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This book provides both a comprehensive introduction and a perceptive examination of Britain's relations with the European Community and the European Union since 1945, combining an historical account with political analysis to illustrate the changing and multifaceted nature of British and European politics.

One of the most serious problems of fiscal character is the issue of the tax gap. The tax gap is defined as the amount of tax liability faced by taxpayers that is not paid on time. The tax gap comes from three main areas of non-compliance with the tax law - firstly from underreporting of income, secondly from underpayment of taxes and thirdly from non-filling of returns. The tax evasions in the area of value added tax form one of the largest groups of tax gap. This article describes the current situation in the field of tax gap in selected countries of the European Union, namely the VAT gap. The aim of this paper is to determine a dependence of the VAT gap on three variables, the Corruption Perception Index CPI, GDP growth rate and the basic VAT rate. A method of the regression analysis has been used, performed on data in the years 2000-2011. In spite of the fact that it could be assumed that tax burden will affect the VAT gap the most, the highest dependence was shown in the case of the Corruption Perception Index.

International audience ; This article discusses the role of OLAF in the fight against fraud in the European Union (EU) by examining (1) its powers and capacity to coordinate the activities of anti-fraud agencies in the twenty seven member states and (2) the constraints which prevent OLAF from operating in a more effective manner. It also analyses OLAF's relationship with other transnational agencies such as Eurojust and Europol and highlights the degree of fragmentation which exists among the many actors involved in the fight against fraud, a fragmented legal approach and the difficulties this presents in attempting to police sophisticated transnational frauds. The effect of EU expansion on this situation is considered and the support offered to new member states who have been asked to bring their anti-fraud structures up to the standards of existing members within a very short period of time is also examined. The efforts of Romania in seeking to build up anti-fraud structures and systems are discussed in some detail. This article concludes that despite the best efforts of the actors involved, a fragmented legal system and institutions have hampered the fight against fraud in the EU.

In the paper we evaluate the quality of life in European Union countries. The introductory database is made up of 19 variables which, in our view, appropriately capture numerous spheres of human life. The reference date for this data, taken from the Eurostat database is April 10, 2021. The Principal Component Analysis that we have used in this paper is not rare in the conditions of multivariate statistics, however, when evaluating the quality of life, it is not much used. Many authors dealing with the topic take advantage of the traditional questionnaire survey and the points-based approach when analysing data. Our objective was to demonstrate that the Principal Component Analysis can be used in evaluating quality of life, especially if it is necessary to evaluate a significant number of variables and select factors with the highest impact. Apart from the main objective-the identification of factors most impacting the quality of life in European Union countries, we also focused on the comparison of countries as per particular main factors and searched for what caused differences between them. Quality of life is also reflected in the subjective perception of responders' happiness. We were concerned to know whether the evaluated data would indicate that the feeling of happiness increases along with prosperity , or does not depend on growing prosperity at a certain stage.

The presence of the shadow economy differs considerably among the countries. Therefore, determination of factors behind the differences in the size of cross-country shadow economy becomes more of an issue for designing and implementing the right policies to combat the shadow economy. This study investigates the influence of economic freedom and globalization on the size of the shadow economy in the European Union transition economies employing panel data analysis for the period of 2000–2015. The empirical analysis indicates that economic freedom reduces the size of the shadow economy in the long term in the overall panel, but globalization also has a relatively smaller detractive effsect on the shadow economy in some countries.

WOS: 000505090800011 ; The presence of the shadow economy differs considerably among the countries. Therefore, determination of factors behind the differences in the size of cross-country shadow economy becomes more of an issue for designing and implementing the right policies to combat the shadow economy. This study investigates the influence of economic freedom and globalization on the size of the shadow economy in the European Union transition economies employing panel data analysis for the period of 2000-2015. The empirical analysis indicates that economic freedom reduces the size of the shadow economy in the long term in the overall panel, but globalization also has a relatively smaller detractive effect on the shadow economy in some countries.

How do smaller member states promote their interests in EU foreign policy and external relations? EU membership can be seen to affect member states' foreign policy in two ways, either by restricting national policies or empowering states in a challenging global environment. There is a general agreement, however, that the member states, especially smaller ones, have to engage actively in policy-making in order to promote their particular interest. This cross-policy comparison of the behaviour of Czech Republic's representatives in the Council and the methods they use to influence the decision-making applies categorisation from lobbying literature to analyse the behaviour of the member state's representatives and contributes to two strands of scholarship on European Union politics - decision-making in the EU and Europeanization. The book maps the methods of interest promotion that can be used by a member state and analyses the differences in interest promotion across external policy areas. --

AbstractTurkey represents a unique case for the European Union (EU) as a third country. Turkey's long standing institutionalized association with the EU furnished Turkey with formal and informal access to the EU. These access points, together with its structural power and bilateral relations with Member States shape the modalities of its influence. This article proposes that Turkish influence as a third country evolved with the interplay of its access to EU institutions and structural power. Turkey has different modes of access to EU which range from formal institutions and EU Agencies to its bilateral relations and its membership in institutions such as NATO. The article's empirical discussions identify how Turkey's influence as a third country on the EU policies is driven by this interplay of access and power, uncovering its role in different policy areas. Finally, Turkey's influence is visible in setting precedents for the EU's relations with other third countries.

Cyprus and Malta are small Mediterranean states located on the periphery of Europe that have had unusual political affiliations following independence from Great Britain in 1960 and 1964, respectively. Historically and culturally they have had Middle Eastern connections. Cyprus was the scene of Arab settlement and later Ottoman rule, and today one-fifth of the population is Muslim Turkish, while the rest is predominantly Greek Orthodox. Malta was under direct Arab rule and its language is Semitic in origin, although its population today is almost exclusively Roman Catholic. Both countries used membership in the Non-Aligned Movement and later their connections with the European Union to gain leverage in foreign relations with more powerful states, especially in matters involving the Mediterranean region. During the Cold War and its aftermath, their ties with Middle Eastern neighbors have also brought economic benefits and a greater sense of security without their having to join military alliances.

Partisan dealignment is recurrently presented in the literature as a main driver of the "personalization of politics". Yet, on the one hand, the claim that leader effects on voting behaviour are increasing across time is short on comparative evidence. On the other hand, there is limited empirical evidence that such increase is due to dealignment. This article addresses these claims, exploring the longitudinal relationship between dealignment and the determinants of vote choice through a novel dataset pooling 90 national election surveys from 14 Western European parliamentary democracies in the period 1961-2016. The results suggest that both critics and proponents of the personalization thesis got it partially right. Leader effects did not increase over time, but their relative importance did: leader images came to matter more as party attachments came to matter less. Partisan dealignment is the key contextual dynamic in downplaying the electoral impact of partisan attachments vis-à-vis leaders evaluations.