The main aim is to describe the competitiveness of the European union not only from the view of single member countries but also as a whole. As I meassuring instrument to identify competitive advantages of EU countries I used the Global Competitiveness Report from World Economic Forum. In the last chapter I describe the forming of Lisbon agenda, goals and progress so far.

The main objective of this thesis is to analyze the competitiveness of the EU countries. First chapter is about the competitiveness, first theoretically, then in numbers based on the the competitiveness index of WEF and IMD and Doing Business of the Worl Bank. The second chapter describes the Lisbon Stategy and analyses the Lisbon score. The last chapter compares the European and the US economy. The conclusion contains recommendations to the next development of the competitiveness of the European union.

This thesis is focused on the social issues caused by immigration within France. It begins by exploring the background of immigration into France from the 19th century to present day to include legislation. The thesis then evaluates issues that have arisen throughout France as a result of cultural differences and conflicting ideologies that come with the diverse immigrant population. The research is divided into two focus areas, the first on immigrants from non-European Union nations, the second being immigrants from within the EU. It explores these issues through research, as well as interviews with both immigrants and native French citizens.

The thesis is focused on the Maltese economy and the Maltese position in the European Union. In the first part, there are analysed strong and weak points of the economy and outlined its future development. The second part is oriented on the Maltese position in the European Union and country's priorities in the group.

This thesis deals with the convergence process in the European Union. It focuses primarily on processes associated with the member states from Central and Eastern Europe which joined the EU in 2004 and 2007. The work is divided into two main parts which are dealing with real and nominal convergence.

This diploma project deals with the current economic situation in European Union market and subsequently in the Czech Republic, Great Britain and Sweden. The analysis of the above mentioned countries was chosen due to the different conditions in doing business and approach to social and economic issues. The main purpose of this project is to find out the conditions for doing business in these three chosen countries. Following questions should be answered: "Is it beneficial to settle business during the financial crisis? Which of the chosen countries has the most optimal conditions for businessmen?" The first part of the diploma project deals with approach of the European Union to small and medium companies and describes the programs which serve as a support for business. In subsequent parts of the diploma project there are exact information for businessmen about above mentioned countries (tax rates, conditions for employees, availability of business establishment and related fees). In the last part of the diploma project there is a particular business plan describing the establishment of the fashion shop for ladies with detailed calculation of costs. Based on the analysis it is possible to classify expediency of this kind of business in capitals of the Czech Republic, Great Britain and Sweden considering domestic conditions, rental costs, other operating costs and real revenues which can be reached in this tough time.

Organizations active in cocaine trafficking are not cartels in the proper sense of the word. They are rather complex differentiated networks with flexible relations, where both cooperation and competition is present. In general the impacts of cocaine trafficking are economic, political, diplomatic and impacts on public order. The key participants in cocaine trafficking are producer states Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, the main consumer markets are the United States and the European Union. Cocaine trafficking is on the rise in the long run, however, a decline was witnessed recently. The impacts of cocaine trafficking for the US and the EU are similar in their nature, however, they are much more grave for the US because of a longer functioning and a much bigger national cocaine market. Consequently, the US and the EU perceive the cocaine threat differently: for the US it represents a national security threat, whereas for the EU it is mainly a societal threat. A comparison of the US and EU policies towards cocaine production and trafficking shows that the US one is more active, with a broader focus and frequently of a coercive nature. Its goals are the eradication of coca, cocaine and cocaine trafficking organizations. The EU focuses on indirect eradication through social and economic development in producer areas and regional cooperation.

The aim of this paper is to answer the question how the possible entrance of Serbia into EU fits into definition of national interest on the Serbian political scene. First, the theoretical formulation of the concept "national interest" is laid out. The second chapter includes description of fundamental foreign and political issues, which had to be solved after the fall of the previous regime. The third chapter characterizes current Serbian political system and programmes of main political parties. The fourth chapter compares official goals of the government with public opinion polls as regards the entrance of Serbia into EU. The second part of the paper is dedicated to description of particular steps of Serbia towards full membership and respective attitudes of political parties.

The thesis presents geopolitical situation of South Caucasus region in relation to Europe, with focus on the European Union. Specific geopolitical conditions of the South Caucasus led from the emergence of independent states in this area to so called "new great game" of interests of global powers. The relationship of the European Union to the South Caucasus developed in the time and in the thesis is presented on the background of this "game". The armed conflict of Georgia and Russia from August 2008 was a radical event in many aspects. And the European Union played one of the most important roles in it. With regard to a quite limited character of previous cooperation, this was a challenge for change in the European approach to the region. The goal of the thesis is whether the European Union managed to orient itself in the new geopolitical conditions of the region and succeeded to take advantage of such a possibility.

This diploma work describes the classification of the member states of the European Union according to the demographic indicators. It evaluates development in the individual states by absolute demographic indicators too. In the year 2008 less children were born and less people were died in the most of the member states than the year 1993. The hope of the end of life grows up in all contries. Relative demographic indicators are used in the cluster analysis for diversification of rhe states into certain groups in accordance with their similarity. Two methods are used in this work --of the farthest neighbour and the Ward method (the hierarchical clustering method), the both with the Euclid distance. The hierarchical method of the farthest neighbour divided fifteen states into the four clusters in 1995, twenty-five states into the six clusters in 2004 and twenty-seven states into the six clusters in 2007. The Ward method divided these states into the three clusters in 1995, into the six clusters in 2004 and into the three clusters in 2007.