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The Albanian Institute for International Studies (AIIS) brings to the reader the 2012 edition of the yearly survey study ‘The European Perspective of Albania’, an authoritative and established publication, part of the European program which is one of the key programs of the AIIS regular activity. After nine years of carefully collecting, reporting, analyzing and interpreting the perceptions and expectations of the Albanian public related to EU and integration, AIIS has now a valuable experience and has built a solid reputation both with domestic as well as with international institutions referring valuable data and providing practical recommendations in relation to furthering the citizens involvement in the integration process.
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The Albanian Institute for International Studies (AIIS) has been measuring the pulse of public opinion in Albania regarding European integration since 2003. Through its yearly edition of the national public opinion poll “The European perspective of Albania: Perceptions and Realities” that identifies and interprets the perceptions, evaluations and thoughts of Albanian citizens (selected to make up a fairly representative sample), AIIS has been of assistance with its recommendations stemming from the study to a variety of relevant actors in both Tirana and Brussels. European institutions, their representatives in Albania, Albanian and regional media and actors in government, academia and civil society alike have benefitted from this knowledge and this insight provided every year fitted with comparisons and alerts on emerging trends.
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This report offers a panorama of people’s perceptions in Albania opposite the realities of the European integration process. It does so by gauging these perceptions in several dimensions of the process and tries to understand it from the perspectives of ordinary citizens, who are essential towards achieving the long time goal and aspiration of Albania. These perspectives are faced with the realities of the EU integration process and the challenges and difficulties the country is facing in the path of integration. The results and conclusions are directed to all the political and nonpolitical actors in the Albanian society, with the aim to reflect upon people’s perceptions and expectations as well as what can be further improved.
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Ahead of the European Council summit on the 60th anniversary of the Treaties of Rome, the European Commission has prepared a white paper on the possible paths of EU development. The vague content of the document, though, reflects the uncertainty amongst the Member States, although the first reactions of Western European politicians favour the multi-speed Europe scenario. For Poland, especially as long as it remains outside the euro area, it will be important that EU discussions be inclusive and non-discriminatory.
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Slovakia’s presidency of the Council of the European Union will be dominated by the debate on EU reform in light of Brexit. The government in Bratislava will try to link current community policy to its national interests and improvement of Slovakia’s image in Europe. Therefore, the Slovak position on possible institutional reform or energy policy may differ from the Polish stance. If the Visegrad Group has the ambition to use the Slovak presidency to strengthen its role in Europe, it will be necessary to develop a uniform approach to the key issues of the EU.
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Brexit can have negative consequences for EU citizens living in the United Kingdom as well as for Britons living in other EU Member States. The scale and nature of its impact will depend on the model of future relations between the UK and the EU as well as on how quickly the latter agrees to it. Paradoxically, if Brexit reduces economic migration to the UK, it will mostly hurt the British economy and its labour market. For Poland, given its own demographic trends, the prospect of a return to the country of a number of workers is very positive.
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In a referendum in the Kingdom of the Netherlands on 6 April, 61% of voters were against ratification of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. Their decision may delay Ukraine’s integration with the EU and will strengthen those political forces in Ukraine that oppose the country’s modernisation and cooperation with international financial institutions. Russia will use the results of the referendum to discredit the Eastern European countries’ rapprochement to the EU.
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The EU pursues a number of advisory programmes in neighbouring countries with the aim to help their government administrations implement mutually agreed reforms. The experience of the Eastern Partnership countries shows these programmes face many limits. Although it is difficult for the EU to modernise public administration in this region, its advisory services might be improved by introducing more flexible procedures, multiannual training, and more logistical support.
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With its “credible enlargement perspective for and enhanced EU enlargement with the Western Balkans”, the EU plans to launch several new flagship initiatives for the six aspiring countries. The key initiative envisaged is “to strengthen rule of law” through more detailed assessment of the rule of law and reform implementation by including case-based peer reviews, trial monitoring of serious corruption cases and organised crime, developing indicators for reform implementation and deploying advisory missions. // The EU has begun some planning but detailed action plans are yet to come. New programmes and initiatives should be new in content and form. In the case of Kosovo, things are more complex; the clarity of the new plan and drawing the line between the past and future is key for any success of the upcoming initiatives. With EULEX still on the ground, after 10 years of deployment, plagued by low trust and an image of failure, the rule of law has little improved in Kosovo. The EU should carefully consider the conditions upon which new initiatives are established. // Equally, local authorities need to be fully in the driving seat. Reluctant to do so until now, the government has recently initiated a Functional Review of the Rule of Law Sector and Justice 2020. Their agendas have not progressed much in the absence of political will, and undefined roles and agendas remain between the local authorities and EU. Any new initiatives should be launched based on certain principles that ensure they have full local ownership, are driven by local demand, are based on in-depth evaluation and verification, build upon broad consultations and inclusion, have a clearly defined role and scope, have realistic expectations and contribute to streamlining the reform agendas.
