The aim of the thesis is to assess the economy of Spain and its position in the European Union. The European integration processes significantly influenced the development of democracy in Spain as a member state of EU. The period after Franco regime would last undoubtedly much longer and it would grow less dynamically without these processes. The influence of EU affected not only the Spanish economy, but also the current position of Spanish monarchy in Europe and in the whole world. The thesis is structured in three main parts. To be able to assess the Spanish economy during its membership in the EU, it is essential to study the procedures of negotiations between the candidate country and the Community. That is the reason why the first part is engaged in the pre-entry phase. The second part examines in detail the development of the economy after the reintroduction of democracy in the country. It deals mainly with the macroeconomic tendencies, their causes together with consequences. The progress concerns the economic situation in Spain before the entry to the Community, in the second half of eighties, as well as during the nineties. The thesis does not forget to be engaged in the current situation in the new millennium and it also outlines the possible development in the following years. The last part is devoted to the position and the influence of Spain on the main integration directions in the European Union. The coherence and the extent of evaluation can be considered one of the benefits of this work. The thesis introduces the complex view of the Spanish economy since the entry to the EU. It also deals with possible following tendencies. The understanding of the development is facilitated by a large number of graphs and tables, which help to outline the essence of the topic.

This work analyses development of economic and politic relationships of Great Britain with the European Communities (EC) and the European Union (EU) since the beginning of European integration till the contemporary debt crisis of the Eurozone. It deals with British European policies before and after Britain's accession to the EC and puts emphasis on British influence over negotiations about the main policies and institutional changes of the EC and EU, as well as on British internal views on European integration, first of all on often misunderstood British euroscepticism. From the analysis of historical and contemporary data author infers not only possible scenarios of the future relationship between the Great Britain and Europe, but also the influence of this member state on the development of the EU.

The master's thesis The United Kingdom and the European Integration: Influence of foreign trade and monetary politics on the British attitude towards Europe between the years 1941 and 1973 explores the relationship of the United Kingdom towards European integration in a period from the end of the Second World War to the point of becoming a member of the European Economic Community in 1973. The relationship of the United Kingdom with Europe is studied by analysing international monetary and trade politics of the United Kingdom, its economic standing in the world and comparative strength of Pound Sterling. All of these variables played a key role in the development of aforementioned relationship. The aim of the thesis is to ascertain the role played by international monetary and trade politics of the United Kingdom in relation to European integration. The research itself is divided into three chapters and overall defined and underpinned by conjoining two theories of hegemonic stability and aspects of realist school of political economy. First chapter examines the emergence and development of Bretton Woods system and American economic hegemony. Following chapter explores the relationship between the United Kingdom and the Sterling Area. Final chapter deals with British economic relationship towards...

The aim of the master thesis "The role of the European Council in the pre-legislative phase of the European legislative process" is to analyse position and influence of the European Council before proposing an official legislative proposal by the European Commission in the EU's legislative process. This pre-legislative phase of a designing of a European legislation is important, though informal. The aim of this master thesis it to find out how strong is the European Council in an agenda setting when it comes to a European legislation and to what extent the Commission is inspired or follows the European Council's conclusions when proposing a legislation. According to many authors who this thesis referring to and their research that this thesis follows, an importance and influence of the European Council has been growing a lot, recently. In their view, it has been happening primarily during serious political or economic crisis. The Commission's position as the only official proposer of a European legislation weakens in that moments while influence of the EU summits grows. The question is if it is true and how much we can really argue that during European crisis the EU's executive power is so weakened that it does not - without ex ante "permission" and ex ante "consultation" with the summits - allow...

The submitted thesis "Reteritorialization of the Austrian-Slovenian-Croatian border as a causal impact of the European integration process" analytically approaches the issue of the reterritorialization process within the state-centric, still valid Westphalian system. The topic of reterritorialization is important especially in the context of considering the spatial or territorial impacts of ongoing European integration. This integration can take the form of establishing so called Euroregions or cross-border cooperation. The territorial framework was chosen on the basis that Slovenia is one of the most typical border and contact social areas in Europe. This assumption was subsequently linked to the time perspective, when the above-mentioned three states joined the European Union at almost the same interval. Appropriate choice of territory and time framework in the work is the basis for the analysis of the impacts of the phenomenon of reterritorialization. The analytical part of the work is organized as a discursive analysis of texts whose authors are researchers from the university environment. As members of academia often have a direct impact on the local implementation of cohesion policy, the analysis is complemented with the interpretation of the results of thematic structured interviews. These...

