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Sustainable development is a developmental concept that takes into account the economic, the environmental, and the social dimension of development. The modem approach to the concept of sustainable development implies acknowledgement of new dimensions or pillars of development. The subject of this paper is the institutional dimension as the fourth dimension of sustainable development. The path to sustainable development requires interconnectedness, harmonization, and coordination of different dimensions of development. Institutionally, new principles or concepts are necessary to improve the functioning of the various institutions and actors involved in the process of achieving the goals of sustainable development. The aim of this paper is to indicate that economic, ecological, and social development based on sustainability requires institutional support as a complementary and necessary dimension.

Social reforms had an important position in the process of transition changes in Serbia in the previous decade. Their strategic framework and aims have been defined in the first years after the 'democratic changes' of 2000 and their realization followed by a series of problems. The transition from the 'socialist welfare state' to the concept of 'active social policy' has been in compliance with the accepted model of (liberal) reforms and changes in the institutional sphere. Analysis of effects and achievements have pointed to an inadeaqucy of the accepted model and deficiencies in the practice. From the point of view of the current situation and expected changes in the future, there is an obvious need for a comprehensive evaluation of cause of (un)success of social reforms. The reason for that lies in the elimination of insufficiencies and creation of a basis for the construction of a system in compliance with the national objectives, the European standards and global challenges.

After the failure of the European constitutional process, the question of creating the European identity has become in the center of attention of the academic public again. According to the scientific literature about Europe it is mostly discussed as the set of institutional solutions, but not as the collective cultural space, the dominant paradigm discussing the European identity is the one that sees it as entirely political, indeed. The goal of this work is to show that insisting on creating of purely political European identity has its basic neither in theory nor in practice. In order to document the claim, in this work the author critically investigates different theoretical approaches studying the European identity and analyzing the results of available empirical researches tries to determine a role of cultural, civil and instrumental components in its creation.

Bioethanol is a biofuel that is mostly used as a replacement for fossil fuels worldwide with yearly production reaching nearly 110 billion liters in 2019. Trends of producing this alternative fuel are rising and maize is considered as one of the best renewable raw materials for the production of fuel ethanol due to the high content of starch in the grain. Taking into account that Serbia is one of the most prominent maize producers in Europe, the surpluses of this crop could be directed toward bioethanol production. Even though there is no organized production and consumption of bioethanol as an automotive fuel in Serbia, the Serbian Government has recently introduced some new regulations regarding biofuels. However, due to the reduction of economic activities since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the global demand for crude oil has fallen sharply, negatively affecting the gasoline demand, and thus bioethanol, which makes the future of this alternative fuel production notably uncertain. ; Bioetanol je biogorivo koje se uglavnom koristi kao zamena za fosilna goriva širom sveta, a godišnja proizvodnja dostigla je gotovo 110 milijardi litara u 2019. godini. Trendovi proizvodnje ovog alternativnog goriva rastu, a kukuruz se smatra jednom od najboljih obnovljivih sirovina za proizvodnju bioetanola zahvaljujući visokom sadržaju skroba u zrnu. Uzimajući u obzir da je Srbija jedan od najistaknutijih proizvođača kukuruza u Evropi, viškovi useva ove poljoprivredne kulture mogli bi se usmeriti ka proizvodnji bioetanola. Iako u Srbiji ne postoji organizovana proizvodnja i potrošnja bioetanola kao transportnog goriva, Vlada Republike Srbije nedavno je usvojila nekoliko novih uredbi u vezi sa stavljanjem u promet, obeležavanjem i potrošnjom biogoriva. Međutim, zbog smanjenja ekonomskih aktivnosti od početka pandemije virusa COVID-19 tokom 2020. godine, globalna potražnja za sirovom naftom naglo je opala, što je negativno uticalo na potražnju za benzinom, a time i za bioetanolom, zbog čega je budućnost proizvodnje ovog alternativnog goriva za sada u velikoj meri neizvesna.

The policy of pressure on Croatia as an illustrative - although not isolated - example has not inspired empirical and theoretical studies of this phenomenon. The discussion has remained at the level of everyday political discourse, even "coffee-house politics". Due to its extreme topicality, as well as its theoretical "solvency", the author has attempted with this essay to come up with a theoretical definition of the concept of pressure and to demonstrate on the Croatian example its goals, scope, dynamics and future prospects and outcomes. Among the existing approaches, the author has chosen the "politico-economic approach" which defines the policy of pressure as a specific form of political communication between the "centre" and the "periphery" in Wallerstein's "world system". The example of Croatia serves the author as an ideal-type model of such communication through a combination of political science and sociological analysis. In his opinion, and due to certain favourable contingencies, Croatia is the nearest to the ideal type of such communication. + Due to a lack of systematic empirical data, the discussion naturally remains at the theoretical- hypothetical level, and should be understood as an invitation to further discussion and as an incentive for more extensive empirical research. However, since this is a very dynamic phenomenon, the question is: is the author's argumentation still valid today as it was at the time when the essay was written? There have been two changes: (1) the war on Kosovo which proves the author's hypotheses; and (2) a certain "thaw" in the relations between the international community (particularly USA) and Croatia (it is still unclear whether this change concerns the fundamental strategic trends or is solely a "politico-meteorological" phenomenon (the alteration of colder and warmer periods). This is why the author did not deem any alterations in the text necessary; one should wait and in the meantime expose the (hypo)theses to some critical scrutiny. (SOI : PM: S. 211)