British Balance of Competence Reviews, Part III: More reform than renegotiation or repatriation. EPIN [Working] Paper No. 42/December 2014. [see Abstract for I and II]

This paper, the third in a series for a CEPS project on the ‘The British Question’, is pegged on an ambitious exercise by the British government to review all the competences of the European Union on the basis of evidence submitted by independent stakeholders. The reviews considered in this paper cover the following EU policies: the single market for services, financial markets, the free movement of people, cohesion, energy, agriculture, fisheries, competition, social and employment policies, and fundamental rights. The declared objective of Prime Minister Cameron is to secure a ‘new settlement’ between the UK and the EU. From political speeches in the UK one can identify three different types of possible demand: reform of EU policies, renegotiation of the UK’s specific terms of membership, and repatriation of competences from the EU back to the member states. As most of the reviews are now complete, three points are becoming increasingly clear: i) The reform agenda – past, present or future - concerns virtually every branch of EU policy, including several cases reviewed here that are central to stated UK economic interests. The argument that the EU is ‘unreformable’ is shown to be a myth. ii) The highly sensitive cases of immigration from the EU and social policies may translate into requests for renegotiation of specific conditions for the UK, but further large-scale opt-outs, as in the case of the euro and justice and home affairs, are implausible. iii) While demands for repatriation of EU competences are voiced in general terms in public debate in the UK, no specific proposals emerge from the evidence as regards competences at the level at which they are identified in the treaties, and there is no chance of achieving consensus for such ideas among member states. Michael Emerson and Steven Blockmans, “British Balance of Competence Reviews, Part I: ‘Competences about right, so far’”, CEPS/EPIN Working Paper No. 35, October 2013 (www.ceps.eu/book/british-balance-competence-reviews-part-i-%E2%80%98competences-about-right-so-far%E2%80%99)(http://aei.pitt.edu/45599/); Michael Emerson, Steven Blockmans, Steve Peers and Michael Wriglesworth, “British Balance of Competence Reviews, Part II: Again, a huge contradiction between the evidence and Eurosceptic populism”, CEPS/EPIN Working Paper No. 40, June 2014 (www.ceps.eu/book/british-balance-competence-reviews-part-ii-again-huge-contradiction-between-evidence-and-eurosc)(http://aei.pitt.edu/52452/).

The New EU Criminal Law Competence in Action: The Proposal for a Directive on Criminal Sanctions for Insider Dealing and Market Manipulation. IES WORKING PAPER 5/2013

The aim of this paper is to analyse the proposed Directive on criminal sanctions for insider dealing and market manipulation (COM(2011)654 final), which represents the first exercise of the European Union competence provided for by Article 83(2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The proposal aims at harmonising the sanctioning regimes provided by the Member States for market abuse, imposing the introduction of criminal sanctions and providing an opportunity to critically reflect on the position taken by the Commission towards the use of criminal law. The paper will discuss briefly the evolution of the EU’s criminal law competence, focusing on the Lisbon Treaty. It will analyse the ‘essentiality standard’ for the harmonisation of criminal law included in Article 83(2) TFEU, concluding that this standard encompasses both the subsidiarity and the ultima ratio principles and implies important practical consequences for the Union’s legislator. The research will then focus on the proposed Directive, trying to assess if the Union’s legislator, notwithstanding the ‘symbolic’ function of this proposal in the financial crisis, provides consistent arguments on the respect of the ‘essentiality standard’. The paper will note that the proposal raises some concerns, because of the lack of a clear reliance on empirical data regarding the essential need for the introduction of criminal law provisions. It will be stressed that only the assessment of the essential need of an EU action, according to the standard set in Article 83(2) TFEU, can guarantee a coherent choice of the areas interested by the harmonisation process, preventing the legislator to choose on the basis of other grounds.

Le Parlement européen à la recherche de l’efficacité législative: Une analyse des évolutions de son organisation = The European Parliament seeking legislative efficiency: An analysis of the changes in its organization. Bruges Political Research Paper No. 39, January 2015

Quel rôle l’organisation du travail parlementaire a-t-elle joué dans la montée en puissance du Parlement européen (PE)? Cet article vise à examiner cette question en s’appuyant sur la governing theory développée dans le cadre des études sur le Congrès nord-américain. Sur cette base, nous faisons l’hypothèse que les réformes de la structure institutionnelle du PE résultent des efforts des députés visant à renforcer la place de l’institution dans le système politique de l'Union européenne, à travers un accroissement de son «efficacité législative». Afin de tester cette hypothèse, cet article analyse l’impact de la rationalisation du fonctionnement du PE sur trois éléments clés: les organes de direction et les groupes politiques, la délibération en séance plénière et le comportement des députés. On montre ainsi que l'argument de «l'efficacité» générale du travail parlementaire est devenu un objectif en soi qui s’est imposé sur celui de liberté des parlementaires.