Western EU Research Articles

Sustainable transportation mode selection from the freight forwarder's perspective in trading with western EU countries

The transportation mode selection problem is one of the most significant problems that logistics companies and freight forwarders face. The complexity of this problem is reflected in a large number of factors that affect the choice of an adequate mode of transport. In order to facilitate the decision-making process when choosing, the aim of this paper is to propose an approach for selecting sustainable transportation mode when trading with western EU countries using the Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) methods, i.e., SWARA (Stepwise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis) and MARCOS (Measurement Alternatives and Ranking according to Compromise Solution) methods. SWARA was used to determine the weights of the criteria, while MARCOS was used for the final ranking of the alternatives. In this paper, nine criteria and five alternatives for the realization of transport from Serbia to Germany were observed. The developed approach represents a novelty since the combination of these methods has not been used yet to solve described problem. The results of the described methodology showed that road transport (via the Horgoš border crossing) proved to be the alternative with the best value, while road transport via the Batrovci border crossing proved to be the alternative with the lowest value.

An empirical analysis on the Western Balkans and EU foreign trade goods

An empirical analysis on the Western Balkans and EU foreign trade goods

Differentiated Integration or Discriminatory Integration? Romania’s view on DI in the EU

The concept of differentiated integration (DI) provides a way to talk about the accommodation of diversity in the EU. However, DI can also be perceived as a means to discriminate between the more economically advanced, typically older and Western EU Member States, and newer EU Member States. One of the EU countries that perceives DI as both an opportunity for deeper European integration and as a potential source of discrimination among the EU Member States, is Romania. To get a better understanding of successive Romanian governments’ approach to DI and of the salience that DI has in that country, this paper undertakes a quantitative and qualitative analysis of official communications and pronouncements made by Romanian decision-makers on the subject of EU integration between 2006-2020. My analysis indicates that there has been a relatively low salience of DI models (i.e. multi-speed and multi-end EU) and DI mechanisms (i.e. enhanced cooperation and opt-outs) but a high salience of DI instances (i.e. differentiated EU policies) in the official discourse emanating from Romanian government sources during this period. The position of successive Romanian governments with regard to DI was strongly in favour of more integration, especially when it comes to the country’s accession both to the Schengen area and to the Eurozone; however, successive governments have fervently opposed any type of DI models. This is explained in part by Romania’s majority pro-European electorate and decision-makers, and also by the desire of Romanian governments to be seen as existing on an equal footing with other EU Member States within the EU’s decision-making processes.

A VaR-Based Methodology for Assessing Carbon Price Risk across European Union Economic Sectors

The latest European Union measures for combating climate adopted in the “Fit for 55 package” envisage the extension of the Emissions Trading System, the first “cap-and-trade” system in the world created for achieving climate targets, which limits the amount of greenhouse gas emissions by imposing a price on carbon. In this context, our study provides an integrated assessment of carbon price risk exposure of all economic sectors in the European Union Member States, thus supporting decision making in determining the energy transition risk. We propose a novel approach in assessing carbon risk exposure using the Value at Risk methodology to compute the carbon price under the EU ETS, based on historical price simulation for January–August 2021 and ARMA-GARCH models for the October 2012–August 2021 period. We further built a value erosion metric, which allowed us to establish each sector’s exposure to risk and to identify differences between Eastern and Western EU countries. We find that the refining sector appears to be highly vulnerable, whereas there is higher potential for large losses in the energy supply and chemical sectors in Eastern EU Member States, given a different pace of industry restructuring.

The dynamics of attitudes toward immigrants: Cohort analyses for Western EU member states

