European Debate Research Articles

The Economic and Legal Bases of the Development Risk Defence in European Product Liability: A Critical Approach to Proponents’ Bases of the Defence

Incorporating the development risks defence (DRD) into Product Liability Directive 85/374/EEC has been the most controversial issue in product liability debates. Although it is possible for the Member States to derogate from the DRD, only Finland and Luxemburg apply development risk derogation set out in Article 15 §1(b) of the Directive to all products. This derogation is partially applied in France, Spain and Hungry. Aside from providing an introduction to history of the divergences on DRD at national and supranational levels, this paper analyses economic and legal bases of proponent of this defence and critically makes separate analysis about them. Overall, economic and legal views of the opponents refer to bases that specially manifest themselves in academic literature and the legislative, economic, political debates. With reference to the European literature and debates, this paper attempts to elaborate that the DRD is not only an economic and legal issue but also social and political one. Regarding to these diffused bases, it is possible to conclude that the arguments put forward in favour of maintaining the DRD are susceptible to criticism.

Artificial Urinary Sphincter Cuff Size Predicts Outcome in Male Patients Treated for Stress Incontinence: Results of a Large Central European Multicenter Cohort Study.

PurposeThe aim was to study the correlation between cuff size and outcome after implantation of an AMS 800 artificial urinary sphincter.MethodsA total of 473 male patients with an AMS 800 sphincter implanted between 2012 and 2014 were analyzed in a retrospective multicenter cohort study performed as part of the Central European Debates on Male Incontinence (DOMINO) Project.ResultsSingle cuffs were implanted in 54.5% and double cuffs in 45.5% of the patients. The cuffs used had a median circumference of 4.5 cm. Within a median follow of 18 months, urethral erosion occurred in 12.8% of the cases and was associated significantly more often with small cuff sizes (P<0.001). Multivariate analysis showed that, apart from cuff size (P=0.03), prior irradiation (P<0.001) and the penoscrotal approach (P=0.036) were associated with an increased erosion rate. Continence rate tended to be highest with median cuff sizes (4–5.5 cm).ConclusionsApart from irradiation and the penoscrotal approach, small cuff size is a risk factor for urethral erosion. Results are best with cuff sizes of 4.5–5.5 cm.

Configuración de los derechos fundamentales y su contenido esencial en el constitucionalismo ecuatoriano

La configuración del contenido de los derechos fundamentales en el ámbito constitucional es una cuestión de trascendental importancia y depende, de forma directa, de una teoría que la sustenta. Si bien esta temática ha suscitado intensos debates en Europa, fundamentalmente en el último tercio del siglo pasado, la discusión, para el caso ecuatoriano, a pesar de contar con una Constitución renovada, ha sido inexistente. Frente a esta situación, que radica, básicamente, en una incomprensión teórica del problema, el presente artículo, luego de exponer algunas de las teorías más relevantes del contenido de los derechos, así como de una revisión atenta del texto constitucional y de la jurisprudencia existente, concluye que una teoría relativa del contenido esencial, que concibe a los derechos fundamentales en un plano de interrelación constante, es la que me mejor se adapta al modelo constitucional pergeñado en la Constitución de 2008, y cuestiona, al mismo tiempo, la adopción acrítica de una teoría que no ha sido bien comprendida y aplicada en el contexto ecuatoriano.

Modern approaches to educating the creative personality of the new generation of specialists

