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The Republic of Cyprus (or Cyprus) joined the European Union (EU) in May 2004 and adopted the single currency (the euro) in 2008. This article consists of three parts: it begins with a historical contextualization, explaining the reasons for Cyprus’ application for an Association Agreement with the (then) European Economic Community (EEC), and also examining the latter´s reaction and policy towards the 1974 Turkish invasion following a failed coup d´état against the Makarios Presidency that has led to a divided island since then (Part 1). In brief, what is known as the “Cyprus Problem.” This part also looks at the evolution of the Association Agreement during the period since 1975 which ended with the conclusion of a customs union Agreement between Cyprus and the European Community in 1987. The article next turns to an analysis of the Republic of Cyprus´ EU accession negotiations process (Part 2). It also covers the impact (or lack thereof) of various reunification plans, and most notably what is seen as the culmination of such efforts in the so-called 2002–2004 Annan Plans. The following section presents an assessment of how Cyprus has fared as a member state since it joined the EU (Part 3). It covers several key questions regarding the EU–Cyprus relationship. Whereas this article is not about the Cyprus problem itself, but as will be made clear throughout this study, it remains the dominant issue for the island. Others issues encompass EU relations with the Turkish-Cypriot community, the question of Turkey´s EU accession, the impact of the economic crisis of 2013, as well as energy security considerations following the discovery of gas in the region. The study concludes that being in the EU offers better perspectives for the Republic of Cyprus than if it had been kept outside it. If only because as the Accession Treaty makes it clear: it is the whole island that has joined the EU albeit the acquis communautaire cannot apply to the north, occupied, part of the Island following the invasion by Turkey. But all Cypriots are EU citizens. Yet, to a large extent, the experience of Cyprus prior to and after EU membership also reflects the kind of specific problems that a “small state” is facing in its international relations.

Food policy is mostly linked to the ‘production and allocation of food’. However, food policy incorporates various dimensions, such as food safety and health, obesity, distribution, transportation, allocation, consumption, culture and traditions, design and promotion and many more. It also involves various institutions and actors and follows specific decision-making processes and rules within the EU multilevel governance. Food policy has been treated as a sub-compartment of agricultural policy. Despite the strong link between food policy and agriculture but also to policies on environment, energy, climate, the EU food policy has become a self-standing policy with its own actors, institutions, decision-making processes and policy instruments. The emergence of EU food policy responded to a series of events/crises in the 1990s that acted as drivers for policy change and triggered new ideas, norms and beliefs around food safety and health standards, food production and the environment. These developments enabled a new policy discourse that signifies the cognitive dimensions of a policy paradigm shift. They also created a critical juncture that led to a significant transfer of regulatory competences from the member states to EU, over time, particularly in relation to safety, labeling and consumer information, but also use of biotechnology, fraud, storage and transportation that mark the institutionalization of EU food policy.

The surge in the appointments of technocrats to the top economic portfolios of finance since the 2009 Great Recession, and even the formation of fully technocratic governments in Europe, raises questions regarding the role of technocrats and technocratic governments in economic policy in democracies. Who are the technocrats? Why are they appointed in the first place? What is their impact on economic policy, and finally what are their sources of policy influence? Surprisingly, we know little about the role of technocrats in economic policy despite their prominent presence in Eastern Europe since the early 90s and in Latin America since the early 80s. Technocrats were behind major market-conforming reforms in Latin America with lasting economic and political effects in the region. Technocrats we also appointed in many former Eastern European countries to reform the system of production and the labor market. Yet, to this day, we have little systematic knowledge and even less cross-regional comparative work on the policy effects of technocratic appointments. Moreover, the term “technocrat” itself does have a shared meaning and is not uniformly used by scholars across the European and American continents, further inhibiting the study of technocrat policymakers. This article seeks to advance the study of technocratic government by providing a clear definition of a technocrat and of technocracy more generally; by reviewing the extant literature on the role of technocrats in economic policy with a special focus on the sources of their policy influence and finally by proposing a theoretical framework for understanding the role of technocrats as policymakers.

