Intergovernmentalism

In the last few years of economic crisis, European Union has witnessed several institutional changes. Though national governments seemed to play a major role in managing the crisis, to a certain extent supranational institutions have seen their power increased. Among them, the European Central Bank is certainly the best example: its participation to the troika and the toolbox of monetary policy outcomes Ecb used, have indisputably boosted its prerogatives vis-à-vis
member States. The paper claims that, under the pressure of financial and economic instability, the institutional change affecting the Ecb was mainly an unintended effect of the intergovernmental phase of the crisis management.
Paradoxically, then, the action of European governments, and the consequent failure of the solutions they envisaged, rather than limiting supranationalism, was functional to its increase. The paper stems from the analysis of the limits of intergovernamentalism identified by Fabbrini (2013), arguing that the Ecb gained further powers being the only European institution able to bypass those limits. Indeed, thanks to an
evolutive - and sometimes contested - interpretation of the institutional rules and the creation of new ones, the Ecb reduced the coordination problems among member States, and acted to contain the three dilemmas of veto, enforcement and compliance which emerged during the crisis. As a result of its operations, the Ecb succeeded at the
same time in calming down the markets and freezing the external pressure on indebted countries, provoking a substantial shift of power from the national to the supranational level. Nevertheless, as a central bank, the Ecb is unaccountable to European citizens. Thus, a further limit of intergovernamentalism, the one of legitimacy, rather than
eradicated, was actually exacerbate, worsening the already problematic deficit of democracy in the Eu. In this sense, the product of the failed intergovernamentalism seems to be a sort of "illegitimate supranationalism".

En este trabajo se presenta un estudio teórico y empírico sobre la gobernanza del SICA y sus repercusiones sobre el proyecto integracionista. Se sostiene que el problema de gobernanza del SICA no se encuentra tanto en el número ni en el coste de órganos y agencias, sino en un cúmulo de deficiencias vinculadas al diseño institucional y a la falta de compromiso de los actores gubernamentales con el marco de integración vigente. El modelo actual, basado en el control intergubernamental de los órganos de gobierno, no es adecuado para alcanzar los objetivos de la integración ni para llevar a cabo con éxito un proceso de regionalización que propicie la construcción de una región.

This paper aims to explain as to whether Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the largest regional organisation in Southeast Asia, has been able to accommodate the idea of "environmental rights". Whilst research on ASEAN environmental cooperations has previously investigated the extent to which ASEAN could effectively establish environmental governance and institutional framework in regional level, none has attempted to relate the cooperation with a broader question on environmental rights. We attempt to investigate the linkages between international cooperation and environmental rights. In so doing, we study 49 policy documents related to ASEAN cooperations on environment and the extent to which these diplomatic negotiations accommodate "environmental rights". We argue that intergovernmental mechanism that is embedded in the historical construction of ASEAN environmental cooperations since 1977 has not yet incorporated "environmental rights" in the regional cooperation and governance. This limitation occurs due to ASEAN's strong reliance to the idea of "environmental sovereignty" that lies on ASEAN's intergovernmental mechanisms that continues after the enactment of ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Hazards Pollution in 2002. Consequently, any cooperations to resolve environmental problems has been brought back to state authority and undermining a broader regional initiative. We furthermore suggest that establishing a deliberative form of regional governance in environmental sector, which acknowledges the multiplicity of stakeholders, multi-level strucure of governance, and rights-based institutional framework in environmental issues, could offer solution to remedy this problem.

