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The European Union (EU) and Australia share a significant volume of historical connections in languages, cultures, economic and trade relationships, political views and ideas. These associations have had different levels of strength and frequencies in the past, depending on how these two political entities interacted with each other in the framework of international relations. Australia and the EU jointly developed an important political and socio-economic basis for working together, and cooperation between them is deeper and more common than the public might perceive to be the case. The EU is a growing superstructure; meanwhile Australia is a developed and successful nation, a successful democracy and a middle power. Nevertheless, Australia cannot expect to match the power and position of a polity, which comprises 28 different countries. This fact can produce a certain asymmetric relationship in the connection between these two political entities' communities. These asymmetric elements in the collaboration between them are liable to create certain discrepancies and disharmonies in the development of their different agreements in general. This thesis aims to examine the scope and depth of the EU-Australia working relationship, the convergent and the divergent issues within it. This exploration provides an analysis of the philosophical and sociological foundations of international relations in general, with special regard to the framework of sociological constructivism and sociological institutionalism, as possible catalysers in the growth and furtherance of the many-sided EU-Australia collaboration. To reach the most effective and efficient cooperation between the European Union and Australia, which includes the efforts to alleviate the urgent environmental sustainability and related problems regionally, and in a globalising world, will go a long way to create peace, security, and prosperity in Eurasia and in the Pacific. The EU-Australia mutual relationship is facilitated through shared values, norms and normative principles, such as the constitutive norms of liberty, democracy, good governance; the regulative norms of the centrality of peace, human rights, social solidarity, environmental sustainability; and the evaluative norms of the rule of law, transparency, human dignity and anti-discrimination. The willingness of the European Union and Australia to partake in a joint experience of continuous social learning process, provide them the power to achieve their aims together in a changing world.

European Union membership affects budgetary practices in Britain and France much more than the conventional literature acknowledges. Budgetary Europeanisation, defined as the process of adaptation of budgetary processes to EU pressures, involves not merely the compliance of budgetary aggregates to EU guidelines but mainly changes in bureaucratic practices, methods and strategies. Budgetary institutions have become hybrid because of the growing entanglement of national and EU budgetary procedures; therefore the conventional national approach to budgeting is outdated. The impact on budgeting is greater on spending than on taxing because unanimous voting safeguards national governments' sovereignty on taxation. The thesis isolates various pressures which contribute to budgetary Europeanisation (competition, substitution, regulation, lobbying and demand by Member States). It explains strategic differences between Britain and France. The Euro-PES mechanism and the Fontainebleau agreement in the UK explain the non-maximisation strategy of British administration, which contrasts to the French, based on the "principe de constance" and sectoral rates-of-return. The thesis compares the processes of adaptation of bureaucratic mechanisms to the consequences of EU membership in different policy domains (Agriculture, Transport and Health). It concludes that the degree of adaptation of EU pressures is higher when national bureaucrats often interact with international actors because they are better able to influence decisions at EU level (a major difference between Transport and Health). It confirms the link between budgetary Europeanisation and the amount of EU finance in departments' budgets, but it shows that this link is a secondary explanation of differences in degrees of Europeanisation. Finally, the thesis shows how EU programmes promoted shifts in national decision-making, with greater effect on the processes of decision-making than on the substance of policy. This analysis suggests that national administrations retain a large margin of manoeuvre both in policy-making and in finance, and through their participation in the EU budgetary process.

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Despite an increasing awareness in the field of international relations of the importance of the Court of Justice of the European Communities in the process of European integration, few models have been devised to explain its role. Moreover, those models which have been formulated fail to withstand rigorous analysis. The current thesis examines several of the existing models, critiquing their respective weaknesses. Employing rational choice analysis, this research develops an alternative model, designated the architect's compromise model, to explain the role of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in European integration and the acceptance of its judgements by the Member States. In addition to the general assumption that the Treaties of the European Communities do not form a constitution for the Communities, five assumptions form the foundation of the architect's compromise model. First, the key actors in the model are the ECJ and the Member States. Second, the actors are assumed to be rational, as defined as undertaking purposeful actions. Third, the ECJ is recognised as a strategic actor, employing a teleological approach to the Treaties of the European Communities. Fourth, the decisions of the ECJ usually conform to the long-term interests of the Member States as defined by the Treaties. Fifth, the Member States can be expected to abide by decisions of the European Court of Justice if its decisions conform to these long-term interests. To test these assumptions and the architect's compromise model of European integration, the thesis examines the doctrine of supremacy. After analysing supremacy in general, the thesis undertakes case studies on the acceptance of the doctrine of supremacy by the United Kingdom and Germany. Through the testing of the model, the research concludes that the architect's compromise offers an appropriate means of explaining the European Court's role in the process of European integration.

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University of Macau / Faculty of Law

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University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of Government and Public Administration