European Union

The global financial and economic crisis has had a severe impact upon the economic and political situation all over Europe. The Western Balkan countries, however, suffer doubly from the current situation: The crisis increased the EU member states’ enlargement fatigue while at the same time threatening the positive development of South East Europe’s economies over the past years. The EU accession of the region thus becomes an even more distant prospect at a moment when the EU’s support is crucial to prevent a destabilization of the region. The targeted distribution of existing EU funds and the drafting of a strategy inspired by “Europe 2020” could contribute to the economic consolidation of the region. These steps should be accompanied by political measures such as the speeding up of Croatia’s accession negotiations and the granting of the candidate status to the other countries.

The European Union continues to constitute an incomplete economic-political entity at intergovernmental and supranational level. The EU is seeking to establish appropriate functional superstructures extending beyond the narrow confines of trade, the economy and free market rules to accommodate its integral progress as a new force for prosperity, democracy and peace in the world. On the map of the Balkans, the local political actors continue to define their choices in line with their historic experience and stereotypes, especially as regards their neighbours and the Great Powers of the moment. The Balkan countries, which in any case are still seeking to consolidate their conventional state structures, need much more time to find their place within this unfinished supranational European structure. In both cases the actors involved, whether in the EU or in the Balkans, are grappling with the challenges of global politics from their different starting-points, but it is not easy to overcome the boundaries of their national sovereignty.

Holland shall decide about application by Serbia for the candidate status on October 13, ‘Blic’ learns. Information one could get in The Hague yesterday is that report by the chief Hague prosecutor Serge Brammertz that ‘conditioning and pressure’ should remain as crucial for arrest of the war crimes suspects, has not left much room to the Dutch to decide.

Abstract Why has Serbia’s path toward European integration been fraught with so much difficulty? This article explains Serbia’s reluctance to Europeanize by exploring why Serbian elites persistently refused to fulfill the European Union’s principal requirement—full cooperation with the Hague war crimes tribunal—even when it meant getting off the road to Brussels. The article offers a theoretical framework that incorporates domestic political identity, power of veto players, and competing elite strategies to explain how Serbian political actors used European Union norms and institutions to advance local political agendas. The article concludes that, instead of being a successful change agent that brought about policy shift in the areas of democratization and human rights, the European Union was used on many occasions by Serbian political elites to pursue strategies far removed from EU norms and standards.

A group of EU commissioners from smaller member states is growing increasingly angry with a number of their larger-state colleagues, perceiving their actions as being driven by national interests rather than the greater European good. "We have sworn in front of the European Court not to work for our national governments back home and I am taking it seriously," a frustrated commissioner from a smaller EU country said in an off-the-record conversation with EUobserver last week.

"The bigger the EU becomes the more it becomes intergovernmental and the more the commission is regarded as an executive secretariat for the council," says Belgian MEP Derk Jan Eppink, a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists group in parliament. Author of Life of a European Mandarin – Inside the Commission, Mr Eppink previously worked in the cabinets of former commissioner Frits Bolkestein and subsequently that of Siim Kallas. "Commissioners from larger member states frequently feel they have to produce the goods for their governments back home, while those from smaller countries realise they don't have the capacity to do this," he said, pointing to former commissioner Gunter Verheugen's willingness to stand up for German industry.

Despite international community’s state building efforts in Bosnia the country is splitting parts Since war 15 years ago foreign aid has exceed USD 80 bn for artificial creature designed in Dayton agreement aiming multi-ethnic state with EU perspective. As a result Bosnia is now even more divided, with less national identity, 20 percent of population living under the poverty line, with a nightmare triple administration plus international supervising making the country as worst place in Europe to do business west of Ukraine, even as it seeks to join the European Union. (Bosnia this year ranked 116th in World Bank’s ease of doing business index.)

Egemen Bağış, Turkey's chief EU negotiator, sought yesterday (29 September) to unblock Ankara's accession bid by calling on European Union countries to call referenda on the country's EU membership. Turkey may also chose to consult its citizens, he said.

