Commission Communication Research Articles

European ports policy: meeting contemporary governance challenges

This article assesses how the European Union (EU) views the role of port authorities. It addresses the impact of EU law and EU policy on port governance models and, in particular, analyses whether the European Commission's 2007 ports policy communication provides adequate instruments to meet contemporary governance challenges. For that purpose, an overview is first given of some of the main governance challenges of European ports as well as a brief insight in governance reform processes in EU Member States. The article also contains a bird's-eye view on the evolution of EU ports policy, paying particular attention to the basic objectives involved, the debate on the port services’ Directive and the process that led to the Commission's new communication. The article concludes with further research questions on the influence of the EU on port governance reform in Member States.

The French Presidency's European Pact on Immigration and Asylum: Intergovernmentalism vs. Europeanisation? Security vs. Rights?

The intersection between the Commission Communication on a Common Immigration Policy for Europe, another on a Policy Plan on Asylum and the various drafts of the French Presidency's European Pact on Immigration and Asylum, raises a number of questions: First, what are the nature, context and key issues of the Pact? Does it present anything really new to the current state of affairs in EU law and policy? Second, does the EU really need a pact on immigration and asylum, given the already ongoing processes of Europeanisation surrounding these policy domains? And third, are the EU interests and the Commission's priorities fully compatible with the logic driving the Pact, or does it represent a competing model between 'more Europe' and the principle of subsidiarity and security versus rights in the area of immigration, borders and asylum?

The European Commission's sustainable consumption and production and sustainable industrial policy action plan

The promotion of sustainable consumption and production patterns is enshrined as a key objective in the renewed European Union Sustainable Development Strategy (EU SDS). Sustainable consumption and production is arguably the most challenging aspect of the EU SDS. It requires changes to the way products and services are designed, produced, used and disposed of, taking into account producer and consumer behaviours. This paper reviews the European Commission's Communication on the sustainable consumption and production and sustainable industrial policy action plan, introduced on July 16, 2008. The paper examines the priority areas identified for action, the means adopted to improve energy and environmental performance of products as well as uptake by consumers. The paper concludes that the absence of mandatory quantifiable targets and deadlines and a reliance on both cross-sectoral and multi-level relationships are likely to weaken the ability of the action plan's fundamental objective of decoupling economic growth from resource use.

Olga Ferguson Sidorenko, The Common European Asylum System: Background, Current State of Affairs, Future Direction

This book purports to analyse and evaluate the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). It sets out to undertake the very ambitious task of examining the background, current state of affairs and future direction of the CEAS, a most timely and pertinent enterprise since the first set of legislative instruments was adopted between 2001 and 2005 and (except for certain procedural measures) the deadline for transposition has already expired. The book is divided into four chapters, preceded by an introduction and followed by concluding remarks. Chapter one contains an overview of some of the relevant treaties that inform the development of the CEAS, including the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees 1951 (Refugee Convention), 1 the Treaty on European Union 2 and the Treaty of Amsterdam. 3 It also contains references to the decision-making process in the field of asylum established by the Treaty of Amsterdam and the powers of the different institutions. Chapter two contains an overview of the different legislative instruments adopted between 2001 and 2005 in the field of asylum, as well as reference to other related instruments, such as those on family reunification and long-term residence. Chapter three explores the actual implications of the CEAS at the national level, examining the way in which one of the Member States, Slovakia, has faced its obligations in this field. Finally, Chapter four contains an overview of the policy instruments that inform the CEAS, notably, European Council conclusions and European Commission communications.

