Knocking on Europe’s Door: Public Opinion on the EU Accession Referendum in Poland

2006 ◽  
pp. 121-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Jasiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Eu Accession ◽  
The Eu

scholarly journals EU Accession Immigration and the Rise of UKIP

2019 ◽  
pp. 74-93
Author(s):  
Edward Fieldhouse ◽  
Jane Green ◽  
Geoffrey Evans ◽  
Jonathan Mellon ◽  
Christopher Prosser ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Eu Accession ◽  
Accession Countries ◽  
High Salience ◽  
Eu Accession Countries ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Issue Dimensions

This chapter explains how the powerful issue dimensions of the EU and immigration were combined in the 2004 decision for open immigration with EU accession countries. As immigration rose in the 2000s, the salience of immigration increased substantially. The 2004 immigration decision had two key consequences. Firstly, it greatly constrained the ability of UK governments to change the level of immigration in response to public opinion, and secondly, it closely linked the previously separate issues of immigration and Europe. The salience of immigration was related most strongly to media coverage of the issue, which in turn closely tracked the actual rates of immigration. UKIP capitalized on this combined EU/immigration dimension and substantial numbers of voters switched to UKIP from the major parties in 2015 on this basis. We show that without the high salience of immigration between 2010 and 2015, the defections to UKIP would have been relatively small.

scholarly journals Dynamics of the Serbian EU accession process – key issues and the challenges of state democratisation in an era of populism

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 49-77
Author(s):  
Mirella Korzeniewska-Wiszniewska
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
The State ◽  
Eu Accession ◽  
Nationalist Movements ◽  
The Past ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Accession Process ◽  
Progressive Party ◽  
The Eu

The current Serbian authorities (aligned with the Serbian ProgressiveParty) have pushed Serbia towards effective reforms over the past severalyears and improved its image on the international arena through an intensifieddiplomatic offensive after 2015. This has led to a situation in which theSerbian state became a political and economic partner in both regional andintegration projects. The latter is demonstrated by the arduous but progressiveaccession process to the European Union.After 2000, international and Serbian public opinion greeting the end of theregime of Slobodan Milošević expected rapid democratisation of the statebased on statements by Serbian politicians who had declared a West Europeancourse of the state. The short-lived rule of Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić,confirmed this; however, the policy of his successors was no longer so unambiguous.For almost a decade, Serbia oscillated between populism anddeclared democratisation, without making major changes, expected by bothsociety and the European Union.When after the year 2012 the Serbian Progressive Party came to power (theparty was founded as a conservative grouping and had radical roots), itseemed that the Serbian state would be pushed towards a more conservative,anti-European and nationalist direction. However, that did not happen.Opinion about the last six years of the group’s rule is varied. This paper aimsto try to answer the question whether during the party’s rule, Serbia has beendemocratising and whether in this era of nationalist movements and populism,the country has a chance at real democratisation and finishing the processof accession to the EU?

THE FAILURE TO SIGN THE UKRAINE-EU ASSOCIATION AGREEMENT (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2013)

2019 ◽  
pp. 30-45
Author(s):  
V. I. Denysenko
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Main Role ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
Association Agreement ◽  
Russian President ◽  
The Government ◽  
Vladimir Putin ◽  
The Eu

The failure to sign the Association Agreement with the EU in autumn 2013 has been investigated. The role of the Russian factor, which became decisive in the foreign policy reversal of the Yanukovych regime, has been revealed. The importance of Viktor Yanukovych’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on October 27, 2013, in the dramatic change of Ukraine’s international vector has been emphasized. On the basis of diplomats’ memoirs, the assumption about intimidation of the Ukrainian President by the Russian side has been substantiated. The timeline of the preparation of the 2013 Vilnius Summit, the position of EU structures and the attempts of the fourth President of Ukraine to win time to trade with the Russians have been reproduced. The thesis about the Donetsk clan’s attempts to prepare public opinion for a 180 degree turn in late October - early November 2013 has been presented. For this purpose, demonstration meetings were organized with representatives of Ukrainian business and trade unions, who called for revision of plans for European integration on their own initiative. The main role in manipulating public opinion rested on the government of Mykola Azarov and the Verkhovna Rada, which had a majority coalition led by the Party of Regions. Instead, Viktor Yanukovych continued his European integration rhetoric and reiterated to Western partners his own willingness to sign the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU. On November 21, the real position of the ruling elite was made available to the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. According to it, the process of preparation for the signing of the Association Agreement was suspended, the proposal was made for the trilateral Ukraine-EU-Russia negotiations, and the ministries were tasked with developing measures to maintain economic ties with the CIS countries. The decision was rejected by European partners and led to Yanukovych’s attempts to find other ways to thwart the signing of the Agreement. It has been proved that this role was played by Yanukovych’s requirements for financial assistance from the EU amounting to about 160 billion euros, which aimed to prevent the signing of the Association Agreement. Key words: Viktor Yanukovych, association of Ukraine with the EU, эYulia Tymoshenko, European integration, Pat Cox, Alexander Kwasniewski, Vladimir Putin.

