Suchergebnisse

The on-going constitutionalization of Europe has led to various changes in media and communications, opening up areas of debate regarding the role of traditional and new media in developing a specific European public sphere as part of the wider European Project. This timely volume addresses the little understood relationship between old and new media, communications policy at the European level, issues of regulation and competition within the EU, the role of the European Parliament in media policymaking, and the questions emerging about the sustainability of traditional public service broadcasting. To understand the concrete significance of these debates two contributions address specific practical areas, i.e. the potential of online environments and specific developments in European media contexts, such as channel strategies, web-related services, iDTV and community networks. Consequently, Mediating Europe provides an original and important contribution to understanding the role of the media in shaping a European public sphere

The European Union's activities constitute a relatively new influence on educational policy-making. It has generally been argued that this influence is both weak and politically progressive. It is purported to be 'weak' because Member States are supposed to jealously guard the autonomy of their national education systems. In addition, it is argued that the key concern of Brussels remains vocational training, despite the specific reference to general education in the Treaty of Maastricht. It is considered to be a 'progressive' influence because the so-called European dimension in education sets out to foster 'European' values such as democracy, respect for human rights, pluralism, multiculturalism and respect for ethnic minorities. This paper will explore these generally held assumptions and will argue that the EU's influence in the field of education is much greater than normally acknowledged, that this influence is exerted through a variety of mechanisms, and that the current construction of 'European education' signals contradictory messages through its agenda for 'unity in diversity'. More specifically, this paper will analyse the way in which the EU has set out to facilitate and promote a strong 'European identity' through the medium of education. Initiatives and policies in Member States setting out to Europeanise their curricula are interrogated in terms of their manifest and latent meanings and value systems, and the extent to which 'learning for and about Europe' - i.e. identity through difference - entails processes of exclusion and distancing of the non-European. It is argued that educators, as cultural intellectuals, must refuse to accept the politics of identity as given, but must rather critically examine how representations of Europe and Europeans are constructed, for what purpose, by whom, and with what components. ; peer-reviewed

The European Union(EU) has been promoting an integrated approach to climate protection and energy policy, through a set of key objectives for 2020, 2030 and 2050, linking Europe's green agenda with its need for energy security and competitiveness.This paper aims to evaluate the environmental efficiency of European Countries from 2010 to 2015 towards the set targets, through a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model.The DEA model assesses the ability of each country in minimizing current resources while maximizing the gross domestic product and minimizing undesirable outputs,such as GHG emissions.The DEA model is based on directional distance Function, imposing weak disposability for the undesirable output. Results obtained show that globally, in the period under analysis, the EU has increased its environmental efficiency which is consistent with the analysis of the indicators of the 2020 climate and energy package. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Today, when democracy is in crisis, the developing countries are finding the stronger global and regional integration processes much more important than before. This is largely true of the post-Soviet countries which, having entered a new development stage, are coping with the globalization challenges through structural transformations. The Republic of Armenia is one of them. Throughout the 25 years of its independence, Armenia has been consistently moving toward a free democratic society irrespective of numerous problems in all spheres, including its foreign policy sphere. Its national security problems are resolved by its military-strategic relations with Russia, which has formulated the idea of the EurAsEC as a common economic expanse to counterbalance the EU. Moscow is putting pressure on all the CIS countries (Armenia among them) in an effort to draw them into this new structure which, in the near future, is expected to develop into the Eurasian Union. European integration is a foreign policy priority in Armenia. The European political establishment, in turn, is demonstrating a far from adequate approach, to say the least, toward Armenia's possible EurAsEC membership. The Europeans make no secret of their intention to put pressure on Armenia, not only to prevent its membership in the Eurasian Union, but also to weaken Russia's influence in the Southern Caucasus and fortify their own positions in the south of the post-Soviet space and the Middle East. The far from simple choice between the EurAsEC and the EU is proving to be a durability test in complementarism.

This book addresses the present EU foundational dilemma by looking at the problematic relationship between the ideal model of integration and the reality of the 21st century. It discusses the current role of the EU and whether it aspires to be a democratic polity or a functional organization based on inter-governmental bargaining and explores the ways and extent to which the present European crisis could create a politico-legal space for new possibilities and opportunities for action.