The European Polity Post Lisbon-
Assessing macro-trends in European Integration from a âfusionâ perspective
Brussels, 14-15 October 2010
Second Annual Conference EUPOLIS
The members of all EUPOLIS research teams presented results and findings of their research based, inter alia, on previous working papers and contributions to international research conferences. The focus of this conference had been the presentation of the individual book chapters of the joint publication which is going to be published in 2011/2012. This conference had a workshop character in which invited members of the expert circles and an interested audience were able to discuss the EUPOLIS work and exchange ideas.
The EUPOLIS consortiuml provided general information on the EUPOLIS project, presented the produced teaching material and summarized research results that were presented at international conferences (e.g. UACES in Bruges or the Fifth Pan-European Conference on EU Politics in Porto).
The presentation of the individual book chapters was divided among the EUPOLIS partners. Each referee provided a presentation of his/her respective chapter.
The Second Annual Conference also added the knowledge and insight on the EU Polity Post Lisbon and strengthened the Jean Monnet network of established and new research cooperations while reaching out across in old, new, and applicant member states.
Please find a detailed time schedule for our Second Annual conference below.
If you want to participate, please register via email (oliver.hoeing(at)uni-koeln.de) by October 10 latest.
Conference: Exchanging Ideas on Europe; UACES Conference in Bruges, Belgium (hosted by the College of Europe).
Date: 6-8 September 2010
Session: The Treaty of Lisbon: A Conclusive Answer to fundamental Problems?
Chair: Pro. Wolfgang Wessels, Jean Monnet Chair Holder, University of Cologne
âExchanging Ideas on Europeâ was the title of the UACES conference in Bruges from 6-8 September 2010. EUPOLIS took this opportunity to organize an own panel to present preliminary research results to a broader audience. The panel âThe Treaty of Lisbon: A Conclusive Answer to fundamental Problems?â was chaired by Prof. Wessels and was well attended by approximately 35 attendees.
Prof. Lee Miles, Dr. Ivo Ć losarÄĂk and Prof. Wessels gave presentations on different research areas of the project. Prof. Wessels started the session by introducing the EUPOLIS project, referring to the fusion approach and pointing especially at the difference between the written words and the real world in European Union Politics. Prof. Lee Miles focussed on national elites and presented his theoretical framework to operationalise fusion. Although the word fusion is not used by policy-makers, indicators for fusion could be found in the empirical analysis of policy-makers in Sweden, Britain and Norway.
Ivo Ć losarÄĂk presented his preliminary research results on the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HR). He broached, among others, the nomination process of the HR as well the meaning of the External Action Service for (especially smaller) member states. Prof. Wessels presented his paper, focussing on the new permanent President of the European Council. He underlined the meaning of the European Council in all major decisions of the European Union in the past. He also pointed out that the treaty articles concerning the power of the new office are ambiguous. The real power of the new president will very much depend on his performance and personality.
The following discussion with the audience was regarded as very fruitful. Stimulating criticism will be taken into account when finalising the research work.
Conference: Fifth Pan-European Conference on EU Politics, Porto, Portugal (hosted by the Univeristy of Oporto and the University Fernando Pessoa)
Date: 23-26 June 2010
Section: Theories of European integration. Fusion Dynamics in European Integration
Chair: Stefan Auer, Innovative Universities European Union (IUEU) Centre
European integration and the transformation of the nation state
Andreas Hofmann, University of Cologne
Wolfgang Wessels, University of Cologne
The Treaty of Lisbon and the fusion dynamics of European integration
Lenka RovnĂĄ, Charles University of Prague
Ivo Slosarcik, Charles University of Prague
European integration and the Lisbon Treaty: Factoring in national adaptation and perspectives
Lee Miles, University of Karlstadt
Title: National Sovereignty and European Integration â The European Polity Post-Lisbon
Date: Friday, 6 November 2009, 11am-4pm
Location: Representation of the State North Rhine-Westphaliaâ, Rue Montoyer 47, Brussels.
