Dimension Of EU Research Articles

Dimensions of disagreement in EU affairs: is parliamentary opposition driven by left-right or European integration contestation?

This study provides new insights into how the EU dimension relates to the left-right dimension in national politics. It does so by examining to what extent parties’ oppositional behaviour in EU affairs in parliament is a function of their distance from the government, other parties, the voters and party supporters on the EU dimension and the left-right dimension, respectively. The results suggest that oppositional behaviour is determined by two parallel dynamics: when expressing opposition, political parties are receptive both to the positions of the government and other parties on the EU dimension, and to the positions of voters and supporters on the left-right dimension. The results of the study thus indicate that the politicisation of EU affairs in national parliaments primarily is an elite phenomenon. In their relation to the voters and supporters, parties still principally navigate along the traditional left-right dimension.

Sharenting and Children’s Privacy Protection in International, EU, and Czech Law

The digitalization of social relations has brought some new and hitherto unknown phenomena. Real life has been extended, into the world of cyberspace. This world is often referred to as the virtual world, but in reality, by its consequences for our lives and the legal sphere, it is no less real than the physical world. A significant part of family life has been affected by this phenomenon. Photos, videos and other information that used to be available only to immediate family members are now shared publicly on the internet through social networks. Young children are particularly affected, with parents publicly sharing information from their private lives. This practice is referred to as sharenting. As a result of sharenting, children in the Internet environment often effectively lose their status as subjects and become mere objects. This object is then handled by the child’s closest relatives – parents, i.e. the people who should naturally look after and defend the child’s best interests. The problem is that parents are not aware of both the legal framework and the possible factual negative consequences that sharenting can have for a child’s life and childhood. The key question that I seek to answer in this article is to what extent the current legal framework can respond to sharenting. The aim is also to assess to what extent is such sharing information about children legal and where the boundaries of permissible or justifiable disclosure of information about a child on the Internet lie. Finally, the question is also how the child affected by sharing can defend him/herself against its negative consequences. Sharenting is addressed by the EU, international and national law. As far as national law is concerned, in my article I focus primarily on Czech civil and family law. Sharenting concerns the protection of privacy as a fundamental human right, but also freedom of expression, which is why the European Convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (international dimension), the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (EU dimension) and the Czech Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms (national constitutional dimension) are explored as well.

The EU dimension of the fight against money laundering – criminal law reform in Germany

Aim: The aim of study is to outline the cornerstones of the (EU) 2018/1673 Directive on combating money laundering by criminal law and to show how a Member State, Germany, has fulfilled its legal harmonization obligation in the field of the criminal law regulation.Methodology: During the research, the relevant EU legislation was presented, and the German Criminal Code was analyzed in terms of the dogmatic analysis of the money laundering offence.Findings: Despite the regulations of the EU Directives, there are significant differences between national regulations. The Amendment of the Criminal Code in 2021 introduced a paradigm shift in the criminal law regulation of money laundering in Germany. It introduced the so-called "all crime" approach in connection with the predicate offences. It is also worth mentioning that the German Criminal Code makes specific provision for the criminalization of the predicate offence committed abroad.Value: Regarding the cross-border nature of money laundering, it may be useful for both legislators and practitioners to familiarize themselves with the legislation of other Member States. In Hungary, there has been no recent academic work on the German legislation in force.

Evaluation of Faculty Readiness in Realizing Entrepreneurial University Agenda

Knowledge and changes in the higher education sector are currently contributing to socio-economic developments that encourage new forms of cooperation and the economy related to the process of globalization, social dynamics, and the development of a knowledge-based economy. Entrepreneurship in higher education is a fairly new concept. EU in the sense of three things: the university itself, the members of the university (faculty) and the interaction of the university with the environment. The selection of the object is based on the fact that FEB has quite a lot of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) during 2016-2019. In this study, it aims to realize the economic and business framework of Telkom University in realizing the entrepreneurial university agenda, it must implement the EU dimension itself, there are 8 dimensions to realize the EU architecturally. This study uses a qualitative method with interview sources, namely FEB lecturers who have high positions such as deans, vice deans, and lecturers related to entrepreneurship. The results of this study prove that the Faculty of Economics and Business has many programs created by both of them but will support this EU activity, many dimensions need to be improved both from the website and information between students, lecturers and staff. Researchers provide various kinds of practical suggestions that architecture can do in improving and developing programs to support Entrepreneurial University activities.

