{"title":"Financial Absorption of Cohesion Policy Funds: How Do Programmes and Territorial Characteristics Influence the Pace of Spending?","authors":"Anabela M. Santos, Andrea Conte, Francesco Molica","doi":"10.1111/jcms.13640","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13640","url":null,"abstract":"Using data from the execution of 2014–2020 cohesion policy, this article presents a novel indicator to measure how fast European territories were able to spend their allocated budget and then explores the drivers of such financial performance. This analysis aims to fill a gap in scientific literature as most existing studies tend to focus solely on the total absorption at the end of the period without looking at the average financial performance over time. The article also explores the influence on financial absorption of the governance model (nationally or regionally managed programmes) and the thematic structure of the funds, which has never been done before. The determinants of the speed of financial absorption are investigated through a Tobit model. Results show that both programme‐specific and territorial characteristics are relevant factors in explaining the varying levels of fund absorption. This suggests that increased flexibility in spending rules and the adoption of more tailored strategies could be instrumental in improving fund absorption.","PeriodicalId":51369,"journal":{"name":"Jcms-Journal of Common Market Studies","volume":"71 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141512042","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sending Signals or Building Bridges? Digital Sovereignty in EU Communicative and Co‐Ordinative Discourse","authors":"Georg Wenzelburger, Pascal D. König","doi":"10.1111/jcms.13638","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13638","url":null,"abstract":"This article studies the role that ‘digital sovereignty’ performs in the EU's digital policy discourse comparing speeches by high‐level European Commission officials and Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). It indicates that the concept of digital sovereignty is not mentioned very frequently, neither in the European Parliament (EP) nor in the public statements of top EU officials. It is furthermore not closely linked to specific policy ideas, not even to the idea of promoting European values in the world as a way of openly projecting digital sovereignty outward. EP actors mainly refer to policy‐related aspects of digital sovereignty, and these show systematic affinities to parties' ideologies – primarily along an axis of economic development versus protecting personal rights – and to EP committees. Hence, digital sovereignty does not seem to mainly serve as normative idea directed at the public sphere but emerges as a common denominator to which different relevant actors within the EU decision‐making system can equally relate.","PeriodicalId":51369,"journal":{"name":"Jcms-Journal of Common Market Studies","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141530320","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Geoeconomics of the Single Market for Financial Services","authors":"Lucia Quaglia, Amy Verdun","doi":"10.1111/jcms.13595","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13595","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We discuss the geoeconomics of the Single Market in financial services in the European Union (EU). We examine three case studies that concern the EU and other major jurisdictions and that range from incipient geoeconomic use to outward weaponisation of the Single Market in finance. These cases are (1) the post-2008 crisis transatlantic tug of war, whereby the EU leveraged its Single Market vis-à-vis the United States, seeking to set the rules for global finance; (2) the Brexit negotiations, when the EU acted as a bloc against the United Kingdom and successfully safeguarded the integrity of the Single Market; and (3) the fulsome war in Ukraine, during which the EU ‘weaponised’ its Single Market through the adoption of financial sanctions against Russia. We argue that a combination of external and internal factors accounts for this pattern: the evolution of the international economic and political system, in particular, the increasing challenges to the liberal international order, and intra-EU developments, namely, the EU's ability to deploy its Single Market geoeconomically.</p>","PeriodicalId":51369,"journal":{"name":"Jcms-Journal of Common Market Studies","volume":"62 4","pages":"1046-1062"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jcms.13595","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141488648","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Federico M. Ferrara, Donato Masciandaro, Manuela Moschella, Davide Romelli
{"title":"What Do Politicians Think of Technocratic Institutions? Attitudes in the European Parliament Towards the European Central Bank","authors":"Federico M. Ferrara, Donato Masciandaro, Manuela Moschella, Davide Romelli","doi":"10.1111/jcms.13626","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13626","url":null,"abstract":"Technocracy has come to be increasingly regarded as a threat to representative democracy. Significant attention has thus been recently devoted to exploring public preferences towards technocratic institutions. Elected policy‐makers' attitudes have instead not been investigated as systematically. This article fills this gap by examining <jats:italic>politicians</jats:italic>' views on central banks. Based on an original elite survey of the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), we gauged elected policy‐makers' attitudes towards the mandate and policy conduct of the European Central Bank (ECB). Our findings show that the political orientation of politicians largely drives attitudes towards the ECB's institutional mandate. Interestingly, the findings from two experiments embedded in the survey also show that the attitudes of MEPs are not as static as ideological orientations would lead us to expect. The information set to which politicians are exposed significantly shapes their views on both the ECB's mandate and its policy conduct, but less on ECB independence.","PeriodicalId":51369,"journal":{"name":"Jcms-Journal of Common Market Studies","volume":"182 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141512043","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Inside the European Union's Trade Machinery: Institutional Changes in an Age of Geoeconomics","authors":"Sjorre Couvreur","doi":"10.1111/jcms.13625","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13625","url":null,"abstract":"In the context of increasingly assertive behaviour in international trade policy, various scholars seem to agree on the presence of a ‘geoeconomic turn’ in European Union (EU) trade policy. Whilst various aspects of this turn have been studied, the way in which the EU's trade institution might have adapted to this new context remains unclear. Therefore, this article addresses the following research question: how has the Directorate‐General for Trade (DG Trade) adapted to the geoeconomic turn in international trade policy? Using an innovative historical institutionalist framework and directed content analysis, the article analyses EU official documents and 14 interviews with EU officials. We find that, despite apparent continuity, under President von der Leyen, a gradual process of institutional adaptation through different forms of layering and conversion has taken place within DG Trade, increasing the EU's geoeconomic capacities and geoeconomic thinking inside the EU's trade machinery.","PeriodicalId":51369,"journal":{"name":"Jcms-Journal of Common