The negotiation position amid member states of the EU

Abstract

The European integration process is very important and it has been paid attention to for the last 15 years. The abstract deals with the negotiation field and position in the structure of the current expanded EU. For better orientation in this equivocal situation, a modern cartography method of relationship in the arbitrary group called dynamic sociometry was used. The method is based on classical sociometry Morena and furthermore it uses the instrument of fuzzy set, typology and structural analysis. The output of this method is a sociomap. The map holds information on the relative closeness or the distance of individual elements, their configuration but also some quality information. The graphic chart is similar to a topographic map. In our case, the sociomap was created from the data of foreign business among the member countries. The following analysis of the sociomap we detected and described characteristic features of the analysed group. It consists of formal and informal links in the group, the role and the position of each member within the group, the structure and relations in the group. In the concrete, we attained data to answer the questions about the present climate in interrelationships in the EU, which means the relationships among the members as the whole entities but also the relationships separately among members themselves. The position analysis of the Czech Republic in the system of the created sociomaps was considered as very important. According to the allocation of the Czech Republic in sociomaps, we easily defined the position of the state, the closest partners for negotiation, and also the possible problem relations which might complicate the negotiation in the EU. From the resultant sociomaps, we also tried to determine the sociometric star, i.e. the leader of the European Community. We anticipated that it would be rather an aggregation of several states than an individual state. The contribution focuses on the negotiation field and position in the structure of the current expanded EU. The sociomap created using foreign business data of member states gives the bases for answering questions about present climate in interrelationships in the EU which means the relationships between the members as whole entities but also the relationships separately between the members themselves.