The economic crisis and the neoliberal reform transformed the post-war regimes of the Western nations, which were often composed of such institutional elements as Keynesianism, the mixed economy, neo-corporatism, the welfare state and their interplay. Many have argued that this process of transformation has also brought about the decay of democracy and citizenship and, as Crouch depicted, we are now in the era of post-democracy. Still, we have to remember that there are significant differences in the dismantlement and transformation of such regimes and that the EU itself has changed.

　In this article, it is attempted to reevaluate the functions of the European social model generally and the European social dialogue specifically in the context of the EU multi-level governance. A particular focus is upon the part-time agreement and the EU Directive adopted in 1997 as well as the common flexicurity principle. The agreement and the Directive aimed to improve the working conditions of part-timers, to better the work-life balance and to reduce the labour market segmentation. It may be of use to reconsider the social developments since that time in some member states （DE, FR, SE, UK） and to reflect on the situation in Japan.

　This article reconsiders the implementation processes of the equal treatment principle （a binding provision） and the proposed system of transfer from full-time to part-time work and vice-versa （a non-binding provision）. It is concluded that the agreement and the Directive played a certain role in improving the working and living conditions of the part-timers, the transfer system has created policy responses in the member states and had spillover effects between the EU institutions and national governments and that the European social dialogue functioned as a catalyst in these processes.

　However, there remain plenty of democratic deficits here. In order to rectify them, it is necessary to regenerate and substantiate the social institutions and the social citizenship that the post-war regimes attained and to adapt them to a new societal situation. Such attempts might be placed in a social approach where the market is embedded in socio-economic regimes generated by renewed democracy.

　The Conference on the Future of Europe was convened over the course of a year from Europe Day 2021. The conference is a project at the heart of the European Commission, led by von der Leyen, and is not a formal instrument set out in the Treaty. However, in recent years, such citizens’ participation projects have tended to be implemented at critical junctures of the EU. The aim of this paper is to identify what the Conference means for EU democracy.

　Previous studies of the ‘democratic deficit’ problem, which is closely related to EU democracy, can be categorised as （ⅰ） ineffective parliamentary control over the political process in the EU, （ⅱ） the executive nature of much EC decision-making and the problematic nature of comitology, （ⅲ） a lack of transparency in the EU’s process, and （ⅳ） insufficient citizens’ participation in the EU and the absence of a European identity. The democratic deficit stems from the joint exercise of legislative powers by the executive branch of each MS in the Counsil; it all occurred as a result of national parliaments devolving part of their sovereignty to the EU.

　Thus, the Commission, which is appointed without democratic elections, has a monopoly on the right to propose legislation and plays a major role in the administration at EU level （ⅱ）. Because neither MS’s Parliaments nor the EP can exercise sufficient democratic control over the situation （ⅰ）, there is a criticism that the will of citizens is not reflected in the EU policy-making process. In response to such criticism, the EU has worked to increase the powers of the EP and the involvement of MSs’ parliaments.

　However, that still does not address （ⅲ） a lack of transparency to the EU’s process, and （ⅳ） the lack of citizens’ participation and European identity. The EU-wide discussions provided European citizens with opportunities for dialogue and learning, and resulted in a European identity and consensus building （ⅲ, ⅳ）. The EU, given the complexity of its legislative process, has introduced deliberative democracy as a complement to aggregative democracy, where necessary.

　This is considered to be an attempt to distinguish between decision-making and opinion formation, as in Habermas’ two-truck model, and to form the opinions of European citizens in the informal institution, and thereby to reinforce the democratic legitimacy of decision-making by the formal EU institutions based on this.