Public opinion climates on immigrants are subject to certain dynamics. This study examines two mechanisms for such dynamics in Western EU member states for the 2002–2018 period. First, the impact of cohort replacement and, second, the impact of periodic threat perceptions, namely, changing macroeconomic conditions and shifts in immigration rates. To date, empirical research on anti-immigrant sentiments rarely combines these two concepts simultaneously to disentangle the interplay of period and cohort effects and determine the factors for long- and short-term attitude changes in societies. Motivated by this gap in the literature, I conduct multiple linear regression analyses of pooled data from all waves of the European Social Survey to show that the process of cohort replacement has led to a substantially more positive opinion climate toward immigrants since the 2000s. However, results indicate that in the future, this positive development is likely to come to a halt since younger cohorts no longer hold significantly more immigrant-friendly attitudes than their immediate predecessors. Furthermore, we observe different period effects to impact cohorts’ attitudes. Fixed-effects panel analyses show that the effect of changing macroeconomic conditions on cohorts’ attitudes is low. Changes in immigration rates, however, lead to significantly more dismissive attitudes when immigrants originate from the Global South as opposed to when they enter from EU countries. These insights suggest that it is less economic or cultural threat perceptions, but ethnic prejudice that plays a key role for natives to oppose immigration. Overall, findings suggest that it is not either cohort or period effects driving large-scale attitude changes, but rather we observe an interplay of both.

Models of Air Pollution Propagation in the Selected Region of Katowice

The paper deals with issues related to analyzing the spread of air pollution and pollutants in large urban agglomerations, specifically, the search for causality between meteorological conditions and the concentrations of particular substances. The pollutants SO2 and PM10 were selected for analysis, which, in addition to NOx, CO, CO2 and PM2.5, contribute to smog, especially during the heating seasons. This analysis is particularly important because Polish environmental standards are more lenient than those in western EU states. Industrial activity, transport and heating systems based on coal-burning are still a big problem in Poland, and each year their gaseous and particulate emissions exceed air-quality limits. This paper presents a statistical analysis of data recorded at the air-quality monitoring station on Kossuth Street in Katowice concerning the heating seasons from 2013–2016. The verification of proposed parabolic models containing concentrations from previous time periods and statistically significant meteorological conditions was conducted for individual heating seasons as well for the whole set of data, which included the influence of wind speed and temperature. The models obtained proved that the selected form of a model is statistically significant, and its use may produce satisfactory forecast results and permit various environmental applications. The specified model might be used both for forecasting (verification and possibly updating coefficients to increase forecast accuracy) and analyzing the factors influencing pollution values. Such statistical analysis may be helpful in assessing the impact of measures adopted to reduce air pollution, particularly in large Polish cities.

Inflation Forecasting in the Western Balkans and EU: A Comparison of Holt-Winters, ARIMA and NNAR Models

Inflation Forecasting in the Western Balkans and EU: A Comparison of Holt-Winters, ARIMA and NNAR Models

Environmental analysis of structural and technological change in a context of trade expansion: Lessons from the EU enlargement

The enlargement of the EU towards Central and Eastern Europe started in 2004 and represented a significant challenge for European political and economic agendas. Fifteen years later, Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries have experienced a significant economic growth, mostly based upon industrial development and trade expansion, displaying a strong integration in EU global value chains.In this paper, we aim to analyse if this process of economic and commercial integration has also triggered the externalization of environmental pressures towards Central and Eastern Europe or, on the contrary, trade expansion has been accompanied with a significant technological and structural change in these countries, offsetting the potential scale effects associated to the export growth.To that aim, we use an environmentally extended multi-regional input-output (MRIO) model with information from 2000 to 2016 that will allow us to quantify the PM2.5 emissions embodied in intra-European trade flows. As a second step, we develop a Structural Decomposition Analysis to evaluate the factors driving emissions embodied in exports from CEE to Western EU countries.

Editorial

Days after the European Union resolved a dispute with Poland and Hungary over a rule of law mechanism that threatened to halt the bloc’s €1.8tn budget and coronavirus recovery fund, the clash between the two sides is widening. Both countries saw opinions go against them in the EU’s top court yesterday. What began as a confrontation over democracy and the law, moreover, is fast becoming a culture war. . . . Despite having a liberal-minded urban youth, Poland and Hungary remain, overall, more socially conservative than many western European societies. For both ruling parties, appeals to family values are popular with their rural, older voter base. But evocations of traditional values also create a narrative that obscures the true nature of the showdown with Brussels and western EU members. This is over democracy and rule of law: judicial reforms, restrictions on media and erosions of checks and balances that help PiS and Fidesz to entrench themselves in power. Instead, the two parties can claim to be fighting back against alleged EU attempts to impose “alien” liberal values on unwilling societies. —Financial Times, 17 December 2020Over the past decade, the Hungarian leader has boasted of creating an “illiberal democracy” and has faced allegations of cronyism and corruption. Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has only been in power for five years but has also mounted an assault on judicial independence and rule of law in that time. —The Guardian, 9 December 2020Bearing this division over central values in mind, this special issue steps toward an exploration of the contested region that is Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), shedding light on some of the ongoing complex societal developments that make it noteworthy.