In or Out?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine E. De Vries
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Alternative State ◽  
Empirical Measurement ◽  
The Status ◽  
People’S Attitudes ◽  
Over Time ◽  
The Eu

This chapter introduces a benchmark theory of public opinion towards European integration. Rather than relying on generic labels like support or scepticism, the chapter suggests that public opinion towards the EU is both multidimensional and multilevel in nature. People’s attitudes towards Europe are essentially based on a comparison between the benefits of the status quo of membership and those associated with an alternative state, namely one’s country being outside the EU. This comparison is coined the ‘EU differential’. When comparing these benefits, people rely on both their evaluations of the outcomes (policy evaluations) and the system that produces them (regime evaluations). This chapter presents a fine-grained conceptualization of what it means to be an EU supporter or Eurosceptic; it also designs a careful empirical measurement strategy to capture variation, both cross-nationally and over time. The chapter cross-validates these measures against a variety of existing and newly developed data sources.

Euroscepticism and the Future of European Integration

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine E. De Vries
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Public Preferences ◽  
Novel Theory ◽  
The Eu

The European Union (EU) is facing one of the rockiest periods in its existence. At no time in its history has it looked so economically fragile, so insecure about how to protect its borders, so divided over how to tackle the crisis of legitimacy facing its institutions, and so under assault by Eurosceptic parties. The unprecedented levels of integration in recent decades have led to increased public contestation, yet at the same the EU is more reliant on public support for its continued legitimacy than ever before. This book examines the role of public opinion in the European integration process. It develops a novel theory of public opinion that stresses the deep interconnectedness between people’s views about European and national politics. It suggests that public opinion cannot simply be characterized as either Eurosceptic or not, but rather that it consists of different types. This is important because these types coincide with fundamentally different views about the way the EU should be reformed and which policy priorities should be pursued. These types also have very different consequences for behaviour in elections and referendums. Euroscepticism is such a diverse phenomenon because the Eurozone crisis has exacerbated the structural imbalances within the EU. As the economic and political fates of member states have diverged, people’s experiences with and evaluations of the EU and national political systems have also grown further apart. The heterogeneity in public preferences that this book has uncovered makes a one-size-fits-all approach to addressing Euroscepticism unlikely to be successful.

scholarly journals Competitiveness as the Ability to Adjust: the EU–10 Exports Structure and Its Convergence to the German Pattern

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-133
Author(s):  
Elżbieta Czarny ◽  
Małgorzata Żmuda
Keyword(s):  
World Trade ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Living Standard ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Standard International Trade Classification ◽  
Eu Accession ◽  
Developed Economies ◽  
Catching Up ◽  
The Eu

Competitiveness of a nation is associated with a set of characteristics that enable structural adjustment to global technological trends, and as a consequence, a rise in the living standard of its citizens. For catching-up economies, GDP convergence towards the most developed economies, constituting their developmental goal, relies upon its ability to shift production and exports structure towards specialization based on knowledge and innovation. Thus, in this paper, competitiveness is evaluated through structural adjustments of exports, and for catching-up economies (the EU–10 states) it may be understood as the ability to close the structural gap to the most developed countries (here: the strongest EU member economy: Germany). We analyse the evolution of the EU–10 nations’ exports specialization in the years 2000 and 2014, checking whether the convergence towards the German exports pattern can be observed, and which of the analysed economies shows the best ability to shift its exports structure towards high-tech specialization. We look additionally at exports structures in 2004 (the year of EU-accession of eight out of 10 countries in the sample) and in 2009 (world trade collapse during the economic crisis). The analysis is based on the Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) concept by Balassa (1965). We use the UN Trade Statistics data in the Standard International Trade Classification (SITC), Rev. 4. Commodity groups are classified following the methodology developed by Wysokińska (1997, p. 18).

scholarly journals Central Bank Independence – The Case of the Central Bank of Montenegro

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 25-40
Author(s):  
Milivoje Radovic ◽  
Milena Radonjic ◽  
Jovan Djuraskovic
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Central Bank ◽  
Inflation Rate ◽  
Central Banks ◽  
Transition Countries ◽  
Central Bank Independence ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Eu Accession ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
The Eu

Abstract In recent decades, there has been a trend in increasing the level of independence of central banks. The key factor that has contributed to a growing interest in this concept is grounded in economic theory that confirms the link between a lower inflation rate and a greater level of central bank independence. For this reason, in many countries, the existing regulations relating to central bank have been modified to protect its position from the absolute influence of the executive power of the state. This trend was particularly prevalent in transition countries, which was conditioned primarily by the EU accession criteria. The aim of this paper is to analyse independence of the Central Bank of Montenegro through the prism of functional, institutional, financial, and personal independence, and to assess the level of its legal independence by using appropriate indices.

scholarly journals Effects of Serbian accession to the European Union

2012 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario Holzner ◽  
Valentina Ivanic
Keyword(s):  
Trade Liberalization ◽  
Consumer Surplus ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Eu Accession ◽  
Consumer Prices ◽  
The World ◽  
Producer Surplus ◽  
The One ◽  
The Eu

In this article, the global simulation model (GSIM) of Joseph F. Francois and Keith H. Hall (2009) for analyzing global, regional, and unilateral trade policy changes was applied to Serbia. This was to measure the effects of full trade liberalization with the EU after Serbian accession to the EU. As anticipated, most of the changes in welfare after full liberalization of trade between Serbia and EU can be expected in sectors where Serbia has specialized; protection against imports from the EU is strong. However, losses could also occur in sectors that currently face strong protection against the rest of the world and this protection is lost after EU accession. Trade liberalization will lead to a substantial loss of tariff revenues. Reduced consumer prices might, on the one hand increase consumer surplus but on the other hand decrease producer surplus and output in certain industries.

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