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This article investigates the development of the Spanish–Italian mercury cartel from the end of World War II to the mid-1950s. Previous literature has singled out the cartel as one of the most robust international cartels of the twentieth century, but as this article shows, the cartel broke down toward the end of the 1940s, and although briefly reestablished in 1954, it quickly dissolved again. Building on access to original source material from archives in Spain, Italy, the United States, and United Kingdom, we investigate the underlying reasons why the cartel broke down, and how and why it was eventually reestablished. Because both the main Italian and the Spanish mercury producers were state-owned, this article pays special attention to the influence of the political relations between Spain and Italy on the development of the cartel. The study of the mercury cartel is used as a prism to investigate the point where industry strategies meet government strategies. This article thus contributes to two major strands of literature, both to the business history literature on international cartels in the post-1945 world and to the diplomatic history literature on the intricate relationship between Spain and Italy in the early phase of the Cold War.

The European Union is increasingly resorting to a decentralised enforcement strategy in which it relies less on the Commission-initiated infringement procedure, and more on domestic litigation by particularly NGOs. In order to better understand whether this is a suitable strategy to tackle the compliance deficit, we need more insight into NGOs as decentralised enforcers of EU law. What do NGOs do to stimulate domestic compliance, and is this a potentially effective alternative to the centralised enforcement strategies? Analysing the actions by the German NGO Deutsche Umwelthilfe in relation to the Ambient Air Quality Directive, reveals high potential for the role to be played by NGOs. This exploratory case illustrates that particularly the strategy of flooding the country with a wave of legal proceedings was effective in increasing the salience of the topic, thereby indirectly releasing those capacities that the authorities had still lacked to comply.

The present article maps and analyses the different meanings of the EU’s resilience narratives in its neighbourhood policy towards authoritarian regimes. While a large part of the existing literature has placed an emphasis on the role of resilience in EU foreign policy more generally, the specific use and representations of resilience in EU policy towards authoritarian regimes remains ill-explored. However, it is specifically in the context of the EU’s relations with authoritarian regimes, that references to resilience, and especially ‘state resilience’, are highly problematic. Focusing on the EU’s neighbourhood policy and the case of Belarus, we present a discourse analysis of the different uses of the term resilience in the official discourses of key EU institutions. In a first-order critique, we examine how the EU’s narratives construct resilience, and in particular for whom, what, when, where, and why. We show that the EU’s resilience discourses are inherently state-centric and present highly contradictory goals of resilience-building. In a second-order critique, we demonstrate the problematic political implications of the EU’s usage of the term resilience, including the omission of ‘everyday forms of resilience and resistance’ from the EU’s narratives.

Algorithmic decision-making (ADM) systems are heavily used by businesses, governments, and the nonprofit sector. Their adoption by the public is important for their optimal performance, but the impact of user perceptions on ADM system adoption is not well-understood. We develop a theoretical model that examines the effect of a user’s transparency concern on perceived fairness, accountability, and privacy; it then captures the effect of these on trust in, usefulness of, and finally, intention to adopt an ADM system. We use results from a large-scale survey among 2612 Dutch citizens to test our research model. Our results shed light on the role of transparency concern on trust and perceived usefulness through its impact on perceived fairness, accountability, and privacy. The survey data of a large representative group enables us to capture public views on ADM systems. Finally, the study provides a comparative view of ADM system perceptions for different application scenarios. Our insights on differences between scenarios can help organizations prioritize relevant measures to improve the adoption of their ADM systems.

