The Hidden Interest in a Common European Identity

A common European identity is an important part of the European political lexicon; however, at the institutional level, it was taken seriously only when the economic crisis, the legal challenges of EU integration, and the Brexit story encouraged a fresh look into the problem. Moreover, the European identity problem may be viewed differently from the Western and Eastern European perspectives, which helps to identify the roots of contemporary “official” and “sociological” perceptions of a common European identity. The Standard Eurobarometer (EB) questionaries were used as a proxy to analyze the interest of the EU in a common European identity. We analyzed the types of questions asked from 2004 to 2020 and took a look at the responses. The shifts in the composition of the Standard EB questionaries signal that the “official” understanding of identity is gaining ground against the “sociological” approach. The promotion by official bodies of the EU of a one-sided understanding of a common European identity, based on the Western approach, narrows the field and creates certain risks. In the face of a permanent EU-ropean unity crisis, it would not be wise to lose one of the important instruments that could be successfully used to identify the hidden challenges of the future.

Integrationists, Critical Europeanists and Pessimist Europeanists: Attitudinal mindsets on the EU among German students

We investigate the mindsets on the EU of students enrolled in a German university. We conducted an online survey among students of a German university (N=730) and asked them closed questions on the EU enlargement, the allocation of authority at the EU level, the way democracy works at the EU level and an open question on their wish for the future of the EU. We then ran a latent class analysis of the recoded answer categories from the open question and of our set of closed questions. Our three-class solution highlights variation in support of the EU among students. Indeed, while the vast majority of the respondents show highly supportive attitudes toward the EU, we can distinguish between “Integrationists” (in favour of pursuing the EU integration project; 68% of the sample), “Critical Europeanists” (supportive of the EU but dissatisfied with the way democracy works at the EU level; 20,50% of the sample) and “Pessimist Europeanists” (supportive of the EU but afraid of the implosion of the EU; 11% of the sample). A further analysis of the narratives provided by members of each class to the open question enables us to shed light on variation within each latent class. In particular, we find variation (1) in the dimensions and policies the EU should further integrate according to the Europeanists, (2) in the types of EU institutions to be further democratised and strategies to improve the democratisation of the EU regime according to the Critical Europeanists and (3) in strategies the EU should follow to avoid its implosion according to the Pessimist Europeanists. Our study highlights the importance of the use of non-standardised measures and mixed-methods data collection for grasping citizens´ mindset on the EU in its multidimensionality and complexity.

Five-party Czech government must compromise on policy

Significance The five-party coalition enters office at a time of intense economic and social uncertainty resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, rising debt and soaring energy prices. Prime Minister Petr Fiala's greatest challenges involve negotiating between the five coalition partners and restoring respectability to Czech politics. Impacts The new government will be less sceptical about closer EU integration, given the upcoming Czech EU presidency from mid-2022. The government will try to reopen EU Green Deal chapters to renegotiate compensation for highly industrialised member states. Former Prime Minister Andrej Babis may run for president in 2023. Babis will strive to avoid losing parliamentary immunity from prosecution relating to the Stork’s Nest affair and alleged EU subsidy fraud.

The Effects of Constitutional Changes on the Judiciary System in Albania: The Process of Vetting

The adoption of laws in Albania is often achieved through consensus among legislators, declaring it as the best solution for a certain political or legal situation, which resulted ineffective in many cases. The focus of law improvements was concentrated on control/Vetting, that is, the exclusion from the judicial system of individuals who do not meet one of the three constitutional criteria (wealth, moral integrity, and professionalism). Vetting, control per se, is not a reform of justice, but only one of its constitutive phases. The Albanian Constitution changes aim to restructure the justice institutions to achieve the standards requested for the Albanian EU integration. The paper goes through the different constitutional reforms, focusing on the judicial system changes especially on the recent results of the vetting process in Albania. The questions like: How is the Vetting process affecting judicial standards, how are the new Albanian justice institutions reacting, what is the public opinion on this progress and the benefits of society, are essential to understand how this process was conducted in Albania, its problems and difficulties. The results are explained through underlining different studies, media interventions, and recent political and public statements of involved institutions. Received: 19 August 2021 / Accepted: 1 November 2021 / Published: 3 January 2022

The Integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina Into the European Union

This chapter focuses on the analysis of the EU integration process of Bosnia and Herzegovina, dealing with the internal and external political challenges that country is facing on its path towards aspired EU membership. As one of the main internal challenges, the authors recognize a very pronounced ethnocracy and leaderocracy that captures democratic process, making the country unstable and unable to fulfill criteria even to achieve the status of candidate for EU membership. Furthermore, there is a strong influence of the neighboring countries, which were involved in the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and continue to play very often an obstructive role in internal politics of Bosnia and Herzegovina. As the authors argue, in BiH, the issue of Euro-Atlantic integration is less a matter of political and economic transition, and more, it is not primarily an issue of stabilizing the peace and creating fundamental preconditions for overall development.

Export Competitiveness of Agri-Food Sector during the EU Integration Process: Evidence from the Western Balkans

Trade agreements with the European Union (EU) and Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) significantly influenced the liberalisation of agri-food products in Western Balkan (WB) countries. In all Western Balkan countries, there has been an intensification of the trade of agri-food products and a partial change in the regional and commodity structures of trade. This paper aims to identify comparative advantages of agri-food sectors and consider its tendencies during the EU integration process. Additionally, this paper will discuss some opportunities for improvement of the export positions of agri-food products. In that context and based on the literature review, the indexes of revealed comparative advantages and its modified version will be used as a main method for analysis in this research. Results showed that all Western Balkan countries, except Albania, have comparative advantages in exporting agri-food products. It is evident that Serbia has the highest level of comparative advantages in this sector. Moreover, this paper suggests that all countries should aim to provide the best possible positions for their agri-food products during pre-accession negotiations for EU membership and take the necessary steps towards increasing the level of competitiveness in the common EU market.

The microdynamics of spatial polarization: A model and an application to survey data from Ukraine

Although spatial polarization of attitudes is extremely common around the world, we understand little about the mechanisms through which polarization on divisive issues rises and falls over time. We develop a theory that explains how political shocks can have different effects in different regions of a country depending upon local dynamics generated by the preexisting spatial distribution of attitudes and discussion networks. Where opinions were previously divided, attitudinal diversity is likely to persist after the shock. Meanwhile, where a clear precrisis majority exists on key issues, opinions should change in the direction of the predominant view. These dynamics result in greater local homogeneity in attitudes but at the same time exacerbate geographic polarization across regions and sometimes even within regions. We illustrate our theory by developing a modified version of the adaptive voter model, an adaptive network model of opinion dynamics, to study changes in attitudes toward the European Union (EU) in Ukraine in the context of the Euromaidan Revolution of 2013 to 2014. Using individual-level panel data from surveys fielded before and after the Euromaidan Revolution, we show that EU support increased in areas with high prior public support for EU integration but declined further where initial public attitudes were opposed to the EU, thereby increasing the spatial polarization of EU attitudes in Ukraine. Our tests suggest that the predictive power of both network and regression models increases significantly when we incorporate information about the geographic location of network participants, which highlights the importance of spatially rooted social networks.

Organized crime and state capture in the Western Balkans

The main objective of the article is to show that the temporary symbiosis between centres of political power and organized crime leads to the development of permanent, corrupt and opaque networks. Focusing on the countries of the Western Balkans, the author points to the reasons for the development of organized crime in the region and then to the conditions created in the post-conflict period that resulted in the failure of effective attempts to stop organized crime and the corruption that facilitates it in the these countries. The article also points out that the creation of symbiotic relationships between political elites and organized crime groups leads to a ‘state capture.’ The unresolved problems of corruption and organized crime, in turn, have a direct impact on these countries’ EU-integration processes.