Supranational Institutions Research Articles

Constitutional Debate on European Union’s Shifting Pathway towards Supranationalism

The rapid evolution of the European Union (EU) has suggested a new debate on regionalism due to the institutional transformation from intergovernmentalism to supranationalism. Hitherto, the EU has undergone a shifting pathway as a supranational institution that raises a further debate on supranational constitutionalism. This paper aimed to critically examine the EU's legal capacity for external relations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) following in identifying the impact of the EU member states to become members of this world institution as well. However, new approaches were considered within the shifting paradigm, which includes supranational union as an emerging pivotal global actor in international relations. This paper showed that the emergence of EU supranationalism has challenged the traditional debate on state sovereignty rooted in the Westphalian concept, particularly against the state primacy in international law. While the EU regionalism contributed to legal conversation both in the regional and international arena, the juxtaposition of the state and the supranational 'state' has increasingly blurred their limits, becoming sui generis in regionalism and state discourses among the areas of international law and constitutional law.

Political communication on Facebook and populism. The 2019 European Parliament election in Spain

Populist actors have more success than other parties on social media –particularly Facebook– where their posts receive higher levels of engagement. The entry of populist parties onto the Spanish political stage can spread the use of their rhetoric and influence citizens’ political decisions, affecting the configuration of supranational institutions such as the European Union. The aim of this study is to use a quantitative content analysis to verify the presence of populist discourse in the 844 messages published on Facebook by Spanish parties during the 2019 European Parliament election campaign and to analyse their impact on user interaction. The results show that the newest and most extremist parties monopolise the messages with empty, anti-elite populism. However, the use of exclusionary populist discourse is also detected in more moderate conservative parties. Populist parties, especially VOX, lead user interactions, irrespective of whether the populist style appears in the messages. The results of the research show that the populist style is inexorably consolidating in Europe as an electoral communications strategy on Facebook. As with other European countries, extremist and opposition parties also adopt the populist style as a communications strategy. The results suggest that the success of populist actors on social media may be conditioned by the populist attitudes of their followers and less by the characteristics of these parties’ publications.

European Urban Strategies for Attracting Highly Skilled Migrants

In the context of globalization and rapid technological changes, the preservation of human capital and its multiplication are becoming an increasingly important factor of economic growth. These challenges are particularly acute for the European Union and the UK, which have been gradually losing their competitive positions in the world economy over the past decades. In this context it is particularly important to analyze policies aimed at stimulating highly skilled migration carried out at different levels, including the municipal level. Despite their limited competences in the field of migration regulation, municipal administrations are able to influence its dynamics and structure by creating a comfortable urban environment and housing policy, increasing transport accessibility, facilitating employment of local university graduates, supporting return migration, and using other soft measures to attract highly qualified specialists and representatives of the creative class. This process, however, has both winners and losers. Many cities, primarily in the peripheral EU countries, are not able to cope with the competition and handle the ever increasing brain drain problem, which requires comprehensive solutions involving not only municipal administrations but also central authorities and supranational European institutions.

Expert network interaction in the European Medicines Agency

AbstractThe need for supranational regulatory capacity and the drive for governmental control are two colliding forces in international governance. As a solution to this governance dilemma, European administrative networks need to simultaneously fulfill the demand for supranational institutions and maintain governmental control. The assessment of risks associated with medicines authorized on the European market is carried out by such a network of national regulators as part of the European Medicines Agency. To uncover how these double‐hatted experts navigate the opportunity structures created by supranational and intergovernmental forces, this study employs social network analysis. Developing exponential random graph models, this study tests to what extent members can act as professional experts in service of the supranational administration and to what extent national features shape interaction. The results indicate that while PRAC members are socialized as professionals in service of supranational deliberation on pharmacovigilance, intergovernmental forces do structure their interactions.

Overcoming political risk in developing economies through non-local debt

Infrastructure investments are essential in generating sustainable development but also involve extensive political risk and potentially unreliable local partners. We study how banks financing such investments use syndication with non-local partners to pool economic leverage from trade, investment, and FDI. Using 5928 of the world’s largest infrastructure and energy projects in 160 countries between 2000 and 2013, we show that banks pool economic leverage from banks with dominant economic ties to the host country and from supranational institutions. Our findings contribute three distinct elements to the nonmarket strategy literature. First, they highlight the strategic value of macro-economic dependencies in the management of political risk. Second, our study positions non-local alliances as an alternative to alliance partners in the host-country context. Third, our study is the first in IB to acknowledge the value of debt-side pooling of leverage. From a practical and policy point of view, our findings suggest that practitioners and policymakers should strive to improve the efficiency of debt syndication across borders as a means of mitigating political risk and encouraging infrastructure investment.

