Bulgaria: Fighting the 130-Year War
The Russia-Ukraine gas dispute widens an old fissure in Bulgarian society.
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The Russia-Ukraine gas dispute widens an old fissure in Bulgarian society.
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Unconfirmed reports that Moscow has made a major shipment of arms to Armenia has Azerbaijan rethinking its diplomatic footing.
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Water scarcity in Iran has reached a level that calls for the attention of all stakeholders including water consumers. While government as water distributor has made significant efforts in managing water at the supply side, an annual average rainfall of 251 mm (Iran Meteorological Organization, 2008) limits the capacity of this supply-side approach. As a result, policy efforts have increasingly turned towards demand management approaches. The objective of this paper is to estimate drinking tap water demand for the households in Larestan. We determine the willingness to pay (WTP) for drinking taps water connections by the Larestan’s households, using contingent valuation method (CVM). We use data from 320 randomly selected households in Larestan, Iran. Our findings show that, once drinking tap water connected, the households are willing to pay US$0.24 on average in addition to their monthly charge for per cubic meter water consumed.
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The health care and spa industries are service industries. Many businesses in these industries try to develop their services. Meeting as many needs as possible leads not only to better quality but also to competitive advantage. This research study aims to investigate the development of the health care and spa industries. The study focused on the service of entrepreneurs and customer behaviour. The case of Khon Kaen province, where Thailand’s northeast capital city is located, was chosen. The sample used in data collection consisted of customers and entrepreneurs in the region. The questionnaire technique was used for customers, while the observing and interviewing technique was used for entrepreneurs. The study found that more than half of the customers had experience in using these types of services and intended to use these services much more in the future. The customers of each industry tend to use both services but prefer convenience. The entrepreneurs have the capability to increase their service segments when a clearer view of government policy and customer needs was revealed. Entrepreneurial development in these industries tends to fall into the issue of linkage between these two industries much more than the other issues.
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This article investigates the impact of financial sources on firm growth in Brazil. In particular underlying objectives of this paper is to answer the questions, does external or internal and formal or informal financial sources affects differently on firm performance?, and does financial institutional development support firm performance? Empirical results reveal that internal finance maintains positive relation with firm growth. Growth positively relates to the formal financial institutions while it is found insignificant to informal institutions. Furthermore, analysis strengthens the view that developed financial system is a very imperative factor for firm’s growth in less developed countries.
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Review of: Milohnić, Aldo, Nada Švob-Đokić (eds). Cultural identity politics in the (Post-) transitional societies. Zagreb: Institute for international relations, 2011. ISBN 978-953-6069-56-6.
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The discussion on differentiated/flexible integration is far from novel. Ever since the first enlargement, back in the 1970s, a consistent literature started to develop in reaction to the increasing heterogeneity of the political, economic, social preferences and capabilities of the Member States. Differentiated integration received increased consideration in the 1990s against the background of the forthcoming eastward enlargement. Back then, differentiated integration was designed as a possible solution for the loss of homogeneity occurred because of enlargement. Closer to our days, the differentiated integration has made a powerful comeback. The crisis has laid bare the flaws in the design of Economic and Monetary Union. As part of the solutions put forward, an even clearer distinction between euro and non-euro Member States came to dominate the discussions. However, the challenges posed by it are still to be explored especially in view of the ongoing discussion on the reform of the European Union. Proposals for a profound restructuring of the architecture of the EU’s economic governance have intensified beginning with 2012 The present article analyses the challenges posed by differentiated integration to the countries remaining at the periphery of the core and to investigate whether they do not threaten to raise new frontiers.
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European territorial cooperation (cross-border, transnational and interregional) between European regions has improved in the last twenty years. Considered by European institutions like an useful tool to develop ultra-peripheral territories and solving borders problems, since 2007 it has became one of the objectives of European regional policy. The aim of this paper is to investigate the role of European territorial cooperation in the European enlargement process and how it could contribute to bringing acceding Countries closer to the European Union. In particular, this article examines the importance of European territorial cooperation in preparing the next European enlargement concerning Croatia, which on the 1st of July 2013 will become the new Member State of the EU. For several years Croatia has been implicated in numerous cross-borders, transnational and interregional structures and European programmes which have involved the Country in a strict contact with its neighbours - the others Western Balkans Countries and member States such as Italy, Slovenia, Greece - and above all with EU system.
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The economic crisis, stagnation and very slow growth in most Member States, together with persistent conflicts over trade and finances of the Union influential political elites gave preference to increasing trade protectionism. Borders constitute barriers to the development of trade and exchanges of services and investments, free migration of people. Because of the borders and less developed division of labour, a country can attain lower level of economic growth. The main goal of this article is to distinguish the main profits of border elimination from the point of view of the theory of integration.
