This diploma thesis deals with block exemptions in the automobile industry. It analyses their position within EU competition law. The aim of the thesis is to answer the question whether the sector-specific block exemptions regulating the automobile industry comply with general aims of EU competition law and to analyse their relationship with EU competition law as lex generalis and lex specialis. In order to achieve these goals, the thesis is divided into 5 chapters. The first chapter deals with block exemptions in general. It describes the reason why block exemptions have been invented and their subsequent development. In the first chapter there is also an explanation of their structure and method of legal regulation. This chapter then describes development of the general block exemption for vertical agreements and of the block exemption in the automobile industry. Description of their development is based on the decision in BMW case because rules set in this decision were the basis of the first block exemption in automobile industry. Second chapter deals with the newest block exemption in automobile industry - regulation No. 461/2010. With the newest block exemption the era of sector specific rules for the sale of new vehicles has ended. Regulation No. 461/2010 creates specific rules only for the...

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This Master's Thesis deals with the EU competition law enforcement towards undertakings in the energy industry. The attention of the thesis is devoted only to the part of the energy industry, gas and electricity sectors, as the EU decided to liberalize these markets in the mid-1990s with the aim of gradually transform them into the single European energy market, which will be fully open to the competition. The aim of the thesis is to answer research question, what the specifics of the EU competition law enforcement towards undertakings in the energy industry are. The first chapter deals with the fundamental competition law rules, which are analysed in the thesis within the energy industry. These are prohibition of the agreements which have as their object or effect the restriction of competition (regulated in the Art. 101 TFEU) and prohibition of the abuse of dominant position (regulated in the Art. 102 TFEU). Besides these rules, which are enforced ex post, the chapter also deals with the control of merger of undertakings by the Commission as an ex ant competition law enforcement towards notified mergers. The chapter further looks at the main objectives of the competition law and the means the Commission has at its disposal to competition law enforcement. The second chapter briefly describes the...

The thesis compares and analyses the development of production/consumption of energy in the EU28, in selected countries (Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia), and especially in the Czech Republic and Slovakia in the context of accepting and development (change) of energy policies. The main aspect of the work was to analyze trends in energy consumption and (in) dependence, structure of energy production/consumption, particularly with the application potential of alternative energy sources and energy savings. This thesis confirmed that there are significant differences in achieving the main objectives of EU energy policy among states. Statistical (correlation) analysis did not confirmed a significant dependence between the energy (in) dependence, the energy saving rates and the share of alternative energy sources. Synthetic index of energy change has evaluated Hungary and Slovakia from selected countries with the best energy progress since 2004. It was not proved that Slovakia or Czech Republic have a consistent long-term energy policy that they would explicitly followed. Key words: energy policy, energy savings, energy consumption, energy dependence, European Union

Why do some member states infringe EU law more than others? Based on the quantitative and qualitative analysis reported here, is not because of administrative capacity limitations, but because of political context, policy changes and deliberate opposition by member governments in order to maintain their independence. States in turn, are motivated by domestic politics to seek to avoid implementing EU law. Additionally, I find that richer countries violate the law more often than poorer countries. Further, member states infringe more than others because of a high number of institutional and coalitional veto players. These results suggest that member states are in the EU because the EU serves their national interest over collective ones. Finally, these results suggest new hypothesis. Member states that have a high level of public discontent with the EU are unlikely to tolerate the political costs of implementing EU legislation.

This work deals with freedom of establishment of legal entities inside EU. It focuses on evaluation of EU Court judicature. Inside thesis work are described basic terms connected with freedom of establishment including personal status determination and procedure of preliminary ruling.

The main objective of this thesis is to evaluate the future prospects for membership of the Western Balkan countries in the European Union. Western Balkan includes the following countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia. The main objective of the first chapter is to define the mutual relations between the European Union and the Western Balkan countries, according to their past results since the end of the Cold far until present. The second chapter explains the main features of the political and economic situation in the Western Balkans and the enlargement policy of the European Union. Emphasis was put on the Copenhagen criteria and on some of the main components of the Stabilization and Association Process, such as Stabilization and Association Agreements and EU pre-accession assistance to the Western Balkans. The last chapter deals with the future development and the possibilities for membership of the Western Balkan countries in the EU, based on the evaluation of the results which were achieved by the Western Balkan countries according to the latest European Commission progress report.

