Publisher: Kossuth Kiadó Zt.

Eastern enlargement and the future of the EU27: EU foreign policy in a global world

Author(s): Attila Ágh / Language(s): English

In the early 21st century there have been basic changes in global politics generated by the global democratizations that has demonstrated at the same time the diverging EU and US foreign policies. In the 21st century the EU has appeared as a global actor with its particular profile of a civilian superpower and acted through transformative linkage politics. It means that the EU advocates not only the fusion of international relations and domestic policy as linkage politics but gives a special transformation profile to it in the form of binding conditionalities for both sides. Transformative linkage politics or - with the usual term - the enlargement policy of the EU has been one of the most influential policies that has shaped the global world and it has been the major stake and bone of contention in the global rivalry between the EU and US. The most recent result of this new policy instrument is the Eastern enlargement. EU elaborated for the Eastern enlargement “a unique model of democracy promotion through integration (…) with a particular combination of hard conditionality and soft measures” (Dimitrova and Pridham, 2004: 91). The Eastern enlargement has made the EU to a real global player. It has been a great success, which can revitalize the EU that has been suffering from a transitory identity crisis. After the Eastern enlargement the EU25 has organized a special zone as the partnership ring of Eastern and Southern neighbours, so in the nextdecades the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) will be one of the main directions in the European Foreign Policy (EFP). It has caused, again, some problems by testing the EU absorption capacity but the ENP has accelerated the dynamism of the EU’s doctrine on the effective multilateralism.

European Union at the crossroads: The European perspectives after the global crisis

Author(s): / Language(s): English

In May 2011, during the Hungarian EU presidency a big international conference was organized in Budapest that offered a good occasion to review of the SBH team presidency and to look beyond to the competitive Europe in the postcrisis period in both national and regional terms. No doubt that the European Union arrived at the crossroads and it necessitated to deal with the European perspectives after the global crisis. So this issue has become the central topic, and also the title of the present, 14th volume of this series, based mostly on the papers of the Budapest expert conference. The protracted global crisis took a “W” shape that culminated in the summer 2011, in such a way the authors closed their chapters in an open ending game in August 2011.

Europeanization of the Danube Region: The Blue Ribbon Project

Author(s): / Language(s): English

The Blue Ribbon Project, namely the establishment of a functional macro region along the river Danube is an attractive experiment. This EU generated initiative was born in 2009 in the upper Danube city of Ulm and since then a wide range of stakeholders signed up for it. Parallel to this, research centres, think thanks, governmental and intergovernmental actors have been participating in the debate and discourse on it. The Blue Ribbon Research Centre (BRRC), established in 2009 at the King Sigismund College, Budapest and supported by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA) within the framework of the No. 81553 Research Project, defines itself as part of the academic network dedicated to contribute to this new project in Europe by furnishing analyses, findings and recommendations. The multi level governance theories (MLG ) provide the overall theoretical framework for analysing and understanding the emerging macroregions. The research conducted by the BRRC aims to explore the various forms of MLG and identify and conceptualise the main challenges facing European macro-regions.

From the Lisbon Strategy to the Europe 2020 Strategy: Think European for the Global Action

Author(s): / Language(s): English

The Hungarian Prime Minister’s Office in cooperation with the Hungarian Academy of Sciences has initiated a research project to elaborate the strategic vision for the Spanish- Belgian-Hungarian team presidency. The strategic working group of Spanish, Belgian and Hungarian experts had their first meeting on 7-9 September 2007 in Hungary, at the nice resort place, Lillafüred. This process of the intensive SBH cooperation was followed by the second meeting in Brussels on 17-18 April 2008 and in Madrid on 12-13 March 2009. The experts of the SBH team presidency met again in Hungary, on 11-12 2009 in Gödöllő, near Budapest in the former Royal Palace in order to discuss the perspectives of the Spanish presidency as the first rotating presidency in the SBH team presidency. It was followed by a conference in Brussels on 27-28 April 2010 on the incoming Belgian presidency.

From Victimhood to Citizenship

The Path of Roma Integration. A Debate

Author(s): / Language(s): English

The three essays we are presenting here for discussion may prove contentious in some readers’ eyes. they trigger a fundamental discussion on the self-image of the roma activists, and the goals they should be pursuing in the future. they sow seeds of doubt as to whether the roma movement is on the right track, and they are doing this, moreover, at a time when the eu commission, the eu member states are tasked with developing action plans for roma inclusion. nicolae Gheorghe welcomes the development options created by the eu’s initiative. he writes: ‘For the first time in history, roma have prospects of reflecting and playing an active part in bringing about social change. the role of roma opinion-makers is to suggest new approaches, focusing on integration rather than on being victims.’ But then, in the course of his argument, he calls for a moratorium: no more payments from the eu before a new strategy has emerged – an ethically grounded action scenario

New perspectives for the EU team presidencies: New members, new candidates and new neighbours

Author(s): / Language(s): English

The ‘definition’ of Europe is a social construction that has been transformed historically several times and nowadays it has been in the midst of hot debates. The ESPON 2007 publication ‘Europe in the World’ when it provides a vision about the future of the EU in a global overview, it raises also the question about the definition of Europe in the following way: ‘The division of the World into continents is not an objective scientific reality but a social and historical production, established by Europe and for Europe when it was a dominating power in the World. (…) The analysis of ‘continentality’ does not provide a clear delineation of the Europe continent (…) Objective scientific methods can therefore support different definitions of ‘Europe’ (…) But they can not decide which one is the best from a political point of view.’ (ESPON, 2007:4). Similarly, the ‘definition’ of the EU has been even more a social construction that has changed radically after each wave of enlargement. After the Eastern enlargement from the EU15 to the EU27, however, this definition has changed beyond recognition. At the earlier enlargements the subsequent redefinitions of the EU were present-oriented as conceptual frameworks for the existing Union. With the Eastern enlargement the EU seems to have reached its internal and external limits for a long time, neither widening nor deepening cannot continue as before. Nowadays the EU needs a new, future oriented definition. The EU is not ‘given’, it has be ‘reinvented’ or redefined, and this new definition as a social construct depends on our decision or on our vision where to go.

The New Horizons of the Cohesion Policy in the European Union: The Challenge of the Danube Strategy

Author(s): / Language(s): English

The present volume consists of two parts. The contributions in the first part offer first of all a theoretical analysis and outline some perspectives for the functional macro-regions in the eu, while in the second part the papers are basically case studies in the sub-national regions concerned. This combination of the top-down and bottom-up approaches gives the specificity of this edited volume and it provides a big advantage, since the danube strategy – the danube Region strategy, with a usual abbreviation, dRs – can only be approached at the same time from “above” in the framework of the eu2020 general strategy and from “below” through the efforts of its constituent parts, i.e. the countries, sub-national regions and localities, including the capital cities.