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At the beginning of the 2010–2014 term of the Government, we considered it inevitable to introduce and bring new quality and new dimension to our foreign policy; a valuebased approach to formulate our clear positions on particular issues.
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September 2016 marks the passing of one year has passed since the outbreak of the EU migration crisis which became the basis of unprecedented co-operation between Turkey and the EU. Paradoxically, although this co-operation in containing the crisis has proven surprisingly effective, the climate of Turkish-EU relations has significantly deteriorated. This situation comes in part as a result of internal tensions in Turkey (and within the EU). However, genuine changes in the power relations between Turkey and the EU have occurred and Turkey feels that issues it attaches importance to are not being appropriately addressed by the EU—the frustration this causes has been even more instrumental in the deterioration of relations. This shift in relations between Turkey and the EU also stems from Turkey’s aspirations to emancipate itself in its relations with the West; there has been an upward trend in this regard for years. The instruments the EU has so far been employing in order to put Turkey under pressure (above all the EU integration process) are losing their effectiveness, which is in stark contrast with Turkey’s emancipation and assertiveness. However, irrespective of the present and future inevitable tensions in Turkish-EU relations, Turkey’s aim is not to break off with the EU but to develop a new model of strategic relations which better serves its own interests. Despite the recent rapprochement with Russia, Ankara seems to be aware of a lack of alternatives to strategic co-operation with the EU and, more broadly, with the West.
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The Kaliningrad region can be called a 'captive island', because of its specific geopolitical location - it is part of the Russian legal, political and economic space, yet it is geographically separated from the rest of the Russian Federation, and it is particularly open to co-operation with its neighbours in the European Union. Moscow is trying to compensate the region for its separation, offering it financial support and economic privileges.At the same time, it is sensitive to any potential challenges to Russia's territorial integrity - and the centre's desire for control over the region often limits the latter's potential for cooperation and internal development. This report presents the situation in the region, and is intended to help develop a model for its effective regional co-operation with its EU neighbours.
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The issues of government debt and deficits became a current component of the public finances of virtually all the countries in the world since the Great Depression in the 1930’s. The EU countries do not diverge from this picture and most of them display complex financial problems, in which consistent budgetary deficits have combined with negative net exports, with the ageing and pension system challenges and recently with the global financial crisis. In our paper we analyze the evolution of the public deficits run by the old and new EU member states, trying to identify their main causes and to propose several courses of action in order to control the deficits. We started with a structural analysis of the income side of the budget, especially for direct and indirect taxes, followed by a quantitative analysis of the growing deficits in the EU countries. We identified some widespread causes of the public deficits, such as the growing share of the public social expenditures and of the public wages, or the increase in public investments. Finally we presented some solutions for fiscal consolidation, which we think is essential in order to ensure the survival of the Euro and of the European Union.
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European Union is an advance institution. There is no other community to mach its political, economic and international weight. But as an outsider, I do not find it as a cosmopolitan democracy. There are two internal as well as one international reason to prove my argument. First of all there are two schools of thought within the EU, regarding its future direction. There are forces who believe that the political direction of the EU must be Atlantis. There are others who believe that the European Union must, in its political thinking, remain European minded, separate from whatever the American guideline is. The United Kingdom and its allies within European Union support the Atlantis view, where the French and its orbit allies believe that the European Union must be European. So, that means that the liberal forces are put versus the social welfare minded, within the European Union. The second critical view is with regard to the institution itself. The selection of the commission is doubtful, if the stronger and more powerful members of the European Union have the upper hand in its selection. The European Parliament is paralyzed in intervening over agricultural budget. The power of members by ‘qualify majority voting’ - QMV, makes collaboration among the stronger and more powerful members of the EU much easier.
