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Efficient shaping of international security depends on the activity of numerous entities, particularly on the functioning of organizations such as NATO and the European Union. The article presents the contribution of these unions of democratic states to global peace-building and indicates the desired directions of transformation aimed at developing their power, solidarity and credibility. These are the factors that condition the organizations' central role in shaping Euro-Atlantic and global security. Attention has been also paid to the need for strengthening cooperation between these organizations, which results from new, complex challenges and threats emerging in the currently very unstable security environment, which could not be dealt with by NATO and even less by the EU on their own. Thanks to close cooperation, the organizations have more possibilities and resources to react to various crisis situations as well as they can achieve the desired effect of synergy. Thus power and effectiveness of the EU and NATO is conditioned by their common and consistent security policy.

Political Science; European Union - De serie 'Werkdocumenten' omvat stukken die in het kader van de werkzaamheden van de WRR tot stand zijn gekomen en die op aanvraag door de raad beschikbaar worden gesteld. De verantwoordelijkheid voor de inhoud en de ingenomen standpunten berust bij de auteurs.

Despite the great importance of sustainable development for a country, it is possible to say, having reviewed the literature widely, that this research is the first to use a Multi-Criteria Decision Method (MCDM) to analyze the sustainability of EU countries, considering different dimensions and weighting the criteria with the help of a group of experts. This paper therefore sets out a Multi-Criteria Model for analyzing the development of sustainability in EU countries (and Norway and Iceland). This required prior filtering and analysis of the data from the Eurostat database. The model was built with the multi-criteria Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique. Four experts in sustainability participated in the weighting process. The results of the AHP model are identified by areas of sustainability, with the highest value found in Norway, and the rest are found around it forming rings of sustainability, where sustainability decreases the further a country is from Norway. This research could be used to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each country with regard to sustainable development, and by analyzing the measures taken by Norway and other countries with very high sustainability, by continuous improvement processes, reach similar levels of sustainable development.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the European Union development as an integration association. The economic aspects of integration within the EU as a whole as well as developing sub-integration processes are highlighted. Existing estimates show fluctuation in the level of the EU integration and its significant reduction in certain areas during some periods. The internationalization of the world economy and the increasing involvement of the EU in these processes couldn't but have an impact on the intra-European situation. The assessment of the economic integration is made on the basis of the dynamics of the trade-investment cooperation and migration processes also. The analysis showed that different economic ties are not equally involved in the integration within the EU. If at the beginning of the XXI century the merchandise trade and FDI were comparable in terms of the level of involvement in the intra-European flows, then at present investment ties are considerably inferior to trade ones, having refocused on countries outside the EU. There is a steady trend in increasing of the share of citizens of non-EU countries living in the EU as well as EU citizens born in non-EU countries. The complexity of the European integration is traced by the example of sub-integration processes in the Visegrad Group. It is shown that accession to the EU has stimulated trade-investment cooperation within the "fourth", but strong contrasts between members continue to persist. One of the main factors of the participation level in sub-integration is the economy size. Due to national features investment ties in terms of outstock are involved in subintegration processes more than trade ones. Sub-integration will continue to develop in the EU due to long-term factors, "complicating" pan-European integration processes, the non-linearity of which will remain.

Part I. Introducing the Problem -- 1. Introduction -- Part II. Concepts and Theory -- 2. Authority relations in regime complexes -- 3. Struggling for authority in regime complexes -- Part III. Explaining authority distributions in the European defense complex -- 4. European defence cooperation and member state preferences -- 5. Integrating the WEAO into the EDA: Toward a European armaments agency? -- 6. The marginalization of the EDA: False premises, false promises? -- 7. The fragmentation of European defense planning: PESCO's deep sleep -- 8. PESCO's resilience: Jumpstarting the bandwagon -- Part IV. Assessment -- 9. Confronting contenders -- 10. Quo vadis, CSDP?.

China's headlong rise to the status of a world power is leading to some profound changes in the global system: Indeed, we can say that a new multipolar order is in the making. The consequences of this transformation are impressively evident in Africa. China's expanding presence there is contributing to the continent's economic upturn and enlarging political spaces of African governments. At the same time, though, the events involved here entail risks for Africa's long-term development perspectives as well as for regional efforts in the areas of human rights, democracy, and sustainability. In geopolitical, economic, and development terms, the China factor is altering the basic parameters on which the West's relations with Africa are based. In the context of the ongoing discussion on a strategic partnership with the People's Republic of China, the European Union (EU) is actively seeking a constructive-critical dialogue with the country. If the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are to be reached, it will be essential that Europe and China – despite differences in their values and interests, and based on African priorities – deepen their exchange on their development programs and explore what opportunities may be given to cooperate in Africa. Ultimately, it is the African partners themselves who will have to decide on what offers of cooperation they may be inclined to make use of in the future.