The Political Economy of Outsourcing in the European Union and the East-European Enlargement

2006 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boyka M. Stefanova
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Regional Integration ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Labor Mobility ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Value Added ◽  
Substitution Effects ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Regional Market ◽  
The Eu

This paper explores the East-West dichotomy of outsourcing in the European Union in the context of its 2004 eastward enlargement. The purpose of the study is to shed light on the connection between outsourcing and the causal logic of regional integration. The conventional view is that the transfer of business operations from Western Europe to low-cost locations to the east represents a process of outsourcing West-European jobs which deprives the EU core of growth opportunities to the exclusive benefit of the new members from Eastern Europe. This analysis posits the systemic functions of EU outsourcing as a mechanism of economic homogenization in the regional market along its three principal dimensions: investment, commodity trade, and labor mobility. At the macro-level, outsourcing complements capital movements and trade, and acts as a substitute for labor mobility. Keeping labor mobility “down” is the main value added of EU outsourcing. Empirically, its relevance to the regional market is established in an input-output framework of relationships with indicators of economic convergence (homogenization effects) and labor mobility (substitution effects) in the EU. Positive correlations with indices of business synchronization and weak negative correlations with measures of labor supply and wages suggest that outsourcing fits well both with strategies fostering market integration and those counterbalancing the politically sensitive labor mobility in the EU. There is no significant evidence to suggest that, at the aggregate level, outsourcing has independent substitution effects with regard to unemployment rates and wages in Western Europe. The geographic expansion of EU integration, therefore, is not a proxy for losses of social welfare in the West. The paper concludes that as the cost efficiency and resource allocation functions of outsourcing facilitate the homogenizing dynamics of regional integration, it is likely to become increasingly subsumed under EU-level regulation and monitoring in a trade-off between the regional interest and domestic sectoral concerns.

scholarly journals EXPORT OF RUSSIAN MANUFACTURES TO EU COUNTRIES: TENDENCIES, PROBLEMS AND OPPORTUNITIES

2013 ◽  
pp. 139-145
Author(s):  
I. A. Korobkov
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Russian Federation ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Value Added ◽  
High Tech ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Eu Countries ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Value Added Products

The modernization and specialization of the economy in hi-tech and high-value-added goods is the long term goal defined and set forward within the frame of Russian Federation 2020 Concept for the Social and Economic Development. According to the principles and clauses of the abovementioned document these high-tech and high-value-added products in the long run are intended to be exported to the European Union countries. For the foreseeable future EU will remain Russia’s key trade partner and moreover will play an immense and significant role for the integration of the Russian Federation in the international manufacturing and industrial processes. However, considering the high level of economic development of the EU countries and their strong positions in global exports of processed products including hi-tech goods, the export of the manufactures to the EU countries is quite a challenging task for Russia. Currently the manufactures that are supplied to the European Union mainly consist of semi-processed commodities, e.g., metals, diamonds and chemicals. Russian high-value-added products are exported to a limited number of partners; export volumes are comparatively moderate and volatile. However, some high-tech Russian products are successfully exported to the EU countries and meet growing demand from consumers from Central and Western Europe. The share of finished products and high-value-added goods exported to the Central and Eastern Europe slightly exceeds the EU average; the growing machinery and transport equipment sales are determined by an increased supply towards Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Czech Republic.

scholarly journals Nothern European Lessons for Eurasian Integration

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-91
Author(s):  
L. S. Voronkov
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Regional Integration ◽  
Nordic Countries ◽  
The Other ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Eurasian Economic Union ◽  
Economic Union ◽  
The Eu

The paper is dedicated to the differences between the classical instruments for regulating interstate political and trade-economic relations from those used in the development of regional integration processes. Traditionally, the Eurasian Economic Union is compared with the European Union, considering the EU as a close example to follow in the development of integration processes. At the same time, there exist the other models of integration. The author proposes to pay attention to the other models of integration and based on the analysis of documents, reveals the experience of Northern Europe, which demonstrates effective cooperation without infringing on the sovereignty of the participants. The author examines the features of the integration experience of the Nordic countries in relation to the possibility of using its elements in the modern integration practice of the Eurasian Economic Union.

