After the successful completion of economic integration with the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, public controversies resulting from disagreement on fundamental questions on the scope and future direction of European integration intensified. The rise of Eurosceptic parties in member states of the European Union (EU), the rejection of the Constitutional Treaty in national referenda in France […]

In the last decade, a number of European donors, including the EU, has framed their development policy within a human rights-based approach. Donors have also increasingly been willing to sanction their partners for non-compliance with human rights. Recently, the promotion of LGBTI human rights have been subsumed in several donors’ development policies. The EU, for […]

By Bjarke Refslund, Aalborg University, Department of Sociology and Social Work The impact of European Union legislation varies across different policy fields and across countries. Some policy areas like competition rules are highly, and directly affected, while other areas like social policies and labour market policies are only indirectly affected. Moreover, the member states varies […]

Populist radical right parties (PRRPs) have become a permanent feature of many party systems in European countries. Their electoral success has increased since 2015, when many migrants and refugees came to the EU. Research on PRRPs suggests that they contribute to the politicization of some domestic public policy domains, such as asylum and immigration policy. […]

European Union’s (EU) capacity of influencing (and even changing) other actors without recurring to coercion is one of its defining features as an international player. Although it has been seriously challenged by the economic and financial crisis, migration crisis, terrorists’ attacks and the Brexit, the countries to EU’s East continue to look for strengthening of […]

The European Union (EU) budget is about one percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of all Member States amounting to about €240 per annum, per citizen. The EU budget redistributes more than €150 billion annually. These funds are directed towards agriculture and regional policy, which operate to help less developed countries and local communities. […]

By Pier Domenico Tortola The European Central Bank “needs a rocket scientist, not a rock star”, quipped the website Politico shortly after the nomination of Christine Lagarde to succeed Mario Draghi at the helm of the ECB, starting November 2019. The risk, the commentary continued, is that the presidency of Lagarde, a central banking outsider […]