Evaluation of Faculty Readiness in Realizing Entrepreneurial University Agenda

Knowledge and changes in the higher education sector are currently contributing to socio-economic developments that encourage new forms of cooperation and the economy related to the process of globalization, social dynamics, and the development of a knowledge-based economy. Entrepreneurship in higher education is a fairly new concept. EU in the sense of three things: the university itself, the members of the university (faculty) and the interaction of the university with the environment. The selection of the object is based on the fact that FEB has quite a lot of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) during 2016-2019. In this study, it aims to realize the economic and business framework of Telkom University in realizing the entrepreneurial university agenda, it must implement the EU dimension itself, there are 8 dimensions to realize the EU architecturally. This study uses a qualitative method with interview sources, namely FEB lecturers who have high positions such as deans, vice deans, and lecturers related to entrepreneurship. The results of this study prove that the Faculty of Economics and Business has many programs created by both of them but will support this EU activity, many dimensions need to be improved both from the website and information between students, lecturers and staff. Researchers provide various kinds of practical suggestions that architecture can do in improving and developing programs to support Entrepreneurial University activities.

Not for ideology but opportunity? The foundations of EU issue-voting in Eurosceptic Italy

ABSTRACT Party-system dynamics and party EU ideology have traditionally influenced trends in EU issue-voting, with opposition and Eurosceptic parties being more likely to benefit electorally from EU issues. While the electoral benefits of Eurosceptic and opposition parties on the EU have been separately analysed, less is known about the persistence of these preference configurations when Eurosceptic parties move into government. This raises a key question: Does the electoral potential of Eurosceptic parties change once they take over government? We address this question focusing on the Italian case, which, due to the experience of having had a fully-fledged Eurosceptic cabinet in the 2018–2019 period, allows us to test whether changes in governing/opposition status affect the electoral performance of Eurosceptic/Europhile parties on EU issues. While confirming that Italian voters are likely, electorally, to reward opposition and Eurosceptic parties on Europe more than governing and Europhile parties, the article shows that Eurosceptic parties, by assuming government office, tend to lose their electoral advantage on EU issues, not only as compared to Europhile parties, but also to Eurosceptic parties remaining in opposition. In contrast, governing/opposition status does not condition the electoral potential of Europhile parties on the EU dimension.

The Valence Side of the EU: EU Issue Voting in the Aftermath of the Eurozone Crisis

AbstractIn the aftermath of the Euro crisis, EU issues have increasingly affected electoral behaviour, explaining a sizable shift in votes from the Europhile to Eurosceptic parties. This paper advances the argument that EU issue voting is not entirely encompassed in a divisive (pro‐/anti‐) EU dimension, testing the hypothesis that a EU valence voting is currently conditioning electoral behaviour. In particular, we posit that voters support parties evaluating their credibility in achieving not only EU positional goals (‘leave/remain’ in the EU), but also EU valence ones (i.e., making the country count more in Europe). Furthermore, we assess which parties – pro‐/anti‐EU – are more likely to be supported on the basis of this valence issue. Based on survey data from France (2017) and Italy (2018), we found that the EU valence issue is an important voting predictor, with pro‐EU parties mainly benefitting from it.

Romania’s SMEs on the Way to EU’s Twin Transition to Digitalization and Sustainability

