The environmental issue is at the very heart of present-day global concern. However, a consistent paradigm on environmental governance has not yet been agreed upon. More particularly, the effective role of transnational/‘regional’ actors has hardly been integrated in the overall model. We are giving attention to the EU's policy strategy in this particular field and how it affects the EU's political-institutional profile and the reflection on multi-level governance as a relevant conceptual framework.
Considering the issue in a global perspective, most of the attention towards environmental governance has been caught by the global challenges and the implementation of policies on the domestic, i.e. national and local, level. It has been called the two-levels game and, despite all efforts, no generally accepted taxonomy on vertical linkages exists at this stage. Norichika Kanie approaches global environmental governance in terms of vertical linkages, highlighting the multiple forms of interaction and the barriers between the international and the local levels. This interactive diplomacy is conceptualized as interaction between like-minded countries and NGO's, business and industry communities. As empirical analysis has proven (Kanie and Haas), not only a wide array of new actors has emerged, but also a variety of governance functions can be distinguished.
The EU has come to the fore with its ‘20—20—20 plan’, aiming at reducing carbon emissions by at least 20% within the time horizon of 2020. All EU efforts refer to the UN principles, priorities and institutional setting. In European eyes, the UN system is indeed the legitimate and effective overarching sphere of action in this policy field.
Although the EU is ‘constitutionally’ defined as an emanation of Member States, it is also, especially from the outside world, perceived as a global actor. We are arguing that from an organizational viewpoint, the EU should be seen as an intermediate actor, mediating between state interests and worldwide regulation. Since grand theorizing is not appropriate (yet), we suggest an elaborated version of the paradigm of multi-level governance (Gary Marks) as a meaningful conceptual framework. It refers to the growing interdependence between governments and non-governmental actors at various territorial levels.
The paradigm of multi-level governance is not only offering a scheme of reference vis-à-vis the many actors detected via empirical analysis. It could add an important dimension to the profile of the EU, complementing the internal integration process with its current ambitions as a global actor.

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A. The Structural Change of the International Society
Until the beginning of the 19^th century, a nation was the only player in the world as a sovereign state. But since the middle of the 20^th century, the born of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) has brought the change of the construction of international society.
The establishment of the ECSC showed very unique characters not found in the traditional international society. It means increase of players in the world politics and economy. We have verified that the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC) succeeded to the ECSC and in 1992, the European Union (EU) has established.
The Union has many policies. One of the most featured of them is that it has a legal entity as legal order. The Legal order is recognized as the European Union law (EU law). All of the policies of the Union are completed through the Union law. It is pointed out that the most important areas of its policies are competition, environmental law, so on. Especially, we must point out environmental law.

B. EU and the Environment
The EU's environmental policy was established in 1973. It includes air, water, soil and waste, etc. Especially, in air department, the EU has tackled to decrease the greenhouse gas (GHG).
The environmental policies of the EU are as follows:
1. The 2001 6^th Action Programme
2. The Kyoto Protocol
3. EU-ETS (Emission Trade System)
4. International Carbon Trade Agreement
5. Regulation (EC) No. 1907/2006 concerning the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH)
6. Prevention of Forest Destruction
7. Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM)

C. Conclusion
In environmental aspect, the EU has legal governance, too. The jurisprudence of the European Court concerning environmental law will establish the direction to become globalization of the EU environmental law.