Estimating subjective poverty lines with discrete information

This paper proposes a novel methodology for the estimation of subjective poverty lines (SPLs) using a discrete information approach that obviates the potential discomfort of asking respondents directly about the value of their individual SPL. To estimate income SPLs, we utilize the Youden index. Using a simulated data-set, we first show that the level of bias between the estimated SPLs and their corresponding actual values is low. Next, we demonstrate an application of the proposed methodology to the EU-SILC 2018 microdata, utilizing the “ability to make ends meet” indicator as the classification variable. We show that in Western EU countries the values of SPLs with discrete information are typically greater than estimates based on a standard minimum income question. The opposite is true for Eastern EU countries.

Use of a whole genome sequencing-based approach for Mycobacterium tuberculosis surveillance in Europe in 2017-2019: an ECDC pilot study.

Whole genome sequencing (WGS) can be used for molecular typing and characterisation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) strains. We evaluated the systematic use of a WGS-based approach for MTBC surveillance involving all European Union/European Economic Area (EU/EEA) countries and highlight the challenges and lessons learnt to be considered for the future development of a WGS-based surveillance system.WGS and epidemiological data of patients with rifampicin-resistant (RR) and multidrug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis (TB) were collected from EU/EEA countries between January 2017 and December 2019. WGS-based genetic relatedness analysis was performed using a standardised approach including both core genome multilocus sequence typing (cgMLST) and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-based calculation of distances on all WGS data that fulfilled minimum quality criteria to ensure data comparability.A total of 2218 RR/MDR-MTBC isolates were collected from 25 countries. Among these, 56 cross-border clusters with increased likelihood of recent transmission (≤5 SNPs distance) comprising 316 RR/MDR-MTBC isolates were identified. The cross-border clusters included between two and 30 resistant isolates from two to six countries, demonstrating different RR/MDR-TB transmission patterns in Western and Eastern EU countries.This pilot study shows that a WGS-based surveillance system is not only feasible but can efficiently elucidate the dynamics of in-country and cross-border RR/MDR-TB transmission across EU/EEA countries. Lessons learnt from this study highlight that the establishment of an EU/EEA centralised WGS-based surveillance system for TB will require strengthening of national integrated systems performing prospective WGS surveillance and the development of clear procedures to facilitate international collaboration for the investigation of cross-border clusters.

What determines the success of economic transition? Constructing regional advantage for Eastern and Western European regions

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to identify the differences in the determinants of successful transition (understood as the creation of a new development path) between the eastern and the western EU Member States between 1994 and 2014 and elaborate assumptions for a strategy of constructing regional advantage for them at the NUTS2 level. We find that the regional transition requires individual approaches to using comparative advantage at the beginning of the process and then competing with specific advantages that can be consciously constructed throughout the process. Therefore, we hypothesise that a successful transition requires constructing regional advantages based on the knowledge-related factors, leading to specialisation in the knowledge-intensive industries. Furthermore, we state that the way of constructing such advantages differs across the regions. All of our hypotheses were confirmed. Both groups of regions had different comparative advantages at the beginning of the period and constructed competitive advantage based on related knowledge-intensive industries, leading to their specialisation. Interestingly, although the process of building regional advantage was similar, the factors used to create it were different, had a different impact on GDP growth and led to a different specialisation.

European Economic sanctions against Russia and effects

The article outlines the essence of the economic sanctions imposed on Russia by the Western EU countries, as well as other countries of the Allies. This article gives the reasons for the sanctions, how they have affected the macro and micro economy and what to expect in the future. The main purpose of the article was to identify the risks and consequences of EU economic sanctions against Russia, as well as how they will affect the CIS countries. The article presents analysis of the consequences of economic sanctions on the entire development sector of Russia, on import and export markets, on the sector of finance, investment, tourism.

