scholarly journals The EU Sustainable Development Strategy and its Implications for the European Integration Process

2009 ◽  
Vol 2009 (29) ◽  
pp. 83-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoichiro USUI
Author(s):  
Asier GARCÍA LUPIOLA

LABURPENA: Europako integrazio prozesuaren oinarrizko helburuetako bat garapen jasangarria da. Testuan azaltzen den bezala, Europar Batasunak helburu hori lortzeko azken urteotan aurrera eraman duen ekintza energia-trantsizioan oinarritzen da. Estrategiak eta arauak aztertuz, ondorioztatzen da energia berriztagarrien eta energia-efizientziaren sustapena bilakatu dela ingurunearen babeserako, klima-aldaketaren kontra borrokatzeko eta ekonomia berdea bultzatzeko tresna. Hala ere, emaitzak ikusita, helburu zehatzen lorpena moteltzen ari dela dirudi, beraz, Europar Batasunak energia-trantsizioa burutzeko aurrera eramaten duen jarduera indartu behar du. Bide horretan, Europako Itun Berdearen garapena oinarrizkoa izango da. ABSTRACT: Sustainable development is one of the objectives of the European integration process. The activity of the EU in recent years to achieve this objective is based on the energy transition. The analysis of European strategies and laws show the promotion of renewable energies and energy efficiency has become a tool that is being used for the protection of the environment, the fight against climate change and the promotion of the green economy. However, given the results, the achievement of the specific objectives seems to be slowing down, so the EU must strengthen its activity to complete the energy transition. The development of the European Green Deal is going to be fundamental. RESUMEN: Uno de los objetivos del proceso de integración europea es el desarrollo sostenible. Tal y como se describe en el texto, la actividad desarrollada durante los últimos años por la UE para su logro se fundamenta en la transición energética. El análisis de las estrategias y normas europeas demuestran que la apuesta por las energías renovables y la eficiencia energética se ha convertido en la herramienta a la que se está recurriendo tanto para la protección del medio ambiente, como para la lucha contra el cambio climático y el impulso de la economía verde. No obstante, vistos los resultados, la consecución de los objetivos específicos parece ralentizarse, por lo que la UE debe reforzar su actividad para completar la transición energética. El desarrollo del Pacto Verde Europeo será fundamental para ello.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
André S. Berne ◽  
Jelena Ceranic Perisic ◽  
Viorel Cibotaru ◽  
Alex de Ruyter ◽  
Ivana Kunda ◽  
...  

Crises are not a new phenomenon in the context of European integration. Additional integration steps could often only be achieved under the pressure of crises.  At present, however, the EU is characterised by multiple crises, so that the integration process as a whole is sometimes being questioned. In 2015, the crisis in the eurozone had escalated to such an extent that for the first time a member state was threatened to leave the eurozone. Furthermore, the massive influx of refugees into the EU has revealed the shortcomings of the Schengen area and the common asylum policy. Finally, with the majority vote of the British in the referendum of 23 June 2016 in favour of the Brexit, the withdrawal of a member state became a reality for the first time. Even in the words of the European Commission, the EU has reached a crossroads. Against this background, the twelfth Network Europe conference included talks on the numerous challenges and future integration scenarios in Europe. 


Author(s):  
Oskar Niedermayer

The German party system has changed since the 1980s. The relatively stable ‘two-and-a-half party’ system of the 1960s and 1970s has become a fluid five-party system. This development can generally be attributed to changes on the demand and supply sides of party competition and to the changing institutional framework. The European integration process is part of this institutional framework and this chapter deals with the question of whether it has influenced the development of the party system at the national level. To systematically analyse the possible impact, eight party-system properties are distinguished: format, fragmentation, asymmetry, volatility, polarization, legitimacy, segmentation, and coalition stability. The analysis shows that one cannot speak of a Europeanization of the German party system in the sense of a considerable impact of the European integration process on its development. Up to now, the inclusion of Germany in the systemic context of the EU has not led to noticeable changes of party-system properties. On the demand side of party competition, this is due to the fact that the EU issue does not influence the citizens' electoral decisions. On the supply side, the lack of Europeanization can be explained mainly by the traditional, interest-based pro-European élite consensus, the low potential for political mobilization around European integration, and the marginal role of ethnocentrist–authoritarian parties.


2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolò Conti ◽  
Vincenzo Memoli

In the recent past, attitudes towards the EU have become problematic in many member states. Even those countries that traditionally were more optimistic have actually experienced important declines in their popular backing of the European integration process. We examine the public attitudes towards the EU that have recently emerged in Italy, a country where support for EU membership has declined substantially. Making use of recent data and novel research techniques, the article sheds light on the explanatory power of different theoretical perspectives to explain these attitudes. Utilitarianism has emerged as the key explanatory factor, whereas other theories appear much less relevant in the Italian context.


