The European Union in the 21st Century


Book Description

The contributors to this book are all members of EuropEos, a multidisciplinary group of jurists, economists, political scientists, and journalists in an ongoing forum discussing European institutional issues. The essays analyze emerging shifts in common policies, institutional settings, and legitimization, sketching out possible scenarios for the European Union of the 21st century. They are grouped into three sections, devoted to economics and consensus, international projection of the Union, and the institutional framework. Even after the major organizational reforms introduced to the EU by the new Treaty of Lisbon, which came into force in December 2009, Europe appears to remain an entity in flux, in search of its ultimate destiny. In line with the very essence of EuropEos, the views collected in this volume are sometimes at odds in their specific conclusions, but they stem from a common commitment to the European construction.




Social policy in the European Union: state of play 2015


Book Description

The sixteenth edition of Social policy in the European Union: state of play has a triple ambition. First, it provides easily accessible information to a wide audience about recent developments in both EU and domestic social policymaking. Second, the volume provides a more analytical reading, embedding the key developments of the year 2014 in the most recent academic discourses. Third, the forward-looking perspective of the book aims to provide stakeholders and policymakers with specific tools that allow them to discern new opportunities to influence policymaking. In this 2015 edition of Social policy in the European Union: state of play, the authors tackle the topics of the state of EU politics after the parliamentary elections, the socialisation of the European Semester, methods of political protest, the Juncker investment plan, the EU’s contradictory education investment, the EU’s contested influence on national healthcare reforms, and the neoliberal Trojan Horse of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).




Differentiated Integration


Book Description

Far from displaying a uniform pattern of integration, the European Union varies significantly across policy areas, institutional development and individual countries. Why do some policies such as the Single Market attract non-EU member states, while some member states choose to opt out of other EU policies? In answering these questions, this innovative new text provides a state-of-the-art introduction to the study of European integration. The authors introduce the most important theories of European integration and apply these to the trajectories of key EU policy areas – including the single market, monetary policy, foreign and security policy, and justice and home affairs. Arguing that no single theory offers a completely convincing explanation of integration and differentiation in the EU, the authors put forward a new analytical perspective for describing and explaining the institutions and policies of the EU and their development over time. Written by a team of prominent scholars in the field, this thought-provoking book provides a new synthesis of integration theory and an original way of thinking about what the EU is and how it works.




Europe's Foreign and Security Policy


Book Description

The emergence of a common security and foreign policy has been one of the most contentious issues accompanying the integration of the European Union. In this book, Michael Smith examines the specific ways foreign policy cooperation has been institutionalized in the EU, the way institutional development affects cooperative outcomes in foreign policy, and how those outcomes lead to new institutional reforms. Smith explains the evolution and performance of the institutional procedures of the EU using a unique analytical framework, supported by extensive empirical evidence drawn from interviews, case studies, official documents and secondary sources. His perceptive and well-informed analysis covers the entire history of EU foreign policy cooperation, from its origins in the late 1960s up to the start of the 2003 constitutional convention. Demonstrating the importance and extent of EU foreign/security policy, the book will be of interest to scholars, researchers and policy-makers.




The Changing Face of European Labour Law and Social Policy


Book Description

In the realm of European employment law, tension exists between the concepts of 'economic policy' and 'social policy.' During recent years, a growing tendency to emphasize the 'economic' at the expense of the 'social' can be discerned. What this trend gives us'in the views of the leading figures in the field of European labour law and social policy whose considered analyses are presented in this volume'is a regime of 'grand declarations' about workers' rights, but with extremely limited enforcement potential. ,i>The Changing Face of European Labour Law and Social Policy presents some of the papers given at a series of colloquia sponsored by the Employment Law Research Unit at the University of Warwick in early 2002. In its assessment of the forces at work in European employment law today, these commentaries examine significant initiatives and issues, including:problems arising in the context of the Nice Charter;delivering 'equality' at the workplace under the new EU legal framework;the crisis facing workers' participation in practice;the prospects for trans-national collective bargaining;employment-related aspects of human rights under the ECHR; and,attempts to establish effective protections in relation to the working environment. Invaluable appendices include a report, as presented by the late Marco Biagi, of a high level group on reform of the European labour market; the text of the Social Policy Agenda, as approved at the Nice Summit of 2000; and the Commission's 'scoreboard' on the implementation of the Social Agenda as of 2002.With its down-to-earth analysis of the current status of the 'floor of rights' in the European work environment, The Changing Face of European Labour Law and Social Policy will be of inestimable value to all practitioners and scholars seeking to improve the quality of life for Europe's working population and the quality of regulation at the disposal of those charged with confronting the new challenges to social policy resulting from the radical transformation of Europe's economy and society.




