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This chapter analyses the evolution of EU membership conditionality and its application vis-à-vis the applicant countries, that is: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Turkey. It examines why these countries have been subjected to tougher membership conditions than previous applicants, and how the EU has used membership conditionality to try to influence their domestic and foreign policies. The chapter also argues that the consistent application of its membership conditions could provide the EU with a more justifiable way to judge present, and future, applicant countries than other criteria such as cultural affinity, geographical proximity, or geo-strategic calculations.

This chapter examines generalized support for the EU rather than attitudes towards specific institutions and policies. Theories about its origin are subjected to more comprehensive empirical tests than previous analyses attempted, using time-series cross-section data covering all member states from the 1970s to 2007. The dynamic relationship between EU-support and national economic and political developments follows a transfer, rather than substitution logic, while increasing trade with EU member states, high cognitive mobilization, low welfare spending, Catholicism and favourable labour market position all contribute to favourable dispositions towards EU-membership. Other often suggested influences on EU support appear inconsistently across nations or time, which we attribute to the nature of the EU itself that generates diverse, contradictory, and ever-changing expectations among citizens.

This chapter explores how the EU has worked to anchor the seven Balkan states into the process of European integration. Since 1999, the clear prospect of EU membership has provided a relatively constant set of incentives for elites to pursue strategies of regional peace-building, ethnic tolerance, and economic reform. Before 1999, this prospect was much less clear — and the logic of qualifying for membership certainly failed to overpower domestic forces with very different political agendas in Croatia or Serbia. The prospect of eventual EU membership failed to motivate leaders in many Balkan states to follow a path of reform compatible with joining the EU as rapidly as possible. But it did not fail to motivate all of them.

This chapter looks at the European debates on Turkey, describes the stakeholders involved, and evaluates their interests and beliefs with respect to the EU–Turkey relations. These matters are tackled within the context of several member states, including those that reject Turkey's EU membership, those that support it, and those that are either indifferent or divided on Turkey's EU prospects. The chapter aims to underline the similarities and differences between European and US debates on Turkey, in order to understand who the United States speaks to in the EU regarding Turkey, and to suggest methods of comprehending US influence on EU–Turkey relations. The fact that these debates rarely focus on the technicalities of Turkey's EU membership means two things: first, American attempts to directly influence EU positions on Turkey have been marginally successful, and that such influence is often indirect and unintended.

Examines the politics of accounting regulation when collective forces and social arrangements appear to mitigate potential conflict. Specifically, the process through which accounting law was redrafted in Austria in preparation for EU (European Union) membership is investigated, paying particular attention to the changes in the legal text of the Financial Reporting Act between the Ministerial and Governmental drafts. The Ministerial draft was the outcome of discussions between representatives of employers, employees, academics, and accountants in an attempt to reach consensus on the legal text in cooperation with the Ministry of Justice. These deliberations took place behind closed doors, but were followed by a process of public consultation. In these circumstances, it was possible to identify changes in those aspects of accounting law to which the main parties could not at first agree, and hence to assess the unconditional influence of powerful groups that is exercised in circumstances where disagreement between the parties is already apparent.

This chapter highlights the differences among the current members of the EU, and contrasts them as a group with the applicants. It considers whether applicants have a comparative advantage over members in any dimension of well-being. The criteria for European Union (EU) membership and the approach that is currently taken by the European Commission to measure the differences in living standards within the Union are discussed first. This is followed by a discussion on the three dimensions of well-being of European children: their education, health, and economic welfare.

This chapter discusses Scotland’s relationship with the EU in the context of two different secession events. The first concerns the question of an independent Scotland’s EU membership in the event of Scotland’s secession from the UK. The second discusses the position of Scotland in the context of a UK in-out referendum on EU membership. The context of both of these secession movements is a sense of shifting constitutional loyalties, and a concern about the nature and bounds of the political community and locus of ultimate authority. In investigating this context, the chapter can reveal interesting insights concerning the nature of the EU and the British Constitution. This chapter concludes, however, that in neither case should Scotland be forced to leave the EU against its will.

