This paper provides a comprehensive assessment of the evolution of EU member states' power, the EU's capability to act (efficiency), and the proportionality of the voting system in the Council of Ministers from the treaties of Rome in 1958 till the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009 and beyond, using a wide range of alternative power indices. Moreover, it considers explicitly the relevance of additional legal provisions (such as the 'Luxembourg Compromise', the 'Demographic Clause', and the 'Ioannina Compromise') and the implications of novel, more recently introduced voting rules such as reverse qualified majority voting. (authors' abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

Doctor of Philosophy / Security Studies Interdepartmental Program / Donald J. Mrozek / From 1989 to 1999, the US had an opportunity to end its rivalry with Russia. However, a “loss aversion heuristic” dominated the decision-making processes of George Bush and Bill Clinton resulting in policies that provoked Russian fears of encirclement. This “loss aversion heuristic” manifested in four key security decisions: the reunification of Germany within NATO, NATO expansion to newly independent states, the Balkans interventions, and the nuclear non-proliferation regime. Although initially suspicious of Gorbachev, Bush eventually pursued a policy of supporting his reforms. However, as the administration came to terms with the inevitability of German reunification and increased European integration as outlined in the Single European Act of 1987, worries about the US leadership role in Europe emerged. By the fall of 1989, Bush backed German reunification to bolster pro-NATO political parties in Germany. As he assumed the presidency in 1993, Clinton wanted to increase financial assistance to Russia. However, when it came to security issues, Clinton’s fear of losing democratic gains in Eastern Europe to an emerging Russian nationalist movement made him less conciliatory to Russia. Despite Yeltsin’s dismay, Clinton pushed for NATO’s enlargement to protect the newly independent states. The same “loss aversion heuristic” was in play with the NATO interventions in the Balkans in 1995 and 1998. Criticisms of NATO’s ineffectiveness at preventing genocide on the continent called into question the necessity of a European security organization that could not provide security. Even though the interventions cemented a continued rivalry with Russia, the US backed them as a means of protecting the relevance of NATO. These decisions had implications to the US policy of protecting the nuclear non-proliferation regime. Instead of securing a nuclear security partner, US policy contributed to Russians selling technology to rogue regimes, and they resisted US attempts to create an Anti-Ballistic Missile Defense (ABM) system in Eastern Europe. In this way, US policy success in securing NATO resulted in decreased nuclear security. In the first three security decisions, the US overestimated the probability of loss making them unable to consider a more cooperative posture vis-à-vis Russian security concerns. The result of this loss aversion was the protection of NATO and the loss of cooperation on the nuclear non-proliferation regime.

The thesis analyses the effect of the Eastern enlargement on goods flows into four CEECs. In the beginning, the Eastern enlargement and numerous related economic effects are briefly characterised. After that it focuses on trade diversion and trade creation effects, starting with a concise discussion of the traditional customs union theory and followed by the explanation of the choice of the estimation method. A gravity model applied on a panel data set is then used to model the import flows into the EU15 and the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. The results showed that a careful choice of the model specification and estimating technique is needed and the model that controlled for four sources of unobserved heterogeneity (time, country pair, importer, and exporter specific characteristics) was chosen. Based on this model's results, we could expect a significant increase of imports from EFTA into these countries but aggregately we should not expect any trade diversion as no further redirecting of import flows from the rest of the world is predicted. Eventually, some of the real trade flow developments (territorial and commodity structures and revealed comparative advantages of selected regions) are described.

The diploma thesis aims to describe the enlargement of the Schengen area in 2007 with nine states that became members of the EU in 2004- without Cyprus. The great attention is paid to the Czech Republic. In the first chapter I explain the basic terms and mechanisms of the Schengen cooperation. The next chapter deals with the preparation course and the evaluation proces of the states preparing for the accession to the Schengen area. It was the Visegrad group (V4) which played a very important role during the preparation that is why I focused on the cooperation of this group in the third part of my diploma thesis. At the same time there is the visa harmonization cooperation within V4 mentioned there. The main part of the diploma thesis is the chapter called the Czech Republic and the Schengen area where I analyse a strategy and arrangements implemented in the Czech Republic. The enlargement of the Schengen area with nine new states was accomplished in 2007 thanks to consistent preparation of all countries that was verified by evaluation mission experts. The participation in the Schengen area has its positive and negative sides. The impacts of the Schengen enlargement and the problems rised after accession of nine states to the Schengen are more described in the last chapter.

The paper gives a picture of Turkey`s readiness for the membership in the EU. The Copenhagen criteria serve as a base for illustration of the status quo of Turkey`s preparation process. As Turkey`s negotiation process has already last for several decades, the first part of the thesis briefly describes the development of relations between EU and Turkey. The second part concentrates on the Copenhagen criteria and explains its origins as well as its content. Finally, the last part of thesis examinates to what extent Turkey fulfills the given areas of political and economic Copenhagen criteria. The focus was given on the most problematic areas as the main aim was to explain the origins of these problems and consequent obstacles Turkey has to tackle.

