SLOVENIAN DOCUMENT ON DISMEMBERMENT OF BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA CONFIRMS THE NECESSITY OF CONTINUATION OF PIC-OHR-BONN POWERS

In our recent AVIM analysis titled "Why Should the Role of the Peace Implementation Council and OHR Continue in Bosnia And Herzegovina?", we asserted the view that the continuation of the powers of the Peace Implementation Council (PIC), including the Bonn Powers, is essential for the preservation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) within the framework of its constitution.Before the ink of our analysis dries up, we came across an irritating press report claiming that Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa has sent a document to Charles Michel, President of the European Council, proposing the redrawing BiH's borders. The EU has not denied the existence of the report to date. However, the US has rejected this Slovenia-linked plan to break up Bosnia-Herzegovina. It is worrisome that such a malicious plan has been prepared and studied in the EU. It is also alarming that the name of a NATO member country that will assume the EU presidency is associated with this plan.There is no doubt that Turkey will continue to defend in every platform, including the PIC Steering Board, the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Bosnia-Herzegovina.It is believed that it would be useful that Turkey opens this issue up in the PIC Steering Board meetings and ask for clarification from the EU representatives.

Socio-Economic and Political Challenges of EU Member Countries: Grasping the Policy Direction of the European Semester

The European Semester (ES) and the country-specific recommendations (CSRs) have been introduced with the purpose to promote flexibility and adaptation to national circumstances in the governance of fiscal policies. To assess whether the ES has contributed to reconcile economic and social objectives, we measured, through the distance to frontier (DTF) score methodology, the distance of each member country from a benchmark based on EU aims and values defined in the EU treaties. Results show that EU member countries are far from the benchmark and CSRs have not prevented a progressive deterioration of stability and cohesion from an economic, political and social perspective. A content analysis of the CSRs issued from 2011 to 2018 and a comparison with the DTF scores reveal a weak connection between member countries’ performance and CSRs. Despite the social content of many CSRs, we actually observe a “commodification” of their goals. CSRs promote a society functional to flexible and competitive markets, and compatible with the requirements of fiscal discipline and sustainability. This neoliberal approach apparently played a role in the EU deterioration and makes the “socialization” of the ES a process with ambiguous implications for European citizens.

Directions For The Development Of A Single Window To Facilitate International Trade

The article analyses the concept of "single window mechanism" used abroad and in the practice of the EAEU countries. It has been shown that the transition to paperless technologies is a feature of customs control is one of the important indicators of the development of the national single window mechanism. The work analyzed the correspondence of such elements as Interagency Electronic Interaction System and ST «Portal Seaport» with the reference model of the national single window mechanism. It was established that KPS «Portal Seaport» can be considered as a pilot project for the implementation of the single window mechanism, but is not a product that is a single window, because it does not meet the requirements for creating a single window mechanism. It was also established that the mechanism of the "single window" existing in Russia, as a member country of the EAEU, did not work out the interaction between the business community (B2B) and between business and the state (B2G). The article shows that the reference model of the "single window" existing abroad contains a comprehensive idea of the single window mechanism, its scope, and a single information space. The problems of further development of the single window mechanism, as well as the directions for their solution, were identified.

АНАЛИЗ НОРМАТИВНО-ПРАВОВОЙ БАЗЫ ТАМОЖЕННЫХ ПЛАТЕЖЕЙ: В НАЦИОНАЛЬНОМ И НАДНАЦИОНАЛЬНОМ АСПЕКТАХ

The article studies such an important structural element of the customs regulation within the Union, as customs payments. It considers statistics on collection of customs duties separately for each member country of the Union. Analyzes the regulatory framework(with an emphasis on customs and tax law of the Russian Federation) , which regulates both the national aspects of customs duties and supranational, which forms the law of the Eurasian Economic Union. Parallels are drawn between the national acts of each member country in terms of taxation and the mechanism of customs duties collection.

REGIONAL SECURITY DYNAMICS IN NORTHERN EUROPE (ON THE EXAMPLE OF NORWAY) IN THE LIGHT OF RECENT CHANGES

The paper examines the dynamics of regional security in Norway as a part of Northern Europe. Being a political and geographical part of the Euro-Atlantic security system. Northern Europe, in its turn, is experiencing the impact of the confrontation between Russia and NATO. Norway's security policy analyzed from the perspective of a regional leader, as a NATO member country participating in the operations of the North Atlantic Alliance and as NATO's northern wing.

State and level of development of integration processes in the EAEU as components of economic security of integration association

The article deals with the state and level of development of integration processes in the Eurasian Economic Union and their impact on economic security of integration association on the basis of a range of indicators, such as the share of a member country of integration in trade, exports, imports of each of the member countries, the share of a member country of integration in foreign direct investment, in the total volume of FDI received in each of the member countries. On the basis of the assessment of the EEU integration processes development, threats to its economic security are identified: different level of economic development of the members states; preservation of the export-raw material model of development of Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan; low competitiveness of products of most manufacturers; virtually no trade and investment cooperation between Belarus and Armenia, Kazakhstan and Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Belarus. Most of the problems have a root cause - unsolved internal economic problems of the EEU, aggravating and strengthening the impact of external threats.

