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EU Commission Consultation Regime Quittkat, Christine; Finke, Barbara
www.ssoar.info The EU Commission consultation regime Quittkat, Christine; Finke, Barbara Veröffentlichungsversion / Published Version Sammelwerksbeitrag / collection article Zur Verfügung gestellt in Kooperation mit / provided in cooperation with: SSG Sozialwissenschaften, USB Köln Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: Quittkat, C., & Finke, B. (2008). The EU Commission consultation regime. In B. Kohler-Koch, D. d. Bièvre, & W. Maloney (Eds.), Opening EU-governance to civil society: gains and challenges (pp. 183-222). Mannheim: Universität Mannheim, Mannheimer Zentrum für Europäische Sozialforschung (MZES). https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168- ssoar-195380 Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Dieser Text wird unter einer Deposit-Lizenz (Keine This document is made available under Deposit Licence (No Weiterverbreitung - keine Bearbeitung) zur Verfügung gestellt. Redistribution - no modifications). We grant a non-exclusive, non- Gewährt wird ein nicht exklusives, nicht übertragbares, transferable, individual and limited right to using this document. persönliches und beschränktes Recht auf Nutzung dieses This document is solely intended for your personal, non- Dokuments. Dieses Dokument ist ausschließlich für commercial use. All of the copies of this documents must retain den persönlichen, nicht-kommerziellen Gebrauch bestimmt. all copyright information and other information regarding legal Auf sämtlichen Kopien dieses Dokuments müssen alle protection. You are not allowed to alter this document in any Urheberrechtshinweise und sonstigen Hinweise auf gesetzlichen way, to copy it for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the Schutz beibehalten werden. Sie dürfen dieses Dokument document in public, to perform, distribute or otherwise use the nicht in irgendeiner Weise abändern, noch dürfen Sie document in public. dieses Dokument für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke By using this particular document, you accept the above-stated vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, aufführen, vertreiben oder conditions of use. -
The Power of Initiative of the European Commission: a Progressive Erosion?
The Power of Initiative of the European Commission: A Progressive Erosion? Paolo PONZANO, Costanza HERMANIN and Daniela CORONA Preface by António Vitorino Studies & 89 Research Study & The Power of Initiative 89 of the European Commission: Research A Progressive Erosion? PAOLO PONZANO, COSTANZA HERMANIN AND DANIELA CORONA Preface by António Vitorino Paolo PONZANO is a senior fellow at the European University Institute and a special adviser of the European Commission. Former collaborator of Altiero Spinelli at the Institute for International Affairs in Rome, he has worked for the European Commission from 1971 to 2009. He was formerly Director for Relations with the Council of ministers, subsequently for Institutional Matters and Better Regulation. He was also Alternate Member of the European Convention in 2002/2003. He published several articles and chapters on the EU institutions. He teaches European Governance and Decision-Making at the University of Florence and at the European College of Parma as well as European Law at the University of Rome. Costanza HERMANIN is a researcher in the department of social and political science of the European University Institute, where she is about to complete her PhD. Her research interests comprise EU social and immigration policy, EU institutional affairs, and human rights and immigration policy in Italy. She has been visiting fellow at several places (WZB, CERI, Columbia, Berkeley). She is the co-editor of a forthcoming book on “Fighting Race Discrimination in Europe” (Routledge, 2012). She has been publishing on Italian and English speaking journals. Daniela CORONA is currently research collaborator at the Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Florence where she completed her PhD. -
José Manuel Barroso's Leadership of the European Commission
A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Kassim, Hussein Working Paper A new model presidency: José Manuel Barroso's leadership of the European Commission WZB Discussion Paper, No. SP IV 2013-502 Provided in Cooperation with: WZB Berlin Social Science Center Suggested Citation: Kassim, Hussein (2013) : A new model presidency: José Manuel Barroso's leadership of the European Commission, WZB Discussion Paper, No. SP IV 2013-502, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB), Berlin This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/103427 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle You are not to copy documents for public or commercial Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available under an Open gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort Content Licence -
THE JUNCKER COMMISSION: an Early Assessment
