European Union Candidate Research Articles

PROTECTION OF PERSONAL DATA IN THE EUROPEAN UNION-TURKEY RELATIONS: EFFECT OF VISA LIBERALISATION DIALOGUE

The European Union is rather successful at making regulations and law whose influence go beyond the European territory, as these acts are widely considered as common standards. One of them is about personal data protection. The European Union accepted a new regulation on the protection of personal data which was put in practice in May 2018, after a long period of discussions. The regulation was accepted for the replacement of laws about data protection in member and candidate states. As a European Union candidate country, Turkey started a visa liberation dialogue with the European Union in 2013. Personal data protection issue has been one of the most crucial subjects of the visa liberation process and considered as an important requirement which must be fulfilled by Turkey. In this respect, the study will elaborate the European Union’s regulation on new personal data protection under the case of Turkey’s visa liberalisation dialogue. In the first chapter, the historical development of personal data protection, the European Union data protection regulation and current situation will be analysed. In the second chapter, the study will elaborate the issue of data protection under the case of visa liberation dialogue between Turkey and the European Union. In the last chapter, aiming to reveal the differences between General Data Protection Regulation and Turkish data protection legislation, Turkey’s cohesion to the European Union’s data protection regulation within the frame of visa liberation dialogue will be dealt. In this context, differentiating from present studies and researches in the literature, this study asserts that visa liberalisation dialogue catalyses Turkey’s compliance with the European Union’s data protection standards.

Accident Damage Analysis Module (ADAM): Novel European Commission tool for consequence assessment—Scientific evaluation of performance

This paper summarises the scientific evaluation of the performance of a novel modelling tool, the Accident Damage Assessment Module (ADAM), developed by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission (EC) to assess the consequences of an industrial accident resulting from an unintended release of a dangerous substance. The ADAM tool is specifically intended to assist Competent Authorities in the European Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA), and their supporting research institutions, responsible for the implementation of the Seveso Directive in their countries, as well as governmental and research organisations of EU Accession and Candidate Countries, and European Neighbourhood Policy countries involved in chemical accident prevention and preparedness. In particular, the tool provides decision-making support to various functions associated with industrial risk management, enforcement and oversight, including risk analysis, land-use and emergency planning, inspection and monitoring, and the preparation and review of safety reports.Consequence assessment models are characterised by high level of complexity and of uncertainty. It is therefore of paramount importance to assess their limits. The scientific evaluation was conducted across the entire consequence assessment cycle, including the source terms and the physical effects calculations associated with the concentration toxics after airborne dispersion, the thermal radiation of chemical fires, and the explosion of vapour flammable clouds. The evaluation described in this paper was conducted on a series of relevant scenarios, by benchmarking the outcome of ADAM with the results obtained by similar software tools and with the experimental data obtained on a series of reference field campaigns, as taken from the literature.

Factors affecting farmers’ adoption of integrated pest management in Serbia: An application of the theory of planned behavior

Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia as European Union candidate countries, have to follow EU directives that include the adoption of several agri-environmental measures for promoting cleaner agricultural practices among farmers in the years to come. This paper aims to identify the main determinants of farmers' behavioral change towards more environmentally friendly agricultural practices in Serbia. In particular, farmers' intentions to adopt integrated pest management practices have been analyzed. Integrated pest management is a farming management approach which aims to reduce pest population in a cost-effective and environmental manner. To this aim, within a mixed-method research design framework, observational data from 400 farmers have been collected through a structured questionnaire. Theory of Planned Behavior provides conceptual as well as empirical framework for the analysis. The findings provided by structural equation modeling show that attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control, together with farm size, explain 49% of farmers’ intentions to adopt integrated pest management practices. On the other side, farmers environmental knowledge, education level and the use of extension services do not play a significant role in integrated pest management adoption. Even if the use of a convenience sample limits the generalization of the results to the whole population, findings provide useful information and empirical insights into the development of public policies in Serbia and other Western Balkan countries. The identification of proper incentives as well are needed to enhance the adoption of more environmentally friendly agricultural practices amongst farmers, reducing the environmental impact of agriculture.

