Suchergebnisse

- ; The EU has usually considered immigration policy for third country nationals and the free movement framework for EU citizens to be two separate policy fields. Increasingly, they are being conflated. This places a country such as Poland in an ambivalent position. When it comes to the treatment of third country nationals, Central and Eastern European member governments—including that in Warsaw—are reluctant to agree on fixed quotas to relocate forced migrants from the south, fearing that this could strain their limited resources and entail heavy political costs. When it comes to free movement, by contrast, Poland and other sending countries of the region are having to defend the status of their own citizens residing in Western Europe and call on support and solidarity there. This report examines how this may affect the specific situation of the Polish migrant community in Norway. Poland can draw lessons from Norway, which has only recently made the transition to becoming a country of immigration.

For the past decade the focus of the U.S. security policy has been changing. After a period of global American hegemony, which took place at the end of the Cold War, the international position of the country is declining; countries such as China, India, Brazil, Russia are moving alongside the United States and Europe as centres of power. Focusing U.S. interest on Asia and the Pacifi c ("Asia Pacifi c pivot") causes a reduction of its interests in Europe. Given these trends U.S and EU policymakers face the challenge to redefine their security and defence cooperation. This applies both to the acquisition by European allies more responsibility for their own safety as well as to develop new mechanisms for cooperation on the line US-NATO-EU relations. The article aims to answer about the current situation and perspectives of EU's place and role in U.S. security policy in the context of redistribution of power in the world politics. The analysis is carried out in the neorealistic paradigm.

This article attempts to demonstrate the importance of the discursive context for whether and, if so, how the European Union (EU) can exert normative power in different policy areas. Surprisingly, the concept of power has not been extensively discussed in the academic literature on Normative Power Europe, with the notable exceptions of Diez (2013); Keene (2012); Forsberg (2011) and Huelss (2011) (who also discuss the meaning of the 'normative'). Focusing on power, the question asked in this article is how the discursive context of the politics of religion affects the EU's ability to exert normative power in this area. The article examines the politics of religion by looking at the case of the debate about human rights versus religion in the United Nations Human Rights Council after the year 2000. The broader point addressed in the article is whether the EU can exert normative power regardless of the discursive context of the policy area concerned.

Previous studies found that models emphasising legislative procedures make less accurate predictions of decision outcomes in the EU than the compromise model, a computationally simple variant of the Nash Bargaining Solution. In this journal, Slapin (2014) argues that this and other findings may be the result of measurement error. While acknowledging the importance of measurement error, we disagree with several assumptions in Slapin's analysis, and show that his results are driven by an unrealistic assumption about how policy preferences are distributed among EU decision makers. We construct simulated data that more accurately reflect the distributions of policy preferences found in existing empirical evidence and suggested by theory, and demonstrate that measurement error is unlikely to have biased previous findings. If real-world decision-making took place according to the procedural model, then it would have made the most accurate predictions, even with data containing large amounts of measurement error. While this strengthens our confidence in previous studies' findings, we explain why we should not discard procedural models.

The Framework Programmes (FPs) funded by the European Commission support transnational research collaborations in order to make the European Research Area more competitive. Some have raised concerns that the FPs compromise the cohesion policies of the European Commission aimed at reducing income disparities between European regions. We investigate whether existing scientific collaborations between European Union (EU) subnational regions—as captured by co-authored publications—are conducive for acquiring FP funding, and whether FP funding, in turn, stimulates subsequent co-publication activity between pairs of EU regions. Our results indicate that previous co-publication activity only has a minor effect on being funded. We also find that the effect of funding on co-publication activity is especially significant for regional pairs that did not intensively co-publish before participation. The results suggest that the returns to FP funding are highest when involving scientifically lagging regions. In this respect, the current FP policy is in line with cohesion policy.

The paper focuses on quantitative assessment of the innovation's role in explaining regional disparities and convergence in Europe. The empirical part of the study bases on the regional GDP pc and innovation indicators on the EU-27 NUTS2 level regions. Based on the selected set of initial innovation indicators for the 262 EU NUTS2 level regions and using the principal components factor analysis method, three composite indicators of regional innovation capacity are extracted. They explain around 80 % of the variation of the initial innovation indicators. The preliminary research results show that around 60% of variability of regional GDP per capita is explained by composite indicators of regional innovation performance and additional 20% are country specific factors. Estimating convergence equations, we noticed that regional innovations tend to increase inter-regional differences, at least during the short-run period. Thus, if regional income convergence is a policy target, additional policy measures beside innovation activities should be effectively implemented