The article is devoted to the problem of formation of creative abilities and cognitive interests of students. The main directions of development of the creative person according to the social needs of the present are considered. It is noted that creative activity becomes a form of knowledge of the material-objective world; identifies personality possibilities, new ways of one’s personal development. Therefore, the problem of developing the creative abilities of students in the course of educational and cognitive activity is of an exceptional relevance. The author believes that influencing the organization of creative activity is possible only under certain conditions, in particular: to conduct classes in an atmosphere of mutual understanding and co-creation, perceiving each student as a person; to give preference to the dialogical form of conducting classes, when students have an opportunity: to think independently, to make suggestions, to defend their own point of view, presenting their own arguments; it is advisable to create situations of choice at classes and to enable students to carry it out. The author notes that the observance of certain organizational and methodological conditions can significantly contribute to the development of creative potential of students, namely: the creative vision of the world through the systematic organization of work with students; development of creative values through the proper level of teacher's teaching skills; deepening the perception of the world picture through the integration of various types of students’ creativity, works of art and their figurative reproduction in their own creative activity; individual peculiarities of perception and emotional attitude through the use of the educational potential of the family, organization of creative activity. When performing creative tasks the individual characteristics of students to select the material of the appropriate level of complexity must be taken into account. The article examines the examples of students' creativity during the European Cultures Festival, debates and clubs on the basis of the Kryvyi Rih National University.

Incontro con la scrittura di Doron Rabinovici Un prologo e un’intervista (dicembre 2018)

Doron Rabinovici’s work shows an intense political and cultural commitment, which takes shape in novels, documentary theatre, and historical research. This introductory overview of his most recent writings is primarily intended for those who are interested in the contribution of Jewish-Austrian literature to the current European debate on the rise of far-right movements and ideologies. Rabinovici’s provocative point of views in the interview shed light on changing concepts of Jewish identity in a global world, on the link between Israel and the Jewish diaspora, on the roots of new, yet not less dangerous forms of antisemitism, and on the impasse in the process of European cultural memory.

Incontro con la scrittura di Doron Rabinovici

Doron Rabinovici’s work shows an intense political and cultural commitment, which takes shape in novels, documentary theatre, and historical research. This introductory overview of his most recent writings is primarily intended for those who are interested in the contribution of Jewish-Austrian literature to the current European debate on the rise of far-right movements and ideologies. Rabinovici’s provocative point of views in the interview shed light on changing concepts of Jewish identity in a global world, on the link between Israel and the Jewish diaspora, on the roots of new, yet not less dangerous forms of antisemitism, and on the impasse in the process of European cultural memory.

The ‘three absences’ of black Africans in European migration debates

ABSTRACT This paper suggests that current policies for the management of migration across the Central Mediterranean route aim more at the physical and metaphysical removal of black African migrants from the public sphere, than at dealing with structural factors. Such process, that the author names ‘absence policy’; is explored in three crucial stages of present migration dynamics: Libya, the Mediterranean Sea and Italy. The author argues that absence is instrumental to claim that migration flows can be and are managed, but in reality, it subsumes only a politics of containment of migration that creates concern for the protection of the migrants’ human rights.

An Increase in the Tobacco Age-of-Sale to 21: For Debate in Europe.

ImplicationsA debate on the adoption of a tobacco age-of-sale of 21 in Europe has not occurred, with the recent exception of the United Kingdom. The current legally set age of 18 years is proving to be inadequate as adolescents continue to access cigarettes. Tobacco 21 laws have the potential to further limit access to cigarettes by minors. We believe that soon the time will be ripe for this discussion to spread throughout Europe, specifically among countries that have adopted a smoke-free generation movement.

High density of keystone herbivore vs. conservation of natural resources: Factors affecting red deer distribution and impact on vegetation in Słowiński National Park, Poland

Rising deer densities are often in conflict with human activity. Among those conflicts there is conservation of natural resources whereas the protected areas, which are often unhunted, are known to form a hunting refuge resulting in higher deer densities than in the surrounding hunted areas. The issue is well known in many protected areas in the US, much less information on the matter is available in Europe, where protected areas are much smaller than in the other regions of the world. We studied red deer density, their distribution and pressure on vegetation in Słowiński National Park, northern Poland, whose land area is 11,000 ha and the forest area is just 6000 ha. Red deer density inside the forest area of the Park (ca. 26 ind./100 ha) was 2–3 times higher than in the surrounding hunted forest districts. Deer density in the Park had a limited influence (within a zone of 1 km) on the density of the species in the forest districts (only in one out of two districts). Despite its small size red deer densities within the Park were diversified and they were influenced by the forest site type and the distance to non-forest sites. Red deer density in the Park’s forests was inversely related to the distance to food abundant agricultural areas and positively related to the distance to the cover offering ones. Though the impact on forest vegetation (in terms of its biomass) was proportional to its availability, distance to non-forest sites strongly influenced the pressure. We conclude that that lack of hunting, together with favourable food and cover condition, can increase large herbivore densities even in relatively small protected areas. Since their high densities can have a negative direct and indirect influence on biodiversity and the primary goal of protected areas is biodiversity protection, we call for more research on the issue followed by a public debate in Europe concerning potential control of large herbivore populations in protected areas.

