Suchergebnisse

It is obvious that lobbying in European institutions is an inseparable part of the EU legislative process. The growth of lobbying & the greater sensitivity of European institutions to their public image have resulted in lobbying being more closely regulated now. The basic purpose of all regulation & codes is to bring lobbying into the open. The regulation of lobbying in Brussels seems essential so as to introduce greater transparency in EU law making. The aim of this paper is to outline the particularities of lobbying regulation in the European Commission & the European Parliament, ie., the two most lobbied EU institutions. The European Commission, with its monopoly of legislative initiative, offers a unique possibility to influence the process of legislation formation from the very beginning. The EP has been able to amend legislation since the enactment of the Single European Act in July 1987, thereby incorporating certain interests & policy aims in the decision making process. The paper aims to tackle the following questions: What is the development of European institutions' attitudes towards interest group actions? Are there any explicit regulation criteria for the assertion of interests? In this respect, does the EU act homogenously or not? And in the case that it does not, is there any substantiation for different approaches? Adapted from the source document.

Slovak Republic as well as many other OECD countries has faced significant increase of health expenditures in last decades. Sustainability of health care public component is therefore and mainly on the ground of ageing of population a political and scientific challenge for many countries. Paper pursues ex ante sustainability of health care system in Slovak Republic. By using modified models of International Labour Organization and European Commission and exogenous macroeconomic and population expectations we forecasts revenues, expenditures and also sustainability of the health care policy scenarios until year 2030. We identified possible changes in the income and expenditures policies for the Slovak health system, which can lead to improve balance of whole system by assumed population and macroeconomic scenarios. Adapted from the source document.

The purpose of this case study is to explore the application of the code of conduct for lobbyists as one possible modern instrument of lobbying regulation. The reason why the code of conduct was selected out of the other regulatory means is the fact that codes represent the essential principle of lobby regulation in the European Parliament & the European Commission. Therefore the primary objective of this work is to evaluate the attitude of the EU member states towards this particular regulatory instrument. However, the research illustrates that the application of the code has not been extended in the member countries yet. The authorities decided to apply the code only in Lithuania & France. In addition to this, the possibility of introducing the code has been discussed in Ireland. Adapted from the source document.

The article deals with the communication policy of the European Union -- specifically, the communication policy of the European Commission. Though the Commission has considered communication policy to be one of its most important priorities in recent years, opinion polls and the behaviour of EU citizens during various elections or referenda show that little progress has yet been made in this field. The authors try to uncover the reasons for this situation by examining the institutional set-up within the Commission's communication policy. In doing so, they base their research on the assumption derived from discursive institutionalism that EU communication policy is characterized by its complex co-ordinative discourse, which limits the potential of its communicative discourse. In order to specify the subject, the authors begin with an overview of current developments in the communication policy and an analysis of the main strategic documents introduced by the Commission. Then, the coordination discourse, first at EU level and second at national level, is explored through the examination of various actors institutionally involved in EU communication policy and the coordination mechanisms present among them. Subsequently, the communication discourse is analysed through research into the communication tools the Commission uses to achieve its goals in the field of communication policy. At the end, the relationship between the two discourses is discussed and potential solutions are proposed. Adapted from the source document.

The text is focused on the analysis of the position of the transitional regimes affiliated to the accession of ten new member states, which is to take place in May 2004, & its impact on the flexibility within the European Union. The text covers the historical development of the phenomenon of transitional measures, overview of the transitional measures negotiated in the current wave of enlargement & specifics of the Czech Republic in the whole process. In the historical perspective, the current transitional periods are to be compared primarily with the transitional regimes in the EU enlargements in the I980s, in particular with the accession of Spain & Portugal. Typical elements of present transitional periods are the application of the transitional periods in the very essential areas of the European integration, such as agriculture, free movement of workers & free movement of capital. Free movement of goods, in contrast, is influenced in a rather limited way. The transitional periods are internally diversified, both into internal temporal blocks followed by review of the suitability of their continuation & their application only in relation to several old member states. Specific transitional regime is the three-year-long period of enhanced regulatory powers of the European Commission in the area of internal market, & Commission's sanction powers against new member states so as to prevent the non-application of acquis in the area of the internal market & judicial cooperation. Those "horizontal" transitional periods will have -- albeit temporarily -- significant impact on the growth of the flexibility in the European Union. References. Adapted from the source document.

The purpose of this contribution is to: map out the development of the EU's approaches to management of economic migration, to explain causes of slow Europeanization in this policy area & to outline future perspectives. The text describes: (1) the establishment of an asymmetric constitutional framework for EU migration policies, with unfinished communitarization in the field of legal migration, (2) the development of policies for managing economic migration in 1993-2006, & (3) current debates launched by the Commission in 2005. Finally (4), the author outlines the causes of the current situation. Despite the limitations, she predicts the further europeanisation of economic migration policies. The main reasons for this prediction are the continued trend towards a piecemeal adoption of specific measures to regulate economic migration, the links of economic migration policies to more dynamic segments of migration policies & the need for a global approach to migration in the EU's external policies. The likely scenario is subsidiary & selective EU intervention. References. Adapted from the source document.