The idealism that engendered the European ??Neighbourhood Policy in 2004, later codified in the Lisbon Treaty in 2009, has since been reviewed to adapt to the turbulence that has befallen the EU and its neighbourhood.The ENP is now little more than an elegantly crafted fig leaf that purports to take a soft power approach to the EU’s outer periphery, argues the author, but in effect it inclines more towards Realpolitik.By prioritising security interests over liberal values in ...

Representative democracy remains the best available form of government – and the one preferred by most EU citizens, but satisfaction with how it plays out varies greatly across the continent. Among the perceived weaknesses are high levels of political corruption, low resilience to disinformation, and out-of-touch governing elites.Yet there is some hope that direct channels for citizens to express their concerns and preferences, fact-based deliberation in representative bodies and ro...

Following the agreement made by Prime Minister David Cameron with the EU on 18-19 February 2016, the day for the referendum for the UK to remain in or leave the EU is set for 23 June 2016. This will be the most important decision taken by the British people in half a century, and whose consequences will live on for another half century.The first edition of this book, published in March 2015, laid the foundations for any objective assessment of the workings of the EU and the UK’s pl...

The European Union is traditionally seen as a new and partly separate legal order within the global legal system. At the same time, the EU is an important player in the global governance network. The strong and explicit link between the EU and a large number of other international organisations raises questions concerning the impact of decisions taken by those organisations and of international agreements concluded with those organisations (either by the EU itself or by its Member States) ...

The European Union has a democracy problem. The polycrisis that has plagued the EU for years has led to a cacophony of voices calling for fundamental change to the integration project. Yet despite the shock of the Brexit referendum and the electoral upsets caused by nativist parties across the continent, few of the plans for EU reform include concrete proposals to address the perennial democratic deficit.This volume looks at how the relationship between citizens, the state and EU i...

Representative democracy is beset by a crisis of legitimacy across the world, but in Europe this crisis is compounded by the inadequacy of national governments to address citizens’ frustrations and to achieve transnational unity on common issues. How representative are national parliaments in their decision-making on EU matters?This volume investigates the relationship between the democratic institutions of the member states and those of the EU. With a focus on polity rather than p...

For years the European Union has been looked on as a potential model for cosmopolitan governance, and enjoyed considerable influence on the global stage. The EU has a uniquely strong and legally binding mission statement to pursue international relations on a multilateral basis, founded on the progressive development of international law. The political vision was for the EU to export its values of the rule of law and sophisticated governance mechanisms to the international sphere. Globaliz...