Central European States Research Articles

Scapegoats and Guinea Pigs: Free Movement as a Pathway to Confined Labour Market Citizenship for European Union Accession Migrants in the UK

Abstract Migrants in the UK from the Central and Eastern European states that acceded to the European Union in 2004 and 2007 often have close proximity to precarity. This contribution illustrates that the positioning of the migrants in the casualised labour market has not occurred by accident but has been brought about by the (disingenuous) way in which nationals of the accession states were permitted access to the UK labour market. The positioning has been further maintained through the increasingly restrictive direction of the intertwined EU-UK response to claims for support from vulnerable EU migrant citizens. This piece presents the idea of ‘confined labour market citizenship’ as a way to understand the way many migrants have experienced working and living in the UK in the years following EU enlargement. This concept, it is argued, is able to capture: the role of the UK state as it regulated post-accession migration rules and implemented laws relating to social security entitlement; the influence of the broader EU framework on free movement and citizenship of the Union; and the impact of employers ‘on the ground’ in creating and exacerbating conditions of precarity and exploitation. The analysis throughout the paper exposes how EU8 and EU2 migrants have served as scapegoats for the result of the Brexit referendum, deflecting attention from the instrumentalisation of the migration issue by politicians. They have also been guinea pigs, testing out a confined version of EU citizenship with less tolerance for those in precarious and insecure work.

Macroeconomic Dynamics of Slovenia and Comparable Central European EU Member States in the Period before Coronavirus Pandemic

The article discusses the macroeconomic dynamics of Slovenia and four other comparable Central European EU member states in the period of twenty years before the coronavirus pandemic. To examine the differences between countries in more detail, we analyzed four periods: 2000–2004, 2004– 2007, 2008–2014 and 2017–2019. We studied the indicators of gross domestic product, gross investment,unemployment, wages, and exports. The findings ofthe research show that Slovenia's position deterioratedand stagnated until a few years before the global health crisis, while the position of most other countries improved. The key message of the research is that Slovenia did not use all its favorable economic and political foundations for growth and development before and in the years after joining the EU. Slovenia's process of approaching the average of the EU member states slowed down considerably until a few years before the pandemic, while the opposite happened in some of the compared Central European EU member states. The research indicates the need to study the factors of the above mentioned position of Slovenia in the observed period with the aim of preventing stagnation and promoting development.

Diffusion of Influence? Detecting China’s Footprint in Foreign Policies of Other Countries

“Chinese influence” has become a hot topic among politicians, media, and pundits. Academic studies dealing with the subject, however, generally take a much more cautious position. This paper suggests an innovative approach of studying political influence using data from the UN General Assembly voting and speech records. Utilizing the latest advancements in natural language processing (NLP), we show how to estimate, quantify, and visualise foreign policy positions using raw textual data. In Europe, it has been argued that China’s growing presence and activity in Central and Eastern European states (CEE) undermines “European unity” as the region allegedly starts shifting towards Beijing. We adopt the CEE region as a case study of China’s potential influence and highlight the positioning of CEE countries towards China, Germany, and the U.S. by visualizing the proximities among them over time. We find no evidence that the CEE countries are strategically pivoting towards China. We have controlled for known positions and trends of other countries from elsewhere in the world to strengthen the case for our methodological approach.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s41111-022-00217-5.

The genesis of the EU's rule of law mechanisms applied against Central European Member States

The genesis of the EU's rule of law mechanisms applied against Central European Member States

Comparing central and Eastern European mass shootings to American mass shootings

ABSTRACT This study puts forward the first analysis of mass shootings that occurred in Central and Eastern European countries and compares them to American mass shootings. Qualitative comparative analysis is utilised to assess whether pathways of explanatory conditions are similar or different according to two samples of cases featuring 76 shootings that occurred in Central and Eastern European states and 103 that occurred in the United States. Results reveal six pathways that account for the former sample and nine for the latter. American mass shootings are more causally complex and are associated with mental illness, ideological motivations, and grievances against groups and institutions to a greater extent. American mass shootings are also more lethal, while the average age of perpetrators of both US and CEE mass shootings is around 34 years old.

