European Economic Integration and Urban Inequalities in Western Europe

10.1068/a3189 ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 391-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda McCarthy
Keyword(s):  
Urban Policy ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
National Income ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Relative Location ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Government Control ◽  
Metropolitan Regions ◽  
Income Disparities ◽  
The Eu

Recent processes of European integration have influenced profoundly the fortunes of cities across Western Europe. Although some cities have benefited, others have been impacted adversely. Income inequalities result from economic growth differentials occurring between different cities over time. The theoretical literature differs on whether increased integration promotes or reduces income disparities. The European Union (EU) assumes that rising inequalities will impair EU growth and lead to even greater disparities. Empirical analysis has concentrated on the EU-defined regions because of problems of urban data availability and comparability. Using regional data, I identified that the overall level of inequalities changed little for the metropolitan regions between the early 1980s and the early 1990s. Urban disparities were cyclical—decreasing during strong EU growth and increasing in slower growth years. Factors outside direct local government control, including relative location within Europe, reinforced the traditional strong-core—weak-periphery spatial pattern of development. I argue that additional factors specific to cities, such as limited EU urban policy and funding, contributed to overall higher and more sharply rising inequalities since the late 1980s for cities compared with regions. The positive linear relationship between levels of national income and urban disparities has implications for economic polarization within richer member states and for EU efforts to reduce inequalities by raising the level of development in poorer countries.

scholarly journals Living conditions of Czech farmers according to the EU statistics on income

2010 ◽  
Vol 56 (No. 7) ◽  
pp. 310-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Stejskal ◽  
J. Stávková
Keyword(s):  
Living Conditions ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Income Poverty ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Socioeconomic Environment ◽  
Income Disparities ◽  
Validity Check ◽  
Income Data ◽  
The Eu

The article deals with the assessment of income situation of the Czech households with the head person working or self-employed in the farm sector. The actual analyses result from initial consideration of the rise and dynamics of income disparities in our country. The primary data source are obtained from the European Union survey project – Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC). Our reference period, in view of the data availability at the time of the article processing, is represented by the year 2007. The core studied variable is represented by the volume of the income calculated for each household. The information obtained by the study of this variable was complemented by other variables enabling the logical validity check and analysis of the socioeconomic environment of households under examination. The main findings and conclusions are derived from the analysis of the decile and quintile classification of the relevant equivalized income data. The prime goal of the study was to quantify the share of the Czech agriculture related households living in the monthly income lower than 60% of the nationwide median value of the income variable under consideration. The households identified with such income position are referred to as the "households-at-risk-of-income poverty". The results are calculated per 1 physical household member, which the authors found more illustrative and easy to understand. The household size equalization procedures according to the EU and the OECD methodology will follow. This will enable the international comparison of the achieved results.  

The Regional Path to Peaceful Change: What the Asian and European Experiences Tell Us

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 535-545
Author(s):  
Mark Beeson
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
International System ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Security Challenges ◽  
Comparative Historical Analysis ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
The Eu

AbstractOne of the more striking, surprising, and optimism-inducing features of the contemporary international system has been the decline of interstate war. The key question for students of international relations and comparative politics is how this happy state of affairs came about. In short, was this a universal phenomenon or did some regions play a more important and pioneering role in bringing about peaceful change? As part of the roundtable “International Institutions and Peaceful Change,” this essay suggests that Western Europe generally and the European Union in particular played pivotal roles in transforming the international system and the behavior of policymakers. This helped to create the material and ideational conditions in which other parts of the world could replicate this experience, making war less likely and peaceful change more feasible. This argument is developed by comparing the experiences of the EU and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and their respective institutional offshoots. The essay uses this comparative historical analysis to assess both regions’ capacity to cope with new security challenges, particularly the declining confidence in institutionalized cooperation.

scholarly journals European Integral Urban Policies from a Gender Perspective. Gender-Sensitive Measures, Transversality and Gender Approaches

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (17) ◽  
pp. 9543
Author(s):  
María Jesús Rodríguez-García ◽  
Francesca Donati
Keyword(s):  
Urban Development ◽  
Urban Policy ◽  
Gender Mainstreaming ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Urban Policies ◽  
Integrated Policy ◽  
Policy Measures ◽  
Employment Education ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Eu

Integrated policy strategies represent an increasingly popular approach in urban development and gender policies. This article analyses the integration between integral urban policies and gender mainstreaming in the European Union. A specific analytical proposal is elaborated and applied to urban policies promoted by the EU in Spain between 1994 and 2013. The Comparative Urban Policy Portfolio Analysis is used to study the inclusion of gender-sensitive policy measures in local project portfolios, their transversality across policy sectors, and the relevance of two main approaches to analyse them. The results show that integral urban development programmes have incorporated gender-sensitive policy measures. Results also show a low level of transversality focused mainly on social integration, although they combine objectives focused on a women-centred approach to classical areas of gender inequality affecting women, i.e., employment, education, health, and a gender approach focused on new welfare challenges linked to care and defamilisation. These results show the relevance of analysing gender approaches included in integral urban policies to comprehend the character of their gender mainstreaming and their potential effects on more gender-equal cities.