The Visibility of Papers Written by Authors from European Post-Socialist Countries as an Indicator of Integration into the EU Legal System

The equality of the European Union (EU) Member States is one of the principles that the European Union is based on. However, in terms of the economy, culture and influence, a hierarchy of EU Members States is evident. The European post-socialist or Central and East European (CEE) countries are often perceived as being at the lower end of the scale or on the ‘periphery’ of the EU. The aim of this paper is to gain insights into the specificities of the CEE countries’ legal scientific communication and the visibility of legal scholars’ work within the EU. Bibliometric analysis results show that scientific productivity has been significantly contributed to by papers published in domestic journals indexed in Scopus, with a share of 70%, and that the largest contributions are from Croatian, Romanian, Slovenian and Hungarian law journals. The Baltic States and EU candidate countries, representing nine out of 15 CEE countries, did not have their law journals indexed by Scopus in the period 1996-2013, which influenced their potential accessibility and visibility. The remaining 30% of papers were scattered over 112 international law journals, predominantly from the EU15 countries. On the other hand, the research shows that the recognition of papers measured in terms of the average number of citations speaks in favour of publication in international journals, with 2.9 citations per paper compared to 1.2 in domestic journals. It also shows that the citation of a paper is influenced by the language of the text and whether the paper has more than one author. Thus, although the vast majority of papers are published in domestic journals, the ones published in international journals are distinctly more visible in the academic community. In order to accomplish the integration of CEE countries into EU academic legal communication, the visibility of CEE countries’ legal scholars’ work is crucial. According to the analysis of this research, to achieve visibility, CEE countries’ legal scholars should publish more in a lingua franca, which nowadays means English. The other possible way is to enhance the visibility and strengthen the position of scientific journals published in CEE countries by accepting professional journal standards. Needless to say, the aspect of the content and issues explored and published is also crucial.

The relationship between dual practice, intention to work abroad and job satisfaction: A population-based study in the Serbian public healthcare sector

Increasing dual practice and emigration of health workers threatens the effectiveness of the healthcare system. Insufficient information exists about these phenomena in the transitional countries of South-East Europe. Serbia, a European Union candidate, permits dual practice and there is a high intention to work abroad among its prospective healthcare professionals. A population-based, cross-sectional study was conducted to determine the prevalence and predictors of job satisfaction, dual practice, and intention to work abroad of all workers in the Serbian public healthcare sector (73,940 employees, a response rate of 83.8%). This study observed that 22.6% of the respondents were dissatisfied with their jobs, 11.7% reported dual practice, and 14.3% had an intention to work abroad. Physicians and nurses younger than 55 years of age employed in a tertiary healthcare institution, and males were more likely to be dissatisfied than other workers. Poor management and working conditions increased job dissatisfaction, with a subsequent increased odds for dual practice and intention to work abroad by 1.5 and 3.6 times, respectively. The national and institutional framework for health workforce policy and management must be powerful and efficient when taking advantage of the positive effects and managing the negative aspects of dual practice and the intention to work abroad.

Effectiveness of service models and organisational structures supporting tuberculosis identification and management in hard-to-reach populations in countries of low and medium tuberculosis incidence: a systematic review

ObjectiveTo determine which service models and organisational structures are effective and cost-effective for delivering tuberculosis (TB) services to hard-to-reach populations.DesignEmbase and MEDLINE (1990–2017) were searched in order to update and...

