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‘FIXING’ THE SOCIAL CONTRACT: A BLUEPRINT FOR INDIVIDUAL TAX REFORM

Author(s): Giorgio Beretta / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2019

In the face of population ageing and demographic decline, nowadays all countries compete for an increasingly valuable asset: human capital. Indeed, the drain of human capital from one country to another concerns not only highly-skilled individuals seeking job opportunities abroad, but also pensioners relocating to sunnier and more tax-friendly jurisdictions. Absent global action, the risk of uncoordinated and unilateral measures taken by countries to increase and protect their own tax base, with adverse effects both from the inter-nation and the intra-nation equity perspective, is very concrete. So far, however, neither the OECD nor the European Union have developed specific policies or measures in the domain of individual taxation. Arguing that scope of reform exists also in this field, the article explores various policies and measures as a blueprint for individual taxation reform, with the double aim to curb tax competition among countries and fix the crumbling social contract.

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‘GREAT EXPECTATIONS’: ROMANIA’S ACCESSION TO THE GENERAL AGREEMENT ON TARIFFS AND TRADE (1968-1971)

Author(s): Costel Coroban / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

At the end of the 1960s, the Romanian authorities awarded more and more importance to foreign trade, aiming to increase trade relations with all states, regardless of their political and economic system. One of the main international organizations regulating international trade was the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), to which Romania became an observer in 1957 and with which it established “technical contacts” in 1966. This article investigates Romania’s diplomatic efforts to be accepted as a Contracting Party to the GATT. The timeframe of the paper spans from 1968, when Romania applied for membership to 1971, when it signed the protocol. In this sense, this article will look at Romanian-European Economic Community (EEC) contacts within the GATT, a subject rather ignored by the scholarship until now. For the first time in historiography, this article investigates Romania’s GATT accession negotiations. Based on multi-archival research, the work is structured into three main parts. The first section briefly presents the context in which, at the end of the 1960s, Romania decided to become a contracting party to GATT. This framework details the country’s expectations / hopes for accession. The second part analyzes the actual negotiations, highlighting especially the points of divergence between Romania and the contracting parties. The third part details the official and unofficial assessments of the Romanian side regarding the results obtained following the accession negotiations.

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‘Patriot’ games? Visions of a post-liberal international order and how to keep peace

Author(s): Johanna Sumuvuori / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2020

Declaring the so-called Liberal International Order, and Multilateralism in general, obsolete has become fashionable after the Russian invasion of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine in 2014. Among others, Russian and American leaders have emphasized competition and the uncompromising quest for the national interest as the basic and natural elements of inter-state relations. This worldview is reflected within societies throughout the world in populist nationalist movements and smacks of ‘strongman politics’ with its undertones of toxic masculinity, in which the only check against outright conflict is the balance of power. This worldview is, clearly, bad news for small states. Alternatives such as Xi Jinping’s ‘Community for the Shared Future of Mankind’ would also, at closer look, seem to refer back to the primacy of national sovereignty – in this case that of one particular state, China. Instead, small states with open economies such as Finland would prioritize strengthening multilateral cooperation and the rules-based international order. Adapting the present international order rather than abandoning it wholesale is key to overcoming these challenges. That adaptation should be driven by a constructive critique of the current state of affairs. But we also need to look critically at the ‘brave new worlds’ that populists and strongmen are promoting. An international order based on the balance of power and a search for absolute national sovereignty will rob us of the ability to overcome global threats as well as to seize opportunities provided by global civil society activism and scientific innovations.

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‘Stranded Pakistanis’ in Bangladesh – victims of political divisions of 70 years ago

Author(s): Agnieszka Kuczkiewicz‑Fraś / Language(s): English Issue: 51/2019

Nearly 300,000 Urdu-speaking Muslims, coming mostly from India’s Bihar, live today in Bangladesh, half of them in the makeshift camps maintained by the Bangladeshi government. After the division of the Subcontinent in 1947 they migrated to East Bengal (from 1955 known as East Pakistan), despite stronger cultural and linguistic ties (they were Urdu, not Bengali, speakers) connecting them with West Pakistan. In 1971, after East Pakistan became independent and Bangladesh was formed, these so-called ‘Biharis’ were placed by the authorities of the newly formed republic in the camps, from which they were supposed—and they hoped—to be relocated to Pakistan. However, over the next 20 years, only a small number of these people has actually been transferred. The rest of them are still inhabiting slum-like camps in former East Bengal, deprived of any citizenship and all related rights (to work, education, health care, insurance, etc.). The governments of Pakistan and Bangladesh consistently refuse to take responsibility for their fate, incapable of making any steps that would eventually solve the complex problem of these people, also known as ‘stranded Pakistanis.’ The article explains historical and political factors that were responsible for the fate of ‘Biharis’ and presents their current legal situation in Bangladesh.