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Russia is now once again one of the ten largest economies in the world (representing around 70% of Germany’s GDP in purchasing power parity in 2007). In addition, Russia is the third largest trading partner of the EU, the fourth largest trade partner of the eurozone and an essential energy supplier to the EU. This recovery makes Russia an economic – and political – actor that cannot be ignored. In this authoritative new book, Lúcio Vinhas de Souza, desk officer for Russia in the Directorate–General for Economic and Financial Affairs of the European Commission, reviews the country’s evolving macroeconomic performance and structural policy framework, from the difficult days of the recession in the early transition period and the 1998 crisis to Russia’s sustained and robust growth since 1999. He outlines the remaining reform priorities in Russia and concludes with pragmatic policy recommendations for the reform agenda.
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While democracy in Europe took a very long time to emerge and consolidate itself, the democratization of Europe has only just begun and remains a rather remote prospect. The competing national states that composed this part of the world were originally autocratic – with the historical exception of Switzerland, which somehow continuously managed to practice its peculiar form of democracy. Indeed, Western Europe became uniformly democratic only in the mid-1970s with the regime changes in Portugal, Spain, and Greece. And parts of the former Soviet Union have still to institutionalize the accountability of its rulers by way of competitive processes of representation.
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The paper analyzes empirically, in Romania’s case, the relationship between economic development (dependent variable) and its political factors (independent variables). The analysis is based on the construction of a linear “Logit Model” and the data set is covering the period 1926- 2007. The main results show that, in Romania’s case, which the economy has an expansive and competitive market, the economic development, can be accompanied, by high levels of democratization, with high political stability, on a republican base, but this is not a rule.
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The standard labor force statistics has been widely used as an important indicator of the overall health of an economy, and both economists and economic policy makers in the U.S. have been uncritically relying on the single official unemployment rate whenever they propose and make an important policy decision. The goal of this paper is to revisit some of the limitations in the US formal labor force statistics and propose to incorporate a series of measures for analyzing a certain quality aspect of employment into the government’s formal labor force statistics. The conventional definitions and categories used by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) have many limitations, and are of no use at all in capturing quality aspects of employment. After examining some of these problems, the paper introduces and proposes the International Labor Office (ILO)’s labor (under-)utilization framework to overcome these problems. The labor utilization framework adopted in the ILO’s international conferences emphasizes the importance of capturing quality aspects of labor utilization and introduces the concept of income-, time-, and skill-related labor underutilization. The survey in this paper shows that the ILO’s labor utilization framework is broader in scope and much more consistent in analyzing the labor market performance. The framework also provides better insights into analyzing the labor market dynamics than any other formal labor force statistical frameworks, including the US BLS’s standard labor force statistics. Even though the ILO’s labor utilization framework is in no way a complete solution to the task of analyzing the capitalist labor market dynamics and of constantly improving the government’s labor force statistics, it is far more superior to the conventional unemployment rate and any other narrowly defined labor force statistics. Thus, it is urged that the US BLS should seriously consider incorporating labor utilization framework into its formal labor force statistics.
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There were number of unique economic events taking place in the EU during 2016. The“Panama papers” once again fueled the discussion over more harmonized tax policies within the EU. Apple was told to pay back to Ireland 13 billion euros of “unlawful state aid” – with the Irish government strongly opposing such a windfall revenue, choosing to defend its tax sovereignty instead. The ECB decided to phase out one of the world’s most worthy banknotes – the 500 euro note. The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with Canada – CETA – was signed in October, after 7 years of negotiations and a number of delays, while a similar deal with the US – the TTIP – barely inched forward. The European Commission imposed further anti-dumping duties on Chinese steel products, responding to the repeated outcries of struggling European steelmakers.Yet the economic tone of the year was played by well-known instruments. The Euro zone financial system, deficits, quantitative easing, and, of course, the Greek crisis,will remain topics of the day for months to come.
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In conditions of fast technical progress, the financial leasing has become a necessary element so as to finance the investments, and towards a real economic growth. The financial leasing has generated within the lessee accountancy both exploitation expenses as regards the amortization afferent to the assets, as well as the financial expenses. The main objective of this paper consists in emphasizing the issues the amortization of the asset taken by financial leasing, in accordance to the international standards, specific to the leasing, tangible assets and depreciation of assets. An especial attention should be dedicated to the result, where changing the useful lifetime of the assets on financial leasing regime has effects over the truthful reflection of financial position and performances of a lessee. One might also outline that the time of asset utilization represents a factor, which has influenced the decision of refinancing by leasing.
