Counter-Terrorism and the EU Strategy for Border Security: Framing Suspects with Biometric Documents and Databases

2008 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anneliese Baldaccini
Keyword(s):  
Border Security ◽  
Biometric Data ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
The Us ◽  
Biometric Systems ◽  
New Policies ◽  
And Storage ◽  
The Eu

AbstractThis article examines the way in which the EU amd its Member States have approached border security issues since the terrorist attacks in the US on 11 September 2001. A key aspect of this approach has been to tighten control of borders and the safety of documents by the use of biometric systems. The new policies on border security and document security are resulting in the mass collection and storage of biometric data in relation to third-country nationals seeking entry into the territory of EU Member States, and in relation to EU nationals within the context of travel and identity documents. These developments are significant as the Union is considering the potential offered by biometrics not only for the effective management of borders but also for the prevention and combating of crime.

scholarly journals Is the “show-the-flag” strategy relevant for Visegrad countries in securing the EU?

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (54) ◽  
pp. 223-246
Author(s):  
Hana N. Hlaváčková ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Security Policy ◽  
Organised Crime ◽  
European Security ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
Security Environment ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Visegrád Countries ◽  
The Eu

The European security environment has changed and the EU has become more independent in its security policy. New threats faced by the EU in 2014 (the migration crises) and other remaining threats (such as terrorism, organised crime, piracy) need solving by its greater involvement in the region. One problem that the EU tries to solve is the inconsistency of member states in security issues. In this article, we focus on the V4 group and their opinions towards EU security. This article examines strategies adopted by small/new EU member states to protect European borders and European territories and regions outside the EU that affect their security. For a long time, the V4 countries only participated sporadically in EU missions. The article shows what changes took place and what were the reasons for the decision to participate or not in the EU activities. The article raises the question of whether the show-the-flag strategy adopted by the V4 countries and their participation in EU missions is relevant for ensuring European security nowadays.

Productivity and Convergence in the EU

2002 ◽  
Vol 180 ◽  
pp. 72-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary O'Mahony
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Environment ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Favourable Effect ◽  
Individual Member ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Eu

For most of the postwar period both labour and total factor productivity growth in the EU was higher than in the US. The 1990s witnessed a change in this trend with the US experiencing higher growth rates for the first time in decades. This was partly due to the end of catch-up growth as many larger EU Member States had reached US levels by the beginning of the decade with also some evidence of a higher ‘New Economy’ impact in the US. The productivity record of the UK was poor relative to its major European competitors throughout most of the postwar period, although this relative decline appears to have come to an end. This paper presents figures on relative productivity for the total EU and individual Member States in the 1990s. Both postwar convergence and trends in the 1990s are discussed in terms of a number of factors which result in the emergence of differences across European countries. These include the skill composition of the workforce, the rate of introduction of new technology and the institutional environment in which firms operate. The latter include the stability of the macroeconomic environment and aspects of competition and regulation. The paper concludes that trends in productivity largely reflect long-term structural aspects but that EMU membership might have a small favourable effect on UK productivity.

scholarly journals New relations of the European Union and China: Friends or frenemies?

2020 ◽  
pp. 77-93
Author(s):  
Sanja Arezina
Keyword(s):  
Negative Attitude ◽  
Open Market ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Chinese Market ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
The Us ◽  
Pr China ◽  
The Eu

After the promotion of ?Made in China 2025? initiative and the beginning of US President Donald Trump?s tenure in power, in US and whole world there has been a rising negative attitude towards Chinese presence. The launch of a US-China ?trade war? and the closure of the US market for Chinese direct investment and product coincided with growing discontent of EU member states over the treatment that European companies have had at the Chinese market. As a result, there has been a change of the positive perception of the PR China by the EU member states, that was created mainly by strong inflow of Chinese investments and assistance within the ?One Belt, One Road? initiative, into a negative perception that is now forming policy changes and introduction of protectionist measures towards Chinese direct investments in European market. In this article, the author talks about the different perceptions (positive and negative) that have been formed in the PR China within the EU, the factors that have influenced the change in the perception of EU member countries towards the PR China and the consequences on the dynamics of the development of different policies at EU level. To be able to prove the basic hypothesis that Brussels, unlike the US, still shows some pragmatism by making policy changes moderate enough that the EU can remain loyal to open market principles while preventing these principles from becoming strategic vulnerability, the author uses the structural-functionalist analysis, induction, and deduction.

