This article investigates how the European Social Fund (ESF) is being employed to translate Lisbon/Europe 2020 goals on employment into domestic agendas. The emphasis is not only on how European priorities are taken into account by ESF national programming documents (talking the EU talk), but...

This article considers the matters arising during the judicial review of the management of the assistance provided through the European Social Fund for the promotion of employment. Issues such as the direct actions for annulment, the actions for failure to act, the enforcement actions, the...

The article explores the effects of non-regulatory EC policies on policy development at member state level. Taking EC regional policy and a recent reform of German regional policy as examples, it is suggested that the EC context may matter for policy development (1) through changing preferences...

Research on EU conditionality in equality policy in Hungary shows that while the formal EU acquis has been transposed in a fast and successful way, its enforcement and application largely lag behind. Most researchers explain this weak enforcement with factors such as state capacity problems, the...

Almost twenty years ago the Maastricht Treaty introduced procedures for European Social Dialogue, as part of a larger package of measures to strengthen the social dimension of European integration. Through the Treaty provisions (articles 154-155 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union),...

We investigate the distribution of European Union (EU) Structural Funds across EU regions. We draw from literature on the political economy of national intergovernmental grants and on the two-tiered bargaining process in the EU. Bargaining on the distribution of Structural Funds takes place on...