In 2000, the EU, under the influence of its current progress in the integration process, established a list of fairly ambitious goals in the economic, social and environmental issues, which it had wanted to achieve by 2010. The reform program has been named the Lisbon Strategy and has often been paraphrased as "catch up and overtake the U. S." Shortly after its launch, however, it began to be clear that such radical reform was not realistically possible, especially because of its complexity, a lack of willingness of Member States to implement these reforms and a poor set of implementation tools. The Lisbon Strategy has been followed by a new EU global reform document for 2020, Europe 2020, mainly due to the fact that the problems plaguing European countries remain the same and they haven't been adequately resolved by the Lisbon Strategy. The aim of this paper is to analyze the implementation of the Lisbon strategy in the Czech Republic, identify in which areas the CR has been successful, and in which it has lagged behind the performance of other EU members as well as where it could achieve a more significant progress. At the same time, the work examines the reasons why the Lisbon Strategy, though a very interesting concept of reform, has remained out of public interest, and its achievements haven't...

Diploma thesis "Achievements of Czech and Belgian presidencies in EU environmental policy area in comparative perspective" deals with the presidency of the Council of the European Union. Specifically, this qualitative comparative case study draws a comparison between the achievements of first Czech presidency in 2009 and latest Belgian presidency in 2010 in the area of environmental policy. High level of measures in this field represents one of the important characteristics of the European Union in this period of time. Despite the fact that both examined presidencies took place during the economic crisis, they could not forget to deal with environmental problems in order to maintain the EU's leading position in environmental policy and related issues. Keywords European Union, Environment, EU Environmental Policy, EU Presidency

The diploma thesis "Předsednictví Rady EU a energetická bezpečnost" (The presidency and the energy security) deals with factors relevant for the presidency of the EU. The current debate is highly focused on the size of the presiding country, which leaves very little space for an alternative explanation. The main task of this thesis is therefore to enrich the debate. The main method is comparing the two presidencies on the basis of the concept of energy security. The energy security was a relevant topic due to the context of the presidencies given by the interruptions in gas supply from Russia. Both countries differed in three relevant factors: the foreign orientation (relationship to Russia), the presidency style and the type of coordination mechanism. This diploma thesis tests the relevance of these factors on the presidency.

Diploma thesis "The Czech Senate and its role in international relations of the Czech Republic" deals with the Czech Senate, its style of functioning and influence on international relations of the Czech Republic, with special attention to the relation between the Czech Republic and European Union. First, we shall deal with the role of the Senate in the international relations of the Czech Republic, as regards the relations between The Czech Senate and European Union and parliamentary diplomacy as well. After that will come our empirical research. We shall deal with the same questions as in the previous part, however, we will use a different method and compare the results of our research with concepts introduced in the theoretical part. As a result, we will identify the differences between theoretical possibilities of the Senate in this area and its real working. In the part about the style of the Senate, first, we shall show the style of functioning of the Senate according to the chosen literature. We will be interested in the following questions: the atmosphere in the Senate, the relations among senators, hierarchy of the senators and particular committees. In more detail we will focus on two committees, the Committee on EU Affairs and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Security. One...

The thesis focuses on the contemporary situation of the European Union and the United States in the world economy. By the help of basic economic indicators, it evaluates and compares actual economic development of both regions, especially in the new millennium. It also points to possible changes in mutual standing which have evolved in the process of economic development over the last few years by the influence of various factors such as natural disasters, wars in different parts of the world, world crisis, but also the process of globalization and continuing expansion of the EU. Above all the thesis focuses on international trade of these main centers, its structure and mutual cooperation. Main macroeconomic indicators are also identified, namely GDP growth, unemployment and inflation. These form the basis for comparison of both centers from an economic strength and development point of view and lead to the concluding main economic development concepts. Also analyzed are the two main currencies: the American dollar and the euro, their mutual interaction, and development of the exchange rate USD/EUR.

