The European Commission is an organization which has come to fascinate or repulse a range of national politicians, journalists and social scientists. This book investigates this organization's relationship to politics.

The sixteenth edition of Social policy in the European Union: state of play has a triple ambition. First, it provides easily accessible information to a wide audience about recent developments in both EU and domestic social policymaking. Second, the volume provides a more analytical reading, embedding the key developments of the year 2014 in the most recent academic discourses. Third, the forward-looking perspective of the book aims to provide stakeholders and policymakers with specific tools that allow them to discern new opportunities to influence policymaking. In this 2015 edition of Social policy in the European Union: state of play, the authors tackle the topics of the state of EU politics after the parliamentary elections, the socialisation of the European Semester, methods of political protest, the Juncker investment plan, the EU’s contradictory education investment, the EU’s contested influence on national healthcare reforms, and the neoliberal Trojan Horse of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

Charts the Union's development from its conception through to the implementation of the Maastricht Treaty and its continuing activities. Includes an A-Z section of concise definitions and explanations of organizations, acronyms and terms. The most extensive collection of information available on the European Union. The third edition of this definitive reference work has been thoroughly revised and updated to provide the latest information on the EU. It charts the Union's development from its conception through to the creation of the single market in 1992, to the implementation of the Maastricht Treaty and its continuing activities. Contents include: An A-Z section of concise definitions and explanations of organizations, acronyms and terms, plus short articles on the member states. A series of introductory articles providing a broader view of the policies and activities of the EU. Statistical data for the entire EU on trade, employment and industrial production. An extensive directory of key names, addresses, phone and fax numbers, e-mail and internet addresses for all major European Union institutions and official bodies. Details of MEPs, their political groups and national parties, members of major committees, Directorates-General and other commission bodies.

The European Community (EC) has embarked on an ambitious legislative program for the new economy. In European Community Law for the New Economy professor Lucas Bergkamp analyzes the EC's current and proposed new economy legislation. The new economy, according to Bergkamp, is not only the internet, the information society, and biotechnology, but also a different kind of "old" economy, a different kind of corporate governance, and a different kind of government. Accordingly, in addition to the EC e-commerce, data protection, and biotechnology legislation, this book discusses also the grand principles of EC policy making (such as sustainable development and the precautionary principle), the theory of corporate social responsibility, and EC government reform. With its wide-ranging, insightful, and engaging analyses, and devoid of obliquity, EC Law for the New Economy is a unique publication. This book must be read by everybody who wants to gain a deeper understanding of the effects of EC legislation, the root causes of regulatory failures, and possible solutions to these problems. It is of interest to lawyers, politicians, policy makers, government officials, political scientists, advanced students and autodidacts. Lucas Bergkamp is a lawyer at the Brussels Bar and Professor of International Liability Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam - The Netherlands.

This book examines user perceptions of European Union institutions and compares them to perceptions communicators within these institutions have of their users. Analysing the images both sides have through their interaction on the EUROPA website (www.europa.eu) helps to to show where communicator intentions and user perceptions do or do not overlap. The timeliness of this issue could not be more striking than in the current internal and external debates surrounding the EU (e.g., the "No" votes on the common constitution). With this in mind, every possible way of interaction should be reconsidered, in order for citizens to get more involved and feel more connected. Next to mass media, the Internet plays an increasingly important role in people's lives. Even though the Internet may not currently be a dominant source of information about the RU relative to other mass media outlets, it continues to increase in importance as part of most people's everyday life, in particular for the younger generation who turn to it for information. The main focus of this book is on the integration of both the user and the communicator perspectives. By looking at user needs in comparison to the production processes that determine the information structure of a Web site, the usability of a Web site is defined. The user experience online in turn determines the users' perceptions of the institutions and their attitudes towards the European Union.

Because the original and essential value of spatial data ' data that refer to specific geographical locations or areas ' lies in environmental decision-making, such data mostly originate in the public sector and are made available to people,