Are the Council of Ministers and the European Commission Essay

Are the Council of Ministers and the European Commission interdependent or competing institutions - Essay Example These institutions are responsible for the formation of public policy after series of arguments and discussions among the members and it is true that they consider the interest of the Union rather than that of member states while making important decisions and therefore assumes a higher degree of independence. The unique institutional structure of the European Union sets it apart from other traditional institutions as the entire member states have agreed to focus more on the national interest. Each of these institutions has a unique role to play in the decision making process by complementing each other. This paper is an attempt to analyse the importance and interdependence of the Council of Ministers and the European Commission. The council of ministers The most prominent among all the institutions of European Union is the Council of Ministers which instigated to draw more attention after the integration of European Community. According to Alex Warleigh, â€Å"the council of minist ers is the collective noun for the member state representatives who meet to take final decision on all EU legislative proposals† (Warleigh, p.26). ... On the other hand there are experts who consider the Council as an obstruction to the political incorporation which always hinder the innovative ideas suggested by the Commission and the Parliament. But the true fact is that the Council protects the people of the EU from profligate European proposals and also controls the powerful politicians from the member states and direct their state oriented discussions towards a shared and expanding policy agenda (Warleigh, p.1). The structure The council of ministers which encompasses one minister from each member states of the EU meets frequently in Brussels or in Luxembourg in order to make legislative decisions. EU nations choose the appropriate minister to represent them in the Council according to the subject under consideration. Each member nation holds the presidency for a period of six months which rotates among them. The Committee of Permanent Representatives which is also known as COREPER and the general secretariat prepare most of t he work to be done by the Council. COREPER consists of officials from different governments of the member states. Decisions of the Council are made on the basis of vote and the population of each state is the factor which determines the weight of its vote (Pearson Education, publishing, 2011). It is comparatively an easy task to identify the institutions of a member state where the legislative and executive powers are easily distinguishable. But in the case of European Union such a distinction is hard to make as the executive powers are shared between the Commission and the Council and the legislative powers between the Council and the Parliament and therefore the Council of Ministers possess both the executive and legislative functions.

Intercultural public relations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Intercultural public relations - Essay Example This has forced the field of public relation to device ways on how to deal with this problem and several theories or ways have been formed as guidelines on dealing with the issue of intercultural public relations1. This paper will try to look into detail how the intercultural public relation problem has been addressed by different theories and how these theories differ and their similarities, it will look at the importance of studying intercultural public relations. One of the theories of intercultural public relations is the cross-cultural adaptation that was brought forward by Robert Park, in this model he identified four steps in this theory that people have to undergo. The first step is the contact step where the individual is exposed to another culture; this is followed by competition where the two different cultures compete against each other. Thirdly, this is where the less dominant culture learns to accommodate the cultural aspects of the dominant one and finally he is assimi lated into the group and he learns to assimilate other members. One of the theories under this is epistemology where an individual acquires communicational skills from the dominant culture and his own way of thinking is transformed in to that of the host2. In another dimension, the public influence model that is mainly practised in countries that are hierarchical in nature such as India and in Africa, however in other countries such as the United States of America it is practised in minimal levels. In this case, public relation is not with respect to the larger community or a group, rather it is with people of a higher social class or those with influence. This is where people with more personal influence are likely to achieve their goals or higher levels of success. Dialogic method is another way in which intercultural public relations can be viewed; this is where the organisation and the public that it is addressing are viewed as equal partners. In this model, all people are broug ht on board in the decisions of the organisation. As the name suggests, it involves dialogue between an organisation and the public without bias or prejudice and it appreciates the opinions and personal worth of every stakeholder of the organisation. This method involves admitting when one party is wrong, empathising and allowing the decisions made collectively to change the way things are done, it aims at building strong and long lasting relationships in the process of doing business. In working with this model a lot of interpersonal and intercultural communication skills are required and a genuine concern for people and it is not dictated by pre mediated rules and regulations. Due to the diversity of individual and stakeholder in different sectors, understanding of their varied and different cultural backgrounds helps in knowing how to deal with them. Genre approach to intercultural public relations in this case helps public relation researcher or theorist to understand the variou s cultural backgrounds and communication styles and not merely trying to feed information that an organisation wants the public to know3. An intercultural public relation expert should engage in six activities that include identifying the special characteristics of the situation or culture, identifying the intended effects on the audience, clarifying the motivational intention of the organisatio