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The idea of a set of shared or common values constitutes a substantial component of EU-discourse. Values are mentioned at the beginning of the Lisbon Treaty, and can be easily found in any communication material produced by the European Union. This paper argues for the relevance of studying from a semiotic perspective the link between values, the European Union and the broader idea of "Europe". Specifically, it discusses the place of values in the discursive construction of the European Union and "Europe" as distinct cultural units of meaning. As it is argued, values have a salient place in the discourses, narratives and social imaginaries about what "Europe" is and who and what "is" "European". The paper draws on Fornäs (2012) study of the symbols of Europe and argues that values constitute a central nodal point in the discursive articulation of the EU – and with it, of the idea of Europe – in the level of the "forms of life". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While transnational research infrastructure projects long preceded the formal integration process that created the European Union, their advancement is an increasingly central part of EU research policy and of European integration in general. This paper analyses the Biobanking and Biomolecular Resources Research Infrastructure–European Research Infrastructure Consortium (BBMRI–ERIC) as a recent example of institutionalized scientific collaboration in Europe that has formally been established as part of EU science policy. BBMRI–ERIC, a network of European biobanks, is expected to contribute to both European science and European integration. Yet its achievements in these domains are interpreted differently by various actors involved. This paper draws on STS conceptualizations of infrastructures as relational, experimental, and promissory assemblages. These support the formulation of a working definition of research infrastructures that in turn helps to explore the heterogeneous meanings attributed to BBMRI–ERIC. The paper describes the creation of this distributed European research infrastructure, and divergent understandings of what it means for BBMRI–ERIC to be distributed, to be European and to be a research infrastructure. This analysis demonstrates how building a research infrastructure is also an effort to define what it means to be European—a process in which what is European about science and what science can do for Europe is continuously (re-)imagined, contested and negotiated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy orientations by the European Union foreground the need to attend to peripheral territories (especially non-dense urban areas), as they combine multiple socioeconomic and cultural asymmetry factors. This applies to cinema, in-between market- and cultural-driven logics, and film exhibition in particular. Theatrical exhibition in Europe remains concentrated in urban multiplexes, where US blockbusters largely dominate, and although the majority of the films released are European, US films account for the majority of admissions. This paper results from an ongoing research about non-commercial exhibition in Portugal. We will present an overview of the European framework and then an outline of the Portuguese cinema policy settings. This overview will contribute to the clarification of the (minor) place and (high) importance of the cultural dimension of film exhibition, especially the role of non-commercial exhibition, an invisible segment in most official data and reports, although strategic to countering cultural inequalities and homogenisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concerns about the quality of housing feature prominently in academic and policy discussion on housing, yet there is little agreement about how housing deprivation should be measured or monitored. In empirical studies, measures of housing deprivation are typically examined for one of two purposes—either to compare incidences of housing quality problems for different groups, which typically leads to an examination of performance of different measures of housing deprivation, or as dependent variables to examine competing theories about what explains cross-national variation in such problems, which typically ignores these measurement considerations. Our paper seeks to analyse measurement and theory jointly, focussing in particular on the EU's severe housing deprivation measure, and its subcomponents—overcrowding and housing conditions problems. In descriptive analysis, we show that the two components of the severe housing deprivation measure are weakly related and pattern differently across nations and that the aggregation rule of the main measure has a substantial influence on observed incidences of this problem. We subsequently construct multi-level regression-based models and demonstrate that the two components have quite different determinants. Our paper has implications for the measurement of severe housing deprivation in Europe, for theories that seek to account for differences in housing outcomes, and for policy that seeks to tackle housing deprivation problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper begins by considering the difficulties which are confronting the process of European integrations. The reluctance of the European Union to pursue its politics of enlargement, which has lately become visible in several vetoes blocking the start of accession negotiations, has provoked