Suchergebnisse

Issues relating to energy are among the most important and difficult challenges confronting the world today. Providing sufficient energy to meet the requirements of a growing world population with rising living standards will require major advances in energy supply and efficiency. Given the dynamic and unpredictable form of supply and demand for energy in a global and globalized context, creating long-term policies as well as regional interior is vital to ensure energy security. Europe is emerging from a deep financial and economic crisis and it is widely agreed that stronger European industrial competitiveness is vital as a driver for economic growth and job creation. In this context, the European Union, - as a main global actor- throughout the reform of the energy sector, wants to be on the cutting edge in the use of new technologies and the creation of a single energy market, not only inside the twenty eight member countries. Balkan countries have an important role in this process, which takes place inside the Energy Community. In these conditions, this article aims to analyse the recent transformation on European Union energy policy and provide an analysis of the commitments undertaken by Albania as a member of the Energy Community.

Bu tez çalışmasında, Avrupalılaşma ve yumuşak güç kavramları kullanılarak Alman Dış Politikasının Avrupalılaşması, Avrupa Birliği'nin Rusya-Ukrayna çatışmasında yumuşak güç kullanması üzerinden incelenmektedir. Tezin temel argümanı, Almanya"nın Rusya-Ukrayna krizinde ulusal tercihlerini başarılı bir şekilde Avrupa Birliği seviyesine yüklerken, Avrupa Birliği de çatışma karşısında sert güç unsurları yerine sivil güç ve yumuşak güç birleşim unsurlarını kullanmasında etkili olduğudur. Bu bağlamda, ilk olarak, Avrupalılaşma ve yumuşak güç kavramları detaylı bir şekilde sunulmuştur. Daha sonra, tezin ikinci bölümünde aşağıdan yukarıya Avrupalılaşma ve yukardan aşağıya Avrupalılaşma boyutları üzerinden Alman dış politikasının Avrupalılaşması detaylandırılmıştır. Tezin üçüncü bölümünde, Almanya"nın Rusya-Ukrayna krizindeki rolü ve Avrupa Birliği"nin krize karşı yumuşak güç kullanmasındaki etkisi incelenmektedir. Tezde Almanya"nın Rusya-Ukrayna krizinde ulusal politikasını başarılı bir şekilde Avrupa Birliği seviyesine taşımış olduğu ve Avrupa Birliği"nin Rusya"ya karşı kriz boyunca sadece sivil ve yumuşak güç unsurlarını kullandığı sonucuna varılmıştır. --- The Europeanization of German foreign policy is evaluated through an analysis of the case of Germany"s role in the Russia-Ukraine crisis in this thesis. The main argument of the thesis is that Germany successfully uploaded its national preferences to the European Union level during the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the European Union used combination of civilian and soft power tools in tackling the crisis instead of hard power. In this regard, firstly, the theoretical framework of Europeanization and soft power concepts are presented in detail. Then, in the second chapter of the thesis, the Europeanization of German foreign policy is elaborated with the dimensions of uploading and downloading. Finally, Germany"s role in the Russia-Ukraine crisis and the European Union"s employment of soft power for addressing the crisis is analysed. The thesis concludes that Germany has successfully uploaded its national preferences to the European Union level, and the EU employed combination of civilian and soft power in dealing with the crisis.

The authors attempt to sort out three exogenous factors affecting the domestic societies of European Union (EU) member countries: market globalization, the European single market, and European supranational institutions. They offer a research design to separate the respective manifestations of each factor and apply it to four domestic dimensions: labor market, capital market, electoral competition, and center-local government relations. Although they find systematic evidence in the cases of the labor and capital markets supporting the widely shared claim that the EU is an agent of globalization, the results also point to the importance of the voluntarist component in the electoral and subgovernmental domains.

This article analyzes the occupational structure of 25 european union countries during the period 2000–2004. Shift-share analyses are used to decompose cross-country differences in occupational structure into within sector and between sectors effects. The static analysis for 2004 shows that the new member countries employ a lower share of skilled workers because their industry structure is biased towards less skill-intensive industries and because they use fewer skills within industries. The differences in the shares of (high-skilled) non-production workers are dominated by the between (industrial) effect. In contrast, the dynamic analysis of 2000–2004 showed that changes in the share of high-skilled non-production workers are mostly driven by within sector changes, which are probably related to skill-biased technological change. Similar trends in the countries' within effects support the catch-up of the new member countries' skills demand, while the structural developments that could equalize the industry mix of the new and old member countries are related to increased domestic demand and will probably take time.

Intergenerational redistribution is one of the major aims of national welfare states that have to prove their reliability in a world of internationally integrated goods and factor markets. In this paper, we analyse the conditions for the existence of steady-state equilibria and the (Pareto-) optimal structure of national PAYG systems in a two-country model with endogenous fertility. Secondly we demonstrate that there are strategic incentives for national authorities to deviate from the optimal pension scheme even without labor mobility, which is the common source of inefficiencies in models of interregional social competition. They have two sources of strategic behavior in the model: One is an interest externality, the other one is a growth externality. This second externality shows that these incentives exist even with an exogenous interest rate. Policy implications for the European Union are discussed.

The article analyses the role of the Commission, the Parliament, and the Council in the two main legislative procedures in the European Union: co-operation and co-decision (I). We use the legislative history of some 5.000 parliamentary amendments. These procedures have been the subject of a great deal of theoretical debate. According to conventional wisdom the co-decision procedure increases the powers of the European Parliament. Revisionist approaches, however, suggest that the conditional agenda-setting powers accorded to the Parliament by the co-operation procedure are more important than the veto powers ascribed by co-decision. Our analysis demonstrates not only that both claims are correct, but also why. On the aggregate there is a higher success rate of parliamentary amendments under co-decision (I) than under co-operation, just as the data published by the EP indicate. However, controlling for one of the conditions of conditional agenda setting (agreement by the Commission under co-operation), conditional agenda setting empowers the EP more than veto powers. Finally, control of Commission behaviour in both procedures indicates no difference in acceptance rates between co-operation and co-decision. Our analysis explains why all three points above are true. The answer hinges on the activity of the Commission, which was more hostile to parliamentary amendments during the 1989-94 period (more amendments were rejected during this period than during any other period under both co-operation and co-decision). In addition, the power of the Commission has declined under co-decision (because it can be and is more frequently overruled by the other two players, whether its opinion is positive or negative). (British Journal of Political Science / FUB)