No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
... spread agreement that the EU is not a federal state (for many Burgess, 2000;Burgess, 2006;Elazar, 2001). There is less agreement whether this implies that the EU is a federation in the making or a genuine, new type of federal system (Elazar, 1996;Tömmel, 2011). A plethora of studies focuses on a wide range of federal features of the EU and offers a rich base to conceptualize federal aspects of the EU. ...
There are two conceptualizations of the European Union (EU) as federation. First, the EU is a normative project. Building a federal European entity remains a guiding theme of European integration. This teleological goal serves both as a hands-on political program and as an ultimate threat by EU-skeptics who insinuate an inevitable teleology of EU integration. However, empirically, a consistent federal state-building process can hardly be observed, albeit European integration has proceeded. The EU falls still short of key state features. This leads to the second, analytical notion of the EU as a federal polity beyond the state. The analytical definition enables us to compare the EU on key dimensions of federalism: federation/confederation, coming-together/holding-together federations as well as divided/integrated and coordinated/cooperative federalism. It is shown that the EU falls by-and-large between all categories. Comparative federalism conveys which type of specific federal system the EU represents and can, in addition, pinpoint which systematic weaknesses this specific system produces. Whereas the EU is a highly functional federal polity, normative questions about the prerequisites for democratic legitimacy of federal polities beyond the state persist. The EU is a prototype of a federal polity in action—rather than a federal state in the making.
... Most fundamentally, there is widespread agreement that the EU is not a federal state (for many Burgess, 2000Elazar, 2001). There is less agreement whether this implies that the EU is a federation in the making or a genuine, new type of federal system (Elazar, 1996;Tömmel, 2011). ...
This chapter examines the evolution of Spain and the United Kingdom (UK) as federal political systems. Neither Spain nor the UK qualifies as a full-fledged federation, but an identifiable process of federalization has taken root in both cases. Unpacking the experience of political decentralization, the chapter examines the efficacy of current arrangements vis-à-vis the politics of accommodation, with specific reference to elements of symbolic recognition, self-rule and shared rule, and identifies ongoing challenges to the development of federalism in Spain and the UK. In discussing the origins, evolution and challenges of the territorial models in both cases, the analysis highlights the evolving practice of territorial reform in these political systems, notwithstanding the absence of a conscious federal teleology. The analysis shows that federalism—as an enhanced model of territorial accommodation—has much to offer both Spain and the UK, but hitherto remains a marginalized option for constitutional reform.
... Given that he EU is a sui generis federal state (Tömmel, 2011), the emergence of a public sphere at the EU level should not be explored in national terms (Fossum & Schlesinger, 2007). The EPS consists of a segmented network of (inter)related national, regional, trans-or international public spheres (Gripsrud, 2012). ...
This paper explores whether the lead candidates process for the European Commission’s Presidency (Spitzenkandidat) increases the Europeanisation of national public spheres to a certain extent. National public spheres are likely to be Europeanised when simultaneous discussions of the same topics take place across member states and under the same criteria of relevance. Focusing on the media-related public sphere, the research employs quantitative content analysis and qualitative frame analysis in the German, Luxembourgish, French, Belgian, Spanish, Italian, Greek, and British press for the 2014 and 2019 European elections. While in 2014, the salience of the Spitzenkandidat process was relevantly high, despite certain country- and media-specific variations, in 2019, the press coverage dropped off by almost half. At the same time, most of the selected newspapers reported on the issue using the same criteria of relevance, namely, similar frames and meaning structures.
While the historical role played by Christian Democrats in the construction of the European Union (EU) is well-known and amply documented, the impact this has had on the EU as it exists today has received virtually no attention in the relevant academic literature. This paper addresses the question by examining the heuristic purchase offered by distinctively Christian Democratic categories in describing the EU’s current institutional framework. It argues that, in at least three respects, such categories appear more adequate than the ones that are more commonly used in the literature. First, the EU is more adequately described as a polity based on the principle of ‘subsidiarity’ than either a federation or a set of intergovernmental treaties. Second, its political regime is better understood as ‘consociative’ than either demo(i)cratic or technocratic. Finally, its socio-economic policies are closer to a model of ‘social market economy’ than either social democracy or neoliberalism.