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The EU has revealed its more conclusive energy policy following its Green Paper of 2006. The new policy integrates the climate change and energy, which was adopted at the European Council of March 2007. Recently, the EU also emphasizes the importance of the external policy within the energy policy, which is based on a concept of the energy security with diversification of energy sources, supply countries and supply routes. Against such a European framework, this paper will examine the prospect of Turkey's accession from the perspective of security of supply of natural gas.
Turkey finds itself located in between a major production area and a large consumption area of natural gas: the Caspian region and the EU. With such a privileged geopolitical location, Turkey aims at becoming an energy hub, not a mere transit country, for the natural gas as well as for the oil. Among the numerous pipelines Turkey facilitates, there stretch two BTC pipelines starting at Baku, Azerbaijan finishing at Çeyhan, Turkey, without passing through the Russia territory. Turkey waits for the construction of the NABUCCO project to start in 2010, which is to pump the gas from the Caspian region directly to Europe without touching the Russian soil.
Russia is the main provider of natural gas both for the EU and Turkey. As the gas stoppage in January 2009 demonstrated, it is recognized as an urgent task specially for Europe to obtain alternative routes of gas supply. For this end, Turkey is geopolitically advantageous over Europe. However, with delays in liberalizing the Turkish internal energy market and the still uncertain situation of NABUCCO, Turkey does not seem to hold strong cards for its accession negotiation with the EU. The Energy acqui has not been opened yet, either.
The EU opts for its usual ambiguous attitude toward Turkey while emphasizing the importance of Turkey as a strategic partner but leaving Turkey as the only non-EU state among the 6(six) NABUCCO contractors.

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One of the measures for the maritime accidents such as collision or running aground of tankers is to accommodate the ship in distress, as early as possible, into a sheltered or protected place in the best possible condition and transfer her cargo and fuel oil to the other ship or facility in order to prevent or mitigate the environmental damage. The place where a ship in distress should be accommodated is called “place of refuge.”
As the framework of place of refuge, IMO (International Maritime Organization) Guidelines on Places of Refuge for Ships in Need of Assistance (Res. A. 949(23)) was adopted, on the international level, subsequently to the directive establishing a Community vessel traffic monitoring and information system (2002/59/EC) within the EU. Both of them haven't stipulated the obligation or the principle to accommodate a ship in distress to a place of refuge.
Following the tanker “Prestige” accident off the Spanish coast in November 2002, the Commission proposed the amendment of the directive to introduce two principles in November 2005, in order to ensure a harmonized and effective implementation of the place of refuge and clarify the scope of obligations incumbent on the Member States. The first is that a ship in distress must be accommodated in a place of refuge, subject to the result of an assessment of the situation, and the second is the requirement for the Member States to set up “an independent competent authority” with which is replaced the present provision “a competent authority” to assess the situation and take a decision, in good time and free from political pressure, for the accommodation of a ship in distress. The amendment is more ambitious than the present IMO guidelines.
The proposal has been under consideration by the Parliament and the Council within the framework of the co-decision procedure since the transmission by the Commission. There is a big difference between the institutions: the Parliament basically supports the amendment proposed by the Commission but the Council is less enthusiastic on it and those arouse the interest in carrying out research on the measure for maritime accidents. The present paper examines the significance and the problem of the amendment proposal, especially from the viewpoints of the two principles above, through the positions expressed by both these institutions.

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The EU Sustainable Development Strategy (EU SDS) was launched in the 2001 Göteborg European Council. Its purpose is to establish the general policy framework that incorporates three pillars such as economic prosperity, social equity and environmental protection. In addition, its strategy has been managed in line with open method of coordination. The paper examines the EU SDS from two viewpoints: governance modes and policy discourses. In so doing, the paper suggests a research strategy that reconsiders the meanings of European integration from studies of policy development of individual fields in comparative perspective. The paper first takes a general view of the evolutionary process of EU environmental policies, and by emphasising the legislation-oriented policy development on the basis of Articles 2, 100 and 235 EEC in the 1970s to 90s, the paper demonstrates that the 2001 EU SDS opened a new stage of the evolutionary process. Second, the paper examines the governance mode of EU SDS that can be characterized essentially as open method of coordination, paying attention to three aspects of EU SDS: voluntary national actions, stakeholder consultation prosesses and non-legislative instruments. On these considerations, the paper points out the democratic problems of open method of coordination, which may weaken the political power of the European Parliament as well as the critical function of civil society organisations. On this basis, the paper suggests potential democratic problems emerging in the evolutionary process of EU environmental policies. Third, the paper considers the policy discourse of EU SDS, which ambiguously constructs the general view of a promised land of EU citizens that should be brought about by the EU. At the same time, the paper also finds discursive contestation between neo-liberalist and social democrat tendencies around the meanings of the concept of sustainable development in EU SDS, and then points out the dominance of a neo-liberatist discourse against a social democratic one. In concluding remarks, the paper suggests a comparative research scheme to investigate governance modes and policy discourses among individual policy fields, so that we can reflect on the possible way forward of European integration if the Community method has been withdrawn and open method of coordination together with neo-liberalist discourses has gained ground.

