The Reform Of The Governance Mechanism Of The European Union

The international system originated since 17th century which is based on the nation states as its subjects is still the basic power structure of the world today. For centuries, a lot of wars including the two world wars in the 20th century were raged against each other between nation states, and countries have been making great efforts to co-exist peacefully, cooperate with each other and develop themselves. Among all the efforts, the integration brought by the regional international organizations is one of the most successful, with the European Union as a model attracting most. After more than half a century, the European Coal and Steel Community established in 1952 has evolved into the European Union today, with 27 member states, population of over 500 million, GDP of more than 16 trillion US＄, occupying 4420 thousand square kilometers of the surface of the earth, as undoubtedly the biggest and most developed regional integration organization on the globe.There is a considerable sum of researches dealing with the history and theories among which the integration theory and the theory of regional governance are famous. Many researchers maintain that the integration organizations like the European Union are the signs which indicate the collapse of the world system of sovereignty states, while others insist that the world power structure based on nation states has not been changed and the European Union is only a type of international organizations. The author in this thesis holds a mild view, arguing that on the one hand the European Union is a developed form of the international organizations especially the regional ones, on the other hand, the European Union is not a loose power group consisting of 27 members but a close-related union with strong coherence in many fields like the economy community.A natural conclusion can be drawn from the model of the European Union that the international organizations with deeper extent of cooperation of countries should be the focus in foreign affairs as well as the research of international relations. In this thesis, the European Union, treated as an advanced international organization, will be researched regarding to the round 10 years'evolvement of its governance mechanism.This thesis includes a preamble,4 chapters and a conclusion.The preamble mainly deals with the value of research of the reform of the EU's governance mechanism, and the researches related to this field that have been done, as well as the methodology adopted.Chapter 1 covers all the major reforms of the EU's governance mechanism since 1952, especially those during the recent 10 years.Chapter 2 analyzes the positive and negative reasons of the reforms. Chapter 3 holds that the reform of the Treaty of Lisbon will make the European Union more unified, more democratic and more efficient.Chapter 4 is about the impact of the reform on the development of international organizations, the governance of regional organizations and China's performance in the regional organizations.The conclusion is drawn upon the innovation and the insufficiency of the thesis.