Littérature scientifique sur le sujet « International relations – Germany »

AbstractSince the economic reform in 1978, the main system of social security in China has gradually transformed from the labour insurance system to the social insurance system. In this transformation process, policy learning and ideas diffusion have become relevant means to influence China’s social policy-making, and Bismarckian social insurance system has become an important reference for China’s legislative and social elites. In this process, Germany has influenced the core ideas and values of social policy experts in China in favour of the emergence and expansion of social insurance system since the 1990s, and the inter-state diffusion has become a powerful driving force for the rise of the new social insurance state in China.

After the Second World War, the issue of German unity and the status of West Berlin remained on the agenda of international politics. The most striking example of solving these problems was the ultimatum of the Soviet Union in 1958 to the Western powers, which strained relations between the allied countries, the USSR and Germany.

The article discusses the development of the lexicographic codification of pronunciation norms of German. It gives an overview of the orthoepic norm, its varieties and inherent features, relations between the norm and standard of pronunciation. Pronouncing dictionaries since the end of the 19th century have been studied as primary sources, some phonetic phenomena are also illustrated with the explanatory dictionaries of earlier periods. The lexicographic codification of the pronunciation norms in historical retrospect is briefly analyzed: from exaggerated articulation of actors in Germany to actual sound phenomena using in the pronunciation of professional radio and television announcers, which includes the pronouncing features of authentic oral media communication. Special attention is paid to the problem of codification of the orthoepic standard in different types of dictionaries in light of the pluricentricity of German, due to lack of empirical analyses. The article also represents the current orthoepic dictionaries, which include information about the sounds of three standards of German in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Study of their structure and content features made it possible to identify some advantages and disadvantages. As a result of the study, the author concludes with changing approaches to the codification of pronunciation norms, such as transformation of the metalanguage, expansion of the empirical base, use of contemporary sociophonetic methods in its analysis, some structural and content changes in the dictionaries. These modifications are shown to be connected with the change of the lexicographic paradigm and the turn from monocentricity to pluricentricity due to sociocultural and sociolinguistic factors. Refs 24.

This paper deals with the evaluation of the financial performance and financial position of IT companies in the consolidated group. The sub­ject of the investigation is a consolidated group consisting of a parent com­pany domiciled in Germany and its subsidiary in Slovakia. The article aims to point out the mutual relations within the consolidated group through correlation coefficients. The examined relations are in the area of profitabil­ity, indebtedness, liquidity and some macroeconomic indicators. The paper set out two objectives of the research: 1) within the consolidated group, the mutual relations between the parent company and the subsidiary are not significant; 2) within the consolidated group, the mutual relations between the parent company and the subsidiary are significant. Interesting conclu­sions emerged from the comparison of correlation coefficients.

In modern conditions of global information space and comprehensive expansion of foreign economic relations shaped society demand for lawyers with skills of applying the conflict rules of private international law and practices in foreign countries. Buying legal services in a foreign country significantly expands the composition of the legal means of advocacy and provides access to local infrastructure and communication. Mastering the skills of applying the conflict rules of national and international law entails:
 1) conduct advocacy at a high level;
 2) expansion of the market of legal services;
 3) the development of new legal technologies.
 4) full participation in international cooperation networks of advocates;
 5) professional development.
 The author of this article refers to the number of lawyers authorised to practice law in Germany and in Russia, so many suggestions are based on my own experience of the author.

Acute pancreatitis (AP) was induced in juvenil pigs by injection of Na-taurocholate into the pancreatic duct. Eight animals remained untreated (group A), while 7 pigs (group B) received 60000 KIU/kg aprotinin (Tras-ylol, Bayer AG Leverkusen, West Germany) intravenously during 30 min before the induction of AP, thereafter 10000 KIU/kg/h during a 6 h observation period. Seven pigs (group C) received 60000 KIU/kg aprotinin during 30 min starting 3 h after the induction of AP, thereafter 10000 KIU/kg/h. The total infusion volume was the same in all 3 groups (5 ml/kg/h). Using an enzym-linked immunosorbent assay for aprotinin, maximum plasma concentration of aprotinin in group B was found 30 min after start of the infusion (2.8(1.9-5.4)umol/l). The aprotinin concentration thereafter remained elevated for the rest of the observation period (1.4(0.4-1.9) umol/1 after 6 h). The aprotinin concentration gradually increased in the peritoneal exudate during ongoing aprotinin infusion. After 1 h the aprotinin conc. in plasma and the exudate were within the same range. Similar results were observed in group C experiments, where the aprotinin conc. in plasma and peritoneal exudate both were approximately 2 umol/1 1 h after start of the infusion. Assayed by the chromogenic peptide substrate S-2302 (Kabi Vitrum AB, Stockholm, Sweden), markedly elevated values of plasma kallikrein inhibition were detected both in plasma and peritoneal exudate after start of aprotinin infusion in group B and C.In group A, 5 out of 8 animals died in a circulatory collapse, while the animals in group B and C remained hemodynamic stable and all survived the observation.Aprotinin concentrations of 1-3 umol/1 in plasma and peritoneal exudate improves the outcome during experimental acute pancreatitis in pigs.

