Eastern Journal of European Studies

Re-examining de Gaulle's rejection of British membership in the European Economic Community

Author: Alvin ADITYO, Ari Anggari HARAPAN, Djoko MARIHANDONO

Abstract: This article aims to explain the reasons behind Charles de Gaulle's rejection of British membership in the European Economic Community. Britain applied to join the organisation twice, first in 1963 and then again in 1967, but was rejected by the French president Charles de Gaulle. The rejection seems relevant now since Britain intends to disengage itself from the EU. The cause of rejection, however, was the British close relationship to the United States, which, in de Gaulle's opinion, was a threat to a united Europe. This article also aims to explain the various factors that motivated Britain, which was fundamentally against a united Europe, to join the EEC while knowing that the EEC was based on the concept of a united Europe. Using a historical causal method and a political approach, the writers conclude that while Britain was more or less forced to act by economic issues, de Gaulle's rejection was rather political in nature. 

Keywords: Charles de Gaulle, Britain, France, European Economic Community   

Pages: 5-18 | Full text (PDF)

Mainstreaming euroscepticism in European politics

Authors: Ebru OĞURLU

Abstract: Anti-EU sentiment has been sweeping the continent recently. Since the beginning of the 1990s, Euroscepticism has been rising in national and European party politics, the European public opinion, national referendums as well as in the European media coverage sceptically criticising the European integration and its achievements. Under those conditions, when the EU is also suffering from an existential crisis, Euroscepticism has become much more mainstream in European politics. In this framework, this study discusses mainstreaming Euroscepticism at the levels of political parties, public and the media. It starts with the puzzle of contested meanings of Euroscepticism. Then, it unravels the complexity and diversity of opposition towards Europe by focusing on the typologies of Euroscepticism.Finally, it shows how Euroscepticism occupies a prominent space in European politics, society and media. Overall, the paper argues that Euroscepticism has become increasingly embedded in the mainstream political debates throughout Europe.

Keywords: euroscepticism, European integration, European Union, European Parliament elections 

Pages: 19-40 | Full text (PDF)

Rethinking the territorial cohesion in the EU: institutional and functional elements of the concept

Authors: Pablo PODADERA RIVERA, Francisco J. CALDERON VAZQUEZ

Abstract: In the present work we propose a better understanding of the concept of territorial cohesion from its thematic components. The 'cohesion' concept has been called vague, ambiguous and subjective, generating a great debate still far from over. However, its relevance as an engine of the current European regional policy is simply indisputable; therefore, its importance for the EU, at a critical moment like the current one, is undeniable. Hence the need for its reformulation from a European construction perspective, posing a formulation of the Territorial Cohesion as a meta-concept integrated by various functional components, without implying obviating its political nature or its conceptual weaknesses.

Keywords: territorial cohesion, regional policy, territorial inequality, metaconcept 

Pages: 41-62 | Full text (PDF)

Productivity determinants and their contributions to productivity growth in the Baltic countries before and after their entry
 into the European Union: a comparative industrial perspective

Authors: Toma LANKAUSKIENE

Abstract: The article aims to apply the EU KLEMS methodology to obtain labour productivity growth determinants for the Baltic countries for two periods of time: before and after their entry into the European Union. The study's novelty lies in its detection of new statistical data that are unavailable in official databases for the Baltic countries. First, the countries' economic structures are examined during the two periods. Following the derivation of new statistical data, data were prepared according to strict methodological rules and the growth accounting method was applied to detect productivity growth determinants and the main industries that stimulate aggregated labour productivity growth. Subsequently, a comparative economic analysis is conducted for the Baltic countries. Productivity determinants are scrutinised for the aggregated market economy and the specific industries that contribute most to aggregated labour productivity growth. Some consistent patterns are detected for certain groups of tangible and intangible capital.

Keywords: productivity determinants, productivity growth, intangible capital, tangible capital, growth accounting

Pages: 63-88 | Full text (PDF)

Does a country's business regulatory environment affect its attractiveness to FDI? Empirical evidence from Central and Southeast European countries

Authors: Mehmed GANIĆ, Mahir HRNJIC

Abstract: The paper squarely concentrates on an examination of the relationship between a country's business regulatory environment and the inward stock of foreign direct investment (FDI) in fifteen selected countries of Central Eastern and Southeast Europe by using a Mean Group (MG) estimator. The paper found no evidence that a country's business regulatory environment is a statistically significant predictor of FDI neither in Central Eastern European nor in Southeast European countries. However, the study's findings recommend that a further increase in FDI in both regions can be achieved by further economic growth, political stability, European Union integration and reduction costs of business regulations.

