Academic literature on the topic 'European Union – Scandinavia'

The Article examines the military and political integration of Scandinavia in the European security architecture after 1945 and analyzes the historical experience of the countries of the North Europe in the late 1940s-1960s in the security space issues. Particular attention is paid to the close link between the military and political rapprochement with the processes of the economic, technological and political integration in the Western European region. It is emphasized that the economic basis of common interests encourages the EU member states all the time to seek peaceful means to resolve possible disputes. Considerable attention is paid to the analysis of alternative approaches to the European security that the North European countries have used in their foreign policy. The role and place of these countries in the sphere of the European security during the late 1940s-1960s was determined. The influence of the USA and the USSR on the formation of the foreign policy of the Scandinavian countries, especially the pressure of the Soviet Union on Finland in its attempts to get a neutral state status, has been shown. The reasons for the failure to implement the military and political cooperation projects in the form of the Scandinavian Defense Alliance have been revealed.

The town of Skagen is situated on the northernmost tip of Jutland (i.e., mainland Denmark). This is a remote and crisis-stricken area by Danish standards: the capital, Copenhagen, is eight hours away by train, the County of Northern Jutland has the highest unemployment rates in Denmark, and in recent years the region has been the target of several development projects financed by European Union funds. However, geographically, Skagen's position is quite central in Scandinavia. Ferry routes connect the nearby port of Frederikshavn (40 kilometres/25 miles away) with such relatively large Scandinavian cities as Oslo (9 hours away by ferry) and Gothenburg (3½ hours away). The town can also be reached from the south of Norway via the ferry route between Kristiansand and Hirtshals (also 40 kilometres/25 miles from Skagen). By these and other routes, tourists from Norway and Sweden, as well as from other parts of Denmark, regularly invade the town, in the summer season roughly doubling its 15,000 population.

The concept of reactive or psychogenic psychoses has had a peculiar fate. Especially at the beginning of the century, under the influence of the writings of Jaspers (Jaspers, 1913) which included definitions of ‘psychogenic’ and ‘psychoses’, the term ‘psychogenic psychoses’ came into common use in European psychiatry. In Scandinavia, this trend was greatly reinforced by August Wimmer's monograph in 1916 on the subject. In the later editions of Kraepelin's standard textbook, the concept appeared quite frequently, and the same was the case in other leading textbooks, for instance in the Soviet Union and Japan.

ABSTRACT The current Polish migrant group in Sweden is the largest in Scandinavia, and experienced a significant growth after the enlargement of the European Union in 2004. The present overview is an attempt to give a systematic picture of this group, and is based on a selection of publications from a larger bibliography. The bibliography was compiled by the author in order to survey the knowledge on Polish migrants in Sweden, and is attached to this overview. The overview is primarily confined to the period between 1940 and 1990 because this period is covered by the scholarly literature.

The Globalisation process and its achievements have exacerbated migration problems, creating a demographic crisis in the European Union and the Russian Federation. The authors of the article from the position of social philosophy and sociology examine the impact of the increasing migration flow from the problem regions of Asia and Africa to the more prosperous countries of Europe on the concepts of national and ethnic identity and tolerance, as well as on social capital and public trust in political leadership. The article draws attention to the borderline nature of the movement of identarism formed in the countries of Scandinavia, Western and Eastern Europe, with right-wing and extreme nationalist movements.

Abstract This article will focus on the significant differences shown by the data found by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) survey of women who may or may not have suffered physical Intimate Partner Violence against Women (IPVAW). The authors present the model and result of the discriminant function analysis that they carried out separately for the countries from southern Europe (Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Cyprus, and Malta) and Scandinavia (Denmark, Finland, and Sweden). Their hypotheses were that women with less income, lower educational level, who are divorced, who have children, are from rural areas, who are housewives, with bad health, older aged, immigrants, and those who had suffered some physical violence from other people – apart from the partner or ex-partner –, will suffer more violence than the rest of women. One of the most relevant conclusions from their analysis was this: the more often a woman experienced physical violence from someone other than a partner/ex-partner beginning at the age of 15 years old, the more probable it will be that she will suffer IPVAW. The authors discuss this and other significant findings here.

