Věra Thea Zoubková Europeanization of Urban Development Policy Comparative Case Study: UK and Germany Diploma Thesis Abstract This thesis deals with the vertical (top-down, bottom up) and horizontal Europeanization of urban development policy. Involvement in EU-sponsored programmes has provided urban institutions with unprecedented access to new sources of information, legitimacy, and financial support. This thesis seeks to evaluate whether European working has provoked shifts in the institutionalised norms and values at the national and city level, focusing on the experience of Great Britain and Germany. The legacy of the Bristol Accord and the Leipzig Charter, two examples of the uploading of national policy, is then examined. It can be argued that by drawing closely on domestic policy agenda, as well as wide ranging-nature of the agenda, little has resulted from the UK's contribution to the emerging EU urban agenda. This contrasts with the more sustained legacy of the Leipzig Charter. And third, the involvement of British and German cities, as well as impact of their participation in European urban cooperation programs is examined and evaluated. It is argued that previous experiences with the programs facilitate joining in other EU projects of city cooperation.

In Folge der Osterweiterung der europäischen Union (EU) und der steigenden Arbeitsmarktintegration zwischen den EU15 und den neuen Mitgliedsstaaten ist die Lohnfindung in Mittel- und Osteuropa zu einem Schwerpunkt der europäischer Wirtschaftspolitik geworden. Zugleich wird das optimale Wechselkursregime für mittel- und osteuropäische Staaten kontrovers diskutiert. Die Dissertation befasst sich mit der Fragestellung, welche Wechselkursstrategie in Mittel- und Osteuropa vorzuziehen ist, um zum einen den Lohnfindungsprozess zu optimieren und zum anderen den Anpassungsprozess (Konvergenzprozess) an europäische Lohnstandards zu beschleunigen. Diese kumulierte Arbeit besteht aus vier unabhängigen Fachaufsätzen. Zuerst wird der Frage nachgegangen, welche Wechselkursstrategie einen optimalen Rahmen für die Lohnsetzung während des Aufholprozesses mittel- und osteuropäischer Staaten ermöglicht (Kapitel zwei). Im Kapitel drei wird die Rolle der Geldpolitik in Bezug auf die Lohnfindung in Staaten mit flexiblen Wechselkursen untersucht. Die Evaluierung der Prognosefähigkeit alternativer Konjunkturindikatoren für die Euro Zone sowie deren Implikationen für den Lohnverhandlungsprozess in Mittel-und Osteuropa ist Gegenstand der Analyse in Kapitel vier. Im fünften Kapitel wird der Rolle der Lohnpolitik auf Leistungsbilanz(un)gleichgewichte in Mittel- und Osteuropa nachgegangen. / After the Eastern enlargement of the European Union (EU) and increasing participation of labor between the EU15 and the new member states, wage determination in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has become a key issue in European economic policy making. At the same time there are controversial discussions regarding the appropriate exchange rate regime for the CEE countries. In this thesis it is examined which exchange rate strategy provides a more favorable framework for wage setting in CEE and leads to faster wage convergence in Europe. This thesis has four parts. First, it is analyzed which exchange rate strategy provides a more favorable framework for wage setting during the economic catch-up process of CEE (section two). Second, the role of monetary policy in wage determination in countries with flexible exchange rate regimes is examined in section three. Third, the predictive power of different euro area business cycle indicators is analyzed in section four. Fourth, the impact of wage determination on the balance of payments in CEE is scrutinized (section five).

This research represents a comparative analysis of the Bulgarian and Romanian European Integration in terms of corruption and media freedom. I argue that, however, both states have multiple common grounds to be analyzed together, as is done in the previous academic research, they take rather different paths after their accession in the European Union regarding their progress in fighting corruption and ensuring free media. I analyze why and how this happens through the theoretical lenses of Constructivism on the matters of identity formation, integration, and spread of values. I will present an overview of the IR academic discourse on the topic, then attempting to fill its lapses in the Analysis section. There, I utilize qualitative content analysis on official reports, issued by the European Commission within these 10 years framework of EU membership in order to investigate the research question. I am to interpret the information from these sources and present the four major aspects of the case, leading to the current situation.