The resilience of central and eastern european banking systems during the covid-19 crisis

The Covid-19 crisis has severely affected Central and Eastern European (CEE) states, causing major economic activities to be blocked during the pandemic, shrinking domestic demand and investment. The aim of the research is to analyse the impact of the pandemic event on CEE banking systems, in the light of the most relevant indicators of banking stability. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used to achieve the goal. The results of the analysis revealed that the pandemic crisis did not affect the quality of banking assets in the CEE, the rate of non-performing loans remained at a fairly low level in the most of the states. At the same time, due to major reforms that followed the international financial crisis of 2008, banks have a sufficiently high level of capitalization and a reasonable level of indebtedness, reflecting a high resilience to shock of CEE banking systems. However, extremely low level of interest rates in the pandemic have determined a deterioration in asset performance in most banking systems in the CEE. Moreover, the outlook regarding the CEE banking systems remains quite uncertain. Considering the large-scale measures to reschedule credit rates, through moratoriums on bank loans, but also the financial support schemes initiated by central banks and governments, the CEE region is facing high risk costs, which manifest mainly through the migration over time of credit risk exposure. In this context, non-performing loan ratios are expected to increase in the near future. Moreover, the widespread shift to lower interest rates will exert pressure on lending margins.

THE POWER OF SMALL EU MEMBER STATES AFTER BREXIT: HOW POWERFUL IS THE VISEGRAD GROUP?

The power of individual EU Member States has been changing over the past decades as a result of revisions to the voting systems and the enlargements of the European Union. The present article analyses the development of the voting power of individual Member States in the Council of the European Union before and after the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union. We use the calculation of the standardized Banzhaf power index to calculate the legislative power of the Member States. The calculations recorded in the table point to changes in the weights of national votes caused by Brexit. The article pays special attention to the Visegrad Group, which we define within the European Union as an informal group consisting of four Central European states - the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and the Slovak Republic. The results indicate a significant growth of the voting power in Poland and more moderate growth in the other three Visegrad Group countries which contributes to the shift in the voting equilibrium within the ordinary legislative procedure of the European Union.

Slovak and Hungarian adverbs of the “soon” group according to corpus data

The article examines four of the most commonly used Slovak and Hungarian adverbs belonging to the semantic group “soon”. Slovak and Hungarian, not being related, have been in close contact for a long time within the same state in Central Europe. At the same time, direct borrowings from Hungarian to Slovak, as well as Slavisms in Hungarian, have been studied well, while the question of possible semantic parallels in these languages remains practically unexplored. In particular, there are a number of formal correspondences between the adverbs of the group “soon” in Slovak and Hungarian, which overlap in a complex way with semantic correlations. The materials of the national corpora of the Slovak and the Hungarian languages, as well as the Slovak and the Hungarian corpora of the Aranea family of Internet corpora are used in the work. The compatibility of these adverbs is analyzed according to the logDice association measure; data on the mutual compatibility of lexemes are also accounted for. It is shown that we can speak about the relative semantic correlation of a pair of adverbs focused on directly observed situations and adverbs denoting rationally perceived, controlled situations. At the same time, the adverbs that mark the existence of a certain situation, as well as adverbs denoting a rapid change of situations, are more semantically isolated in the Hungarian language.

Східне для Західних

Periodization of art as a subject of research is a challenge for writing a monograph on the region of Central and Eastern Europe. Due to the dense layering of different cultural contexts and the presence of experience that Western Europe did not have (for example, the existence of the Soviet regime), it does not allow applying the optics of traditional art history to the Eastern European region. The authors of the collective monograph Periodization in the Art Historiographies of Central and Eastern Europe joined in solving this problem, where researchers from the Czech Republic, Romania, Poland and other countries of the region analyze periodization in the art historiography of specific countries, which sheds light on the "non-linear" art history, which combines three main discourses – imperial, academic and nationalist. The authors focus their attention on such problems as the Byzantine heritage, which in the historiography of the 19th century was supposed to replace the Italian Renaissance for a number of Eastern European countries, the interaction of large Western European narratives with local Eastern European ones, a change in the view of periodization under the influence of national movements, etc. Although the articles are devoted to different problems and topics, they are united by the application of postcolonial theory to the periodization and recognition of the Central/Eastern European region as a "near Other" in relation to the Western European one. In this article, I compare the ideas highlighted in the monograph with other concepts exploring Eastern Europe from a postcolonial perspective. In the end, I come to the conclusion that all of them, taking into account the book under review, are aimed at revealing questions that interest Western researchers, namely, what is the region of Central and Eastern Europe: a colonizer, a colony, or combines both of these features. At the same time, basing on Piotrowski’s concept of "horizontal history", I argue that for the Eastern European audience, what is relevant is not the deconstruction of narratives within the boundaries of modern Central and Eastern European states, but on the contrary, tracing the intersection of different cultural contexts of neighboring countries outside the borders of national narratives, since Eastern European countries know more about the art of the West than about each other’s art.

