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182. Guardians of subsidiarity: National parliaments strive to control EU decision-making
- Author:
- Kaisa Korhonen
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Finnish Institute of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- The Lisbon Treaty encourages national parliaments to jointly forge a new node in the EU institutional architecture. National parliaments are given the right to control certain aspects of EU decision-making without the involvement of member state governments. Most importantly, national parliaments share the responsibility for ensuring that the subsidiarity principle is respected in all legislative matters of the Union.
- Topic:
- Regional Cooperation, Treaties and Agreements, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- Europe
183. The New Stability and Growth Pact: Primum non nocere
- Author:
- Claudio Vicarelli and Marco Fioramanti
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for European Policy Studies
- Abstract:
- The recent economic and financial crises have shown the weakness of EU economic governance. A process of strengthening macroeconomic and fiscal surveillance started in the course of 2010; among other proposals, the European Commission suggested a new binding criterion of debt reduction: debt-to-GDP ratio is to be considered sufficiently diminishing if its distance with respect to the 60% of GDP reference value has reduced over the previous three years at a rate of the order of one-twentieth per year.
- Topic:
- Debt, Economics, International Trade and Finance, Financial Crisis, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- Europe
184. Has the financial crisis shattered citizens' trust in national and European governmental institutions? Evidence from the EU member states, 1999-2010
- Author:
- Felix Roth, Felicitas Nowak-Lehmann D., and Thomas Otter
- Publication Date:
- 02-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for European Policy Studies
- Abstract:
- The financial crisis has affected trust in national and European governmental institutions in different ways. This paper analyses the determinants of trust in the national and European institutions over the last decade and comes to the conclusion that inflation reduces citizens' trust only when the economy runs smoothly. In times of crisis, citizens do not worry about inflation but rather about jobs and the effects of a recession. Declining trust in national governments is related to an increase in unemployment in the EU-15 in all time periods, whereas trust in the European Commission and the European Parliament seems to be strongly associated with the situation in the real economy (unemployment and growth of GDP per capita) only in times of crisis. Yet in the EU-27, falling levels of trust in the national and European governmental institutions during times of crisis seem to be primarily related to an increase in government debt. In an EU-15 country sample, this negative relationship appears to be driven by countries that owe a larger share of their increase in government debt to aiding/bailing out their financial sector and the implementation of significant austerity measures.
- Topic:
- Debt, Economics, Financial Crisis, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- Europe
185. The General Affairs Council: The Key to Political Influence of Rotating Presidencies
- Author:
- Piotr Maciej Kaczyński and Andrew Byrne
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Centre for European Policy Studies
- Abstract:
- In spite of the formal role laid out for the General Affairs Council (GAC) in the Treaties, it has been weakened since it was extracted from the General Affairs and External Relations Council (GAERC) and set up to function on its own. Its current uneven composition is leading to further marginalisation. Reforming the GAC can bring it to the centre of gravity of the Council proceedings and address a number of problems in the current institutional structure. For that to happen, however, countries holding the rotating Council presidency need to consider placing their head of state or government in the chair of the GAC meetings. Upgrading GAC in this way would streamline the diverse work of the Council, it would help in alleviatin g the heavy political burden that now falls on the understaffed President of the European Council and it would allow the institution of the rotating presidency to regain a higher political profile by creating out of national leaders a de facto Vice President of the European Council.
- Topic:
- Regional Cooperation, Treaties and Agreements, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- Europe
186. Putting Politics above Markets: Historical Background to the Greek Debt Crisis
- Author:
- Takis Michas
- Publication Date:
- 08-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- Political clientelism and rent seeking have been the central organizing principles of Greek society since the foundation of the Greek state in the 19th century. The influence of the Eastern Orthodox Church on Greek nationalism and the legacy of the patrimonialist Ottoman empire produced a weak civil society. The result has been a disproportionately large Greek state and public bureaucracy since the 1800s that set the stage for rent-seeking struggles that have followed.
