5. The Single Market

2020 ◽  
pp. 109-129
Author(s):  
Alasdair R. Young
Keyword(s):  
Policy Making ◽  
Single Market ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Market Regulation ◽  
The European Union ◽  
European Union Policy ◽  
Single European Act ◽  
Major Turning Point ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Market Relations

This chapter examines the renewal of the single European market (SEM) as a major turning point in European policy-making. It presents the argument that many of the analyses that proliferated in response to the Single European Act (SEA) and the SEM overstated their novelty and understated some of the surrounding factors that helped to induce their ‘success’. The chapter first provides a historical background on how the single market was established before discussing the politics of policy-making in the SEM. It explains how new ideas about market regulation permeated the European Union policy process and facilitated legislative activism and important changes in the policy-implementing processes, culminating in the ‘1992 programme’ to make the single market a reality. Although the task of ‘completing’ the single market remains unfinished, the chapter shows that it has moved to the heart of European integration and altered the pattern of state–market relations in Europe. As a consequence, the single market has played a central role in the Brexit process. The Brexit process has also revealed how far the single market has developed.

5. The Single Market From Stagnation to Renewal?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alasdair R. Young
Keyword(s):  
Policy Making ◽  
Single Market ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Market Regulation ◽  
The European Union ◽  
European Union Policy ◽  
Single European Act ◽  
Major Turning Point ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Market Relations

This chapter examines the renewal of the single European market (SEM) as a major turning point in European policy-making. It presents the argument that many of the analyses that proliferated in response to the Single European Act (SEA) and the SEM overstated their novelty and understated some of the surrounding factors that helped to induce their ‘success’. The chapter first provides a historical background on how the single market was established before discussing the politics of policy-making in the SEM. It explains how new ideas about market regulation permeated the European Union policy process and facilitated legislative activism and important changes in the policy-implementing processes, culminating in the ‘1992 programme’ to make the single market a reality. Although the task of ‘completing’ the single market remains unfinished, the chapter shows that it has moved to the heart of European integration and altered the pattern of state–market relations in Europe.

2. The European Union: Establishment and Development

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Phinnemore
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Single Market ◽  
First Century ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Amsterdam Treaty ◽  
Adoption And Implementation ◽  
Single European Act ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The Eu

This chapter focuses on the emergence of the European Communities in the 1950s that gave rise to the European Union in the 1990s. It begins with a discussion of key developments in the first four decades of European integration and some of the tensions that have shaped them. It then considers how the idea of ‘European union’ lost momentum in the 1970s but was revived in the 1980s with the Single European Act (1986) and the Single Market project. It also shows how the EU was established through ‘Maastricht’ and the adoption and implementation of the Treaty on European Union (1992). The chapter concludes by analysing how the new ‘union’ was affected by reforms introduced by the Amsterdam Treaty (1997) and the Nice Treaty (2000) as the EU sought to prepare itself for the further enlargement and the challenges of the initial years of the twenty-first century.

European Union policy-making towards Mercosur

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arantza Gomez Arana
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Individual Member ◽  
The European Union ◽  
European Union Policy ◽  
Internal System ◽  
External Relations ◽  
Short Period ◽  
The Eu

The European Union (EU) is not a state and is not a traditional International Organization. It is common to characterize it as a hybrid system with a federal component. Since nothing comparable to this exists at this point, understanding the internal system of the EU is crucial. In addition to outlining the internal policy-making of the EU, it is also important to understand the internal system of the Mercosur, particularly given that the Mercosur has tried to replicate the institutional design of the EU. Since its creation in 1957 with the Treaty of Rome, the EU has changed dramatically in a variety of ways in a short period of time. The discussion will examine these changes in relation to the period between 1985 and 2007. In addition to analysing the changes in policy-making over this period of the time it is also important to note that the number of EU member states has quadruplicated since it was created in 1957. It could be argued that this has resulted in a decline in the amount of power held by each individual member state. In 1986 Spain and, to a lesser extent, Portugal brought a Mediterranean influence into EU politics. This was later balanced out by further enlargement in 1995 which saw Austria, Finland and Sweden joining the EU. However, the single largest enlargement in the history of the EU took place in 2004 when 10 Central and Eastern Europe countries became EU members. Prior to 2004, this issue was the main focus of the EU external relations since 1989 until it came into effect in 2004. The end of the Cold War and the breakup of the Soviet Union into several independent republics absorbed EU external relations to the point that it had an effect on other external relations, including external relations with Latin America. The enlargement of the EU in 2007 is not discussed in any detail here because it did not have an impact on the EU policy towards Mercosur.

