Current Developments in Member States

Competitiveness, resilience, and convergence were topics that for decades were listed among the hot issues that have animated the scientific and political debates in the area of economic growth and economic development. For the new member states (NMS) of the European Union, which have accessed the Union since 2004, competitiveness and cohesion became from the first days of their EU membership key topics on their national policy agendas, both as directives of the EU policies to be transposed and implemented nationally and as genuine domestic concerns to be addressed by each of the NMS, while resilience revealed its importance a little bit later, on the occasion of the global economic crisis of 2008–2010 and subsequent recession. Considering their importance for the current and future socioeconomic development of the new member states, the authors present and briefly analyze the topics of competitiveness, resilience, and cohesion in a joint framework, at regional level, based on their common roots within the economic growth and development theories, with the help of a minimal, but powerful, set of relevant indicators, over three significant recent periods: ante-crisis, crisis, and post-crisis. The findings point toward both different and similar competitiveness, resilience, and convergence developments within the new member states and across countries, regions, and periods, also revealing growth and adaptation patterns similar to those found in the more developed regions and countries of the EU, especially in the wake of the global economic crisis.

Current Developments in Member States

In world-wide negotiations and agreements on raw material problems the Community is either taking part as such or represented by the member state providing the Chairman of the Council. Admittedly it has often been difficult to work out the required common position for the member states, and only insofar as a consensus has been reached between them can therefore be talked of a European Raw Material Policy.

Aim. The presented study aims to summarize the experience of ASEAN countries in the harmonization of national legislations regulating the financial markets of the Association’s individual member states and to systematize approaches used by this regional bloc when building cooperation in the financial sector within the ASEAN + framework.Tasks. The authors analyze an association’s experience of coordinating a financial market regulation policy among a group of countries; examine the experience of ASEAN’s financial cooperation with other countries within the ASEAN + framework, primarily with the region’s leading countries — China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea; assess the current level of financial and trade interaction between Russia and ASEAN member states (ASEAN + Russia framework).Methods. This study uses general scientific methods of cognition to examine various aspects of the financial market integration policy of ASEAN member states, trends in the current state and development of the pursued policy, and major directions for its modernization.Results. ASEAN countries have devoted considerable time to building relations in the field of financial market integration. However, this process has not reached the level of development that would indicate a significant breakthrough in the convergence of financial regulation or progress in the harmonization of national legislations of ASEAN member states. At the current stage of development, the pace of financial integration is slowing down. ASEAN countries have developed a structure of international financial relations, where developed countries and multinational companies play a significant role. In these circumstances, key ASEAN partners have to compete in order to change the established relations. The current results of cooperation within the ASEAN + framework do not provide a clear indication of its effectiveness.Conclusions. Since Russia’s financial cooperation with ASEAN countries is currently at the stage of formation, obtaining results from its development requires more active efforts to create an institutional environment for cooperation and finding promising projects and junction points for its development.

The study aimed to identify the role of technology in spreading terrorism, Identify cybercrime sanctions in international public law, and Identify gaps in international public law in reducing cyber terrorism by identifying weaknesses. Of the most important findings of the study include: current global developments show that terrorism is unlikely to be terminated in the coming few years, despite the cooperative efforts by the United Nations, the international community and its Member States. Through the "war on terror", the United States has taken the lead in this regard. The invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was carried out as consequence of the terrorist strikes of September 11 in the United States America. Since then constant unrest continued in the Middle East. The case law on terrorist organizations in these three authorities, and particularly the legal values resulting from the proportion or jurisdiction of these provisions, indicates that, despite tariff variances, there seems to be a similarity of legitimate values arising from jurisprudence. A relative examination of the judicial principles arising from the proportions of each of the Supreme Court's rulings on terrorism discloses an extensive variety of principles of law which, in some cases, apply in particular to the legal system of their State. What is more clear is that these lawful principles are similar, and if they are considered as a whole, they are perfectly consistent. These legal values seem to show a similarity rather than a difference in this area of crucial importance to domestic criminal law. This supports both transnational and global counterterrorism policies, laws and strategies because it suggests that what seems to be developing is a public comprehending of what creates terrorism, at least through these three main jurisdictions of public law. The Supreme Courts recognize the obligation to abide by legitimate principles and domestic and global rules when applied.

