University American College Skopje Eight Annual Conference on European Integration University American College Skopje Eight Annual Conference on European Integration Will the deepening of European integration within Europe lead to a European super-state, a federation or something else? If the EU were to close its doors on external immigration in the future would it put future economic development at risk? How can economic diplomacy serve as a strategy for sustainable economic growth? Has the EU transformed the crisis into an opportunity for investment in promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency as a means of achieving sustainable growth? How have the interconnectedness and the ever-growing interdependency of the European countries set in motion the vast number of processes that ultimately led to the current financial crisis? How has the financial crisis demonstrated the need for a new approach to banking regulation and supervision? These are some of the questions addressed in this book. But at the end of the day, whilst the sovereign debt crisis has led to a profound crisis in public confidence in the European project, an alternative OUT OF THE CRISIS: interpretation might be that the crisis could be viewed from a more optimistic perspective - as an opportunity for thinking and rethinking the EU ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL EU as a whole, as well as providing a more positive ideas for future developments. POLICIES RECONSIDERED EU ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL POLICIES RECONSIDERED Skopje, 2013 ISBN 978-608-4607-28-1 OUT OF THE CRISIS: http://www.artaffaire.com.au/images/contemporary_art/treeoflifewhite.png University American College Skopje Treta makedonska brigada br. 60 Skopje, Macedonia www.uacs.edu.mk/conference OUT OF THE CRISIS: EU ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL POLICIES RECONSIDERED University American College Skopje Treta makedonska brigada br. 60, 1000 Skopje, Macedonia www.uacs.edu.mk/conference For the publisher. prof. Marjan Bojadziev, Rector UACS Publishing Editor-in-Chef. prof. Kokan Grcev Partner institution: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, office Macedonia, www.fes.org.mk Dr. Heinz Bongartz, Resident representative of FES Macedonia Eighth annual international academic conference on European integration OUT OF THE CRISIS: EU ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL POLICIES RECONSIDERED Thursday 16 May 2013 Editors: Dr. Ivan Dodovski Prof. Stevo Pendarovski Dr. Ilijana Petrovska Prof. Robert Hudson Program Committee Prof. Bíró Gáspár, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest Prof. Charalampos Tsardanidis, Institute of International Economic Relations, Athens Dr. Desislava Ljubomirova Boshnakova, New Bulgarian University, Sofia Dr. Ilijana Petrovska, University American College Skopje Dr. Ivan Dodovski, University American College Skopje Dr. Jaka Vadnjal, GEA College for Entrepreneurship, Ljubljana Prof. Jeremy Cripps, American University in Bulgaria Prof. Johan G. Wissema, Delft University of Technology Prof. Mehmet Zeki Ibrahimgil, Gazi University, Ankara Prof. Mihail Arandarenko, University of Belgrade Prof. Nebojša Ranđelović, University of Niš Prof. Stevo Pendarovski, University American College Skopje Proof reading: Prof. Robert Hudson Design & Layout: prof. Kokan Grcev/Goran Shukulovski Print: V. I - Biblo, dooel, Skopje OUT OF THE CRISIS: EU ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL POLICIES RECONSIDERED Edited by: Ivan Dodovski Stevo Pendarovski Ilijana Petrovska Robert Hudson Skopje, 2013 OUT OF THE CRISIS: EU ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL POLICIES RECONSIDERED OUT OF THE CRISIS: EU ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL POLICIES RECONSIDERED Introduction Robert Hudson and Ivan Dodovski 7 EU Politics and EU Social Policies Gáspár Bíró: We, the States of the Union… 19 Dimitrios E. Akrivoulis: ‘We All Knew This’: Digging Ourselves Out of the Hole 41 Zlat Milovanovic: Migrations in the European Union: Looking Ahead to 2050 63 Biljana Sekulovska Gaber, Marijana Sekulovska: Territorial Cohesion: A Bridging Concept 83 Stevo Pendarovski, Zoran Sapurik: EU Crisis and the Western Balkans: Enlargement Unaffected 101 Ganka Cvetanova, Veno Pachovski: E-democracy Strategy in the Republic of Macedonia in the Context of E-democracy Strategies in EU Member States 119 Natasha Gaber-Damjanovska: The Constitutional Principle of Voting Equality Viewed through EU Standards – the Case of Ex-Patriot Vote 135 Krum Efremov: Economic Diplomacy as a Strategy for Sustainable Economic Growth 157 Ana Stojilovska: Green, Greener, the Greenest: The Western Balkan Countries on Test – Lessons for Macedonia 175 Kimo Cavdar, Zoran Sapurik: EU Consumer Protection and the Implementation in Macedonia and Countries of Former Yugoslavia: Focus on Liability for Defective Products 197 6 Emilija Tudzarovska-Gjorgjievska: Economic Rationale behind Investments in Education and Human Capital 211 Economic and Financial Aspects of the EU Crisis Zoran Sapurik, Ninko Kostovski, Elena Klisarovska: The Challenges of Implementation of the Fiscal Stability Treaty 237 Lukasz Czernicki: The Potential Role of Development Banks in Solving the EMU Crisis 247 Evica Delova Jolevska, Jadranka Mrsic, Bogoljub Jankoski: Assessing the Challenges to the Single European Banking Supervision 261 Suela Kristo, Raimonda Duka, Eri Gjoka: How Similar Are the CEE and SEE Countries in Terms of the Efficiency of Financial Institutions? 