| A particular type of auto-regulation establishing normative standards, usually authored by private actors.
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| Reality is socially constructed by cognitive structures that give meaning to the material world. Reality is seen as a mental construct that is built on and added to: Human beings create an image of what the world is like and how it operates and they adapt and transform their understanding of new experiences in light of what they already '‘know'’.
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| To achieve commonly agreed employment outcomes through concerted action, where each Member State contributes towards raising the European average performance. This principle has been made more concrete by the Lisbon Council and following Councils where full employment was confirmed as an overarching goal of the Union and tangible targets were set for the Union as a whole.
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| Co-operation refers to the practice of people or greater entities working in common with commonly agreed-upon goals and possibly methods, instead of working separately in competition.
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| Coordinating involves determining the time, place and sequence of operations or action to be taken on the basis of the analysis of data.
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| The annual reporting leads to the evaluation and comparison of progress made and to the identification of possible best practice among Member States. This creates peer pressure to improve the quality and effectiveness of policy. Exchange of experiences and peer pressure are meant to steer policy debate and enhance the effectiveness of policies.
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| Each OMC process consists of different steps that are periodically reiterated. In line with the definition proposed in Lisbon, each cycle involves: fixing guidelines (with specific timetables for achieving the goals which they set); establishing quantitative and qualitative indicators as a means of comparing best practice; translating these guidelines into national and regional policies by setting targets and adopting measures; periodic monitoring, evaluation and peer review organised as mutual learning processes.
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| Of democracy put the main emphasis on political communication and opinion formation and the engagement in public discourse.
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| Can be described as government by the people, either directly or indirectly through elected representatives with Parliament as the central political institution on which all other public authorities depend in a certain way.
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| “Freedom” and “equality”. |
| The equality of citizens and the identity of the governing and the governed.
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| In the democratic process the executive is accountable to the legislature, ministers are responsible for actions of their departments. This principle is called “concept of administrative responsibility”.
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| Means that a legal act does not have to be transposed into national law but grants rights or imposes duties on the Community citizen in the same way as national law. The Member States are bound directly by Community law and have to comply with it in the same way as with national law.
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Direct effect is a principle of European Union Law stating that European regulations have a direct effect on EU citizens and on the laws of the member states.
The concept was defined by the European Court of Justice in its ruling in Case 26/62 Van Gend en Loos v. Nederlanse Administratie der Belastingen ([1963] ECR 1), which stated that European Community regulations could (and should) be tried before national courts, since the regulations have a direct effect on individuals' rights and responsibilities similar to that of national laws. |