THE JUNCKER COMMISSION: An Early Assessment John Peterson University of Edinburgh Paper prepared for the 14th Biennial Conference of the EU Studies Association, Boston, 5-7th February 2015 DRAFT: Not for citation without permission Comments welcome [email protected] Abstract This paper offers an early evaluation of the European Commission under the Presidency of Jean-Claude Juncker, following his contested appointment as the so-called Spitzencandidat of the centre-right after the 2014 European Parliament (EP) election. It confronts questions including: What will effect will the manner of Juncker’s appointment have on the perceived legitimacy of the Commission? Will Juncker claim that the strength his mandate gives him license to run a highly Presidential, centralised Commission along the lines of his predecessor, José Manuel Barroso? Will Juncker continue to seek a modest and supportive role for the Commission (as Barroso did), or will his Commission embrace more ambitious new projects or seek to re-energise old ones? What effect will British opposition to Juncker’s appointment have on the United Kingdom’s efforts to renegotiate its status in the EU? The paper draws on a round of interviews with senior Commission officials conducted in early 2015 to try to identify patterns of both continuity and change in the Commission. Its central aim is to assess the meaning of answers to the questions posed above both for the Commission and EU as a whole in the remainder of the decade. What follows is the proverbial ‘thought piece’: an analysis that seeks to provoke debate and pose the right questions about its subject, as opposed to one that offers many answers. -
A Fischler Reform of the Common Agricultural Policy? Johan F.M
CENTRE FOR W ORKING D OCUMENT N O . 173 EUROPEAN S EPTEMBER 2001 POLICY STUDIES A FISCHLER REFORM OF THE COMMON AGRICULTURAL POLICY? JOHAN F.M. SWINNEN 1. Introduction 1 2. A (Very) Brief History of the CAP and Agenda 2000 3 2.1 The CAP 3 2.2 Agenda 2000 4 2.3 Did Agenda 2000 go far enough 5 3. The Pressures for Further CAP Reform 6 3.1 WTO 6 3.1.1 Export subsidies 9 3.1.2 Domestic support 10 3.2 Other trade negotiations 13 3.3 Eastern Enlargement 14 3.3.1 Enlargement and WTO 15 3.3.2 Production and Trade Effects 16 3.4 Food Safety 19 4. Reform + Reform = More or Less Reform 20 5. The Future of the Direct Payments 22 6. Direct Payments and Enlargement 23 6.1 Direct Payments for CEEC Farmers 23 6.2 Budgetary Implications 25 7. Budget Pressures and CAP Reform 27 8. Direct Payments and WTO 29 9. Timing 30 10. The Pro- and Anti-Reform Coalitions 33 10.1 Enlargement and Reform Coalitions 36 11. Lessons from the History of CAP Reforms 37 12. A Hint of the 2004 Fischler Reforms ? 39 References 43 Tables and Figures 46 CEPS Working Documents are published to give an early indication of the work in progress within CEPS research programmes and to stimulate reactions from other experts in the field. Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed are attributable only to the author in a personal capacity and not to any institution with which he is associated. -
The Commission: Boxed in and Constrained, but Still an Engine of Integration
The Commission: Boxed In and Constrained, but still an Engine of Integration Stefan Becker, Michael Bauer, Sara Connolly and Hussein Kassim In the debate about the impact of the Eurozone crisis on the EU’s institutional balance, an- tagonists have often argued past each other. Supporters of the new intergovernmentalism contend that the European Council has supplanted the European Commission in policy lead- ership, while scholars who hold that the EU executive has been a winner of the crisis high- light the new management functions it has acquired. This article argues, first, that an accu- rate assessment of the institutional balance requires a more global evaluation of the Commis- sion, acknowledging external and internal dynamics. Second, it contends that the Eurozone crisis did not cause a Commission retreat. Rather, the crisis accelerated a process already underway that finds its origins in a different dynamic: the presidentialization of policy control undertaken by Commission President Barroso. The adoption of fewer legislative proposals by the Commission during the crisis was due to the ability and choice of a strong president to focus the attention of the institution on crisis-related areas of policy, not the displacement of the institution by the European Council. The broader lesson is that rather than marking a further step in the decline of the Commission, the crisis reveals how the centralization of power within the institution and its expanded management duties have enhanced its capacity to take strategic action. The Commission’s role as an engine of integration will therefore en- dure, but in a different guise. Keywords: European Commission, Economic Governance, Eurozone Crisis, New Intergov- ernmentalism Introduction At the very moment the Lisbon Treaty entered into force – and thereby brought a decade of constitutional debate in the European Union (EU) to an end – the Eurozone crisis put the new institutional balance to the test. -
How Political Parties, Rather Than Member-States, Are Building the European Union
