scholarly journals Demographic potential of the countries that have applied for the European Union membership

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (17) ◽  
pp. 135-145
Author(s):  
Elżbieta Sojka

Demographic potential of the countries that have applied for the European Union membership The purpose of the article is to analyse the demographic potential of the countries that have applied for the European Union membership against the background of the EU member states. The study involves eight candidate states: Croatia, Iceland, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Turkey, i.e. the countries that have been approved by the European Commission as official candidates for the EU membership, as well as Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, i.e. the potential candidates. Albania and Serbia applied officially for the EU membership in 2009. Favourable population age structure and relatively high fertility rate that occur in these countries determine a significant demographic potential they can bring to the EU after their accession. Decrease in infant mortality rate and extension of life expectancy illustrate positive changes that have been taking place in these countries for the last several years.

Author(s):  
Natalia Cuglesan

The accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the European Union (EU) is portrayed as one of the most challenging enlargement waves in the history of the EU Integration Process. A member of the EU since 2007, Romania had to overcome significant obstacles to qualify for EU membership. Not fully prepared for EU accession, Romania required post-accession monitoring through the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism in order to stimulate compliance in the fields of corruption, the judiciary, and the rule of law. The problems of the unfinished transition have impacted on its positive post-accession evolution in the first 10 years of EU membership. It has accomplished limited results in the field of democratic consolidation, combating high-level political corruption and experiencing episodes of democratic backsliding. Also, in this period, it has failed to materialize strategic opportunities; it proved unsuccessful in its efforts to join Schengen or in adopting the currency. Playing a more substantial role in EU policymaking proved to be another shortcoming of the Romanian political elite, stressing the incremental pace of Europeanization. Still, despite this pessimistic account, in many respects, Romania has not fallen behind. It had a general compliant behavior with EU legislation, in line with other EU member states; support for the EU has remained high throughout the decade, an indication of the benefits it has brought to broad categories of people. It is not surprising, as more than 3 million people work in an EU member state. Economic growth was another positive side of the first 10 years—despite the adverse effects of the economic crisis—with a substantial GDP growth rate. And not to be dismissed , a great benefit was the consolidation of civil society.


Author(s):  
Matteo Bonomi ◽  
Milica Uvalic

Serbia is negotiating European Union (EU) membership, a process that started in 2014 after the Brussels-mediated agreement between Kosovo and Serbia was signed in April 2013. Although the Federal Republic (FR) of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) was officially included into the EU’s Stabilization and Association Process soon after the fall of the Milošević regime in October 2000, complex political issues have prevented its faster progress toward the EU. EU measures after 2001 in the areas of financial assistance, trade, and legal harmonization have sustained in a major way the country’s political and economic reforms, facilitating fast economic integration with the EU economy, financial and banking integration, the adoption of many laws in conformity with the acquis communuataire, new business opportunities, and increasing foreign direct investment. However, the Serbia–EU integration process has also been accompanied by strict political conditionality that has greatly delayed the establishment of contractual relations. Despite major efforts of various governments to comply with EU conditions, it was only in late April 2008 that Serbia concluded a Stabilization and Association Agreement with the EU, which has paved the way for obtaining candidate status in 2012 and the opening of EU accession negotiations in 2014. In the meantime, EU’s enlargement negotiations framework has been strengthened further, making the negotiation talks much more complex and demanding. In addition to Serbia’s insufficient compliance with accession criteria, particularly reforms of the judiciary and public administration, the contested issue of Kosovo’s independence continues to pose a major threat to Serbia’s entry into the EU. Despite the absence of a common position on the part of the EU, given that Kosovo has still not been recognized by five EU member states, the limited progress in the Belgrade–Priština EU-facilitated dialogue represents one of the major obstacles for Serbia’s EU membership. Serbia’s entry into the EU, which could possibly take place in 2025, is likely to bring many benefits to the country and its population, but also to the EU, as this is a region of not only risks but also opportunities.


2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 201-228
Author(s):  
Ivana Bestvina Bukvić ◽  
Kristina Bjelić ◽  
Marija Šain

The cultural and creative sectors are highly ranked by the number of employees at the European Union (EU) level and they represent an economic force that proved its resilience to economic changes due to rapid and easy adaptations to market and innovation trends. In order to achieve the objectives of the Europe 2020 Strategy, in 2013 the Regulation (EU) No 1295/2013 was passed by the European Parliament and the Council to establish the Creative Europe Programme (2014–2020) for support to cultural and creative sectors. However, it was found that the Republic of Croatia lacked systematic monitoring of the cultural and creative sectors (including the IT sector) as they are not sufficiently and well positioned in national policies and strategies. The research has been conducted into the level of success of the EU and its regulatory framework in stimulating cultural and creative sectors in developing countries. The paper analyzes the extent to which the Republic of Croatia adopted and applied the opportunities offered by the European Union programmes in financing the projects in cultural and creative sectors based on the results of the Creative Europe Programme, the Culture Sub-programme. The authors conducted the comparative analysis into the official programme results achieved in the Republic of Croatia, Slovenia and other EU member states. The research results show the position of the Republic of Croatia in relation to other countries, the influence of EU membership length and the level of innovation on the total number of positive applications evaluations in this field.


