Polish Best Practices on European Integration Process - Recommendations for Moldova

Governance Territoriale Comunitaria e Sistemi di Pianificazione. Riflessioni sull'Allargamento ad Est dell'Unione Europea

Kosovo as a Limitus Test of 'Normative Power' Europe or Embedded in Old-Style Cost Calculations Politics?

European Papers is conceived of as a cultural project: a tool for reflecting on European integration as a means to create a new political community. European Papers intends thus to be part and parcel of the debate on the process of European legal integration, on its causes and its functioning, on its most remote interconnections with other social events. Its mission is to draw attention to the manifold forms of integrating Europe and to the far-reaching implications of this process. Moreover, such a reflection requires a wider dialogue between the legal experience and other forms of integration, economic, social and cultural. To forge a law journal as an instrument for a cultural mission entails a number of inescapable steps. This conception implies passing over the traditional hurdles of language, nationality and traditions. European Papers could be an ideal opportunity to match this demand, through its multinational governing bodies, whose members share its ideal and cultural philosophy. It further entails the capacity to reconcile antithetical needs. On the one hand, we intend to promote a scholarly debate on the theoretical foundations of the process of European integration in its manifold expressions. On the other hand, the tumultuous development of this process, which takes place on a daily basis, requires an on-going debate on events that incessantly unfold under one’s eyes. To reconcile these apparently antithetical needs, we have thought of European Papers as composed of two parts: a four-monthly e-Journal – i.e. an electronic and open access journal, that emphasises our belief in the open and free character of scientific research – and a “militant” European Forum, designed to be a hotbed of intellectual discussion, a breeding place for ideas, and an indispensable tool for updating and keeping in touch with the latest developments. Finally, the inescapable issue of language. The aspiration of European Papers to be an interlocutor for an open set of recipients entails a multilingual option. Par contre, uniformity reasons, and the need of reaching a wider, potentially universal, readership would plead for a sole common language. The compromising solution, for an uncompromising project, has been the adoption of a dual-track: English, French, Italian and Spanish for the European Forum; English for the four-monthly e-Journal. European Papers is not inspired by preconceived ideas or ideologies. It has been conceived of as an area where every hypothesis about the process of integration in Europe can be freely verified and discussed. It intends to be a living laboratory for the analysis of a social phenomenon whose uniqueness vis-à-vis the contemporary legal and political categories has been widely recognised. Yet, European Papers has the ambition to go beyond this recognition and appreciate, day after day, its technical as well as its conceptual features, in the belief that this is the path through which the scientific knowledge can advance.

The article is devoted to researching the links between European integration processes and the development of national markets for tourist services. Particular attention was paid to the situation in international tourism in those countries that integrated with the EU in 2004 and 2007. In addition, the article discusses the main modern types of international tourism, as well as factors affecting its development. Finally, attention was also paid to identifying promising directions for the development of international tourism in Eastern European countries – potential candidates for accession to the EU (Republic of Moldova and Ukraine).