This paper focuses on the transnational neofascist network during the long 1970s. Specifically, it revolves around the period between the consolidation of the generational change (made explicit in 1968), and the beginning of the 1980s, when many of these political actors decided to migrate to South America, increasingly aware of the shortcomings of their European project. From a spatial perspective, this paper concentrates on the concept of a 'Third Force Europe', paying particular attention to Latin connections, especially France, Italy, Spain and Portugal - countries which remained at the forefront of the network. The main premise will be that the new generation of neofascist militants that was beginning to dominate the political stage during the 1960s was dissatisfied with the old ways in which neofascist groups were conducting politics, thus becoming determined to find a place to be politically active outside the traditional parties; in fact, they needed to find their own political space vis-a-vis the more nostalgic older generation. This physical space would eventually be found in Italy, Spain, Portugal and many Latin American countries which had offered a safe refuge for the older fascists who had wanted not only to escape, but also to settle down and consolidate a series of political and personal relationships which they had established over the past two decades. From a strategic perspective, the growing dissatisfaction would also create a new form of struggle: black terrorism. This terrorism became widespread in Europe in the late 1960s and 1970s and, as a result of this, many neofascists were forced to flee their countries to find refuge, once again, in Spain, Portugal and Latin America. This diaspora would further enhance transnational neofascist cooperation that would reach one of its high points between 1969 and 1981.

The aim of this paper is to trace the evolution of the neofascist networks from the vantage point, between 1945 and 1953, of Madrid, a city where a myriad of extreme right activists gathered to discuss and promote their cause at a transnational level. Exploring the local socio-political context in which these (neo)-fascists moved, and the networks that they formed, the study delves into the creation of ratlines crucial for fascists to escape from the Allied prosecution once the Second World War was over, the consolidation of the city as a central meeting point for fascists from all over the world (from Degrelle to Skorzeny, passing by Horia Sima or Filippo Anfuso), discussions around the possible creation of paramilitary organisations, and the everyday lives of (neo)-fascists operating in Madrid. On the basis of police reports, secret service intelligences and other primary sources, this paper foregrounds the role of the fascist diaspora and the subsequent interactions as driving forces enabling entanglements, and cooperation among (neo)-fascist movements and the Francoist regime, at various formal or informal political levels.

The introduction to the special issue sets out to examine the normative rivalry between the European Union and other regional actors and how it plays out at the domestic level in the societies of the European neighbourhood. Drawing on the International Relations literature on norm diffusion, and in particular on the scholarship on norm contestation, we posit that the degree and nature of domestic contestation of external political norms (both EU and non-EU) has consequences for norm diffusion in specific domestic settings. We deepen the conceptual understanding of the encounter between external and domestic political norms by emphasizing the agency of domestic societies and the importance of domestic normative structures in the processes of acceptance, modification or rejection of external normative influence. We provide empirical evidence about competing normative influences collected from a plethora of case studies from the eastern and the southern European neighbourhoods allowing us to draw a cross-regional parallel about the political ideas more likely to gain traction in the societies of Eastern Europe and the Middle East and North Africa.

Since the 1993 White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment, the Commission has emphasised the importance of trans-European networks (TENs) for the physical completion of the single market. Despite the 2004 and 2013 revisions to the TEN-T regulation, redefining and expanding the multimodal network, many projects remain unfinished. This article explores the Commission's enduring role in EU policy coordination from the perspective of hybrid governance, focusing on the mediating role of high-level 'European Coordinators', the use of stakeholders forums, recourse to policy evaluation, and the development of new financial instruments. Drawing on recent audit and evaluations work by the EU institutions, it explores reconfigurations of implementing actors, and engages with notions from the literature on experimentalist governance, including networks, informalism and deliberation. The analysis suggests that the Commission demonstrates resilience as a coordination body in its commitment to 'physically complete' the single market, while recognising limitations to its coordination capacity.

