Suchergebnisse

The aim of this article is to discuss the main benefits of and problems with the creation of the EU single market and to indicate the main activities to eliminate the still existing barriers. The EU single market is the greatest success of European integration. It enables afree movement of people, goods, services and capital; for consumers, this means agreater choice in goods and services as well as lower prices. The EU single market also poses an opportunity for employees and businesses as administrative burdens involved in trans-border activity are decreased. However, in reality, there are a number of barriers hindering the smooth functioning of the single market. For the futurę of the EU single market, it is key to remove these barriers; therefore, it is with this purpose above all that the EU initiatives and activities for the market growth are undertaken. In addition, there are appearing new challenges connected with globalization, technological progress, the growing importance of services, the increase in unemployment in certain countries, and climate and the environment protection.

Mass migration, as it appears in the 21st century, is one of the greatest challenges of our globalized world. The unanswered questions of European Union (EU) immigration policy that emerged over the past few decades have become more pressing than ever. One of these urgent questions is: how can we provide for a developing European economy in an era of demographic decline in a way that it is based on the opportunities opened up by legally regulated forms of migration. A second question is: how can the EU ensure the safety of the newly arriving people in need and, at the same time, keep away illegal migrants and eliminate criminal activities related to migration. The European Union is destined to spread the principles of peace and unconditional respect for human rights not only within its own borders, but also on a global scale, when engaging in international affairs. In addition to observing human rights, however, the EU must also take into account all security considerations that are pertinent in guaranteeing the free movement of its citizens within the Member States.

The aim of this study is to give a detailed overview about the immigration into the European Union between 2015 and 2019. The paper also outlines some of the risks of immigration and the recent developments of the Schengen Information System and the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex). The first part of the paper describes the immigration that the European Union has dealt with between 2015 and 2019, underlining the refugee flow in 2015-2016. This part includes statistics on the number of asylum applications and illegal border-crossings. The data is provided by the European Commission (Eurostat) and the European Border and Coast Guard Agency. The second part of the paper gives an overview of the European Agenda on Migration, examines the four pillars to manage migration better, including reducing the incentives for irregular migration, border management, common asylum policy and a new policy on legal migration. The third part describes the developments of the Schengen Information System and the European Border and Coast Guard Agency such as new technologies and strengthening border management, expansion of databases, joint operation outside the European Union and return operations. These developments will be essential for a better immigration management and they will make the defense of the European Union more effective, transparent and coordinated in the future.

