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.     

Assessing Member States' Management of Eu Finances: an Empirical Analysis of the Annual Reports of the European Court of Auditors, 1996–2001

The aim of this article is to gain some understanding of the way the European Court of Auditors (ECA) assesses European Union (EU) member states' performances in managing EU finances. To this end the ECA's annual reports for 1996–2001 have been analysed.
We find that the information provided in the ECA annual reports is somewhat unsystematic, which is the result of the ECA's approach to auditing and its working methods. A review of the literature, as well as our own empirical analysis, allows us to conclude that the ECA does not in fact live up to its own mission of providing relevant, objective reports. Our analysis suggests, for instance, that there is some ambiguity within the ECA due to differences in audit traditions within the EU. Improvements could be made by reducing the number of ECA members to three or five, by (further) integrating the traditional ECA audit and the audit within the framework of the statement of assurance, and by further integrating internal and external budgetary control within the EU.     

The Linkage between Security,Governance and Development: the European Union in Africa

The international community currently favours an approach to development that stresses a triangular linkage between security, good governance and economic development. This approach clearly informs the European Union's agenda in Africa, which has progressively integrated governance and security elements. This paper will show that this agenda is at least as much determined by the bureaucratic and national affiliations of the concerned EU actors as it is by African realities and international trends. African security indeed triggers a competition between the different European institutions, eager to be the driving force for a policy that can offer some additional resources and autonomy. The consistency and the credibility of the EU security policy in Africa will therefore depend on the responses provided to these institutional rivalries.     

Europeanization, Whitehall Culture and the Treasury as Institutional Veto Player: A Constructivist Approach to Economic and Monetary Union

This article examines Europeanization in Whitehall, using EMU as a case study. It argues that how the EMU policy community has developed within Whitehall, and its outcomes, cannot be captured using a narrow, rationalist game-theoretic frame-work. Although strategic behaviour is important, as Dyson and Featherstone (1999) argue, the primary question is how Whitehall players have defined British interests, formed a collective identity and given a specific meaning to the EMU game. The article applies a cultural approach to Whitehall, focusing on the macro structures of belief within which EMU policy is made.     

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.     

European governance and the transfer of 'new' environmental policy instruments (NEPIs) in the European Union

This article examines the use of 'new' environmental policy instruments (NEPIs), particularly market-based instruments (for example, eco-taxes) and voluntary agreements, in the European Union (EU). It focuses on the actor motivation behind the recent increase in the adoption of new and innovative instruments in EU (and member state) environmental policies while also taking account of the external international arena. The article assesses whether new ideas put forward by policy entrepreneurs, such as member governments, EU institutions, expert groups and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), are the main motivation behind the EU adoption of NEPIs, or whether market and harmonization pressures are the main driving forces. It concentrates on eco-taxes, voluntary agreements and eco-labels, using the following three theoretical perspectives: (1) policy learning and transfer/ideational; (2) garbage can; and (3) institutional approaches.     

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.     

Civilization and international society: the case of European Union expansion

Joining a society of some kind requires the fulfillment of certain standards. In international society, states acknowledge the need for certain collective standards of international conduct if international order is to be maintained. The first truly global application of international norms took place during the nineteenth century through the process of the expansion of the European society of states and its gradual transformation to the contemporary global international society. In this process, the standard of ‘civilization’ played an essential role in determining which states would join the expanding European society and which ones would not. Despite the major changes that have occurred, the standard of ‘civilization’ has remained an international practice as well as a benchmark against which the attitudes and policies of states are assessed. Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in the EU policy of ‘membership conditionality’. Although many explanations for EU expansion have been put forward rather absent from debate has been the civilization dimension which is embedded in membership conditionality and which should be given more emphasis.     

Challenging the European Union: the rising powers and the USA in the Doha Round

In this article, the challenges posed to the European Union's (EU) role in trade policy and its implications for development policy during the World Trade Organization's Doha Development Agenda, also known as the Doha round, are highlighted. The authors argue that transformed power relations have created a situation characterized by role uncertainty, for the emerging powers but also for the EU. Priorities among multiple possible roles – in the existing trade regime, in relation to the global South and in the ongoing negotiations – become subject to redefinition. For the EU, heavily wedded to a multilateralist and reformist mission because of its own history, this process is particularly difficult. The EU's traditional role conceptions as a leader and a benign partner to developing countries have been challenged and partly replaced by a more realist approach.     

Russian and Caspian Hydrocarbons: Energy Supply Stakes for the European Union

The issue of EU gas supply security has become more and more important in the 2000s in the context of gas market liberalisation and the question of the reliability of Russia as a supplier. One answer to these problems is EU gas diversification, specifically the opening up of a fourth gas corridor to supply the EU with gas from Central Asia via the ‘Caucasus’ or ‘southern’ route. The feasibility of this strategy might now be called into question. This article reviews the new strategies that could emerge in the producing countries as well as those of international oil companies, and then examines what the consequences might be as far as the EU's diversification strategy is concerned. The article identifies some of the problems and limits of these strategies.     

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.     

Technology Transfer: A Mode of Collaboration Between the European Union and China

BEING ONE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION'S MAIN TRADING PARTNERS-ranking fourth in terms of both imports and exports expressed in value-China has emerged as an indispensable market for any multinational enterprise willing to avail itself of the opportunities represented by one of the fastest growing economies at the turn of the century. In order to close the technological gap with the developed economies of the world, China launched its open door policy in the late 1970s, the priority of which was to acquire foreign technology, capital, skills and management, as well as to cut dependence on imports. Foreign direct investment (FDI) and collaborative ventures in China, as important channels for technology transfer, have consequently grown massively. Owing to its size and development requirements, the People's Republic of China is one of the largest importers of technology in the world. During the 1950s it used to import technology from the former Soviet Union and from other East European countries. Since the late 1960s the EU and Japan have been the main sources of Chinese technology imports. Today, the EU-15 is China's major supplier of advanced technology and equipment. The EU represents 43.8% of China's total imports of technology (US$764.4 million), a share which is well ahead of that of Japan (at 25.5%) and of the United States (18.3%).1 These figures need to be appraised against the background of poor EU performance in terms of FDI in China compared with its Japanese and American counterparts. Over the past 15 years total FDI from the EU accounted for less than 5% of total direct investment from overseas firms in China (Qian, 1998). Nevertheless, in the recent past a greater awareness among EU policy makers and businesses of the potential represented by the Chinese market has emerged. The Essen European Council of 1994 endorsed a 'new Asia strategy', which 'called for a higher profile of the EU in Asia' (CEC, 1995, p. 17) and which broadly involves developing a long-term relationship with China. A 'Technology Window' programme was emphasised in the policy, which encourages EU companies to embrace broadly the business opportunities on offer, and to transfer much needed technology to China. This article sees technology transfer (TT) as a practical and strategic means of increased collaboration between the EU and the Chinese economies. Research and studies that have touched on this issue are rare, mainly because the demarcation line between technology transfer and technology imports is blurred. Technology transfer differs from technology imports in conceptual as well as in real terms, as we discuss in this article. It goes along with FDI which requires a full involvement in occupying a new market. After an attempt at defining technology transfer and clarifying the optimal context in which TT can be performed, we shall briefly assess the positive impact of technology transfer from the standpoint of both the transferor and the receiver. We then provide a concise review of Sino-EU relations, with a specific emphasis on technology transfer in two selected industries.