Suchergebnisse

AbstractTheorists of Europeanization expected the EU to have the greatest influence on post‐communist countries during the period of negotiation to join the EU as the EU had the greatest possibilities of pressuring the post‐communist countries to make reforms before they joined, on the grounds that it could threaten to prevent these countries from joining unless they met certain conditions. However, in the case of family policy, the EU had very little direct influence on the post‐communist countries. These countries had already long since met the minimum conditions for maternity leaves, while they simply ignored the Barcelona goal of providing day care for one‐third of children aged under three. When the Czech Republic had the EU presidency, its Prime Minister openly stated that the post‐communist countries would have never agreed to the Barcelona goals if they had been members at the time the agreement was made. The one area in which the EU has had some direct influence is in its demands to make laws gender neutral. Thus, the 'extended maternity leaves' that follow the more generously paid maternity leaves had to be transformed into 'parental leaves' that are open to men and guarantee men the right to get their job backs afterwards. However, since the leave benefits are a low flat‐rate in most of the countries, very few men have gone on leave; so in practice they have remained as 'extended maternity leaves' more than parental leaves.Nevertheless, the EU has had great indirect influence on family policy in that by requiring 'gender mainstreaming', all the post‐communist countries have had to set up commissions that examine law proposals from a gender equality perspective. This in turn has given the notion of 'gender equality' much more legitimacy in the public eye, as the mass media has felt pressure to report more on these issues. After discussing the actual changes in policies in two post‐communist countries (the Czech Republic and Poland), this article goes on to analyze the discourse on feminism in the main daily newspapers, and it shows that before accession the newspapers were rather hostile towards feminism, while afterwards they have become much more accepting of the term. This more open view towards 'feminism' meant that it would be easier for future reforms in family policy to be made which could be more supportive of gender equality. Thus, Poland has recently reformed its parental leaves in a manner that gives men greater incentives to share in the leaves, and an openly feminist activist, who wants fathers to share in parental leaves, has recently become Minister for Labour and Social Affairs in the Czech Republic. The EU did not have any direct influence on these developments, but by forcing countries to have gender equality commissions, the EU contributed to making 'feminism' more acceptable, which in turn made it easier for feminists to become ministers in charge of social policy, who could carry out reforms long after the countries had joined the EU.

Both the EU's Renewable Energy Directive (RED) and Article 7a of its Fuel Quality Directive (FQD) seek to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transport fuels. The RED mandates a 10% share of renewable energy in transport fuels by 2020, whilst the F

The intensification of fishery activity through the intervention of regional clusters can have a positive impact at the local level – social impact (reducing unemployment), environment impact (reducing pollution effects and protecting the species within the biosphere reserve), tourism impact (increase the number of tourists and improve the "public image" of the region), market impact (increase the potential clients for local fishery products and improve the products quality). This paper will focus on fishery activity within the local area of the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve from Romania, through the perspective of regional clusters' actions in protecting and promoting the local area and local fishery products.

The present political and economic context of the humanities is more demanding than ever in regards to its justification, social impact and evaluation of research activities. These processes call for an updated understanding of the situation and a prudent counter-strategy that, in a best-case scenario, could result in appreciation opportunities that have thus far been neglected. This article contributes to a differentiation of these grand challenges at three levels: (1) Improved understanding of the policy agenda: The humanities, like other research disciplines, still have to map the full picture of all opportunities in funding policies. The EU's framework programs could be one example of a funding system that contains inclusive mechanisms that have not yet been fully discovered. (2) Research management in the humanities: To benefit the most from those identified inclusive mechanisms, the humanistic disciplines have to develop better and more sophisticated research management tools for their projects and improve their strategic planning and capacity. (3) The humanities as public good: The humanities represent one of the greatest cultural resources of humankind. The task is to make this as explicit and clear as possible to the general public through the explanatory power of the main categories, including recognition, judgment, experience, wisdom and common sense, which mirror some of the most important historical and cultural experiences of human history.

This is an encyclopedia entry of 4000 words. The Imia/Kardak dispute began in 1995 when a Turkish cargo ship ran aground on an uninhabited islet in the Aegean Sea. When the Turkish captain refused help from Greeks on the grounds that the islet was in Turkish territory, a serious dispute developed between Turkey and Greece. Yet in the same year, trade relations across the Aegean significantly improved because of the EU-initiated Barcelona Process, demonstrating the effects of the dual-border zone that the Aegean has become. ; Peer reviewed

El modelo español de tributación de la energía eléctricaes, ciertamente, complejo. En el sistema financiero eléctrico, que ha experimentado una acelerada evolución en los últimos años, cabe distinguir tres modalidades de tributos específicos que recaen sobre la energía eléctrica: un impuesto especial y estatal sobre el consumo de electricidad (1997/2014), de estructura pareja a la de los impuestos especiales de esta naturaleza; Un impuesto sobre la producción de la electricidad (2012), al que se une otro adicional sobre la producción de la energía hidroeléctrica y un tercero sobre la producción de residuos nucleares, también los tres estatales; Diversos impuestos autonómicos que inciden sobre la emisión de gases contaminantes, por una parte, y sobre determinadas instalaciones de generación de electricidad con un impacto considerable en el paisaje o que presentan riesgos cualificados de contaminación.

AbstractThis article examines the EU's participation in multilateral institutions on the example of the UN Arms Trade Treaty. The central question of the study is to what extent and under what conditions the EU can be seen as an effective actor in multilateral security negotiations. It is argued that overall the EU was an effective player during the multilateral negotiations on the ATT, but the degree of its effectiveness varies along different dimensions. The EU was rather successful in the achievement of its goals and in maintaining external cohesion, but it scored relatively low in its efforts to commit the key stakeholders to sign up to the ATT. The EU's internal export control policy, together with the high level of institutional co‐ordination and Member States' interest convergence, facilitated the EU's effectiveness in the ATT negotiations, whereas the international context proved to be the major constraining factor.