This essay studies the national parliaments' reasoned opinions at the early warning mechanism. The study aim to declare if there is any variation in which national parliaments who is active in the early warning mechanism, and if there is a variation in type of bills in the early warning mechanism. These study also wants to describe some variation in how the national parliaments argued in the reasoned opinions. The study gives an enhanced understanding of the importance and legitimacy of the early warning mechanism and the reasoned opinions. The result shows that there is a certain group of parliaments who are more active and these are with few exceptions EU 15 countries. The study also shows that there is some kind of bills that is more prevalent than others, there is however some variation. There is also a wide variation in the arguments raised in the reasoned opinions. The results indicate that the national parliaments varies greatly in managing the reasoned opinions and it gives a negatively impacton the early warning mechanism. / Studien granskar de nationella parlamentens motiverade yttranden inom ramen för EU:s subsidiaritetsgranskning. Studiens syfte är att beskriva en möjlig variation angående  vilka nationella parlamenten som är aktiva inom subsidiaritetsgranskningen. Studiens syfte är även att beskriva variationen i vilka lagförslag som återfinns i subsidiaritetsgrankningen, samt om de nationella parlamenten varierar i  argumentering i de motiverade yttrandena. Studien visar att det finns nationella parlament som är vanligare förekommande inom granskningen, samt att vissa typer av lagförslag föranleder fler yttranden än andra. Beträffande argumenteringen i de motiverade yttrandena fanns en stor variation.

In October 1999 the European Commission published the second progress report on the state of convergence of the Central- and Eastern European candidate countries (CEECs). The report encompasses an assessment, which is based on the three Copenhagen criteria. From an economic point of view, a country must have a functioning market economy and be able to withstand the competition on the European single market. In this paper we present a synthetic performance measure which helps to assess the economic preparedness of the ten Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) to become members of the European Union (EU). With the aid of the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) we construct a best practice frontier, which is supported by the best performing EU-countries and which serves as a benchmark for the candidate countries. The preparedness of any CEEC is measured as the relative distance to this frontier. The results confirm that the macroeconomic performance of most of the CEECs lies far behind the EU standards, in foreign trade some of the CEECs already perform better than some EU countries. Interestingly, we find out that some CEECs are already better prepared for the EMU than many EU member states. (authors' abstract) / Series: EI Working Papers / Europainstitut

A Dinamarca possui, sem dúvida alguma, uma das políticas mais excepcionais em relação à Europa integrada. Desde os primórdios da integração europeia, no início dos anos 50, o país demonstrou um forte ceticismo e, para alguns, um forte receio com a ideia de uma Europa unida. Mesmo após sua incorporação à Comunidade Europeia, no início dos anos 70, a Dinamarca se posicionou como membro de uma outra comunidade, a nórdica, e que, dessa forma, seu papel na Comunidade Europeia consistia em criar uma ponte entre estas duas comunidades. Era de comum entendimento entre as elites do país, bem como por grande parte da sociedade civil, que a integração europeia representava valores típicos da Europa continental que, por sua vez, conflitavam com os valores nórdicos. O excepcionalismo dinamarquês manteve-se mesmo após o término da Guerra Fria, quando, em 1993, o Governo do país compreendeu, em seu Livro Branco, que a União Europeia seria o principal fórum internacional para a promoção dos valores e interesses da Dinamarca, mas devido a uma recusa popular em aceitar o Tratado que Estabelecia a União Europeia, o país estipulou a existência de quatro ressalvas formais os opt-outs às políticas europeias, entre aquelas mais sensíveis à soberania nacional. Inúmeras hipóteses foram levantadas na tentativa de compreender tal peculiaridade, entre estas, destacamos a existência de uma percepção mantida tanto pela elite política do país, como por parte da sociedade civil, de uma alternativa nórdica à Europa. Dessa forma, a relutância dinamarquesa com o processo europeu de integração poderia ser compreendido pelo desejo do país em se inserir em um outro processo de integração, somente entre os países nórdicos. Tendo em vista tal entendimento, esta pesquisa, através de uma abordagem sociológico-histórica, tem por objetivo compreender em que medida a percepção de uma alternativa nórdica à Europa impactou na construção do, então chamado, dilema de integração dinamarquês, ou seja, desta posição relutante desenvolvida pelo país em relação à Comunidade Europeia / União Europeia. Para colaborar, iremos analisar a questão nórdica no desenvolvimento da política externa e de segurança da Dinamarca. Argumentaremos que embora nem sempre tenha sido apresentado como uma alternativa real, a questão nórdica demonstra-se de extrema importância para compreender a posição dinamarquesa na Europa. / Denmark has, without doubt, one of the most exceptional policies towards Europe. From the beginning of European integration in the early 50s the country has demonstrated a strong skepticism and, for some, a strong concern with the idea of a united Europe. Even after her incorporation into the European Community in the early 70s, Denmark has positioned herself as a member of another community, the Nordic one, and, therefore, the Danish role in the European Community was to \'build bridges\' between these two communities. It was a common understanding among the Danish elites, and to a large part of civil society, that European integration represented typical values of the \'continental Europe\' which, in turn, were in conflict with the Nordic values. The Danish exceptionalism remained even after the end of the Cold War, when in 1993 the Danish government understood in its White Paper that the European Union would be the main international forum for the promotion of Danish values and interest, but due to a popular refusal to accept the Treaty that established the European Union, the government stipulated the existence of four formal reservations - the opt-outs to European policies, among those most sensitive to national sovereignty. Several hypotheses have been raised in an attempt to understand this peculiarity, among these, we can highlight the existence of a perception both by the political elite of the country as by civil society of a Nordic alternative to Europe. Thus, the Danish reluctance to the European integration process could be understood by the country\'s desire to be part in another integration process, among the Nordic countries. Therefore, through a historical sociological approach, this research seeks to understand to what extent the perception of a Nordic alternative to Europe impacted on the construction of the so called \'Danish integration dilemma, i.e. in this reluctant position developed by the country towards the European Community / European Union. To this end, we will examine the Nordic question in the development of the Danish Foreign and Security Policy. We will argue that although it has not always been presented as a real alternative, the Nordic question can be seen as a very important factor to understand the Danish position in Europe.

