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Under the motto ‘a more protective Europe’, france took over the rotating EU presidency in the second half of 2008 with a keen eye on energy, climate change, defence and immigration policy. The idea is to defend Europe’s social and economic model from the pressures of globalisation. The French Presidency occurs just three years after French voters rejected Europe’s cherished Constitutional project, throwing the Eu into a long-lasting political crisis. But on the very day his election as French President Nicholas Sarkozy promised he would put his country ‘back in Europe’, notably by helping to resolve the bloc’s institutional impasse with the adoption of the new ‘Lisbon Treaty’ and by better involving citizens in Eu debates. According to a survey carried out by IFOP (Institut Français d’Opinion Publique) 61% of French belive that after the failure of the constitutional referendum in May 2005 the French Presidency of the Eu will be a good opportunity for France to increase its influence in Europe. France prepared to focus on pressing external challenges such as climate change, energy security, Russia policy and EU enlargement; now she will have to turn inward once again to put time and energy into fixing the EU’s creaking institutions. The Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty has put off the reform plans 2009 onwards as the 860,000 ‘no’ voters in Ireland have blocked the path of a half-billion Europeans.
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The Swedish Presidency between 1 July and 31 december 2009 will take place during a challenging period. It takes place during the autumn making it effectively shorter than those during springs; there will be a newly elected European Parliament ready to flex its muscles; and a new Commission must be instituted. on top of all this, the (non-) implementation of the Lisbon Treaty will force the Swedish Government to plan for at least three scenarios which have real consequences for how effectively one may lead and pursue policy priorities. The three scenarios being an old-school presidency, actually implementing the Lisbon Treaty or some version of it or being caught up in renewed attempts at Treaty reform. Thus factors exogenous to the Swedish political system and its capacity are likely to affect institutional planning and also affect the possibilities of prioritising. To put it differently, any presidency is likely to face unexpected challenges that will mess up the most carefully planned agenda, but the current Trio is certain to conduct its work under uncertainty.
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This study examines the patterns of Europeanization of the Bulgarian party system following four main criteria: the structural influence, the ideological influence, the European issue mobilization and the European representation. The development of the Bulgarian party system is divided in three main periods in order to observe the impact of each of the four patterns on the national system during the transition. On this basis, conclusions are made as to the role of the EU impact on the party system and its perspectives.
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A key challenge for the enlarged European union (Eu27), but particularly for Central- and Eastern European member countries is to maintain competitiveness by adapting to the requirements of the ‘learning economy’. These challenges are given clear emphasis by the Eu’s Lisbon strategy, but transition economies in the East-Central European region, such as hungary, need to overcome particularly severe obstacles. despite relatively good economic performance following the first years of transition, it is becoming abundantly clear that the development path based primarily or solely on foreign investments driven by cheap labour has no long term prospects; rather, innovative activities of indigenous firms geared towards international markets and all forms of knowledge creation, dissemination and exploitation should be promoted by governments, by creating incentives and favourable framework conditions.
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Democracies evolved from the East Central European political systemic change have almost completed their 20th year. It would not be stretching things to suggest that the past two decades mean enough time to sketch certain tendencies and draw consequences regarding the development of the constitutional and political system. I believe it to be true in the context of political party systems as well: the countries of the region have had at least five or rather more general elections; thus, the peculiarities of the stabilization of multiparty system (which differ even across countries) may be apprehended. This paper aims to display some characteristics of the development of the party systems of the so-called Visegrád countries – the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. full analysis of each party system would exceed the range of this work; therefore, I narrowed the aspects of examination down to the party systems’ stabilization and concentration. The first part of the study is based on my empirical-quantitative investigations, during which I concentrated on the indicators showing the stability and concentration of party systems. My aim here is to demonstrate the different degrees of stabilization and concentration, and I also shortly refer to the possible spheres of interpretation, but the systematic explanation of the described tendencies remains outside the scope of this article.
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The proper assessment of the East-Central European (ECE) political systems presupposes a conceptual frame suitable for their particular conditions, actual timing and concrete stage in the Europeanization process. On the mental map of the current European developments in the former EU member states (EU15) as a conventional wisdom there have been some conceptual misunderstandings or misnomers concerning the new member states that can bias the assessment of current developments. First of all the mainstream literature in the West tends not to recognizing the post-accession crisis as a new phenomenon in ECE that has been provoked by the dual pressure of the EU entry and the missing social consolidation. Therefore, it is necessary to clarify the basic conditions under which the ECE developments have taken place and to set up the special conceptual frame for the description and evaluation of the ECE Europeanization process.
