Taking stock: a review of quantitative studies of transposition and implementation of EU law

This paper presents a literature review of all quantitative (statistical) studies of compliance with EU law. The paper introduces and makes use of a new online database http://www.eif.oeaw.ac.at/implementation/ which presents a detailed and comprehensive overview and classification of the existing quantitative research on transposition and implementation of EU directives in the member states. The study discusses and compares the different conceptualizations and operationalizations of compliance used, the list and specifications of the explanatory variables included in the models, the hypotheses proposed, and, most importantly, the findings of the literature. While the academic field has made progress in terms of assessing the scale and dimensions of the transposition failures in the EU, the causal inferences advanced in the existing literature are often weakly supported and sometimes contradictory when all studies are considered. The literature review suggests that only causal relationships that are specific for a certain time period, policy area, country, or type of legislation can be supported by empirical data, which means that broad generalizations about compliance in the EU might be impossible to uncover. The paper also suggests that decomposing the implementation process into its component stages, incorporating more rigorously the interactions between the Commission and the member states, and paying closer attention to the multilevel structure of the data in the statistical models can benefit future research on compliance in the EU.European law; European Commission; political science; implementation; directives; directives

Why it's not so simple to make the EU simpler

The EU's institutional architecture is often regarded as being too complex for citizens to properly engage with, and both Jean-Claude Juncker and Emmanuel Macron have recently proposed some form of simplification such as merging the President of the European Commission with the President of the European Council, or reducing the size of the European Commission. Dimiter Toshkov argues that while the EU is extraordinarily complex, efforts to simplify it are likely to come at the cost of either its inclusiveness or effectiveness

There is no evidence of a structural East-West divide in the EU

One of the most feared consequences of the EU’s eastern enlargement in the 2000s was that it would significantly diminish the decision-making capacity of the Union. As Dimiter Toshkov writes, several highly-publicised cases in which member states from Central and Eastern Europe have seemingly acted together to oppose proposals coming from Brussels have reinforced this pessimistic view. However, drawing on a recent study, he argues that there is no systematic evidence that the accession of the new member states has slowed down decision making nor compromised the capacity of the EU to adopt common policies

The EU is extraordinarily complex. But do we want to simplify it?

The EU's institutional architecture is often regarded as being too complex for citizens to properly engage with, and both Jean-Claude Juncker and Emmanuel Macron have recently proposed some form of simplification - such as merging the President of the European Commission with the President of the European Council, or shrinking the Commission. Dimiter Toshkov argues that while the EU is extraordinarily complex, ..

Connecting the Dots: Case Studies and EU Implementation Research

This paper is an accompanying text to the Compliance Database – the database of case studies of transposition, implementation, and compliance with EU law. (stract http://www.eif.oeaw.ac.at/compliance/). The database contains the results from the literature survey in a form that enables detailed overviews of individual studies as well as easy comparisons across studies. The database has been developed with the support of the Institute for European Integration Research at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and it is a free and regularly updated resource. The conclusions of this paper are based as much on the inferences that the database offers, as on the original articles and books that have been reviewed.implementation; political science

Transposition of EU Directives in Central and Eastern Europe

Session 1: Governance in the European Unio

Neural Network Based Optimal Control with Constraints

In the present paper the problems of the optimal control of systems when constraints are imposed on the control is considered. The optimality conditions are given in the form of Pontryagin’s maximum principle. The obtained piecewise linear function is approximated by using feedforward neural network. A numerical example is given

Device for Counting of the Glass Bottles on the Conveyor Belt

In the present paper the results from designing of device, which is a part of the automated information system for counting, reporting and documenting the quantity of produced bottles in a factory for glass processing are presented. The block diagram of the device is given. The introduced system can be applied in other discrete productions for counting of the quantity of bottled production

The Effects of the EU’s Scientific Cooperation Programmes on the Eastern Partnership Countries: Scientific Output and Broader Societal Impact

Scientific cooperation between the European Union (EU) and its Eastern neighbours has grown rapidly since the early 2000s. This cooperation holds great promise to influence not only the science and innovation sectors, but also to affect the practices and values of research communities in the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries, their public policies, and societies at large. In this paper we aim to assess the impact of scientific cooperation with the EU with a focus on three countries of the EaP: Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine. Our analysis is divided into two parts: first, we focus on the scientific impact and conduct a bibliometric analysis that tracks several important indicators of the scientific output of Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine for the period of 2000-2016; second, we address the broader impact on the scientific community, institutions, and society by analysing new data from expert interviews. In terms of scientific output we find that while the EU has not radically transformed science in the EaP countries it might have provided it with an essential lifeline of support. We also uncover clear evidence for positive impact of cooperation with the EU on the participating institutions from the EaP countries, but very little evidence (so far) about effects on public policies or significant impact on society at large.Horizon 2020(H2020)No. 693382The politics and administration of institutional chang

Evidence from the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood.

This paper explores what factors might influence citizen preferences for closer cooperation with the EU and/or Russia in three countries from the EU's Eastern neighbourhood: Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine. The citizens in these countries have been exposed to competing narratives and policy frames, advanced by both the EU and Russia, about the purposes and effects of closer cooperation. We first develop theoretical ideas about the potential influence of framing on public attitudes towards international cooperation. We then study these ideas empirically using a survey experiment in which six different frames about international cooperation are embedded in short vignettes. The frames highlight themes such as economy, security, values or identity and were developed based on previous research on factors that influence preferences on international cooperation. The experiment was implemented among a diverse and relatively large sample of citizens in the three countries. Our main conclusions are that thematic neutral frames of international cooperation have only very limited potential to influence directly people’s support for cooperation with the EU, but might be more potent in affecting the beliefs of people about the effects of cooperation with different partners on desired outcomes, such as economic benefits, security, and good governance. These beliefs as such are strong predictors of the preferences for international cooperation partners. In addition to the results from this experimental study, we present an analysis of the relationship between the preferred media source of news for people and their preferences for international cooperation partners. Furthermore, we explore the correlates of support for cooperation with the EU with an emphasis on the potential importance of media use. We find that there are no strong differences in average levels of support for the EU among people who use different media sources to get trustworthy news, with the possible exception of Belarus