The goal of the submitted thesis "Evolution of the audit profession" is to introduce the audit profession focused on the current situation of the audit market. The European Commission published a Green Paper "Audit Policy: Lessons from the Crisis" on the 13th of October 2010 seeking views on a range of issues related to the statutary audit. (the consultation closed on the 8th of December). The part of this work is the comparison of views of the group of respondents and the summary of all responses. It also mentions the current situation of this theme.

The Reconstruction of the Central Wastewater Treatment Plant in Prague constitutes a fundamental challenge for the Czech capital city of Prague. The existing wastewater treatment plant is obsolete and fails to comply with limits set forth by the Council Directive 91/271/EEC concerning urban waste-water treatment. Thus, it is necessary to build a new waterline and reconstruct the old one. As such a project would be financially demanding, its implementation is dependent upon a subsidy from the EU Operational Programme "Environment". There are also more variants of the reconstruction of the Central Wastewater Treatment Plant in Prague. In the thesis, the author compares the contemplated options of re-building and reconstruction of the Central Wastewater Treatment Plant in Prague. He also examines the influence of negotiations with European Commission representatives and of the amount of the subsidy upon the choice of the final option. A hypothesis of the study is that due to the subsidy policy creates pressure on the final form of the reconstruction of the Prague Central Wastewater Treatment Plant, which directly interact its economic efficiency.

<p>Combining insights from critical discourse analysis (CDA) and neo-Gramscian IPE theory, this paper puts forth a cultural political economy (CPE) perspective to analyse the discursive articulation of ‘European subjects’ in the context of the EU’s Lisbon Agenda modernisation strategy. It is suggested here that the transformation proposed in Lisbon to the new economic imaginary of the knowledge based economy (KBE), depends on ‘new subjects’ and thus new discursive constructions of identities to reflect the new economic and social formations it envisions. The citizenship discourses of two of the Lisbon Agenda’s main supporters, specifically European business lobbies (represented by the ERT and LCEC) and the EU Commission, are examined in order to explore the relationship between citizenship rights and responsibilities and the two main goals of the Agenda, namely economic competitiveness/growth and social inclusion/social welfare protection modernisation. The argument is made that the discursive articulation of a ‘neoliberal communitarian’ variant of citizenship, especially evident in the discourses of the EU’s business lobbies and the EU Commission since the ‘shift’ to jobs and growth in early 2005, represents an attempt to further the commodification of the EU polity, and as a result, subordinate the more social goals of the Lisbon Agenda to the perceived imperatives of economic growth and competition. The Lisbon Agenda does not therefore mark a dramatic ‘turning point’ in favour of a more ‘social Europe’ as was speculated early on, but instead works to consolidate the dominance of ‘embedded neoliberalism’ as the socio-economic governance model for the EU. The paper ends with a discussion of the possible counter-hegemonic movements challenging the orthodoxy of embedded neoliberalism and neoliberal communitarian conceptions of citizenship.</p>

The chief preoccupation of the dissertation revolves around the European Union's project of calling forth a collective sense of "European identity" amongst people in the Union. It focuses specifically on how the European Union's identity politics plays out once the ethnic minorities with immigrant background now living in the Union are brought into view. The main purpose can be described as twofold; involving, firstly, a mapping and examination of how the EU construes and defines the identity it seeks to mobilize, and, secondly, a thorough discussion of the types of consequences or implications that stem from this endeavour. In demonstrating the strong tendency on part of the EU to articulate a common identity for the Union in ethno-cultural terms — whereby the EU is conceived as primarily a cultural community whose members are said to share the same origin, cultural heritage, religion and history — the study goes to great length in discussing the excluding implications that an ethno-cultural identity politics gives rise to. The dissertation argues that such an ethno-cultural disposition partly must be seen in light of the European Union's gradual adjustment to a largely neoliberal order; an order which has worked restraining on the feasibility of a social and political articulation of identity and citizenship in the Union. An introductory chapter outlines the discourse theoretical approach which guides the analyses in five essays. The essays mainly explore how the European Union's discourse on identity manifests in various policy areas - immigration, citizenship and education - all of which in one way or another address the issues of culture, the multicultural society, ethnic exclusion, racism and the situation for ethnic minorities and migrants. The complex of problems concerning ethnic, cultural and social exclusion in today's European Union thus constitutes a central theme engaged with throughout the dissertation. / digitalisering@umu