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This paper explores some of the critical challenges which lie at the heart of the European Union’s ‘European Neighbourhood Policy’ and its likely future development.
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The South East European economies during the last one and a half century several times tried to implement economic and political stabilisation programs to reduce the development backwardness compared to the more advanced European countries. However, these reforms always were stopped, due to an unfavourable combination of internal and external factors. These trends led to continuous strengthening of negative features of political and economic structures in these countries that seriously limited further developments as well. It is important to see that during this long period the top down economic transformation that was successful in many parts of the world could not work in the Balkan given the very scarce domestic resources necessary to implement far reaching solid reform programs. In addition, the interest of foreign capital and foreign economic actors were also limited that it was not enough to prompt a real economic transformation from outside. This lack of resources made impossible any successful and durable economic and social transformation. At the same time, the region played a special periphery of the conflicts between ‘great powers’ that also made difficult to create conditions for durable reforms. To sum up neither internal nor external forces were able to initiate the required reforms.
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Since the very start, European integration has borne the mark of imbalance in development, of inequality and diversity of interests. The European Union is a multi-faceted entity, a conglomerate linking several regions, zones, systems and countries to the notion that is Europe. It is a politically and legally constructed macro-region with a specific acquis communautaire crisscrossed by major faultlines in politics, the economy, society, culture, language and traditions. Distinctions may be made between the heartland composed of more affluent countries (Great Britain, France, Germany and the Benelux states); small and large states; developed, backwards and ultraperipherial regions; according to the terms of the Europe 2000+ Cooperation for European Territorial Development we may list North Sea regions, Centre Capitals, the Atlantic Arc, the Alpine Arc, the Continental Diagonal, New Lander, Mediterranean regions, Nordic countries,Central and Eastern Europe,South and East Mediterranean transnational regions, the group of the Cohesion countries; and states interested in strenghtening ties with Eastern Central Europe or the Mediterranean.
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The East Central European and Balkan countries have made remarkable efforts since 1990 to change their economic and political systems and to adapt standards which are necessary to join the mainstream of the European integration. The qualitative aspects of this process of transformation have been analyzed in the last two decades in countless political and economic publications. The quantitative side of the recent development has been investigated for example by Klaus Armingeon and Romana Careja (Armingeon and Careja, 2008) on a dataset which has been designed and collected by the authors for comparative research on post-communist countries. Wolfgang Merkel has also analysed (Merkel, 2008) the transformation of communist regimes in Eastern Europe and Central Asia which has referred to the data source of the Bertelsmann Transformation Index 2006. The aim of my chapter is to analyze the recent political and economic situation in the East Central European and Balkan countries and to ask about the validity of the results in the former research. The comparative investigation has been made on the recently published dataset of the Bertelsmann Transformation Index 2008.
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The Visegrad Group has fulfilled the tasks it was set when established. It seems unjustified, therefore, to ponder the need for it to function further. However, it is advisable to lay out new tasks, suitable for the group's operation in the new European reality - following EU accession of Visegrad countries in May 2004.
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Kada je prošlog proleća pandemija kovida-19 pogodila Evropu, zemlje članice EU zatvorile su granice i počele da kupuju i gomilaju zaštitnu medicinsku opremu. Briselska administracija, koja u domenu javnog zdravlja zapravo nema ovlašćenja, izgledala je potpuno bespomoćno. Nacionalisti su slavili: njihova fiks-ideja – zaustaviti priliv izbeglica – preko noći se ostvarila. Pretnja „vakcinacijskog nacionalizma“ takođe je postala stvarnost. U svom uobičajenom maniru transakcione politike, Trump je objavio da će američka administracija kupiti nemačke farmaceutske kompanije da bi stekla monopol na tržištu vakcina. Reagujući na takve pretnje, Pariz i Berlin su udružili snage i zajedno sa Rimom i Amsterdamom pokrenuli inicijativu za imunizaciju „jezgra Evrope“. Ne čekajući ostale države da im se pridruže, članice alijanse su započele pregovore sa kompanijom AstraZeneca i ostalim proizvođačima u pokušaju da spreče monopolizaciju i kontrolu proizvodnje vakcina od strane Sjedinjenih Država. Ali ubrzo se pokazalo da njihova navodno inkluzivna inicijativa nije ono za šta se predstavlja. Prizori otimanja za vakcine širom kontinenta ostavili su veoma mučan utisak. Konačno su se u junu ministri zdravlja 27 država članica složili da nabavku prepuste Evropskoj komisiji.
