| Description: | This course focuses on the process of European integration and the evolution of the European Union by exploring the ideas and political practices that underlie this institution. The course will explore the potential of an emerging political entity that would at a minimum be an economic super power. The associated debate over what it means to be a 'European' also raises important issues of political culture and national identity. This course will be divided into two parts: a first, institutional, part will emphasis economic aspects, institutions, policies and legislation of the European Community, the internal market, the ESCB, the ECB and the euro. A second part, focused on some parts of the Treaty, will give students specific insights into commercial policies, and particular emphasis will be given to transport policy: freedom of movement, competition, taxation and approximation of laws. The last part of the course is focused on investigating the transformations that the transport framework has experienced under EU rule. Since its foundation in 1957, the European Union has developed its scope mostly in the commercial domain, with acceleration from the end of the 20th Century, with completion of a Common Market and of the Monetary Union. Within this framework, transport has been deeply affected by Community action, as an effect of implementation of both freedom of services and opening of transport markets. This part of the course is aimed at providing a general outlook of EU developments in commercial policies and a more in-depth analysis of rules on competition and harmonization of domestic legal and administrative legislation. |