La crisi economica che si è abbattuta recentemente sull’Europa,
e  sull’Eurozona  in  particolare,  ha  determinato  dinamiche  complesse  di evoluzione  della  governance  dell’Unione  Europea.  Sul  fronte
istituzionale,  il  Consiglio  Europeo  ha  guadagnato  visibilità  e  poteri,
determinando  una  fase  di  intergovernamentalismo  di  ampiezza  inedita.
Tuttavia  tale  processo  non  ha  automaticamente  indebolito  le altre istituzioni:  la  Banca  Centrale  Europea  si  è  ritagliata  un ruolo  di primissimo  piano  e  la  Commissione  Europea,  pur delegando  in  parte  il proprio  potere  di  iniziativa,  ha  aumentato  le  proprie  prerogative  nei confronti  degli  Stati  membri.  Il  grande  sconfitto  di  questo rimaneggiamento  istituzionale  è  dunque  il  Parlamento  Europeo, marginalizzato  nel  processo  -  più  o  meno consapevole  -  di  riforma  della governance  comunitaria.  Il  modello  di  integrazione  che  ha  caratterizzato recentemente  l’Unione  può  dunque  essere  definito  di  sovranazionalismo illegittimo. L’intergovernamentalismo di questi anni non ha cioè precluso totalmente un aumento della sovranazionalità, ma questa si è realizzata a vantaggio  delle  istituzioni  comunitarie  non  rappresentative  e  con  limitata accountability.  Del  resto,  il  risultato  delle  recenti  elezioni non  è  una variabile  capace  di  rinvigorire  il  ruolo  del  Pe  nella  governance comunitaria  nei  prossimi  anni.  Fino  a  quando  il  Pe  sarà  nei  fatti estromesso  dal  decision-making  che  determina  le  grandi  evoluzioni dell’integrazione,  l’impatto  creato  dalla distribuzione  dei  seggi  sarà  solo limitatamente apprezzabile. Le condizioni strutturali di sovranazionalismo illegittimo  condizioneranno  la  prossima  legislatura  a  difendere  le  proprie prerogative in quanto istituzione, relegando in secondo piano le differenze politiche.

The European Union has been facing a cyclus of serious crises for about 8 years already. All of them have weakened not only the EU as a whole but also each of the Member States separately. This has caused two serious consequences being a subject of this analysis, namely 1. it has challenged the value of solidarity lying upon the European integration concept, 2. it has also undermined the EU’s pursuit of achieving the competitive advantage, stated in the strategy Europe 2020. The lack of solidarity is particularly visible in the EU Member States’ differentiated attitudes towards the migration crisis while reduction of determination in achieving competitive advantage is strongly related to consequences of the EU’s economic crisis, threats for the single market (i. a. limitations within the Schengen zone), finally possible Brexit. The paper will focus on analysis of solidarity in the light of intergovernmental approach in the EU crisis management. The above-mentioned emanations of the crisis will serve as case studies in this regard.

Niniejsza analiza ma na celu zbadanie sposobu postrzegania oraz oceny efektywności polskiej polityki europejskiej przez brytyjskich przedstawicieli administracji publicznej, środowiska naukowego oraz opiniotwórczego, a także przedstawicieli polskiej administracji publicznej. Perspektywa badawcza niniejszego opracowania łączy elementy ujęcia międzyrządowego oraz konstruktywi­stycznego. Badanie ujawnia podobieństwa i różnice w postrzeganiu efektywności polskiej polityki europejskiej przez Polaków i Brytyjczyków, wskazując jednocześnie na mocne, słabe strony, szanse i zagrożenia, jakie są widoczne w polskiej polityce europejskiej z perspektywy brytyjskiej i polskiej. Badanych jest pięć głównych wymiarów polityki: 1) aktywność i reaktywność; 2) wizja strategia, taktyka, operacjonalizacja, wdrożenie; 3) efektywność rozumiana wielorako i w różnych kontekstach; 4) znaczenie  Polski i jej polityki europejskiej z perspektywy innych państw, w tym integracja regionalna; 5) Polacy za granicą w okresie członkostwa jako jeden z czynników polityki europejskiej. Analiza prowadzi do wniosku, iż w Polsce i w Wielkiej Brytanii w podobny sposób oceniana jest polska polityka europejska z racji na podobny paradygmat jej realizacji (międzyrządowy, oparty na pragmatycznej realizacji interesu narodowego), przy czym różnice dotyczą głównie kwestii istotnych z perspektywy brytyjskiej, czyli dużej liczby imigrantów z Polski w Zjednoczonym Królestwie.

