Introduction: Films and Societies in Southeastern Europe

This monograph presents a selection of reflections on environmental issues in South-Eastern Europe from diverse contemporary scientific disciplines. The chapters present a variety of crucial issues regarding definitions and aspects of national environmental policies, situational prevention of threats to the environment, economic instruments in prevention of crimes against the environment, international waste trafficking, definitions and aspects of environmental (green) criminology, detecting and investigating of crimes against the environment, investigation of crimes against the environment, post-disaster management of explosions, prevention of ecological risks in relation to spring zones of surface waters, nanotechnology, threats to air, water and soil in relation to mining, management of dump areas, risk factors of hospital wastewater, environment protection and food safety from perspectives of public health, risk analysis, safe food production, application of dialectical systems theory in problem solving following environmental disasters, environmental risks and human security, and environmental conflict analysis. The authors present diverse perspectives and come from South Eastern and Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and the United States.

Opportunities and challenges for a sustainable energy policy in SE Europe: SE European Energy Community Treaty

The aim of this paper is to investigate and document the financial contagion of the South Eastern Europe (SEE) stock markets. Using a modification of the Bae et al. (2003) coexceedance approach based on multinomial logistic regressions we model the occurrence of the large negative or positive stock returns on a given day across the SEE stock markets. Specifically, we divide the SEE stock markets on two groups based on country’s EU membership in order to allow for transmission mechanism from major EU economies stock markets to EU member countries from SEE, and in addition, transitory effect from EU member countries from SEE to accession countries from SEE region. We test the persistence, asset class and volatility effects on the likelihood of the coexceedances in both SEE groups. We find that effects differ: (i) between negative and positive coexceedances and (ii) between the EU member countries and EU accession countries stock markets from SEE. The empirical evidence for the persistence effects, asset class and volatility effects in the SEE region should draw the attention of both investors and policy makers.

The aim of our study was to examine regional differences in the demographics, etiology, risk factors, comorbidities and treatment of female patients with heart failure (HF) in the Cardiac Insufficiency BIsoprolol Study in ELDerly (CIBIS-ELD) clinical trial. One hundred and fifty-nine female patients from Germany and 169 from Southeastern (SE) Europe (Serbia, Slovenia and Montenegro) were included in this subanalysis of the CIBIS-ELD trial. Women comprised 54% of the study population in Germany and 29% in SE Europe. German patients were significantly older. The leading cause of HF was arterial hypertension in German patients, 71.7% of whom had a preserved ejection fraction. The leading etiology in SE Europe was the coronary artery disease; 67.6% of these patients had a reduced left ventricular ejection fraction (34.64 ± 7.75%). No significant differences were found in the prevalence of traditional cardiovascular risk factors between the two regions (hypertension, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, smoking and family history of myocardial infarction). Depression, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and malignancies were the comorbidities that were noted more frequently in the German patients, while the patients from SE Europe had a lower glomerular filtration rate. Compared with the German HF patients, the females in SE Europe received significantly more angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors, loop diuretics and less frequently angiotensin receptor blockers and mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists. Significant regional differences were noted in the etiology, comorbidities and treatment of female patients with HF despite similar risk factors. Such differences should be considered in the design and implementation of future clinical trials, especially as women remain underrepresented in large trial populations.

The rise of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) in the age of globalization significantly affects SEE (South Eastern European) security. Although these technologies help the region of SEE to become more interconnected, interrelated and thus, boost the SEE countries’ commodity, prosperity and competitiveness put in security context, these technologies have increased unpredictability, complexity and the threats to the SEE security. In this line, as to the rest of the world, modern terrorism represents an inevitable burden of the SEE governments’ security. Today, it is more than clear that modern terrorist groups and individuals exploit cyberspace to achieve strategic advantage against the mightier enemies. Therefore, based on the recent experience the article explains how and in which way terrorist use of a cyberspace could affect CII (critical information infrastructure) in the region of SEE. Giving the specific dynamics in the region, article first explains how terrorists’ use of modern ICT and cyberspace serves to accomplish their strategic agenda. Then it explains how terrorist could affect CIIs in the region of SEE and thus affect the overall SEE regions’ security.

