scholarly journals Crisis in the Mediterranean neighbourhood: A test for the European union migration policy

2015 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 328-348
Author(s):  
Nikola Stojanovic

The paper analyses the implementation of the EU immigration and asylum policy and the control of EU member states' external borders in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. The author argues that the European Union pursues an exclusive version of those policies aimed at reducing the immigration pressure as well as preventing illegal border crossings into the member states. Two key mechanisms have been identified in the EU policy implementation: 1) a restrictive border control regime, and 2) agreements to transfer border management and supervision tasks to the third countries (transitional countries). The author emphasizes that the development of an exclusive migration strategy was not followed by the needed changes of the inclusive aspects of the EU immigration and asylum policy and the control of external borders; in fact, the EU member state's asylum systems were not preventively strengthened as to enhance national capacities to receive and integrate new migrants. The dramatic increase of the number of illegal crossings of the European Union external borders in 2014 caused the collapse of the EU immigration strategy, and failures in national asylum systems of the member states. The author concludes that partially integrated EU immigration and asylum policy at national level led to the dysfunctional external border management and the EU's loss of control over massive immigration influxes.

Author(s):  
Zinaida Sviashchenko

The article is devoted to the actual issues of the European Union migration policy with regard to the countries of North Africa. Indeed, the intensive migration movement that has recently taken place in Europe has forced the EU to develop a new, adequate migration policy that would be able to effectively address the problems encountered in this area. The reasons and the current state of migration processes are investigated. The main directions and areas of regulation of migration processes in the European Union concerning the countries of North Africa are highlighted. In particular, attention is drawn to such an important direction of the EU migration policy as the fight against illegal migration. The main problems of regulation of migration processes, in particular, labor migrants and refugees, are outlined. The substantial quantitative and qualitative changes that have taken place in the migration processes from the countries of North Africa to Europe have been analyzed. The general economic consequences of migration from the countries of North Africa for donor countries and recipient countries are described. Attention is drawn to the issue of professional training of Africans for further employment in the EU. It is concluded that migration in the EU countries plays a special role due to the aging of the population in European countries and the need to attract labor from third countries. Migration flows between the countries of North Africa and the EU are particularly intense. This is due to the geographical proximity of these regions, as well as close economic, political and cultural ties. Among the priority areas of the EU migration policy, such as border management and the return of illegal migrants to their homeland, convergence of Member States practice in strengthening the common European regime, sharing responsibilities and ensuring the acceptance of refugees with their further resettlement among EU member states.


2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-75
Author(s):  
Gediminas Valantiejus

AbstractIn 2016, the European Union has launched a new and ambitious project for the future regulation of international trade in the European Union and the rules of its taxation: since the 1 May 2016, the new Union Customs Code (UCC) has entered into force. It revokes the old Community Customs Code (CCC), which was applied since 1992, and passed in the form of EU regulation sets brand-new rules for the application of Common Customs Tariff and calculation of customs duties (tariffs) in all the EU Member States. It is oriented to the creation of the paperless environment for the formalisation of international trade operations (full electronic declaration of customs procedures) and ensuring of a more uniform administration of customs duties in the tax and customs authorities of the Member States in the European Union. Therefore, the article raises and seeks to answer the problematic question whether the Member States of the European Union themselves are ready to implement these ambitious goals and does the actual practice of the Member States support that (considering the practice of the Republic of Lithuania). The research, which is based on the analysis of case law in the Republic of Lithuania (case study of recent tax disputes between the taxpayers and customs authorities that arose immediately before and after the entry into force of the UCC), leads to the conclusion that many problematic areas that may negatively impact the functioning of the new Customs Code remain and must be improved, including an adoption of new legislative solutions.


