scholarly journals The Border-making Policy of the Europe-an Union: Eastern Enlargement

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-18
Author(s):  
LIKA MKRTCHYAN

Having no internal borders, what is a border for the European Union (EU)? Which cri-teria does this powerful organization pursue in its decision-making on further expansion: geographical, political, cultural, economic or all of these? What is the profi t of the Union in advancing its external borders to the east? And why to the east and not the south or west across the Atlantic? Does it still mean that there is the reason for enlarging eastward based on the geographical belonging to Europe?1.This paper discusses the expansion of the European Union to the east with the main focus on its political and economic aspects of integration. The fi rst part includes intro-duction to the concept of Europe, historic background about the formation of the united Europe in terms of geography, culture, politics and economy, juxtaposing opinions and viewpoints of different experts and political scientists on “what is Europe?” and what are the core issues of its enlargement. The second and third parts are dedicated to the advan-tages and disadvantages of European Integration for both parties concerned – the EU and the candidate/member state, in the case of the former having its own “demarcation policy” towards certain regions of the continent when it comes to unifi cation. And the fourth part is about the communication and miscommunication of the informative bodies of the Euro-pean Union that are responsible for public awareness on any process that goes on within the European family. The lack of information results in the ignorance of citizens of Euro-pean and partner countries, which, of course, refl ects on the further processes of expansion on the political level and cultural perception and mentality on the social level.The conclusion sums up the research, and the bibliography lists the books, articles, monographs and Internet sources used in the course of the study.

Author(s):  
Adeliya Zh. Zakirova ◽  

The integration of migrants into the social cultural space of a host country is a complicated process. Its main goal is to turn a migrant into a full-fledged citizen and to decrease negative consequences of this process. The integration touches on cultural, economic and social spheres of society. The EU practice gives an acute example of the collaboration of developed European civil societies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (11) ◽  
pp. 251-257
Author(s):  
Anzhelika L. Gendon ◽  
◽  
Galina F. Golubeva ◽  

The article examines the financial support (not tax) of the economy in the EU countries due to the pandemic. A comprehensive vision of the situation and strategic planning are the foundation of the Euro-pean Union's economic policy. These qualities help to develop comprehensive measures to stabilize the labor market and entrepreneurship in the countries of the European Union in the context of a global emergency. A positive factor is also the fact that in an epidemic situation, political decisions of various states are aimed at introducing socially oriented measures that support their citizens.


Author(s):  
Eli Gateva

Enlargement has always been an essential part of the European integration. Each enlargement round has left its mark on the integration project. However, it was the expansion of the European Union (EU) with the 10 Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs), Cyprus, and Malta, unprecedented in scope and scale, which presented the EU with an opportunity to develop a multifaceted set of instruments and transformed enlargement into one of the EU’s most successful policies. The numerous challenges of the accession process, along with the immensity of the historical mission to unify Europe, lent speed to the emergence of the study of EU enlargement as a key research area. The early studies investigated the puzzle of the EU’s decision to enlarge with the CEECs, and the costs and benefits of the Eastern expansion. However, the questions about the impact of EU enlargement policy inspired a new research agenda. Studies of the influence of the EU on candidate and potential candidate countries have not only widened the research focus of Europeanization studies (beyond the member states of the Union), but also stimulated and shaped the debates on the scope and effectiveness of EU conditionality. Most of the analytical frameworks developed in the context of the Eastern enlargement have favored rational institutionalist approaches highlighting a credible membership perspective as the key explanatory variable. However, studies analyzing the impact of enlargement policy on the Western Balkan countries and Turkey have shed light on some of the limitations of the rationalist approaches and sought to identify new explanatory factors. After the completion of the fifth enlargement with the accession of Bulgaria and Romania in 2007, the research shifted to analyzing the continuity and change of EU enlargement policy and its impact on the candidate and potential candidate countries. There is also a growing number of studies examining the sustainability of the impact of EU conditionality after accession by looking into new members’ compliance with EU rules. The impact of EU enlargement policy on the development of European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and comparative evaluations of the Union’s performance across the two policy frameworks have also shaped and expanded the debate on the mechanisms and effectiveness of the EU’s influence. The impact of the Eastern enlargement on EU institutions and policymaking is another area of research that has emerged over the last decade. In less than two decades, the study of EU enlargement policy has produced a rich and diverse body of literature that has shaped the broader research agendas on Europeanization, implementation, and compliance and EU policymaking. Comprehensive theoretical and empirical studies have allowed us to develop a detailed understanding of the impact of the EU on the political and economic transformations in Central and Eastern Europe. The ongoing accession process provides more opportunities to study the evolving nature of EU enlargement policy, its impact on candidate countries, the development of EU policies, and the advancement of the integration project.


Human Affairs ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Darina Malová ◽  
Branislav Dolný

The Eastern Enlargement of the European Union: Challenges to Democracy?Recent scholarship assesses the impact of the European Union's conditionality on democracy in Central and Eastern Europe in a contradictory way. On one hand, the EU is perceived as a key agent of successful democratic consolidation and on other hand, the return of nationalist and populist politics in new member states has been explored in the context of the negative consequences of the hasty accession that undermined government accountability and constrained public debate over policy alternatives. This article explains this puzzle of the ambiguous effects of the EU's politics of conditionality, which promoted institutions stabilizing the horizontal division of powers, rule of law, human and minority rights protection, but which neglected norms and rules of participatory and/or popular democracy.


