Internal borders and external factors in outermost island regions. The case of the Canary Islands

The defining element of island regions is their isolation, the separation of the islands from the mainland; there is an inherent notion of natural border. This condition has preserved ecosystems and protected against outside threats, stimulating ‘coevolution’ between man and the environment, a fundamental ingredient of sustainability. But insularity also means the evident added costs of access to markets which, together with territorial limits and the scarcity of basic resources, especially on small islands, hinders their socioeconomic development. These costs are even greater in the case of outlying islands, which suffer from a ‘double insularity’ in the form of both external and internal borders. For this reason, it is common for governments to establish various forms of support, from tax exemptions to the creation of permanent aid funds, like those implemented by the European Union for the outermost regions. This article discusses these aspects in the case of the Canary Islands, an example of a European outermost island region. The findings show that the support measures have not always been favourable for all the islands.     

Higher education institutions,economic growth and GDP per capita in European Union countries

This paper presents an estimation of the contribution of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to economic growth and the Gross Domestic Product per capita of the European (EU) countries over the period 2000–2015. For this purpose, we analyse the universities’ effects on the supply side of their national economies, especially the contribution of the R&D of HEIs to technological capital of the European (EU) countries. We proposed a methodology of counterfactual scenarios, which assume a hypothetical situation in which HEIs do not exist, to estimating the effects of HEIs, applying techniques of growth accounting. The results obtained indicate that these effects are a significant source of growth in European (EU) countries, contributing to mitigating the adverse effects of the periods of crisis. The estimates show that GDP per capita would currently be more than 11% higher than that corresponding to a scenario without HEIs. The results obtained also show significate differences in GDP per capita between European (EU) countries associated with the activity of HEIs.     

Does EU cohesion policy work? Theory and evidence

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of European Cohesion Policy in the regions of 12 EU countries in the period 1991–2008, on the basis of a spatial growth model, which allows for the identification of both direct and indirect effects of EU funds on GDP per worker growth. We find that “Objective 1” funds are characterized by strong spatial externalities and a positive and concave effect on the growth of GDP per worker, which reaches a peak at the ratio funds/GDP of approximately 3 percent and becomes non‐significant after 4 percent. “Objective 2” and “Cohesion” funds have nonsignificant effects, while all the other funds exert a positive and significant effect, but their size is very limited. EU Cohesion Policy, moreover, appears to have increased its effectiveness over time. In the period 2000–2006 Objective 1 funds are estimated to have a median multiplier equal to 1.52, and to have added 0.37 percent to the GDP per worker growth. Overall, in the period 1991–2008, funds are estimated to have added 1.4 percent to the median annual growth, and to have reduced regional disparities of 8 basis points in terms of the Gini index.     

State building and European integration in Ukraine

ABSTRACT

The article analyzes the impact on statebuilding as an aspect of Ukraine’s integration with the EU. The Euromaidan had a profound, yet hardly recognized, effect on EU-Ukraine relations, particularly in terms of the EU’s subsequent support of domestic reforms in Ukraine. Following the Euromaidan, the EU supported Ukraine’s aspirations to enter “economic integration and political association” by concluding an Association Agreement – an agreement which exceeded the capacity of the Ukrainian state to implement it. To increase this capacity, the EU has supported reform of public administration and has provided far-reaching assistance on capacity building in the government. This article posits that since 2014 European integration has become tantamount with (re)building the state structures in Ukraine. Therefore, the significance of European integration for Ukraine goes beyond the implementation of the Association Agreement and extends to root-and-branch reform of Ukrainian state structures.     

Peace without money,war without Americans: challenges for European strategy

Just as the shift of the American strategic focus to Asia and the Pacific forces strategic autonomy upon Europeans, the financial crisis limits their means. In the age of austerity, dispersed efforts and spending on secondary issues have become unaffordable. Prioritizing and making strategic choices have become more important than ever. As no single European state can face all these challenges alone, a joint European strategy must assess where collective foreign and security policies can bring the most added value to the national effort. Through the European Union, Europeans have attempted as much in the 2003 European Security Strategy, but for lack of prioritization, the EU has so far underperformed. Yet the EU does have access to substantial means and possesses all the necessary instruments to pursue a comprehensive strategy. The key to their effective use is a collective European strategic review, starting from the vital interests that all European states have in common. Two priorities stand out: making a new start in Europe's relations with its southern neighbours after the Arab Awakening, and deciding which responsibilities Europeans will assume as security providers outside their borders after the American ‘pivot’ to Asia.     