Abstract European Commission’s six priorities for 2019-2024 are all in line with and leverage each other to support Europe’s twin transition to digitalization and sustainability; aiming to address the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, The Recovery Plan for Europe adds resilience as key dimension of EU’s progress, while reinforcing its commitment to the green and digital transformation. Counting for more than 99% of the enterprises, employing about two of three people, and generating more than a half of the value added - with similar weights as concerns Romania - EU’s SMEs are the engine of Europe's economy, therefore essential contributors to these transformative processes - as emphasized in the SME Strategy for a sustainable and digital Europe. Against this background, the main questions the paper is addressing are: how ready the Romania’s SMEs are for the twin (digital and sustainability) transition the EU has embarked on? What are RO’s SMEs approaches to and performances on digitalization and sustainability against the EU27 SMEs’ average benchmark? How can the RO’s SMEs twin transition process may be speeded up? The analysis was mainly built on data provided by the Flash Eurobarometer 486: SMEs, start-ups, scale-ups and entrepreneurship (released in September 2020). The review of Eurobarometer 486 data on the two topics will then be examined and discussed, in order for the paper to eventually: identify the gaps between RO SMEs and EU27 SMEs in terms of perceptions, attitudes and behaviors related to the twin transition; explore the challenges (in terms of both opportunities and threats) RO’s SMEs face as regards the twin transition; provide some guidelines able to speed up the twin transition of RO’s SMEs.

Poland’s Rule of Law Breakdown: A Five-Year Assessment of EU’s (In)Action

To reinstate what amounts to a “Soviet-style justice system”, Polish authorities have repeatedly and deliberately violated the Polish Constitution and EU law. Rather than comprehensively detailing these repeated violations, this article focuses on the EU dimension of Poland’s rule of law breakdown. Using the activation of the Rule of Law Framework by the European Commission on 13 January 2016 as a starting point, this article offers a critical five-year assessment of EU’s (in)action starting with an overview of the extent to which virtually all of the multiple problematical issues identified early on by the Commission have yet to be addressed by Polish authorities by January 2021. Regarding the Commission and the Council’s (in)action, this article argues that the Commission has systematically acted in a too little too late fashion while the Council has systematically failed to meaningfully act, with the inaction of these two EU institutions amounting, at times, to dereliction of duties. By contrast, the Court of Justice has forcefully defended judicial independence whenever an infringement case was lodged with it by the Commission. The Court of Justice’s record in preliminary ruling cases is more mixed due, in part, to the Court’s apprehension to undermine the principle of mutual trust. The article ends with a list of key lessons and recommendations which reflect the EU’s few successes and many failures highlighted in this article. It is submitted inter alia that more statements, dialogue and reports are not going to help contain, let alone solve Poland’s rule of law crisis. It is indeed no longer a crisis the EU is facing but a total breakdown in the rule of law in Poland which, in turn, represents a threat to the interconnected legal order that underpins the EU.

The European Union as an Energy Actor

This article focuses on the relationship between the EU actorness and theinternal and external dimension of energy policy in an effort toconceptualize the EU energy actorness. In this respect, the main goals ofthe article are two. The first is to identify the basic aspects of EU actornessand to define their interrelationship in energy policy. The second is toconceptualize individual criteria of the external and internal dimensions ofEU energy actorness and to analyze the possibilities of their use in thecontext of the discussion between conventional constructivism andrationalism. The intention is to create a modified framework incorporatingthe internal and external dimension of the EU’s energy actorness,operationalized by a set of criteria that can be used to analyze the EUenergy policy and its relations. The article should contribute tounderstanding the issue of the EU’s actorness and to deepening the debateon energy policy.

Private Law and Housing Justice in Europe

AbstractThis article explores the different meanings of the right to housing in Europe in public and private relations with housing providers. In light of the fundamental right to housing's meaning in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union, we offer a new reading of the CJEU judgments that have hitherto been heralded as extending the social dimension of EU (private) law. We submit that the emphasis on economic and procedural rights risks further ‘economisation’ of housing relations in Europe. While the possibilities to grant direct horizontal effect to the right to housing in EU law currently offer limited potential to counter this trend, private law provides part of the framework for a further balancing of social and economic elements in housing cases. Accordingly, we call for a debate on the specific aspects of horizontal relationships in the complex system of housing justice.

Eurovisions: An Exploration and Explanation of Public Preferences for Future EU Scenarios.