Slovak-American Relations amidst the Global Crisis

The article examines the main events in Slovak-American relations in 2022. However, in order to understand the significance of this year in the bilateral contacts of NATO allies, in the first half of the work, the conceptual foreign policy documents of Slovakia are closely analyzed, which indicate the preservation of Russia's important place in foreign policy until recently for this Central European state. In this regard, the events of February 2022 had a significant impact on the final reformatting of Slovak diplomacy, the exclusion of Russia from the list of attractive partners.

Integracja narodów i partii agrarnych w Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej w myśli politycznej polskiego ruchu ludowego w końcowym okresie zaborów i dwudziestoleciu międzywojennym

The question of European integration in the political thought of the peasant movement in Central and Eastern Europe appeared many times since the second half of the 19th century. In the period of partitions, people searched for paths to freedom and independence. The ideas of creating multinational political organisms were to be means for obtaining a certain degree of subjectivity. Poles saw development opportunities in the federation within the Habsburg monarchy. On the other hand, the union of the peoples of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, mainly Lithuanians, Belarusians and Ukrainians – there was an apparent chance joint struggle with the Russian invader. The geopolitics of the region, constructed in the result of the First World War, meant that the newly created Central European states found themselves between Germany and Russia – both of which were states with imperialist traditions. The question of the union of states, or mainly peasant parties in the political thought of the Polish and European peasant movements appeared several times, but in the 1930s it was rather an addition to the programs of these parties. Initially, the Poles sought an agreement mainly with neighbours facing similar threats. When the implementation of these plans failed, their programs contented with peaceful international cooperation based on the League of Nations.

EU-Russian Relations and the Eastern Enlargement: Integration or Isolation

Initially, in the first half of the 1990s, Russia’s plans to include the countries of the former Eastern bloc within the EU were not seen as a threat to its interests. Furthermore, in the context of NATO’s enlargement, some Russians regarded them as an advantageous alternative. Russia is aware that the EU enlargement with the Central and Eastern European states resulted in a present increase in the number of EU members supporting close trans-Atlantic relations. Moscow’s fears of further EU enlargement were softened due to a dispute that continues to grow within the Union, regarding the rationale and limits of further enlargement, primarily for the Balkan states, Turkey, and the CIS states. Moscow expects that the reluctance of European societies towards further enlargement will inhibit this process.
 The external relations dimension of the European Union's enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe has received surprisingly little attention despite the fact that in the long‐term the issues it raises may be far more important than those currently dominating the debate. Nowhere is this more likely to be correct than about Russia, for which the EU's enlargement poses a risk of increasing isolation from the rest of Europe. The danger of creating a new dividing line across Europe is widely recognised, and the challenge, therefore, is to find ways of ensuring that Russia can be fully integrated with Europe while almost certainly remaining outside the EU Itself. This article focuses on relations between the EU and Russia and addresses three fundamental questions: how Russia has responded to the prospect of the EU's eastern enlargement; the specific issues arising from expansion, and the kind of long‐term relationship that could develop between Russia and an enlarged EU.

Russia’s Vaccine Diplomacy in Central Europe

Drawing on the concept of vaccine diplomacy, the article analyses Russia’se!orts to promote its Sputnik V vaccine and the repercussions this had intwo Central European EU member states which authorized the use of theRussian vaccine. The authors argue that for Russia, Sputnik V promotionwas significant both as a business project and as a political enterprise, as itwas supposed to enhance Russia’s international status and help it inovercoming its post-Crimea isolation from the West. The results weremixed, however, as Russia’s international credibility had been underminedby its previous policies. Thus, in Hungary the vaccine managed to gainsome traction thanks to a government that preferred importing non-EUcertified vaccines as part of its larger policy of fostering closer ties with theauthoritarian great powers in Eurasia. In Slovakia, the vaccine deal withRussia caused a political crisis but eventually resulted in a very poorperformance of Sputnik V as compared to EU-certified vaccines.

