Blog 3 Columns

  • An interview with Spyros Sofos on the Charlie Hebdo attacks and everything that follows2

    Spyros Sofos is a visiting lecturer at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the Lund University. He has previously been a Senior Research Fellow in International Politics at the Helen Bamber Centre for the Study of Rights, Conflict and Mass Violence of Kingston University, a Senior Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer in International Politics at Portsmouth University. He is member of the advisory board of Transconflict, a conflict transformation NGO.

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  • Why the ’youth’ don’t need a guarantee

    Why the ’youth’ don’t need a guarantee1

    The Youth Guarantee – along with the Youth Employment Initiative – are two of the most far-reaching and heavily funded EU schemes for employment – arguably of any active labour market policy.

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  • Lobbying law in Croatia: haven’t we waited long enough?

    Lobbying law in Croatia: haven’t we waited long enough?0

    Imagine yourself working in a state of legal uncertainty, not really knowing what you are allowed to do and what not. Have you? Good. Now remember that there is a regulation in place that protects you as worker (by defining your profession) giving you certain rights, as there is at least one for almost every type of work. Well, there is, however, no regulation or a job description for lobbyists in any official document issued by the Croatian government. Professional lobbyists in Croatia have thus been working under dubious conditions for the last 20 years, some of them as business consultants and others as lawyers under the protection of Croatian labor law.

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  • The actual effects of changing formal voting rules in the Council

    The actual effects of changing formal voting rules in the Council0

    In a recent article conveyed by Politheor.net, Attila Marján put forward numerous assumptions concerning the change of the blocking and policy-shaping power of the Visegrad Group – V4 (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia) in the post-Lisbon era of the Council of the European Union (Council). The author voiced his concerns amid the most recent changes in the Council voting system ushered in by the 2009 Lisbon Treaty, only to be implemented this November.

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  • It takes two to tango

    It takes two to tango0

    On 15th December, the Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang shook hands with his Serbian counterpart opening a transit bridge that is to connect two, up to that point, divided sides of Belgrade. The bridge built by the joint effort of the Chinese and Serbian construction workers, engineers and architects, costs 226 million US Dollars. It was one the largest Chinese investments in Eastern Europe until only recently. In fact, when first announced, this project was the largest Chinese infrastructural investment in Europe as a whole.

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  • The New EU Voting system – the old west-east north-south division

    The New EU Voting system – the old west-east north-south division0

    Economic governance reforms and Eurozone consolidation has significant institutional and political consequences: a multiple-tier integration is ever more realistic. „Out” countries seek to mitigate the negative impact of these developments. In this respect V4 – Visegrad countries differ a lot: Slovakia, a relative latecomer in economic reforms is part of the currency union. Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic are not Euro-members. But even this sub-group is divided: Poland intends to join whenever requirements are fulfilled while the Hungarian and the Czech governments are cool on accession. At the same time, further economic federalisation in the Eurozone is to come. Against this background, the question whether a long-term “great divide” among V4 group countries in relation to their EU policies and consequently their future situation in the rapidly altering EU will be maintained, is of key importance.

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The School of Public Policy at CEU