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New Division Lines in the European Union.

Author(s): Bogdan Góralczyk / Language(s): English Issue: 4 (88)/2018

The situation in the European Union (the EU) is undergoing in recent years a very dynamic, if not dramatic, change. During the process current liberal mainstream has found itself under growing pressure of many antiestablishment forces, mainly of far-right, more and more frequently described as (what depend from the perspective of the analysis) as counter revolutionary” or “revolutionary change”. What are the reasons of those deep social and political controversies in the EU and what they can produce? Author of this study is coming to conclusion, that multiple crises need creative thinking. It is already more than obvious that Europe now is facing many complicated problems to be resolved. Especially by those, who are concerned about the future of the EU and its member states. Because, if they will not fi nd a solution, their “populist” and “nationalist” opponents will prevail.

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Citizens’ Participation and Participatory Governance in the EU

Author(s): Léonce Bekemans / Language(s): English Issue: 4 (88)/2018

In a complex and rapidly changing global order continuous political courage, inspiration and citizen-centric practices are needed to shape and strengthen the values that are connected with the EU. We clearly affirm the value premises of the EU as a community responsible for security andstability and for guaranteeing the welfare and well-being of its citizens. The paper is structured in 3 parts: The first part focusses on the importance of citizens’ participation and citizens’ dialogue in the future developments of the EU. Growing complexity and interconnection between and within societies have become intrinsic characteristics of European societies, impacting the dialogue of institutions with citizens. In a second part, the paper deals with participatory democracy and civil dialogue as legally embedded concepts in the Lisbon Treaty. This implies an analysis and assessment of the phased development of EU practices in participatory democracy and civil dialogue. The last part concerns the instruments and practices of participatory governance that the EU has developed to respond to the citizens’ demands for a more values-based community.

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Digitalisation in the Regional Context

Author(s): Zane Zeibote,Sergejs Stacenko,Tatjana Muravska / Language(s): English Issue: 4 (88)/2018

This article examines problems related to digital trends in economies and societies from two perspectives: the extension of a digital economy to social dimensions, and the role of digital government services in regional cohesion perspectives in Latvia. Thismethodological approach could serve as a tool for integrating a number of main goals related to the digitalisation trends in the EU,that require support of societies as well as the improvement of social welfare at the regional and national levels. The contribution aims to offer insight into the concept of social investment and innovationas well as co-creation concept and the impact of digitalisation of public services on regional cohesion. The study observes the seimplications in relation to the need to expand and adapt the contentand approach of the digital services implementation. The further digital decision-making related to social evelopment as a precondition for diminishing regional and wellbeing divide, facilitating administrative processes for people and entrepreneurs, as well as e-services availability in Latvia is discussed. The article concludes that efficient investment and innovation for improving social welfare at regional and national levels needs implementation of digitalised services in a wider scale as they inevitably become more important due to theincreased digital competitiveness of countries.

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Transatlantic “Othering".

Author(s): Jan Hornat / Language(s): English Issue: 1 (89)/2019

Foreign policy is not only a reaction to the world as it is, but it also attempts to build a world as it should be. The European Union, being anactor on the international scene, grounds its external action in conceptions of the necessity of multilateralism and in building postmodern (post-Westphalian) notions of state sovereignty. These elements are an inherent part of the Union’s “foreign policy/identity nexus”. The identity is reinforced by significant “Others”, who do not share the EU’s view of the idealworld order. The Donald Trump administration’s reluctance and even repudiation of multilateral solutions is a challenge for the operationalization of the EU’s “foreign policy/identity nexus” and thus the US is currentlyin the position of the Union’s constitutive “Other”. However, while wewould expect that this development would reinforce the EU’s external actionidentity, the Trump presidency has at the same time empowered antiglobalistand sovereigntist forces in Europe, which will drive wedges intoEU foreign policy and cause further incoherence, especially along the new/old member state divide.