The European policy of the Jospin government: A new twist to old French games

This article presents a constructivist-inspired analysis of the Jospin government's European policy, understanding most policy developments during this period as variations on well-established French preferences—rooted in a modified Gaullist paradigm—embedded in French state identity. The variations reflect external political and economic pressures. By June 1997, the potential contradiction between perceptions of European integration as an extension of French state identity and the actual constraints imposed by integration was never greater, due to the reinforced constraints imposed by the operation of the Single European Market (SEM) and Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), in additional to the rise of German unilateralism and the need for European Union (EU) institutional and policy reforms made necessary by the approaching enlargement of the EU eastwards and the increased pressure on the Jospin government to reconceptualise an end-goal to European integration.     

The European Union Structural Funds and Regional Development. The Perspective of Small and Medium Enterprises in Eastern Poland

Abstract

The article concentrates on the role of European Union (EU) structural funds in the development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The analysis presented in this paper is based on the results of computer-assisted telephone interviews conducted with 394 representatives of enterprises localized in three Polish Voivodships: the Podkarpackie, the Lubelskie and the Podlaskie. The entire EU structural funds are based on the assumption that by additionally financing the development of SMEs, they influence regional development indirectly. Even though EU structural funds are not the only factor influencing economic growth and the creation of Gross Domestic Product, they affect the development potential of enterprises indirectly. However, from the perspective of the representatives of researched SMEs, EU structural funds are not so significant for commitment to investment. Actually, for SMEs in Eastern Poland, they have no effect on future investment plans. This bottom-up perspective researched in one of the poorest areas of the EU puts the assumption of the positive relation between the EU structural funds and regional development into doubt.     

Mercosur and Brazil: A European Perspective

Brazil is the core state of South America and sustains an alliance called Mercosur. Mercosur was the focus of much European attention during the 1990s, both politically and economically, attracting large amounts of investment to the region. Brazil has difficulties pursuing the Mercosur integration process to its logical end, with resistance coming from both developmentalist visions of the past and industrial interests in the present. Mercosur has drawn Brazil closer to the European Union, functioning well as an instrument of Brazil's external ambitions, though also exposing it to the risk of free trade with Europe. For both Mercosur and EU‐Mercosur relations to remain useful to current Brazilian ambitions, they must remain short of achieving their final goals and linger in a prolonged state of negotiation. Some EU states also prefer this solution. After four years of preparations Mercosur entered into negotiations with the EU in 1999, and since then EU‐Mercosur negotiations have passed through several dramatic phases, often influenced by international political and economic developments, both in Europe and in Mercosur itself. The current Mercosur economic crisis impedes further progress in integration and also delays the EU‐Mercosur process. The election of Lula da Silva as president of Brazil is not expected substantially to change the course of Brazilian policies towards Mercosur and the EU, though, faced with the challenge of reviving Mercosur, the president might have to make difficult choices with regard to Brazil's own interests. Through an EU‐Mercosur agreement Lula could resuscitate the Argentinian and Uruguayan economies, though this might be at a cost for Brazil. Will Brazil be willing to pay this price in order to preserve Mercosur?     

Patterning and Its Causation in the Pre-Neolithic Colonization of the Mediterranean Islands (Late Pleistocene to Early Holocene)

In 1981 one of us (Cherry) first attempted to identify spatial and temporal patterning in the human colonization of the Mediterranean islands. Since the 1980s, slowly accumulating evidence has suggested that the Mediterranean islands were sporadically inhabited by hunter-gatherers during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene. Here we seek to establish whether or not these data exhibit regularity. We suggest that evidence for Upper Palaeolithic to Mesolithic activity, tending to cluster on larger or less remote islands, indicates that while humans were clearly capable of reaching the Mediterranean islands prior to the Neolithic, their general reluctance to do so can be explained in terms of the variable environmental attractiveness of the insular Mediterranean. Tending to be relatively small, dry, and biologically depauperate, the Mediterranean islands were largely inhospitable to mobile groups preferring extensive territories with diverse and robust biotas. Sedentism only became a widely viable strategy in the insular Mediterranean with the development in the Neolithic of what we might regard as “terraforming”—that is, the introduction of cereals, pulses, and ovicaprids, all tolerant of xeric environments.     