Research on banking regularly assumes that digitalisation has an impact on banking. This blanket assumption is not erroneous, but it is too inaccurate, too undifferentiated and probably only applies in the long term. Results of this study show that the customers’ habits and requirements and thus the willingness to accept digital technologies in the banking sector are changing within a significantly different speed. The spread ranges from almost complete use, as in Scandinavia, dynamic development, as in the Czech Republic and Greece, to almost complete rejection, as in Bulgaria and Romania. This paper examines and demonstrates the influence of various socio-demographic and emotional characteristics on the use of digital media. Shifts in customer behaviours are revealed and discrepancies are identified by time series analyses and factor analyses. The results reveal the forthcoming death of the bank branch network accompanied by a regionally varying acceptance of Internet and mobile banking. This area of tension requires banks to have a good understanding of customer requirements regarding the demand for digitisation in order to avoid misguided decisions. However, the bank’s side in the adoption process of new technologies by customers has been neglected by scientific studies so far. In order to measure the state of digitisation of banking services, a comparison equation is presented that allows banks to be benchmarked in terms of the degree of digitisation and enables banks to dynamically track changes in their customer portfolios.

The Trimarium Initiative (TI) is a platform for co-operation of twelve central and eastern European (CEE) countries of the eastern flank of the European Union (EU), introduced by Poland and Croatia in 2015. The TI is based on member co-operation in the development of transport and communication, energy, raw materials (gas and oil) transfer infrastructure, and digitization. The region is an important and rapidly growing market, and the TI goal is to boost economic co-operation among these twelve countries. Ukraine is not an EU member state, so it cannot be a full member of the TI; however, several TI infrastructural projects are open to Ukrainian companies. As Russia’s aggressive energy policy impacts Poland, Ukraine, the Baltic states, Scandinavia, and Slovakia, the TI has a potential to meet this challenge. Transport and communication and energy transit infrastructure are promising areas of co-operation among TI countries and Ukraine. U.S. support has added optimism and prestige to the initiative.