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Strategic International Environment – Is Europe Ready for a New Concert of the Superpowers?

Author(s): Łukasz Polinceusz / Language(s): English Issue: 1 (89)/2019

There is no doubt that the strategic international environment is subject to extremely dynamic changes today. Relative stabilization in Europe built and won as a result of democratic changes following the Cold Warera, is being replaced in many areas by destabilization. New challenges are gaining importance and threats. Worth mentioning are: unpredictable political changes, terrorism, cyberthreats, assymetric challenges causingtensions, climate changes, and in the social sphere: especially migrationsand demographics. Uncertainty is growing, risks are increasing both inglobal dimension and regional, which affects the situation of Poland and neighboring countries. The uncertainty and unpredictability is now the key factor in development of relationships between different actors in theinternational environment.

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Stanowisko Parlamentu Europejskiego wobec pomocy humanitarnej

Author(s): Filip Kaczmarek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2019

The European Union, together with the Member States of this organisation, is the largest donor of humanitarian aid in the world. The European Parliament is one of the EU’s key institutions and the onlyone of them to be directly elected. The aim of the peper is to examine Parliament’s position on humanitarianaid, from the adoption of the European Consensus on Humanitarian Aid in 2007 to the end of June 2018. The research method is an analysis of the various forms of Parliament’s activity in the fieldunder examination. One of the conclusions is to define Parliament’s dilemma of trying to reconcile theprinciples of humanitarian aid with the particular interests of EU Member States.

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The impact of Brexit on the member states’ ability to build blocking coalitions in the Council

Author(s): Marcin Kleinowski / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

Using a proprietary computer program, simulations of voting in the Councilafter Great Britain’s withdrawal from the EU were carried out. In the case of some ofthem, a methodological innovation consisting in departing from the assumption thatthe emergence of each possible coalition is equally probable was used. The analysisconducted indicates that after Brexit the ability of the Council members to form smallminimally blocking coalitions will change significantly. At the same time, the assessmentof the ability of states to block decisions in the Council and made on the basisof the Preventive Power Index, differs fundamentally from the results of the analysisfocusing on building small minimally blocking coalitions. This research is funded by the National Science Centre, Poland, under project no.UMO-2016/23/D/HS5/00408 (SONATA 12 grant) entitled “The Impact of Brexit andUnconditional Introduction of the ‘Double Majority’ Voting System on Decision-Making in the Council of the European Union.”

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The Rule of Law and the EU Budget for 2021–2027: More Solidarity or Renouncing the Values of the EU?

Author(s): Dencho Georgiev / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

This paper looks at the proposals of the European Commission for theMultiannual Financial Framework 2021–2027, and explores how to achieve a betterfuture for Europe by ensuring compliance with the legally binding values and objectivesof the EU: democracy, equality, the rule of law, economic, social and territorialcohesion and solidarity between the member states. It is argued that introducing progressivity, a reform of the EU’s finances involvinga paradigm shift in the financing of policies with redistributive effects and a reform ofthe system of the EU’s ‘own resources,’ would ensure that solidarity becomes a matterof the rule of law and not of governance through conditionalities and fines. It is pointed out that, unless the EU undertakes an effective reform of its redistributivepolicies to ensure that progressivity and solidarity in the EU become a matterof the rule of law, the Union will bear less and less resemblance to a democracy andwill increasingly look like an empire with an economically stronger and more rapidlydeveloping ‘core,’ and an economically weaker ‘periphery’ in the East and the Southlagging behind the ‘core.’ What is needed is collective action by the member states most immediately interestedin a reform to make the system of EU’s ‘own resources’ less regressive and tointroduce progressivity in the financing of the policies of the EU. It would take significantskill for those countries to organize themselves as a group and to act togetherin the course of the adoption of the legislative proposals for the next MFF in order tomake the EU more equitable.

