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Plus, Croatia’s new leader takes flak from the neighbors, and Russia says transsexuals are not banned from driving. Around the Bloc is TOL's daily digest of the important, the trivial, the tragic, the weird, and the sober from its coverage region.
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The new prime minister has a chance to become a star if her government’s tough decision to overhaul Europe’s largest coal company doesn’t backfire.
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The history of the Balkans is an organic and permanent part of Hungarian history – and vice versa – even though Hungary is not a part of the region, either in the geographical or political sense, but rather its neighbour and shaper. Starting with the beginning of Hungarian statehood up until 1948, for roughly a thousand years, Balkan developments have always determined Hungary’s geopolitical situation in three respects: • as a factor in the Balkan policy of all the great powers past and present; • as a pre-eminent area of Hungarian foreign policy; • as one of the principal elements of Hungarian domestic policy, including demographic and administrative changes. There is a strong cultural mutual feedback effect between the Balkans and Hungary since population exchanges, border modifications, linguistic exchanges and nation-building have often occurred inside the territory of the Hungarian state and its immediate vicinity, with the participation of the Balkan peoples. (Important events of Serbian, Croatian, Romanian, Bosnian and partially even Bulgarian “national awakening” took place in Budapest, and all the aforementioned peoples lived under Hungarian rule for more or less prolonged periods.)
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The accession of Romania and Bulgaria on 1 January 2007 had relatively little impact on the structure of the European Union: the number of its member states increased by all of 8% and its total population by some 6%, while its combined economic output grew by scarcely 1%. The change was thus far less significant than a mere three years earlier, on 1 May 2004, when the then 15-member European Union expanded to 25 members, thereby seeing its total population increase by 18% and its combined economic performance by some 5%. Prior to the “big” enlargement of 2004, the developed countries of the European Union primarily feared the harmful effects of price and wage differences between the old and new member states. They believed that a huge migration of labour from the cheaper eastern reaches of the expanding zone of integration would be triggered in a westerly direction, while productive capital might be relocated within the union from the older member states to the new investment markets, lured by their comparatively low wages and other costs. These expectations turned out to be unfounded, however, partly because the EU-15 countries were able to employ temporary restrictions to arrest or prevent undesirable market developments.1 In addition, a seismic change was also avoided because the movement of both capital and labour is determined by a set of conditions that takes many factors into account. […]
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Since Romania’s accession to the European Union on 1 January 2007, internal conflicts have intensified, voters’ interest in politics has diminished, and bilateral relations with the country’s eastern neighbours have got more complicated. At the same time, traditional animosity with Hungary has mellowed, even while the claims of ethnic Hungarian elites have become more insistent. The acceptance of Romania into the EU seems to have been the last common aim of the country’s politicians, the very last goal about which the Romanian political class succeeded in forging a national consensus. On completion of this task, however, Romania’s political elites did not endeavour to try and find another common project that might be able to harness their administrative, legislative, civic and intellectual energies. They chose instead to revert to their own group interests, and in so doing risked incurring multiple fragmentation at the bureaucratic and political levels, but also at the level of public opinion. Neither the government, nor the political parties, nor Parliament had prepared a post-accession strategy aimed at synchronizing the country with its fellow EU states, or at implementing a transition to another stage of social, economic and political development.
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Much progress has been made in South Eastern Europe since 1999 and the NATO intervention in Kosovo. Even so, it has not always been visible because politicians and the media always tend to reflect on what is missing in this region. Also, concerning the situation in Kosovo, while there are many deficiencies, nobody is really looking at the achievements. Although political and economic challenges remain, South Eastern Europe has been – and still remains – an increasingly favourable destination for investments. The progress that has been made becomes visible if we compare the situation now with that following the wars thatcame with the break-up of Yugoslavia, and only few questions remain open for the future. […]
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We could even have a good laugh if only the whole thing wasn’t so sad. It was a little bit entertaining when our parliamentary history writers reached the peak of their potential and announced in one big leap, as they say, that history was not at all as complicated as we naïve professionals would imagine because everything was as straightforward as a picnic. Especially if the issue on the menu is not class struggle but merely the enemies of the nation, who are as easy to identify without fail as is the said picnic. Max Frisch, the excellent Swiss author, notes in his autobiographical sketches that, simply put, politics is usually taken up by those (and he has men in mind, of course) who have given up on sex. That is, Frisch probably means that for them, politics is a substitute for sex. Let us not dwell on the fact that Frisch did not consider banalities such as the role of money in politics, and conclude that while no one has ever provided any practical or statistical proof of the assumption, it does not appear to be entirely irrelevant in the assessment of political activity. A case in point is when the very cornerstones of society are at stake. It is not very surprising if under tense circumstances of that kind some people are hit by a cerebrovascular accident before their time and eventually become unfit to practice our profession – although not in the manner the erudite Swiss describes.[…]
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The study takes into account the organizational capacity, the numerical support, the competence, the specialized knowledge, the information control, the occupation of certain social positions, the control of the means of force and the very reputation for holding power, all these seen as power resources. It is noticed the existence of a potential power that depends on certain qualities, skills and competencies and the existence of a manifest power involving the feedback as far as the exercise of power is concerned and obedience. The conclusion is that the specific of the political power derives from the answer to whom do I obey politically?
