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During the nineteenth century, the Kosovo myth played a significant part in the creation of the modern Serb state. The rekindling of serb nationalism with the help of the Kosovo myth served to mobilize the Serbs in an attempt to re-centralize the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or to create a new state. Serbia has looked upon Kosovo as its holy land and the cradle of Serbdom, never taking account of the changed reality which made Albanians the majority population. The Chairwoman of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia sees the future as follows: „It is quite clear that Kosovo will gain conditional independence by the end 2006. There will be efforts to have the two sides engaged in negotiations. But it is hard to believe that any substantial progress will be made. Once it becomes clear that the two sides cannot decide on their own, the UN will impose a solution at the General Assembly.”
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Since 2003, it has been the policy of the EU that every country of the Balkans is a potential candidate for mebership. The EU is prepared to start negotiations with them about accession – without defining any specific timeframes – if the necessary conditions are met on both sides. The integration of the Balkans is a hige long-term investment of the EU, full of snags. On the other hand, its possible return far exceeds the risk factors. Its success requires a calculable, continuous and flexible policy, based on delivering on our commitments and consistently requiring delivery on commitments toward us. Over the last 130 years, Europe has made several attempts to resolve the problems of the Balkans. So far, fortune did not favour any of these attempts. The upcoming decade offers a unique opportunity for the Balkans to break the vicious circle.
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According to estimates, corruption makes up some 5% of the world economy’s overall output – with the worse performing countries enduring a higher share than this. Rasma Karklins in this book proceeds to create a typology of the different kinds of corruption. It finds that even though the population may encounter corruption mostly in connection with traffic cops or hospital doctors, in a social, political and economic sense, high-level political corruption concerning public procurement or privatisation is the most harmful. It is a tragic paradox that, due to the freedom of the press, people hear a lot more about corruption in a democracy than in non-democratic systems in which the press is censored. This may easily lead to the perception that democracy is more susceptible to corruption than authoritarian rule, and may even engender a nostalgia for earlier dictatorships. Rasma Karklins: A rendszer kényszerített rá - Korrupció a posztkommunista társadalmakban (M. E. Sharp, 2005.) Rasma Karklins: The System Made Me Do It - Corruption in post-communist societies (M. E. Sharp , 2005.)
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In physical appearance, the housing estates of West and Central or East European cities are very similar. If you have seen one, you have the impression that you have seen them all. The ideologies and target groups of housing estate construction showed differences in Central and East European countries on the one hand, and West European countries on the other. While in the latter region a substantial proportion of the apartments were intended as a socially motivated solution to the needs of a defined class of underprivileged people, in the former socialist countries, obtaining a modern apartment with all the basic conveniences was a certain privilege. Looking at the data on housing in a few cities of our region, the proportion of those living on panel estates ranges between 30% and about 80%. Bucharest (82%) and Bratislava (77%) are in the worst positions. Over 60% of the population live on housing estates in Katowice, Klaipeda, Lublin and Sofia. Budapest, Prague and Ljubljana, as between 30% and 40%, are in one of the more favourably positioned groups. The research fellow of the Institute of Sociology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences analyses if it is possible to apply the West European rehabilitaion programmes and best practices.
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Product design has basic importance in highly competitive markets. Well designed, aesthetic products are favoured by buyers. Thus design is considered a marketing tool most radically in the USA. It is obvious that companies and authors are interested in effective legal protection against illegal imitation. The International Chamber of Commerce (IIC) estimates that imitations and counterfeit products account for roughly 5-8 per cent of world trade and the direct and indirect damage could be as much as 60-100 billion US dollars per year. A sad consequence is also the 70.000 jobs that are lost each year. By the end of the 19.th century countries recognized that design protection on a national level is incapable of stopping illegal activity. For this reason international agreements such as the Paris Convention in 1909 were signed. The need for harmonizing design law in Europe appeared in the 60’s. The European Court also faced the problem of market distortion caused by intellectual privilege in its practice. The European institutions issued the Design Directive in 1998 (98/71/EC) to harmonize the most substantial elements of national design laws throughout Europe after long theoretical debates. The task is current as the Commission may carry out an analysis within 3 years of the implementation deadline (28.10.2001.) and that expires this year. The Commission has already issued a proposal for an amendment on the Directive in September 2004 concerning spare parts. I aim to give an outline of the main characteristics of the harmonization directive in my essay focusing on the definitions compared with the notions of former national design laws. I will also refer to the questions of copyright protection for designs since the relationship between the two forms of protection is regulated by the directive. However I will not examine in this article the Community Design Law (Regulation No 6/2002) what is based on the notions of the Directive but contains detailed ruling on the transfer of rights, procedure etc.