Le fait que dès ses années d'exil scandinave, entre 1933 et 1947, le jeune Willy Brandt se lance dans le débat sur l'avenir d'une Europe unifiée et en propose des conditions concrètes de réalisation est encore très largement méconnu. Pourtant, la question de l'Europe jalonne les écrits d'exil du jeune socialiste réfugié en Norvège. Cette thèse de doctorat met en lumière ces primes idées européennes, le « rêve des Etats-Unis d’Europe », que Willy Brandt développe en exil. Elle interroge non seulement le rôle de l’exil scandinave dans l’émergence d’une pensée fédérale européenne chez Brandt, mais également la teneur de son projet et son éventuelle originalité. Cette étude repose sur un corpus de textes écrits de la main de Willy Brandt en Scandinavie entre 1933 et 1947. Dans ses ouvrages consacrés à la politique internationale, dans ses articles rédigés pour la presse ouvrière mais aussi, parfois, dans sa correspondance personnelle, l’objectif est d’identifier, dans une perspective d’analyse du discours, le motif de l’Europe unie et de l’analyser en contexte afin de le comprendre et de discerner ses potentielles évolutions. Cette étude se base sur des sources originales et pour partie non exploitées, ce qui a nécessité un travail conséquent de recherches en archives mais aussi, dans la mesure où Brandt publie à cette époque en norvégien et en suédois, l’apprentissage des langues scandinaves. Cette thèse de doctorat montre que par son influence contextuelle et culturelle, l’exil scandinave a marqué la pensée européenne de Brandt et que son modèle d’Europe sociale et démocratique porte indéniablement l’empreinte du socialisme scandinave
The fact that during his Scandinavian exile between 1933 and 1947, the young Willy Brandt has been engaged in the debate about the future Europe and even proposed concrete conditions for its realization is still largely unknown. Still, the question of Europe marked out his exile writings and was as such the focus of particular attention from the young socialist refugee in Norway as early as 1939. This doctoral thesis aims to highlight these early European ideas, the “dream of the United States of Europe”, that Willy Brandt developed during his exile. It shall question not only the role of his Scandinavian exile on the emergence of a European federal thought in Brandt’s exile writings, but also the content of his project, its particularities and furthermore its possible originality. At a time when resistance groups were massively discussing the idea of the European unification, what may characterize Brandt's proposal for Europe? And how did these first European ideas evolve during the Second World War as the contexts of conception and communication also changed. To answer these questions, this PhD thesis is based on the analysis of texts written by Willy Brandt in Scandinavia between 1933 and 1947. The corpus consists of three types of documents: books or monographs about the war and the global international context, journalistic writings (newspaper articles, brochures, pamphlets, conference manuscripts all signed by Brandt between 1933 and 1947) and personal correspondence. The objective has been to identify in all these exile writings the motive of Europe as well as any other element relating to the theme of a united Europe or likely to be part of a more general reflection on international politics and the new post-war European order. This thesis has the particularity of being based essentially on original documents and hitherto largely unexploited sources, which has required a considerable amount of archival research. Moreover, since the sources used in this PhD thesis were written in Norwegian, Swedish and German, learning two Scandinavian languages, namely Norwegian and Swedish, was necessary. This study shows that through its contextual and cultural influence, the Scandinavian exile marked the emergence and evolution of Brandt’s European ideas between 1933 and 1947. The model of a social and democratic Europe the young Brandt dreamed of and developed during the Second World War undeniably bears the imprint of Scandinavia, and in particular Scandinavian socialism. By doing so, the thesis sheds new light on Willy Brandt’s political foothold and shows the importance of his exile years in the formation of a statesman and his foreign and European policy
Die Tatsache, dass Willy Brandt während seines Exils in Skandinavien zurinternationalen Diskussion über die Zukunft eines vereinten Europas beigetragen, und sogarkonkrete Bedingungen für eine künftige Einigung des Kontinents vorgeschlagen hat, ist nochkaum beachtet worden. In seinen Exilschriften tauchte das Thema „Europa“ allerdings immerwieder auf. Vor allem ab 1939 schenkte der junge Flüchtling dem Projekt einer künftigeneuropäischen Einigung besondere Aufmerksamkeit. Zum ersten Mal wird in der vorliegendenForschungsarbeit ein eingehender Überblick über Willy Brandts Europavorstellungen im Exil,deren Ursprung und deren Entwicklung, angeboten, und zwar im Rückgriff auf ursprüngliche,zum Teil bisher unbenutzte Quellen aus deutschem und skandinavischem Archivmaterial.Die Dissertation setzt sich zum Ziel, die Entstehung und die Entwicklung von WillyBrandts frühen Europavorstellungen im besonderen Kontext des skandinavischen Exilszwischen 1933 und 1947 zu analysieren, und fragt folgendes: Inwiefern hat das Exil inSkandinavien die Entstehung und die Ausformung von Brandts außenpolitischenKonzeptionen dauerhaft geprägt? Willy Brandts journalistische und literarische Schriften aus der Exilzeit zwischen 1933und 1947, die ein umfangsreiches Archiv aus Zeitungs-, bzw. Zeitschriftenartikeln, Büchern,Broschüren und gemeinsamen Veröffentlichungen bilden, liegen der vorliegendenForschungsarbeit zugrunde. Ziel ist es gewesen, in diesen Exilschriften das Motiv „Europa“sowie jedes andere Element zu identifizieren und zu erörtern, das sich auf das Thema einesvereinten Europas beziehen oder Teil einer allgemeineren Reflexion über die internationalePolitik und die neue europäische Nachkriegsordnung sein dürfte.Die Besonderheit dieses Forschungskorpus besteht in seiner Mehrsprachigkeit. Die imRahmen des vorliegenden Forschungsprojekts benutzten Texte und Manuskripte wurdennämlich auf Deutsch aber auch auf Norwegisch und auf Schwedisch verfasst. Wichtig war esin dieser Hinsicht, die Originalfassungen heranzuziehen, und damit der gesamtenForschungsarbeit nicht nur Authentizität sondern auch Originalität zu verleihen. In diesemZusammenhang gehörte das Erlernen von zwei skandinavischen Sprachen, nämlichNorwegisch und Schwedisch, natürlich auch zu den Grundlagen des Projekts.Diese Studie hat gezeigt, dass das skandinavische Exil die Entstehung und dieAusformung von Brandts frühen Europavorstellungen zwischen 1933 und 1947 kontextuellund inhaltlich geprägt hat. Im Modell des sozialistischen und demokratischen Europa, wovoner im Exil träumte und das er im Laufe des Zweiten Weltkrieges weiter entwickelte, lassensich nämlich etliche programmatische, kulturelle und politische Einflüsse der skandinavischen– und insbesondere der norwegischen – Sozialdemokratie erkennen. Dabei hat die vorliegendeDissertation die Bedeutung des skandinavischen Exils für die menschliche und politischeEntwicklung des Willy Brandt sowie für die Entstehung eigener außenpolitischer, ja sogareuropäischer Konzepte beim späteren Staatsmann nachvollziehen können

