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"The European Commission: Enlargement as Reinvention?"

Peterson, John, and Birdsall, Andrea. (2007) "The European Commission: Enlargement as Reinvention?". In: UNSPECIFIED, Montreal, Canada. (Unpublished)

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    Abstract

    Will future historians view the 2004-7 enlargements as a heroic step towards the unification of Europe, or the point at which the European Union’s (EU) glory days came to an end? Much will depend on how the European Commission, a uniquely ‘politicized bureaucracy’ under constant pressure both to enforce common rules and to deviate from them, copes with enlargement. This paper reviews early evidence of enlargement’s impact on the Commission. Its central argument is that enlargement has not fundamentally altered the role of the Commission, but it has reinforced the impact of several other changes that are ‘secular’ ones not exclusively or even specifically linked to enlargement. They include: the emergence of a younger and more flexible Commission, one that is more ‘Presidential’, and one which can no longer rely as much on its traditional monopoly power to propose formal legislation to influence EU policy debates. Enlargement is one, but only one, amongst multiple rationale being used by reformers to ‘reinvent’ the Commission.

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    Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item (UNSPECIFIED)
    Subjects for non-EU documents: EU policies and themes > External relations > EU-South-Eastern Europe (Balkans)
    Countries > Cyprus
    EU policies and themes > External relations > EU-Central and Eastern Europe
    EU policies and themes > External relations > EU-Baltics
    EU policies and themes > Treaty reform > enlargement
    Countries > Malta
    Countries > Romania
    Countries > Bulgaria
    EU policies and themes > EU institutions & developments > European Commission
    Subjects for EU documents: UNSPECIFIED
    EU Series and Periodicals: UNSPECIFIED
    EU Annual Reports: UNSPECIFIED
    Conference: European Union Studies Association (EUSA) > Biennial Conference > 2007 (10th), May 17-19, 2007
    Depositing User: Phil Wilkin
    Official EU Document: No
    Language: English
    Date Deposited: 09 May 2008
    Page Range: p. 37
    Last Modified: 15 Feb 2011 17:51
    URI: http://aei.pitt.edu/id/eprint/7997

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