Research: Governance and Regulation in the EU
The research and teaching focus "Governance and Regulation in the European Union" combines two aspects whose critical interplay characterises the EU: The impact of the EU on the lives of its citizens and its role in the world. Transdisciplinary perspectives on the important relationship between government and regulation provide greater insight and clarity into the increasingly complex process of European integration.
Over the last years, ZEI has analysed the transformation of the EU's governance system and the resulting regulatory constraints. From 2014 to 2024, the research groups have analysed and commented on the legislation of the EU institutions.
The "ZEI Monitor" documents the implementation status of the respective work programmes of the EU Commissions Juncker (2014-2019) and von der Leyen (2019-2024) and serves as a research tool for academics and practitioners alike to continuously analyse the legislation of the EU institutions subject to the ordinary legislative procedure.
Monitoring
Our monitoring is based on the Commission's annual work programmes and the annual Joint Declaration, in which the European Parliament adds to or deletes from the Commission's proposals.
In the monitoring process, every legislative and non-legislative proposal of the Commission is included in the ZEI Monitor and observed with regard to the processing status. The work structure is oriented towards the subject-specific priorities of the Commission. As soon as initiative proposals or adopted directives, regulations or action plans are available, they are provided in the Monitor with a brief classification of their content as well as information on the processing status. In order to clearly illustrate the processing status of the individual initiatives in the European legislative procedure, the Monitor works with a traffic light system, whereby red signals that the initiative proposal has not yet been submitted; yellow stands for an ongoing ordinary legislative procedure and the blue EU flag marks that the legislative procedure has been completed or that a non-legislative proposal has been published.
Complementing the Monitor is the "Future of Europe Observer", ZEI's academic magazine, which takes stock of the implementation of the Commission's work programme on an annual basis. In addition, the Monitor is accompanied by ZEI Discussion Papers in the field of governance and regulation, which deal specifically with selected topics of EU research and offer more in-depth analyses.
The ZEI Monitor's ongoing monitoring of the European Commission's work culminates in a final evaluation in the form of an anthology, so that the entire legislative period can be subjected to a comprehensive analysis. This process was started with the Juncker Commission 2015-2019 and is currently being continued for the Von der Leyen Commission 2019-2024.
Proposal (legislative / non-legislative) not tabled yet
Ongoing ordinary legislative procedure
Legislative procedure completed / non-legislative proposal published
Regulation and Competition Law
The complexity of the issues in the context of governance at European level gives rise to a variety of regulatory tasks that fill the EU's legal framework with life. This applies in particular to the areas of competition law and the regulation of network industries, which ZEI's research on regulatory issues focusses on.
EU Glossary
ZEI provides regularly updated information on relevant EU actors, on the timetable of European politics and on the legal sources of the European Union and its institutions. The continually updated information and data serve as an information resource and contribute to a better understanding of the critical factors of governance and regulation in the EU.
700 +
Transdisciplinary Research Projects
102
Completed Doctoral Theses
333
International Visiting Scholars
ZEI at 25 Transdisciplinary work 1995 - 2020
For 25 years, the Center for European Integration Studies (ZEI) has contributed solutions towards the unresolved problems of European integration. This comprehensive documentation prepared for the 25th anniversary, gives testimony to the research results of ZEI in the field of regional integration. ZEI is a forerunner in the development of transdisciplinary research and education, today and in the future promoted by Bonn University in many research areas.