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Zamislite da je pandemija korona virusa ojačala Evropsku uniju, umesto što je dodatno narušila poverenje njenih građana. Zamislite da je kovid-19 naterao lidere EU da odustanu od godina trvenja i sve dubljih podela. Zamislite da je pandemija poslužila kao katalizator za izgradnju snažnijeg i kompaktnijeg političkog bloka koji bi s pravom pretendovao na ulogu globalnog lidera.
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Nagla promena stava Evropske komisije posle nepromišljenog plana da praktično zatvori granicu između Irske i Severne Irske poslednje je u nizu poniženja koje je Brisel pretrpeo u buri izazvanoj nestašicom vakcina širom Evrope. Predsednica Komisije, Ursula von der Leyen, već je napravila niz propusta i pogrešnih procena u upravljanju pandemijom prošle godine. Ova greška će svakako produbiti sumnje u njenu sposobnost da upravlja krizom.
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This paper aims to empirically grasp the "lay" models of national belonging in the European Union member states using data from the last wave of the European Values Study (2008). In the attempt to go beyond most conventional studies which incorporate ready-made analytical categories from the field of nationalism studies and which test popular representations against one or another of the dominant (ethnic versus civic) national models, our study proposes a typology of the ways in which the "nations" define themselves through the evaluation of several criteria drawing the boundaries between nationals and non-nationals. We thus produce a map of the social representations of national identities in the European Union and present the main lines of cohesion and division that organize this configuration.
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Usvajanjem Zakona o zabrani diskriminacije (ZZD) 2009. godine uspostavljen je pravni i institucionalni okvir za borbu protiv diskriminacije u Bosni i Hercegovini. No, Zakon je patio od brojnih manjkavosti, što je u znatnoj mjeri potvrđeno i u praksi njegove implementacije. Pored ostalog, sudovi i sudije u BiH nisu u potpunosti ovladali standardima antidiskriminacijskog prava, Institucija ombudsmena za ljudska prava BiH nije u stanju da ispuni sve elemente svoje kompleksne nadležnosti u ovoj oblasti, a žrtve diskriminacije oklijevaju da traže zaštitu zbog dosta nepovoljnih odredbi Zakona.
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Jačanje kapaciteta javnih institucija za donošenje javnih politika u Bosni i Hercegovini (BiH) od ključne je važnosti uzme li se u obzir širok spektar reformi kroz koje BiH mora proći da bi postala članica EU. Proces pridruženja EU podrazumijeva vrlo izazovan i ubrzan proces izrade javnih politika, što opet podrazumijeva harmonizaciju postojećih i usvajanje novih zakona u skladu s pravnom stečevinom EU. Međutim, iako su mnogi programi u postratnoj BiH nastojali isporučiti tehničku pomoć javnim institucijama na različitim nivoima vlasti, prakse i kapaciteti tih institucija i dalje su generalno nerazvijeni u ključnim oblastima donošenja javnih politika: formulacije politika, procjene utjecaja, monitoringa i evaluacije implementacije i efekata javnih politika. Ovo je jasno pokazano u izvještajima OECD SIGMA-e za 2015. i 2017. godinu, gdje je BiH vrlo loše ocijenjena u svim segmentima donošenja javnih politika, pri čemu vidno zaostaje i za susjednim zemljama.
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In this paper, we provide an overview of the objectives and challenges to be met in the delivery of EU development aid to Moldova. Our analysis, carried out with pooled OLS, suggests that aid commitments and the number of aid projects are conducive to higher levels of socio-economic development; while the results for aid disbursements are in the same direction, they are less robust. EU development aid is effective when we introduce the three-year lag and the outcome variable is long-term investment, meaning that the impact of EU development aid can be observed in the medium and long-run, which points on positive and sustainable impact on the development of the country. Giving Central European bilateral donors such as Austria, Slovakia, and Romania a share in the programs does tend to generate higher levels of socio-economic performance. The same observation holds for transport, health, and water projects. The authors found that aid disbursements are much lower compared to aid commitments, revealing a large unexplored potential of EU development aid in Moldova, which is mostly due to governance issues in Moldova. In order to bridge the gap between aid commitments and aid disbursements, it is important for the European Union to bolster transnational sovereignty partnerships that bypass central government budgets and foster the implementation of local-scale projects with the participation of subnational bureaucracies and local civil society.
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