The judgements of European Constitutional Courts on the reconcilability of the Lisbon Treaty with national constitutions over the last months have triggered intense discussion and raised a number of interesting issues pertaining to the relation between national sovereignty and European integration.
The roundtable will provide a critical analysis of the state of thinking on this topic from a range of different national and disciplinary perspectives â lawyers, political scientists and historians in particular.
Date: 26 January 2009
Venue: University of Cologne, Albertus Magnus Platz, Cologne
The EUPOLIS public lecture was held by Prof Lenka RovnĂĄ of the Charles University in Prague on 26 January at the University of Cologne. Its topic treated the difficult position of the Czech Presidency of the Council of the European Union that had commenced at the beginning of the month. Prof RovnĂĄ elaborated on the challenges that stood ahead: As successor to highly active French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Czech Prime Minister Mirek TopolĂĄnek faces a multitude of challenges to his countryâs leadership of the European Union in the coming six month. In domestic politics, TopolĂĄnek faces internal political in-fighting and strife within his own government, on top of a difficult cohabitation with the notoriously EUsceptic President VĂĄclav Klaus. In EU politics, TopolĂĄnek will have to deal with the brunt force of the economic crisis and the future of the Treaty of Lisbon, the fate of which is in limbo since the Irish referendum of last year. On the international level, the New Year started off with two significant crises that require the immediate attention of European institutions: the violent conflict in Gaza and the Ukrainian-Russian struggle over gas supplies that has already had an adverse impact on some EU member countries. The Czech Presidency will thus have to deal with an astonishing number of pressing issues simultaneously â a major challenge in difficult times.
The commentators Anja Thomas and Lee Miles contributed the perspective of the past French presidency and the succeeding Swedish presidency respectively. Prof Lenka RovnĂĄ is Jean Monnet Chair Ad Personam and the bearer of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence in European Studies at the Charles University in Prague. She was representative of the Czech Republic at the Convention on the Future of Europe and was awarded a Jean Monnet bronze medal for Lifelong Learning by the European Commission in 2007.
Anja Thomas, M.A. is research assistant to the Jean Monnet Chair of Prof. Wolfgang Wessels at the University of Cologne. She is director of the Franco-German network THESEUS, funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation. Her main research interests are the Franco-German relationship within the framework of the European Union, French and German European politics and Democracy and Legitimacy in the European Union.
Prof Lee Miles is Jean Monnet Chair in European Union Government and Politics and Director of the Europe in the World Centre (a designated Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence) at the University of Liverpool. He is widely regarded as being one of the UKâs primary experts on Scandinavian politics and Nordic policies towards the European Union in addition to having written extensively on aspects of European integration and European security.
Date: 26-27 January 2009
Location: University of Cologne, Albertus-Magnus-Platz, Cologne
On 26-27 January 2009, the University of Cologne hosted the kick-off conference of the Jean Monnet Multilateral Research Group EUPOLIS â The European Polity Post Lisbon. Funded under the European Unionâs Jean Monnet Action for period of 28 months, this group aims to stimulate academic debate on the âquasiâ-constitutional evolution of the European polity from an interdisciplinary (political science, law, history) and trans-national perspective.
The conference undertook to identify and refine a research agenda for analysing macro-dynamics in European Integration from the perspective of the âfusionâ thesis. It focused on an analysis of fundamental constitutional trends, placing these developments in relation to the evolution the nature of statehood in Europe. It took into account a national perspective, integrating the role of national preferences in this process and providing an analysis of points of fusion of institutional competences (âinstitutional fusionâ) between national and EU levels.
The fusion thesis places the process of European integration in the wider context of the development of statehood per se. It explains the demand for integration as a result of an attempt at common problem-solving by the member states where individual states can no longer cope. In answering a number of basic constitutional questions member states seek an adequate problem-solving area and efficient as well as democratically legitimate decision-making procedures without, at the same time, excessively ceding national autonomy.