European Core Health Indicators - status and perspectives

BackgroundThe European Core Health Indicators (ECHI) are a key source of comparable health information for the European Union (EU) and its Member States (MS). The ECHI shortlist contains 88 indicators which were developed by experts from MS and international organisations. Most indicators are derived from data sources at the EU’s statistical office (Eurostat), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and are available for most MS. The remaining indicators on the shortlist are at different stages of conceptual and/or methodological development. The indicators have been reviewed in the past against scientific developments, changes in data collections and emerging policy needs, yet not as part of a systematic and sustainable procedure. There is also no regular inventory of problems met by the MS in collecting the necessary data. Work package 4 of the BRIDGE Health project aimed at updating and improving the existing ECHI-indicator knowledge and expertise and at strengthening the scientific base that supports the effective development and use of health indicators for health policy evaluation and prioritization by the EU and its MS. The aim of this paper is to present a first overview of its outcomes and to explore issues concerning the ECHI data availability, content and policy relevance, update process and accessibility to stakeholders, in light of working towards a sustainable future.MethodsTwo surveys were conducted within the framework of the BRIDGE Health project to reassess the status of the ECHI shortlist. The first survey focused on data availability in EU MS, candidate countries and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries. The second survey evaluated current needs and criteria with respect to content and policy relevance of the ECHI shortlist. Exploring potential new indicator topics was part of both surveys. All evaluations were supported by an advisory network of national and international experts.ResultsOf the 36 countries (EU MS, candidate and EFTA countries) contacted for the data availability mapping, 23 countries (63%) participated in the survey. Data availability from preferred data sources varied between chapters. Availability was highest for the chapter on demography and socio-economic situation, followed by the chapter on health status, where data were available for most indicators from more than 90% of the participating countries. Problems experienced by MS relating to the incorporation of ECHI into their health systems were also identified through the survey. Findings from the survey on policy relevance point at the need for strengthening the links with policy (priorities) and for exploring a possible format change of the list to accommodate actionability. It also showed support for embedding ECHI in a sustainable health information structure; this may practically be aided by a web-based single point of access to an information repository.ConclusionPolicy relevance is an essential but not systematically developed criterion for the inclusion of indicators into the ECHI shortlist. Data availability is crucial for the actual implementation of indicators and has considerably increased for ECHI in the last decade. The data availability mapping provides a structured overview of the current status of data availability for implemented indicators. The ECHI shortlist can contribute to the collection of comparable policy-relevant health data in Europe, foster evidence-based public health and contribute to Member States learning from each other. Flexible and systematic incorporation of policy relevance in the ECHI shortlist review and revision process may substantiate ECHI as a core component of a future sustainable European health information infrastructure.

Change, Continuity and Crisis. Montenegro’s Political Trajectory (1988-2016)

Abstract Montenegro has passed through more than two decades of flux to reach its current status as a NATO member and European Union (EU) candidate. The smallest republic of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Montenegro’s modern history has been characterised by both significant change (in statehood) and relative continuity (in leadership). The author focuses on the period between the republic’s first multiparty elections in 1990, through the 1997 split within the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) and the May 2006 independence referendum to the parliamentary elections of 2016 and the country’s ongoing political crisis, assessing the most significant political developments throughout the aforementioned period.

Determination of the Most Suitable Assessment Methods of River Hydromorphology for Turkey

The physical structures and the habitat qualities of any rivers and degradation in rivers have become important elements of hydromorphological assessment because of recognising the influences of these variables in biotic structure that led to the development of more comprehensive assessments of rivers, including river habitat structure within the quality assessment. Accordingly, numerous hydromorphological assessment methods have been developed worldwide including Europe after the Water Framework Directive came into force. Turkey, as a European Union candidate country, has started to implement the Directive and has made some progress. In this context, Turkey needs to develop a national hydromorphological assessment method compliant with the. Two of Multi Criteria Decision Making (methods, which are Analytical Hierarchy Process and Simple Additive Weighting were applied to find the most suitable hydromorphological assessment method for Turkey. For this aim, we reviewed 25 non-European methods and 19 European methods, and determined the Slovenian method and the South African method as the most convenient ones.

