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Exchanging Ideas on Europe 2006
Visions of Europe: Key Problems, New Trajectories
UACES 36th Annual Conference and 11th Research Conference

Research Session 3

UACES reserves the right at all times to make changes to the programme where necessary.

Session 1  |  Session 2  |  Session 3  |  Session 4  |  Session 5  |  Session 6  |  Full Programme

Friday, 1 September (14:00-15:30)

The panels listed in the table below are followed by the abstracts for each of the papers.

Berglund, Sara (Utrecht University, s.k.berglund@fss.uu.nl)
Problems with Implementing European Public Utilities Directives: Domestic Opposition or Administrative Ineffectiveness?
In the area of public utilities, the EU member states have agreed on ambitious policies to open up markets for competition and to regulate these markets. To have the expected effect, these policies have to be implemented effectively. However, current research indicates that this is problematic; difficulties appear already in the first step of transposing the directives into national legislation.
In the literature, political explanations of problems with transposition are currently gaining ground. In this paper, however, it is argued that while political explanations are relevant under certain conditions, administrative explanations have more leverage. This is elaborated on in a theoretical framework based on sociological institutionalism and implementation theory. It is argued that lengthy legal and administrative procedures can cause problems with transposition, and perhaps more importantly, that a number of variables, such as capacity and priority, matter at each step in the process.
This framework is applied to an original quantitative data set including all utilities directives and their transposition in five member states. To obtain a more complete picture of the process, this data is combined with qualitative data regarding a limited number of directives.

Bethge, Jan-Alexander (Georg-August-University, Göttingen jbethge@uni-goettingen.de)
Joint paper with Renate Ohr
Current-Account Matters on the way to EMU: The Transfer Problem Re-revisited
“Standard & Poor’s” recent downgrade of Hungary’s long-term creditworthiness was accompanied by a forecast that the country may not adopt the Euro before 2014. In public statements S&P referred to upward macroeconomic risks resulting from rapidly growing fiscal deficits and subsequent high current-account deficits. However, in CEEC budget deficits sometimes turn out to be highly volatile, while persistent external deficits are a common phenomenon. So far policy discussions have largely ignored the current-account balance as an important criterion for the timing of Euro adoption. Hence, our central questions are: Do sustained current-account deficits matter for the pace of monetary integration? And, if so, how? Modern research on the classical transfer problem affirms that creditor countries will eventually face a real depreciation in the longer run, while current-account reversals may occur even in the short run. Since large swings in the real exchange rate must be considered as an adverse precondition for monetary integration, our aim is to specify the significance of the transfer problem. In this respect important issues are: (1) the relevance of the twin-deficit proposition, (2) cyclical versus structural factors of current-account deficits, (3) the degree, composition, development, and macroeconomic effects of external debt.

Beveridge, Fiona (University of Liverpool, f.c.beveridge@liv.ac.uk)
Building Against the Past: The Impact of Mainstreaming on EU Gender Law and Policy
This article examines the record of the European Commission in acting out its commitment to gender mainstreaming, in particular through an examination of outputs in the period 1995-2005. A central focus of the paper is the contribution of mainstreaming activities to EU gender equality law and policy. The paper concludes that mainstreaming has helped to widen the focus of Community gender policy, develop new tools and capacities and to push equality policy from the Commission down into Member States, particularly in areas governed by the Open Method of Co-ordination. Mainstreaming activities have also made distinctive contributions to the ‘vision’ of gender equality pursued by the European Commission.

Bogutcaia, Galina
Joint paper with Anke Schmidt-Felzmann and Giselle Bosse
Lost in Translation? Political Elites and the Interpretative Values Gap in European Neighbourhood Policies
This paper will examine the role of ‘European values’ in recent relations between the European Union and its neighbours, with a particular focus on EU- Moldovan and EU- Russian relations. Based on the assumption that ‘European values’ are social constructs constituted through speech acts, interpretations of ‘European values’ in official policy and communications of the EU and of political elites in the neighbouring states will be examined. It is argued that that there is a significant gap between interpretations of ‘European values’ articulated by the EU and correspondent interpretations by political elites in Moldova and Russia respectively. This ‘interpretative values gap’ needs to be addressed by the EU as a matter of urgency, in order to ensure the successful implementation of its recent neighbourhood policies.