Southeastern Europe faces shortage of interest in modern program of public health education and research, and in mutual cooperation and cooperation with countries of European Union. In 2000, Stability Pact for Southeastern Europe has initiated a project: "Academic Programmes for Training and Research in Public Health in South Eastern Europe". The project named "Agreement on Collaboration of the Public Health Consortium for South Eastern Europe (PH-SEE) provides many opportunities to advance the cooperation and student exchange during post graduate studies. Academic programs include education of how to use Internet material in regard to public health from relevant areas and select skilled coordinatiors. 10 appropriate curricula have been developed with many models and most can be expanded. This document has the objective of establishing a formal agreement between the members of the Network enabling cooperation and student exchange programs during postgraduate studies. It supports the mobility of postgraduate students in their scientific or practical work, awards student scholarships or acquiring diploma at foreign universities. Each member of this network will support progress in the frame of mutual research and identify program priorities based on unilateral and multilateral cooperation in public health. Work on the project "Academic Programmes for Training and Research in Public Health in South Eastern Europe" has to be considered continual, including some colleagues who have interest in preventive medicine and in other areas. Agreement on Collaboration offers younger generations an opportunity for scientific training. According to recently signed Bologna Declaration, we are free to create a school of public health, and it becomes also our obligation.

Aim: Regional collaboration has continuously contributed to the development of public health in the South Eastern Europe (SEE) region since 2000 when the Public Health Collaboration in SEE (PH-SEE) was initiated. This article looks into two frameworks for regional collaboration in the area of public health: a framework developed in 2004 by a network of public health professionals and academics, and another one developed by the SEE Health Network as integral part of the SEE 2020 strategy on Jobs and Prosperity in a European Perspective , adopted in 2013. It compares the commonalities and differences of the two frameworks; considers what is still valid and relevant after ten years and which new features have emerged in the new strategy. Methods: A literature review was carried out and a qualitative analysis was applied for the comparison of the two frameworks. Results: Notwithstanding the time gap of nearly ten years, the commonalities between the two regional health strategies are significant. Major consistent goals include: improving equity in health; strengthening human resources for health; improving intersectoral cooperation and governance. The differences between the two regional strategies, including issues around social participation and regional health information systems, are partially due to their different development context. Cross-border policies and quality management have emerged as new or more pronounced topics in the SEE 2020 strategy’s health dimension. Conclusions: Many aspects addressed in the 2004 framework are pertinent with regard to the SEE 2020 health dimension and remain relevant in the current context. The integration of health as part of the economic SEE 2020 strategy reflects a significant paradigm shift and important step forward for public health.

Aim: Regional collaboration has continuously contributed to the development of public health in the South Eastern Europe (SEE) region since 2000 when the Public Health Collaboration in SEE (PH-SEE) was initiated. This article looks into two frameworks for regional collaboration in the area of public health: a framework developed in 2004 by a network of public health professionals and academics, and another one developed by the SEE Health Network as integral part of the SEE 2020 strategy on Jobs and Prosperity in a European Perspective, adopted in 2013. It compares the commonalities and differences of the two frameworks; considers what is still valid and relevant after ten years and which new features have emerged in the new strategy. Methods: A literature review was carried out and a qualitative analysis was applied for the comparison of the two frameworks. Results: Notwithstanding the time gap of nearly ten years, the commonalities between the two regional health strategies are significant. Major consistent goals include: improving equity in health; strengthening human resources for health; improving intersectoral cooperation and governance. The differences between the two regional strategies, including issues around social participation and regional health information systems, are partially due to their different development context. Cross-border policies and quality management have emerged as new or more pronounced topics in the SEE 2020 strategy’s health dimension. Conclusions: Many aspects addressed in the 2004 framework are pertinent with regard to the SEE 2020 health dimension and remain relevant in the current context. The integration of health as part of the economic SEE 2020 strategy reflects a significant paradigm shift and important step forward for public health

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) as a tool used to identify the environmental, social and economic impacts prior to decision-making in trans-boundary projects has been introduced in countries of South Eastern Europe (SEE) relatively recently. This paper gives an overview of the existing legal regimes and obligations regarding EIA procedures in the SEE region taken in the process of EU integration. It presents the main elements of the Espoo Convention and the bilateral/multilateral agreements under the Convention aimed at enabling its effective application, as well as a short analysis of the implementation of the Espoo Convention in the SEE region so far. Through this paper, we discuss the new multilateral agreement under the Espoo Convention signed among countries of the SEE – the Bucharest Agreement, its purpose and applicability, as well as the identified constrains. We argue that mechanisms for public participation in the Bucharest Agreement need to be clearly established and that the special regime proposed for the joint cross border projects is jeopardizing the principles of the Espoo Convention and other UNECE Conventions. Considering that the SEE region have yet to declare Natura 2000 areas, and that many already protected areas are near the borders, we recommend broadening the criteria on significance under the Bucharest Agreement to take into account the biodiversity richness of the region.

