The European Union's Core Foundation

Part of the exceptional nature of the EU stems from the notion that nothing like it has ever been attempted successfully before. The European Union is an international institution with a single market and shared currency. It strives to maintain singular goals and make its way towards being an “ever closer union”. Today, the European Union has expanded to include twenty-eight member countries with an influence that reaches every continent. This institution has had an impressive history, but it has reached a point of concern. The golden years which held high hopes of a united supranational Union are long over. The EU faces destructive problems today, which could ultimately end their impressive era of cooperation. The Union has come

How significant has been the development of the EU’s policies concerning the protection of the natural environmental and climate change? What problems have confronted policy-makers in-framing and delivering such policies?

The European Union (EU) has a variety of methods to promote democracy beyond its borders. It is the contention of this paper that EU democracy-promotion policies are more significant in the context of a pre-accession conditionality. The success of EU democracy promotion is contingent upon the degree of bargaining power the EU possesses vis-à-vis ‘third countries’ (third countries being those which seek EU membership, and are prepared to make the necessary political and economic reforms). In the context of pre-accession conditionality the EU possesses significant bargaining power, making adhesion to the norms of the Copenhagen criteria (political and economic conditions necessary for EU accession) the only viable option for states seeking

The main contribution the book is making is that the European Union can be easily understood by analysing each aspect of it. ‘The main argument of this book is that to help understand how the EU works, we should use the tools, methods and cross-systematic theories from the general study of government, politics and policy-making’ (Hix, 2005 p2). The book is split into different parts and each part assesses certain bits of the European Union, which is what this review will do. For example in one part, the focus is on the legislative branch of the European Union, the executive branch and the judicial branch. In another part the focus is on the political side of the European Union and looks at for example how the interests of citizens are represented to and throughout the European Union in addition to how democratic the

On the 23rd of June 2016, the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union (EU); an event now commonly dubbed “Brexit”. This decision means that the UK will be the first country to leave the common market that is the EU, where a common market is defined as a “group formed by countries within a geographical area to promote duty free trade and free movement of labour and capital among its members” (What is common market? Definition and meaning, 2017). Trade deals with other countries are organised by the EU on behalf of its member states, as well as the rules and regulations governing business activity within the common market. As a result, leaving the EU is likely to result in huge implications for small to medium sized

The thesis of this literature review is that Hix is correct in stating that one can understand the European Union more if they analyse why certain institutions behave in the way that they do and what their reasons are behind doing so.

There is a consensus on the positive effect of European integration on at least one aspect of national politics, one being the strengthening of the executive power. This is due to the fact that the executive has direct access to European policy-making and policy-makers in the Council, in the European institutions and other Member States

The European Union (EU) has been proactive in establishing environmental, health and safety regulations and fostering industrial exploitation of R&D on nanotechnology by bringing together stakeholders to discuss best practices for commercialization, the societal, political and psychological barriers to entrepreneurship in Europe and license arrangements between industry and R&D organizations. Several European-wide initiative have been discussed a collaborative effort to promote the R&D nanotechnology for security purposes. In 2008, eleven EU member states invested €15.5 million for emerging defensive technologies, including nanotechnologies. However, the EU’s nanotechnology R&D focuses on the growth of a diversified nanotechnology market in Europe and promotes innovations critical for both economic growth and regional defense and stability. However, German government officials emphasize the importance of international regulatory regime over domestic governance strategies to address the potential issues of nano-security. Germany does not fund the nanotechnology R&D for military applications, even for defensive purposes. In contrast to Germany, the United Kingdom has a strong sense of international security responsibility. It has been funding in military nanotechnology R&D for security, allocating approximately £1.5 million annually. In Sweden, government authorities in charge with science policy are investing €11M over five years in nanotechnology activities. Funds

In its historical context discuss why and how the EU was set up and the advantages and disadvantages of membership.

The European Union is the unique education which is taking place process of political formation. It can be considered as version of the answer to present calls as within united Europe there is an opportunity for the participating states to solve key problems of social and economic, political, cultural, ecological development and questions of internal and external security. In the XXI century, after semicentennial development of the European integration, EU I turned into one of the main and most developed centers of the modern world. The share of EU in a world gross product exceeds 20%, it is the share of it nearly a quarter of world trade. EU plays the leading role in rendering the technical and financial assistance to developing

Luxembourg is a small country located in between France, Germany, and Belgium. This small country also is one of the founding countries of the European Union. Despite not being vocal as some of the more significant countries, Luxembourg still impacts the European Union. The Council of the European Union, the co-legislative body, has each of the twenty-eight member states rotating as the president of the European Union. The president is not a person, but rather one of the member states. Every 6 months a new member state sets the agenda and leads the Council. Member states try to push agendas in favor of their country. Luxembourg has last held the presidency from July to December 2015. During this presidency, Luxembourg pushed focus on the single market’s digital dimension and the migrant crisis facing the European Union. These major concerns do not only concern the European Union but also Luxembourg. A major concern of the European Union not too long ago was the Euro crisis. Luxembourg was thankfully not as impacted by the Euro crisis, but it did impact the EU in its entirety. The European Union and member states like Luxembourg experience a dynamic relationship; the choices and events impacting the EU also impact that member state and the interests of member states like Luxembourg impact the European Union. Despite its stature in the EU, Luxembourg has a principal role as any other country in the European Union.

In the past years, the possible future of the European Union (EU) has been of increasing interest to social and political scientists as well as the public. Since 2008, the EU has experienced events such as the economic crisis and the 2014 European Parliament election, which have fostered intense debates around the legitimising basis of the EU (Zielonka, 2014). Furthermore, with the election of David Cameron in the 2015 United Kingdom general election even the possibility of the United Kingdom leaving the EU has been discussed. Although many social and political scientists do not believe such a scenario (REFERENCE), one could argue that there is an increasing need for the EU to redefine itself in order not to experience a genuine ‘downfall’. Consequently, an alternative theory of EU integration challenging the classical intergovernmental and neofunctional understandings of the EU has gained increasing support among political scientists.

The purpose of the European Union (EU) was to bring European countries together to help ease both political and economic relationships in Europe. The formation of this group made up of a “family” of democratic European countries was created for the sole purpose of mutually beneficial economic and political peace which was exactly what was needed in the 1950’s. The EU is unique so unlike anything that has ever been, and the idea for it came to be while the world was still recovering from the catastrophic economic affects that were brought along by World War II which ended in 1945. Europe was drastically affected by the war having been caught in the middle, and since most of Europe was used as a battlefield a lot of it was left to nothing more than rubble.

The development of anything takes time, be it a child or a global governing body. There is an erroneous assumption in the world that the concept of the European Union, the idea of having a shared currency, and borderless pan-European continent is new. However, the pan-European identity present in Modern Europe took time to establish, especially after the continent was devastated by two World Wars. The idea of a pan-European identity as it is known today through the European Union was established after the end of the Second World War, as the need for a united Western Europe was needed to combat the increasing influence of the United States on the European economy and the possible threat of war with the Soviet Union. The policies of the

Location of Austria (dark green)– in Europe (green & dark grey)– in the European Union (green) – [Legend]