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The article critically analyzes the amount of EU financial help donated to Belarus as well as the way the EU aid is distributed among different programs. It focuses at what consequences the extended control of foreign aid to Belarus by state officials brought to the citizens as well as how it affected the EU aid policy. Apart from that, the EU must face another challenge important for the development in Belarus, which is to extend the visa-ban list of the regime representatives whom the Union forbids access to the EU area as well as to increase the number of countries implementing these sanctions. The article also questions the role of the European Commission as such in dealing with countries such as Belarus.
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The role of political elites in EU accession is a central but rather unexplored concern with regard to EU enlargement. It is especially important to consider interactions between European and domestic politics and how these affect elites in their choices. The article looks at the EU's political conditionality by focusing separately on political will and political capacity. This approach is applied to Romania. On the one hand, several elite characteristics there explain the positive outlook of Romanian leaders, although they also reveal an instrumental view of conditionality as a means to achieve EU membership. On the other hand, Romania has had persistent problems of state capacity while party-political interests have with some of the conditions intervened to undermine implementation. The "safeguard clause" imposed at the end of 2004 has produced some results. It is not therefore surprising that the EU has decided to continue monitoring and sanctions in the case of Romania particularly in the light of its stricter conditionality policy since 2004.
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This paper was first published by the Pontis Foundation as Belarus Brief on October 16, 2006 and contains a short summary of the most recent development in Belarus. The last few months – at least on the surface – have brought new changes into the geopolitical policy context of the Belarus case. First, Russia is increasing its pressure on Belarus – the promised gas price hike, the freshly revealed suggestion to blockade Belarusian goods by the Russian Ministry of Economic Development and Trade but it can not afford to “lose” its closest ally before the 2008 Presidential Elections.
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In order to enhance the EU’s visibility as an international political player and eradicate the deficiencies in the EU’s foreign policy instruments that aim at promoting democracy, Meckel proposes the creation of a “European Foundation for Democracy” (EFD). The EU is obliged to support democratic movements outside the EU. The article demonstrates the need for such an institution on the case of Belarus. It shows how the EU lacks instruments effectively to promote democratic change in countries which have no perspective for membership in the near future and outlines the structure and potential tasks of the EFD as a new instrument of European foreign policy.
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The EU is still at the beginning of the path towards a cohesive and effective Belarus policy. Democratization of Belarus should be the main goal for the EU and can only take place as a result of changing the government in this country. Now the EU needs to say openly that Belarus is a special case among the neighbours of the Union and could elaborate a special strategy towards the country, different from the existing ENP strategy. The Belarusian issue should not be a strictly European affair. Transatlantic co-operation with the US especially but also with Canada is needed. The Belarus question influences the EU and the US relations with Russia. It seems that the tensions between the EU and the USA on the one hand and Russia on the other hand will grow in the future due to further existence of the Lukashenko regime and the Kremlin’s support for it.
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In March 2006, Lukashenko retained the power and secured himself yet another five years of term not as a result of the election but because of the perfected system of preventing any real election. The election and the activities of the authorities afterwards merely confirmed the nature of the regime in Belarus. After the election the regime continued and intensified its repression against opposition and in general against the rights and freedoms of the people of Belarus. However, despite the administrative, police and propaganda measures the Belarusian opposition and civil society managed to produce a real challenge to the existing status quo. Notwithstanding the massive campaign of intimidation the civil society of Belarus publicly challenged the regime. In general, it could be said that the mood in favor of changes has strengthened. For the eventual success of democracy a strong emphasis on democratic principles and values is required.
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Review: Book by Joerg Forbrig, David R. Marples, and Pavol Demeš (eds.). Bratislava: German Marshall Fund of the United States, 2006.
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Review: Book by Davide Torsello. Műnster: Lit, 2003.
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Review: Book by Martin Slobodník and Attila Kovács. Bratislava: Chronos, 2006
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The main thesis of the book reviewed is an assumption that Poland and other countries of East-Central Europe suffer from a chronic underdevelopment, whose sources the Author is trying to find in the past. The review focuses on one of the two main themes of the book, i.e., leaving out the economic issues, it concentrates on the politics. The Author sets out to claim that only those countries develop correctly which have experienced absolute monarchy in their history. Referring to the idea of Ernst Kantorowicz, Jan Sowa assumes that such a political system is the only guarantee of stability and continuity of a country: on the death of the “physical body” of the king, his “political body” continues to last. In Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, because of the elective character of the monarchy and the claims of the nobility to play the role of the sovereign, the “political body” disappeared, and the country turned out to be a “phantom body.” For the Author, this means an atrophy of the country following the death of the last Jagiellonian king, Sigismund II Augustus. Between 1572 and 1795 there is no Polish statehood, since the Author regards the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as only an “illusion.” Both the theories presented above and the sources used to prove their correctness raise substantial doubts. The Author confuses basic notions, identifying sovereignty with absolutism, and he makes basic historical mistakes, regarding the Jagiellons’ throne in the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland as hereditary, and also assuming the factual decay of statehood as early as in 16th century, with its symbolic confirmation in 18th century. He finds the grounds for his theories in political theology and psychoanalysis, using historical and legal historical sources to a very limited extent
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The author presents the principles of inheriting immovable property in ABGB. Within the inheritance law in ABGB the notion of immovable property was infrequently evoked, as immovable property was not differentiated from other elements of the legacy. The regulations concerning inheriting immovable property in ABGB did not form any coherent system. The legislator mentioned them in the context of regulating certain institutions of inheritance law: substitution of trust, family trust, legacy, legitime, and inheritance. The author provides a detailed discussion of mentioned cases, at the same time presenting the views of the most prominent experts on inheritance law, the Cracovian scholars: Stanisław Wróblewski, Fryderyk Zoll (the elder) and Kazimierz Przybyłowski. All this is set against the background of French inheritance law which operated in the Kingdom of Poland at that time.
