Vice-President of the European Commission Maros Sefcovic gives his views on how the EU can be revitalised and reconnected with the people of Europe, and warns of the dangers of allowing Eurosceptics to dictate the political narrative.
Ebook available in Open Access: oapen.org/search?identifier=1006705 Strategies and priorities for the public sector in Europe The public sector in our society has over the past two decades undergone substantial changes, as has the academic field studying Public Administration (PA). In the next twenty years major shifts are further expected to occur in the way futures are anticipated and different cultures are integrated. Practice will be handled in a relevant way, and more disciplines will be engaging in the field of Public Administration. The prominent scholars contributing to this book put forward research strategies and focus on priorities in the field of Public Administration. The volume will also give guidance on how to redesign teaching programmes in the field. This book will provide useful insights to compare and contrast European PA with PA in Europe, and with developments in other parts of the world. Contributors: Geert Bouckaert (KU Leuven), Werner Jann (University of Potsdam), Jana Bertels (University of Potsdam), Paul Joyce (University of Birmingham), Meelis Kitsing (Estonian Business School, Tallinn), Thurid Hustedt (Hertie School of Governance, Berlin), Tiina Randma-Liiv (Tallinn University of Technology), Martin Burgi (Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich), Philippe Bezès (Science Po Paris; CNRS), Salvador Parrado (Spanish Distance Learning University (UNED), Madrid), Mark Bovens (Utrecht University; WRR), Roel Jennissen (WRR), Godfried Engbersen (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Meike Bokhorst (WRR), Bogdana Neamtu (Babes Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca), Christopher Pollitt (KU Leuven), Edoardo Ongaro (Open University UK, Milton Keynes), Raffaella Saporito (Bocconi University, Milan), Per Laegreid (University of Bergen), Marcel Karré (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Thomas Schillemans (Utrecht University), Martijn Van de Steen (Nederlandse School voor Openbaar Bestuur), Zeger van de Wal (National University of Singapore), Michael Bauer (University of Speyer), Stefan Becker (University of Speyer), Jean-Michel Eymeri-Douzans (Université de Toulouse), Filipe Teles (University of Aveiro), Denita Cepiku (Tor Vergata University of Rome), Marco Meneguzzo (Tor Vergata University of Rome), Külli Sarapuu (Tallinn University of Technology), Leno Saarniit (Tallinn University of Technology), Gyorgy Hajnal (Corvinus University of Budapest; Centre for Social Research of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences).
(Young) lives are cross-sectoral by nature, and youth policy also needs to be so. Cross-sectorality is a well-known aspect of youth policy, but the importance of this aspect does not translate into a common understanding of what cross-sectoral youth policy means and of the ways it can be developed. This book is a collection of articles detailing concrete experiences of cross-sectoral youth policy implementation. It starts with the idea that the efficacy and the sustainability of cross-sectoral youth policy depends on the degree and nature of interaction between various youth policy subdomains and levels, ranging from legal frameworks to interinstitutional or interpersonal relations, and from pan-European to local level. By making these examples available, this book will hopefully support the development of a common understanding of what cross-sectoral youth policy means in different countries and settings. The authors themselves reflect the diversity of the people involved in youth policy (policy makers, youth researchers, youth workers and workers in the field of youth) and this work represents their intention to provide these professionals – as well as others interested in the youth field – with the knowledge necessary to implement, in a real-life scenario, cross-sectoral youth policy.
