Measuring the Success of the Presidency of the Council of the EU

This paper aims to contribute to the ongoing debate on criteria for measuring the performance of the rotating Presidencies of the Council of the EU. The comparison between Austria and Croatia, two countries that concluded the two most recent Council Presidency Trios, can be illustrative in identifying the main factors that can influence the overall performance of rotating Presidencies. Based on the series of quantitative and qualitative indicators, the overall score of both countries’ Presidencies turned to be positive, despite some failures of these Presidencies to demonstrate a firm commitment to fundamental EU values. In view of the lack of evaluations of the Council Presidencies based on verifiable, measurable indicators, this paper seeks to contribute to the development of a more objective methodological framework for the assessment of the future Presidencies of the Council as a still under-researched area within EU studies.

The Challenges to the Emergency Medical Services to be Recognised as a Human Right in International Human Rights Law

The Emergency Medical Services (EMS) are emergency services generally been designed to provide urgent treatment of patients with life-threatening conditions outside medical facilities. Even though the EMS belongs to the category of socio-economic rights, it nevertheless has great significance in safeguarding one of the most fundamental human rights, the right to life. In fact, international humanitarian law has recognised this important connection by establishing explicit legal rules that oblige states to ensure urgent medical care for the wounded and sick. International human rights law, on the other hand, has no such expressed provisions. However, the problem is not the lack of legal rules applicable to the EMS as such but rather the challenges in human rights perception, which hinder the EMS being perceived as a valuable human right. Therefore, this article essentially argues that international human rights law does not recognise the EMS as a human right sufficiently and that more thorough actions are required from the UN Committee of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) in this regard.

On the Norms and Habits of the European Union as a Meta-organisation

With the aim of methodological reflection, this article analyses the three approaches (realist, constructivist and relational) in international relations theory most commonly employed to study foreign policy and the global influence of the European Union. Pivotal notions such as 'agency', 'identity', 'norms', 'system' and 'practice' provide us with navigation points between these approaches, enabling us to achieve a clearer impression of the many different meanings these terms can contain. These meanings, in their turn, fix the direction, limitations and scope of any concrete theoretic analysis. This article is meant to draw particular attention to Bourdieuvian practice theory and Alexander Bogdanov's tektology as two differing variants of relationism, with a view to overcoming certain deficiencies in application to the studies of the EU of methodological individualism, as employed in more 'traditional' theories. To illustrate the relationalist way of theorising when dealing with the paradoxes of the EU external policies and global role, a follow-up interpretation, based on tektology, is given in conclusion to the resilience turn in the EU global strategy.

How do Lithuanian Citizens Perceive the European Parliament? EU Legitimacy Issue and Trust in the European Parliament

This article examines the problem of legitimacy within the EU political system and focuses on the political power and recognition of the only one directly elected EU institution – the European Parliament. Historically, being the weaker house of the EU legislative system, throughout the last decades, the European Parliament has increased the political authority dramatically. These political changes should have risen the participation of the EU citizens in the elections and the legitimacy of this EU institution. Analysing the Lithuanian case, based on the qualitative interviewing of politicians and quantitative survey of citizens, the authors claim that while most of Lithuanians recognise the significance of the European Parliament and the turnout in the European elections has increased, the European Parliamentary elections remain, however, of secondary importance.

The Significance of Foreign Military Bases as Instruments of Spheres of Influence

The category of the sphere of influence can explain some contemporary international processes. To define that category, however, much stress is laid on great powers’ exclusivity within their spheres of influence. The author takes into consideration the thesis of the aforementioned exclusivity’s erosion. Because foreign military bases are essential instruments of spheres of influence due to their strong impact on security policy, it is worth investigating their presence in this context. Specifically, the author carries out an in-depth study of military bases of more than one major power in one host country. Further, the article discusses the extent to which the gradual erosion of exclusivity undermines the significance of spheres of influence as such. In conclusion, the author states that the case of Djibouti undermines the idea of great power exclusivity. Yet, other cases do not provide sufficient evidence on such deep transformation because of either limited periods of bases’ existence or great power cooperative attitudes.

The Resilience of the EU Neighbours to the South and to the East

Resilience is a widespread concept and a key priority for the EU. We focus on resilience’s relations with stability. These notions have been subject to ongoing theoretical debate and have not been clearly separated in EU discourses. We explore how resilience and stability have been used regarding the Southern and Eastern dimensions of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and suggest how their different meanings may be better distinguished and conceptualised. Resilience has penetrated the ENP’s discourses unevenly and attracted the limited interest of the neighbours. Besides, the EU’s policies will likely face numerous practical problems mostly similar to the ENP’s both dimensions. The EU’s policies themselves have disturbed stability in its neighbourhood, and now, even restoring the old stability would be problematic, let alone attaining a more positive one. Furthermore, the EU could impose its views regarding stability and/or resilience. Also, Brussels could de facto uphold negative stability and/or resilience.