Roma and Travelers are one of the largest ethnic minority groups in the European Union and have been subjected to racism for centuries. In Cyprus, a country with a very small Roma population, Roma issues -due to historical and political reasons- and particularly issues relating to the education of Roma have not been adequately addressed in the policy agenda and have not been researched sufficiently. Lacking knowledge on how to access social services funds, medical treatment provisions, education, and work, Roma are largely ignored, avoided, and kept on the margins of the local society; they are victims of prejudice and suffer from low educational achievement. Although school enrollment, attendance, and completion among Roma in Cyprus have increased at all school levels since 2010, the rate of early school-leaving among Roma in Cyprus remains high and only a few Roma attend secondary education, while even fewer complete compulsory lower secondary education at the age of 15. In addition, attendance and completion of upper secondary education among Roma of Cyprus remains extremely low, whereas university education has not yet been achieved by any Roma in Cyprus. As in other parts of Europe, Roma social and financial conditions appear to be directly linked to Roma children’s school attendance and the discouragement of Roma children viewing school as a priority. Although education in Cyprus is a key policy area with the highest number of interventions and evaluations since 2010, the number of measures does not necessarily reflect the ambition or the effectiveness of efforts. Cyprus, therefore, needs to incorporate Roma inclusion in accountable ways in its mainstream actions and measures in order to compensate for the disadvantages faced by Roma and to promote equality by combining its mainstream measures with specific Roma-targeted measures. Such measures should not adopt a one-size-fits-all approach, but should recognize that among the major factors contributing to Roma children’s school disengagement is the distance and inconsistency between the Roma family and the local community environment on the one hand, and the school environment and its workings on the other. The policy of Roma integration thus needs to shift to a policy of inclusion by addressing exclusion and the major issues of antigypsyism, discrimination, and racism. In being accountable, these policies need to set benchmarks to be reached, reported, monitored, and evaluated by a single local agency or institution to be able to coordinate the actions of various ministries. The success of such an agency or institution will largely depend on the establishment of a system of consultation with Roma, who are currently absent from relevant decision-making actions and synergies.

European integration and regionalization have been parallel processes over the past five decades, leading to a multilevel governance system where decision-making powers are allocated across European, national, and regional governments. The upshot of both processes is that regional governments have gained representation within European Union (EU) institutions and they have gained the ability to affect EU policy through domestic institutions. Regional governments are involved in the EU policymaking process at the EU level through two institutions: via their representatives in the Committee of the Regions and via the participation of their ministers in the Council of Ministers. Similarly, regional governments are institutionally involved with EU affairs within the member states through three institutional channels: formulation and implementation of EU Cohesion Policy, intergovernmental meetings between national and regional governments to coordinate EU affairs, and subsidiarity monitoring of EU legislation by regional parliaments. The analysis shows that the EU’s multilevel governance system is highly asymmetric. Regional involvement in EU affairs through EU and domestic institutions is mainly restricted to powerful regions which can be predominantly found in the populous, federal, and regionalized member states from Western Europe. In addition, the analysis reveals that regional impact on EU policy is far more apparent within the member states than at the EU level. Furthermore, regional governments prefer to impact EU affairs through or in collaboration with their member state governments rather than bypassing them.

Despite ongoing challenges, the European Union (EU) not only is a major actor on the world stage, but also emphasizes human rights for LGBTI individuals in its internal and external policies, thus setting a powerful example for acceptance and inclusion worldwide. While this establishes the EU as a presumptive normative actor from a liberal human rights perspective, a number of disputes over those rights policies and the way they are promoted have emerged in bilateral relations between the EU and other states in recent years. Given Europe’s colonial history, the fact that the bloc is collectively the world’s largest provider of development assistance, and the volatility of LGBTI human rights defenders, it is important to investigate how the EU and its member states promote LGBTI rights internationally. The EU institutions attempt to jointly formulate and implement guidelines for the external promotion of such rights, though no uniform rights standards exist across the various member states. The compatibility of EU and member states’ conceptions of LGBTI rights and the more general question of how far the EU is, can, or should be a “normative” agenda-setting power on the world stage are central. This heavily contested but also popular ideational concept glosses over the limited consensus that exists in the EU with regard to many of its policies and the role it should assume in international affairs. Such incoherence is particularly evident in normatively contested and geopolitically intertwined areas like sexual rights and equality (ranging from nondiscrimination based on sexual and gender expression to positive rights of partnership recognition and childcare). To the extent that a common approach on LGBTI rights is developed, one can detect promotion attempts in the external policy areas in which rights promotion is formulated and diffused, namely in development and foreign aid, in enlargement and neighborhood policies, and in exchange with other international organizations. However, these come with their own politicizing issues, so that alternatives to the presently emphasized conditionality and visibility policies may provide a better way forward.