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Impact of Brexit on the status of the English language in the European Union

Author(s): Elżbieta Kużelewska / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

The United Kingdom joined the EEC/EU in 1973. Its membership has beenone of the thorniest issues in British politics over the last forty-five years. The UnitedKingdom was one of the most Euroskeptic member states in the EU. The ‘addedvalue’ brought by London to the EU was the English language, which successivelysupplanted French from the function of working language of the EU. English is notonly the official language of the EU (it is one of 24 official languages), but primarilyhas a dominant position in the EU. It is used for communication between the EU andthe world, between European institutions and during informal meetings. The purposeof this article is to analyze the position of English in the EU, to show its strengths, andfinally to answer the question of whether the present status of English in the EU willremain after the UK leaves.

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Turkey and the European Union: the Saga of the 50 Years-Long Accession Negotiations

Author(s): Ayfer Alptekin / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2016

The EU-Turkey relations date back to 1960s when the European project started. With the Ankara Agreement of 12 September 1963, Turkey became an Associate member of the European Economic Community which was then an economic organisation from which today’s EU emerged. The EU’s December 1997 sidelining of Turkey’s application for full membership turned the direction on 3 October 2005 and Turkey begin its accession negotiations with the EU. Since then there is still ongoing debate based on cultural, economic and political assessment whether Turkey will fit to be a member of the EU. From the perspective of the institutional norms of Copenhangen criteria, the EU could possibly embrace all countries, regardless of culture, religion and historical background. The EU’s uncompleted institutional structure gives rise some spatial, temporal and thematic scopes which introduce some new accession criteria such as European state, European identity, absorption capacity, open-ended process and approval of the member states which will make more complicated Turkey’s full membership bid to the EU. Despite Turkey’s institutional reforms which bring the country that much closer towards fulfilling the Copenhagen criteria and its dynacmic economy which makes Turkey as the second country that fits the Maastricht criteria in Europe, European politicians and citizens remain deeply divided on Turkey’s accession bid to the EU as a full member. As a consequence, the alternative accession proposals which depreciate the full membership of Turkey are argued by the EU’s core members. The purpose of this article is to answer the vague accession criteria, the different accession proposals towards Turkey and explain the new bargaining position of Turkey for its accession bid to the EU. The exclusion of Turkey from the EU’s enlargement process will be evaluated by different theoretical approaches which constitute the interplay of the liberal intergovernmentalism, historical institutionalism and path dependency process, rationalist approaches and sociological institutionalism.

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The European Commission’s Online Consultations: the Contribution of a New Participations Tool to Overcome the EU’s Lacking Legitimacy

Author(s): Jan Labitzke / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2016

Not only the ‘euro crisis‘ and the debate on a (more or less) common refugee policy has the European Union as a whole and particularly the European Commission searching for new democratic legitimisation of their decisions. However, the EU’s multiple crises have intensified this debate a great deal. Since the beginning of the new millennium, the Commission has increasingly used online consultations as a new and innovative tool for more participation, especially against the background of the White Paper on Governance published in 2001. A few years later in 2004, the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, stressed the significance of consultations under article I-47, which was titled “The Principle of participatory democracy” and additionally established the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI). These instruments are now codified in Art. 11 TEU. Both the White Paper and the complementation of representative democracy by the “principle of participatory democracy” in the constitutional treaty, were meant to help resolve the much-discussed democratic deficit of the EU by improving the inputand output-legitimacy of European decision-making process. This article is a discussion of the European Commission’s treatment of online consultations (based on own perennial empirical research and in-depth-analysis of selected case examples of different consultations). They will be discussed and theoretically categorised against the backdrop of theories of participatory democracy and participatory governance, ultimately in order to evaluate their (possible) contribution to the democratisation of the European Union.