Over the recent decades, the changes in the paradigm of international trade have been observed. As the result of decreasing of trade barriers as well as the reduction in trade costs allowed companies to divide their production into stages and to locate it in different countries according to their competitive advantage. Eventually, the production process has become more fragmented, both geographically and vertically. It means that intermediate products are shipped across boarders many times and every exporting economy provides some value added according to its competitive advantage. As a result, global value chains have become one of the most important feature of international trade. Following (Gereffi & Fernandez-Stark, 2011), in this study global value chains are defined as “the full range of activities that firms and workers do to bring a product from its conception to its end use”. Humphrey and Schmitz (2002) pointed out four types of upgrading in global value chains: product, process, functional and chain. Product and process upgrading involve companies retaining their positions in global value chains by enhancing productivity gains through adopting new product processes or “new configurations of product mix”. Thus, functional upgrading involves a slicing up the global value chains into new activity which generates higher value added, e.g. own brand manufacturing. In turn, chain upgrading involves a going up to new activity, which needs higher skills and capital and value added. Milberg and Winkler (2013) offered similar classifications of upgrading. Production fragmentation has caused a rapid increase in trade in intermediate goods as often companies offshore an intermediate stage of production process. Offshoring production has been typical to manufacturing (Timmer, et al., 2012), however, services have been often overlooked, but play a major role, especially in supporting global value chains (Kommerskollegium 2013). In turn, Digital Silk Road, announced in 2015, has become a significant part of Chinese Belt and Road Initiative strategy. China has implemented this strategy as a part of its long-term technological plan, under which China provides support to its exporters, including many well-known technology companies and builds a network of cooperation with selected countries in the field of technology, including ICT infrastructure, services, 5G networks, e-commerce, etc. China's rapid technological changes must not go unnoticed by trading partners, including analysed European countries, which, to maintain international competitiveness, are increasing the technological advancement and enhancing market protection against Chinese technology. Until recently, the value added from China to European countries was concentrated mainly on medium technology industries and value added from Europe to China focused more on advanced goods and services. Nowadays, there is a redirection of Chinese value added to high-tech activities (including service activities), which reflects China's ambition to build an economy that leads to innovation and industry 4.0. The transition of the CEE states’ economic and political systems initiated in the early 1990s, earned them the EU membership in 2004. The accession to the EU’s structures meant that these countries achieved the free-market economy status and they should be treated as the full member of the global business networks. Moreover, the decline in trade costs (transport and transaction), greater openness of their market and the removal of trade barriers have all helped the CEE states to join global value chains. Hence, the CEE economies are going to be more heavily involved in global production linkages. Many empirical studies have presented the close and dynamic integration of these countries with the EU market (especially the EU-15) and in a more limited scope with the whole global economy as well (Behar and Freund 2011). Generally, democratisation, the strengthening of political and economic relations (particularly with the EU), and the modernisation of many sectors (including financial sector, more advanced industries), were common elements of the CEE countries long-term development policies. One of their priorities was the redirection of foreign trade towards the EU and joining the global production linkages where China has become the core producer. Recently, the role of the economy in global value chains is more determined by the advancement of value added that it offers. Companies move toward services and innovations in the business model (Nenenen & Storbacka, 2010) and introduce industry 4.0 (Bundesministerium fur Bildung und Forschung, 2016). A symptom of these novelty is a concept of servicification of manufacturing (Neely et al. 2011) and cross-sectoral connections, which have reconstructed traditional global value chains (Naude et al. 2019) and, together with Industry 4.0, is expected to change the landscape of global manufacturing. As a result of facilitation of manufacturing, economies placed in the downstream market can improve their role in global value chains. In Europe, this can be an opportunity for most Central and Eastern European countries. Analyzing changes in CEE’s role in technological global value chains, we should take into account its two most important value-added suppliers: China and Germany, as well as their most important value-added buyer - Germany. These three economies established a sort of value added flows triangle. The regional supply chains built by Germany in the CEE allowed it to maintain a comparative advantage in sectors important for the economy, while helping the CEE countries join global value chains, positively influencing economic growth, but also reducing them to entities operating in less advanced stages of production (Jacoby, 2010; Fortwengel, 2011). Today, Germany also cooperates strongly with China (as a result of Digital Silk Road), and the CEE economies (especially the Visegrad Group) are increasingly dependent on Chinese value added, still linked to German value added. The most visible connections can be found in automotive and electronics. Hence, the question is: how strong are these links in servicification of manufacturing and whether there are visible trends in value-added flows in between this triangle in the era of industry 4.0 and Chinese Digital Silk Road. The research question seems to be relevant, thus in the subject literature, little is known about the mentioned relations (Roland Berger, 2021). The research method based on the analysis of data from the OECD Trade in Value Added databases, containing the world input-output tables for the period 2005–2018. The system of balance equations in the input-output model for one economy has been adopted to a multi-economy model. The model is described in more detail in (Koopman et al. 2013 or Hummels et al, 2001) and is based on the decomposition of gross exports. The method includes not only estimates of total value added in global value chains, but also calculations at both the mezoeconomic level and cross-sectoral flows of value added (including servicification of manufacturing). The results of analysis showed that most relations between economies continued to deepen the imbalance in flows of value added. The CEE economies are making their manufacturing increasingly dependent on advanced services (both from Germany and China). On the other hand, the share of CEE services to Chinese and German manufacturing is decreasing or remains steady. However, some trends could be observed in the last years, especially between Germany and China. German manufacturing is starting to rely more on Chinese value added (information and communication technologies services and the subgroup computer programming, consultancy and information services activities in manufacturing, information and communication technologies services' value added in transport equipment), although previously Germany provided more of these services to China. In telecommunications in manufacturing between CEE and Germany, the trend has turned against CEE. However, there was no direct compensation between pairs of economies, but the decrease in German value-added flows to China resulted in a much larger increase in value-added from China in German manufacturing. If the presented changes in flows were to reflect the effectiveness of Chinese industry 4.0 and Digital Silk Road. These strategies serve their purposes and increases not only the advancement of Chinese value-added exports, but also makes important economies dependent on this added value. On the contrary, the industry 4.0 strategy in CEE has not improved its position in the triad. Germany has still a strong position as a provider of value added, but its dependence on foreign value added is high, which derives from the links with CEE.

