scholarly journals Regional Analysis of New EU Member States in the Context of Cohesion Policy

2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 71-90
Author(s):  
Milan Viturka ◽  
Vladimír Žítek ◽  
Viktorie Klímová ◽  
Petr Tonev

Regional Analysis of New EU Member States in the Context of Cohesion Policy The paper concentrates on the new European Union member states, i.e. the states of central and eastern Europe which entered the Union in 2004 (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Slovenia) and 2007 (Bulgaria and Romania). The basis of the paper is the evaluation of the cohesion policy in the countries in question, which are then analysed at the level of NUTS 2 regions (cohesion regions). The aim of the socioeconomic analysis is to assess the economic level of the regions and to use the results to form their typology. Ten characteristic indicators were chosen so that the study was as complex as possible. For each indicator in the examined countries the average was calculated, which allowed for a considerable increase of the information relevance of the study conclusions. For the cartographic representation of the regional differentiation intervals based on this average and the standard deviation were used. The final part of the study presents a concluding synthesis together with the above-mentioned typology of the regions. The results are interpreted in the context of the optimal strategy selection for the regional policy determined by the EU cohesion policy.

Buildings ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Belinda Brucker Juricic ◽  
Mario Galic ◽  
Sasa Marenjak

This paper reviews the recent literature on skill and labour shortages in the labour market with special emphasis on the construction sector in the European Union Member States, foreseeing the Construction 4.0 era. The free movement of people is one of the rights of all citizens of the EU which also includes the free movement of workers. Labour shortages in the EU are expected to increase in the future due to a declining population and an ageing workforce. In order to recognize and forecast labour shortages, EU Member states use a variety of instruments but they do not answer as to whether it is possible to use migrant labour to appease those shortages. There are several systems used to classify labour shortages in the EU Member states. Most of the countries classify labour shortages in relation to different sectors or occupation groups as well as by skill levels, but in some Member States, classification is made according to the type of employment. Instruments used to measure labour shortages significantly differ from country to country. Several criteria are used for creating lists of shortage occupations and most of the criteria include demand side and supply side criteria. A majority of the Member States are facing labour and skill shortages in various sectors and the construction sector is not an exception. As total employment in the construction sector decreased, so did the share of employed migrants. Labour shortages in the construction sector can be eased by the availability of a labour supply willing to accept unqualified and low-paying jobs. The construction sector seeks low-, medium-, and high-skilled individuals and is most likely the sector where most of the incoming migrants will be working, which has an impact on the development and implementation dynamic of Construction 4.0.


2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 83-98
Author(s):  
Janina Witkowska

The aim of this paper is to discuss new trends that have occurred in the policies of the EU and China towards foreign direct investment (FDI), to examine some implications of the EU‑China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) – which is currently being negotiated – for their bilateral relations, and to assess the role which China’s “One Belt One Road’ (OBOR) initiative might play in its relations with the new EU Member States. The EU established freedom of capital movement with third countries; however, the introduction of the common investment policy has encountered some obstacles. These are related to investor protection and ISDS issues. In turn, China is carrying out an independent state policy towards foreign investment with limited liberalization of FDI flows. The negotiated EU‑China CAI is expected to create conditions conducive to bilateral foreign investment flows, and it might bring positive effects for their economies in the future. However, the progress made thus far in the negotiations is still limited. The relations between China and the new EU Member states (CEE countries) are characterized by common interests in the field of FDI flows. The new EU countries are interested in attracting Chinese FDI and seem not to show the fears that have arisen in the old EU countries.


Author(s):  
Vivien A. Schmidt

This chapter examines the impact of Europeanization upon the national economies of European Union member states. It considers how successful the EU has been in promoting its goal of building a single European economy out of the diverse national economies of its member states; how much convergence has occurred among EU member states, and how much divergence remains; and what impact the economic crisis beginning in 2008 has had on the EU and its member states. To answer these questions, the chapter traces the development of Europe’s national economies from the post-war period until today. It also analyses the impact of globalization and Europeanization on post-war varieties of capitalism before concluding with reflections on future patterns of political economic development in the EU in light of the economic crisis.


2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-154
Author(s):  
Zdenka Obuljen Zoričić ◽  
Boris Cota ◽  
Nataša Erjavec

AbstractDue to negotiations on accession to the EU, the new EU member states from Central and Eastern Europe went through the financial opening. In the pre-crisis period followed by high liquidity in global markets, most of the EU new member states experienced rapid credit growth, which conditioned the appreciation of the exchange rate. External imbalances and vulnerabilities built up. Countries experienced deterioration in their current accounts. This paper investigates the link between financial openness, real effective exchange rate, financial crisis and current account balance within the Panel Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) framework for 11 new European Union members during the period from 1999 to 2016. The results obtained by the use of pooled mean group estimator (PMG) show that in the long run, financial openness has a significant negative impact on the current account balance. In the short run, crisis significantly influences the current account balance having a positive sign.