Over Troubled Water: E-Health Platforms and the Protection of Personal Data: The Case of Portugal

417 THIS ARTICLE OFFERS: (1) an analysis of the general gambling laws in some EU Member States of the European Union, pointing out the cases in which there is a state monopoly or any restriction to legally carry out related activities by interested subjects; (2) an illustration of the legal framework regarding on-line gambling in the EU Member States; (3) an illustration of the liability of Internet service providers who offer hosting or provide access to illegal (national or foreign) gambling websites; (4) national jurisdiction; (5) taxation; and (6) current developments.

As an important regional organization in the Middle East, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) faces many challenges in its current development. Today, trapped in intensified internal and external problems, as well as caught in increasingly crises, the GCC is standing at a difficult crossroad. The diplomatic strategies of the GCC in general since its establishment have always been looking towards the West, especially towards the United States (the US). All member states of the GCC maintain close ties with the US and their diplomatic strategies are heavily dependent on it. However, in recent years, the drastic changes in the Middle East and of the international political patterns have posed severe challenges to the GCC states' diplomatic strategies, which have also brought some opportunities with which the GCC states begin to change their diplomatic strategies significantly. Under the new circumstances, the GCC states, especially Saudi Arabia, are extricating themselves from the diplomatic tradition of looking westwards while beginning to make remarkable changes towards looking and going eastwards instead, gradually showing their trend of diversification and autonomy in diplomacy and trying to balance their diplomacy among regional and world powers, also between the East and the West. Therefore, any development on diplomatic orientation of the GCC states, especially Saudi Arabia, along with the accompanying impact on the geopolitical situation in the Middle East, deserves sustained attention. Indeed, it is really a problem for the GCC states to go eastwards or go westwards.

The release of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in 2011 aims to address gaps in human rights governance by setting a standard and corporate culture of respecting human rights. As part of the state responsibility to implement these guiding principles, some member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have already embarked preliminary steps towards establishing their respective National Action Plan on Business and Human rights (NAPBHR), while others are still lag behind. This article describes current development on business and human rights in the region. Drawing from the palm oil sector’s experience in Malaysia, this study aims to provide lessons for ASEAN member states to contemplate when developing their NAPBHR. In this article, I argue that while some large palm oil companies have shown modest progress in realizing their human rights obligation, challenges emerge in many forms including the lack of leadership, collaboration and ambition to steer and scale up industry transformation on human rights across supply chain. Equally important, challenges around certification scheme depict that it is not the only solution in persuading respect to human rights. Meaningful values transfer often overlooked in certification practice resulting in typical "ticking the audit box" exercise without understanding principles behind it. As such, the development of NAPBHR among the ASEAN member states should reflect on these reality and challenges.

The paper presents the major issues related to the introduction and provisions and regulations of the Schengen agreement on the case of Slovenia and its political boundaries. This country not only represents one of the most typical border features in Europe, with an intensity of cross-border traffic which is among the highest on the continent and in the world, but is also experiencing a deep transformation of the status at different border sections and border areas. The previous administrative border between the former Yugoslav republics of Slovenia and Croatia became the longest political boundary following the independence of both countries. It also represents the EU’s external boundary following the enlargement of the Schengen space to Slovenia in January 2008. The previous “iron curtain” type of boundary between Slovenia and Hungary is facing deep transformations and re-adaptations to an open boundary regime; it will become one of the strategic points of the new implementation of the EU’s priority corridors that connects old and new member states. New planning and “engineering” approaches will also be needed to manage the “re-integrated” spaces and societies at the Italian and Austrian borders. I present the major current developments and discuss the likely future issues in adapting this “unity in disparity” paradigm to border regions’ situations and cross-border integration practices.