Russia’s Vaccine Diplomacy in Central Europe: Between a Political Campaign and a Business Project

Drawing on the concept of vaccine diplomacy, the article analyses Russia’s efforts to promote its Sputnik V vaccine and the repercussions this had in two Central European EU member states which authorized the use of the Russian vaccine. The authors argue that for Russia, Sputnik V promotion was significant both as a business project and as a political enterprise, as it was supposed to enhance Russia’s international status and help it in overcoming its post-Crimea isolation from the West. The results were mixed, however, as Russia’s international credibility had been undermined by its previous policies. Thus, in Hungary the vaccine managed to gain some traction thanks to a government that preferred importing non-EU certified vaccines as part of its larger policy of fostering closer ties with the authoritarian great powers in Eurasia. In Slovakia, the vaccine deal with Russia caused a political crisis but eventually resulted in a very poor performance of Sputnik V as compared to EU-certified vaccines.

Robert C. Austin. Making and Remaking the Balkans: Nations and States since 1878.

Robert C. Austin. Making and Remaking the Balkans: Nations and States since 1878.

The Role of UAS–GIS in Digital Era Governance. A Systematic Literature Review

UAS (Unmanned Aircraft Systems) technologies, also known as UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle), drones, or Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS) and GIS (Geographic Information System) are recognised for the value of the results that can be achieved by their combined use. However, their use and the results achieved are rarely framed within the context of Digital Era Governance (DEG), an undertaking that would significantly reduce the capabilities of knowledge transfer from the academic and/or private environment to the public domain. The purpose of this study was to highlight, by a bibliometric analysis, the areas of proposed use of this team of tools and the extent to which these can enter the sphere of interest of public administrations, especially local ones. From a methodological point of view, based on the 439 articles filtered from the Web of Science database where UAS/UAV and GIS technologies were used, several bibliometric analyses have emerged. VOSviewer and R (Bibliometrix tool) were used to conduct the bibliometric analyses. Most scientific publications that used UAV technology as a working tool have predominant applicability in photogrammetry, while GIS applications are found in publications dedicated to image processing, landslides, and cultural and archaeological heritage. We point out that from the point of view of international cooperation, at the level of institutions or countries, certain international organisations from the USA, China, and the central and northern European states have a high interest in this topic, and a low cooperation between academia and public administration is exhibited. The conclusion is represented by the apparent lack of framing of the results of UAS–GIS technologies usage into wider and more topical contexts, such as digital era governance, and also a reduced applicability of the research results.

Implementing the 2% wilderness goal in Germany – The National Natural Heritage Site Rechlin as a case study

The European Union aims to increase the extent of strictly protected areas, including wilderness areas. However, operationalizing this goal in densely populated Central European member states like Germany, that consists almost entirely of cultural landscapes and will need to rely largely on secondary wilderness areas, is challenging. Anthropogenic influence should be minimized in wilderness areas to support species that depend on undisturbed ecosystems shaped by natural processes. Based on a literature review, we developed a set of criteria to assess the spatial and legal suitability of potential wilderness areas, evaluate their ecological condition and measure the magnitude of human impact. We used available datasets to apply those criteria to a potential wilderness area (PWA), the National Natural Heritage Site Rechlin. From the 20 criteria identified, 12 could be assessed using available datasets, including fragmentation, connectivity, naturalness, habitat continuity and anthropogenic pollution. The PWA Rechlin comprises an area of 1349 ha that is traversed by 9 km of major public roads and waterways; and further fragmented by 81 km of unpaved forest paths. Most of the area is forest (89%), dominated by plantations of the allochthonous species Pinus sylvestris and Picea abies (84%). The majority of forest stands are in the establishment (45%) and early optimum stage (41%). Emissions of nitrogen and phosphorous have caused the eutrophication of two lakes within the candidate site and may affect the potential for natural regeneration of Asperulo-Fagetum forest. Although the NNHS Rechlin does not comply fully with fragmentation and naturalness criteria, the site could be considered for a future wilderness area, especially given the limited availability of other suitable sites in Germany.