scholarly journals THE INFLUENCE OF THE INTEGRATION IN THE EUROPEAN UNION ON THE ROMANIAN FISCAL LEGISLATION

2008 ◽  
pp. 56
Author(s):  
Mircea Muntean ◽  
Doina Pacurari
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Fiscal Policy ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Value Added ◽  
The European Union ◽  
European Directives ◽  
Eu Directives ◽  
Dividend Tax ◽  
Excise Duties ◽  
The Eu

Fiscal policy constitutes – within the state's economic policy – a system by means of which the taxes and duties owed to the country's consolidated budget are established and collected. Taking into account the role fiscal policy has been playing since Romania's admission in the European Union, one of the goals ceaselessly looked for is its adapting to the international community's acquis through the implementation of the European directives in our context. The EU directives make reference to direct taxes: dividend tax, interest income tax, assets transfer, shares exchange, income taxation for the non-residents, and so on, along with the indirect taxes: value-added tax, excise duties, etc. The paper approaches the main provisions within the contents of the European directives as well as the means of their implementation in the Romanian fiscal legislation regarding various types of taxes. The implementation of the European directives has been simultaneous with the establishing of measures concerning fiscal fraud prevention, frauds liable to have a negative impact on the state's consolidated budget.

scholarly journals An East‑West Divide in the European Union? The Visegrad Four States in Search of the Historical Self in National Discourses on European Integration

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-191
Author(s):  
Christopher Walsch
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Member State ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National Discourses ◽  
The Individual ◽  
East West ◽  
The Eu

Abstract This article explores whether a new east‑west divide exists in the enlarged European Union by analysing national discourses on European integration in the Visegrad Four (V4) states. Two V4 foreign policy legacies form the basis of analysis: the “Return to Europe” discourse and the discourses around the reconstruction of the historical self. The article gives evidence that the V4 countries share sovereignty in external policies and thus have a distinct European orientation. V4 national‑conservative governments hold sovereigntist positions, however, in policy areas that they consider falling exclusively within the realm of the member state. Comparison with Western European member states gives evidence that the post-1945 paradigm changes were more profound than those of post-1989 ones of Eastern Europe. This historic legacy can explain the more integrationist orientations in Western Europe. The article concludes that behaviour of the individual V4 state seems to be of greater importance for each member than collective V4 group action. Finally, the article gives an outlook on ways in which solidarity between the Western and Eastern halves of the EU can be exercised in an ideologically diverging Union.

scholarly journals A historical and judicial approach on the transformation of the European Communities, the predecessors of the European Union, into an institutional model across the region

2021 ◽  
pp. 19-23
Author(s):  
Mihail Poalelungi ◽  
◽  
Mihai Poalelungi ◽  
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Regional Integration ◽  
Regional Cooperation ◽  
The European Union ◽  
European Level ◽  
Broad Area ◽  
Institutional Governance ◽  
Institutional Model ◽  
The Eu

The process of European integration has never followed a clear path and the current EU predecessors had never been by far the only efforts of the regional integration in Europe. Created in the 1950s, the European Communities as today’s EU predecessors, have overdue emerged in a very broad area populated by international organizations and various cooperation institutions. This organization, only by matching economic and political challenges, succeeded in becoming the most important cooperation forum between European states. Although in the early 1950s the Western European states could often choose between various forms of regional cooperation, today the EU is frequently seen as the only available at the European level option and the only model of institutional governance.

