The European Union after Lisbon : Polity, Politics, Policy (New Regionalisms Series)

A few years have passed since the Lisbon Treaty came into force but the question still remains of what the Lisbon Treaty has actually brought about. Was it just 'relatively insignificant' as some scholars have claimed, or was it 'something' more? This book sets out to look at this question and it does so by applying a classical division: polity, politics and policy. One of the book's conclusions is that the Lisbon Treaty might have been 'plan b' compared to the aborted Constitutional Treaty, but it is certainly a substantial step forward on the European path of integration. The Lisbon Treaty strengthened the EU both as a polity (its stateness), and in its politics (the rules and procedures) and in spite of the fact that the treaty was not really a 'policy treaty', it has extended the Union's field by federalizing most of the policies within the area of Justice and Home Affairs. This anthology brings together scholars from four European countries each of them a specialist within the fields they are analyzing. Each scholar adds insights from their area of competence to the book, leaving it an important contribution to the study of today's European Union.