What are the implications of Brexit for the EU and how will Sweden be affected? In November 2016, SIEPS was commissioned by the government to analyse how the EU´s institutions and the balance between the remaining member states will be affected by the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU.
How will the European Commission be affected by the fact that the United Kingdom is leaving the European Union?
The European Commission is half-way through its term and this analysis by Sophia Russack, Researcher at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) in Brussel, provides an update of the performance of the Commission. Russack looks at its organisation and new ways of working and the consequences this has had.
What, really, is the role of the European Commission? In this European policy analysis, researchers Mark Rhinard and Neill Nugent analyse the nature of the Commission. They pose the question of whether the Commission is more of a policy leader – charged with initiating policy and legislative proposals that will advance the interests of the EU as a whole – or more of an administrative body, charged with an array of executive tasks.
The Treaty of Lisbon introduced a mandate for the EU to develop a special relationship with its neighbouring countries. How has this mandate impacted, if at all, the so-called European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) which the Union had developed in the wake of its eastern enlargement? And more generally, how has the ENP evolved in view of the new realities on the ground? These are some of the questions that Professor Steven Blockmans explores in this tenth report which SIEPS publishes in the context of its research project The EU external action and the Treaty of Lisbon.
The Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) is a relatively recent add-on to the external action toolkit of the European Union. Introduced as a distinct policy framework cohabitating with that of the classic Community external relations, its hallmark remains its predominant intergovernmental nature.
The Common Commercial Policy (CCP) is perhaps the most expressive incarnation of the EU external action. The Treaty of Lisbon considerably revised this policy, both in substantive and institutional terms.
Foreign affairs have always involved a degree of secrecy and the EU external action is no exception. Out of security concerns and to protect the confidentiality of international negotiations, EU foreign policy actors such as the Council and the European External Action Service (EEAS) manage access to information by classifying documents as ‘secret’.
The economic gains from EU membership is in theory fairly straightforward and above all related to having access to the internal market. However, it is much more complicated to show empirically that countries gain from being members of the Union.
According to the treaty, the EU´s policies for border control, asylum and immigration should be guided by a principle of solidarity and responsibility distribution. The EU has also decided that member states has a shared responsibility for asylum seekers, i.