scholarly journals An East‑West Divide in the European Union? The Visegrad Four States in Search of the Historical Self in National Discourses on European Integration

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-191
Author(s):  
Christopher Walsch
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Member State ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National Discourses ◽  
The Individual ◽  
East West ◽  
The Eu

Abstract This article explores whether a new east‑west divide exists in the enlarged European Union by analysing national discourses on European integration in the Visegrad Four (V4) states. Two V4 foreign policy legacies form the basis of analysis: the “Return to Europe” discourse and the discourses around the reconstruction of the historical self. The article gives evidence that the V4 countries share sovereignty in external policies and thus have a distinct European orientation. V4 national‑conservative governments hold sovereigntist positions, however, in policy areas that they consider falling exclusively within the realm of the member state. Comparison with Western European member states gives evidence that the post-1945 paradigm changes were more profound than those of post-1989 ones of Eastern Europe. This historic legacy can explain the more integrationist orientations in Western Europe. The article concludes that behaviour of the individual V4 state seems to be of greater importance for each member than collective V4 group action. Finally, the article gives an outlook on ways in which solidarity between the Western and Eastern halves of the EU can be exercised in an ideologically diverging Union.

scholarly journals Variegated Europeanization and urban policy: Dynamics of policy transfer in France, Italy, Spain and the UK

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliet Carpenter ◽  
Moneyba González Medina ◽  
María Ángeles Huete García ◽  
Sonia De Gregorio Hurtado
Keyword(s):  
Urban Policy ◽  
Policy Transfer ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Sustainable Urban Development ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu

This paper explores the dynamics of urban policy transfer in the European Union (EU), critically examining the process of Europeanization in relation to urban issues. The paper takes a comparative approach, analysing the evolution of urban policy and Europeanization in four member states: France, Italy, Spain and the UK from the 1990s up to the current Cohesion Policy period (2014–2020). Using an analytical framework based on three dimensions of Europeanization (direction, object and impact), we examine the extent to which urban policies are moving towards an integrated approach to sustainable urban development, as supported by the EU. The paper highlights the contradictions between processes of convergence through Europeanization, and path-dependent systems and trajectories that forge alternative paths. In doing so, it advances wider debates on the impact of Europeanization in a neo-liberal context by arguing that member states more likely to be affected by Europeanization are those most impacted by national austerity measures. A process of ‘variegated Europeanization’ is proposed to capture the differential practices taking place within the EU with regard to the circulation of the EU’s approach to urban policy.

Western Europe

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The Other ◽  
Strategic Partnership ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Global System ◽  
Common Interests ◽  
Partnership Agreement ◽  
The Eu

India has long-standing relations with Western Europe. The Strategic Partnership Agreement of 2004 with the European Union and similar agreements with individual European states form the institutional basis for economic, political, military, technological, and cultural cooperation with India. But despite common interests in many areas, the strategic perspectives remain limited because of structural constraints in India and Western Europe. Even after the Treaty of Lisbon, the foreign policy of the EU will be shared between Brussels and the member states. India’s foreign policy is handled mostly by the under-staffed Ministry of External Affairs. This is far from being adequate to cope with the requirements of an interdependent global system and India’s own aspirations to play a more important role. Hence, only if both sides understand the structural constraints and limitations of the other, will the partnership flourish on a more realistic basis.

scholarly journals Trade Unions and “Europe”: Are the Members Out of Step?

2010 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Hyman
Keyword(s):  
Trade Unions ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Constitutional Treaty ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Alternative Vision ◽  
Single European Act ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Social Europe

In 2005 the “Constitutional Treaty” designed to restructure the governance of the European Union (EU) was rejected in popular referendums in France and the Netherlands. Subsequently only in Ireland was a referendum held on the Lisbon Treaty, which reinstated most elements in the previous version, in June 2008. Again a negative result threw the EU into crisis, though a second Irish vote in October 2009 yielded a different result. The “no” votes reflected a familiar pattern of popular rejection of initiatives on European integration. This article provides an overview of such referendums in western Europe, focusing in particular on the role of national trade unions in popular votes on EU accession and on Treaty revisions. It discusses trade union intervention in a dozen countries which held referendums since the Single European Act in the 1980s (and in the United Kingdom, which did not). It is evident that while mainstream trade unions (or at least their leaders) have usually endorsed the integration process, in most countries where referendums have been held their members have voted otherwise. This has been particularly evident among manual workers. Sometimes popular attitudes have been strongly influenced by narrowly nationalistic arguments, but rejection has often been based on “progressive” rather than “reactionary” grounds. In particular, the justified view that the EU in its current direction is encouraging a neoliberal, pro-capitalist drift in social and economic policy has underlain a left-wing critique of further integration. But having assented to the underlying architecture of actually existing Europeanization, unions have rarely shown the will to mobilize offensively around an alternative vision of social Europe. This has left the field open to right-wing nationalists (and to fringe left-wing parties with only a limited electoral base) to campaign in the “no” camp during referendums. Popular attitudes are malleable, but it requires a major strategic re-orientation if unions are to reconnect with their members in order to build a popular movement for a genuinely social Europe.

