The Treaty of Lisbon or intergovernmental temptation?

From the Introduction. This question goes to the very heart of the European project: it is fundamental for the future of the European Union and its role in the world. The Treaty of Lisbon emerged from the ashes of the European Constitution. Driven forward by Angela Merkel, as President of the European Council, Nicolas Sarkozy and José Manuel Barroso, the main advances made in the Constitution were preserved at the expense of a few concessions and symbolic sacrifices in order to make the Union more effective and more democratic.

Iceland’s contested European Policy: The Footprint of the Past - A Small and Insular Society. Jean Monnet Occasional Paper 01/2013

Introduction. Iceland’s domestic politics and foreign affairs are undergoing drastic changes. After an economic crash, violent protests on the streets of Reykjavik for the first time in Iceland’s history contributed to the defeat of the government. The party system has been altered. A turn has been taken towards Europe after the United States left the island, first by closing its military base in 2006 and then by its clear stance not to assist the country in its economic difficulties. The former close relations with the superpower are unlikely ever to be restored. The EU membership application is placing severe constraints on political parties which are split on the issue and has put in jeopardy the unity of the first left majority in the Icelandic parliament, the Althingi. Society is in a state of flux after an unprecedented economic downscaling and the collapse of almost its entire financial sector – which had boomed rapidly beginning in the mid-1990s. The credibility of politicians, the parliament and the media is in ruins. Iceland’s smallness and its location on the geographical map – one could also say the geopolitical map – has had a profound influence on its domestic and foreign affairs. Iceland is closely associated with the other Nordic states and has adopted many of their domestic characteristics, with important exceptions. On the other hand, the country has come under American influence – geographically, it straddles the Mid-Atlantic rift – and has limited its participation in the European project. Its geographical location in the middle of the North Atlantic has led to a notion that the country’s culture is unique and should be protected by all available means. Politicians continue to play the ‘nationalistic uniqueness’ card with considerable success even though the country has been swept by globalization. Rapid modernization (which only really began in the Second World War with British and American occupations) and sudden engagement with the outside world (which only extended to the general public in the last quarter of the twentieth century) are still slowly but steadily making their mark on the country’s foreign policy. The country’s political discourse and foreign policy still bear the hallmark of the past, i.e. of a small and insular society This paper will address the political developments in Iceland since the 2008 economic crash and place it in a historical context. The aim is to understand Iceland’s present foreign policy and, in particular, the highly contested decision by its government in 2009 to apply for membership of the European Union. The paper is divided into five sections in addition to this introduction and the concluding remarks. First, it starts by explaining the importance in Iceland of a political discourse based on the concept of independence which dates back to the historical narrative of the settlement period. This section will also examine Iceland’s close relations with the other Nordic states – despite important differences between it and the others. Second, the paper will analyse the importance of the party system, i.e. the dominance of the centre-right in Icelandic politics, and the changed nature of the system. Third, it examines how Iceland further distinguishes itself from the other Nordic states in many important features. Fourthly, the paper analyses the country’s three main foreign policy priorities in the post-war period, i.e. extensions of the Exclusive Economic Zone, firm defence arrangements with the US and membership of NATO, and the drive for better market access for marine products – including a partial engagement in the European project. Fifthly, the paper examines how the country’s smallness, in terms of its central administrative capacity, has affected its domestic and foreign policy-making. The concluding section summarizes the main findings concerning the political and historical obstacles that the Social Democratic Alliance faces in its hard-fought battle to change the country’s European Policy.

Simulation of Land Use and Investment Behaviour under Different Policy Scenarios: Results of the extended farm/household model. Factor Markets Working Paper No. 27, July 2012

Factor markets are a central issue in analyses of farm development and of agricultural sector vitality. Among the different production factors, land is one of the most studied. Several studies seek to estimate the effect of government policy payments on land value or land rental prices. The studies mostly agree that government payments and other types of policy support are significant in explaining land prices and account for a large share of them. In October 2011, the European Commission published a new policy proposal for the common agricultural policy (CAP) up to 2020. The proposed regulation includes a shift from historical to regional payments. The objective of this paper is to provide an ex ante analysis of the impact of the new CAP policy instruments on the land market. In particular, the effect of the regionalisation of payments in Italy is examined. The analysis is based on the use of a mathematical programming model to simulate the changes in land demand for a farm in Emilia Romagna. The results highlight the relevance of the new policy mechanism in determining a change in land demand. Yet the effect is highly dependent on initial ownership of entitlements under the historical payment scheme.

The turn to the East. The flawed diversification of Russian foreign policy. OSW Point of View Number 44, November 2014

The ‘turn to the East’ proclaimed by Russia in 2010 has failed to bring about a fundamental breakthrough in her relations with Asian countries, nor has it produced impulses for the economic modernization of Russia’s Far Eastern territories. Although the energisation of Russian policy towards Asia which has taken place under this slogan has diversified Russian foreign policy somewhat, this diversification has two weak points: Firstly, it has occurred only in the political sphere. The share of Asian countries in Russia’s foreign economic relations has not risen significantly in comparison with the share of European and North American countries. Secondly, the ‘turn to the East’ has turned out primarily to be a turn towards China. In all spheres – diplomatic, economic, energy and military – it is Beijing that has become the most important Asian partner for Moscow. The result is that the policy that aimed to limit the excessive – in the Kremlin’s view – dependence of Russia on the West is likely to turn Russia into a ‘junior partner’ of the People’s Republic of China.

Localizing EU Gender Policy: The Diffusion of Gender Mainstreaming across Feminist Movements in Eastern Germany. CES Germany & Europe Working Papers, No. 08.1, June, 2008

Gender mainstreaming emerged in the mid-1990s as an innovative and controversial policy tool for reducing gender inequalities. The European Union seeks to propagate the practice of gender mainstreaming both within EU institutions and among member states. Feminist scholars and policy elites discuss and debate gender main-streaming widely, but have yet to consider how local feminist activists, who could play a central role in diffusing gender mainstreaming, understand, interpret and respond to this agenda. This paper examines whether and why local feminist movements in two cities in eastern Germany adopt gender mainstreaming. Consideration of the characteristics of the contexts in which local feminist movements are embedded clarifies the conditions under which social movements rally round new policy paradigms.