Crimea as Saguntum?

The developments in Ukraine in 2014, namely the annexation of Crimea and the secessionist upheaval in Donetsk and Lugansk areas caused — or appeared as the content of — a rift between the “West” and Russia. The core questions of this article explore the nature of this rift and its significance on the shape of the international system in their relatedness to the Ukrainian crisis. The concepts employed in the study belong to phenomenology as adapted to the field of international relations, in order to answer to the apparent need to develop a tool that would enable us to ground the study on its subjective/intersubjective infrastructure that is adequate to the nature of the concepts of state, territory, international system and relations. Within this framework, the Ukrainian crisis and Crimean annexation appear as a positional and systemic content that marks a new temporal phase of the post-bipolar intersubjectivity. An existential framework shall thus be provided to policy contents, as a posteriori yet “real” elements of the phenomena which may be extended, on subjective/intersubjective grounds of international relations, towards positional and systemic horizons as defining and restraining fundamentals of causal interactions.

Croatia and the Chinese “17+1” Cooperation Framework

Since the Pelješac bridge construction project was awarded to the Chinese company China Road and Bridge Cooperation (CRBC) in January 2018, the Sino-Croatian relations reached a new high point. Since then, and contrary to Croatia’s past activity and interest, Croatia not only opted to more actively participate in the “17+1” cooperation framework, but even stepped forward by hosting the latest “17+1” summit, held in April 2019. The rekindled relations have since been, on the surface, bursting with possibilities regarding investment, exchanges of personnel, and cooperation on various levels. However, years of neglect, especially on the Croatian side, had created a situation in which Croatia is critically falling behind in experts, Chinese-speaking talents, and various aspects of knowledge needed to support this level of cooperation. Furthermore, judging by the press releases and the lack of clarifications from the Croatian government regarding the short-term decisions and the long-term direction the renewed Sino-Croatian friendship is taking, general understanding of how concepts such as the “17+1” or the Belt and Road Initiative actually reflect on Croatia with regards to their influence on the wider regional and global circumstances is also lacking. This paper analyses the width of the uneven approach China and Croatia are taking in the development of their relations and will attempt to address the issues and challenges that could arise from this unevenness.

"Diamond Stage" in Sino-Croatian Relations

By borrowing an ad hoc concept 'diamond stage' uttered by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang during his visit to Croatia in April 2019 to describe a new stage in Sino-Croatian bilateral relations, this article sets to analyse the reasons behind this flattering diplomatic designation. It departs from the context of weak, historically distant and asymmetrical Sino-Croatian cooperation (SCC), giving, firstly, a short account on historical relations between China and Croatia and, secondly, relying on small state power scholarship in IR, depicting the opening and advancing of SCC. While categories of state size, geographical proximity, bilateral history and relational capacity are relatively pointless given the previous track of SCC, the dynamics of decreasing asymmetry between a small state and a big power helps to understand the recent upcoming of a new, 'diamond' stage in bilateral relations. Therefore, the article proposes several features as particularly relevant for understanding decreased asymmetry in SCC.

Development of Turkish Foreign Policy Towards the Western Balkans with Focus on Bosnia and Herzegovina

Under the AKP government, Turkey’s foreign policy towards the Western Balkans, and Bosnia and Herzegovina in particular, has led many analysts to suspect it of possessing neo-imperial, or so-called neo-Ottoman, objectives. These suspicions have been compounded by the repeated declarations of former Prime Minister Davutoğlu and current President Erdoğan that the history and religious identity shared by Turks and Western Balkan Muslims forms the basis of both Turkish-Balkan relations and a common future. Critical examination of official Ankara’s attitudes toward the Western Balkans in general, and especially Bosnia and Herzegovina, identifies four distinct phases in which cultural, historical, and religious appeals morphed into the set of distinctive foreign policies. These policies have also been shaped by pragmatic pursuits of regional influence, the effects of internal (Turkish) transformations, and more recently, the ad hoc policies of President Erdoğan. This article will reconstruct the development of Turkish foreign policy since 1990, from multilateral and soft power efforts to religious and economic objectives, and will analyse the limits of this policy.