Regroup and Reform: Ideas for a more responsive and effective European Union. Report of the CEPS Task Force. CEPS Task Force Report, 17 February 2017

This incisive report comes at a time of almost unprecedented self-examination for the European Union. Faced with growing nationalism, economic, security and political challenges – not least to the very membership of the Union – the relevance of the EU has become a matter of intense debate. This clear-sighted and accessible report is the result of discussions in a CEPS Task Force comprising experts from across Europe and a number of key policy fields. Members of the European Parliament, former members of the College of Commissioners, the European Council and Council of Ministers, and leading scholars of EU politics and law, came together to share insights into the issues that will decide the future of the EU. The report offers concrete recommendations for how the Union can show added value to European citizens in the areas of security and justice, socio-economics and monetary policy – recommendations that will help reform the workings of the Union and ensure that it is worthy of the continuing confidence of its members

Regime and Learning Shifts in Fiscal Policy Coordination under Economic and Monetary Union

This thesis analyses twenty years of fiscal policy coordination under Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) – its genesis, implementation courses and changes. It does so by resorting to the construct of learning as an ontological trait of policy making and employing modes of policy learning (intended as distinct causal mechanisms) to operationalise this ontology for the sake of empirical investigation. To this end, a “policy learning measuring instrument” has been constructed allowing for the categorisation of each case study in terms of their prevalent mode of learning and then for the testing of mode-specific expected implications. From a methodological point of view, the thesis relies on theory-testing process tracing and evidentiary eclecticism to verify mode-specific observable implications. Throughout its history, the supranational coordination of fiscal policies under EMU has been characterised by three distinct regimes. The first one was substantiated by the fiscal criteria of Stage II of EMU (in force during the period of 1994-1998). The prevalent mode of learning under this regime was hierarchical. In terms of outcomes, that mode led to instrumental learning that sustained the process of convergence. The launch of the euro and the adoption of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) substantiated a new fiscal policy coordination regime that lasted until 2010. Under the SGP, learning took place as a by-product of bargaining and reinforced strategic and opportunistic implementation. The financial crisis of 2007/2008 led to a de facto abeyance of the SGP and to its overhaul from 2010. Within this episode of policy change two case studies were distilled, one of emergency-driven, intracrisis management and one of long term, institutional change. While the first case was explained through a mechanism of contingent learning, the second one was crucially found to be driven by epistemic forces. The findings arising out of this study are conversant with different strands of the literature and, in particular, seek to contribute to the political economy of the E(M)U and to integration theories at large

European Integration Perspectives in Times of Global Crises - 13th Network Europe Conference, Athens, 19 – 22 June 2022

With the White Paper on the Future of Europe, the European Commission had launched a debate on fundamental reforms of the Union structures in 2017. A total of five reform scenarios ranged from a reduction and focusing of the Union’s competences to increased integration in the sense of a United States of Europe. However, the White Paper did not have any consequences; none of the reform scenarios presented was implemented. However, current global challenges in the areas of health, climate change and energy resources as well as the shift in the global balance of power and related security issues demonstrate the increasing importance of a strong and united Europe. The idea of an “ever closer union”, as laid down in the preamble of the 1992 EU Treaty, could experience a renaissance. Against this background, the 13th Network Europe Conference addressed the importance of the integration project in times of global crises and the challenges in various policy areas, as well as the EU’s relations with its eastern and southern neighbors and its role vis-à-vis global actors such as China and Russia. This publication contains the conference contributions

The Future of Europe

This open access book takes the current state of the Union seriously. The European Union is at a crossroads. Slowly recovering from a series of financial and economic crises, with trust fundamentally shaken by processes of disaggregation and increasingly nationalist politics, it is searching for new visions that are at once inspiring and workable. In its White Paper of 1 March 2017, the Commission proposed five non-exclusive options for the Future of Europe. As put by the Commission, the five scenarios are illustrative in nature to provoke thinking. They are not detailed blueprints or policy prescriptions. Likewise, they deliberately make no mention of legal or institutional processes – the form will follow the function. This book aims to debate not only the political vision of Europe, but also the issue of legal integration beyond Brexit. Apart from addressing the institutional challenges for the EU, the contributions to this volume focus on two key areas: rule of law and security. Rule of law and security are not only paradigmatic for the future of Europe but are also closely connected to a particular vision of Europe based on ‘integration through law’; a vision that has been strongly contested in recent years. The overarching question is: how can sustainable political and legal integration be achieved in Europe? The volume builds on a conference organised by the Swedish Network for European Legal Studies in November 2017 and includes chapters by leading scholars in the field from the Nordic countries and wider Europe. The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Swedish Studies Network

