Poltical Economy of European Integration M.A.
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- Germany (2)
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- Accommodation Services (1)
- Accountability, Data Protection Authority, European Union, Fines, General Data Protection Regulation, Multi-level governance. (1)
- Asylum Seekers and Refugees (1)
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- Brazil, coronavirus, Coronavirus, COVID-19 pandemic, integration, healthcare, Global South, social assurance, social protection, social welfare, Rwanda, universal health insurance. (1)
- Central and Eastern Europe (1)
- China Belt and Road Initiative (1)
- Country Specific Recommendations (CSRs) (1)
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This paper reviews the link between national labour market participation oriented policy changes and EU Country Specific Recommendations of such Central European countries as Germany and Poland in 2019.
The aim of this master thesis is to examine the reason of implementation avoidance of Country Specific Recommendations in the labour market participation policies of selected Central European countries - Germany and Poland. There is a need in triggers to increase the participation of women, minority groups, and older employees in the workforce. Increased representation of women, underrepresented populations, and older workers in the workforce is necessary for triggering.
The Commission is responsible for this coordination, and in this paper, recommendations related to the labor market participation policy will be analyzed along with Country Reports to achieve the goal of identifying variations in the implementation and additional precedence of recommendations related to the labor market participation strategy in Poland and Germany in 2019. Thesis studies the participation of women, older employees, and tax disincentives within low wage earners.
The following master thesis introduces relatively new, yet still important and interesting field of research – the use of social media in terms of social movements, and, more specifically, progressive and regressive ones. The thesis argues the impactful role of the Internet in the development of social progress and elaborates on its contradictory aspects, considering different political and social actors. The basis for my research consists of the theoretical foundations of social movements and media and, namely, media effects theory. Empirical analysis will help to distinguish between characteristics of media use in left- and right-oriented activism and its flexibility. Practical contribution to this analysis is made by exemplifying usage of social media in progressive (Fridays for Future) and regressive (Pegida) movements and highlighting different approaches to choosing the network platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Thesis concludes that the role of social media in modern world is undeniable for social progress, however, there is a remarkable difference in progressive and regressive approach. Meaning that, while the first ones are fighting for the renovation of democracy in a given country or society in general, those on the other extreme are putting an effort in undermining trust in established political institutions and violating public order.
COVID-19 pandemic influence on the social protection systems of selected Global South countries.
(2022)
Social protection which is a set of policies and programmes designated to improve people’s life quality and protect them from poverty and social vulnerabilities is something that has been severely impacted by the sudden Coronavirus pandemic that began in late 2019. The following paper will analyse how the social protection systems of Brazil and Rwanda performed in the times of the crisis and its main assumption is that the social protection system in Brazil has failed in the face of COVID-19 pandemic due to deficient and callous governing while the inclusive and efficient policymaking in Rwanda enabled the country’s social protection system to conduct an effective crisis response.
The study will examine what are the country-specific social protection factors that contributed to different crisis responses in the instances of Brazil and Rwanda. The key results are that while the COVID-19 pandemic has disclosed the weaknesses of social protection systems in both Brazil and Rwanda, the first had a failed response because of the dismissive attitude of political leaders which resulted in unsatisfactory consequences in the social protection functionality while the latter performed admirably in the times of a crisis because of a fast institutional healthcare response and communication between the government and the citizens. The research method of this study is literature analysis and review as well as a cross-country comparison.
Food waste or loss is generated within the entire food supply chain from agricultural production to the household level. The level of food waste in the overall food supply chain has negative economic, environmental, and social impacts. The EU has designed and initiated multiple policies targeting and including many different policy areas to tackle food waste. Therefore, this study examines challenges and obstacles facing existing EU food waste policies and initiatives, highlighting the reasons behind the inefficiencies in food waste governance from legislative and food regime theory perspectives. After carefully analyzing current EU legislation related to food waste, the findings indicate that the existing legislation and actions to tackle food waste are disconnected and irregular, such that no agreed comprehensive and established approaches are at the EU level. Existing interventions have hardly addressed the food waste problem directly. While prioritizing the donation of food surplus and food waste hierarchy, the role of market power and corporations and structural explanations in the global food industry have been missing. Therefore, there is a need for a holistic approach to address the issue and an integrated policy framework to tackle food waste.
