scholarly journals Common Policy but Different Outcomes: Structural Change in Family Farms of Central and East European Countries after Their Accession to the EU

Agriculture ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 1074
Author(s):  
Philip Kostov ◽  
Sophia Davidova
Keyword(s):  
Structural Change ◽  
Output Growth ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Family Farms ◽  
Family Farming ◽  
Member States ◽  
New Member States ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Eu

This paper investigates structural change in family farming in ten EU New Member States from Central and Eastern Europe which can be treated as a borderline between transition and developed economies. The paper proposes that farms using at least one Annual Work Unit (AWU) family labour are classified as family since it is considered that engaging less than one full-time family member may not show commitment to the family operation. The Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition is employed to analyse the drivers of structural change at a farm level, i.e., the extent to which it is technology or endowment driven. To compare the developments in different countries, the changes are presented in relative terms in order to reveal the relative distance travelled by the structural change in individual New Member States alongside the relative importance of technology and endowments changes. The estimation of a translog production function by country is used to derive the corresponding decompositions. Empirical analysis is based on data from the EU Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) for two time points—2007, when the last of the ten CEECs joined the EU—Bulgaria and Romania, and 2015 to investigate structural change during the first decade of EU membership. The results show that the differences in the initial conditions and the adjustments to the CAP have brought about quite a diverse picture concerning the changes in output in the family and non-family farms in the NMS. The a priori expected dynamics of positive output growth in family farms and negative in the non-family has only materialised in Latvia, Romania and Slovakia. The decomposition of output changes suggests a positive effect of technical change in family farms only in the early years of EU accession. Concerning endowments, their effect on structural change is mostly positive with the only exception of Slovenia. This suggests that the family farming sector grows by accumulating productive resources. However, this growth has not always materialised in increase of family farms output.

On the Future of the Financial Redistribution across Member States in the EU

2006 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-43
Author(s):  
Sándor Richter
Keyword(s):  
Value Added ◽  
The Other ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Member States ◽  
New Member States ◽  
Financial Position ◽  
Cross Member ◽  
Expenditure Structure ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Made In

The order and modalities of cross-member state redistribution as well as the net financial position of the member states are one of the most widely discussed aspects of European integration. The paper addresses selected issues in the current debate on the EU budget for the period 2007 to 2013 and introduces four scenarios. The first is identical to the European Commission's proposal; the second is based on reducing the budget to 1% of the EU's GNI, as proposed by the six net-payer countries, while maintaining the expenditure structure of the Commission's proposal. The next two scenarios represent radical reforms: one of them also features a '1% EU GNI'; however, the expenditures for providing 'EU-wide value-added' are left unchanged and it is envisaged that the requisite cuts will be made in the expenditures earmarked for cohesion. The other reform scenario is different from the former one in that the cohesion-related expenditures are left unchanged and the expenditures for providing 'EU-wide value-added' are reduced. After the comparison of the various scenarios, the allocation of transfers to the new member states in terms of the conditions prevailing in the different scenarios is analysed.

Beyond Visibility, Rights, and Citizenship: Critical Notes on Sexual Politics in the European Union Christian Klesse

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Klesse
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Sexual Minorities ◽  
Sexual Politics ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
New Member States ◽  
Lesbian And Gay ◽  
The Eu

