Relationship between EU and Britain.
The European Union formed after long years of negotiations and meetings between member states of Europe because of common interests and goals on economic, social, and foreign policies. To maintain the Union as a group, it has gone through many alterations in its policies like increasing the legislative power of the European Parliament, increasing its member states and many treaties like Treaties of Rome, Maastricht Treaty have been signed to control the governance of the EU. The EU has provided stability, peace, and prosperity for its European members. But as the EU has grown and become powerful and has stepped towards supranational government, the national sovereignty and the right to veto has come under threat. One of the largest and powerful members of the EU, Britain, is very cautious about its intergovernmental approach. David Cameron has indicated that there would be a referendum on the UK's membership and it is feared that more than half of the UK's citizens would vote to pull the UK out of the EU. The relation between EU and Britain has never been ideal. Since the British have ruled the world for many centuries, they still feel somewhat superior to other European countries. But when Britain’s economy declined, while the Community members flourished economically, Britain joined the community for economic reasons, not for political reasons. Thatcher's policy towards European Integration is rather aggressive as seen in her Bruges Speech in 1988 and her stubbornness to not give away nationalism, has set the current British policy towards the European Union; but leaving the Union is not ideal for both United Kingdom and the European Union from both a political and economic point of view....
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On the one hand, without international relations from the EU, Britain is economically and socially vulnerable. While Britain’s exit from the EU may define Britain’s power according to British citizens, the type of power that matters is relative power, which is the power when it is being compared to other states. If the other states do not recognize Britain as a force of power, then its exit from the EU is pointless. On the other hand, by discontinuing the benefits granted by the EU, Britain declines the assistance that could have helped the country to become more powerful. In other words, Brexit decreases a source of gathering power for Britain, since the EU not only offers economic opportunities, but it also provides useful information so that the member states can behave accordingly. Overall, realism suggests that while Brexit increases Britain’s confidence in being powerful, it also decreases the country’s power in a way.
The enlargement of the European Union (EU) in 2004 and 2007 has been termed as the largest single expansion of the EU with a total of 12 new member states – bringing the number of members to 27 – and more than 77 million citizens joining the Commission (Murphy 2006, Neueder 2003, Ross 2011). A majority of the new member states in this enlargement are from the eastern part of the continent and were countries that had just emerged from communist economies (EC 2009, Ross 2011), although overall, the enlargement also saw new member states from very different economic, social and political compared to that of the old member states (EC 2009, Ross 2011). This enlargement was also a historical significance in European history, for it saw the reunification of Europe since the Cold War in a world of increasing globalization (EC 2009, Mulle et al. 2013, Ross 2011). For that, overall, this enlargement is considered by many to have been a great success for the EU and its citizens but it is not without its problems and challenges (EC 2009, Mulle et al. 2013, Ross 2011). This essay will thus examine the impact of the 2004/2007 enlargements from two perspectives: firstly, the impact of the enlargements on the EU as a whole, and thereafter, how the enlargements have affected the new member states that were acceded during the 2004/2007 periods. Included in the essay will be the extent of their integration into the EU and how being a part of the Commission has contributed to their development as nation states. Following that, this essay will then evaluate the overall success of the enlargement process and whether the EU or the new member states have both benefited from the accessions or whether the enlargement has only proven advantageous to one th...
Nowadays, more and more European citizens are not satisfied with the European Union and the anti-European political parties are increasingly acquiring votes. There have been many debates and studies about the division of powers among the European institutions and about the influence and impact these institutions and the national parliaments have on the process of European integration. Especially the democratic crisis and the low level of popular legitimacy in the EU (Hix, 2008) result in increasing debates about whether the current structure of the EU is satisfactory. An important aspect in these debates about the structure and the decision-making process in the EU, is whether the power of the states in European integration is sufficient. Sharpf (1999) distinguishes between positive and negative integration and the role of the EU institutions and parliaments in these integration processes. This paper will build on this distinction between positive and negative integration in order to analyse whether states are still the principle actors in European integrations. It argues that states do not remain the principal actors in European integration, especially in negative integration. The agenda-setting power of the Commission and the decision-making power of the Court of Justice on cases should not be underestimated, they have an important impact on both positive and negative integration. This essay is structured in the following way. First, short definitions of positive integration and negative integration will be given. Following this, the role of the states in both positive and negative integration will be c...
113-117 Human Rights: Politics and Practices. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.