It was sixteen years ago that recommendations and guidelines were worked out by the FAO/WHO about pre- and probiotics for professionals, industry and consumers (Pineiro and Ben Embarek, 2006). In the developed countries, conscious nutrition, health preservation and disease prevention are increasingly emphasized. In Regulation (EC) No 1831/2003 in the EU has forbidden the use of antibiotics in animal feed as a stimulant for growth. As a result of this decision, the research of health-preserving, disease-preventing products developed rapidly both in the food and feed industries. In order to avoid misuse of prebiotic and probiotic terms, it is necessary to regulate precisely the description of the products. Regulation (EU) 258/97/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council is the first time that the concept of novel foods and food ingredients was introduced. This is the regulation that for the time deals with the introduction of microorganism as food ingredient into the food chain. Pre- and probiotics are present in the food and feed industry due to their beneficial effects on the body, so the regulation of the two areas in many cases merges. A good example is Regulation (EC) 178/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council, which provides both food, feed, safety conditions and also human and veterinary aspects. Food safety is an important issue for all countries in the world. Every country have an authority to made regulation within this important area, for example the EFSA in EU, the GRAS qualification in USA, the FOSHU category in Japan and the food safety regulation system in Canada. The ISAPP is an international scientific committee, who make guidelines about the usage of pre- and probiotics. This work provides insight to the EU's and other countries' food law regulations. ; Tizenhat éve születtek meg a szakemberek, az ipar és a fogyasztók számára a FAO/WHO által készített ajánlások és irányelvek a pre- és probiotikumokról (Pineiro és Ben Embarek, 2006). Mindemellett a fejlett országokban egyre nagyobb társadalmi hangsúlyt kap a tudatos táplálkozás, az egészségmegőrzés és a betegségmegelőzés. Továbbá a 1831/2003/EK európai parlamenti és tanácsi rendeletben a Tudományos Operatív Bizottság betiltotta az antibiotikumok hozamfokozó céllal történő felhasználását a takarmányokban. A döntés hatására rohamos fejlődésnek indult az antibiotikum kiváltására szolgáló, egészségmegőrző, betegség megelőző hatással bíró készítmények kutatása az élelmiszer- és takarmányiparban egyaránt. A prebiotikus és probiotikus fogalommal való visszaélés elkerülésének érdekében pontos szabályozásra van szükség a termékek leírására vonatkozóan. Az (EU) 258/97/EK európai parlamenti és tanácsi rendeletben jelenik meg első alkalommal az új élelmiszer és az új élelmiszer-összetevő fogalma. Ez a rendelet az, amely első ízben foglalkozik a mikroorganizmusok, mint élelmiszeralkotók élelmiszerláncba kerülésével. A pre- és probiotikumok a szervezetre gyakorolt jótékony hatásuknak köszönhetően jelen vannak az élelmiszer- és takarmányiparban egyaránt, így a két terület szabályozása sok esetben összeolvad. Erre jó példa a 178/2002/EK európai parlamenti és tanácsi rendelet, amely egyaránt rendelkezik az élelmiszerellátásról, takarmányozásról, ezek biztonsági feltételeiről valamint humán és állategészségügyi aspektusokról. Az élelmiszerbiztonság a világ minden országában fontos tényező. Minden ország rendelkezik olyan hatósággal, amelynek feladata az ide vonatkozó szabályok megteremtése, betartatása, felülvizsgálata. Az EU-ban az EFSA által hozott rendeletek, az USA-ban a GRAS minősítés, Japánban a FOSHU kategóriára vonatkozó rendelkezések, míg Kanadában az élelmiszereket érintő biztonsági értékelési rendszer. Az International Scientific Association of Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) pedig egy olyan nemzetközi tudományos társaság, amely segít a pre- és probiotikumok használatára vonatkozó tudományos szakvélemények megalkotásában. Jelen áttekintés segít bepillantást nyerni az EU és más országok élelmiszer- és takarmányjogi szabályozásának rendszerébe és azok kialakulásába.

The main guideline of my research was that according to one of the international price comparative studies published by the Hungarian Energy Utility Regulatory Office (henceforth: MEKH) at the beginning of 2017, Hungary's has the lowest price in electric energy consumption and natural gas from the member states of the European Union in recent years. I'd like to introduce in my article the European Union's electricity-energy price changes based on the EUROSTAT databases, and on the data of service providers and regulatory authorities in the member countries. In contrast, I would like to present the examination of natural gas prices on the basis of the specialization databases and to find a correlation with price change. Of course, for the sake of clarity, I look at the primary energy needs of the world and the European Union, the fossil fuels and the electricity consumption amounts of fossil fuels. I also consider, to the analyze import and export, because one of the reasons for energy dependency can be the inadequate energy balance.

Turkey first applied for EU membership in 1987 and started negotiations for full membership in October 2005 after lengthy and challenging negotiations between EU member states. This master's thesis attempts to examine the relationship between the negotiations for EU membership that are going on between Turkey and the EU Commission and the public discussion on the subject. The research material consists of selected posts on the Financial Times discussion forum and the Acquis communautaire and Copenhagen criteria. By comparing the research material this thesis attempts to investigate if the public deliberation and official negotiations focus on the same issues and requirements for membership. The theoretical background for this analysis is deliberative democracy, according to which public debate should be a prerequisite for agenda setting and decision making. The findings of the thesis reveal that the public discussion does touch on the acquis communautaire and Copenhagen criteria to some degree, but the public is also concerned with non-acquis issues such as the culture and history. A unique feature of the accession negotiations is also the amount of commentary from heads of state regarding the negotiations, which was also noted in the research material. In the light of deliberative democratic theory it can be noted that the public may take part in the discussion over Turkey's membership, but it has little or no chances of setting the agenda for the negotiations.

