The article contains a peer analysis of European primary legislation concerning enhanced cooperation within the European Union between the member states in accordance with their will on agreed issues. The research includes the forms of enhanced cooperation, the procedure of enhanced cooperation, the spheres of its application, the instruments of enhanced cooperation and the legal effects of enhanced cooperation both for participating and third countries.
The key issue examined in the article is to elucidate the impact of the cooperation between local and state authorities in terms of the efficient functioning of public power in the state. There are presented arguments in favour of the cooperation of the two forms of the public power, as well as the necessary conditions for this. There were highlighted the principles of the effective cooperation between the local and state authorities. It was insisted that any administrative control of the local authorities' activity should only take into account the respect of legality and constitutional principles. In conclusion, it is mentioned that the state power cooperating with the local one contributes to ensuring the integrity and unity of the state, thus facilitating the integration of the interests of the society and state.
Mediterranean cooperation is dealt with in the context of the creation of the Euromediterranean zone. The European Union has been developing various modes of cooperation with non-member Mediterranean countries by signing association agreements or cooperation agreements. The new European states, created after the disintegration of former socialist federations demonstrate interest for the Mediterranean cooperation, though they tend to have different attitudes towards it. Their interest is solely based on the fact that the Mediterranean cooperation has not been standardized and that it has a poorly developed institutional framework. To these countries this enables and facilitates to tune in from time to time, when it suits their purposes. Regarding the role of the new states, the author distinguishes between two types of cooperation: (a) autonomous regional cooperation, which is not beneficial for the new states (e.g. those on the Balkans) and (b) occasional, specialized and dispersed cooperation which might attract the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. (SOI : PM: S. 176)
In Romania, as wel as in all Member States, the judicial cooperation in criminal matters regarding the execution of the european arrest warrant and the surrender of the sought persons in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic was affected and was assesed on a case-by-case basis. Generally, the non compliance with the surrender deadlines or the postponing of the surrender based on serious humanitarian reasons lead to the release of the sought persons without taking alternative measures in order to prevent absconding, giving the fact that there are no national legal basis to take such measures in this type of situations.
The structural-functional features of the European political system are analyzed. The author correlates the structure and the functions of the national political system with the functionality of the European supra-national structures. The efficiency of the decision making process and the functionality of any type of political system is influenced by the level of political culture and the degree of maturity of the political actors. The need to correlate interests of different states: EU members, candidates or those in process to adhere to the EU, determines the supra-national structures: European Council, European Union Council, European Parliament, EU Court of Justice, EU Court of Accounts, European Central Bank to honor honestly and responsibly their functions, respecting democratic principles of political communication, of cooperation and co-work. In conclusion, the author states that the European political system is functional, efficient, viable due to the capacity of institutions to ensure a dynamic stability both at community level and national one. The fact that at the moment the European Union is an international political actor with legal status and its components (Member States) that share the same rights and obligations represents a unique experience, interesting for the contemporary political theory.
In this paper, the author deals with some institutional and structural elements of the emerging European post-cold war security environment. In the early 1990s, at the level of institutionalization of European security, a plethora of institutions came into being whose purpose has been to gradually incorporate the former communist states into an integral security structure. Also, international security was formalized in international organizations covering Europe. Thus one of the key challenges to the European security system has been the need for melding its central components into a consistent system. The author also describes some current processes and developments within the European security setting that will shape the European security structure in the future as well. This setting has been and will undoubtedly be affected by various international (regional and global) and national factors in the European economic, political, and security space as well as by the joint efforts of European states (their leaders) and international security organizations to provide common security in Europe. The author concludes that the European international system today includes many organizations and institutions that, with an appropriate division of labour and cooperation, may help set up a common and integral European security system which would efficiently ensure the security of individual states as well as the security of entire Europe. (SOI : S. 55)
The trans-ethnic voting ant the current cooperation between the Saxon and the Romanian communities in Sibiu/Hermannstadt could easily make believe in a perennial peaceful cohabitation. But the ethnic relations at the beginning of the XXth century are rather dissimilar, since they are marked by the strong affirmation of the Romanian community - especially by its political and cultural values - in the cadre of a multi-ethnic state - as Austria-Hungary - and of a Saxon dominated city - as Sibiu/Hermannstadt. The conflict between elites is pointed out by the prejudices enounced and by the symbolic weight of the disputes. More deeply, there is a conflict between two diverging political projects: the preservation of autonomy and of collective rights by the Saxon community, and the political, economic and cultural integration of the city into the recently made Romanian National state, in the aftermath of the Paris Peace Treaties. The two political projects originate -in fact- into distinctive models of citizenship: an exclusive citizenship, promoted by the Saxon community as a heritage from the Middle Ages; an integrative citizenship, preferred by the Romanian state in order to obtain a full allegiance from the new citizens. Since Romania has unexpectedly become a multi-ethnic state and minorities were more educated, urbanized and politically active, supporting the Romanian element became vital. The unsuccessful political strategies of Romanian elites, before 1920 -and of Saxon elites afterwards- lead to external sources of power: the Romanian National state and Nazi Germany. Whether Romanian authority proves to be quite successful, the German influence has disastrous consequences for the Saxon community. The persecutions and vexations following the German defeat in 1945 mark out the beginning of the great migration for the German community in Transylvania, following eight hundred years of coexistence.
