Despite ambitious targets for greenhouse gas emissions reductions, renewable energy use and energy efficiency, the EU was unable to play a central role in last year´s climate negotiations in Copenhagen. Lack of internal coordination was one reason, the EU budget not being adapted to the climate goals another.
There have been large increases in budget deficits throughout the EU, leading to considerable rises in the stock of public debt as a percentage of GDP. The costs of maintaining high debt levels should not exaggerated.
The economic and financial crisis was one of the most important issues handled during the Swedish EU presidency. The outcome, preceded by at times difficult negotiations, was a political decision concerning a new framework for supervision of the financial market in the EU.
In the negotiations on the Union’s annual expenditures decision is taken by qualified majority voting (QMV). In this report Professor Mika Widgrén investigates the relationship between the Council voting rules and EU budget transfers by using a power politics model.
Austria joined the EU in January 1995. It had been a long road to membership.
This report traces the origins of the EU decision to set up battlegroups, describes the underlying political and military concepts and analyses the challenges that the EU and its member states face in realising the Headline goal 2010, the plan adopted by the European defence ministers in June 2004 with the aim of improving European military capabilities. It also discusses the broader question of whether or not a military capability allows the EU to better achieve its goals.
This compiled report contains contributions from Carl Fredrik Bergström, Jörgen Hettne, Josefin Almer and Maria Bergström. The report has been published within the framework of the project "A Constitution for Europe".
This report analyzes current tendencies in decision-making and the evolving concept of “legislation” in the EU. The causes and consequences of the “legal basis game” are discussed.
Two years after the historic enlargement of the European Union, the attraction of membership is manifested by the long line of new applicant countries. This report studies the role of the EU in the domestic policy processes in the former and current applicant countries of Central and Eastern Europe, with a focus on the dynamics of the legal approximation process.