Author(s):  
Miroslav Jovanovic

The European Union (EU) and Serbia?s accession to this international organization in a relatively distant future are linked, in the eyes of the Serbian public, with numerous expectations, dilemmas, misunderstanding fears, joys and periodical manipulations. The topic is important, broad and complex, so there is a need for the basic and understandable explanations. While in Serbia this topic is one of the most important and high on the government?s agenda. In the EU and its member countries, it attracts almost no attention and is not a priority issue. Simply, the EU is concerned with much more important issues, such as its future constitutional system security, energy, globalization, unemployment, immigration, demographic problem (population ageing), monetary union, preservation of the single market and adjustment to the EU eastern enlargement of 2004 and 2007. After introduction to the advantages and problems relating to Serbia?s potential accession to the EU, the attention is turned to the issues that include geopolitical conditions for accession to the EU, legislation and functioning of the EU, as well as its budget. Effects of integration, the EU?s interest in Serbia and Serbia?s interest in the EU are presented before conclusions.


2022 ◽  
Vol 12 (01) ◽  
pp. 151-174
Author(s):  
Alicia Gil-Torres ◽  
◽  
Cristina San José-de la Rosa ◽  

The interest of this research resides in the analysis of the only fiction series dealing with the functioning of the European Union: the French- Belgian-German production Parlement (Émilie Noblet and Jérémie Sein, 2020). Through a qualitative methodology, it seeks to answer a threefold re- search objective: (1) to analyze the main characters and their characteristic elements; (2) to identify the space-time relationship and the political actions addressed in fiction in order to provide realism to its development through the scenarios and arguments presented; and (3) to detect the existence of parallelisms between the European Union in the social imagery and the one presented in the series according to the theory of social representations, the reality effect and the Eurobarometer surveys. The results reveal that Parle- ment works with stereotypes and social perceptions about the European Union through satire but manages to offer pedagogical elements in all its epi- sodes. In this way, it accomplishes becoming a popular catalyst to bring Euro- pean politics closer to citizens, by projecting a more human and lighthearted image.


Author(s):  
Mary Daly

Social policy has a particular character and set of associated politics in the European Union (EU) context. There is a double contestation involved: the extent of the EU’s agency in the field and the type of social policy model pursued. The former is contested because social policy is typically and traditionally a matter of national competence and the latter because the social policy model is crucial to economic and market development. Hence, social policy has both functional and political significance, and EU engagement risks member states’ capacity to control the social fate of their citizens and the associated resources, authority, and power that come with this capacity. The political contestations are at their core territorially and/or social class based; the former crystalizes how wide and extensive the EU authority should be in social policy and the latter a left/right continuum in regard to how redistributive and socially interventionist EU social policy should be. Both are the subject of a complicated politics at EU level. First, there is a diverse set of agents involved, not just member states and the “political” EU institutions (Parliament and Council) but the Commission is also an important “interested” actor. This renders institutional politics and jockeying for power typical features of social policymaking in the EU. Second, one has to break down the monolith of the EU institutions and recognize that within and among them are actors or units that favor a more left or right position on social policy. Third, actors’ positions do not necessarily align on the two types of contestation (apart perhaps from the social nongovernmental organizations and to a lesser extent employers and business interests). Some actors who favor an extensive role for social policy in general are skeptical about the role of the EU in this regard (e.g., trade unions, some social democratic parties) while others (some sectors of the Commission) wish for a more expansive EU remit in social policy but also support a version of social policy pinned tightly to market and economic functions. In this kind of context, the strongest and most consistent political thrust is toward a type of EU social policy that is most clearly oriented to enabling the Union’s economic and market-related objectives. Given this and the institutional set-up, the default position in EU social policy is for a market-making social policy orientation on the one hand and a circumscribed role for the EU in social policy on the other.


Author(s):  
Boris P. Guseletov ◽  
◽  

The article is dedicated to the analysis of the European Union’s Eastern Partnership program in the post-COVID period. It considers the main features of that program in modern conditions and further prospects for its de- velopment, taking into account the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for the European Union and the countries participating in this program. The author analyzes the EU leadership attitude to the individual participants of the program and identifies priorities in relation to the various countries represen- ted in it. To overcome the social and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Commission decided to provide financial assistance to the participating countries, but the amount of the assistance for individual countries depended on the state of relations between the European Union and the leadership of those countries. It is proved in the article that the European Union currently has the most favorable relations with three countries parti- cipating in the program: Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, which have openly declared a policy of rapprochement with the European Union in the political and economic fields. The author outlines positions of all the countries and their expectations of participating in the program in the nearest future as well as in the longer term.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 1789
Author(s):  
Valentyna A. VASYLIEVA ◽  
Alla V. ZELISKO ◽  
Olga I. ZOZULIAK

The article deals with the peculiarities of the processes of adaptation of the legal regulation of cooperatives in post-socialist states (as exemplified by Ukraine) to the requirements of the European Union. Such features are formed taking into account historical, social and economic prerequisites of the development of the modern legal framework of Ukraine. Authors are focused on problems of pecuniary autonomy of cooperatives; the possibility of its full-fledged activities as the parties to market relations; implementation of legal mechanisms that can increase competitive advantage of cooperatives in present-day conditions; increase the level of security and protection of rights and interests of cooperative members. It is proved that the effective entrepreneurial activity of the cooperative is rather compatible with the social nature of the latter, moreover – it contributes to the implementation of such a nature. Behind the arguments in favor of such an approach there is the principle declared in the practices of the European Union law – the focus of cooperatives on the affirmation of the interests of its members.


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