Access to Environmental Justice and European Union Institutional Compliance With the Aarhus Convention: A Rather Longer and More Winding Road than Anticipated

The aim of this article is to track through and offer some reflections on the efforts by the European Union (EU) to ensure that EU law adequately implements the access to environmental justice obligations set down in the 1998 Aarhus Convention (AC) with respect to activities carried out by its supranational institutions and other Union bodies. For a number of years the EU has struggled to ensure its legal framework is in conformity with the Convention’s requirements concerning access to justice, not least in the wake of adverse findings expressed by the Convention’s Compliance Committee responding to complaints from members of the public. However, matters appear to have improved significantly in October 2021 with the adoption of EU Regulation 2021/1767 amending the Union’s legislative rules on an internal review mechanism of EU administrative acts or omissions alleged by members of the public to contravene EU environmental law (namely the ‘Aarhus Regulation’ 1367/2006). Whilst this article considers that most of the key issues relating to noncompliance have now been addressed satisfactorily, much of the credit for this ultimately lies with the European Parliament and Council of the EU as primary co-legislators rather than other key Union institutional actors such as the European Commission or the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU). At the same time, this recent legislative innovation has not enabled the EU to reach its destination of achieving full compliance with the Convention over access to environmental justice, with some important administrative activities affecting the environment still remaining exempt from the Union’s internal review system such as EU decisions on state aid.

Should refugees in the European Union have voting rights?

ABSTRACT Most refugees residing in the European Union (EU) do not retain their voting rights in states of origin or lack the means to exercise them effectively. Most member states of the EU do not extend voting rights to refugees. This leaves a large population of refugees residing within the borders of the EU in a unique state of disenfranchisement. In this article, I consider this problem from a democratic perspective. Should refugees in the EU have voting rights? My answer turns on three aspects characterizing the circumstances of refugees: First, refugees reside in member states for an indeterminate, and typically protracted, amount of time without any exit options. Second, the political governance of the EU and its member states significantly shapes the lives of refugees. And third, refugees lack effective voting rights, and consequently, a meaningful political membership, in any political community across the world. In turn, based on an all-subjected principle of democratic inclusion, I argue that refugees should be secured state-level voting rights in member states, albeit with a condition of the period of residency. Moreover, they should have immediate voting rights at the supranational institutions of the EU such as the European Parliament.

Trump, Johnson and New Primitivism - The Manifestations and Causes of Major Crisis in the USA and the UK

Over the past few decades, major changes have taken place in the two most influential Western countries – the USA and the UK. These changes found political expression in Trump’s presidential victory and the triumph of Brexit in 2016. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the changed political reality in these states and explain its causes. In the first part, the author provides a theoretical framework and discusses the old and new categories to provide explanation for the changes in these states. In the second part, he analyzes the main changes in political life in the USA and UK embodied in Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. In the third part, he points to the basic causes of the crisis in the USA and UK that led to Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 and UK’s withdrawal from the EU.
 The countries that were beacons of civilized dialogue among political opponents now harbor growing intolerance, lack of accountability and ruthless mudslinging campaigns against political opponents. The radicalization of political life in the USA culminated in former President Trump’s supporters storming the Congress which left five people dead. In the second most influential state of the Western world, during the pro- remain or pro-leave the EU campaign, a British MP was killed while the politicians were stoking fears of impending wars, genocide and even invoked the politics dating back to Hitler and Napoleon. The policy of exclusiveness pursued by Trump and Brexiteers brought about the social polarization in the USA and the UK unprecedented since the Second World War.
 The author proceeds from a hypothesis that deep social and ethnic divisions, rising poverty, less access to higher education for broader social strata, lack of trust in democratic and supranational institutions, obsession with one’s own cultural identity, fear of large-scale immigration and domination of reality culture set the stage for the changes in political life in these countries, making it possible for Trump and Brexit to prevail. The paper provides a critical analysis of previous attempts to account for the victory of Trump and Brexit, particularly the theory of cultural backlash by which US political analysts Norris and Inglehart explain the rise of authoritarian populism in the USA and the UK. The author is of the view that following Biden’s presidential victory in 2020 the situation in the USA will not change significantly since it is not just the politicians that create the political environment but rather the social and economic situation which has deteriorated even further in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The UK has managed to avoid significant radicalization in political life since the divisions over Brexit did not follow partisan and ideological lines as was the case in the USA.