In 2018, after 25 years of the North America Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the United States requested new rules which, among other requirements, increased the regional con-tent in the production of automotive components and parts traded between the three part-ner countries, United States, Canada and Mexico. Signed by all three countries, the new trade agreement, USMCA, is to go into force in 2022. Nonetheless, after the 2020 Presi-dential election, the new treaty's future is under discussion, and its impact on the automo-tive industry is not entirely defined. Another significant shift in this industry – the acceler-ated rise of electric vehicles – also occurred in 2020: while the COVID-19 pandemic largely halted most plants in the automotive value chain all over the world, at the reopen-ing, the tide is now running against internal combustion engine vehicles, at least in the an-nouncements and in some large investments planned in Europe, Asia and the US. The definition of the pre-pandemic situation is a very helpful starting point for the analysis of the possible repercussions of the technological and geo-political transition, which has been accelerated by the epidemic, on geographical clusters and sectorial special-isations of the main regions and countries. This paper analyses the trade networks emerg-ing in the past 25 years in a new analytical framework. In the economic literature on inter-national trade, the study of the automotive global value chains has been addressed by us-ing network analysis, focusing on the centrality of geographical regions and countries while largely overlooking the contribution of countries' bilateral trading in components and parts as structuring forces of the subnetwork of countries and their specific position in the overall trade network. The paper focuses on such subnetworks as meso-level structures emerging in trade network over the last 25 years. Using the Infomap multilayer clustering algorithm, we are able to identify clusters of countries and their specific trades in the automotive internation-al trade network and to highlight the relative importance of each cluster, the interconnec-tions between them, and the contribution of countries and of components and parts in the clusters. We draw the data from the UN Comtrade database of directed export and import flows of 30 automotive components and parts among 42 countries (accounting for 98% of world trade flows of those items). The paper highlights the changes that occurred over 25 years in the geography of the trade relations, with particular with regard to denser and more hierarchical network gener-ated by Germany’s trade relations within EU countries and by the US preferential trade agreements with Canada and Mexico, and the upsurge of China. With a similar overall va-riety of traded components and parts within the main clusters (dominated respectively by Germany, US and Japan-China), the Infomap multilayer analysis singles out which com-ponents and parts determined the relative positions of countries in the various clusters and the changes over time in the relative positions of countries and their specialisations in mul-tilateral trades. Connections between clusters increase over time, while the relative im-portance of the main clusters and of some individual countries change significantly. The focus on US and Mexico and on Germany and Central Eastern European countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia) will drive the comparative analysis.

