Suchergebnisse

Viktor Orbán is known to use veto threats in the European Council to get his way. This time, he was keen to see that after months of tense exchanges with the Commission, Hungary gets access to EU funds that had been blocked in order to achieve compliance with the rule of law and fundamental rights conditionality. So, PM Orbán saw it fit to loudly contest Ukraine's accession and the financial aid package of 50 billion Euros. This may be PM Orbán's strongest veto play to date.

"Over the past two decades, the border between Romania and the Republic of Moldova has witnessed symbolical gestures of rapprochement, as well as bilateral diplomatic confrontations. In the wake of the euphoria brought about by the two 'flower bridges' in 1990 and 1991, the frontier was opened after Moldova achieved independence, reflecting pan-Romanian sentiments on both sides. These tendencies were short-lived in Chisinau, where privileged relations with Moscow soon replaced the Romanian vector of foreign policy. The recognition of the immutable character of the common border became a key dividing line between the two sides, with Bucharest still viewing it as a result of the Ribbentrop-Molotov-Pact which it considered null and void. After embarking upon the path of European Integration, Romanian policy changed. The open border was subsequently replaced by a visa regime for Moldovans due to EU conditionality. As bilateral relations between Bucharest and Chisinau worsened, both sides misused border issues as part of their antithetic positions on the existence of a greater Romanian nation. Only after the transfer of power from the Party of Communists to a pro-European coalition in Chisinau in 2009 and a moderation of the national discourse in Bucharest could the boundary on the river Pruth be reembedded in the logic of relations between an EU member and an aspiring candidate state." (author's abstract)

"In the light of mechanisms and sequences of cultural development, on the one hand, and the historically variable processes of 'de-culturisation' and socialisation in the context of the respective individual ontogenesis, on the other hand, it becomes apparent that the content and effects of social institutions and the potentials of action of individuals can only be captured within the horizon of their socio-culturally constituent mechanisms and relations of meanings. Therein it has to be acknowledged that both historical and cultural semantics and the basal structures of insight and communication are subject to change - not in the form of a linear development, but in a complex process of changing constellations. This basic epistemological insight and its consequences are first discussed theoretically and then illustrated by analysis of particular cases. The latter purpose is served by the project 'Poverty dynamics and the labour market', a research project on social legislation coordinated by the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) in Nuremberg. The cultural conditionality of the impact of welfare state institutions can be exemplified by the autobiographic account of a recipient of Unemployment Benefit II (ALG II), as reported in the context of this project. In addition, some of the possible breaches that current concepts of labour market and social policy in practise suffer from are revealed. The consequence of the case-analytic considerations is highly relevant with respect to methodology: Typical abstract economic modelling of effective preferences, rationalities and calculus by themselves do in fact not allow drawing conclusions about what forms of action, on the basis of what forms of insight, come into being as social practise. To explore the mechanisms in effect and the resulting multifaceted logics of action, what is rather needed - in the sense of a 'cultural economics' - is a systematic empirical reconstruction of the genesis and structure of patterns of interpretation and action, in the context of economic action and institutions." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku)