The dog that would never bite? The past and future of the Stability and Growth Pact

This paper analyses the underlying reasons for the creation of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) and its subsequent development in recent years. The paper examines the economic and political factors behind it, including the role of economic ideas, experts, politicians, institutional arrangements in the Maastricht Treaty, domestic politics, and the exceptional position of Germany in the realm of monetary integration in the EU. It concludes that a set of commonly held beliefs together with a corresponding power-political constellation explain the creation of the SGP. -- Das Papier analysiert die grundlegenden Bedingungen für das Zustandekommen des Stabilitäts- und Wachstumspakts (SGP) und seiner Entwicklung in den Folgejahren. Es werden ökonomische und politische Faktoren untersucht, insbesondere die Rolle wirtschaftspolitischer Vorstellungen und den Einfluss von Experten, Politikern, institutioneller Regelungen im Maastricht Vertrag, innenpolitischer Vorgänge und die Sonderstellung Deutschlands im Bereich der Europäischen Währungsunion. Die gemeinschaftlichen wirtschaftspolitischen Vorstellungen werden als notwendige Bedingung für die Schaffung des Paktes aufgefasst, und ihr Zusammentreffen mit einer entsprechenden machtpolitischen Spielkonstellation wird als dessen hinreichende Erklärung verstanden.

Distance Education and Technology in a Socio-Cultural and Educational Perspective: Notes on the Problem of Interaction in the Learning Process

Este artículo busca explorar y efectuar una revisión en la literatura acerca de los aportes construidos por diversos autores en torno a la educación a distancia, mediante las siguientes puntualizaciones: ¿Cómo se fueron reconfigurando las etapas de esta modalidad educativa a partir de los avances tecnológicos hasta la actualidad? Se busca reflexionar desde una mirada sociocultural hasta qué punto los progresos tecnológicos -en respuesta a los cambios socioculturales- esgrimen giros y nuevos modos de encarar el proceso de enseñanza y aprendizaje para la modalidad educativa a distancia. Se ofrece un panorama descriptivo para entender los cambios tecnológicos que se entretejen a partir de las cuatro generaciones de la educación a distancia. En cada etapa de la EaD miramos críticamente -de un modo general- los componentes que inciden en los procesos de interacción y consecuentemente el modo en que se configura el aprendizaje. Para concluir, me enfocaré en la última generación de la EaD para problematizar el concepto de interacción para la construcción del conocimiento en contextos contemporáneos.This article explores and revises literature on contributions built by various authors on distance education through the following points: How did the stages of this type of education reconfigure from technological advances to present? We reflect from a sociocultural point of view how technological advances -in response to sociocultural changes-wield turns and new ways to approach teaching and learning for distance learning education. A descriptive overview is offered to understand technological changes that are woven from four generations of distance education. At each stage of distance education we look critically -in a general way- at components that affect processes of interaction and consequently the settings for learning. To conclude, I will focus on the latest generation of distance education to question the concept of interaction for the construction of knowledge in contemporary contexts.Fil: Verdun, Noelia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Río Negro; Argentin

The EMU Stability and Growth Pact: Is it dead? If so, does it matter?

IN DECEMBER 2004, the new Barroso Commission brought the saga of the French and German infringements of the Stability and Growth Pact to a close by lifting the "excessive deficit" procedure launched in 2003. That same month, the Commission launched infringement proceedings against Greece that has been providing inaccurate public deficit statistics since the creation of the Pact in 1997. The new head of the Commission also declared that there would be no major overhaul of the Pact. In the November 2003 crisis, when the Council suspended the implementation of the Pact at a time France and Germany overshot its deficit ceiling, most observers called the Pact dead and many rejoiced since the Stability and Growth Pact had come under heavy criticism for some time. A year after, we asked four leading scholars that have studied monetary integration: have news of the death of the Stability and Growth pact been grossly exaggerated? Should it be resuscitated? Why or why not? Amy Verdun and Nicolas Jabko argue that the Pact will survive for lack of an alternative able to gather the support of a large bipartisan cross-national coalition. Henrik Enderlein then argues that the pact should not be fixed but broken. Finally, Andrew Martin explains why the real problem does not so much lie with the Pact per se, but instead with the philosophy behind the EMU policy mix (restrictive fiscal and monetary policies). It creates vicious circles: By keeping economic growth too low the European central bank retarded the expansion of public revenue, making it more difficult to meet the Pact requirements

Leonhard Euler's early lunar theories 1725-1752: Part 1: first approaches, 1725-1730

Leonhard Euler (1707-1783) published two lunar theories in 1753 and 1772. He also published lunar tables in 1745, 1746, and—anonymously—in 1750. There are notebook records, unpublished manuscripts, and manuscript fragments by Euler reflecting the development of his lunar theories between about 1725 until about 1752. These documents might be used to reconstruct Euler's theory on which he based his calculations of those lunar tables and to analyze the development of his lunar theories within this time span. The results of this analysis will be published here in three parts representing three stages of Euler's research on this topic: First approaches (about 1725-1730), developing the methods (about 1730-1744), and the breakthrough (about 1744-1752). In this part, I analyze Euler's manuscripts and, predominantly, Euler's records of his first two notebooks written between 1725 and 1730. I found that his early theoretical approach is coined by his development of analytical (rational) mechanics of punctiform bodies moved by central forces. He tried to describe the Moon's motion in terms of two simultaneously acting centripetal forces, Huygens' centrifugal theorem, and associated osculating radi

EU-Canada Strategic Partnership: Ups and downs

Signed in 1976, the EU-Canada relationship was the first bilateral agreement that the EU signed with an industrialised third country. Modest strengthening of the ties was achieved with the 2004 EU-Canada Partnership Agenda. A fully-fledged free trade agreement was in the works at this time, but suspended in 2006. The EU-Canada strategic partnership agreement (SPA) and the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) did not materialise until more than a decade later, in 2016. This paper focuses in particular on the strategic partnership dimension. It explores why an SPA was possible in 2016, but not before. To answer this question, the paper looks at four time periods. In so doing it explores the origins of the EU-Canada agreement, how the EU-Canada relationship changed over time, and examines how a more profound strategic partnership came about when it did. In its analysis it considers institutional, domestic and geopolitical factors. It briefly speculates about the possible future of this partnership

Die (Wieder-)Entdeckung von Eulers Mondtafeln

Up to now only three lunar tables by Leonhard Euler (1707-1783), published in 1745, 1746, and 1772, were known. For a long time, however, it was assumed that the first two of these tables were identical. The author compared these tables with each other and proved the contrary. This fact also transpires from an examination of their history, which was reconstructed using Euler's correspondence. In addition, evidence has been found in Euler's voluminous scientific correspondence and in contemporary publications of the eighteenth century that, between 1742 and 1750, Euler published additional lunar tables anonymously. The author proved Euler's authorship of at least five lunar tables containing some 100 pages, which were neither recorded in the list of his works nor published in the Leonhardi Euleri Opera Omni