PERG lecture 25/3: Global Exits from EU's Joint Decision Traps by - Zdenek Kudrna

The Political Economy Research Group (PERG) cordially invite you to a lecture  

Global Exits from EU's Joint Decision Traps

presented by

Zdenek Kudrna

(Assistant Professor, University of Vienna)

Nador utca 9, Monument Building:  Senate room | 13.00-14.40 | Wednesday 25/3 - 2015

The paper this lecture will focus on is co-authored with Patrick Mueller (University of Vienna). 

Abstract. The interaction between the EU and global regimes is increasing. While scholarship has traditionally focused on the EU’s performance and influence in international institutions, little attention has been paid to how EU-related actors may strategically use global settings to further their interests in internal EU politics. Building on the joint decision trap concept, we demonstrate that the EU’s involvement in global institutions can help to resolve long-lasting deadlocks in its decision-making. A shift of contested policy issues to the global venue, where EU and member state actors also negotiate with their international partners, may increase the chances of an intra-EU agreement. This paper analyzes this strategy of ‘harmonizing globally in order to harmonize internally’ in the case of accounting harmonization that spans over the last three decades. It concludes that the interaction between the EU and global policy regimes does not create a novel mechanism for the exit from the EU's joint-decision trap. Instead, it adds a global dimension to existing exit mechanisms, thus increasing the chances of resolving deadlocks that arise from conflicting policy preferences and near-unanimity decision rules.

Zdenek Kudrna is an assistant professor at the Institute for European Integration Research, University of Vienna. His research focuses on the EU and global financial market regulation and he teaches courses on the political economy of European integration and public policy. He has been an advisor to the IMF and World Bank, UNDP and the Czech Minister of Finance. His work recently appeared in Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of European Public Policy in a volume The EU's decision traps (Oxford University Press) and on EU-global interactions (Routledge). Zdenek received a PhD in political economy from Central European University. He comments regularly on European affairs in the Czech, Slovak and international media. Zdenek was one of the founding members of PERG at CEU.