How Political Parties, Rather than Member-States, Are Building the European Union Josep M. Colomer Higher Council of Scientific Research (CSIC) and Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona Abstract Political party formation and coalition building in the European Parliament is being a driving force for making governance of the highly pluralistic European Union relatively effective and consensual. In spite of successive enlargements and the very high number of electoral parties obtaining representation in the European Union institutions, the number of effective European Political Groups in the European Parliament has decreased from the first direct election in 1979 to the fifth in 1999. The formal analysis of national party¹s voting power in different European party configurations can explain the incentives for national parties to join large European Political Groups instead of forming smaller nationalistic groupings. Empirical evidence shows increasing cohesion of European Political Groups and an increasing role of the European Parliament in EU inter-institutional decision making. As a consequence of this evolution, intergovernmentalism is being replaced with federalizing relations. The analysis can support positive expectations regarding the governability of the European Union after further enlargements provided that new member states have party systems fitting the European Political Groups. JEL: C71, D72. H77 Keywords: Political parties, Coalitions, Power indices, Political institutions, European Union. Address: Prof. Josep M. Colomer. Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Department of Economics. Ramon Trias Fargas 25. Barcelona 08005 Spain. e-mail: [email protected] 1. Introduction The evolution of the European Community (EC) and the European Union (EU) demonstrates that not only formal institutions, but also organizations, such as political parties, can play an aggregating role, rendering institutional decision-making feasible in a pluralistic community. -
The Juncker Commission and EMU Reform Pedro León Sanjurjo Hanck
A purposeful opportunist? The Juncker Commission and EMU reform Pedro León Sanjurjo Hanck DEPARTMENT OF EUROPEAN POLITICAL AND GOVERNANCE STUDIES Bruges Political Research Papers 72 / 2018 European Political and Governance Studies / Etudes politiques et de gouvernance européennes Bruges Political Research Papers / Cahiers de recherche politique de Bruges No 72 / October 2018 A purposeful opportunist? The Juncker Commission and EMU reform by Pedro León Sanjurjo Hanck ©Pedro León Sanjurjo Hanck About the author Pedro León Sanjurjo Hanck holds a double degree in Political Science and Sociology from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, a Master’s degree in International Relations from the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI), and a Master’s degree in European Political and Governance Studies from the College of Europe (Bruges). This paper is based on the Master’s thesis supervised by Dermot Hodson, which was awarded the Sir Julian Priestley Memorial Award for the best thesis on European institutions. Please contact the author for the original work, including a more detailed and developed argument. I would like to thank Dermot Hodson for his valuable academic guidance throughout this process, as well as Michele Chang for the teachings without which I would not have been able to write this paper, and her useful comments on the publication of this work. Contact details [email protected] Editorial Team Michele Chang, Frederik Mesdag, Ernestas Oldyrevas, Julie Perain, Andrea Sabatini, Rachele Tesei, Thijs Vandenbussche, and Olivier Costa Fax +32 (0) 50 477 280 ׀ Tel. +32 (0) 50 477 281 ׀ Dijver 11, B-8000 Bruges, Belgium website www.coleurope.eu/pol ׀ email [email protected] Views expressed in the Bruges Political Research Papers are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect positions of either the series editors or the College of Europe. -
Chronicle of an Election Foretold: the Longer-Term Trends Leading to the ‘Spitzenkandidaten’ Procedure and the Election of Jean-Claude Juncker As European
LSE ‘Europe in Question’ Discussion Paper Series Chronicle of an Election Foretold: The Longer-Term Trends leading to the ‘Spitzenkandidaten’ procedure and the Election of Jean-Claude Juncker as European Commission President Martin Westlake LEQS Paper No. 102/2016 January 2016 LEQS is generously supported by the LSE Annual Fund Editorial Board Dr Joan Costa-i-Font Dr Vassilis Monastiriotis Dr Jonathan White Dr Katjana Gattermann Dr Sonja Avlijas All views expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the LSE. © Martin Westlake Chronicle of an Election Foretold: The Longer-Term Trends leading to the ‘Spitzenkandidaten’ procedure and the Election of Jean-Claude Juncker as European Commission President Martin Westlake* Abstract By focusing on the near-term campaign in the 2014 European elections analysts have tended to over-look a series of longer-term trends that were jointly and inexorably leading to the Spitzenkandidaten (lead candidate) process and to some at least of the subsequent structural reforms to the Commission. The paper argues that those longer-term trends continue and that the (s)election of Jean-Claude Juncker as President of the European Commission and the structural reforms he subsequently introduced are better understood as steps in ongoing processes rather than fresh departures. Thus, what will happen in 2019 will have been conditioned not only by 2014, but also by previous elections and previous developments, as considered in this paper. Keywords: European Commission Presidency, Jean-Claude Juncker, Spitzenkandidaten, European Parliament, Longer-Term Trends * Visiting Professor, College of Europe, Bruges Senior Visiting Fellow, European Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE Email: [email protected] The Longer-Term Trends leading to the ‘Spitzenkandidaten’ procedure Table of Contents 1. -
Journal of Contemporary European Research
