Suchergebnisse

European Political Cooperation represented one of the most innovative and yet vague and contested areas of cooperation among EC Member States. As an intergovernmental practice that left no room for supranational institutions, it did not contemplate any formal role for the European Parliament (EP). Focusing on the EP and EPC after the 1979 elections, this article aims at making three points. First, it argues that direct elections gave the EP stronger political arguments to claim more powers but parliamentary demands on EPC were not different from those emerged already in the early Seventies. Second, given Member States' resistance to parliamentary pressures, the EP developed some original initiatives in international affairs, in order to undermine the intergovernmental features of EPC. Parliamentary actions were particularly effective on human rights issues. Finally, it points out that with the signing of the Single European Act, the role of the EP in foreign affairs remained, at best, limited.

"European Political Cooperation (EPC)" published on by Oxford University Press.

This article highlights one aspect of the dilemma between the widening and deepening of integration which is becoming particularly acute in the context of the recent profound transformations in the European system. It analyses the effects of Pan-Europeanization and enlargement (including German "enlargement") on political integration, defined as the creation of a distinct European identity in foreign policy and security policy. Approaching the question from both a theoretical and empirical perspective, the author argues that on the whole the liberation of Eastern Europe and the pressure for Pan-European cooperation will function as an external catalyst on European integration: The political integration system will be reactivated by the pressure of expectations from Eastern Europe and it will be fed with new functional tasks. The legitimacy of the European unification process will be broadened as a consequence of the EC's new Pan-European role, and the more manifest German problem will unleash centripetal forces in Europe. Significantly, in order to cope with the East European challenges, the political dimension of the Community is likely to be strengthened — even at the cost of postponing and in some cases perhaps blocking enlargement.