On the Fast Track to EU Accession


Book Description

This paper assesses the macroeconomic impact and policy challenges related to Estonia’s prospective accession to the EU and its potential adoption of the euro. Our analysis of the trade, financial, and fiscal channels includes a model-based illustrative scenario using MULTIMOD. We conclude that the welfare enhancing effects for Estonia of further EU integration are likely to outweigh the drawbacks of more pronounced macroeconomic imbalances that could accompany this process. To smooth Estonia’s accession-related adjustment, its fiscal and structural policies should be geared toward mitigating domestic demand pressures, promoting saving, and ensuring efficient public investment.







Winners and Losers of EU Integration


Book Description

The contributors include researchers from the ten CEECs, as well as from current EU member countries."--BOOK JACKET.







Negotiating the New Europe


Book Description

This title was first published in 2002: Offering a new and challenging perspective on how the European Union (EU) sought to structure its relations with Central and Southeast Europe after the Cold War, this volume draws upon key debates in both politics and international relations. A historically and theoretically informed examination of the EU's engagement in Central and Eastern Europe since 1989, the book combines conceptual rigour with clear empirical analysis, firmly grounding the study of the European Union's current enlargement process in established theoretical perspectives. The book is written in an engaging and accessible way, which will appeal to academics, students and practitioners alike.




From Solidarity to Geopolitics


Book Description

This book theorizes a mechanism underlying regime-change waves, the deliberate efforts of diffusion entrepreneurs to spread a particular regime and regime-change model across state borders. Why do only certain states and nonstate actors emerge as such entrepreneurs? Why, how, and how effectively do they support regime change abroad? To answer these questions, the book studies the entrepreneurs behind the third wave of democratization, with a focus on the new eastern European democracies - members of the European Union. The study finds that it is not the strongest democracies nor the democracies trying to ensure their survival in a neighborhood of nondemocracies that become the most active diffusion entrepreneurs. It is, instead, the countries where the organizers of the domestic democratic transitions build strong solidarity movements supporting the spread of democracy abroad that do. The book also draws parallels between their activism abroad and their experiences with democratization and democracy assistance at home.




Perspectives on the Enlargement of the European Union


Book Description

In a historic decision at its Copenhagen Conference in June 1993, the European Union gave the green light to an eastward expansion. Initially, invitations to join the EU went out to just six countries of the former Soviet bloc: Poland, Hungary, the Czech and Slovak republics, Romania, and Bulgaria. However, it was not long before there was a queue of other applicants from Eastern Europe pressing at the EU’s gates. There were real fears in some quarters that the economic reforms demanded for entry into the EU would bring about more ‘shock’ than ‘therapy’ in Eastern Europe, and that a rapid move to the market would undermine support for democracy. This volume of essays, by a group of internationally recognised experts, focuses on the eastward expansion of the European Union and the EU’s relations with the applicant states. The primary aim of the volume is to provide a historical and analytical account of the enlargement process and to provide readers with a scholarly road map to guide them through the intricacies of the rapidly changing enlargement terrain. After region-wide studies of the enlargement process, there are case studies of eight countries: Bulgaria, Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia, Poland, and Estonia.




Montenegro


Book Description

This Selected Issues paper analyzes the long-term growth prospects and the output gap in Montenegro. Historical growth in Montenegro was driven mostly by capital with some contribution from labor, while total factor productivity (TFP) contributed negatively. Going forward, in the baseline growth accounting framework with no reforms, employment will likely have a slightly negative contribution because of demographic dynamics unless both labor force participation and unemployment improve significantly. The highway project will contribute to capital accumulation in the near term, but the contribution from capital accumulation will likely fall despite relatively high investment ratios. Based on historical performance, the contribution from TFP is likely limited and constitutes the main bottleneck for long-term growth prospects in the no-reform baseline.




Remaking Europe


Book Description

A watershed in efforts to integrate "Europe", the plans to widen the EU will inevitably conflict with forces for deepening integration. Focusing on economic factors, this volume explores the key questions of widening, including why the negotiations are likely to be contentious for all concerned.




Practices of Inter-Parliamentary Coordination in International Politics


Book Description

Parliaments risk becoming the main losers of internationalisation; a process that privileges executives and experts. Still, parliamentarians have developed a range of responses to catch up with international decision-making: they coordinate their actions with other parliamentarians; engage in international parliamentary forums; and some even opt to pursue political careers at the supranational level, such as in the European Parliament. This volume provides a thorough empirical examination of how an internationalising context drives parliamentarians to engage in inter-parliamentary coordination; how it affects their power positions vis-à-vis executive actors; among themselves; and in society in general. Furthermore, building upon these empirical insights, the book assesses whether parliamentary democracy can remain sustainable under these changing conditions. Indeed, if parliaments are, and remain, central to our understanding of modern democracy, it is of crucial importance to track their responses to internationalisation, the fragmentation of political sovereignty, and the proliferation of multilevel politics.




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