Enhancing access to EU law: why bother?

In the past years access to EU law has been significantly enhanced via services such as EUR-Lex. This development not only allows for easy retrieval of individual legal acts, but for collecting information about the evolution of EU law in the aggregate as well. This contribution argues that by charting and analysing the evolution of the body of EU law over time, we can understand better the nature and development of the EU as a political system. The text examines the legislative productivity of the EU over the past 15 years as an illustration. Further, it showcases recent examples of the use of novel data-analytic techniques to analyse the body of EU law for the purposes of understanding the EU legal system, the institutions, and the polity that produced the legal acts. The contribution concludes by arguing that it is important to transmit basic facts and insights about the evolution of EU law and law-making to the general public as well, in order to counter the threat of Euroscepticism and perceptions of democratic deficit in the EU.The politics and administration of institutional chang

Beyond the U-curve: citizen preferences on European integration in multidimensional political space

One of the major findings of the literature on Euroscepticism is that support for European integration generally declines as one moves closer to the extremes of the left-right ideological spectrum. However, in multidimensional policy space, Euroscepticism varies in more complex ways. This article explores the relief of Euroscepticism for citizens in four European states – the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and France – based on data from voting advice applications fielded before the 2019 elections of the European Parliament. The results reveal that the way Euroscepticism maps onto other dimensions differs significantly for citizens and for parties and across political contexts. Such variation is important for understanding how preferences for European integration are embedded into existing structures of political competition.The politics and administration of institutional chang

When the rule of law is at stake, many people support sanctions even against their own state

The EU has imposed financial sanctions on Poland for problems with judicial independence. The sanctions amount to more than €300 mill., and the sum continues to grow. How are the sanctions perceived by the Polish population? Are they considered justified and acceptable, and by whom?The politics and administration of institutional changeThe progression of EU law: Accommodating change and upholding value

'The ‘old’ and the ‘new’ Europeans: Analyses of public opinion on EU enlargement in review'

Seventh Framework Programme (FP7)The politics and administration of institutional chang

Agricultural Academy

Abstract MENKOV, N. D., K. DINKOV, A. DURAKOVA and N. TOSHKOV, 2009. Sorption characteristics of buckwheat grain. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., Moisture equilibrium data (adsorption and desorption) of buckwheat grain were determined using the static gravimetric method of saturated salt solutions at three temperatures 10, 25 and 40°C. The range of water activities for each temperature was between 0.11 and 0.85. Equilibrium moisture content decreased with increase in storage temperature at constant water activity. A suitable model was selected to describe the water sorption isotherms. The monolayer moisture content of the grain was estimated and the optimal storage water activity was proposed

An innovative tailored instructional design for computer programming courses in engineering

Industry 4.0 and 5.0 topics are emerging fields and have seen rising demand recently. There is a critical need, on the other hand, for improved methods of instructing programming languages since a growing lack of student motivation during the pandemic has had a deleterious influence on the education of programmers. In this context, online/hybrid computer programming courses must be addressed with innovative solutions to support the field with well-educated professionals. In this paper, we present a case study to propose an innovative tailored instructional design for the online/hybrid learning environments for programming courses in engineering faculties. To develop the instructional design, the Kemp Instructional Design Model was followed. The instructional design is a result of the main outputs of the RECOM “Redesigning Introductory Computer Programming Using Innovative Online Modules” project, which aims to bridge the gap between the existing course design in programming courses and the needs of "Covid” and “post-Covid” generation students

Europeanization of Governance in Central and Eastern Europe

The fall of the Berlin wall marked the beginning of massive multiple transitions in the countries from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia were all caught in a process of turbulent changes that would leave no aspect of their societies undisturbed. The omnipresent totalitarian state was to be replaced by a liberal democratie government and uncoupled from the structures of the Party. The free market was to re-emerge from the ashes of the centrally-planned economies. The very identity of these nations was called into question and re-defined. New borders were drawn between nations; between state and society; between public and private

The impact of the Eastern enlargement on the decision-making capacity of the European Union

<p>This contribution investigates the impact of the Eastern enlargement on the decision-making capacity of the European Union. On the basis of new data on the number and types of legal acts produced by the EU (1994–2014) and on the time between the proposal and adoption of legislative acts (1994–2012), the contribution argues that enlargement has had a rather limited impact on legislative production and duration and that it is extremely hard to disentangle this impact from other contemporaneous institutional and socioeconomic developments. On the basis of analyses of expert-based policy positions of member states in EU negotiations and on voting data from the Council of Ministers of the EU, it is argued that enlargement has possibly added a new dimension of contestation in EU legislative decision-making, but one that concerns a relatively small share of all negotiations in few policy fields like environment. All in all, there is no evidence that the Eastern enlargement has led to the institutional gridlock and loss of decision-making capacity that the public, many politicians and some academics as well have feared.</p

What Kinds of Messages Can Influence Citizen Support for Closer Cooperation with the European Union? Evidence from the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood

Horizon 2020(H2020)The politics and administration of institutional changeSecurity and Global Affair