The Eastern Dimension of the United Europe
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
UNIVERSITY OF ŁÓDŹ Department of Political Geography and Regional Studies GOVERNMENTAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE Silesian Institute in Opole SILESIAN INSTITUTE SOCIETY THE EASTERN DIMENSION OF THE UNITED EUROPE Political and economical aspects of the Eastern politics of the European Union REGION AND REGIONALISM No. 11 vol. 2 edited by Krystian Heffner Łódź–Opole 2013 REVIEWER prof. dr hab. Stanisław Koziarski prof. dr hab. Tadeusz Marszał MANAGING EDITOR Anna Araszkiewicz COVER Marek Jastrzębski MAPS AND FIGURES Anna Wosiak ENGLISH VERIFICATION BY Jarosław Sawiuk The publication co-financed from founds of the National Science Centre granted based on decision no. DEC-2011/01/B/HS4/02609 and the Minister of Science and Higher Education ISBN 978-83-7126-293-7 978-83-7511-173-6 PAŃSTWOWY INSTYTUT NAUKOWY – INSTYTUT ŚLĄSKI W OPOLU WYDAWNICTWO INSTYTUT ŚLĄSKI Sp. z o.o. CONTENTS Foreword (Krystian HEFFNER) ............................................................................ 5 Section I POLITICAL ASPECTS OF THE EASTERN 9 POLITICS OF THE EU Alessandro VITALE The EU's predominant concept of inside/outside dimensions, the stop of enlargements, and the Eastern European deadlock ............................................ 11 Roman SZUL The West (the EU and NATO) and its eastern neighbours: fading interests, weakening ties? ....................................................................................................... 23 Katarzyna LE ŚNIEWSKA The socio-political situation of Poles in Vilnius after the accession of Lithuania to the EU ................................................................................................................. 41 Sandra VIOLANTE Candidate to normalcy: Serbia between Yugoslav heritage and EU future ........... 55 Section II ECONOMICAL ASPECTS OF THE EASTERN POLITICS OF THE EU 65 Marie-France GAUNARD-ANDERSON Partnership between French and Eastern European Regions: Success of a decentralised co-operation supported by the European Union ........................ 67 Maksym VOICHUK Integration component of environmental management: geo-economic aspect ...... 81 Serhii FEDONIUK E-participation as a factor of Europeanization in the context of European integration prospects of Ukraine ............................................................................. 87 Nataliia PAVLIKHA and Iryna KYTSYUK Importance of regional competitiveness in transition economy ............................. 99 Section III BORDERS AND BORDERLANDS ISSUES AND THE TRANSBORDER CO-OPERATION 107 Milan BUFON The Slovenian borderlands: between integration and marginality ......................... 109 Sokol AXEMI The features of the socio-geographic area of Shkodër (Albania) and Ulcinj (Montenegro) .......................................................................................................... 123 Marek SOBCZY ŃSKI and Marek BARWI ŃSKI Geopolitical location and territorial transformations of Ukrainian territory and the complexity of their internal structures in the twentieth century ....................... 131 Nataliia KOTSAN Political and geographical features of the new state border of Ukraine ................. 163 Gintar ė POCI ŪTĖ and Vidmantas DAUGIRDAS The border's influence on peripherality: Case study of the Lithuanian-Belarusian border region .......................................................................................................... 175 Donatas BURNEIKA, Vidmantas DAUGIRDAS, Edis KRIAU ČIŪNAS, Gintaras RIBOKAS and R ūta UBAREVI ČIEN Ė Socio-economical aspects of depopulation in Eastern EU border region – case of Eastern Lithuania ................................................................................................ 195 Halina POW ĘSKA Spatial extent of cross-border trade in the Polish-Ukrainian border area ............... 217 Sylwia DOŁZBŁASZ Transborder co-operation on the external EU's borders, illustrated by the eastern border of Poland ..................................................................................................... 231 Alexandru ILIE Ş, Jan WENDT, Dorina Camelia ILIE Ş and Vasile GRAMA Internal/external le vel of connection of administrative divisions at the external border of EU in Polish and Slovak sectors ............................................................. 243 Marcin WÓJCIK Peripheral areas in geographical concepts and the context of Poland 's regional diversity .................................................................................................................. 