So-called 'Norway status' (see 'Background') appears to be a formula which Turkey is officially putting on the table, it emerged after a two-hour Q&A session between Bağış and the Brussels press. Bağış, who is a leading politician from Turkey's AKP party, repeatedly referred to Norway, which had completed accession negotiations but twice decided not to join the Union following referenda lost by narrow margins in 1972 and 1994.

After Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov took his turn among a succession of heads of state and government to have talks with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the start of the General Assembly’s new season, the UN’s news service said that Kosovo had topped the agenda, specifically the prospects for talks between Belgrade and Priština.Given hopes in diplomatic circles that on the sidelines of the General Assembly talkfest, an arrangement could be brokered to open negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo, the topic of the Borissov-Ban discussions was hardly a surprise – especially given Bulgaria’s desire to take the lead in helping to get the Western Balkans on an even keel.

These developments all preceded what many hoped would be a turning point in New York – a scheduled September 23 meeting between EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and  Tadić, at which – or so it was hoped – there would be some agreement on starting an EU-brokered set of talks between Belgrade and Priština, including a starting date for the dialogue.On September 20, Ashton met Kosovo prime minister Hashim Thaçi. Media in Priština said that Thaçi had told Ashton that Kosovo was prepared to talk to Serbia about matters of mutual interest, but with the issues of Kosovo’s status decidedly off the agenda.

Journal of European Public Policy, Volume 17 Issue 7 2010 At the Frontier of the Single European Market: The Political Economy of Market Integration in the Early Twenty-first Century Highly ranked in the Public Administration category of the ISI Social Sciences Citation Index. ISSN: 1466-4429 (electronic) 1350-1763 (paper) Publication Frequency: 8 issues per year Subjects: European Studies; Public Policy; Publisher: Routledge

The Greek sovereign debt crisis is forcing Europeans to rethink the coordination of their national economic policies, confronting the euro area with its most severe test since its launch eleven years ago.

In January 2010, Greece was found sitting on debts that are expected to hit 290 billion euro this year. Its budget deficit stood at 12.7% of gross domestic product, more than four times the EU limit. 

Faced with an unprecedented speculative attack on the euro, EU countries were compelled to act decisively in order to calm jittery financial markets. In May, they agreed to establish a rescue mechanism worth €750 billion to protect the euro from collapsing under the weight of accumulated debt (EurActiv 10/05/10). Root causes left unaddressed However, the short-term fire-fighting measured soon proved insufficient to tackle the root causes of the problem as markets started questioning the loose coordination of national policies that underpin the eurozone’s economic governance. Indeed, EU institutions currently only have limited powers on economic policy, an area where unanimity decision-making remains the rule. The EU’s main instruments include reviews and non-binding recommendations by the European Commission, such as the stability and convergence programmes and Broad Economic Policy Guidelines, which are submitted for approval by member states in the EU Council of Minister.

This Living Review uses concepts of aggregation to analyse what we do and do not know about the contribution of political parties to the politics and democratic performance of the European Union. It suggests that present representative structures are better at aggregating ‘choices of policies’ than ‘choices of leaders’. Much more, however, needs to be done to analyse the causal contribution of party actors to those patterns of aggregation, and to understand why European Union parties do not develop further where aggregation seems to be deficient in the EU arena

Exasperated Turkey slammed its fist on the table this weekend saying Europe is dragging its feet on EU entry talks, while the 27-nation bloc sought to boost ties with a nation whose worldwide weight is on the rise.After sitting down for talks on Saturday with the 27-nation bloc's foreign affairs chiefs, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said: "I expressed our dissatisfaction with the speed of the negotiations, I expressed it clearly."

Since the kickoff of entry talks in 2005, movement has been sluggish, due to the deadlock over Cyprus, the slow pace of reforms in Turkey and, more fundamentally, because France and Germany are wary of seeing the Muslim-majority nation of 75 million join the bloc.