Relations between the EU and its neighbour countries and regions are very important for either side. One of the topics which joins them is the energy resource issue. Daily, millions of barrels of oil and billions of cubic meter of natural gas flow through this area into Europe. This diploma thesis deals exactly with this matter, e.i. European Union's energy security. It is a very topical, discussed but above all for the EU important theme. The purpose of this thesis is to connect the conception of EU's energy security through the European Neighbourhood Policy, e.i. the policy which the EU has established to create stability and prosperity with the neighbour regions of North Africa, Near East, Eastern Europe and the Caucasus states. The outcome of this paper should be to evaluate the potential of the countries in the European neighbourhood and the potential of the neighbourhood policy for strengthening the EU security policy, that means to summarize the possibilities for effective co-operation in the field of energy and to say if this co-operation could strengthen European Union's energy security.

This dissertation thesis is a critical assessment of the relationship of rural development policy within the second pillar of the EU CAP framework to aspects of territorial cohesion. The main aim is to analyse if the tools of rural development policy applied within the Czech Republic are in accordance with EU territorial cohesion goals and to assess the importance of the differences in the extent of regional support in accordance to the problems in rural areas. Within the main aim four hypotheses are formulated which are analysed in detail. For the verification of the hypotheses, introductory theoretical-methodological analysis of approaches to agriculture and rural development were prepared and their critical assessment was focused on historical issues of the EU CAP. The next part of the thesis is aimed at the verification of the rural development policy within the framework of the second pillar of the EU CAP to aspects of territorial cohesion using the example of the implementation of the EU Territorial Agenda in the programming period of 2007 -- 2013 in the Czech Republic. These issues are further studied in more depth with an institutional analysis of the EU CAP rural development policy role and its importance in the realisation of the EU Territorial Agenda in the Czech Republic, especially within the framework of urban-rural relations. For defining the territorial cohesion goals a methodological approach from the research project conducted by Prof. Mark Shucksmith (project ESPON, Shucksmith et al., 2005) was used who dealt with an assessment of the second pillar of the EU CAP in relation to aspects of territorial cohesion. In his research project the territorial cohesion goals were assessed by levels of selected indicators and their relevance to support from the second pillar of the EU CAP. This approach was adjusted and studied in depth by the author of this thesis according to the conditions of the Czech Republic. For the verification of the hypotheses, statistical data of the Horizontal Rural Development Plan CR was used which represented 73 % of the total expenditure of the second pillar of the EU CAP in the Czech Republic during the period 2004 -- 2006. With regards to scientific contribution, the main benefit of this thesis is in delivering an analytical framework of the rural development policy in relation to aspects of territorial cohesion by way of the EU Territorial Agenda and its implementation in the Czech Republic. The analysis and assessment of the HRDP programme in the Czech Republic and its relationship to socio economic indicators presents a concrete verification of the implementation of the second pillar of the EU CAP in the period 2004 -- 2006 with aspects of territorial cohesion. The results of this thesis will contribute to current research projects also aimed at the analysis of this theme.

Conflicts of Legitimacies within the European Union - abstract In the beginning of first part, the thesis focuses on the very concept of legitimacy. The point of reference is rather a sociological conception of legitimacy. Then, the critical overview of theoretical contributions to the topic of EU's legitimacy deficit is provided. On this analytical background it is held that the democratic legitimacy is indispensable for the Union and that there is a necessity of its creating even on union-wide (transnational) level. Subsequently, in the second part dealing with particular modalities of legitimacy within the EU, the thesis makes use of the conteporary democratic theory focusing on the concept and functioning of democratic representation. The framework for the second part is a spatio-mechanical metaphor of four modalities ("vectors") of legitimacy (legitimation) formulated previously in the literature. It consists of indirect legitimacy, parliamentary legitimacy, technocratic legitimacy and procedural legitimacy. Changes in their balance after the Lisbon Treaty are discussed. The chapter on indirect legitimacy focuses on theoretical questions and then looks into the institutional and legislative development. It also provides an analysis of the relevant case-law of the Federal Constitutional Court of the...