The main aim of this dissertation is to provide evidence on the development of bilateral trade relations related to manufacturing industry between Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Slovenia, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia and the old Member States of the EU (EU 15/EU 25) through focus on the intra-industry trade phenomenon during the period delimited by years 1995, 1999, 2004 and 2007. Based on data from Eurostat Easy Comext database classified according to the Standard International Trade Classification (Rev.3), Grubel-Lloyd indices are computed at the level of 3-digit and 1-digit manufacturing industries (SITC 5, 6, 7, 8) and thereafter aggregate to the level of manufacturing sector as a whole (SITC 5 - 8). Consequently, Greenaway, Hine and Milner methodology is used for disentangling intra-industry trade into its horizontal and vertical components (the latter being further separated into low quality vertical intra-industry trade and high quality vertical intra-industry trade) on the basis of unit value indices. The results show that the share of intra-industry trade in total trade between the countries in focus is increasing during the complete period in all countries and all sectors with SITC 6, 7 and 8 clearly inclining to intra-industry specialization. Altogether, the predominant specialization in high quality vertical IIT is presented, implying so far only slowly advancing convergence steps of the new Member States towards the path of the initial Members of the EU.

Cette thèse en urbanisme et aménagement analyse les interactions entre les grandes gares historiques et les logiques du marché ferroviaire européen. L'interférence entre les principes du marché et ceux de l'aménagement des lieux de transport invite à mobiliser de nouveaux concepts pour présenter l'évolution des grandes gares historiques dans une perspective contemporaine. Pour ce faire, il est proposé d'utiliser les méthodes de la sociologie économique des marchés et de comparer trois terrains: la gare de St Pancras à Londres, la gare du Nord à Paris et la gare centrale de Milan. Dans un premier temps, la thèse présente les différentes formes d'encastrement des principes concurrentiels (historiques, culturels, institutionnels et sociaux) dans l'aménagement des gares, en prenant le parti d'une analyse diachronique au long cours de chacun des cas. Dans un second temps, la thèse détaille les agencements marchands à l'œuvre - selon le modèle analytique synthétisé par Michel Callon. Trois agencements marchands ont été identifiés qui correspondent à trois formes d'économisation de l'objet-gare: l'agencement de l'infrastructure de transport, l'agencement du bien immobilier, l'agencement de la place marchande. Cette thèse démontre combien la rationalisation économique des gares formate autant qu'elle est formatée par ces infrastructures. In fine, elle invite à considérer les processus d'économisation de l'espace pour en comprendre l'aménagement qui en résulte / This research in urban planning and studies analyses the interaction between major historic railway stations and the logics of the European rail market. Interferences between the market principles and those of the planning and the management of transport places are an issue that requires new concepts to understand how do major historic railway stations evolve in our time. This research applies mehods developed in the field of economic sociology, especially on markets, and compares three cases: London St Pancras, Paris Nord and Milano Centrale stations. The first part of this dissertation presents the different forms of embeddedness (historical, cultural, institutional and social) that implement competition principles into the planning and the management of railway stations. A long-term diachronical approach of each case is presented. The second part of the dissertation uses the theoretical approach of market agencing developed by Michel Callon in the fields of economic sociology and of science and technology studies. Three ways of agencing railway stations are analysed: agencing the essential facility, agencing the real estate asset and agencing the “market square facility” – a new kind of market square especially developed in transit places. This dissertation shows how economic rationalisation frames railway stations as far as those infrastructures frame this economic rationalisation in return. It invites us to consider the process of economisation of space as a key part of planning practices