This master thesis is devoted to the empirical analysis of the economic benefits of EU membership. The analysis aims to investigate what is the impact of EU membership on growth of the real GDP (in constant prices), unemployment rate and inflation rate for 16 states entering EU after the year 1995 (analysed period of years is 1991-2014). The applied method for evaluation in the current work is econometric analysis of panel data. The first part of the thesis is devoted to the literature review. The second part is describing data and variables that will be used for analysis, development of these variables over the time and stationary testing. The third part is dedicated to the regression analysis and includes models for GDP growth, unemployment growth and inflation. The last part of this master thesis will sum up the results and findings of previous parts. The main source for the data used in this work is the statistical database of World Bank (2016).

This research analyses the extent to which three newer (European Union) EU member states, Poland, Bulgaria and Latvia have attempted and succeeded in shaping the development of the EU's energy security policy, focusing on natural gas. This explores the argument that EU membership affects the formation of national foreign and energy policy as well as procedures of policy-making, and that newer member states have also been able to shape EU level policy-making through the ‘uploading’ of national preferences. The research engages with relevant conceptual issues to develop and utilise a framework which is a synthesis of literature on EU agenda-setting, policy framing, Europeanisation and the social construction of energy ‘crises’ and (in)security. This conceptual frame is then used to explore and evaluate the influence of newer member states on EU energy policy agenda-setting, policy-making and policy implementation. Evaluating the obstacles and opportunities for influence, an empirically rich data set is analysed to test the extent to which five theoretically derived hypotheses account for member state influence. Five mechanisms are identified as potentially key factors in explaining the degree of influence which member states have. The thesis suggests that one is the impact of supply disruptions and price rises on perceptions and constructions of national and EU energy security. This can contribute towards a context that is conducive to the arguments about policy change and projection being made, a policy window, and is a reflection of the social construction of energy insecurity and energy crises. Diplomatic skill and learning to ‘play the EU game’, being active in Council summits and technocratic level(s), and engaging in consensual policy-making that adheres to EU norms and interests is seen as important. Another key factor is the role of Russia as a major and sometimes monopoly gas supplier, in constraining, enabling, and influencing the strength of national interests - the extent of political will and EU energy policy activism. A fourth factor is considered to be the extent to which institutionalised sub-EU regional and strategic alliances exist and are prioritised as an arena to develop coordinated policies and preferences. The final conceptually derived factor is related to the strength of administrative capacity, in terms of well-coordinated institutions at the national and EU level, and sufficient personnel and resources. The thesis also provides a study of the development of EU energy policy since the 1950s in chapter two, and chapters three to five focus on the three country case studies; Poland, Bulgaria and Latvia. These empirical chapters include in each case a history of their energy policy and relations with both the EU and Russia. The thesis concludes with an analysis of the empirical findings using comparative country case manner approach, along with conceptual (and methodological) observations based on the testing of the hypotheses.

Casella (1996) derives theoretically the result that the gains from enlarging a trade bloc fall disproportionately on its small member states. Testing this hypothesis for the Member States of the European Community and its enlargements since 1973, we find mixed results, indicating that such a small country bonus may well exists, but that it is partly neutralized or dominated by economic forces that tend to favour large countries. / Series: EI Working Papers / Europainstitut

In everyday life, imposing your will on your neighbour is likely to turn out counterproductive for your mutual relationship in the long term. Yet, the EU’s Enlargement-policy is commonly perceived as embedded with a spirit of policy imposition. While this is commonly perceived as a by-product of the EU’s power vis-à-vis pre-accession countries, few scholars have studied the implications of such imposition in its pre-accession contexts. This thesis aims to study such implications by drawing on Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theoretical approach (1985). It therefore asks, how can we identify spaces in which counterhegemonic discourses emerge? In answering this, it applies a multi-method case study of Kosovo’s pre-accession context and conceives of Enlargement as a hegemonic discourse. It argues that counterhegemonic spaces can be identified by studying the undecidability of Enlargement’s discursive structure. It finds that Kosovans are subject to a plethora of hegemonic narratives, which simultaneously possess the potential for counterhegemonic disarticulations. From this perspective, events such as the general election in 2019 in Kosovo can be understood as a counterhegemonic moment. In developing its discourse theoretical approach, it contributes to poststructuralist IR and European Integration Studies by developing our understandings of the interplay between hegemonic and counterhegemonic discourses.

This thesis studies the positions EU member states take towards the Western Balkan Enlargement. We examine what forms these positions. We examine what influence does the net contribution to the European budget have, net contributors are less likely to support further Enlargement. The levels of migration and the feeling that migration is a concerning issue do not have relevant influence on the popularity of the Enlargement. We found no relevant correlation between the feeling of European citizenship and the support for the EU membership for the Balkan countries. We can, however, see that the New Member States are much more likely to support the EU enlargement than are those who became EU members before 2004. We have chosen four cases for case studies. In the case study of France, we can observe the influence of the French president on the Enlargement process and the resulting reform of its method. In the German case, the position of the political elites is a strong support of the Enlargement, even if the public are not that enthusiastic and have a lot of influence, since the German parliament has to also approve beginning of any accession talks. In the case of Greece, we can see how Greece was able to use its position as an EU member and gain leverage in their dispute with Macedonia over the name of...