Equality bodies

The Treaty of Amsterdam and the subsequent adoption in 2000 of the so-called Race Directive was a genuine paradigm shift in European equal treatment legislation and practice. One of the major developments resulting from this Treaty change and new Directive was the introduction of a requirement for all European Union (EU) Member States to set up bodies for the promotion of equal treatment, first on the ground of race and ethnic origin, later extended to the ground of gender. This article analyses the emergence of these bodies – equality bodies – in EU Member States and candidate countries and the role they play in promoting equality and the implementation and monitoring of EU equal treatment legislation. It argues that equality bodies have a significant potential to contribute to more equal societies and they have proved to be effective agents of change. They do so, among others, by contributing to relevant case law in front of the Court of Justice of the EU leading to the further development and clarification of EU and national equal treatment legislation. The article also looks at the challenges experienced by equality bodies in different European countries as factors that influence and might limit their potential and contribution. To conclude, the article examines the necessary conditions for equality bodies to effectively contribute to the implementation of EU legislation and the achievement of substantive equality and it assesses whether current standards for equality bodies can guarantee these conditions.

United in diversity? The convergence of cultural values among EU member states and candidates

AbstractThe European Union (EU) is considered to be a unique economic and political union that integrates most European countries. This article focuses on the cultural aspect of European integration, which has been increasingly debated over the course of deepening and widening integration and in the context of the legitimation crisis of the EU. Among the main goals of the EU is to promote certain values, which raises the question of whether it has been efficient in (or enabled) reducing cultural value gaps among the participating countries. World polity and institutional isomorphism theories suggest that cultural values may trickle down in a vertical manner from the institutions of the EU to its member states and candidates. Furthermore, hybridisation theory postulates that values diffuse horizontally through intensified interactions enabled by the EU. These two perspectives imply the possibility of cultural convergence among countries associated with the EU. By contrast, the culture clash thesis assumes that differences in cultural identity prevent value convergence across countries; growing awareness of such differences may even increase the pre‐existing cultural value distances. To test these different scenarios, distances in emancipative and secular values are compared across pairs of countries using combined repeated cross‐sectional data from the European Values Study and the World Values Survey gathered between 1992 and 2011. This study finds that the longer a country has been part of the EU, the more closely its values approximate those of the EU founding countries, which in turn are the most homogenous. Initial cultural distance to the founders’ average values appears irrelevant to acquiring membership or candidacy status. However, new member states experienced substantial cultural convergence with old member states after 1992, as did current candidates between 2001 and 2008. Since 1992, nations not participating in the integration process have diverged substantially from EU members, essentially leading to cultural polarisation in Europe. The findings are independent of (changes in) economic disparities and suggest the importance of cultural diffusion as one of the fundamental mechanisms of cultural change. This empirical study contributes to the literature on European integration, political and sociological theories of globalisation, and cross‐cultural theories of societal value change.

Efficiency of packaging waste management in a European Union candidate country

This paper provides a quantitative and qualitative evaluation of Serbia’s packaging waste management system, which is based on the Extended Producer Responsibility scheme (EPR). Additionally, it identifies and discusses the major challenges faced by the system. This paper strives to shed some light on the challenges posed by the implementation of an advanced and highly institutionalized approach to packaging waste management in the context of a European Union candidate country. The analysis indicates that Serbia is a country with an evolving administrative and institutional approach to packaging waste management, which can reach national recovery targets through its EPR system. The main challenges that must be addressed for the system to continue progressing in order to meet European Union’s recovery targets are: (i) increase the low supply of recovered recyclables from the municipal solid waste stream, (ii) close loopholes affecting recycling industry and work of National Recovery Organisations, and (iii) formalization of informal recycling sector’s role within the formal packaging recovery framework.

Environmental technical efficiency in EU member and candidate countries: A parametric hyperbolic distance function approach

This paper investigates environmental technical efficiency for a panel of European Union (EU) member and candidate countries for the period 1990–2011 using parametric hyperbolic distance function. The paper also examines the environmental technical efficiency convergence among the sampled countries. The main results suggest that environmental technical efficiency scores vary among EU member and candidate countries. The EU-15 countries in contrast to the new members and the candidate countries have a greater potential for reducing CO2 emissions while increasing GDP and reducing energy use simultaneously. The results also indicate the existence of environmental technical efficiency convergence among EU member and candidate countries.

