The purpose of this paper is to examine the European integration policy of the so-called Benelux countries: Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg.
In the first part, the author summarizes each of the three countries' European policy as follows: Belgium has tried to safeguard her economy, to create a wider market, to avoid Franco-German rivalry and to keep her political influence through European integration; the Netherlands also pursues her economic interests, but she is more Atlanticist and federalist; Luxembourg has been trying to keep her position as a State among the EU and to find a compromise, especially for the time when she takes presidency of the EU.
In the second part, the author outlines the historical development of Belgium's European policy from the end of the Second World War until now. One can observe that Belgium has had a consensus among her citizens to build a federal Europe since the establishment of the EEC although a few confrontations were seen in some circles in the 1950s. Belgium's European policy has had a tendency to shift between orthodox European federalism and a realist attitude: in the 1960s, Belgium fought against General De Gaulle to keep her orthodoxy; from the 1970s, a more realistic approach appeared in her European policy, but she did not forget to pursue her federalist goal. In the 1990s, after the end of the Cold War, the only thing different for Belgium was that she had no more enemies in Eastern Europe. But her desire to build a federal Europe is even more imperative than before now that the EU is enlarging to the east and south and the number of EU member countries may reach more than thirty in the foreseeable future. Because of this new situation, Belgium confronted against France at the Nice European Council, which was held in December 2000, to advocate a more federalist approach and to avoid the supremacy of the big four States in the EU. Belgium is, in a sense, in a paradoxical position between her orthodoxy as a federalist and her realism in accepting the intergovernmental approach in European politics.
Finally, the author argues that the framework of Benelux has become already obsolete in economic terms as economic integration within the EU has progressed considerably. However, Benelux may be still useful for the three small States as a political consultative framework in the enlarging EU despite the Nice European Council having decoupled Netherlands and Belgium for their number of votes in the Council.

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Dieser Bericht steht darauf, ich lasse die Sache, die schwer ist, fur die konventionelle Verfassungsvorherrschaftstheorie uber jeder nationalen Verfassungsmethode in EU-Gebiet erklarbar zu sein und Verbindungen des Vertrages und ich, heutzutage den Trend darin hinzufugen und fuge die Prufung hinzu. Unter EU-Vertrage und verfassungsmassigen Wirkungsverbindungen untersuche ich, ob es den Fall gibt, dass eine Verfassung die Vorherrschaft vom Vertrage besonders annimmt. Ich uberprufe, ob EU-Vertrage in einen Vertrag eingeschlossen wird und gedacht wird. Ich erwage der Ubertragung von Hoheitsrechten in EU-Mitglieder Staaten.

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In this article, the appointment of the European Commission is argued. First of all, we discuss about the appointment procedure in the treaties of the European Union. In the appointment process, we analyze political context in the appointment, especially the resignation of the Santer commission and the monetary integration. In the section about the president of the Commission, the conditions of the appointment are analyzed. For example, the vision of the european integration, and the political career of the cadidate. In the section about the Commissioners, conditions of the appointment, particularly condition of political partisan, are discussed. In addition, the political practice of the appointment and the impact of the governments of the member states are also important. Still, these governments are very influential in this appointment process. In the final section, the role of the European Parliament, especially the confirmation vote is stressed.

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One of the major objectives of the IGC was ‘to give Europe a stronger voice in world affairs’. Just how far can the Amsterdam Treaty be seen to have achieved its objectives?
With the aim of securing consistency between the first and second pillars of the EU, the IGC looked at ways of giving the EU a legal personality. Mainly owing to the opposition of the UK, no further explicit provisions were added in this direction. In the area of Common Foreign and Security Policy, the following developments deserve attention.
Firstly, the new treaty provides for the setting up of a High Representative for the CFSP. This shoud help to make the external policies of the EU more consistent and at the same time contribute to the efficiency, viability, and visibility of the CFSP-though the choice of Mr or Mrs CFSP may not fall exactly where France has wished.
In the second place, the setting up of the policy planning and early warning unit will certainly help towards consistent policy making throughout the whole process of analysis, forecasting and planning. This unit was, however, on the ground that it is only a preparatory organ of the CFSP, denied the right to initiate policy.
Thirdly, we should take note of some developments concerning the determination of CFSP's policies. The range of questions subject to qualified majority vote will be widened, and a flexible system —termed ‘constructive abstention’— will be introduced for the first time. In principle, consensus remains the rule, but except in the sphere of defence policy, the notion of over all consensus would seem to be on its way out.
At the IGC another important task was to establish the concept of ‘European Security and Defence Identity’. In this respect considerable progress would seem to have been made. The Amsterdam Treaty says that ‘safeguarding the integrity of the Union’ should be among the objectives of the CFSP. The EU will strengthen its links with the WEU by providing that the latter supply the former with ‘access to an operational capability’, and that the latter support the former in ‘framing the defence aspects’ of the CFSP. The treaty also goes so far as to include the phrase ‘with a view to the possibility of the integration of WEU into the Union’.
In the matter of the ‘Petersburg tasks’, while avoiding the use of the term, the treaty refers to humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping tasks and the use of combat forces in crisis management, including those of a peacemaking nature. It should be noteworthy that at the IGC all the neutral member states were in favor of including the ‘Petersburg tasks’ in the terms of the treaty.

