We kindly inform you that, as long as the subject affiliation of our 300.000+ articles is in progress, you might get unsufficient or no results on your third level or second level search. In this case, please broaden your search criteria.
The outcome of a research project carried out by CEPS and the Economics and Foreign Policy Forum (EFPF) of Istanbul, this book examines in detail the challenges and opportunities that would arise with Turkey’s full membership of the European Union. The authors, consisting of both Turkish and West European experts, address such controversial issues as Turkey’s cost to Europe, the potential for economic convergence and the implications of Turkish membership for the future of Europe. The authors also identify the areas where a closer cooperation between Turkey and the EU in advance of full membership would be advantageous for both parties. They focus with this aim on a set of measures ranging from ‘virtual membership’ in certain policy areas to more specific transition policies. In short, this book gives a clear picture about the nature of the topics and the issues that would dominate full membership negotiations with Turkey.
More...
Report prepared in fulfilment of contract 2005/S 89-085795 of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Trade on the economic feasibility, general economic impact and implications of a free trade agreement between the European Union and Ukraine.
More...
In this project, we have tried to implement some practices which will guide our future activities as the ECFR takes its work into new policy areas. First, we have tried to look at several dimensions of European power. We have explored how Moscow sees the EU and uses its power to influence it; how each member state relates to Russia; as well as the links between Moscow and EU institutions. This report draws on data gathered by a team of researchers from all 27 EU member states. Each conducted a survey of their country’s economic, political and military relations with Russia. // Secondly, we have tried to avoid the euphemistic phrases and diplomatic practices that cloak tensions within the EU and between the EU and third countries. In order to promote a common European approach, we have illustrated some of the areas where the policies of individual member states have undercut common European objectives. The goal is not to stigmatise particular countries. Future reports on European foreign policy issues will put the spotlight on the policies of other states. // Thirdly, we have done our best to understand the issues from the perspective of policymakers. A senior EU official complained to one of the authors about the propensity of outside observers to simplify complex issues and to imply that the only thing standing in the way of a successful EU foreign policy is the stupidity of officials. We have tried to heed this plea and have not offered any easy, ready-made solutions. We are grateful to the many officials who have provided us with useful guidance at every step of the research process, in particular those who took part in a round-table discussion of the interim findings, attended by officials from all EU institutions and a majority of EU member states.
More...
After the shock of the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, which Hungarians perceived as an unfair dictate, the leaders of the country found it imperative to change Hungary’s international image in a way that would help the revision of the post-World War I settlement. The monograph examines the development of interwar Hungarian cultural diplomacy in three areas: universities, the tourist industry, and the media—primarily motion pictures and radio production. It is a story of the Hungarian elites’ high hopes and deep-seated anxieties about the country’s place in a Europe newly reconstructed after World War I, and how these elites perceived and misperceived themselves, their surroundings, and their own ability to affect the country’s fate. The defeat in the Great War was crushing, but it was also stimulating, as Nagy documents in his examination of foreign language journals, tourism, radio, and other tools of cultural diplomacy. The mobilization of diverse cultural and intellectual resources, the author argues, helped establish Hungary’s legitimacy in the international arena, contributed to the modernization of the country, and established a set of enduring national images.Though the study is rooted in Hungary, it explores the dynamic and contingent relationship between identity construction and transnational cultural and political currents in East-Central European nations in the interwar period.
More...
German-American relations have always served as a mainstay for the involvement of the United States in Europe. Since the end of World War II, the time when, having abandoned the principle of isolationism, the American superpower chose to get actively involved in matters of Europe, it was West Germany that became its main focus. From its establishment in 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany enjoyed a special covenant with the United States. West Germany owed a great deal to Washington which supported and endorsed it in various ways ranging from assistance in democracy building and restoring the economy after Germany’s defeat and breakup post World War II, to military protection extended throughout the Cold War period.
More...
Stosunki europejsko-chińskie nigdy nie były tak bliskie, ale też nigdy nie były tak trudne. Potężniejące z każdym rokiem państwo kusi atrakcyjnymi możliwościami współpracy, stanowiąc jednak coraz większe zagrożenie dla interesów europejskich w świecie. „Chiński smok” jest asertywny, głośno wyraża swoje opinie, a co najgorsze Unia Europejska utraciła nad nim swoją przewagę oraz możliwości skutecznego wpływania na jego zachowanie. Brakuje jej do tego instrumentów, politycznej siły, a przede wszystkim wizji. Dlaczego tak się stało? Jak przeformułować założenia polityki unijnej wobec Chin? Czy w tym trudnym związku z „chińskim smokiem” jesteśmy skazani na porażkę? Książka stanowi obszerną analizę polityki Unii Europejskiej wobec Chin zarówno w wymiarze politycznym, jak i gospodarczym. W ośmiu tematycznych szkicach zaprezentowano najważniejsze zagadnienia niezbędne do zrozumienia relacji europejsko-chińskich.