The purpose of our thesis is to investigate the incentive mechanisms that may be used for a timely and successful implementation of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects. This purpose is achieved by investigating challenges and success factors within one of the largest Public-Private Partnership projects in Europe, the SESAR programme which stands for Single European Sky ATM Research and that aims at modernising the European air traffic management (ATM) system. The categories of SESAR actors that we investigated include: stakeholders (airspace users such as Air France, KLM, SAS; ANSPs from Sweden,Finland, Netherlands and the CANSO organisation; airport representatives including Swedavia, Zürich Airport and Guernsey Airport); as well as manufacturers (e.g. Airbus, Frequentis, Thales); international organisations as principals (e.g. European Commission – SESAR Joint Undertaking-, EUROCONTROL) and advisers (e.g. Helios UK). Referring to our contribution to the theory, we identify four categories of incentive mechanisms for timely implementation of large PPP projects: i. Financial incentives such as loans, proportionate with the level of risks the implementer bears; the deduction of loan fees or reduction of service charges can motivate stakeholders to implement earlier, once they identify a positive business case. ii. Operational incentives can refer to certain preferential treatment to those who comply and detrimental treatment to those who do not comply. iii. Legal incentives such as mandates can force commitment and have an impact on the timely implementation of PPP projects within a certain time-frame. iv. Intangible incentives, such as transparent communication, collaboration and less political behaviour, are seen as major factors contributing to the commitment and trust level among the actors involved, thus, enabling the success of the PPP project implementation.

Magistro baigiamajame darbe išanalizuotas Serbijos integracijos į ES procesas, pateikta Serbijos ekonominės ir politinės padėties apžvalga. Įvertintas Serbijos pasiruošimas tapti ES nare atsižvelgiant į Europos Komisijos nuomonę, ES iškeltų sąlygų vykdymą ir dabartinę ekonominę ir politinę padėtį. Pateikta Serbijos visuomenės paramos ES charakteristika, išanalizuota visuomenės požiūrio kaita į eurointegraciją. Pirmojoje dalyje teoriniu aspektu apžvelgiama ES raida, įvertinama sėkmingos jos plėtros istorija ir būsima perspektyva. Pateikiamos ES narystės sąlygos ir procedūros, išskiriamos specifinės sąlygos ir pereinamieji etapai, kurie taikomi tik Vakarų Balkanų valstybėms siekiančioms narystės ES. Antroje dalyje pristatoma Vakarų Balkanų istorijos genezė, Serbijos, kaip pagrindinės regiono valstybės vaidmuo politiniame, ekonominiame ir kultūriniame regiono vystymesi, akcentuojamas Jugoslavijos dezintegracijos procesas ir nesėkmingas jo valdymas iš ES pusės. Trečioje dalyje analizuojama Serbijos politinė ir ekonominė transformacija, bei siekiai tapti ES nare. Aptariamos ES sąlygos Serbijai ir jų vykdymas kuomet šaliai vadovavo skirtingos vyriausybės. Analizuojamas ir vertinamas Serbijos pasirengimas tapti ES nare remiantis ES ataskaitomis dėl Serbijos ekonomikos, politinės padėties ir Europos standartų atitikimo. Ketvirtoje dalyje pateikiamas, analizuojamas ir lyginamas Serbijos gyventojų pasiskirstymas ES klausimais, rezultatų kaita ir jų priežastys. Šioje dalyje aptarti... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Master thesis analyzes Serbian EU integration process, reveals the political and economic status of Serbia. It also examines the situation in Serbia in terms of the political, economic criteria and the ability to take on the obligations of membership. Thesis also compares and analyzes Serbia‘s public polls researches towards EU integration. The first chapter of the Master thesis describes the research of the EU enlargement and integration genesis, describes the process of new member integration process and conditions, also states and anlyses the specific conditions of membership for Western Balkan countries. The second chapter presents full overview of the political conditions of former Yugoslavia, particular emphasis is placed on the process of disintegration of Yugoslavia, and on the failure of EU to prevent the conflicts in the region. The third chapter examines Serbia‘s political and economic transformation and ability to apply for EU membership. It also analyzes the position of different governments of Serbia on EU integration process. The last chapter analyzes public opinion on EU integration. The last part of the work analyzes specific conditions given from EU which influences public polls.