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Europska unija na razmeđi: politika daljnjeg širenja ili novi odnosi partnerstva

Author(s): Lidija Čehulić Vukadinović / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 6/2017

The European Union has to find a way to adapt to contemporary challenges of its inner development (institutional and economic crisis, lack of solidarity between member states, strengthening of radical and populist parties), but also to defend from emerging outer threats (migration crisis, terrorism). Never in the history of the EU has the situation on its peripheral parts, whether it be its closer or farther neighbours, been so dramatic and unstable. In such circumstances, accession of new states to full membership of the EU is hard to imagine and achieve. The paper analyses the main problems which potential and present candidate countries are facing in the new European and international circumstances and emphasises the necessity for the European Union to adapt to the global multilateral surroundings.

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The use of EU funding in the development of local economic activity zones

Author(s): Janusza Pierzyna / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2019

The paper concerns the assessment of the economic ef- fectiveness of the use of EU funds (Regional Operational Programme of the Silesian Voivodeship 2007-2013) in the development of local economic activity zones. Research (in the form of an analysis of literature, reports and statis- tical data) and empirical work (case study and interviews evaluating seven selected zones in the Silesian Voivode- ship) indicate that EU projects serving the development of economic activity zones show a high level of economic efficiency, which results mainly from the high level of sub- sidies (85%). The development of zones generates socio- economic multiplier effects, which may be precisely mea- sured only over a longer time period. Subsidies, thanks to which infrastructure is created, are nonetheless only a base for stimulating entrepreneurship. A necessary complement thereof is economic promotion and efficient investor service by communes.

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Od funkcjonalnej do substancjalnej europejskiej tożsamości – zmiana podejścia do roli europejskich wartości

Author(s): Marek A. Cichocki / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2018

Starting from the 1970s, the concept of European identity has been connected with the response to the crisis phenomena. Through the theoretical aspect, it was shown in this article how a functional understanding of European identity negated its criticism in the name of the necessary legitimization of the integration process. There is also presented a change in the approach to the role of values in European integration, and the concept of European identity per se (from functional to substantial), which has recently taken place in the European Union under the influence of growing internal conflicts and external threats. Essentially, this revision leads to the shift of the whole debate about the identity from the functionally understood legitimization of the system towards the claim motivated by historical, axiological and civilizational reasons to treat the EU as a normative force in politics. Therefore, can normative power be created on a foundation whose substantial identity is treated as a way to generate output legitimacy?

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W poszukiwaniu nowego języka integracji i Unii Europejskiej. Analiza z pogranicza teorii kryzysu i kognitywistyki

Author(s): Zbigniew D. Czachór / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2018

This article is about the process of searching for a new language of integration and the European Union using the analysis from the borderline of the crisis theory and the concept of cognitivism. This search is associated with the effects of a multidimensional crisis in which the EU has been for over 10 years. During this time there have been many changes in the system of European integration. These changes are analyzed here in three overlapping perspectives used by researchers, analysts and journalists, but also politicians and officials (national and EU). The first is connected with an attempt to investigate and explain crises. The second perspective is based on a diagnosis using language, a language that these crises consolidate and strengthen (reproduce). And the third, which concerns the application of the language of denial, rejection, trivialisation and marginalization of existing systemic disturbances and anomalies in the EU. Naturally, all these perspectives are also present in this article. For the author of the text language is a condition for the existence of integration and the European Union. It becomes a real and symbolic guide to the European Union, as well as its impact on the EU, but it also shapes and changes it in its system. The linguistic image of the European Union is always an intentional image, created and valued. The author also points out in the article that the integration crises also triggers a variety of semantic manipulations, through which we understand any actions on the language as a code that directly affect the implementation of the radical or post-ideology language properties. This language is offered to us by all those who want to tell us today how to build a new European order.

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Unia Europejska – kryzys opowieści, kryzysowa opowieść

Author(s): Paweł J. Borkowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2018

The article focuses on European integration narratives and their emphasis of ‘crisis’ as the main feature overshadowing and explaining all events and processes. It is argued that the dominant story about the collapsing Union, combined with transformations in the field of communications, creates very difficult conditions for re-creation of a political story outlining a better future. The latter constitutes an indispensible element of the success of the integration process. In fact, re-introduction of such a positive narrative is crucial to solve the crisis and much more important than any institutional innovation. In addition, the article discusses the weaknesses of the ‘European camp’ that got used to a secure and closed space created by means of transforming political myth into expert knowledge.