The European Union (EU) states in its 2016 Global Strategy that it intends to be a “responsible global stakeholder” and to “act worldwide to address the core causes of war and poverty, as well as to promote the indivisibility and universality of human rights” (European Union Global Strategy, 2016, pp. 5–8, 18). However, the Global Strategy is silent on the credentials or prerequisites that give the EU the authority to act globally and address conflicts and violations of human rights, including through the use of sanctions against non-EU states. How far the EU has the authority to use sanctions, which are essentially coercive measures, is especially relevant when the EU resorts to unilateral sanctions based on obligations owed erga omnes, namely measures without explicit United Nations Security Council authorisation and based on obligations owed to the international community as a whole. Drawing on Habermas’s theory of communicative action, this article introduces an analytical framework—the “moral dimension” of EU authority—which maps the substantive and procedural standards to guide the assessment of whether the EU has the appropriate credentials to qualify as an authority with the right to intervene forcibly into the internal affairs of non-EU states. The analytical value of the framework is examined empirically in the case study of the EU’s restrictive measures (sanctions) imposed in response to state violence against anti-government protests in Uzbekistan in 2005.

This article seeks to unpack the implications of the deteriorating rule of law within the EU’s eastern members for the EU’s external democracy promotion. We examine the legitimacy of the EU’s support for democracy in the European neighbourhood in light of the internal EU rule-of-law crisis. Adopting a sociological perspective, we emphasize local perceptions of the EU by tracing the legitimation dynamics at play in neighbouring societies. We adopt a tripartite conception of external legitimacy based on appropriateness, utilitarian consensus, and empathy. Using representative public opinion surveys, we show that the democratic erosion in the eastern EU members has not (yet) negatively impacted the EU’s credibility in supporting democracy in the neighbourhood. The article contributes to the research on the legitimacy of EU foreign policy and the literature on the legitimacy of international organizations. It also contributes to the broader effort at provincializing International Relations and decentring EU foreign policy studies.

This chapter presents the major common findings of the volume, while also stressing the different approaches and specialist areas covered by the contributors. It re-examines the usefulness of the major schools of International Relations (IR) theory as applied to the EU’s external relations, seeing all as applicable in varying ways even if liberalism and its variants tend, in our view, to generate most insights. It then moves on to the EU’s substantive impact (or lack of it) on world politics, which has grown steadily in broad terms albeit with obvious gaps and setbacks. The three lenses introduced in Part 1, whereby the EU is analysed as a system of international relations, as a participant in wider international processes, and finally as a power, are then revisited to make possible the overall conclusions: 1) that while the EU has its distinctive attributes it is now largely integrated into the academic subject of International Relations , rather than being confined to European Studies; 2) that the EU has significant powers as well as a wide-ranging presence in the international system, even if it may not yet be termed ‘a power’; 3) that the accelerating processes of change underway in the international arena continue to pose new challenges both for the EU and for analysis; 4) that the series of challenges which the Union has faced since the financial crisis of 2008 have produced some proactive responses but have also exposed its weaknesses as a collective actor on the world stage. The latest of the challenges, the war in Ukraine, has provoked the EU into an unusually rapid, forceful and united response. Only time will tell if that can be maintained.

The European integration process has always been part of international relations more generally defined, and continuously affected by the development of the world arena. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a structured treatment of the historical context for the mutual entanglement of European integration and the broader development of international relations, bearing in mind the threefold framework set out in chapter 1: European integration as a sub-system of international relations, as part of the general processes of international relations, and as a potential or actual ‘power’ in international relations. Although the chapter is broadly chronological in nature, taking developments up to the end of the 20th century and providing background to the topics covered in the following chapters, it does not follow a teleological narrative. It shows how the EU’s international role has continuously been shaped by both by the changing international environment and the continuous interaction between politics, economics and security. At the end of the chapter, readers can find a time line summarising key events in international relations and European integration, 1945-2003.

The European Union (EU) is now routinely studied as an international actor, but it is important to make the linkage between the Union’s internal processes of integration and policymaking and the development of international relations more generally. This means that established concepts and frameworks in International Relations should be brought together with the approaches from Comparative Politics and Public Policy that have characterized the study of the EU. In this way, the development of the EU as a system of international relations in itself can be related analytically to the place it occupies in the processes of international relations, and to its position as a ‘power’ in the international arena. Such an analysis facilitates an understanding both of the ways in which the EU produces international action and of the ways in which the international dimension enters into EU policymaking, and can help in the identification of key elements of change in the EU’s international position. This is particularly important in the context of the multiple crises which have affected the Union in the last decade, from the eurozone crisis to the Ukraine, from Euroscepticism (most dramatically expressed in Brexit) to migration and the Covid-19 pandemic, all of which have had a major international dimension.

