Suchergebnisse

On his two days campaign trip in the territory between the Danube and River Tisza, Count István Bethlen primarily emphasised the reconstitution of national unity, religious peace and reconciliation among social classes. This political campaign aimed at peacefully revising the Treaty of Trianon. And he thought it well: in order to achieve this goal, it was necessary to conceive political realism, that is, the economic, social and cultural reinforcement of die nation. For example, it was expedient for beginning the land reform, the dissemination of intensive forms of agricultural production and the industrialisation supplementing imports. For the intellectual basis to achieve these goals, Bethlen considered Christian liberalism the most appropriate. As a result of this campaign, the nominees of the United Party won 6 out of the 9 electoral districts. And among these 6 constituencies, 3 were eventually taken by the governing party by an intervention through the civil service. Bethlen and the leaders of the United Party often exploited the state apparatus and the civil service - in many cases illegally - to preserve power positions. Thus even the subsequent successes of the Bethlen consolidation cannot overshadow this fact.

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.