Suchergebnisse

■ The European Union would like European citizens to be more involved in its political processes and to cast off its `democratic deficit`. A functioning European public sphere has been seen as both a solution and an instrument for producing a European identity that might motivate more participation. The main question discussed in this article is what the medium of television can contribute and already has contributed to the construction and existence of a European public sphere. On the way to a (preliminary) conclusion, the article suggests definitions and understandings of the key terms involved and sketches an overview of transnational television in Europe. It then suggests that while the EU may challenge the nationalist idea that a polity must also be a `complete' cultural community, and some seem to think a polity can do without any cultural community to speak of, one should rather think of the EU as a political project that gradually, over time, will add a `European' layer to the identities of Europeans — not least due to the sort of everyday cultural community that television has contributed to since the early 1950s. ■

AbstractFrom the moment that Nazi Germany launched its attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, a pandemonium of violence seized many areas of Eastern Europe. The crimes of the Einsatzgruppen and of Wehrmacht troops are well‐documented. The brutality, however, of the pogroms in 1941, their frequency and geographic scope, the level of local participation in the acts, the vehemence with which they were carried out and the almost ritualistic 'carnivalesque' qualities of the spectacle, all point to deeper, more complex agencies at work. This paper explores the notion of 'licence' as the primary facilitator of genocidal violence in the eastern territories immediately after the launch of Operation Barbarossa. It argues that this 'licence' should be understood as a crucial facilitator of already formed (if latent or contained) violent eliminationist predispositions and intentions. This in turn helped demolish political, social and moral impediments to violent behaviour and catalysed a veritable 'carnival' of elimination against particular 'others', in which 'ordinary' people joined much more for ideological, cultural and/or rational reasons than because of blind conformity or coercion.

The shift from state-led ISI to more market-oriented economic models often has the result of shrinking and demobilizing the labor movement. Yet, evidence from Argentina suggests that a subsequent resurgence of even a down-sized labor movement may occur and furthermore that "neocorporatist" patterns may be established in the new economic context. We examine the recent resurgence of the Argentine labor movement and the establishment of a new form of interest intermediation, more akin to that in the more coordinated economies in Europe than to either liberal or traditional populist forms. We argue that the emergence of such a pattern may be driven by economic and political factors that are both immediate and longer-term. In addition to the short-term condition of the labor market and the political strategy of the government in power, of longer-term importance are structural and institutional conditions that derive from the earlier process of market reform, specifically the nature of sectoral shifts in the economy and the degree of labor law deregulation affecting the "associational power" of unions.

The recognition of Turkey as a candidate country for EU membership at the Helsinki Summit of December 1999 has provided a new basis for Turkey-EU relations after long years of association. Post-Helsinki dynamics have strengthened the position of pro-EU circles in Turkey. However, continuing debates between pro-EU and Eurosceptic circles still constitute an important domestic factor shaping the dynamics of Turkey's candidacy process. The interaction between these circles is characterized by cleavages on political and economic aspects such as compliance with the Copenhagen political criteria and the obligations of the customs union between Turkey and the EU. In fact, such debates are influenced particularly by the EU's stance over Turkey's membership. Positive signals from the EU help to strengthen the position of pro-EU circles. On the other hand, ambiguous signals and controversial declarations from Europe tend to have a negative impact on the credibility of the EU's conditionality, amplify the arguments of Eurosceptics, and thereby undermine Turkish public opinion's support for EU membership. Adapted from the source document.