2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hrant Kostanyan

By applying the rational choice principal–agent model, this article examines the European Union member states’ principal control of the European External Action Service (eeas) agent. More specifically, the article applies mechanisms of agency monitoring, control and sanctions that are inherent in the principal–agent model to analyse the establishment and functioning of the eeas. These mechanisms aim to ensure the eeas’s compliance with its mandate, thereby curtailing its ability to pursue own objectives that are independent from the principal. The findings reveal that the eeas is tightly controlled by the eu member states. Moreover the European Commission has tools to exercise horizontal checks vis-à-vis the eeas. The application of the principal–agent model to control the eeas is not without its limits. The model falls short of conceptualizing the role of the European Parliament, which remains an outlier to this model.


Author(s):  
Cristina Contartese

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze a particular aspect of the so-called Dublin Regulation, whose aim is to determine the European Union (EU) Member State responsible for examining an asylum application, that is, the presumption that the EU Member States are “safe countries.” Although the notion of “safe country” is on the base of the Dublin Regulation functioning mechanism, as it implies that any EU Member States can transfer an asylum seeker to any other EU country which is responsible, the authors contend that the safety of an EU Member State can be given as presumed for the purpose of asylum seekers. The analysis of the present work starts, firstly, with the examination of the notion of “safe country” under the Dublin Regulation. In the second part, relying on the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECHR) case-law, it will be discussed to what extent the Court of Strasbourg clarifies the notion of “safe countries” and the test it applies to it. Finally, the Commission’s proposal for a recasting of the Dublin Regulation will be analysed with the aim of foresee possible future developments of the EU law mechanisms to rebut such a presumption as applied to the EU Member States. It will emerge that in order to assess the safety of an EU Member State, attention has to be given to the prohibition of both direct and indirect refoulement as well as to the effective remedy at the EU Member State’s domestic level.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus D.W. Stoffels

In this study, the author addresses the intriguing, topical but little-studied question of whether the (old and new) EU Member States should, upon accession to the EU, be obliged to introduce the euro. To begin with, he examines—while deliberately ignoring the problematic exchange rate convergence criterion—whether introducing the euro should in principle be obligatory. After having answered this question in the affirmative, he takes a closer look at the exchange rate convergence criterion. He concludes that a country’s formal participation in the ERM II is a necessary but insufficient requirement for that country to meet the exchange rate convergence criterion. However, since ERM II membership is, for its part, voluntary, this also makes a country’s decision to introduce the euro completely voluntary. Accordingly, a Member State like Sweden is entitled to simply circumvent introducing the euro by simply refraining from participating in the ERM II. The author continuously refers to how different groups of Member States have been treated in the past with regard to them introducing the euro.


2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 5-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Wyszkowska-Kuna

The aim of this paper is to study and compare the competitiveness of the new EU member states in international trade in knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS). The first part of the paper presents a definition of KIBS trade, indicators to measure competitiveness in international service trade, and a short review of research in this field. The second part of the study is empirical. First the author carries out an overall analysis of transactions on KIBS trade in the countries involved. Then the competitiveness of the new EU member states in KIBS export is studied (in total KIBS and in each category of KIBS). International competitiveness is measured by export performance, trade balance and the RCA index. The author compares the competitiveness in KIBS exports between the analyzed countries, and tries to answer the question whether it could have been positively affected by their accession to the EU. The paper uses the WTO database. The analyzed period covers the years 2000–2013, because data on particular categories of ‘Other business services’ have been available only since 2000. The analysis refers to the 12 countries that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007.


2011 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 211-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jolanta Aidukaite

The paper reviews recent socio-economic changes in the 10 new EU member states of Central and Eastern Europe and the earlier and latest debates on the emergence of the post-communist welfare state regime. It asks two questions: are the new EU member states more similar to each other in their social problems encountered than to the rest of the EU world? Do they exhibit enough common socio-economic and institutional features to group them into the distinct/unified post-communist welfare regime that deviates from any well-known welfare state typology? The findings of this paper indicate that despite some slight variation within, the new EU countries exhibit lower indicators compared to the EU-15 as it comes to the minimum wage and social protection expenditure. The degree of material deprivation and the shadow economy is on average also higher if compared to the EU-15 or the EU-27. However, then it comes to at-risk-of-poverty rate after social transfers or Gini index, some Eastern European outliers especially the Check Republic, but also Slovenia, Slovakia and Hungary perform the same or even better than the old capitalist democracies. Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, however, show many similarities in their social indicators and performances and this group of countries never perform better than the EU-15 or the EU-27 averages. Nevertheless, the literature reviews on welfare state development in the CEE region reveal a number of important institutional features in support of identifying the distinct/unified post-communist welfare regime. Most resilient of it are: an insurance-based programs that played a major part in the social protection system; high take-up of social security; relatively low social security benefits; increasing signs of liberalization of social policy; and the experience of the Soviet/Communist type of welfare state, which implies still deeply embedded signs of solidarity and universalism.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document