Suchergebnisse

Within the context of the ongoing scholarly debate on post-accession compliance in the Central and Eastern European new member states, this paper examines the implementation of EU environmental policy in the Czech Republic since 2004, focusing on the transposition and application of six EU directives. It argues that, while the Czech Republic has had some difficulty complying with EU environmental law since becoming a member state, overall its performance in this area does not conform to pessimistic scenarios, but instead presents a more complex and differentiated picture. It also discusses the main factors inhibiting and supporting the implementation of EU environmental policy in the Czech Republic, showing that these tend to vary according to the specific issue or directive concerned. Adapted from the source document.

The article analyses the changes in norm enforcement in the EU that were triggered by the Eurozone crisis. It attempts to demonstrate that the Eurozone crisis contributed to a 'transplantation' of conditionality instruments (which traditionally exist within the EU's external relations) into the internal operations of the European Union. In particular, the article identifies which new internal rule-enforcement mechanisms of the EU share common structural features with the external EU conditionality (e.g. a vague legal framework; the use of the expertise of non-EU actors; an excess of competencies conferred to the EU; the institutional weakening of the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Court of Justice; the format of the sanctions). The article comes to the conclusion that the formation of the EU's internal conditionality occurred mainly within the instruments aimed at the crisis management of public finances of the Eurozone states (the EFSF, the EFSM, and the ESM), but it also concludes that there was an expansion of the new EU conditionality into other areas of the European integration, such as the Schengen cooperation and cohesion policy. Adapted from the source document.

Currently, research, development and innovation is one of five areas that form the basis of the strategy Europe 2020. One of the basic indicators of evaluation of the R&D level in country is an indicator reflecting the share of gross domestic expenditure on R&D in the country's GDP. This indicator is used to monitor the achievement of the objective of the strategy, which is the EU to increase spending on R&D in 2020 to 3% of GDP. Therefore, the article deals with the issue of R&D in selected countries formulated in the strategy Europe 2020 in terms of the amount of expenditure incurred the above activities, the structure of expenditure to the GDP of countries and other partial indicators, which indicate differences in the R&D areas between analyzed and compared countries. Part of the contribution will predict the expected development of the indicator expressing the share of expenditure on R&D in GDP of countries in order to determine whether the targets set for each country are achievable by 2020.

The process of European integration should be seen as the harmony of economic unification which is determined by a dynamic development with closed forms of intensive and deepening co-operation. Both processes, i.e. integration and co-operation, have been compared in the second part of the paper. The existence of a legal regime of its own is an important aspect of the economic integration. Therefore the necessity of national legal systems harmonisation, whose aim is to achieve the same legal regime for the common economic area, seems to be an inevitable process. As one from the driving forces of this process has become the need for balancing economic and social dimensions, the present-day EU policy responds to demanding challenges and it pays respect to the dignity of human being, while setting of the fundamental standard of social dimension is supposed in national legal order of the EU member states. The social policy of the EU has been therefore paid a close attention by the author. However the most challenging and prestigious act of the European integration has become the formation of a common European financial area, which is perceived in not only a European, but also in a world-wide context as well. It seems to be a process that is supposed to influence the development of international financial relations. This process bear certain level of risks, but it is really a unique opportunity for the creation of a single financial area for Europeans. (SOI : MO: S. 306)

This study seeks to make a contribution to a limited research on the systemic level of the national coordination of European affairs, which involves both domestic institutions and a permanent representation at the EU and national embassies in the EU member states and other countries. We explore the issue through a case study which concentrates on 1) several middle-sized EU member states and 2) coordination in the field of foreign and security policy. The study argues that the coordination at the systemic level has a rather a centralized character. The elements of decentralization, which can be also identified at the systemic level, are primarily related to information-gathering as well as representation at negotiations. Permanent representations are considerably more involved in coordination than national embassies, however. Adapted from the source document.

In the text finite mixtures of lognormal distributions are used for the modelling of net annual income per capita and equivalized income of the Czech households (in CZK) in 2004-2010. The development of distribution of number of members of households is analysed and the characteristics of standardized units according to EU and OECD methodologies are given. Data from the survey EU-SILC organized by the Czech Statistical Office from 2005-2011 (dealing with incomes from 2004-2010) are used for the analysis. Models (with incomplete data) with two to four artificial components are used in order to fit the distribution of incomes; the development of their characteristics is shown. All estimates in the text are maximum likelihood estimates, EM algorithm in the program R is used for the optimalization. Models are compared with the use of Akaike criterion. Adapted from the source document.

The article documents the process of the increase in the relevance of fundamental rights in the European Union and calls attention to the fact that it is gradually approaching an important point whose attainment would have a considerable impact on the nature of the EU. The text traces the development of the EU's powers and activities in setting the norms related to fundamental rights, and deciding about their application, control and enforcement. The states have been reluctant to permit the Union to intervene into their domestic human rights affairs which are not connected to the EU's competences. Nevertheless, its recent activities indicate that the EU is starting to get more say even in this cautiously guarded domain of domestic competence. Adapted from the source document.

Each State manifests its life's interest to participate actively at internation relations. The United Nations Charter, especially its Articles 1 and 2 - Purposes and Principles, must be considered as the necessary foundation for recent international relations. These articles of the Charter of the United Nations establish universally reorganized principles and norms regulating international intercourse of States of the Family of Nations at the end of XX. as well as at the beginning of XXI. centuries. There are some differences as for the creation of the such rule of behaviours and its implementing into the life of international community. The international life is more complicated development of many various events, situations and controversies in the international arena. Such are facts that we should take into our analysis of international relations. The theories on international relations try to give answers on the issues. We underline the importance of international law 5 theory among them. + The Diplomacy is another very important tool in resolving controversies among the States of the contemporary international community. We differ the bilateral diplomacy from the multilateral one. The usual subjects of both diplomacies are the States as well as international organizations. The main sources of the diplomacy should be international law and its branch - the diplomatic law, the international diplomatic law. Whose the main sources are Vienna conventions on diplomatic and consular intercourses. Further, the author tries to clarify the functions of diplomacy in the light of these conventions, especially, besides other the immunities and privileges of the diplomats. By multilateral diplomacy, the author understands the diplomacy implemented by the international organizations and their organs. He differs so-called classic international oragnization based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its members (UNO) from that of integrated structure (EU). The Slovak Republic is a young state and therefore its diplomacy faces many complicated situations after its entry in the international relations. As a new subject of international community Slovakia tries to be active in all fields of international life. The Slovak can fulfill their functions of the Slovak diplomacy at their best. (SOI : MO: S. 305)