The literature on multi-level governance (MLG) and the field of the administrative sciences and public administration (PA) can be fruitfully integrated in order to generate knowledge about “the administrative dimension of MLG.” MLG may be defined by Piattoni as “the simultaneous activation of governmental and non-governmental actors at various jurisdictional levels” and perspectives derived from MLG may be applied to a wide set of issues spanning from political mobilization (politics), to policymaking (policy), to state restructuring (polity). It is along each of these sets of issues that it is possible to delineate the contribution that the field of PA can provide to the development of MLG. To MLG as political mobilization, the PA literature brings insights about participatory approaches and collaborative governance. To MLG as policy in multi-level settings, the PA literature brings insights about the functioning of multi-level administration and the role of a multi-level bureaucracy in policymaking processes occurring in compound political systems; the PA literature also contributes insights on public accountability in systems where decision responsibility is blurred, and issues of legitimacy arise. To MLG as polity restructuring, the PA literature offers insights on the administrative dimension of polity restructuring processes, as well as on the dynamics of systemic change and the change management of public governance arrangements. The study of MLG may benefit from drawing from a range of conceptual tools and models developed in the field of PA. Complementarily, PA as an interdisciplinary field of scholarship may benefit from the perspective of MLG, which provides it with a platform to expand the application of concepts like those of collaborative governance; bureaucratic influence on policymaking; public accountability in multi-actor, multi-level settings; or systemic-level change management. In this sense, the generation of knowledge about the administrative dimension of MLG is an addition to both MLG studies and to the field of PA.

The EU’s Arctic policy process represents and exemplifies a process of foreign-policy formation where forces from the Union’s internal dimension, involving tensions between member-state and community-level interests, have interplayed with influences from external actors and impacts from the system level in global politics. Going back to challenges with its relationship to Greenland, following the Kingdom of Denmark joining the EU in 1973, the Union’s Arctic relations have often been complex and challenging. The difficulties have ranged from the need to acquire better knowledge of the geographic and cultural properties of the Arctic, understanding the role of indigenous lifestyles and cultures; to comprehending the dynamics within and the roles of key regimes in the region, such as United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the Arctic Council. After a decade of gradual policy development, it appears that the EU, with the European Parliament’s resolution of March 16, 2017, on an “Integrated European Union Policy for the Arctic,” has achieved striking a more appropriate balance between the role as passive observer and as proactive actor in the High North.

Making decisions is a complex and often problem-ridden process in a union of almost 30 member states. Most political science research hence discusses aspects of either decision-making or contents of specific EU policies. However, intricacies do not end when the governments and the European Parliament come to an agreement about, for example, regulative standards in a given policy. In actual fact, it is all but clear that the rules decided on the top layer of the European multi-level system will be implemented on the lower levels, ranging from the central governments of member states down to local communities. Multi-facetted issues related to the actual practice of implementing EU rules, and the Commission’s tough job in controlling this compound process, need to be addressed, while also evaluating the social science coverage of the topic. Research has a strong bias toward looking into the early phases of the implementation of EU law as opposed to the later ones, a trend which has only somewhat softened in the “new school” of relevant studies. A hardly researched but increasingly relevant factor in non-compliance with EU law is unwillingness by national governments. Therefore, it is important to consider the state of the rule of law in several member states and democratic backsliding—both essential for a healthy European integration process.