Public opinion on the EU has received growing attention in the last decades, with an ever‐increasing number of studies examining various aspects of it. Surprisingly, most studies focus on attitudes towards the past and present of the EU, yet we know very little about public attitudes towards the future of the EU. This study helps to fill this research gap by examining attitudes towards the EU's long‐term future using a novel approach. We developed eight concrete future EU scenarios based on an inductive analysis of qualitative survey data. Subsequently, respondents (in an independent survey) ranked their top three scenarios according to individual preferences. Using multidimensional unfolding, we show that these preferences form three clusters ordered along a more versus less EU dimension. In a second step, we used multinomial logistic regression to examine not only who supports which scenario (socio‐demographics) but also which EU attitudes lead to which future preferences. The analyses identify distinct characteristics and attitudes that drive people's preference for a given scenario. Overall, we find that factors such as occupational levels or left–right attitudes are strong determinants of preferences for the future of the EU, and that specific EU support (performance and utilitarian evaluations) is more important than diffuse EU support (identity and affect).

Are popular and powerful committees more representative? Evidence from the ninth European Parliament

The standing committees of the European Parliament perform crucial policy-making functions and, accordingly, the question of how they are composed assumes great relevance. Unlike previous studies, which primarily looked at committee assignments from the perspective of individual MEPs, we assess the representativeness of entire committees by comparing their preference distributions with those we find in the plenary on the left/right and pro/anti EU dimension. For our analysis, we combine new data on committee memberships in the ninth European Parliament with data on policy preferences of national parties from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey. In order to assess committee representativeness, we calculate the extent to which the preference distributions of committees and the plenary overlap. We show that committee representativeness is a function of committee popularity and power. Committee popularity provides party groups with a larger pool of applicants to choose from and since popular committees are often also quite large, the formation of representative committees is facilitated. Moreover, the party groups of the European Parliament have stronger incentives to form balanced committee contingents for powerful committees, resulting in higher committee representativeness. However, this latter finding is qualified by two outliers and we only find the hypothesized relationship to hold on the pro/anti EU dimension.

Bridge over Troubled Waters

This single-case study seeks, first, to analyse the Pelješac bridge project’s EU dimension, and the impact on the bilateral relations between Croatia and Bosnia- Herzegovina. The bridge is part of the so-called Road Connection to South Dalmatia, an infrastructure project linking the southern exclave of Croatia with the rest of the country. This article is going to reconstruct the considerable controversy between Sarajevo and Zagreb over the project. Second, this piece of research aims at highlighting the context of the bridge being built by a State-owned Chinese company and why the EU has been paralysed over the question of third-country bidders in national EU-wide public tenders. Lastly, this paper presents a recommendation on how the problem of maritime access to and from the territorial waters of Bosnia-Herzegovina through Croatian internal waters can be solved. The article demonstrates that the three issues of controversy related to the Pelješac bridge project can and must be unbundled to arrive at sustainable solutions for the region as a whole. The method employed in this article is process-tracing covering the period between 1999 and today based on interviews, documents, and secondary literature.

Cross-cutting issues and electoral choice. EU issue voting in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum

ABSTRACTAs political competition is becoming increasingly multi-dimensional in Europe, voters often face the challenge of choosing which issues matter most to them. The European integration issue presents a particular difficulty for voters, since it is not closely aligned to the left-right dimension. We test the impact of the EU issue in the first parliamentary election following the UK's divisive Brexit referendum. We argue that while the EU issue was salient to voters, EU issue voting was inhibited by the indistinct and ambiguous positions adopted by the two major parties. To examine this, we combine an analysis of British Election Study data from the 2017 General Election with a conjoint experiment that allows us to present voters with a range of choices on both dimensions. Our findings show that the EU dimension has the potential to become a cross-cutting dimension that rivals the left-right dimension in British electoral politics, but this crucially depends on party competition.

