scholarly journals Hidden Continuities?: The Avatars of “Judicial Lustration” in Post-Communist Romania

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (7) ◽  
pp. 1209-1230
Author(s):  
Bogdan Iancu
Keyword(s):  
Judicial Reform ◽  
The Past ◽  
Path Dependencies ◽  
Structural Resistance ◽  
Political Left ◽  
Communist Past ◽  
Legal Normativity ◽  
Intelligence Service ◽  
Eu Commission ◽  
The Eu

AbstractThis Article grapples with the instrumentalization of the past in Romania, in the specific context of “judicial lustration” measures. It argues that decommunization and lustration policies, which could not be pursued in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of state socialism in 1989, were weaponized much later and used in order to advance other purposes. In 2006, an expedited judicial vetting procedure, in the context of the EU-driven fight against corruption, was repurposed by the center-right as a lustration instrument. In the same year, the dismantling of an intelligence service created after 1991 in the Justice Ministry (SIPA) to monitor ‘vulnerabilities’ in the justice system has set in motion a long series of failed attempts to bring closure to the question regarding the service’s archives, fomenting continuities of suspicion until today. More recently, in 2018, a form of ‘mock-judicial lustration’ has been used by the political left to deflect or at least delegitimize repressive anti-corruption policies. The new “lustration procedure” implicitly equated the recent cooperation between prosecutors and intelligence officers, in the context of the fight against corruption, with past practices of collusion between the members of the judiciary and the communist Securitate. These three episodes of ‘dealing with the past’ are reviewed in order to showcase path-dependencies. Such path-dependencies are not linked only with carryovers from or throwbacks to the communist past. Rather, pre- and post-communist deficiencies of modernization, combined more recently with gaps in post-accession monitoring by the EU Commission, create continuities of peripheral instrumentalism. Various narratives, such as decommunization, the fight against graft, judicial reform and the rule of law are used to legitimize short-term consequentialism, evincing a resilient, structural resistance to legislative and legal normativity.

scholarly journals The AI Methods, Capabilities and Criticality Grid

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Schmid ◽  
Wolfgang Hildesheim ◽  
Taras Holoyad ◽  
Kinga Schumacher
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
Classification Scheme ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Digital Products ◽  
The Past ◽  
Data Ethics ◽  
Dimensional Classification ◽  
Ethics Commission ◽  
Eu Commission ◽  
The Eu

AbstractMany artificial intelligence (AI) technologies developed over the past decades have reached market maturity and are now being commercially distributed in digital products and services. Therefore, national and international AI standards are currently being developed in order to achieve technical interoperability as well as reliability and transparency. To this end, we propose to classify AI applications in terms of the algorithmic methods used, the capabilities to be achieved and the level of criticality. The resulting three-dimensional classification scheme, termed the AI Methods, Capabilities and Criticality (AI-$$\hbox {MC}^2$$ MC 2 ) Grid, combines current recommendations of the EU Commission with an ethical dimension proposed by the Data Ethics Commission of the German Federal Government (Datenethikkommission der Bundesregierung: Gutachten. Berlin, 2019). As a whole, the AI-$$\hbox {MC}^2$$ MC 2 Grid allows not only to gain an overview of the implications of a given AI application as well as to compare efficiently different AI applications within a given market or implemented by different AI technologies. It is designed as a core tool to define and manage norms, standards and compliance of AI applications, but helps to manage AI solutions in general as well.

scholarly journals The European Union as a Security Actor in the Sahel

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 382-412
Author(s):  
Friedrich Plank ◽  
Julian Bergmann
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Eu Foreign Policy ◽  
The Past ◽  
Path Dependencies ◽  
Security Actor ◽  
Lock In ◽  
Strong Path ◽  
The Eu

Abstract In the past decade, the EU has significantly stepped up its profile as a security actor in the Sahel. Drawing on historical institutionalism, we conceptualise path-dependencies and lock-in effects as elements of a “foreign policy entrapment” spiral to analyse the EU’s policies towards the Sahel. Specifically, we seek to explain the EU’s increasingly widened and deepened engagement in the region. Hence, this article traces the evolution of the EU’s Sahel policy both in discourse and implementation. We identify a predominant security narrative as well as a regionalisation narrative and show that EU action has followed these narratives. Based on this analysis, we argue that the evolution of the EU’s Sahel policy can be understood as a case of “foreign policy entrapment”. Initial decisions on the overall direction of EU foreign policy have created strong path-dependencies and lock-in effects that make it difficult for EU policy-makers to change the policy course.

The past, present and future of food consumption databases

2012 ◽  
Vol 153 (43) ◽  
pp. 1692-1700
Author(s):  
Viktória Szűcs ◽  
Erzsébet Szabó ◽  
Diána Bánáti
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Food Consumption ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Collection Method ◽  
The Past ◽  
Consumption Data ◽  
Food Consumption Data ◽  
International Projects ◽  
Collection Methods ◽  
The Eu

Results of the food consumption surveys are utilized in many areas, such as for example risk assessment, cognition of consumer trends, health education and planning of prevention projects. Standardization of national consumption data for international comparison is an important task. The intention work began in the 1970s. Because of the widespread utilization of food consumption data, many international projects have been done with the aim of their harmonization. The present study shows data collection methods for groups of the food consumption data, their utilization, furthermore, the stations of the international harmonization works in details. The authors underline that for the application of the food consumption data on the international level, it is crucial to harmonize the surveys’ parameters (e.g. time of data collection, method, number of participants, number of the analysed days and the age groups). For this purpose the efforts of the EU menu project, started in 2012, are promising. Orv. Hetil., 2012, 153, 1692–1700.