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“A Dynamic Visegrad for Europe” – Slovakia’s V4 Presidency

Author(s): Łukasz Ogrodnik / Language(s): English

Slovakia, which on 1 July this year took over the annual presidency of the Visegrad Group, underlines the need for the V4 to participate in EU reform. Unlike the previous Hungarian presidency, Peter Pellegrini’s government wants to cooperate more intensively with France, Germany and the EU institutions. In addition, Slovakia will pursue its own goals, trying to transfer to group level issues such as other Austrian social reforms and facilitating repatriation from the UK, which concern other V4 countries to some degree. Slovakia’s presidency will support the implementation of Polish demands in regional policy.

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“A Europe that Protects”: Austria’s EU Council Presidency

Author(s): Łukasz Ogrodnik / Language(s): English

The number one priority of the Austrian presidency of the EU Council, which began on 1 July, is security. This issue is subordinated to the other main points of the presidency programme: migration, digitisation, and integration of the Western Balkans with the EU. Although the Austrian approach is similar to the Polish one in the sphere of migration policy, differences remain regarding the EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework for 2021–2027 (MFF), energy policy, and the European Commission’s enforcement of the rule of law.

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“Chinese Bridge” Summer Camp for Youths of the Belt and Road Initiative Partner Countries – an Overview

Author(s): Borislava Lecheva / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2020

This paper is an overview of the Summer Camp Chinese Bridge for Youths of the Belt and Road Initiative Partner Countries organized in China from August 2nd to August 15th, 2019. The summer camp was themed “Experiencing Chinese Martial Arts – Tai Ji” and was hosted by Beijing Language and Culture University and Henan Polytechnic University. This study discusses the summer camp program, the participants’ study background and the importance of such exchange activities in the near future.

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“Cohesion as a Common European Value:” Romania’s EU Council Presidency

Author(s): Jakub Pieńkowski / Language(s): English

On 15 January, Prime Minister Viorica Dăncilă announced the programme for the first Romanian presidency of the EU Council. As a neutral arbitrator, Romania wants to strengthen the EU’s cohesion, especially by equalising the Member States’ level of development. Most Polish and Romanian interests are concurrent. The presidency’s effectiveness may be limited by internal political conflicts and disputes with European institutions. The Member States’ concentration on Brexit, planned in March, and elections to the European Parliament (EP) in May, would not be conducive to the Romanian presidency’s success.

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“Coronapresidency”: German Priorities for the Presidency of the Council of the EU

Author(s): Lidia Gibadło / Language(s): English

The COVID-19 pandemic is prompting the German government to reformulate its plans for the presidency of the Council of the EU starting on 1 July. Germany will focus on restarting the EU economy, taking into account the green energy transformation and the development of the EU’s digital policy. However, the key to achieving this goal will be the development of a compromise between the EU’s North and South regarding the principles of providing assistance and creating common financial tools in the euro area.

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“CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE” CONCEPT’S EVOLUTION AND PROSPECTS WITHIN THE EURO-ATLANTIC FRAMEWORK

Author(s): Silvia – Alexandra Zaharia / Language(s): English Issue: 45/2012

The present article wishes to discuss the evolution and prospects of the concept of “critical” infrastructure within the Euro – Atlantic current framework. The starting point of our argumentation is the idea that regional security is determined, to a great extent, by the functioning, within optimal parameters, of certain systems of critical infrastructures. The aim of the paper is to understand, through a comparative analysis, of the place and role of critical infrastructure security in the United States of America and in the European Union, the legislative guarantees as well as the implementation solutions envisaged on the two sides of the Atlantic Ocean in order to ensure the protection and functioning of critical infrastructures. Moreover, by debating the conceptual evolution of critical infrastructure, we seek to identify potential prospects of efficient development for critical infrastructure security systems.

