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Develops a model relating financial assistance from wealthier to poorer member nations to a desire to facilitate market integration, strengthen domestic economies, and thereby protect the political party in power; 1977-90.

The aim of the article is to work out a synthetic measure for estimating country's innovation potential (CIP) of EU economies. For the purpose of the research, data from the European Statistical Office (Eurostat) are used and several indicators are organized by four different areas of analysis, i.e. investment expenditure, education, labour market and effects. Applying multi-dimensional statistics allows us to reduce the primary set of diagnostics variables and, simultaneously, identify those which best describe the potential. The final step is linear ordering of EU countries according to their innovative potential on the basis of CIP synthetic measure. The rating is compared with other ratings based on the recognized Summary Innovation Index and Global Innovation Index. The main conclusion is that the methodology of innovativeness assessment remains an open issue and requires further research. The most important task is the selection of indicators, followed by statistical verification in relation to their importance to innovativeness. The results show that there is a tendency to between the author's ratings and other already published ratings of innovativeness.

The protection of fundamental rights and human rights in the European Union has witnessed several phases and fluctuations. In the early days of European integration, whilst it would be exaggerated to brand the then Communities a 'villain,' there was no explicit recognition of fundamental rights/human rights as being part of Community law. I hope it should have become clear by now that the Union does not fit particularly well into any of these two extremes. But by comparison to the other EU institutions, the Court of Justice has been somewhat of a forerunner, taking the first steps towards a fundamental rights system already in 1969 and contributing in many respects to its further development.

AbstractDifferentiated integration (DI) in the European Union (EU) has mainly been understood as variation in participation in common policies. But DI also has implications for the nature and functioning of the EU as a polity. While temporary DI may facilitate deeper integration, permanent DI is liable to increase transaction costs and fragmentation. However, little is known about how such alternatives are assessed by decision-makers in the member states. This article uses novel quantitative and qualitative data to shed light on this question. It looks at the explanatory role of various types of opt-outs and at member states' dependence, capacity, and identity. We find that temporary and permanent differentiation are assessed differently in the member states but neither alternative is clearly preferred. Long-term involuntary opt-outs are related to negative assessments of both forms of DI. Surprisingly, voluntary opt-outs do not seem to lead to more positive assessments of DI. We also find that the temporary DI is preferred in smaller member states, while support for permanent DI is higher in larger member states. Finally, we find differences in the effects of dependency, capacity, and identity between older and newer member states.

Cost containment and the preferences of older adults are important stimuli for encouraging the provision of informal care worldwide. Nevertheless, informal caregiving can have negative effects on caregiver's health, wellbeing, and employment opportunities. Moreover, it is questionable whether informal caregivers can substantially contribute to meeting the increasing demand for care or serve as a substitute for formally provided services. This commentary assesses strategies to remediate the negative effects of caregiving and ultimately to improve informal caregiving and to support their critical role in European long-term care systems. Cash benefits are a particularly common method of supporting informal caregivers; paid and unpaid leave, and flexible work arrangements are the most prevalent measures to support family caregivers within labor market policy, specifically. Providing training and counseling services to individuals engaged in informal care is a strategy used to support caregivers at home. Disparities in the level of support provided to informal caregivers across the European Union need to be addressed. A lack of supporting policies increases the likelihood that caregivers experience negative physical and psychosocial health problems, as well as unemployment and impoverishment.

Foreign direct investment has a significant role in Southeastern European countries. The aim of the paper is reflected in assessing the character and nature of the relationship between macroeconomic factors and foreign direct investment in Southeastern European countries. Further, the subject of paper includes the examination of the impact of selected macroeconomic variables on foreign direct investment in six countries for the period from 2000 to 2012. The selected countries are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Romania and Serbia. The research includes an examination impact of market size, national competitiveness and employment on foreign direct investment. By using the Hausman test, it was confirmed that the fixed effect model is an appropriate model in panel analysis. Based on the result, it determined the positive impact of market size, while the industry's share of GDP and employment have a negative impact on this variable. Also, the results confirmed that only the market size of the countries significantly affected on the flow of foreign direct investment in Southeastern European countries.

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of Tables -- List of Figures -- Preface -- Introduction -- The Meaning of Integration -- International Organization, Political System or sui generis? -- Content and Plan of the Book -- PART I INTERWAR AND POSTWAR IDEAS OF EUROPE -- Introduction: Pre-theories of International Integration -- Federalism -- Functionalism -- Transactionalism -- The Pre-theories and the Development of European Integration Studies -- Further Reading -- 1 For a Free and United Europe. A Draft Manifesto -- The Crisis of Modern Civilization -- Post-war Tasks. European Unity -- Post-war Duties. Reform of Society -- 2 A Working Peace System: An Argument for the Functional Development of International Organization -- The General Problem -- The Perplexities of Federation -- The Functional Alternative -- Through Functional Action to International Society -- The Tasks Ahead -- 3 Political Community and the North Atlantic Area: International Organization in the Light of Historical Experience -- The Problem -- The Integrative Process: Some General Characteristics -- The Importance of Background Conditions -- The Issue of Functionalism as a Pathway to Amalgamation -- PART II THEORIZING THE COMMON MARKET: NEOFUNCTIONALISM AND ITS CRITICS -- Introduction: Neofunctionalism and Its Critics -- The Origins of Neofunctionalism -- The Integration Process -- Neofunctionalism in Comparative Perspective -- The Intergovernmentalist Critique -- Revised Neofunctionalism -- The Neofunctionalist Legacy -- Further Reading -- 4 The Uniting of Europe: Political, Social and Economic Forces 1950-1957 -- Community and Integration -- Basic Definitions: Political Community -- Basic Definitions: Political Integration -- 5 The Political Dynamics of European Economic Integration -- Political Integration: Definitions and Hypotheses -- Political Integration.