Dieses Forschungspapier fasst die zentralen Ergebnisse entsprechenden Diplomarbeit zur Steuerverwaltung in Polen zusammen. Die zentrale Fragestellung lautet, wie sich diese spezifische öffentliche Verwaltungsstruktur im Zuge der Transformation und des Beitritts zur Europäischen Union entwickelt hat und inwiefern sie heute europäischen Standards entspricht. Da es der EU in dem Bereich an Kompetenzen mangelt, besteht kein einheitliches europäisches Modell der Steuerverwaltung, an dem die polnische zu messen wäre. Die Autorin nutzt das im Rahmen der Europäisierungsforschung entwickelte Konzept des Europäischen Verwaltungsraums, um die aktuelle Gestalt der polnischen Steuerverwaltung unter Berücksichtigung verbindlicher Vorgaben der EU und deren Aktivitäten im Beitrittsprozess analysieren zu können. Ob es eine spezifisch europäische Steuerverwaltung gibt, wird anhand von Daten der OECD mit einer Clusteranalyse ausgelotet werden. Schließlich wird Polens Verortung in den differenzierten Steuerverwaltungswelten ermittelt. Desweiteren analysiert die Autorin die Verbreitung des Common Assessment Frameworks in den Steuerverwaltungen in den Staaten Mittelosteuropas thematisiert. Eine eigene Umfrage bei den polnischen Finanzämtern bringt mehr Klarheit über die Nutzung des CAF in der polnischen Steuerverwaltung. Schließlich ermittelt die Autorin mittels eines semantischen Differentials das Image der polnischen Steuerverwaltung in Deutschland und vergleicht dieses mit dem Selbstbild der deutschen Steuerverwaltung. In einer Schlussbetrachtung werden die Ergebnisse der verschiedenen Untersuchungen zusammengeführt. Die Antwort der Autorin auf die aufgeworfene Frage nach dem europäischen Charakter der polnischen Steuerverwaltung ist verhalten optimistisch. / This research paper is including the central findings of the diploma thesis diploma about the fiscal administration in Poland. The central question is, how this specific public administrative structure developed in the course of the transformation process and the entry to the European Union and to what extent it corresponds today to European standards. Since the European Union has only few competencies in this field, no uniform European model of the fiscal administration exist, at which the Polish fiscal administration would be measured. The author uses the concept of the European administrative space, in order to be able to analyze the current shape of the Polish fiscal administration with special consideration of obligatory defaults of the European Union and their activities during the entry process. Whether there is a specifically European fiscal administration will be find out, on the basis of data of the OECD with a cluster analysis. Finally, Poland’s place in the different fiscal administration worlds is determined. Further the author analyzes the spreading of the Common Assessment Frameworks in the fiscal administrations in Central Eastern European Countries. Its own inquiry with the Polish tax offices brings more clarity over the use of the CAF in the Polish fiscal administration. Finally the author determines the image of the Polish fiscal administration in Germany by means of a semantic differential and compares this with the self-image of the German fiscal administration. In a final consideration the results of the different findings are connected. The answer of the author to the raised question about the European character of the Polish fiscal administration is with restraint optimistic.

This study is primarily concerned with the evolution of the EU as a pluralistic security community throughout the course of European integration. Its main purpose is to examine how the EU member states have managed to renounce the use of force in their relations with one another and consequently succeeded in establishing a lasting peace in Western Europe following World War Two.Within the scope of the study, the EU&rsquo / s attempts to extend its zone of peace and stability beyond its immediate borders by using some foreign policy tools such as the enlargement and the recently launched European Neighbourhood Policy are also explored .Finally, the thesis attempts to evaluate the potential contribution that Turkey would make to the EU security community in the post-Cold War era upon her membership in the EU.

