2. Institutions of the Union: composition and powers

2020 ◽  
pp. 24-52
Author(s):  
Marios Costa ◽  
Steve Peers
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Majority Voting ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
Qualified Majority ◽  
Committee Of The Regions ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Usual Rule

This chapter examines the institutions within the European Union (EU), their powers and the relationship between the institutions. The main EU institutions are the European Parliament, the Council, the European Council, the Commission (including the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy), the Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Central Bank and the Court of Auditors. There are also other bodies, including: the European Ombudsman, the Economic and Social Committee (ECOSOC), the Committee of the Regions and COREPER. The chapter explains that these institutions and bodies are given different powers and are subject to important rules (for instance, the usual rule of qualified majority voting in the Council), and that they are required to work together in order to provide the checks and balances within the Union legal order, or the so-called institutional balance.

Aktuelle Entwicklungen in der EU-Sozialpolitik: effizientere Entscheidungsfindung durch Mehrheitsentscheidungen und differenzierte Integration?

IG ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-131
Author(s):  
Miriam Hartlapp
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Member State ◽  
Majority Voting ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Qualified Majority ◽  
Differentiated Integration ◽  
Aktuelle Entwicklungen ◽  
Organizational Heterogeneity

Design and adoption of common social policy is conditional. Limited competencies, institutional and organizational heterogeneity among member states, and ideological-programmatic majorities in the institutions of the European Union (EU) have led to far fewer new legal instruments in recent decades. One of the key challenges is the unanimity requirement in the Council, enshrined in the Treaties in areas of great member state sovereignty. In 2019 the Commission proposed to allow a transition to qualified majority voting. This paper discusses what the transition entails in legal and procedural terms and highlights three key advantages it holds. To this aim it provides an overview of the policy areas and instruments that the Commission would like to transfer to qualified majority voting. It outlines how the potential that majority voting offers for EU social policy could be exploited better with more ambitious initiatives and discusses differentiated integration as an alternative.

scholarly journals Znaczenie traktatu lizbońskiego dla rozwoju współpracy między Unią Europejską a jej państwami sąsiedzkimi

Politeja ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (54) ◽  
pp. 373-383
Author(s):  
Olesia Tkachuk
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
External Action ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Institutional Changes ◽  
European Neighbourhood Policy ◽  
The European Union ◽  
International Organisations ◽  
Treaty Of Lisbon

The Importance of the Treaty of Lisbon for the Development of Cooperation Between the European Union and Neighbouring CountriesThis article aims to analyse the importance of the Treaty of Lisbon which was signed as of 13th of December 2007 for the development of cooperation between the European Union and neighbouring countries within the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy in legal and institutional terms.The first part of the article represents the provisions of analysed the Reform Treaty, which regulates the Union’s cooperation with third countries and international organisations, in particular art. 8 TEU. The following part of the article presents institutional changes insertion by the Treaty of Lisbon, among others, establishing a position of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and appointment of European External Action Service. The summary of the above considerations is located at the end of the article.

scholarly journals The EU and China, 2006 to 2016: A Clash Between Interests and Values

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 120-129
Author(s):  
Kerry Brown
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Market Economy ◽  
External Action ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Chinese Studies ◽  
Arms Embargo ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Eu

In the last decade, while undergoing its own reform through the Lisbon Treaty in 2009 which created a designated foreign affairs body across the 28 member states, the European External Action Service (EEAS), the European Commission has also produced two major communications on relations with the People’s Republic of China. The first, in 2006, was issued at a time when the European Union (EU) was just recovering from its failure to lift the arms embargo on China, and was being criticised by Beijing because it had not accorded market economy status to a country that had become its largest trading partner. The second came out in 2016, at a time when the relationship had settled into a more pragmatic mould, though the continuing refusal to grant market economy status still rankled with the Chinese partners. At time of publication of this article, the journal operated under the old name. When quoting please refer to the citation on the left using British Journal of Chinese Studies. The pdf of the article still reflects the old journal name; issue number and page range are consistent.   

The Nice Treaty: Reforming European Union Institutions in Anticipation of Eastern Enlargements

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Finn Laursen
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Member State ◽  
Majority Voting ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Constitutional Treaty ◽  
Member States ◽  
Qualified Majority ◽  
The Future ◽  
Eastern European Countries ◽  
Year 2000

