European Union

This summer came 10 years since Nato stopped bombing Serbia. Agreement was made that Serb forces leave Kosovo and the province will be administrated de facto international protectorate by UN being however under sovereignty of Serbia (UNSC resolution 1244). So ten years has gone, the province declared independence and EU is now implementing its agenda after UN’s modest try – or better say failure. As my picture about Kosovo is much more negative than high flown UN/EU reports a small update about Kosovo case is justified.

The 29 July early parliamentary elections in Moldova swept Europe’s last ruling Communist party from power by pro-EU opposition parties. With 98.3 percent of votes counted, the Communist Party won 48 seats in the 101-seat Moldovan parliament and the four opposition parties collected 53 seats. The former Soviet republic has been experiencing a political crisis since the April elections that turned into a week of violent demonstrations by young pro-opposition activists in the capital Chisinau, dubbed the “Twitter revolution” (More in my article “Twitter Revolution - Case Moldova” )

Ukraine is currently negotiating visa-free travel with the EU as part of a wide-ranging association agreement, as some of the country's politicians express hopes for a clearer "European perspective". EurActiv outlines various scenarios for Ukraine's expected rocky path towards closer EU integration.

Background: Ukraine, a country of 46 million people wedged between the EU and Russia, has broken with its Soviet and totalitarian past, but its democracy is still young and fragile.  While enlargement to Ukraine is not officially on the table and is widely seen as premature, the option is supported by Central European countries and many Ukrainian politicians. On the other hand, the EU's readiness to absorb large countries like Turkey or Ukraine is currently limited.  Ukraine's record has been shaky since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and the Orange Revolution in 2004, notably due to government instability, fights between the prime minister and the president, and numerous scandals (see EurActiv 04/09/08).  In parallel, Ukraine is negotiating an association agreement with the EU, which would essentially see the two open their markets to one another, like any free trade agreement, but one step short of the customs union in force with Turkey. Creating visa-free travel with Ukraine could also be an important step in its EU rapprochement.  Ukrainian membership of NATO was rejected at the Bucharest Summit in April 2008, at the same time as Georgia's was turned down (EurActiv 02/04/09). According to some analysts, the decision facilitated the latter's invasion of South Ossetia and Abkhazia four months later. 

Many politicians in Ukraine wish to see their country enter the EU through the main entrance. The reality, however, is that the process will likely result in entry via a side door after hanging around in several waiting rooms in the meantime, experts in Brussels and Kyiv told EurActiv. 

Just days after Iceland filed its application to join the European Union, EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels today (27 July) are expected to accept it and ask the European Commission to draft an opinion.

Diplomats told EurActiv they were confident that the EU foreign ministers would forward Iceland's application to the Commission for an opinion - a thorough screening of the candidate's credentials based on answers to a questionnaire.  The procedure, which follows Iceland's formal application on 16 July, is progressing much more quickly than with other candidates, diplomats pointed out. 

But the negotiations will not all be plain-sailing for Iceland.  Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen recently said his country would block Iceland's EU accession if the country did not reimburse Dutch victims of a bankrupt Icelandic bank, Icesave, a web-based subsidiary of the Landsbanki bank from which many savers from Britain and the Netherlands are awaiting reimbursement.  But the issue will be part of the Commission's opinion, other diplomats explained, saying that no objections are expected to be raised either by Britain or the Netherlands at this stage.  Also, a diplomat from a country with a long coast warned that fisheries could mean Iceland's accession process takes longer than expected. He referred to positions expressed by the island's foreign minister, Össur Skarphéðinsson, that Reykjavik would not accept a rotten deal with the EU for its powerful fishing industry.  Seafood accounts for almost half of Iceland's exports and 10% of its gross domestic product. 

The “European perspective” is key concept for integrating western Balkans into EU. The main carrot for ordinary people during this millennium has been visa-free travel after some 17 years of isolation. On 15th July 2009, the European Commission submitted its proposal on visa-free travel for citizens of Western Balkans countries. After a non-binding opinion of the European parliament on the EC proposal the Council comprising EU interior ministers will take the official vote and at best case free travel to Schengen area could be possible January 2010. But not for all! European perspective will be true only for some when visa ban still will be existing for some countries or even to some ethnic groups inside a country. Instead of connecting people of western Balkans with western Europe the EC proposal will divide again people according their nationality or location. From EU’s side the reason for division is seen technical related to common standards; from western Balkan’s perspective the reasons for division can be seen political or even related to religion.

