The Fight Against Organised Crime in Europe: A Comparative Perspective

This article provides an overview of the measures and actions taken by the Member States of the European Union in their fight against organised crime and transborder crime. The Action Plan to Combat Organized Crime adopted by the Ministers for Justice and Home Affairs during the Dutch EU Presidency, submitted some 30 recommendations with respect to greater harmonisation regarding the fight against organised crime in the EU Member States. The author gives a concise summary of the most relevant changes and the structural characteristics per Member State, paying attention to developments in the specific countries and the organisations involved. One of the conclusions reached is that few or no reforms within national investigative and prosecution authorities may be directly traced back to the regulatory impulses of the EU. Although the EU Action Plan has not yet realised a convergence of the systems, the European process of integration has increased the mutual transparency and knowledge of one another's systems.     

On the Technology of Collective Identity: Normative Reconstructions of the Concept of EU Citizenship

The unsatisfactory present of European Union Citizenship and the unclear integration telos have given rise to many questions regarding the future of the European Citizen and the possibility of a European demos. On what sort of foundation can such a demos be constructed, and what will its relationship with national demoi be? This article presents the theoretical approaches on the future of EU citizenship, varying from civic‐centered thesis to social models, with a view to exploring the potential and dynamics of a different European identity based, not on supposedly common history and culture, but on newly‐founded shared political values. The aim is to go beyond the classic federation–confederation dilemma and look deeper into the process of creating an actual European demos.     

Should Europe disturb historians? On the importance of methodology and interdisciplinarity

Does the emergence of the European Union (EU) disrupt the frames of reference of the contemporary history of Europe to such an extent that historians distrust it? It would seem that methodological Euroscepticism exists. European integration arouses scepticism among some in the community of historians of contemporary Europe, since the conceptual underpinnings of that history cannot in themselves account for European integration. This billet expresses, more than a word of caution, a call for enhanced dialogue on the EU as an object of study among the different strands of historical studies and different disciplines. On the one hand, some of the analyses provided by historical studies on contemporary Europe constitute a fertile source for the study and understanding of European integration, notably in the field of history. Using them can stimulate the development in the European studies field of new concepts, new representations and new hypotheses for grasping the EU as a reality and a comparatively new object of academic interest. On the other hand, the critical study of the EU conducted in the specific field of the history of the EU questions and sheds a new light on the analytical categories of contemporary European history. In this regard, the fruitful interaction between history, political geography, law and political science can enrich contemporary European history. Interdisciplinary studies on European integration notably enable us to decentre notions of sovereignty, territory and democracy, which have classically taken the nation state as their reference in broad explanatory narratives of contemporary European history. Research mutualisation would offer all the potential interpretative and analytical benefits of the conceptual and methodological rethink of our various disciplines and of European integration as an object of study.     

European integration from the agency theory perspective

European integration is a process in which national governments look for higher levels of integration and promote new requests for allocations from the supranational authority while the balance between the benefits and costs of the supranational collective action becomes increasingly favourable. This process may be analyzed as an agency problem where different national governments, acting as principals, try to lead a single agent—the supranational authority—to make a decision on the level of integration. In this paper, decisions on integration of equilibrium are studied as the result of a non co-operative two-stage game, where national governments outline their political support strategies in the first stage and the supranational authority decides the level of integration in the second stage. JEL Classification D72     

European Law Beyond ‘Ever Closer Union’ Repositioning the Concept,its Thrust and the ECJ's Comparative Methodology

The article investigates competing understandings of European law. It supports, against the prevailing EU‐centred understanding, an ecumenical concept that embraces EU law, supplementing international instruments, the European Convention on Human Rights and, importantly, various domestic laws enacting or responding to such transnational law, as well as European comparative law. To keep the concept in sync with European politics, it posits a new idea that binds the parts together: to provide for a European legal space rather than further European integration (the ever closer union). This idea can also serve as European law's functional equivalent to forming one legal order. European law thus conceived grasps the puzzling complex of interdependent legal orders, sets a common frame for corresponding reconstructions (European composite constructions, legal pluralism, network theories, federalism or intergovernmentalism) and allows forces with diverging outlooks to meet in one legal field, on one more neutral disciplinary platform. Within this framework, European comparative law finds a new mission as well as a sound legal basis.     