The Nice Treaty negotiated during the year 2000, signed in 2001 and in force from 2003, focused on institutional changes considered necessary, especially by the larger member states, for the anticipated large enlargement of the European Union with several central and eastern European countries. Efforts to adopt such changes in the Amsterdam Treaty negotiations in 1996–1997 had failed. The Nice Treaty therefore dealt with what was known as the “Amsterdam leftovers,” namely size and composition of the European Commission, reweighting of votes in the Council of Ministers, and increased use of qualified majority voting in the Council. Concerning the reweighting of votes the intergovernmental conference agreed to increase the number of votes per member state, but the larger member states got a relatively larger increase that the smaller member states. This should make it more difficult for the smaller member states to dominate in the future, something feared by the larger states. Concerning the Commission, it was decided that each member state would nominate one commissioner in the future from January 1, 2005. When the membership of the union reached 27 the size would have to be reduced. How much and how would be decided later. Concerning the use of qualified majority voting the decision was to extend the use to some policy areas from the entry into force of the new treaty and for some policy areas considered more controversial the extension would take place later. For the most controversial areas no extension to qualified majority voting was considered. During the intergovernmental conference, which negotiated the new treaty, the topic of “enhanced cooperation” was added. Most of these topics were quite controversial, and afterward there was a feeling that the treaty did not adequately deal with all the issues. This in turn led to further efforts to improve the institutions, first in the failed Constitutional Treaty (2004) and eventually in the successful Lisbon Treaty (2007).

Article 38 TEU

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Ramopoulos
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy ◽  
The Common ◽  
Definition Of

Article 25 TEU Without prejudice to Article 240 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, a Political and Security Committee shall monitor the international situation in the areas covered by the common foreign and security policy and contribute to the definition of policies by delivering opinions to the Council at the request of the Council or of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy or on its own initiative. It shall also monitor the implementation of agreed policies, without prejudice to the powers of the High Representative.

scholarly journals Legislative Activity and Gridlock in the European Union

2014 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 477-499 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christophe Crombez ◽  
Simon Hix
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Majority Voting ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Legislative Procedures ◽  
Qualified Majority ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Legislative Activity

This article develops a game-theoretical model of European Union (EU) policy making that suggests that the amount of legislative activity depends on the size of the gridlock interval. This is consistent with Krehbiel's study of US politics. This interval depends on two factors: (1) the preference configuration of the political actors and (2) the legislative procedures used in a particular period. Actors’ preferences and procedures are not expected to have any effect beyond their impact on the gridlock interval. The study predicts smaller gridlock intervals, and thus more legislative activity, under the co-decision (consultation) procedure when the pivotal member states and the European Parliament (Commission) are closer to each other. More activity is expected under qualified majority voting in the Council than under unanimity. The results find support for these propositions in an empirical analysis of EU legislative activity between 1979 and 2009.

scholarly journals Russia – EU: Dialogue without Dialogue

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-15
Author(s):  
Dmitriy Danilov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Foreign Minister ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
The Political ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Political Dialogue ◽  
The Eu

The article deals with the problems of political and diplomatic relations between Russia and the European Union. The key event was the meeting of Josep Borrel as the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow in February 2021. The Russian side considered it as an opportunity to outline the prospect of resuming the political dialogue interrupted by the European Union in 2014, notably in the context of the reviewing a strategy on Russia initiated by the EU. The author analyzes the differences in the approaches of European countries and institutions in the context of the ongoing aggravation of Russia – EU relations. The main result of the meeting was not its «ineffectiveness», but, on the contrary, its obvious counterproductive effect. The EU has even more consolidated its policy of deterring Russia and increasing sanctions pressure, which actually closes the prospect for systemic dialogue. In this context, the political and diplomatic conflict in connection with the mass expulsion of Russian diplomats by the Czech Republic (the «Czech case») and the narrowing of opportunities to compensate for the EU-Russia dialogue shortcomings by bilateral tracks are also considered. In conclusion, some finding are presented regarding the perspective Russian reaction.

The European Union and International Outcomes

1999 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 409-425 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Jupille
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Maastricht Treaty ◽  
Majority Voting ◽  
Institutional Factors ◽  
The European Union ◽  
External Relations ◽  
Qualified Majority ◽  
International Bargaining ◽  
Bargaining Positions ◽  
The Eu

Analysts of the European Union (EU) and international bargaining have generally failed to appreciate how the shift within the EU from unanimity to qualified majority voting has affected European bargaining positions and international outcomes. I analyze the international effects of changes in EU decision-making rules with a simple spatial model and assess the utility of the model in two cases of environmental bargaining that span the entry into force of the Maastricht Treaty. The EU can decisively shape international outcomes by concentrating the weight of its fifteen member states on a single substantive position and rendering that position critical to any internationally negotiated agreement. The findings generalize to numerous areas of EU external relations and suggest that analysts should attend specifically to the EU and more generally to domestic and regional institutional factors in explaining international bargaining outcomes.

Madame Europe czy dziewczynka do bicia – prasa europejska o wysokiej przedstawiciel Unii do spraw zagranicznych i polityki bezpieczeństwa Catherine Ashton

2014 ◽  
pp. 102-124
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Smutek
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Foreign Media

In this article the opinions about Catherine Ashton as the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy expressed in Polish and foreign media as well as some editorialised statements by politicians will be presented. The analysis will cover the opinions on Ashton as a person and her actions as the High Representative, as well as the perception of the European Union as a whole through the prism of her work. The High Representative’s contacts with media and her efforts at creating her image will also be presented.

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