2020 ◽  
pp. 43-52

Money laundering and terrorism financing are serious and internationally emerging issues that must be approached and confronted at European Union level. The latest terrorist attacks and periodic banking scandals highlight the necessity for additional attention in this particular direction. In regard to the internal EU market, financial flows are integrated and trans-border by nature, thus funds can circulate rapidly, from one country to another, offering the possibility to perpetrators and terrorists to transfer money across Member State avoiding detection by authorities. This specific situation generates the necessity to identify and understand the particular ML/TF risks generated by services and products offered within the EU economic and financial ecosystem. In order to ensure an efficient mechanism for identifying the ML/TF risks associated with the products and services provided on the territory of European Union, the 4AMLD provides the obligation of the EU Commission to perform once in two years the so-called European Union Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Supranational Risk Assessment. Since 2017 two supra-national risk assessments were carried out and the final results are used by Member States to monitor the evolution of risks at Union level and to implement the necessary recommendation for ensuring a proper minimization of threats and vulnerabilities at the national level. This paper aims to analyze, understand and compare the main outcomes of the two assessments, namely the identified risks and their links with vulnerable sectors, as well as the evolution or devolution of certain risks as a result of mitigation measures applied by EU Member States. Another task of this article is to provide additional recommendations in terms of mitigating measures and efforts, which must be taken into account by Member States


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krisztina Juhász

Abstract The European Union and its member states are facing one of their biggest challenges in recent years due to the surge in migration. This crisis saw more than a million migrants and refugees cross into Europe in 2015. Solutions and policies have been advanced at both the European and national levels, keeping in mind that migration policy is an area of shared competence under Article 4 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). On 13 May 2015, the EU adopted the European Agenda on Migration, which set out immediate and medium-term actions designed to tackle the crisis more effectively. Earlier, in October 2013, the Hungarian government adopted its own migration strategy. The first part of this study provides some insight into the aims and measures contained in the European and Hungarian migration strategies. In the second part, I focus on the steps taken by the Hungarian government regarding asylum policy and crisis management. I conclude that the actions and communications of the Hungarian government are contrary to both these strategic documents.


Author(s):  
Aleksei Sorbale ◽  

This study analyzes 25,516 cases of violation of the European Union law by 28 Member States from 1993 to 2018. I strive to outline the national level determinants of differentiation in the pool of member countries by the total number of the EU law violations. As a key method of analysis, logistic regression is used, where factors of GDP per capita (PPP), polarization of the parliament, fragmentation of the party system, regional strategies and quality of governance are used as country attributes. The analysis demonstrates that all country attributes are significantly related to all four quartiles of the outcome, which rank member states depending on the number of violations during the period under review: from the smallest share of violated directives (Q1) to the largest share of violated directives (Q4). The results of the study demonstrate the empirical relevance of the theoretical perspective of “worlds of compliance” formulated by G. Falkner et al. (2007) for the categorization of EU member states in their reactions to the compliance efforts of the EU.


2020 ◽  
pp. 97-105
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Kusztykiewicz-Fedurek

Political security is very often considered through the prism of individual states. In the scholar literature in-depth analyses of this kind of security are rarely encountered in the context of international entities that these countries integrate. The purpose of this article is to draw attention to key aspects of political security in the European Union (EU) Member States. The EU as a supranational organisation, gathering Member States first, ensures the stability of the EU as a whole, and secondly, it ensures that Member States respect common values and principles. Additionally, the EU institutions focus on ensuring the proper functioning of the Eurozone (also called officially “euro area” in EU regulations). Actions that may have a negative impact on the level of the EU’s political security include the boycott of establishing new institutions conducive to the peaceful coexistence and development of states. These threats seem to have a significant impact on the situation in the EU in the face of the proposed (and not accepted by Member States not belonging to the Eurogroup) Eurozone reforms concerning, inter alia, appointment of the Minister of Economy and Finance and the creation of a new institution - the European Monetary Fund.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dmytro S. Melnyk ◽  
Oleg A. Parfylo ◽  
Oleksii V. Butenko ◽  
Olena V. Tykhonova ◽  
Volodymyr O. Zarosylo

