week 4 eu

Question 1

! What are arguments that show the democratic deficit of the EU?

Answer 1

• EU decisions are taken by national executive without national parliamentary scrutiny
  *the ministers in CoM have to accept and adopt decisions, but they have little scrutiny from elective legislative from 27 ms
  *BUT after Lisbon treaty came principle of subsidiarity
• EP is too weak
  *BUT became co-legislator in past decades and influenced policy-making
• there are no European elections
• the EU is too distant
• policy drift
  
  • idea that today the EU proposes policies and legislations that were initially not foreseen in creation of EU

Question 2

! What is Schmidt’s view on democratic deficit of EU?

Answer 2

It should not be our concern as it only is the result of the nation states’ failure to communicate European integration to citizens. Question of democracy thus lies with nation states.

Question 3

! What 7 political groups are in the EP?

Answer 3

1. EPP (European Peoples Party, christian democrats, centre right)
2. S&D (socialist &democrats, centre-left)
3. RE (renew Europe, liberals and democrats)
4. EFA (European Free Alliance, greens)
5. ID (Identity and Democracy, far right)
6. ECR (European Conservatives and Reformists, euro-sceptic parties that want reform)
7. GUE-NGL (Group of European United Left, Nordic green left)

Question 4

! How do parties end up in EP?

Answer 4

EU citizens vote for domestic political party, and when selected they go to EP to represent party’s interests in one of the groups, though there are always individuals without party

Question 5

! how are political groups characterized?

Answer 5

• highly sophisticated administration
• large degree of internal heterogeneity
• suprisingly high voting cohesion
• increasing competition between groups

Question 6

! Why are EP elections often described as ‘second-order’ elections?

Answer 6

• domestic elections seem to be more important for voters, so turnout is less
• voters turn to different parties than national elections

Question 7

! How are EP elections characterized?

Answer 7

• protest votes and vote-switching
• 27 national electoral voting systems
• national-led campaign over domestic issues

Question 8

! What came forth out of the 2019 EP elections in reference to the spitzenkandidat

Answer 8

none of the spitzenkandidats became EC president because of lack of support. this caused controversy on the efficiency of the spitzenkandidat system

Question 9

! Why do people vote for eurosceptic parties in EP?

Answer 9

• protest vote
• envision of different EU
• anti-establishment vote; they do not want to maintain the idea of EU being elitist project with people having little say

Question 10

! When can referenda be more succesfull?

Answer 10

• when it is constitutionally required
• when it is binding instead of consultative
• when the electorate has access to information

Question 11

! According to Schmidt, what are direct affects on national politics of EU?

Answer 11

• european elections act as referenda on government performance
• national elections are complicated by an additional preference axis

Question 12

! According to Schmidt, what are indirect affects on national politics of EU?

Answer 12

• EU policy depoliticizes national politics by removing more and more policy areas from national arena
• EU policy become treated as technical at home
• EU policy is not discussed within domestic discourse for leader not wanting to draw attention to the fact that citizens have generally little influence in EU politics

Question 13

! According to Schmidt, what are knock-on affects on national politics of EU?

Answer 13

• citizens turn away from representative politics for seeing it as superfluous at home.
• citizens turn to political extremes
• citizens turn to interest-based politics

Question 14

How do Hooghe and Marks define permissive consensus ?

Answer 14

consensus permitting EU integrations as passive, because people do not care enough to do anything against it.

Question 15

What does Treib say about the gains of Eurosceptic parties in 2014 EP elections?

Answer 15

instead of it being protest votes, Treib argues that they show fundamental worries about the effects of EU policies and dissatisfaction with mainstream politics. He also adds the unique character of party federations trying to tie the election to the decision of who should be the next EC president through spitzenkandidat. But in reality, this discussion did not increase popularity of elections. Also he argues that left is concerned with about austerity measures due to crisis and right is concerned about financial risks and immigration

Question 16

What distinguishments does Treib make in reference to euroscepticism?

Answer 16

He distinguishes between hard and soft euroscepticism.
Hard = rejects the project of European integration or membership of countries in EU
soft = accept the idea of European integration, but oppose specific policies or institutional aspects of EU