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.


2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 79-99
Author(s):  
Justyna Misiągiewicz

Nowadays, energy security is a growing concern in state foreignpolicy. Interdependency in the energy field is a very important dimensionof contemporary relations between states and transnational corporations.Energy security is becoming a key issue for the European Union (EU). TheUnion is one of the world’s fastest-growing energy markets and the biggestimporter of energy resources. For the foreseeable future, Europe’s energydependence will probably increase. Facing a shortage of energy, Europe isdependent on imports and the EU member states need to diversify their energysupplies. The Caspian region contains some of the largest undevelopedoil and gas reserves in the world. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, thenewly independent Caspian states became open to foreign investment. Thegrowing energy needs have given the EU a strong interest in developing tieswith energy-producing states in the Caspian region to build the necessarypipeline infrastructure. In this analysis, the pipeline infrastructure that exists orwill be built in the near future will be presented. The analysis will concentrateon routes transporting gas from the Caspian region and the most importantproblems and solutions in designing the midstream energy system in the region.The key aim of the article is to analyse the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC)infrastructure project, which will inevitably contribute to the EU’s energy securityinterest.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Vincent DELHOMME

Amidst a growing interest from European Union (EU) Member States, the European Commission recently announced that it would put forward a legislative proposal for the adoption of a harmonised and mandatory front-of-pack nutrition labelling scheme at the EU level. The present contribution discusses the implications of such an adoption, taking a behavioural, legal and policy angle. It introduces first the concept of front-of-pack nutrition labelling and the existing evidence regarding its effects on consumer behaviour and dietary habits. It then presents the legal framework currently applicable to (front-of-pack) nutrition labelling in the EU and discusses some of the main political and practical aspects involved with the development of a common EU front-of-pack label.


Author(s):  
Eugenio Salvati

AbstractThe outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has placed severe pressure on the EU’s capacity to provide a timely and coordinated response capable of curbing the pandemic’s disastrous economic and social effects on EU member states. In this situation, the supranational institutions and their models of action are evidently under pressure, seeming incapable of leading the EU out of the stormy waters of the present crisis. The article frames the first months of management of the COVID-19 crisis at EU level as characterised by the limited increase in the level of steering capacity by supranational institutions, due to the reaffirmed centrality of the intergovernmental option. To explain this situation, the article considers the absence of the institutional capacity/legitimacy to extract resources from society(ies), and the subsequent impossibility of guaranteeing an effective and autonomous process of political (re)distribution, the key factors accounting for the weakness of vertical political integration in the response to the COVID-19 challenge. This explains why during the COVID-19 crisis as well, the pattern followed by the EU is rather similar to past patterns, thus confirming that this has fed retrenchment aimed at the enforcement of the intergovernmental model and the defence of the most sensitive core state powers against inference from supranational EU institutions.


2009 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksander Lust

In referenda held in 2003, over 90% of Lithuanians supported joining the European Union (EU), while only two-thirds of Estonians did. Why? This article shows that Lithuanians and Estonians had different economic expectations about the EU. Most Lithuanians hoped that EU membership would help Lithuania overcome its economic backwardness and isolation. By contrast, many Estonians worried that the accession would reinforce Estonia's underdevelopment and dependency on the West. I argue that these expectations reflected the two countries' strategies of economic reform. Lithuania sold state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to their managers and continued to trade heavily with Russia, which slowed down the modernization of its economy. Estonia sold SOEs to foreigners and reoriented its trade rapidly from Russia to the West, which hurt its traditional sectors (particularly agriculture) and infrastructure.


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.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabell Böhm

Climate change litigation is becoming increasingly important. This thesis deals with the question whether state liability claims against Germany or the EU can be justified, if commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are not met. For this purpose, the claim under public liability according to § 839 German Civil Code in connection with Art. 34 German Basic Law, the liability of the EU-Member States and the liability of the European Union according to Art. 340 II TFEU are discussed. At the end of the thesis, considerations on the practical perspectives of state liability are made in order to improve their prospects of success.


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