Yes

Yes

Yes / The African continent is a sleeping giant which will increasingly be a player to be reckoned with on the global stage. At the same time, its migration potential will be multiplied by Africa’s forthcoming demographic explosion. Consequently, the EU and Africa have a shared interest in working together towards making African development sustainable. African integration will be key towards speeding up this process. This paper first evaluates the stakes of the African challenge for the European Union. It considers the economic potential that can be unleashed by speeding up integration processes in Africa. Second, it argues that Africa will be ‘the China of the 21st Century’, and that any development, positive or negative, taking place there will have large repercussions in Europe, and that therefore the EU and Africa are communities of destiny in need of a joint approach towards African industrialisation. Finally, it provides a roadmap of important steps that Europe needs to consider in its endeavour to support African development.

This study develops a model of macroeconomic and political determinants of public support for European integration. The research is conducted on pooled cross-sectional time-series data from five European Union member states between 1978 and 1994. The method used in this analysis is a Generalized Least Squares - Autoregressive Moving Average approach. The factors hypothesized to determine a macroeconomic explanation of public support for integration are inflation, unemployment, and economic growth. The effect of the major economic reform in the 1980s, the Single European Act, is hypothesized to act as a positive permanent intervention. The other determinants of public support are the temporary interventions of European Parliament elections and the permanent intervention of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. These are hypothesized to exert a negative effect. In a fully specified model all variables except economic growth and European Parliament elections demonstrate statistical significance at the 0.10 level or better.

In this paper, I investigated the influence of the existing political power on the economical and social development of the state. The paper went deeper into positive and negative effects, state of economy within the years since the establishment of the Republic of Belarus, dominating social tendencies and the ways of improving the existing situation. The last part of the thesis presented analysis of whether Belarus is ready to enter European Union, as some of its members have already done ( Poland, Lithuania), why/why not. I assess that my own ideas contribute by approximately 30 % to the presented text.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited / The 1992 European Union (EU) Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP, Maastricht Treaty) marked a turning point in the trans-Atlantic relationship. The Balkan conflicts and broader political changes in the 1990s compelled the EU to assume more responsibility in peace operations. The EU's 60,000 strong Rapid Reaction Force (RRF) is planned to be operational in 2003. Will the EU be able to conduct Petersberg-type peace operations? This thesis analyzes policy and military shortfalls of the Balkan peacekeeping effort. Questions about the legitimacy of armed humanitarian interventions, about difficulties in common policy formulation and translation to sound military objectives are the core problems of civil-military relations in European peace operations. The case studies focus on the EU failure to resolve the Bosnian crises between 1992-95, and on the gaps between NATO policies and military objectives in the operations of 'Implementation Force' in Bosnia and 'Allied Force' in Kosovo. The thesis considers developments in EU CFSP institutions and EU-NATO relationship as well as the EU's response to terrorist attacks on September 11 2001. The thesis argues that the difficulty in EU CFSP formulation limits the effective use of RRF in military operations. / Major, Hungarian Army