The agricultural and rural development policies of the European Union come/came across constant changes, becoming one of the newest stages of structural and economic problems the joining of the new member states. A new process has been initiated with Agenda 2000 and Agenda 2000+ in the Union due to which the establishment of the so called multifunctional agricultural model became a priority for the EU15 and later on the EU25. This model, separating agrarian and rural development introducing a two pillar finance system, wishes to react on the European challenges of the new millennium on the fields of agriculture and rural development. It is a basic need of Hungary to acquire as fast as possible the methods of the Union in order to receive regional grants, create adequate institutional background, projects and programmes involving more actively the rural population into the accomplishment of development plans. ; Az Európai Unió agrár- és vidékfejlesztési politikái folyamatos változásokon mentek-mennek keresztül, melynek egyik legújabb állomásává a csatlakozni kívánó országok felvétele és az azzal járó strukturális és gazdasági problémák megjelenése vált. Az AGENDA 2000-rel, majd az AGENDA 2000+-al egy újabb folyamat indult meg az Unióban melynek eredményeként az ún. többfunkciós agrármodell kiépítése lett az első számú cél a 15-ök és 2004-től a 25-ök Európájában. Ez a modell az agrár- és vidékfejlesztést kettéválasztva kétpilléres finanszírozási rendszert vezetve be kíván az új évezred európai kihívásaira reagálni a mezőgazdaság s a vidékfejlesztés terén. Hazánk alapvető érdeke, hogy minél gyorsabban sajátítsa el az Unióban használatos regionális támogatásokért folytatott módszereket, megfelelő intézményhátteret, pályázatokat és programokat hozva létre, ezáltal mind aktívabban vonva be a vidéki lakosságot is a tervek megvalósításában.

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.

Due to the accession to the EU, the possibilities of receiving European Union resources have opened up. A great number of the tenders launched by the government reaches the SMS-sector delayed. However, there are promoter and tender monitoring firms, the expenses of applying them cannot be covered by the SMS-sector. On the basis of the received replies it can be stated that tenders are called for a given region, consequently, they cannot be applied for in numerous cases. Tendering deadlines are short from publishing to submission, therefore, submission of the tender fails in many cases. The tenders usually relate to range of activities, which is also grounds for refusal. The system is slow and bureaucratic. The European Union resources influence financing of the businesses, but due to the fact the continuous development resources cannot be granted. Tenders are restricted to a limited strata owing to the current tender system. As a result of the bureaucracy, the tendering funds are allocated to too many areas, therefore the efficiency of the capital acquired by the funds deteriorates significantly.

This work, prepared and published during the author's stay at the RSCAS, EUI, is a "compilation thesis" (in Finnish "artikkeliväitöskirja"), Department of Political Sciences, University of Helsinki, and contains the major part of the author's PhD thesis (forthcoming print monograph, 2012). ; The future is uncertain, and the financial system of the European Union has to take into account this uncertainty. This book looks at the different means it has at its disposal to do so, and analyses how these means have evolved since the creation of the general budget of the European Communities in 1968. The analysis is extended to a broader study of the development of the European Union through several case studies: negotiations on the Financial Regulation of 25 June 2002,on its first modifi cation, adopted on 13 December 2006, and on the Interinstitutional Agreement (IIA) of 17 May 2006 between the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission on budgetary discipline and sound fi nancial management and on the Multiannual Financial Framework for 2007-2013. The question of the uncertainty of the future is addressed using the so-called "Theory of Budgetary Flexibility". This theory, developed originally to analyse national budgetary systems, establishes an essential distinction between External Flexibility and Internal Flexibility, on the one hand, and Annual Flexibility and Multiannual Flexibility on the other hand. It is particularly useful here as it enables us to examine under a common framework processes that are often considered separate (and treated in the literature as such), and to draw conclusions at systems' level. The book is divided into three Parts: - Part One (Chapters 1 to 3), which forms the theoretical part of this book, includes an analysis of the specificities and of the functioning of the budgetary and financial systems of the European Union, while presenting an "état des lieux" of studies carried out in these fields; - Part Two (Chapters 4 to 13) deals with changes that have been made to various forms of flexibility since 1968. Special attention is paid not only to the consequences these changes have had for the various actors involved – namely the European Parliament, the Council, the Commission and Member States – but also for the financial system of the European Union as a whole; - Part Three (Chapters 14 to 18) addresses the question of how the changes examined in Part Two affect the general development of the European Union.