European criminal law and European identity

This contribution aims to explain how European Criminal Law can be understood as constitutive of European identity. Instead of starting from European identity as a given, it provides a philosophical analysis of the construction of self-identity in relation to criminal law and legal tradition. The argument will be that the self-identity of those that share jurisdiction depends on and nourishes the legal tradition they adhere to and develop, while criminal jurisdiction is of crucial importance in this process of mutual constitution. This analysis will be complemented with a discussion of the integration of the first and the third pillar as aimed for by the Constitutional Treaty (TE), which would bring criminal law under majority rule and European democratic control. Attention will be paid to two ground breaking judgements of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) that seem to boil down to the fact that the Court actually manages to achieve some of the objectives of the CT even if this is not in force. This gives rise to a discussion of how the CT (and related judgements of the ECJ) may transform European criminal law in the Union to EU criminal law of the Union, thus producing an identity of the Union next to the identities prevalent in the Union. The contribution concludes with some normative questions about the kind of European identity we should aim to establish, given the fact that such identity will arise with further integration of criminal law into the first pillar.

EU Accession to the ECHR: Between Autonomy and Adaptation

After the European Union's accession to the European Convention on Human Rights the EU will become subject to legally binding judicial decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and participate in statutory bodies of the Council of Europe (Parliamentary Assembly; Committee of Ministers) when they act under the Convention. Convention rights and their interpretation by the ECtHR will be directly enforceable against the EU institutions and against Member States when acting within the scope of EU law. This will vest the ECHR with additional force in a number of Member States, including Germany and the UK. All Member States will further be subject to additional constraints when acting under the Convention system. The article considers the reasons for, and consequences of the EU's primus inter pares position under the Convention and within the Council of Europe, and the likely practical effect of the EU's accession for its Member States.     

The European Union in international environmental negotiations: a legal perspective on the internal decision-making process

From an EU point of view, most international environmental agreements are mixed. This means that both the European Community (EC) and its member states are party to the agreement. As the participation of the EC in international negotiations and agreements is properly arranged by the Treaty establishing the European Community, but the EU member states’ participation is not legally organized on the EU level, the internal decision-making process regarding mixed agreements is rather complicated. Insights into this process are needed to understand the representation and the role of the European Union in international environmental negotiations. This article clarifies the legal framework of the EU decision-making process regarding such negotiations.

Government(ality) by Experts: Human Rights as Governance

The suggestion that the general economy of power in our societies is becoming a domain of security was made by Michel Foucault in the late 1970s. This paper takes inspiration from Foucault’s work to interpret human rights as technologies of governmentality, which make possible the safe and secure society. I examine, by way of illustration, the site of the European Union and its use of new modes of governance to regulate rights discourse—in particular via the emergence of a new Fundamental Rights Agency. ‘Governance’ in the EU is constructed in an apolitical way, as a departure from traditional legal and juridical methods of governing. I argue, however, that the features of governance represent technologies of government(ality), a new form of both being governed through rights and of governing rights. The governance feature that this article is most interested in is experts. The article aims to show, first and foremost, how rights operate as technologies of governmentality via a new relation to expertise. Second, it considers the significant implications that this reading of rights has for rights as a regulatory and normalising discourse. Finally, it highlights how the overlap between rights and governance discourses can be problematic because (as the EU model illustrates) governance conceals the power relations of governmentality, allowing, for instance, the unproblematic representation of the EU as an international human rights actor.     

Beyond the European void? Reflections on Peter Mair's legacy

Peter Mair was one of the world's leading scholars of party politics. Though he wrote at some length about the European Union, there has been no systematic exploration of the implications of his comparative work on political parties for European integration. His writings on the EU have generally been studied in isolation from his wider oeuvre, with the result that we have missed the important analytical and logical connections between Mair's work on parties and his writings on the EU. This article argues that Mair's path‐breaking middle‐range theoretical and empirical work on the decline of party democracy can form the basis of a radical reappraisal of the project of ‘ever closer union’. The article studies Mair's arguments against the backdrop of more recent empirical evidence and evaluates the normative implications of his work for the future of the European project.     