Real Convergence in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe

This article establishes stylised facts about convergence and analyses the sources of economic growth in central, eastern and south-eastern European (CESEE) economies within and outside the European Union (EU).22 It also compares the performance across countries and identifies the challenges that these economies face on the way to further advancing convergence. Although all CESEE economies have converged towards the most advanced EU economies since 2000, progress has been heterogeneous. While some countries have experienced fast economic growth and a speedy catching-up, for others the catching-up process has been rather slow. Economic convergence has been much faster in the CESEE countries that became members of the EU (including those which later joined the euro area) than in the Western Balkan countries that are currently EU candidates or potential candidates. Convergence was particularly rapid before the global financial crisis, but slowed down thereafter. The article identifies several factors that are common to the most successful countries in the region in terms of the pace of convergence since 2000. These include (inter alia) improvements in institutional quality, external competitiveness and innovation, increases in trade openness, high or improving levels of human capital, and relatively high investment rates. Looking ahead, accelerating and sustaining convergence in the region will require further efforts to enhance institutional quality and innovation, reinvigorate investment, and address the adverse impact of population ageing. For EU candidates and potential candidates, EU accession prospects might constitute an anchor for reform momentum – in particular, but not exclusively, in the key area of enhancing institutional quality – and thus support the long-term growth prospects and real convergence of these countries. JEL Classification: E01, F15, O11, O43, O47

Budžet EU i budžet Srbije - uticaj na proces pridruživanja Srbije Evropskoj uniji

Our research is focused on identifying the European Union's budgetary policy and the fiscal rules that must be obeyed by the European Union (EU) member states in order to compare them with Serbia's fiscal policy. We want to see how the budget balance in the EU is being achieved, and to what extent Serbia follows the EU budget principles and how much support it receives from the Union on this path. The structure of revenues and expenditures of the EU budget and the budget of Serbia is also given. The first part of this paper discusses the changes in the budgetary policy of the EU, given that the global financial crisis has revealed significant weaknesses in the design and implementation of the existing economic governance in the EU, leading to the signature of the Fiscal Compact and creation of the European Stability Mechanism. The second part deals with elements and functions of the budget of Serbia and with fiscal responsibility. The Serbian budget is burdened with fiscal deficit and the accumulation of public debt. Serbia has introduced fiscal rules that are applied in the EU, but the same unfortunately have not been fully applied in Serbia. In the third part we examine the impact of the EU budget on Serbia's accession process through the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA), which European Union has allocated to the EU candidate countries, to help them reform and achieve European standards.

From Temporary Protection to Transit Migration: Responses to Refugee Crises Along the Western Balkan Route

In recent history, the countries along the Western Balkan route faced several refugee crises. In the 1990s refugee crises were the result of the conflicts after the disintegration of the former Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). Between the summer of 2015 and early 2016, the European continent faced another refugee crisis due to the ongoing civil war in Syria. During the 2015/16 refugee crisis, different political leaders, especially in the post-Yugoslav space, claimed that their humanitarian approach towards refugees was based on their previous experience with refugee crises from the 1990s. This paper explores and compares legal and political responses to different refugee crises in the in-between countries along the Western Balkan route: three European Union (EU) Member States (Austria, Slovenia and Croatia) and two EU candidate countries (Serbia and the Republic of Macedonia). In the first part, the paper looks at the impact of the refugee crisis on EU law. It shows how EU law was developed due to the post-Yugoslav refugee crisis (Temporary Protection Directive), but then faced ambivalent application during the 2015/16 refugee crisis. Second, it studies the transformation of national legislation during both refugee crises in the chosen countries. On the basis of the socio-legal analysis of these transformations, the main argument is that there has been a major shift in the ‘management’ of the refugee crises in the countries along the Western Balkan route: while the main approach adopted during the post-Yugoslav refugee crisis was temporary protection, this approach was replaced with a ‘transit migration’ approach during the 2015/16 refugee crisis.