This chapter starts by describing the features of domestic, national-level and European Union-level politics that the previous chapters have sought to illuminate. It then summarizes the fundamental Europe-wide trends that have been observed in recent decades concerning the basic attitudinal and behavioural phenomena analysed in the previous chapters. The chapter restates the fundamental conclusions of the book concerning the key individual- and macro-level drivers of change and, in most cases, fundamental stability and adaptability. Finally, it discusses the implications of the findings for our understanding of the politics of European integration, also in light of the economic and financial crisis in which Europe was plunged since 2008.

The European Court of Justice has recognized the citizenship of the Union as a fundamental status of nationals of the Member States, enabling those who find themselves in the same situation to enjoy the same treatment in law irrespective of their nationality. The status of citizen of the Union requires, as reaffirmed by the Court in Grzelczyk, ‘a certain degree of financial solidarity between nationals of a host Member State and nationals of other Member States, particularly if the difficulties which a beneficiary of the right of residence encounters are temporary’. This chapter reconstructs critically the tortuous course that the Court's case law followed to reach this result. A critical overview of the Court's case law — from the famous Mart ínez Sala decision to the latest judgements — provides food for thought about the spectacular and controversial outcome of a long season of renewed judicial activism. Some commentators have even stated that a new paradigm of social solidarity has at last emerged on a pan-European scale, which has redefined the boundaries of domestic welfare systems and the requirements for belonging to the resulting redistribution communities.

This chapter presents the rules under EU law and international law that enable the EU to participate in the work of other international organizations. It explains the process of the EU becoming and acting as a full member in an international body composed of States, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) or the World Trade Organization (WTO). When full membership is legally not possible, the EU is often granted the status of an observer. In this regard, the chapter presents pertinent examples from the UN and its specialized organizations. It puts particular emphasis on recent European Court of Justice (ECJ) case law, including Germany v Council (‘OTIF I’), where the Court underlined that the presentation of common EU positions is necessary in international organizations, even if the EU is not a full member thereof and has not legislated in the entire field of action covered by that organization.

This chapter examines the European Union because of Brexit, focusing on a number of transitional problems that the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU—and its delay owing to subsequent requests to extend EU membership for extra time—posed for the EU’s functioning and funding. In particular, it emphasizes the consequences of Brexit for the composition of the 9th European Parliament (2019–2024), and its elections in May of 2019. It explains how the participation of the UK in this democratic process had pro tempore effects on both the EP outlook and its electoral outcome. The chapter also considers the transitional institutional challenges faced because of Brexit by both the European Commission and the Council of the EU. It highlights the implications of Brexit for the EU’s multi-annual financial framework (MFF), stressing how the UK’s withdrawal created a budget gap for the EU, attributable to the way the EU is funded, and how this would create challenges in the next MFF negotiations—as indeed happened.

This chapter completes the close comparison of Poland and the Czech Republic. In 2004, both became EU members, a change that weakened transnational leverage and reshaped the political opportunity structure such that the costs of repressing LGBT-rights movements fell. In Poland, this shift led to an immediate increase in direct and indirect repression under a newly elected hard-right government. Over the longer term, however, this backlash reinforced solidarity, prevented internal framing contests, and helped win movement allies. The chapter focuses in particular on how Polish activism became electorally mobilized through an alliance with the political party Your Movement. The Czech Republic, where the hard right remained irrelevant, saw no such backlash; nor, however, did the Czech movement reap backlash’s benefits. Instead, it continued the demobilizing and deinstitutionalizing trends described in the previous chapter.