A Strategic Essay: Dynamics between a Super President, a Military Alliance and an Intrastate Entity

2018 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 290-304
Author(s):  
Bhaswati Mukherjee
Keyword(s):  
Good Deal ◽  
Burden Sharing ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Military Alliance ◽  
Defence Spending ◽  
The Us ◽  
Waking Up ◽  
Business As Usual ◽  
The Eu

The emerging dynamics between President Trump, NATO and EU promises to constitute a fascinating new narrative of the changing contours of the international order in this millennium. President Trump has completely reversed American policy towards NATO. As a businessman, Trump has made it clear that henceforth US funding and support would be linked to the US getting a ‘good deal’ from its NATO partners. NATO had earlier anchored itself to the benchmark goal that 2% of a country’s GDP should go to defence spending. President Trump is yet to establish close and friendly relations either with NATO Secretary General or leaders of NATO Member States. Trump’s public embrace of autocratic rulers has caused resentment within NATO. On CSDP the earlier European approach was to lean heavily on the Americans to fund NATO. The friction between the goals of NATO and CSDP increased under the Trump Presidency because of Trump’s insistence on burden sharing of resources and funds among NATO Member States. The CSDP and NATO have overlapping mandates which could be complicated in crisis situations. An independent CSDP remains the core issue causing friction. The U.S. and other non EU weapons producing countries (chiefly Norway and soon the U.K.) also believe that CSDP is manipulating the rules of defence procurement in favour of companies based on EU soil. Is the US justified in attacking CSDP? Many EU Member States believe that protecting European defence industries is a small price to pay for ensuring that a NATO under American leadership not get involved in small regional wars, as an example, in Francophone Africa. Brexit is casting a long shadow. EU and NATO would need to realign themselves from a strategic perspective. NATO and the EU need to prepare for a strategic scenario post Brexit. Following Brexit, 80 percent of NATO defence spending will come from non-EU members. This would shift the onus of decision making within NATO away from the EU. One of the greatest challenges for NATO and the EU is America’s new narrative on Iran and North Korea. EU and NATO are slowly waking up to the new reality that there will be no “business as usual”. If NATO’s military deterrence loses its credibility, this will undermine the credibility of both EU and NATO and endanger international peace and security. What could the EU and NATO do next? Are there any “low hanging fruits” that could be picked in the near future? The EU and NATO understand that there can be no ‘business as usual’. The new global narrative on security would depend on how NATO and EU respond to America’s changed narrative. A timely response is the need of the hour.

EU Blue Card Scheme: The Right Step in the Right Direction?

2010 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 435-453 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasin Kerem Gümüs
Keyword(s):  
Developed Countries ◽  
Highly Qualified ◽  
Member States ◽  
Green Card ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Domestic Legislation ◽  
The Us ◽  
Legal Immigration ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Eu

AbstractIn October 2007, the European Commission adopted a controversial proposal on the conditions for entry and residence of third-country nationals for highly qualified employment. The Blue Card scheme is intended to provide Member States and European Union (EU) companies with additional “tools” to recruit, retain and better allocate the workers they require, and so to increase the competitiveness of the EU economy through legal immigration and provide the EU with an advantage to compete with the US Green Card. However, the EU Blue Card scheme has been the subject of much controversy among not only EU Member States but also among less developed countries. This article aims to analyze the Blue Card scheme, which was adopted on 25 May 2009 and gives Member States two years to incorporate the new provisions into their domestic legislation. After providing an overview of the scheme, the second part deals with critics of the scheme and national responses of Member States to the scheme. Finally, the third part of the article seeks to answer the question: is the Blue Card scheme the right step in the right direction?