The process of European integration is marked both by continued deepening and widening, and by growing evidence of domestic disquiet and dissent. Against this background, this book examines three key themes: the challenge to the power of member states – as subjects of European integration – to determine the course of the integrationist project and to shape European public policies; the constraints in the domestic political arena experienced by member states as objects of European integration; and the contestation over both the ‘constitutive politics of the EU’ and specific policy choices. These three themes – power, constraint, and contestation – and their interdependence are explored with specific reference to Germany. The main findings call for a revision of the ‘conventional wisdom’ about Germany's Europeanization experience. First, while Germany continues to engage intensively in all aspects of the integration process, its power to ‘upload’ – ‘hard’ and ‘soft’, ‘deliberate’ or ‘unintentional’, ‘institutional’ or ‘ideational’ – appears in decline. Germany's capacity to ‘shape its regional milieu’ is challenged by both changes in the integration process and the ever-more-apparent weaknesses of the ‘German model’. The traditional regional core milieu is shrinking in size and importance in an enlarging Europe, and Germany's milieu-shaping power is being challenged. Second, the coincidence of enabling and constraining effects is being progressively replaced by a discourse that notes unwelcome constrictions associated with EU membership.


2006 ◽  
pp. 42-51
Author(s):  
Andrea Gáthy

The task of the national sustainable development strategy is to provide a long term conception for the economy and society, so that this might function and develop in harmony with the environment. Creating the conditions for sustainable agricultural production requires the elaboration and implementation of long-term programs spanning generations. The objective is to find a compromise between the conceptions appearing in the long-term and the short-term programs.In Hungary, several principles, conceptions and proposals have been suggested regarding sustainable agriculture. In the present study, I intend to systematize the above mentioned principles and conceptions, and compare them to the conceptions regarding agriculture in the national strategies of the EU member states. Furthermore, I examine to what extent the agricultural policy of the European Union supports the conceptions regarding agriculture in the strategies. This topic deserves special attention, as the Hungarian national sustainable development strategy is being prepared and is supposed to be finished by the end of 2005.


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (3 (47)) ◽  
pp. 1043-1057
Author(s):  
Monika PAWLITA-POSMYK ◽  
Małgorzata WZOREK

One of the basic aspects of sustainable development strategy involves investments in green technologies, including energy production from renewable sources. Biomass, special organic waste which belongs to “green sources” of energy can be used in the methane fermentation process of biogas production to generate heat and electricity.Biogas power plants have functioned in the Polish energy industry for many years now. On the basis of the data available from Central Statistical Office, in 2014 the ratio of biogas accounted for 7.6% of the structure of primary energy derived from renewable sources in the EU and 2.6% in Poland. An important consideration related to the production of biogas is associated with the applicability of waste resources derived from agricultural production and from the food industry, including pig slurry, slaughterhouse waste, brewing and distilling dregs as well as others. The operation of biogas plants provides considerable benefits to the environment, resulting from the controlled fermentation process and its application in the production of useful energy, as it can provide reduction of the emission of methane and other greenhouse gases. The aspects including the reduction of the volume of waste, environmental protection, fulfillment of the EU obligations and local energy security, form the reasons why communes in Poland should focus their attention on the use of biogas.This paper presents the results of SWOT analysis of biogas production in the context of sustainable development. The assessment of the aspects (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) and the intensity of their impact were undertaken on the basis of a point scale developed by the authors. The analysis shows that the process demonstrates a number of strengths, which can promote the implementation of positive changes in the environmental and social aspects undertaken on a local scale.


Author(s):  
Ilda Rusi

The process of European Union membership is a national objective, in view of the democratization and transformation of the Albanian society, in accordance with the values and principles of the United Europe. This sentence is taken from the Official Site of the Prime Minister of Albania. This message but expressed in other words seems to be there standing since 1992, when in Albania for the first time was articulated the desire for national integration of the country. After more than twenty years, the question that concerns me mostly is that why my country is not part of the big European family? What happened in these twenty-two years to prevent this process or to accelerate it? The first thing that comes to my mind after the last rejection candidate status on December, last year, is that this is a promise that none of the Albanian government has not yet managed to achieve. On my opinion, this process is strictly associated with the willing of all determinant political actors to collaborate and to manifest democratic political culture through dialogue. European integration is a slogan used in every political campaign, as a key element of the political agenda all political parties but in. It helps a lot during the electoral campaign but unfortunately we are still waiting for. Thus, I think that the integration process is not related only to the Albanian desire for participating in the EU, but mostly to the political class attitude. It is true that every time that the government does not achieve the candidate status, the political parties to blame each other for retarding the integration process. Even though, different scholars emphasize the role of EU in the process of integration, I believe that the country's democratization is a process strongly related to the political elite performance and the way they manifest politics. Albanian political class must admit that the real problem in this process is the way that it makes politics and how it makes political decision. In this article, I argue that the European integration is a process which can be successful only if all political parties in Albania understand that this is an obligation that they have with Albanian citizens and that cannot be realized if all of them are not committed to. This ambitious goal can be achieved only when the EU priority reforms are going to be established and in Albania there are going to operate functional and free institutions based on meritocracy and democratic system of operation far away from politics.


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