The Republic of Kosovo’s self-declared multiethnic society has strived to construct an inclusive attitude and tolerating spirit toward all communities within. This study has explored how group-differentiated rights are used to construct identity and multiethnicity in relation to European integration in four official documents using the research questions; how is the production of identity and multiethnicity through group-differentiated rights in Kosovo constructed in the documents and related to EU integration; and how has the EU accession process affected the construction of multiethnicity and identity in Kosovo’s documents on minorities relating to group-differentiated rights? An ethnographic content analysis and comparative design, with a social constructivist perspective, grasping the constituents of group-differentiated rights concerning exclusive rights granted to minorities employed to develop, and safeguard identities was applied. The key findings have demonstrated that the development of group-differentiated rights through multiethnicity and identity relating to EU accession and integration may be considered mutually constitutive, creating a path for Kosovo's future EU membership and a sustainable multiethnic society founded on democracy and the rule of law. Although, Kosovo has demonstrated a readiness to adjust and adhere to EU directives, adequate implementation of minority and human rights is the first and primary step toward EU membership.

Europe stands at the face of transformative changes, where the study of EU integration becomes crucial in comprehending the complex dynamics between member states and EU institutions, as well envisioning its future. Since its origin, the parliament has played a fundamental role in advancing political integration across national borders by representing EU citizens.  However, recent years have witnessed shifts that seem to alter the European Parliaments role and its leaning towards integration, indicating a move towards increased intergovernmentalism within the EU.  By examining its historical progress and stances towards integration, we can gain deeper insights into how its role has shifted and how it affects the EU's future, done by comparing two different periods, 2004-2009 and current election period 2019-2024. By using competing theories of European integration, this paper purposes to map out implications for the European union future. This study seeks to seal a significant research gap by investigating the European Parliament's role in integration. By analyzing parliamentary materials with debates longitudinally, this research aims to identify shifts in attitudes towards European integration. Results were shown that indicated the European parliament’s attitude towards integration had its changes in recent decades. From previously being a strong advocate for deeper integration, the European parliament has now a more nuances view of supranationality and intergovernmental collaboration. Future directions for European integration suggest a more cautious and gradual approach, continuing to cooperate without transferring excessive power to central EU bodies. This could have reaching implications for the future of the union and for the role of the European parliament in the continued integration process.  This study on the role of the European Parliament and its integration is of great importance to political science, since of its ability to surround various aspects of the EU’s political landscape. Understanding these dynamics is essential for predicting future developments and shaping policies that foster a solid and strong European union.

<p>The purpose of this thesis is to investigate whether some positions in democratic theory should be adjusted or abandoned in view of internationalisation; and if adjusted, how. More specifically it pursues three different aims: to evaluate various attempts to explain levels of democracy as consequences of internationalisation; to investigate whether the taking into account of internationalisation reveals any reason to reconsider what democracy is or means; and to suggest normative interpretations that cohere with the adjustments of conceptual and explanatory democratic theory made in the course of meeting the other two aims.</p><p>When empirical methods are used, the scope of the study is restricted to West European parliamentary democracies and their international affairs. More particularly, the focus is on the making of budget policy in Britain, France, and Sweden after the Second World War, and recent budget policy in the European Union. The aspects of democracy empirically analysed are political autonomy, participation, and deliberation. The material considered includes parliamentary debates, official statistics, economic forecasts, elections manifestos, shadow budgets, general election turnouts, regulations of budget decision-making, and staff numbers in government and parliament budgetary divisions. </p><p>The study reaches the following conclusions among others. (i) The fact that internationalisation increases the divergence between those who make and those who are affected by decisions is not by itself a democratic problem that calls for political reform. (ii) That international organisations may have authorities delegated to them from democratic states is not sufficient to justify them democratically. Democratisation still needs to be undertaken. (iii) The fear that internationalisation dissolves a social trust necessary for political deliberation within nations seems to be unwarranted. If anything, views argued by others in domestic budgetary debate are taken increasingly serious during internationalisation. (iv) The major difficulty with deliberation seems to be its inability to transcend national boundaries. International deliberation at state level has not evolved in response to internationalisation and it is undeveloped in international institutions. (v) Democratic political autonomy diminishes during internationalisation with regard to income redistribution and policy areas taken over by international organisations, but it seems to increase in public spending. (vi) In the area of budget policy-making there are no signs that governments gain power at the expense of parliaments during internationalisation. (vii) To identify crucial democratic issues in a time of internationalisation and to make room for theoretical virtues like general applicability and normative fruitfulness, democracy may be defined as a kind of politics where as many as possible decide as much as possible.</p>