255 No. 11 FOREWORD The next volume from the series called Region and Regionalism was dedicated to the political and spatial results of an Eastern enlargement of the European Union with a group of 12 countries from the Central and Southern Europe. The fast growing intensity of economic, social and cultural phenomena as well as deep changes in transport, communal and environmental infrastructure of this area indicate the new development stimuli and wide-raging overvaluation of the given economic and political networks. Areas that had previously been functioning in one geopolitical area after accession to European Union became a part of new political and spatial structures (Commonwealth of Independent States, Commonwealth of Belarus and Russia, Schengen Agreement Members etc.) and in the joining zones of them new spheres of influences and economic, social and political networks appeared. Although there are still the national borders between the EU countries, their traditional importance from the economic and social point of view is being reduced. The economic integration and political cooperation that have been started a couple of decades ago results in growing role of regions that became the territory entities with economic and spatial significance in the given countries and the whole European Union. It is quite often that local societies cross the country's borders and within the frame of transboundary initiatives and emerging euroregions start to joining solutions of the problems. That may lead to a situation when the European community although having principal differences is a group functioning as a system of a variety of regional and subregional networks. The source of those networks is the progressive globalization of economic and political structures that are conditioned by the results of scientific- -technical progress and information revolution. The articles and studies that have been used in the monograph dealing with political geography dedicated to the new spatial processes in the Central and Eastern Europe was divided into three parts – the political aspects of the East- 6 Foreword ward European Union enlargement, economic problems connected with the fun- ctioning of the countries and regions in the new conditions and the issues regard- ing the trans boundary cooperation and changing connections in the border zones. The first part ( Political aspects of the Eastern politics of the EU) is composed of four articles from which the first – The EU’s predominant concept of inside/ outside dimensions, the stop of enlargements, and the Eastern European deadlock (Alessandro Vitale) deals with the notion of the further enlargement of the European economic structure both in the politics and social-cultural and the factors weakening this process. In the second Roman Szul – The West (the EU and NATO) and its Eastern neighbours: fading interests, weakening ties? indicates the issue of EU enlarge- ment pointing at a variety of different political interests of EU member countries and the East European countries located outside the EU. Two further texts regards the slightly more detailed issues related with the EU Eastern enlarge- ment – the situation of the Polish minority in Lithuania after Polish and Lithua- nian accession to EU (Katarzyna Le śniewska, The socio-political situation of Poles in Vilnius after the accession of Lithuania to the European Union ) and the perspective and eventual internal and external results of Serbia's accession to European Union (Sandra Violante – Candidate to normalcy: Serbia between Yugoslav heritage and EU future ). The second part of the Volume focuses on the economic issues resulting from the EU Eastern enlargement ( Economical aspects of the Eastern politics of the EU ). Marie-France Gaunard-Anderson presents an example of significant regio- nal benefits, resulting from the intensification of the business relations between the regions of the ‘old’ and ‘new’ European Union that cooperate thanks to the European support (Partnership between French and East European regions: Success of a decentralized co-operation supported by the European Union ). The following three articles indicate the economic influences of the European Union enlargement in the neighbouring Ukraine. Maksym Voichuk (Integration com- ponent of environmental management: geo-economics aspect ) presents new examples of environmental management, Serhii Fedoniuk (E-participation as a factor of Europeanization in the context of European integration prospects of Ukraine ) focuses on the pace of development, the scope of advancement and the popularity of the usage of the modern information techniques. However, Nataliia Pavlikha and Iryna Kytsyuk – point at the growing significance of the com- petitiveness factors of the regions in economies of the neighbouring countries of the European Union, especially Ukraine (Importance of regional competitiveness in transition economy ). Foreword 7 Finally, in the third part that is very close to the old volumes of the Region and Regionalism