This article seeks to explain the varying, and sometimes intriguing, outcomes of the past three revisions of the Treaty concerning the Community’s Common Commercial Policy (CCP). The analysis particularly focuses on the development of competence and decision rules, i.e. the process of...

Within the growing literature on the Europeanisation of national foreign policies of European Union (EU) member states, the case of Portugal has been almost absent. Yet despite its small size and intermediate level of development, Portugal has had relatively extensive international relations...

The present article explores whether the first Trio Presidency of the Council of Ministers of the European Union (EU), composed of Germany, Portugal and Slovenia, lived up to the goal of ensuring greater continuity and sustainability in managing the Council’s work. Focusing on the Trio’s...

According to Ronald Inglehart, countries move towards more post-materialist values as their GDP per capita increases. There are some problems with his measurement. First of all, it is hard to say whether one country is objectively more or less materialist than another. Originally, Inglehart...

This study explores the multiple representational roles evoked by an under-researched segment of the European Commission: temporary Commission officials. The article has a dual ambition: The first is to outline an institutional perspective on representation that seizes a middle-ground between...

The militarily non-allied members of the European Union, Austria, Finland, Ireland and Sweden, have undergone rapid changes in security policies since 1999. Looking at two states, Finland and Sweden, this paper traces states' contemporary responses to the rapid development of the European...

The aim of this article is to analyse the process of socialisation taking place at the level of the Council Working Groups (CWGs) dealing with the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Based on recent empirical evidence, this article explains the main codes of conduct adopted by the...

Most studies of the EU and its member-states are concerned with how processes of European integration hit the member-states. This article shifts emphasis from this top-down towards a bottom-up approach and asks whether and how differences in domestic institutional constellations shape the...