Portugal: an incomplete europeanization

The article aims to explore Portugal's performance in some areas that can be included in a wide concept of Europeanization: the state of the economy, the rule of law, and education. It starts with a brief reference to the evolution of the Portuguese economy since the European accession to conclude that with the adoption of the single currency Portugal entered into a phase of clear economic divergence, making it an exception within the EU. Section 2 is devoted to the rule of law. It highlights how a modern and updated legal system can have an outcome that threatens some basic foundations of the rule of law, and can also contribute to increasing social inequality. The last section focuses on some problems affecting education. Particular attention is drawn to the performance of the secondary education system and to issues related to the quality of higher education institutions

The principle of conferred powers and the division of powers between the european community and the Member States

This article is a reflection about the division of powers between the European Community and the Member States. It focuses on the adventures and misadventures of the principle of conferred powers in the process of European integration. Section I is about the initial vertical division of powers in the European Community. Section II is dedicated to an analysis of the progressive erosion of conferred powers during the 70’s and the 80’s. Section III refers to the slow return to the application of the conferred powers principle that started after the Single European Act.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

EU Commission participation in the Troika mission: is there a European Union price to pay?

The European Union completed its first political cycle since the Lisbon Treaty came into force. This gave European citizens the opportunity to vote for the European Parliament elections, whereby they had a say regarding the appointment of Mr. Juncker as the new President of the European Commission. Despite this and other changes introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon, the fact is that the current political cycle of the European Union was less marked by the last Treaty’s amendments, as it has been by the political and economic events that shaped the course of the Euro. Indeed, the Euro crisis has been at the center of European Union politics during the last four years. It was perhaps the most severe crisis during the whole process of European integration (Ash 2012, 11). The article starts by contextualizing the constitution of the Troika in the aftermath of the sovereign debt crisis and then proceeds with an analysis of the impact of the Commission’s participation on the balance of power within the EU’s institutions. The second part of the article is devoted to the situation of those countries that were assisted by the Troika, to discuss whether the Commission should have any responsibility for the outcomes of the financial adjustments, taking into account at the same time their readiness for the program’s ideological approach.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

New developments in portuguese competition law : the competition authority in action

Competition is a recent branch of law in the Portuguese legal order. It was only with the accession to the European Communities that a competition law was adopted. Indeed, the very idea of competition was a strange concept in a country that was used to being ruled by a corporative system and where the state had always played an important role in the economy. In this framework, it proved difficult to satisfactorily implement competition law in the first decades. The deep-seated changes in the Portuguese economy in the last 20 years and the decentralisation in the implementation of EC competition rules promoted by EC Regulation 1/2003 created the conditions for an improvement of the competition legal framework. Hence, there was a legislative reform in 2003 that led to the adoption of a new competition law and to the creation of an independent competition agency. This article aims to give a brief overview of the 2003 competition law reform. Then it will focus on the Competition Authority action, mentioning the main decisions concerning the enforcement of competition law, in particular, in the field of cartels and merger control. The telecommunications decision, which is the most complex and controversial merger case decided by the Competition Authority, will deserve a final reference.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Citizen participation in the european parliament elections : some reflections based on the portuguese case

The electoral behaviour of Portuguese citizens is marked by a major difference, concerning the turnout rates, between elections for the various national political bodies and elections for the European Parliament. Portugal has one of the lowest voting turnout in Parliament elections for the European Union. Paradoxically, opinion surveys indicate that the Portuguese are among the peoples who most support the European construction process. This text seeks understand the reasons for the behaviour of Portuguese voters. Motives approached include citizens' degree of identification with the EU political system, public perception of how the system works and dominant trends in the reform of ways to represent States and citizens in European Union institutions

The europeanization of Portugal

The article aims to explore Portugal’s performance in some areas that can be included in a wide concept of Europeanization: the state of the economy, the rule of law, and education. It starts with a brief reference to the evolution of the Portuguese economy since the European accession to conclude that with the adoption of the single currency Portugal entered into a phase of clear economic divergence, making it an exception within the EU. Section 2 is devoted to the rule of law. It highlights how a modern and updated legal system can have an outcome that threatens some basic foundations of the rule of law, and can also contribute to increasing social inequality. The last section focuses on some problems affecting education. Particular attention is drawn to the performance of the secondary education system and to issues related to the quality of higher education institutions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The United Kingdom withdrawal procedure from the European Union

This article is about the United Kingdom’s withdrawal procedure from the European Union, in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum. It analyses the action of the political institutions involved in the withdrawal agreement negotiations, in particular, the constitutional dispute about the exit deal between the UK Government and the Parliament, as well as the way the European Union acted in the course of the whole procedure. Special attention will be given to the decisions delivered by the UK Supreme Court and by the European Court of Justice regarding the withdrawal procedure. The article aims to offer a new perspective, different from the prevailing accounts on the United Kingdom withdrawal negotiations, one that is based on a critical analysis of the attitudes of the main actors in the exit agreement, trying to apprehend their interaction during the whole process.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The division of competences in the European Constitution

This article undertakes to study the system of the division of competences that results from the European Constitution. In the first part it frames the evolution of the division of competences in the European integration process. Next, it analyses the main aspects that characterise the Title on 'Union Competences', i.e., the technique of the catalogue of competences, the principle of conferred competences, the competence categories defined by the Constitution, the lists of competences, the flexibility clause, control over application of the subsidiarity principle and respect for the national identity of the Member Statesinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Brexit - the 2016 referendum on European Union membership

This article explores the Brexit referendum, focusing on the political events that led to the vote, namely, the Conservative Party’s return to power, David Cameron’s attempts to appease the European divide within his party and the role played by the British Parliament in the whole process. It then discusses whether the referendum was the most suitable way to decide on European Union membership, considering the sovereignty of the British Parliament, as well as the contrast between representative democracy and direct democracinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Commission participation in the Troika mission

The Euro crisis has been at the center of European Union politics during the last years. This paper is intended to debate two questions regarding the involvement of the Commission in the so-called Troika: firstly, considering the nature of financial assistance programs to Eurozone countries, it aims to discuss the effect of the Commission’s participation in Troika negotiations on the balance of power of the EU institutions; and secondly, it raises the issue of the Commission’s burden for the results achieved by the financial assistance programs. The paper starts by contextualizing the composition of the Troika in the aftermath of the sovereign debt crisis and then proceeds with an analysis of the impact of the Commission’s participation on the balance of power within the EU’s institutions. The second part is devoted to the situation of those countries that were assisted by the Troika, to discuss whether the Commission should have any responsibility for the outcomes of the financial adjustments.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio