European Union Discourses on Employment

2000 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gilbert Weiss ◽  
Ruth Wodak
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Advisory Group ◽  
Political Union ◽  
Eu Policy ◽  
Political Problem ◽  
Eu Policies ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Eu

The fight against unemployment has been declared a top priority of European Union (EU) policies. Indeed, if mass unemployment is the major political problem in Europe, then the legitimacy of the EU as a political union will crucially depend on how this problem is dealt with. In this article we follow precisely the question of how the problem is dealt with in EU policy-making processes. Two forms of political spaces, an advisory group working ‘behind closed doors’ and the European Parliament, are compared. A socio-linguistic analysis of texts produced in the respective bodies reveals the many tensions in the development of supranational employment policies. Particular emphasis is placed on the rhetoric of globalization and competitiveness as being constitutive of the neo-liberal discourse.

Policy-Making in the European Union

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
National Level ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Eu Policy ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Common ◽  
Key Events ◽  
The Eu

Policy-Making in the European Union explores the link between the modes and mechanisms of EU policy-making and its implementation at the national level. From defining the processes, institutions and modes through which policy-making operates, the text moves on to situate individual policies within these modes, detail their content, and analyse how they are implemented, navigating policy in all its complexities. The first part of the text examines processes, institutions, and the theoretical and analytical underpinnings of policy-making, while the second part considers a wide range of policy areas, from economics to the environment, and security to the single market. Throughout the text, theoretical approaches sit side by side with the reality of key events in the EU, including enlargement, the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon, and the financial crisis and resulting Eurozone crisis, focusing on what determines how policies are made and implemented. This includes major developments such as the establishment of the European Stability Mechanism, the reform of the common agricultural policy, and new initiatives to promote EU energy security. In the final part, the chapters consider trends in EU policy-making and the challenges facing the EU.

1. An Overview

2020 ◽  
pp. 3-12
Author(s):  
Mark A. Pollack ◽  
Christilla Roederer-Rynning ◽  
Alasdair R. Young
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
Eu Policy ◽  
Eu Policies ◽  
Ongoing Experiment

The European Union represents a remarkable, ongoing experiment in the collective governance of a multinational continent of nearly 450 million citizens and 27 member states. The key aim of this volume is to understand the processes that produce EU policies: that is, the decisions (or non-decisions) by EU public authorities facing choices between alternative courses of public action. We do not advance any single theory of EU policy-making, although we do draw extensively on theories of European integration, international cooperation, comparative politics, and contemporary governance; and we identify five ‘policy modes’ operating across the 15 case study chapters in the volume. This chapter introduces the volume by summarizing our collective approach to understanding policy-making in the EU, identifying the significant developments that have impacted EU policy-making since the seventh edition of this volume, and previewing the case studies and their central findings.

14. Policy-making in the European Union

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralf Drachenberg ◽  
Alex Brianson
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
The European Union ◽  
New Governance ◽  
Policy Decisions ◽  
State Action ◽  
Eu Policy ◽  
Governance Tools ◽  
The Eu

This chapter examines the process of policy-making in the European Union. It first considers how the EU originally made policy decisions before tracing the evolution of the formal balance between the EU institutions over time, with particular emphasis on the increasing legislative power of the European Parliament. It then describes the Community method, which remains the core of the EU policy process but is now complemented with a range of ‘new governance tools’ designed to produce coordinated member state action through iterated processes of standard-setting, best practice identification, and knowledge transfer. One of these processes is the open method of coordination (OMC). The chapter concludes with an analysis of the implementation of EU policy decisions by and in the member states, along with current trends in EU decision-making after the EU enlargements of the 2000s and the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.

Grexit and Brexit: Incidents, accidents and wake-up calls on the bumpy road of European (dis)integration

2020 ◽  
pp. 096977642097061
Author(s):  
George Petrakos ◽  
Alexandra Sotiriou
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Maastricht Treaty ◽  
Policy Agenda ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Policy Integration ◽  
The Real ◽  
Eu Policy ◽  
Eu Countries ◽  
The Eu

Almost 30 years since the Maastricht Treaty and 20 years since the introduction of the euro, it is clear that the European Union (EU) has lost its appeal to wider constituencies and citizen groups that realize that the promises for convergence and prosperity have not been delivered. Rising dissatisfaction and Euroscepticism (expressed both in the ballot box and in Eurobarometer reports) is evident even in traditional pro-EU countries of the European core. As this long decade comes to an end, incidents (or accidents) like these ones, either in the form of open discontent, or in the form of rising populism, will exert pressure on the EU policy agenda that will either increase the frequency of deadlocks and inefficiency in policy making or will eventually lead to an honest effort to address the roots of these phenomena. This paper examines the drivers behind these two incidents (and the ones that may follow) and the limits of the current market and policy integration arrangements in the EU, arguing that a new policy agenda addressing the real weaknesses of the Union is inevitable if disintegration is to be avoided. Luckily enough, some elements of this new policy agenda may already be here.

