Policy-Making in the European Union

Policy-Making in the European Union explores the link between the modes and mechanisms of EU policy-making and its implementation at the national level. From defining the processes, institutions and modes through which policy-making operates, the text moves on to situate individual policies within these modes, detail their content, and analyse how they are implemented, navigating policy in all its complexities. The first part of the text examines processes, institutions, and the theoretical and analytical underpinnings of policy-making, while the second part considers a wide range of policy areas, from economics to the environment, and security to the single market. Throughout the text, theoretical approaches sit side by side with the reality of key events in the EU, including enlargement, the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon, and the financial crisis and resulting Eurozone crisis, focusing on what determines how policies are made and implemented. This includes major developments such as the establishment of the European Stability Mechanism, the reform of the common agricultural policy, and new initiatives to promote EU energy security. In the final part, the chapters consider trends in EU policy-making and the challenges facing the EU.

Policy-Making in the European Union explores the link between the modes and mechanisms of EU policy-making and its implementation at the national level. From defining the processes, institutions and modes through which policy-making operates, the text moves on to situate individual policies within these modes, detail their content, and analyse how they are implemented, navigating policy in all its complexities. The first part of the text examines processes, institutions, and the theoretical and analytical underpinnings of policy-making, while the second part considers a wide range of policy areas, from economics to the environment, and security to the single market. Throughout the text, theoretical approaches sit side by side with the reality of key events in the EU, including enlargement, the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon, and the financial crisis and resulting Eurozone crisis, focusing on what determines how policies are made and implemented. This includes major developments such as the establishment of the European Stability Mechanism, the reform of the common agricultural policy, and new initiatives to promote EU energy security. In the final part, the chapters consider trends in EU policy-making and the challenges facing the EU.


Author(s):  
Ralf Drachenberg ◽  
Alex Brianson

This chapter examines the process of policy-making in the European Union. It first considers how the EU originally made policy decisions before tracing the evolution of the formal balance between the EU institutions over time, with particular emphasis on the increasing legislative power of the European Parliament. It then describes the Community method, which remains the core of the EU policy process but is now complemented with a range of ‘new governance tools’ designed to produce coordinated member state action through iterated processes of standard-setting, best practice identification, and knowledge transfer. One of these processes is the open method of coordination (OMC). The chapter concludes with an analysis of the implementation of EU policy decisions by and in the member states, along with current trends in EU decision-making after the EU enlargements of the 2000s and the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.


2020 ◽  
pp. 239965442096523
Author(s):  
Thomas Borén ◽  
Patrycja Grzyś ◽  
Craig Young

This paper develops perspectives which seek to spatialize authoritarian neoliberalism through arguing for greater engagement with the politics of urban cultural policy formation in the neglected context of post-socialist East and Central Europe. Through analyzing the politics of urban cultural policy-making in Gdańsk, Poland, the paper spatializes authoritarian neoliberalism by exploring how relations between the urban and the national, and between the urban and the supranational, shape urban cultural policy, drawing upon literatures on political economy, policy mobilities, cultural policy research, and the concepts of authoritarian neoliberalism and the relational-territorial nexus. Gdańsk is a liberally run city, strongly aligned with the European Union (EU), opposed to the authoritarian neoliberal national level politics in Poland. The paper analyses urban-national tensions and relationships between Gdańsk and the EU to unpack the contested spatial nature of authoritarian neoliberalism.


Author(s):  
Helen Wallace ◽  
Mark A. Pollack ◽  
Alasdair R. Young

This text examines the processes that produce policies in the European Union — that is, the decisions (or non-decisions) by EU public authorities facing choices between alternative courses of public action. It considers the broad contours of the EU policy-making process and relevant analytical approaches for understanding that process. It includes case studies dealing with the main policy domains in which the EU dimension is significant, including competition policy, the common agricultural policy (CAP), the economic and monetary union (EMU), enlargement, common foreign and security policy (CFSP), justice and home affairs (JHA), and energy and social policy. This chapter discusses the significant developments that have impacted EU policy-making since the sixth edition, summarizes the text’s collective approach to understanding policy-making in the EU, and provides an overview of the chapters that follow.


