The Treaty of Lisbon introduces an early warning mechanism (EWM) which empowers national parliaments to intervene directly at the EU-level; they may now raise objections to – and even play a role in blocking – EU legislation. The EWM represents a new model of parliamentary involvement in...

The Treaty of Lisbon introduces an early warning mechanism (EWM) which empowers national parliaments to intervene collectively at the EU-level; they may now raise objections to – and even help to block – EU legislative proposals. The EWM represents a new model of parliamentary involvement in...

Nasjonale administrasjoner, eller mer korrekt, deler av nasjonale administrasjoner, har i noen grad også blitt deler av hva vi kan kalle en felles EU-administrasjon. Dette synes å henge sammen med to institusjonelle utviklingstrekk: På det europeiske nivået er det konsolideringen av...

How do Commission officials conceive the Commission’s role in the European Union? Should the Commission be the government of Europe or the servant of member states? Is there a third possibility, the Community method, whereby Commission and member states share authority? This article lays out...

This article critically examines the democratic theory that informs the German Federal Constitutional Court’s Lisbon Treaty ruling. This is needed because the ruling is ambiguous with regard to what democracy for what Union. In order to analyse the ruling we establish three models of what...

The paper questions the fashionable ideas, that bureaucratic organization is an obsolescent, undesirable and non-viable form of administration, and that there is an inevitable and irreversible paradigmatic shift towards market- or network organization. In contrast, the paper argues that...

The fracture in the European Union during the Iraq war of 2003 threw into relief the fragile nature of the integration process, certainly so far as foreign and defence questions are concerned, and exposed once again the complexity of the EU as a communicative space. Although cultural-linguistic...

The EU’s administrative systems relies to a considerable extend on the delegation of executive tasks to the European Commission, which is in turn controlled in this task through a plethora of implementing committees – the so-called ‘comitology’ system. Considering the centrality of...

The EU’s foreign and security policy is often criticised for being undemocratic. The article addresses this contention from the perspective of deliberative democracy. The focus is on the procedural qualities of the second pillar decision-making processes as it is not only the quality of the...