Tag: reforms

Italy's new government has announced sweeping reforms to respond to the euro debt crisis that yesterday (17 November) pushed borrowing costs for France and Spain sharply higher, and brought tens of thousands of Greeks onto the streets of Athens. EurActiv Italy, Greece and France report. 

Turkish business association TÜSIAD is pushing for the country joining the EU soon. However, the current stalemate in Turkish EU-membership talks is yet to be overcome.

In this paper, Thomas Christiansen and Beatrice Vaccari, senior lecturers at the European Institute of Public Administration, examine the Council's 2006 decision on Comitology reform and the impact it has had on the comitology process.  

Tasso Enzweiler analyses in this article published by Politik & Kommunikation the communication strategy of the German government.  It has to learn to sell its reforms to the citizens – a task, which is not always easy.

Wolfgang Kreuter writes in this Politik & Kommunikation article about the dilemma of political communication in Germany.  Poltical reforms are becoming more and more of a patchwork and have a short life-span.  Only if politicians are able to explain this to their electorates might they have a chance of regaining their trust.

The full text is only available in German.

Turkey's chief prosecutor has asked the Turkish constitutional court to close the Justice and Development Party, which currently leads opinion polls before the 3 November general elections. If the move is approved, Turkey is in danger of drifting further away from EU democratic standards after the country has already been criticised by the Commission for banning the party's leader from participating in elections.

Turkey has adopted regulations on detention periods and language to implement human rights reforms, required by the EU as a condition for membership.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder makes first major speech of Post-Nice institutional reforms debate

Chancellor Schröder and Italian Prime Minister Amato agreed to push for a new Intergovernmental Conference in 2004

Italian Prime Minister Amato has expressed doubt on the radical blueprints for the EU as presented recently by Joschka Fischer and Jacques Chirac.

Recent Franco-German proposals on a future "pioneer group" leading the EU towards deeper integration, have started a serious debate on the future of the EU in Italy.

Germany is proposing a new big intergovernmental conference on a the institutional structures of the EU.