I. Abstract
It has been three years now since the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) became enforceable, which highlighted the end of an era with lack of enforcement in the field of data protection provisions (Albrecht, 2016, p. 287). The EU General Data Protection Regulation, which was effective from 25 of May 2018, has replaced the outdated European Data Protection Directive (95/46/EC). This new regime has brought new legal rights to data subjects, while extending the scope of the responsibilities for controllers and processors. As personal data progressively embodies an important new class of economic asset for organisations, GDPR has significantly expanded the enforcement powers of the Data Protection Authorities. Consequently, it has also enhanced the regulators enforcement rights to impose fines, which may go up to €20 million or, if higher, 4% of an organisation’s annual global turnover (DLA Piper, 2018, p. 5). GDPR has actually replaced a regime under which fines for a data breach were limited and enforcement actions were uncommon. Through this new regime the regulatory environment across European Member States has undoubtedly shifted and regulators have greater powers of enforcement (DLA Piper, 2018, p.3). The fact that the important role of the strict application of the accountability principle was assigned to the national Data Protection Authorities (Albrecht, 2016, p. 288) and the function to exercise corrective powers in case of violation of the Regulation’s provisions has made the topic of fines and other sanctions an issue that has had the attention of all the companies, not only in Europe but worldwide.
Having this context and the importance of the topic in mind, the main focus of the thesis is related to how DPAs’ work on the EU multilevel governance system contribute on the accurate and consistent application of the GDPR. Also, analysing fines as one of the enforcement instruments in the system ruled from the EU principle of accountability is the other central point of the research. Additionally, it is known that we live in times when technology has been frequently developing and where digitalization is progressing in a high scale. This is translated into the flow of personal data (but not only) inside, across borders and IT systems of the EU. Such data flows so easily through IT systems and can as easily be misused from the subject that is processing those data. In order to guarantee, empower the individuals and give them control over their personal data the EU legislator has also detailed the penalties that occur when data that is processed is not in accordance with GDPR. In order to avoid such situation and to correct the cases where violations toward EU data protection law are present, special attention is given to the fines (Article 83-84 GDPR), as a key sanction tool. Therefore, the thesis is concentrated on administrative fines for data protection violations and their issues as well as on the limitations of such a sanction in the system of accountability in Europe. It’s aim is analysing the fines problematic and situations that Member States have faced so far in practice.
Keywords:
Accountability, Data Protection Authority, European Union, Fines, General Data Protection Regulation, Multi-level governance.
This paper investigates the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in the catching-up level and global value chain (GVC) integration of new European member states (NMS), considering the manufacturing sector using data of different time spans within the 1990 – 2019 period. After analyzing the differences in FDI inflows in NMS, eight of them are chosen and focused in the study including Poland, Czechia, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania. Poland and Slovenia are discussed as case studies and evidences of GVC integration. The findings revealed that the inflows of FDI have limited impact and contribution to the improvement of the host economy’s manufacturing industry, economic development and GVC integration. Indeed, FDI mostly relates to product and process upgrading but not functional upgrading. Therefore, the development gap between the NMS and core European economies is not decreased over time. With regards to utilize FDI for economic upgrading, GVC integration, and catching-up, this research stresses the importance of host economies’ absorptive capability and government intervention through industrial policy.
This master thesis aims to identify the defining variables for a market ramp-up of electric road systems (ERS) and to develop scenarios for the potential market launch of the technology in Germany and Europe. For this purpose, a comprehensive analysis of the political, regulatory and economic variables is conducted, which finally leads to the generation of different market ramp-up scenarios.
This master thesis contains an overview of several fields of LGBTQIA+ rights, their
state and situation of the LGBTQIA+ people in the EU. It describes the discourses and
attitudes towards LGBTQIA+ rights in Hungary and Poland, using them as an
illustrative examples of conservative Member States of the EU. A theoretical and
historical context analysis explains and interprets the situation of the CEE region of the
EU, it relates its historical specifcs with the current reality of being part of EU and
draws conclusions on the emerging trends of conservative pushback against liberal
values. Finally it contains EU’s stances and competences related to LGBTQIA+ rights.
The conservative pushback against EU’s equality and anti-discrimination policies
appears to be a response to the top-down approach in imposing norms, stemming from
historical specifics.