FOREIGN CAPITAL INFLOWS IN CENTRAL AND EAST EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

Free cross-border movement of goods and capital correlates with the general economic state of a country in both apparent and subtle ways. The intensity of financial and economic interactions with the outside world is an indicator of the sustainability and efficiency of the national economy. After joining the EU, all Member States liberalized the balance of payments (BoP), i.e. ensured free and unrestricted cross-border movement of goods and capital. For certain countries the liberalization of BoP was a considerable challenge, which they managed to successfully overcome. These were the EU countries of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) was active among the former socialist countries until 1990, or the so-called "CMEA-EU countries". For an economic comparison to be plausible, it has to be made between the dynamics of comparable economies. Such a group of economies is formed by the CMEA-EU countries. EU membership provided them with the opportunity to use on their own their potential in property, intellect, power and resources. This is the reason why the present study has adopted a comparative analysis based on CMEA-EU countries. An attempt has been made to comprehensively monitor and analytically assess all major financial flows, especially in the CMEA-EU countries, and their impact on economic dynamics. A comparison is made for both the positive and negative aspects of the incoming financial resources in these countries. Particular emphasis is placed on macroeconomic elements and policies that outline, create conditions, and predetermine the scale, interactions and projections of cross-border financial flows.

Liberalization

Liberalization is the removal of barriers to the cross-border movement of capital, goods, and people. Understanding liberalization is central to understanding how governments respond to and shape the global economy. This article reviews the literature on liberalization from a public-goods perspective, where liberalization is seen as benefiting the population as a whole, and from a private-goods perspective, where liberalization benefits a select few. These perspectives are united by questions over who supports liberalization, when liberalization occurs, and how governments liberalize markets. The article further explores the methods and approaches used by American International Political Economy (IPE), represented by articles published in International Organization, and British IPE, represented by articles published in the Review of International Political Economy.

EU COVID-19 Certificates: A Critical Analysis

On 17 March 2021, the European Commission put forward its Proposal for a Regulation on Digital Green Certificates, which would facilitate European Union (EU) cross-border movement during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Regulation on the EU Digital COVID Certificate was adopted on 14 June 2021 and it will start to apply from 1 July 2021. This article examines the main declared goals of the new Regulation – the first being that Digital COVID Certificates facilitate safe cross-border movement, the second being that they preclude more restrictive national measures, the third being that they prevent discrimination and the fourth being that they coordinate Member States’ actions. In so doing, it highlights the main benefits and weaknesses of the Regulation, but it also goes beyond the Regulation by tackling broader questions of EU law that will be of relevance even once the pandemic is over. In this respect, the paper highlights the importance of science in assessing the proportionality of pandemic-related measures and of choosing the least restrictive and the most individualised options when restricting free movement due to public health reasons. It also identifies the effects EU certificates will have on Member States’ regulation of national COVID-19 certificates, notably those designed for other purposes than cross-border travel, and it shows that there is a thin line between the EU’s and national competences in this area.

THE PRACTICE OF CHALLENGING DECISIONS OF CUSTOMS AUTHORITIES IN CASES OF VIOLATION OF CUSTOMS RULES IN THE CROSS-BORDER MOVEMENT OF ENVIRONMENTALLY SENSITIVE GOODS

The article substantiates the importance of contesting procedures as an effective mechanism for ensuring the legality of the environmental and legal activities of customs authorities aimed at protecting human life and health, the environment, animal and plant life. The author analyzes the practice of challenging decisions of customs authorities on bringing participants in foreign economic activity (FEA) to administrative responsibility for non-compliance with non-tariff regulation measures in the cross-border movement of environmentally sensitive goods.

Effects of COVID-19 government travel restrictions on mobility in a rural border area of Northern Thailand: A mobile phone tracking study

Background Thailand is among the top five countries with effective COVID-19 transmission control. This study examines how news of presence of COVID-19 in Thailand, as well as varying levels of government restriction on movement, affected human mobility in a rural Thai population along the border with Myanmar. Methods This study makes use of mobility data collected using a smartphone app. Between November 2019 and June 2020, four major events concerning information dissemination or government intervention give rise to five time intervals of analysis. Radius of gyration is used to analyze movement in each interval, and movement during government-imposed curfew. Human mobility network visualization is used to identify changes in travel patterns between main geographic locations of activity. Cross-border mobility analysis highlights potential for intervillage and intercountry disease transmission. Results Inter-village and cross-border movement was common in the pre-COVID-19 period. Radius of gyration and cross-border trips decreased following news of the first imported cases. During the government lockdown period, radius of gyration was reduced by more than 90% and cross-border movement was mostly limited to short-distance trips. Human mobility was nearly back to normal after relaxation of the lockdown. Conclusions This study provides insight into the impact of the government lockdown policy on an area with extremely low socio-economic status, poor healthcare resources, and highly active cross-border movement. The lockdown had a great impact on reducing individual mobility, including cross-border movement. The quick return to normal mobility after relaxation of the lockdown implies that close monitoring of disease should be continued to prevent a second wave.

The Coronavirus and the Future of Liberalism

The outbreak of COVID-19 has significantly reshaped debates on the global order, democratic politics and the liberal mode of governing societies. Some have compared the virus to the “ultimate empty signifier”, which allowed difficult ideological groups to fill it with their own securitizations, creating in an instant a plethora of political otherings. For IR realists, the sudden collapse of cross-border movement and other privileges of the globalized liberal elite came as a vindication of their long-cherished argument: the nation state remains the key actor in international politics, and the post-national world had largely been a utopian liberal illusion. Right-wing nationalist populists have been saying the same thing but in a different language and were apt to make COVID-19 instrumental to their purposes. Thus, Viktor Orbán quickly linked it to the agenda of migration and used the state of exception as a pretext to further limit the democratic process in Hungary. However, as students of populism have also stressed, the populist response to the pandemic has been far from uniform. In a yet broader perspective, while some democratic governments enacted draconian measures in response to the pandemic, suspending basic individual freedoms, some dictatorships like Belarus experienced a sudden “flow of liberalism“, refusing to cut down on both economic activity and cross-border movement. This special issue focuses on comparing the liberal and illiberal reactions (both domestic and international) to the pandemic, looking into how it has affected the democratic and non-democratic forms of governance; examining where the responses have been similar or overlapping, i.e. where COVID-19 has practically blurred or erased the border between liberal and illiberal politics; looking into how different types of regimes and political groupings have borrowed new elements and styles of politics, e.g. in which circumstances populist or autocratic politicians suddenly seemed more liberal than their liberal and democratic counterparts; and investigating the ramifications of these changes for the liberal components of the globalized international order.