Structural change in the agricultural sector as well as in the whole agricultural value chain is an ongoing dynamic process and affords a number of diverse phenomena. Since the EU Commission sent a clear signal establishing and supporting the bioenergy industry, increasing production activities can be observed in many EU member states. In this paper, we discuss current sector developments and address the organisation structure of the biomass-based energy value chain, exemplifying the production of bioethanol and biodiesel separately. Usually, the processing company can be regarded as the initiator of the regional value chains. In order to safeguard the high initial investments and secure efficient supply, the processing company relies on contract farming or profit participation rights rather than spot market interactions. In addition to discussing that point, this article also explores opportunities and threats for the suppliers as well as for the processors.

Britain is one of the few European Union member states that does not produce and maintain a strategic spatial plan at the national tier. This study concentrates on the concepts of national spatial strategic plan in England and discusses its the contents and frameworks. To make it more rational, this study also uses European comparators (the Netherlands and France) and English historical precedents to make initial suggestions for the design of a national spatial strategic plan for England. From the experience of the Netherlands and France, the paper discussed which model would be more suitable for England and each key character of these two countries’ national development planning. This study then gives some discussions on the current regional development plan and local development plan system of England and the future of the national spatial strategic plan.

The 1976 catastrophic release of toxic substances in Seveso, Italy led to the development of two significant environmental regulations at the European level, known as the Seveso Decrees. Despite the intent of these decrees to control and eliminate the risk of future such disasters, Italy, like most of the Member States, proved largely unsuccessful in implementing Seveso I. Seveso II is scheduled to replace Seveso I early next year, prompting many to ask whether its fate will be any different than that of its predecessor. In Part I of this article, we focus on the challenge presented by implementation of the Seveso Decrees. In Part II, we will analyze recent landmark environmental legislation in Italy (the Ronchi Decree) that seems at first glance to bring some coherence to Italy's patchwork of environmental regulations, suggesting that the time may be right for Seveso II.

In 2013, the World Health Organisation (WHO) released an update of the report on “Priority Medicines for Europe and the World” with the aim to bridge the gap between public health needs and the current research and development priorities. A number of emerging technologies are currently explored for their potential to respond to the identified unmet medical needs. Nanotechnology has the potential to offer scientific/technical solutions for some of these pharmaceutical gaps. The present report investigates to what extent projects funded by the European Commission will lead to innovative formulations as well as new therapeutic concepts, if clinical studies in European Member States investigating nanomedicines and finally if nanotech based products authorised in the European Union will contribute to identified public health needs.

This article aims to address current Arctic developments against the background of long-term global shifts related to the emerging new system of technologies (therein the fourth energy transition) and respective moves in the international politics and economy. We demonstrate that despite its remote location and characteristic economic structure, the Arctic has for centuries been present in the world market with its unique raw materials, supplied by outside monopolist intermediaries. The situation started to change rapidly in the 1990s, under the globalization. A network of international organizations was established, transboundary contacts among northern regions and Indigenous Peoples increased dramatically. Inherent contradictions were growing in parallel and turned by early 2020s into ideologically laden discussions on the human role in the Arctic, on its target image (cooperation vs confrontation) and on the role of non-regional actors in the Arctic governance. A number of key options were actually chosen under the dramatically increased international tension in 2022.They will shape the future global Arctic, with Russia on the one ‘pole’ continuing massive development efforts and using actively its unique position as the only Asian Arctic nation to involve new actors (first of all, China) vs seven NATO member states involving major European countries plus the EU and pursuing a green agenda. The Russian Arctic Zone faces a somewhat sophisticated transformation under stringent restrictions (a sharp decrease in fuel exports to Europe, technological sanctions, environmentally motivated outside pressure, militarization, etc.). This situation makes it especially timely to adjust the development concept in line with the recent Arctic policy papers and legislation, namely to transit from resource extraction which relies on imported equipment and raw materials export towards supporting any businesses and using megaprojects to spur local economies and innovation.