The aim with this thesis is to find out how one can understand the exceptions not to introduce the euro as the currency of Denmark and the United Kingdom, as well as their attitude to European integration. It has been implemented in a comparative case study using theories in which the case has been the central focus of the investigation. The theories being used is rational actor model that emphasizes rational decision-making and self-interest. In comparison to that theory has a historical institutional perspective been used, which emphasizes path-dependency and critical events. The focus of the study is the time when the countries became members of the European Economic Community in 1973 to the Maastricht Treaty in 1993 where these exceptions not to introduce the euro as the currency was ratified. In the analysis section, one can see portions of both theories to a varying degree. The conclusions of the study is that both countries show a skeptical attitude to European integration and that the exceptions to not introduce the euro as a currency is based on this critical view of moving power to centralized institutions.

This paper surveys the theoretical and empirical research on the efficient assignment of policy tasks to different levels of government and applies the results on the delimitation of competences within the European Union. The main results are: (i) A precise derivation of an optimal degree of decentralisation is not possible because of mixed theoretical suggestions. The adequate degree of decentralisation has to be detected case-by-case. (ii) Systematic evidence on direct relationships between economic performance and fiscal decentralisation is ambiguous and scarce. (iii) Comparing the de facto delimitation of EU-competences with the normative recommendations, remarkable discrepancies arise in the fields of agriculture and defence. (iv) The establishment of a flexible assignment-scheme by the European Convention is an undeniable necessity in order to guarantee reversibility and to cope efficiently with changing general conditions. (author's abstract) / Series: EI Working Papers / Europainstitut

Le rôle intégratif que la Cour de justice des Communautés européennes (CJCE) a joué dans la construction européenne est bien connu et très documenté. Ce qui l'est moins ce sont les raisons qui l'ont motivé, et le motivent encore. Si certains se sont déjà penchés sur cette question, un aspect a néanmoins été complètement négligé, celui de l'influence qu'a pu avoir à cet égard le contexte conjoncturel sur la jurisprudence communautaire et plus précisément sur l'orientation que la Cour a choisi de lui donner. Dans ce cadre, les auditoires de la Cour ont un rôle déterminant. Pour s'assurer d'une bonne application de ses décisions, la Cour est en effet amenée à prendre en considération les attentes des États membres, des institutions européennes, de la communauté juridique (tribunaux nationaux, avocats généraux, doctrine et praticiens) et des ressortissants européens (citoyens et opérateurs économiques). Aussi, à la question du pourquoi la CJCE décide (ou non) d'intervenir, dans le domaine de la libre circulation des marchandises, en faveur de l'intégration économique européenne, j'avance l'hypothèse suivante: l'intervention de la Cour dépend d'une variable centrale : les auditoires, dont les attentes (et leur poids respectif) sont elles-mêmes déterminées par le contexte conjoncturel. L'objectif est de faire ressortir l'aspect plus idéologique de la prise de décision de la Cour, largement méconnu par la doctrine, et de démontrer que le caractère fluctuant de la jurisprudence communautaire dans ce domaine, et en particulier dans l'interprétation de l'article 28 du traité CE, s'explique par la prise en compte par la Cour des attentes de ses auditoires, lesquels ont majoritairement adhéré à l'idéologie néolibérale. Afin de mieux saisir le poids - variable - de chaque auditoire de la Cour, j'apprécierai, dans une première partie, le contexte conjoncturel de la construction européenne de 1990 à 2006 et notamment le virage néolibéral que celle-ci a opéré. L'étude des auditoires et de leur impact sur la jurisprudence fera l'objet de la seconde partie de ma thèse. Je montrerai ainsi que la jurisprudence communautaire est une jurisprudence « sous influence », essentiellement au service de la réalisation puis de l'approfondissement du marché intérieur européen. / The integrative role played by the Court of Justice of the European Communities (CJEC) in the construction of Europe is well known and documented. However the reasons that have motivated the CJEC in this role are far less known. Although some studies have been conducted on this topic, one aspect has been completely ignored: the influence of the conjunctural context on the European Community case law, and more precisely the orientation that the Court has chosen to give to the latter. Within this scope the Court's audiences play a determining role. To ensure that its decisions are well followed, the CJEC takes into consideration the expectations of the Member States, the European institutions, the judicial community (national tribunals, Advocates General, doctrine and practitioners), and the European citizens and economic operators. In regard to the question as to whether or not the CJEC decides to intervene in the domain of free movement of goods, in favour of the European economic integration, I argue the following hypothesis: the intervention of the Court depends on a central variable, that of the audiences, of which the expectations (and their relative weight) are determined by the conjunctural context. My objective is to point out the ideological aspects of the Court's decision making, mostly unknown to legal scholarship, and to demonstrate that the fluctuating character of case law in this domain, and more precisely in the interpretation of Article 28 of the CE Treaty, is explained by the Court’s taking into consideration the expectations of its audiences, which are mainly committed to the neoliberal ideology. In order to evaluate the varying weight of each audience of the CJEC, the first part of the thesis will delve into the conjunctural context and the European construction from 1990 to 2006 where in particular, we observe a turn towards neoliberalism. The study of the audiences and their impact on EC case law will be the subject of the second part of the thesis. I will show that this case law is "under influence", essentially to the service of the development and the strengthening of the European internal market.