275 Dimche Lazarevski, Jadranka Mrsik: The Small Stock Exchanges in South-East European Countries: The Future after the Crisis 295 Jeremy Cripps, Kalin Sergeev, Boris Minchev: The New Economics: the Need for Real Enforcement 319 Marija Andonova, Nikica Mojsoska-Blazevski: Factors Influencing the Salary Expectations among Macedonian Students: A Comparative Perspective with the EU Students 349 Ema Kastratovic, Marjan Bojadziev, Venera Krliu-Handjiski: Creating a Market Oriented Organizational Structure as a Key to Overcoming the Financial Crisis – A Comparative Study 377 About the Authors 397 Robert Hudson, Ivan Dodovski: Introduction 7 Out of the Crisis: EU Economic and Social Policies Reconsidered Introduction Robert Hudson, Ivan Dodovski This volume includes a selection of papers presented at the th8 international conference on European integration entitled: “Out of the Crisis: EU Economic and Social Policies Reconsidered” which was held in Skopje on 16 May 2013. The volume seeks to reconsider current EU complexities across diverse policy areas and suggest perspectives on growth and ways leading out of the crisis. One overriding theme was that the crisis should be viewed as an opportunity for thinking and rethinking the EU as well as an opportunity for positive developments. When we held the conference in May 2013, the European Union was experiencing the deepest economic recession since the European Economic Community had been first established by the treaties of Rome in 1957. Faced with the Euro - crisis, there was not a single day that went by without a reference in the media to: austerity measures; how to overcome the economic deficit; and the continuing rise in unemployment across the European Union. The sovereign debt crisis had, in turn, led to a profound crisis in public confidence in the European economy and in the European project as whole and we witnessed the crisis spread from one EU member state to another, impacting upon both their economies and the well-being of their societies, from Greece, to Portugal, to Spain, to Ireland and Cyprus, each in turn, as the process continued, with the potential to impact upon south-eastern Europe and on other member states. In the background were other concerns expressed by individual European Union member states: such as the implications of the so- called European democratic deficit, particularly with regard to the implementation, support and maintenance of human rights laws; or, to Out of the Crisis: 8 EU Economic and Social Policies Reconsidered insufficient economic growth in a European Union which is faced with an ever aging population. One of the most successful achievements of the European project, European enlargement in turn was accompanied with the threat and fears expressed amongst the populations of some EU member countries of increased immigration, where there were concerns that, the further opening up of border restrictions might lead to indigenous unemployment, with concomitant strains on welfare, health care and educational provision. By contrast, might it be that the opening up of borders and an increase in migration actually stimulate economic growth rather than serve as a drain on educational, welfare and medical resources. As such our book is made up of nineteen chapters and divided into two parts. The first part concerns “EU Politics and EU social policies” and the second part is dedicated to “Economic and Financial Aspects of the EU Crisis”. Part One: EU Politics and EU Social Policies Concerns about sovereignty are taken up in our first chapter ‘We, the States of the Union….’ by the late Gáspár Bíró. His paper considers how transformation in the EU has led to a gradual relinquishing of the attributes of sovereignty to the organs of the European Union. The main question addressed by this text is: What happens with the basic components of the nation, both political and cultural, if the dismantling of the nation-state continues? Can a supranational integration deal with these elements in the same way that the nation-state does? And, will the deepening of European integration within Europe lead to a European super-state, a federation, or as Professor Biro claims, to something else? In the second chapter Dimitrios Akrivoulis posits that the deep causes of the Eurocrisis may be