methods of transposition often involves an important policy choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses how the Lisbon Treaty poses additional obligations on EU institutions vis-a-vis their linguistic policy, and thus makes a contribution to the debate on a more robust political EU citizenship and the interconnected aim of increasing participation in the EU. More specifically, this contribution seeks to answer this question: EU citizens and residents are encouraged, post-Lisbon, to participate--but in which language? The article first analyses the applicable legal framework and, in particular, the "Provisions on democratic principles", the legally binding Charter of Fundamental Rights (including the principle of linguistic diversity and the right to good administration), as well as the national identity clause. Secondly, it argues that these provisions entail that the Court of Justice of the EU should apply a more rigorous (i.e. "less restrictive alternatives") proportionality test, with a view to restricting the EU institutions' leeway when the latter are evading multilingualism on the basis of considerations related to resources and efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the general introduction to the vast and still impressive Integration through Law (ITL) series, which, if by the force of the title alone, has had a powerful impact on the development of EU studies. This introduction deals essentially with the following question: How does law operate in a non-legal context in order to produce a pluralist form of "federal union" in Europe? While the question remains valid, the context, however, has dramatically changed. The difficulty is to find a way to pursue integration in a context not only of a profound and multifaceted crisis, but in an atmosphere of widespread mistrust in the positive force of law. By engaging a discussion with the ITL project, this article aims to prompt a reflection on integration in light of current social and political conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many empirical models make assumptions about the primacy of domestic politics that fail to accommodate new trends in supranational policy making. Scholars now acknowledge that national political decisions often depend on other countries, international institutions, or global economic conditions. More interestingly, many sovereign countries have either lost or purposely delegated away policy autonomy to supranational institutions. For example, fixed exchange rates, regional trade agreements, and transnational regulations create the distinct possibility that domestic politics no longer provide a sufficient explanation for many policy outcomes. In some respects, two types of countries now exist: those that retain decision- making authority over a given policy space and those that do not. Combining both types of countries into a larger cross-national sample may generate flawed substantive results and fails to adequately test hypotheses. I use the example of European Union (EU) governance over trade policy to demonstrate the empirical dangers of disregarding differences in policy autonomy among countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the European Commission has responded to external criticism and demands for the democratisation and reform of the way it uses expert groups in EU policy making. The article analyses the nature and character of the Commission’s dialogue with its critics and the degree and extent to which it was prepared to adapt its existing internal processes and procedures to the reform agenda. Recent theories inform us that organisations respond in different ways to external criticism and demands for reform, including full adaptation, evasion, institutional decoupling and reinterpretation. The main findings suggest that the Commission was not completely resistant to changing its approach to the use of expertise. The Commission reinterpreted its critics’ demands by introducing reforms that defused this external pressure, while protecting the effectiveness of its existing internal ideology and processes. These findings serve to enhance the Commission’s image as an increasingly normalised bureaucracy and reinforce the importance of knowledge and expertise as a key source of Commission legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many European integration treaties - most notably the failed Constitutional Treaty - have faced ratification by referendum in various member states. Although the literature on voting behaviour in these referendums in now well established, the reasons why these referendums were held in the first place is under-scrutinised. This article examines the reasons EU member states decide to call referendums in order to ratify EU treaties and argues that they do so primarily as a result of domestic political pressure arising from three sources: electoral pressure when the EU is unpopular and elections are close, rules governing the use of referendums, and domestic institutional veto players. This theory is tested using a combination of single and multi-level logistic regression analysis, which finds support for the hypotheses developed here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article argues on the constitutionalization of democracy and capitalism with the foundation of the European Union (EU). It combines the Kantian mind-set of the revolutionary foundation with Kaarlo Touri's managerial reconstruction of structural coupling of law with other social systems. It concludes that the implementation of the Eurozone without political government was the worst possible compromise.

The European Union should take a whole-system view of migration and review how its related policies and underlying concepts could be shifted to develop a human rights-based approach. Applying the European Union's core values to policies that are based on fact rather than fiction, would lead to migration policies that facilitate mobility and celebrate diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editors discuss various reports within the issue on topics including legal dimension of the rule of law in the European Union's (EU), its interrelated objectives of enlargement, accession criteria, democracy, and rule of law, and the rule of law promotion.

The European Union (EU) has successfully been exercising its transformative power through both its enlargement and its neighbourhood policies for decades. Nonetheless, transformation towards a more European model of governance through Europeanisation is not a linear process, but a differentiated one. Adverse consequences for Europeanisation (i.e. de-Europeanisation) have often been neglected. The case of media freedom in Turkey, with a deteriorating trend across time, exemplifies such an outcome. This article explores media freedom in Turkey in the last decade. It argues that media reforms have been reversed over time in a de- Europeanising trend, with the EU losing its position as a reference point for reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the political dynamics shaping the post-2010 'de-Europeanisation' of Turkey's judicial system, particularly regarding judicial independence and rule of law. The analysis suggests the limits of conventional Europeanisation accounts emphasising causal factors such as European Union (EU) conditionality and the 'lock-in effects' of liberal reforms due to the benefits of EU accession. The article argues that the Justice and Development Party's (AKP's) bid for political hegemony resulted in the reversal of rule of law reforms. De-Europeanisation is discussed in terms of both legislative changes and the government's observed discourse shift. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]