This study investigates the nature of the relationship between small states and the European Commission, posing the question whether the Commission is a small state's "best friend". Focusing in particular on the Belgian, Greek, Finnish and Hungarian experience, the key findings indicate that the small state-Commission relationship is not as straightforward as the "best friend" analogy may suggest.
This report concerns the role of the national courts in the application and enforcement of Community law. According to the author the European Union is presently under a "constitutional momentum".
This report gives an overview of the Commission’s agenda for European governance reform as set out in the White Paper of Governance adopted by the Commission in 2001, focusing on how the Commission envisages its own role in the EU decision-making process. Furthermore, it describes how a number of follow-up documents adopted by the Commission have essentially given effect to the initial recommendations and proposals set out in the White Paper.
This paper discusses the domestic backgrounds and challenges of the 2004 Netherlands European Union Council Presidency. The paper reviews the national organisation and management of the Presidency with the use of empirical results from a written survey covering some 550 government officials.
This paper looks at the key political dynamics involved in the process of Turkish accession to the EU, on both the Turkish and the EU sides.
When the European Convention began its work, the open method of coordination (OMC) was not one of the central issues. However, open coordination cropped up in different working groups of the Convention, slowly but steadily.
In connection with the conclusions reached at the meeting of the European Council in Nice in 2000, it was stated that a clearer distribution of decision-making powers between the EU and its member states should be discussed. A catalogue of competences defines who, or which level, has the authority to make decisions on specific matters.
The aim of the report is to describe the rise in member state cooperation on asylum politics and to analyse factors that have promoted or impeded this cooperation. Moreover, the report contains a general theoretical discussion on what might explain the interest shown by the states in cooperation on asylum politics.
The purpose of the report is to give an overview of economic literature on three questions: the risk of tax competition between European countries; the welfare effects of a possible tax competition; and the possibilities of correcting any such development through tax harmonisation. The author contends that there are two points of view for those who welcome globalisation and tax competition.
The relationship between Council and Parliament within the codecision procedure involves a plethora of informal and semi-formal meetings in which many of the real decisions about legislation are taken, with little scope for public oversight. In the light of the current debate on the future of European Union, the report will address the question what this informalization of the decision-making process means for the legitimacy of the legislative process.