Suchergebnisse

The European Union's enlargement towards the Western Balkans may be facing its most difficult challenge since its launch in Zagreb in 2000. The prospect of Balkan enlargement has been hard-hit by the deterioration of the European economy, and particularly the Greek sovereign debt crisis. The countries of the region have been deeply affected by the shock waves emanating from the Greek and eurozone crises: the negative repercussions include a deterioration of their economies, their prospects for growth, their capacity for reform, their social, political and institutional structures, and their ability to fulfill the accession criteria. Crucially, the EU's hitherto undisputable symbolic role as an "anchor" of stability, as a one-way path to prosperity and as a goal to be aspired to, may be losing its credibility and appeal for some of these countries.

Russia's relations with and attitude towards the United Nations (UN) cannot be viewed in isolation from its greater foreign policy goals. As these goals changed and evolved throughout various periods of Soviet and Russian history, relations with the UN have reflected these changes and have adapted accordingly. One of the key components of Russia's early post-Soviet foreign policy was the desire to re-establish great power status and to reverse its post-Cold War irrelevance and decline in prestige. At the time, this could be achieved only through its status as a permanent member of an empowered Security Council. The shifting global equilibrium of the past few years -- characterized by the re-emergence of a multipolar global configuration and a resurgent Russian foreign policy -- suggests that Russia will no longer be relying on membership of the Security Council to assert its great power status. Adapted from the source document.

This paper focuses on Estonia's post-communist transition and attempts to determine why it has been more successful than the other two Baltic states, Lithuania and Latvia. It proposes that the central factor conditioning the outcome of the Baltic states' transition process was their different experiences during the Soviet period. Although the post-independence reform program itself played a crucial role in Estonia's successful transition, the paper concludes that the seeds for the country's achievements can actually be found in its Soviet legacy: Estonia's selection of policies, their implementation and the resulting positive outcome were all dependent on favorable conditions which had been established in Estonia during the Soviet period. Significantly, these positive conditions had not been created in the other two Baltic states.

From the mid-1990s and for over a decade Greece developed a very important and
dynamic trade and investment relationship with most Western Balkan countries. The
economic crisis in 2009 broke this momentum and led to massive declines in both trade
and FDI. While trade transactions rebounded after 2016 and almost reached pre-crisis
levels, the decline of Greek FDI has shown no signs of recovering, its most definitive sign
being the departure of many Greek banks from the region.
The objective of this project is to delve into the intricacies of Greek economic diplomacy,
focusing on its conduct in the Western Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia) and exploring paths
that could improve economic and business practices in the region. It does so by mapping
out the multi-layered dimensions of Greek economic relations with the Western
Balkans, highlighting problems and challenges that have emerged over the years,
identifying key actors and stakeholders in the process, and making policy
recommendations based on an evaluation of all the above.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to measure price risk transfer from futures prices to spot prices in the markets of energy commodities.

Design/methodology/approach
To this end, it estimates CoVaR functions for five futures-spot prices pairs of energy commodities. To account for the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic as well as for the effects of the Russo−Ukrainian conflict, the total sample has been split into three sub-samples. The first one contains observations from 01/01/2010–3/11/2020, which marks the official declaration of the coronavirus as a global pandemic. The second sub-sample uses observations from 3/12/2020–2/24/2022, which marks the beginning of the Russo−Ukrainian conflict, and the third one includes observations from 2/25/2022 up to 8/31/2023.

Findings
Results indicate that the effect of the coronavirus pandemic was to increase the risk of price transfer from futures markets to spot markets, in all of the energy commodities examined. On the other hand, the effect of the escalation of the Russo−Ukrainian conflict was to significantly reduce the price risk transfer from the futures markets to the spot markets, in all five energy commodities.

Originality/value
To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to use CoVaR functions to estimate risk transfer among the energy commodities. In addition, it separates and estimates the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic as well as the effects of the Russo−Ukrainian conflict.

Abstract
This article analyses and develops the rationale behind the foreign policy of the syriza-led government towards the Western Balkans. It challenges the prevalent view in the academic literature that there was continuity between policies of the syriza government and its predecessors. By analysing the track record of Greek foreign policy towards the region from 2009 to 2019, it argues that from mid-2016 onwards syriza implemented a major policy shift and adopted a policy of retrenchment. This change was a response to the country's diminished economic and diplomatic power and influence in the region, as well as a reaction to the widening gap between Greek and Turkish capabilities. The adjustment of Greek foreign policy to the realities of the protracted economic crisis demonstrates that the theory of MacDonald and Parent concerning the policies followed by great powers in acute economic decline may also be applied to the study of policies followed by small powers in decline.