Suchergebnisse

In March 2020 the European Commission adopted exceptional state aid rules in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak caused by coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. Its goal is to enable member states to support their economy using aid measures, which under current state aid rules are either not possible to be issued at all or only after time consuming notification procedures. This so-called Temporary Framework1 is being presented as a significant tool with several possibilities such as aid for research and development projects and research infrastructures. Since its adoption, dozens of measures across the whole European Union have been notified, using different sections of the Temporary Framework according to their focus. This article is concerned with the practical use and impact of such sections regarding R&D aid, with the underlying questions as to what extent the presentation of the Temporary Framework is justified.

The article deals with the interpretations of development aid that can be found in the Slovak official development discourse. From the theoretical point of view, I build on the social-constructivist approach to the study of international relations as well as on the conceptualization of the logic of appropriateness and the logic of consequences as put forward by March and Olsen (1989). In the first part of the article, I address the theoretical and methodological issues of the research. In the following parts, I analyze official documents of the Slovak ODA policy and my own interviews with its stakeholders with a focus on the different interpretations and logics of action behind the policy. In the concluding part, I summarize the main research findings. Adapted from the source document.

This article focuses on the connection between fi nancial aid systems in higher education and the development of inequalities in access to higher education. Although the student financial aid system is just one of a number of factors that infl uence a person's chances of studying in higher education, its role in a person's decision to pursue higher education may be of fundamental significance for those with lower socio-economic status. Therefore, the authors of this article focus on the effect of the fi nancial conditions of study on the chances that individuals from families with low socio-economic status have obtained higher education. The analysis looks at developments in the Czech Republic and the Netherlands, because Czech and Dutch student financial aid systems have been evolving in very different directions over the last two decades, while their secondary school systems continue to share very similar features. The analysis reveals that student financial aid based primarily on direct financial support (as in the Netherlands) was accompanied by a decline in inequalities in access to education, even though students had to pay tuition, while a system of financial aid primarily involving indirect support (as in the Czech Republic) applied over the same period did not inhibit increasing inequalities, despite the fact that during the period under observation students were not required to pay tuition.

The aim of the article is to describe theoretical concepts related to the effects of state subsidies on enterprises & to discuss the magnitude & effect of state aid on enterprises during the transformation of the Czech economy. Subsidies to enterprises during transformation were high, often transparent, & above the European Union average. During 1997-2003 registered state aid reached 362 bn. CZK. More than 90 percent of the total registered state aid went to awards the rescue & restructuring of enterprises. It can be roughly estimated that during 1997-2000 state aid was twice as high as officially registered. Share of state aid to enterprises in public debt increased & reached 70 percent by 2003. Non-transparent channels of state aid distribution decrease the efficiency of state aid, as they distort market signals & decrease motivation for fair competition. Tables, Graphs, References. Adapted from the source document.

Simultaneously to the negotiating process the EU has also provided the pre-accession financial assistance to the EU candidate-countries. In this respect, every candidate-country with an ambitious goal of reaching a high development level for all of its regions and hoping to receive support from the structural funds must put a lot of effort into creating an efficient institutional framework that allows the successful management of future EU funding. Namely, the future institutional (full EU membership) ability of managing EU structural and cohesion funds is largely influenced by the capacity to manage the pre-accession assistance programmes. This paper focuses on the institutional challenge of establishing competent authorities at Slovenian national level with responsibility for co-ordination and management of EU regional issues. Accordingly, the main aim of this paper is to analyse the processes of managing the EU pre-accession assistance programmes in Slovenia. ; Simultaneously to the negotiating process the EU has also provided the pre-accession financial assistance to the EU candidate-countries. In this respect, every candidate-country with an ambitious goal of reaching a high development level for all of its regions and hoping to receive support from the structural funds must put a lot of effort into creating an efficient institutional framework that allows the successful management of future EU funding. Namely, the future institutional (full EU membership) ability of managing EU structural and cohesion funds is largely influenced by the capacity to manage the pre-accession assistance programmes. This paper focuses on the institutional challenge of establishing competent authorities at Slovenian national level with responsibility for co-ordination and management of EU regional issues. Accordingly, the main aim of this paper is to analyse the processes of managing the EU pre-accession assistance programmes in Slovenia.

With the outbreak of famine in the mid-1990s, the DPRK has become a recipient of humanitarian assistance. Immediately after the inception of aid flows, an extensive diversification of donors arose. The most important donor duo was the Republic of Korea and the USA. Japan, Russia, and the European Union all had important roles in the matter, and Switzerland had a very specific role in it. Meanwhile, the Chinese assistance obtained an entirely unique position. There was a temporary suspension of China's assistance in the mid-1990s, but then it started again, and today, China is the DPRK's patron. The aim of this article is to provide a comparison of the donors' strategies and to outline the main trends of the assistance to the DPRK in the framework of the period of 1995-2012. The strategies of donorship have divergent tendencies, and in most of the cases, the donors preferred to make a strong effort to reach their political goals in the DPRK while providing humanitarian aid to it. Adapted from the source document.

This article inquires into the connection between individualisation and environmental issues. Following an introduction to the topic in the opening of the article in chapters II and III the author provides a definition of some basic concepts and asks whether and how the relationship between individualisation and environmental issues is reflected in sociological literature. In chapter IV the author formulates a general framework that in chapter V gives insight into the inconsistent conception of individualisation in environmental ideologies. The article closes with chapter VI, in which, with the aid of a theoretical sociological framework, the author formulates some themes for studying the environmental aspects of the individualised lifestyle.