Combining hazard, social vulnerability and resilience to provide a proposal for seismic risk assessment

This research has been produced in the context of the updating of regional and national directives for predicting, mitigating and preventing seismic risk and for implementing regular and emergency local planning policies. Applied to the municipalities of Lombardy, it proposes a range of indicators aimed at describing and analysing the local features that make a place and the populations who live there, or periodically pass through it, more vulnerable and less resilient. More specifically, the study comprises the construction of two indices: a vulnerability index to understand the characteristics of a place that amplify risk, increasing the damage potentially caused by an earthquake in the emergency phase; and a resilience index, which summarises the resources available for reconstruction and the capacity for progressively restoring normality in the long run. The development of the indicators and indices follows a critical review of the American literature, the European debate on risk governance and the recent studies on social vulnerability in Italy. Attention is also devoted to elements usually underestimated in vulnerability research, such as places’ transport links and accessibility. Carried out using ecological research and GIS methods and techniques, the study proposes an analytical (social and territorial) and mapping-based interpretation of social vulnerability and resilience in Lombardy.

The consequences of terrorism on migration attitudes across Europe

How do terrorist attacks influence migration attitudes? We argue that the influence of attacks depends on the location of whoever receives the terrorist news, and derive two hypotheses from this logic of spatial conditionality. First, if terror attacks affect citizens’ views of migration through sensations of imminent danger and fear, then proximity to the terrorist attack would be the main conditioning factor. Second, rather than distance to attack, the local migration context of the news receiver might condition the effect. In homogenous societies with little immigration experience, citizens may be more receptive to discourses linking migration to terrorism and thus more susceptible to negative attitude change. We evaluate the observable implications of these claims with the 2015 Bataclan attack using data from a Eurobarometer survey. This data was collected right before and after the attack which allows for a quasi-experimental research design. In line with the migration context hypothesis, we find more negative attitudes toward migrants and refugees particularly in countries with relatively homogenous societies and few immigrants. No evidence was found to support the proximity to attack hypothesis. These results have important implications as the public discourse of a migration-terrorism nexus has shaped the policy debate in Europe.

The Bologna Process and the harmonisation of higher education systems in other world regions: a case from Southeast Asia

The Bologna Process has inspired harmonisation strategies for higher education systems in other parts of the world. However, developments in other contexts are not much under review in the European debate. The present article describes the case of Southeast Asia and the attempt to promote harmonisation of its higher education systems. It further compares the processes in ASEAN and the European Higher Education Area to then discuss open questions for future comparative research. To do so the authors re-contextualise data from a study in ASEAN against the background of future research needs in the field of higher education harmonisation.