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In this contribution, we propose that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) introduce ‘rule of law infringement procedures’, having both a fast-track and a freezing component, as part of a wider ‘EU rule of law toolbox’. We show rule of law infringement procedures’ great potential in tackling rule of law backsliding in the Member States, provided that the following rules are applied. First, the European Commission should identify the rule of law problem explicitly. Second, it should not waste time and postpone its legal actions, while a Member State openly violates the rule of law. Third, the CJEU should automatically prioritise and accelerate infringement cases with a rule of law element to avoid more harm being done by those in power. Fourth, interim measures should be used to put an immediate halt to rule of law violations that can culminate in grave and irreversible harm. Fifth, EU institutions should establish a periodic rule of law review. It should help them to determine if there is a systemic threat to the rule of law in a given Member State, and provide additional legitimacy to the European Commission for initiating rule of law infringement actions and to the CJEU for ruling on such matters.
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This report is about some of the ways in which Bulgarians can realize their potential. The fact that Bulgarians have potential is reflected in what they have accomplished over the last years – recovering from a deep financial and social crisis just nine years ago, building an EU member state and a place to which tourists, and increasingly investors, flock. It is reflected in Bulgaria being a country categorised as having human development with a ranking 12 places higher than its ranking in terms of income. It is reflected in the value people put on education, and the sacrifices parents and grandparents will make to give their children and grandchildren the chance for a good education.
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Croatia takes over the Council Presidency from Finland at a turbulent time for enlargement policy, especially after the opening of accession negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia was postponed yet again. While such a move caused shockwaves among the expert community, it also had a snowball effect of putting enlargement back on the agenda of EU leaders. All of this took place in the context of yet another Brexit extension, a prolongation of the Multi-annual financial framework negotiations, and the delay of the start of the new European Commission. Regarding the upcoming period, what awaits the region during the Balkan presidency of Croatia? Is the upcoming Summit in Zagreb simply going to be Sofia 2.0 or can the region expect more tangible commitments and results? As phase one of the talks on the Future of Europe, according to the Franco-German proposal, is planned to start and end with Croatia's presidency, this CEP Insight answers whether this a burden or a blessing for this Balkan country.
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On 1 January 2019, Romania started presiding over the Council of the EU, for the first time since joining the Union. It took up the baton from Austria, a country whose priorities mainly revolved around strengthening the EU's security, tackling the migration issue, and supporting the Western Balkan's EU perspective. What about Romania's priorities? Recognising that 2019 will be a busy year for the EU - due to the European Parliament elections, Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) negotiations, and Brexit conclusion - this CEP Insight explores the programme of the Romanian presidency and sheds light on what the Western Balkan may expect from its neighbour when it comes to prioritisation of enlargement.
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In the aftermath of the Brexit vote in March 2016, European Policy Centre (CEP) published an Insight where it presented three possible outcomes of the withdrawal negotiations: 1.“The UK maintains political stability, withdrawal negotiations swiftly concluded”; 2. “The political scene in the UK remains unstable, Brexit happens after extended and painful negotiations”; and 3. “Brexit does not happen”. Two years later, reality seems to bear out the second scenario. Whereas the negotiations have proven to be quite difficult to handle, this scenario has ill-suited both negotiating sides. But what about the Balkans? Now that Brexit is reaching the end,1 this CEP Insight reflects on its potential political and economic implications for the Western Balkans (WB) - a region that aspires to join the very same Union that the UK is intending to leave. The overallaim is to encourage further discussions on what lies ahead for the Balkans in the post-Brexit Europe.
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All across the EU, it has become quite common to label the modus operandi of the EU as ineffective, its institutional set-up as undemocratic and its politics as far removed from European citizens. Attempting to address these concerns, the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker called for institutional reforms in his 2017 State of the Union Address. In it, he endorsed the continuation of the Spitzenkandidaten-experiment and the introduction of transnational lists in the 2019 European parliament (EP) elections. Knowing that 2019 will mark a transition to a new institutional cycle, the President of the European Council Donald Tusk gathered the EU271 leaders on 23 February 2018, at an informal leaders' summit, in order to discuss and decide whether to endorse, postpone or nullify the chances of survival of these proposals. Ultimately, both proposals failed to acquire unanimous support of the EU leaders, who instead opted for revisiting these issues in the future. In this regard, the purpose of this Insight is to present and examine both proposals in order to unravel what they might mean for the future of the EU. Last but not least, this Insight illustrates how these proposals would affect Serbia once it becomes an EU member state, with the aim to draw the debates on the EU institutional framework closer to the Serbian public.
