The Treaty of Lisbon adds a new dimension to the legislative process in the European Union through what is called the Citizens’ Initiative. Trying to decrease the democratic deficit with which the European Union is confronted with, the Citizens’ Initiative implies that a mature and...

The relationship between public opinion and public policy provides a potential criterion for assessing the democratic quality of the European Union. The few existing time series analyses in this area assume that there exists a European-wide public mood towards integration. Analyzing...

The intricate context of the economic crisis and the ever more obvious failures of the Lisbon Treaty appear to have amplified a phenomenon which threatens the cohesion at regional and national level in several states across the EU. It is a reaffirmation of regional or subnational identities,...

The Treaty of Lisbon introduced a set of institutional reforms in the European Union that had been under negotiation ever since the establishment, in 2002, of the Convention on the Future of the EU. This paper sums up and briefly assesses the main changes that affect the functioning of the...

The legislative organization of the European Parliament (EP) has far-reaching implications for its ability to solve the democratic deficit problem of the European Union (EU). Recognizing that, this article reviews the literature on the EP organization with a view to consolidating existing...

The European Union (EU) is assumed to suffer from a democratic deficit. It is often posited that in the EU there is only a weak and indirect connection between public preferences and policy change. This article investigates empirically whether any relationship exists between public support for...

Tourism growth forecasted for 2012 exceed global GDP growth and tourism students, in order to be competitive in this increasingly creative industry sector, need to have the ammunition to design and deliver memorable experiences. However, owing to the general feeling of disillusionment and...

EMU's design is seriously flawed. Monetary union was established without political union, creating a single eurozone economy that cannot be governed with the combination of macroeconomic policy instruments that modern national governments have. Its exceptionally independent central bank, the...