Publikacja przybliża główne nurty dyskusji o przyszłości europejskiej integracji. Z wielogłosu płynącego z rożnych zakątków kontynentu Aleksandra Polak wybrała głosy kluczowych europejskich polityków, wyodrębniła te najważniejsze i uporządkowała debatę – na pierwszy rzut oka, chaotyczną – na temat scenariuszy dalszego rozwoju Unii Europejskiej. Wierzymy, że ten podział ułatwi orientację w gąszczu nowych informacji, które spływają każdego dnia z Brukseli i stolic europejskich.

This paper looks at a key reason behind Canada’s persistent failure to meet its self-imposed climate change commitments, and proposes a new institution that will be important to overcoming this failure.

In 2016, Canada’s federal, provincial and territorial (FPT) governments – minus Manitoba and Saskatchewan – signed the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change (PCF). The PCF collected a host of FPT climate change policies and programs and also laid out a set of new measures designed to help Canada reach the greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets that it committed to at the Paris Climate Change Conference in 2015.
Unfortunately, despite the very real progress that the PCF represents, Canada is still not on track to meet its climate change targets. Why are we still failing, and why have we consistently failed to meet our emissions reductions targets for the last 30 years? One major reason is that solving the climate change policy problem requires collaboratively aligning all 14 FPT governments’ climate change policies – and Canada’s existing intergovernmental institutions are simply not up to the task of making that happen.

Any successful Canadian climate change policy will need to be able to reduce Canada’s emissions in a way that is effective, efficient and fair. New and innovative intergovernmental institutional frameworks are required to achieve this and to overcome the various obstacles – such as diverging regional interests and significant economic diversity – that have scuttled previous efforts.

This paper argues that a new independent institution, co-created by the FPT governments, will be a crucial first step in this direction. This new climate change institution should be mandated to give evidence-based advice aimed at collaboratively optimizing Canada’s 14 separate FPT climate change policies and to guide the allocation of federal transfers designed to help address the asymmetrical economic burden emissions reduction policies will create, specifically in emissions-intensive provinces.

An increasing number of authors describe the European Union as an advanced form of transgovernmentalism. Whether called Europeanization, supranational intergovernmentalism, multilevel governance, administrative fusion or Brusselisation, the transgovernmentalist thesis states that European politics is shaped by the growing interaction of national government officials at every level of the decision-making process. This paper tests the transgovernmentalist thesis by looking at patterns of formal and informal cooperation in the framework of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). The data is based on a questionnaire circulated among 73 defence officials in France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Brussels-based institutions. The results are analyzed through social network analysis. We find that the governance of ESDP is characterized by a weak form of transgovernmentalism, in which cross-border links do exist but formal state actors occupy strategic positions. In particular, two...

The biggest issue confronting Europe today is moving forwards with the EU project. Studies focusing on the EU as well as public discourse concentrate disproportionately on the flaws of this supranational construct, giving the impression of constant crisis. This incentivizes the counterfactual reasoning that post-World War II social and economic progress would have been possible in the absence of the EU. What is worrying about our present situation is not the increased fragmentation of views on what Europe could become but the growing acceptance (and increasing familiarity) of things as they have always been.

The debate about constituent power in the EU has so far neglected the
problem of political agency. The focus has been on the question of who
holds founding authority rather than how it could be exercised. In this
article, I examine if and to what extent transnational partisanship could
function as a vehicle for constituent power in the EU. According to a new
proposal, cross-border deliberation between between members of likeminded
parties that are in power at the national level should prepare the
ground for intergovernmental treaty making at the EU level. I argue that
this model of ‘networked’ constituent power is problematic because it
fails separate pouvoir constituant and
pouvoirs constitués. By means of a rational reconstruction of the
Democracy in Europe Movement 2025, I outline an alternative model of
extraordinary partisanship. Extraordinary partisan associations ‘co-opt’
regular parliamentary elections to acquire a mandate for a project of
constitutional change. Such an organization could enable citizens from
various member states to promote an opening up of the EU polity for the
exercise of constituent power.

