This essay seeks to gain understanding on the thoughts of Konrad Adenauer regarding the future of Europe in the post-WWII era, and European integration in particular. The material used is his memoirs, which gives an insight into the part of his thought that he chose to share with the rest of the world. The essay uses an analytical framework of three theories, popular within the academic discipline of international relations: realism, liberalism and constructivism. The conclusion it draws is that none of the theories can in a satisfying way describe Adenauer?s thoughts, but rather that they all in some way describe certain elements of his thoughts.

This thesis tackles the subject concerning arguments as a conceptual basis forunderstanding the general strategy of the European Union Commission on issuesconcerning EU-harmonized environmental taxes, politically delicate and intergovernmentaldependent. The Commission's official proposals, communications and other relevant documents are subject to inquiry, where the theoretical bases are that harmonized environmental taxes in the EU is an issue conceived as supported by academic debate, and where the institutional arrangement in relation to an European-national dimension alongside the discursive context, allows meaningfulspace for arguments. The study makes a distinction between substantial (environmental cancerns in itself) and instrumental (other benefits, mostly economic ones) rationality as a foundation in various types of arguments.The study's main findings are that the Commission's official documents over the past 20 years, have been trying to keep a strong image of reason and knowledge based arguments for an EU-wide environmental tax reform. In particular, the types of arguments tend to appeal to the Member States by stressing the instrumental rationality in a European environmental tax reform, indicating the value of good arguments as a part of the Commission's main strategies. In sum, this may have further theoretical suggestions concerning questions of environmental and elimate change policies in a European context or other more general studies relying on theoretical assumptions of logics of argument, legitimacy or studies of motives behind action strategies in politically sensitive issues such as taxation at supranationallevel..

The aim of this essay is to give the reader an idea of how the European agricultural policies have developed, in regard of sustainable development, since Sweden became a member in the union 1995. The main aspect that?s been investigated is the issues regarding sustainable development and how the issues regarding the ecological farming methods have been dealt with. My research questions are:- How has the European environment- and agricultural politics changed since Swedenjoined the union in 1995?- What consequences have the changes had for ecological farming?The answers to the stated questions are that there have been several treaties in the field of environmental development of the agricultural policy, starting with the Maastricht treaty and ends up with the European Action Plan for Organic Food and Farming.

The European Union has been working to promote equality between women and men for a long time. Despite this, Sweden still have a gender segregated labor market where men generally has the leading positions. According to European law the member states shall promote gender equality and to take all appropriate measures. Statutory gender quotas for company boards is one such measure that some of the European member states have implemented in national law. The Swedish law has no provisions governing gender quotas and therefore the purpose of this study is to explain how gender quotas for company boards relate to current law, both of European law and national legislation.

This study is mostly based on previous research, which includes Sub-national actor?s attitudes and regional action towards the European Union. The purpose of the study is to investigate if four Swedish municipalities in Värmland operate internationally towards the European Union and deepen an understanding of their actions. The main research question is: - How can we increase our understanding of municipal action against the European Union? The research questions of this study are answered through qualitative method and semi-structured interviews were conducted.

The purpose of this degree project was to examine which remedies are available to individuals when the State has violated their right to a fair trial as stated in article 6 in the European Convention on Human Rights. Furthermore, the aim was to, in cases where the remedy is determined to money, to clarify the indemnity rates that apply in determining the non-pecuniary damages. The starting point was a review of the European Court practice, domestic Swedish practice and relevant literature.The outcome of the review is that the remedies available to the individual?s disposal can be divided into two categories: primary and secondary remedies. Primary remedies mean compensation not consisting of money, and must be exhausted first.

The aim of this master´s thesis is to investigate how Aftonbladet/Sportbladet is describing the Swedish national men team in football during the European Championship years 1992, 2004 and 2008. Reading over 200 articles gave me an excellent overview of the differences and similarities between the three chosen periods. The theoretical framework has three key terms which circulates around the paper. The terms are discourse, stereotype and national identity. Several results are presented and discussed; some are included in this abstract.

