The EU has been and remains committed to concluding a comprehensive climate agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In this paper, outcomes of the latest round of negotiations, based on the UNFCCC and held at the Durban Climate Conference (2011), are assessed from the perspective of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, focusing on some critical questions.
Remaining problems with corruption in Bulgaria and Romania have prompted the EU to introduce the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM). This mechanism is to extend EU leverage into the post-accession period with the aim of triggering necessary reforms.
Announced in 2011, the proposal for reforming the European Unions’ Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) marks an important shift of emphasis of the policy objectives, towards environmental sustainability. It describes the conservation of marine biological resources as a fundamental pillar of the CFP and, for the first time, sets forth a quantifiable target — the maximum sustainable yield (MSY) — to be achieved within a set time perspective.
The impact of European law on the regional and local levels In the Member States is important. As local markets open up for competition, the scope of EU law is extended and competition and state aid rules become applicable.
The ongoing crisis in the Eurozone has posed particular challenges to the current Polish EU Presidency. Poland, like Sweden, is not a member of the Euro Group and has therefore been excluded from some of the most important decision-making during the second half of 2011.
For quite some time now, the EU Member States have tried to mold the EU into a socially more acceptable form. This has largely remained big words and solemn declarations, but the Lisbon Treaty establishes the EU as a social market economy.
The Euro Plus Pact was developed as a complementary mechanism to support the economic governance reform program at the national level, particularly with regard to sectors, which are prerogatives of Member States. Already early on, however, it gained a rather controversial reputation.
The EU and other concerned parties are now gathered in Durban in order to try to reach an agreement governing emission reductions after 2012, when the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expires. The EU has been a leading actor in the climate negotiations since the 1992 Rio conference.
As the European sovereign debt crisis deepens, the fiscal resources of the European monetary union seem increasingly inadequate. So far, the euro area policy response has failed to change the market's rather pessimistic expectations.
Welfare services in Sweden are to a large extent the responsibility of municipalities, county councils and regions. This includes the provision of housing, health care, waste management and education.