The Western Balkan Countries in the Face of the Covid-19 Pandemic: Policy Recommendations

Executive Summary of Recommendations [1]:Western Balkan (WB) governments and EU: Health systems should be supported with funds from the EU’s announced € 3.3 billion support package and other Western sources.WB gov.: Public funds dedicated

Who benefits? Perceptions of which migrant groups benefit the most from the welfare state among ten migrant groups in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany

A number of studies show the prevalence of fears among natives that migrants could undermine support for the welfare state. In this article, we turn the focus to migrants’ views of other migrants. Employing data from the Migrants’ Welfare State Attitudes survey, administered among ten migrant groups in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany, we find that migrants, like natives, perceive other migrant groups as benefitting more from the welfare state than they contribute. These attitudes follow a relatively consistent ranking. Migrants from western EU countries were viewed as being least likely to benefit disproportionately, followed by migrants from rich countries outside Europe, those from eastern EU countries and those from poor countries outside Europe. Furthermore, according to our analyses, this order of ranking is explained largely by a combination of socio-economic factors and a sense of belonging to the country of residence and the group of migrants in general.

Internationalisation of health workforce education: the case of medicine in Romania

Abstract Background Long recognised as a major source country for health professionals working in Western EU Member States, Romania has become increasingly attractive for international medical students in recent years. The current study explores the drivers of this trend, its opportunities and challenges, as well as its implications on the broader health system goals. Methods The study used secondary data analysis and interviews with key informants. Data originated in a study conducted for the OECD (grant no. EC-2017-5304 financed by the European Commission). Results Since 2011, 11 of the 13 Medical Schools in Romania have opened additional study lines in foreign languages (English and French) and gradually increased the number of places allocated to international students. Of all new-entrant student places available in the medical schools in 2018/19, nearly 30% (1740 out of 6121) are in the international study programmes - a 50% increase since 2011/12. Moreover, while the total annual number of places for new medical students have increased by nearly a fifth between 2011/12 and 2018/19 (from 5,250 to 6,121), the share of new study places in the Romanian division has decreased from 80% to 70% in the same period. For Medical Schools, internationalisation has been driven mainly by financial reasons and has had a positive impact on curriculum development and improvement. For many international medical students, in particular nationals of the EU countries, the main push factors are the numerus clausus policies limiting access to medical education in their home countries. Conclusions Internationalisation of medical education in Romania has taken place in the absence of a formal national internationalisation strategy and efforts have not translated into significant improvements in health workforce management in Romania. This suggests that potential benefits of internationalisation of health workforce education must be assessed in context of national health systems.

GAMIFICATION AND BLENDED LEARNING IN VOCATIONAL TRAINING AND COACHING IN SHORT COURSES

Vocational training and coaching delivered through short courses and workshops, needs to be as effective as possible due to several reasons: learners (and their employers) invest their time and energy, they expect direct usefulness of the course content and roadmap on how to implement the knowledge into real-life problems, there is certain extent of professional maturity that expects proper balance of theoretical and practical aspects and the outcomes are evident in short time for the benefit of all, or for the worse. These reasons motivated the trainers to use a specific instructional design that embodies gamification, blended learning and coaching for vocational training in short courses for group of participants from Western Balkans countries, with diverse backgrounds, languages, professions, education, personal and collective goals on the topic of preparing successful project proposals for funding, supported by the Western Balkans Alumni Association projects. The specifics in this instructional design have been multifold, compared to traditional training and coaching. One of the novel aspects is the combination of trainers related to the course content of projects funding from various aspects - National Agency expertise, academic, governmental and non-governmental experience, project evaluation and business practitioners. This setting of training facilitated by representative of almost every stakeholder in the higher educational ecosystem and articulated through the curricula of the trainers is aimed to enable overall knowledge apprehension, networking and immediate feedback loops. The incorporation of virtual activities before, during and after the in-person course utilises blended learning mashup of various tools such as e-learning platform for asynchronous communication, social networks for synchronous communication, webinar tool for virtual presence, video tutorials for future reference and expanded dissemination and personal contact for coaching. Another novelty in this approach is in the gamification aspect - introducing scout-game in the forest, using broad range of symbolic matrices - of compasses, maps, planned activities and unplanned events, training of skills and situational awareness, progress mechanics, challenges to achieve teamwork towards outputs and outcomes. And last but not least, the balance of theoretical and practical aspects is achieved by inviting each participant to have own working example and apply the concepts while receiving immediate feedback, or working on collective example - for all of which, follow up coaching is provided. The ‘magic’ of effective project proposals is complemented with appropriate change management and tactical management. The cognitive and knowledge dimension categories and components have been addressed in their entirety through the extended Bloom taxonomy and the evaluation has been made in formative and summative manner. The learning experience with our instructional design in this pilot instance happens for each participant - on the side of the learners and on the side of the trainers and other HEI stakeholders, including the WBAA - with specific goal to enable emergent effects of networked learners that can put their knowledge, skills and competences in right direction and produce primary and secondary effects for the Western Balkans region and EU.