Notre thèse a pour objet une analyse sémantique des discours de la Commission européenne sur l'emploi et la lutte contre la discrimination. Le corpus est constitué par les publications de la Direction générale « Emploi, affaires sociales et inclusion » de la Commission et rassemble un matériau linguistique de 155 documents parus entre 2004 et 2011. En s'inscrivant dans la tradition de l'analyse du discours politique, cette étude prend appui sur les acquis de la linguistique de l'énonciation, de la pragmatique et des théories de l'argumentation afin de dégager, pour mieux les observer et théoriser, certaines propriétés inhérentes aux discours politiques et institutionnels. Il s'agira, plus exactement, de cerner les procédés linguistiques et discursifs à l'oeuvre dans notre corpus et, corollairement, d'observer comment ceux-ci participent à la construction et à la stabilisation du sens et de la référence en discours. Notre thèse est structurée en deux parties. La première (chapitres 1-2) est consacrée à la présentation du corpus et des cadres théorique et méthodologique. La deuxième (chapitres 3-5) portera sur l'analyse sémantico-énonciative et discursive du corpus / The purpose of this thesis is to analyse, from a semantic and enunciative point of view, the European Union's discourse on employment and the fight against discrimination. The Corpus is made up of 155 documents published between 2004 and 2011 by the European Commission's DG for Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion. Our goal is to observe the way linguistic phenomena described in this work contribute to the construction and discourse stabilization of the linguistic sense and reference. The thesis is structured as follows: the first part will be dedicated to the presentation of the corpus and problematic. This section also contains the fundamental principles of enunciative semantics along with a description of the AntConc software we will employ in order to explore the reference corpus. The second part is focused on the corpus analysis and is divided into three chapters. The first one deals with the linguistic expression of subjectivity and will concentrate on the study of the enunciative modalities. The second one is dedicated to an analysis of the enunciative heterogeneity of the European Union's discourse, in particular from the Scandinavian Theory of Linguistic Polyphony's point of view. Finally, in the last chapter, we will observe the way a verbal sequence ? whether it be a collocation, a simple or complex syntagma, may create a speech event

After the appointment of a new European Commission in 2004, “communication” was made a top priority on the agenda. The Commission presented a new communication policy, which would establish a dialogue with the citizens, thereby bringing more democracy to the union and bridging the gap to the citizens. Three documents containing the policy were published, namely an internal action plan for the Commission, Plan D which establishes the framework for national debates and a whitepaper on EU communication policy. These documents were met by mistrust and criticism from many different actors such as journalists and experts. The aim of this master thesis is to examine this new communication policy from a deliberative democratic perspective. The thesis asks whether the new policy has a potential of contributing to deliberative democracy, by investigating the documents from a discursive point of view. Deliberative democracy focuses mainly on public discussions and the generation of a general will by public conversation where every one has a right to participate on equal terms. This thesis uses a discursive interpretation, as stated by the philosopher Jürgen Habermas, where the public sphere and political rights which constitutes the public area plays an important role. The theoretical perspective is used in the thesis to understand and assess the policy. To be able to draw conclusions, the new communication policy is searched for discursive ideas and the occurrence is analyzed by a both qualitative and quantitative text analysis. The analysis shows that the policy includes a lot of actions that goes well along with a discursive perspective, as defined in the thesis, although some important considerations are missing. The new communication policy as presented by the European Commission has therefore a good potential of contributing to deliberative democracy in the Union. The policy is also discussed in relation to the criticism that has been presented regarding the theory of deliberative democracy. The thesis shows that the communication policy includes actions which decrease the importance of this criticism, allowing for the policy to possibly contribute to European democracy and decreasing the democratic deficit.