The accession of ten new member states has opened up new political and discursive spaces for challenging homo-, bi-, and transphobia in the new member states and the European Union (EU) as a whole. There has been widely felt sense of hope that the accession will ultimately increase the possibilities of political action, result in democratisation, and better the political conditions for sexual minorities to fight discrimination and struggle for equal treatment before the law (ILGA Europe 2001, Vadstrup 2002, Pereira 2002, Neumann 2004, ILGA 2004, Stonewall 2004). Such sentiments were also expressed in the call-for-papers for the Conference ‘Europe without Homophobia. Queer-in(g) Communities’ that took place from May 24 to May 26, 2004 at Wroclaw in Poland, for which I wrote the first draft of this paper. Participants were asked to reflect upon ‘how we can contribute to making sexual minorities in the European Community visible, heard, safe, and equal before the law’ and to ‘investigate the practical ways (including legal actions, information campaigns, political participation, etc.) of achieving the bold vision suggested in the title: Europe without homophobia’ (Organizing Committee 2004). Human rights groups and lesbian and gay organisations both in the (prospective) new and the already existing member states sensed that access to funding by EU bodies and the ability to address political and/or legal institutions of the EU (and/or the Council of Europe) opened up ‘new space’ for political activism and enabled access to a new range of political discourses and strategies (cf. Stychin 2003). Already many years before accession, human rights organisations and lesbian and gay campaigning groups started to utilise the transformative potential of this prospective economic-political and socio-legal change for campaigns against human rights abuse and legal discrimination on the grounds of gender and sexuality in states applying for accession. ILGA Europe, for example, emphasised that accession should be made dependent on the applying states complying to the high human rights standard that the EU is supposed to stand for. Due to the uneven power structure between the institutions of the EU and the states applying for membership, the logic and rhetoric of ‘enlargement’ structured the negotiations about accession. The power imbalances at the heart of the process are further indicated by the fact that accession is frequently discussed in the scientific literature in the terminology of ‘Europeanization’ (cf. Schimmelfenning and Sedelmeier 2005a). In this context, ‘Europeanization’ signifies ‘integration’ into the economic organisations and politico-legal institutions of the EU, a process that, according to Schimmelfenning and Sedelmeier, can be characterised as ‘a massive export of EU rules’ (2005b: 221). Because accession has been such a recent moment in history, research on the effects of the EU enlargement on the national polities of the new or prospective member states is still scarce. In particular, sexual politics has remained an under-researched topic (for an exception, see Stychin 2003). However, there is sufficient reason to speculate that accession will significantly affect the discourses and strategies of social movements struggling around sexuality and gender in the new member states. Even if it cannot be predicted at this stage, how political actors and social movements will respond and position themselves with regard to these newly emerging ‘political opportunity structures’ (Kriesi et al. 1995), the evolving institutional, economic, and discursive context will without any doubt impact on their politics.

Panel Data Evidence on the Effects of Fiscal Policy Shocks in the EU New Member States

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paweł Borys ◽  
Piotr Ciżkowicz ◽  
Andrzej Rzońca
Keyword(s):  
Fiscal Policy ◽  
Panel Data ◽  
Member States ◽  
New Member States ◽  
Policy Shocks ◽  
Eu New Member States ◽  
The Eu

scholarly journals Durable Relationship and Family Members “by Analogy” in the European Union

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 175
Author(s):  
Tanel Feldman ◽  
Marco Mazzeschi
Keyword(s):  
Member State ◽  
Family Member ◽  
Family Members ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Registered Partnership ◽  
The Family ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Union Citizen ◽  
The Eu

Rights of residence derived from a durable relationship with an EU citizen, are left to a relatively wide discretion of the Member States. Pursuant to Article 2.2 (b) Directive 2004/38/EC (“Directive”), “the partner with whom the Union citizen has contracted a registered partnership, on the basis of the legislation of a Member State, if the legislation of the host Member State treats registered partnerships as equivalent to marriage and in accordance with the conditions laid down in the relevant legislation of the host Member State” qualifies as family member. Provided that they have a durable relationship (duly attested) with an EU citizen, pursuant to Article 3.2(b), unregistered partners are as well beneficiaries of the Directive. The durable relationship was expressly excluded from the scope of Article 2(2)(b): “Unlike the amended proposal, it does not cover de facto durable relationships” (EU Commission, Document 52003SC1293). Article 3 (2)(a) covers “other family members” (no restrictions as to the degree of relatedness) if material support is provided by the EU citizen or by his partner or where serious health grounds strictly require the personal care of the family member by the Union citizen. Pursuant to Article 3.2, “other family members” and unregistered partners can attest a durable relationship, must be facilitated entry and residence, in accordance to the host Member State’s national legislation. In the light of Preamble 6 Directive, the situation of the persons who are not included in the definition of family members, must be considered “in order to maintain the unity of the family in a broader sense”. The questions discussed in this paper are the following: (i) are Member States genuinely considering the concept of durable relationship in view of maintaining the unity of the family in a broader sense? and (ii) how to overcome legal uncertainty and which criteria, both at EU and at international level, can be taken into account in order to assess whether a durable relationship is genuine and should be granted the rights set forth by the Directive?

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