disappointment in the countries which are candidates for membership or on their way to becoming it. Among them are a few states of our region, which seem to be doomed to remain at the periphery of Europe. At the same time, the European Union is faced with the old problem of its own, the so-called democratic deficit. This paper seeks for a perspective in which these difficulties on both sides could be dealt with. It discusses three paradigmatic ways of representing Europe, which serve as a basis for different strategies of legitimizing the European Union. The first of them is idealist, since it elevates Europe to the rank of a philosophical concept which transcends the empirical definition of Europe as just one continent among others. This view reflects the representation of Europe as a unique, privileged part of the world and assumes that the rest of humanity should accept and pursue Europe's fundamental values. The second, more realistic conception envisages the European Union as an empire which is legitimized in terms of de facto arguments, such as the estimates of the costs of renouncing the Union, which would allegedly surpass those of its survival and continuation of the integration process, or by the need of preserving peace. A critical examination of these ways of legitimizing Europe reveals their factual unfoundedness and ideological character. The heritage of colonialism looms behind the idealist view of European supremacy, while the concept of the European Union as a sort of benevolent empire has paternalistic implications. The last part of the text, dealing with the problem of the European civil war (theorized by Carl Schmitt and Ernst Nolte), suggests that these shortcomings could be addressed in a conception of European politics which would not aim at pacifying or neutralizing conflicts but, on the contrary, at exposing the very conflictual component of politics. The example of ancient Greek democracy shows that preventing the civil war does not consist in eliminating all conflicts from politics but rather in their transposition to a superior level or their sublimation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1992, culture has been an official competence of the European Union. De facto, the EU has the legitimacy and means to intervene and change collective representations and social dynamics, including in border regions, in order to bring people together and build a Europe 'united in diversity'. The purpose of the paper is to investigate the cross-border dynamics in cultural matters, and to examine the realization of cultural projects as a driving force in the process of cross-border integration. The approach is based on a spatial analysis of the cultural projects co-financed by Interreg over the 2000–2020 period, enabling to provide an overview of the cross-border cultural initiatives undertaken. The results reveal first that strong spatial disparities exist between programming spaces in terms of cultural investment. Second, that cross-border cultural cooperation mainly involves municipalities, and not primarily cultural actors. Third, although a diverse range of cultural projects have been developed over the last twenty years, the emphasis has been more on tourism projects. These achievements bring into question the role of Interreg programming in cultural matters in the dynamics of cross-border integration, since it fosters an economic approach to culture at the expense of social and identity issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vaccination has been the most effective approach in the fight against COVID-19 pandemic. More than half of the world's population has been vaccinated and sufficient data is available to analyze the impact of COVID-19 vaccines around the globe. In this paper, we present a correlation analysis between administered vaccine doses and COVID-19 cases/deaths in Europe. The correlation analysis is performed considering different types of vaccinations, different age groups and different COVID-19 variants (including the prevalent Delta and Omicron variants). We present a detailed analysis for 30 European countries giving various insights such as efficacy of six different vaccines, effect of vaccinating different age groups and how the correlation evolves as different COVID-19 variants emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the growing energetic uncertainty surrounding Europe and calls for a swift reduction of the European dependence on fossil fuels, it is important to look for sustainable alternatives that could replace these in an accelerated timeframe. For this task, biofuels have an essential advantage over most other renewable energy sources, in that it can make use of much of the existing energy infrastructure. For this reason, it could play an important role in the transition to a sustainable and energetically independent Europe. The main focus of this study is to review and compare the important biofuel synthesis processes which are applicable to the European region and to evaluate the possible extent, benefits and drawbacks of their expanded usage in the European Union. Results suggest that certain biofuels could have a big positive impact; however, while current production can still be successfully increased, scaling it to its potential can prove problematic until newer biofuel technologies mature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Regional Focal Point for Animal Genetic Resources (ERFP), is the European regional platform of National Coordinators (NCs) supporting management of animal genetic resources (AnGR). To assess the performance of the ERFP platform/network and consider options for its further development, a survey was performed among NCs. Twenty-five NCs responded to the survey on the roles, values and future of the platform. The paper provides an analysis of the results of the survey, including a ERFP SWOT analysis. NCs indicated high value of the support of the ERFP in fulfilling their functions at the national level. They highlighted the well-established network and facilitated communication and collaboration among NCs and other AnGR experts in Europe. The NCs appreciated the efficient organizational structure of the ERFP (Working Groups, Task Forces, Ad hoc Actions), and the well-functioning Secretariat. Indicated weak points included discontinuity of NC positions in some countries, and low levels of activities in some countries. NCs saw new opportunities for ERFP development in the context of the EU policy and regulatory framework related to AnGR management, and in strengthening the role of the Secretariat. No immediate threats were identified, however potential future threats included insufficient financing and lack of continuity. The NCs highly appreciated the substantial progress achieved by the ERFP over the last 20 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Fatal train accidents per train-kilometre in Europe fell at the rate of 6% per year from 1990 until 2019. • There were 0.85 fatal accidents per billion train-kilometres in 2019. • There was a mean of 4.2 fatalities per fatal accident in 1990–2019. • the proportion of accidents caused by signals passed at danger fell from 40 % in the 1990s to 21 % in the 2010s. This may be due to the increasing deployment of train protection systems. This paper presents an analysis of fatal train accident rates and trends on Europe's main line railways from 1990–2019. It is a sequel to the paper Fatal train accidents on Europe's railways: 1980–2009 (Evans (2011), which covers the three decades 1980–2009. The present paper discards the data for the 1980s, but adds the data for 2010−2019. The data cover the 28 countries of the European Union as in 2019, together with Norway and Switzerland. The source of the recent data is largely the European Union Agency for Railways. The estimated overall trend in the number of fatal train collisions and derailments per train-kilometre was –5.6 % per year from 1990–2019, with a 95 % confidence interval of –7.1 % to -4.2 %. The estimated accident rate in 2019 was 0.85 fatal collisions or derailments per billion train-kilometres, which represents a fall of 78 % since 1990. This gives an estimated mean number of fatal accidents in Europe in 2019 of 3.89. The data and results for 2010−2019 closely match the extrapolation of the results for 1990−2009, so that in 2009 extrapolation would have given a good forward projection for 2019. By the same argument this paper gives a forward projection of the mean number of accidents in 2029 of 2.12, assuming no change in train-kilometres, or pro-rata changes with changes in train-kilometres. The paper investigates the causes of accidents. A notable finding is that the proportion of accidents caused by signals passed at danger (SPADs) fell from 40 % in 1990−1999 to 21 % in 2010−2019. This is probably due to the increasing deployment of train protection systems. The number of fatalities in individual accidents has a skew distribution: most accidents have a small number of fatalities, but a few have a large number. The overall observed number of fatalities per accident is 4.23, and there is no indication that this mean changes with time. This implies that the mean number of fatalities per year has the same downward trend of 5.6 % per year as the mean number of accidents per year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a detailed analysis of selected regulatory parameters used as instruments to promote efficiency with fairness for all stakeholders (in the legal sense of equity) in 5G spectrum auctions. Data were collected from sixteen auctions for the C-band that took place in the Member States of the European Union (EU) and in the United Kingdom (UK) between 2017 and 2020 for the introduction of the fifth generation (5G) of mobile communication technology. The selected instruments of intervention are: spectrum packaging, spectrum caps, set-asides, geographical scope of the license, license duration, various forms of license obligations, reserve prices and auction format. Significant differences were observed in national approaches to spectrum packaging, license obligations and reserve prices for efficiency purposes. Our analysis also shows that European national regulators are paying increasing attention to concerns over fairness of decisions on spectrum, or equity, especially by creating opportunities for local private networks to access the spectrum and by imposing requirements on network operators to guarantee more uniform population coverage of newly created 5G networks. • European C-band auctions for 5G are examined in terms of their contribution to spectrum efficiency and equity. • Significant differences were observed with respect to spectrum packaging, license obligations and reserve prices. • High reserve prices and inflexible spectrum packaging constitute essential new entry barriers. • To promote equity, auctions were designed to facilitate access to spectrum for vertical players. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]