From Regulation to Enforcement in the EU Policy Cycle: A New Type of Functional Spillover?

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) represents workers' and employers' organisations and other actors of organised civil society in the EU. Its profile of actors and functions in the European multi-level and multi-actor system has not yet been examined. This monograph fills this gap by contrasting the contractual integration of the EESC with its effective participation in the EU policy cycle. The study analyses the EESC's interaction with other political actors at various levels within and outside the EU. The author shows that the EESC has formed strategic networks in order to be perceived and used as an interface between civil society and EU institutions.

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EU Cohesion Policy post-2020, European Green Deal and Territorial Agenda 2030. The future of the place-based approach in the new EU policy framework in the context of COVID-19

Europa XXI ◽

10.7163/eu21.2020.38.2 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 38 ◽

pp. 33-50

Author(s):

Paulo Neto

Keyword(s):

Public Policy ◽

Action Plan ◽

Policy Framework ◽

Current Phase ◽

Policy Cycle ◽

Cohesion Policy ◽

Eu Policy ◽

Agenda 2030 ◽

Current Context ◽

The Eu

The European Union’s strategic priorities for the post-2020 period – focused on areas such as globalization, demography, migration, climate change, security and defense, employment and digitalization of the economy and society – pose relevant challenges as to the feasibility of its territorialization conditions and how to ensure operationalization at regional and local levels. As the EU prepares to implement the Cohesion Policy 2021-2027 and draw up the Territorial Agenda 2030, it also seeks to relaunch the EU policy framework in areas such as sustainable development, artificial intelligence and reindustrialization, examples of which are: European Green Deal, EU Circular Economy Action Plan and EU Digital Strategy. The current context of the COVID-19 pandemic has, however, forced a refocusing of the intervention priorities, at least in the short term, in the need to respond to the urgent economic, social and public health challenges caused by the pandemic. This article seeks to analyse, on the one hand, how the European policy cycle has adapted to respond to the pandemic, and on the other, the extent to which the place-based approach, one of the central operating rationales of the 2014-2020 financial perspective, may see its role strengthened and its performance extended as a consequence of the changes introduced in the current phase of the policy cycle due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis carried out led to concluding that the current context of COVID-19 is implying the redesign of many of the Union’s public policy instruments and reordering some of the current strategic priorities. It is also changing the conditions of resilience and competitiveness of territories, whereby the place-based approach seems to be a public policy instrument especially suited to the process of economic and social recovery at the local and regional level.

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Actions Speak Louder Than Words? The Untapped Potential of V4 Parliaments in EU Affairs

East European Politics and Societies and Cultures ◽

10.1177/08883254211012770 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 088832542110127

Author(s):

Karolina Borońska-Hryniewiecka ◽

Jan Grinc

Keyword(s):

Early Warning System ◽

Warning System ◽

Veto Players ◽

The Political ◽

Political Dialogue ◽

Eu Policy ◽

Green Card ◽

Policy Ideas ◽

Policy Making Process ◽

The Eu

This article offers the first ever comparative analysis of the involvement of V4 parliaments in the sphere of European Union (EU) affairs. Its underlying research objective is to determine what conditions V4’s parliamentary participation in various EU-oriented activities such as domestic scrutiny of the government’s EU policy, the political dialogue with the Commission, the Early Warning System for subsidiarity control, and the green card initiative. Based on the actual scrutiny output, parliamentary minutes, and data from questionnaires, we address the questions: (1) To what extent domestic legislatures act as autonomous as opposed to government-supporting actors in these arenas? (2) Do they mostly act as EU veto players, or try to contribute constructively to the EU policy-making process by bringing alternative policy ideas? (3) What are their motivations for engaging in direct dialogue with EU institutions in addition to domestic scrutiny? and (4) How MPs envisage their own EU-oriented roles? While the article reveals that V4 parliaments mostly act as gatekeepers in the sphere of EU affairs, it also casts a new light on the previous literature findings related to the EU-oriented performance of the Czech and Polish lower chambers. We conclude that, generally, V4 parliaments refrain from fully exploiting their relatively strong formal prerogatives in EU affairs—a fact that can be partly explained by the composition of their ruling majorities.

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Schengen: Quo Vadis?

European Journal of Migration and Law ◽

10.1163/15718166-12340073 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 22 (2) ◽

pp. 178-197 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Marie De Somer

Keyword(s):

Good Governance ◽

Eu Policy ◽

Border Regions ◽

Implementation Practices ◽

Quo Vadis ◽

Border Controls ◽

The Eu ◽

The Way

Abstract The EU’s Schengen zone has been in crisis for over four years. This article critically reviews three scenarios on the way forward for the Schengen area that are currently circulating in the EU policy sphere. These include, first, proposals to improve the current rules on internal border checks within the Schengen Borders Code, either through reform or through better implementation practices. A second scenario relates to ideas on increasing the use of police checks in border regions as alternatives for internal border controls. A third scenario links to proposals on making access to the Schengen zone conditional on cooperation and good governance in the CEAS. It is submitted that the proposals in this third scenario are unfeasible for both political as well as legal reasons. More merit can be found in the discussions around the first two scenarios, albeit bearing in mind a number of important caveats.

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Cloud Computing in the EU Policy Sphere

SSRN Electronic Journal ◽

10.2139/ssrn.1909877 ◽

2011 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Jasper P. Sluijs ◽

Pierre Larouche ◽

Wolf Sauter

Keyword(s):

Cloud Computing ◽

Eu Policy ◽

The Eu

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Shrimp Export from Benin vs Food Safety in Europe: Reconcilable Interests?

European Journal of Risk Regulation ◽

10.1017/s1867299x00003597 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 5 (2) ◽

pp. 187-200

Author(s):

Kévine Kindji ◽

Michael Faure

Keyword(s):

Food Safety ◽

Market Share ◽

Control Policy ◽

Legal Order ◽

Eu Policy ◽

Shrimp Industry ◽

Fishery Products ◽

The Eu

In order to secure their fishery products market share in the EU, third countries, especially the developing ones, tend to transplant EU requirements into their domestic legal order. In reality, theses transplanted laws do not correspond to measures to reach a level of protection needed by the country of destination. Based upon the case of Benin, this paper intends to show that when these legal transplants are adversely made, they can in some cases have disastrous effects. It can be argued that an unintended result of EU policy was that it contributed to the collapse of the shrimp industry in Benin. The paper moreover argues that despite the stringency of the EU requirements, the implementation of its control policy might inadequately protect European consumers of shrimp.

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