European Union institutions and policies

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The course (offered in English) is an optional course for undergraduate and postgraduate students. Originally addressed to Erasmus+ students, it became, since 2018 a regular course of the Department of Political Sciences, offered to the students of the Department, whether regularly enrolled or under an Erasmus+ mobility and students in other schools of the University, during the winter semester.

The main objectives of the course are fourfold. It aims to:

introduce students to the multilevel institutional system of the European Union (EU);
map the processes through which European and national actors are involved in policymaking at the EU level;
expose the main problems and dilemmas currently confronting the EU; and
discuss the most likely scenarios for the future of European integration.

The course is organized around seminars and the students are required to prepare in advance for the lectures. It is strongly interactive, and students are encouraged to participate actively and guide the course. It consists of 13 3-hour lectures (with a total of 39 hours for the semester) which are offered by two professors (Associate Professor Ioannis Papageorgiou covers 22 hours and Assistant Professor Georgios Andreou covers 17 hours during the first two years and the totality of the course during the third).

The lectures are structured as follows (each part lasts 3 hours apr. and is fully supported with Power Point Presentations (in brackets, the lectures offered by each professor during the first two years):

Introductory part
- The historical development of the EU – an overview (Papageorgiou)
- Main concepts of European integration (Andreou)
The EU institutions under the Lisbon Treaty
- The institutional structure of the European Union – objectives, values, competences, membership (Papageorgiou)
- The institutional structure of the European Union – supranational and intergovernmental institutions (Papageorgiou)
EU decision-making process: dynamics in policy making
- Policy-making in the EU – the ordinary legislative procedure (Papageorgiou)
- Policy-making in the EU – economic governance (Andreou)
- Policy-making in the EU – the Multiannual Financial Framework and the EU budget (Andreou)
- Policy-making in the EU – external relations and defense cooperation (Papageorgiou)
EU crises – EU challenges
- The EU in crisis – the Eurozone crisis (Andreou)
- The EU in crisis – the migration crisis (Papageorgiou)
Scenarios and outlook for the future (Andreou)

The course allows students to acquire a comprehensive view of the institutional system and functioning of the EU as well as the dynamics of its decision- and policy-making processes. They will also be able to study and discuss current economic, political and social developments in Europe in the light of the various interdependences between the national, the EU and the international level and possess the necessary intellectual baggage in order to study particular aspects of the institutional process of the EU and/ or examine specific forms of governance with a significant European dimension.

European Union institutions and policies

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