Allocating to Green Bonds

Green bonds are about a decade old financial instrument with cash flows earmarked to improve the environment or combat climate change. The author shows the spectacular growth of the asset class over time but notes that it is currently still less than 1% of the investment grade fixed income market. The composition of the asset class has changed considerably over time. At the start, it was mainly very safe supranational institutions issuing in various currencies with relatively short maturities. Corporates, especially utilities, followed them, and more recently, governments have started issuing green bonds. These sharp composition changes make historical data from before 2015 less representative for the future. The author’s returns- and characteristics-based analyses show that investors allocating to green bonds should finance this from an aggregate fixed income allocation if they want to reduce the impact on the risk and return characteristics of the existing portfolio.

RETHINKING REGIONALISM BEYOND EUROPEAN INTEGRATION

The post-Cold War era has witnessed a notable proliferation of regional organizations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This “new regionalism” wave stands distinct from the process of European integration following World War II, as it is characterized by its expanding scope, diverse nature, fluidity, and heterogeneity. Traditional Eurocentric theories of economic integration, which presumed the establishment of supranational institutions, possess limited applicability when regionalism evolves as an intergovernmental endeavor among sovereign states. Consequently, the prevailing notion of Europe as a model for regional integration worldwide is challenged by this regional trend. This article aims to provide a theoretical framework for understanding the phenomenon of “new regionalism” that is compatible with the socio-economic and political realities of developing countries, particularly considering their reluctance to compromise political sovereignty. It begins by examining the evolution of Eurocentric theories of economic integration and underscores their limitations in the context of the developing world. The concluding section presents a theoretical framework that extends beyond Europe for comprehending regionalism. Keywords: Regionalism, Europe, Integration, New Regionalism.

Implementing the will of the people: sovereignty and policy conflicts in the aftermath of the UK’s referendum on EU membership

Deep constitutional, political and social conflicts have marked the aftermath of the UK’s vote to leave the European Union. Sovereignty has been one of the sites of these conflicts. British Euroscepticism has traditionally mobilized national sovereignty against the EU’s supranational institutions. Since the referendum, the focus has shifted to the meanings and practices of sovereignty within the UK. In this paper, we find that the conflicts of sovereignty provoked by Brexit have primarily been at the institutional level, in the relations between the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. Surprisingly, there has been little conflict around the abstract normative ideal of sovereignty as government by consent of the governed (“popular sovereignty”). Brexit was a source of conflict as much because of the content of the decision to leave the EU as it was due to disagreement about who rules. This discussion of the British case is a useful starting point for the comparative study of sovereignty conflicts in Europe, where institutional conflicts may be accompanied by substantive disagreements about “who rules?” This paper recommends that we carefully delineate conflicts of sovereignty from other sorts of conflicts connected to specific policy choices or outcomes.

The European Union and diminished state sovereignty

ABSTRACT In A Republican Europe of States, Richard Bellamy embraces neither the anti-internationalism of the sovereign statist, not the unbounded trust in international institutions of the European federalists. He proposes instead a model for the European union he calls ‘republican intergovernmentalism.’ This model seeks to preserve internal state sovereignty while arguing that mutually agreed rules for regulating external sovereignty are necessary and beneficial. I argue instead that creating a supranational structure like the European Union cannot be accomplished without a reduction in the internal sovereign authority of member states. This a potentially legitimate reduction of sovereign authority for states, but a reduction nonetheless. The most important consequence of the conceptual claim that state sovereignty is diminished is that the delegation of authority to supranational institutions which has this cost ought to be publicly discussed and negotiated at the national level in member states to avoid misunderstandings and backlash against the legitimate authority of the EU.

