New European tricksters: Polish jokes in the context of European Union labour migration

In the context of contemporary European labour migration, where the most publicised pattern of labour migration sees Eastern European migrants move West, the dominant scholarly interpretation of Polish jokes is not applicable for the analysis of much of the joking by or about the Poles. Humour scholars frequently categorise jokes about ethnic groups into stupid or canny categories, and the Poles have been the butt of stupidity (‘Polack’) jokes in Europe and the United States. Today, in the European Union, Polish stupidity stereotyping in humour is less active and the Polish immigrant is hard working and a threat to indigenous labour, yet joking does not depict this threat in a canny Pole. The article applies the liminal concept of the trickster – an ambiguous border crosser or traveller – to elaborate some of the characteristics of jokes told by and about Polish migrants in the EU, mainly in the British context. A more robust explanatory framework is thus offered than is currently available in humour studies

Transformations of European Financial Instruments in the Context of European Enlargement Process

The necessity of a regional development policy at the nowadays’ European Union level has become vital since the beginning of the enlargement process in 1973 when to those six founding states (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and Netherlands) subjoined Great Britain, Ireland and Denmark. In 1957 when European Economic Community was founded, the EU-6 recorded a similar development level, the regional problems being isolated only in Southern part of Italy. Although on Italy request, the Treaty ascertained the existence of some inequities between prosperity levels of different regions, article 130 was one of the fundamental motives of creating the European Investment Bank, which may be considered one of the regional policy instruments. The enlargement process increased regional problems, major disparities regarding the economic development level being recorded between EU-6 regions and regions of the new member states (North part of England and North part of Ireland). Rural areas from Denmark and Ireland recorded a precarious development compared with similar areas from member states, and mining regions of Great Britain were confronted with industrial re-conversion problems. These kinds of problems existed even inside member states so that carboniferous regions Lorena (France), Ruhr (Germany), South part of Belgium were strongly affected by the deindustrialisation process. These situations led to the creation of the European Regional Development Fund in 1975 and its main objective at that moment was promoting innovation and infrastructure development in order to adjust the existing discrepancies at the Community level.European Financial instruments, European Regional Development Fund, economic development

Contrarian Investment Strategies in a European Context

In this paper we study value strategies for four European countries (France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom).We find an outperformance for all four value variables which are investigated: the earnings-to-price (E/P) ratio, the cash-flow-to-price (CF/P) ratio, the book-to-market (B/M) ratio and the dividend yield.This outperformance is especially remarkable for the CF/P ratio, which amounts to 20.8% between the top and bottom quintiles in an univariate model.In a regression analysis, in which all four value variables as well as a correction for the size effect are taken into account, we find a difference of 11.8% for the CF/P ratio.We demonstrate that this result can not be explained by risk differences alone.Our findings confirm the outperformance of value strategies as found earlier by Chan, Hamao and Lakonishok (1991) and Lakonishok, Shleifer and Vishny (1994) for Japan and the United States respectively.international financial markets;capital asset pricing;investment

The Evolution of Intermediary Institutions in Europe: From Corporatism to Governance

This book investigates the consecutive shifts between three types of intermediary institutions in the European context: Corporatist, Neo-corporatist and Governance institutions. It develops a new conceptual framework for understanding the function and position of intermediary institutions in society, as well as a vocabulary capable of explaining the causes and consequences of these shifts for politics, economy and society at large. The book is designed to fill a gap in three rather distinct, yet also overlapping bodies of literature: European Political Economy, European Integration and governance studies, and socio-legal studies in the European context. Reviews: - Anne Guisset: Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, 22, 3, 427-429, 2016. - Ian Bruff, Capital & Class, 40, 3, 555 – 57, 2016

Politics in robes? The European Court of Justice and the myth of judicial activism

What characterizes the EU today is that it is not only a multi-level governance system, but also a multi-context system. The making of Europe does not just take place on different levels within the European political framework, executed by different groups of actors or institutions. Rather, it also happens in different and distinguishable social contexts - distinct functional, historical, and local frameworks of reasoning and action - that political science alone cannot sufficiently analyze with conventional and generalizing models of explanation. The European law is such a context, and it should be perceived as a self-contained sphere of argument and action that generates impetus for integration. Therefore, the role of the European Court of Justice in the process of integration may only be adequately captured by examining European law as an independent space of reasoning and action. --European Court of Justice (ECJ),Integration through Law,Integration Theory,Regional Integration,Rationalism,Trivial Rationalism,Context Rationality,Context of Law,Context Analysis,Judicial Politics

One Framework to unite them all? Use of the CEFR in European university entrance policies

Fifteen years after its publication, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages is a commonly used document in language tests and policies across Europe. This article considers the CEFR's impact on university entrance language tests and policies that are used to regulate the entrance of international L2 students who wish to study in a national language of the host country. Using a qualitative approach, this study aims to (a) outline and compare the target language demands toward L2 students entering European universities and to (b) determine the impact of the CEFR on European university entrance policies, tests, and testers. This article offers an overview of the university entrance language requirements for foreign L2 students in 28 European countries or regions with an autonomous educational policy. It is based on structured interviews with 30 respondents involved with university entrance test development and knowledgeable about university entrance policies in their context. The results show that the CEFR is omnipresent in European university entrance language tests and that the B2 is the most commonly used level in that context. The data also show that normative CEFR use is very common and that in many contexts CEFR levels are misused for marketing purposes or to control university admission

Information Society Strategies in the European Context: The Case of Greece

This article sets out to analyze the policies adopted by the Greek government in its effort to accelerate the pace of reform towards a knowledge-based economy. These policies have to take into account the position that the country occupies within the emerging information society and, of course, the opportunities created by EU initiatives that aim to promote economic competitiveness and reduce regional disparities. Within this framework Greek policy makers have recognized the need for a coordinated, coherent and integrated approach, which attempts to diminish inequalities both within the country and with respect to other European Union economies. What emerges as a distinctive feature of the Greek information society strategy is the emphasis placed on the pivotal role of the state and the adoption of active interventionist policies