Suchergebnisse

"The European Union controls substantial means of its own and (unlike NATO) has a comprehensive range of instruments covering all dimensions of foreign and security policy. Through the EU, Europeans have attempted to forge a grand strategy integrating all these dimensions: the 2003 European Security Strategy (ESS). That has not produced a clear enough prioritisation however. Consequently, EU external action has not sufficiently proved its added value. Exactly ten years later therefore, it is both fitting and pressing to revisit EU strategy and decide on which priorities collective action is now urgently required to complement the foreign policies of the European states." (author's abstract)

Governments across Europe are required to make decisions about how best to allocate scarce health care resources. There are legitimate arguments for eliciting societal vales in relation to health care resource allocation given the roles of the general public as payers and potential patients. However, relatively little is known about the views of the general public on general principles which could guide these decisions. In this paper we present five societal viewpoints on principles for health care resources allocation and develop a new approach, Q2S, designed to investigate the extent to which these views are held across a range of European countries. An online survey was developed, based on a previously completed study Q methodology, and delivered between November 2009 and February 2010 across nine countries to 33,515 respondents. The largest proportion of our respondents (44%), were found to most associate themselves with an egalitarian perspective. Differences in views were more strongly associated with countries than with socio-demographic characteristics. These results provide information which could be useful for decision makers in understanding the pluralistic context in which they are making health care resource allocation decisions and how different groups in society may respond to such decisions.

This article explores income redistribution in Iceland stemming from taxes and transfers, both in terms of its development (1995–2009) and in comparison with European countries (2007). This is done by applying various decomposition analyses, mostly based on the reduction in the Gini coefficient due to taxes and transfers. Our results show that redistribution declined substantially in Iceland between 1995 and 2007; two thirds of the reduction was due to the tax system. The reduction in tax redistribution is explained by a decrease in the personal tax allowance and changed income composition. In a comparison of western European countries in 2007, redistribution stemming from taxes and transfers was lowest in Iceland. This may be explained by low progressivity in the tax system and very low transfer payments, which may to a large extent be explained by high employment rates. In an international comparison, Scandinavian and Continental European countries have the highest levels of redistribution. For the Continental countries, this is to a large extent due to low employment rates, while in the Scandinavian countries it is due to high distributional policies.

Abstract
The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) devices, as well as the Internet of Things phenomenon itself, are gaining a new group of customers every day, for whom it is almost a matter of course to use a wide range of devices, such as Internet-connected complex life support equipment or "smart" watches monitoring basic life parameters. With the growing popularity of such devices, however, questions about the safety of their users begin to arise, because almost in proportion to the number of benefits associated with the use of these products, the number of risks associated with them increases – eg improper functioning of Internet-connected life support equipment, in addition to threatening the life or health of its user, may affect the physical security of the product itself, the security of both personal and technical (eg non-personal) data processed by the specific product, or finally the cyber-security of the product. While the issues related to the protection of personal data and privacy, in general, have been discussed many times by the doctrine, the issues related to the protection of users of these devices under consumer law have not been considered much.
In this context, the question arises whether the current legal regulations provide an adequate and sufficient level of protection for IoMT users. In particular, whether the average IoMT user can actually exercise their rights under the provisions of consumer law and whether the protection afforded to him – both in terms of the scope of their rights and the scope of obligations and liability of manufacturers and suppliers of these devices – is not only illusory? In order to answer the above questions, the author will evaluate the prevailing market practices – still focused around the doctrine of "caveat emptor" or "let the buyer beware" – and compare them with these regulations and juxtapose them with relevant legal regulations. However, given the lack of geographical borders in the field of cyber security and privacy, the author will not only analyse EU cyber security legislation, but also US legislation in a comparative legal analysis. The choice of jurisdictions to be compared is also related to the size and importance of both the US and the EU for the global IoMT market. It should be noted that the United States has a dominant position in the IoMT, while the European Union is estimated to have the second largest IoMT market globally. At the same time, however, there are differences in legal systems between the two economic areas. An analysis carried out in this way will make it possible not only to answer the question posed above, but also to possibly identify those areas of regulation that need to be changed or adapted to the realities of IoMT.

The EVS 2017 Methodological Guidelines comprise the recommendations and standards designed for the lifecycle phases of the EVS wave 2017 and agreed with the participating countries.

This book on Reflections on European Values is a Liber Amicorum honouring Loek Halman's contribution to the European Values Study. For years, he has been a key figure in this longitudinal and cross-national research project on moral, social, and political values, dedicating his academic life to advancing the understanding of values in Europe. This Liber Amicorum is published at the occasion of Loek's retirement after a long career at the Department of Sociology at Tilburg University. It brings together essays on the study of European values, written by his academic friends. The 32 chapters in this volume are structured in five themes that reflect Loek's scholarly interest. A first group of contributions presents theoretical and methodological reflections on the European Values Study. Second, essays on the sociology of religion reflect Loek's interest in this topic. Third, comparative studies using the European Values Study are presented. The fourth part focuses on a case most well-known : the Netherlands. The fifth and final section further deepens the understanding of values in several specific countries in Europe. Upon his retirement, this book will serve as an inspiration for scholars who want to walk in Loek Halman's footsteps in continuing research on values in Europe.

AbstractThis article contributes to the recent transnational turn in labour history with a case study of West German and British trade union politics at Ford between 1967 and 1973. It demonstrates that international economic interdependence became a major concern for organised labour in both countries because of the emergence in 1967 of the Ford of Europe holding company. Paradoxically, however, this was accompanied by the accentuation of national allegiances and action frameworks, in particular with regard to the framing of labour market interests and industrial relations policies. These processes played out differently in the two countries, not only because national contexts were different but also because the new international challenges interacted with national contexts in specific ways.

Avrupa Birliği kendisini kademeli şekilde bir 'sivil güç' realitesine dönüştürmüştür. Maastricht sonrası Avrupa Birliği'nin dış politikasında, kimlik, sivil güç unsurları ve askeri olmayan güç mekanizmaları önem kazanmaya başlamıştır. Bu bağlamda, sivil gücün prensipleri ve unsurları AB'nin dış ilişkilerini düzenleyen yasal mevzuatın bir parçası haline getirilmiştir. ; It appears that the European Union (the EU) has steadily transformed itself into a 'civilian power' in international scene. In the post-Maastricht phase, the EU has ascribed great importance to the non-military instruments and power of civilian values in its foreign policy. In line with this, objectives and policy instruments of civilian power have been progressively introduced in EU's legal structure and its external relations.