The August 2003 heatwave resulted in an additional 15, 000 deaths in France, mostly among the very old. In the wake of the disaster, an annual Solidarity Day (Journée de Solidarité) was introduced. By cancelling a public holiday, the French government sought to raise 2 billion euros to finance healthcare for older people and people who live with disabilities. The first such day in May 2005 led to confusion, with opposition from unions, demonstrations by public sector employees, and uncertainty in the general workforce. Using Marcel Mauss’ theory of gift and reciprocity, this chapter explores and tries to understand this confusion. It examines the moral and political obligations placed upon workers, older people, and the Republic through the engineering, or coercing, of collective solidarity. The chapter explores a fascinating contemporary case that tests the relevance and limits of Mauss’ gift cycle in the context of policy studies.

What makes or breaks interdisciplinary collaborations is how well a team can work together. In this chapter, we focus on the work that is behind teamwork. We explain what ‘doing’ interdisciplinary teamwork entails by drawing parallels with the subject of our research: ‘doing’ family. We draw our examples from the transnational child raising arrangements projects (tcra and tcraf-eu), investigating how transnational migrant families ‘do family’ when their members are separated by great geographical distances. Families are not just people related by blood ties or marriage but are defined and held together through the ‘work’ of commitments and obligations consisting of communication, trust, and emotional work. This chapter draws on these elements—communication, trust, and emotions—to unpack the work involved in ‘doing’ teamwork. Teamwork in interdisciplinary research has been discussed but not often in terms of the personal and emotional work that it entails.keywordsinterdisciplinary teamworkemotional workcollaborationcommunicationtrust.

This chapter examines the gendered implications of family reunification policy for transnational couples in the netherlands, who are not often the focus of policy discussions and assistance. Contemporary migration literature on reunification highlights sponsors’ decision-making at the expense of their family members whose reunification motives remain unexplored. This omission contributes to the tendency for research and official policy discourses to frame transnational marriage as a strategic vehicle furthering undesirable migration in the eyes of the destination nation-state. This exploratory analysis of migrants in the netherlands in transnational marriages suggests that for relatively recent migrant groups, reunification with a partner or spouse may be challenging to varying degrees with respect to angolan as opposed to nigerian migrants. Given their specific historical background and degree of intersection of insecure legal status and income, nigerians as economic migrants may fall far short of the conditions for reunification relative to many angolans who originally had refugee status. The chapter calls for studies that adopt an intersectional and transnational family life cycle perspective to understand the gendered family reunification experiences of sponsors and their stay-behind spouses.keywordsgenderfamily reunificationnigerian migrantsangolan migrantsthe netherlands.

Taken together, some recent events represent a watershed in the global geopolitical landscape. The strategic repositioning of the US towards the Indo-Pacific, NATO’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Russian invasion of Ukraine highlight the need for EU member states to invest more and better in the defence sector. Industrial cooperation between national champions is pivotal to reduce unnecessary duplications and foster interoperability. The naval defence sector is among those suffering particularly from market fragmentation, although there have been important examples of collaboration thanks to the Permanent Structured Cooperation and European Defence Fund. In view of further cooperation, the European Patrol Corvette, or Modular and Multirole Patrol Corvette, represents a first attempt of EU-level defence cooperation at large scale in the naval sector. The success of this project would set an important precedent in the realisation of the defence goals set by the EU in the Strategic Compass.

