As at January 1, 2007, the European Union comprised of 29 member States (United kingdom, Ireland, Denmark, France, Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium, Spain, Poland, Slovenia, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Slovakia, Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Malta, Portugal, Austria, Sweden, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and Turkey.)
Decision-making at the European Union comprises three main institutions; the European Commission (comprises all the member states), the European Parliament (its composition is governed by the founding treaties, and the Act of September 20, 1976 on election of members of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage.) and the Council of the European Union (comprises of representatives of the member states and the presidency is held in rotation for a period of six months by each member state) .
The European Commission is mandated with the responsibility of proposing new legislations and there after, the Council and the European Parliament partakes the procedure of passing the proposed legislation into law. The two institutions work hand in hand to debate on the proposed law although in some cases, the Council of the European Union handles the task by itself. The laws of the European Union are categorised into Directives and Regulations and the rules and procedure on how to go about the decision-making process are prescribed in the Treaties. Thus, every proposal by the European Commission is guided by a subject treaty article titled the legal basis wherein the procedures outlined are consultation, assent and co-decision .
The consultation procedure involves situations whereby the Council feels the need to consult not only the European Parliament but also the concerned committ...
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...g-process.htm; decision making process; 2009; delegation of the European Union to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, 2009.
EU2009.CZ. http://www.eu2009.cz/en/about-the-eu/eu-decision-making/decision-making-procedures-579/ December 23, 2008; decision making procedures.
EUROPA.http://ec.europa.eu/codecision/stepbystep/text/index_en.htm; September 30, 2010 ‘Codecision’
European navigator. ‘Council of the European Union Codecision Guide.’ Pp 32, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, September 2000. Retrieved on March 2, 2011 from http://www.ena.lu/council_european_union_codecision_guide_september_2000-020007512.html
Larson Torbjủrn Precooking in the European union: the world of expert groups. Stockholm, 2003.
Peterson John & Bomberg Elizabeth E. Decision-making in the European Union. New York: St. Martin Press, 1999.
Working unitedly is a basic thing to do if you have one to 10 people, but with almost a whole country working as a union is a significant and a spontaneous deal. Which Union am I talking about? The European Union, of course! This Union holds virtually all of the European Countries with 28 countries. Unfortunately, some countries never did join because of losing sovereignty.
The European Union has a common “government” called the Parliament. In the background essay it stated, “The role of the parliament is to debate and pass laws, make sure all EU institutions work democratically, and debate, and adopt the EU budget”. This means that the parliament has control over the laws, and controls the European Union budget. In Document B it mentions, “Whatever institution governs the trade of a nation or group of nations whether monarchy, dictator or parliament essentially rules that nation”. This means that the parliament has control over the European Union.
There are a number of methods EU legislation is formed for instance regulations, directives and decisions are three different types of EU legislation. I am going to briefly explain these three as the way they will be enforced are different.
For this reason, the Commission is referred as the “guardian of the Treaties” or “watchdog” of the EU. Moreover, the decisions made by the Parliament and the Council must be made on the basis of the proposals given by the Commission.
When analysts criticise the lack of democratic legitimacy in the EU they generally point to the mode of political representation and the nature of policy outputs. Only one branch of the EU is directly elected is the European Parliament. Though stronger than it once was, the EP remains is actually only one of four major actors in the EU policy-making process. The EP is a body without power or accountability, and easily dismissed just as a ‘talking shop’ (Colin Pilkington.) Only 75% of its amendments are accepted by the Commission and the Council of Ministers.
Tiilikainen, T. 2011. The empowered European Parliament: Accommodation to the new functions provided by the Lisbon Treaty. The Finnish Institute of International Affairs.
The European Union (EU), since the initial foundation in 1952 as the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and throughout periods of development, has been considered one of the most advanced forms of regional integration. It, based on numerous treaties and resolutions, has strived to promote values such as peace, cooperation or democracy, and in 2012 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for having “contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe” (Nobel Media AB, 2012). Despite its struggle for promoting democracy, the EU itself has long experienced scholarly criticisms that it suffers the democratic deficit, from which its democratic legitimacy is undermined by observable problems in political accountability and participation. As the importance of legitimacy in a democratically representative institution is hardly debatable, the criticism of whether and why the EU lacks democracy has been given a considerable gravity in academia.