More...
As part of the Serb National Council’s Political Academy in 2017 the sixth cycle of lectures and negotiations was held with young activists from Serb community as regular participants. The goal was that they should get to know each other, to exchange experience and acquire knowledge useful for further activities in three areas: 1) within the Serb community, i.e. in its cultural, educational, and social-political organisations, 2) representing Serb community in local, county and state bodies and 3) in public life, especially regarding subjects relevant for the Serb community. 16 participants, mostly younger persons, have attended the Academy.
More...
We know that adequate treatment and successful re-socialization of sentenced persons in penal institutions implies the use of modern forms, methods and means of work, carried out by competent and motivated educators. It is a common opinion that most educators, in their initial education, did not receive adequate preparation for work in penal institutions, ie. that there is a gap between the theoretical preparation of educators in initial education and the requirements for professional engagement practices. There is a need for new knowledge, skills and abilities, as well as an opportunity to improve them. It is this scientific monograph that points to the general and specific competencies of educators in penal institutions, as well as the motivation of educators to learn and improve, that is, lifelong learning and professional development.
More...
The year 2007 marks the tenth anniversary of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) between the EU and Russia. At their Sochi summit in May 2006, the two parties agreed to work towards a new agreement to replace the PCA. This book explores whether the EU and Russia could make a better job of their strained relationship, which, while peaceful, is nevertheless characterized by mounting grumbles on both sides over how to govern oil and gas trade and investment, through to issues of democratic values and divergent approaches to such countries as Georgia and Ukraine in their overlapping neighborhoods. The book presents the views of independent analysts from both the EU (Michael Emerson, Fabrizio Tassinari and Marius Vahl) and Russia (Nadezhda Arbatova, Timofei Bordachev and Andrey S. Makarychev) on how to proceed. Also included is a view from Europe’s business leaders. The editor, Michael Emerson, was the European Union’s first ambassador to Moscow from 1991 to 1996. The negotiations that will soon begin at the official level will no doubt be a long process. This book provides ideas that the authors would like the negotiators to embrace, and in any case serves as a valuable reference against which to check what political leaders choose to do.
More...
Crisis management has become a new frontier for the functions of the European Union. It is a vital component of the EU’s European security and defence policy (ESDP), which in turn completes the set of policy instruments available for the broader concept of the common foreign and security policy (CFSP). The potential significance of these developments has reached the point that political scientists are now treating the CFSP and ESDP as a research domain. Accordingly, this book is devoted to the findings of four scholars – Eva Gross, Isabelle Ioannides, Ana E. Juncos and Ursula C. Schroeder – who in the context of their PhD researches have been analysing the EU’s first crisis-management missions. They look in some detail at how these first operations have gone, what lessons are to be drawn, and indeed, whether the lessons have been drawn by the EU institutions themselves.Since 2003, EU military and civilian crisis management has emerged as a new field in European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), also claiming a place high on the political agenda. This book evaluates the EU’s first such operations in the Western Balkans, focusing on lessons learned in the military and police missions to Bosnia and Herzegovina and to Macedonia. The authors have conducted their research both in Brussels and in the field. The evaluations place these operations in political and institutional perspectives, and highlight not only successes but also the shortcomings that will need to be addressed in the years ahead. The relevance of the book is heightened by the increasing number of crisis management missions that the EU is being mandated to take up worldwide, in Africa and Asia as well as the Western Balkans, with major challenges ahead in a police mission in Afghanistan and an impending rule of law mission in Kosovo.
More...
Two important and related perspectives are offered at the outset of this review of an important new study by the Centre for European Policy Studies. First, the performance and efficiency of the banking sector has a major impact on a country’s overall efficiency and economic performance, and second, for several European banks, business models changed markedly in the years running up to the banking crisis and are currently in a state of flux.
More...
Drawing on a unique, farm-level, panel dataset with 37,409 observations and employing a matching, estimator, this paper analyses how farm access to credit affects farm input allocation and farm efficiency in the Central and Eastern European transition countries.
More...
This paper aims to describe and highlight the key issues of farm capital structures, the dynamics of investments and accumulation of farm capital, and the financial leverage and borrowing rates on farms in selected European countries. Data collected from the Farm Account Data Network (FADN) suggest that the European farming sector uses quite different farm business strategies, capabilities to generate capital revenues, and segmented agricultural loan market regimes. Such diverse business strategies have substantial, and perhaps more substantial than expected, implications for the financial leverage and performance of farms. As an illustration, the financial risks clearly increased in the Danish agricultural sector with loan rates following an upward sloping trend in 2006; the first sign of the forth coming financial crisis that may also severely hit highly leveraged agricultural firms.