A presente pesquisa tem por pano de fundo o debate sobre a legitimidade do processo de integração da Europa, iniciado na década de 1950. Uma das principais expressões desta seara corresponde ao contemporâneo tema das assimetrias entre as expectativas das populações nacionais sobre a condução do processo de integração e o procedimento decisório verificado na praxis comunitária. O variado rol de limitações à ação participativa dos cidadãos no cerne deliberativo da União Europeia é reunido doutrinariamente sob a alcunha de déficit democrático. Mote frequente das análises de Filosofia Política e assunto recorrente dos estudiosos de Relações Internacionais, a existência de um déficit democrático na principal iniciativa de integração regional da Europa encontra escassos trabalhos sedimentados em uma abordagem jurídica. Deste modo, o principal escopo deste estudo é aclarar de que forma o Direito contribuiu para o advento do déficit democrático europeu e como são articuladas, pela via jurídica, as tentativas atuais de combate a este fenômeno. Para tanto, há de se demarcar o referencial teórico utilizado pela pesquisa, essencialmente no tocante a) à possibilidade de se aproximar regionalismo e democracia; b) à influência das teorias da integração no tema de estudo e c) à versão do conceito de democracia eleita no trabalho. Ademais, o arcabouço metodológico empregado para a obtenção dos resultados pretendidos responde, em um primeiro momento, pela análise dos textos originais dos principais tratados da integração europeia seguida por uma abordagem teórico-doutrinária de alguns aspectos da realidade jurídica do bloco. Para honrar suas pretensões, esta pesquisa apresenta uma estrutura tripartite. No capítulo inicial, há o debate sobre o estatuto conceitual do Direito da União Europeia, verdadeira condição para a aferição da hipótese de trabalho proposta. Nele, foram discutidas as vicissitudes atinentes aos problemas da natureza e da autonomia da malha normativa do bloco comunitário da Europa. Visto o panorama teórico do fenômeno jurídico comunitário da marcha europeia, empreendemos um detido exame do conjunto de dispositivos presentes na sequência de documentos fundamentais iniciada pelo Tratado de Paris (1951) e encadeada até o Tratado de Nice (2001). Tal abordagem permitiu reconhecer as principais normas relacionadas ao tratamento da questão democrática no processo de integração. Feita a identificação dos elementos normativos relacionados à questão do déficit democrático, atentamo-nos para o alcance da atuação do Direito neste contexto. Assim, há de se notar as consequências para a base social de um ordenamento jurídico alheio à tradicional estrutura piramidal, os resultados jurídicos da tentativa de afirmação da noção de cidadania europeia e o delineamento da configuração hodierna das iniciativas de aplacar o déficit democrático por meio dos dispositivos do Tratado de Lisboa (2009). Este percurso revela as agruras da legitimidade democrática da União Europeia e o anfótero papel do Direito no contexto referido, fornecendo um importante recurso de depreensão da realidade comunitária para os atores transnacionais contemporâneos. / The background of this study is the debate concerning the legitimacy of the process of integrating Europe that began in the 1950s. One of the main expressions related to this discussion corresponds to the asymmetries between the expectations of national populations on how the process of integration is to be conducted and the decision-making process observed in the community praxis. The various limitations on the participatory action of citizens in the deliberative core of the European Union are doctrinally gathered under the label democratic deficit. A frequent motto in analysis in Political Philosophy and a recurring subject for International Relations researchers, the existence of a democratic deficit within the main initiative for the regional integration of Europe is not much addressed in studies with a legal basis. Therefore, the main scope of this study is to clarify how the field of law has contributed to the advent of the European democratic deficit and how current attempts to fight this phenomenon take place from a legal perspective. Accordingly, the theoretical framework used in this study needs to be delimited in relation to: a) the possibility of approaching regionalism and democracy; b) the influence of theories of integration in the studied subject; and c) the version of the concept of democracy elected at work. Additionally, the methodological framework employed to obtain the desired results responds, first, to the analysis of original texts from the main treaties of the European integration followed by a theoretical-doctrinal approach to some aspects of the blocs legal context. To achieve its goals, this study presents a three-part structure. A debate concerning European Union Law is presented in the opening chapter; a true condition for measuring the studys proposed hypothesis. The vicissitudes concerning the problems related to the nature and autonomy of regulations in the European bloc are discussed. Given the theoretical background of the phenomenon of the juridical community in the European march of democratization, we carefully examine the devices present in the series of key documents initiated in the Treaty of Paris (1951) linked up to the Treaty of Nice (2001). Such an approach enabled the identification of the main standards related to the treatment given to the democratic issue in the integration process. Once the regulatory elements related to the democratic deficit were identified, we focused on the scope of the role played by Law in this context. Therefore, the consequences in social terms of a legal order oblivious to the traditional pyramidal structure and the juridical outcomes of an attempt to claim the notion of European citizenship, as well as the current configuration of initiatives to mitigate the democratic deficit through devices provided in the Treaty of Lisbon (2009), should be noted. This course reveals the hardships of attaining the democratic legitimacy of the European Union and amphoteric role of Law in this context, providing an important tool to understand the context of the community for the contemporary cross-national actors.

