Keywords: EU-Russia-US Triangle; International Relations,
All configurations of the EU-Russia-US triangle merit examination, in the evolving relationships between the three parties. Beyond the three bilateral relationships and a cooperative trilateral there can be three special bilateral alliances, whose subject of interest would be the third party
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The purpose of this essay is to investigate the meaning of “homeland” for Bulgarians under Ottoman rule. The formation of a collective territorial identity can be traced to the period between the late 18th century to 1878 and the creation of a sovereign Bulgarian state. The transition from pre-modernity to modernity is marked by the gradual emergence of an educated elite, a network of schools, and a Bulgarian-language press. The system of mass education is a classical mechanism for homogenizing communities at the supra-local level, and the formation of the Bulgarian nation is no exception to this rule. In other respects, however, the development of Bulgaria’s system of mass education had several peculiarities, and this is what makes it interesting to study. First, the educational system developed free of bureaucratic supervision. It was controlled neither by the Church nor by the state, and it comprised schools maintained and governed by local village and town parishes. Second, the people employed in this system studied at lyceums and universities in different foreign countries and introduced elements from the respective country’s educational standards in Bulgarian schools. None of these countries however controlled the transfer of textbooks and programs.
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My text is an attempt to characterize artisanship in Romania following a field research conducted in 2005 within five folk fairs set up by the Museum of Peasants and the Village Museum (Bucharest), the Museum of Villages in Banat (Timisoara), the Astra Museum (Sibiu), and the Museum Complex of Suceava and Bucovine (Suceava).
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Keywords: BiH; political reform; 2014; elections; electoral system;
Two comments are often (and increasingly) heard about politics, elections and citizens in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH): 1. “If citizens want political change, they should vote for political change”1 2. “BiH needs more political accountability from its elected leaders at all levels, (but without difficult, substantial, politically impossible changes to the constitutional structure or election system).” Few would doubt the apparent truth behind these statements. A core element of a functioning, accountable democracy is the regular possibility for the alternation of power, as citizens vote out, and vote in, different leaders and parties that offer different platforms for the future. Voters should be able to use the election system to force politicians to deliver and to be accountable. Nothing is standing in the way of BiH’s path to a more prosperous, reform-oriented, Euro-Atlantic future other than citizens voting for new leaders who can bring this vision to reality. However, based on the experience of the past 18 years, is this a realistic approach to politics in a post-Dayton, pre-EU BiH? This paper considers whether there are incentives in the BiH electoral and political system that promote a relationship based on accountability between the electorate and the elected, and whether it is likely that a country that purports to be hungry for reform and progress, and tired of the same old faces in politics, can or will demonstrate this interest through their choices in the general elections in October. Why does it seem like every election in BiH is meant to be “pivotal,” while in reality little seems to change?
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Keywords: North Macedonia; international relations; diplomacy; EU integration; EU accession talks; NATO membership; OSCE;
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Keywords: North Macedonia; public administration; reforms; evaluation; reform strategy; European integration; Stabilization and Association Agreement; government; civil servants;
Public Administration Reforms (PAR) is a very popular topic of discussion among the politicians and political analysts, the ordinary people as well as the academic (research) community in South Eastern Europe (SEE). Politicians talk about (advertise) PAR in their electoral campaigns, international (external) political actors donate funds, evaluate the progress with PAR and publish relevant reports, academics analyze the effects and advocate further efforts, while the media keep the issue in the spotlight. PAR has become the latest buzz-word in SEE politics, superseding earlier such concepts like market-reforms, human and minority rights, etc. If anything, public administration reforms are not an area suffering from lack of attention.
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Keywords: North Macedonia; renewable energy; green energy; green electricity production; sustainable development; International Energy Agency; EU energy policy; EU legislation; CO2 reduction;
In future, beside the level of energy consumption as a parameter for the economic growth of a country, the capacity and capability for introducing renewable energies will become an important criterion for the level of the sustainable development of the countries. At the end of September 2008 the International Energy Agency (IEA) has called for a major boost in renewable energy use, estimating that until the middle of the century nearly 50 percent of global electricity supplies will have to come from renewable energy sources. These ambitious objectives require government action for unprecedented political commitment and effective policy design and implementation. As a part of the overall EU energy policy for energy mix achieving the objectives of security of supply, competitiveness and sustainable development, in the last decade the countries of the European Union have strategically moved towards promotion of energy production from renewable energy sources. The major achievement in the area of renewable energies has been the introducement of the renewable energy sources for electricity production in EU. Starting with the White Paper on Renewable Energy almost a decade ago, the member states have set binding targets for renewable energy. This policy mechanism has allowed for an increased market penetration of electricity produced from renewable energy sources and since then the promotion of electricity produced from RES is a high Community priority, ambitiously targeting the 22 percent of electricity produced from renewables until 2010.
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Keywords: Europe's coal supply security; carbon capture; transport and storage; steam coal; energy sources;
Europe faces a paradox with respect to coal supply security. On the one hand, coal is reliable fossil fuel, with ample reserves available from a large number of producers.
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Keywords: National Commitments; Compliance; Future of the Kyoto Protocol; UN climate change;
Among the many unresolved issues on the agenda of the forthcoming UN climate change negotiations in Cancún is the issue of what will happen to the Kyoto Protocol, since at present, there will be no targets for green house (GHG) emissions from developed countries under the Protocol beyond 2012. To illuminate this aspect of the Protocol, this Policy Brief looks closer at the nature of the commitments and the compliance regime under the Kyoto Protocol. We argue that the compliance regime of the Protocol is not as robust as many of the Protocol’s supporters might think.