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This article examines the integration of environmental policy into EU competition law while taking into account its “Modernisation” reform and the influence of the European Social Model.
Seeking the reconciliation between environmental policy and competition law is essential to foresee the global competition enforcement in the future and specify the scope of competition law and the definition of competition itself. However, the debate on this theme has been premature in the EU and some leading cases and interpretations have just emerged.
This article deals with this topic in four phases:
First, there is a review of the recent “Modernisation” reform, which introduces the approach focusing on consumer welfare and economic efficiency in EU competition law. This way of thinking tends to exclude non-competition values including environmental protection.
Second, there is an examination of the influence of the European Social Model, which introduces a wider interpretation of non-competition values in EU competition law. This leads to the conflict of “competition lawyer vs. EC lawyer” because the former stresses the pro/anti-competitive perspective and the latter facilitates the concept “mandatory requirement” from case law in the field of free movement.
Third, there is a comparative analysis of the traditional interpretation and the newly emerged interpretation of each article in EU competition law.
In Article 81(1) EC, cases like CECED comply with the “Modernisation” reform and are based on the economic analysis, but the Wouters case paves the way for taking into consideration the perspective on the conflict of constitutional norm between competition and environmental protection. Similar bifurcation is found in cases of Article 82 EC. Cases like DSD follow the economics-based interpretation while cases under Article 86(2) EC exemption underline the non-competition values like environmental protection. State aid rules allow the Member States' wide discretion on environmental policy, but the State Aid Action Plan launched by “Modernisation” reform introduces the economic analysis and narrows its discretion.
Finally, this article presents the tentative theory concerning the conflict between environmental policy and EU competition law. This comprises two-way interpretations: the interpretation in the context of “Modernisation” reform and the interpretation in the context of the European Social Model. In the present, it is needed to grasp cases from this two-way perspective.

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Ever since ancient Roman times the Mediterranean is an important area for Europe and consequently nowadays also for the European Union. However, consecutive enlargements of the Union focussed the attention more eastward. The successive rotating presidencies of the Union always refocus and enlarge the ambit of European attention: While Finland was looking north, Germany traditionally east, the French Presidency of the Council made a conscious effort to redirect attention towards the Mediterranean, a project which had already been pushed earlier by the presidential candidate Sarkozy. The project underwent a considerable metamorphosis during its development: The original idea of a stand-alone Union of the littoral states only under French leadership was changed to an upgrading and reinforcement of the Barcelona Process initiated by the EU already in 1995. The paper traces the development of the project in its various stages, argues that the institutions of the Union played a crucial role in the Europeanization process of the project and puts it into the context of the European Neighbourhood Policy. The process is analysed from the point of view of international relations theory in general and interregionalism in particular. Finally a brief comparison of lessons learnt with another interregional process, the Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) is made.

