In 2002, the European Parliament and the Council concluded an Interinstitutional Agreement (IIA) on access to sensitive documents in the area of security and defence. The agreement gives the Parliament privileged access to documents that are withheld from the public. This article suggests two...

The paper examines a key dimension of democratic control, namely parliamentary control of military missions and presents the findings of an in-depth case study on the EU’s maritime mission Atalanta that was launched to combat piracy off the coast of Somalia. The case study finds that none of...

In this paper I deny the claim that the European Union is not and cannot be a political community based on a strong sense of solidarity between its members. The influential position that I critically discuss states that such solidarity would have to rely on sovereign law enforcement based on...

Equal pay for work of equal value is a fundamental principle in EU law and so in the EEA Agreement. The paper takes as its point of departure the debate in Norway on the interpretation of EEA equal pay legislation, and relates this debate to the broader equal pay controversy in Norway. Among...

This paper argues that the relationship between law and politics must be reconfigured within the European Union. Dissecting recent crises in Europe with reference to the three ‘fictitious’ commodities of Karl Polanyi, we find that law in Europe has contributed to de-legalisation,...

Since its early beginnings, the member states of the European Communities have tried to establish a common foreign policy and at the same time were reluctant to implement it. Only the Maastricht Treaty introduced an institutional framework. However, the emerging Common Foreign and Security...

What kind of democracy might fit the developing Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) given the political developments and the evolution of public debate on security and defence issues over the last twenty years? Different model-designs for a more democratic European Union (EU) in general...

Many European countries have embraced the choice agenda in welfare arrangements with a view of improving efficiency and/or quality. The motivations range from legitimising public welfare and administrative modernisation, to electoral politics and cost containment. Our research project included...

European citizenship poses a theoretical challenge to the paradigmatic understanding of citizenship as congruence between nation, state, and membership rights. This challenge is addressed in this paper by focusing on ideal typical models of the EU polity. Is EU citizenship more nation-based,...

The role and functioning of the upper chambers of Central and Eastern European (CEE) parliaments have for a long time been a minor topic on the research agenda of legislative specialists. This paper seeks to fill the gap in existing research by aiming to determine the main effects caused by the...