European Decision-making Process Research Articles

Building (back) better cities for aged people in Europe

Covid-19 outbreak has mostly affected people in the second half of their lives, at risk of isolation and loneliness; in fact, the impact of the pandemic was even more severe for the well-being of the elderly. Such a recent event has to be framed within the challenge of the demographic increase of people aged 65 years or older, which is particularly relevant in the European context. This paper explores which gaps have to be filled up in order to make cities a suitable place for the elderly to live in, particularly after any emergence of dysfunction and fragility in health, employment, transportation and welfare systems due to the pandemic. We assess the relative contribution of each regressor to the explained variance, that may advise policy makers about which urban features are perceived to be the most relevant for the elderly, even before the pandemic, and must be implemented. Our results have several policy implications. The assessment should provide a contribution to European decision-making processes headed to improve the perception of age-friendliness in urban environments, implementing a paradigm for reference, given the great heterogeneity of features characterizing European cities.

Paradiplomacy and the European Union’s trade treaty negotiations: the role of Wallonia and Brussels

ABSTRACT Because of their integration in the elaboration of national positions in the European decision-making process, Belgian subnational entities have since the 1990s favoured collaborative paradiplomacy. This has been particularly the case for Wallonia and the Brussels Region since they have a stronger stake in keeping Belgium together. Cooperative paradiplomacy has therefore been their default option, only interrupted by the crisis over the signature of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) treaty, which was refused by these two regions. This article therefore analyses the dynamics of the conflict over the signature of the CETA treaty and the specific contribution of the two regions, Wallonia and Brussels.

European lobbying between transparency and the battle for influence

Lobbying is regulated at European level by permissive legal provisions but, at the same time, disparate or lacking in legislative and application coherence. The state of the European decision-making process reveals the need to bring about changes that require more rigorous, applied and, why not, severe regulation of lobbying and interest representation.

Efficiency and Effectiveness of the European Parliament under the Ordinary Legislative Procedure

In the aftermath of the 2019 European elections, the article tries to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of the European Parliament within the framework of the ordinary legislative procedure (co-decision). After defining and formulating the main indicators, the paper analyses the micro- and macro-performance of the European Parliament within the decision-making process from a quantitative-qualitative and a qualitative-quantitative perspective; highlighting the relativizing factors and the responsiveness of the European decision-making process to the Europeans’ needs.

Open government partnership: unutilized potential in post-communist EU members? (Case of the Czech Republic)

One of the factors that contribute to confining corruption opportunity space is transparent lobbying as part of a broader approach to governance, based on the principles of openness, transparency, participation and disclosure. The problem of lack of transparent lobbying is closely related not only to corruption but to increased inequality of access by voices representative of a wide range of interests to public decision-making. This issue is also one of the relevant issues of Europeanisation that comes to attention in the European public space; lobbying is an important source of information for European decision-making processes, which speaks in favour of creating transparent rules for its functioning. Despite a real reluctance of national political representation to enforce statutory regulation of lobbying there is however a number of factors (besides regulation) that contribute to the transparency of lobbying. One of them is Open Government Partnership initiative which takes a more comprehensive approach to openness via seeking ways to make the government more transparent, responsive, accountable, and effective. The paper focuses on two research questions: Under what circumstances may open government affect the transparency of lobbying and thereby reduce the corruption opportunity space? Does the Czech Republic use the potential of its membership in Open Government Partnership well? The analysis is completed by data from Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania and Slovakia. The performed research uses descriptive, analytic, comparative and interpretive techniques.

The Constitutional Fit of European Standardization Put to the Test

The adoption of harmonized standards (HSs) within the framework of the ‘New Approach’ is a long-standing phenomenon of the European decision-making process. Yet, an important question remains how their use actually fits in with the Union’s legal system, in particular in the light of the changes Regulation 1025/2012 has brought as well as the hierarchy of norms introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon and the recent case law of the European Court of Justice. In analysing this question, this article concludes that given that HSs are gaining an increasingly EU public law nature and are akin to the Commission’s exercise of implementing powers, it can be doubted whether the constitutional safeguards the Regulation provides are sufficient. The ‘constitutional fit’ of European standardization is in need of improvement as the limited constitutional safeguards for this type of delegation of powers are in sharp contrast with those that have been put into place in the Treaties for the Commission’s own exercise of delegated power.

Belgian regional parliaments and the European Union: an analysis of parliamentary scrutiny in agricultural and environmental policies

ABSTRACTDrawing on qualitative case studies of two specific European decision-making processes in the agricultural and environmental sectors, this paper discusses how and why Belgian regional parliaments activated (or not) their control mechanisms to scrutinise their respective regional ministers. The findings show that parliamentary scrutiny of the agricultural and environmental policy fields has undergone a process of institutional and behavioural Europeanisation. Belgian regional parliaments rely mostly on classical parliamentary tools aimed at gathering information and, to a lesser extent, on constraining instruments aimed at influencing their government. Rather than trying to influence the EU negotiations, the MPs try to assess the potential impact of the reforms on their regional policy sectors. The findings also demonstrate that domestic media coverage and political salience of the EU negotiation associated with important implementing powers of regional parliaments have a positive effect on the level of scrutiny conducted by Belgian regional assemblies.