The European Union is struggling to maintain democracy and tries to increase the participation among the citizens in Europe. The European Citizens? Initiative, ECI, is a platform established by the European Commission to allow citizens to propose new legislation. ?Water and sanitation are a human right! Water is a public good, not a commodity!? is the first ECI that has met the requirements.

This thesis has its focuson media portrayal of a large political institution; the European Union. Articles from two nations daily newspapers have been analyzed in order to examine how the European Union is described and framed for their readers. The newspapers that was chosen for this study and from which the material was collected, were the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet the American newspaper The New York Times. The material was taken from three periods of time, and by this the results did not only serve a presentiment on how the media reports about the subject, but also an idea over the media?s coverage character over time.

AbstractTitle: How does Europeanization effect Swedish alcohol policy? .Titel: Hur påverkar Europeiseringen svensk alkoholpolitik?Minor Thesis in Political Science, January 2008Author : Markus GustafssonTutor : Lennart BergfeldtVäxjö UniversityThis essay will deal with the influence which Europeanization has on domestic politics. The case I have chosen is Swedish alcohol policy. Thus, the purpose is to explore whether observed changes in Swedish alcohol policy in the years 1993-2005 can be explained by Swedens´s membership in the European Union. To reach this purpose the following questions need to be answered:? What is europeanization?? How has Swedish alcohol policy changed from 1993 to 2005?? Is it possible to connect the changes in Swedish alcohol policy to a process of Europeanizationprocess?The method in this essay has been a qulitative study of litterature.

Until the 1st of January 2003 there were thirteen processed meat products provided with name protection in Sweden. These products had to contain a certain amount of meat and/or a certain amount of fat to be allowed to carry a recognized name. Among these thirteen products, one could find, for example, meat balls (köttbullar), liver pâté (leverpastej), and Falun sausage (Falukorv). While imports of these products started to increase, the system with name protection lost its ability to guarantee a certain quality for all products sold in Sweden and the legislation was removed on December 31st 2002. At the same time, a common definition of meat was adopted in the European Union.

The European Union has been working to promote equality between women and men for a long time. Despite this, Sweden still have a gender segregated labor market where men generally has the leading positions. According to European law the member states shall promote gender equality and to take all appropriate measures. Statutory gender quotas for company boards is one such measure that some of the European member states have implemented in national law. The Swedish law has no provisions governing gender quotas and therefore the purpose of this study is to explain how gender quotas for company boards relate to current law, both of European law and national legislation.

In tune with the cross-border trade the infringement of intellectual property rights has become a growing problem in Europe and the rest of the world. In June 2008 negotiations about a new international agreement was initiated between Europe, its member states and ten other countries, which will restrict infringements of intellectual property rights. The agreement is called ACTA, which stands for Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. On January 26, 2012 the European Union (EU) and twenty-two of its twenty-seven member states signed a letter of intent to the agreement and the EU?s internal processes of the agreement began.

The European Union's long-term budget negotiations during the summer of 2005 were obstructed from being successful due to a quite fierceful debate about the future guidelines of the Common Agricultural Policy. A quarrel about money and who gets what, was the common answer as to why it took the European leaders six months to accept the budget, and quite rightfully. This essay, however, goes beneath those explanations and tries to see what other reasons there might be for such a phenomena.With a new institutionalistic approach this study seeks to see what underlying reasons for why an institution such as CAP is so resistant to change. With special attention to the new historical institutionalism and the rational choice institutionalism the study successfully shows that though the front laying reasons to the problems with the budget might have been economical, several other factors also affected the outcome of the budget negotiations.Structures, national identity and decisions taken when outlining the Common Agricultural Policy in the 1960's still affect the European union, its members and foremost of all, the Policy/institution itself..

The single market is one of the underlying ideas of the European Union. Free movement of goods and efficient competition are central for the function of the union and are therefore carefully protected by the Treaty of Rome. Exclusive rights of trademarks in the EU can be seen as a method of dividing the common market, preventing the free movement of goods and to be anti-competitive. What comes out of this is that there is a conflict between exclusive rights of trademarks and the rules of both free movement of goods and competition. The aim of this work is to see in which kind of situations the exclusive rights of trademarks can be a part of this conflict but also to study how this problem is resolved by the European Court.