1. Introduction The economic cooperation between Russia and European Union Member States is characterized not only by a close interdependence due to their history and geographical proximity, but also by opposition of their international positions, impeding implementation of mutual economic interests because of a tense political situation in recent years. Intensive integration processes in Europe, observed since establishment of European Union, are displaced by centrifugal processes in recent years. Though, European Union is still most successful monetary integration with population of about 510 million people (as for January 2016) (5). The Russian Federation, in its turn, carries out international integration policy through implementation of Eurasian Economic Community and creation of initiatives to strengthen cooperation with Asian countries and Arab States. However, mutual sanctions, operating more than two years, are not conducive to mutual beneficial cooperation and set a negative vector of development. The Hellenic Republic, as a member of EU, has to adhere to a common foreign policy of association. Despite fact that Greece is a sovereign country (Thalassinos et cd., 2006; Thalassinos et cd., 2015a; Thalassinos et ed., 2015b; Thalassinos and Stamatopoulos 2015; Thalassinos, 2008) right to conduct a multifaceted foreign policy and to play a geopolitical role is restricted by a huge debt to external creditors. But, realizing lack of prospects for further trade and economic confrontation, its leaders are increasingly in favor of stopping sanctions and cooperation with Russian state. This fundamental position of Greek government on issue of cooperation with Russia is due to inextricable links of two countries in historical, spiritual, economic and social spheres over centuries. Relations between Russia and Greece have always been friendly and mutually beneficial; this is primarily due to lack of fundamental differences between two countries. They were united and are still united by common historical memory and cultural heritage, which stimulates initiatives both from Russian and from Greece. Special role in Russian-Greek relations have played development of direct links with Black Sea regions of Russia -these are places of residence of representatives of Greek Diaspora. Greece occupies a special position in Russian foreign policy and according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in world, as he says, there are few other countries, that are so closely related as Russia and Greece, with such a long history of sincere friendship (6). In addition Greece is only NATO country to actively develop military-technical cooperation with Russia. Year 2016 is a cross-year for Russian-Hellenic culture and heritage and as Prime Minister of Greece A. Tsipras characterized his visit to Russia as the beginning of a new spring in relations between Athens and Moscow. In May 2016 a joint declaration for an effective Government Partnership between two countries was signed. It declares modernization, according to which willingness to contribute to creation and promotion on market of modern competitive products and encouraging mutual investments in innovative technologies, elimination of barriers and constraints to free and cost-effective sharing of results with activities, improving business environment in a fair, prompt and constructive dialogue between business communities and public authorities of two countries. Also a memorandum of understanding on inter-regional cooperation between Russian Ministry of Economic Development and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece was adopted. The parties signed a road map of Russian-Greek relations in field of agriculture, adopting a tourism program of mutual actions for next three years, including contributing to speedy changes from agreement signed in May 25, 2006 between Russian Federation and European Community on facilitation of visas issuance to citizens of these countries, promoting dialogue on establishing visa-free travel for them. …

The process of European integration is marked both by continued deepening and widening, and by growing evidence of domestic disquiet and dissent. Against this background, this book examines three key themes: the challenge to the power of member states – as subjects of European integration – to determine the course of the integrationist project and to shape European public policies; the constraints in the domestic political arena experienced by member states as objects of European integration; and the contestation over both the ‘constitutive politics of the EU’ and specific policy choices. These three themes – power, constraint, and contestation – and their interdependence are explored with specific reference to Germany. The main findings call for a revision of the ‘conventional wisdom’ about Germany's Europeanization experience. First, while Germany continues to engage intensively in all aspects of the integration process, its power to ‘upload’ – ‘hard’ and ‘soft’, ‘deliberate’ or ‘unintentional’, ‘institutional’ or ‘ideational’ – appears in decline. Germany's capacity to ‘shape its regional milieu’ is challenged by both changes in the integration process and the ever-more-apparent weaknesses of the ‘German model’. The traditional regional core milieu is shrinking in size and importance in an enlarging Europe, and Germany's milieu-shaping power is being challenged. Second, the coincidence of enabling and constraining effects is being progressively replaced by a discourse that notes unwelcome constrictions associated with EU membership.

The study of European integration tends to focus on formal aspects of the integration process: formal decision-making procedures, the role and functioning of institutions, the provisions contained in the treaties, the operation of regulatory regimes in the various policy areas. This is hardly surprising: what is distinctive about the integration process in Europe – what distinguishes integration in Europe from international co-operation in other parts of the world – is the creation and growth of a unique institutional and legal framework structuring the relations between the participating states. An early and still important contribution to the understanding of the integration process has been the 'integration through law' school which regarded the development of a supranational legal order as the key factor in the explanation of the integration process (Cappoletti et al 1986).If the formalisation of inter-state relations is regarded as the essence of the integration process, it is hardly surprising that scholars should concentrate on the formal procedures and the institutionalised arenas for decision-making. However, as has become increasingly evident in the course of recent developments in the European Union, there is an important undercurrent to the formal integration process. This concerns the operation of informal networks which link policy-makers to client groups as well as actors across EU, national and sub-national institutions, and influence (or at least seek to influence) decision-making in the EU. This practice of informal governance is, of course, not a recent phenomenon, but a long-standing dimension of EU politics. This is a recognition that has been reflected by some approaches to European integration: in particular the literature on policy networks and the new institutionalism writing of the 1990s have picked up on the less formal aspects of the EU policy process. Nevertheless, informal governance has never been systematically studied and assessed: this is the void that this volume seeks to fill.