The author analyzes the process of the NATO expansion in Europe following the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. Paradoxically, after the end of the cold war, the security conditions in Europe have not improved. On the contrary, the danger of military conflicts has increased. That is why most former communist countries, including the newly created states which emerged after the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, have been trying to eliminate this danger and strengthen their security by joining NATO. The Russian Federation is the main opponent of the NATO expansion in Eastern Europe, particularly on the states which came into being after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The author describes in detail the geostrategical and geopolitical implications of the admittance of the first group of Eastern-European countries into the NATO (Poland, Czech Republic and Romania), as well as the prospects of the NATO expansion onto the other countries in the region. He sees the American initiative for the cooperation in Southeastern Europe as a complement to the process of the NATO expansion. In the end he criticizes NATO's process of selection of new members, the process which has left Croatia (for the time being) in a sort of a geostrategical void. (SOI : PM: S. 118)
In the context of internationalisation the national issues regarding the restitution of nationalised immovable goods in different stages of history, the subject at hand, represents a pioneering analysis of a complex national reality. Recent practice of Romanian courts has revealed a delicate problem that is apparently the object of debate and resolve of the national and international academic environment. Through the analysis the author tackles the problem of discrimination that is committed by the national law that regulates the matter of restitution of goods that were abusively taken over by the state, from the point of view of the theoretician, as well as the practitioner, pointing out the necessity of direct cooperation with the European courts. The negative discrimination, resulting from the art. 36 of 18/1991 law, can be analysed as an objective and rational justification that would allow the direct practice of the European convention of human rights concerning the litigations about "Land Act" (Law no. 18/1991)
There have been a number of philosophical, legal and political concepts dealing with the issue of peace. The most famous discourse on the topic of peace is undoubtedly Kant's writing "Perpetual Peace" not only for the cogency of its ideas but also for the applicability of the majority of them in practice, particularly in terms of collective security. Kant's starting point was that peace is a rational and moral imperative of human nature, realized solely through human efforts. Though written two hundred years ago, his ideas have found acolytes in the post-coldwar period since they are, to a large extent, considered as emancipatory. Kant finds the guarantees for the realization of peace in the moral doctrine and thus rejects the use of force in the creation of peace. The relations among states are based on cooperation, not competition so that some elements of his project are reminiscent of the solutions applied in the system of collective security. The author looks into the viability of Kant's ideas in the post-coldwar period. (SOI : PM: S. 69)
The maintenance of peace and stability in the post-cold-war world in the circumstances of cooperation and partnership requires an appropriate approach and manner of resolving the crises triggered off by the collapse of communist federations. Imperial policies and regimes must be eliminated while the process of the geopolitical consolidation and the creation of independent and sovereign states in Central and Eastern Europe (and in Euro-Asia on the whole), built around the democratic and market principles, must be wrapped up. The new political leaders (mostly leftist) in the countries that for over fifty years (and now through the Kosovo crisis) have been developing the trans-Atlantic alliance within the military-political framework of NATO (based on the same values, principles, and goals), are now developing appropriate strategies for the post-cold-war hotspots (based on the accumulated experiences). (SOI : S. 89) + The author analyses the process of democratisation of international relations and the future configuration of international order following the end of the era of bipolar confrontation and the establishment of cooperation in the world which has witnessed the change in the key actors' roles regarding their approach to the resolution of the post-cold-war crises which jeopardise the world's peace and stability. First, the author provides a short outline of the genesis of the evolution of the US foreign policy, from the end of World War II to the beginning of the cold war and the formation of NATO. He points out that today's agenda of the international order, its structures, interventionism, and use of force in achieving political objectives, were already shaped at that time. The suggestions put forward constituted the framework and the foundation for the world politics until the late 80s; the cumulative effect of these responses on today's attempts at solving post- cold-war crises enables us to evaluate the roles and behaviour of individual actors in the resolution of the Kosovo crisis