Child labor and low schooling of children are still serious issues in many developing countries and finding a breakthrough to substantially reduce these phenomena are urgent according to the International Labor Organization (ILO). This study investigated how child labor and schooling vary with intrahousehold gender relations in rural Ethiopia, using data from the 2009 Ethiopian Rural Household Survey (ERHS). The sample includes 1,922 children between the ages of 5 and 15 years in 755 households. Indicators are used to measure mothers’ and fathers’ roles on various tasks within a household. The study examines how the distribution of gender relations within a household influences children’s time use in schooling and labor activities. One innovation used in the study is the construction of intrahousehold gender relations on a continuum. The findings indicate that balanced intrahousehold relations and gender roles between parents increase the chances of both boys and girls going to school while reducing the hours they spend on domestic work. Findings from the other covariates point to the gendered processes behind human capital formation in rural Ethiopia, which warrant separate investigations of boys’ and girls’ labor and schooling activities.

The aim of this article is to review the EU’s relations with Belarus over recent decades; to examine the patterns, opportunities and limitations of the EU’s policies vis-à-vis the authoritarian regime; and to evaluate the effectiveness of the EU’s responses to the brutal crackdown on civil society and political opposition following the flawed presidential elections in August 2020. It is argued that, despite its careful balancing act between principled approach and pragmatic engagement, the EU’s perception of the Belarusian regime has been overly optimistic and often influenced by the appeal of short-term geopolitical and economic gains. How should the EU deal with a consolidating and increasingly ruthless dictatorship at the heart of Europe? By way of conclusion, the article maps a number of ‘lessons learned’ and suggestions for future EU policy towards Belarus.

Previous research has shown that staffing of international organisations (IOs) is politics. Understaffing of IOs, by contrast, has hardly received scholarly attention. By drawing upon the principal-agent model and refining the concept of “principal slack”, we explain why member states – as principals – might not provide the required resources to an IO and its substructures. We focus specifically on the case of the European Union’s (EU) Military Planning and Conduct Capability (MPCC), which was established in June 2017. The MPCC has since then been hindered by systematic understaffing. Our analysis reveals that understaffing of the MPCC results from member states’ individual cost calculations, which are determined by national resource constraints and concerns over control. A limited pool of resources stretched thinly across rivalling institutions is a central problem to the MPCC’s development, exacerbated by rapidly growing expectations and the largely voluntary nature of staff provision. These are considerable obstacles to the EU’s ambition to become a credible and responsive security provider.

This article aims to explore how Russia and Turkey contest the EU's actorness in their shared neighbourhoods and beyond. By adopting the theoretical lens that exerting actorness requires justification and by conceptualizing contestation as an inherently relational and discursive process, it utilizes qualitative content analysis to trace the discursive justifications that are employed by Russia and Turkey in delegitimizing the EU in their shared neighbourhoods and at global forums. The article finds that while norm-based contestations of the EU's actorness are central to both cases, there is a marked difference between the two with respect to the type and substance of normative contestation. It also shows that normative contestation in international relations need not be limited to the contestation of norms, but that it can also entail norm-based contestation of contenders' actorness in international politics by targeting their international legitimacy.

Since the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty, the European Parliament wields the power of consent over international (trade) agreements, enabling it to threaten a veto. Due to the extensive financial and reputational costs associated with a veto, the European Commission (hereinafter Commission) was expected to read these threats effectively. However, the Commission’s responses to such threats have varied greatly. Building on a fine-grained causal mechanism derived from information processing theory and an extensive process-tracing analysis of seven free trade agreements post-Lisbon, we explain why the Commission has responded differently to looming vetoes. Our analysis reveals that the variation in Commission responses derives from imperfections in its information-processing system, the ‘early-warning system,’ which had to be adapted to the new institutional equilibrium post-Lisbon. Because of this adaption process, factors exogenous to the parliamentary context (‘externalities’) as well as internal uncertainties (‘internalities’) add constant unpredictability to the Commission’s reading of the European Parliament.