Journal of Contemporary European Research Volume 15, Issue 4 (2019) ResearCh ArtiCle Is it all about European Democracy? The Motives behind the Institutionalisation of the Spitzenkandidaten Lukáš Hamřík and Petr Kaniok Citation Hamřík, L. and Kaniok, P. (2019). ‘Is it all about European DemoCraCy? The Motives behind the Institutionalisation of the Spitzenkandidaten’, Journal of Contemporary European Research 15(4): 354-377. https://doi.org/10.30950/jcer.v15i4.950 First published at: www.jcer.net Volume 15, Issue 4 (2019) Lukáš Hamřík and Petr Kaniok Abstract The European Parliament elections in 2014 and 2019 were different insofar as European citizens had the possibility to ‘directly’ influence who could become the next President of the European Commission. This innovation is based on the idea of ‘Spitzenkandidaten’, where a vote for a given political party also represents a vote for its lead candidate. This article examines the process behind the institutionalisation of the Spitzenkandidaten procedure, with attention focused on the actors involved and their motivations for supporting this institutional innovation. Using a qualitative content analysis of EU institutional and party documentation, the article confirms that the Spitzenkandidaten procedure should be perceived as the culmination of a long-term process beginning in the pre- Amsterdam era. It also concludes that the procedure, as firstly applied in 2014, represents the common effort of two supranational institutions and four European political parties. It is also argued that while the emergence of the Spitzenkandidaten is primarily a result of perceived shortcomings of the EU’s democratic quality, actors’ self-interest was also driving force. Keywords Spitzenkandidaten; Lead candidates; EU democracy; European Commission; European Parliament; European political parties The European Union (EU) has been contending with issues of legitimacy for over half of its existence. -
The Enlarged European Commission European Commission
Policy Paper n°11 The Enlarged European Commission.Commission. John Peterson John Peterson John Peterson is Professor of International Politics at the University of Edinburgh. He has previously held posts at the Universities of Glasgow, York, Essex, Oxford, and the University of California. He has been a visiting researcher or professor at the Universities of Vienna, Paris, California (Berkeley), University College Dublin, the Centre for European Policy Studies (Brussels), and the College of Europe (Bruges). Current or recent works include: Europe and America: Partners and Rivals in International Relations (Rowman and Littlefield, 2006, forthcoming, 3rd edition) ; The Institutions of the European Union (co-edited with Michael Shackleton, Oxford University Press, 2005, forthcoming, 2nd edition) ; Europe, America, Bush: Transatlantic Relations in the 21st Century (co-edited with Mark Pollack, Routledge, 2003) ; Integration in an Expanding European Union: Reassessing the Fundamentals (co-edited with J H H Weiler and Iain Begg, Blackwell, 2003) Professor Peterson edits the 'New European Union' series (together with Helen Wallace) for Oxford University Press, and was editor of the Journal of Common Market Studies from 1998- 2003. He was educated at Ithaca College, the University of California (Santa Barbara), and the London School of Economics and Political Science. Notre Europe Notre Europe is an independent research and policy unit whose objective is the study of Europe – its history and civilisations, integration process and future prospects. The association was founded by Jacques Delors in the autumn of 1996. It has a small team of six in-house researchers from various countries. Notre Europe participates in public debate in two ways. -
What Does the European Commission Do?
What does the European Commission do? by Giuseppe Ciavarini Azzi1 A new European Commission is formed whenever a Parliamentary election is held. The two institutions have a five-year mandate, and Commission members are elected within six months after their counterparts in the Parliament. Unlike many States’ executive branches, which reflect the national Parliamentarian majority and rely upon it, the European Commission does not emanate from the European Parliament. The latter, however, has a real impact on this institution’s membership. According to the treaty currently in force—the EC Treaty as amended by the Treaty of Nice— the President of the Commission is appointed by the European Council, acting by qualified majority, but this designation must be approved by the European Parliament. In making its decision, the European Council therefore considers the positions of the various political groups within the newly elected Parliament. That is why, with José Manuel Barroso’s appointment in 2004, the European Council opted for a candidate originating from the European People’s Party (EPP), of which the Parliamentary group was numerically the largest. Then the Council, acting in principle by qualified majority and by mutual agreement with the appointed President, adopts the Commission’s list of members, established in accordance with the proposals made by each Member State. Lastly, the Commission as a whole has to be approved by the European Parliament (commonly called an “investiture procedure”), after which it is appointed by the Council acting by qualified majority. In this phase as well, Parliament plays a critical role, all the more so in that it has instituted the practice—not provided for under the treaties—of conducting preliminary hearings for the designated commissioners by the competent committees.