Public Policy-Making in the EU after Enlargement [antikvár]

PrefaceThe 'Together for Europe' Research Centre at the Budapest Corvinus University, supported by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, had two major profiles between 2003 and 2006: first, it conducted research on the EU issues, and, second, it dealt with the teaching of the MA and PhD students in political science. In these profiles it developed intensive international connections with the EU-Consent (FP6 project, Network of Excellence) as well as domestic connections with the OTKA (National Research Foundation, T046919). In the EU-Consent the topic of research has been 'Wider Europe, deeper integration Constructing Europe', 2005-2009) and in the OTKA 'European Governance and Hungarian Accession' (2005-2008). The Together for Europe Research Centre focused its research on the EU developments and dealt with their impact on the new member states, especially Hungary, in both research frameworks. Parallel with this research, the members of this Centre were PhD students themselves, engaged in teaching other students at the BA and MA levels. This teaching and research experience has been summarized in the present volume that fits also the Teaching "work package" of the EU-Consent project. Thus hopefully it will be used not only by Hungarian students but also other students dealing with the EU public policy and having contact with the EU-Consent project.The present volume on the European Governance contains three long papers on the important EU public policies, namely on public administration, environmental policy and social policy. All the three papers have elaborated first the EU policy framework in that particular aspect and they have continued with the detailed analysis of its specific implementation in Hungary, in an East Central European context. The papers have made a big effort to give a wide theoretical foundation, namely the first paper has connected the European Governance with the recent public sector reforms in the new member states, the second paper has offered an insight to the new policies of the EU like the environment regulation and protection in general, and finally, the third paper has put the social policy of the EU into the broad perspectives of the Lisbon Strategy.Hopefully, both the research efforts on the European Governance and the empirical descriptions of these policies in Hungary will provide a useful guide not only for the students concerned but also for a much wider audience in the European Studies.Attila ÁghDirector of the Together for Europe Research Group Member of Steering Group of the EU-Consent