Ukraine and the European Union

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giselle Bosse
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Regional Integration ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Limited Participation ◽  
Crimean Peninsula ◽  
Eu Membership ◽  
Four Levels ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Eu

In early 2014, a series of dramatic crises in Ukraine generated headlines around the world. Most scholarly attention was placed on the tensions between the West and Russia, and the emergence of a new Cold War, especially following Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula and its military incursion in eastern Ukraine. The relations between Ukraine and the European Union (EU) have often been reduced to debates on whether the EU was to blame for the conflict, having “sleepwalked” into the Ukraine crisis by focusing on technical trade issues and failing to recognize the delicate geopolitical context. Other analysts pointed to the EU’s pursuit of regional hegemony, which has failed to recognize Russia’s legitimate geopolitical and economic interests in Ukraine. In practice, Ukraine-EU relations have been more complex and nuanced, certainly when considering that Ukraine already declared its ambition to “return to Europe” and to seek EU membership with its proclamation of independence, in 1991. Ukraine-EU relations are perhaps best understood along four levels of inquiry. The first is domestic dynamics in Ukraine. Since the end of the Cold War, all Ukrainian governments have underlined the “Europeanness” of Ukraine and have also by and large followed a pro-EU course in their foreign policies, including the government under pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych. However, Ukraine’s European choice has often been limited to foreign-policy declarations. Even the pro-European and reform-oriented governments that led Ukraine after the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2014 Maidan Square protests struggled to introduce far-reaching reforms because of the power of the “iron triangle” of oligarchic rule, corruption, and financial instability. The second line of inquiry concerns Ukraine-Russia relations. Since gaining independence, Ukraine’s strategy has been one of limited participation in Russia’s post-Soviet regional integration initiatives in order to safeguard its independence. However, Russia always used “sticks and carrots” vis-à-vis Ukraine to further its own policy objectives, ranging from offering gas-price discounts to cutting off gas supplies, imposing import bans on Ukrainian produce, and, since 2014, threatening and using the military to force Ukraine to acquiesce to its demands. A third line of inquiry is the EU’s policy toward Ukraine, based on bilateral relations and cooperation through the European Neighbourhood Policy and the Eastern Partnership. The EU has approached Ukraine as one among several neighbors in its attempt to build a ring of well-governed countries along its borders. Although the EU’s enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe generated more interest in Ukraine, member states have consistently ruled out EU membership for Ukraine. A fourth theme of inquiry is that of EU-Russia relations in the wider international context. Throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s, the EU clearly prioritized good political and economic relations with Russia over its relationship with its neighbors in the East, including Ukraine. Even when Russia annexed Crimea and when evidence of the role of Russian forces in eastern Ukraine had become impossible to ignore, the EU struggled to find a common stance on Russia.

scholarly journals The Use of Artificial Neural Networks to Analyze Greenhouse Gas and Air Pollutant Emissions from the Mining and Quarrying Sector in the European Union

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 1925 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jarosław Brodny ◽  
Magdalena Tutak
Keyword(s):  
Neural Networks ◽  
European Union ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Value Added ◽  
Air Pollutant ◽  
Pollutant Emissions ◽  
Mining Activities ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Eu Countries ◽  
The Eu

The European Union (EU) is considered one of the most economically developed regions worldwide. It was driven by the mining industry for several decades. Despite certain changes in this area, a number of mineral and energy resources are still being mined in the EU. Nevertheless, mining activities are accompanied by many unfavorable phenomena, especially for the environment, such as greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions. The great diversity of the EU countries in terms of the size of the “mining and quarrying” sector means that both the volume and structure of these emissions in individual countries varies. In order to assess the current state of affairs, research was conducted to look at the structure and volume of these emissions in individual EU countries. The aim of the study was to divide these countries into homogenous groups by structure and volume of studied emissions. In order to reflect both the specificity and diversity of the EU countries, this division was based on the seven most important gases (CO2, CH4, N2O, NH3, NMVOC, CO, NOx) and two types of particulate matter (PM 2.5, PM 10) emitted into the atmosphere from the sector in question. The volume of studied emissions was also compared to the number of inhabitants of each EU country and the gross value added (GVA) by the mining and quarrying sector. This approach enabled a new and broader view on the issue of gas and air pollutant emissions associated with mining activities. The artificial Kohonen’s neural networks were used for the analysis. The developed method, the analyses and the results constitute a new approach to studying such emissions in the EU. Research that looks only at the emission of harmful substances into the environment in relation to their absolute values fail to fully reflect the complexity of this problem in individual EU countries. The presented approach and the results should broaden the knowledge in the field of harmful substance emissions from the mining and quarrying sector, which should be utilized in the process of implementing the new European climate strategy referred to as “The European Green Deal”.

