从欧洲主权债务危机看欧盟发展困境

2010年末爆发的爱尔兰债务危机,让尚未彻底走出次贷危机和希腊债务的欧盟再次陷入危机泥潭。虽然爱尔兰最终获得欧盟救助,但危机暴露出的欧盟发展困境令外界对欧洲的忧虑由主权债务风险,延伸至欧元是否会继续存在,欧盟是否会解体。     

Ukraine between Russia and the European Union: Triangle Revisited

Ukraine has long been considered as a bone of contention between the EU and Russia which could eventually lead to a geographical split of the country. This interpretation, however, fails to explain the dynamic of the Ukrainian revolution and Russian–Ukrainian war. To address the deadlock in understanding the mixed dynamics of the situation in Ukraine, the article argues that the relations in the EU–Ukraine–Russia triangle are affected by the combination of choices that the Ukrainian political class, business elites and broader society make in four major dimensions: internal political practices; economic dimension; a dimension of international politics; and an ideological dimension.     

European Union anti-piracy initiatives in the Horn of Africa: linking land-based counter-piracy with maritime security and regional development

Piracy off the coast of Somalia has resulted in a steady decline in trade through the Arabian Sea and higher costs of doing business for multiple world regions. The EU has responded to the threat with a large-scale anti-piracy operation in the Horn of Africa, which constitutes the first free-standing Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) military operation that is not entirely dependent on North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) planning and assets. The operation is designed to interdict Somali piracy operations across the Gulf of Aden and to keep some of the world’s busiest sea lanes open for reasons of world trade. This article argues that the EU preoccupation with military solutions to the piracy problem, based on interventions through the Somali federal government with an emphasis on security, is insufficient because it fails to address the underlying causes of piracy and misunderstands the Somali socio-cultural-security nexus and the need for practical longer term land-based approaches to development. The reduction of Somali piracy activities can be linked to this increased military response capacity as well as to increased security precautions undertaken by shipping companies, but none of these strategies has succeeded in dismantling piracy networks. They therefore offer only a temporary and costly stopgap measure.     

Energy Security and Climate Change in the European Union,China and Latin American Relationships:Major Challenges and Areas of International Cooperation

The author discusses the subject in both ecological and political perspectives based on a most comprehensive,authoritative and updated bibliography.Hence,Latin America and the Caribbean(LAC) is as much diversified as there are sub-regions and regional organizations in geopolitical and geo-economical terms and often dialectic regarding energy security,climate change and LAC ties with Europeans and China and so is the tripartite relations with the rest of the world so far as energy security and climate cha...     

Organizing For Europe: Whitehall, The British State And European Union

The article examines the adaptation of Whitehall to participation in the European Union. Following an Historical Institutionalist analysis, the article argues that the most critical juncture relating to the machinery for the handling of European business was taken in 1960–1961 well before the third, successful application to join the European Communities. Actual accession brought about an adaptation of the machinery and of the processes developed in negotiation to the wider needs of membership rather than a reform of machinery. Thus the most important alteration in Britain's overseas relations since the war was easily accommodated within Whitehall's established approach to handling policy. Developments from the 1970s onwards have largely been accretive and these developments are outlined. However, the article argues that more fundamental challenges deriving from EU membership lie ahead for the structure of the British state.     

The European Union and Mercosur: A case of inter-regionalism

The article reviews the relation between two regional integration arrangements, the European Union and Mercosur, under three aspects: trade and investment, international negotiations and the institutional dimension. Tracing the agenda and issues dealt with between the two, leading to a project of a transatlantic free trade area, reveals that trade issues, one of two 'pillars' of reference, are important. However, the most influential results have stemmed so far from the other 'pillar', the political one. These results may be seen in the EU's role as a 'road map' for Mercosur's institutional trajectory, and second, as a signal for the private sector in furthering industrial networks within the ongoing world economic restructuring. The objective, thus, is to highlight how the relationship may interact with two encompassing processes: the shaping of regionalism/s, in particular the Mercosur case, and the so-called globalisation process.     

Nationalism and Cultural Memory in Poland: The European Union Turns East

The eastern expansion of the European Union confronts the process of European integration with the phenomenon of cultural and ethnic nationalism. This paper examines the situation of Poland, using Jan Assmann's theory of cultural memory to reconstruct the historical dimension of Polish nationalism which underlies the current constructions of the Polish nation. Understanding itself as the antemurale Europae christianiae, Poland owns an old tradition of resistance. This tradition allowed this country to survive times of division and oppression but now turns against the European Union.     

