What next for unions in Central and Eastern Europe? Invisibility, departure and the transformation of industrial relations

This article examines union revitalization in Central and Eastern Europe, focusing on two countries: Hungary and Latvia. Trade unions have not only had to cope with a declining membership base, but have also had to respond to austerity programmes and government cuts in public sector employment. We argue that the inability of unions to provide a strong voice for alternative policies to the current neoliberal orthodoxy has been driven by a declining membership base, but also by weakened social dialogue mechanisms, limited industrial representation and an ageing membership profile, exacerbated by net outward migration in recent years. However, we find that unions in Latvia and Hungary have responded differently to these issues

Analysis of forest product trade relationships between Turkey and European Union member states

The countries have needed to strengthen their trade relationships in the face of increasing competition conditions with globalization and a lot of unions emerged all over the world. The European Union, remaining in the foreground as an economical, commercial and political factor in these unions, possesses considerable influence, which a lot of countries want to be involved in. Turkey, being in the European integration process, looks for a place in European Union (EU) with its own resources and production power. Production and foreign trade data of the forest products industry, being among Turkey’s important sectors, were compared with 25 different EU countries by using hierarchical cluster analysis, and Turkey’s trade relationship was determined. The production amounts, import and exportamounts and the values, between 2002 and 2006, belonging to the EU member countries and Turkey were used. It has been found that all countries could be divided into nine different groups according tocountries’ forest products industry structures. Competition advantage is experienced in the board sector but not in the paper and lumber sectors. The forest products industry sectors of Turkey have the capacity to compete with EU countries

Border Management and Migration Controls. Hungary report

This report gives an overview of the major developments of the Hungarian border and migration control policy, the subsequent practices and dominant political narratives focusing mainly, but not exclusively, on the past five-year period. It will discuss the role of actors involved in migration governance, the cooperation among them and with international stakeholders. In terms of sources, the report relies on the relevant academic literature, legislation, policy reports, research reports and reviews by NGOs and EU institutions, as well as qualitative interviews conducted with public and third sector stakeholders. The qualitative content analysis predominantly draws on the Prime Minister’s speeches on themes related to borders, migration, security, and the future of Europe available at the Prime Minister’s Office website. Key findings include: • The major emphasis of the Hungarian pre-entry policy has been on the facilitation of kin-state politics and the so-called “Eastern Opening” (Keleti Nyitás) Programme; • The border control regime has been significantly reinforced since 2015 coupled with an extensive deployment of police and military personnel; • The Hungarian border and migration management’s sole aim has been to prevent irregular migrants from entering the country irrespective of their protection needs; • The implemented policy and the applied measures are often at variance with, and depart from Hungary’s human rights obligations; • The Hungarian political discourse is overwhelmed by security-focused narratives with a total lack of solidarity towards asylum seekers; • The cooperation between civil society organisations and the government is nonexistent; NGOs involved in migration management face criminal liability

Reception Policies, Practices and Responses Hungary Country Report

This report shows how the inhuman border protection and protection policies of the Hungarian government have triggered an adverse refugee reception environment. This is despite very few numbers of refugees currently in the country and even minimal number of people in the current reception system. As we have raised in the previous WP2 Hungary Border Management country report,1 there are grave cases concerning the implementation of the EU directives affecting the delivery of refugee reception policies as well. Moreover, the hostile reception policies are not only affecting refugees, but also activities as well as the morale of the humanitarian workers in the country. Hence, the hostility towards refugees starts with the political discourse that retains perennial crisis narrative, hits border management practices, ripples into reception policy, and has an adverse impact on the more general delivery of humanitarianism in the country. To this extent, this report finds the following. • The Hungarian reception policy follows a centralised, top-down model regarding asylum and immigration policy. It involves both the Police and Armed Forces. • Transit zones have essentially become the only reception facility. They also function as de facto detention centres. • As of December 2018, there were only three people hosted at the existing reception facilities. There is only one designated facility for vulnerable asylum seekers, except the Children’s Home in Fót. We cannot establish the number of asylum seekers in these facilities at the moment of writing. • Effectively, the transit zones operate as reception facilities. We have discussed the situation in the transit zones in detail in WP2 Border Management country report for Hungary. • The government is using the “crisis situation caused by mass migration” narrative in order to curb asylum seekers’ rights. • Asylum-seekers have no access to labour market. • While there are food provisions in the reception centres, due to the “constant state of crisis caused by mass migration”, travel allowances, reimbursement of educational expenses, financial support to facilitate potential return is now suspended. • Even food provisions are dire. The food provisions in the transit zones are limited to canned food, and the asylum seekers have no access to diverse or healthy diet unless social workers provide them. The Hungarian government used starvation as a tactic to force the asylum-seekers leave the transit zone back to Serbia from August 2018 to May 2019. • Sexual minorities have been verbally abused and/or threatened by security guards in one of the reception centres. • The activities of the humanitarian actors for service provision and intervene on behalf of the asylum-seekers are extremely limited. This also removes any possibility of an independent overview of the activities of the Hungarian officials. • The Hungarian government has institutionalised its own Charity Council at the expense of leaving independent humanitarian agencies out. However, it is not very clear what kind of services these agencies provide in the transit zones. • There is no “welcome culture” to talk about in the Hungarian case as the Hungarian government has successfully generated a supportive public audience for its reception policies