scholarly journals Income Inequality in the European Union & United States: A Comparative Decomposition

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Filauro ◽  
Zachary Parolin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
Household Income ◽  
Labor Market Institutions ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Relative Significance ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Eu

This study applies improved household income data to measure and decompose trends in pan-European income inequality from 2006 to 2014. To contrast the relative significance of economic homogeneity versus the efficacy of welfare state and labor market institutions in shaping income distributions, we compare the structure of inequality in the EU-28 to that of the 50 United States. This comparison stands in contrast to the standard practice of evaluating the US against individual EU Member States. Despite the greater relative heterogeneity of the 28 EU Member States and our corrections for the underreporting of household income in the US, post-fisc income inequality in the EU-28 remains lower than that of the US from 2006 onward. Moreover, inequality appears to be rising in the US while it has remained stagnant since 2008 in the EU-28. In both unions, and particularly the US, within-state income differences contribute more to union-wide inequality than between-state differences. In a counterfactual analysis, we find that if the EU-28 matched the between-state homogeneity of the US, but maintained its relative within-country inequalities, pan-European inequality would fall by only 20 percent. Conversely, inequality in the US would fall by 34 percent if it matched the within-country inequality of the EU-28. Our findings suggest that the strengthening of egalitarian institutions within the 28 Member States is more consequential than economic convergence in reducing pan-European income inequality. We highlight institutional challenges toward achieving a ‘more equal’ Europe and discuss implications for future EU policymaking.

scholarly journals Representation in the EU and beyond: one of a kind or not so unique after all?

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Vileyn
Keyword(s):  
Federal System ◽  
Member States ◽  
Democratic Representation ◽  
Federal Level ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
The Us ◽  
Set Up ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Eu

In federal polities citizens have multiple public identities: they are addressed as members of the federal polity and as members of a sub-federal polity. Consequently, citizens are represented at the federal level through two channels of democratic representation: federal representation and sub-federal representation. Although this is a crucial element in the set-up of a federal system, the existing literature on representation hardly touches upon this and hence we introduce an approach to systematically compare these channels of representation. In this paper we conceptualize and operationalize the new concepts and apply our approach to democratic representation in 13 federal polities, including the EU, EU member states and non-EU member states. Our analysis shows that the EU has the highest degree of sub-federal representation (i.e. representation of the member states), but also shows that the EU stands not alone among federal polities. Belgium, Canada and Switzerland are clearly characterized by a high level of sub-federal representation as well, while countries such as the US and Australia are much more based upon federal representation. We also show that the variance between the countries can be understood by looking at the systemic features of the states.

BIOECONOMY DEVELOPMENT POTENTIAL BASED ON MORE EFFICIENT LAND USE IN THE EU

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irina PILVERE ◽  
Aleksejs NIPERS ◽  
Bartosz MICKIEWICZ
Keyword(s):  
Green Growth ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Growing Stock ◽  
Europe 2020 ◽  
Europe 2020 Strategy ◽  
Analysis And Synthesis ◽  
Key Industries ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Production Resource

Europe 2020 Strategy highlights bioeconomy as a key element for smart and green growth in Europe. Bioeconomy in this case includes agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food and pulp and paper production, parts of chemical, biotechnological and energy industries and plays an important role in the EU’s economy. The growth of key industries of bioeconomy – agriculture and forestry – highly depends on an efficient and productive use of land as a production resource. The overall aim of this paper is to evaluate opportunities for development of the main sectors of bioeconomy (agriculture and forestry) in the EU based on the available resources of land. To achieve this aim, several methods were used – monographic, analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, statistical analysis methods. The findings show that it is possible to improve the use of land in the EU Member States. If all the Member States reached the average EU level, agricultural products worth EUR 77 bln would be annually additionally produced, which is 19 % more than in 2014, and an extra 5 billion m3 volume of forest growing stock would be gained, which is 20 % more than in 2010.

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