«European austerity policies have destroyed a generation», says Prof. Noam Chomsky in this voxEUROPP episode on politics in Eastern Europe and the European response to the crisis. Anne Applebaum, LSE’s 2012-2013 Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs, speaks about the overreaching effects of ‘Putinism’ on Russia’s economic system and democratic processes. Romanian Expert and LSE PhD student, Clara Volintiru, discusses the referendum on the country’s presidency and whether or not the EU could do more to support democracy in the country.
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Presented by Chris Gilson. Produced by Cheryl Brumley. Other Contributors: Stuart Brown, Anne Applebaum, Clara Volintiru, Noam Chomsky. Music and sound came courtesy of the following users at freesound.org: bebeto (loop022); suonho (memorymoon-pad and abstract-electrofunkbreak); and the following users from the FreeMusicArchive.org: Megatroid (Ego Grinding — CC-BY-NC-SA); Broke for Free (As Colorful As Ever — BY-NC). Published 21st March 2012.
Related posts:
- The EU’s efforts to promote democracy in its post-Soviet Eastern neighbours would benefit from greater engagement with civil society.
- Launching our new podcast series: voxEUROPP
- Five minutes with Noam Chomsky – “Europe’s policies make sense only on one assumption: that the goal is to try and undermine and unravel the welfare state.”
voxEUROPP Episode 2: Eastern Europe and Democracy – with Noam Chomsky, Clara Volintiru and Anne Applebaum http://bit.ly/ZhLXBO
LSE EUROPP blog @LSEEuroppblogUsed to bring all our attention to others’ deficits or sins, forgetting that no democracy is perfect, it is encouraging to find studies like Democratic Control in the Member States of the European Council and the Euro zone summit, initiative of the EU Commission’s Directorate General for Internal Policies. Following is the executive summary of the report, published on 2013.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This study follows a unique design based on the one hand on a questionnaire filled in by experts of all Member States, and on the other hand on in -depth reports focused on a sample of 12 Member States.
Part 1 presents the context of the study: Eu ropean Council meetings and Euro summits play an increasingly important role in the governance of the European Union, especially in the context of the ongoing financial and economic crisis. Those meetings appear to be difficult to control for national parliaments both because they are behind closed doors and because the adaptation of national parliaments to Europe was not fitted for that purpose.
Regarding national parl iaments’ adaptation to the EU, part 1 presents two kind of rankings based on formal rights and actual practices, as well as six theoretical models about what could be the role of national parliaments vis- à-vis the European Council.In part 2, the existing rules related to the parliamentary control of the European Council are first presented. In a majority of Member States, there are formal rules mentioning explicitly the parliamentary control over the European Council. In all cases those rules are focused on securing information about the summits. In some cases, they also allow parliaments to give opinions and even mandates.
By contrast, very few specific rules about Euro summits are to be found. Logically, parliaments that are generally regarded as Europeanised have been granted important rights related to the European Council and make use of them before European Council meetings. Yet, many parliaments are also active after the summits and this is not limited to those that are considered the most Europeanised.
Those differences indicate that there are indeed several patterns of parliamentary control as far as European Council meetings are concerned. On the basis of three criteria (timing, locus, and significance of parliamentary control), seven different models have been distilled as indicated by the synthesis presented on the following pageThose models differ not only in the level of involvement (from Romania to Denmark) but also in the purpose of parliamentary control: influence, public debate, expert discussion or government accountability.