Market Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141193452","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Fiscal Rules in the European Union: Less Is More","authors":"Bogdan Căpraru, Anastasios Pappas, Nicu Sprincean","doi":"10.1111/jcms.13628","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13628","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, we examine the non‐linear relationship between the number of fiscal rules in place and compliance with the European Union's (EU) numerical fiscal targets included in the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP). Using a sample composed of 27 EU Member States for a period spanning 2000 to 2021, we document that countries' compliance with fiscal rules is positively associated with the number of numerical fiscal targets. However, this association only holds up to a specific threshold. Once this threshold is achieved, the relationship becomes negative, implying that the multiplication of numerical fiscal rules may undermine compliance, thereby reducing their effectiveness. In addition, we find that general elections and frequent changes in government reduce compliance, whereas economic adjustment programmes contribute positively to countries' compliance with fiscal targets. The findings bear critical policy implications against the backdrop of the current review of the European fiscal framework.","PeriodicalId":51369,"journal":{"name":"Jcms-Journal of Common Market Studies","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141149743","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Brexit Rhapsody: Exploring Patterns of Issue Salience in the Negotiations","authors":"David Moloney, Mads Dagnis Jensen","doi":"10.1111/jcms.13624","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13624","url":null,"abstract":"This study revisits the salience of the Brexit negotiations using an advanced Decision‐Making in the European Union (EU) methodology to assess the relative importance of 20 key issues amongst the EU27 member states, the European Commission and the UK. Unlike earlier studies that suggest more uniform salience levels, except for the UK, our analysis identifies eight clusters of actors influenced by their political, economic and geographical contexts. These differences in salience levels have been conducive to logrolling, which likely supported a unified EU stance and a successful agreement with the UK. Additionally, our research quantitatively confirms the UK's distinct salience position, highlighting its isolation and reducing its ability to use divisive negotiation tactics. These findings offer insights into both the dynamics of past Brexit negotiations and ongoing EU–UK policy developments. They contribute to the analysis of Brexit and international negotiations in general by systematically exploring salience in high‐level diplomatic negotiations.","PeriodicalId":51369,"journal":{"name":"Jcms-Journal of Common Market Studies","volume":"52 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140881419","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Discursive Struggle for Digital Sovereignty: Security, Economy, Rights and the Cloud Project Gaia-X","authors":"Rebecca Adler-Nissen, Kristin Anabel Eggeling","doi":"10.1111/jcms.13594","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jcms.13594","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article explores the struggle for ‘digital sovereignty’ in the European Union (EU). A seeming contradiction – the internet, after all, spans the globe – digital sovereignty is portrayed as the winning geoeconomic formula to keep the EU secure, competitive and democratic in the digital future. Approaching digital sovereignty as a discursive claim and analysing it through a case study of the European cloud project Gaia-X, we show that there is no singular understanding of digital sovereignty in the EU. Instead, we identify six different conceptions across the domains of security, economy and rights. This article outlines three scenarios for how the digital sovereignty agenda may develop and thus shape the EU's digital policy and its relations with the rest of the world: <i>constitutional tolerance</i> (where the conceptions co-exist), <i>hegemony</i> (where one conception dominates) or <i>collapse</i> (where the agenda falls apart due to inbuilt conceptual contradictions).</p>","PeriodicalId":51369,"journal":{"name":"Jcms-Journal of Common Market Studies","volume":"62 4","pages":"993-1011"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jcms.13594","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140828780","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The EU’s Transactional Approach to Rule of Law Spending Conditionality in the 2020s","authors":"Pauline Thinus","doi":"10.1111/jcms.13620","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13620","url":null,"abstract":"Rule of law spending conditionality marks a turn in the EU’s strategy in the 2020s. The entry of this value into the budgetary sphere represents an economization process, creating room for the development of a transactional approach to rule of law compliance. This article defines this conceptual framework and examines the extent of its application through the case study of three budgetary instruments used during the 2021–2027 cycle: the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the Rule of Law Conditionality Regulation and the horizontal enabling condition of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Contributing to the recent Europeanization literature, it also emphasizes the change in European governance and in the EU–Member State relationship triggered by the new conditionality culture following the succession of European crises, moving from a traditional politico‐legal enforcement model to a transactional one.","PeriodicalId":51369,"journal":{"name":"Jcms-Journal of Common Market Studies","volume":"45 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2024-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140828788","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Geoeconomic Power Europe: When Global Power Competition Drives EU Integration","authors":"Pierre Haroche","doi":"10.1111/jcms.13596","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jcms.13596","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The European Union's (EU's) ‘geoeconomic turn’ denotes the growing integration of international security considerations into EU economic policies. This article introduces the concept of ‘geoeconomic power Europe’ to show how this development has the potential to renew debates on the nature of EU power. Most existing conceptualisations of EU power – whether characterised as civilian, normative, market based, regulatory or liberal – tend to focus on the EU's endogenous characteristics. However, the added value of the concept of geoeconomic power is that it redirects attention to the ‘co-constitution’ loop between global power competition and the evolution of EU power. In this article, I present an analytical framework that highlights the drivers of EU geoeconomic power and distinguishes between systemic pressures, the intra-EU policy process and the impact on EU power. I conclude that the concept of geoeconomic power Europe can help to bridge theories of international security and economic interdependence, particularly neorealism and neofunctionalism.</p>","PeriodicalId":51369,"journal":{"name":"Jcms-Journal of Common Market Studies","volume":"62 4","pages":"938-954"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jcms.13596","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140628901","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}