Stéttarfélagsaðild á Íslandi

Fáar rannsóknir hafa verið gerðar á stéttarfélagsaðild hér á landi en nokkrar um stéttarfélög. Mikil umræða hefur verið í Evrópu síðustu 20 ár um minnkandi stéttarfélagsaðild en þar hefur dregið nokkuð úr aðild. Ýmsar ástæður hafa verið nefndar til sögunnar sem hafa haft áhrif á þessa fækkun, svo sem almenn efnahagsleg velsæld frá lokum seinni heimsstyrjaldarinnar, tilskipanir og reglur frá Evrópusambandinu um aukin réttindi og vernd starfsmanna, áhersla á samþættingu vinnu og einkalífs, aukinn hagvöxtur, hærra atvinnustig, formgerðarbreyting á vinnumarkaði og nýjar stjórnunaraðferðir sem leggja áherslu á að starfsmenn standi utan stéttarfélaga. Enn fremur hefur verið bent á sem mögulega skýringaþætti, alþjóðavæðinguna, harðnandi samkeppni fyrirtækja á alþjóðlegum mörkuðum, meiri áherslu á sveigjanleika í ráðningarformi, útvistun starfa og að erfiðlega hefur gengur að fá vel menntaða sérfræðinga til að vera í stéttarfélögum. Þróun stéttarfélagsaðildar hér á landi hefur verið með öðrum hætti, en síðustu 20 ár hefur stéttarfélagsaðild hér á landi haldist nokkuð stöðug. Í þessari grein er rakin þróun stéttarfélagsaðildar hér á landi frá árunum 1994- 2016. Settar eru fram nokkrar yrðingar (proposition) sem skýrt geta háa stéttarfélagsaðild hér á landi að mati höfunda. Þær eru; (1) forgangsréttarákvæði kjarasamninga, (2) skylda atvinnurekenda til að innheimta félagsgjöld starfsmanna, (3) fjöldi opinberra starfsmanna á íslenskum vinnumarkaði, (4) markviss vinna stéttarfélaga að gera aðild að stéttarfélögum aðlaðandi með fjölbreyttri þjónustu, (5) sérstök áhersla stéttarfélaga til að ná til ungs fólks á vinnumarkaði, (6) tenging félagsaðildar við lífeyrissjóðakerfið á sínum tíma og (7) „Ghent kerfið” sem byggði á því að atvinnuleysisbætur tengdust stéttarfélagsaðild.

Muḥammad Ḥusayn Haykal’s Anti-Enlightenment Modernity (1916–1925)

Abstract In public discourse and scholarly literature alike, the notions of “modernity,” “Enlightenment” and “the West” are often associated. This article underscores the problems inherent in these associations by focusing on the Egyptian context of the second and third decades of the twentieth century, and in particular on several nationalist articles published by Muḥammad Ḥusayn Haykal (1888–1956). The article contends that Haykal’s writings contributed to the shaping of a modern worldview, the unifying elements of which are represented by the tenets of the anti-Enlightenment tradition. Reference to this intellectual tradition, which the eminent historian of ideas Zeev Sternhell theorized almost exclusively in relation to European intellectual debates, proves to be a far more accurate approach to Haykal’s ideological orientations than the paradigms traditionally employed in the critical analysis of his writings.

From 1999 to 2019: 20 years of European debate, development, and achievements

This paper suggests that, although the Bologna process officially began in the late 1990s, the conditions that made it possible had already been created in the previous decade through the growing practice of international academic cooperation, mainly triggered by EU inter-institutional programmes. As the need for structural reforms in some higher education systems became more evident, in 1999 the Ministers of Education of 29 European countries gathered in Bologna to start a process of voluntary convergence of their systems with the objective of creating a European Higher Education Area. In the last 20 years the participating governments (now 48), with the support of international organizations and major stakeholders, have jointly developed a common framework of principles, actions, policies and tools. Accordingly, different types of structural reforms have taken place in the various countries. At present, however, implementation of the key commitments – full adoption of the three-cycle structure and ECTS, of the Lisbon recognition convention and the Diploma supplement, and of QA systems based on the European standards and guidelines – is still uneven in the EHEA and a peer-support approach was adopted by the ministers last year. Concerning the implementation issue, this paper raises two sets of questions. First: to what extent have the structural reforms implemented by the governments really affected grassroots educational activities? How deeply have the underlying principles – like student-centred learning – been implemented in actual programme design and everyday teaching/learning practice? Second: although inspired by the same basic principles, are EHEA-induced reforms actually being implemented consistently throughout European countries and institutions? Deeper involvement and more international coordination of European academics is advocated in the paper, in order to face these challenges and consolidate the EHEA in the years to come.Received: 03 April 2019Accepted: 02 May 2019Published online: 29 May 2019

Liberal national identity: Thinner than conservative, thicker than civic?

