scholarly journals The Status of the European Integration Process of the Western Balkan Countries

Author(s):  
Agata Domachowska ◽  

For many years, the priority of foreign policy determined by subsequent governments of the six Western Balkan countries, i.e., Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia has been their accession to the European Union. Yet, in recent years, this process has slowed down, and so it can be assumed that in the coming years there will be no further enlargement of the EU to include any of the Western Balkan countries. The following article is aimed at analysing the present status of European integration with regard to the aforementioned states, and discusses the causes of regression in this process which can be identified on the side of the non-EU Western Balkan states and the European Union itself. Their integration is also a key issue in the context of the increasingly stronger presence of non-EU players such as China, Russia, and Turkey, all competing with the European Union for influence in this important region. The study was based on discourse analysis (including the critical discourse analysis approach) and content analysis.

2020 ◽  
pp. 175048132098215
Author(s):  
Petre Breazu ◽  
Göran Eriksson

The lifting of work restrictions for Romanian and Bulgarian citizens in the EU, in January 2014, encountered much resistance both in European political discourse and the media, as these migrants became demonised and presented as social and economic threats. In this article, we show how the Romanian press dealt with such discriminatory discourses against the Romanian migrants. We conduct a thorough Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA) of news items published in Romanian press, prior to the lifting of work restrictions, and we argue that the Roma emerged as the perfect scapegoats that could explain the deviant and unruly behaviours ascribed by some western media to ‘Romanians’. We also show how racism toward the Roma, referred here as Romaphobia, invokes non-racial practices and instead builds on a reverse victimhood narrative. Such discourses relate in a broader sense to well-established discursive practices in Romanian context but also to the political climate across Europe which is marked by increased intolerance toward the Roma. It is the mixture of stereotypical discourses and populist rhetoric that makes racism towards the Roma appear naturalised and increasingly more difficult to challenge.


2021 ◽  
pp. 74-82
Author(s):  
Marina Haustova

Problem setting. The article analyzes that in the XXI century. the category of “legal policy” is being actively formed, which reflects a multifaceted reality: ways of legal development of society, modernization of the country’s legal system, processes of law optimization. It is emphasized that this category and its priorities and goals began to be developed in a new format after the independence of Ukraine and the gradual definition of the main vector of its development – integration into the European community. The idea of European integration is a conscious and natural strategic choice of Ukrainian society, confirmed by many trials. In this situation, the state leadership must continue to shape its own legal policy as an important component of public policy, a means of consolidating and ensuring the political course of the country, sanctioned by the will of the people, reflected in the activities of government. Analysis of recent researches and publications. Theoretical developments of the principles of legal policy were initiated in the scientific works of domestic and foreign lawyers of the late 19th – early 20th century: B. Kistyakovsky, M. Korkunov, S. Muromtsev, L. Petrazhitsky, G. Shershenevich etc., who considered this policy as an applied science designed to promote the development of better law. Among the scientific areas of legal science of the XXI century. The problem of legal policy occupies one of the leading places, which is justified, as with the help of legal policy many different problems are solved. This phenomenon was actively analyzed by such researchers as V. A. Rudkovsky and A.P. Korobova, I. O. Kresina, A. V. Malko, I. V. Yakovyuk and others. Target of research. The purpose of the article is a comprehensive study of the concept of legal policy and analysis of the content and terminology. Article’s main body. The article analyzes the concept of modern legal policy of Ukraine, its priority goals and objectives in the context of the adopted Association Agreement and, accordingly, the commitments accepted. Relevant Strategies, state bodies, scientific institutions have been identified, which are obliged to carry out a certain amount of actions for the further integration of Ukraine into the European Union within the limits of their powers. The ways of further improvement and modernization of the Ukrainian legal system are analyzed. Conclusions and prospects for the development. The strategy of Ukraine’s integration into the EU should ensure the country’s entry into the European political, legal, economic, informational, and security space. On this basis, obtaining the status of full membership in the EU in the medium term should become the main foreign policy priority of the strategy of formation and implementation of legal policy of Ukraine in today’s challenges, which will be the subject of further research. Practically determined task of the national legal doctrine is to develop scientific proposals for further development of the legislative framework of Ukraine’s European integration and modernization of the national legal system in accordance with progressive requirements and EU standards, while preserving the national identity of the domestic legal system.