The growing complexity of problems solved in today's European labor market forces us to change our views of the system; and requires the application of modem approaches, including systems theories. The main purpose of the paper is to analyze the flexicurity in a systematic manner. With a focus on systems approach to solving these problems (e.g. unemployment and long-term unemployment), we try to form a new framework for thinking about the European labor market. The further purpose of the paper is to confirm, or refuse, the hypothesis related to the intersection of an employment protection and a long-term unemployment. With the aid of causal loops it is possible to analyze the European labor market as a complex feed-back system. The outputs of the paper should be a contribution to the concept of the flexicurity which had been implemented into the more complex Lisbon Strategy, and for the support of systems thinking about the European labor market. Adapted from the source document.

This article attempts to portray basic aspects of Czech-Cambodian relations from the 16th century until the present day, 2006. It deals with the first reports of Czech missionaries in the 17th & 18th century as well as globetrotters, students, diplomats & specialists from the 19th & 20th century. Diplomatic relations between both countries were established in 1956. Mutual cooperation in the fields of economy, culture & education developed dynamically for the next 14 years, only to be violently interrupted by the Lon Nol's coup d'etat in 1970 followed by the genocidal regime of Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979. When the Cambodian United National Salvation Front assisted by Vietnamese troops overthrew Khmers Rouges, the communist government of Czechoslovakia & the leftist regime in Phnom Penh continued to maintain an active relationship. After the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia in 1989, mutual economic & trade cooperation fell considerably. Recently, Czechs & Cambodians try to reestablish these past ties of cooperation. The Czech program for developmental aid was favorably received by Cambodia & presently, future joint commercial projects are being discussed. Adapted from the source document.

As a result of stability in the field of international relations & the absence of acute security threats in many countries & regions of the world (this applies to the EU as well), & as a consequence of the influence of globalization in particular, the importance of the economic dimension of foreign policy is more accentuated at the beginning of the 21st century. Therefore, commercial diplomacy is more important as well, & at the same time, the character of its functions changes, which is the main object of research in this study. In the first part, a brief historical survey of functions of commercial diplomacy, from their very beginnings to their present shape, is drafted. In the second chapter, the term commercial diplomacy is defined, & related terms are described as well. In the third part, the following basic functions of commercial diplomacy (as implemented in contemporary practice) are analyzed: trade promotion & development, investment promotion, economic-information functions, political-legislative functions, development aid assistance & state promotion. The fourth part of this work is focused on the issue of transnational companies (TNCs), whose number rose dramatically in the last few decades, & at present, this subject is considered to be one of the most important factors influencing the character of commercial diplomacy both currently & in the future. The author concludes that commercial diplomacy will be focused particularly on small & medium sized enterprises in the future. At the same time, the complexity of functions of commercial diplomacy will rise, particularly as a result of a diffusion of the economic & political dimensions of foreign policy. Adapted from the source document.

The transformation of the social institution of the family in an individualised society is tied also to other demands and expectations relating to parenthood, and fatherhood is no exception in this regard. This article focuses on fathers who have accepted the modern norm of fatherhood and have played an active role by personally caring for their children, in particular, as primary carers during their period of parental leave. The entry of fathers into a sphere our culture has traditionally defi ned as belonging to women necessarily raises one basic question – 'What does the experience of caring for their children mean in the minds of fathers?' – which contains an entire series of other more specifi c questions: How do these men interpret fatherhood? Is the experience of caring for their children refl ected in how these men construct gender identities and what does this mean from the perspective of the production of gender and gender relations? Interviews based on a prepared scenario were conducted on a sample of twenty families in which the father had taken parental leave, and the resulting data was analysed with the aid of grounded theory in an effort to answer the questions outlined above. Of particular interest in the analysis are the interpretative frameworks that the actors employ in their perception of experienced reality and to what outcome or how much are common gender perceptions disrupted in their outlook. The author applies the constructivist perspective of making gender, which permits a focus on the similarities and differences between men and women and within those categories. The fi ndings contribute to the understanding of the construction of fatherhood in this group of fathers, of gender and gender relations, and of how gender stereotypes operate on the micro level of Czech society.

The article draws on the concept of 'replacement migration', widely presented by the Population Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs in 2000 and 2001, which elaborated a concept and conducted a comprehensive analysis of international migration as a solution to the problem of population declines and demographic ageing. This concept was applied as an example to selected countries in the world, the European region, and the European Union as a whole. It involves calculating the number of foreign migrants necessary to completely offset future changes in the size or age structure of the given country's population as a result of the predicted demographic trends. The following article describes the formulation of this concept and looks at its application on a general methodological level and in the specifi c case of the Czech Republic. A detailed description is given not just of the model used but also of its internal and external assumptions. The constructed model is then applied towards determining the, necessary number of 'replacement migrants' in order to prevent a signifi cant change in the Czech Republic in: 1) the total size of the population, 2) the average age of the population, 3) the percentage of people of working age, and 4) the ratio of people of post-productive to productive age. With the aid of the results the authors clearly demonstrate that while international migrants could effectively help maintain the current size of the population, they would not be able to prevent the continued ageing of the population or even have a decisive impact on the course of this process. With these fi ndings the authors hope to contribute to the debate on the topic of the ageing population in the Czech Republic, and they call strongly for more intensive and especially more effective preparations for this real and unavoidable era in the development of Czech society.