Bugdahn, Sonja (German Research Institute for Public Administration, Speyer, bugdahn@foev-speyer.de)
Travelling to Brussels via Aarhus or from Network Governance to Governing with Networks
Despite the fact that European governance has been described as network governance for more than a decade, there are very few studies on supportive cross-national implementation networks at the EU level, their functions and different compositions. As a starting point, this paper conceptualizes implementation of EU policies as taking place in loosely coupled arenas. It then discusses the strengths and weaknesses of governmental and non-governmental networks in providing for more coherence between fragmented arenas. NGO networks may provide interfaces between sub-national implementation arenas and the EU implementation and policy review arena. However, sub-national arenas remain to a large degree autonomous, while infringement and review procedures remain dominated by the European Commission and EU member states.
To circumvent these actors, NGOs can shop for different arenas in which precedents for EU policy-making can be set. Based on this framework, the role of the Stichting Natuur en Milieu (SNM) network in the implementation and review of the 1990 Access to Environmental Information Directive is explored.

Edwards, Sobrina (University of Sussex, sre22@sussex.ac.uk)
Crisis? What Crisis?: The EUropean Institutions and the Concept of Public Support
A reoccurring theme in the debate over EUropean Union integration is the extent to which there now exists a legitimacy crisis and more fundamentally, how this ‘crisis’ can be overcome.  Central to this discussion – is the idea of a post-national political community and the kind of ‘relationship’ EUrope and the EUropeans should legitimately enjoy. The phenomenon of the ‘risky referendum’ and relatively weak levels of public support for EUrope have led some authors to argue that there is now an ever increasing ‘gap in the making’ between the elite and public (s) visions of the EUropean project. This paper addresses this debate via an exploration of EUropean institutional discourse centred on the concept of public support as a problematic beginning in the 1970’s. It employs a discourse theoretical analysis to consider the ways in which the concept of public support has been constructed and reconstructed, both in anticipation and as a response to a series of crisis that has befit the EUropean project. In doing so, it will show that ‘crisis’ is always accommodated within EUropean institutional discourse and the legitimacy of the EUropean project as potentially ‘a political community in the making’ is never fundamentally questioned. By way of a conclusion, this paper will then consider how this evolving discourse challenges and reinforces key assumptions in the academic debate regarding legitimacy, identity and public support.

Furusawa, Katsuto (University of Glasgow, k.furusawa.1@research.gla.ac.uk)
Participation and Protest in the EU and the ‘Outsiders’
The border between the EU and the ‘outsiders’ may have significance not only in institutional frameworks, but also in the attitudes of those who live on the two sides.  Democracy is cited as a system that should be responsive to people’s voices.  There are indications that citizens in the Western Europe are generally more eager to have a say in government and have a stronger orientation to moderate forms of protest.  By contrast, non-EU citizens (the former Soviet Union and some East European nations) seem to display tangible differences in their patterns of protest and participation. The difference could have crucial implications for the people’s attitudes and behaviours in the way they relate to governmental responsiveness.  This paper will focus on contrasting attitudes between the two sides, taking advantage of the World Values Survey to build up a detailed picture of the differences across Europe.

Guerra, Simona (University of Sussex, s.guerra@sussex.ac.uk)
The Hour of Europe Has Come: Polish Support for the EU After Accession
The paper explores the attitude of Polish public opinion after accession (May 2004-April 2006) and aims to identify which factors impact the level of support. Poland is the sixth largest EU Member State and the success of its integration is also a reflection of a successful ‘societal’ integration. Moreover, the latest results of the European referendum stress the importance of how relevant public opinion can become in the implementation of European politics.
The accession took place in a pragmatic country: the high majority of Poles supported the EU, in a smaller percentage than at the opening of the dialogue with the European institutions, in 1994 (64%). On the contrary more people opposed membership (29%), but above all Poles knew the EU would have not brought wealth and less unemployment, 46% of the people thought poverty would have grown (CBOS data).
As a Member State support has returned to steadily grow, while the number of opponents increasingly declined. Even without any personal gains from membership, Poles recognise its positive effects. Using a mixed method approach, the paper identifies whether (and why) political, economic and social actors impact the level of support, closing on the present situation, after the French and Dutch ‘No’ to the Constitutional Treaty referendum, and the parliamentary and presidential elections, moving the country rightwards.