The European Union: A Shield Against the Downside of Globalization

Because they have failed to address the fundamental economic imbalances within Europe obscured by the single currency, each effort by European leaders so far to resolve the euro crisis has only deepened it. Without a decisive move toward fiscal and political union, accompanied by policies that push productivity and competitiveness toward convergence while closing the democratic deficit, the Eurozone will disintegrate. To discuss the way forward, the Nicolas Berggruen Institute's Council on the Future of Europe met in Rome on May 28 with Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti. In this section we publish the contributions from that meeting by the former European leaders, scholars and Nobel laureates who are members of the Council.     

Hungary and the European Union: The political implications of societal security promotion

Hungary's constitutional commitment to support kin-nationals beyond its borders (nation policy) has been a central feature of its post-1989 foreign policy and highlights a particularly important national security concern—the societal security of national identity, culture, language and tradition. This article examines Hungary's societal security concerns and the policy methods it utilises, including its EU membership and the promotion of minority rights at the European level, to help combat these concerns. It is suggested that Hungary has found it somewhat difficult to balance its societal security policy objective with internal economic demands on its welfare system and its external foreign policy objective to maintain good neighbourly relations. This article also notes that Hungary's attempts to Europeanise, or rather ‘EU-ise’, minority and ethnic rights issues as a means to enhance societal security for the Hungarian nation has certain political consequences for the EU. This suggests that societal security provision is an issue that cannot be overlooked when trying to understand the longer-term implications of EU eastern enlargement.     

The European Union as a Regional Normative Hegemon: The Case of European Neighbourhood Policy

This article analyses the European Union's European Neighbourhood Policy in the context of the European Union as an actor employing normative power in international politics. The European Neighbourhood Policy can be seen as a substitute for the Union's enlargement that has previously been the main vehicle for the Union's normative power in Europe. By relinquishing enlargement, the EU is in danger of losing its capacity for effectively stabilising its nearest neighbours as well as losing its legitimacy and justification in their eyes. The article discusses whether the European Neighbourhood Policy can be seen as a fruitful way out of the Union's present conundrum. It concludes that at least in its present form the Neighbourhood Policy is far from a panacea. It suffers from a lack of legitimacy as a result of its inability to answer the neighbours' calls for full political and institutional belonging in Europe.     

欧盟的一次"政治地震"

法国全民公投结果,对<欧盟宪法条约>说"不".荷兰继之.受此影响,本来对"一体化"半心半意的英国,乘机宣布搁置公投.这无疑是欧罗巴大陆的一次"政治地震".这次"地震"是欧盟内外,政治、经济、社会错综复杂矛盾的总暴露.     

Constitutional Dynamics in the European Union: Success,Failure, and Stability of Institutional Treaty Revisions

ABSTRACT

Despite high institutional hurdles for constitutional change, one observes surprisingly many EU treaty revisions. This article takes up the questions of what determines whether a treaty provision is successfully changed and why provisions are renegotiated at subsequent Intergovernmental Conferences. The article presents an institutionalist theory explaining success and renegotiation and tests the theory using all core institutional provisions by means of Qualitative Comparative Analysis. The causal analysis shows that low conflict potential of an issue is sufficient for successfully changing the treaties. Furthermore, high conflict potential of an issue and its fundamental change are sufficient for it to be renegotiated.     

The European Union as an Alternative to the Nation-State

The article describes the specific character of the European Union??its status as an unfinished federal quasi-state, the EU??s potential as one global actor among others and the motivation behind the ongoing process of integration, especially the EU??s antithetical character concerning nationalism. The article analyses the different theoretical approaches to explain why the Union has become what it is??and why it has not become a different entity. It also discusses the question of different interests promoting or opposing further integration. The basic argument is that the EU provides??in a period of declining state power??the possibility to reconstruct politics and government on a transnational level.     

The sources of European Union legitimacy: Political theories old and new

David Beetham and Christopher Lord, Legitimacy and the European Union (Longman, Harlow, 1998), 144 pp., ISBN 0–582–30489‐X (pb)

Thomas Banchoff and Mitchell P. Smith (eds), Legitimacy and the European Union: the Contested Polity (Routledge, London, 1999), 225 pp., ISBN 0–415–18189–5 (pb)

Albert Weale and Michael Nentwich (eds), Political Theory and the European Union: Legitimacy, Constitutional Choice and Citizenship (Routledge/ECPR Studies in European Political Science, London, 1998), 205 pp., ISBN 0–415–17313–2 (hb)