- Topic:
- Corruption, Debt, Financial Crisis, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- Europe
187. Unity in Diversity: A Global Consensus on Choosing the IMF's Managing Director: Evidence from CGD's Online Survey
- Author:
- David Wheeler
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- On May 19, 2011, the Center for Global Development launched an online survey of the global development community on three issues: the selection process for the IMF's managing director, criteria for rating the candidates, and actual ratings for 15 candidates who had been named by the international media. Between May 19 and June 23, CGD received 790 responses from people whose characteristics reflect the diversity of the international finance and development community. Survey participants represent 81 nations, all world regions, high-, middle-, and low-income countries, and all adult age groups. In this working paper, David Wheeler analyzes the survey results, incorporating the diversity of the respondents by dividing participants into four mutually exclusive assessment groups: Europeans, who have a particular interest in this context; non-European nationals of other high-income countries; and nationals of middle- and low-income countries. Although the participants are diverse, their responses indicate striking unity on all three survey issues. First, both European and non-European participants reject Europe's traditional selection prerogative by large margins, with equally strong support for an open, transparent, competitive selection process. Second, participants exhibit uniformity in the relative importance they ascribe to CGD's six criteria for selecting candidates. Third, the participants exhibit striking consistency in rating the fifteen candidates.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, International Monetary Fund, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- Europe
188. Pro-European Presidency: Poland on the way to the club of heavyweight EU members
- Author:
- Tiia Lehtonen
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Finnish Institute of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- On 1 July 2011, Poland took over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union. It is the first Presidency for Poland during its seven-year EU membership. As an ambitious, large and relatively new member state, Poland is now striving towards joining the club of heavyweight players in the EU. Although the Polish Government and political elite are highly pro-European, this work remains nothing but demanding. Nevertheless, Poland is no doubt the most powerful state in the Presidency trio compris¬ing of Poland, Denmark and Cyprus.
- Topic:
- Regional Cooperation and Governance
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Poland
189. The empowered European Parliament: Accommodation to the new functions provided by the Lisbon Treaty
- Author:
- Teija Tiilikainen
- Publication Date:
- 11-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Finnish Institute of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- The European Parliament achieved full legislative powers when the Lisbon Treaty came into force, as most of those policy fields that had formerly been beyond the reach of the EP were duly added to these powers. In the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty, the EP's strengthened position is characterized as a vigorous promotion of arrangements favourable to its own position in the EU decision-making process. Important changes have taken place in the roles and functions of major parliamentary committees along with the extension of the EP's powers; the changes are most substantial in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (AGRI) and in the Committee on International Trade (INTA). Concerns about the spread of undemocratic legislative practices and weaknesses in administrative capacities have been raised since the EP has been accommodated to its new powers.
- Topic:
- Democratization, Regional Cooperation, Treaties and Agreements, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Lisbon
190. Fiscal Asymmetries and the Survival of the Euro Zone
- Author:
- Paul R. Masson
- Publication Date:
- 12-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for International Governance Innovation
- Abstract:
- The independence of the European Central Bank (ECB), seemingly guaranteed by its statutes, is presently under attack. The ECB has been led to acquire large amounts of government debt of the weaker euro zone members, both to help contain their interest costs and to help protect the solvency of banks throughout the zone that hold their debt. This paper presents a model of a dependent central bank that internalizes the government's budget constraint. Using a Barro-Gordon framework, the model embodies both the desire to stimulate output and to provide monetary financing to governments. As a result of the inability to pre-commit to first-best policies, the central bank produces excess inflation — a tendency partially reduced in a monetary union. The model implies that not only shock asymmetries, but also fiscal asymmetries, are important in the membership calculus of desirable monetary unions. On the basis of this framework, calibrated to euro zone data, the current membership is shown not to be optimal: other members would benefit from the expulsion of several countries, notably Greece, Italy and France. A narrow monetary union centred around Germany is sometimes mooted as a preferable alternative, especially if it could guarantee central bank independence. However, simulation results suggest that such a narrow monetary union would not be in Germany's interest: though better than the euro zone with a dependent central bank, it would not internalize enough trade to make it more attractive than the resumption of monetary autonomy by Germany.
- Topic:
- Debt, Economics, Monetary Policy, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Greece, France, Germany, and Italy