Рассматривается смысл международного трудового права. Предлагается отказаться от наиболее распространенного взгляда на этот феномен как исключительно на фрагмент международного публичного права. Автор доказывает свою точку зрения, согласно которой международное трудовое право объединяет в себе части нормативных массивов международного публичного и международного частного права, права международных договоров и т.д. Анализируются и некоторые иные вопросы структурирования международного трудового права. ; This research work is devoted to some important problems concerning on interpretation of International Labour Law sense. The author tries to prove that International Labour Law is the peculiar complex law formation included norms of International Public Law, International Private Law, Law of International Treaties and some other parts. It is suggested to consider International Social Security Law as the specific domain of International Labour Law. European Labour Law (or European Employment Law) is interpreted like the one region version of International Labour Law. The author thinks Law of European Union is not one and only sense of European Law. This Law involves the rules of Council of Europe Law and some other fragments. This has to do with Labour (Employment) Law in European aspect absolutely.

Establishment of Competence Centres is one of the main tasks on the European Union agenda. The article aims to analyse the possible impact such Competence Centres might have in Lithuania. The main purpose of Competence Centre is to encourage science and business collaboration in increasing effectiveness and efficiency of high added value article production. The newly established and currently not wide spread Competence Centres are encouraged by EU: the main goal of Lisbon Strategy is to set up necessary conditions for creation of critical mass in particular research areas. Developing significant European Competence Centres, which would be ready for international collaboration and for attraction of high qualified scientists from all over the Europe, could encourage competitiveness of the region as well as the competitiveness of EU itself. Therefore, this would be a huge step of Lithuania's Knowledge Economy in catching up with the EU innovation leaders. Thus, the article captures: analysis of science and business potential in Lithuania, analysis of success stories of Competence Centres and suggestions on the possible model for boosting the development of Competence Centres in Lithuania.

The worldview of Javier Solana, first holder of the post of European Union High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, depicts a multipolar world which is full of negotiable conflicts. As a result of the impact of globalisation, member states are pressed to integrate further in the EU. Solana portrays an international scene where the EU enjoys a positive international image and which is favourable to a greater role for the EU. However, the EU is far from fulfilling its potential due to several 'internal' obstacles. These impediments come solely from inside Europe and the lack of adequate EU military capabilities ranks high among them. Regarding the objectives of the EU foreign policy, Javier Solana does not perceive any trade-off between the values and interest. Although Solana's concept of multilateralism is decidedly flexible, one of the EU priorities is pushing for a more multilateral international scene. To conclude, Javier Solana aims with his worldview to represent, shape and, maybe more importantly, implement the existent European consensus in foreign affairs.

There is a growing imbalance between modes of transport in the European Union. The increasing success of road results in an ever worsening congestion, more environmental nuisances and accidents. That's why one of the objectives of the European Common Transport Policy is to restore the balance between modes of transport and to develop intermodality. Among the various types of intermodal transport this doctoral dissertation is concerned by rail-road combined transport for which the terminals are embedded in a hub-and-spoke network. This kind of topology can reduce the transportation costs by consolidations at the hubs. The proposed method uses the flows of commodities and their geographic spreading as input to determine a set of good potential locations for transfer container terminals. This set can further be used as input for an iterative procedure based on both the p-HMP and the multi-modal assignment in order to identify the optimal locations for such terminals in Europe. This procedure takes into account the variation of the transshipment cost according to the number of containers that could be transshipped.

The Water Framework Directive institutionalises participatory processes in river basin planning across the European Union. This paper reports on three case studies from southern Europe where conflicts over water exist. In each a different method for participation was experimentally employed: scenario workshops, mediated modelling, and social multicriteria evaluation. Scenario workshops and mediated modelling proved well suited to the early stages of a planning process (problem solving and identification of goals and alternatives) and to be good at educating participants and supporting capacity building. Their performance was less satisfactory with respect to resolving long-standing conflicts and achieving consensus. In comparison, social multicriteria evaluation was better able to address the evaluation of alternatives, reveal trade-offs, and aid convergence between divergent stakeholders' views, but it relied more heavily on experts and allowed less participation and deliberation in goal-setting than the other two methods. These results show complementarities amongst methods which imply that hybrid or combined approaches would be best for aiding the water planning process. They also reveal problems confronting the use of participatory approaches and constraints which prevent theoretical promise from being converted into practical results.