EU Membership: Formal and Substantive Dimensions

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Paul CRAIG
Keyword(s):  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Eu Membership ◽  
Differentiated Integration ◽  
The Eu

Abstract Membership is central to the EU, as it is to any other international organisation. Withdrawal has assumed centre-stage through Brexit. While there is literature that is relevant to membership, most notably through academic discourse on differentiated integration, there is little more general inquiry concerning membership, the concept of which has importance and implications over and beyond more particular avenues of scholarship. This article examines the formal and substantive dimensions of membership and withdrawal in the EU.

scholarly journals Opting for opt outs? - Untangling the role of identity in shaping support for differentiated integration

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Moland
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Eu Membership ◽  
Differentiated Integration ◽  
The Eu

A large literature investigates support for European integration. However, only recently have public opinion scholars turned their focus to public perceptions of differentiated modes of integration. This article contributes to this growing literature by investigating whether exclusively national identities lead to a demand for more differentiated integration at the EU level, regardless of individual views of the question of EU membership. Using survey data from 2020, I show that solely identifying with one’s nation-state does not increase support for temporally or functionally differentiated European integration in any substantive way. However, it appears to be a key motivator of support for differentiation among those opposing EU membership. This suggests that those most concerned with sovereignty are no more likely than others to support a more differentiated EU. It also suggests that a more differentiated future EU may not be enough to stem constraining dissensus at the popular level.

Integracja w dezintegracji i dezintegracja w integracji: determinanty mechanizmów integracyjnych w Unii Europejskiej

2018 ◽  
pp. 10-37
Author(s):  
Barbara Curyło
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Differentiated Integration ◽  
Integration Mechanisms ◽  
Strategic Issue ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Eu

In the discussion on the future of the EU, the topic of differentiated integration has become a strategic issue, with different variants beginning to appear as modus operandi of the European Union, which has become a subject of controversy among Member States. Significantly, the debate on differentiated integration began to be accompanied by reflections on disintegration. This article attempts to define disintegration on the assumption that it should be defined through the prism of integration, and that such a defining process can not be limited to concluding a one-way contrast between disintegration versus integration and vice versa. This is due to the assumption that the European Union is a dichotomous construct in which integration and disintegration mutually exclude and complement each other. This dichotomy is most evident in the definition of integration and disintegration through the prism of Europeanisation top-down and bottom-up processes that generate, reveal, visualize, stimulate integration mechanisms what allows to diagnose their determinants.

Ever Looser Union?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Schimmelfennig ◽  
Thomas Winzen
Keyword(s):  
Self Determination ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Core State ◽  
Member States ◽  
New Members ◽  
Treaty Negotiations ◽  
Differentiated Integration ◽  
Economic Preferences ◽  
New Policies ◽  
The Eu

Differentiated integration is a durable feature of the European Union and a major alternative for its future development and reform. This book provides a comprehensive conceptual, theoretical and empirical analysis of differentiation in European integration. It explains differentiation in EU treaties and legislation in general and offers specific accounts of differentiation in the recent enlargements of the EU, the Euro crisis, the Brexit negotiations and the integration of non-member states. Differentiated integration is a legal instrument that European governments use regularly to overcome integration deadlock in EU treaty negotiations and legislation. Instrumental differentiation adjusts integration to the heterogeneity of economic preferences and capacities, particularly in the context of enlargement. By contrast, constitutional differentiation accommodates concerns about national self-determination. Whereas instrumental differentiation mainly affects poorer (new) member states, constitutional differentiation offers wealthier and nationally oriented member states opt-outs from the integration of core state powers. The book shows that differentiated integration has facilitated the integration of new policies, new members and even non-members. It has been mainly ‘multi-speed’ and inclusive. Most differentiations end after a few years and do not discriminate against member states permanently. Yet differentiation is less suitable for reforming established policies, managing disintegration, and fostering solidarity, and the path-dependency of core state power integration may lead to permanent divides in the Union.