Many of the political debates in Europe call for the strengthening of a national identity that is, somewhat paradoxically, described in universal liberal terms. Yet previous research has not been a...

Government policy and propaganda in the 1975 referendum on European Community membership

ABSTRACTOn 5 June 1975, 67% of the British electorate voted ‘yes’ to maintaining membership of the European Community. This historic event was the UK’s first-ever national referendum, and as such important questions were raised about the rules governing the vote. Government policy was shaped by the need to ensure fairness and access to information, and a growing realisation that the public would vote ‘yes’. This resulted in a low-key information campaign which emphasised the ‘crisis’ atmosphere of the 1970s and the ‘declinist’ narrative that had pervaded the European debate since the first application in 1961.

Constructing the EU’s political identity in policy making

Questions of identity have returned to the centre of political debates in Europe. A key issue is that while the EU has greatly expanded its powers in key policy domains that traditionally have been the preserve of nation states, its political identity remains weak. The special issue examines the construction of the EU’s political identity (or identities), variations in its strength and the nature of its content. Drawing on studies both on European nation-state formation and on the EU’s identity, we take a top-down approach and analyse how EU institutions in different major policy domains have themselves sought to create political identity through policy making. We define the construction of EU political identity and set out empirically applicable indicators to assess political identity in policy making. We analyse the construction of identity through a process-oriented approach that explicitly includes contestation and the existence of rival political identities. Comparing across policy domains, we suggest that the ability of EU institutions to construct an EU political identity has been limited not only by existing national identities but also by the coexistence of rival EU political identities within policy domains. Hence, it has been difficult for EU institutions to establish a strong identity, with identity being strongest where there are clear external alternatives and limited rival identities within the EU.

Should All Cars Be Electric by 2025? The Electric Car Debate in Europe

The car is still the most common mode of transport in Western countries, particularly so across the European Union, as it accounts for about two-thirds of daily commuting. So far, measures aiming to reduce automobile traffic and incentives for the modal shift to public transport and non-polluting methods of travel (walking, cycling, etc.) have had little effect. Moreover, the car lies at the core of a very complex system that has proven to be difficult to unlock. In light of these challenges, using new types of engine power may appear to be a solution. Electric vehicles have the potential to improve the efficiency, affordability, and sustainability of the transport system. However, there remains much uncertainty as to how such a transition from one type of engine to another may unfold, and where it could take place within the European context. In June 2017, the H2020 project SHAPE-ENERGY launched an online debate on the Debating Europe platform with the question: “Should all cars be electric by 2025?”. The aim of the debate was to elicit citizens views on whether the goal could be reached, how and with which consequences. The diversity of the vantage points that have appeared in the subsequent discussion generated by the strands of debate allows us to bring into discussion the viewpoints and arguments that are not often addressed in the literature on the adoption of electric cars in a comprehensive way. The article sheds light on those debates across Europe, in order to bring new insights to European policymakers that are seeking to promote the market for electric vehicles. It also broadens the scope and offers important contributions to scholarly debates on the diffusion and adoption of such vehicles.

A legal theory for the nation state. Pasquale Stanislao Mancini, Hegelianism and Piedmontese liberalism after 1848

ABSTRACTThis article aims to shed light on the Italian liberals’ contribution to the post-1848 European debate on nationality, representative government and the theory of the state, through focus on the political thought of Pasquale Stanislao Mancini. Building on Vico and Hegel’s philosophies of law and history, Mancini developed a sui generis tradition of national liberalism that founded representative government on a theory of the state that identified freedom and nationality. Far from being the passive and provincial adaptation of Anglo-French currents of liberalism, Mancini’s political thought, while engaging with the contemporary European debates on freedom and constitutional government, nurtured an original constitutional theory that connected conflicting ideas of cosmopolitan freedom and national patriotism.