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The main focus of my Ph.D training is the preservation of cultural heritage. Within this topic I pay attention to three main fields: historical preservation in Hungary, in the European Union and the world heritage. In my first year as a postgraduate student I was able to analyze the history and the development of this protection in Hungary. After studying the history of Hungarian national historic monuments, buildings and current legislation I came to the conclusion that the aformentioned fields were established long after they had been in Western-European countries. That is why I have decided to look for inspirations and samples for comparison from the European Union. It is rather evident to the wide public, that the European Union is an economic and political community. It is however quite an intriguing task to examine if it is truly a community, a community of different cultures. With the help of scholarly comparison of the initial ideas stemming from the founders of the European Union and the present state of culture I expect to find some answers pertinent to this question in this article. By giving the European Union a say in cultural matters, the Member States’ governments set out to create a ’Europe of the peoples’. According to this idea they want to make people in Europe aware of their shared history and values but at the same time the local and regional cultures must be cultivated also. More specifically, the point was to encourage cultural exchanges within Europe by establishing European projects to inspire creativity and to make culture accessible to the greatest possible number of people. I hope that by this paper I can prove that the European Union is more than an economic or political community.[...]
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This lecture was inspired by the European Agricultural Law Association, particularly by Dr. Wolfgang Winkler, who is a professor of the University of Göttingen, and an expert in European Agricultural Law. In May 2003 our professor, Dr. Tamás Prugberger was called upon to prepare the country report on the situation of the Hungarian Agricultural Competition Law for the next session of the European Agricultural Law Association. He then gave us this noble task. The study was completed by September 2003 but it has not been published yet.
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The article compares the current Hungarian private international law regime to that of the Rome Convention of the EC. While the Convention is before changing into an anticipated Regulation, it makes sense to test Hungarian PIL provisions against the Convention because to a certain extent the Regulation is likely to build upon the regime of the Convention. The paper discusses the different provisions from party choice of law to connecting factors in the absence of choice, from consumer and individual employment contracts to the Convention's Article 7 mandatory rules, from the law appicable to formal validity to renvoi, and concludes that while Hungary's PIL system is something very close to the Convention, several changes – some minor some more substantial – will be introduced into Hungarian law upon the passing of the Regulation. The paper also evaluates the impact the Convention has had on Hungarian PIL so far and assesses whether or not formal modification of the Hungarian law on PIL will be needed. At the time of drawing up this present study the 1980 Rome Convention on the law applicable to contractual obligations is under transformation into an instrument of secondary EC legislation – a'la the transformation of the 1968 Brussels Convention on jurisdiction and the enforcement of judgements in civil and commercial matters into Council Regulation (EC) No 44/2001. There have been quite many different suggestions as to the new rules of the common European private international law (PIL) in the anticipated Rome Regulation and thus the exact direction of the changes is unpredictable at this point of time. However, since the much anticipated Regulation is very likely to adapt the PIL system of the Convention at least to some extent, it does make sense to sum up the main differences between the existing regime and practice of the Rome Convention and Hungarian PIL in its black letter law, case law and legal writings.
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This study divided into three parts. First chapter tries to show the economic function of the comparative advertising, its risks, interests to be protected and the main features of its regulation. The second part is about the definition of comparative advertising. A new draft directive is analysed in the third chapter as a possible solution to create two kinds of comparative advertising. In the summary the author tries to shortly assuming main ideas of the study and gives some remarks and critics.
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The essay attempts to give an overall review of the ’new challenges’- processes and changes- the lawmaking of the European Union faces with following the signing of the Treaty of Nice. Through listing the main documents in this topic, the continuous development of how the needs emerging from the enlargement of the EU and other recent expectations were committed to writing can be tracked step by step and -as a final acknowledgement of the reforms - we can get acquainted with the regulations of the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe that summarizes and works out the up-to-date elements of the decision making of the Union.