The EC courts' contribution to refining the parameters of precaution

By virtue of its ambiguity, it has largely been left to the courts to flesh out the scope and application of the precautionary principle. This paper examines the contribution made by EC courts to defining the parameters of precautionary decision making. In so doing, it illustrates that, though the precautionary principle is seen to operate in a number of regulatory contexts, discernible trends in judicial interpretations of precaution and the underlying notion of ‘uncertainty’ can nevertheless be identified. In contrast with early judgments, the courts are beginning to explicitly interpret risk assessment processes as having a pivotal role in determining precautionary intervention. Rather than finding simply that circumstances of uncertainty warrant precautionary measures, the courts have started to require that clear, or ‘concrete’, evidence of harm, deriving from risk assessment, is established before intervention is justified. This paper posits three explanations for this shift: (i) the ‘better regulation’ initiative within Europe; (ii) the Commission's Communication on the Precautionary Principle; and (iii) WTO litigation on precautionary safeguard measures. The judicial move to affiliate precaution with risk assessment processes in decision making can be seen as a reflection of these factors.

9 A Communication Tool for Emergency Medicine Residents to Improve Patient Care and Professional Development

For every patient in the ED, a web of communication is created. A resident is at the center of this web – connecting team members in and outside the ED. Careful communication, a required ACGME competency, helps the team provide safe, high‐quality care and master their respective specialties. We designed a three module curriculum that supports ACGME core competencies by providing training in professional communication and a framework with which to organize patient data. In the first module, residents are introduced to the concept that there is more to communication than content alone. Other elements include context, audience and forum. Together, these components comprise relevant communication. The second module introduces the Disposition, Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation, Safety (D‐SBARS) Framework, an ED modification of The Joint Commission's communication tool. This framework will enable the resident to focus on communicating the relevant data for a particular audience in an appropriate manner. In the last module, residents participate in a case‐based role‐play. After presentation of a complicated patient, residents are each assigned a communication task. They communicate with attendings, ED staff and consultants. Each role is played by senior residents. Finally, participants deliver presentations to the on‐coming team on “rounds” under time constraints, declining from two minutes to 30 seconds. Residents experience how the D‐SBARS tool helps them communicate critical clinical and safety.

An Evaluation of the Press and Communication Reforms of the Prodi Commission of 1999—2004

A B S T R A C T ■ The Commission's press and communication service plays a central role in the EU's dealings with news organizations. However, following the fall of the Santer Commission, even the service's own press officials admitted the organization was failing and constantly on the defensive against an increasingly hostile media. It was in this context that Santer's successor, former Commission president Romano Prodi, pledged radical reform, making the goal of a `modern and professional' press service a priority. The Prodi Commission concluded that it needed a much more positive and proactive way of working. At a time when the Barroso Commission is proposing its own programme of change in communication policy, this article assesses the inheritance that the Prodi reforms left behind, with particular reference to their impact as seen by journalists from one of the member states in which traditionally it has been most difficult to communicate a positive image of the EU. ■

A community text pattern in the European commission press release? A generic and genetic view

This contribution is concerned with press releases from the European Commission and national ministries. Political press releases may serve other purposes than those issued by business organisations, and they are also a fairly unexplored field in press release research, which this study sets out to remedy. The linguistic dimension of EU communication is also a neglected field of study, and this paper is aimed at introducing the linguistic dimension of the European Commission communication as a field of study worthy of closer examination. Within a genre-based analytical framework, the present paper aims at examining to what extent we can identify a unique community text pattern in European Commission press releases. I propose a macrostructural text analysis in which I compare a number of press releases issued by the European Commission with national equivalents from French and Swedish ministries. In particular, I will focus on three recurrent and characteristic text features of the European Commission press release, viz. theintroduction, thequotationand theintertextual references. It is shown that the way they are designed in the European Commission press release is quite special and that this can be explained with reference to the communicative situation of the European Commission. In doing so, I will be drawing on ethnographic data that I gathered from fieldwork at the European Commission.<<<It will be suggested that the results from this study can be extrapolated to the study of press releases in general. That is, press release research may benefit from the genre-based methodological approach chosen here, since, indeed, the press release is a situated practice whose understanding depends on a comprehensive study of the communicative situations it functions within.

The External Dimension of EU Refugee Policy: A New Approach to Asylum?

