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1. Chapter 7:The European Union
4. Thinking About The EU What’s in a Name?
European Economic Community (EEC)
The Common Market
The European Community (EC)
The European Union (EU)
Who’s in, who’s out?
The New Europe
Three Pillars
Trade and economic issues
Justice and home affairs
Common foreign and security policy
6. Thinking About The EU Key Questions
How and why did the EU emerge?
What is its political culture and how does it shape the way people participate in its political life?
What are the main decision-making bodies?
What are its critical public policy initiatives?
How do the European people learn about and react to those policies?
How will the EU and its institutions be affected by broadening and deepening?
7. The Evolution of the EU Not such a new idea
ECSC
The High Authority
A Special Council of Ministers
A Court of Justice
A Common Assembly
The Treaty of Rome and the EEC
The Commission
The Council of Ministers
European Parliament
European Court of Justice
Creating the Common Market
Growth
Common Agricultural Policy
European Monetary System
Council of Permanent Representatives (COREPRER)
8. The Evolution of the EU The Single European Act
The Maastricht Treaty
The Treaty of Amsterdam
The Treaty of Nice
10. Popular Culture and Participation in the EU Few people identify themselves first as European.
Key EU organizations are still superficial
Democratic deficit
Lack of common language
11. The European State? The Commission
The Council
General Affairs Council
European Council
COREPRER
Qualified voting majority
16. The European State? The European Court of Justice
Decisions have frequently made major expansion of the EU’s authority possible
Actions have limited national sovereignty in favor of the EU’s institutions
The European Parliament
The EU’s weakest institution
Power has grown since direct election of members
Codecision
The right to approve all nominees to the Commission and can remove the entire Commission if a vote of censure passes by a two-thirds margin.
The right to approve the budget
17. The European State? The Complexities of EU Decision Making
Policy making more complex and confusing because it has to reconcile interests of its 25 member states with those that transcend national boundaries and the institutions are greatly fragmented.
Still being built
18. The European State? Next Steps?
Further broadening and deepening seem unlikely in the foreseeable future
Criteria to join:
Establishment of a functioning and stable democratic regime
Adoption of a market-oriented capitalist economy
Acceptance of the acquis communautaire, the 80,000 pages of laws and regulations already on the EU’s books
To be a “United States of Europe,” need commitment to a common foreign and security policy.
19. The European State? The EU and National Sovereignty
Can it supplant the state and the primary actor determining public policy and the broader ways in which people are governed?
20. Public Policy in the EU The Internal Market
The removal of tariffs and other barriers to trade
Tremendous impact on both European governments and their citizens
Monetary union
The euro
EMU gives the EU and its new central bank powerful levers they can exert over national governments
21. Public Policy in the EU Common Agricultural Policy
Took steps to modernize inefficient farms to be more competitive in the European market
Established the EAFFF, giving farmers subsidies and guaranteeing the purchase of surplus goods at artificially high prices.
Demonstrates how pressure put on member states can lead to policies that tend to impede a free market and also make the EU resistant to change.
More recent reforms on the CAP have been forced on the EU by the GATT and the WTO.
CAP will not be able to survive the 2004 enlargement
22. Feedback There is very little feedback because of the way the EU is structured and the way people participate (or don’t) in it.
People pay little attention to the politics and policies of the EU.
Turnout in European elections is much lower than in national ones.
Coverage in the press is spotty and concentrates on its problems.
Difficult for average people to have much of an impact on decision making; distance and disinterest.