Cette recherche étudie la mise en œuvre de la politique de cohésion communautaire en Région Sicile en analysant particulièrement son volet culturel. En adoptant une approche à l’échelle microscopique basée sur de nombreux entretiens, nous mettons à jour un cadre d’intervention inopérant. Caractérisée par son extrême complexité, la politique de cohésion, élaborée dans le cadre d’une gouvernance multiniveaux, s’articule difficilement avec la politique de développement des régions et pays concernés. Sa mise à l’épreuve du terrain révèle des failles remettant lourdement en cause son efficacité. La culture y est reconnue pour sa contribution au développement du tourisme fondé sur la valorisation du patrimoine, envisagé comme l’une des principales ressources locales. Pourtant, l’évolution divergente du référentiel culturel à Bruxelles, en Italie et en Sicile a précarisé sa place et reflète une vision réductrice qui s’intéresse uniquement à son impact économique. Par ailleurs, cette politique promeut le principe du partenariat, qui suppose l’implication de l’ensemble des parties prenantes d’un territoire. En Sicile, la Région se réserve pourtant la grande majorité des financements disponibles, forte de son pouvoir et de sa compétence culturelle, au détriment d’un secteur culturel faiblement structuré qui reste globalement exclu. Enfin, la politique de cohésion apparaît comme un révélateur des crises politiques sicilienne et européenne : certains acteurs institutionnels insulaires privilégient volontairement l’inertie, tandis que le manque de réaction des institutions communautaires pourrait traduire l’absence de volonté de promouvoir une réelle cohésion européenne. / This research explores the implementation of the communitarian Cohesion policy in the Sicily Region, focusing on its cultural component. An approach at the microscopic scale based on numerous interviews discloses an ineffective operating framework. The extreme complexity of the Cohesion policy, which is the produce of a multilevel governance system, presents difficulties when it comes to its articulation with the national or regional Development policies. Its implementation at the grass root level shows flaws that heavily hinder its effectiveness. Culture is acknowledged for its contribution to the development of a heritage-based tourism, which is considered to be a major local asset. And yet, the increasingly divergent interpretation of the cultural referential in Brussels, Italy or Sicily has weakened its role, reflecting a simplistic vision focussing only on its economic impact. In addition, Cohesion policy promotes the principle of partnership, implying the involvement of all the stakeholders in a region. However, in Sicily the powerful regional government is still by far the main beneficiary of these structural funds at the expense of the cultural field, which is poorly organised and remains largely excluded. Finally, the Cohesion policy reveals a political crisis at the European and Sicilian levels: some institutional players on the island opt for inertia, while the lack of response from the communitarian institutions could reflect the unwillingness to promote true European cohesion