Leadership in the European Union is an empirical phenomenon that has increasingly come to attract scholarly attention. While a call for leadership in the EU is often heard, not least in times of crisis, it is also accompanied with a general reluctance to centralize powers. This leadership paradox has historical roots and has resulted in a dispersed type of leadership governance at the EU level. Scholarly work varies from mainly descriptive accounts of leadership by particular individuals to more theory-testing approaches to leadership. The academic field of EU leadership studies contains variation along three primary dimensions: (1) how leadership is defined, (2) by which theories it is explained, and (3) through which empirical cases and approaches it is studied. First, there is a wide differentiation in the literature of how leadership is defined and approached as an object of study. Four leadership approaches can be distinguished in the literature, focusing on the role of individuals, an actor’s position, the process of leadership enactment, and the outcomes produced by leadership. Second, leadership in the EU has been theorized and explained in a variety of ways. Explaining leadership in the EU requires an understanding of what power resources different actors draw on, ranging from material to institutional and ideational powers. These sources often also translate into different types of leadership strategies. A substantial amount of research has departed from rational choice institutionalism, which highlights the importance of a formal position to exercise leadership. Sociological approaches have more recently attracted attention to conceptualize leadership as a social role based on the interaction between leaders and followers. Third, the empirical study of leadership in the EU encompasses a range of different approaches in terms of the type of actors studied, the issues covered, and the data and methods used. EU leadership studies include different types of leadership actors ranging from individuals to institutions, member states, and the EU itself as a global leadership actor. The empirical policy domains vary from issues relating to treaty amending processes, environment and climate policies, eurozone governance and crisis management, to foreign and security policy. Although comparative studies of leadership in the EU exist, the focus has predominantly been on single actors during particular policy processes. An increasing use of explicit comparative designs in the study of EU leadership could have the potential to further advance theory building in the scholarship of EU leadership.

In 1958, the European Economic Community was formed as a customs union with a common external tariff. From then on, the Common Commercial Policy—also known as the European Union’s (EU) trade policy—served as the interface between the increasingly integrated common market and its external trade partners. Like the creation of the single market, contemporary trade policy has long transcended discussions about tariffs and quotas at the border and has focused increasingly on the impediments to trade caused by regulatory divergences. Whether they concern agricultural subsidies or cultural protections, rules on public procurement or food standards, insofar as a regulation discriminates against exporters, it can potentially be part of a trade negotiation. The evolving nature of trade policy has triggered a redefinition of both the scope of the EU’s exclusive competencies as well as the procedures to govern this policy domain. The central actor in EU trade policy is the European Commission, which is the designated negotiator for external trade agreements. Whereas member states always played a crucial role in overseeing such negotiations in the Council, the European Parliament has only taken up a position of power since 2009. Beyond securing market access abroad and protecting domestic sectors at home, post-material values have come to feature more prominently in the balancing act of contemporary trade discussions. This has galvanized a far wider range of societal actors to lobby the EU institutions in order to tilt the balance in their favor. Complicating matters even further, the EU conducts a large part of its foreign policy through the Common Commercial Policy. Contrary to most other instruments of the EU’s external action, trade policy is an exclusive competency of the EU. Fostering development, promoting stability, providing humanitarian aid, and the promotion and enforcement of human rights and sustainable development commitments are but a few of the many objectives pursued via trade policy. However, there are clear limitations to the fungibility of the EU’s large market power for foreign policy objectives. It should therefore be clear that the literature on the Common Commercial Policy is extremely diverse. Situated at the nexus of international political economy, regulatory governance, and foreign policy, it has become a well-studied policy domain through a great variety of theoretical and disciplinary lenses. The prominence of trade scholarship in EU studies is unlikely to change soon as developments at the international level, where the Western liberal order is under increasing pressure, but also domestically, where the contestation of several trade negotiations and the position of trade policy within the EU’s broader external action, are set to animate future debates.

