In or Out?

Author(s):  
Catherine E. De Vries

This chapter introduces a benchmark theory of public opinion towards European integration. Rather than relying on generic labels like support or scepticism, the chapter suggests that public opinion towards the EU is both multidimensional and multilevel in nature. People’s attitudes towards Europe are essentially based on a comparison between the benefits of the status quo of membership and those associated with an alternative state, namely one’s country being outside the EU. This comparison is coined the ‘EU differential’. When comparing these benefits, people rely on both their evaluations of the outcomes (policy evaluations) and the system that produces them (regime evaluations). This chapter presents a fine-grained conceptualization of what it means to be an EU supporter or Eurosceptic; it also designs a careful empirical measurement strategy to capture variation, both cross-nationally and over time. The chapter cross-validates these measures against a variety of existing and newly developed data sources.

Author(s):  
Catherine E. De Vries

This chapter introduces a novel typology of support and scepticism that captures public opinion towards European integration in its full complexity. Four ideal types of public opinion are proposed: exit scepticism, regime scepticism, policy scepticism, and loyal support. These types are based on people’s evaluations of the regime and policy benefits associated with the status quo of EU membership and the alternative state, i.e. being outside the EU. The typology suggests that people may either be ambivalent about the EU because they simultaneously like and dislike certain aspects of it, or either fully embrace or reject the EU (both in terms of its regime and policies). The distinction between ambivalent and unified attitudes is important, for the discussion in Chapters 6 and 7 will show that people who hold more ambivalent attitudes are less likely to act on these preferences compared to those who hold more unified attitudes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Niels Keijzer

This paper presents a historical-institutionalist perspective on the EU’s current efforts to modernise its development policy and reform its various relationships with third countries. Applying concepts that endogenise institutional change, the analysis looks into the origin and basis of the policy and describes the various types of development partnership that the EU pursues with third countries. The paper subsequently analyses the 2007 Joint Africa-EU Strategy and the negotiations on EU-ACP post-2020, with a specific focus on how the development of these partnerships over time affects current EU efforts to seek to move beyond donor-recipient relations. It observes a gap between the reform-oriented discourse and the relative continuity in relationships over time, which serves to secure both the support of reform-oriented actors and those seeking to preserve the status quo. Repetition of this strategy over time combined with the need to launch new initiatives as well as changing circumstances affect this broad-based consensus and the legitimacy of the partnerships concerned.


Significance The event was notable in that it had been preceded and in a sense pre-empted by the Brexit speech May delivered in Florence on September 22. Impacts A transition period resembling the status quo may reassure businesses that there will be no sudden break in trading. The Conservatives may seek to avoid an early election, hoping tensions within Labour over its future direction will intensify over time. The EU may be unwilling to accept the highly complicated ‘Switzerland’ model as an option for the EU-UK post-Brexit relationship.


2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaia Balp

This article outlines potential pros and cons of a future European regulation of proxy advisory firms, as set forth in the Commission’s Proposal for a Directive amending Directive 2007/36/EC. After summarizing criticisms concerning the proxy advisory industry, and findings regarding its de facto influence on investors’ voting conduct both in the US and in the European context, the article adverts to why the power of proxy advisors appears to be overestimated. Uncertainty on the status quo of the industry’s actual impact on key decisions in listed companies, as well as costs associated with a regulation, need to be considered for assessing the suitability of the rules drafted to ensure adequate levels of independence and quality of voting recommendations. While transparency rules may be preferred to stricter legal constraints or requirements in a first stage, possible shortcomings of the Draft Directive exist that may undermine its effectiveness. Analyzing the amendments to the Proposal adopted by the European Parliament, and the Council’s Presidency compromise text, may suggest a preferable approach as regards single rules still making their way through the European legislative process.


2015 ◽  
Vol 68 (3) ◽  
pp. 607-621 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jake Haselswerdt ◽  
Brandon L. Bartels

2020 ◽  
pp. 137-155
Author(s):  
Frank Schimmelfennig ◽  
Thomas Winzen

This chapter examines negotiations on differentiated disintegration in the case of Brexit. It includes the efforts of the British government to renegotiate its EU membership prior to the referendum in June 2016 and the subsequent negotiations of the Withdrawal Agreement. The chapter shows that the same factors that explain demand for differentiated integration can also explain demand for differentiated disintegration. However, the supply conditions differ fundamentally. In disintegration negotiations, the EU enjoys the superior institutional bargaining power of the status quo-oriented actor, the superior material bargaining power produced by starkly asymmetrical economic interdependence, and the coherence and unity bestowed by supranational procedures and a common interest in preventing and deterring cherry-picking behaviour.


2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 711-723
Author(s):  
Michael F Müller

Abstract The modern practice of securities trading has led to almost insurmountable tensions with classical conflict-of-laws doctrine. The Hague Securities Convention set out to provide for a new and uniform solution. In a recent communication from the Commission, the topic has resurfaced on the European agenda. Against this background, this article poses the question of whether the discussion around the Convention can serve as a lesson for the European Union (EU). It is submitted that neither the status quo of EU law is satisfactory nor does the adoption of the Convention offer a fully convincing solution but that the problem should be targeted at its root: the outdated concept of some national substantive laws in intermediated securities.


2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-39
Author(s):  
Ruth Kelly

In the light of the disparity of bargaining leverage in FTA negotiations between the EU or the U.S. and developing countries, this article presents a legal mechanism to maintain the status quo, that is, the acquis of current trade arrangements. On the basis of the test established in the EC-Tariff Preferences case, it is argued that the Enabling Clause allows for differentiation between developing countries on the basis of their levels of intra-regional trade. A scheme is then constructed which allows the EU and the U.S. to differentiate in favor of current beneficiaries of non-reciprocal trade preference schemes in this way. This allows the EU and the U.S. to maintain the acquis without making radical changes to their trade and development policy. Where the status quo is an option, developing countries involved in FTA negotiations would have a feasible best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA) to replace the current alternative of a significant reduction of market access to the EU or the U.S. While the maintenance of the status quo is up to the industrialized country in question, given that the trade preferences are unilateral in nature, the scheme constructed debunks the myth that there is a legal requirement to replace the current arrangements by reciprocal trade agreements in the absence of a waiver.


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