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One of the most important missions of the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) of 1996 was to find some solutions concerning institutional reform of the European Union to prepare for the future enlargement towards Eastern Europe. But due to serious antagonism among the member states, specially between large and small states, it could not succeed to attain any agreement on this issue.
As a result, the Amsterdam Treaty does not contain any substantial institutional reform. Two main issues, voting procedure in the Council and composition of the Commission, were postoponed to the next IGC which will be convened before next enlargement according to the protocole no. 11 annexed to the Treaty.
Nonetherless, we can see some progress in the Amsterdam Treaty concerning institutional questions: the European Parliament have gained much more decision-making power particulary by simplified co-decision procedure; the President of the Commision have more authority than before; decision-making process in the Council will be more transparent; and many small reforms on other instituions.
But many other issues such as responsibility of Commission, re-classification of community acts, rotation of presidency, etc, which have to also resolved before next enlargement, were not seriously discussed during the 1996 IGC. In that sense, we have to say that the Amsterdam Treaty have failed to prepare for next enlargement.
The “enlarged” European Union are now faced with a difficulty to reach a consensus about the objectives of its integration process and this lack of perspectives for the next century was the main reason that 1996 IGC have failed to reform Union's institutions. But as the future development of EU institutions may signify a change of nation-state system in Europe, it seems difficult that all member states agree in a short term about this crucial issue.

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Central bank independence continues to become the global standard for the activities of monetary authorities. Increasing the independence of the central bank is widely acknowledged to decrease inflation by enhancing the credibility of commitments to price stability. This does not create an effect on economic costs in real terms, such as economic growth or employment.In accordance with Article 105 (1) of the Treaty on European Union, the primary objective of the ESCB shall be to maintain price stability. The statutory mandate to aim at price stability will give the ESCB a clear direction for its policy. This idea is rapidly becoming the consensus of academics and policymakers not only in the EU countries, but also all over the world.
This paper examines the empirical relationship between central bank independence and the costs of disinflation among the EU countries. Many previous papers suggest that central bank independence has a negative correlation with inflation. Granting greater independence to a central bank associates with lower inflation. However, few papers elucidate the relationship between central bank independence and the costs of disinflation. To investigate the effect of central bank independence on the trade-off parameter, we create estimates for both the EU and the G7. We use various ‘political’ and ‘economic’ indices provided by several papers to gauge central bank independence.
The result shows there is a positive correlation between central bank independence and the trade-off parameter in the EU. There are, of course, many other factors that determine output-inflation trade-off or the slope of the Phillips curve, but the clear real cost of disinflation is shown. For the EU countries at least, the growing political independence of central banks may have substantial real effects than in other countries such as those in the G7.
However, the evidence of the negative correlation between central bank independence and average rates of inflation shows that the important issue of causality is a negligible factor. There may be a labor market structure that makes reducing inflation more costly. Such factors may increase the value of an independent central bank that maintains low inflation. For example, there may be nominal wage rigidity in the EU.
Our empirical evidence suggests that both the incentive to inflate and the costs of reducing inflation may increase with greater central bank independence. Central bank independence delivers lower inflation but with real effects. It is certain that individual countries will have more independent central banks in the near future. Therefore, the problem of disinflation may be a big cost for the EU. The EU unemployment rate is quite high now. That may create many problems for achieving independent central banks.

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The purpose of this paper is to consider EU education policy in terms of one EU education programme and one turning point in policy. In the former case we deal with "Socrates" which is the European programme for general education from preschool to tertiary education, and lifelong learning. In the latter case we focus upon influences of the Lisbon Strategy in the field of education. From our analysis, the following points become clear. Firstly, EU education policy is getting to an important place not to be ignored by EU member countries. Owing to that, in the future, qualifications and education systems will be more harmonised. On the other hand, it is strongly suggested that we should pay careful attention to Europeanisation of educational culture in the EU countries. Secondly, educational problems such as integrated education in the area of special educational needs, education of immigrant children, and education of minority languages have not been solved. Thirdly, considering the promotion of active European citizenship, the question about who can be granted citizenship depends on each EU country according to nationality codes and immigration acts. Thus, there may be unequal opportunities for education. The above three points are future tasks as well as present tasks.

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