Equality, Freedom, and Democracy

A democratic regime is assumed to implement freedom and equality as the two critical and most important values. The question we intend to address here is: how and why has the actual implementation of freedom and equality been changing in the 1990–2020 period? Researching this topic, we cannot ignore the impact of the Great Recession since 2008. Thus, in this comparative research, we analyse France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom to detect the changes. As expected, the six largest European democracies have been differently affected by the crisis, as they also had different background factors. We address an additional question: what is the impact of the European Union on the two democratic values? Accordingly, we analyse economic inequality, social inequality, and ethnic inequality with the related changing trends and explanations. We also detect and analyse the trend of freedoms, and especially personal dignity, civil rights, and political rights. Thus, the relative decline of equalities and freedoms in the six countries emerge in the different complex facets. We also explore the demand for equalities and freedoms by citizens and the political commitments of party leaders. The other issues we address include how and why, respectively, equalities and freedoms are affected by domestic aspects and the role of external factors, especially the European Union. By connecting equalities and freedoms and drawing the lines of entire research, we show how there are three different paths in the future of democracy: balanced democracy, protest democracy, and unaccountable democracy

The Future of Europe

This open access book takes the current state of the Union seriously. The European Union is at a crossroads. Slowly recovering from a series of financial and economic crises, with trust fundamentally shaken by processes of disaggregation and increasingly nationalist politics, it is searching for new visions that are at once inspiring and workable. In its White Paper of 1 March 2017, the Commission proposed five non-exclusive options for the Future of Europe. As put by the Commission, the five scenarios are illustrative in nature to provoke thinking. They are not detailed blueprints or policy prescriptions. Likewise, they deliberately make no mention of legal or institutional processes – the form will follow the function. This book aims to debate not only the political vision of Europe, but also the issue of legal integration beyond Brexit. Apart from addressing the institutional challenges for the EU, the contributions to this volume focus on two key areas: rule of law and security. Rule of law and security are not only paradigmatic for the future of Europe but are also closely connected to a particular vision of Europe based on ‘integration through law’; a vision that has been strongly contested in recent years. The overarching question is: how can sustainable political and legal integration be achieved in Europe? The volume builds on a conference organised by the Swedish Network for European Legal Studies in November 2017 and includes chapters by leading scholars in the field from the Nordic countries and wider Europe. The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Swedish Studies Network

Critical Theories of Crises in Europe: From Weimar to the Euro

What is to be learned from the chaotic downfall of the Weimar Republic and the erosion of European liberal statehood in the interwar period vis-a-vis the ongoing Europeancrisis? This book analyses and explains the recurrent emergence of crises in European societies. It asks how previous crises can inform our understanding of the present crisis. The particular perspective advanced is that these crises not only are economic and social crises, but must also be understood as crises of public power, order and authority. In other words, it argues that substantial challenges to the functional and normative setup of democracy and the rule of law were central to the emergence and the unfolding of these crises.The book draws on and adds to the rich â crises literatureâ developed within the critical theory tradition to outline a conceptual framework for understanding what societal crises are. The central idea is that societal crises represent a discrepancy between the unfolding of social processes and the institutional frameworks that have been established to normatively stabilize such processes. The crises at issue emerged in periods characterized by strong social, economic and technological transformations as well as situations of political upheaval. As such, the crises represented moments where the existing functional and normative grid of society, as embodied in notions of public order and authority, were severely challenged and in many instances undermined. Seen in this perspective, the book reconstructs how crises unfolded, how they were experienced, and what kind of responses the specific crises in question provoked.Publishe