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Estonia is the last "new member state" to hold the rotating presidency for the first time. Unlike any presidency beforehand, Estonia has one additional challenge: a shorter preparation period. Namely, after the Brexit vote occurred in 2016, the UK decided to give up on its Council presidency which was due to start in July 2017, in order to focus on the complex Brexit negotiations lying ahead. Consequentially, Estonia's presidency was rescheduled to begin six months earlier than it was originally planned. Despite such a challenge, all facts presented in this Insight seem to indicate that Estonia has put in a serious amount of effort to ensure that its presidency goes smoothly and according to the plan.
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The past spring and summer of the European continent have been, without any doubt, marked by two hot topics: “the greferendum” – Greek referendum and the conditions for staying in the Eurozone; as well as now the already chronic exodus of refugees from the Middle East and Africa to European countries. While the first one falls under the competence of the “troika”, comprising the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the matters of migration and asylum policy are shared between the EU member states and the European Parliament – and are thereby one of the top priority issues of the current Luxembourg Presidency of the Council. Current priorities of the three countries are defined very broadly, and the task of each country is to make them more concrete and in line with the topical issues and needs. Since we have already argued on the priorities of the Italian and Latvian presidency, and since they do not essentially differ from those defined by Luxembourg, this insight will focus on the refugee crisis issue, as one of the topics that dominated the Luxembourg agenda in the past July, i.e. the first month of the 6-month long Luxembourg Presidency, and which, judging by the most recent opinion polls, currently brings the most concerns to the EU citizens
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We hear a lot about Commissioners and MEPs reinventing themselves into lobbyists and working for the private sector following the end of their mandate. We also hear a lot about the influence that the corporate interests have on European Union policies with little regard for the common citizen. But is it all as bad as it is covered? CEP Associate Sofia Tzortzi wrote some time ago a commentary explaining what lobbying is, what activities it constitutes and who the people who lobby in theEU are. Not to repeat her arguments, she rightfully concluded that lobbying representsa broad range of activities that aim to influence policy making and a particularpolicy, and that therefore everyone lobbies - trade associations and consumer organisations, non-profits, foundations, private actors, governments of member statesas well as third countries, etc. Still, lobbying remains a dirty word in the vocabulary across the Union since it is regarded as the defence of corporate interests at the expense of the public and civic interests such as the environment, or women's andworkers' rights. This article seeks to open the discussion on how maliciousLobbying remains adirty word in the vocabulary across the European Union, as it is regarded as the defense of corporate interests at the expense of the public and civil interests. As the European project extended beyond the strictly market-related policies, the citizens began to understand that the regulatory policies of the EU concern them. Eversince, the debates on democratic legitimacy of the EU decision-making have heated up and the system saw itself constantly justifying its existence. lobbying is in reality and reflect on a few interesting studies that looked into the issueof whose interests prevail and through which mechanisms, in order to have amore nuanced picture of what is actually going on in the lobbying world in Brussels and how it is relevant for Serbia.
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PUBLISHED IN SEPTEMBER 2002 BY THE CENTER FOR APPLIED POLICY RESEARCH at MUNICH UNIVERSITY. Adopting an Agenda for Southeastern enlargement would signify the progressive and balanced shift of the position of the international community and the local leadership: from stabilisation to enlargement; from international micro-management of the region to macro-management with greater local responsibilities; and from an international institutional proliferation to an integral institutional framework. The development of a flexible and informal common roof under which all current strategic objectives, actors and initiatives would be re-arranged to create dynamic synergies would be the acknowledgement of this paradigm shift. The above strategic complementarity and institutional congruence of the Southeastern enlargement process has to be consolidated in the next 2-3 years with the 2004/2005 Eastern enlargement as a deadline. // In conclusion, what may have worked reasonably well in Eastern enlargement process requires additional endeavours in the case of Southeastern enlargement due to the qualitatively and quantitatively different challenges this region poses. A consistent Agenda for Southeastern Enlargement after 2004, including the establishment of an Informal Consultation Council to provide the much-needed strategic and institutional coherence and orientation under EU leadership as well as an enhanced Stabilisation and Association Process will be needed soon, in order to secure a credible Balkan trajectory to Europe.
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