This policy brief presents the outcomes of a roundtable event organised by Studio Europa Maastricht and European Institute of Public Administation (EIPA) in April 2022. The event was organised in collaboration with the Maastricht Centre for Citizenship, Migration and Development (MACIMIDE) and Centre for European Research in Maastricht (CERiM) of Maastricht University, and United Nations University – MERIT. In two panel discussions, academics from various disciplines reflected on the recommendations adopted by the European Citizens’ Panel in Maastricht, which was held in Maastricht in February 2022 in the framework of the CoFoE. EIPA and Studio Europa Maastricht, as CoFoE host institutions, were closely involved in the organisation of the citizens’ panel.

The eruption of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic took the EU institutions and Member States by surprise. This Policy Insight maps how the European Council and Council of the EU adapted to the unprecedented challenges to their working methods. It looks at the procedures, technology and human resources used in the period between March 2020 and June 2021, when these institutions began to return to ‘business as usual’. It then examines what we can learn from this period of improvised, pragmatic solutions to maintain policy- and lawmaking. It explores to what extent these solutions could play a part in improved decision-making and governance beyond the crisis.

The main aim of this Special Issue is to critically analyse the impact of the EU on Bulgaria and Romania, during their first decade as members of the European community, in several poignant areas of membership. The rationale for this endeavour is twofold. On the one hand, very few studies have looked in depth at the post-enlargement experience of the two countries and how the EU factor has played out and influenced various domestic policies and issues, ranging from national policies to the rule of law. On the other hand, there is little knowledge regarding the way the two countries experience EU membership or deal with their counterparts in Brussels.

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.

Cet article contribue a l’analyse des dynamiques complexes qui animent la construction de politiques mnemoniques au Parlement europeen. Pour se faire, cette etude se focalise sur un ensemble d’acteurs qui sont sous-analyses : les deputes italiens du Parlement europeen. Jusqu’a maintenant, les eurodeputes italiens sont restes a l’ecart de la plupart des principales initiatives du Parlement europeen sur les politiques de memoire. La seule exception a la regle a eu lieu pendant les procedures d’accession de la Slovenie et la Croatie. Cet article place dans leur contexte tous les exemples d’activisme mnemonique emanant des eurodeputes italiens dans la periode 1999-2019. Cette enquete porte sur les discours specifiques des acteurs italiens, et sur le lien entre ces discours et le cadre de memoriel europeen. La methodologie utilisee a cette fin est l’etude des comptes rendus in extenso des debats, propositions de resolution, questions parlementaires et proces-verbaux de groupes de travail au Parlement europeen.

The focus of this chapter is on the organisation and role of expertise in the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). It more particularly examines how the High Representative/Vice President (HR/VP) and the European External Action Service (EEAS) have organised the gathering and processing of European foreign policy expertise and whether this has led to contestation. Based on a case study on the Asia-Pacific department, it first identifies the rules of the game underlying the organisation of expertise in the EEAS and successively explores the day-to-day practice of these rules. The chapter does not limit itself to subject matter expertise but also includes political expertise, procedural expertise, policy expertise and expertise on experts. Building on social psychology, it focuses on expert groups rather than on individual experts as the basic unit of analysis. The exploratory case study on the Asia-Pacific department learns that the EEAS is in general able to perform as an expertise driven organization, notwithstanding its limited operational budget, successive reductions in staff numbers, and its staff rotating policy. There is a clear division of roles whereby EEAS staff concentrates on expert, political and process expertise, while subject matter and policy expertise are sourced externally. Thanks to flexible internal rules, EEAS staff members are able to identify and work with the required sources rather easily. The way in which the EEAS has organized the gathering and processing of European foreign policy expertise has not led to contestation, either from the member states, the Commission, or the broader public. There are occasional frictions between the EEAS and the member states, as well as between the EEAS and the Commission. However, such tensions are not so much about the use of expertise but rather concern the delineation of competences, political reliability, and different degrees of openness.