scholarly journals ASSESSMENT OF THE REVEALED COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGES OF UKRAINE'S TOURISM SERVICES EXPORT TO THE EU

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalya Pochernina
Keyword(s):  
Development Strategy ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
National Income ◽  
Practical Significance ◽  
Creative Economy ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Tourist Flows ◽  
Comparative Advantages ◽  
Tourism Services ◽  
The Eu

The revival problem of travel and tourism sphere after the devastating consequences of the pandemic has become very urgent for those countries where tourism is an important source of national income and an activity that creates jobs. Tourism stimulates the development of small and medium-sized businesses, has significant potential for a creative economy, quickly recoups costs, has a significant environmental effect, has a high level of implementation of the principle of social inclusion, including the use of the labor of women and youth. Ukraine in the Development Strategy until 2030 declared the goal of ensuring the development of tourism as one of the drivers of the socio-cultural and economic development of the regions. Important tasks for the implementation of this goal are the quantitative increase in tourist flows and increasing their competitiveness. Assessment of modern realities is the initial prerequisite for the formation of a roadmap for the implementation of these tasks. This is important for both domestic and international tourism. Achieving sustainable competitive advantages in the export of tourism services is a strategic goal of Ukraine. Her commitment to the European vector of development influenced the choice of the object of research. Such an object is the tourist flows from Ukraine to the EU. The subject of the research is the assessment of the comparative advantages of the export of tourist services in Ukraine. The Balassa index for a ten-year period was used in the calculation methodology. The purpose of this article is a comparative analysis of the countries of the European Union in terms of the revealed comparative advantages of the export of tourist services in Ukraine. The obtained results made it possible to distribute the EU countries into groups for which specific directions of stimulating the export of tourist services in Ukraine were determined. The practical significance of the obtained results lies in the possibility of their use to substantiate programs of international cooperation at the regional and national levels, as well as to develop strategies for the development of the tourism sector at the metho and macro levels.

scholarly journals The Hidden Business Costs Of European Union Enlargement: The Case Of The Czech Republic

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
John Phillips ◽  
Emil Stark ◽  
Jerry Wheat
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Czech Republic ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Eu Accession ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
European Union Enlargement ◽  
Western European ◽  
The Eu

Enlargement of the European Union (EU) will take place on May 1, 2004. Nine countries from Eastern Europe will become full fledged members of the union. While these countries have met the EU accession criteria many are not really ready to compete with Western European companies. One of the major impediments for firms in the East is the hidden costs of joining the union. This paper explores some of the case of the Czech Republic, what hidden costs are currently apparent, and suggests changes that would make the Czech Republic more competitive in Western Europe.

scholarly journals CLUSTERS, EUROPEAN POLICY IN EXCELLENCE OF MANAGEMENT

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 8-14
Author(s):  
Florina Bardea ◽  
Felix Arion ◽  
Patryk Szabelski
Keyword(s):  
Cluster Analysis ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Cluster Management ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Specific Factors ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Rich Countries ◽  
The Eu

The European Union (EU) plays an important role in the developing of clusters, defined by the European Commission as groups of specialized enterprises – often SMEs – and other related supporting actors that cooperate closely together in a particular location. As a result, the EU launched the pan-European initiative to support cluster management (European Cluster Excellence Initiative). It recognizes the performance of cluster management by quality labels such as the Bronze, Silver, and Gold issued by The European Secretariat of Cluster Analysis. With reference to these certifications, the authors analyzed the cluster management excellence by critically studying the labels granted in terms of trends, numbers, sectors, countries, and regions. Based on the gathered results, the clusters initiatives (new or already existed) can benchmark themselves. Regional, national, and European policymakers will be able to estimate how specific factors of political, geographical, demographic, access to raw materials, and level of development can influence the number of clusters, their quality of management, and cluster typology. The goal of the research is to identify the number and type (bronze, silver, and gold label) of clusters in the EU and UK. As research methods, analyzes were performed using the European Cluster Collaboration Platform (ECCP) and European Secretariat for Cluster Analysis (ESCA) data. The main results of the research show that clusters differ not only in size or activity but also in quality. Most clusters are found in the rich countries of Western Europe. Most clusters in Europe that have a bronze label  are often located on the Iberian Peninsula, the Balkans, and Central Europe.

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