Chinese Journal of European Studies No.6 ,2009

ARTICLES

1  On the Financial Regulation and Supervision in the United Kingdom

Since the 1980s the financial regulation and supervision in the United Kingdom has witnessed important changes. This paper first reviews the results of the so-called "Big Bang" policy implemented by the Thatcher administration and explains why the United Kingdom adopted a unified model of financial regulation and supervision. It then explores the new changes emerging in recent years in this area. Finally, it endeavors to answer the following questions: 1) Is a single supervisor more effective than multiple supervisors? 2) Is "free banking" harmful or helpful? 3) How should we evaluate financial innovations after the global financial crisis? and  4) How should we understand the position of the UK  as an international financial center in the future?

16  An Analysis of the Population Dilemma and Adjustment of the Regulating Policy in Germany

Germany is the country with the largest population in Europe and the population dilemma has been one of the core problems disturbing its socio-economic development. Started as an interpretative basis respectively from the factors like resource endowments, the dynamic development of the industrial economy, value orientation of different social strata, or the historical and cultural foundations of the various races and nations, divergent conclusions have been reached about whether the population problem really exists in Germany, about its adverse impacts and the corresponding regulating policies to be followed. This paper aims to study the status quo and the risks of Germany's population dilemma from the perspectives of the scale, structure and spatial distribution of population by analyzing the relevant historical materials and latest data and to discuss the future trend of the possible adjustment of Germany's regulating policy in this field.

31  The Europeanization of the German Federal System

With the deepening of the European integration, its influence on the German federal system has become more obvious and intensive. In the process of the transfer of sovereign powers to the EU,the Bund (federation) and the Lnder (states) have to strike a political balance under the federal system. To a great extent, the Europeanization of the German federal system began with the participation of the Lnder, directly and indirectly, in the decision-making of EU affairs, which hereafter found expressions in the increasingly clearer division of powers between the Bund and the Lnder. After the 2006 reform of the federal system, the power division between the Bund and the Lnder has progressively taken that of the EU as reference, Germany has begun to transform from a unitary cooperative federal state to a competitive one and the Europeanization has thus touched upon the goals, instruments and governance philosophy of the German federal system.

47  Social Policy Preferences of the French Socialist Party: Traditions and Transformation

Since the 1980s, as the west European welfare states entered into a post-industrial era, it became a general problem facing the left-wing parties of Western Europe to adapt themselves to the transformation from the traditional to the new politics. Through an analysis of the changes of the social policy preferences of the French Socialist Party from 1981 to 2002, this paper points out that the foundation on which it builds its preferences has changed from an alliance based on class to a new politics based on labor market division. However, limited by the current social structure, this policy preference led to high expenditure on social protection and high unemployment rate, which indicates that great challenges exist to the European left parties who take social democracy as their ideology.

59  The European Green Party as a Euro-party: In the case of the 2009 EP Elections

The European Green Party (EGP) has, to a large extent, maintained its organizational structure and theoretical orientation, most of which came into being at its second Congress in 2006, while at the same time, it is pursuing its ideological and policy adjustments started much earlier in 2004 under not only a new title of the Party but also a dramatically changing political and economic environment in Europe. In this sense, the 2009 European Parliament elections can be considered as a primary test on such a transformation process of the EGP. In view of the complicated nature of the evidence, it cannot be easily claimed that the EGP is rapidly involving into a Euro-party in its full sense, but by integrating a more pro-European position and a more Europe/EU-focused election strategy, it is undoubtedly the most "European" Euro-party in today's European politics.

71  Soft Governance in the EU's Environment Policy: Retreat of "Integration through Law"?

Given the complexity and interdisciplinary nature of the environmental issues, the governance theory, due to its blurring of the roles and positions of the sovereign states in the policy network, is generally more suitable to analyze the EU's environment policy. This paper first discusses the EU's environmental governance and then, it analyzes the causes and significance of soft governance after summarizing and making a comparison between the characteristics of EU environmental governance and those of  the transformed governance models emerged when handling climate change. The author argues that soft governance is a complement to "integration through law", which consists of a part of and is a new approach to EU good governance.

84  A Brief Analysis of Directive 2004/48/EC on the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights

Directive 2004/48/EC on the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights (EU Enforcement Directive), containing mainly the scope of intellectual property rights, subjects of actions, rules of evidence, rights to information and civil and administrative procedures and reliefs like interim and precautionary measures and the compensation for damages, is a noteworthy step for the intellectual property protection in the EU single market. It is aimed at combating the counterfeit and pirate products, as well as at harmonizing the intellectual property legislation in the EU. It has both similarities and dissimilarities compared with the enforcement clauses in the TRIPS agreement, especially in that the TRIPS plus clauses reflect the tendency of the EU's strengthening of intellectual property protection, which not only bears great significance for the IP system within the EU, but also stimulates global debates on the enforcement of intellectual property rights between the developed and developing countries.

100  EU-Ukraine Relations after the EU's Eastern Enlargement: From the Perspective of the European Neighborhood Policy

After the EU's eastern enlargement in 2004 Ukraine has become the most important neighboring country of the EU. In fact, the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP), which was launched in 2003 in order to build a new partnership between the enlarged EU and its neighbors, was initially aimed at relieving the pressure on the EU caused by Ukrainian application to join the EU. Ukraine constitutes a critical test case and challenge to the viability and success of the ENP. President Yushchenco who came to power after the Orange Revolution claimed that the European integration was the cornerstone of Ukrainian foreign policy and domestic reform，which was very different with his predecessor Kuchma's so called "multi-vector" foreign policy. It thus indicates clearly the change of the Ukrainian perception of the ENP. On the whole, EU-Ukraine relations have made some progresses in the post-EU eastern enlargement. Meanwhile, Russia as well as Ukrainian domestic political uncertainty also plays an important role in EU-Ukraine relations.

115  Disparities in the Labor Productivity among the EU,US and Japan since the Mid-1990s

Disparities in the economic growth and labor productivity among the EU, US and Japan started to emerge in the mid-1990s. This paper makes use of the EU-KLEMS database to explore the determinants of the disparities from two aspects: factor decomposition and industrial sectors. Seen from the first aspect, it is the total factor productivity that contributes most significantly to the disparities; while from the second one, it is the market service industry (especially distribution and financial business service)that produces the greatest impacts on the disparities.

130  An Overview of the Western Scholars' Study on Religions and Regional Conflicts

The worldwide resurgence of religions since the end of the Cold War seems to have generated a fresh recurrence of violence, with the case of Kosovo the most typical. In the pursuit of peace, the Western academics have been exploring relations between religions and regional conflicts and identified the role of religions in regional conflicts from a variety of perspectives. After reviewing the evolution of Western scholars' studies on the relationships between religions and regional conflicts by taking Kosovo's religious conflict as a case study, the author concludes that the debate on the effect of religion is inevitable and that the objectivity of the Western scholars on this subject is questionable.

ACADEMIC ACTIVITIES

147  The 2009 Annual Meeting of CAES:China-Europe Relations under the Financial Crisis

SONG Xiaomin