After several weeks of political wrangling and in the teeth of widespread international opposition, Austrian President Thomas Klestil has approved a new government that includes the conservative People's Party and the rightist Freedom Party. The inclusion of the Freedom Party horrifies a large number of observers in Austria and abroad, partly because of positive comments regarding Nazi employment...

The European Union Parliament has recently introduced the Legislative Observatory, a database which includes status of legislation in progress (procedural files), commentary on parliamentary actions, citations to documents, and selected full text documents. Users can search the database by one single research criterion (by subject, reference, committee, service or state of progress of procedure)...

The European Commission released its opinions on the ten applications for EU membership from Central and Eastern Europe in July 1997. They were released with documents outlining the "Agenda 2000" program, which "comprises the Commission's proposals for agricultural, structural and horizontal policies, a reinforced preaccession strategy, and the financial framework beyond 1999." At the EU's US...

On June 10, 11, and 13, 1999, about 298 million voters in the 15 European Union (EU) Member States chose 626 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) in the fifth direct elections to the European Parliament. Provided by the European Parliament, this site is aimed at EU voters; nevertheless, researchers, students, or any users interested in Europe-wide politics will want to pay a visit. The site...

On November 10 1998, the European Union began accession negotiations with the six countries to be considered in the first wave of enlarged membership: Poland, Hungary, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, and Cyprus. This was the first step in a long process that would shift the center of gravity in the European Community eastwards. In this collection of its regular reports on candidate...

Published online each Thursday by the UK Offices of the European Commission, The Week In Europe offers a weekly summary of political, social, and economic developments in the European Union (EU). Indexed by title and topic sentence, the summaries consist of short paragraphs with links to full-text documents, statistics, or other sites with further information.

Created by BBC News, this site is a very useful reference for both students and general readers interested in the European Union and European integration. At the site, visitors will find several reference guides, including a timeline, interactive maps of planned and possible EU enlargement, overviews of key institutions, an explanation of the EU budget, and information on the Euro. Other reference...

This past week, the ratification of the European Union's constitution met with some resistance as voters in both the Netherlands and France both voted "no" to approving the document. Some analysts have suggested that this rejection of the constitution is indicative of the fact that there is an increasing unease about the process of unification more generally in various countries across the...

The EU's trial balloon Walloons http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rodriguez17sep17,0,5030564.column?coll=la-util-opinion-commentary Culture clash may break up Belgium http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/33d745a0-6607-11dc-9fbb-0000779fd2ac.html Disgruntled voter puts Belgium for sale on eBay http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2007/09/18/4506139-ap.html History of Belgium: Primary...

When most people think of international peacekeeping work, they might immediately think of organizations like the United Nations or NATO. What they might not know is that in recent years the European Union (EU) has become a very active participant in operations in countries such as Sierra Leone and Cete d'Ivoire. These efforts haven't escaped the attention of policy analysts and scholars at the...