EU Integration and Cultural Diplomacy in Times of Crisis: The Case of Greece

The economic crisis challenges the integration policies of the European Union (EU) and reduces its soft power. Developing from a discussion on cultural values, cultural diplomacy is proposed as a way for the EU and its member states to address the negative effects of the crisis on their soft power and integration process. Cultural values, identity issues, top-down and bottom-up stakeholders, policies, and prospects for cultural diplomacy are explored with a focus on Greece. A proposal based on the balancing of sociocultural with economic principles is presented as a conclusion that would address soft power deficits and further EU integration.     

The evolution of security industry regulation in the European Union

ABSTRACT

The European private security sector has grown from a handful of small companies at the end of the Second World War into a multibillion Euro industry with thousands of firms and millions of security staff. In Europe, the demands for security is not just expressed notionally but also officially in The European Agenda on Security stating the European Union (EU) aims to ensure that people live in an area of freedom, security, and justice. This article will begin by exploring the role of private security in society. It will then move on to consider the main phases in the development of private security regulation in Europe. Following on from this, some of the main areas of policy development will be considered, such as European bodies, initiatives, and standards. Finally, the article will explore some of the potential options for the future in better regulating the European private security sector. From a historical perspective, the evolution of private security regulation can be divided into three phases: the laissez-faire, the centrifugal, and the centripetal era – each with its own distinct characteristics and impact on the concurrent industry. In the EU where there is the legal framework for the development of a single market in services, the key social partners have been at the forefront of developing a series of standards and guidance documents which promote standards across borders at the European level. However, the institutions of the EU have been reluctant to intervene at a European level in setting minimum standards of private security regulation. Thus, the changing terrain of the EU relating to security, regulation, and the private security industry means the current trajectory may be in need of an injection of more radical thought and consideration.     

Regional parliaments in the EU multilevel parliamentary system

ABSTRACT

European integration has created a multilevel political system that is dominated by executive actors. Despite the increasing competences of the European Parliament, a growing EU-awareness of national assemblies and an emerging attention of regional parliaments for EU affairs, the EU polity still lacks a sound parliamentary representation. As the EU presents itself as a representative democracy, the current set-up raises questions from the perspective of democratic legitimacy. The establishment of multilevel parliamentarianism may be part of the remedy. This introduction focuses on the position that regional parliaments take in such a European multilevel parliamentary system. The authors address three relevant questions: what roles do regional parliaments take up in terms of legislation, scrutiny and networking? To what extent are they empowered by the Lisbon Treaty? And what explains the variation in their activities? The authors develop hypotheses that are, to varying degree, addressed by the contributions in this special issue.     

Theoretical Integration and Unification: A Focus on Justice

A commonly shared goal among scientists is to reach the ‘holy grail’ of theoretical integration or unification. We list several examples of such attempts within sociology and psychology in general and, more specifically, within the subarea of social justice. A distinction is made between the seemingly interchangeable terms integration and unification. We note the scarcity of work concerned with untangling the meaning of theoretical integration, with differentiating among forms of integration, and with mapping the variety of ways in which integration might be accomplished. The five articles published in this issue of Social Justice Research, and here briefly reviewed, address these and related questions and/or exemplify theoretical integration with a focus on justice.     

Off-label Paediatric Drug Use for Juvenile Depression and the Clinical Trial Regulations 2004: The Impact of Available Protective Mechanisms

Across Europe, around one in four adults experience a mental health problem in any 1 year. It is estimated that 2–6% of children and adolescents suffer from depression and suicide is now the third leading cause of death in 10–19 year olds. Despite traditional Freudian teachings that children rarely suffer from clinically diagnosed depression, treatment figures for juvenile depression have soared in recent years. For adults, the current treatment trend, as advocated by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), is the use of Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), such as Prozac. For children, efficacy of such treatment remains difficult to judge as all SSRI use in paediatric care remains ‘off-label’ or unlicensed. Notwithstanding this, in 2006 the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) advocated the use of Prozac within the EU for children from the age of eight, a position that reinforced the stance adopted by NICE in 2005. These recommendations have been made despite growing concern that many SSRIs have some serious side effects. In new legislation for paediatric medicines, that came into effect on 26th January 2007, the European Union (EU) has attempted to address several unresolved issues relating to children’s needs for medicines in Europe. This paper considers the position of off-label drug-therapy for juvenile depression, and assesses the effectiveness of available legal mechanisms that can protect juveniles from harm when involved in clinical drug trials, most notably the Clinical Trial Regulations 2004. It further reviews the new EU legislation and evaluates its likely impact.

