The Benefits and Limitations of European Union Membership as a Security Mechanism

With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the post-1945 ‘pax Sovietica’ led not to the ‘end of history’, but rather to an ‘awakening of history’. The wider Europe that emerged in 1989 is facing changing security concerns, which affect both the new democracies and the European Union. Internal security has become increasingly important and has been affected by external security concerns. In particular, threats other than military ones have emerged, leading to the rethinking of the institutional framework entrusted with the safeguarding of security in Europe. EU membership appears to be an effective tool for ensuring European security. This paper highlights the new internal and external political and economic security concerns in transition economies in order to evaluate the benefits and limitations of EU enlargement as a way of addressing these changing security concerns. Several countries, particularly Poland and Romania, are used to exemplify the EU’s role in enhancing security in the applicant countries. The article concludes with policy recommendations for dealing with the limitations of EU membership, and for using the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) as a tool for ensuring security beyond the EU enlargement

Fiscal Policy Reaction in the Short Term for Assessing Fiscal Sustainability in the Long Runin Central and Eastern European Countries

The aim of this paper is to analyze how the primary government balance in Central and Eastern European countries reacts in the short term, in order to assess fiscal sustainability in the long run. For the purpose of this study, a fiscal reaction function is used. Given the different orders of integration of the variables involved in the model, modified forms of the fiscal reaction function are considered. The results show that for Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, and Lithuania fiscal policy reacts as expected – in the sense that governments have the ability to run a primary surplus – in the short term. This action makes fiscal sustainability easier to achieve in the long run. On the other hand, for Latvia, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia, sustainable fiscal policy will be more difficult to attain given the opposite response of governments to public debt shocks. In these countries, severe fiscal adjustments should be made in order to reach fiscal sustainability in the long run.fiscal sustainability, fiscal reaction function, primary balance, public debt, budget balance

From export entry to de-internationalisation through entrepreneurial attributes

Purpose: This study examines export behaviour from a broad perspective considering the influence of entrepreneurial attributes on export entry, export sustainability and de-internationalisation in Romanian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Design/methodology/approach: Based on theoretical underpinnings from the Resource-Based View (RBV) of the firm and the Institutional Economics (IE) framework, the proposed hypotheses are tested with a rich survey dataset of 319 Romanian SMEs. The data are analysed by means of a multinomial logit regression. Findings: The study reveals that exporting is not a single event and that variables commonly used to study export propensity linked to the entrepreneurial attributes have a differential influence over the export decisions. More concretely, export entry is positively impacted by the presence of management studies and an entrepreneurial team while sustainment in the international arena is strongly and positively influenced by decision-makers’ prior labour experience. De-internationalisation is explained by the entrepreneurs’ fear of business failure. The conclusions of this study point towards a holistic view of export policy-making revealing relevant implications for SMEs’ internationalisation. Originality/value: This study enriches the international business literature by simultaneously examining different export decisions, namely export initiation, sustainability and de-internationalisation, at the SMEs’ level in a Central and Eastern European (CEE) emerging market. The paper also highlights the dynamic character of entrepreneurial resources and suggests that at distinct stages in the international development of a SME, different entrepreneurial attributes may play a significant role.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author’s final draft

Determinanţi ai mărimii profitului în compania de construcţii

It results from the practice and from the majority of thebiography that the main interest of the companies and of the managers is to maximize profit. Profit is an indicator which must be understood as the essence, as the ultimate scope of the company’s activity. Only a company that generates profit is an efficient company. The amount of profit is influenced by several factors, as: the volume, the structure and the quality of the production and of the performed services, the cost level of the production or of the developed service, the level of work productivity, etc

THE EVOLUTION OF MARKETING METHODS IN A TOURISM ASSOCIATION FROM ROMANIA

The aim of this article is to present how to apply marketing methods, older and newer ones, to the action plan of a tourism association. I chose for this study the National Association of Rural, Ecological and Cultural Tourism from Romania (ANTREC), since I had available a series of chronological information on which I was capable to adapt the idea that I wanted to highlight. The conclusions that I reached from this analysis are closely related to the idea that, like other industries, the type of marketing practiced in a tourism association must adapt continually, to be innovative and to highlight by his unique style and his results. For the preparation work I used only the database of ANTREC Romania