Rhetoric of unity and cultural diversity in the making of European cultural identity

The fundamental aim of the cultural policy of the European Union (EU) is to emphasize the obvious cultural diversity of Europe, while looking for some underlying common elements which unify the various cultures in Europe. Through these common elements, the EU policy produces ‘an imagined cultural community’ of Europe which is ‘united in diversity’, as one of the slogans of the Union states. This discourse characterizes various documents which are essential to the EU cultural policy, such as the Treaty of Lisbon, the European Agenda for Culture and the EU’s decision on the European Capital of Culture program. In addition, the discourse is applied to the production of cultural events in European Capitals of Culture in practice. On all levels of the EU’s cultural policy, the rhetoric of European cultural identity and its ‘unitedness in diversity’ is related with the ideas and practices of fostering common cultural heritage.     

French autonomy and the European Union

This article considers the changing nature of France's relationship with the EC/EU. It looks at how France's ability to define the shape and direction of integration for much of the postwar period has been eroded since the implementation of the Single European Act, and how German unification has altered the balance of power within the Franco‐German alliance, so precipitating a crisis in France about ‘Europe’. Though the impact of the EU has often been exaggerated, the consequences of European action have been significant, contributing to the change in French economic policy and the transformation of the capacities of the French state.     

The Importance of Context and Comparison in the Study of European Spatial Planning

The European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) was agreed in 1999 at Potsdam, Germany, as a non-binding framework intended to guide spatially significant policy-making at different spatial scales in order to achieve a more balanced and sustainable growth of the EU territory. This paper develops a conceptualization of the nature of transnational planning frameworks such as the ESDP and presents a framework for the investigation of the application of their policy orientations in the spatial planning systems of European states. It is argued that investigations of the application of transnational spatial development frameworks like the ESDP and the ‘Territorial Agenda of the European Union’ document adopted by EU member states in 2007, need to be sensitized to the diversity of territorial contexts in which these apply, and that a contextualized and comparative approach is therefore essential in evaluating their influence in Europe's varied territories.     

European Values and the Asylum Crisis

This article examines the threat to European liberal democratic values posed by the current asylum crisis. Drawing on a historical analysis of European asylum policies, it examines the origins of the post-Second World War refugee regime and the sources of the current challenge to its liberal universalist premises. The argument discerns two dominant forms of critique of the liberal model in twentieth-century debates on refugee policy: welfare protectionist nationalism, and ethno-centric or racist nationalism. Both of these justifications for restricting asylum have resurfaced in contemporary debates, used by—respectively—centre-left and far right parties. Having considered why these arguments have resurfaced, the article suggests three scenarios for future European responses to the asylum crisis and their implications for liberal universalist values. It argues that the liberal approach can only be sustained through more effective EU burden-sharing and the reorientation of EU external policies to incorporate refugee and migration issues.     

Structural Funds and European Regional Growth: Comparison of Effects among Different Programming Periods

Strengthening social, economic and territorial cohesion is a central objective of the European Union (EU) and the Structural Funds reflect the main financial effort of the EU to pursue this goal. So far we have gone through four programming periods; to what extent the EU Funds have become more effective in promoting growth and reducing the disparities between EU Member countries is a matter of concern. We investigate the existence (or not) of learning effects and efficiency improvements following the reforms of Regional Policy. The study is applied to data from EU regions (EU12) in the most recent programming periods where data are available. The results suggest an improvement of the Funds efficiency in growth in 2000–2006 when compared to the previous programming period. Moreover, the returns from investments of Funds tend to be higher in richer, higher-educated and more innovative regions. Finally, the Cohesion group has not been able to transform the large transfers received into additional growth.     

European briefing

The objective of this article is to shed light on the main financial elements related to the last enlargement of the European Union (EU), which is the largest in its history. In their methodological assessment and analysis the authors identify the main financial impacts, in terms of trade flows, and also expenditures and contributions to the EU budget, while they make estimations for financing needs of main EU policies in the light of the next financial framework. Negotiations of the next financial framework for the EU, are going to be difficult, especially with ten new Member States joining in 2004. The authors are of the opinion that the financial pressures and also the need to sufficiently finance EU policies constitute the main factors which will determine the functions of the EU financial system in future. Enlargement poses also a severe challenge for EU structural and cohesion policies, the implications of which should be considered in designing the actions of the new financial framework from 2007 onwards.     