　The European Union （EU） has experienced consecutive crises, such as the Euro crisis, Brexit, and the migration crisis, which have increased the necessity to search for a proper theory of democracy to convince EU citizens of its reliability. Proponents of demoicracy argue that while supranationalists and intergovernmentalists have different assumptions about the possibility of a European demos, these opposing arguments share a similar concept of demos which is unitary and has common characteristics. Instead, demoicracy focuses on the national demos and proposes a different understanding of EU democracy based on the interactions and cooperations among demoi sharing the European institutions. However, demoicratic theories do not give much attention to citizens’ participation, notwithstanding the recent developments in citizens’ participation in the EU. In this paper, I explore the importance of citizens’ participation and active citizenship from the perspective of demoicratic theories. I argue that if non-domination, a core normative principle of demoicracy, is taken seriously, the situations of mobile EU citizens and Third Country Nationals （TCNs） in the national societies should be analysed. Demoicracy needs a demoicratic ethos nurtured by active citizenship through participation to ensure non-domination. The EU experiments on citizens’ participation seem to have some potential for nurturing demoicratic ethos as active citizenship as a practice. In this context, the CoFoE could be considered an important device; its European Citizens’ Panels and national citizens’ panels, in particular, deserve to be promoted as they gather ordinary citizens by random sampling and provide opportunities to exchange perspectives on EU affairs. Based on the experience of the CoFoE, the local, national, and European citizens’ panels―which involve EU citizens who are, at least sometimes, mobile―and TCNs, should be institutionalised and interlinked systematically and regularly connected with the plenary settings providing conclusions, recommendations or proposals as one potential instrument fostering demoicratic ethos.

　The 2022 Public Symposium organized by the European Union Studies Association in Japan was held under the theme of “EU and Gender” as an actual and urgent issue of civil society （closely related to the common theme of the 2022 Conference, “The Future of Europe and Civil Society”）. While issues related to gender have shown remarkable development among human rights issues, there are also a number of problems that have not improved, and in some states, there are stagnation or regression. In the symposium, attention is focused on the development of the concept of gender and the systems to solve the problems. Issues related to sexual minorities/LGBTQ/SOGI as well as gender equality were taken up, while attention was paid not only to the EU but also to other systems that cooperate and compete with the EU as mechanisms for guaranteeing human rights.

　While the EU’s starting point was economic integration, it has gradually continued to work on human rights. Today, the EU addresses not only human rights issues within the EU but also global human rights issues. There are various factors behind this development. First, the EU itself needed to address human rights in order to secure its legitimacy and increase the effectiveness of its internal and external policy agenda. Second, in the European region, there are multiple layers of human rights systems and their interactive achievements promote the further realization of human rights. Notable among these are the Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights （ECHR）, which, with the rich case law of the European Court of Human Rights （ECtHR）, has shaped the human rights standards in Europe. In particular, the ECtHR has been able to address and advance, albeit cautiously, new human rights issues such as LGBTQ rights. Third, the effective implementation by member states is in fact essential.

　Four panellists （Yoko KUROIWA, Yuki OKAMURA, Hiroyuki TANIGUCHI （guest panellist） and Tomoko HIKUMA） and a commentator （Wataru CHIDA） successfully explored and assessed the role and significance of the EU’s involvement in gender issues, comparing the EU’s efforts with the efforts of other international organizations and member states and encouraged lively discussion between them and audience. The EU’s achievements are an important reference point for Japan.

　The European Green Deal （EGD） and its sectorial strategy, the Farm to Fork Strategy （F2F） could be seen as intended to promote a growth strategy which creates new sources of competitiveness in the EU’s agriculture and food sectors through a transition to a more environmentally-friendly sustainable food system. This is partly illustrated by the fact that “competitive sustainability” is shown as one of the EU’s objectives in the F2F.

　Against this background, this paper examines whether it is possible to balance competitiveness and sustainability under European-level initiatives such as the EGD and F2F, using the agriculture and food sector, in particular organic farming, as a case study.

　The challenges to balancing these two can be summarised as follows. The first challenge is to improve market value in proportion to the growth of non-market value such as the geographical expansion of organic farming. There may be various paths to cope with this challenge, the discussion focuses on the Geographical Indication （GI） protection system, which can be captured as the quality policy for agricultural and food products. As a more advanced case than Japan, the EU is considering including sustainability criteria as a positive requirement in the GI protection system, which is an attempt to go one step further to achieve compatibility.

