European Union Law Research Papers (original) (raw)

Today, European Studies as broadly understood have become an important discipline within the humanities and social sciences. The reason for this is, first of all, the contemporary significance of the issues covered by European Studies, that is the processes of European integration and the functioning of Europe both politically and as a specific cultural area. These issues generate a great deal of interest owing to Europe’s fluid position in the contemporary world. While not without objective limitations, it remains one of the key actors in the international arena and its influence still extends to all corners of the world. At the same time, European Studies are one of the most interesting disciplines at they are in a state of constant development, still searching for its own field and research matter as well as its own methodology and research instruments. As demonstrated in this book, these complex issues often give rise to doubt and con troversy. Hence the attempts to analyse them are both fascinating and important, and have attracted the interest of a growing number of academics all over the world, and within the last 25 years increasingly often of Polish scholars as well. These Polish scholars include the research staff of the Centre for Europe of the University of Warsaw, one of the oldest academic units of this profile in Poland. Not long ago, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Centre. Although 20 years might not seem impressive compared to similar centres operating in the Western part of Europe, we have to take into account the speci ficity of the Polish context, which is dealt with in the first group of texts in this book. This is a time for a reflection, summing up the achievements made in various disciplines and emphasising that in the two decades of our operation we have come a very long way. The Centre for Europe started as a unit of the University of Warsaw established to promote knowledge and information about European integration. This task was realised in the form of trainings, conferences, seminars, exhibitions, etc. Over time, our scope of activity was considerably broadened and, what’s more important, gradually became ever more academic. Presently, the Centre has attained the status of an autonomous, full-fledged organisational unit functioning as a faculty of the University of Warsaw. Our intensive activity includes didactics in the form of both undergraduate and graduate programmes in European Studies (europeistyka), as well as academic research. The results of our research are presented at various scientific conferences in Poland and abroad, as well as in numerous publications. We still play an important role as a centre spreading information and knowledge, e.g. through our highly esteemed library, which also plays the role of European Documentation Centre. We also have our own Publishing Programme, under which we issue two academic periodicals: the Polish quarterly “Studia Europejskie” and the English-language “Yearbook of Polish European Studies”. Furthermore, we publish various books in Polish and in foreign languages in the form of academic textbooks, studies and monographs, including the present work. While not wishing to engage in self-praise, we nonetheless should point out that our activity has been appreciated by external entities, which is shown, for instance, by the fact that the Centre for Europe has been placed in the highest cat egory in the official ranking of academic units compiled by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education. We also try to perceive our activity in the broader perspective, not only as the functioning of a single institution. The two decades of the Centre’s existence is an important symbol of the transformations taking place in Poland and in Polish science. The launching of studies on European issues was only pos sible because of the general democratic transformations taking place in Poland, and its opening up to the world, especially to Europe. Our activity constitutes proof that Polish academic science has made the adjustments necessary to meet the requirements of modernity and that it continues to focus on the important challenges accompanying the rapid changes taking place in the world. We would like our anniversary to constitute a symbol of the increasingly close ties between Poland and the European Union, of which Poles remain enthusiastic proponents, even despite the current problems facing the EU. At the same time, we desire ever fuller and closer cooperation with our EU partners, as we consider this an important element in furthering the development of Polish science. We hope that the Centre for Europe will continue to contribute to this development, which is one of the aims underlying this publication. This book is the result of an international research project conducted by the Centre for Europe, University of Warsaw, in cooperation with Ukrainian universities, in particular with the Institute of European Integration and Faculty of International Relations at the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. The project was co-financed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland under the cyclical programme ‘Cooperation in the Field of Public Diplomacy 2012’. One of the key goals of this undertaking was to prepare a book containing a methodological and factual introduction to European Studies. Our publication is not aimed at presenting the achievements of Polish scholars in this discipline, but at facilitating university education and academic research in this field. Hence we are not trying to devise a full compendium of knowledge about the vari ous aspects of the phenomena and processes of Euro pean integration, or to put it broadly – Europe treated as a specific civilisational area. As the title suggests, in this work we try to outline the most important notions which, in our opinion, European Studies should be dealing with. We know that the issues in question are interdisciplinary, hence the authors approach them from various perspectives: political science, law, economics, social studies, cultural studies. The publication consists of seven parts, comprising a total of 33 chapters. They correspond to individual groups of notions and concern the following problems: the methodology of conducting research under broadly-defined European Studies; the genesis and course of the integration processes in Europe; the functioning of EU law and the EU institutional system; the principles and mechanisms of European economic cooperation; the analysis of the selected key policies implemented by the EU; issues related to EU foreign policy and its significance in the contemporary world; and social issues and the role of culture in Europe. Apart from focusing on the contemporary context of these problems, we also take into account their historical background and future prospects. The authors of this publication are mainly members of the research staff of the Centre for Europe, University of Warsaw, who have devised the concept of the work and wrote the majority of its chapters. In this endeavour, they enjoyed ample and invaluable support from researchers from other Polish and foreign universities, especially from the Insti tute of International Relations and the Faculty of Management at the University of Warsaw, as well as the Warsaw School of Economics, the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, the Kozminski University in Warsaw, the National University of Lviv, and the University of Latvia in Riga. Here with we would like to express our thanks to all those who contributed to the content of this book, as well as to those who helped us in terms of organisation and funding – in particular the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the University of Warsaw.