Epilogue

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Schütze
Keyword(s):  
Internal Market ◽  
Positive Answer ◽  
The Past ◽  
Output Legitimacy ◽  
The Eu

Can the judicial creation of the EU internal market be justified? A famous—positive—answer has, in the past, been suggested by Miguel Maduro’s We the Court; and the first section explores the credentials of his ‘majoritarian activism’ thesis. The second section surveys alternative forms of legitimacy, such as ‘output legitimacy’ and ‘messianic legitimacy’, but it also offers a new Kantian approach to the legitimacy question.

scholarly journals The Biosimilar Landscape: An Overview of Regulatory Approvals by the EMA and FDA

Pharmaceutics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 48
Author(s):  
Ioana Gherghescu ◽  
M. Begoña Delgado-Charro
Keyword(s):  
Drug Administration ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
European Medicines Agency ◽  
Patient Access ◽  
Clinical Evaluations ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
Improve Patient ◽  
The Eu

Biosimilar medicines expand the biotherapeutic market and improve patient access. This work looked into the landscape of the European and US biosimilar products, their regulatory authorization, market availability, and clinical evaluation undergone prior to the regulatory approval. European Medicines Agency (EMEA, currently EMA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) repositories were searched to identify all biosimilar medicines approved before December 2019. Adalimumab biosimilars, and particularly their clinical evaluations, were used as a case study. In the past 13 years, the EMA has received 65 marketing authorization applications for biosimilar medicines with 55 approved biosimilars available in the EU market. Since the first biosimilar approval in 2015, the FDA has granted 26 approvals for biosimilars with only 11 being currently on the US market. Five adalimumab biosimilars have been approved in the EU and commercialized as eight different medicines through duplicate marketing authorizations. Whilst three of these are FDA-approved, the first adalimumab biosimilar will not be marketed in the US until 2023 due to Humira’s exclusivity period. The EU biosimilar market has developed faster than its US counterpart, as the latter is probably challenged by a series of patents and exclusivity periods protecting the bio-originator medicines, an issue addressed by the US’s latest ‘Biosimilar Action Plan’.

Nearly Zero-Energy Buildings & Buildings Built with Industrialized Technology: The Case of Hungary

2016 ◽  
Vol 824 ◽  
pp. 469-476
Author(s):  
Attila Talamon ◽  
Viktória Sugár ◽  
Ferenc Pusztai
Keyword(s):  
Economic Structure ◽  
Financial Resources ◽  
Existing Buildings ◽  
Ghg Emission ◽  
Zero Energy ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Central European ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Zero Energy Buildings

There is an urgent need nowadays to reduce current levels of GHGs emissions. On the other hand the EU countries are largely dependent on energy imports and are vulnerable to disruption in energy supply which may in turn threaten the functioning of their current economic structure. The EU imported 54% of its energy sources in 2006 and this value was projected to increase even further by 2030. Reducing its import dependency is one of the EU’s main goals of the 20-20 by 2020 target – this legislative package is believed to reduce the expected imports of energy by 26% compared to the development before the 20-20 initiative.One of the most important environmental problems is the energy consumption of the buildings. Current paper shows that buildings built with industrialized technology can deliver large energy and GHG emission reductions at low costs.Only 1-2% part of the building stock is exchanged every year, so it is very important to increase the energy efficiency of the existing buildings, too.Present paper focuses on the buildings built with industrialized technology only, and their potential in nearly zero-energy buildings sector. Up till now the Central European support schemes concentrated most financial resources on buildings built with prefabricated technology. Present paper explains the past and present of the “panel” problem in Hungary with a short outlook to some other countries.

scholarly journals Ergot Alkaloids in Wheat and Rye Derived Products in Italy

Foods ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca Debegnach ◽  
Simona Patriarca ◽  
Carlo Brera ◽  
Emanuela Gregori ◽  
Elisa Sonego ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Durum Wheat ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Plant Pathogen ◽  
Ergot Alkaloids ◽  
Cereal Grains ◽  
Wheat Bread ◽  
Claviceps Purpurea ◽  
Eu Commission ◽  
Ongoing Monitoring ◽  
The Eu

Genus Claviceps is a plant pathogen able to produce a group of toxins, ergot alkaloids (EAs), whose effects have been known since the Middle Ages (ergotism). Claviceps purpurea is the most important representative specie, known to infect more than 400 monocotyledonous plants including economically important cereal grains (e.g., rye, wheat, triticale). EAs are not regulated as such. Maximum limits are in the pipeline of the EU Commission while at present ergot sclerotia content is set by the Regulation (EC) No. 1881/2006 in unprocessed cereals (0.05% as a maximum). This study aimed to investigate the presence of the six principal EAs (ergometrine, ergosine, ergocornine, α-ergocryptine, ergotamine and ergocristine) and their relative epimers (-inine forms) in rye- and wheat-based products. Of the samples, 85% resulted positive for at least one of the EAs. Wheat bread was the product with the highest number of positivity (56%), followed by wheat flour (26%). Rye and wheat bread samples showed the highest values when the sum of the EAs was considered, and durum wheat bread was the more contaminated sample (1142.6 μg/kg). These results suggest that ongoing monitoring of EAs in food products is critical until maximum limits are set.

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