Keywords: business regulatory environment, FDI, transition countries, Mean Group (MG) estimator, the OLI paradigm 

Pages: 89-105 | Full text (PDF)

Foreign borrowing, foreign direct investment inflows and economic growth in European Union transition economies

Author: Yilmaz BAYAR, Mahmut Unsal SASMAZ

Abstract: Globalization gained speed as of 1980s and, in turn, considerable increases in transnational goods, services, and capital flows have been seen. In this context, developing and emerging economies have attracted a significant amount of foreign direct investments and also foreign borrowing has become an important financing source, especially for developing or underdeveloped countries with insufficient savings for investments. The rapidly rising foreign borrowing and foreign direct investments have led scholars and policy-makers to question the economic, institutional, and social effects of foreign borrowing and foreign direct investments. Furthermore, the iron curtain simultaneously collapsed as of the late 1980s together with the accelerating globalization and the member states of the Eastern Bloc have transited from command economy to market economy. The same EU countries in the Eastern Bloc also tend towards EU and have consequently followed the policies to integrate in the EU. Both globalization and EU negotiations caused these countries to take a significant amount of foreign borrowing and foreign direct investments. The study analyses the influence of foreign borrowing and foreign direct investment inflows on economic growth in European Union transition economies for the period of 2004-2016 through panel data analysis. The co-integration and causality analyses revealed that the influence of foreign borrowing and foreign direct investment inflows varied from country to country in EU transition economies .

Keywords: foreign borrowing, foreign direct investment inflows, economic growth, panel data analysis   

Pages: 107-125 | Full text (PDF)

A longitudinal study on the effect of entrepreneurship courses taught at the vocational colleges in Turkey on students' entrepreneurial tendency

Authors: Bulent ARPAT, Yeliz YEŞİL, Mehmet Levent KOCAALAN

Abstract: In the current international context, it is important to maintain vocational and technical education by providing entrepreneurship qualities within the mission of raising median labor force, which is undertaken by vocational colleges. The aim of this study is to make a longitudinal assessment of the effect of entrepreneurship courses taught at vocational colleges on entrepreneurship tendency. According to the study findings, having entrepreneurship courses at vocational colleges does not allow students to gain sufficient entrepreneurship qualifications. However, students feel inspired to establish their own business and gain a consciousness of the fact that they should not leave their lives at the mercy of external factors. In order to ensure that students acquire entrepreneurship qualities through entrepreneurship courses and prefer entrepreneurship, it is necessary for this course to be taught as an applied course: students' application performance must be included in the course assessment criteria; students must be given supervision support and a sense of making money on their own; and structural problems must be resolved.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, vocational college, education, business, Turkey 

Pages: 127-161 | Full text (PDF)

Development of metropolitan and non-metropolitan regions: growing disparities in the Europe of 28

Authors: Julia von HANXLEDEN, Jan WEDEMEIER

Abstract: Within the article, new observations on the gap between metropolitan and non-metropolitan regions are presented. The economic performance of a country mostly emanates from its metropolitan regions. As these regions profit from a highly dynamic routine, they are growing rapidly. From the outside, assumptions about the prosperity of a nation is often presumed to stay in steady proportion to the development of its economic lead. However, not only the gap between metropolitan and non-metropolitan regions is in no steady proportion, this difference also varies when observing capital city metropolitan regions and second-tier metropolitan regions, meaning metropolitan regions of a country other than the capital. The article concludes that differences between these categories are slightly shrinking, but the gaps are still enormous. Nevertheless, the dynamics of these gaps are largely overseen and the assumption that non-metropolitan regions of a country are developing in a fixed relation to metropolitan regions needs a closer investigation.

Keywords: Metropolitan region, non-metropolitan region, economic development

Pages: 163-174 | Full text (PDF)

The Visegrad Group and the railway development interest articulation in Central Eastern Europe

Authors: Balint L. TOTH

Abstract: This paper intends to advance thinking on the catalysts of V4 railway policy making by offering an overview of the nature and directions of spillovers triggering joint Visegrad railway projects. The Czech, the Hungarian, the Polish and the Slovak governments help each other adopt international railway traffic standards and legislation as the Visegrad Cooperation provides a forum to agree on lobbying positions within international organisations. By citing real-life examples of V4 railway cooperation supporting the neofunctionalist or the liberal intergovernmentalist theoretical frameworks, the paper shall contribute to the better understanding of the spillover phenomena in Central Eastern Europe, while seeking answers on how international railway policies shape the Visegrad Cooperation's transport strategies through different spillovers. The paper concludes that in Visegrad countries, spillovers are primarily driven by governmental actions that serve as mediators of market, civil society, and financial needs.However, spillovers would hardly take place without the EU's legal-institutional framework.

