Path Of The European Think Tank Involved In EU Policy-making Analysis

Modern think tank is generally considered as a bridge between power andknowledge. It strengthens the policy-making ability of government and transforms allkinds of information resources into the decision-makers need. With the rapiddevelopment of the think tank, many countries began to pay attention to theeffectiveness and meaningfulness of think tank on policy-making since1990s.European Think Tank has a great growth with the development of Europe integrityand EU’ policy-making system and environment provides multiple entry point forthink tank. The paper mainly studies how European Think Tank participates in the EUpolicy-making process. In ChapterⅠ, starting from the definition of think tank,reviewing the development of think tank and assessing the function of think tank.Most scholars think modern think tank as an independent nonprofit organizationwhich engaged in research on public policy mainly has four characteristics:independent, nonprofit, realistic and political. ChapterⅡcomprehensively elaborateson current situation and characteristics of European Think Tank and analyzes reasonsfor its development. Chapter Ⅲ studies the policy system of EU, understanding bywhat formal and informal means the Think Tank influences the process of thepolicy-making of EU. Meanwhile, activities of the Think Tank at supranational leveland national level are classified and summarized. Chapter Ⅳ is case study. With theThink Tank of Brussels as the main object and The Forward Studies Unit (FSU) andthe Center for European Policy Studies (CEPS) of the EU selected as the cases, thischapter specifically explains how the Think Tank of Brussels participates in theformulation process of the polices of the European Union. In the part of Conclusion,based on analysis of the full text, it further evaluates the factors and challengesinfluencing the participation of the Think Tank in the policy-making the EU anddraws corresponding conclusions. And chapter Ⅲ and chapter Ⅳare the mostcritical and difficult parts in the essay.The European Think Tank has ubiquitous influence on EU’s policies. Theyparticipated in EU’s policy-making through various ways. Among them the EuropeanCommission has the most extensive interactions with the Think Tank, making itconvenient to carry out consultation works in agenda setting and specific practice.Correspondently, the interactions between Think Tank and other institutions in EUdepend on given policy domains and research scope of the Think Tank. Yet the ThinkTank’s capacity to deal with the current realistic problems is still limited, and they need to enhance their research competence and specialty and penetrate into the publicto expand their influence.