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“Democracy” without a Demos? The Bosnian Constitutional Experiment and the Intentional Construction of Nonfunctioning States

Author(s): Robert M. Hayden / Language(s): English Issue: 02/2005

The social science literature on ethnically divided states is huge and varied, but suggestions for constitutional solutions are strangely uniform: “loose federations” of ethnically defined ministates, with minimal central authority that must act by consensus and thus cannot act at all on issues that are contested rather than consented. In Bosnia, the political system mandated by the international High Representative suffer the same structural flaws that were used to make the former Yugoslav federation and the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina unworkable. Similarly nonviable systems were proposed in 1994 to 1995 for Croatia and in 1998 to 1999 for Kosovo and recently for Cyprus and for Iraq. This article analyzes the paradox of mandating consensus-based politics in ethnically divided states, inclusion in which does not have the consent of most members of at least one group.

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“Genocide”, “Hate-Speech”, and “Peace as War”: From the Dayton peace implementation to a July 11, 2018 Srebrenica-related tweet

Author(s): Dražen Pehar / Language(s): English Issue: 18/2019

This essay deals with all key responses to the tweet about the Srebrenica “genocide” Rajko Vasić published on 11 July 2018, interpreting those as a mini-model to elucidate the entire period of the Dayton peace implementation. The essay demonstrates that the international community, including primarily the US and the UK, relates to the peace implementation as a process of continuing war in Bosnia-Herzegovina by other means. “Hate speech” perspective and ICTY Genocide indictments/ verdicts are explained here as an auxiliary tool to achieve the very same purpose. Most importantly, it is argued here, and supported through a number of examples, that the issue of meaning as attributed to one’s political interlocutor, or a treaty or legislation, is preponderant in politics. Lastly, the author presents details from the UN Security Council July 8, 2015 session to illustrate the key conclusions of his analysis.

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“Geographies of Power”: Gender Role in Migration from Perspective of Care Work: The Case Study of Poland-Ukraine Border

Author(s): Lorenza Perini / Language(s): English Issue: 13 (27)/2019

Within the theoretical framework proposed by Pessar and Mahler (2003) on the impact of the “geography of power” on gender relations in the processes of migration, the paper wants to highlight the importance of the process of negotiation of the gender relationships across national borders and how the interaction of this issue with other factors can contribute to shape migrants’ identities – especially of migrant women- as well as their living conditions. At the base there is the finding that, although –generally speaking- globalization means freedom to cross borders for capital and goods, the freedom of movement for people still depends on their place of birth and on their economic condition (Anderson 2000; Ehrenreich, Hochschild 2002). In this scenario, the research takes into consideration the case of Poland in relationship with Ukraine. As a former country of emigration, Poland is part of the global system but, starting from its entrance in the Schengen area, it is possible to observe how the rules of the “hierarchies of migration” are now working: Poland, in the last decades, instead of being a country of emigration, has started to become a country of immigration, capturing migrants from the other side of the border, particularly from those countries, like Ukraine, where the gap between the income level and the cost of living has become too huge to afford decent life conditions (Lutz 2008). The stereotyped figure of the woman seen as just a mother and as the only caretaker of the household and the family in catholic and traditionalist countries like Poland, is one of the central elements around which the research is built, reveling both the asymmetry between migrants and native women inside the “new” families and the problem of connection of the migrants women with their own “old” families abroad (Grzymała-Kazłowska 2001). In this sense, starting from the historical framework of traditional roles in the Catholic family, the research will examine the relationship between native women and migrant women in the framework of the “geography of power”, in which the elements that make up the border within and through which the analysis develops are represented by the legal / illegal dichotomies, Shengen / non-Shengen, and old / new migrations.

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“Has regional cooperation led to the establishment of Balkania: Europe’s Southeastern Dimension?”

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English

During the last decade there were many regional initiatives such as the Stability Pact and the Southeast European Cooperation Process aiming to establish strong linkage among countries in the Western Balkans, which in turn will bring lasting peace and stability to the region.. But we can hardly state that these regional arrangements have managed to build up strong “regional identity” which is a prerequisite for a sound regional cooperation as seen in other European regions, such as Scandinavia. Mainly, regional initiatives have focused on instant problem solving, rather than on launching a new long life quality for the region as a whole in economic and political sense. Thus, the regional cooperation phenomenon insofar has not produced any substantial results and sounds more like a good intention.