Linking Character Strengths and Key Competencies in Education and the Arts: A Systematic Review

Positive education, as a method for the positive development of students’ personality, embodies the 24 character strengths that Peterson and Seligman developed in their studies and that are necessary for new professional profiles. This new social and work landscape inspired supranational institutions, such as the European Union, to develop theories for new educational systems. These Key Competencies seek the comprehensive training of students, on not only the cognitive but the socioemotional plane, as occurs with arts education. With this literature review, we intend to demonstrate the relationship between the Key Competencies as catalysts for the development of character strengths in students through art education programmes. The results conclude that it is possible to define a relationship between the Key Competencies and character strengths and to outline the nature of these relationships, noting that certain patterns of combinations of strengths are repeated in the Key Competencies. Additionally, our work leads us to propose the need to increase the volume of research in this field and to design future studies that allow an empirical evaluation of the nature of these connections and whether they are efficient and enduring.

Agenda‐setting, policy formulation, and the EU institutional context: The case of the Just Transition Fund

AbstractUtilizing Kingdon's Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) as a basis, this article aims to further the understanding of the influence institutional factors have on agenda‐setting and policy formulation in the European Union (EU). It does so by analyzing the policy process of the Just Transition Fund (JTF) from agenda‐setting to policy formulation by the Commission. The research finds that policy entrepreneurship is strongly determined by the characteristics and overlap of institutional policy windows. In the JTF case, the institutional context enhanced the influence of policy entrepreneurs within the European Parliament, especially the S&D party, on the combined process of agenda‐setting and policy formulation. Therefore, this paper illustrates that EU MSF scholarship would benefit from taking institutional factors more into account. The conclusions also indicate that supranational institutions can play a larger role in EU climate policy formulation than some of the current research suggests.

The Puzzle of ‘Unspent’ Funds in Italy’s European Social Fund

This chapter focuses on the spending dynamics around one of the largest social funds globally: the European Social Fund (ESF). More specifically, it explores the institutional conditions and the tensions around its use/lack thereof in Italy, one of the largest recipients of the Fund. While financial execution does not subsume the effective implementation or the effectiveness of the activities that are funded, the chapter suggests that it is a key marker in the policy debate in Italy, and seeks to analyse the terms of this debate by placing it in its institutional and financial context, in particular against the backdrop of reforms enacted at both the European Union (EU) and the domestic level. It argues that late spending is not only a marker of a series of institutional blockages, it also reveals a specific mode of governance that is shaped at the same time by national, regional and supranational institutions, norms, and interests as well as by flows of funds and ideas that converge and materialise in a variety of administrative, political and financial practices.

Institutional foundations for integrating national economies: the problem of stability of supra-national institutions

The movement of goods, capital and labour at various levels of foreign trade determine the creation and development of supranational institutions of economic integration. The emerging trends towards weakening and deformation of the role of global supranational institutions of economic integration are paralleled by strengthening of regional integration groups which makes it urgent to study the problems of sustainability of supranational institutions and economic integration in general. The article is devoted to the analysis of the sustainability problems of supranational institutions for the integration of national economies. The aim of the study is to generalize and analyze approaches to the sustainability of supranational institutions through the prism of structural-level analysis. The study proves the existence of phases in the development of supranational institutions, which determines the cyclical nature of economic integration. As a result, the conclusion is made about the presence of a paternalistic (semi-market) type of integration along with a market one; the stability of the created integration links depends on both of these types. The market and semi-market bases for the integration of national economies are described. The paper gives the author's view of determining the causes of deformation and dysfunction of supranational institutions within the market and semi-market basis of economic integration.