Denmark’s relationship with the European Union (EU) takes its point of departure in the Danish self-perception of being a minor power with a superior societal model. This calls for both adaptation to the power realities of the European political space and resistance against infringements of the Danish societal model, occasionally supplemented by attempts at actively influencing EU policy-making. Denmark’s general EU posture is reactive and defensive with a stronger focus on defending autonomy than influencing the future of the EU. It is pragmatic and functionalist, seeking primarily to utilize EU membership to secure the economic sustainability of the welfare state. Danish EU policy is increasingly characterized by dualism, navigating the integration dilemma in a way that allows for simultaneous protection against political integration and uploading of Danish interests to the EU level.

Enlargement has been one of the European Union’s (EU) most successful foreign policies, but it has its limits: the EU cannot expand endlessly. The Treaty on European Union stipulates that any European country may apply for membership if the state respects and follows the EU’s democratic values and meets all the membership criteria. The timely process can be shown by the example of Estonia. Estonia applied for membership in 1995 and became a member in 2004. Estonia had been occupied by the Soviet Union for a long time and, due to that, the skepticism of joining a new union arose when the membership talks started. Estonia has gone through a very interesting historical period from regaining its independence, its path to the EU membership, eventual EU membership, and the country’s EU presidency in the second half of 2017. In the 1990s, the integration into the EU was accepted by many Estonians as a touchstone of belonging to the free world, a status as that would help to consolidate freedom and boost the economy. The harmonization of Estonian economic, legal, political and social system into the EU framework was a difficult and not a problem-free process. There were several heated discussions related to the sovereignty and constitutional independence the accession turned out to be possible. The majority of Estonians still supports the EU membership. After joining EU, Estonians feel more secure, granted with freedom, and well-being. According to a Eurobarometer survey, citizens feel the biggest benefits in the area of free movement of persons, goods, and services. Estonia has also significantly contributed to the structures of the EU. However, the growth of Euro-skepticism can be also detected recently in Estonia with growing popularity of the Conservative People’s Party of Estonia, a member of a government coalition established after the parliamentary elections of 2019. Enlargement has been one of the European Union’s (EU) most successful foreign policies, but it has its limits: the EU cannot expand endlessly. The Treaty on European Union stipulates that any European country may apply for membership if the state respects and follows the EU’s democratic values and meets all the membership criteria. The timely process can be shown by the example of Estonia. Estonia applied for membership in 1995 and became a member in 2004. Estonia had been occupied by the Soviet Union for a long time and, due to that, the skepticism of joining a new union arose when the membership talks started. Estonia has gone through a very interesting historical period from regaining its independence, its path to the EU membership, eventual EU membership, and the country’s EU presidency in the second half of 2017. In the 1990s, the integration into the EU was accepted by many Estonians as a touchstone of belonging to the free world, a status as that would help to consolidate freedom and boost the economy. The harmonization of Estonian economic, legal, political and social system into the EU frameworkwas a difficult and not a problem-free process. There were several heated discussions related to the sovereignty and constitutional independence the accession turned out to be possible. The majority of Estonians still supports the EU membership. After joining EU, Estonians feel more secure, granted with freedom, and well-being According to a Eurobarometer survey, citizens feel the biggest benefits in the area of free movement of persons, goods, and services. . Estonia has also significantly contributed to the structures of the EU. However, the growth of Euro-skepticism can be also detected recently in Estonia with growing popularity of the Conservative People’s Party of Estonia, a member of a government coalition established after the parliamentary elections of 2019.