Migration controls in Italy and Hungary From conditionalized to domesticized humanitarianism at the EU borders

This article analyses the migration control narrative in Italy and Hungary at the nexus of humanitarianism and securitisation. We concentrate on how the humanitarian discourse is undervalued as the EU border states emphasise either full securitisation or else securitisation as a condition for humanitarianism when it comes to border management and refugee protection measures. We trace, first, how politicians conceptualise humanitarianism for the self and for the extension of the self; and, second, how they conditionalize humanitarianism for the other. Reflecting on the institutional and discursive nexus of humanitarianism and securitization in effect to migration controls, our aim is also to contextualise political narratives of Europe and how politicians use them to affect the public. We elaborate on this nexus considering how it foregrounds human rights for the self but challenges humanitarianism as it undervalues human rights for the other. In order to see how migration politics is framed for everyday consumption, we are referring to tropes emerging in major political speeches in Italy and Hungary, and develop two conceptual terms suggesting conditionalised humanitarianism and domesticised humanitarianism

The Expansion of State Authority Over the Neighbouring States Through Informal Migration Controls: The Case of Hungary’s Control over Serbia

Our preliminary fieldwork shows that there is large scale agreement between the migration and border authorities of Hungary and Serbia on the names of asylum seekers before they are allowed into to the Hungarian transit zones and apply for international protection in Hungary. The list, proposed by the Serbian Commissariat for Refugees (SCR) and approved by the Hungarian border authorities, is communicated through the use of community leaders from the Serbian reception centre. Hungary’s motive behind keeping its cooperation with Serbia informal is to conceal the existence of cooperation between both states and to avoid legal challenges in the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Therefore, the paper argues that the informalisation of migration management constitutes a significant challenge for the authority of the Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees 1951 (hereinafter referred as the Refugee Convention). The paper further argues that Hungary’s informal cooperation with Serbia is a form of expansion of the Hungarian state authority under the principle of extraterritorial jurisdiction of a state. Therefore, despite informal nature of Hungary’s migration cooperation with Serbia, the responsibility for violations of asylum seekers rights in Serbia and their exclusion from international protection continues to engage Hungary for the reason of having effective control on the migration management in Serbia

An Integrated TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource to Drive High-Quality Survival Outcome Analytics

For a decade, The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) program collected clinicopathologic annotation data along with multi-platform molecular profiles of more than 11,000 human tumors across 33 different cancer types. TCGA clinical data contain key features representing the democratized nature of the data collection process. To ensure proper use of this large clinical dataset associated with genomic features, we developed a standardized dataset named the TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource (TCGA-CDR), which includes four major clinical outcome endpoints. In addition to detailing major challenges and statistical limitations encountered during the effort of integrating the acquired clinical data, we present a summary that includes endpoint usage recommendations for each cancer type. These TCGA-CDR findings appear to be consistent with cancer genomics studies independent of the TCGA effort and provide opportunities for investigating cancer biology using clinical correlates at an unprecedented scale. Analysis of clinicopathologic annotations for over 11,000 cancer patients in the TCGA program leads to the generation of TCGA Clinical Data Resource, which provides recommendations of clinical outcome endpoint usage for 33 cancer types

Spatial Organization and Molecular Correlation of Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocytes Using Deep Learning on Pathology Images

Beyond sample curation and basic pathologic characterization, the digitized H&E-stained images of TCGA samples remain underutilized. To highlight this resource, we present mappings of tumorinfiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) based on H&E images from 13 TCGA tumor types. These TIL maps are derived through computational staining using a convolutional neural network trained to classify patches of images. Affinity propagation revealed local spatial structure in TIL patterns and correlation with overall survival. TIL map structural patterns were grouped using standard histopathological parameters. These patterns are enriched in particular T cell subpopulations derived from molecular measures. TIL densities and spatial structure were differentially enriched among tumor types, immune subtypes, and tumor molecular subtypes, implying that spatial infiltrate state could reflect particular tumor cell aberration states. Obtaining spatial lymphocytic patterns linked to the rich genomic characterization of TCGA samples demonstrates one use for the TCGA image archives with insights into the tumor-immune microenvironment