BANKING CONCENTRATION IMPACT ON MARKET STRUCTURE OF POST-SOVIET AND EU MEMBER COUNTRY – ESTONIA

The new wave of mergers and acquisitions after the global financial crisis intensified the interest of policy makers and academics in bank concentration and competition and the role of the state in competition policies and regulations (policies and laws that affect the market structure and degree of competition). It is important to not only make sure that banking sector is competitive, transparent and efficient, but also stable. The purpose of the study was to investigate and analyze the degree of concentration in Estonian banking market and its impact on competition and market structure of financial markets over the period of 2013-2017. Both the structural and the non-structural measurement approaches of concentration and competition, along with the desk research, a case study and interviews with the financial sector professionals and an independent expert was employed to address research purpose. The findings of the study indicate that, in the Post-Soviet and nowadays EU member country – Estonia, high concentration coexist with the high and moderate competition levels and relationship between concentration and stability seems to be positive, meaning that high concentration results high stability of this banking market. The monopolistically competitive Baltic banking market is based on the contestable market equilibrium as banking sector is prone to the existence of high segmentation and product differentiation. Large banks with high share of foreign capital operate as universal banks, providing various services to the different market segments at very competitive rates, while smaller banks concentrate on a specific range of services. The Scandinavian-connected banking system of EU member Baltic country is modern and efficient, with best-regulation and high level of transparency in the region.Estonian financial markets are bank dominated, characterized with monopolistic banking structure, with leading roles of a few universal profile banking institutions, dominating not only banking sector, but whole financial market.

LEGAL ANALYSIS FOR PROTECTION OF INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE IN MALAYSIA

The National Heritage Act 2005 is the only Act enacted in Malaysia to date to protect the national heritage including intangible cultural heritage. In the field of heritage study, intangible cultural heritage becomes a priority in the context of a 'non-existent' heritage enjoyed through the human senses. However, the Act provides a rather limited definition of intangible cultural heritage due to ambiguity in certain terminologies of its definition and scope. Hence, by using the provisions of the UNESCO Convention 2003 as the basis of discussion, this article analyses the legal provisions which protect intangible cultural heritage in Malaysia for the country in fulfilling its responsibilities as a Member Country of the Convention. This article finds that improvements to the definition of intangible cultural heritage need to be made by expanding the scope of the provision to include relevant intangible cultural heritage elements such as food and fine arts heritage.

The Effects of South Africa's Unexpected Monetary Policy Shocks in the Common Monetary Area

The Common Monetary Area (CMA) is a multilateral agreement that provides a framework for a fixed exchange rate regime between the South-African Rand and the currencies of Lesotho, Eswatini, and Namibia (LEN). The nature of the arrangement restrains the LEN countries from exercising independent discretionary monetary policy. As a result, they must rely on the South African authorities for policy formulation and implementation. Interest rates in the LEN countries cannot deviate too far from those in South Africa. Given this limited scope for monetary policy in the LEN countries, this study investigates how each member country adjusts to shocks to the South African monetary policy instrument. Specifically, this paper uses a structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model to examine how economic output, inflation, narrow money supply, domestic credit, and lending rate spread in each member country react to shocks experienced in the South African repo rate using monthly data from the period 2000M2 to 2018M12. The main findings indicate that a positive shock to the South African repo rate tends to be followed by a decline in economic output and an appreciation in price levels at the 90 percent confidence interval for all CMA countries. Our results have also shown that there is an asymmetric response in money supply, domestic credit and lending rate spread between the LEN countries and South Africa, to a positive repo rate shock. These results suggest that policymakers in LEN countries must implement additional policy measures to circumvent the negative impact of South Africa's monetary policy on their financial sectors.

Thailand institutional framework for FTA negotiation

This article aims to analyze institutional framework relating to the implementation of international trade and investment agreements, especially Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), which Thailand is a member country and going to be a member country, to recommend appropriate guidelines for integration of process and institution to comply with commitments under international trade and investment agreements. The article covers an overview of the institutional mechanism and process of establishing agreement and the implementation of specific areas such as Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT). The article indicates problems of integration of institutional framework in Thailand and renders important recommendations both for general issues (such as Thai government should formulate strategy and create strategic roadmap for trade and investment negotiation) and for specific issues (such as Thailand should conduct a periodical review of existing technical standards to assess their compliance with FTAs). This article is based on a research project named “Thailand’s Institutional Reform in the Face of International Trade and Investment Obligations” of International Institute for Trade and Development (ITD) conducted using several research methodologies including documentary research, field survey, in-depth interviews and focus group.