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Review of: Laschi, Giuliana (ed.). Oltre i confini: l’UE fra integrazione interna e relazioni esterne. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2011. IBN978-88-15-23445-2
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The dynamic character of the European construction process determined numerous situations that could be considered as enough strained in order to ask for new approaches from the part of communitarian decision-makers and of the Member States too. The enlargement of the European Communities/European Union is one of the sources of communitarian dynamic character and represented an almost permanent process, although it was never related to a precise schedule. Initially given to the Cold War, and later both to internal problems of EU and to some external difficult realities, enlargement of the European Communities/Union raised every time new priorities both for communitarian general body and for the members states. Both parties had all the time to find the more appropriate solutions to all the new burdens generated by enlargement, solutions materialised in new approaches of different situations, new politics, new strategies, and/or new attitudes towards each other.
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After the process of European integration started, around the beginning of the Sixties, one can begin to identify the first signs of the Community’s action in the field of vocational training and education. The community deepening in this area was influenced by several factors, the most important being the phenomenon of enlargements the first of which saw as protagonists the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark. Seeing as the first enlargement occurred in the same years as a Community intervention in the field in question was taking shape, it is interesting to analyze some of the episodes that took place in order to understand how opening the community to new countries, often having different ideas and values, inevitably influenced the initiatives taken by the Community’s various institutions. The episodes analysed in this essay are a testimony as to how national resistances, from the countries of the first enlargement, to the transfer of power in the field of education contributed to delay the birth of a “European education”. For this reason, Community action in this field ended up producing limited results and the steps towards a Community educational dimension were difficult.
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Review of: Central European Regional Policy and Human Geography, Year II, no.1, 2012, HU ISSN 2062-8870, HU E-ISSN 2062-8889.
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The purpose of this paper is to interweave issues concerning the five enlargements of the EEC/EU with the history of the Gender Equality Policy, which has become over the time one of the so-called “horizontal policies” of the EU. After all, equality between men and women is a fundamental principle of the European law that applies to all aspects of life in society, starting from the workplace. The essay is divided into three parts: the first one focusing up to the “Europe of the Twelve”, a period in which attention was still heavily concentrated on employment aspects; the second part analysing issues related to the Fourth enlargement, when the accession of Sweden and Finland - with Austria in 1995 – was crucial for the “revolution” of the Nineties, better known with the expression of gender mainstreaming; the third, and last part, highlighting problems emerged during the Fifth enlargement process to the Central and Eastern European Countries.
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Cohesion policy has become one of the most important activities of the European Union (EU) and attracts more than a third of its budget. By the Structural Funds, the EU seeks to reduce economic and social disparities between the 271 regions of Europe in order to achieve the objective of cohesion. This policy, which had originally a marginal place in the Treaties of Rome, has changed substantially over time as a result of the deepening of the European integration process as well as the effects of the enlargement of the EEC/EU. This article focuses on the salient steps in the evolution of the EU Regional and Cohesion policy by analysing how the different enlargements have been among the determinants of change in this field of action, with a specific attention to the various reforms of the Structural Funds regulations. By changing rules, procedures, types of regional problems and allocation of resources, the implemented reforms have demonstrated the impact the enlargements have had on the Cohesion Policy orientation and reorientation over the time; as well as the severe challenge they have always represented for the entire EU regional equilibrium.
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Review of: Europa Ethnica, Zeitschrift für Minderheitenfragen. No. 3/4 2012, Facultas.wuv University Press, Wien, ISSN: 0014-2492.
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Review of: „Sociologie des combattants.” In Pôle Sud.Vol. 1, No. 36 (Montpellier, 2012), 149p.; „Société civile et démocratie en Europe du Sud.” Pôle Sud, vol. 2, No. 37 (Montpellier, 2012), 193p. ISSN 1262-1676.
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Ovom analizom želimo upozoriti na neke postupke u izražavanju afektivnosti kojima se R. Marinković služi u spomenutoj noveli. Mislimo da će ova analiza pomoći da dublje zađemo u sadržaj njegove umjetničke misli.
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Zaključujući nakon usporedbe pet simbolističkih i devet ekspresionističkih pjesama, reklo bi se da u prvima (simbolističkim) postoji prigušen ton, u drugima (ekspresionističkim) - izrazita tendencija prema tonu jarkome. Izraz prigušen ton, kako će ovdje biti rabljen, odnosi se na suptilna raspoloženja koja se u pjesmi očituju na različite načine, kao što su primjerice: rezigniran stav naratora u pjesmi, čestotnost pjesničkih slika koje sugeriraju blag, ovlašan pokret, pretežitost slikovne fakture nepreciziranih obrisa i fluidnih neuhvatljivosti, pa čelsta upotreba unutarnje rime. Jarki ton pak označuje snažnije osjećanje kaotiiSnosti ili nemira u pjesmi. Ovakav karakter (pjesme) očituje se po naratorovu posvemašnjem ili barem djelomiičnom odbacivanju svojega svijeta ili njegovih institucija, očituje se širinom raspona, žestinompokreta, pjesničkim slikama fiksnih sadržaja, omeđenih obrisa, nadalje grotesknim slikama i ne tako čestom porabom unutarnje rime.
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