It is universally accepted that there has been a huge growth in EU lobbying over the past few decades. There is now a dense EU interest group system. This entirely new volume, inspired by Mazey & Richardson's 1993 book Lobbying in the European Community, seeks to understand the role of interest groups in the policy process from agenda-setting to implementation. Specifically, the book is interested in observing how interest groups organise to influence the EU institutions and how they select different coalitions along the policy process and in different policy domains. In looking at 20 years of change, the book captures processes of institutional and actor learning, professionalisation of lobbying, and the possible emergence of a distinct EU public policy style. More specifically, from the actors' perspective, the editors are interested in assessing how the rise of direct lobbying and the emergence of fluid issue-based coalitions has changed the logic of collective action, and what is the potential impact of 'venue-shopping' on reputation and influence. From an institutional perspective, the contributors explore resource and legitimacy demands, and the practical impact of consultation processes on the emergence of a distinct EU lobbying relationship. It will be essential reading for academics and practitioners alike.

Having consistently made 'technical' progress, Bulgaria and Romania need help to crack down on corruption, the European Commission said on 22 July with the publication of its annual monitoring reports, pledging further support while the two EU newcomers remain under scrutiny.

Background: When Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU on 1 January 2007, shortcomings remained regarding judicial reform and the fight against corruption - and in the case of Bulgaria, the fight against organised crime. These shortcomings carried the risk that the two countries would be unable to apply Community law correctly and their citizens would not be able to fully enjoy their rights as EU citizens.  A Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) was set up to assist both member states. Moreover, the European Commission retained the right to use special safeguards, included in the accession treaties and invoked against new member states as a last resort. If used, the process could lead the EU to refuse to recognise court decisions or even freeze payments of EU funds. Such an unprecedented decision, if applied, would also badly hurt the countries' reputations.  In a turnaround compared to previous monitoring reports, where Bulgaria was invariably portrayed as the laggard in meeting EU standards on judicial reform and fighting corruption (EurActiv 24/07/09), the Brussels executive unveiled reports last February which depicted Romania as the slow performer this time (EurActiv 13/02/09).  The annual reports on Bulgaria and Romania are prepared by the Commission's secretariat-general under the authority of President José Manuel Barroso, in agreement with Vice-President Jacques Barrot. Recently the French Senate cautioned against "stigmatising" the EU's most recent members and suggested fine-tuning the CVM (EurActiv 30/06/09). 

Centre-right politicians from Germany's Christian Social Union (CSU) have spoken out against Iceland's bid to join the European Union. "The EU cannot play saviour to Iceland's economic crisis," Markus Ferber, head of the CSU's members of the European parliament, told Suedduetsche newspaper over the weekend.

"We should discuss the structure of the EU before we discuss expanding it," said Alexander Dobrindt, General Secretary of the CSU, which is the smaller sister party to German chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union. The newspaper reports that the manifesto for both parties for the 27 September general election will indirectly oppose further EU enlargement, with the exception of Croatia.

Germany's debate on how much national say there should be over further EU integration is intensifying two weeks after the country's constitutional court handed down a significant judgement on the EU's Lisbon Treaty. The judgement was initially greeted with relief by the pro-integration camp as it did not say the EU treaty was incompatible with the German constitution.

But the 147-page ruling, now scoured by legal and constitutional experts, is causing strong discussion in political circles, just weeks before a new draft law incorporating the court's points is to be published.

Abstract Conflict transformation means a change for the better that relates to the conflict object, the parties to the conflict and the way they pursue their antagonistic interests. This article investigates how the prospect of being integrated into the European Union can transform ethno-political conflicts over secession. It sketches out a framework of potential positive and negative impacts and it applies these considerations to Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was offered the possibility of membership in 1999. Since 2002, the prospect of integration has furthered conflict transformation through setting incentives to put up with the contested common state, providing the parties to the conflict with a shared vision, and reinforcing the norms of democracy and non-violence. However, the EU could lose its constructive influence, if it ignores that some of its demands serve the interests of one side while they violate these of the other.

This special issue is a systematic attempt to understand why and when European Union Member States succeed or fail in negotiating common policies for the world stage. It highlights the EU’s lack of automatic unity in world affairs, and focuses on the process by which Member States negotiate their differences in the quest for common policies.