scholarly journals How European Union policy actors use and assess the effectiveness of e-transparency

2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Field
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
European Union Policy ◽  
Online Systems ◽  
Policy Actors ◽  
Union Policy ◽  
Working Practices ◽  
Information Providers

To counter the charge that it is an elite-driven political project, the European Union increasingly uses online systems to render its working practices visible to its citizens. This article analyses how the actors involved in European Union policy-making understand the benefits derived from providing information through e-transparency, and examines whether they consider that the e-transparency systems deliver these benefits. Drawing on data from 63 semi-structured interviews with officials, Members of the European Parliament and Brussels-based transparency campaigners, the article shows a wide variation in participants’ views concerning the rationale for e-transparency. It shows that e-transparency is variously seen as the means to address declining citizen trust in the Brussels institutions; as a mechanism through which citizens can participate in European Union processes and as a means of holding its institutions to account. The article argues that these various e-transparency attributes are contradictory, and it advances a framework for information providers to assess how the e-transparency tools can best meet the differing requirements of transparency users.

7. Governance in the European Union

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Christiansen
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Current Phase ◽  
The European Union ◽  
New Governance ◽  
Regulatory State ◽  
European Union Policy ◽  
Union Policy ◽  
Modes Of Governance

This chapter examines the ‘governance turn’ in the study of European integration. Three approaches to governance are discussed: the multilevel governance approach, which emphasizes the nature of European Union policy-making as involving a multiplicity of actors on a variety of territorial levels beyond the nation state; the new governance approach (or agenda), which views the EU as a ‘regulatory state’ using nonmajoritarian decision-making to engage in problem-solving; and the study of new modes of governance, drawing on the use of non-binding instruments to make policies at the European level. The chapter also considers some of the important normative debates spawned by the ‘governance turn’ and concludes with some observations about the relevance of the governance approach in the current phase of European integration.

The Single European Act

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Desmond Dinan
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Technology Policy ◽  
Policy Research ◽  
Single Market ◽  
Majority Voting ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Intergovernmental Cooperation ◽  
Legislative Authority ◽  
Single European Act ◽  
Major Reform

The Single European Act (SEA) of 1986 was the first major reform of the founding treaties of the three original European Communities, the forerunners of the European Union (EU). The main purpose of the SEA was to facilitate implementation of the Single Market Program by the end of 1992, notably by making it possible for national governments to enact the necessary legislation in the Council of Ministers by means of qualified-majority voting (QMV). To complement the shift of decision-making from unanimity to QMV, the SEA also increased the legislative authority of the European Parliament by introducing the cooperation procedure. This was intended to help close the EC’s perceived democratic deficit, or at least to prevent it from widening. The SEA included changes in other policy areas as well as the single market, such as cohesion policy, environmental policy, research and technology policy, and intergovernmental cooperation on foreign policy (European Political Cooperation). The SEA, and the Single Market Program with which it is closely associated, became synonymous with the acceleration of European integration in the late 1980s. Procedurally and substantively, the SEA set a precedent for other, far-reaching treaty reforms, especially the Maastricht Treaty of 1992. Jacques Delors, who became commission president in 1985, is widely credited with having engineered the SEA. The leaders of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom may have played a more important role, especially as the SEA emerged out of a complicated intergovernmental conference, which culminated in a meeting of the European Council in December 1985. From the perspective of more than three decades later, with the EU facing serious setbacks, the SEA looks like a shining light in the history of European integration.

Risk Regulation in the EU Internal Market

2019 ◽  
pp. 47-85
Author(s):  
Maria Weimer
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Cost Benefit Analysis ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Institutional Context ◽  
Internal Market ◽  
Market Regulation ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Risk Regulation ◽  
Single European Act ◽  
The Eu

This chapter examines the evolution of risk regulation in the European Union since the Single European Act, with particular emphasis on how the legal and institutional context of the internal market has shaped the EU approach to risk. It first traces the emergence of supranational risk regulation in the EU with the ‘1992 project’ before discussing treaty reforms in the 1990s which strengthened the function of risk regulation as a justification of EU internal market regulation. It then considers the legitimacy dilemma faced by the EU with regard to risk regulation, focusing on the debate over the scope of political discretion that the precautionary principle should provide. It also analyses the application of the principles of risk and cost-benefit analysis to control discretion through science and economics, respectively. Finally, it explores risk regulation challenges arising from the legal-institutional, socio-economic, and cultural diversity in the Member States.

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