Keywords: transport, spillover, integration, development, neofunctionalism, liberal intergovernmentalism  

Pages: 175-195 | Full text (PDF)

Comparative qualitative analysis of Turkey and Estonia in the IT sector vacancies

Authors: Ufuk BİNGOL, Hakan METE, Yılmaz OZKAN

Abstract: The aim of this study is to compare the Information Technologies (IT) job requirements in Turkey and Estonia, which have made significant progress in the IT sector, and to determine the developmental pattern of IT labor workforce by utilizing qualitative data analysis methods. Estonia was chosen for this comparative analysis on the IT sector workforce qualifications primarily because its young population surplus is similar to Turkey's with regard to the demographic window. As known, the educated young population has played an important role in the development of the country in terms of digital society. After declaring its independence in 2001, Estonia shaped all of its economic and social development endeavors around the IT sector. It is believed that the exhibition of results generated by the content analysis methods through the IT vacancies of companies operating in the IT sector and the results obtained by the comparative coding and analysis studies may constitute the data source for the labor market regulations to be achieved in Turkey in the future. In this context, content analysis, which is a sub-element of qualitative data analysis study with grounded theory, has been carried out with NVIVO 12.0 Plus, a Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA) software. According to the preliminary results of the study, the qualitative analysis of the information technologies workforce in Estonia, where solutions for the employment problem and achievement of the digital society aims were identified through focusing on technology trainings, has shown results in accordance with Turkey's technology-oriented education and development strategy.

Keywords: IT, IT Vacancies, qualitative data analysis, workforce wualification, comparison     

Pages: 197-220 | Full text (PDF)

Day-of-the-week and month-of-the-year effects on French Small-Cap Volatility: the role of asymmetry and long memory

Authors: Mohamed CHIKHI, Ali BENDOB, Ahmed Ramzi SIAGH

Abstract: Small-cap stocks are characterized by high volatility and offer investors the opportunity to earn higher returns. This paper empirically investigates the impact of the day-of-the-week and the month-of-the year effects on the volatility of daily and monthly CAC SMALL returns in Paris stock market during the period from 1999 to 2015. We propose the SEMIFARMA-SD-GJR-GARCH model, which incorporates stochastic trend, deterministic nonparametric trend, short-range, long-range dependence and seasonal dummy asymmetric GARCH errors. The main findings of this study are that the coefficients of the SEMIFARMA-SD-GJR-GARCH model including the long memory coefficient in the mean equation and the seasonal asymmetry in the variance equation are highly significant and the GJR-GARCH model without seasonal dummies is dominated by the GJR-GARCH model with seasonal dummies (SD-GJR-GARCH). The results indicate that the day-of-the-week and the month-of-the-year effects detected on volatility seem to improve the volatility forecasts. These results support the arbitrage opportunity hypothesis for realizing abnormal returns, and support the inefficiency of CAC small capital market.

Keywords: SEMIFARMA model, SD-GJR-GARCH model, seasonal anomalies, asymmetric volatility, small capitalization 

Pages: 221-248 | Full text (PDF)

The Central Bank of Turkey's response to the global currency markets

Authors: Onur AKKAYA, Mustafa OZER,Özcan OZKAN

Abstract: Previous studies have examined the monetary policy relationship among relatively similar size countries in terms of their economic development. It is also important to explore this relationship between developed countries and developing economies. Moreover, another important question which should be asked is whether the relationship exists among developed and developing economies and what would the size and sign of the coefficient be. Our contributions to existing literature sit on this line. To begin with, we test whether the Taylor rule exists in Turkey or not. First of all, we proved this relationship exists in Turkey. Then, this study concludes that developed countries have a greater impact on developing countries' monetary policies. Moreover, it is found that the effect of the European Central Bank's (ECB) on the monetary policy authority of the European Union related to interest rate over the foreign exchange rate is higher than the impact of the Federal Reserve Bank (FED).

Keywords: bank, monetary policy, interest rate, Turkish economy    

Pages: 249-262 | Full text (PDF)

The link between financial capital movements and the exchange rate in Turkey

Authors: Ozcan KARAHAN, Olcay COLAK

Abstract: This paper aims to analyze the short and long run impacts of financial capital inflows on the exchange rate in Turkey during the implementation of inflation targeting regime. Accordingly, the impact of financial capital flows on the exchange rate has been examined by using the ARDL model for the period between 2003 and 2018. Thus, our research contributes to the existing literature by examining the impact of capital inflows on the exchange rate in the short and long run separately. Besides, we consider the era of inflation targeting regime while analyzing the impact of capital flows on the exchange rate. Econometric results show that financial capital inflows have the potential to fluctuate the exchange rates in different directions in the short and in the long term. Thus, exchange rate volatility associated with capital movements have a significant potential to put the Turkish inflation-targeting regime in trouble. Therefore, capital inflows to Turkey should effectively be managed to stabilize the level of domestic prices. That means that monetary authorities, even under the inflation-targeting regime, should try to provide both price and exchange rate stability.

Keywords: exchange rate, financial capital movements, inflation targeting regime   

Pages: 263-281 | Full text (PDF)

BOOK REVIEW:

Călin Emilian Hințea, Marius Constantin Profiroiu, Tudor Cristian Țiclău (eds.), Strategic planning in local communities. A cross-national study in 7 countries, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019,  ISBN 978-3-030-03436-8

Author: Bogdan Andrei MOLDOVAN

Pages: 283-285 | Full text (PDF)