Finland joined the European Union together with Austria and Sweden at the beginning of 1995. At first glance, Finnish membership appeared as a rapid change of political orientation, given the inflexible policy of neutrality the country had maintained until the early 1990s. In spite of the brevity of national adaptation and consideration, the decision to follow Sweden and submit an application for EU membership was based on an overwhelming political consensus. All the major political elites, including party and interest organizations, key actors in the private sector, and the media were in favor of Finnish membership. In the referendum for EU membership in October 1994, membership was supported by 57% of the people. A stable popular support characterized the Finnish EU policy for the first 15 years of its EU membership and distinguished Finland from its Nordic neighbours in the EU. The popular approach was anchored in a perception of EU membership representing a comprehensive change from the country’s difficult position in the Cold War era to full-fledged membership in the Western community. Finland thus joined the EU’s currency union as the only Nordic member state and adopted a constructive approach toward more integration in most policy fields. It was only in the context of the economic and financial crisis of 2008–2009 that Finnish public opinion became—at least temporarily—heavily polarized by the EU question. This resembled the situation in many other EU member states. During the two decades of Finland’s EU membership, the country has experienced a Europeanization of its political system and legislation. EU membership has contributed to a further parliamentarization of Finland’s semi-presidential political system with EU affairs being designated to the powers of the government and coordination of policies taking place at the prime minister’s office. Due mainly to EU membership, the Finnish Parliament has also become an influential actor in foreign and European policies. Finland has smoothly adjusted to the EU’s policies and has become a persistent proponent of the EU’s unity in external relations. Since the first years of its EU membership, the country has been in favor of majority decisions and a stronger role played by the commission and the EP in the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). It has also gone through a major change in its legislation on crisis management and the tasks of defense forces to be able to better fulfill membership commitments to the EU’s security and defense policies. After the polarization of EU opinion taking place in the framework of the general elections of 2011, and leading to the emergence of an anti-EU “Finns Party” as the third-largest party in Finland, a more consensual atmosphere has recently returned with increasing levels of public support to EU membership. The Finns Party first made its way to the governmental coalition together with the two largest center-right parties in 2015, which significantly softened its EU criticism and moved its focus to an anti-immigration agenda. Finally, in 2017 the Finns Party was split into two parts with the more moderate part practically failing to establish itself in parliamentary or European elections of the spring 2019.

Solidarity is one of most contentious and contested concepts in European Union (EU) politics. At the same time, it was, and remains, a central value of European integration that has been more and more institutionalized over time. The numerous codifications in the EU treaties and the Charter of Fundamental Rights, along with the increasingly frequent references to the value in political declarations and decisions, prove the value’s growing significance. Yet, there also exists a fundamental divide between rhetorical commitments to solidarity and the practice of the EU and its member states. The most recent crises of the EU have shown the instrumentality and strategic use of the concept in order to promote particular political positions rather than work toward a more common understanding of European solidarity. This makes the application of solidarity in the EU a question not just of arriving at definitional clarity, but also of developing practices that reflect solidarity in concrete cases. Such practices are inextricably linked with three grounds for action: voluntariness, selflessness, and identification. Despite, or precisely because of, these difficulties in defining, concertizing, and implementing solidarity as a European value, there is a rising interest in solidarity in various fields of studies, such as political science, sociology, philosophy, law, and history, making it an interdisciplinary and multidimensional subject matter.

The European integration process of the Western Balkans has been experiencing considerable stagnation since 2010, although the regional states have been formally following the accession stages. In spite of the remarkable achievements in the 2000s in terms of stability and engagement in reforms, the European Union (EU) conditionality policy is experiencing shortcomings in terms of tangible impact. Due also to its internal problems, the EU appears to have lost its shine in influencing domestic political agendas of the Western Balkan countries as in the case of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and has gradually lost the support of citizens in the region. This has had several consequences in terms of rising authoritarian practices, slowing down EU-related reforms and compliance with the acquis, some return to nationalistic rhetoric, and openness to influences of other global actors from the East, which do not necessarily maintain good relations with the EU. The enlargement fatigue that has affected the EU since the 2008 global crisis has had repercussions inside the EU institutions and domestic politics of member states. These changes have been reflected in the Union’s approach towards accession countries, undermining the credibility of the integration process and its commitment to the Western Balkans. The weakening of credibility and predictability on this path, together with the poor state capacities that characterize the Western Balkans, have produced some regress of the democracy indicators. The EU, with its conditionality, is still a determining factor in the trajectory of the countries of the region. However, there is a need to renew the commitments undertaken on both sides in order to make sure that the European perspective, stability, and democratization in the Western Balkans are irreversible and properly supported. The European Union is still considered the only game in town, but it has to face up to the enlargement fatigue and return to its leading role as an aspirational model for the Western Balkans.

