Latest Blog Posts

Following the 2014 European Parliament elections Anchrit Wille considers the normalization of the European Commission.

Over the last two decades, the world has witnessed the economic resurgence of Asia and the region is now a top priority in all global players’ agenda. In 2011, the US made official their strategic pivot to the Asia-Pacific, and decided to strengthen their trade relationships and their diplomatic presence with a heightened security presence. […]

The owls at the European Parliamentary Research Service have recently compiled an excellent list of ‘100 Books on Europe to be Remembered’. The list includes a summary of each book, a biography of the author and in some cases, access to the full text. You’ll see many familiar names there, including a number of current […]

In this article, Soeren Keil looks at the EU’s more active role in the process of state (and nation) building in the countries of the former Yugoslavia. He argues that the EU’s technical approach to highly political issues has led to misconceptions between the EU and elites in these countries, and has in turn alienated citizens. He lastly offers some ideas as to how the EU might change its approach to enlargement to meet these challenges.

Over the past two decades preferential and free trade agreements (FTAs) have proliferated around the globe. FTAs differ in the level of liberalization they commit to, and the scope of economic sectors brought into the agreement.  Asian FTAs tend to be ‘shallow’, that is, they reinforce commitments already taken at the WTO and lower tariffs […]

When they joined the EU Central and East European states committed themselves to meet EU norms on international development aid. Small budgets, weak social support and limited political commitment have so far limited the impact of aid from CEE. However, it is too early to dismiss them as ‘premature donors’ argue Simon Lightfoot and Balazs Szent-Ivanyi.

Academics studying the EU should be the real eurosceptics. Not only can we translate the greek word skepsis as "enquiry”, modern science owes much to philosophical and methodological scepticism. However, it seems that academics interested in the EU have struggled to come to grips with a the phenomenon of political euroscepticism which appears to be quite a different thing compared the philosophical notions of skepticism.

The JCMS Editors have established an award for the best articles in the Journal over the past 50 years. A jury of Drew Scott, Liesbet Hooghe and Helen Wallace – have had the difficult job of compiling a shortlist of 25 articles, 5 in each decade of JCMS’ existence, which have now been put to […]

Congratulations to Jane Beresford and Allan Little (BBC) who were awarded the annual UACES Thomson Reuters Reporting Europe Prize at a ceremony in London on 24 May 2012. They won the prize for their BBC Radio 4 series ‘Europe’s Choice’ which aired on 5 - 19 February 2012.

To commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Journal of Common Market Studies, Jacques Delors delivered this lecture in Paris on 16 April 2012.