Suchergebnisse

"This book evaluates the present European Union (EU) approach to state-building, both in policy and operation. It offers a review of the literature on (EU) peace building, EU, state-building and conflict resolution, before examining in detail the European Union's role as a state-builder in the case of the Occupied Palestinian Territories following the 1993 Oslo Accords. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and over 140 interviews carried out in Brussels, London, Jerusalem and Ramallah with EU, Palestinian and Israeli officials as well as academics, members of NGOs and civil society, the author evaluates the present approach of state-building and offers a framework to test the effectiveness of the EU as a state-builder. Examining security sector reform, judiciary sector reform and the rule of law, the book measures the contribution of the EU to state-building against a backdrop of on-going conflict and a polarised social setting. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, EU politics, Middle Eastern politics and state-building"--

"This book evaluates the present European Union (EU) approach to state-building, both in policy and operation. It offers a review of the literature on (EU) peace building, EU, state-building and conflict resolution, before examining in detail the European Union's role as a state-builder in the case of the Occupied Palestinian Territories following the 1993 Oslo Accords.Drawing on extensive fieldwork and over 140 interviews carried out in Brussels, London, Jerusalem and Ramallah with EU, Palestinian and Israeli officials as well as academics, members of NGOs and civil society, the author evaluates the present approach of state-building and offers a framework to test the effectiveness of the EU as a state-builder. Examining security sector reform, judiciary sector reform and the rule of law, the book measures the contribution of the EU to state-building against a backdrop of on-going conflict and a polarised social setting.This book will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, EU politics, Middle Eastern politics and state-building"--

The paper deals with the use and diffusion of the geographical indication in the European Union countries, having as objective the protection of the products' names, which are registered as Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) and Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) labels. The reason for treating this theme started from the fact that the level of knowledge of the system and its symbols by the consumers is very low. In the introductory part, specification of surveyed topic is given and importance of consumer education and information is highlighted. Empirical research is based on two approaches. First, 1114 product names from DOOR database (Database for agricultural products and foodstuffs in EU countries) were analysed in order to investigate the frequency of labels utilization by country and product classes, cluster analysis was applied to show the labels distribution by countries. Dominant countries in number of labels are Italy, France and Spain having registered over 50 % of all products. The most frequent product class is Fruits, vegetables and cereals for PGI and Cheeses for PDO. The second approach reflects consumer view on the issue; survey of 250 consumers in the Czech Republic was carried out with the purpose to identify awareness and perceived credibility of labels. Findings reveal a low awareness of labels, credibility of labels is influenced by their low familiarity. The main problem is lack of information. Respondents show interest in getting information regarding this topic. Quality labels have potential to communicate with consumers and facilitate their food purchases, but it is necessary to improve their promotion.

The EU faces a serious crisis of democratic legitimacy. Citizens believe that the EU is run by distant and non-responsive political elites. The EU's perceived lack of responsiveness to ordinary citizens poses a threat to its very survival. This timely book presents a comprehensive account of how EU governments signal responsiveness to the interests of their citizens over European policies. Schneider develops and tests a theoretical framework of the intergovernmental dimension of responsive governance in the European Union, using evidence amassed over nearly ten years of multi-method research. The findings show that European cooperation in the Council of the European Union takes place in the shadow of national elections. Governments signal responsiveness to their publics by taking positions that are in the interests of politically relevant voters at the national level, defending these positions throughout negotiations in the Council, and seeking appropriate policy outcomes at the EU level.

This article explores supranational activism on the example of bureaucratic growth in the institutions of the EU - operationalised as the number of staff members. The main question is to what extent are the numbers of staff employed in the EU institutions and bodies dependent on member states and their decisions to increase the functions of the EU through either treaty changes or the ratifications of accession treaties. To answer this question, two hypotheses are tested based on time-series data collected from the EC/EU annual budgets (1959-2016). The first hypothesis predicts an incremental growth of staff in EU institutions and bodies. The second hypothesis tests whether member states decisions to reform treaties and ratify accession treaties affect the number of staff members in EU institutions and bodies. Results show that the growth of EU staff has not been gradual and that decisions which are under the control of member states partially impact the growth of EU staff. Decisions and willingness of member states as well as EU institutions are needed to affect the number of staff members in the EU.

AbstractOn the basis of a combined examination of normative claims and empirical evidence this paper discusses minimal criteria for the institutional design of referendums on EU‐internal issues. These criteria concern the mandatory (vs. optional), the simultaneous (vs. serial) and binding (vs. consultative) nature of referendums. The proposed criteria are demanding, both for the Member States and the European Union, but experiences show that the EU is in fact participating actively in EU‐issues referendums and Member States as well as the EU need to surpass the current arbitrary use of plebiscites by governments. On a broader scale the paper contributes to the insight that it might be time to fully address the use of direct democracy at the national and EU levels.

This paper uses model-based recursive partitioning to study economic growth in the 255 European Union NUTS2 regions over the period 1995-2005. The starting point of the analysis is a human-capital augmented Solow-type growth equation similar in spirit to Mankiw, Romer, and Weil (1992). Initial GDP and the share of highly educated in the working age population are found to be important for explaining economic growth, whereas the investment share in physical capital is only significant for coastal regions in the PIIGS countries. Recursive partitioning leads to a regression tree with four terminal nodes with partitioning according to (i) capital regions, (ii) non-capital regions in or outside the so-called PIIGS countries and (iii) inside the respective PIIGS regions furthermore between coastal and non-coastal regions.