In an era where European integration has become increasingly questioned and where Euroscepticism battles the objectives envisioned by the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, the European Union (EU) desperately needs to revitalize its project of unification if its hopes to survive. Events of the last decade, such as the sovereign debt crisis, the global financial crisis, and the evolving refugee crisis, have challenged the efficacy of the EU and have seemingly undermined its legitimacy as a regulatory body. Taken individually, these crises pose a potent threat to the success of European integration and to the enlargement of member state unification. Most recently, the ongoing refugee crisis has created a sense of disunion within the EU giving way to a state of calamity as successive European efforts have failed at resolving this issue. Reeling from civil conflict and political turmoil, individuals from various regions, most notably Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, have fled the dangers and uncertainties of their homes in order to seek refuge within neighbouring European countries. This arduous and sudden development has prompted commentators, such as former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, to claim that the solidarity of the EU is being threatened at a level not seen since the migrant crisis of 1945 during the Second World War.[...]
УДК 347.9The purpose of the article is to provide a critical analysis of different approaches towards the notion of “European Civil Procedure”, to substantiate by means of legal and judicial practice, research papers a true essence and legal nature of the European Civil Procedure.The methodological basis for the study: general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, comparison); private and academic (interpretation, comparison, formal-legal).Problems and basic scientific results: the notion of “European Civil Procedure”, which describes the process of EU Member States judicial cooperation, bears largely a conventional character. It is not used officially by the organs and institutions of the EU, or its Member States. Moreover, it assumes an unjustified monopolization of the European discourse on the side of EU’s initiatives, although Europe is not limited to that association neither in geographical, nor in a legal sense. However, the given notion has become quite colloquial and does not cause any difficulties to the beneficiaries, and thus we may use the terms “European Civil Procedure” (ECP) and “Civil Procedure of the EU” (CP EU) as synonyms.Different approaches towards the nature of the European Civil Procedure claim that it may be regarded as: (1) a separate (communitary) regime of Private International Law (or, otherwise, International Civil Procedure); (2) means to approximate national rules of Civil Pro-cedure; 3) a particular system of judicial decisions recognition; (4) an independent area of supranational law; 5) an aggregate of all or part of the qualities mentioned above.The system of EU Civil Procedure constitutes “federal” procedural law of the Union that functions side-by-side national procedural rules. It governs those relations that go beyond the borders of one Member State, but not the EU itself. Relations between Member States and third nations are still generally out of the federal competence.We need not to forget, however, that a genuine federal center does not only introduce centralized procedures, but also approves mandatory standards for all of the levels of the regulatory system (in other words, pursues approximation). A right of any federal state to exercise such competence does not find any questions due to supremacy of its authority. Still in the EU legal order the principle of its supremacy has a limited application and it is not obvious that the introduction of general norms for the Civil Procedure come within it. The existence of different standards of justice (28 national ones and one supranational) has a negative effect on the unity of the “area of justice”, making it illusory. In order to guarantee an equal level of judicial protection everywhere in the EU a procedural “bill of rights” is required, and it needs to be adopted at the “highest level” of the system.Conclusions. The EU Civil Procedure has a dual nature. In its own (narrow) sense it is a body of federal procedural law of the EU that is applied when a cross-border situation of intracommunity character comes into being. In a broader sense, it is also a combination of norms, rules and principles of justice that are adopted by the EU as a federal center for both community-wide and national levels of the judicial system in order to guarantee the unity to the area of justice. In the ideal case, the European area of justice has to be a coherent, unified and internally consistent system. Reality is, however, far from that image, since there are multiple problems of both legal and political nature that hinder the implementa-tion of these brave ideas.
The current paper aims to present and analyze the role of the two major political European parties through the electoral campaigns during the 2014 European elections, namely the Eu-ropean People's Party (EPP) and the Party of European Socialists (PES). The 2014 Election campaigns worth specific attention, as for the first time, there was a direct correlation between the vote of the EU's citizens and the election of the European Commission President. In view of this and expanding the argument of " Americanization " this study suggests that the EPP and the PES 2014 election campaigns tend to resemble the United States' Presidential campaigns.
This article analyzes European Union (EU) politics through the lens of comparative federalism. The article assesses the contributions that rationalist and constructivist approaches can make to the analysis of EU federalism, focusing on two broad questions. First, what explains shifts in authority from the state (i.e., member states) to the federal (i.e., EU) level? Second, what explains the degree to which the federal government constrains state discretion? This article develops testable hypotheses based on the rationalist and constructivist perspectives and presents a set of initial plausibility probes. The article shows that there is considerable room for dialogue between rationalist and constructivist perspectives and together they can provide a more comprehensive explanation for the dynamics of EU federalism.
