Kenneth A. Armstrong

EU Social Policy and the Governance Architecture of Europe 2020

As the successor to the decade-long Lisbon agenda, Europe 2020 is the European Union’s 10-year strategy for ‘smart’, ‘sustainable’ and ‘inclusive’ growth. This article analyses the ‘governance architecture’ of this new agenda, and, more particularly, its social dimension. Insofar as Europe 2020 has a social dimension it is located within a suite of thematic ‘flagship initiatives’, as well as within a policy coordination framework that, while building upon the Lisbon agenda’s governance architecture, now forms part of the European Semester framework. Whereas the flagship initiatives continue a long tradition of the deployment of non-legislative instruments and EU funds towards the EU’s social goals, the role to be played by the ‘open method of coordination’ as a ‘new’ post-Lisbon form of EU social governance remains unclear. Indeed, the risk is that political energy will be concentrated on policy coordination as a means of strengthening EU economic governance rather than as a vehicle for articulating a progressive social policy vision.

Brexit time : leaving the EU - why, how and when?

The result of the UK referendum in June 2016 on membership of the European Union had immediate repercussions across the UK, the EU and internationally. As the dust begins to settle, attention is now naturally drawn to understanding why this momentous decision came about and how and when the UK will leave the EU. What are the options for the new legal settlements between the UK and the EU? What will happen to our current political landscape within the UK in the time up to and including its exit from the EU? What about legal and political life after Brexit? Within a series of short essays, Brexit Time explores and contextualises each stage of Brexit in turn: pre-referendum; the result; the process of withdrawal; rethinking EU relations; and post-Brexit. During a time of intense speculation and commentary, this book offers an indispensable guide to the key issues surrounding a historic event and its uncertain aftermath.

Regulatory alignment and divergence after Brexit

ABSTRACT The United Kingdom (UK) has launched the process by which it will terminate its membership of the European Union (EU). A key research question concerns the extent to which UK regulatory policy will align with, or diverge from, EU policy after decades of delegation to, and dependency upon EU rules and regulatory structures. While we ought to expect that UK regulatory policy will continue to align with the EU in the short-term, the scope for future divergence requires further analysis. Whether exiting the EU will lead to regulatory alignment or regulatory divergence is evaluated in light of existing literatures on Europeanisation, in general, and the EU’s external governance, in particular. It is contended that the dynamics of alignment/divergence between the UK and EU will be a function of the operation – and interaction – of different modes of governance: hierarchy, markets, coordination and networks/community. However, the study cautions against assumptions that the dynamics of UK regulatory policy post-membership are reducible solely to EU influences. More specifically it contends that the global regulatory context in which both the UK and EU are situated constitutes an important factor that will mediate EU influence over UK policy.

Tales of the Community: Sexual orientation discrimination and EC law

Abstract Equality before the law is a fundamental principle in every community governed by the rule of law and accordingly in the Community as well. The rights and duties which result from Community law apply to all without discrimination and therefore also to the approximately 35 million citizens of the Community… who are homosexual.

Differentiated Economic Governance and the Reshaping of Dominium-Law

The European Union’s response to the economic crisis illustrates and dramatizes the increasing differentiation and pluralisation in the modes and techniques through which the EU now governs. Early characterizations of that response in terms of the return or revival of the ‘Community Method’ and of rules-based governance fail to grasp the range and diversity of responses as well as their ‘hybrid’ interactions. This diversity in governance is also reflected in the nature of the legal instruments through which the EU has sought to expand its governance capacity. In turn, the plural legal landscape creates variation in the domestic legal response. Adopting Daintith’s notion of dominium-law, it is argued that the EU’s response to the crisis is reshaping dominium-law not just at the domestic level but also in its reconfiguration within European public law itself.