School buildings: frequently asked questions (SPICe briefing; 11/11)

"This briefing gives an overview of key facts relating to school buildings, based on enquiries frequently received in SPICe. This updates SPICe briefing 09/72." - Cover

The post-Lisbon role of the European Parliament in the EU's Common Commercial Policy: Implications for bilateral trade negotiations. EU Diplomacy Paper 05/2012, July 2012

This paper sets out to conduct an empirical analysis of the post-Lisbon role of the European Parliament (EP) in the EU’s Common Commercial Policy through an examination of the ‘deep and comprehensive’ bilateral Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) currently negotiated as part of the EU’s Global Europe strategy. The EU-Korea and EU-India FTAs are used as case studies in order to determine the implications of the EP’s enhanced trade powers on the processes, actors and outcomes of EU bilateral trade policy. The EP is now endowed with the ‘hard power’ of consent in the ratification phase of FTAs, acting as a threat to strengthen its ‘soft power’ to influence negotiations. The EP is developing strategies to influence the mandate and now plays an important role in the implementation of FTAs. The entry of this new player on the Brussels trade policy field has brought about a shift in the institutional balance of power and opened up the EP as a new point of access for trade policy lobbyists. Finally, increased EP involvement in EU trade policy has brought about a politicisation of EU trade policy and greater normative outcomes of FTAs

Scotland and Ulster connections in the seventeenth century : Sir Robert Adair of Kinhilt and the Scottish Parliament under the covenanters

It has long been recognized that a culture of mobility has existed in Scottish society. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the main destinations for Scottish migrants were Poland, Scandinavia, and Ulster, although there were many other destinations too

The allocation between EU member states of seats in the European Parliament

This note contains the recommendation for a mathematical basis for the apportionment of the seats in the European Parliament between the Member States of the European Union. This is the unanimous recommendation of the Participants in the Cambridge Apportionment Meeting, held at the instigation of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs at the Centre for Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge, on 28–29 January 2011

The EU's dialogue on migration, mobility, and security with the Southern Mediterranean: filling the gaps in the global approach to migration. CEPS Liberty and Security in Europe, June 2011

Recent events in North Africa and the Mediterranean have had consequences in terms of human mobility, and are putting the foundations and components of EU’s migration policy under strain. The forthcoming European Council summit of 23-24 June 2011 is expected to determine ‘the orientations for further work’ under the Polish Presidency and the next JHA Trio Presidency Programme for the EU’s policies on crossborder migration in the Mediterranean and internal mobility within the scope of the Schengen regime. This paper constitutes a contribution to current and future EU policy discussions and responses on migration, mobility and security. It provides a synthesised selection of recommendations in these domains resulting from the research conducted by the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Section of the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) during the last nine years of work. This Policy Brief argues that for the EU’s Global Approach to Migration to be able to satisfactorily address its unfinished elements and policy incoherencies, the Union needs to devise and develop common policy strategies focused on: first, new enforcement and independent evaluation mechanisms on the implementation of the European law on free movement, borders and migration, and the compatibility of EU member states and EU agencies’ actions with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. And second, the development of a kind of cooperation (dialogue) with third states that goes beyond security-centred priorities and that is solidly based on facilitating human mobility, consolidating fundamental rights and the general principles of the rule of law upon which the EU legal system is founded

The development of the external dimension of the AFSJ: new challenges of the EU legal and policy framework

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

Gender mainstreaming and EU climate change policy

This article uses feminist institutionalism to examine how gender mainstreaming has been sidelined in European Union (EU) climate change policy. It finds that, with a few exceptions largely emanating from the European Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality, EU responses to climate change are gender-blind. This is despite the Treaty obligations to gender mainstream policy in all areas and despite the intersections between climate change and development policy, which is renowned for having taken gender equality and women's empowerment seriously and for instigating gender mainstreaming and specific actions as a means to achieve them. The persistent invisibility of gender can be attributed to various forms of institutional resistance