This Research is aimed at becoming a theoretical contribution to the field of European Integration Theory and IR for two reasons. Firstly, this Research proposes the theoretical perspective of Talcott Parsons from sociology and organizational research to scholars within IR Theory. By employing the historical institutionalist and social constructivist IR perspectives and Parsons's 'four-function paradigm' theory, scholars can identify the two effects of a successful institutional design of international political organizations such as the EU: effectiveness and a good public reputation. The Literature Review in Chapter 2 is a theoretical discussion about compatibility of the Parsonians concepts of 'adaptation', a 'holistic approach to policymaking', 'success', and the 'European institutional design' with the European Integration Theory and IR fields. The same Chapter stresses the need to consider the 'ideas' of political leaders in analysing change of institutional design. The second reason for which this Research is a contribution to IR theory is the presentation of eight specific strategies that are likely to generate an organization's success. The eight strategies are institutional conditions making up the 'eight-condition model' of Charles Edquist. This Research adopts an objective and deductive approach that applies the Parsonians theory and the Edquist's 'eight-condition model' to empirical data about European institutions in a cross-sectional and longitudinal research design in the Analysis Chapters 4, 5, and 6. A 'holistic innovation policy approach' to supranational policymaking is employed by the Researcher for the salient circumstances of success to be identified, in order to guide data collection and analysis. The results show that success occurred three times: fully, in the years between 1945 and 1958 and from 1959 to 2002, and partially from 2003 until our days. The concepts of 'adaptation', 'success', 'ideas', the 'four-function paradigm' theory of Parsons and the 'eight-condition model' of Edquist are discussed and ultimately claimed to be both epistemologically compatible and methodologically valid for studies about the success of European integration in the Discussions and Conclusions Chapter.

American policy towards European integration process has always seemed equivocal: on one hand it actively supported and encouraged the process, but on the other hand it tried to contain some specific European ambitions and steer the process in a desirable direction. The objective of the thesis is to offer a possible explanation of the long-term US policy towards the European integration and European region in general. The dissertation presents a hypothesis that the American policy towards Europe since the Second World War until current times can be explained within the theorethical concept of "regional hegemony strategy". The concept builds on neorealist and neoliberal interpretations of hegemony, which are applied to the process of formulation of American grand strategy. It identifies a set of independent variables effecting the resulting strategy and operationalizes the expected strategy into particular goals. The empirical part of the dissertation then tests the established hyphothesis in two ways. In the first part it analyzes the identified independent variables and tests the causality betwen their historical evolution and evolution of the American grand strategy, especially in relation to the European region. In the consequent parts, it focuses on the American policy towards the European integration...

The master's thesis focuses on the potential of two recently launched initiatives, The Permanent Structured Cooperation and The European Intervention Initiative, to serve as preludes of the single European army. Both initiatives shared high expectations as vehicles for a relaunch of integration in defence domain in Europe, but do they really move the efforts in this respect forward? To study the two projects, we establish a unique theoretical measurement of defence and security integration, based on the realist concept of the alliance and constructivist concept of the security community. We then ask what constructivist theoretical model for the study of defence integration fits The Permanent Structured Cooperation best, and analogically, which archetype is the most suitable for The European Intervention Initiative. Based on the theoretical underpinnings, we carry out an empirical analysis of both initiatives to find out what novelties they bring to the area of defence. We focused mainly on their governance, institutional fabric and funding. Special attention was paid to varying level of pooled sovereignty. The thesis is built on the content analysis of primary sources and where appropriate on relevant secondary literature.

The aim of this study is to look further into whether higher levels of EU structural fund payments to European regions come with higher levels of citizen support for European integration. The question is relevant in light of rising levels of Euroscepticism in some areas of Europe along with the momentous approval of subsidy packages following the Covid pandemic, nearly doubling the EU’s expenditures. The research question is examined using a time-series cross-sectional design, combining survey data on individual’s opinions on European integration with data on EU payments to European regions. Using a larger data set on EU payments than previous studies, the results are contrary to some previous studies focusing on the effect of EU funding in less prosperous regions, or studies using Eurosceptic voting as the dependent variable, but corroborate the results of the most recent study with similar design and data. Analyses of how the effect is conditioned on country group or level of affluence show mixed results, indicating a need for further research on the effects of EU spending on citizen support for European integration.

No abstract available / Political Sciences / M. A. (International Politics)