2006 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Wodak ◽  
Scott Wright

This article analyses the European Union’s Futurum discussion forum. The EU hoped that Futurum would help close the acknowledged gap between institutions and citizens by facilitating a virtual, multilingual, transnational public sphere. Futurum was both an interesting example of how the EU’s language policies shape the structure of deliberative experiments and of a public debate about their relative value. We combine various quantitative measures of the discussions with a critical discourse analysis of a thread which focused on language policies. We found that although the debates were predominantly in English, where a thread started in a language other than English, linguistic diversity was more prominent. The discourse analysis showed that multilingual interaction was fostered, and that the debate about language policies is politically and ideologically charged.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 80
Author(s):  
Eva Eckert ◽  
Oleksandra Kovalevska

In the European Union, the concern for sustainability has been legitimized by its politically and ecologically motivated discourse disseminated through recent policies of the European Commission and the local as well as international media. In the article, we question the very meaning of sustainability and examine the European Green Deal, the major political document issued by the EC in 2019. The main question pursued in the study is whether expectations verbalized in the Green Deal’s plans, programs, strategies, and developments hold up to the scrutiny of critical discourse analysis. We compare the Green Deal’s treatment of sustainability to how sustainability is presented in environmental and social science scholarship and point out that research, on the one hand, and the politically motivated discourse, on the other, do not correlate and often actually contradict each other. We conclude that sustainability discourse and its keywords, lexicon, and phraseology have become a channel through which political institutions in the EU such as the European Commission sideline crucial environmental issues and endorse their own presence. The Green Deal discourse shapes political and institutional power of the Commission and the EU.


2021 ◽  
pp. 026732312199951
Author(s):  
Ayça Demet Atay

Turkey’s membership process to the European Union has been a ‘long, narrow and uphill road’, as former Turkish Prime Minister, and later President, Turgut Özal once stated. This study analyses the representation of the European Union–Turkey negotiation process in the Turkish newspapers Cumhuriyet and Hürriyet from 1959 to 2019 with the aim of understanding the changing meaning of ‘Europe’ and the ‘European Union’ in Turkish news discourse. There is comprehensive literature on the representation of Turkey’s membership process in the European press. This article aims to contribute to the field by assessing the representation of the same process from a different angle. For this purpose, Cumhuriyet and Hürriyet newspapers’ front page coverage of selected 10 key dates in the European Union–Turkey relations is analysed through critical discourse analysis.


2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marysia Galbraith

The paper explores ways in which individuals make use of the opportunities and resources provided by the European Union (EU), and how such instrumentalities can make the concept of Europe more salient for citizens. This is important to European Union studies generally because careful observation and analysis of everyday engagements can help to reveal the basis upon which the EU gains legitimacy, or, alternatively, the grounds for resistance to further integration. Through an examination of Poles' experiences of mobility, and their reflections about crossing national borders to work and travel, the paper shows that instrumentality is not just motivated by economic interests, but also by the desire to advance culturally, socially and symbolically within a global imaginary of hierarchically ranked nations. As such, support for European integration tends to weaken in situations where ongoing inequalities and exclusions lead to perceptions of social demotion. Further, instrumentalities can deepen meaningful engagement with the EU in ways that also reassert national loyalties.


Politeja ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3(66)) ◽  
pp. 157-169
Author(s):  
Wawrzyniec Banach

European Union towards Western Balkans in the Context of Migration Crisis 2015‑2019 The aim of the article is to analyse the actions taken by the European Union towards the Western Balkans in the context of the migration crisis. The study assumes that the migration crisis was an important factor accelerating the accession process of the Western Balkan countries to the European Union. In order to fulfil the research goal, an analysis of sources (European Union documents) was conducted. The paper uses elements of the theory of the regional security complex as a theoretical framework. Firstly, the activities of the European Union before the migration crisis are discussed. Next, the paper focuses on presenting the course of the crisis on the Western Balkan route. The further part of the study discusses the actions taken by the EU towards the countries of the Western Balkans in response to the migration crisis.