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As a consequence of its last enlargement, the EU has new neighbouring countries to the east and has also had to develop closer cooperation with its southern Mediterranean neighbours. Following the intervention of British Foreign Minister, Jack Straw and the Solana-Patten Letter in 2002, president of the Commission, Romano Prodi took the “Wider Europe” initiative which aimed to create “a ring of friends” from the neighbouring countries of the EU. This was followed by a name change in 2003 to “European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP)”. Three Southern Caucasus countries were included in accordance with a proposal of the Solana Paper of 2003; Russia, however, was excluded. The EU started its ENP in 2005 with the following partners: Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Georgia, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Moldova, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Tunisia and the Ukraine.
The objective of the ENP is to avoid new division between the enlarged EU and its neighbours and to offer them the chance to share the prosperity and stability of the EU without becoming members. The ENP is activated by Action Plans negotiated with each of the neighbouring partners who already have contractual relations with the EU. A new funding mechanism, ENPI (European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument) was created in 2007, which also covers the Russian Federation.
The ENP is a new type of policy for the EU, and its characteristics are: a mixture of bilateral relations to the East and, bi- and multi-lateral relations to the South; comprehensive cover of the three pillars of the EU; no clear common goal and no prospect of EU membership; the necessity of contractual relations with the EU to negotiate the ENP Action Plan; and partial inclusion of Russia (by ENPI) after initial exclusion.
After three years of ENP, the results are still modest; strengthening it requires the EU tackling a multitude of problems. On the other hand, three new multilateral frameworks may complement the bilateral ENP: the Baltic Sea Cooperation (2007), the Black Sea Synergy (2007) and the Union for the Mediterranean (2008).
To create a successful ENP, the EU has to offer additional concrete incentives to its neighbouring partners, consider their geographical varieties, coordinate its policy among the three pillars of the Union and member states, and cooperate more closely with Russia. A successful ENP would demonstrate the “soft power” of the EU and develop it into a true global player for the 21^st century.

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This paper aims to analyze the effect of the EU's regional policy and the external aid policy toward the neighbour nations in terms of the development of the trade and direct investment between the Euro area and neighbour nations. One of the conditions to be an international currency is that the nation plays a central part of the economic area in the trade and investment. The UK was the central part of the world economy in the gold standard era when the starling pound used to be an international currency, and so has been the USA when the ES dollar is the international currency. Thus, the Euro area also would be a pivotal part of the international economy in order for the Euro to grow as an international currency.
As the EU continues to enlarge not only toward the central and eastern Europe and south eastern Europe but also toward Mediterranean nations, the EU has been expanding its trade and foreign direct investment with its new EU members and neighbour nations. Several factors contribute to the development of its international transactions, such as the EU's higher productivity than the neighghbour nations, the non-Euro area nation's open door policy and the free trade policy between the two. This paper focuses the EU's regional policy and foreign neighbour policy as the means to promote trade and FID between the Euro area and its neighbour nations. These EU's policies contribute to funding of social infrastructure, the development of the human capital and to promoting the structure policies to liberalize the goods and service market, capital market and labour market. This paper argues that these economic effects would enhance inflow of FDI from the Euro area, which shapes the intra and extra trade between the Euro area and neighbour nations.
In this paper, section 2 examines the 2004 regional policy reform on the structural funds and Cohesion fund to find out the characteristics of the EU's regional policy toward the southeastern European nations. Section 3 reviews the EU's foreign neighbour policy with the Western Balkan Peninsula and analyzes the international division of labour between the Euro area and the neighbour nations. Finally, section 4 concludes the prospect of the role of the Euro as an international currency.

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This paper analyses German foreign and security policy under the Merkel government, especially Germany's role and involvement in European security architectures. By comparing NATO out-of-area deployment of Bundeswehr, German forces, in EU and NATO operations, the study discusses challenges and dilemmas that Germany has faced in cooperating with these organizations. As Europe's own security policies such as Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and then European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) have developed, Germany has been actively involved in operations in the framework of these policies. Germany has also participated in emerging EU operations; the Merkel government eventually led Operation EUFOR RD Congo in 2006. As European operations have evolved in the areas of peacekeeping and crisis management so far, Germany has not encountered dilemmas in dispatching armed forces overseas. It rather welcomed EU operations that have civilian character as German Basic Law sets a certain conditions in deploying its forces overseas. Because of this limitation, Germany is referred as ‘civilian power’ that has strategic culture of ‘anti-militarism’. Thus, Germany will actively support further evolution of the European security architecture with such a civilian character. On the contrary, Germany under the Merkel government has encountered dilemmas in dispatching forces to NATO operations. In particular, German behaviours in International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) in Afghanistan have increasingly attracted criticism from other NATO member states after a failure in Operation Medusa in 2006. Since then, Germany has been under pressure of sending units to the southern area of Afghanistan that is considered to be more dangerous and of engaging in combat operations. So far, German government has expanded its military commitments in Afghanistan in a series of small steps. For example, Berlin has decided to dispatch Tornado jets to the south. Pressure for increasing presence of the German forces in the south has not halt, although Germany has avoided combat operations because of the Basic Law. While increased presence would highlight continued German engagement and thus mitigate criticism from NATO allies, it would prove unpopular among Germans who have registered significant public opposition to the Afghan campaign. Germany under the Merkel government confronts with the dilemmas between maintaining solidarity and credibility with the allies and managing domestic public opinion.