Efficiency and transparency of pricing and reimbursement (P&R) rules and procedures as well as their implementation in South-eastern Europe (SEE) lag substantially behind Western European practice. Nevertheless, P&R systems in SEE are rarely critically assessed, warranting a detailed and wider-encompassing exploration. Our study provides a comparative assessment of P&R processes for patent-protected medicines in ten SEE countries-EU member states: Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria; and non-EU countries: Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, North Maceodina, Bosnia and Herzegovina. P&R systems are compared and evaluated through a research framework that focuses on: (1) public financing of patent-protected medicines, (2) definition of benefit packages, (3) requirements for the submission of reimbursement dossiers, (4) assessment and appraisal processes, (5) reimbursement decision making, (6) processes that occur post reimbursement, and (7) pricing. The study aims to contribute to the discussion on improving the efficiency and quality of P&R of patent-protected medicines in the region. We conducted a non-systematic literature review of published literature, as well as policy briefs and reports on healthcare systems in the SEE region along with legal documents framing the P&R procedures in local languages. The information gathered from these various sources was then discussed and clarified through structured telephone interviews with relevant national experts from each SEE country, mainly current and former senior officials and/or executives of the funding and assessment/ appraisal bodies (total of 20 interviews conducted in late 2019). Capacity building through sharing knowledge and information on successful reforms across borders is an opportunity for SEE countries to further develop their P&R policies and increase (equitable) access to patent-protected medicines (especially expensive medicines), increasing affordability and containing costs. Simple yet robust and systematic decision-making frameworks that rely on international health technology assessment (HTA) procedures and are based on the pursuit of transparency seem to be the most cost-effective approach to strengthening P&R systems in SEE. Further reforms aiming to develop transparent and robust national decision-making frameworks (including oversight) and build institutional HTA-related and decision-making capacity are awaited in most of SEE countries, especially the non-EU members. In non-EU SEE countries, these efforts could increase access to patent-protected medicines, which is-at the moment-very limited. The EU-member SEE countries operate more developed P&R systems but could further benefit from developing their procedures, oversight and value-for-money assessment toolbox and capacity, hence further improving the transparency and efficiency of procedures that regulate access to patent-protected medicines.

This collective monograph is a comprehensive study of the causes, evolution and outcomes of complex processes in the contemporary history of the countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe, and aims in particular to identify common and special characteristics in their socio-economic and political development. The authors base their work on documentary evidence; both published and unpublished archival materials reveal the specifics of the development of the political landscapes in these countries. They highlight models combining both European and nationally oriented (and even nationalist) components of the political spheres of particular countries; identify markers which allow the stage of completion (or incompletion) of the establishment of a new political system to be estimated; and present analyses of the processes of internal political struggle, which has often taken on ruthless forms. The analysis of regional and country-specific documentary materials illustrates that the gap in the development of the region with “old Europe” in general has not yet been overcome: in the post-Socialist period, the situation of the region being “ownerless” and “abandoned”, characteristic of the period between the two world wars, is reoccurring. The authors conclude that during the period from the late twentieth to the early twenty-first centuries, the region was quite clearly divided into two parts: Central (the Visegrad Four) and South-Eastern (the Balkans) Europe. The authors explore the prevailing trends in the political development of Hungary and Poland related to the leadership of nationally and religiously oriented parties; in the Czech Republic and Slovakia the pendulum-like change in power of the left and right-wing parties; and in Bulgaria and Romania the domestic political processes permanently in crisis. The authors pay special attention to the contradictory nature of the political evolution of the states that emerged in the space of the former Yugoslavia. For the first time, Greece and Turkey are included in the context of a regional-wide study. The contributors present optimal or resembling transformational models, which can serve as a prototype for shaping the political landscape of other countries in the world. The monograph substantiates the urgency of the new approach needed to study the history and current state of the region and its countries, taking into account the challenges of the time, which require strengthening national and state identity. The research also offered prognostic characteristics of transformational changes in the region, the Visegrad Four, and the Balkans.

We investigate the distributions of representatives of the family Melanopsidae (Gastropoda: Caenogastropoda: Cerithioidea) from the late Cretaceous to present-day. The present contribution discusses and partly revises former schemes of melanopsid dispersal during the Cenozoic, all of which were based on outdated stratigraphic and tectonic concepts as well as an incompletely considered fossil record. Conflating a comprehensive and stratigraphically well-constrained fossil record, modern paleogeographical reconstructions and contemporary climate data, our goal is to present a thorough model of melanopsid distribution and its changes over the Cenozoic as well as its paleogeographical and climatic constraints. The family Melanopsidae evolved about 90Ma ago in the late Turonian from brackish cerithioidean ancestors. Cretaceous and Paleogene species occur in marginal marine to brackish environments along the shores of the Tethys and Paratethys seas. The extant clades of Melanopsis likely derive from the evolution of freshwater Melanopsis on the Balkan Peninsula back in the late early Miocene. Up to the Pliocene, freshwater species spread toward southwestern and southeastern Europe and successively replaced brackish-water representatives, paralleling a general decline of latter systems during the late Cenozoic. The southwards expansion of Melanopsis and its simultaneous retreat from northern latitudes resulted in the disjunct distribution pattern observed today.The genus Holandriana first appeared in northern Italy in the late early Miocene. The genera Microcolpia and Esperiana both first occurred in the late Miocene and likely derive from brackish-water Melanopsis species native to peri-Paratethyan lakes. The present-day biogeographic isolation of the three latter genera and Melanopsis roots in the climatic deterioration and the disappearance of major lake systems in southeastern Europe. While thermophilous Melanopsis retreated to the warm, dry climates of the Mediterranean and Middle East, Holandriana, Microcolpia and Esperiana adapted to the seasonal, cold-temperate climate of southeastern and eastern Europe and some species became restricted to thermal springs.