2006
Abstract: The long European integration process has been operationalised on two strategies: the strategy of integration and the strategy of cooperation. The former refers to a maximalistic plan with federal orientation based on the deepening of the integrative process, while the latter implies a minimalist framework of cooperation amongst sovereign states. The two trends reflect preferences articulated by Europeanists and Atlanticists. The evolutionary of the process has been heavily affected not only by the Cold War conditions but also by the proposed strategies built on less or more divergent ideological and strategic orientations. Their roots may be traced back to three visions of Europe expressed by Gaullism, Atlanticism and Europeanism.
2013
Keywords: Europeanism, Atlanticism, Gaullism, European integration

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259005070_European_Integration_From_Gaullism_to_Atlanticism_and_Europeanism

Post-Eurocrisis normative debates on democracy in the European Union have seen a revival of democratic intergovernmentalism (DI). This paper questions not the substantive proposals put forward under the heading of DI, but the theory-building strategy typically used to justify these proposals. It argues that DI theories fail sufficiently to theorise the connection between normative principles and political practice, over-emphasising the former at the expense of the latter. Citizens are thereby relegated to passive recipients of normative standards thought to be independently valid. Providing an alternative to this view, the paper then advances a contestation-based account of democracy in the EU where the central unit of analysis is the agents who propose particular interpretations of what democracy in the EU means and what institutional reforms need be taken, in domestic and transnational public spheres.

The work tries to give a comprehensive study of how the European approach must be improved in its effectiveness; in other words, whether the EU should or could shift from an economic ‘soft power’ to a military ‘hard power’. Concerning this, the paper seeks to analyse the lack of unity during the Libyan crisis that featured the EU and its implications for the long-term strategy. Then, if the necessity of a steadier stance has become essential in the aftermath of the Libyan crisis, the latest developments in the international arena make it a duty.
Regarding the methodology, this paper is an assessment of the EU’s approach to the Libyan crisis with a focus on the decision-making procedures at the basis of European Common Foreign and Security Policy. Even though the range of literature on this topic is miscellaneous, the choice for reform is the point to which all the authors agree.

as an advanced form of transgovernmentalism. Whether called Europeanization, supranational intergovernmentalism, multilevel governance, administrative fusion or Brusselisation, the transgovernmentalist thesis states that European politics is shaped by the growing interaction of national government officials at every level of the decision-making process. This paper tests the transgovernmentalist thesis by looking at patterns of formal and informal cooperation in the framework of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). The data is based on a questionnaire circulated among 73 defence officials in France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Brussels-based institutions. The results are analyzed through social network

The purpose of this book is to study the development and implementation of international conflict resolution and crisis management policies of the EU in the frame of Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and to investigate the efficiency of its activities towards enhancing civilian and military capacities in this area. As part of this research, Transnationalist and Intergovernmentalist approaches in the base of International Relations and European Integration theories, history of the EU and CSDP including Brexit, decision-making processes of the Union, and the business of the European Defence Agency (EDA) are examined.
https://www.gazikitabevi.com.tr/urun/the-eu-in-conflict-prevention-and-crisis-management-csdp-common-security-and-defence-policy

Este artículo presenta una caracterización del más reciente intento de integración económica regional en América Latina, la Alianza del Pacífico, a partir de un enfoque constructivista que establece una relación entre los rasgos identitarios de los Estados fundadores del proceso y la definición de su estructura institucional. Con tal finalidad, se hace una revisión del mecanismo tanto desde una perspectiva política como desde los principales enfoques sobre integración en la región. El documento concluye que esta iniciativa fue diseñada para defender los intereses nacionales y responder a una pretensión de liderazgo regional, lo cual explica la adopción de un modelo de cooperación estratégica para el fortalecimiento de las relaciones con potencias extrarregionales y la reducción de la dependencia frente a la potencia hegemónica regional.