As the world witnessed the start of the third millennium, Europe embarked on a path that was brimming with optimism and, despite some more cautious voices, assumptions that the process of European Integration is set to continue on its stable path. The EU had successfully expanded to include Austria and two Nordic countries (Sweden and Finland) in the mid-1990s, the fall of the Iron Curtain ushered in the hope and belief that various countries in Central and Eastern Europe would be in a position to join sooner or later. After the adoption of the Maastricht treaty, work began on the next stage of European Integration with discussion about the Constitutional Treaty (which was eventually rejected and replaced with the Lisbon Treaty) and preparations were in place for the adoption of the Common Currency across Western Europe. The first decade of the 2000s squashed the dreams of those who hoped that EU integration would be a smooth process. If things seem to go according to plan until the enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe (in 2004 and 2007), a succession of crises and road bumps have fuelled scepticism towards ‘ever closer union’. After the rejection of the EU’s Constitutional Treaty, integration and enlargement fatigue became increasingly evident as the so-called ‘losers of globalization’ (Betz, 1993; Kriesi et al., 2008; Swank & Betz, 2003; Van Elsas, 2017) expressed their disillusionment with the pressures of immigration and economic globalization (or in this case, Europeanization). An old saying that goes along the lines of ‘When the USA sneezes, Europe catches a cold’ proved its truthfulness—following financial crisis of 2007–2008, the European Union (and Eurozone in particular) found itself mired in its own sovereign debt crisis which eventually came to be known as the Euro Crisis more colloquially. The combination of economic austerity and prospects of further significant redistributive measures (national bailouts, fiscal transfers, and mutualized debt) dug up simmering tensions among the electorates of most European polities. Against this background, populist and Eurosceptic parties have been performing ever better in Western Europe and beyond, to the point of either outright winning elections in some countries (e.g. Italy) or becoming parliamentary kingmakers in several others.

The process of European integration on which we are embarked has raised many hopes and fears. Crudely put, the major hope is that the process will result in economic and social benefits on such a scale that, even if there are some imperfections in the distribution of the benefits, all parties will gain and the need to redistribute will be within the ability of the European Community using the institutions and mechanisms that it currently has or is currently intending to introduce. Whether the gains will be sufficient is something we will only know after the event but the decisions over how to proceed and what precautions to take have to be made as the integration proceeds. Failure to act early enough will run the danger that the process of integration will itself be halted and such benefits as are potentially available will not be realised and hence not redistributed.KeywordsMember StateForeign Direct InvestmentInternal MarketPublic InterestMonetary UnionThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

(1985). Security in Europe: Reactivation of the WEU and the process of European integration. The International Spectator: Vol. 20, No. 3-4, pp. 27-33.

The paper is focused on the draft of the process of Europeanization of law. The process of European integration is often understood mainly as an economic process which aims towards the world-wide integration and organization of manufacturing, commercial, banking and financial operations, technologies and information. It is, however, a complex social phenomenon which represents – in addition to economical transformations – a rather complicated cultural, social, political and legal process with an extremely broad impact in all areas of life. Europeanization, the notion increasingly used in connection with the process of European integration, significantly modifies the Czech legal environment, which is regarding to the sphere of enterprise too. Europeanization of law manifests with multi-centrism of sources of law, which brings specific problems both to the bodies which interpret and apply law and also into the legal position of legal entities and their legal awareness.