AbstractThis article first looks at developments in the external dimension of EU migration and refugee policy, as highlighted by a succession of Commission Communications and Council or European Council conclusions that have emphasized the need to integrate migration and asylum more firmly into the Union's external policies. It then looks at one particular recent experiment with externalizing refugee policy, namely the invention of ‘Regional Protection Programmes’. Finally it asks what this concept of regional protection has meant in normative terms, before suggesting ways in which the space afforded protection has been altered.

Investigating the Discourse on Social Cohesion in Relation to Innovation through the Vocabulary of European Commission Communications

After the relaunch of the Lisbon Strategy, innovation has become one of the main areas of interest in the European Union (EU). In general terms, innovation is always seen as a driver of economic growth and a necessary element to achieve the strategic goal set by the EU in 2000 of becoming the most competitive knowledge-based economy. The strategic goal also encompasses the so-called ‘European Social Model’, in which greater social cohesion should be achieved. The article explores European communication documents related to innovation to determine what role they give to social cohesion. The article is framed within the Centre for Research on Lifelong Learning's project, ‘Education for Innovation and Innovation for Education’, which explores the relationship between education and innovation. The article hypothesises that the concept of lifelong learning is instrumental in connecting innovation and social cohesion. The results of the content analysis show that the connection exists in policy documents, but it is limited.

‘Bridging the Gap’ between EU Politics and Citizens? The European Commission, National Media and EU Affairs in the Public Sphere

Information about political processes is an important prerequisite for debates in the public sphere, which can strengthen the legitimacy of decisions. This article analyses how far both Commission communication and media news coverage contain information on (a) policy issues, (b) the policy process and (c) the actors involved and the positions they take. Data have been gathered through a qualitative content analysis of Commission communication output and the news coverage in two Dutch and two German newspapers with regard to two specific policies: the sustainable use of natural resources and wastes and the accession process leading up to the Eastern Enlargement. The results suggest that the Commission and the national media emphasize different aspects of the EU political process. This could pose problems in terms of the legitimacy of EU policies and the Commission’s role therein.

Commission Compliance Promotion and Enforcement in the Field of the Environment

AbstractThe article looks at trends and directions since 1996 in Commission policy concerning the promotion and enforcement of European environmental legislation. It places these in their wider context and sets out some relevant statistics for the period 2000-2006. It refers to a 2002 Commission communication as setting out some of the organising principles for Commission enforcement work, offering several examples of how strategic in nature enforcement action has tended to become. It outlines salient features of policy on the use ofArticle 228 to enforce European Court of Justice judgments and touches on the relationship between complaint-handling and the pursuit of core implementation deficits, before presenting some general conclusions.

A European Contract Law, or an EU Contract Law Regulation for Consumers?

The paper informs about initiatives of the EC Commission to create a set of instruments for advancing a European contract law, in particular a “common frame of reference.” It questions the underlying assumptions in the still somewhat unclear and open Commission communications. It doubts whether EU has any competence to harmonise contract law under the internal market jurisdiction of Art. 95 EC. As an alternative, it proposes the elaboration and eventual adoption of an EU consumer contract law regulation (ECCLR) based on Art. 153 (3) b) EC which would take direct effect and be limited to minimal, yet directly applicable rules on consumer protection in contract law.

BARGAINING OVER FIXED-TO-MOBILE TERMINATION RATES: COUNTERVAILING BUYER POWER AS A CONSTRAINT ON MONOPOLY POWER

The conventional wisdom that mobile operators are able to act as monopolists in pricing call termination on their networks has recently been challenged by Hutchison 3G's entry into European mobile markets. The European Commission's electronic communications regime allows national regulatory authorities to regulate mobile termination rates if an operator is found to possess ‘significant market power’. This requires that the mobile operator not be constrained by the ‘countervailing buyer power’ of incumbents. The claim that incumbent operators possess countervailing buyer power has been dismissed repeatedly because of their obligation to interconnect with other networks. This conclusion is erroneous. We analyse bargaining over fixed-to-mobile termination rates and demonstrate that the existence of an interconnectivity obligation is entirely consistent with new entrants such as Hutchison 3G having no market power at all in pricing call termination on their own networks.