For scholars and practitioners of European politics alike, the distinction between supranationalism and intergovernmentalism has always been fundamental. This distinction has underpinned the various schools of European integration theory, just as it has remained crucial for European governments keen to demonstrate that the member states remain in charge of key policy areas. Nowhere is this considered to be more central than in the area of foreign and security policy, which has consciously been set within the rigid intergovernmental framework of Pillar Two of the Maastricht Treaty and, under the Lisbon Treaty, remains subject to the unanimity rule. And yet, scholarship on the major decision-making agencies of the foreign and security policy of the EU suggests that the distinction is not only blurred but increasingly meaningless. This paper demonstrates that, in virtually every case, decisions are shaped and even taken by small groups of relatively well-socialized officials in the key committees acting in a mode which is as close to supranational as it is to intergovernmental. The political control of foreign and security policy, which is considered sacrosanct by member state governments, is only rarely exercised by politicians at the level of the European Council or Council of Ministers.

This study uses variation in natural resource rents and mineral production among Peruvian municipalities to analyze the impact of resource booms on local politicians’ behavior and citizens’ well-being. Although this topic has recently attracted several scholars, the existing empirical evidence remains inconclusive regarding whether resource booms are beneficial or detrimental to citizens via their effects on public good provision and welfare outcomes. I argue that, despite the fact that many of the existing theoretical models allow for the possibility of non-monotonic responses, the empirical literature has mostly approached this phenomena using linear models, failing to correctly understand the nature of resource booms. Exploiting the recent extraordinary increase in mineral prices along with a set of rules for the distribution of natural resource rents in Peru, I show that the effects of resource booms in reelection outcomes, political competition, and public goods provision are conditional to the size of the rents in a non-monotonic fashion. These results are robust to endogenous production responses and are consistent with a simple model of electoral competition in a resource rich economy.

The ‘failing forward’ synthesis of liberal intergovernmentalism and neofunctionalism puts European member states governments in charge of the process of integration (Jones et al., [2016]. Failing Forward? The Euro Crisis and the Incomplete Nature of European Integration. Comparative Political Studies, 48(7), 1010–1034. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414015617966). However, this placement does not show clearly whether the principals are reactive or proactive. That distinction between proactive and reactive is important in understanding what it means to say that integration is a movement ‘forward’ and what we mean by ‘success’. Moving forward could mean building out the great ideals of Europe’s political leaders, but it could also mean reacting to events in a way that solves problems, even if only imperfectly. The process of Eastern enlargement shows this distinction at work. We argue that enlargement is ‘successful’ as a reactive process and not as a proactive one. In proactive terms, t...

Niniejsza analiza obejmuje zagadnienia związane z polską polityką europejską w kontekście kryzysów Unii Europejskiej, przy czym – ponieważ dotyczy okresu 2004–2014 – w największym stopniu obejmuje kryzys finansowy i gospodarczy. W badaniu podjęta zostaje próba analizy teoretycznej warunków kryzysowych i polityki antykryzysowej państw członkowskich, a także próba odpowiedzi na pytania badawcze o to, które działania antykryzysowe można uznać za sukcesy, a które za porażki, przy wyraźnym określeniu kontekstu – zarówno polskiego, jak i europejskiego – kroków polskich władz na rzecz wyjścia z kryzysu (bo głównie o działania władz w analizie chodzi). Założeniem kluczowym jest kwestia znaczenia braku przynależności Polski do strefy euro dla działań antykryzysowych w kryzysie gospodarczym, ale także dla kontekstu, w jakim polski rząd kryzysem zarządzał. Jednocześnie pozostawanie poza strefą euro może się okazać główną przeszkodą w udziale Polski w walce z kryzysem tożsamościowym Unii Europejskiej i jej dogłębnej reformie. Sukcesy i porażki polskiej polityki europejskiej w warunkach kryzysu pokazują, iż pewna reaktywność polskiej polityki wówczas z jednej strony, a świadomość konieczności współkształtowania jej na poziomie europejskim, postawiły Polskę wśród krajów o dużym potencjale kształtowania przyszłości UE pod warunkiem wykazania woli politycznej przyjęcia waluty euro, współpracy z największymi państwami UE posiadającymi wspólną walutę i uwspólnotowionymi instytucjami, oraz zwiększenia zasobów administracyjnych na rzecz bardziej efektywnego koordynowania europejskich polityk, nie zaś tylko wytyczania doraźnych celów (jak choćby jak największy udział w korzystaniu z funduszy strukturalnych), co się Polsce jednak stosunkowo dobrze udawało.

