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As Russian tanks and artillery advanced on Kharkiv and Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelensky signed an application to join the European Union. He called for a special admission procedure to secure swift accession for Ukraine, yet Ukraine did not first aspire to EU membership under missile fire. Much like Moldova and Georgia, it sees its current status of association with the EU as a precursor to accession. The 28 Feb­ruary application was a call for help from the dreadful war. Initial responses from the European Commission and the European Parliament indicated much political sym­pathy for Ukraine's urgent call, but the EU leaders do not hold forth the prospect of swift accession. This restraint results from the experience that membership negotiations are generally challenging and protracted and that there are no short cuts to the goal. There are, indeed, EU interests that run counter to an explicit memership per­spective. The EU should in any case add a security component flanking its policy of integration and cooperation with Eastern Partnership countries. (author's abstract)

Analysis of political liberalization, its effect on the foreign policy debate, and divided interests within the government. Includes policies under Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Kozyrev; the Brezhnev Doctrine; Russian integration into the international community; and policy in East Asia.

Based on address before the Am. foreign service association, Spring, 1961.

EUROPEAN STUDIES: An Interdisciplinary Series in European Culture, History and Politics -- Contents -- Authors in this Volume -- Introduction -- THE CONTEXT OF EU-CHINA RELATIONS AND THE HUMAN RIGHTS DILEMMA -- Eu-China Relations: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives -- The Development of Eu-China Relations -- The Eu and China in the Context of Inter-regionalism -- Duality - Dialogue - Discourse: Some Perspectives on Human Rights in Eu-China Relations -- Sport and Politics: The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games -- ASPECTS OF THE GEO-POLITICAL SETTING OF EU-CHINA INTERACTION -- China Views Europe: A Multi-polar Perspective -- The European Union and China: Indian Perceptions and Perspectives -- Russia's Closer Ties with China: The Geo-politics of Energy and the Implications for the European Union -- The European Union, China and the United States: Complex Interdependence and Bi-multilateralism in Commercial Relations -- The European Union's Economic Ties with the Republic of China (Taiwan) -- ISSUES - POLICIES - PERCEPTIONS -- China, News Media Freedom and the West: Present and Future Perspectives -- Trade and Investment in the Relations Between the European Union and the People's Republic of China -- Eu-china Foreign Direct Investment: A Double-sided Perspective -- China's Search for Energy Security and Eu-China Relations -- Recent Chinese Practice In the Maintenance of Maritime Security and the European Experience -- Conclusions: Towards an Eu-China Research-Agenda 2010

BACKGROUND—A major factor influencing tobacco use is its price. Fiscal policies on tobacco are a key ingredient of any comprehensive control strategy, as they can be used to raise prices. The European Union (EU) developed directives to ensure some harmonisation of the fiscal pressure on tobacco across its member states. OBJECTIVES—To provide a simple comparison of tobacco prices in the EU, adjusting for the purchasing power of each currency. DESIGN—For price comparisons, a 20 units pack of Marlboro was the reference product, and data refer to April 2000. Purchasing power parities (PPP) for each member state currency have been compiled. These are currency conversion rates, which convert to a common currency and equalise the purchasing power of different currencies. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES—Nominal prices of a Marlboro pack for each member state, and a price index, estimated taking as reference the EU mean. Adjusted prices and an adjusted price index have been estimated using PPP. RESULTS—Nominal prices show wide variation, with the cheapest pack in Portugal (59) and the most expensive in the UK (196); the range of variation is three-fold. However, PPP adjusted prices reveal a different distribution. In three countries adjusted prices are outliers, but all other countries make two clusters, one around the average EU index of 100, the other around a lower value of 85. CONCLUSIONS—These results suggest that fiscal harmonisation policies in the EU do not have an even effect at reducing availability by its impact in price. Keywords: cigarette price; fiscal policy; health policy; European Union.

AbstractSolidarity is a key concept in the European Union. However, the concept of solidarity lacks systematic theoretical examination to enable a sufficient understanding of its contextual meaning and to provide an operationalisable benchmark for analysis. To address this research gap, I propose an analytical framework for solidarity in the European Union that features four necessary conditions: particularity, instrumentality, reciprocity, and responsibility. I develop the framework through a transdisciplinary conceptual history approach, substantiated with a thorough document and legal analysis of European integration and CJEU case law. I demonstrate the robustness and validity of the proposed framework by using EU asylum policy as a test case, a field where the question of solidarity is notoriously salient, which is exemplified by an area-specific expression of the concept: fair sharing of responsibility between the EU member states. Moreover, I show that the EU's solidarity principle is necessary to maintain the bloc's raison d'être.

Analyses of covariance for Eurobarometer data from 1990 to 1994 demonstrate a significant effect of individuals' nationalities on their preferences toward the scope and content of European Union policy-making, while controlling for sociodemographic characteristics. The observed national differences are more pronounced for the scope than for the content dimension. An investigation of the causal mechanisms underpinning these effects concludes that it can be either national identities or nation-specific constellations of political conflict that mediate the effect of nationality for a particular nation. These novel findings qualify the expectations of the European political space approach concerning the existence of an integrated and somewhat autonomous space of political contestation toward the EU, but the observed decline of cross-national differences over time indicates that at least a trend in this direction exists. Tables, Figures, References. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright 2005.]

What requirements must Turkey-the largest country among the candidate and accession countries-meet to join the European Union? What progress has been made toward meeting them? This timely volume analyzes the economic challenges confronting Turkey in its quest to accede to the European Union (EU). It focuses on the extent to which Turkey is ready to join the Single Market, comply with the EU's body of economic regulations and directives, the Acquis Communautaire, and meet the Maastricht criteria for fiscal, monetary, and exchange rate policies. This book also provides an assessment of Turkey's