Each wave of expansion of the European Union has led to political tensions and conflict. Existing members fear their membership privileges will diminish and candidates are loath to concede the expected benefits of membership. Despite these conflicts, enlargement has always succeeded - so why does the EU continue to admit new states even though current members might lose from their accession? Combining political economy logic with statistical and case study analyses, Christina J. Schneider argues that the dominant theories of EU enlargement ignore how EU members and applicant states negotiate the distribution of enlargement benefits and costs. She explains that EU enlargement happens despite distributional conflicts if the overall gains of enlargement are redistributed from the relative winners among existing members and applicants to the relative losers. If the overall gains from enlargement are sufficiently great, a redistribution of these gains will compensate losers, making enlargement attractive for all states.• Offers an in-depth overview of existing literature on EU integration and enlargement • Features past enlargements, the formal enlargement process, and other information relevant for EU enlargement • Includes a combination of different methods: game-theory, quantitative analysis and case studiesContents1. Introduction; 2. EU enlargements and transitional periods; 3. A rationalist puzzle of EU enlargement?; 4. A theory of discriminatory membership; 5. EU enlargement, distributional conflicts, and the demand for compensation; 6. The discriminatory of membership; 7. Discriminatory membership and intra-union redistribution; 8. Conclusion.

Das Bundesverfassungsgericht hat den umstrittenen EU-Reformvertrag von Lissabon nur unter Auflagen gebilligt und die Zustimmung Deutschlands vorerst gestoppt. Zuerst müssen Bundestag und Bundesrat mehr Mitbestimmungsrechte bei EU-Entscheidungen erhalten, wie die Richter am Dienstag in Karlsruhe verkündeten. Insgesamt ist das Abkommen aber mit dem Grundgesetz vereinbar. Der Bundestag will noch vor der Wahl im September die Karlsruher Forderungen umsetzen. Erst dann darf Bundespräsident Horst Köhler das deutsche Gesetz zu dem Vertrag unterzeichnen.

In the aftermath of the most ambitious accession bargain, attention has been directed away from EU negotiations to the tricky task of selling the elite enlargement deal to the voters. Focusing on past enlargement rounds, this book explores the link between diverse elite motives for pursuing membership and relatively constant variation in EU public support. National elite attitudes to integration contain the clues to the explanation of why utilitarian and affective support has traditionally been higher in some countries than in others. EU public opinion does not simply reflect the economic interests and identities of individuals faced with an objective reality. Rather, citizens face an endogenously shaped world, filtered by elite opinions on membership. Drawing upon "flexibility," this book advances a model of "theoretical differentiation" distinguishing between rationally and affectively driven entrants. Empirically, the tenacity of "differentiation" in EU legitimacy is examined through the use of original and secondary data. Combining qualitative and quantitative methods, this study aspires to further debate on enlargement and public opinion engaging scholars and EU practitioners.

This timely, comprehensive and authoritative study provides much food for thought for European policy makers, particularly in the current situation of uncertainty about the Lisbon Treaty. The authors' basically upbeat findings - that, despite the arrival of twelve new member states in one big bang and one after shock, it has been pretty much business as usual for the EU's institutions - will comfort both those who worried about the EU's capacity to act in the absence of institutional reform and those who argued that such reform was unnecessary. But the editors identify a number of emerging dynamics that will be of concern to all who care about the Union's democratic future: increasing formalisation of meetings and procedures on the one hand, coupled with an increase in informal, pre-cooked deals on the other; increasing primacy of the administrative over the political; and a growing trend towards "presidentialisation" within the institutions, with continued efficiency requiring more emphasis on the "primus" than on the "pares". The editors conclude that, while the European Union's institutional system continues to function and might even become more efficient, the price to be paid could further distance the Union from the citizens it seeks to serve.'

The 2004 and 2007 enlargements pushed the EU's external border further east as well as closer to unstable areas in the western Balkans. With future enlargements unlikely in the short-term, the EU faces new challenges in securing stable relationships with these neighbouring countries, while not fostering false hopes of early accession. This book explores the challenges facing the EU in developing its relations with neighboring countries in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe following the enlargements of 2004 and 2007.

The Czech social democrat party is discussing the possibility of suspending president Vaclav Klaus' powers if he does not sign the EU's Lisbon treaty. The temporary suspension would require a simple majority of 41 votes in the country's 81-seat senate and would allow caretaker prime minister Jan Fischer to sign the document instead.

The president's powers could be suspended on grounds that he is unable to discharge his official functions because he is trying to act above the law. "There is nothing in the constitution that gives the president the right to veto decisions of the country's highest institutions. Otherwise we could be considered as some kind of absolutist monarchy," former Constitutional Court judge Vojtech Cepl told newspaper Mlada fronta Dnes on Thursday (25 June).