The European Social Model in Crisis


Book Description

This is the first book to provide a comprehensive and systematic assessment of the impact of the crisis and austerity policies on all elements of the European Social Model. This book assesses the situation in each individual EU member state on the basi




The Ever-changing Union


Book Description

"The Ever-Changing Union" provides a concise overview of the EU's history, institutional structures and decision-making processes. As such, its aim is not to cover the breadth or complexity of information that can now be found in EU text books; this overview should provide the reader with all the information required to gain access to a complex institutional system that has been changing ever since its creation. In the first section the European integration process is described from its beginnings in the early 1950s to the current ratification problems of the Treaty of Lisbon. A second part presents the EU's main institutions with their distinct features and a third explains how these institutions interact within the European decision-making process as a whole. In addition, the Reader includes an overview of fundamental principles of the European integration process, a comparison between the EU and federalist systems, the basic features of the EU budget and the key innovations to be introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon. The book is written for those with an initial or occasional interest in European policies and politics. More particularly, the authors believe it to be useful for civil servants, diplomats, businesses, NGO representatives as well as students and scholars who encounter the European Union in their work.




Social Rights and Market Freedom in the European Constitution


Book Description

This is an account of the development of European labour and social security law as it interrelates with the evolution of market integration in the European Union. Giubboni presents, from a labour law perspective, a case study of the changes the European Community/European Union has undergone from its origins to the present day and of the ways these changes have affected the regulation of European Welfare States at national level. Drawing on the idea of 'embedded liberalism', Giubboni analyses the infiltration of EC competition and market law into national systems of labour and social security law and provides a normative framework for conceptualising the transformation of regulatory techniques implemented at the EU level. This important, interdisciplinary contribution to research in EU social law illustrates how the vision of social protection and solidarity is changing.




The Changing Institutional Face of British Employment Relations


Book Description

Employment protection in Britain, once seen as resting on collective bargaining supported by public policy, has increasingly come to be framed in terms of individual legal rights, enforceable before judicial forums such as employment tribunals. This dramatic shift towards juridification of the individual employment relationship has not only contributed towards significant changes to the institutional `landscape of employment relations in Britain, but also carries important implications for the future of employment law and regulation in `the home of collective bargaining. This comprehensive evaluation of current institutional reality and trends prepared to mark the 30th anniversary of the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) provides a unique look inside the key institutions of British employment relations. Each contributor leading academics and senior practitioners, all closely associated with particular institutions locates their institution in terms of purpose, origins, and context, discusses its structure, governance and composition, and assesses its operation, considering current challenges and future direction. In the course of examining issues relating to institutional choice and roles, the presentations offer contemporary views on the impact of decentralisation and the shrinking of collective bargaining, decline in trade union membership and strength, and the political effects of increasing global competition. The influence of EU social policy initiatives upon British legislative policy is identified, while attention is drawn to the consequences of an increased feminisation of the workforce, along with an increasing incidence of `non-standard workers and continuing service sector growth. Set alongside the evidence of decline in manufacturing, restructuring of the public sector, and the growth of the SME sector, this volume demonstrates the remarkable pressures for change which have impacted upon the institutions of British employment relations over the past thirty years. These essays offer an especially valuable mix of expert independent discussion along with personal insights gained from direct involvement in the operation of the key bodies. As a much-needed overview and basis for evaluation of the current institutional map of British employment relations, as well as a contemporary consideration of lessons to be drawn from the changing institutional face of employment relations in Britain, this book will be of inestimable value to policy-makers and practitioners in the field, as well as to students, academics, and more generally interested observers of the British experience.