More...
How much does European citizenship cost in the EU? This was the question that has raised so much controversy over the Maltese citizenship-for-sale programme. The outright selling of Maltese nationality to rich foreigners led to unprecedented responses by the European Parliament and European Commission. This paper examines theaffair and its relevance for current and future configurations of citizenship of the EU. It studies the extent to which member states are still free to lay down the grounds for the acquisition and loss of nationality without any EU supervision and accountability. It provides a comparative overview of member state schemes and the exact pricefor buying citizenship and a residency permit in the EU. It is argued that the EU’s intervention on the Maltese citizenship-for-sale affair constitutes a legal precedent for assessing the lawfulness of passport-for-sale or golden migration programmes in other EU member states. The affair has also revealed the increasing relevance of a set of European and international legal principles limiting member states’ discretion over citizenship matters and providing a supranational constellation of accountability venues scrutinising the impact of their decisions overcitizenship of the Union.
More...
The Common European Asylum System (CEAS) is a policy area particularly evocative of the ‘politics of numbers’. The European Union has at its disposal a wide array of sources providing detailed information about its member states’ asylum systems’ capacities and pressures. This paper discusses thecontent of asylum data and the evolving interaction between its different sources, ranging from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to the European Commission’s EUROSTAT and DGHOME, the European Asylum Support Office (EASO), FRONTEX, the European Migration Network (EMN) and national databases. However, the way in which such data are often misused, or even omitted,in political debate exerts a strong impact on the soundness of policy decisions in the CEAS.
More...
This paper examines the EU counterterrorism policy responses to the attacks in Paris, 7-9 January 2015. It provides an overview of the main EU-level initiatives that have been put forward in the weeks following the events and that will be discussed in the informal European Council meeting of 12 February 2015. The paper argues that a majority of these proposals predated the Paris shootings and had until that point proved contentious as regards their efficacy, legitimacy and lawfulness. A case in point is the EU Passenger Name Record (PNR) proposal. The paper finds that EU counterterrorism policy responses to the Paris events raise two fundamental challenges: ** A first challenge is to the freedom of movement, Schengen and Union citizenship. The priority given to the expansion in the use of large-scale surveillance and systematic monitoring of all travellers including EU citizens stands in contravention of Schengen and the free movement principle. ** A second challenge concerns EU democratic rule of law. Current pressures calling for an urgent adoption of measures like the EU PNR challenge the scrutiny roles held by the European Parliament and the Court of Justice of the European Union on counterterrorism measures in a post-Lisbon Treaty setting. // The paper proposes that the EU adopts a new European Agenda on Security and Liberty based on an EU security (criminal justice-led) cooperation model firmly anchored in current EU legal principles and rule of law standards. This model would call for ‘less is more’ concerning the use, processing and retention of data by police and intelligence communities, and it would instead pursue better and more accurate use of data that would meet the quality standards of evidence in criminal judicial proceedings.
More...
This intelligent product provides comparative and analytical elements for the adoption of superior techniques for evaluating decisions that involve significant costs for our society. At the same time, the intention of the authors of this study is to encourage critical reflection and the comparative approach to the elaboration of efficient and effective public policies, as well as to the qualitative increase of the level of public debates on these topics of interest. // The research team consisted of 3 experts and a coordinator. The study was coordinated by Igor Munteanu, and the research team consisted of Ghenadie Mocanu (political analyst), Veaceslav Ioniţă (economist), Inga Sinchevici (sociologist). // The authors of the study sincerely thank the Friedrich Ebert Foundation for the support provided in the elaboration of this research, but also for the encouragement it offered us during this complex study.
More...
The peculiarity of 2007 was the fact that it was the last year of the implementation of the EU Action Plan by the Republic of Moldova facing a severe drought. In 2006, the authorities of the Republic of Moldova had put forth the efforts to convince the European officials and the western partners of the possibilities of the country to implement the stipulations of the Action Plan RM-EU, the efforts have been materialized by the creating and sending reports regarding the implementation of the RM-EU AP. In 2007, the Moldovan authorities are facing the situation when they have to prove to the citizens and to themselves that the implementation of the Action Plan RM-EU did not represent just efforts but also clear results in bringing Moldova closer to EU. Or the implementation of this very document represented a capacity and availability test of the Republic of Moldova to approach the European Union. // This smart product offers comparative and analytical elements for the adoption of some superior techniques of evaluation of some decisions that involve important costs for our society. Meanwhile, the intention of the authors of this study is to encourage critical thinking and comparative approach regarding drafting of efficient and effective public policies as well as qualitative growth of the level of public debates on these issues of interest.
More...