INTERGOVERNMENTALISM – ΔΙΑΚΥΒΕΡΝΗΤΙΣΜΟΣ Δ/Κ
ΦΙΛΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΟΣ ΔΙΑΚΥΒΕΡΝΗΤΙΣΜΟΣ  Φ/Δ
LIBERAL INTERGOVERNMENTALISM L/I

Supervised MA Dissertations (indicative), to be updated

 Russia as a defining factor of European security: aspects of a peculiar interdependence framework
 European Security and Defence Policy and the internal security of the EU under the spectrum of radical Islam
 Greek security dilemmas under the spectrum of European Security and Defence Policy
 Euro-Mediterranean cooperation after the Arab Spring
 The EU as an international actor: organizational, institutional and conceptual insufficiencies in a state-centric world system
 Δημοκρατικό έλλειμμα και Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση: προκλήσεις για το Ευρωπαϊκό μοντέλο οργάνωσης, διακυβέρνησης και συμμετοχικής δημοκρατίας
 Δημοκρατικό έλλειμμα και Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση: προκλήσεις για το Ευρωπαϊκό μοντέλο οργάνωσης, διακυβέρνησης και συμμετοχικής δημοκρατίας
 Δημοκρατικό έλλειμμα και Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση: προκλήσεις για το Ευρωπαϊκό μοντέλο οργάνωσης, διακυβέρνησης και συμμετοχικής δημοκρατίας
 Το Δημοκρατικό Έλλειμμα και η συμμετοχή των νέων στις Ευρωεκλογές
 Η ευρωπαϊκή πολιτική άμυνας και ασφάλειας υπό το πρίσμα του διακυβερνητικού: προκλήσεις και ευκαιρίες
 Η σημασία της αντιμετώπισης του Δημοκρατικού Ελλείμματος του συστήματος Ευρωπαϊκής Διακυβέρνησης και της άντλησης Νομιμοποίησης των αποφάσεων, για το μέλλον της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης

This provides the format and content for the earmarked transfers from the central to the district levels of government in Rwanda. It identifies the mission of the central ministry or organization, the basis of the allocation formula, and the allocations among the districts with performance indicators for the allocated funds. This was done as part of GIZ support to the fiscal decentralization in Rwanda.

The Assembly of Northern Ireland is the child of the peace process and of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and 2006 St-Andrews Agreement between the Republic of Ireland, the UK government, and various nationalist and unionist parties in Northern Ireland. Functioning in accordance with the principles of consociational democracy, it is peculiar in having all major parties in government, and none in opposition. This chapter studies its origins, its institutional peculiarities, its political culture and its current challenges. In Guy Laforest and André Lecours, The Parliaments of Autonomous Nations, MQUP, Montréal and Kingston, 2016, p.183-202.