This paper aims to give a comprehensive picture of the objectives and perspectives behind the creation of the Central European Initiative (CEI). It also analyzes the role of CEI in the political, economic and social transition in the post-Socialist states. The article studies how CEI helped the integration of the Central European countries to the Western institutions, especially to the European Union (EU). The cooperation was founded in 1989 by Austria, Hungary, Italy, and Yugoslavia. It was unique and special in the era, as it had member states from totally different political and economic blocks. There are more approaches to explain the creation of this cooperation. According to the Liberal one, the founder states wished to create a flexible platform for the cooperation of countries from different blocks. This was also a political initiative to overcome on the divisions of bipolarity and the Cold War. The laid down political objectives in the official documents included the values represented by the European institutions. These values were adopted by the post-Socialist states. At the project level, the initiatives of CEI indirectly contributed to the economic and social transition in these countries. CEI and EU progressively built their close relations, and the support of EU integration became the mission of CEI. If we study the EU accessions in the region, we can state, CEI had a successful and important role in bringing closer the post-Socialist states to the EU.

A régiók nem csak a közelmúltban jelentek meg az európai politika színpadán, mint önálló szereplők, tevékenységüket már évtizedek óta jegyzik. Ennek középpontjában mindenekelőtt a régiók határokon átnyúló együttműködése áll, ezt egészítették ki a régiók transznacionális megállapodásaival, amelyek arra szolgáltak, hogy a nemzetállamok kormányaival valamint a nemzetközi szervezetekkel, különösképpen az Európa Tanáccsal és az Európai Közösséggel szemben érdekképviseletüket gyakorolják. Az utóbbi időben a régiók egyre energikusabban és követelőbben hívták fel magukra a figyelmet. Tevékenységük súlypontja jelenleg nyilvánvalóan az EU és az integrációs folyamatokon belül helyezkedik el. A régiók mint az EU-kontextus politikai tényezői igen sokrétű tevékenységet mutatnak fel, amelyek az "Európa régiói" megjelölésben foglalhatók össze. Az elnevezésből, mint sokszor használatos szlogenből azonban hiányzik egy egyértelmű és ugyanakkor közös megegyezéssel alapuló, elfogadott tartalom. Regions appeared as autonomous entities on the European political stage not only in recent years. The activity of regions has been recorded for decades. It focuses above all on the cross-border cooperation of regions, and was supplemented by the trans-national agreements of regions, which served to practice their representation against the governments of nation states as well as international organisations, in particular, the European Council and the European Community. Most recently, regions have drawn attention to their presence more and more and when doing so have found increasing attention. Their centre of activity is now obviously located within the EU and the integration processes. Regions as the political factors of the EU context show a wide range of activities that can be summarized under the label of 'the regions of Europe'. The name, as a frequently used slogan, is lacking a clear and at the same time jointly agreed, accepted content. Regions and regionalism are rather flourishing in Europe. But what do regionalism and the expression Europe of regions exactly mean? There are many approaches to the question, the concept of cross-border interregionality between the Member States of the European Union, or the effort to make regions the basic building blocks of European integration instead of states, and 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 has long been adopted, the second approach is rather utopian. The third one is subject to fierce debates: a three-tier European Union with European, nation state and regional levels.