Political Agents as Relational Selves

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 493-519 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Dewandre ◽  
Keyword(s):  
European Commission ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Internal Market ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Common Market ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Policy ◽  
Eu Policies ◽  
Political Agents ◽  
The Eu

In this article, I argue that Hannah Arendt’s well-known but controversial distinction between labour, work, and action provides, perhaps unexpectedly, a conceptual grounding for transforming politics and policy-making at the EU level. Beyond the analysis and critique of modernity, Arendt brings the conceptual resources needed for the EU to move beyond the modern trap it fell into thirty years ago. At that time, the European Commission shifted its purpose away from enhancing interdependence among Member States with a common market towards achieving an internal market in the name of boosting growth and creating jobs. Arendt provides the conceptual tools to transform the conceptualisation of relations and of agents that fuels the growing dissatisfaction among many Europeans with EU policy-making. This argument is made through stretching and re-articulating Arendt’s labour-work-action distinction and taking seriously both the biological and plural dimensions of the human condition, besides its rational one. By applying this shift in an EU context, EU policies could change their priorities and better address the needs and expectations of plural political agents and of European citizens.

scholarly journals Multi-level governance in a ‘Europe with the regions’

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 767-775
Author(s):  
Arjan H Schakel
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
European Union ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Multilevel Governance ◽  
Eu Policy ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
National Governments ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Scholarly Attention ◽  
The Eu

The concept of multilevel governance was introduced to reveal the impact of regions on European Union (EU) policy making in Brussels. In this contribution, I show that multilevel governance also exposes regional involvement in EU affairs within the member states. In contrast to perspectives that focus on formal decision-making by central governments, multilevel governance uncovers significant sharing of authority between governmental actors within and beyond national states even in cases where the formal right to make a decision lies with national governments or the EU legislator. I argue that the concept of multilevel governance is key for understanding developments within a three-tiered EU polity because it directs scholarly attention to the incentives for regions to be involved in EU affairs and for national governments and EU institutions to share their authority with regions.

Policy-Making in the European Union

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
National Level ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Eu Policy ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Common ◽  
Key Events ◽  
The Eu

Policy-Making in the European Union explores the link between the modes and mechanisms of EU policy-making and its implementation at the national level. From defining the processes, institutions and modes through which policy-making operates, the text moves on to situate individual policies within these modes, detail their content, and analyse how they are implemented, navigating policy in all its complexities. The first part of the text examines processes, institutions, and the theoretical and analytical underpinnings of policy-making, while the second part considers a wide range of policy areas, from economics to the environment, and security to the single market. Throughout the text, theoretical approaches sit side by side with the reality of key events in the EU, including enlargement, the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon, and the financial crisis and resulting Eurozone crisis, focusing on what determines how policies are made and implemented. This includes major developments such as the establishment of the European Stability Mechanism, the reform of the common agricultural policy, and new initiatives to promote EU energy security. In the final part, the chapters consider trends in EU policy-making and the challenges facing the EU.

20. The Stability of EU Policy-Making in a Turbulent World

2020 ◽  
pp. 471-494
Author(s):  
Mark A. Pollack ◽  
Christilla Roederer-Rynning ◽  
Alasdair R. Young
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Domestic Institutions ◽  
European Union Policy ◽  
Eu Policy ◽  
Union Policy ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Eu

This chapter examines trends in European Union policy-making during times of multiple, overlapping challenges. It first considers the main trends in EU policy-making that emerge from policy case studies, including experimentation with new modes of policy-making, often in conjunction with more established modes, leading to hybridization; renegotiation of the role of the member states (and their domestic institutions) in the EU policy process; and erosion of traditional boundaries between internal and external policies. The chapter proceeds by discussing the issue of national governance as well as the interaction between European and global governance. Finally, it explores how the EU has responded to the challenges of Brexit, the politicization of the Union, geopolitical upheaval, and the shock of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Denmark and the European Union

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders Wivel
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Economic Sustainability ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Eu Policy ◽  
Eu Membership ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
The Eu ◽  
The Welfare State

Denmark’s relationship with the European Union (EU) takes its point of departure in the Danish self-perception of being a minor power with a superior societal model. This calls for both adaptation to the power realities of the European political space and resistance against infringements of the Danish societal model, occasionally supplemented by attempts at actively influencing EU policy-making. Denmark’s general EU posture is reactive and defensive with a stronger focus on defending autonomy than influencing the future of the EU. It is pragmatic and functionalist, seeking primarily to utilize EU membership to secure the economic sustainability of the welfare state. Danish EU policy is increasingly characterized by dualism, navigating the integration dilemma in a way that allows for simultaneous protection against political integration and uploading of Danish interests to the EU level.

The Politics of Legal Expertise in EU Policy-Making

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Päivi Leino-Sandberg
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
European Union ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Legal Requirements ◽  
Significant Power ◽  
Eu Policy ◽  
Legal Advice ◽  
Legal Expertise ◽  
The Eu

Legal advisers working in the institutions of the European Union exercise significant power, but very little is known about their work. Notwithstanding the handful of cases where legal matters find their way into the news, legal advice remains invisible in EU policy making. For more than ten years Päivi Leino-Sandberg was a part of the invisible community of EU legal advisers, and participated in the exercise of their power. In this book, she shares her insights about how law and lawyers work in the EU institutions, and what their role and impact is on EU decisions from within the decision-making structure. She draws on interviews with over sixty EU lawyers and policymakers: legal experts who interpret the Treaties within the Institutions, draft legislation and defend the Institutions before the EU Court. Telling the true stories behind key negotiations, this book explores the interplay and tensions between legal requirements and political ambitions.

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