This paper assesses the empirical record of the first three years of work in the EU's Interparliamentary Conference on the Common Foreign and Security Policy and Common Security and Defence Policy (IPC CFSP/CSDP). Which contribution has it made to the political process in CFSP/CSDP during these three years? To answer this question, the paper develops three basic roles that interparliamentary institutions can play in political processes in general. They can function as actors, interacting with others, for example executive actors, to achieve certain goals; they can serve as focal points for the creation of networks among MPs, making it possible for ideas and information to travel across the boundaries of parliaments; and they can be symbols, making visible the significance of the parliamentary dimension as such or of different parliamentary levels in a policy field. After developing these, the paper examines how the IPC CFSP/CSDP has performed with respect to each role. It turns out that the IPC has both undermined and reinforced intergovernmentalism in CFSP and CSDP at the same time. One the one hand, It has established a parliamentary presence in CFSP and CSDP at the international level and undermined the informational advantages of executives by generating information and making information available through networks of parliamentarians. On the other hand, by virtue of its organizational emphasis on the significance of national parliaments, it has reinforced the conception of foreign and security policy as a domain of national sovereignty and thus reinforced intergovernmentalism in this issue area.

The ‘failing forward’ synthesis of liberal intergovernmentalism and neofunctionalism puts European member states governments in charge of the process of integration (Jones et al., [2016]. Failing Forward? The Euro Crisis and the Incomplete Nature of European Integration. Comparative Political Studies, 48(7), 1010–1034. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414015617966). However, this placement does not show clearly whether the principals are reactive or proactive. That distinction between proactive and reactive is important in understanding what it means to say that integration is a movement ‘forward’ and what we mean by ‘success’. Moving forward could mean building out the great ideals of Europe’s political leaders, but it could also mean reacting to events in a way that solves problems, even if only imperfectly. The process of Eastern enlargement shows this distinction at work. We argue that enlargement is ‘successful’ as a reactive process and not as a proactive one. In proactive terms, the Eastern enlargement process has a consistent record of failure inasmuch as agents did not get what they wanted when they wanted it. In reactive terms, enlargement contributed to the creation of a wider and a deeper European Union.

This analysis covers issues related to Polish European policy in the context of the European Union crises, however – since it concerns the period 2004-2014 – it covers mainly the financial and economic crisis. The study attempts to both theoretically analyse the crisis conditions and anti-crisis policy of the Member States as well as answer research questions about the successful and unsuccessful anti-crisis measures. The contexts is here both Polish as well as European, and it refers to steps of Polish authorities to overcome the crisis. The key assumption is  the significance of the lack of Poland’s membership in the euro area for anti-crisis measures in the economic crisis, but also for the context in which the Polish government managed the crisis. At the same time, remaining outside the euro area may turn out to be a major obstacle to Poland’s participation in the fight against the European Union’s identity crisis and its in-depth reform. The successes and failures of Polish European policy in the context of the crises show that a certain reactivity  of the Polish European policy during the crisis on the one hand and awareness of the need to co-shape it at the European level put Poland among countries with great potential to shape the future of the EU. It is possible, however, only under the condition of demonstrating the political will to adopt the euro, cooperate with the largest EU countries with common currency and unified institutions, and increase administrative resources for more efficient coordination of the European policy. Setting ad hoc goals of the Polish European policy (such as the largest share in the use of structural funds) is not enough, any more, despite the fact that during the crisis it seemed to be quite an efficient strategy of Poland.

The article attempts to depict the governmental system of the EU on the basis of the characteristics of its executive institutions, intra-executive relationships, the relationships between the executive and legislative institutions, and the combination of supranational (the Community method) and intergovernmental nature of decision-making in the post-Maastricht period of European integration. Sui generis characteristics of the EU do not preclude a systemic configuration on the basis of comparative analysis with statal governmental systems. The article asserts that post-Maastricht European integration has led to the gradual establishment of a semipresidential governmental system in the EU. This system accordingly involves particularly on the one hand the deliberative dual-executive authority in the EU, namely the European Council with accumulated prerogatives and the Commission with a subordinated role compared to the dominant position of the European Council, though being subject to legislative scrutiny, or the Council with an occasional executive role in certain fields, and on the other hand the expanded powers of the European Parliament, as the lower house.

The year 2020 will mark 25 years since the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women (FWCW) was held in Beijing China in 1995. The Beijing Platform for Action which came out of the Conference is, along with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the major blueprint for gender equality and the empowerment of women.