This authoritative yet accessible introduction to understanding Europe today moves beyond accounts of European integration to provide a wide-ranging and nuanced study of contemporary Europe and its historical development. This fully updated edition adds material on recent developments, such as Brexit and the migrant and Eurozone crises. The concept of Europe is instilled with a plethora of social, cultural, economic, and political meanings. Throughout history, and still today, scholars writing on Europe, and politicians involved in national or European politics, often disagree on the geographic limits of this space and the defining elements of Europe. Europe is, therefore, first and foremost a concept that takes different shapes and meanings depending on the realm of life on which it is applied and on the historical period under investigation. At a given point in time, depending on the perspective we adopt and the situation in which we find ourselves, Europe may represent very different things. Thus, we should better talk about ‘Europes’ in plural. What is Europe? explores these evolving conceptions of Europe from antiquity to the present. This book is all the more timely as Europe responds to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Britain’s departure from the European Union, financial slump, refugee emergencies, and the COVID-19 pandemic. This book offers a fully updated introduction to European studies from an interdisciplinary perspective. It is a crucial companion to any undergraduate or graduate course on Europe and the European Union. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
How do political authorities build support for themselves and their rule? Doing so is key to accruing power, but it can be a complicated affair. The European Union, as a novel political entity, faces a particularly difficult set of challenges. The Politics of Everyday Europe argues that the legitimation of EU authority rests in part on a transformation in the symbols and practices of everyday life in Europe. The Single Market and the Euro, the legal category of European Citizen and policies promoting the free movement of people, EU public architecture, arts and popular entertainment, and EU diplomacy and foreign policy all generate symbols and practices that change peoples' day-to-day experiences naturalizing European governance.The modern nation-state has long used similar strategies of nationalism and 'imagined communities' to legitimize its political power. But the EU's cultural infrastructure is unique, as it navigates European national identities with a particularly banality, trying to make the EU seem complementary to, not in competition with, the nation-states. While this cultural legitimation has successfully underpinned the EU's surprising political development, Europe today is more often met with indifference by its citizens rather than affection. As economic and political crises have stretched European social solidarity to the breaking point, this book offers a clear theoretical framework for understanding how everyday culture matters fundamentally in the political life of the EU, and how the construction of meaning can be a potent power resource-albeit one open to contestation and subversion by the very citizens it calls into being.
This book is an analysis of the developments associated with the Belt and Road Initiative (B&RI) five years after Xi Jinping announced both the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and the 21st Maritime Silk Road (21MSR). Together, these two dimensions constitute the B&RI, providing the so-called Chinese ‘project of the century’ with regional, inter-regional and global reach. This book aims at assessing the impact of the B&RI in all these dimensions and levels of influence. This is a current and promising theme, not only in the short and medium terms, but also within a broader timescale, reflecting Chinese strategic thinking itself, since Chinese philosophy and culture are oriented towards long-term and inter-generational perspectives. Likewise, both the title of this publication and the way it has been organized result from the empirical perception that China asserts a conservative attitude towards foreign affairs, redesigned in multiple dimensions, to create a perception of domestic unity and global prestige. In this vein of thought, the B&RI is already influencing and will continue to influence, directly or indirectly, the current economic and political order.
HOW COULD THIS HAVE HAPPENED? On 23 June 2016, UK voters elected to leave the European Union. The result was perhaps the biggest bombshell in modern British political history. In this new and updated edition of Denis MacShane's bestselling history of the UK's relationship with Europe, the former Europe Minister reveals the full story behind Britain's historic EU Referendum decision. Denis MacShane was the only senior Remainer to have called the EU Referendum result correctly and his book provides the essential context to the new political and economic landscape of Brexit Britain.
The European Union is in inexorable decline. The outlook is gloomy for the economy and nobody listens to European politicians. Any authority or power that it once had on the world stage is being lost, and its claims to the moral high ground in international affairs are increasingly shaky. But this lamentable state of affairs is neither inevitable nor irreversible. The emerging new world order offers opportunities for the EU, if it can only act systematically and develop a new cosmopolitan strategy based on principled and consistent support for universal values. Here is a bold analysis of the problem and a brilliant proposal for a remedy. 'Richard Youngs has produced a passionate but clear-headed analysis of Europe's shrinking status in world affairs. Sarkozy and Merkel should read and react to this wake-up call to reverse Europe's decline before it is too late.' Denis MacShane MP, Britain's longest serving Europe minister