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“Make the World Order Great Again” - The Fight over the Liberal Order as an Instance of the Transatlantic Divide

Author(s): Alina Bargaoanu / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2019

The purposes of this article are a) to offer some highlights on the various concepts conflated under the term “world order” (post WWII world order, liberal order, global order), thus underlining its context-specific character; b) to place the discussion in the current context of the Transatlantic Divide and c) to examine EU’s embrace of the current narrative of a universalistic, unhistorical liberal order and the consequences of such embrace for the amplification of the Transatlantic Divide and of the internal East-West one. The choice to focus on the challenges to the world order from within the Transatlantic world and from its most prominent members is motivated by the fact that, to our understanding, this development is age-defining. The fact that China would challenge the world order that was established by its main competitor – US – in order to serve its own interests is less spectacular than the fact that the dismantling of the US-led world order appears to be led by US itself or the fact the biggest fights over the current order and its aftermath take place within the Transatlantic world itself.

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“MEĐUNARODNA POLICIJSKA SARADNJA ” - ELDAN MUJANOVIĆ

Author(s): Kenan Kapo / Language(s): Bosnian,Croatian,Serbian Issue: 3-4/2015

Review of: Kenan KAPO - „Međunarodna policijska saradnja“, dr. sc. Eldana Mujanović

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“NATIONAL INTEREST” CONCEPT IN EUROPEAN CONTEXT

Author(s): Cristina Bogzeanu / Language(s): English Issue: 41/2011

The present study is meant not only to contribute to fathoming the understanding of the mechanisms lying beyond European actors’ behavior on the regional and international arena, but also to make some conceptual clarifications. Within this article, the concept of “national interest” is approached from the perspective of International Relations and the manner in which this concept is understood and utilized at European level is examined. The first part of this paperwork analyses from a theoretical point of view the concept mentioned above, relying on the visions of different International Relations schools on it. The second section is meant to study the way in which this concept is applied at European level. In this sense, there are considered not only the EU official documents, but also EU’s role on the international arena, with the purpose to identify the logic behind a certain action of the EU or of its Member States, to find if they act accordingly to the idea of “common good”, at the European level, or to that of their own interests. This study ends with a research on the way in which Romania’s national interests have been formulated before and after its adhesion to the EU, the objective of this demarche consisting in demonstrating the two-way relation between national interests and the common ones, defined by the European official documents.

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“NATO Transformation is About Strengthening Our Neighbourhood”

Author(s): Tacan Ildem / Language(s): English Issue: 04 (14)/2018

Interview with Ambassador Tacan Ildem, NATO Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy

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“New Era” in China’s Defence Policy

Author(s): Justyna Szczudlik / Language(s): English

In July, China published its first defence policy white paper since 2015. The document is a response to similar documents by the U.S. and its growing engagement in Asia and confrontational policy towards China. Compared to the previous white paper, which introduced a new definition of security and the “active defence” of overseas interests, the new text focuses on a peaceful global order actively shaped by China and intended to contrast with its perspective of U.S. activities. However, the new focus does not mean China will not defend its “core interests”, which might be a challenge for NATO.

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ჩინეთისადმი დამოკიდებულების ცვლილება ოცდამეერთე საუკუნის რუსულ მედიასივრცეში

Author(s): Davit Andguladze / Language(s): Georgian Issue: 1/2021

The article covers recent relationship of modern world’s two great powers – Russia and China, with main focus on identifying causes and goals behind positive reflection of China in the Russian media, which is becoming a trend during last couple years. As it is known, the media has a great influence on the formation of public awareness, stereotypes, attitudes, therefore, the control of media space, to some extent, also means control of public opinion. Less democratic the country is, more opportunities for such kind of control it has. In such countries, the tightening of control over the media can be caused by many factors - political, economic, cultural, and so on. Modern Russia has put herself in a difficult position in many directions. The sanctions initiated by the West are pushing the Russian government towards the East, particularly China. The connection between Moscow and Beijing over the past decade has been unprecedentedly close, which needs to be justified by a special campaign in a country like Russia, where the attitude of the population and political elites towards China is traditionally cautious and negative. Chinese culture, language, economic success, political, etc. arrangement are being intensively promoted in the Russian media to justify the Eastern path. Even special information applications have been created. By analyzing political and economic relationship of those countries in the article it is obvious that in contrast to the disagreement with the West, Russia is becoming more dependent on China. Accordingly, it is enhancing the positive role of China in the Russian media.

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