Hutcheson, Derek (University College Dublin, derek.hutcheson@ucd.ie)
Democracy and Accountability in Europe: Common Values?
‘Democracy’ is a many-faceted concept, and even if a regime contains all the prerequisite institutions for ‘democratic’ governance, a lack of trust in or support for a democratic regime can in the long-term lead to questions about its legitimacy.  However, the measurement of this poses several methodological problems.  It is possible to ask citizens in different countries about their attitudes towards democracy, but do they understand the concepts in similar terms?  Whereas in Western Europe elections are commonly seen as a means of choosing representatives, there is some evidence that, beyond the EU border, they more often fulfil the ‘electoral democracy’ criteria of legitimation rather than accountability.  Using surveys, focus groups and other primary materials, this paper will examine in more detail the extent to which different values are attached to perceptions of politics, elections and answerability amongst citizens of new and old EU states compared with their counterparts in the ‘outsider’ nations.

İçener, Erhan (Queen’s University Belfast, e.icener@qub.ac.uk)
Understanding Romania and Turkey’s Integration with the European Union: Security and Geo-strategic Considerations
Much of the existing literature and political discourse on enlargement suggests that it is a normative process whose speed and direction is driven by conditionality. This paper challenges these dominant assumptions by exploring the role of security and geo-strategic considerations in explaining the key decisions of the EU regarding Romania and Turkey’s integration with the EU. It focuses on the link between the key decisions affecting both countries’ integration with the EU and geo-strategic developments such as the end of the Cold War, Kosovo War, September 11 and security considerations linked to these developments. The paper argues that conditionality fails to explain the key decisions that have upgraded Romania and Turkey’s relations with the EU since the mid-1990s. Instead it posits that geo-strategic developments and security have had a significant and at times decisive influence on integration. Although they alone do not drive enlargement, geo-strategic and security considerations not only have strong explanatory power on their own, but they also influence other factors such as identity, member state preferences and the costs and benefits of would-be members’ accession to the EU.

Koelling, Mario (University of Zaragoza, mariokoelling@gmx.de)
Explaining Negotiations on Financial Perspectives 2007-2013: Actors and Institutions. How did New Member States do?
From a political science perspective, my paper, as a summary of the stand of my PhD project, will focus on the impact of the institutional design on the negotiation of the financial framework 2007-2013, which was, after the enlargement and negotiations of the Constitution, an important subject on the Union’s agenda during 2004/05.
Using a neo-institutional approach, I concentrate on the analysis of actor’s behaviour during the negotiation process, with special emphasis on the behaviour of new member states, as new actors in this process. In my paper I will answer the questions did institutions at the European level, seen as endogenous variables, shape the behaviour of new member states in recent negotiations on the financial perspectives 2007-2013 and in case of an affirmative answer which ones could be detected and how did they influence actor behaviour? My hypotheses is: Although the general view is that it is the member states’ national interests that define their behaviour in financial negotiations,  I argue that we can also detect several institutional variables at the European level which determined actor’s behaviour during the negotiation.

Langer, Josef (University of Klagenfurt, josef.langer@uni-klu.ac.at)
Small States and Democracy in the Order of the European Union
This contribution will provide a short analysis of the situation of small states in the European Union (EU). Particular attention will be given to the impact of the EU on democracy in small states. For this purpose, the contested Constitution of the European Union will be analysed and related to the special characteristics and interests of small member states. In the course of this discussion, the European Union, democracy and small states are set into the framework of development, whereby the EU is seen as a particular case of globalization. Different scenarios of EU development are suggested and their consequences for democracy and small states investigated. A short reflection on small states theory and the changing assumptions about the impact of “size” precedes the analysis.

Marzinotto, Benedicta (London School of Economics & Political Science, b.marzinotto@lse.ac.uk)
Inflation Differentials in EMU: Why is Germany’s Wage Growth Slower than Average?
When the EMU project had been designed, one of the few certainties was that monetary unification would have favoured some price convergence, and with time, similar inflation levels across the member states. The decision to define a numerical inflation target in the conduct of the ECB’s monetary policy was grounded in that certainty. On the contrary, the empirical evidence points to greater inflation dispersion after 1999, and even slower inflation in countries where inflation rates were comparatively low to start with. Looking at the example of Germany, this paper shows that Germany’s negative inflation differential originates on the labour market. Economic and institutional pressures explain slow wage growth in Germany. On the one hand, the completion of the single European market and the ensuing stronger competition were mostly felt in a country where for decades there had been a vast social consensus in favour of the merits of export-led growth. This explains below-average wage growth. On the other hand, German wage bargainers show awareness of the fact that German wage settlements have the potential to affect average inflation in EMU just because the country represents one third of Euro-zone GDP. There is thus an institutional pressure that forces them into (preventive) self-restraint.

