Big step for our project on ‘The Informal Construction of Europe’: today, my co-editor Lennaert van Heumen and I signed a contract with Routledge for an edited volume. Our authors are working on their contributions concerning ideas, actors and procedures which had an impact on European integration through informal processes.…
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Special Issue out: New Research on EU Supranational Activism
This special issue, which I guest-edited with Prof. David Howarth, introduces the concept of ‘activism’ to the study of EU supranational institutions and their role in EU policy making and European integration. While long present in studies of the European Court of Justice, ‘activism’ has rarely been examined systematically in…
Continue ReadingNew blog post: Times of Crisis, Times of Prospects – Can the EU Learn from the 1970s?
This post draws comparisons between the socioeconomic situation the EU faced in the 1970s with that of today. Both periods followed extreme economic crises and were defined by rapid technological transformation. Looking to the past as a guide, the article argues that there is a potential for today’s socioeconomic crisis…
Continue ReadingGood news: our proposal for the next special issue of JCER has been accepted
The activism of EU supranational institutions: this will be the topic of a special issue in the Journal of Contemporary European Research (JCER). David Howarth and I just won the bid for JCER’s 2017 special issue, and we will get to work swiftly, first publishing a call for abstracts in…
Continue ReadingNew blog post: Let’s Talk Business – The Economic Impact of Brexit
The debate on the UK’s membership of the EU has been ongoing for months, with the renegotiation and referendum still to come. This bloh post surveys key sectors of British business to assess the impact of EU exit on their industries and their arguments around EU membership. The article suggests…
Continue ReadingBlog post series: How a Brexit Would Influence the British Economy
Britain has entered the battlefield to save, slay or restructure its membership of the European Union. Key players from all national sectors have taken up their positions on all fronts. But clarifying the motivations of British stakeholders and sectors in terms of their support for, or opposition to European integration…
Continue ReadingNew blog post: Triple-A rating? Juncker’s vision for the EU’s social policy scorecard
Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker wants to be remembered as the man who re-initiated the Social Dialogue at the EU level. How? By bestowing upon the European Union a social ‘triple-A’ rating, which he officially designated as “just as important as an economic and financial triple-A” at the outset his appointment,…
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