Thesis advisor: James Cronin / In 1957, the Treaty of Rome was signed by six West European states to create the European Economic Community (EEC). Designed to foster a common internal market for a limited amount of industrial goods and to define a customs union within the Six, it did not at the time particularly stand out among contemporary international organizations. However, by 1992, within the space of a single generation, this initially limited trade zone had been dramatically expanded into the world's largest trade bloc and had pooled substantial sovereignty among its member states on a range of core state responsibilities. Most remarkably, this transformation resulted from a thoroughly novel political experiment that combined traditional interstate cooperation among its growing membership with an unprecedented transfer of sovereignty to centralized institutions. Though still lacking the traditional institutions and legitimacy of a fully-fledged state, in many policy areas, the European Union (EU) that emerged in 1992 was nonetheless collectively a global force. My dissertation argues that the organization's unprecedented transfer of national sovereignty challenged the very definition of the modern European state and its function. In structure and ambition, it represented far more than just a regional trade bloc among independent states: it became a unique political entity that effectively remodelled the fundamental blueprint of the conventional European state structure familiar to scholars for generations. How did such a dramatic transformation happen so quickly? I argue that three forces in particular were at play: the external pressures of globalization, the search for a new Western European and German identity within the Cold War world and the often unintended consequences of the interaction between member state governments and the Community's supranational institutions. In particular, I examine the history of the EEC's monetary union, common foreign policy, common social policy and the single market to explain the impact of the above forces of change on the EEC's rapid transformation. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History.

La présente thèse porte sur l’adhésion de la République du Kosovo à l’Union européenne. Cette étude sert d'une analyse comparative sur le cas de la République du Kosovo et les autres pays de Balkans occidentaux dans le processus de l’adhésion à l’Union européenne (La Croatie, la Bosnie-Herzégovine, la Serbie, l’Albanie, le Monténégro et la Macédoine). Cet analyse confronte la question pour quoi la République du Kosovo est le denier (derrière) pays dans ce processus par rapport aux autres pays des Balkans Occidentaux d’un côté, et la question ce que la République du Kosovo doit faire afin d’attraper ces pays dans le processus d’intégration européenne de l’autre côté. Le lecteur va apprendre pour quoi l’avancement de la République du Kosovo dans ce processus dépendre largement de l’approche de l’UE vers la République du Kosovo? Qu’est ce que les institutions de la République du Kosovo ont déjà fait pour avancer ce processus et ce qu’elles doivent faire en avenir? En conclusion, la thèse détermine que la perspective européenne pour la République du Kosovo est centaine mais le moment de son adhésion dépendra de l’accomplissement des critères d’adhésion à l’UE de la part des institutions kosovares d’un côté, et de l’intérêt ou l’engagement de l’UE pour l’adhésion de ce pays à ses structure de l’autre côté. En ce qui concerne l’intérêt ou l’engagement de l’UE, il est argumenté qu’elle doit s’engager sérieusement pour convaincre ses cinq pays membres (la Grèce, la Roumanie, la Slovaquie, l‘Espagne, et la Chypre) qui n’ont pas encore reconnu l’indépendance de la République du Kosovo de le faire plus vite que possible comme ce défit bloque les étape de son adhésion. / This thesis focuses on the accession of the Republic of Kosovo to the European Union. This study serves as a comparative analysis on case of the Republic of Kosovo and others countries of Western Balkans in the process of accession to the European Union (Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Albania, Montenegro and Macedonia). This analysis confronts the question why the Republic of Kosovo is lacking behind on this process in comparison to the other countries of the Western Balkans on the one side, and the question what should the Republic of Kosovo do in order to catch these countries in this process on the other side. The reader will learn why the advancement of the Republic of Kosovo in the process depends largely on the approach of the European Union towards the Republic of Kosovo? And, What Kosovo institutions have already done to advance this process and what they have to do in future in this aspect? In conclusion, the thesis determines that the European perspective for the Republic of Kosovo is unquestionable but the moment of its accession to the European Union depends on the completion of EU accession criteria by the Kosovo institutions on the one side, and interest or commitment of the European Union for the accession of this country to its structure on the other side. Regarding the interest or commitment of the European Union, it is argued that European Union must be engaged seriously to convince its five member states (Greece, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, and Cyprus) which have not yet recognized the independence of the Republic of Kosovo to do so, as soon as possible, as this blocks each phase of its accession.

No description available.