Provenance research and Perseverance: the testimony of an archivist

Since the early 1990s elaborated research on looted WWII cultural assets has mainly focused on the war period and the immediate post-war years. The purpose was obvious and practical: documenting and facilitating restitution claims. When we examine archival restitutions so far we can conclude that important results have been achieved. But this should not prevent us from evaluating our approach and deepening our research. It is clear that our quest is far from finished. Cooperatively with archivists from the countries whose archival material remain, the contribution of colleagues in the archival institutions concerned could be vital to opening new perspectives and to create possibilities for further research and international co-operation. The Russian archival administration and the archivists in the former Osobyi archive in Moscow have failed to do so. Now the international community must take on the responsibility. The enforcement of this steady process will depend on the joint efforts of archivists from East and West and will need to be based on international law and universal archival principles and practices. The main purpose of my contribution is to indicate the importance, the relevancy and the practical feasibility of such a joint scientific and archival task

Controversies and Challenges along the Access - Absorption Route of the European Structural Funds

According to Copenhagen criteria, any country formulating its option to adhere at the European Union has the obligation to meet a series of requirements: - the consolidation and the stability of the fundamental institutions that guarantee the lawful state and the human rights; - a functional and competitive market economy on the model of the traditional developed economies; - the reform of the administrative structures in order to ensure the country’s compatibility with the status of member state, which involves assuming, accepting and reaching the objectives of the Union from a political, economic and monetary perspective. Therefore, the social and economic convergence and cohesion constitutes the essential working principles of the Union and, at the same time, they contain the quintessence of the operating reason of the structural European funds, equally oriented during the pre- and post-adherence stage, as true and efficient tools of implementation of the regional policies. Co-opted in this continental construction at a moment of real integration effervescence, which took place simultaneously with the expansion of the Union’s space, Romania stated its pro-western option without hesitation and, as a result, it aligned its entire social and economic organism to the European institutional and behavioral biorhythm.Structural European Funds; Access; Absorption;, Communitary Budget

Data Watch: Research Data from Transition Economies

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39800/3/wp416.pd

Divergence or Convergence in Research and Development and Innovation Between ‘East’ and ‘West’?

Book description: Research suggests that innovation and technological change are crucial for the economic recovery of the former centrally planned countries in Central and Eastern Europe. This book analyses the development of innovation systems and technology policy in this region from various perspectives, demonstrating not only its importance but also its complexity

Europe of Uneven Data: Country Representation in International Surveys on Corruption, 1989–2017

The fundamental principle of meaningful comparative analysis of corruption featuring cross-national survey data is that countries are equally represented across time. Yet, since 1989, this principle has been consistently violated. This article examines (a) the extent to which country coverage is uneven in 45 European countries in cross-national survey projects with items on corruption during 1989–2017 and (b) the dynamics of the change of inequalities in country representation. I examined a total of 89 survey waves of 21 international survey projects, including the Eurobarometer, the European Social Survey, the International Social Survey Program, the World Values Survey, and others. The results show that the differences in representation between European countries are systematic, significant, and rising. The Post-Soviet country group is particularly underrepresented both in specialized surveys on corruption and in general surveys with corruption items

Central European geography and the post-socialist transformation: a western point of view

Central European geography before 1989; Central European geography after the 1989 turnaround; a progressive renewal of topics

A Turning Point: past and future of the European Community's relations with Eastern Europe. Biblio-Flash No 24, 1989

The signature on 25 June 1988 in Luxembourg of the EEC-CMEA (1) Joint Declaration, of which a text is annexed to this article, marked the establishment of official relations between the European Community and the CMEA and at the same time gave the impetus for the normalization of bilateral relations between the Community and the individual East European countries members of the CMEA

Is the Second Demographic Transition a useful framework for understanding the spatial patterns of fertility change in Serbia at the beginning of the 21st century?

Gaps in comprehension of demographic change in the region of ex-Yugoslavia after 1990, caused by a lack of reliable data series, frequent change of borders, and distinctive historical and cultural tradition in comparison to other post-communist societies, motivated us to contribute to the understanding of the spatial diffusion of recent profound fertility changes in South-Eastern Europe. We analysed changes in the spatial pattern and distribution of typical fertility indicators of the second demographic transition at the sub-national level in Serbia in order to find out whether these demographic shifts could be interpreted to be similar to those in Central and Eastern Europe. We found that differences in economic, historical, and cultural development between sub-regions of the country strongly affect spatial patterns of fertility change. Also, this paper suggests that the sub- regions forerunners of the first demographic transition could be considered as the cores of diffusion for the second demographic transition