La question bancaire dans la construction européenne fait rarement l’objet d’études exclusives, étant associée le plus souvent à l’union économique et européenne. Ce travail vise à combler cette lacune en se concentrant sur les modalités de gouvernance adoptée par la Commission européenne pour bâtir le marché commun et sur son recours pérenne à trois comités d’experts entre 1969 et 1989. Il permet d’évaluer l’application à ce chantier des principes stratégiques, qui fondent la gouvernance : l’harmonisation des législations, puis la reconnaissance mutuelle des législations, et enfin le contrôle des banques installées hors du territoire national par le pays d’origine. La thèse analyse les influences croisées de la politique communautaire et des politiques bancaires de la République fédérale d’Allemagne, du Royaume-Uni et de la France. En mettant en évidence la formation d’une communauté épistémique entre les comités d’experts européens et le Comité de Bâle, la thèse traite de la circulation des idées en matière de régulation et de supervision. Elle contribue ainsi à revaloriser le rôle de la Communauté européenne dans la mise en œuvre du système international de régulation dans les années 1980 et à cerner son influence sur la modernisation des politiques bancaires des pays membres. Elle illustre enfin l’émergence de la coopération entre autorités de contrôle et entre gouvernements des pays membres de la Communauté européenne. / The Banking issue in the European construction is rarely subject to exclusive studies, being associated generally with the economic and monetary union. This work seeks to fill the gap by focusing to the governance processes of the European Commission to build the common market and his sustainable recourse to three expert committees between 1969 and 1989. It allows to evaluate the implementation to this project of strategic guidelines : the harmonization of laws, then the mutual recognition, and, finally, the home control country on banks settled outside of national territory. The thesis analyses the cross-influences between the community policy and the banking policies of German Federal Republic, United Kingdom and France. By highlighting the formation of an epistemic community between the European experts committees and the Basel Committee, the thesis deals with the flows of ideas in the field of regulation and supervision. It plays a part in enhancing the role of the European Community in the implementation of the international system of regulation in the eighties, and in identifying its influence on the modernization of banking policies of state members. Finally, it highlights the emergence of cooperation between control authorities, between governments of the EEC states members.

The main objective with the thesis was to analyze institutional change in the European Union pre-and-post financial debt crisis, with particular focus on the roles of the Parliament, the Commission, the Council as well as the Court of Justice. To attain the objective, the thesis intended to answer the subsequent queries; (i) what notable institutional changes were brought in the European Union pre-and-post financial debt crisis; (ii) what role did the Parliament, the Commission, the Council and the Court of Justice play pre-and-post financial debt crisis; were their roles enhanced by the financial debt crisis? In order to attain the objective, the thesis utilized an institutional analysis and development framework. This theoretical framework relied on a qualitative content analysis.  The results of the thesis exhibit that the European Union’s progression route was not free from crises. With the Union’s expansion, more decisions ought to be taken by the four institutional bodies. The role of the European institutional bodies resulted in various institutional changes with the establishment of the Treaty of Lisbon; from having a normative power to encompass an executive one. The Treaty of Lisbon also changed the decisionmaking procedure to an ordinary legislative procedure. Apropos decision-making, the Treaty of Lisbon also enhanced the Council and the Parliament’s role pre-financial debt crisis by making the Parliament and Council equal in the new co-decision procedure. The role of the Council has been dynamic since its formation, while the role of the three other institutions could somewhat vary throughout the pre-financial debt crisis. With regards to institutional change after the financial debt crisis, the results reveal that institutional changes occurred mainly in economic and fiscal policies, for instance strengthening the EMU with the intergovernmental Treaty on Stability and Coordination and Governance. Whilst the Treaty of Lisbon brought more supranationalism in the European Union, the period after the financial debt crisis rather celebrated intergovernmentalism in the Union. The role of the Council was dynamic even post-financial debt crisis, decreasing the role of the Commission in the agenda setting. However, with the introduction of the Six-Pack and the Banking Union, the Commission and the Parliament’s role became evidently enhanced, whilst the Court of Justice, did not play a key role in the financial debt crisis.