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Ever since they first entered the European Parliament in 1979, the EU has proven to be a strong legitimising tool for far right parties, providing them with funding, visibility and a higher degree of credibility and respectability. While recent literature has explored some of these dynamics, the role of the far right's ideological positioning on Europe as a source of public legitimacy has been neglected. This paper argues that as a relatively new and contentious political issue, Europe can function as a powerful ideological resource for far right parties by allowing them to convey a more acceptable political message. This argument is illustrated through a case study of two key aspects of the Rassemblement National's ideological approach to the European Union: the party's claim to be pro-European but anti-EU and its opposition to EU integration on grounds of sovereignty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elections to the European Parliament have been unable to capture the public’s interest— turnout remains far lower than most national elections and many who do vote appear more concerned with sending messages of approval to national political parties than electing representatives at the EU level. This paper seeks to explain why the public does not take these elections seriously. A common explanation is that the public simply does not care about EU politics. In addition to this ‘issue-based’ argument, this article considers where a lack of trust in the European Parliament itself may lead many individuals to abstain from EP elections. Using pre and post-election survey data, results suggest that perceptions of the EP indeed have a significant effect on the decision to vote in EP elections. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses aspects of the developments in the financial regulation in Europe. It explains aspects of the Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on Short Selling and Certain Aspects of Credit Default Swaps (CDS) which aims to unify and harmonize a myriad of short sale rules across the European Union's (EUs) 27-nation bloc. It notes the first consultation paper on draft regulatory and implementing technical standards issued by the European Sales and Marketing Association (ESMA) in relation to the regulation. It also cites the significant differences between the draft Bill published in June 2011 and the Financial Services Bill to Parliament introduced on January 26, 2012 which reflects a significant milestone in the financial regulatory reform in Europe.

The article discusses the regulatory developments in the banking sector in the European Union (EU). It mentions the decision of EU Commissioner Michel Barnier to appoint members of the High-Level Expert Group on structural aspects of the banking sector and a consultation launched by the EU Commission the general orientation of European company law. It cites the decision of EU Commission to prohibit the proposed merger between Deutsche Börse AG and NYSE Euronext Inc. and a study published by the EU Parliament which tackles the situation of the venture capital industry in the EU. It also notes the discussion paper published by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) which explains the key concepts of the Alternative Investment Fund Managers (AIFM) Directive.

The European Parliament (EP) has often criticized the agencification of the European Union. Yet in practice it often uses its legislative powers to strengthen the powers and independence of European agencies. To explain this paradox, this paper analyses the six cases where the 2004-2009 EP legislated to create a new European agency. It argues that the Parliament overcame some of its doubts about agencification by proposing amendments which brought the legislation closer to its own legitimation beliefs. Moreover, the EP has developed a substantial repertoire of amendments which it now more or less repeats every time it is confronted with a proposal for a new agency. Many of these amendments are designed to shore up control of agencies, sometimes in novel ways which suggest that the Parliament has in part made its peace with agencification by becoming more amenable to the control of agencies by methods involving multiple principals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the increasing relevance of Islam and religion in the institutional arrangement of the EU post-Maastricht and the future policy implications for the complex political system of the EU. By adopting a combination of qualitative methodologies that are theoretically rooted in historical institutionalism and in a systemic view of the EU, the paper studies the emergence of Islam and religion as policy issues in two institutional settings, the European Commission and the European Parliament, during the 1990s and up to the first decade of the twenty-first century. The analysis shows a growing attention to faith communities on the part of the Commission, in the post-Maastricht context, culminating in the elaboration of semi-official avenues for encounter and dialogue with religious groups. It also indicates how, in turn, these semi-official practices and the ideas behind them have gradually imposed themselves upon multiple levels of the EU political system, thus opening up an institutional space in the EU for consultations with and 'informal policies' towards faith communities, both within and outside the EU borders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Second-order election models are based on several assumptions about individual-level motivations. These can be summarized by a transfer hypothesis: individuals presumably apply their evaluations of national-level phenomena to the EU level when voting in EU elections. In contrast, a suis generis hypothesis stipulates that voters evaluate the EU on its own performance terms. This paper tests these competing hypotheses. We find considerable support for both models. In the election context, where national institutions — political parties — dominate the representation process, the transfer hypothesis receives considerable support. However, we also find surprisingly strong support for the first-order hypothesis: electoral choice in EU election is influenced to a considerable extent by EU level factors. Furthermore, when voters evaluate the mechanisms of representation more broadly without a focus on elections per se, we find much more support for the first-order than the transfer hypothesis — voters clearly separate the two levels and evaluate each level on its own terms. These results have important implications, both for how we analyse voters' decisions in European elections, and how we view the sophistication of voters more broadly in the context of multi-layered institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A decade ago parties were largely absent from research on and theories of EU politics. The role of parties is now a central part of the research agenda, particularly in the area of EU legislative politics. The new research on parties in EU politics has made significant theoretical contributions, led to the collection and dissemination of new datasets, and employs some of the most advanced statistical methods in contemporary European political science. What is still missing, however, is a general theory of the role and impact of political parties, which helps to explain actors' behaviour in EU politics in a range of situations. This paper sketches some of the basic elements of what might be called a 'partisan theory of EU politics', starting from a discussion of how the policy and office incentives of national parties are shaped by the EU's 'upside-down polity'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates how informal rules in the European Union change in the periods between formal treaty revisions. On the basis of a case study on the White Paper on Governance presented by the European Commission in July 2001, it shows how institutional change is driven by conflict between the Commission and the European Parliament. The conflict concerns the development of informal rules to structure the interaction of the Commission and the Parliament with Europe's civil society. The interaction with civil society organisations is very important for the EU bodies because it allows them to acquire resources that are indispensable in order to fulfil and expand their organisational role. An additional aim of this article is to examine how these institutional developments might influence the long-term development of formal treaty rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]