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Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, included into the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in 2004, started recently their negotiations on Action Plans with the European Union. In order to make the ENP Action Plans (AP) exercise more effective the countries of the South Caucasus can learn from the experience of first wave ENP countries such as Ukraine and Moldova. The present paper discusses the ENP for the South Caucasus and makes ten recommendations for the countries of the region on how to proceed with the negotiation and eventual implementation of the ENP Action Plans.
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In recent years, Central Asian region has become one of the hottest issues in political agenda and turned into an area of power struggle among the global actors such as the US, Russia and China. These global forces began working on various projects with the countries in the Central Asian region in order to increase their political influence and their control over oil and natural gas resources in the region. The newly independent and relatively weak states of Central Asia, in order to strengthen their presence and to be effective global powers in the international arena, are attempting to establish a “balance” with the great powers by adopting their political and economic agenda. In this context, it has become increasingly interesting to analyse the particular place and policy approach Kyrgyzstan will maintain with respect to the European Union (EU). This study will look at Kyrgyzstan's stance with regard to the EU's enlargement process along with the EU's general response to Central Asia. These will be analysed to obtain a deeper understanding of the EU’s interests and policies in the Central Asian region and especially in Kyrgyzstan.
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Following the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991, powerful actors acting according to an imperialist geopolitical approach, such as Russia, China, the United States, European Union, Turkey and Iran, pursued a foreign policy aimed at dominating the regional states. However, the items on the agendas of Central Asian leaders were quite different from those of the powerful states. In the first years of their independence, the leaders promised to adopt democratic reforms. But in the course of time they constructed authoritarian regimes. After reinforcing their power over the political mechanisms, the leaders gave priority to the preservation of their regimes, or in other words maintenance of their posts, while determining the domestic and foreign policies. The leaders, acting in view of these concerns, have avoided close relations with the countries who threatened or criticized their regimes, and in order to preserve their regimes they were not reluctant to be in contact with the rival great power(s). In this respect, they have objected to democratization in their countries, and by keeping in mind the balances among different clans within their countries they have spent their time so as to protect their posts. In the meantime, the privileged clans have also supported the existing policies of the leaders.
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This article is based on political, strategic, and economic relations between Azerbaijan and Israel. Throughout history Azerbaijan has been home of several Jews communities, such as Mountain Jews, Ashkenazi and etc, which played an important role in relationship between these two countries. With the collapse of Soviet Union, Azerbaijan got its independence in 1991. Since that period of time Azerbaijan has put strenuous efforts to create the bilateral relations with the leading world countries for preserving its independence, and avoid Russian and Iranian influence. Despite its religious origin and neighborhood with Iran, Israel was one of the priorities in the foreign policy of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan developed its relationship with Israel in all contexts. It was one of the strategic partners in Nagorno- Karabagh war between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
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The paper discusses the changes in the labour market in the European Union and in Serbia, namely the changes that emerge as a consequence of the adjustment to the social, economic, political and demographic changes in the modern world. The development of new technologies and knowledge economy lays an ever greater stress on the quality of the labour force as a factor of improving an economy's competitiveness in the world market. On the other hand, mass unemployment appears as one of the most important problems of the modern society development. When it comes to Serbia, labour market reform is indispensable for creating the conditions for market economy development as well as for Serbia's successful integration into the EU. The first part of the paper represents an analysis of the EU politics in the domain of employment, changes in the rate of employment and unemployment, and the issue of free labour mobility within the EU. The second part of the paper represents a discussion on the Serbian labour market characteristics, namely, rates of employment and unemployment, informal labour market and labour force mobility. Finally, the discussion focuses on the possible effects of the EU enlargement upon the tendencies in the labour market as well as the process of the labour market reform in Serbia.
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Turkey conducts a multi-polar foreign diplomacy in order to strengthen its positions in the region, to gain control over the neighboring countries; as well as to make its way towards the European Union. Being on the EU’s waiting list, Turkey strives to get advantages of its prolonged status as a candidate country
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The revision of the Romanian constitution is a subject of actuality in Romania in the year 2002. The author focuses on this subject and makes refferences to the regionalism issue in this context.
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The article contains a definition of the modern state and its role, the application of these concepts in the Hungary of 2002 and the latest elections, comments on the elections.
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The author transposes basic concepts of the economy like the demand and the offer into the religious zone, trying an evaluation of the “religious market”. Starting from the potential “customers”, from the polls that grant the church with a great deal of trust, the article analyzes the modalities to send the religious message and the new adapted to the last media means interface.
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The current US administration, dominated ideologically by the so-called neo-conservatives, engaged the only superpower into an adventurous and highly uncertain policy of unilateral military action, followed by a hopeless occupation of an important country in the Middle East. The hubris of neo-conservatives has proved to be a short-lived one, as the situation in Afghanistan and Iraq (and, generally, across the whole Middle East) is showing no sign of a clear out-of-mess strategy. As part of the “Coalition of the Willing”, Rumania is in a difficult position, especially in front of its “natural” (i.a.: European, mainly French and German) allies, and the political class has to take full responsibility for current and future difficulties coming from the perceived opportunism - and lack of a proper strategy, to take into account the national interest of Rumania – of several recent political gestures of the ruling politicians.
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The recent entry of Romania in the Security Council of ONU points out the problem of reforming this organization. Put in second place because of the interest of the Romanian society in Euro Atlantic integration, the ONU reform is analyzed under two aspects: the role of the organization as a leader in administrating the globalization and the evolution of the rapports between the unilateral and multilateral in global administration.
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