It’s a year that has been dominated by the crisis in the eurozone.

Watch the videos selected by BBC Democracy Live

The Hungarian Constitutional Court may have struck down parts of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s controversial media law, but with a new constitution set to take effect on the first of the year, it is a hollow victory. German commentators say the decision was the “last twitch” of the rule of law there.
Article by Charles Hawley published [...]

Building an EU studies PhD Community in the Northwest: 2nd JMCE Manchester Conference
University of Manchester
Manchester, United Kingdom
20 January 2012
 
The objective of the second Manchester-based conference for PhD students from the Northwest is to build on the previous similar event, held in Salford earlier in 2011, and further develop informal linkages between EU PhD students in [...]

In modern democracies, people are to be empowered by means of information and communication technologies. Transparency and access to data, new ways of interacting with government and democratic institutions cause profound changes in society. Social media and the new forms of societal behaviour, including content generation, collaboration and sharing as well as network organisation change [...]

RECON Online Working Paper 2011/28, december 2011 by Elisabeth Wisniewski
Since its early beginnings, the member states of the European Communities have tried to establish a common foreign policy and at the same time were reluctant to implement it. Only the Maastricht Treaty introduced an institutional framework. However, the emerging Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) [...]

Article by Francesca E.S. Montemaggi, published on OpenDemocracy.net, 14 December 2011
It is nation states that have emasculated European institutions. What is often branded as the ‘national interest’ is nothing but a justification for the pursuit of internal politics.
Read the article here:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/francesca-es-montemaggi/nationalism-casts-shadow-over-european-democracy

UCL Working Paper 2/2011 by Richard Bellamy and Sandra Kröger
Ever since the problematic ratification of the Maastricht Treaty and the accompanying debate about a democratic deficit of the EU, politicians – rather more than scholars – have sought to strengthen the role of national Parliaments in EU policy-making. Accordingly, a legally binding Protocol on the role of [...]

CEPS Policy Brief by Karel Lannoo
In the run-up to this week’s European Council, Karel Lannoo offers his assessment of what has been put on the table so far in response to the euro crisis – and what more needs to be done. He starts with an assessment of the measures taken in the ‘six-pack’ and [...]

Article by Paul Krugman published on the New York Times, 11 December 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/opinion/krugman-depression-and-democracy.html

 
News Roundup on the 8- 9 December 2011  European Council Summit
The Economist: Bagehot and Charlemagne, BBC News, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Le Monde,  El Pais, Der Spiegel, Il Corriere della Sera