Sports Diplomacy Research in Poland, Czechia and Slovakia. Emerging Field of Study?

Abstract Sport is a complex phenomenon that academics across many social sciences are focusing on. The interest in sports has been observable for a long time by historians, anthropologists and sociologists. Scientists in the field of international relations are no exception. A typical way sport is studied in international relations is by paying attention to sports diplomacy. The study of sports diplomacy has become a pretty popular part of the research since the second decade of the 21st century and it is possible to observe the dominance of the authors from the American and British universities in sports diplomacy research. Based on the Web of Science dataset, at first sight, the study of sports diplomacy is not seen as a popular field of research in the Central European countries. On the other hand, this statistical measure does not describe a complex situation of what the sports diplomacy research looks like, how it is formed or how it reflects the thinking of the politicians on national public/sports diplomacy. Thus, the article aims to map sports diplomacy research in the Central European states, specifically in Poland, Czechia and Slovakia.

Econometric Analysis of Integration of Selected New EU Member CEE Stock Markets With Global Stock Market and Eurozone: Impact of Global Financial Crisis

The period of the global financial crisis can be characterized by the spillover of negative innovations among stock markets worldwide. Stock markets in Central Europe were not excluded as they are not isolated from global stock markets. Recently published scientific studies dealing with this theme were mainly focused on the integration of the new EU members´ stock markets with the eurozone only. Hence, this paper aims to investigate, compare and interpret integration among stock markets of selected new EU member states in Central Europe (the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland), the global stock market and the eurozone equity market within 2004-2018. The added value of this article consists especially in using a wider spectrum of econometric tools (cointegration, VAR model, Granger causality, variance decomposition) and comparison of changes of mutual relationships in three different testing sub-periods to study the dynamics in time. Our research is accomplished via usage of data on daily frequency. Delivered results showed that the degree of integration of Central European stock markets with the US stock market and eurozone significantly increased during global financial crisis. Moreover, stock markets in Central Europe are more integrated with the global stock market than the euro area.

DIVERSIFICATION OF GAS SUPPLIES AS A CORNERSTONE OF GAS SECURITY IN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE THREE SEAS INITIATIVE

The article overviews approaches to the diversification of gas supplies in the framework of the Three Seas Initiative. The modern geopolitical situation in Eastern and Central Europe is characterized by transformation processes in the energy sector. Due to the implementation of decarbonization policy in the European Union and subsequent shift from coal as a main energy source, a need in alternative fuel sources, such as natural gas, emerges. Therefore, a significant increase in natural gas consumption is expected, which raises a number of issues, such as dependence on a single gas supplier and orientation of the EU’s gas transmission system in East-West direction only. This issue is crucial for Eastern and Central European states, due to the underdeveloped gas infrastructure in the region and heavy dependence on a single gas supplier, such as Russia or Turkey. Hence, the Three Seas Initiative is considered as a powerful tool, designed to develop energy, transport and digital infrastructure of the region in the North-South direction, where one of the most potentially promising projects within the framework of the Three Seas Initiative is represented by the development of gas infrastructure, aimed at solving the diversification of supplies in the gas market in Eastern and Central Europe. The implementation of developed gas infrastructure and diversification of gas supplies consists of several regional projects that are relevant for those countries in the region in which they are implemented in particular and for all member states of the Three Seas Initiative in general. The main purpose of the implementation of these projects is the creation of a unified natural gas transportation infrastructure in Eastern Europe along the North-South axis. The result of such a grand reorganization in the field of gas supplies to Europe will be an increase in the number of independent suppliers in the European gas market and a decrease in the dependence of the EU countries on gas supplies from Russia. In the article, the author traced in detail the tendency of the formation of energy infrastructure along the North-South axis with focus on the projects that are being implemented by each of the participating countries within the framework of the Three Seas Initiative. This approach allows to assess the scale and integrity of the gas transportation infrastructure, that is being created in the Eastern Europe region and its contribution to the common European energy security policy.