Suchergebnisse

The study deals with employee participation in corporate and plant management, showing the historical course of the formation and development from the early twentieth century to the end of World War II. Following World War II, the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) developed a system of 50-50% ownership and employee representation in both areas, which in the early 1970s was transformed into two-thirds ownership and one-third employee representation. Next, the study presents the structural nature of the current participatory institutional system, the electoral system, and the licensing system in a comparative manner.

In 2004 the European Union accomplished an expansion of unprecedented scale in the scope of which ten new member states joined the 15 existing members of the community in one huge step. During the period leading up to and immediately following the expansion, a great number of analyses and reports saw the light of day that attempted to evaluate the further development potentials of the ten new member countries. These analyses and reports, however, considered the European Union as if it were a uniform and homogenous population or set and used it as a basis for comparison in their projections. They did so even though this assumption already fails to hold true for the EU15 and that the subsequent accessions and the global economic crisis exacerbated, and in fact, accentuated the differences in the member states' levels of development. Therefore, leaving these false assumptions behind, to gain a more reliable and workable evaluation of the convergence processes of the four Visegrad countries and to make an adequate comparison of the results, I find it highly advisable to consider the problem of catching-up from various aspects and to lay down different performance levels. My analysis only encompasses real convergence, which means that I only analyse the catching-up process and opportunities of the four Visegrad countries with a view to their GDP per capita figures, their main labour market indicators and productivity. In my paper, I present the results of the convergence calculations I did as well as the conclusions that may be drawn from them with the help of multi-level analyses that at the same time allow for describing both the functionality and the efficiency of the European Union. ; In 2004 the European Union accomplished an expansion of unprecedented scale in the scope of which ten new member states joined the 15 existing members of the community in one huge step. During the period leading up to and immediately following the expansion, a great number of analyses and reports saw the light of day that attempted to evaluate the further development potentials of the ten new member countries. These analyses and reports, however, considered the European Union as if it were a uniform and homogenous population or set and used it as a basis for comparison in their projections. They did so even though this assumption already fails to hold true for the EU15 and that the subsequent accessions and the global economic crisis exacerbated, and in fact, accentuated the differences in the member states' levels of development. Therefore, leaving these false assumptions behind, to gain a more reliable and workable evaluation of the convergence processes of the four Visegrad countries and to make an adequate comparison of the results, I find it highly advisable to consider the problem of catching-up from various aspects and to lay down different performance levels. My analysis only encompasses real convergence, which means that I only analyse the catching-up process and opportunities of the four Visegrad countries with a view to their GDP per capita figures, their main labour market indicators and productivity. In my paper, I present the results of the convergence calculations I did as well as the conclusions that may be drawn from them with the help of multi-level analyses that at the same time allow for describing both the functionality and the efficiency of the European Union.

Regions and regionalism are rather flourishing in Europe. But what do regionalism and the expression "Europe of regions" exactly mean? There are three approaches to the question: first, the concept of cross-border interregionality between the Member States of the European Union; second, the effort to make regions the basic building blocks of European integration instead of states; and finally, the objective to introduce a three-tier structure to the European Union which would extend the already existing tiers of the European Union and the Member States with a third one, the territorial units within nation-states. The first approach (interregional cooperation) has long been adopted; the second approach (the vision of Europe made up of regions instead of states) is rather utopian. The third one is subject to fierce debates: a three-tier European Union with European, nation-state and regional levels. Although the form, motives and causes of movements promoting regionalism may vary greatly, 1 their purpose is the same for autonomous, federalist and separatist movements alike: to relativise the existing central nation-state. Thus, advancing European integration has become a natural ally for them as – from their perspective – it meant the disfunctionality of traditional nation-states. A supranational and therefore multinational and multicultural community promises much more room for development than a classic nation-state.