Suchergebnisse

<p>La Unión Europea (UE) ha ido transformándose y evolucionando a lo largo de los años. Dos factores, la profundización y la ampliación, han tenido su incidencia recíproca en este proceso. Desde sus comienzos, la UE ha experimentado distintas ampliaciones pero sólo una, en opinión de muchos expertos, es la que más impacto ha tenido en su estructura y funcionamiento. La ampliación en 2004 a diez Estados miembros (inicialmente preparado para 12 miembros) obligó a la Unión a acometer la reforma de sus tratados, sus instituciones y procedimientos de decisión. Así mismo, se produjo una reorientación de las transferencias presupuestarias, al tiempo que se ampliaba el ámbito geográfico del mercado interior y aumentaba el número de agentes económicos y consumidores. Finalmente, porporcionó a la UE una nueva posición y peso geopolítico. El principal objetivo de este artículo es analizar el desarrollo económico de los Estados miembros (nuevos Estados miembros) que participaron en esta singular ampliación, así como la evolución económica de la propia UE. Los métodos de análisis se basarán en el estudio de datos secundarios y en la investigación propia, en relación, por ejemplo, a la elaboración de políticas regionales.</p><p><strong>Recibido</strong>: 20.01.2014<br /> <strong>Aceptado</strong>: 05.03.2014</p>

Inflation differentials in Europe have narrowed substantially since the inception of the European Monetary System in 1979. However, their persistence after more than a decade raises the question of why these differentials are so difficult to eliminate. Some European Community countries systematically use seignorage—financing government expenditures with money creation—while others do not. This increases the difficulty of achieving the convergence of monetary policies and inflation rates required for irrevocably fixed exchange rates in Europe. This paper, utilizing a model of government finance that minimizes the social cost of financing government expenditures, examines monetary finance in the European Community. It rejects soundly the social cost minimization model of seignorage collection.

The article surveys the current state of the academic debate about actorness and legitimacy of the European Union. It investigates various kinds of EU's actorness, as well as concepts and categories of its legitimacy, and attempts to trace their relationships, which remains an underdeveloped aspect of the discussion. We examine a wide range of scholarly articles, books and other academic sources in assessing the quality and fairness of the respective discussions and suggest that, within the current mostly normative debate, a positive evaluation of the EU's legitimacy is unattainable and that it is necessary to acquire a fairer notion of what kind of international actor the Union is.

The European Union-China relationship, based on an optimistic joint strategic agenda agreed in 2013, has shifted direction, with the EU in March 2019 describing China as a "systemic rival" in some areas. The EU has struggled to find a common approach to China, but this change was agreed at record speed and occurred against the background of growing United States pressure on its European allies to support the Donald Trump administration's hard-line approach to China. As the new EU leadership team takes over, it will have to navigate a difficult path in relations with China and the US.
The main reason for the shift in the EU's approach was business frustration at China's failure over many years to implement promises to open up its economy and accept a level playing field. Chinese foot-dragging in the negotiations for a bilateral investment agreement, now running for over six years, was another factor in the changed EU approach.
A number of key players, including commissioners dealing with China, members of the European Parliament, and EU ambassadors who had served in Beijing, played a key role in securing this changed approach, which was agreed very quickly despite some long-standing divisions between member states on how to deal with China.
Pressure from the Trump administration - which, unlike the EU, views China as a "strategic rival" - also played a part. It is likely that the new EU leadership under Ursula von der Leyen will maintain the tougher line, and place greater emphasis on reciprocity and strategic autonomy as guidelines for dealing with China.
Meanwhile there is continuing useful cooperation between the EU and China on the foreign policy front, notably on Iran, and on global issues such as climate change and support for the multilateral trading system.
The EU has to invest more in understanding China, which is a growing and formidable rival. EU leaders need to spend more time discussing China and agreeing a comprehensive approach covering all sectors. It should work with like-minded partners where there are shared interests concerning China.

To date, the concept of 'European identity' remains quite vague and obscure. Who is European and who is not? What values do Europeans share, and who is included in or excluded from the European community? This paper deals with the renegotiation of European identity/ies and the simultaneous increase of discourses about national security and nationalism in Europe, especially during the financial crisis since 2008. We first discuss a range of theoretical approaches to European identity from an interdisciplinary perspective. In a second step, after summarising theDiscourse-Historical Approach(DHA) to Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) and especially the concept oftopos, we illustrate the link between discursive constructions of European identities and cultural 'Others' via some recent examples of European and national debates on migration and economic issues. More specifically, we first analyse a speech by Geert Wilders on immigration and multiculturalism after the clashes in Tunisia in 2011 and the subsequent arrival of many refugees in Italy; secondly, we focus on a speech about British relations to the European Union in the 21st century by the British Prime Minister, David Cameron. It becomes apparent that debates about European identities – especially since the financial crisis of 2008 – have increasingly been accompanied by debates about both more traditional racialised cultural concerns and more recently, about economic security, leading to new distinctions between 'Us', the 'real Europeans', and 'Them', the 'Others'. In this way, the socio-political unification of Europe is challenged – once again.

Folgen des Falls des Eisernen Vorhangs. Integration mittel- und osteuropäischer Länder in die EU.

With the creation of a common foreign and security policy (CFSP), the EU has entered the realm of power politics. Although the ambition to become a great power has been frequently reiterated, the EU has often failed to deliver stated policy objectives. This article has two broad goals. One is to outline the strategic behavioural patterns of small powers. The lack of scholarly attention to these states - the largest group in the international system - is a major omission from the International Relations canon. The other is to see how EU patterns of behaviour, exemplified in attempts to build up capacities for military intervention, overlap with those of a small power. The article argues that the concept of a small power best captures the reality of the EU as a strategic actor. Consequently, the EU is more comparable to other small powers such as Sweden or Argentina rather than to great powers such as China or Russia. Adapted from the source document.

Every day several thousand of people are trafficked in different countries in searching better life. Modern day slavery,trafficking in human beings, presents a grave human rights violation. This is the problem, which covers social, political, anddemographic aspects, as well as gender and ethnic stratification, transnational organized crime and human rights abuses, andthe facility of states and supranational institutions effectively to deal with those issues. It seems that one of the core causes oftrafficking in persons is poverty related to the inequalities between economically developed countries and less developedones. This main factor pushes people to migrate to different countries, as they have no other options to feed their families. Intandem, pull factors such as European demographic problems ensure continuing demand. Consequently, individual nations'efforts cannot succeed unless global efforts are harmonized and these push and pull factors are addressed. This paper presentsthe positive and negative aspects of European legal documents in combating trafficking in human beings, where we canclearly see the minuses which need to be overcome.

In May 2014 it was aready ten years since Poland's accession to the European Union. The accession was preceded by a long period of political action and negotiations between the Polish and the EU institutions. The process of integration was extremely complex. It covered almost all areas of economic, legal and civil aspects of the aspiring country's economy, in which all necessary requirements had to be met. The aim of the article was to present the institutional framework created for efficient implementation of the process of accession. The considerations involved especially an institutional method. The research resulted in poining out both the actually efficient and less efficient bodies participating in the process of integration.