The global economic and financial crisis resulted in worldwide rising government debt levels, especially from 2008 to 2011. This thesis focuses on the sovereign debt crisis in the European Union and illustrates its member countries' debt levels in the period from 2001 to 2011. Two main indicators are considered: accumulated sovereign debt and its share in GDP. The following part outlines main measures taken in order to decrease general debt level in the European Union. Furthermore a selection of various presented proposals is introduced. The last part of the thesis speculatively evaluates all of these instruments and indicates possible imperfections.

The diploma thesis "Komparace postojů Irska a Velké Británie u vybraných aspektů Evropské integrace" deals with attitudes of Great Britain and Ireland to the politics of the European Union. Based on the available literature (using the descriptive and analytical method), the thesis proves how divergent or vice versa accordance are particular policies and approaches of these two states, whose past is completely different and has fundamental influence on contemporary access of these members to the European Union. In the history of Great Britain's and the European Union's relation it is always possible to find a certain fact that distinguished Britain from other partners in the European Union. It is then also different from the neighbouring Ireland. The diploma thesis analyses first of all the financial framework of the European Union, its regional and foreign policy. It is divided into five chapters - besides already mentioned regional, economic and foreign policy, the diploma thesis delas with the access of Ireland and Great Britain to European referendums, accentuated is first of all the referendum on the Treaty of Nice and the contemporary debate on the rejected Treaty of Lisbon. Finally are analysed last two presidencies of Ireland and Great Britain in years 2004 and 2005. The purpose of the diploma thesis...

The aim of this Master thesis was to find out whether the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union was able to exert influence in EU's external relations after the Lisbon Treaty has entered into force. Thesis was looking on two post-Lisbon Council Presidencies- Hungarian Council Presidency and the Polish Council Presidency and their influence in Eastern Partnership-the flagship initiative of both of these presidencies. Through the identification of the informal roles of the rotating presidency-agenda setter role and broker's role, the influence on the development of Eastern Partnership of both Council Presidencies was determined. The other factors such as the reputation of the presiding country, stable domestic political situation, ability to deal with unexpected developments have been considered as important pre-requisites for the Council Presidency to be able to exert influence through its informal roles.

The diploma thesis is focused on the energy security of the European union, specifically on the import of natural gas. The dependence on the import of natural gas is one of the key questions for the energy security of the EU. One of the tools for dealing with this issue is diversification of the suppliers a searching for a new sources of energy to sustain the economical development of the EU. One of the goals of the EU' Energy security strategy is to lower its dependence on gas imports from Russia. In the lights of recent events, when the gas supply was disrupted a few times, because of the events on Ukraine, Russian aggression in the eastern part of Ukraine and annexation of the Crimea, EU is looking for a better alternative. The research is trying to find out what is the role of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which will bypass Ukraine and go straight from Russia to Germany and will have impact on other Central and Eastern European countries. The question is whether the project is viable vis-a-vis energy security framework metrics and whether there are better alternatives such as the Southern Gas Corridor or the possibility to import liquified natural gas LNG from elsewhere. Apart from the energy security framework the geopolitics is taken into an account and will try to explain the power...

This diploma thesis focuses on the development of the common EU security policy between the years 2014-2019. Its aim is to contribute to a deeper understanding of the rapid progress of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) in recent years, as well as to an explanation of their current functioning. The work seeks to achieve this through the three dominant strands of new institutionalism (historical, rationalist and sociological), which have already proven to be the theories able to clarify the European integration process. The thesis examines the process of EU security integration and its strengthening through the creation of new tools in the security-political dimension. Each theoretical variant focuses on different issues and different part of reality, this way the thesis leads to a more comprehensive explanations. The basic research question set out is as follows: How can we explain the unprecedented development of a common EU security policy using the dominant strands of new institutionalism in the period 2014-2019? From a methodological point of view, it is conducted as a one-case qualitative study.