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Keywords: Water resources; Central Asia; international legal order; hydropower electricity; Central Asia rivers; environmental disasters; energy security;
The allocation and use of the water resources of Central Asia is one of the most difficult issues to arise out of the break-up of the Soviet Union. In outline the question is simple: how should the waters of the great Central Asian rivers, the Syr Darya and Amu Darya, be used? To generate much-needed hydropower electricity in the mountainous countries in which they rise? Or for irrigation in the energy-rich downstream countries? Added into the mix is the fact that due largely to over-use for irrigation, both rivers flow (notionally, at least) into the depleted wastes of the environmental disaster that is the Aral Sea. In Soviet times the situation was simple: major decisions were made by Moscow. Independence changed that. Now, beyond the issue of how the existing Soviet-era infrastructure should be operated (for irrigation or hydropower), tensions are rising over the proposed construction of significant new hydropower projects in the upstream countries. Indeed water issues are seen to pose a significant threat to regional security. In February 2009 Uzbekistan’s President Karimov told his cabinet that country’s water was under threat and invoked the need to safeguard the interests of future generations of Uzbeks.
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Keywords: Eurozone; Monetary union; Financial markets; Foreign claims of German banks; General government debt and deficit;
Two years after the first Greek rescue in May 2010, crisis management in the eurozone has still failed to restore confidence. A vivid picture of the situation can be found in Figure 1: the constellation of spreads on ten-year sovereign debts over the Bund in the eurozone is wider thanit was before monetary union, as though financial markets had already discounted its breakdown. Temporary respites, notably in the early part of 2012, have not interrupted the trend of increasing divergence that risks undermining the credibility of adjustment efforts under way.
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Keywords: European Deposit Insurance and Resolution Fund; Cross-border banks; national sovereign;
Cross-border banking is currently not stable in Europe. Cross-border banks need a European safety net. Moreover, a truly integrated Europeanl evel banking system may help to break the diabolical loop between the solvency of the domestic banking system and the fiscal standing of the national sovereign.
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Keywords: Data fishing; US PRISM Programe; EU;
The revelation of the top-secret US intelligence-led PRISM programme has triggered wide-ranging debates across Europe. Press reports featured in the Guardianand Washington Post have shed new light on the electronic surveillance ‘fishing expeditions’ (dragnet) of the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the FBI into the world’s largest electronic communications companies.
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Keywords: REACH; SME; EU; Substance Information Exchange Forum;
REACH is a very demanding system for any business either large or small, yet right from the startone of the more serious concerns was whether and how SMEs could cope with the Regulation. After all, some 27,600 companies in EU chemistry are SMEs (95% of all firms). Seven years downthe line, many of these fears are materialising.
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Keywords: Western Balkans; EU-Aid; Thessaloniki Summit; Europeanisation;
As the political and economic map of Europe is redrawn in 2004, there is a growing fear among the countries of the Western Balkans that they will be left on the margins of the new and integrated Europe. There is a risk that, instead of catching up with the rest of the continent, the countries of the Western Balkans will fall further behind, and the goal of integration – and the promise of regional stabilisation this brings – will become even more distant.This discussion paper sets out an alternative scenario. The starting point for a new European approach is the reflection on the needs of the Western Balkans set out in a working paper of the current Greek EU Presidency in January 2003. This paper analyses possible ways and means for policy. It recognises that Western Balkan countries today face very different threats and opportunities from those which existed only three years ago. It notes that European policy instruments have not yet adapted sufficiently to meet these new challenges. There is a pressing need for new strategies to promote structural reform across the region, which is essential to reversing more than two decades of deep economic decline. The European Union, working through the European Commission, needs to build its capacity to bring about serious reform, such as reducing the cost of public administration, liquidating loss-making companies and initiating the retraining of workers left stranded by the collapse of old industrial complexes across the region.
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Keywords: Bosnia as failed state; Bosnian stagnation; Paddy Ashdown; High Representative; Republika Srpska;
Six years after the end of the fighting in BiH, and despite possibly the largest amount of democratization assistance per capita ever spent in one country, the international mission to BiH has arrived at this paradoxical conclusion: What Bosnia and Herzegovina needs is not democratic domestic politics, but government by international experts.
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Political campaign began long before the Central Election Commission announced its official start. Party leaders and public officials started the rush in fall 2008, making generous social and economic promises to the public. However, at the moment the battle is given for the hesitant voters which according to social polls account for 40% of the population able to vote. Obviously, the ruling party possesses sufficient communication, administrative and budgetary tools to gain most of these votes. For this purpose the ruling party is considering many tactics,including the economic manipulation of the electoral behavior.
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The model for illicit cigarette market assessment at regional level is a comprehensive approach to analyse the combined effect of two types of factors: the ones linked to law-enforcement bodies' performance and the region-specific drivers and barriers to the illicit trade in tobacco products. It was developed drawing on police and industry data from 4 countries – Bulgaria, Italy, Greece and Romania. The model not only allows to identify regions which are at high risk with regard to illicit trade in tobacco products, but also helps identify the measures needed to curb this illegal market.
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