scholarly journals Multidimensional comparative analysis of the competitive capacity of the European Union countries and geographical regions

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 487-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Cheba ◽  
Katarzyna Szopik-Depczyńska
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
International Comparisons ◽  
Value Added ◽  
Basic Question ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Eu Countries ◽  
Geographical Regions ◽  
European Union Countries ◽  
The Eu

Research background: The basic question we ask is whether is it possible to talk in today’s globalizing world about the uniform of the competitiveness of the economies? Posing such questions is particularly important in the case of political and economic structures such as the European Union. The competitiveness of the economies is now one of the most frequently discussed topics. In this work, due to the context of the conducted research (international comparisons of the EU countries’ economies) the competitiveness of international economies will be considered in terms of international competitive capacity. In addition to the problems associated with defining this concept, there are also important dilemmas concerned with the measurement of the competitiveness. In the performed comparative analyses of European economies the research results presented within reports of „Global Competitiveness Index” will be used. Purpose of the article: The main purpose of the paper is to conduct a multidimensional comparative analysis of the competitive capacity of the European Union countries and geo-graphical regions of Europe. Methods: In the paper, to study the spatial differentiation of the EU countries and geograph-ical regions of Europe in the context of their competitive capacity, the taxonomic measure of development based on median vector Weber was used. Findings & Value added: As a result, the classification and the typological groups of EU countries and geographical regions of Europe calculated on the basis of the features describing their competitive capacity arises. The value added of these research is the analysis of competitive capacity conducted not only for EU countries, but also for geographical regions of Europe. In the paper, the verification of criteria using by World Economic Forum to assess the competitive capacity of EU economies was also conducted. In this area of the research, because of high level of correlation, many features from initial database were deleted.

scholarly journals The Hidden Business Costs Of European Union Enlargement: The Case Of The Czech Republic

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
John Phillips ◽  
Emil Stark ◽  
Jerry Wheat
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Czech Republic ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Eu Accession ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
European Union Enlargement ◽  
Western European ◽  
The Eu

Enlargement of the European Union (EU) will take place on May 1, 2004. Nine countries from Eastern Europe will become full fledged members of the union. While these countries have met the EU accession criteria many are not really ready to compete with Western European companies. One of the major impediments for firms in the East is the hidden costs of joining the union. This paper explores some of the case of the Czech Republic, what hidden costs are currently apparent, and suggests changes that would make the Czech Republic more competitive in Western Europe.

scholarly journals Brexit and the Differentiated European (Dis)Integration

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 621-646
Author(s):  
Angélica Szucko
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Regional Integration ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Integration Model ◽  
Differentiated Integration ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Eu Project ◽  
The Eu

Abstract On 25 March 2017, the European Union celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Treaties of Rome, which established ‘an ever-closer union’ as a fundamental principle for European regional integration. Only four days later, the United Kingdom delivered an official letter triggering its withdrawal process from the Community. How could we comprehend Brexit integrative and disintegrative dynamics to the EU? The UK’s decision to leave the EU alongside recent crises in the Community and the spread of Eurosceptic movements fostered studies about disintegration dynamics. This article presents the current debate about differentiated (dis)integration based on up-to-date related literature. Next, it proposes a framework to assess the recent shifts in the UK-EU relationship and its contradictory effects on the EU project. The main argument of the paper is that the UK’s relationship with the European Union moved from an internal differentiated integration to a proposal of internal differentiated disintegration and, thereafter, to a process of external differentiated disintegration. Moreover, although Brexit means disintegration by one Member State, its effects on the EU project are mixed, initially promoting an integrative boom among the EU27 members, while at the same time neglecting disintegrating forces that could undermine the traditional European integration model.

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