This paper discusses the need and relevance of customs policy coherence and coordination to facilitate trade and to what extent some trade facilitation measures (concepts) such as integrated border management and single-windows may be applicable in Latvia and other EU countries to improve policy, customs control, management and coordination. Trade facilitation initiatives benefit both the business community and governments. Balancing trade facilitation on the one hand with trade security on the other—allowing legitimate goods and travellers to pass through borders without unnecessary hindrances while protecting the international trade supply chain from threats posed by organized crime. Aim of the paper is to evaluate the actual needs of Integrated Customs Control System for Latvia as the EU member state. Research is based on comparative analysis of literature and practical experience of custom authorities. Empiric research is substantiated by the open source information and statistical data of Latvian customs.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.em.17.2.2177

Darba tēma ir "Eiropas Savienības enerģētikas drošība: sadarbība ar Azerbaidžānu, Kazahstānu un Turkmenistānu." Ņemot vērā pieaugošo ES atkarību no Krievijas energoresursu piegādēm, ES strādā pie kopējas enerģētikas politikas izveides un meklē jaunas piegādātājvalstis ar mērķi diversificēt piegādes. Kā vieni no potenciālajiem piegādātājiem tiek minētas Kaspijas jūras reģiona valstis. Darba mērķis bija noskaidrot, vai ES sadarbība ar Azerbaidžānu, Kazahstānu un Turkmenistānu stiprina ES enerģētikas drošību. ; The present paper is entitled "Energy Security of European Union: cooperation with Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan." The EU's largest energy supplier is Russia. In 2006 Russia temporally interrupted natural gas supplies to Ukraine leaving also some of the EU's members without energy supplies. Through this move Russia lost its status of a reliable supplier. The EU started to work on a common energy policy and in order to diversify its supplies started to look for new suppliers. Thus, the research question is whether by building closer cooperation with Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan the EU is strengthening its energy policy.

The issue of minorities has long been perceived as an obstacle to European integration. This paper seeks to unravel the complex nature of minority language (ML) policy in the European Union (EU), arguing that a long way has been travelled since 1981. From that moment onwards, the European Parliament (EP) began dealing with minority issues starting from the functional area of minority languages (MLs). This has led to two outcomes: on the one hand, with the Treaty of Lisbon (ToL) the EU has finally adopted a more embracing notion of minority rights, recognizing linguistic diversity and the protection of the persons belonging to minorities as part of its fundamental values; on the other hand, the European Commission is increasingly active in supporting the promotion of ML through financial programmes. This is evidence that ML policy at the European level, complementary to those of the single Member States, is very fragmented and barely structured, but still effective in so far as it legally protects and financially supports ML.

The study is based on the critical observations that competitive market forces alone are not able to assure convergence with the developed countries. These observations are grounded on the results of the computation of the marginal rate of return to capital (which contradict the neoclassical model hypotheses), as well as on the real process of polarisation of the economic activities, taking place worldwide and in accordance with the law of competition. Unlike those who trust the perfect competitive market virtues, the EU's economic policy is realistic as it is based on the harmonisation of the market forces with an economic policy based on the principle of cohesion, which supports, by means of economic levers, the less developed regions and member countries. Our paper deals with the evolution of the EU cohesion funds, as well as with the results of convergence. * Study within the CEEX Programme Project No. 220/2006 Economic Convergence and Role of Knowledge in Relation to the EU Integration .

This study presents a cost-benefit analysis of euro adoption for the case of Bulgaria. Based on a review of existing similar studies for other East European EU member states, it outlines the basic types of potential costs and benefits of euro adoption, and applies them to the specific Bulgarian economic and economic policy context. The most important relevant features of the Bulgarian economy with respect to the analysis are found to be the catching-up status of the country and the currency board arrangement. In this context the study finds that a net benefit of above 15 % of GDP in a 20 year horizon can be expected for Bulgaria due mainly to enhanced capital inflows and to a smaller extent to a boost in trade with the EU and to higher domestic saving in light of enhanced policy credibility. Along the way the study attempts to draw attention to important nuances which may be of relevance for the analysis of euro adoption in Eastern Europe in general.

This article presents a critical discourse analysis of the Baltic states' self-positioning within European foreign policy. It argues that, despite certain relief in their immediate security concerns after the dual enlargement of the EU and NATO, the shift from existential politics to normal politics by the Baltic states is far from being accomplished. The way in which the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have responded to the construction of their identity as 'Europe but not Europe' throughout the enlargement processes of the EU and NATO has been largely neglected in empirical studies on their post-Cold War self-conceptualizations in the European arena. Yet, the experience of being framed as simultaneously in Europe and not quite European has left a constitutive imprint on the current security imaginary of the Baltic states. William Connolly's concept of the politics of becoming is thus applied to analyse the Baltic version of becoming a subject in the field of common European foreign policy.