　Second, from the data analysis, we showed the importance of linking increasing income and demand to the production promotion of sustainability related products. To deal with this, support measures such as budgets, technical, investment and advisory services, research and development, and the protection systems of intellectual property rights （IPR） are important.

　Thirdly, considering that environmentally-friendly measures such as organic promotion can have negative impacts on production value and farmers’ income through the impacts on markets and trade, appropriate measures including public supports are required to improve yields per unit size of farmland, reduce costs and increase added value through quality improvements and the utilisation of IPR protection systems, which is a medium-term bulk of challenges for achieving competitive sustainability.

　These discussions can also be applied to Japan. In Japan, there is a possibility of increased demand for environmentally-friendly products in the future due to growing interests in global challenges such as climate issues as European countries. Considering the likely negative impacts brought by sustainability-related movements such as organic farming, it is necessary to take the appropriate measures to mitigate negative impacts towards constructing a structure which is compatible between competitiveness and sustainability.

　Procedural Environmental rights consist of three rights: access to information, public participation and access to justice in environmental matters. These rights, first enshrined in the 10th principle of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development in 1992, are elaborated in the Aarhus Convention adopted in 1998. The European Union, along with all its Member States, ratified the Convention and has taken some internal measures to guarantee these procedural rights at the level of Member States and of EU institutions. At first glance, the EU’s implementation of the Convention appears adequate and has no problems. In practice, however, several cases challenging the EU’s compliance with the Convention have been brought before the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee （ACCC）. In some, the EU has been declared non-compliant with the Convention.

　This paper first describes the EU’s forms of implementation of the Convention and the structure of Compliance Mechanism managed by the ACCC and Meeting of the Parties （MOP） to the Convention, followed by an analysis of the EU’s cases of noncompliance with the Convention. EU has compliance issues in public participation and access to justice.

　Regarding access to justice as stipulated in Article 9（3） of the Convention, the main issue is the guarantee of such access by the EU institutions. The EU had established a procedure called the Internal Review （IR） in the Aarhus Regulation, an EU implementation measure of the Convention. However, the ACCC pointed out some inadequacies of the IR in light of obligations under the Article 9（3） and also examined other related rules in EU law （e.g., action for annulment under Article 263 TFEU）. As a result, the ACCC concluded that there was no system to ensure access to justice at the level of the EU institutions. Regarding public participation, the ACCC has pointed out that the provisions on public participation set forth in several directives and other EU instruments are not in line with the obligations in the Convention.

　The EU has taken a contrasting attitude toward these noncompliance cases. For access to justice cases, the EU blocked the endorsement of its own noncompliance at the MOP, but eventually changed course and achieved the revision of the IR in a few years to improve access to justice. On the other hand, for cases of public participation, the EU has followed the MOP practice, but has yet to recover compliance in any case.

　One of characteristics of the European integration in the field of higher education is the coexistence of two frameworks, namely, the EU and the European Higher Education Area （EHEA）. Although the EHEA is a pan-European intergovernmental framework outside the EU, their areas of action often overlap each other. The existing literature tends to focus on the increasing influence of the European Commission over the EHEA but has not analyzed enough how these two frameworks are intertwined and whether such coexistence contributes to the European cooperation in this field.

　The purpose of this paper is therefore to show the positive aspects of the coexistence of the EU and the EHEA, which can be described as “collaboration” between them. This means that they work together to achieve shared objectives in the common areas of action, while each plays a different role according to its own resources.

　To this end, this paper first overviews the institutional differences and overlaps between the EU and the EHEA: while the two frameworks are different from each other in terms of institutional basis, geographical coverage and involvement of stakeholders, there are also overlaps between them through the participation of the European Commission in the EHEA as a full member and the shared system of rotating presidency.