The Need for and Possible Content of EU Pre-trial Detention Rules

Pre-trial detention (PTD) is an inherently problematic concept. Not only does it conflict with the right to liberty and the presumption of innocence but its use is associated with an extensive range of problems that affect pre-trial detainees, their families, the fair administration of criminal justice and wider society. Many of these problems have an EU dimension. Case law of the CJEU confirms, for example, that deficiencies in Member States’ PTD regimes threaten to undermine mutual trust and thus the effective functioning of mutual recognition instruments, such as the European arrest warrant (cf. the cases of Aranyosi and Caldararu). Against this background, the article examines the need for, and possible content of, EU PTD rules. It begins by summarising the problems that are associated with PTD and identifies their causal connection with deep-seated systematic practices and/or political and legal cultures at national level that tend to promote an over-reliance on PTD while serving to foment distrust in alternatives. Referring to the 2009 Roadmap for Strengthening Procedural Rights and other relevant texts, it is argued that EU action is necessary to address these deficiencies. This will provide the added value of enhancing justice, fairness and the overall effectiveness of legal and judicial systems, on the one hand, and strengthening the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice, on the other. The article then makes a number of proposals for the nature of such action, the most significant being that the EU should adopt a directive based on Art. 82(2) TFEU that establishes minimum rules relating to the use of PTD. This though would be insufficient in itself and should be complemented by a range of other measures that relate to the implementation of existing EU legislation and engagement in a variety of soft law actions. A detailed analysis of the content of these measures, including recommendations for the content of the mooted directive, is provided.

Odpowiedzialność przebijająca w ramach private enforcement

In the context of private enforcement of competition law, the issue of piercing the corporate veil, that is, the possibility of holding a non-direct infringer liable becomes particularly important. Pursuant to the thesis of the CJEU ‘Skanska’ judgment, civil courts adjudicating in cases of damages for infringements of competition law should understand the concept of ‘undertaking’ in accordance with Article 101 TFEU and its established interpretation by the Court, which may mean also adopting, under private law, the doctrine of economic succession (economic continuity) and the concept of a single economic unit. Individual member states, such as Spain and Portugal, have already adopted relevant legal regulations regarding the issue in question. In other countries, this matter has become the subject of judicial considerations. In Poland, neither of these two situations occurs. One should opt for the broad adoption of the concept of piercing the corporate veil in the context of liability for damages arising from an infringement of competition law – with both EU and national dimension.

Wizerunek północnego wymiaru współpracy w regionie Morza Bałtyckiego

The aim of the article is to analyze the cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region and to assess its potential from the perspective of Poland. The hypothesis assumes that the development of cooperation in the region contributes to the deepening of integration, but it does not reduce in the expected pace the still visible disparity between countries. As a result, Poland is still in the group of those with comparatively (relatively) weaker economic conditions and with unused potential. At the same time, acquiring experience in this dimension of cooperation, Poland not only notices the resulting benefits and opportunities, but also intensifi es activities in the area of the northern dimension of the state’s foreign policy. To investigate the thesis the characteristics and analysis of integration activities in the Baltic macro-region have been made, with particular emphasis on the EU dimension (such as the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea, EUSBSR) and the other regional cooperation formats, mainly in the framework of the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS). Then, the potential of the region and Poland’s involvement in cooperation in the Baltic Sea basin was evaluated. Finally, it allowed to show whether and how and how effectively Poland defines its interests in this region.

Introduction: strategy in EU foreign policy

The point of departure for the special collection is provided by the observation that the growing complexity of the crises in the neighbourhood and the internal ones faced by the Union provides a sense of urgency to any type of strategic thinking that the EU might embrace. Against this backdrop, the recent shift towards geopolitics and strategic thinking is contextualized and the understanding of key aspects of ways in which the shift is translated into strategies by EU actors is put forward. The analysis recognizes the recent developments within the institutional dimension of EU’s foreign and security policy, yet it confirms the fundamental meaning of the member states’ willingness to invest resources and harmonize their foreign policy strategies at the EU level.

Local nexus in merger control regimes

Merger control is one of the competition law tools. While competition authorities in EU act primarily on the basis of national legislation, European Commission controls mergers with EU dimension. The jurisdictional tests relate only to the economic size of the parties and do not depend on the market shares of the parties or substantive impact of the transaction, or on whether the concentration will have any effects within the state. Globalization increases the number of multijurisdictional mergers that are subject to control of several competition authorities within or outside the EU. Differences in merger control proceedings in such cases with regard to the timeframe, or the result of the proceeding, could have a negative impact on the economy in another country. Parties to the concentration could decide to neglect the merger notification due to the timeframe, or complications connected with approving of multijurisdictional merger in other countries with jurisdiction. Therefore, the national authorities’ effort to set in their legislation turnover criteria with local nexus could help to control concentrations with potential effect on competition in their country.