On a Reformed Stability and Growth Pact

In March 2005, the Council of Economics and Finance Ministers (Ecofin) presented its own suggestions for a possible Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) reform in a Report to the European Council. The Council Report divides its proposals into three parts, namely improving governance, strengthening the preventive arm and improving the implementation of the Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP). The present paper contains a critical analysis of the ideas contained in the Report, accompanied by comparisons of the suggestions with earlier proposals for reform in the literature and the Commission Communication of September 2004.

The latest orphan drug designations and the Commission Communication on Regulation (EC) 141/2000

The implementation of Community Regulation on orphan medicinal products in the European Union in April 2000 has resulted in a deluge of applications for designation of medicinal products as orphan for rare diseases. By April 2004, the Committee for Orphan Medicinal Products had already given positive opinion on 63 per cent of the 316 applications considered by them. A significant number of these positive designations have already matured into full marketing authorisations. Three major reasons – failure to meet prevalence or significant benefit criteria or provide evidence of biological plausibility – have equally contributed to either the negative opinion on or the applicants withdrawing the remaining applications. In July 2004, the European Commission issued a communication setting out its position on certain matters relating to the implementation of the designation and market exclusivity provisions. The Commission, the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) and the Committee for Orphan Medicinal Products (COMP) continue to be proactive and provide as much guidance and incentives as practical, engaging themselves with sponsors, patient groups and academia. As experience builds up and issues are clarified, there are expectations that the Community Regulation on orphan medicines will prove to be a spectacular success.

The latest orphan drug designations and the Commission Communication on Regulation (EC) 141/2000

The implementation of Community Regulation on orphan medicinal products in the European Union in April 2000 has resulted in a deluge of applications for designation of medicinal products as orphan for rare diseases. By April 2004, the Committee for Orphan Medicinal Products had already given positive opinion on 63 per cent of the 316 applications considered by them. A significant number of these positive designations have already matured into full marketing authorisations. Three major reasons – failure to meet prevalence or significant benefit criteria or provide evidence of biological plausibility – have equally contributed to either the negative opinion on or the applicants withdrawing the remaining applications. In July 2004, the European Commission issued a communication setting out its position on certain matters relating to the implementation of the designation and market exclusivity provisions. The Commission, the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) and the Committee for Orphan Medicinal Products (COMP) continue to be proactive and provide as much guidance and incentives as practical, engaging themselves with sponsors, patient groups and academia. As experience builds up and issues are clarified, there are expectations that the Community Regulation on orphan medicines will prove to be a spectacular success.

Beyond voluntary / mandatory juxtaposition. Towards a European framework on CSR as Network Governance

Despite numerous calls from civil society for mandatory regulation on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), the European Commission in its Green and White Paper, emphasised the voluntary character of CSR. This paper tries to go beyond the voluntary / mandatory juxtaposition by reframing CSR as Network Governance. In the paper, we argue that a network perspective is an adequate way to look at corporations, that the European Commission's communications are compatible with that perspective, but that the Commission's role in a European framework on CSR goes further than promoting voluntary actions. Rather, to develop a European mandatory framework on CSR as Network Governance would insure that fair interactions between stakeholders are started up and intensified. However, CSR as Network Governance does leave substantial flexibility for tailoring local integration of business.

Pragmatism in the Polder: Changing Prostitution Policy in The Netherlands

Pragmatism in the Polder: Changing Prostitution Policy in The Netherlands

The Place of Consumer Contract Law Within the Process on European Contract Law

This paper shows the development of European consumer contract law within the whole area of European contract law. It explains in some detail the possible contents of one of the major options for the future – the development of a specific consumer contract law in form of a framework Directive. Such an instrument would combine the common denominators of the consumer contract Directives: the applicable definitions of a consumer and a trader, the right of withdrawal, the pre-contractual information obligations, the burden of proof, the private international law clause, and the nature of consumer law as mandatory law. Furthermore the paper shows how the Commission Communication of July 2001 and the Commission Action Plan of 2003 shape the process of European contract law. Finally, it analyses in particular the treatment of consumer contract law in the Action Plan.