This introductory chapter presents the main purpose of the book and sets out the framework through which contestation of expertise is analysed. We explain the need for an institutional approach to understand the growing contestation of expertise, its implications for policy-making and the legal order, as well as potential ways forward. The chapter defends that we need to understand not only the processes and actors in the expertise arena, but rather we also need to focus on the factors and institutional setting that drive such contestation and map its implications. Contestation of expertise is a particular challenge for the European Union and its fragile reliance on multiple channels of legitimation. This introductory chapter lays out the dilemma for the EU and the existential threat of contestation: without recourse to expertise as a basis for policy-making, the EU would be ill-equipped to face the potentially centrifugal tendencies of polarised public opinion or incommensurable policy-preferences. The chapter sets out the ground for the substantive chapters and outlines their main content.

In 2014, newly elected Commission President Juncker pushed to create the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), the aim of creating jobs and stimulating growth. With guarantees offered by the fund and the involvement of the European Investment Bank, the plan was to use €21 billion to leverage €315 billion of investment in the European economy. The EFSI legislative process was very fast with legislation emerging in just a year, with the first EFSI regulation appearing in mid-2015. Using policy frame analysis, this article zooms in on the discursive patterns of the European Commission, European Parliament and Council, expecting to find transport infrastructure a key theme given the low investment levels in this sector after the financial crisis in 2008. Analysing key documents at two periods in time, and drawing on interviews with officials, it explores the arguments used to make the case for EFSI and how these changes over time, leading to the extension of EFSI through an amended regulation in December 2017. In so doing, it shows the strategic positions of the institutions during Agenda-setting for EFSI. Moreover, he article explores questions of legitimacy and accountability. It reveals how key events including the Paris Agreement on climate change (December 2015) and Brexit referendum (June 2016) increased the persuasiveness of its framing.

This article examines the relation between two key, but seemingly opposed concepts in Jan Patočka’s thought: epoché and the concrete institutional polis. In doing so it attempts to elucidate the inextricable relation between phenomenology and politics in the work of the Czech philosopher, and illustrate more broadly the possibilities for approaching the political from a phenomenological perspective. The article provides a phenomenological interpretation of “care for the soul” as closely linked to Patočka’s reformulation of the core phenomenological notion of epoché. It argues that in Patočka’s work, the epoché, traditionally conceived as a radical stepping back from the world must be rendered differently, not only as a negative freedom, but as the foundation of positive politics. Thus, the authors argue that there is a thematic and conceptual continuity between Patočka’s phenomenological studies and his political work.

The succession of economic and financial crises, the migration crisis, and, of course, Brexit have raised many questions about the future of the European Union. Such crises present challenges for teaching and learning European Studies. This article discusses the question how to maintain a relevant study programme while taking into account ever-changing societal developments. Based on a survey conducted among students of a Bachelor in European Studies, and a subsequent focus group discussion, we look at programme relevance and programme capacity to deal with societal change in the context of a problem-based learning environment. Our study reveals that problem-based learning, when applied consistently and correctly, is a good educational approach to ensure that a study programme is relevant and capable of capturing societal change. At the same time, students seem to prefer a more guided version of problem-based learning, which presents challenges concerning its possible contribution to teaching and learning in times of crises. While we discuss the situation in one specific BA programme, we will do so in light of general challenges in the fields of European Studies, International Relations, and Politics.

In bilateral relations and negotiations with the European Union (EU), smaller and economically weaker states are often unable to express their national preferences. Despite their limited bargaining power, however, some Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries obtained significant concessions from the EU. This article analyzes the factors that explain EaP states’ unexpected negotiation success in the context of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) with Ukraine, the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with Armenia, and enhanced economic partnership with Belarus. We identify negotiation strategies that are crucial to under- standing of the puzzle., The study was supported by the Research Center in Political Science (CICP) (UIDB/CPO/00758/2020), Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia (FCT), and the Portuguese Ministry of Education and Science through national funds. Support was also provided by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) for Bosse's project on "Explaining Europe's failure to deal with autocratic regimes" (Ref. 451-12-015).