Defence date: 30 May 1997
Examining Board: Prof. Martti Koskenniemi (University of Helsinki) ; Prof. John Kriege (CRHST, Paris) ; Prof. Susan Strange (University of Warwick - supervisor) ; Prof. Jan Zielonka (EUI)
First made available online 22 August 2017
The relationship between the state and European integration is with good reason a central concern in current political sciences. Scholars approach it in different ways; some study how integration influences the state, others how the state influences integration. In answering the question of how the state and integration relate to each other, all of them deal with a problem which is particularly important because of its concrete implications, but which is also particularly difficult to resolve. The concrete empirical questions of what happens to the state in the process of integration, or what is the role of the state in that process, are essential for the understanding of the nature and functioning of the present European political systems. If the states' functions change, one can also expect changes in the political, administrative and judiciary systems and structures of the states. Changes in functions and practices can also be seen as amounting to gradual changes in political culture. Through changes in the role and nature of the state, the contents of citizenship as well as the forms of political participation may be expected to change. Finally, the understanding of democracy and identity will be modified. On the other hand, if the states guide the process of integration, they can be seen to do so on the basis of their own characteristics, being able to halt the process when they wish. The empirical relevance of the understanding of the relationship between the state and integration is, however, not based only on these long-term effects. In some situations, it has an immediate and decisive importance in political decision-making. Not least, a country's decision to join the European Union is based on an evaluation of the consequences of membership; the understanding of these consequences, then, depends on how the relationship between the state and integration is seen.

This book charts the rise of three Scandinavian kingdoms—Denmark, Norway, and Sweden—from the tenth century until the end of the Kalmar Union and the introduction of the Reformation in the early sixteenth century. Drawing on new ideas about personal relationships, rituals, feuds, and mediation, it examines the kingdoms' alternative paths to state formation and the specifically medieval contribution to this process. In discussing Scandinavian state formation, the book also considers the changing map of Western Christendom in the High Middle Ages. In particular, it describes how the European state was exported to new areas and how Western Christendom expanded in the Mediterranean, in Scandinavia, and in East Central Europe. Whereas the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea was for the most part an object of conquest and colonization, the three Scandinavian kingdoms were established in the North and West, and Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary in the East.

Like the ECSC, the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) would never become a Dutch favourite. And like the ECSC, the EMU again made European integration a predominantly continental affair, centred around the Franco-German axis, with the Netherlands’ best allies the UK and Scandinavia at a distance. Unlike the ECSC, however, the EMU saw the Netherlands become a prominent engineer of this course of events in European integration. Dutch financial-economic and monetary technocrats were leading figures, launching far-reaching plans for monetary union from the mid-1970s and proposing ingenious interlinks between monetary union and the deepening of market integration. Tellingly, the treaties that created the EMU and the euro were both signed on Dutch soil, in Maastricht and Amsterdam.

This chapter looks at films revolving around Polish migrations to Scandinavian countries (Norway, Denmark, Sweden) after 2004 (Poland’s accession to the European Union). It utilises the concept of spectral agency (theorised by Esther Peeren) – that is, the agency of the dispossessed, the marginalised (the ‘living ghosts’), and those made socially invisible by ongoing spectralising processes, most prominently the processes of neoliberal globalisation. The analysis focuses on how Polish guest/ghost workers (or the notorious spectre of the ‘Polish plumber’), cleaning and repairing Scandinavian houses, contribute to reimagining the most ubiquitous political metaphor encapsulating the Scandinavian welfare state – the people’s home (Swedish folkhem). Looking at the Scandinavian people’s ‘home’ from the ghosts’ perspective helps to expose the borders (or walls) implicit in this metaphor, opening up the potential for a reimagining of both the political metaphor and the social reality it reflects and shapes. Although recent films present a particularly unflattering judgement on the capability of Scandinavians to reimagine their home(s), the Polish ‘living ghosts’ are represented as powerful – though not idealised – figures, resisting spectralisation through their capability to produce a qualitative change in the (discourse of the) home.

European Groupings of Territorial Cooperation (EGTCs) were set up to facilitate cross-border, transnational and interregional cooperation between Member States or their regional and local authorities. EGTCs enable these partners to implement joint projects, share expertise and improve coordination of spatial planning. Unlike the older cooperation structures which governed cross-border, transnational and interregional cooperation before 2007, the European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation is a legal entity and as such, will enable regional and local authorities from different European states, to set up cooperation groupings with a legal personality. The contribution deals with an analysis of European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation, new form of cross-border cooperation in the European Union. The main objective of the submitted contribution is to analyse historical development of this cooperation between years 2008–2022, based on own research and study of relevant Committee of Regions documents (for example EGTC Monitoring Report). The assessment of the EGTC can be described as a comparative time and space analysis, because different units are being compared not just in time, but also from the point of view of their geographical location. The contribution discussed the growing relevance of the EGTC as instrument of regional development, uneven development in individual countries (Hungary, France, Slovakia x Scandinavia, the Baltic States, Great Britain and Ireland), terminological problems and validity of EGTC databases.

