The Southern Gas Corridor infrastructure project – implications for the energy security of the European Union

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.

Author(s):  
Olena Skrypnyk

In the article explores the reasons for the military conflict in Georgia in August 2008, which arose with the collapse of the Soviet Union and Georgia’s proclamation of independence. As result of the armed conflict between 1992 and 1993, Georgia actually lost control of two regions – Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which de facto were independent under the Russian military support. The position of the European Union regarding this conflict was analyzed, which from the beginning of the Russo-Georgian armed conflict, made significant diplomatic efforts for its speedy settlement. In particular, France has developed six points for a peaceful settlement of the conflict. It was clarified what kind of assistance the EU provided in the termination of Russian-Georgian war. The activity of the EU Monitoring Mission (EUMM) in Georgia has been analyzed, which started its work on October 1, 2008 and is currently in operation. The EUMM is unique among the missions under the overall European Union security and defense policy, she does not provide counseling, does not conduct training or training, she only observing and reporting on the situation in Georgia to allow EU member states to develop a policy towards Georgia. It was concluded that thanks to the creation of the EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia, the EU’s weight in resolving the conflict in Georgia has increased significantly. Despite some technical problems in the initial implementation phase, the Mission is a success for the EU’s Common Security and Defenсe Policy. The Mission continues to make an important contribution to stabilizing the conflict situation in the region, especially after the termination of the OSCE and UN Mission in Georgia. Noted that during the Russo-Georgian War in August 2008, the European Union has developed its own strategy for settling conflicts in the South Caucasus.


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 ◽  
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.


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.


2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 394-399
Author(s):  
Pieter Emmer

In spite of the fact that negotiations have been going on for years, the chances that Turkey will eventually become a full member of the European Union are slim. At present, a political majority among the EU-member states headed by Germany seems to oppose Turkey entering the EU. In the Netherlands, however, most political parties are still in favour of Turkey's membership. That difference coincides with the difference in the position of Turkish immigrants in German and Dutch societies.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (23) ◽  
pp. 7971
Author(s):  
Felix Kattelmann ◽  
Jonathan Siegle ◽  
Roland Cunha Montenegro ◽  
Vera Sehn ◽  
Markus Blesl ◽  
...  

The Green Deal of the European Union defines extremely ambitious climate targets for 2030 (−55% emissions compared to 1990) and 2050 (−100%), which go far beyond the current goals that the EU member states have agreed on thus far. The question of which sectors contribute how much has already been discussed, but is far from decided, while the question of which countries shoulder how much of the tightened reduction targets has hardly been discussed. We want to contribute significantly to answering these policy questions by analysing the necessary burden sharing within the EU from both an energy system and an overall macroeconomic perspective. For this purpose, we use the energy system model TIMES PanEU and the computational general equilibrium model NEWAGE. Our results show that excessively strong targets for the Emission Trading System (ETS) in 2030 are not system-optimal for achieving the 55% overall target, reductions should be made in such a way that an emissions budget ratio of 39 (ETS sector) to 61 (Non-ETS sector) results. Economically weaker regions would have to reduce their CO2 emissions until 2030 by up to 33% on top of the currently decided targets in the Effort Sharing Regulation, which leads to higher energy system costs as well as losses in gross domestic product (GDP). Depending on the policy scenario applied, GDP losses in the range of −0.79% and −1.95% relative to baseline can be found for single EU regions. In the long-term, an equally strict mitigation regime for all countries in 2050 is not optimal from a system perspective; total system costs would be higher by 1.5%. Instead, some countries should generate negative net emissions to compensate for non-mitigable residual emissions from other countries.


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.


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