Institute of European Studies and International Relations

Since the Treaty of Amsterdam, European Union member states have committed to developing a common European asylum and migration policy. While some argue this means states are losing their ability to exercise control over (im)migration, others argue this transfer of power is rather a reassertion of states’ sovereignty. Under the latter assumption, states are reaffirming their power of control by choosing to pool sovereignty to the Union level while, at the same time, fulfilling national interest (material, security) by avoiding internal legal and political constraints associated to immigration policies. Traditionally, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and Hungary have been seen as policy-takers, pooling sovereignty to the Union level, and internally transforming their laws and policies – a consequence of their efforts to meet accession criteria earlier on. However, in the apex of the migration and refugee crisis, in 2015, these countries promptly showed their lack of commitment to the principle of solidarity and burden sharing and opposed to the mandatory relocation system put in place by the Union. Is this an indication these countries are moving from being “policy-takers” to become “policy- makers” in the EU? This paper addresses this question. By looking at mechanisms of policy diffusion and to the measures taken by these countries, I suggest that we must be cautious when talking about policy change because these countries are too legally and institutionally constrained in order to become policy-makers on their own or as a group.

The evolvement of human security was a long-term process, which escalated in early 90s, mainly due to increasing number of intra-states conflicts and deepening the gap between „western“ world and the „third“ world. Its further development was however significantly influenced by the international environment and the number of supporters among states. After NATO airstrikes in Kosovo it became the integral part of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, thus indivisibly connected to the concept of humanitarian intervention. Later the development in international relations influenced the popularity of the concept in opposite way. This paper will argue that human security paradigm has much more to offer and be related with than only negatively perceived humanitarian intervention and will focus on whether human security provides legitimate and legal justification for humanitarian intervention.

The article argues that the recent discourse of the Russian elite on building an “Eurasian Union” contains a series of new attempts of delineating Russian identity. The author relies on the concepts
of constitutive Other and othering to argue that Russian understandings of themselves continue to hinge on how they interpret Europe. Representations of European integration that the Russian rulers articulate are used in order to construct images and ideas legitimizing and guiding the development of Eurasian regional integration. The author suggests that while the symbolic
“Europe” or the “West” remains a constant point of reference, there are several ways in which it has been used by Russians, leading to emergence of varying identitary patterns. An analysis
of discourse on Eurasian regional integration is undertaken in order to show which patterns of Russian identity this political project discursively reproduces and how they may interplay with
the future of EU-Russia relations.

The article examines the legitimacy of the claim that the new members of the European Union in  Central and Eastern Europe have a stronger capacity for promoting democracy throughout the
Eastern Neighborhood than the Western European nations. Regional and country-specific strengths in weakness with respect to the democracy promotion task are subsequently examined
in a comparative perspective.

The  article  explores  the  specific  role  of  the  Visegrad  Group  countries  in  relation to the Eastern border of the Schengen area. The article overhauls the scope of national and EU-level discretion in the area of visas and migration before  and  after  the  implementation  of  the  Schengen  rules  as  well  as  the countries'  various  motives  behind  the  policies  they  choose  to  pursue.  The article attempts to answer the question whether the Visegrad countries have the will and the legal and political capacity to play an independent role in visa and  migration  policies  towards  their  regional  neighbors  in  the  broader context  of  promoting  European  values  beyond  the  borders  of  the  European
Union