The purpose of this thesis is to map and assess the organisational and ideological development of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform party, the ELDR. More specifically, it seeks to analyse the degree of integration between the members of the ELDR over time, to identify factors that may or may not generate integration, to relate the development of the ELDR to earlier research about European parties, and finally to contribute to the ongoing debate about whether or not the traditional national party families are about to establish parties at the European level. The thesis is based on the assumption that parties adapt to their environment, in this case, the system of multi-level governance that characterises the European Union. As the European parties are composed of national parties, they are also dependent on the member parties' opportunities and motives for cooperation. If there is integration, we can, however, not only expect the European parties to adapt to their environment. As they become independent actors, they may also influence their environment. In other words, we can anticipate interaction between the European and national levels that leads to mutual adaptation, or Europeanisation. To be able to capture the interaction between the two levels, theories from international relations and comparative politics are combined. Based on interviews, participant observation, documentary research and content analysis of European election manifestos, the analyses shows that the members of the ELDR have over time reached a rather advanced level of integration, both organisationally and ideologically. Although it is possible to identify constraining factors to this development, the ELDR has, at least from what is known from literature, reached about the same level of development as the two other European parties, the Christian democratic EPP and the Social democratic PES. The internal integration of the ELDR is the outcome of a successive transfer of power from the member parties to the ELDR. By now, the ELDR can therefore be defined as a rather independent actor and as a type of party at the European level. This type of party is, however, not comparable to national parties. It is instead adapted to the institutional structure of the European Union, with, at least partly, a different organisation and different functions from those of national parties. / digitalisering@umu

Šiame magistro darbe yra plėtojama tai, kad Europos Bendrijų Teisingumo Teismas (ETT) kaip institucija, veikianti Europos Sąjungos viešojo administravimo sistemoje, atlieka Bendrijų konstitucinio teismo funkcijas kaip aukščiausiasis konstitucijos aiškintojas ir turi pareigą, esant normų kolizijai, apibrėžti konstitucinio pagrindo, reikalingo dalyvaujant Europos integracijos procese, turinį, apimtį ir ribas. Darbe yra siekiama parodyti, kad ETT, vykdydamas viešojo administravimo reguliavimo funkciją, savo praktikoje priimamais sprendimais neleidžia valstybių narių, kaip ES administracinių vienetų, nacionaliniams teismams jų nagrinėjamose bylose priimti sprendimus, išeinančius už ES teisės ribų, tai yra priimtus, vadovaujantis netinkamai išaiškinta teisės norma arba nuostata, prieštaraujančia Europos Bendrijos teisei. Darbe taip pat yra siekiama parodyti, kad ETT kaip EB institucija, įkurta Europos Bendrijos teisės vienodinimui ir darniam taikymui užtikrinti, negalėjo sėkmingai funkcionuoti, neatsižvelgiant į istorinės EB raidos metu atsiradusius naujus poreikius. ETT sėkmingai vykdydamas savo funkcijas įtakojo tokios Bendrijos teisinės sistemos, kokią mes turime dabar – vieningos, harmoningos, nepriklausomos -, suformavimą, įgyvendindamas EB sutarties 220 straipsnyje nustatytą Bendrijos teisės sergėtojo vaidmenį, jis ir toliau aktyviai dalyvauja šios teisės tobulinimo procese. ETT jam suteiktos apibrėžtos jurisdikcijos ribose vykdydamas jam priskirtas funkcijas prašymų priimti... [to full text] / The present Master degree thesis develops the concept that the Court of Justice of the European Communities (ECJ), as an institution functioning within the system of the European public administration, performs the functions of a Community Constitutional Court acting as the supreme constitutional interpreter and, in the event of a collision of norms, is vested with the responsibility to determine the content, scope and limits of the constitutional basis that is necessary for the participation in the process of European integration. The work aims to show that in the performance of the function of regulating public administration, the ECJ by means of its judgements prevents the national courts of Member States – as administrative entities of the EU – to take such decisions in the cases before them that could exceed the boundaries of the EU law, i.e. would be taken on the basis of a wrongly interpreted legal norm or a provision that contradicts the Community law. It is also attempted to demonstrate in the work that the ECJ, as an institution of the European Communities founded with the aim to unify the Community law and ensure consistency in its application, could not function effectively without taking regard of the new demands that emerged in the course of the historical development of the European Communities. By successfully performing its functions and implementing the role of the ‘supervisor’ of Community law attributed to him by Article 220 of the Treaty of the European... [to full text]

The paper is concerned with the impact of market research prior to integration, on the structures of noncompetitive industries in integrated economy. The analysis focuses on separated, single commodity, monopolistic markets with stochastic demand. Monopolistic firms are considered in dynamic multiperiod model, where intertemporal links are determined by expenditures on market research in a present period and benefits from this activity (i.e., smaller variance of the prediction error) in the future. Assuming that each firm maximizes its total discounted expected utility from profit in indefinite time, we show that the optimal market research strategy is stationary and depends on market size. Consequently, in the period following integration firms operating prior to integration in small markets (such as Slovenia, Czech Republic, Hungary or Estonia) are expected to have much less information about the integrated market than their competitors operating before integration on European market. This informational asymmetry may affect the structure of the industry in integrated economy. In the extreme case, the firm operating before integration in the small market can be ruled out from the integrated market. (authors' abstract)