2020 ◽  
pp. 096977642097061
Author(s):  
George Petrakos ◽  
Alexandra Sotiriou

Almost 30 years since the Maastricht Treaty and 20 years since the introduction of the euro, it is clear that the European Union (EU) has lost its appeal to wider constituencies and citizen groups that realize that the promises for convergence and prosperity have not been delivered. Rising dissatisfaction and Euroscepticism (expressed both in the ballot box and in Eurobarometer reports) is evident even in traditional pro-EU countries of the European core. As this long decade comes to an end, incidents (or accidents) like these ones, either in the form of open discontent, or in the form of rising populism, will exert pressure on the EU policy agenda that will either increase the frequency of deadlocks and inefficiency in policy making or will eventually lead to an honest effort to address the roots of these phenomena. This paper examines the drivers behind these two incidents (and the ones that may follow) and the limits of the current market and policy integration arrangements in the EU, arguing that a new policy agenda addressing the real weaknesses of the Union is inevitable if disintegration is to be avoided. Luckily enough, some elements of this new policy agenda may already be here.


2019 ◽  
pp. 253-265
Author(s):  
Michael Smith

This chapter focuses on the external economic relations of the European Union—the longest-established area of collective European international policy-making and action—and specifically on trade and development policy. The chapter begins by examining institutions and policy-making for trade, in which the Commission plays a central role in initiating and conducting policy and looks especially at the Common Commercial Policy (CCP). It goes on to examine development policy—an area of mixed competence, in which policy responsibility is shared between the EU institutions and national governments. The chapter then proceeds to explore the substance and impact of EU trade and development policies, and to assess the linkages between the two areas. The conclusions draw attention to a number of tensions and contradictions in EU trade and development policy.


Author(s):  
Pavlína Balcarová

The convergence process has for many decades captured the attention of economists and its importance has especially increased with deepening economic integration. A wide range of indicators is used in the professional literature to establish real and nominal convergence in the European Union, but national competitiveness is usually not among them, despite the fact that national competitiveness has in recent years been an important indicator of economic performance at the national level. Furthermore, converging competitiveness is a necessary precondition for further common development of the European Union. The aim of this contribution is to demonstrate whether the competitiveness of the EU countries is converging or not. Competitiveness is defined as the ability of a country to deliver beyond‑GDP goals to its inhabitants and the indicator of outcome competitiveness is used for its evaluation. We apply methods of beta and sigma convergence and the results of both methods show that while the differences in competitiveness among the EU member states decreased in the period 2003–2012, it did so very slowly.


Author(s):  
Ian Bache ◽  
Simon Bulmer ◽  
Stephen George ◽  
Owen Parker

This chapter examines policies and the patterns of policy making in the European Union. The formal EU policy process begins with the European Commission (EC) drawing up proposals for legislation, at which stage it will consult widely with interest groups, technical experts, and national government officials. It will also consult members of the European Parliament (EP). The open method of co-ordination (OMC) has been introduced into what was the EC pillar, giving the member states stronger control and excluding the EP and the European Court of Justice. The chapter first considers how the European policy agenda is formed before discussing the EU policy process. It then explores minor policy areas such as the Common Fisheries Policy, fraud, and the information society, and major policy areas such as competition, employment and social policy, energy, research, and transport.


Author(s):  
Anders Wivel

Denmark’s relationship with the European Union (EU) takes its point of departure in the Danish self-perception of being a minor power with a superior societal model. This calls for both adaptation to the power realities of the European political space and resistance against infringements of the Danish societal model, occasionally supplemented by attempts at actively influencing EU policy-making. Denmark’s general EU posture is reactive and defensive with a stronger focus on defending autonomy than influencing the future of the EU. It is pragmatic and functionalist, seeking primarily to utilize EU membership to secure the economic sustainability of the welfare state. Danish EU policy is increasingly characterized by dualism, navigating the integration dilemma in a way that allows for simultaneous protection against political integration and uploading of Danish interests to the EU level.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Päivi Leino-Sandberg

Legal advisers working in the institutions of the European Union exercise significant power, but very little is known about their work. Notwithstanding the handful of cases where legal matters find their way into the news, legal advice remains invisible in EU policy making. For more than ten years Päivi Leino-Sandberg was a part of the invisible community of EU legal advisers, and participated in the exercise of their power. In this book, she shares her insights about how law and lawyers work in the EU institutions, and what their role and impact is on EU decisions from within the decision-making structure. She draws on interviews with over sixty EU lawyers and policymakers: legal experts who interpret the Treaties within the Institutions, draft legislation and defend the Institutions before the EU Court. Telling the true stories behind key negotiations, this book explores the interplay and tensions between legal requirements and political ambitions.


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