Familiarity Breeds Contempt

2009 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksander Lust
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Economic Reform ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The West ◽  
Eu Membership ◽  
Economic Expectations ◽  
The Eu

In referenda held in 2003, over 90% of Lithuanians supported joining the European Union (EU), while only two-thirds of Estonians did. Why? This article shows that Lithuanians and Estonians had different economic expectations about the EU. Most Lithuanians hoped that EU membership would help Lithuania overcome its economic backwardness and isolation. By contrast, many Estonians worried that the accession would reinforce Estonia's underdevelopment and dependency on the West. I argue that these expectations reflected the two countries' strategies of economic reform. Lithuania sold state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to their managers and continued to trade heavily with Russia, which slowed down the modernization of its economy. Estonia sold SOEs to foreigners and reoriented its trade rapidly from Russia to the West, which hurt its traditional sectors (particularly agriculture) and infrastructure.

scholarly journals Helicopter Money: The New Form of Monetary Easing in the Eurozone?

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolaos A. Kyriazis ◽  
Emmanouil M. L. Economou
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Policy ◽  
Moral Hazard ◽  
Financial System ◽  
Eu Membership ◽  
New Form ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Academic Debate

Although unconventional measures by the ECB have been very extensive so as to fortify the Eurozone’s financial system the question of whether more drastic measures are necessary, is at the forefront of newly aroused academic debate. This paper’s main effort is to conceptualize helicopter drops in the Eurozone before hindsight in order to shed some light on how feasible are more drastic measures for the Eurozone and how they could further attenuate moral hazard problems. An early understanding of overt money financing will help in better driving monetary policy and emphasize whether the benefits of more and free money printing could bring about a heal for the wreckages of the EU membership status.

scholarly journals FDI determinants in Europe and Chinese influence

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-37
Author(s):  
Alena Dorakh
Keyword(s):  
Trade Costs ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Western Balkans ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Eu Membership ◽  
Vertical Fdi ◽  
Belt And Road ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu

Despite recent concerns about the increasing influence of outside investors on the European Union (EU) and Western Balkans, the developed European countries are still a dominant source of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the region, confirming the benefits of EU membership. At the same time, fast-growing connectivity and lower trade costs in accession and neighboring countries determine the FDI growth from China, particularly via the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). By applying panel data over 2000-2019 for 34 countries, which form 89% of all European FDI, we first examine FDI patterns around Europe, compare the EU, NMS, and Western Balkans; verify the importance of EU membership for FDI, caused reducing trade costs and improving connectivity. Thus, the new EU member states (NMS) and Western Balkans appear both as a home country and as a pre- entry destination to the EU. Then, we calculate trade costs indices for each selected country and partners over time and find that Europe and China are closely interconnected through trade and FDI. It means that stronger ties with China can be realized for the sample countries at the cost of easing relations with the EU. Finally, incorporating trade costs indices into the FDI model; we evaluate the impact of connectivity on FDI and estimate how BRI affected FDI in Europe. Additionally, we validate that the old framework of horizontal and vertical FDI not representative well and even new complex vertical or export-oriented FDI strategies are shifting today.

EU Loyalty

2019 ◽  
pp. 45-80
Author(s):  
Christina Eckes
Keyword(s):  
The European Union ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Membership ◽  
Legal Obligations ◽  
External Relations ◽  
The Common ◽  
Duty Of Loyalty ◽  
International Representation ◽  
The Eu

Chapter 2 discusses the legal consequences and deeper meaning of EU loyalty with particular attention to external relations. It identifies specific active and passive obligations flowing from the principle of sincere cooperation in the context of EU external relations and argues that they are best understood as forming part of a comprehensive duty of loyalty. EU loyalty endows EU membership with a distinctive meaning. It is central to imposing a quasi-federal discipline and making sovereign states ‘Member States of the EU’ by acting as a tool that can at times take specific legal obligations beyond the letter of the law. EU loyalty legally restrains Member States from exercising their rights as independent international actors in a way that finds no parallel beyond the European Union. It may require placing the common Union interest above national interests. The concept of unity of international representation has a particular capacity to deepen and widen the obligations flowing from EU loyalty. It amplifies the effects of EU loyalty on the scope of legal action of the Member States, including in the field of reserved competences. It is also part of the explanation of why loyalty has more stringent consequences externally rather than internally. This in turn means that the duty of loyalty has a particular integrative force in the context of external relations. Chapter 2 also argues that this stringent understanding of EU loyalty is justified by the nature of external relations and that this justification should be (better) explicated by the EU institutions in order to justify EU external actions vis-à-vis EU citizens.

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