McGrattan, Máire (Queen’s University Belfast, mmcgrattan01@qub.ac.uk)
The Transformative Capacity of EU Enlargement in Serbia and Montenegro since the 2004 Enlargement
This paper argues that the shift in the dynamics of European Union enlargement since the 2004 enlargement has implications for the transformative capacity of EU enlargement in Serbia and Montenegro. Drawing on existing debates concerning enlargement and europeanisation this paper assesses the transformative impact that the EU can have and is having on Serbia and Montenegro in terms of both the economic and political transition processes and conflict transformation. It argues that this is directly linked to the country’s involvement in the Stabilisation and Association process and its status as a ‘potential candidate’. However, the changing dynamics of enlargement post-2004 suggest that the actual impact may well be less in the future than the assumed potential impact. Although negotiations on a Stabilisation and Association Agreement have commenced the prospect of accession to the EU remains distant and is being adversely affected by the shifting dynamics of EU enlargement. This threatens to undermine the transformative capacity of the EU in Serbia and Montenegro, raising challenges for the EU in developing effective mechanisms and structures to ensure the desired transformation.

Oikonomou, Iraklis (University of Wales, Aberystwyth, iio02@aber.ac.uk)
The Making of the European Defence Agency: The European Military-Industrial Capital as an ESDP Actor
As with the case of European integration in general, the analysis of ESDP integration has centred around the discursive and political-institutional dimensions of that process. Existing literature has tended to ignore the socio-economic background on which ESDP is being built, i.e. the specific social forces whose interests are represented and mediated through the process of ESDP formation. The present paper seeks to interpret a crucial aspect of the latter process: the creation of the European Defence Agency (EDA) and its position in military-industrial affairs within the EU. It attempts to delineate the theoretical and practical significance of the EDA, and the implications for the understanding of the broader nature of ESDP formation. In this context, the paper discusses the validity of the notion of the internationalised European military- industrial capital as an ESDP actor. The findings are based upon primary research and several interviews with senior European officials and industrialists, conducted in Brussels last year.
The paper adopts a neo-Gramscian framework, based on a modification of R.W. Cox’s notion of historical structure. The analysis is part of a novel stream of critical materialist insight into European integration, as exemplified in the work of Gill, Bieler, van Apeldoorn, van der Pijl and others. However, while these theorists have applied materialist analysis on socio-economic aspects of European integration, this paper highlights its relevance on ESDP analysis. Through an examination of the role of European military-industrial capital as an ESDP actor, it will be argued that neo-Gramscianism forms a powerful framework of analysis of the EU military-industrial policy.

Olsen, Gorm Rye (Danish Institute for International Relations, gro@diisdk)
The New Security Architecture and the Global Role of the EU
Since the start of the European Community, there has been an ambition to turn Europe into a significant international actor. It is the basic argument of the paper that September 11 and the new security architecture following 2001 created optimal opportunities for pushing the EU towards such a more active international role. Also, it is argued that such a role presupposes that the traditional compartmentalization of EU politics is softened quite significantly. The two arguments argument are ‘tested’ based on a scrutiny of the recent changes in the EU’s development assistance policy, its humanitarian aid policy and not least on a scrutiny of the significant changes in the CFSP/ESDP towards Africa and the Balkans. The analysis is made by means of a theoretical framework which combines theories on the EU’s internal character with analysis of its international situation as it has recently been suggested by C. Hill and M. Smith.

Phinnemore, David (Queen’s University Belfast, d.phinnemore@qub.ac.uk)
Moldova: A Step too Far for EU Enlargement?
With the further enlargement of the European Union (EU) in 2007-08 Moldova will become the EU’s newest direct neighbour. Sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine, the country currently has a developing relationship with the EU that both political elites and the population wish to see result in EU membership. The EU, however, has resisted calls to provide the country with a membership perspective and treats the country instead firmly as part of its European Neighbourhood Policy. This is despite the legitimate claim of Moldova to a ‘European’ vocation. As this paper argues, the EU’s handling of Moldova’s integration aspirations provides insights into not only the dynamics of enlargement per se but also the manner in which they have been affected by the 2004 enlargement. The case of Moldova – a country very much in a category of its own in terms of being small, landlocked, contested, divided, peripheral – raises questions about the inevitability of further enlargement and suggests the need for greater attention to be paid to geopolitics and overriding regionally-focused enlargement narratives for explaining the dynamics of enlargement.

