Search

This study revisits knowledge about the post-EU accession intra-industry trade development in the Visegrad countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and the Slovak Republic). These countries--through trade liberalisation, European integration and EU accession--strengthened their position in the global value chains, part of which were located in Western Europe. This paper points out that during the global financial crisis, the changes in intra-industry specialisation were not coherent in the Visegrad countries. Moreover, in some cases, the specialisation even intensified. This paper also applies the Arellano-Bover/Blundell-Bond estimator to assess whether EU accession and the later global financial crisis were driving forces of the changing trade patterns of these countries. The results of the estimation proved the positive effect of European integration (before and after EU enlargement) and the negative effect of the crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyze the evolution of the European Union in the economic and financial field during the global crisis that stroke Europe, from January 2008 until December 2012. My argument is that the European Union has faced certain political and economical imbalances since its beginnings in 1992 which have worsen the European economic and financial scenario. These imbalances -- rooted in the EU architecture -- were the result of a primary political choice: building a European market based on neoliberal values and setting aside any political controversy that may have caused a slowdown in the economic and financial integration. Since 1992, the Maastricht Treaty has shown some incongruities which were not resolved in the following two decades. Moreover, the decision-making process became more intricate so that Europe faced the worst post-war financial crisis without the instruments to answer rapidly to the financial speculation. The ECB, following its price stability mandate, was not able to react with counter-cyclical measures, thus exacerbating the financial imbalances between Northern and Southern European States. After an economic "perfect storm", EU Member States need to have enough farsightedness to implement some fundamental reforms in order to give the necessary means to EU institutions to erect an efficient firewall against financial speculations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban resilience is related to the capacity of cities to recover from disruptions, to maintain their functions and thrive after a sudden shock or a long-term stress, from economic crisis, from natural and technological disasters or climate change. The present study refers to former communist countries in Eastern Europe which are now integrated in the European Union (including Greece, by reasons of spatial coherence), namely the cities and agglomerations that have more than 500,000 inhabitants. The analysis focuses on the post-communist transitions of these cities reflected in certain socio-demographic, morphological and functional urban transformations, highlighted by indicators obtained by integrating data from different evaluations already carried out at the EU level. The results of multicriterial statistical analysis reveal the identity of the analysed urban areas and the diffusion processes in resilience approaches from Western EU to Eastern countries and cities by adaptation practices implemented at different rhythms and to different degrees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution analyses some data from Eurobarometer 83, spring 2015, especially to draw a map of Fears. The European Union is a divided space and one of the main consequences of the budget (financial) crisis of Greece, followed by the crisis caused by the arrival of thousands of immigrants is an enhanced communication difficulty between the Western and Eastern parts of the EU But all citizens have some new rights with the European Citizenship, which are additional. One of the main issues for the future could be to change the fundamental basis of the Union, thus trying to organize a new articulation between local and supranational, with another role for States, for example to change the organisation of European elections, and to pursue the connection of public spaces with mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]