Explaining Euroskepticism as a function of regional representation. ACES Working Papers No. 3, August 2008

Recent scholarship has suggested that nation-states will gradually fade away in favor of regions and super-regions as the main actors within a European Union characterized by strong regional identities. At the same time, recent developments have shown that citizen support for European integration is essential for any future development of the Union. The puzzle inspiring this paper is the finding that the greatest support for the EU increasingly stems from minority nationalist regions seeking to bypass their central states to achieve their policy goals at the EU level. This paper empirically tests this suggestion, while shedding light on the relationship between the quality of representation of regional interests at the EU level and positive citizen attitudes towards the EU. In particular, it finds two explanations for cross-regional variation in the relationship between Euroskepticism and representation: (1) a cultural explanation, embodied by a difference in the nature and quality of representation between regions that are linguistically distinctive and regions that are not; and (2) an institutional explanation, embodied by a difference in the nature and quality of representation between regions from federal and non-federal member states. The paper uses an eclectic methodological approach, first utilizing multivariate regression analysis, estimating logistic and ordinal logit models that help explain variation in Euroskepticism at the regional level. The results are then complemented by the findings of in-depth elite interviews of regional representatives - more specifically the directors of a selection of the many regional information offices present in Brussels. This paper takes the study of Euroskepticism to a new level, as most previous scholarly work has focused on explanations at the individual or at the member state level. At the same time it strengthens the notion of a growing importance of a "Europe of the regions."

The Lisbon Treaty and Spain: Background, Context and Impact. Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series Special Issue 1, August 2012

The year 2010 will be remembered in the European Union (EU) circles of governmental Spain as a crucial milestone regarding the role of the country in one of the most important alliances of world history. During the first semester, from January to June 2010, Spain had previously been scheduled to hold the rotating presidency as done since the times of the inception of the predecessor of the EU, the European Economic Community (EEC). Furthermore, on June 12, Spain would be ready to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its adhesion (along with Portugal) to the European integration experiment, by signing the treaty, effectively acceding to the European Community (EC) on January 1, 1986. While all of this was set to occur, the new Reform Treaty (“of Lisbon”) was set to be implemented as a substitute for the failed constitutional text floated during the first years of the new century. Moreover, these spectacular events unraveled in the middle of one of the worst economic crises of the world, with considerable impact on the evolution of the EU and, most especially, Spain. This paper will review the background, context and impact of particular novel aspects of the new treaty governing the EU and several milestones regarding the experience of Spain in the European process.

Social Democracy, Globalization and Governance: Why is there no European Left Program in the EU? CES Germany & Europe Working Papers, No. 00.6, April 2000

This paper addresses globalization and governance in the EU by attempting to generate some plausible hypotheses that might explain the policy choices of the 12 out of 15 European democratic left governments. With all of the discussion in recent years of a democratic deficit, and then need to maintain a "social Europe," why have these governments not produced more explicit left-wing policies? It suggests three possible hypotheses to account for this apparently mysterious outcome. Hypothesis #1: They want to but they can't. Hypothesis #2: They don't want to because they aren't really left anymore. Hypothesis #3: They could, but they all are suffering from a fundamental failure of imagination. The paper explores each of these hypotheses in two ways. First it examines the initial years of the Schröder government in Germany apparently, pursuing each of these three hypotheses and different times during this period. Then it looks more systematically and comparatively and each of the three hypotheses by including analysis both of Germany and several other EU member states. The larger goal of this work is to provoke discussion and research on what role left political movements can actually play. Is it even reasonable to expect such a group of nation states to develop innovative forms of cross-national governance? Or are new and/or revised forms of representation and governance beyond traditional nation-state models.

The Great Financial Plumbing: From Northern Rock to Banking Union. CEPS Paperback, 19 October 2015

The financial and economic crises have led to an enormous plumbing exercise, involving a fundamental re-design of the global and European regulatory and supervisory system. This book systematically assesses the big items on the G-20 and EU agendas and the effectiveness with which they have been implemented in the EU. Its publication coincides with the demand by European Commissioner Jonathan Hill, in the context of the Capital Markets Union, for a 'comprehensive review' of the impact and coherence of EU legislation in the area of financial services. Karel Lannoo argues in the book that much has been done by European policy-makers to make the financial system safer and to prevent banking crises of the magnitude that erupted in 2008 and 2011, but that the new framework puts an enormous burden on banks and supervisors to implement and enforce it correctly. With the huge amount of secondary or 'level-2' legislation in place, this process has spiralled out of control, and as member states always find new ways of ‘gold-plating’ EU rules, the EU always finds further reasons to achieve a 'single rulebook'. This process has to be brought to a halt, and mutual recognition, a basic single-market principle, reinforced. The new framework also brings huge advantages, which should offer benefits to all parties. Banking Union is a huge step forward, which introduces 'one-stop shopping' for banks in the eurozone, another basic single market principle, and a true single supervisor. The clarity of the new resolution framework should, if correctly applied, trigger early intervention and bring an end to forbearance, thereby enforcing market discipline in the banking sector. It should also avoid reliance on taxpayers' money to bail-out banks in trouble, which totalled 14% of EU GDP during the crisis.