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This article is a reflection upon the statement information, especially balance, and their impact on the estimate of the financial position of the company. The research literature portray the evolution of Polish balance law, in effect method of the presentation of balance information. They outline also the information requirements of the return on assets, equity capital and book value method. The empirical studies confirm the author's fears in support of the information presentations impact on the appraise of the financial situation of economic unit.
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Deregulation in the petroleum down-stream sector tends to be treated by the masses. Oftentimes, the fear is that it will fuel the exploitative proclivities of the petroleum marketers and constitute a leeway to corruption by government officials. For example, petroleum products may sell at prohibitive prices, at least in the short run and bureaucrats may exhibit corrupt tendencies in the process. These are genuine fears! However, there is a way out! Thus this paper is based on the imperative that the situation is not as hopeless as it may seem. It offers a marketing blueprint for the implementation of deregulation in the petroleum down-stream sector in such a manner that every stakeholder in the industry will be reasonably satisfied. Thus the marketing model of deregulation reduces conflict situations by taking into account the needs, desires and preferences of all stakeholders. It succeeded in Chile, Thailand etc. why can’t it work in Nigeria?
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The article touched a problem of social exclusion in the context of the return to the labor market. The starting point is the lack of activation of people excluded by social assistance. It also stresses the side effects experienced by its protégés: passivity, inheritance lifestyle based on social benefits and lack of motivation to integrate with the local community.The guidelines for the directions of social policies within the EU development model meant that social policy, in particular the so-called activation policy seeks methods to counteract these pathologies. By incorporating social economy entities and non-governmental sector to carry out tasks at the level of social assistance it was given the chance to depart from treating social assistance as an institution of social transfers.Created multisectorial social assistance is based on three pillars: welfare (traditional), pro-employment and reintegration, which is implemented through the creation of social employment institutions. The new system involves conditioning aid. The article presents the basic data ofthe social employment and its beneficiaries. It should be noted that the main problem in the process of activation of the long-term unemployed is very low effectiveness and a very marginal effect of their employment after completing the course. This issue is shown from two perspectives: quantitative – with statistical indicators and qualitative – determination motivation to undertake the activity. There is a statistical picture of two indicators: the completion of training and economic independence. The qualitative perspective is based on the results of surveys dedicated to the theme of client’s attitudes to social and economic activation and their work in the future.
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Once the West’s ally, Turkey has been an ever more problematic partner in recent years. The Turkish leadership no longer views the alliance with the European Union and membership in NATO as based on shared values; rather, it is now merely a cherry-picked and shaky community of interests. Turkey is also increasingly alienated politically in the Middle East. In the aftermath of the Arab Spring and the regional developments which followed, Ankara has lost much of the influence it had built in region in previous years. Turkey’s growing international isolation is a consequence of the country ever more fully subordinating its foreign policy to the ideology of the ruling AKP. The world vision offered by that ideology does not square with the diagnoses of Turkey’s partners. The objectives it sets for Turkish foreign policy are incompatible with its partners’ expectations. Moreover, a foreign policy rooted in ideology is less flexible and less capable of adjusting to current international dynamics.
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Intellectual Property (IP) has become one of the most important assets of knowledge-based economies in the present world. In this sense Patents can be seen as the outcome indicators of applied research and technological advancement. The nano-world is full of surprise and potential. Like other present technologies, nanotechnology is not merely a part of a distant future, but also a significant technology, and its patenting system is much more complex than any other objects in the area of science. As it is a nascent technology, it may pose problems and opportunities for IP regimes. Nanotechnology patents are not treated differently than other patents, but it is true that more complex technology usually creates more complex problems within the patent system. This article surveys the different application of nanotechnology and human rights issues and tries to address its complex patenting system and future challenges in the European context.
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