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The article concerns the application of the Austrian Civil Code (ABGB) in the period of the Second Republic of Poland. The paper has three sections: preliminary issues; ABGB and case law; and final conclusions. The first section refers to the application of the Austrian Civil Code during the First World War, when a dramatic drop in purchasing power of the circulating Austrian currency took place in the region of Galicia. The second section discusses the then jurisprudence, based on the Civil Code of Austria (ABGB), which displayed a valorisation trend, despite the prevailing principle of monetary nominalism. In particular, the prevalent theory of private law and, in particular, the theories of F. Zoll, had a great impact on the subsequent fate of Polish valorisation regulations after the First World War. This primarily regards the regulation of the President of the Republic dated 14 May 1924 on the recalculation of private legal obligations named after its principal designer – lex Zoll, including a subsequent regulation contained in the regulation of the President of the Republic of Poland of 27 October 1933 called the Code of Obligations, including in art. 269 the rebus sic stantibus clause. In the last section, the author draws attention to the impact of ABGB, and specifically eminent jurists from Galicia, such as E. Till, F. Zoll, and K. Przybyłowski, on subsequent regulations, including directions in theory of law – the school of “free law” (Freirecht) or the school of “free scientific exploration”. It is worth noting that modern private law arrangements introduced in the 1990s to the Polish Civil Code of 1964, in the form of a rebus sic stantibus clause, have their source in the inflationary experiences after the First World War and Polish jurisprudence based precisely on the Civil Code of Austria (ABGB).
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The book Could Revolution Be Legal? by Anna Grześkowiak-Krwawicz concerns various aspects of how the Constitution of 3rd May 1791 was established and overthrown. It raises, among others, the question whether the act of passing the Constitution was a revolution for contemporary people and why it was understood as treason by some people, especially from Republican milieus. A lot of attention was paid by the Author to the issue of perception of the Constitution in Poland and abroad as well as to the rise of the myth of 3rd May 1791.
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Apart from the Constitution of May 3, the achievement of the Four-Year Sejm, or the Great Sejm of 1788–1792 included a group of laws which, together with the Constitution, were to form the principal framework of the legal system of the reformed Republic. These laws concerned the legal situation of the townspeople, the range of the direct democracy (the law on sejmiki, or local parliaments), the functioning of the Sejm, the relation between the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (uniform state), the administration of justice, the army, the police, and the tax system. The outbreak of the Polish-Russian war caused the suspension of the Sejm proceedings, and the King’s joining the Targowica Confederation, as well as the subsequent defeat, squandered the legislative efforts of the Great Sejm and its attempt at a general reform of the political system and law of Poland
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This paper examines goals, themes, instruments and outcomes of research and development policies in ten new Member Countries of the EU. Intensity of the public and business R&D expenditure approaches the EU averages in the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Hungary and Estonia. These countries may consider shifts in their R&D policies and increase importance of indirect forms of support (tax allowances, financial engineering tools), and also cluster policies and net-working initiatives. Slovakia, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania and Latvia, on the other hand, should primarily invest in improvements in the R&D infrastructure and increasing stocks and quality of researchers in public and private sectors.
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This paper evaluates the differences in the degree to which the preferences of the Slovak right-wing and left-wing parties are affected by the development of consumer prices and unemployment. Using the linear regression approach, it provides evidence that Slovak left-wing voters are resistant to economic voting, which is demonstrated by the fact that changes in the preferences of the Slovak left-wing government during 2006 – 2008 did not react to changes in the CPI and the unemployment rate. By contrast, the Slovak right-wing is held accountable by its voters both for rising prices and unemployment. Thus, our research unveils a new, unexpected difference between left- and right-wing voters. Furthermore, it is argued that, under constantly decreasing monetary and fiscal sovereignty in EU member states, political parties that have voters highly re-sponsive to economic conditions are in a disadvantage as their preferences are dependent on factors they can influence less than in the past.
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This article summarizes current issues regarding preparation and implemen-tation of EU projects. Cohesion policy and regional policy as a main part of cohesion policy are the most important policies of European Union. This could be view also from the volume of financial resources allocated for these policies. One of the main current research issues is analyzing efficiency and effectiveness of these funds. Examining the effectiveness of funds we can see a number of shortcomings, from which the most significant are deadweight loss, lack of ap-plication of the principles of partnership, administrative burden focused on expenses and not results, the low multiplier effects and little focus on the priorities of promoting competitiveness. We have analyzed several of them directly in the case study of Banská Bystrica region.
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