The purpose of this report is to compare the risk communication strategies and public health mitigation measures implemented by Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom (UK) in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic based on publicly available documents. The report compares the country responses both in relation to one another and to the recommendations and guidance of the World Health Organization where available. The comparative report is an output of Work Package 1 from the research project PAN-FIGHT (Fighting pandemics with enhanced risk communication: Messages, compliance and vulnerability during the COVID-19 outbreak), which is financially supported by the Norwegian Research Council's extraordinary programme for corona research. PAN-FIGHT adopts a comparative approach which follows a “most different systems” variation as a logic of comparison guiding the research (Przeworski & Teune, 1970). The countries in this study include two EU member States (Sweden, Germany), one which was engaged in an exit process from the EU membership (the UK), and two non-European Union states, but both members of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA): Norway and Switzerland. Furthermore, Germany and Switzerland govern by the Continental European Federal administrative model, with a relatively weak central bureaucracy and strong subnational, decentralised institutions. Norway and Sweden adhere to the Scandinavian model—a unitary but fairly decentralised system with power bestowed to the local authorities. The United Kingdom applies the Anglo-Saxon model, characterized by New Public Management (NPM) and decentralised managerial practices (Einhorn & Logue, 2003; Kuhlmann & Wollmann, 2014; Petridou et al., 2019). In total, PAN-FIGHT is comprised of 5 Work Packages (WPs), which are research-, recommendation-, and practice-oriented. The WPs seek to respond to the following research questions and accomplish the following: WP1: What are the characteristics of governmental and public health authorities’ risk communication strategies in five European countries, both in comparison to each other and in relation to the official strategies proposed by WHO? WP2: To what extent and how does the general public’s understanding, induced by national risk communication, vary across five countries, in relation to factors such as social capital, age, gender, socio-economic status and household composition? WP3: Based on data generated in WP1 and WP2, what is the significance of being male or female in terms of individual susceptibility to risk communication and subsequent vulnerability during the COVID-19 outbreak? WP4: Based on insight and knowledge generated in WPs 1 and 2, what recommendations can we offer national and local governments and health institutions on enhancing their risk communication strategies to curb pandemic outbreaks? WP5: Enhance health risk communication strategies across five European countries based upon the knowledge and recommendations generated by WPs 1-4. Pre-pandemic preparedness characteristics All five countries had pandemic plans developed prior to 2020, which generally were specific to influenza pandemics but not to coronaviruses. All plans had been updated following the H1N1 pandemic (2009-2010). During the SARS (2003) and MERS (2012) outbreaks, both of which are coronaviruses, all five countries experienced few cases, with notably smaller impacts than the H1N1 epidemic (2009-2010). The UK had conducted several exercises (Exercise Cygnet in 2016, Exercise Cygnus in 2016, and Exercise Iris in 2018) to check their preparedness plans; the reports from these exercises concluded that there were gaps in preparedness for epidemic outbreaks. Germany also simulated an influenza pandemic exercise in 2007 called LÜKEX 07, to train cross-state and cross-department crisis management (Bundesanstalt Technisches Hilfswerk, 2007). In 2017 within the context of the G20, Germany ran a health emergency simulation exercise with WHO and World Bank representatives to prepare for potential future pandemics (Federal Ministry of Health et al., 2017). Prior to COVID-19, only the UK had expert groups, notably the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), that was tasked with providing advice during emergencies. It had been used in previous emergency events (not exclusively limited to health). In contrast, none of the other countries had a similar expert advisory group in place prior to the pandemic. COVID-19 waves in 2020 All five countries experienced two waves of infection in 2020. The first wave occurred during the first half of the year and peaked after March 2020. The second wave arrived during the final quarter. Norway consistently had the lowest number of SARS-CoV-2 infections per million. Germany’s counts were neither the lowest nor the highest. Sweden, Switzerland and the UK alternated in having the highest numbers per million throughout 2020. Implementation of measures to control the spread of infection In Germany, Switzerland and the UK, health policy is the responsibility of regional states, (Länders, cantons and nations, respectively). However, there was a strong initial centralized response in all five countries to mitigate the spread of infection. Later on, country responses varied in the degree to which they were centralized or decentralized. Risk communication In all countries, a large variety of communication channels were used (press briefings, websites, social media, interviews). Digital communication channels were used extensively. Artificial intelligence was used, for example chatbots and decision support systems. Dashboards were used to provide access to and communicate data.