Euroopan komissio luotiin jotta se voisi ajaa yhteisöjen intressiä. Sen vuoksi siitä päätettiin tehdä itsenäinen. Mutta koska Euroopan Unionin vaikutus jäsenmaissaan on hyvin vahvaa, myös talouden kannalta, haluavat jäsenmaat vaikuttaa komissioon mahdollisimman paljon. Tämän vuoksi komission itsenäisyys vaarantuu. Perustamissopimukset koettavat hoitaa ongelman luomalla komissiolle joita-kin suojamekanismeja. Mutta ovatko ne riittäviä? Vaikuttaa siltä, että komissioon pystytään vaikuttamaan liikaa sen jokapäiväisessä työssä. Tämä vaikuttaminen alkaa jo komission nimittämisvaiheessa ja jatkuu koko ajan komission pohtiessa uuden lainsäädännön tarvetta ja komission valmistellessa uutta lainsäädäntöä. Komission lakiehdotelman sisältöön vaikuttavat usein paljonkin muut instituutiot, jäsenvaltiot sekä intressiryhmät. Tämä johtaa siihen, että komissio ei täysin pysty toteuttamaan yhteisöjen in-tressiä. Monin eri tavoin komission päätöksiin voivat vaikuttaa yksittäisten tai use-ampien jäsenmaiden edut, vaikka tarkoitus olisi ajaa yhteisöjen etua. The European Commission was created so that it could work to fulfil the Community Interest. Therefore it was decided to be an independent institution. But because the European Union affects its Member States very deeply, not least in budgetary ways, the Member States seem to want to influence the Commission as much as possible. Therefore the independence of the Commission is at stake. The Treaties try to deal with the problem by setting some protective mecha-nisms on the Commission. But is it enough? It seems that the Commission gets in-fluenced too much in its everyday work. This influencing starts already at the nomi-nation of the Commissioners, continues all the while when the Commission is decid-ing if new Community legislation is needed and while it drafts new legislation. The substance of the drafts are often influenced very much by the other institutions, Member States and interest groups. What this means is that the Commission can't fulfil its task at seeking the best of the Communities. In many different ways the decisions of the Commission may further the good of one or some interested parties instead of the Community In-terest.

The education has been exceedingly affected by the economic recession, the transformed state governance and the demographic waves, so the educational system of each country underwent some changes. The aim of my research is the comparative study of the educational systems in the East-Central European region. I examined the relationships between the different qualities, historical backgrounds, reforms and I explored the relationship between the current states of the systems (Karsten & Majoor, 1994; Lannert, 1998; Knell & Srholec, 2007; Horn & Sinka, 2007; Báthory, 2008; Dienes, 2007; Kelemen, 2010; Dakowska & Harmsenbert, 2015). My research questions are the following: What were the main reforms in the transformation of education systems? What similarities can be observed in the school systems of the countries? The region I studied is a specific East-Central European region, so the countries I have chosen are Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland. In my study, I have created three groups and I present the changes in the education systems of these countries, taking into consideration economic, social and political issues (Lannert, 2004; Kozma, 2006; Barber & Moirshed, 2007; Valuch, 2009; Kelemen, 2010; Jakubowski, 2015). Analyzing the results, it can be concluded that the regime change has enabled the countries to redefine themselves and find their new status in domestic and international politics, and also in world economy. The world economy situation created same problems for the states of the region, but their resources were different, so the public spending on education, the characteristics of education management and the infrastructure characteristics of the institutions were different. Among the main results, I have identified two groups during compulsory schooling, the first group being countries that introduce compulsory schooling up to the age of 6-15 years, and the other group consists of countries introducing compulsory schooling up to the age of 16. I have examined the curriculum regulation and the textbook market, it can be stated that, as a result of the reforms, new curricula were prepared, the textbooks were adapted according to these. Examining curriculum regulation is the result of countries striving for central regulation, but it has to be emphasized that there are countries that have integrated framework curricula and / or local curricula into a single national core curriculum, thus giving the opportunity to more autonomous management. In summary it can be concluded that the history of the countries studied and the development of their educational systems evolved similarly, however, differences can be observed by examining the different educational characteristics. My theoretical research can contribute to the discovery of the situation in Hungary and to the development tendencies and trends in the region.

Croatia becomes the newest star of the European Union in year 2013 which event has already been equal to a quiet difficult task for the country and at the same time for its country image recently, and will mean the same during the brand-new episode in the life of Croatia beginning with its accession to the European Union. Conscious development and constant cultivation of the country image are prominent tasks for all countries of today, the 21st century, as the transformations of the end of the last century, births and rebirths of new countries have resulted an extremely hard situation in the nations' competition for the tourists, the investors, the export, or even for the recognition and positive judgement of Europe, thus the European Union. Croatia's country brand is a specific one as it is built up of really sensitive elements, while in its centre there is a nation that used to be part of series of confederations during its history, adapting or not adapting to the actual one in each period; and from the year 2013 it has to find its place in the European Union.