Institutional Efficiency, Entrepreneurship, and the Premises of Economic Development in the Eastern European Countries

Abstract The development gap between the “Old” and “New” member countries of the European Union is an important problem challenging the efficiency and strength of the European single market. In this regard, a subsequent question arises: which actions in the policy making must be undertaken, by both national and supranational authorities, to stimulate cohesion in the EU and which directions should be followed? The present paper tries to answer this question considering the perspective of the Eastern European nations and their economic development premises analysing the aspects of governmental participation in the economy and the influence of entrepreneurship upon long run competitiveness. The research results explicitly underline that entrepreneurship in the Eastern European nations is a determinative driver of long-term economic competitiveness due to its favourable impact upon the formation of human capital, enhancement of innovation potential and overall intellectual resources of nations. The effects of governmental participation in the economy upon the economic growth premises are heterogeneous including on the formation of physical and intellectual capital. Consequently, it was reached the conclusion that the Eastern European Nations should prioritise entrepreneurship since it is capable of boosting human capital creation and, at the same time, they should improve the institutional quality to minimise the factors undermining the business including corruption and red-tape, etc. In such a way, the Eastern European countries can overcome, in the long run, the development gap with the Western EU states and raise their economic potential.

Reasons for unmet needs for health care: the role of social capital and social support in some western EU countries.

This paper focuses on the demand side factors that determine access to health care and analyses the issues of unmet needs for health care and the reasons thereof in western EU countries. A probit model is estimated from a sample of the whole population, accounting for the possibility of individual selection in unmet needs for health care (UN) (selection equation). Expanded probit models (including the inverse Mills ratio) are then used on the reasons for unmet needs (RUN) with social capital and social support as determinants and using the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions dataset from 2006. In the RUN equations, the findings show that females, large households, people with low income and financial constraints, the unemployed and those in poor health have a higher probability of declaring unmet needs due to economic costs. Additionally, people in tertiary education, those with high income and the employed have a higher probability of not visiting a doctor when needed due to time constraints. Furthermore, the frequency of contact with friends and the ability to ask for help are correlated with a lower probability of unmet needs due to economic costs, while the frequency of contact with relatives is correlated with a lower probability of unmet needs due to time constraints and distance. However, the ability to ask for help is also correlated with a higher probability of not having medical care due to time constraints and the wait-and-see approach.

Tax-in or Tax-out? Evidence from the relation of financial performance and effective taxation of Czech subsidiaries under foreign control

The paper evaluates the financial performance of Czech entities under control of companies listed in the EU and its relation to effective tax rates. Using individual corporate data, empirical evidence of 4,917 year-firm observations indicates a wide dispersion both in performance and taxation. The domicile of the parent has an impact on the subsidiary’s effective tax rate and the effective taxation of Czech subsidiaries under control of foreign listed parents is significantly lower than for other Czech companies. Despite exhibiting tax avoidance to some extent, the data reveal significant variability in relative tax rates suggesting that the majority of foreign parents from western and northern EU countries prefer to tax profits in the Czech Republic rather than elsewhere. Shifting profits to the Czech Republic results in superior reporting performance of the affected subsidiaries. In contrast, empirical evidence shows that parent companies from southern EU countries seek ways to avoid taxation. The unclear tax motives of both parent company groups hinder an appropriate assessment of the financial performance of subsidiaries from being conducted.