But Ankara can bank on the support of other EU states in its bid to join.Britain, which in July publicly expressed its opposition to France and Germany on the question, this weekend reiterated its willingness to see progress on the entry talks."It would be good to see those talks speed up," said Foreign Secretary William Hague, as with Turkey inside the EU "there is a very powerful combination to have.""It's very important to show some momentum on this and the UK will be trying to make sure that that happens before the end of the year," he said.Sweden's Carl Bildt took an even stronger tack.

Belgrade has praised the UN General Assembly's adoption of a resolution on Kosovo that calls for dialogue between the state and Serbia. Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic said the decision on Thursday night was an important move as it ended the process Serbia had started by requesting a legal opinion from the International Court of Justice, ICJ, on Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence.

Some opposition parties in Serbia were quick to label the adoption "a defeat and shame for the Serbian people". Dragan Todorovic from the opposition Serbian Radical Party, SRS, called Thursday's adoption the "most shameful and hardest hit" that Serbia had suffered in its history. "Everyone who watched the session could see how Serbia has lost Kosovo, for which it has been fighting for generations in only one way," Todorovic told Balkan Insight.

Kosovo's government has declared a victory at the UN General Assembly after it adopted a resolution calling for talks between Pristina and Belgrade. Officials in Pristina said on Friday that the modified resolution supported by all the EU member states and the US was in "full harmony with the new reality in Kosovo". The modified document, agreed by Belgrade after two days of intense pressure from Brussels, excludes the issue of Kosovo’s status in future dialogue with Serbia.

But, not everyone in Kosovo saw the new resolution as a "done deal" with Serbia. Ibrahim Makolli, the vice president of the Kosovo’s opposition party, the New Kosovo Alliance, AKR, told Balkan Insight: “I don’t see any reasons why Kosovo’s government is euphoric in this event since it was not a participant in drafting this document.” Makolli said Serbia’s agreement with the EU on the resolution should worry Kosovo’s government. “Kosovo’s government needs to know what the promises are from the EU to Serbia for this compromise. In fact, they know, but they are silent,” he said.

It is time for a decision on the Macedonian name issue' was the message delivered in no uncertain terms by EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso to Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov during a meeting in Brussels. Macedonia received a positive assessment from the Commission last November on its general preparedness for EU membership, clearing the way for the country to start EU membership talks. In the EU Council, however, the move was blocked by Greece, which is grumbling over the long-standing name issue.

Brussels diplomats say they are confused by the Macedonian attitude. For a long time, Greece had been the hesitant party, trying to avoid a solution. "This time, the position of Greece is very clear, we have the impression that they have moved and made an effort in the right direction and we wait for Skopje's response which is not coming", one diplomat said.

European Commission President José Manuel Barroso urged Macedonia and Greece to resolve once and for all their twenty-year dispute over the EU hopeful's name after meeting Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov in Brussels yesterday (9 September).

Greece views the official name used by Skopje – the Republic of Macedonia – as an open challenge to its own region of Macedonia and, as a result, is blocking the country's EU accession talks and its entry into NATO (see EurActiv LinksDossier). "I understand the extreme sensitivities of this issue, but I call on all sides to resolve this obstacle as quickly as possible. It's time to decide. We believe now it is time to decide on this issue of the name," stated Barroso. Since November 2009, Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and his Greek counterpart George Papandreou have been holding direct talks, with UN mediation, in an attempt to break the deadlock. Seemingly, progress has been made.

Summary: The entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, after a tortuous ratification process, has opened up new vistas, marked by two factors that will affect the Trio Presidency (Spain, Belgium and Hungary) with regard to Justice and Home affairs (JHA). First, the application of the Lisbon Treaty; second, the completion of the Hague Programme will give way to a new project, namely the Stockholm Programme. Another challenge to be tackled by the Trio Presidency will be to ensure the coherence and unity of the internal and external dimensions of the JHA field.