Articles for category: Focus

Scotland in the EU: Comment by DIMITRY KOCHENOV

the Union cannot be possibly expected to throw its weight behind ensuring that there is no choice for the nations seeking independence within Europe – it is not the Union’s realm. The contrary would amount to turning the EU into an instrument of blackmail of the emerging states by the existing state entities which is radically deprived of any purpose and is in strong contradiction with the values of democracy and the rule of law which the Union espouses.

10. September 2014

Scotland and the EU: Comment by BRUNO DE WITTE

Whereas the Article 48 route has major advantages over the Article 49 route, and would be feasible – in my view at least – as a matter of legal principle, it would create many complications all the same, both for the Scots and for the rest of Europe.

10. September 2014

Scotland and the EU: Comment by MICHAEL KEATING

To suggest that a nation that has followed the Scottish route should not be allowed into the European family while others with more dubious pedigrees are, would violate basic democratic principles. Effectively, Scotland would be expelled from the union for exercising a widely-recognized democratic right.

9. September 2014

Scotland and the EU: Comment by KALYPSO NICOLAIDIS

With the Treaty of Lisbon, the EU formalised and entrenched a right of exit (article 50) which is at the heart of its nature as a polity: the peoples of Europe have come together and will remain together by choice, not under duress. In the same way as the exit clause proclaims loudly and clearly that EU member states and their citizens remain in the EU by choice, leaving the EU should be a collective choice too. It should not be a choice inferred from another choice, that of one part of a country to leave the whole.

9. September 2014

Scotland and the EU: Comment by JO MURKENS

Sionaidh Douglas-Scott’s reliance on Article 48 is far from persuasive on technical legal grounds (is it the correct legal basis to accommodate a new Member State?) as well as for strategic reasons (the negotiation process may well be dominated by the UK’s negotiating team pursuing its own agenda). But even if an independent Scotland’s continued membership in the EU were ‘smooth and straightforward’, Douglas-Scott provides no answer to the question as to what kind of member an independent Scotland would be.

8. September 2014

Scotland and the EU: a Comment by JOSEPH H.H. WEILER

It would be hugely ironic if the prospect of Membership in the Union ended up providing an incentive for an ethos of political disintegration. In seeking separation Scotland would be betraying the very ideals of solidarity and human integration for which Europe stands.

8. September 2014

Why the EU should welcome an independent Scotland

The comments below focus on the importance of an EU perspective on an independent Scotland’s EU membership, highlighting the EU as a distinctive, sui generis and new type of legal organisation. They argue that a strong case can be made for Scotland’s continued EU membership on the basis of EU law itself.

8. September 2014

„Nudging“ kommt nach Deutschland

Obama hat es getan, Cameron hat es getan, und jetzt scheint auch Deutschland entschlossen: Angela Merkel will sich verhaltensökonomischen Rat suchen, um ihrem Sprecher zufolge neue Methoden für „wirksames Regieren“ zu erproben. Dahinter steckt ein Ansatz, den der Verfassungsrechtler Cass Sunstein und der Ökonom Richard Thaler vor einigen Jahren mit ihrem Buch „Nudge. Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness“ populär gemacht haben. „Libertärer Paternalismus“ heißt er: Anstatt autoritär mit Verbot, Befehl und Sanktion zu arbeiten, soll staatliche Regulierung Verhaltensänderung lieber auf andere Weise zu erreichen suchen – indem sie die Entscheidungsoptionen der Bürgerinnen und Bürger so verändert, dass sie ... continue reading

27. August 2014

„Nudging“ arrives in Germany

Obama did it, Cameron too, and now Germany seems determined to do it as well: Angela Merkel seeks advice in behavorial economics, according to her spokesman, in order to try new methods of „effective governance„. This refers to an approach which has been popularized by the constitutional law professor Cass Sunstein and the economics scholar Richard Thaler some years ago with their book „Nudge. Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness„. It goes by the name of „libertarian parternalism“: Instead of bans, orders and sanctions government regulation  should rely on more subtle ways of „nudging“ behavioral change – by altering ... continue reading

27. August 2014