The Role of the European Parliament in the Process of Multi-level Governance: The Case of the West Balkans States

This article addresses the problem of the EP’s role in the process of multi-level governance illustrated with the example of EU expansion policy through the accession of the West Balkan states. As an effect of the European integration process, resulting in the transfer of decision-making competences from the state level to the transnational level, nation-states have lost their monopolistic position in the European decision-making process. This has enabled the formation of multi-level political system within the EU. Within the system, there is a multi-level governance model, with the EP as its crucial element. This article reveals an important role of the EP as a transnational decision-making centre, which with its specific competences (giving consent to the accession of a country to the EU, giving consent to sign international agreements crucial for the integration process, budget rights, co-decisions on the form of the EU law with an ordinary law making procedure) considerably forms the policy of the EU in relation to the Balkan countries. The explanation of the policy’s functioning and its outcomes are based on the concept of multi-level governance, which is analyzed herein in depth.

Citizenship and Civilness in the European Union

Celebration of the 20th anniversary of the EU citizenship in 2013 was a good occasion for reflection on this institution. Has anything changed during this period in the status of European citizens and their role in the EU’s political system? Do they have opportunities to participate in the European decision-making process and to influence the European law and the direction of the EU’s development? Is the EU citizenship only a symbolic project that brings no added value? Can it be called “citizenship”? The article is devoted to answering these questions. The institution of the EU citizenship was analysed in two aspects: 1) citizenship as formal status connected with some rights and 2) civilness as mechanisms that guarantee participation in decisions on the future of a political community. The conclusion is that after 20 years the importance of the EU citizenship has been significantly increased, but only on declarative level – in the wording of treaties and institutional acts. However, this change has not caused the factual increase of citizen participation in the shaping of the European Union politics. It is the effect of a discrepancy on the EU level between citizenship as formal status and civilness as real empowerment of individual in the political system.

Europejskie ograniczenia w zarządzaniu finansami publicznymi

The present contribution examines the measures in force for the management of public accounts in the light of the process of European integration. Starting by the common legal framework of the Member States – based on the new arrangement for fiscal and budgetary discipline, following the Fiscal Compact – the analysis focuses on the challenging adaptation of the Italian legal system to the changes occurred in the EU law, in particular on the resulting turns that affect some aspects of the form of government, of the form of state and of the national system of the sources of law. Finally, also drawing inspiration from the comparison between Italy and Poland, the concluding remarks are devoted to the prospects for a further involvement of national institutions within the European decision-making processes, after the Treaty of Lisbon and the financial and fiscal crisis.

The Role of Labour and Associated EU Liberalization Challenges: Insights from the Port Sector

ABSTRACTAn influential argument holds that labour unions are not likely to succeed in their objectives through current European decision-making processes. In addition, the European Union has extensive leverage to introduce negative integration due to asymmetries towards liberalization in the treaties. Given such arguments it is of interest to study a case, where attempts of EU liberalization reform have failed and labour unions claim this is their victory. An in-depth analysis of the decision-making process of the proposal for a Port Directive highlights that labour unions are most influential when they are able to exploit the division of industry interests to resoundingly oppose policy change. Moreover, the analysis highlights the importance of including large societal groups in consultations.

EUROPEAN SOVEREIGN BAILOUTS, POLITICAL RISK AND THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF MRS. MERKEL

The European economy was hit by a confidence shock in 2009 when the Greek government of Papandreou discovered the true amount of public deficit. The subsequent loss of trust in European fiscal governance reduced financial markets' willingness to lend to indebted governments. The European Union established the Financial Stability Facility to support debt-ridden states but without lasting success. The continuously rising Greek bond yields suggest that the information transmitted from political leaders did not reduce investors' risk perceptions. We develop a theoretical framework, in which financial market participants do not know the real rate of return on Greek assets but infer it from the signals emitted by informed European governments. Based on a unique news dataset, we investigate the impact of good and bad news from the European institutions on the Greek interest spread. The results demonstrate that the noise around the European decision-making process substantially raised the bailout cost.

National Parliaments as New Actors in the Decision-making Process at the European Level

National parliaments have two basic ways of influencing the outcomes of the European decision-making process. First, they influence national input legitimacy at the national level on European issues through influencing and controlling their respective national governments. Second, they influence national input legitimacy at the European level on European issues through directly entering into the European decision-making and interacting with the European institutions participating in it. To be able to make use of this second possibility, national parliaments have to devise instruments of cooperation and coordination and learn to use them effectively. The first steps have already been made: national parliaments exchange information on their scrutiny of European legislation and other activities through their permanent representatives in Brussels, the IPEX database and other channels. This article examines the cooperation, or, at least, information exchange among national parliaments on a number of legislative proposals - those chosen for coordinated tests of subsidiarity by national parliaments themselves, those most voted on in the Council of the European Union (EU) and those subjected to three readings in the co-decision procedure - discussed between May 2004 and the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. It shows that national parliaments face difficulties caused by the high costs of such cooperation, including the need for flexibility and speed of their own decision-making, as well as administrative costs, whilst they increasingly use the cooperation channels available to them.