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After the accession Hungary’s duty of harmonisation hasn’t come to an end, since the Hungarian legal system still has the deadlines set by community law to take into account, and our legal system has to give fast and adequate responses to the community’s legal challenges. The State should effectively take part in the decision-making process of the European Union in a way that we could enforce our interests to the most possible extent even after the accession period. It is almost as hard a duty as the accession was and goes with an enormous liability, since after the first of may we will also take part in the European Union’s decision-making process.[...]
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After the change of the political system in 1989/1990, the magnetic needle of Hungarian state organization and legal system - not for the first time in the last thousand years, but hopefully for this time definitely - turned towards west, and the European Union became the determinanc ceter of magnetic attraction. The Association Agreement with the European Communities and their member countries in 1991, the submission of our application for the entry into the European Union in 1994, the beginning of the Entry negotiations in 1998 and the conclusion of the Contract of Entry in 2003 made it clear that Hungarian state organization and administration as part of the previous should fit harmoniously into the structure and methodology of the administration of the European Union. The aim of the present study is to give an outline, within narrow bounds available, of the two pillars of Hungarian administration-constitution and personnel-their challenges, the answers given and also to attempt to point out the main directions of the development of Hungarian administration. In short, the study will make an attempt to answer the question posed in the title.
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For the financial policymakers of the European continent affected by the fever of unification, it became obvious in the nineties of the last century that the EU needs to implement significant changes in the regulatory aspects of its financial administration in order to aspire after a significant role in world politics. However, this was only a political recognition of an opinion well developed in professional circles, according to which monetary union must necessarily be followed by the integration of the financial market. But while the main driving force of the establishment of EMU was rationality in the public finances, the transformation of the financial market was fought for and achieved by the financial sphere itself, offering a spectacular evidence for the feedback between the governing forces and governed. Although on May 1, 2004, Hungary attained full membership in the European Union, but even because of its export-led economy and its close connection to the financial market encompassing the world, our country could not afford to disregard the evolving events. Let us review the fundamental changes affecting the domestic financial sector and the capability of the affected institutions to adapt to such changes.
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A Council of Regency, appointed by the first Fatherland Government, existed as an institution in Bulgaria from September 9, 1944, to September 15, 1946. The “People’s Regency” fulfilled the functions of Head of State on behalf of Simeon II, but the Palace did not exist as a real political factor. The Council of Regency formally approved the laws and ordinances on the basis of the Turnovo Constitution which had not been officially revoked. The agony of the monarchy in Bulgaria went on for two years. Reduced to a fiction, it was preserved until 1946 when “the clearing of the way towards socialism”, started on September 9, 1944, entered a new more decisive stage. All the major political campaigns were invariably co-ordinated with Moscow and the domestic political considerations were not always determinant. In September 1944 the Bulgarian Workers’ Party (communists) waited for directives from the Kremlin about the period of existence of the monarchy and declared its willingness to fulfil them implicitly. A catalyst for speeding up the movement towards imposing the Soviet model in the countries that had fallen within the range of the “liberating mission” of the Red Army became the international situation. One of the major political reforms for changing the form of state rule from a constitutional monarchy to a republic was carried out as part of the decisive political advance launched in 1946 when the symptoms of the East-West confrontation determined the new course in Eastern Europe. Officially the institute of monarchy in Bulgaria was abolished by direct vote of the broad masses of the people but its fate was decided under the influence of other factors. The results of the referendum held on September 8, 1946 could hardly be regarded as a real indicator of the republican moods of the voters without taking into account the home and international conditions in which the referendum was held, the political climate and the escalation of the political tension in the country in the summer of 1946.
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Surveys and references / G. St. Genov. The American Contribution to the Renaissance of the Bulgarian National Spirit with Particular Reference to Elias Riggs. Istoricheski Archiv, III, Vol. 9-10, Hovember 2000-May 2001
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Surveys and references / Al. Rostov. Switzerland and the Balkan States: Economic Ties (1830-1914). Contribution to the History of the International Migration of People, Goods and Capitals in Modern Time. Sofia, 2001. 244 p.
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