НОРМАТИВНО-ПРАВОВЕ ТА ІНФОРМАЦІЙНЕ ЗАБЕЗПЕЧЕННЯ РЕГУЛЮВАННЯ РИНКУ ПОХІДНИХ ФІНАНСОВИХ ІНСТРУМЕНТІВ В УКРАЇНІ

The purpose of the article is to structure the legal framework for regulating the market of derivative financial instruments at the global and national levels, to harmonize them with each other and to identify current changes and problems. The article uses an economic and legal approach to the study of the problems raised. It has been established that the structure of regulation of the derivatives market consists of supranational and national levels. At the supranational level, global and regional financial market institutions determine the basic provisions for the functioning of the market; at the national level, it is regulated by legislative bodies, state regulatory bodies and self-regulatory organizations. The regulatory support of state bodies in the capital market is formed by instructions, standards and norms, methodological guidelines, explanations, rules, etc. The attention is focused on the important role of European supranational institutions as factors of adaptation of the Ukraine financial system to EU requirements. It has been established that the Ukrainian model of financial regulation is close to the “two peaks” model, in accordance with which the main functions are distributed between institutes – by the National Bank of Ukraine and the National Securities and Stock Market Commission. The functions and powers of all components of the derivatives market regulation system, including self-regulatory organizations, are considered. It is noted that in Ukraine derivatives trading outside the organized market is poorly regulated and requires the use of tools aimed at standardizing processes (General Agreement) and enhancing depository and clearing activities. The level of Ukraine derivatives market development is characterized as the active phase of the rule-making processes regulating. The legislative bodies have a decisive influence on the system of regulation of derivatives market at the national level. They form a legal framework and have a clear hierarchy. The key subjects of information support of the financial market are identified, their functions and the state of disclosure of information are determined, the main problems of the informational support require solution.

COVID-19 as a Test for Regional Integration Resilience in the Eurasian Economic Union

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic inevitably influences different sorts of interstate interactions, including regional integration. The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) is a young regional integration bloc without experience of major external shocks. Bearing in mind the complex nature of the bloc (supranational institutions alongside high preferences for sovereignty and weak market integration), we suggest an analytical scheme to test the resilience of the EAEU to the pandemic shock. We look at collective action, solidarity embodied in bilateral and multilateral intergovernmental reactions, and market integration. Unexpectedly, the EAEU demonstrated relatively high short-term resilience in collective action and market integration, while regional solidarity was quite high at the rhetorical level but low at the level of real actions.

Промышленная политика Евразийского экономического союза

The necessity to establish a consistent and sensibly planned industrial policy at the level of regional integration associations (RIAs) is justified in terms of the modern global structural changes as well as due to the growing number of protectionist measures applied by particular states and regional integration associations regarding the field of imported industrial goods (e.g., the EU carbon tax, trade wars, and restrictions due to economic sanctions). Despite the fact that both Russian and foreign literature pay full attention to the State industrial policy shaping and implementation issues, although, the conceptual theoretical grounds of the industrial policy shaping and implementation within RIAs are missing and are poorly researched. Based on the review of theoretical knowledges article proposes a conceptual approach to the RIAs industrial policy implementation in the context of the State industrial policy shaping. The article identifies features and restrictions hampering implementation process as well as determines proper conceptual definition of specific terms. For instance, the RIAs industrial policy consists of the complex of regulatory instruments at supranational level which have both stimulating and coordinating nature as well as national regulatory system with the aim of harmonizing the development of member countries’ industrial capacities, with the involvement of supranational institutions. Also, it is to be noted that the main feature of the RIAs industrial policy is its coordinating and stimulating nature. Using the example of Eurasian Economic Union (hereinafter, the EAEU) the approach to its industrial policy development has been developed. Based on the analysis of particular macroeconomic indicators of the EAEU Member States, their industrial development priorities, comparison of those priorities with the global trends, the following EAEU industrial strategic priorities have been identified: assisting in promotion of commodities to foreign markets, encouraging innovation activities, increasing investment attractiveness, developing small- and medium-sized businesses, environment protection, and digital transformation. The general development trajectories of industrial development which has been highlighted in the article as well as the proposed coordinating and stimulating supranational regulation measures can be a solid fundament for achieving development objectives of the EAEU Member States and play a catalyst role in transforming their economies.

The experience of EU countries towards the development of infrastructure and logistics hubs

The objective of the study is to assess the development of infrastructure and logistics hubs using the example of the EU countries, namely: Germany, Spain and Poland. The methodology is based on a comparative analysis of infrastructure hubs development indicators in Germany, Spain and Poland according to InfraCompass. Results. The general policy and strategy of the EU as a supranational institution determines the strategic goals and policies of Germany, Spain, and Poland in the field of infrastructure and logistics development. The EU provides financial incentives, political and administrative support for infrastructure hubs and logistics. Based on the research results, Germany, Spain, and Poland have common strengths contributing to infrastructure development: fair and transparent public procurement, a good insolvency protection system (Germany and Poland), a high credit rating (Germany), and financial stability (Poland). The general factors of the infrastructure facilities development are: in Germany – the development of infrastructure hubs is ensured by an effective regulatory framework and established rules for permitting, a quality legal system, a stable financial sector; in Spain – effective regulatory framework, effective tools of public administration; in Poland – the regulatory framework and infrastructure management systems.