The European Community has traditionally been analyzed using theories and concepts drawn from international relations rather than from federalism. This article emphasizes the balance between the representation of territorial and nonterritorial interests in the Community and argues that concepts drawn from federalism can be useful in analytically understanding the Community as long as the American model of federalism is not viewed as the necessary federal referent. It describes the relative importance of the territorial dimension within the major Community institutions—the Commission, the Council of Ministers, the European Council, the European Parliament, and the European Court of Justice. The Court of Justice, it is argued, is particularly important in giving the Community a “federal” contour. However, its method of operation differentiates it in important ways from the American judiciary. The role of territorial politics within the Community is such that the Community's policymaking process, while unique, is certainly recognizable to students of comparative federalism.
Since the end of World War II and most particularly since the late 1970s, the world has been in the midst of a paradigm shift from a world of states modeled after the idea of the nation-state developed in the seventeenth century to a world of diminished state sovereignty and increasingly constitutionalized interstate linkages of a federal character. This paradigm shift has been noted by students of both federalism and international relations. It has been most strongly manifested in the economic sphere. Worldwide and regional economic arrangements have become essential to the peace and prosperity of the world and while formally voluntary, no state can remain outside the increasingly more demanding economic networks. Thus, those networks have acquired an increasingly confederal dimension. Foremost among them is that of Western Europe which, since the Maastricht Treaty, has been transformed into a confederation in fact if not in name. Other arrangements approach the EU in varying degrees. In this new paradigm, existing states will not disappear; rather they will be overlaid by a variety of federal arrangements of a confederal character that will tie them ever closer to each other.
The Treaty of Maastricht should be understood as a political compromise in the process of European integration, rather than as a definitive legal document. This article analyzes the integrative and fragmenting elements of the Treaty and concludes that, on balance, it contains more of the latter than the former. In particular the Treaty may exacerbate the problems increasingly faced by the European Court of Justice, by forcing it to decide politically controversial cases. Nevertheless, the ability of the European institutions, particularly the Commission, to turn crises to their advantage means that the future of Europe remains uncertain.
Most authors agree today that the European Union (EU) is undergoing a process of federalization. This contribution argues that under the unanimity principle for constitutional change, the EU faces three fundamental structural and institutional developments which, combined, may severely hinder its capacity to adapt its constitutional order in the future. These three developments are the expanded number of veto players (through the recent – and future – enlargement), the proposed Treaty on the European Constitution drafted as a detailed text with a clear division of competences, and the increasing use of national referendums on EU integration. By looking in particular at the Swiss but also at the American trajectories of federalization the author proposes three options for the EU to overcome its current ‘federalist deficit'.
1 May 2004 marks a truly historic date in the evolving history of the European Union (EU). Alongside the much publicized EU enlargement to twenty-five members this date also initiated what amounts to nothing less than a revolution in the way that competition policy in the EU is both administered and made. The new changes affect the handling of both anti-trust and mergers cases and aim to both modernize and decentralize decision-making. Cartelbusting, the focus of this paper, remains the major aspect of the European Commission's activities in the area of competition policy and it has long served as the primary example of supranational regulation. This article assesses the significance of this first major overhaul of the regime since its inception in 1962 and considers how far these radical changes enhance the federal characteristics of competition governance. It also aims to illustrate how the competition policy has been effectively Europeanized. The article is divided into two main parts: in the first the author provides a discussion of the changing and puissant EU competition regime and, in the second, assesses the impact of this new regime and especially the new involvement of the member states within the rubric of the Europeanization literature.
Constructivist approaches emerging in the field of international relations may be used to develop better federal theories for EU analysis by refocusing attention on political practices, intersubjective meanings and informal norms. Conversely, the detailed analysis of the EU which has been generated by using federalism as a theoretical prism, the rich theoretical tradition of federalism and policy-makers' common understanding of the EU in federal terms provide international relations scholars with a productive medium for gaining a better understanding of the emerging European polity.
This article assesses the value of a detailed and rigid catalogue of competencies for curbing the process of European centralization and increasing the overall legitimacy of the EU. The article first details the reasons, and the actors who put the search for a catalogue of competencies on to the European agenda. Drawing from comparative federalism, it then lists five arguments why a detailed and rigid competence catalogue is neither feasible nor desirable. Finally, alternatives are provided leading to competence delimitation by other means. The main arguments are illustrated with reference to the European Convention's draft Constitutional Treaty. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2004.