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The purpose of this paper is to grasp the characteristics of urban policy of the EU in a case of Nordstadt in Dortmund, Germany, based on fieldwork of the present author conducted occasionally between 2006 and 2008. Social exclusion has been severe in this district, which was adopted as one of targets of URBAN II program of the EU in 2001.
There were three pillars of URBAN II in Nordstadt: improvement of quality of the urban space, promotion of the local economy, and empowerment of the local people. These three should be integrated with each other under the supervision of a special team, Project Group URBAN II, within the city administration. Several departments dispatched personnel to this team, and the department of city planning played a role of leader of the team.
According to the budget, promotion of the local economy was most important among the three pillars. But the quarter management (QM) or neighborhood management, which was allocated to one of projects of the third pillar, was most successful among more than thirty projects carried out in the framework of URBAN II. QM played a role of coordinator of almost all the projects, especially for the first and the third pillars. One of its tasks is to present the vision of its own quarter. And it contributed to empowerment of the local people.
There were three QMs in Nordstadt. Despite the possibility of applications from all over Europe, the city government encouraged local NPOs to apply for it, and selected a consortium of local NPOs as a carrier of each QM. These NPOs are to be classified into three types: social welfare organizations either of Christian or of trade-union tradition, and alternative-movement association originated from the 1980s. All the NPOs had worked for the local public welfare long before the launch of URBAN II.
The executed projects were evaluated every one or two years. The city council examined the performance of the QMs and decided the continuation of the QMs every two or three years. The system of competition was introduced in almost all the projects. There were also projects which did not start until 2005. It means flexibility of URBAN II. But it is necessary to tackle with social exclusion in a long-term perspective. It is not sure if the neo liberal system of the concrete practices in URBAN II can lead to the resolution or at least the relaxation of social exclusion.

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This book aims to historically trace Belgium's efforts to deal with and role in the integration of Europe after World War II, and to provide a detailed clarification of the origin of the European Union (EU). According to the author, most past studies seem likely to be inclined toward the role of large European countries in integrating Europe whereas the efforts of small countries like Belgium is dismissed.
This book mainly clarifies two points. Firstly, it discusses the origin of the EU. Further, it examines the efforts at economic cooperation undertaken by the Benelux, such as that exemplified by the Ouchy Convention (1932) and Customs Union (1948), and proves that it was such instances of cooperation that eventually paved the way for the European Economic Community (EEC). The Benelux took up the initiative to successfully build a unified European nation on the basis of their past experience. While the Schuman Plan (1950) is conventionally considered to be the origin of EU in terms of supra-nationalism, the Beyen Plan, which eventually lead to the founding of the EEC, also played an important role in the origin of EU in terms of inter-governmentalism. Secondly, this book clarifies the role of the small country in the European integration. While it is true that large countries such as Germany and France have led the integration, the author believes that the role of the small countries should not be overlooked. In fact, at present, EU consists of many small member states.
The author, the first historiographer to study the integration of Europe in Japan, makes a contribution to European integration historical studies by publishing a single work that uses primary materials. I think that the author's focus on Belgium is crucial because there are not many such studies even in Europe. Further, with this work, I expect that such historiographical analyses will continue to progress in Japan.

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