Christian Democratic Parties and the Domestic Parliamentary Response to European Integration

While numerous studies demonstrate the critical role Christian Democratic Parties (CDPs) played in the development of the European Union (EU), a less-studied factor is the influence of CDPs on the domestic legislative response to European integration.1 As more policy decisions take place at the European level rather than the national level, domestic legislatures have adjusted their oversight activities to encompass the European decision-making process. One of the ways domestic parliaments have responded to this challenge is by establishing new legislative committees that coordinate the oversight of European affairs (EACs).2 Research has revealed a strong negative correlation between the percentage of a country's population that belongs to the Catholic Church and the strength of that country's legislative oversight of European affairs.3 This correlation has been interpreted to represent general North-South cultural differences; however, the North-South cleavage includes several reinforcing cleavages, such as religious, social, cultural, and societal divisions. It is not immediately clear which of the overlapping cleavages are driving this correlation. In this essay, I argue that a driving force behind the strong correlation between culture and parliamentary oversight of European Affairs is the differing ways that Protestant and Catholic confessional parties interpret European integration. Protestant confessional parties tend to fall on the opposite side of the church-state societal cleavage from Catholic confessional parties.4

De verrassend effectieve interne coördinatie van het Belgisch Voorzitterschap van 2010

The article analyses the internal coordination between the federal government, the Regions and the Communities in Belgium before and during the 2010 Belgian Presidency of the Council of Ministers. It starts from the observation that the absence of a federal government with full powers, the global financial-economic crisis as well as Belgium’s complex multi-level structure have, counter intuitively, not led to an ineffective internal coordination process. Based on interviews with people who were closely involved in the Belgian Presidency team, the article explains the effectiveness of the internal coordination by arguing that, on the one hand, the detailed and inclusive coordination before the Presidency semester has generated a culture of responsibility and joint ownership among the officials and diplomats and, on the other hand, the Belgian Presidency limited its role to a facilitator of the European decision-making process in function of the rolling agenda of the Commission and the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty. Empirically illustrating these arguments with insights from the internal coordination in the environmental domain, this article demonstrates that an effective internal coordination, even in a difficult political context, can contribute to a successful Presidency.

The Emergence and use of Self-Regulation in the European Decision-Making Process: Does it Make a Difference?

Since the mid 1990's the European Commission has started to advocate self-regulation by private economic and social actors as an important new steering mechanism to improve the achievement of the o...

The Emergence and Use of Self-Regulation in the European Decision-Making Process: Does it Make a Difference?

The Emergence and Use of Self-Regulation in the European Decision-Making Process: Does it Make a Difference?

The role of local government bodies in European policy-making

Since the publication of the White Paper on European governance, COM (2001) 428, the Commission has stressed that ‘people increasingly distrust institutions and politics or are simply not interested in them’, registering the growing gap between the EU and European citizens. In this context, the European institutions have been promoting several initiatives with the aim of facilitating participation in the European decision-making process. The paper will focus on: (1) the relationship between local governance and participation in the European Union; in this frame, the European institutions tried to start a dialogue with local authorities (see the role of the CoR) and the actors of civil society (through both the European Economic and Social Committee and the Transparency Policy); (2) the consequences either in the theoretical field or in practice. On one hand, the initiatives carried out have created the basis for a new model of multi-level governance and ‘participative democracy’; on the other hand the demand for wider participation produces a continuous growth of lobbying by the actors of civil society, whose regulation appears rather difficult notwithstanding the important efforts made through the European Transparency Initiative.

União Européia, reformas institucionais e déficit democrático: uma análise a partir do mecanismo de co-decisão

O artigo discute o processo decisório europeu a partir de um mapeamento do sistema de co-decisão adotado pelo triângulo institucional da União Européia (UE). Na primeira parte, há uma explicação acerca do funcionamento do sistema decisório europeu, privilegiando as instituições que definem as regras do jogo e a forma como a tomada de decisão é praticada; na segunda parte, são expostos os dados coletados sobre a aplicabilidade da co-decisão durante os anos de 1999 a 2006, cruzando os principais temas e a sua freqüência por fase de decisão.

Multi-Level Governance in Europe - The Implication of German Laender in the Development of the Lisbon Treaty and the Strengthening of the Regional Level in Europe

The Lisbon Reform Treaty would improve the role of the sub-national level in the European Union institutional framework. Not only the intended institutional reforms but also the process that led to the Reform Treaty - the European Convention, the Constitutional Treaty, and the period of reflection - strengthened the presence of the regions in the European decision-making process and improved network building within the regions and the system of Muli-Level in Europe. In this system of Multi-Level Governance the German Laender followed their two main strategies. The first was to search direct ways to affect actors on every level (let us in) and the second was to save their own autonomy regarding their own politics (leave us alone). Obviously there was no big bang of great expansion of regional rights in the constitutional treaty or in the treaty of Lisbon. But nobody - the regions neither - would have thought that such a big bang would come. It seems to be a path dependent strengthening of the role of the regions.