The current Spanish EU Presidency has faced a number of tough challenges. These include reaching an agreement on an EU strategy for employment and growth (EU 2020), managing the acute financial crisis in Greece and the EU response to the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, argues the author of this mid-term review of the achievements of the Spanish Presidency.
The Belgian EU Presidency has faced a number of tough challenges. These include reaching an agreement on the new initiatives about the EU:s economic decision-making system as well as handling the continuous economic crisis.
In the Lisbon Treaty, the EU committed itself to the creation of a European "social market economy". But the European legislation that would be required to promote this goal still depends on qualified majorities in the Council and will therefore easily be blocked by the veto of member states preferring a "liberal market economy", argues the author of this new analysis within the SIEPS research project Social Europe.
The debate on reform of the EU budget has hitherto primarily centred on how EU money should be spent. But a true reform calls for serious handling of the financing of the budget as well, argues the author of this new analysis.
The process of reforming the legislation in the area of financial services in the EU has been going on since the late 1990´s. This analysis presents a brief history on that process.
The presumption that undocumented migrants are outside the law is wrong. This is one the conclusions in a new European Policy Analysis, with contributions from six researchers at Lund University.
Swedish public opinion on EU Affairs has undergone considerable changes since 1995 and Swedes are gradually becoming more positive to membership. According to the latest survey there is, for the first time since 1995, a majority of Swedes are in favour of membership in the European Union.
In October 2010 the European Commission finally released the communication on the 2008/9 review of the EU budget. Professor Iain Begg concludes in his analysis that even though the political obstacles to EU budget reform are formidable, there should be plenty to debate in months to come, for example which expenditures to cut; what to do with the CAP; and a number of aspects related to Cohesion policy.
The Lisbon Treaty has profoundly changed the judicial foundation of the so called comitology. What previously was enclosed in a single treaty article, is now divided in two separate articles and the idea is that the comitology will remain in only one of them.
The debate about a social Europe has lasted for a long time but led to modest results. The Lisbon Treaty states, for the first time, that the EU is a social market economy.