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Europa wyobrażona. Język i interpretacje

Author(s): Jan Grzymski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2018

Drawing on hermeneutics, cultural anthropology and critical social theory, this article analyses different ways of ‘speaking about the European Union’. Firstly, it argues that ‘Europe’ should be seen as an imagined space to which different social and political actors attribute different meanings over time. Secondly, it points out that intersubjective moment of (self-)identification of Europe is of paramount importance for what is Europe today, especially in context of postmodernity and contemporary technocratic modes of the EU governance. Lastly, it calls for establishment of Critical European Studies and puts an emphasis on the role academic critique in ‘speaking about the EU’.

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Polskie tradycje dyskursu o Europie – komponent historyczny debaty integracyjnej

Author(s): Sławomir Łukasiewicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2018

In this text the integration narratives have been divided into following types: pro-integration, anti-integration (in their extreme – prodisintegration narratives) as well as correcting narratives. In the case of the latter we are talking about these narratives which focus on possibility or necessity of modification of European integration process by deepening or reversing of the process, though only in particular aspects and without maximalist vision of full integration or dissolution of the EU. These narratives constitutes the field of the integration debate. Such debate in concrete context is described as a discourse on Europe. Traditions of such discourse are the main subject of this article – we are indicating main phases of integration debate and the context of them. We are indicating also so-called difference in integration traineeship, what differentiates debates and discourses of “old” and “new” EU countries. Eventually we define those traditions as a historical component of contemporary debate on Europe. Analysing the language of contemporary Polish integration debate one can state that this historical component is almost absent in prointergation narratives, what can weaken their persuasion potential in comparison with anti-integration debates, referring to the history, while ignoring Polish experience and integration concepts.

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Hardly Seen and Rarely Heard? European Commission Generated Presence on Polish Social Media

Author(s): Konrad Niklewicz / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2018

This paper discusses the importance of social media as a new channel to communicate European Union activities and policies to the general public. The author examines the fast-growing position of social platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, in the media ecosystem. Their opinion making and agenda setting roles are discussed in the context of deep mediatisation theory – a relatively new, interdisciplinary concept, combining the perspectives of sociology and media sciences. Based on analysis of the social media activity of the European Commission Representation in Poland, the author examines the Commission’s presence in the new channels, within the framework of a new corporate communication campaign, launched in September 2016. The results of the research indicate that that efforts undertaken so far, contrary to intuition, have not yielded a substantial increase in social media activity. However, some promising elements were detected: the quality of users’ engagement with the content published by the European Commission has improved.

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Polityka cyberbezpieczeństwa Unii Europejskiej – początek drogi do strategicznej autonomii

Author(s): Marek Szczygieł / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2018

Although cybersecurity as an unified domain is still a recent field of common policy for the EU, it is widely perceived as an area of growing importance for the global position and security of the Union. This development of EU’s cybersecurity policy is taking place in the context of the broader efforts, namely Europe’s ambition to increase its strategic autonomy. For the EU the main challenge remains how to achieve the coherent and holistic approach to cybersecurity, encompassing it’s all dimensions – network and information security, cybercrime and cyber defence. New initiatives undertaken recently by Brussels try to address this problem. This article’s aim is to contribute to the better understanding of the potential of the EU’s cybersecurity policy to frame the future of European security and defence. The article describes the process of development of the cybersecurity policy of the EU in the XXI century. It provides a brief overview of the instruments and institutions of this policy. Then, the article discusses the EU’s potential in cybersecurity field. The final part deals with the three dimensions of EU’s strategic autonomy – political, operational and industrial and how they relate to cybersecurity.

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