The Institutions of the European Union (New European Union) - Tapa blanda

The 'new' European Union has been constantly evolving since the mid 1980s, and it shows no sign of standing still: the Euro is becoming an international currency, a new round of Treaty reforms is imminent, and the Union is politically committed to enlarge its membership radically. Virtually the only constant is the EU's institutions, which are both unique and time-honoured after 50 years of European integration. As this volume shows, the institutions of the EU, individually and collectively, perform multiple tasks: providing the EU with political direction, managing policies, and integrating interests. Divided into three thematic sections, this book offers the reader the first comprehensive study of the EU's functions, powers, and compositions of EU institutions. The clear focus of the book is on how institutions work in tandem, and the interrelationship, differing functions, and importance of the various institutions. The book brings together leading-edge contributors who actively research on the changing relationship between EU institutions. Each chapter follows the same sequence and format to provide a fully integrated text and each chapter features multiple exhibits - including policy case studies, illustrative diagrams, and tables to bring the text alive. Set to become the authoritative study of EU institutions, no student or teacher of EU politics will want to be without this innovative text.

John Peterson is Jean Monnet Professor of European politics at the University of Glasgow (Scotland) and Visiting Professor at the College of Europe, Bruges (Belgium). He is editor of the 'Journal of Common Market Studies' and the 'New European Union' series (with Helen Wallace) for Oxford University Press. Past works include 'Decision-Making in the European Union' (with Elizabeth Bomberg, 1999), a nominee for the Adolphe Bentinck prize for the best published work on Europe, as well as 'A Common Foreign Policy for Europe?' (co-edited with Helene Sjursen,1998), and 'Technology Policy in the European Union' (with Margaret Sharp, 1998). He has held posts at the Universities of York, Essex, Oxford, California (Berkeley and Santa Barbara), Grenoble and Paris I. Michael Shackleton is Head of Division of the Conciliations Secretariat in the Secretariat of the European Parliament Secretariat in Brussels, Belgium. He has held a range of positions in the European Parliament since 1981, notably in the Committee on Budgets, the Division for relations with national parliaments and as Head of the Committee of Inquiry into the Community Transit System. He is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Common Market Studies and has published a wide range of articles in this journal and elsewhere. In 1990-1 he was a Visiting European Community Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. He has since been a Visiting Professor at the College of Europe (1994-99) and is at present a Visiting Practitioner Fellow at the University of Sussex, and a lecturer on the MA in European Studies organised by the European Institute for Public Administration and the University of Maastricht.