A group of feminist Beijing veterans in the Philippines led by Patricia B. Licuanan (Chair of the UNCSW as the preparatory body to the FWCW), with the Women and Gender Institute (WAGI) of Miriam College as the institutional base, convened a caucus among selected NGOs working for gender equality and women's empowerment in the Asia-Pacific region.

The caucus gave birth to a new feminist framework for women's issues in the Asia-Pacific region. The framework is derived from a two-day discussion that sought a critical reflection on the gains, losses, significance and persistent challenges of the BPfA throughout the years. The collectively derived framework provides a critical analysis of the threats to the feminist agenda in the region as well as guiding principles in optimizing existing opportunities for ways forward.

We have a problem. Regional community building beyond " immediate vicinity " (ASEAN, EU, AU) is exhaustive, government-driven, and is inclusive insofar as engagement towards second-track is mandated by governments (top down). This exercise tends to lead to ex-officio presence by governments and often excludes societal participations. The purpose of this essay is to help in creating a truly East Asia Community from the bottoms up where integration is done at the grass roots level. The idea behind this is that once elements of member societies are united, potentially contentious agendas such as economic or political security will have less inertia to unite. Underlying this endeavour is the need to constantly keep in mind the vitality of making relevant geographical border delimitations and determining the clout of membership for the 'new' community. These shall guide in simplifying the process of creation. Before we proceed, however, let us quickly analyse the trends happening so far. The concept of the East Asia Community originally envisioned as a trade bloc is an offset from the East Asia Summit derived from the original ASEAN+3 formulation plus the United States, Russia, India, Australia, and New Zealand. As such, approach towards " progress " tends to mimic ASEAN ways of working. ASEAN Socio-Cultural Cooperation is government-led and planned. Non-government initiatives have mixed success records. Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) has ever shifting loci of cooperation and have attempted to unite " future leaders " on a regular basis but selection is arbitrary and has yet become inclusive. G20 Youth involvement is active but has yet reached optimal momentum. Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) has well developed mechanisms of integration, even to the tangible agreement of APEC Business Travel Cards allowing unfettered entry into APEC countries. Having been brought to light on how similar aspirations have transpired in the past, the first option would be to employ the same intergovernmental approach towards forging unity within the socio-cultural dimensions. This brings consequences that governments will be leading processes. Given government limitations, some societal exclusion is likely while speed and extent of progress would be similar to that achieved in ASEAN, APEC, and ASEM. The second option would be to employ the laissez-faire approach whereby public messages on the importance of an East Asian Community be bombarded throughout respective countries but without monitoring or any impetus nor initiative from governments. Should these markets find notions of such community attractive, then related aspects will no doubt be made more salient. The third option would be to 'manage' and make into a well categorized collective the natural momentum of integration in each respective members through the use of social media tools. The value addition of this approach would be to simply mark existing content as part of the East Asian Community content. This would enable active contributors to push the process forward while enabling those working with silo tendencies to have their postings automatically shared throughout the East Asian cyberspace. The fourth option would be to invest bureaucratic resources, public communications resources, and process managers to initiate programs, monitor implementation, and push the process forward possibly through a permanent secretariat albeit virtual. The fifth option would be to continue on this sectoral agenda path of progress with the hope of finalizing the socio-cultural dimension of a community last after work on the political-security and economic dimensions have been completed. This option risks rendering the experiment irrelevant to people especially if early recognition is clearly marked by a specific " flavour " such as economic cooperation.

The anti-discrimination stance of the European Union can be regarded as a cornerstone for future institutional-building and policy-making. Indeed, non-discrimination is a fundamental principal of EU legal order. The paper reviews the application of the principle of territorial subsidiarity and the role of ‘partner regions’ concerning social policy and welfare development. Europeanisation encourages intergovernmental co-operation on the assumption that national states will be less ‘sovereign’ than they have been up until now.