Dynamics of exclusion and everyday bordering through Schengen visas

Turkey is the only European Union candidate country whose citizens are obliged to obtain a Schengen visa. The difficult visa procedures, often seen as unjust and discriminatory, are a longstanding source of frustration and humiliation among Turkish citizens, as they reproduce both symbolic and physical borders between the EU and Turkey and seem to reiterate the ‘Fortress Europe’ thesis. These perceptions of the visa process and the consequent feeling of ‘otherness/non-Europeanness’ hinder the process of Turkish integration into the EU. Bordering no longer occurs merely in the border areas separating two states, but rather through a wide range of practices in multiple locations within and beyond the state's territory. This complexity has recently been augmented by the introduction of intermediary companies. The offices of these intermediaries have become an example of bordering sites located away from the border area. Moreover, in these offices border work is carried out by non-traditional actors: in other words, not by border guards or immigration officers of the EU but by Turkish employees. Treating those offices as significant nodes where border work is done, this paper draws on material collected at visa offices in Ankara to understand the multifaceted construction of borders between the EU and Turkey. Using a situated intersectional framework, this paper elucidates not only perceptions from both sides of the border –Turkish nationals applying for visas and Turkish nationals doing border work – but also how the differentiated social positionings and purposes of travel shape these interactions.

Talk the talk, or walk the walk? Changing narratives in Europeanization research

Abstract Over the past two decades, there has been a growing interest in Europeanization, both within and beyond the European Union (EU). The impact of Eastern enlargement in 2004 on candidate and neighbourhood countries has attracted scholarly attention, and a consensus currently exists on the success of the EU’s transformative power through the employment of a conditionality mechanism. However, the limits of EU conditionality upon candidate countries and neighbourhood Europeanization, in addition to the problems experienced by the EU itself, have brought into question whether the end of Europeanization research is in sight. Considering this, we critically evaluate the issues discussed in the scholarship on Europeanization and review several points of interest in relation to EU candidate countries in the Western Balkans as well as Turkey.

Policy, legislative and institutional assessments for integrated river basin management in Turkey

The rapidly growing population, increased urbanization, and intensive industrial and agricultural activities cause degradation and pollution of natural resources, soil erosion, and changes in hydrologic regimes in all over the world. To overcome these situations, it is necessary to develop an effective and holistic management methodology, called Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM). It is an internationally accepted administrative tool.IRBM is also one of the implementation requirements of the European Commission Water Framework Directive (WFD, 2000/60/EC) for European Union (EU) member states and candidate countries. Turkey, as an EU candidate country, already has started and continues to work toward adaptation of the WFD. Since the early 2000s, river basin studies have been undertaken to help integrate the WFD into Turkish legislation. Although Turkey has a strong legislative background, there are many challenges in this transition period because of several big river basins, the lack of environmental infrastructure, and the cost of carrying out the WFD.This paper analyses the political, legislative, and institutional advances of the implementation of IRBM in Turkey. Before the assessments of the new Turkish legislation developments and new basin institutions, the general principles of IRBM are explained. Finally, some recommendations for improving the effectiveness of the new basin organizations and water legislation are presented.

Islandija ir ekonominė integracija: Europos Sąjungoje ar už jos ribų?

Iceland is a member of the European Free Trade Association, the European Economic Area and Schengen.It was a European Union candidate country until recently, when its government decided to withdraw its European Union membership application. The European Economic Area agreement currently ensures Iceland’s access to the European Union’s common market. The question remains what is the most feasible arrangement for long term prosperity of Iceland? Should it continue to rely on the current arrangement? Should it seek European Union membership in the future and perhaps subsequently become part of the Euro Area? What are the possible benefits and disadvantages for Iceland joining the European Union and the Euro Area? These questions have economic, political as well as security dimensions.