Purpose The experience of most European Union (EU) Member States has demonstrated effective anti-corruption practices, making the EU one of the leaders in this field, which can be used as an example to learn from in the field of anti-corruption. The purpose of this study is to analyze and identify the main features of anti-corruption legislation and strategies to prevent corruption at the national and supranational levels of the EU. Design/methodology/approach The following methods were used in the work: discourse and content analysis, method of system analysis, method of induction and deduction, historical-legal method, formal-legal method, comparative-legal method and others. Using the historical and legal method, the evolution of the formation of anti-corruption regulation at the supranational level was revealed. The comparative law method helped to compare the practices of the Member States of the EU in the field of anti-corruption regulation. The formal-legal method is used for generalization, classification and systematization of research results, as well as for the correct presentation of these results. Findings The main results, prospects for further research and the value of the material. The paper offers a critical review of key EU legal instruments on corruption, from the first initiatives taken in the mid-1990s to recent years. Originality/value In addition, the article analyzes the relevant anti-corruption legislation in the EU member states that are in the top 10 countries with the lowest level of corruption, namely: Denmark, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany and Luxembourg.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Hadjigeorgiou ◽  
Elpidoforos S. Soteriades ◽  
Anastasios Philalithis ◽  
Anna Psaroulaki ◽  
Yiannis Tselentis ◽  
...  

This paper is a comparative survey of the National Food Safety Systems (NFSS) of the European Union (EU) Member-States (MS) and the Central EU level. The main organizational structures of the NFSS, their legal frameworks, their responsibilities, their experiences, and challenges relating to food safety are discussed. Growing concerns about food safety have led the EU itself, its MS and non-EU countries, which are EU trade-partners, to review and modify their food safety systems. Our study suggests that the EU and 22 out of 27 Member States (MS) have reorganized their NFSS by establishing a single food safety authority or a similar organization on the national or central level. In addition, the study analyzes different approaches towards the establishment of such agencies. Areas where marked differences in approaches were seen included the division of responsibilities for risk assessment (RA), risk management (RM), and risk communication (RC). We found that in 12 Member States, all three areas of activity (RA, RM, and RC) are kept together, whereas in 10 Member States, risk management is functionally or institutionally separate from risk assessment and risk communication. No single ideal model for others to follow for the organization of a food safety authority was observed; however, revised NFSS, either in EU member states or at the EU central level, may be more effective from the previous arrangements, because they provide central supervision, give priority to food control programs, and maintain comprehensive risk analysis as part of their activities.


2021 ◽  
Vol 900 (1) ◽  
pp. 012035
Author(s):  
P Polko

Abstract The European Green Deal (EGD) is a set of policy initiatives by the European Union with the overarching and ambitious aim of making Europe climate neutral in 2050. Being world’s first ‘climate-neutral bloc’ and fulfilling other goals extending to many different sectors, including construction, biodiversity, energy, transport, food and others has also an impact on different sectors of security. The implementation of the tasks set out in the EGD requires taking into account the necessity of sustainability in reaching the goals, including not violating sectoral security in the EU Member States. Nexus approach might be useful in the processes of finding and implementation of particular solutions.


Author(s):  
Artur Nowak-Far

AbstractAt present, the European rule of law enforcement framework under Article 7 TEU (RLF) is vulnerable to unguaranteed, discretionary influences of the Member States. This vulnerability arises from its procedural format which requires high thresholds in decision-making with the effect that this procedure is prone to be terminated by the EU Member States likely to be scrutinized under it, if only they collude. Yet, the Framework may prove effective to correct serious breaches against human rights (in the context of ineffective rule of law standards). The European Commission is bound to pursue the RLF effectiveness for the sake of achieving relative uniformity of application of EU law (at large), and making the European Union a credible actor and co-creator of international legal order. The RLF is an important tool for the maintenance of relative stability of human rights and the rule of law in the EU despite natural divergence propensity resulting from the procedural autonomy of the EU Member States. By achieving this stability, the EU achieves significant political weight in international dialogue concerning human rights and the rule of law and preserves a high level of its global credibility in this context. Thus, RLF increases the EU’s effectiveness in promoting the European model of their identification and enforcement.


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