India took a keen interest in the nascent European Economic Community (EEC) and was acutely concerned about the adverse implications of the British application for membership. New Delhi was one of the first developing countries to establish diplomatic relations with the EEC and the first non-associate member developing country to sign a commercial cooperation agreement. During the Cold War, relations with India were of marginal interest for Brussels, especially as South Asia was traditionally considered a British domain and a complex region beset with intractable problems. In the early 1990s, India sought an upgraded political dialogue with the EU as the West moved up in its foreign policy calculus as a market, source of technology, and foreign direct investment. Brussels no longer had to look at India through the prism of Cold War equations. India had in fact become more interesting because of its economic reforms and liberalization policies. Recognition of India’s growing stature and influence regionally and globally, growing economic interest in a rapidly and consistently growing economy, acquisition of nuclear weapons, steadily improving relations with the United States, and acceptance of India as a potential global player led the European Union to launch in 2005 a strategic partnership with India. India and the European Union have a multilayered institutional architecture with annual summits (since 2000), a Joint Commission, and over 30 sectoral dialogues encompassing political, security, economic, cultural dimensions, some of which still need to acquire a more operational character. Even in 2020 the India–EU relationship continues to be basically driven by trade and economic relations though it now encompasses diverse areas including climate change, energy, science and technology, migration and mobility. The European Union is India’s biggest trade partner and a major source of technology, foreign direct investments, and a major destination for Indian investment overseas. In the 2010s, the European Union and Member States are becoming active developmental partners in the realization of key flagship programs like Clean India, Smart Cities, renewable energy, skills and technology. Growing convergence at the fourteenth India–EU summit (October 2017) reflected convergence on important global issues like a rule-based international order as well as on the Iran nuclear deal, the Paris climate change treaty, Myanmar and the North Korean imbroglio. The India Strategy Paper 3.0—“Elements for an EU Strategy on India” (2018)—outlines an ambitious roadmap for the 2020s to more meaningfully engage India in building a multifaceted strategic partnership with India.

The debate on whether or not the European Union (EU) is suffering from a democratic deficit is “crowded territory.” The debate is not only far-reaching but has evolved along with the transformation of the system of European governance. In the 1990s the “standard version of the democratic deficit” was developed. This drives on the observation that EU member states have transferred powers to the supranational construction of the EU and as such these powers escape national parliamentary control. The fact that the European Parliament was a rather weak institution is seen as to further aggravate the situation. While this is, since the early 2000s, no longer seen as an adequate standard of comparison and indicator for the democratic quality of the EU, the EU democratic system is still seen to fall short on different accounts, for example when it comes both to participatory and representative democracy. This might come as a surprise, as the EU has undertaken a number of reforms especially since and by way of the Maastricht Treaty to make the EU more “democratic.” For example, the (indirect) involvement of national parliaments into EU policymaking was strengthened or the tool of the European Citizen Initiative (ECI) was introduced. As such, the debate on the democratic deficit is not only academic but takes place within the political arena. It is consequential by being mirrored in treaty changes and thus also functional. Overall these tools are seen to fall short however, at least so far. One reason seems to be expectation management. The terms used seem to be very “loaded”. For example, the notion is evoked that the Union is a representative democracy. Moreover piecemeal reform leads to different modes of representation. While some of these objectives have been achieved, for example, by providing access of certain groups to decision-making process, others are excluded, which can in fact exacerbate the democratic deficit. Overall the “traditional” debate on the democratic deficit has taken on a new quality: the context of emergence of the so-called illiberal democracies at the member state level. It has been stated already almost 20 years ago that the EU will have to invent new forms of citizenship, representation, and decision making if it is ever to democratize itself. It seems that the EU has tried to do so partially, but the use of far-reaching and normative notions and concepts is bound to fall short in a system that is in constant flux and very heterogeneous.