The UK’s 2021 Integrated Review of security, defence, development and foreign policy describes Russia as ‘the most acute direct threat to [the UK’s] security’ in the 2020s. Relations did not get this bad overnight: the trend has been negative for nearly two decades. The bilateral political relationship is now broken. Russian policymakers regard the UK as hostile, but also as weaker than Russia: a junior partner of the US and less important than Germany within Europe. The consensus among Russian observers is that Brexit has reduced the UK’s international influence, to Russia’s benefit. The history of UK–Russia relations offers four lessons. First, because the two lack shared values and interests, their relationship is fragile and volatile. Second, adversarial relations are the historical norm. Third, each party exaggerates its importance on the world stage. Fourth, external trends beyond the UK’s control regularly buffet the relationship. These wider trends include the weakening of the Western-centric international order; the rise of populism and opposition to economic globalization; and the global spread of authoritarian forms of governance. A coherent Russia strategy should focus on the protection of UK territory, citizens and institutions; security in the Euro-Atlantic space; international issues such as non-proliferation; economic relations; and people-to-people contacts. The UK should pursue its objectives with the tools of state power, through soft power instruments and through its international partnerships. Despite Brexit, the EU remains an essential security partner for the UK. In advancing its Russia-related interests, the UK should have four operational priorities: rebuilding domestic resilience; concentrating resources on the Euro-Atlantic space; being a trusted ally and partner; and augmenting its soft power. UK decision-makers should be guided by four propositions. In the first place, policy must be based on clear, hard-headed thinking about Russia. Secondly, an adversarial relationship is not in itself contrary to UK interests. Next, Brexit makes it harder for the UK and the EU to deal with Russia. And finally, an effective Russia policy demands a realistic assessment of UK power and influence. The UK is not a ‘pocket superpower’. It is an important but middling power in relative decline. After Brexit, it needs to repair its external reputation and maximize its utility to allies and partners, starting with its European neighbours.

TMG Research gGmbH aims to help develop a more systematic understanding of how agri-food systems can be transformed as part of a project on the Assessment and Communication of Climate Impacts of Food (CLIF), funded through the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV) and jointly implemented with corsus and WWF Germany. This project promotes sustainable consumption patterns and helps companies, policymakers, and consumers choose more sustainable options in relation to food. The main contribution of TMG to this project is in developing a more systematic understanding of how to transform agri-food systems by publishing a series of strategic reports on the current status of agri-food systems and the likely drivers and agents of their transformation. This report is part of the FORESEE (4C) series on The Transformation of Agri-Food Systems in Times of Multiple Crises, which explores the status quo of the current agri-food system in the light of challenges linked to the multiple crises. This part of the series reviews the blind spots and gaps in the debate around agri-food systems transformation and how these hinder the transformation. Furthermore, this report offers recommendations on how to address these gaps to facilitate an agri-food system transformation aligned to the leading themes of people, planet, and prosperity. The report was drafted by TMG with contributions from an extended group of experts.

TMG Research gGmbH aims to help develop a more systematic understanding of how agri-food systems can be transformed as part of a project on the Assessment and Communication of Climate Impacts of Food (CLIF), funded through the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV) and jointly implemented with corsus and WWF Germany. This project promotes sustainable consumption patterns and helps companies, policymakers, and consumers choose more sustainable options in relation to food. The main contribution of TMG to this project is in developing a more systematic understanding of how to transform agri-food systems by publishing a series of strategic reports on the current status of agri-food systems and the likely drivers and agents of their transformation. This report is part of the FORESEE (4C) series on The Transformation of Agri-Food Systems in Times of Multiple Crises, which explores the current agri-food system in light of challenges linked to the four crises known as the 4 Cs (Climate, Covid-19, Conflict, and Cost of externalities). This part of the series reviews the state of the debate around agri-food systems transformation from the perspective of different organisations that represent a wide range of actors and stakeholders. Furthermore, this report provides an overview of the different proposed approaches to achieving the goals of agri-food system transformation aligned to the themes of people, planet, and prosperity. The report was drafted by TMG in consultations with an extended group of experts.