Suchergebnisse

Most of existing researches on the methods of governance in the European Union (EU) are rather narrow in scope. Many of them investigate particular policies of the EU for the purpose of identifying and describing the details of the governance mode in use. Other researches provide a comparative analysis of the application of a particular method of governance in several EU policies. However, there is a clear lacuna in the field of systematization of all methods of governance usable in the EU. This article reveals a comprehensive system of EU methods of governance. They are based on six key principles: 1) EU methods of governance are not reducible to combinations of communitarian and intergovernmental approaches. 2) Methods of governance are linked with the level of decision-making (super-system, system and subsystem decisions). 3) There are seven basic methods of governance in the EU. Classic intergovernmental method is used to make "historic" decisions at the super-system level. Communitarian approach and intensive trans-governmentalism are the most common methods at the system level. One can distinguish four methods of governance at the subsystem level: regulation, distribution, policy coordination and executive method. 4) There is no univocal correspondence between methods of policy setting (system level) and policy implementation (subsystem level). 5) Identified methods of governance are the ideal types. In practice, implementation of particular policy in the EU is usually a combination of various governance methods. 6) Methods of governance used at the level of policy implementation could change in the course of time. The concept proposed reflects the inter-coupling between the level of decision-making and a method of governance in the EU. It offers a consistent systematization of EU methods of governance, and discloses the correspondence between methods of governance and EU policies. Developed theoretical concept can be used as a methodological basis for the research of EU activities in particular policy areas, of decision-making process in the EU, of the evolution of governance in particular policy areas.

The thesis pursues three main aims. The first aim is to present the current legislative situation in the European Union and the process that led to accepting the assumptions concerning guarantees that laid foundations for the rules on the guarantee contained in the Consumer Sales Directive. The second aim is to analyse the EU rules on guarantees, as contained in the Consumer Sales Directive. At the same time, the correctness of the assumptions that underlie the EU legislation on guarantees is tested, as well as whether the rules as accepted in the Consumer Sales Directive are able to meet the objectives set for them. The third aim is a thorough analysis of the guarantee structure, while accepting the EU assumption concerning the guarantee (the guarantee as a marketing and competition tool, which may mislead consumers, established on the basis of the sales contract). It is done in order to provide more background information as to the question, whether or not the rules of the Consumer Sales Directive are sufficient in the area of the consumer sales guarantee, even if the same assumptions as for the function of the guarantee are accepted. Here, the question is asked which other aspects of the guarantee should be dealt with by legislation and in what form. The thesis include also certain conclusions that follow from the analysis, but which are beyond the scope of the research questions. These findings could be useful when investigating the EU legal sphere in the area of private (or consumer) law. First, it is the problem of the relation between national law and EU law. The EU legislator cannot act in separation from the national law. The national solutions and traditions existing in the regulated area cannot be disregarded. In the area of the guarantee, the best examples would be Ireland, Poland or Hungary. The transposition and implementation of the EU rules is not exhausted when the rules contained in a directive are rewritten in the national legislation, there must be a connection established between the ...

Delegation in the European Union (EU) involves a series of principal-agent problems, and the various chains of delegation involve voters, parties, parliaments, governments, the European Commission and the European Parliament. While the literature has focused on how government parties attempt to monitor EU affairs through committees in national parliaments and through Council committees at the EU level, much less is known about the strategies opposition parties use to reduce informational deficits regarding European issues. This article argues that the European Parliament (EP) offers opposition parties an arena to pursue executive oversight through the use of written parliamentary questions. Using a novel dataset on parliamentary questions in the EP, this article examines why Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) ask questions of specific Commissioners. It transpires that MEPs from national opposition parties are more likely to ask questions of Commissioners. Questions provide these parties with inexpensive access to executive scrutiny. This finding has implications for the study of parliamentary delegation and party politics inside federal legislatures such as the EP. Adapted from the source document.

Knowledge and innovations are considered to be among the most important factors that determine the pace and quality of economic growth. Therefore, Poland is facing a serious challenge to effectively transform its economy into an innovative economy capable of competing with the most developed countries. The aim of the paper is to present the results of analysis aimed at estimating the innovation gap between Poland and the European Union countries on the basis of the Summary Innovation Index (SII), which was developed by the European Commission within the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) in the years 2010–2018. It reviewed the literature on the innovativeness of economies and the innovation gap. Descriptive analysis, statistical data analysis and comparative analysis methods were applied. Statistical data from the European Innovation Scoreboard 2019 were used. The paper formulates a research thesis that assumes that the level of innovativeness of the Polish economy in the analyzed period remained at a lower level than the EU average and therefore there is still an innovation gap between the Polish economy and the average for European Union countries. The results of the analysis confirm this thesis. ; Wiedza i innowacje są uznawane za jeden z najistotniejszych czynników determinujących tempo i jakość wzrostu gospodarczego. Przed Polską staje poważne wyzwanie efektywnego przekształcenia jej gospodarki w gospodarkę innowacyjną, zdolną do konkurowania z najbardziej rozwiniętymi krajami. Celem artykułu jest oszacowanie luki innowacyjnej między Polską a krajami Unii Europejskiej na podstawie sumarycznego indeksu innowacyjności, opracowanego przez Komisję Europejską w ramach European Innovation Scoreboard (Europejskiej Tablicy Innowacji) w latach 2010–2018. Dokonano w nim przeglądu literatury na temat innowacyjności gospodarek i luki innowacyjnej. Zastosowano metody analizy opisowej, analizy danych statystycznych w czasie i analizy porównawczej. W badaniu wykorzystano dane statystyczne pochodzące z European Innovation Scoreboard 2019. W artykule sformułowano tezę badawczą, która zakłada, że w analizowanym okresie poziom innowacyjności polskiej gospodarki utrzymuje się na niższym poziomie od średniej unijnej, a zatem wciąż istnieje luka innowacyjna między polską gospodarką a średnią dla krajów Unii Europejskiej. Wyniki przeprowadzonej analizy potwierdzają tę tezę.

To contribute to the debate as to whether volunteering is an outcome of democratization rather than a driver of it, we analyze how divergent democratization pathways in six countries of the former Soviet Union have led to varied levels of volunteering. Using data from the European Values Study, we find that Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia—which followed a Europeanization path—have high and increasing levels of civil liberties and volunteering. In Russia and Belarus, following a pre-emption path, civil liberties have remained low and volunteering has declined. Surprisingly, despite the Orange Revolution and increased civil liberties, volunteering rates in Ukraine have also declined. The case of Ukraine indicates that the freedom to participate is not always taken up by citizens. Our findings suggest it is not volunteering that brings civil liberties, but rather that increased civil liberties lead to higher levels of volunteering.

The aim of this paper is to study the determinants of sovereign debt maturity for 23 European countries during the period between 1995 and 2013. For this purpose, we use quantile regressions with robust standard errors clustered by countries to consider the impact of the determinants in the entire distribution. The results indicate a positive relation between the level of debt of the country and sovereign debt maturity, particularly for countries with the lowest debt maturity. We also find evidence of a negative relationship between sovereign risk and debt maturity for the lowest and intermediate values of the debt maturity.