Their Body is Different,Our Body is Different: European and Tahitian Navigators in the 18th Century

This paper examines exchanges of navigational knowledge between Tahitian navigators and European explorers in the mid‐18th century. Although Tahitian and European sailors accomplished way‐finding at sea in ways based on very divergent assumptions about the ocean, the cosmos and persons, Tahitian navigators were able to board European ships, and pilot them safely through the islands. At first each side drew upon their own familiar practices to make sense of the other; using ostension or pointing, linguistic exchange and experience of each other’s vessels as bridgeheads to produce a kind of rough intelligibility. Much was lost, however, in these partial and approximate exchanges. Here, exchanges between European and Tahitian sailors and their very different knowledge systems are used to explore the intricacies of cross‐cultural encounters.     

Turkey's Bid for European Union Membership: Between "Thick" and "Thin" Conceptions of Europe

A team of Central Europe-based political geographers examines Turkey's bid for European Union (EU) membership, one of the most controversial issues confronting that country's and EU politics. The authors analyze Eurobarometer public opinion survey data on EU enlargement (and particularly Turkey's EU membership) across the 27 polities of the enlarged EU as well as in Turkey itself. The analysis of the data points to clear regional differences in support for Turkey's EU membership. Moreover, the authors' statistical analysis indicates two major components around which public perceptions of Turkey's EU membership coalesce. The first, identified as a "thick" component, based on the idea that EUrope embodies a specific cultural identity, opposes Turkish membership, whereas a second "thin" component, comprised of institutional-procedural norms, leaves the door open to Turkey. They argue that it is at the complex intersection of these two opposing views that Turkey's bid for EU membership should be located and eventually decided.     

Determinants of the Uneven Regional Participation of Firms in European Technology Programmes. The 'Low R&D Trap'

Technology is of key importance to the growth of regional firms and economies. Research has shown the association between low technology development or take-up and regional disparities. Hence technology policy is moving closer to the heart of regional policies. European innovation programmes are intended to involve firms, large and small, in international technology research and development networks. The paper focuses on the involvement of Spanish firms in such programmes. Participation tends to be low if business R&D, presence of large firms, and the development of regional innovation systems are also low. Creation of R&D infrastructure through the Structural Funds has now to be prioritized at EU level and also define a new scheme of sectoral priorities in order to support R&D innovation activities in fields diverse from high-tech, if regions are to escape the 'low R&D trap'.     

A European contribution to non‐proliferation? The EU WMD Strategy at ten

In the aftermath of the ruptures caused by the Iraq crisis, European states agreed in December 2003 on both a European Security Strategy and an EU Strategy against the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Ten years have passed since this attempt to kick‐start common European policies on WMD proliferation. How well have EU policies performed in this area? Has a specifically European way of dealing with proliferation challenges emerged? This article traces the development of EU policies on WMD proliferation since 2003 by examining, in particular, European reactions to the nuclear crisis in Iran, as well as European interactions with the international non‐proliferation regime and the cooperation with partner countries. The article concludes that the EU has performed much better than might have been expected in an area that has traditionally been one of the fiercely guarded prerogatives of national security policies. The EU's good performance is very much related to institutional flexibility, as exemplified by the EU/E3 approach to Iran; and, to a high degree of political pragmatism. However, important shortcomings remain, most notably the lack of coordination between national and European non‐proliferation efforts. In other words, the EU has not in the last ten years turned into a fully fledged non‐proliferation actor that can deliver tangible results in any area of proliferation concern.     

Politics of affect in the EU heritage policy discourse: an analysis of promotional videos of sites awarded with the European Heritage Label

European cultural heritage is discussed with affective rhetoric in current European Union (EU) policy discourse. How does affect contribute to the meaning-making of a European cultural heritage and how are the workings of affect used by the EU to promote certain meanings of heritage and effect thereupon? The analysis focuses on recent promotional videos of sites awarded with the European Heritage Label by the EU. In the videos, affective textual, visual, audible, and narrative tropes intertwine with the tropes of EU policy rhetoric, increasing its capacity to impact and ‘move’ the receivers. The ethos of a European cultural heritage in the videos is based on a paradox: the history of the several sites is in various ways intertwined with extreme agony, violence, hatred, oppression, and injustice. However, the stories of the sites in the videos turn their legacy into a positive ethos of conquering these negative extremes and cherishing their positive opposites: freedom, justice, solidarity, and peace. The affectivity of the videos prepares the receivers to adopt their political aim: support for the EU and European integration. The analysis indicates how affect has a key role in producing an impression of the irrefutability and choicelessness of EU politics.