Over half a decade after the Lisbon Treaty came into effect, many national parliaments (NPs) still struggle to find a clear voice in EU matters. Each takes a different approach, all with their own strengths and weaknesses. The differences in the ways two chambers even in the same country tackle European issues can be profound. The UK Parliament provides a particularly dramatic example of this phenomenon. This chapter examines the role of the House of Commons and the House of Lords in European affairs, before and after the referendum on membership of the EU. Paradoxically, rather than reducing parliament’s focus on EU matters, the June 2016 decision to leave the EU precipitated a host of new committee enquiries by both Commons’ select committees and the Lords’ European Union Committee (EUC) and its sub-committees, and paved the way for new parliamentary engagement as the UK prepared to leave the UK.

Having placed the Union’s customs union in the context of Union law generally, we now turn to consider Union customs law itself. We begin with an examination of the nature of the European Union’s (EU’s) and Community’s customs union and its relationship with the European Coal and Steel Community (‘ECSC’) and the European Atomic Energy Community (‘Euratom’). Then, after mentioning briefly the common customs tariff, which is considered in more detail in Chapter 5 below, we look at three matters which are essential to the internal aspect of the EU’s customs union, namely, the prohibition of customs duties and charges having equivalent effect, the nature of goods for the purposes of the customs union, and the meaning of goods in free circulation. Finally, we examine the territorial scope of the customs territory of the Union and identify the customs unions of which it forms part.

This chapter analyses the character of democracy satisfaction at the national and European levels over the last four decades. A dimensional analysis of measures of democracy satisfaction, trust in institutions and satisfaction with government suggests that democracy satisfaction at both levels is probably best conceptualised as specific support for regime performance. Analysis of the sources of democracy satisfaction shows that satisfaction with national democracy increases with good economic performance, when corruption is low, when citizens are politically engaged, and when the electoral institutions ensure fair and wide representation. Satisfaction with European democracy reflects the aspiration that the integration process will produce benefits for both the economic well-being and for the political effectiveness of national political institutions.

This chapter examines the extension of UK membership in the EU, discussing the law and politics of Article 50(3) TEU. It also assesses the governance implications that the postponement of Brexit had on the EU institutions, including the European Parliament (EP), the Council of the EU, and the European Commission. The UK government notified its intention to withdraw from the EU pursuant to Article 50 TEU on March 29, 2017. It was expected therefore that the UK would leave by March 29, 2019. However, in March of 2019, the UK government was eventually pushed to seek an extension under Article 50(3) TEU — a dynamic which was repeated twice more in April and October of 2019, ultimately leading to the withdrawal of the UK from the EU only on January 31, 2020. The chapter maps the legal regulation of the extension of the withdrawal period, distinguishing it from the similar but different mechanisms of revocation and transition. It also analyses the practical implementation of extension in the three subsequent decisions that the European Council adopted, in agreement with the UK, during 2019.

This chapter studies an innovative governance devise invented by the Brexit negotiators: transition — a stand-still period which will allow the UK to remain pro tempore part of the EU internal market and customs union despite being no longer a member state. On February 1, 2020, and ten months later than scheduled, the EU and the UK entered into a period of ‘transition’; a time between formal membership of the EU and the beginning of a new relationship. At one level, there is a certain taken-for-granted simplicity to the idea of managing not just an orderly exit of the UK from the EU but also the provision of continuity and certainty while the parties negotiate and decide their future relationship. But at another level, the formal terminology and indeed the metaphors used to describe this interim legal framework disclose some deeper tensions around the sequencing and organisation of the withdrawal process as well as the direction of travel of the parties. Transition was originally conceived as a bridge toward the future EU–UK relations, but the risks remain that it may turn into a bridge to nowhere — particularly if the period is not extended beyond December 31, 2020, given time-constraints for such new difficult negotiations.

This chapter documents how the fall of the Berlin Wall more than doubled EU membership, altering both the size and shape of the EU. The EU now includes countries whose Atlantic coastlines link them to Boston and Brazil, and countries whose eastern boundaries are with Russia and Turkey. Its members differ greatly in population and income as well as in corruption. Concurrently, television, travel, and work have exposed people to influences from other countries. However, contrary to expectations, Europeanization has not created a demand for more European integration.