Electricity Market Restructuring and Energy Contracts: A Critical Note on the EU Commission’s NEA Decision

As highlighted in the economic literature, contracts are crucial policy instruments to organize and manage restructured electricity markets. In the early 90’s, during the restructuring of the electricity market in UK, the three main Scottish electricity generators stipulated a long-term, “take-or-pay” contract, the Nuclear Energy Agreement, which contained provisions for the trade of wholesale electricity in Scotland.The European Commission scrutinized such contract in order to derive the congruity of the agreement to European laws. Whilst the NEA was awarded an exemption under Article 85, paragraph 3 of the EU Treaty, the Commission recognized the inner anticompetitive content and potential effects of the contract.In this paper, we criticize the Commission NEA decision and economic reasoning and provide an alternative reading and analytical approach, which lead to opposite results and conclusions (the NEA contract is not anticompetitive and it enhances efficiency in competitive electricity markets). Given that the restructuring process in the EU electricity market is still in fieri, we select the NEA contract as a benchmark-case, in order to provide an alternative reading and a case-study for eventual, future energy contracts administration and authority decisions.JEL K, K2, K230     

论中国和平发展与国际法的交互影响和作用

A peaceful and harmonious world is an important social basis for China’s peaceful development, and international law lays a legal foundation and guarantee for building such a world. In the “village of globe” with co-existence and economic globalization, international law provides China a peaceful development with legal certainty in external environment of peace and security, fair and equal international competitive order, and international cooperation; and on the other hand, it puts on an increasing legal restraint on the internal and external strategies of China’s peaceful development. At the same time, the peaceful development of China deems to make a great contribution to the world, which are the main subject of international law in peace and development, as well as to human rights, rule of law and democracy, which are the universal values pursued by international law. Zeng Lingliang, Ph.D of law, is presently a dean and professor in the Faculty of Law in University of Macau. He is an awardee of the Cheung Kong Scholars Award Program and Jean Monnet Chair of European Union Law in Wuhan University, and one of the first three individuals nominated by the China government on the list of panelists in the WTO. He has published many articles on WTO issues, EU law and international law, and his influenced monographs are European Communities and Modern International Law (1992) and its revised edition—European Union and Modern International Law (1994), Law of World Trade Organization (1996), International Law and China in the Early 21 ^st Century (2005) and the Essentials of EU Law—in the New Perspective of the Treaty on the Constitution for Europe (2007).     

Competition@eCommerce.eu: An Appropriate European Approach to the Anticompetitive Implications in the Online World

The economic landscape of Europe has undoubtedly been revolutionised over the last few years with the introduction of new technology into business practices. But along with the inevitable benefits a series of antitrust issues have surfaced, which have often disrupted the application of European Competition Law. This article will analyse and discuss the existing legal framework and recent case law with respect to its capacity to pave the way for enterprises to embrace innovation, and argue that – although the current legal system might be satisfactory to a certain extent – the European Commission should make adjustments and promote the idea of self-regulation, if the EU is to be at the forefront of the online world. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A research topic in education law and policy: The development of regionalism and federalism in Europe and their impact on educational policy and administration

There has been an “upgrading” of the regional level in the European policy process which also has implications for educational policy and administration. At the same time federalism has become a model not only for nation states but also for the construction of Europe. While regionalism and federalism has attracted more and more scholarly attention there has been a neglect of the implications for the educational field. The article starts by looking for models of regionalisation and federalisation as a legal and political technique of conciliating between the different levels in education. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The effect of EU structural funds on regional growth: assessing the evidence from Greece, 1990–2005

This paper brings empirical evidence on the impact of EU structural policy on regional income growth. The case of Greece over the period 1990–2005 is taken as an example. This period is characterized by the acceleration of the European integration process, with a central role assigned to the EU structural support to less prosperous regions. Regional growth is approached through the estimation of β-convergence equations using panel methods of estimation. The empirical results reveal a positive impact of structural funds support on regional growth while income convergence is enhanced. In addition, a significant influence of spatial income and unemployment spillovers on regional income growth is evidenced, illustrating the recent growth performance in Greece. Our results leave ample room for European regional policy to operate for the promotion of growth and the reduction of regional disparities.