　Then, this paper examines how the EU and the EHEA collaborate with each other in the actual policy-making process, focusing on a case of establishing benchmarks for promoting international student mobility. This is a clear example of collaboration between the EU and the EHEA, because they share a same target of having at least 20％ of higher education graduates experiencing a study or training period abroad by 2020. This case study indicates that in the policy-making process the European Commission works as a bridge between the EU and the EHEA and the two frameworks play a different role according to their own resources: the EU mobilizes its financial means and expertise, while the EHEA functions as a political arena for consensus building.

　Based on these findings, it can be concluded that through their collaboration the EU and the EHEA complement each other and realize a policy which should be difficult to achieve alone. This implies that the coexistence of two different frameworks can contribute to the progress of European cooperation especially in policy areas in which the EU has only a limited competence like education.

　The EU has a long history as a free trade area. The support for free trade and closely-knit European integration has remained stable despite the euro and refugee crises in the 2010s. Italy is uniquely positioned in this context because it has experienced a radical transformation from a pro-EU country to a representative of EU critics. Why has the support for European integration been changing so radically, and how has the change been linked to the support for free trade in Italy?

　This paper address this puzzle by examining the relationship between support for free trade and EU integration in contemporary Italian public opinion through a survey experiment. Using randomly assigned stimuli （consumer and international competition with China）, the experiment shows that ⑴ the support for international trade and EU integration is also firm in Italy, and ⑵ Both consumer and international competition priming does not decrease but increase the support for free trade and the EU. ⑶ There are differences in support depending on attribute factors （gender, employment, and age） and attitudinal factors （partisanship, nationalism, and views on migration）. ⑶ Surprisingly, the left gives more support for the EU, and ⑷ the factors expected to undermine support for international trade and the EU, such as poor economic conditions and opposition to immigration, instead increase support for the EU.

　The analysis in this paper suggests a complex structure of support for free trade and European integration in Italy. The result has revealed that the core of European integration, the Common Market, enjoys strong support, while the support comes partly from factors contrary to EU values as defensive attitudes.

　This paper discusses the role of the European Commission （EC） and its strategy in EU’s FTA agricultural sector negotiations, which is an important matter due to the dominance of the Council of the European Union. The EC is entrusted with the function of negotiating with extraterritorial countries; however, its authority is constrained by the negotiating guidelines of the Council and by “police-patrol oversight.”

　However, the Council is a collective actor consisting of member states’ governments, making it difficult to coordinate interests. Hence, it is extremely difficult to reach a consensus to liberalize beyond the status quo, especially for issues regarding which some member states have protectionist preferences. The agricultural sector is a prime example of such an issue. It has rarely been possible to achieve a high level of liberalization in the agricultural sector with countries whose agriculture is more internationally competitive than that of the EU. This paper examines the EC’s role by focusing on the agricultural sector negotiations of EU-Canada FTA （CETA）, which began provisional application in 2017, a rare example of successfully bringing an extremely difficult negotiation to agreement.

　In terms of method, this paper is a deviant case study that aims to generate new hypotheses by analyzing a case that is difficult to explain using existing theories. CETA is not only an empirically rare case for the EU but also a deviant one that cannot be explained by existing theories such as information asymmetries, the amount of discretionary power held by the EC due to split preferences of the Council, or the influence of interest groups and civil society on trade policy. This paper seeks to refine the existing theories by tracing the process of CETA negotiation.

　The new hypothesis presented in this paper is as follows. In FTA negotiations with countries whose agricultural products are more internationally competitive than those of the EU, the EC places emphasis on bringing agriculture-related rules in the agreement, such as intellectual property rights and food safety, closer to the EU’s common rules, or on making the partner country recognize the EU’s intra-regional rules. By linking rule-related issues with those related to market access for agricultural products, an FTA can be concluded while achieving a high degree of liberalization of market access for agricultural products.