Pfister, Thomas (Queen’s University Belfast, t.pfister@qub.ac.uk)
Investigating the European Employment Strategy/the Lisbon Strategy from a Citizenship Perspective: Gender Equality in Germany, Hungary and the UK
The paper investigates the involvement of the European Union in transformations of social and economic citizenship through the European Employment Strategy/the Lisbon Strategy. In order to ‘modernise’ European labour markets and employment policies, the principle of ‘bringing as many people into the labour market as possible’ has acquired paradigmatic status notwithstanding the diverse welfare regimes. This raises questions about the conditions under which such maximal labour market participation could and should be achieved?
Gender equality is a key requirement for just and inclusive citizenship and can, moreover, be seen as crucial test for its present transformations.
Against this background, the paper presents insights from a comparative case study on Germany, Hungary and the UK that is guided by two questions: first, how do recent reforms affect national formations of citizenship? And second, how is the Union involved in these processes?
Although the direct impact of the Lisbon Strategy is rather weak, the EU, nevertheless, constitutes an important arena, where core concepts (e.g. ‘activation’, ‘life-work balance’) are interpreted and defined by the member states. It is argued that these particular interpretations are crucial for the course of national developments. Acknowledging these consequences and facilitating a broader public debate could be a crucial contribution of the Union to just, democratic and more inclusive citizenship.

Rees, Nick (University of Limerick, nicholas.rees@ul.ie)
The Institutional Dynamics of EU-UN Security Cooperation: Problems and Prospects
The increasing level and intensity of contacts and discussions between the EU and the UN on security matters, particularly in the context of UN demands for a greater European role in international peacekeeping raises critical questions about what role the EU should and can play as security actor in and on behalf of the UN.  This paper explores both the EU and UN perspectives, by looking at the different actors involved in the process, their institutional positions, as well as the organisational context in which the interactions are taking place.  The research highlights that while there is a joint political commitment to enhanced EU-UN cooperation this is difficult to achieve in practice for a variety of political and military reasons.  Notably, there are differing security priorities among the EU member states, despite member state commitments to a European security strategy, as well as a political reluctance among many EU states to engage in substantial and potentially protracted peacekeeping (UN or otherwise) beyond Europe.  There are also practical difficulties in developing military cooperation with the UN, reflecting the varying demands being made on European military forces, the level of intra-European security cooperation (e.g. such as the fledgling battle groups), and even the difficulty of sharing military intelligence with the UN.  The paper concludes by suggesting that EU-UN security cooperation remains problematic, although not impossible, depending on whether the political will exists within the EU to make it happen.

Savkova, Lyubka (University of Sussex, ls23@sussex.ac.uk)
Next Stop, Evropa! Bulgarian Public Opinion and Support for Europe Prior to Accession
Public support for Europe in Bulgaria is comparatively higher than in the rest of Central and Eastern Europe, while opposition to EU membership is one of the lowest in the region. This is despite of series of disappointments to Bulgaria from the EU such as the inclusion of Bulgaria in the black list of countries in 1995, the delay to the start of the accession negotiations agreed at the Luxemburg Council in 1997 and most recently in 2004 the inclusion of a back-up clause into Bulgaria’s accession treaty that could see the country’s membership date postponed to 2008.
Currently, there is no research that explains the reasons for the unwavering public support for Europe in Bulgaria. With this in mind the aim of this article is twofold. In its first part it generates, comparatively to Central and Eastern Europe and on the basis of Eurobarometer data for Bulgaria from 1997 and 2003, patterns of support for EU membership which are formed with seven independent variables: public image of the EU, expected benefits from EU membership, occupation, age, education, knowledge about the EU and voting intensions of respondents. It then progresses to the second part to discuss the outlined patterns which feeds into the wider question of the high levels of support for Europe in Bulgaria.

Shaw, Jo (University of Edinburgh, jo.shaw@ed.ac.uk)
Mainstreaming Equality And Diversity In European Union Law And Policy
This paper has twin objectives: (1) to consider how it is possible to give constitutional form and effect to the principles of equality and diversity, in the wider context of (2) delivering effective, transparent and legitimate governance in the European Union (hereinafter ‘EU’ or ‘Union’). In the context of strategies for securing equality and diversity and in the context of the emergent EU constitutional system, it pays particular attention to the meanings and scope of the tool of ‘mainstreaming’.