The EU is a union of sovereign European states who share sovereignty based on treaty. The union also possesses competences in policy sectors with exclusive jurisdiction in the area of Economic and Monetary Union while others are shared with Member States (MS), the other powers belong to MS as derived from the conferral of powers art 5(2) TEU, 2(1) TFEU art.3 & 4 TFEU additionally other powers have been offered by the decisions of the European Court for direct effect on citizens
The Presidency rotates among the Member States every six months and is used as a mechanism through which Member States can advance specific priorities. The UK will next hold the Presidency in the second half of 2005. [2] The European Council's far reaching and dramatic decisions have helped propel their meetings into the public spotlight where they have become the focal point for media coverage of the EU, which increases their power [3] During the political, economic and institutional weakening of the European Community (EC) in the 1960s and 1970s the ECJ persisted and struggled on to create an extensive and powerful mass of case law that continued the process for deeper integration. The outcome of this was extremely positive.
First, the structure of the framework strongly supports an extensive analysis of the directive and of the context in which it was formulated and implemented. Second, each element is important when trying to clarify how a policy is created in the European Union and the impact of the policy on businesses. The 'issue' element provides an opportunity to explain the content of the directive. The 'actors', 'interests','arenas' and 'assets' elements describe and illustrate the power play involved in European Union policy formulation and implementation and the place occupied by businesses. The 'information' element demonstrates the ever increasing importance that knowledge has within the European Union and how it can be used by businesses. Finally, the design of a non-market strategy supported by the (IA)3 framework enables a firm to become active and not only adapt to a certain policy but also gain an opportunity to influence the environment within which it is
After WWII, many politically influential people saw a need to create some form of interdependence between the nation states of Europe as a means to preventing further war (Watts, 2008: p6). In 1951 Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg all signed the Treaty of Paris creating the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC); the beginnings of an integrated Europe which has seen many changes since its creation (Thody, 1997: p1). Today it has become the highly integrated European Union with 28 member states, 18 of which share a single currency (Archick, 2014: p1). The process of EU integration is a complex one, as can be seen in its history and will surely be seen in its future. There is no simple explanation that can successfully explain the growth of the EU from a economic community of six nation states to the political and economic union it has become today. However there are two competing theories for explaining EU integration that give opposing views on the matter, neo-functionalism and intergovernmentalism. In this essay I will examine both theories and attempt to reach a conclusion if either successfully explains EU integration.
Referring to practical cases, this paper analyses all stages of the EIA Directive; furthermore it explores whether public participation is considered in each phase of the assessment and it explains why the public is involved only at certain stages of the EIA.
Senior, Nello Susan. "Chapters:4,15." The European Union: Economics, Policies and History. London: McGraw-Hill, 2009. Print.
The European Union’s environmental policy is vast and complicated. It applies to every country under the Union’s domain and its criteria must be met for any state wishing to seek membership. The European Union was not the original forerunner in environmental politics; in fact, the United States “took on a leadership role in preparations for the 1972 United Nations (UN) Conference on the Human Environment” (Kelemen 2009). However, in the 1970s (1973 to be specific) as the US pulled away from being the environmental leader the EU emerged with it’s seven ‘Environmental Action Plans’ (EAP) (Pearce 1998). The original aim of environmental policy was very traditional, focusing on protecting species and improving the quality of life but today the underlying aim of the policy “is to enhance natural capital, provide a resource-efficient economy and safeguard people’s health” (European Commission 2013). I will first open with a brief history of the environmental policy, followed by its success and failures using concrete examples and conclude with alterations or alternatives to the policy in order to make it more successful across the European Union.
The reporting mechanism enables the Committee to engage in a constructive dialogue with State Parties which includes recommendations for improvement. However, the Committee, as a monitoring body, has no power to compel Parties to implement those recommendations. This has created an opportunity for State Parties to evade their responsibilities. It is an apparent frailty to the design, and this lack of explicit power has been a ...