This paper explores the dynamics behind the rise of religious nationalism in Central Eastern and Southeastern Europe with distinct populist, nativist, and authoritarian overtones. The paper explores the relationship between nationalism and religion today and the broader transformation challenges both within the region and more globally that can shape this relationship. It then looks closer into the historical experiences in the region with regard to the relationship between state and church as well as nationalism and religion, critically analysing how these relations have evolved during nation-state formation in the 19th and early 20th century, under Communism, and in the last three decades. Analysing critically the relevant literature, the paper discusses the entanglements between state and religious institutions as well as between national identity and faith, and how these are mobilised today. The paper argues for the need to consider both internal and external factors in the evolution of the relationship between nationalism and religion in Central Eastern and Southeastern Europe and more broadly.

<strong class="journal-contentHeaderColor">Abstract.</strong> The study of freshwater carbonates, such as travertines and speleothems, provides valuable insights into the regional biases of mid-Holocene climate development in Central-Eastern (CE) and South-Eastern (SE) Europe. The formation of a lake in the travertine deposition system of the Santovka site, located at the transition of the Western Carpathians and the Pannonian Basin, has led to the preservation of a valuable record. We analyzed the litho- and microstratigraphy, chemical composition, including &delta;¹⁸O and &delta;¹³C stable isotopes, and geochronology of the Santovka-village section. We then compared these palaeoclimatic records with reference records from Central-Eastern and South-Eastern Europe in terms of significant climate shifts. The prevalent part of the section studied, which spans between 8200 and 6400 cal BP, is represented by fluvial/fluvio-lacustrine sediments and lake marl. The 8.2 ka BP event was only detected in the &delta;¹³C record from the nearby Santovka-PB section. However, we found an abrupt change in both isotopic records around 7400&ndash;7200 cal BP, which is likely connected to increased detrital input and some minor palaeoecological changes in the Santovka-village section. These changes are most likely associated with the drying of the lake. The 8.2 event in Central-Eastern (CE) and South-Eastern (SE) Europe is well reflected in the &delta;¹³C records, while the change in &delta;¹⁸O was insignificant. In contrast, the newly suggested climate shift around 7400&ndash;7000 ka BP was detected at most sites in both &delta;¹⁸O and &delta;¹³C records. This development could be connected to a change in air mass circulation, synchronous with declining solar irradiance and increased evidence of drift ice in the North Atlantic.

<strong class="journal-contentHeaderColor">Abstract.</strong> The study of freshwater carbonates, such as travertines and speleothems, provides valuable insights into the regional biases of mid-Holocene climate development in Central-Eastern (CE) and South-Eastern (SE) Europe. The formation of a lake in the travertine deposition system of the Santovka site, located at the transition of the Western Carpathians and the Pannonian Basin, has led to the preservation of a valuable record. We analyzed the litho- and microstratigraphy, chemical composition, including &delta;¹⁸O and &delta;¹³C stable isotopes, and geochronology of the Santovka-village section. We then compared these palaeoclimatic records with reference records from Central-Eastern and South-Eastern Europe in terms of significant climate shifts. The prevalent part of the section studied, which spans between 8200 and 6400 cal BP, is represented by fluvial/fluvio-lacustrine sediments and lake marl. The 8.2 ka BP event was only detected in the &delta;¹³C record from the nearby Santovka-PB section. However, we found an abrupt change in both isotopic records around 7400&ndash;7200 cal BP, which is likely connected to increased detrital input and some minor palaeoecological changes in the Santovka-village section. These changes are most likely associated with the drying of the lake. The 8.2 event in Central-Eastern (CE) and South-Eastern (SE) Europe is well reflected in the &delta;¹³C records, while the change in &delta;¹⁸O was insignificant. In contrast, the newly suggested climate shift around 7400&ndash;7000 ka BP was detected at most sites in both &delta;¹⁸O and &delta;¹³C records. This development could be connected to a change in air mass circulation, synchronous with declining solar irradiance and increased evidence of drift ice in the North Atlantic.