Treib, Oliver (Institute for Advanced Studies, treib@ihs.ac.at)
Joint paper with Gerda Falkner and Miriam Hartlapp
Worlds of Compliance: Why Leading Approaches to EU Implementation are Only ‘Sometimes-True Theories’
This paper summarises the main theoretical findings of a large-scale qualitative project on the transposition, enforcement and application of six EU labour law Directives in fifteen member states. Focusing on the transposition stage, our argument starts from a theoretical puzzle: When confronting the empirical results from our 91 cases with the various hypotheses that we derived from the literature, it turns out that all causal conditions suggested by existing theories, and even two of the most prominent hypotheses (on misfit and veto players), have at best rather weak explanatory power. On closer inspection, our qualitative studies show that even their basic rationale does not hold in some groups of countries. As a solution, we offer a typology of three worlds of compliance within the fifteen EU member states covered by our study, each of which is characterised by an ideal-typical transposition style: a “world of law observance”, a “world of domestic politics”, and a “world of neglect”. This typology provides the key to understanding when and how individual theoretical propositions are relevant.

Vasiljevic, Snjezana (University of Zagreb, svasilje@pravo.hr)
Intersection between Gender and Racial Discrimination: Legal Aspects
The equality principle will have a far-reaching impact on EU law in the coming years. This influence has already been reflected in the adoption of directives based on the Article 13 EC (the Article giving the Community the competence to adopt non-discrimination measures), case law of the European Court of Justice and the Community's commitments to „mainstreaming“. The Court of Justice has held that principle of equality is one of the general principles of Community law. Within the sphere of community law, the principle of equality precludes comparable situations from being treated differently, and different situations from being treated in the same way unless the treatment is objectively justified.
This paper explores the extent to which Croatian law applies principles of equality and non-discrimination to the activities of public authorities in Croatia, broadly defined to include national machineries (e.g. Parliament and executive authorities) and the courts. The meanings of equality and discrimination are diverse. There is no one legal meaning of equality or discrimination applicable in the different circumstances. Therefore, it will be interested to observe how Croatian legal framework expresses the notion of equality and how national machineries and courts interpret it. In that respect, Croatian antidiscrimination norms, in particular, those that forbid discrimination on the grounds of sex and ethnic origin will be analysed. The process of harmonisation of Croatian legislation with the EU law opens up a space for new developments in interpreting domestic legislation which will cause revolutionary changes in Croatian jurisprudence.

Vila Maior, Paulo (Universidade Fernando Pessoa, Porto, Portugal pvilamaior@tvtel.pt)
The European Union: a Case of Unconventional Fiscal Federalism?
There has been a lively debate among scholars about the feasibility and desirability of fiscal federalism in the European Union (EU). The paper addresses the question of whether ‘conventional fiscal federalism’ is feasible in the EU, considering the distinctiveness of European integration and the political-economic template of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). It is an attempt to bridge the gap between economics and political science by adding the political conditions that might create difficulties to economics’ rationale.
The paper highlights how fiscal federalism is multi-faceted concept embracing both a centralisation and a decentralisation outcome. Borrowing the Musgravian classification of allocation-equity-stabilisation, the EU is examined as far as redistribution is concerned. The aim is to conclude whether centralisation or decentralisation is the prevailing outcome. For that purpose, the EU is compared with five mature federations on two issues: the depth of regional asymmetries; and the extent to which regional inequalities are redressed through redistribution.
Considering that in the EU: i) the current distribution of fiscal competences is favourable to member states; ii) decentralisation is the outcome for the redistribution function; iii) despite monetary policy is the main tool for macroeconomic stabilisation, and this is a policy arena where centralisation prevails; iv) the diminished scope for inter-state solidarity averts more centralisation in redistribution; and v) the absent political willingness from national governments to increase the EU budget; all this suggests that centralised, ‘conventional fiscal federalism’ is ruled out as a feasible solution for the EU.
Notwithstanding this doesn’t imply that fiscal federalism is absent from the EU. A distinct, decentralised modality of fiscal federalism already exists, coping with the ‘sui generis’ nature of European integration.

White, Stephen (University of Glasgow, s.white@socsci.gla.ac.uk)
Joint paper with Julia Korosteleva and Ian McAllister
Are Russians Europeans?
Russia has always had an ambiguous status in relation to Europe, not only geographically but also culturally. But as the European Union extends east, there is no immediate or even long-term prospect of membership. Using national surveys conducted between 2000 and 2005, this paper examines the extent to which Russians identify themselves as ‘Europeans’, and the place that ‘Europe’ occupies within their repertoire of allegiances. Comparisons will also be drawn with Belarus and Ukraine, the two other Slavic members of the EU's new ‘neighbourhood’.

Last modified: Monday, 14 August 2006
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