368 SEER, 85, 2, 2007 close identity with 'Europe' undoubtedly sustained Czechoslovakia'sremarkable isolation (an 'island of peace and stability', in Reijen's words) during the interwar years; while the diktat of Munich (I938), the war experience (whenthe idea of Europe, a Europeunder German tutelage,was employed to legitimize the liquidation of the Czechoslovak state), and the attraction of socialism under post-war conditions would stronglyreduce the identification with 'Europe'. From I948 on, 'Europe' would almost disappear from the Czechoslovak political vocabulary. The Communist leadership attempted to create an amalgam of national traditions and Communist ideas, in which Europe hardly mattered. In this respect, the Prague Spring was not a real breaking point, Reijnen asserts. The critical attitude toward the West remained. Even the dissidentsin the 'normalized'Czechoslovakiapersistedin their ambivalence.As the author concludes:both the Communist regime arid the opposition 'remained hostile and critical of the consumer culture of the West, the paternalisticrole of the United States in Europe and the process of European integration'. On the Threshold of Europeis an original study, a book which breaks new ground in the historiographyof the Czechs and Slovaksin particularand of CentralEurope in general. It gives real substance to the rather superficial, mostly theoretical debate on the idea of Europe, and on the identity of 'Central Europe'. OntheThreshold ofEurope deserves a largeraudience than the Dutch-speakingreadershipto which it now remains limited. Departmentof EuropeanStudies ANDREW. M. GERRITS Amsterdam University Adams, Bruce. TinyRevolutions in Russia:Twentieth-Centugy Sovietand Russian Histoy in Anecdotes. RoutledgeCurzon Studies on the History of Russia and Eastern Europe, 3. RoutledgeCurzon, Abingdon and New York, 2005. viii + 176 pp. Index. ?6s.oo. As will become clear later in this review, Bruce Adams is a historian, not a specialistin Russian language or literature.He is well aware that manyjokes workmuch betterwhen well recountedorally,ratherthan when committed to paper (he does not even mention the skaz).Stillmore dire is the situationwhen ajoke, especiallya foreignone, has to be explained;and so manyjokes neither travelwell nor translatewell (see in this collectionjokes nos. 526, 551, 576 and 697).The author has, then, set himselfa very difficulttask,but I found that a good io per cent of the 794jokes here either made me laugh out loud or gave me some new insights into public opinion (notably the largely private, but probably widespread, scepticism and cynicism see, e.g., nos. 340-49 and 707-o8) in the USSR and the Russian Federation. Many of these jokes, being politically incorrect, circulated as a sort of spoken or whispered samizdat,a phenomenon which goes back to the very earlyyears of so-called 'Soviet'power, once the Councils (Sovety) had lost most of their influence.Dating thesejokes, often writtendown only much later and representinggenuinely creative twentieth-centuryfolklore (narodnoe tvorchestvo) REVIEWS 369 at its best, is a difficulttask, but Adams seems to me to be justified in trying to place them in roughly chronological order and entitling six of his seven chapters after the leader or leaders during a particular historical period. This enables the reader to follow how essentially one and the same joke evolves over time e.g., nos. Io and 88 and nos. i6, 249, 696 ('Socialism equals Soviet power plus the electrification of all barbed wire') and 744 ('Communismequals Soviet power plus the radiation of the whole country'). The Khrushchevchapteris the longest, and the Stalin and Brezhnevchapters are of equal length. Adams claims that there are no Soviet (or perhaps one should say anti-Soviet) anecdotes about the October Revolution and Civil War (p. 8) and he is surprised that 'so few jokes about alcoholism have survivedfrom [the] earlier Soviet years' (p. 94). It goes almost without saying that many of the bestjokes involve (andmay well have been coined by)Jews see this entry in the Index. There is, alas, space here for only three, nos I70, I69 and I67: 'Rabinovich dies and winds up in Hell. "Aftera life like mine haven't I earned Heaven?""Aftera life like yours this will seem like Heaven."' 'The phone rings. "May I speak with Abramovich?""He's not here." "Ishe at work?""No." "Ishe away on business ?""No." "Ishe on vacation?""No." "Have I understoodyou correctly?" "Yes."' 'A caller knocks...

In order to think theoretically about our global age it is important to understand how the global has been conceived historically. 'Eurafrica' was an intellectual endeavor and political project that from the 1920s saw Europe's future survival - its continued role in history - as completely bound up with Europe's successful merger with Africa. In its time the concept of Eurafrica was tremendously influential in the process of European integration. Today the project is largely forgotten, yet the idea continues to influence EU policy towards its African 'partner'. The book will recover a critical conception of the nexus between Europe and Africa - a relationship of significance across the humanities and social sciences. In assessing this historical concept the authors shed light on the process of European integration, African decolonization and the current conflictual relationship between Europe and Africa.

This article analyses ways in which media in Bosnia-Herzegovina report on EU integrations, as one of key processes that are happening in B&H at the moment. Country makes quite slow progress towards the EU and media, as a consequence of that, do not show huge interest for reporting about integration process, mainly reporting superficially, in a burraucratic manner and withour deeper analysis. This does not enable citizens to better understand benefits from the EU integrations and does not increase interest nor support of citizens to integrations. Based on the results of this research, authors conclude that public interest and orientation function of media are not key in media reporting on EU and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The political and socio — economic transformation of the social systems in the Central and Eastern European countries at the beginning of the 1990s was also reflected in the sector of potable water supply. This transformation underwent various kinds of development in various countries depending on local conditions, pace of economic transformation, development of the legislation, interest of foreign entities and international institutions, and involvement in the European integration process.