2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 146-153
Author(s):  
Valeriі Rіeznikov

Since the beginning of 2020, there have been crisis phenomena around the world due to the global slowdown in economic growth and the introduction of quarantine due to the coronavirus pandemic. In this situation, the most vulnerable are developing countries with a small margin of safety, which, unfortunately, also applies to Ukraine, whose economy is open and highly dependent on external markets. Due to the slowdown in the growth of the global economy, the situation in one of the main export industries of Ukraine – industry is deteriorating first of all. The European Union has become one of the important export markets for Ukraine’s industrial products in recent years, which has raised the issue of shaping a relevant state industrial policy in today’s challenging environment. The purpose of the article is to determine the directions of formation and implementation of state industrial policy in the conditions of European integration of Ukraine in modern conditions. In 2020, due to the economic crisis and the pandemic of the coronavirus, the Ukrainian industry may lose even more due to low demand for ferrous metals in world markets, including in EU countries. The Agreement on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products is a way of eliminating technical barriers to trade between Ukraine and the EU. The Agreement on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products is a type of mutual recognition agreement that requires a partner country to align its legislation, practices and infrastructure with EU rules.It is envisaged that in the sectors covered by this Agreement, Ukrainian exporters will be able to label their products with the CE mark and to sell them freely on the EU market without additional EU certification. Potentially, the Agreement on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products could cover up to a fifth of Ukraine’s exports to the EU, notably mechanical engineering products. The formation and implementation of state industrial policy in the conditions of European integration of Ukraine should take place using the following algorithm:1. Study of the new EU Regulation 2019/1020 of 20.06.2019 on market surveillance and conformity of products and elaboration of relevant amendments to the legislation of Ukraine.2. Concentration of the function of legal coordination of draft regulatory acts (including technical regulations) aimed at implementing the Association Agreement and preparation for the Agreement on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products in one state instance, equipped with specialized personnel with adequate knowledge of EU law and languages.3. Strengthening the requirements for the accreditation and oversight process for accredited bodies, as well as the process of designating and monitoring conformity assessment bodies to ensure that their technical competence is adequate and to prevent fraud and the use of fraudulent practices.4. In the absence of a rapid prospect of concluding an Agreement on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products, the harmonization of procedures and requirements that are too burdensome for exporters and importers, first and foremost.5. Paying particular attention to capacity building of state market surveillance authorities.6. Raising awareness of business entities and enhancing the role of business associations in raising such awareness.7. Increasing the EU’s interest in providing Ukraine with effective technical assistance for the development of legislation and the proper functioning of quality infrastructure and market surveillance authorities. Introduce the position of Deputy Prime Minister for Industry and launch support programs for the real economy. Thus, Ukraine’s further integration with the European Union is largely linked to the formulation and implementation of relevant industrial policy, which should be to continue reforming all sectors of the economy, in particular, to modernize the industrial complex. And the signing of the Agreement on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products in the three priority sectors («industrial visa waiver») in the medium term should become one of the main foreign economic priorities of Ukraine’s European integration in the face of the current challenges of today.


Author(s):  
Andreas Fisahn

The crisis of the European Union cannot be solved by austerity programs. Therefore a closer look at the reasons of the crisis seems to be reasonable, which includes a description of the development of the EU from 1951 to present times. The Union started as a tariff union and evolved through different steps to an order of competitive states. The main fields of competition between the states are taxes and social costs, which leads to tax dumping and a race to the bottom in social benefits. Starting in 1990 the EU achieved the status of an open financial market, with the duty of deregulation of capital movements being stipulated in Treaties. In the end the problem is not a debt crisis but a crisis of the structure of the European Union. The solution – which especially the German government prefers – may be the first step on the way to an authoritarian state.


Res Publica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aliénor Ballangé

AbstractIn this article, I question the use of the notion of ‘constituent power’ as a tool for the democratization of the European Union (EU). Rather than seeing the absence of a transnational constituent power as a cause of the EU’s ‘democratic deficit’, I identify it as an opportunity for unfettered democratic participation. Against the reification of power-in-action into a power-constituted-in-law, I argue that the democratization of the EU can only be achieved through the multiplication of ‘constituent moments’. I begin by deconstructing the normative justifications surrounding the concept of constituent power. Here I analyze the structural aporia of constituent power and question the autonomous and emancipatory dimension of this notion. I then test the theoretical hypothesis of this structural aporia of the popular constituent power by comparing it with the historical experiments of a European popular constituent power. Finally, based on these theoretical and empirical observations, I propose to replace the ambivalence of the concept of popular constituent power with a more cautious approach to the bottom-up democratization of European integration: that of a multiplication of transnational constituent moments.


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