Abstract ▼

The paper deals with prospects of the developing common EU defence procurement market and policy with a view to strengthening the defence identity of the European Union as well as to promoting its external profile and international role. Despite of the European Union’s overall GDP, the Union is not considered a serious military power. The EU processes of market integration and rationalisation have bypassed European defence industries, which are fragmented and increasingly losing ground to their American and some Far East Asian competitors. This has prompted calls for introducing the supranational defence procurement and defence industry policies. The analysis focuses on functioning of the European Defence Equipment Market via application of the EU Code of Conduct on Defence Procurement and reviews EU prospects for establishment of a single defence market from the policy, organisational and commercial perspectives. The authors conclude that in the long run, the voluntary intergovernmental defence procurement regime established between some EU members will open prospects of cutting national defence spending, fostering the global competitiveness of the defence industries of EU member states and building up a respectable military capacity to additionally support the Common Defence and Security Policy.

Abstract ▼

The efforts to define the crime of aggression as an international crime are accompanied by many problems. Some countries see it as a sign of salvation against foreign interference in internal affairs, while others see it as a limiting factor in achieving their own interests. In the battle between consensus and contestation every victory was a Pyrrhic one and the price of any compromise was high. However, after the Review Conference of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which was held in 2010, we have many reasons for optimism. In this paper, the author presents the historical development of the crime of aggression from the theoretical discussion to its criminalization as an international crime. It is through a critical analysis of the norms in international documents and judgments of international courts based on them that we point to all the advantages and disadvantages of defining aggression. In his conclusion, the author predicts the future of the crime of aggression, bearing in mind the latest solutions in theory and practice of international criminal law.

Abstract ▼

Germany has traditionally been the powerhouse of the European economy and integration. In this article, an attempt is made to put its economic development in a European context by comparing it with the achievements of the total group of more developed members of the European Union, the EU-15, prior to the current global crisis. The author applies both the methods of statistical analysis and models of mathematical economics to show the combined influence of growth mechanism regularities, economic policy and international economic relations on the long-term development of the German and European economy. Viewing economic growth as the central problem, he investigates the factors of its deviations from the equilibrium state, as well as the regularities affecting productivity and technical progress. His main conclusion is that the current economic crisis can be surmounted with the help of a growthoriented economic policy based on the intensification of technical progress and, first of all, of its creative component, which would create favourable conditions for improving competitiveness.

Abstract ▼

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) currently has 18 field operations in transition countries throughout Southeastern and Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia. These operations employ around 3000 staff members and spend 80 percent of OSCE annual budget. Effectiveness of these operations in performing their tasks in all phases of conflict cycle depends on consensus between Great Powers; they also employ an informal decision-making process to supplement the consensus in order to be flexible in responding to changes in the situation. Today, those operations are challenged by shifts in global power relations, and their future depends on the outcomes of the current security dialogue which takes place in the OSCE. That dialogue is also an opportunity for transition countries (including Serbia) to benefit from the OSCE field operations reform, in a way that the operations would now become more able to adress the real security problems of these countries.

Abstract ▼

The human rights and freedom corpus in contemporary international law has made topical property rights members of the German minority in Eastern and South-East European countries were deprived of during and after the end of World War II. The goal of dispossessing them of their property was to consolidate the demolished economy and plundered and destroyed national wealth on the part of the Axis powers and above all by, Nazi Germany and its satellites. Taking into account the fact that various categories of persons were dispossessed of their property and not only members of the German national minority that directly or indirectly participated in the occupation and the war of aggression against the states mentioned above, the demand for restitution of their property several decades after also opens the question of their legal and political rehabilitation and then revision of the legal and historical facts that could produce only limited institutional and legal effects within the changed sociopolitical circumstances. For the complexity of the restitution problem, an analysis should be done of the legal and historical heritage, which does not preclude examination of possible international implications, this also including negative effects that demands for restitution can have on the European integration process.

Abstract ▼

The rapid foreign credit growth has been one of the main drivers of growth in Serbia in recent years. As growth has accelerated, the Serbian economy has become burdened with considerable external imbalances and current account deficits. As a result of the growing debt financing of the external deficit, the foreign debt rose to 22.7 billion EUR in late December 2009. Since the gains from privatization in the 20082010 period are not means of servicing the loans that could be counted on in the long run, the issue of sustaining the existing dynamics of paying off the foreign loan has been brought into question. International financial organizations have an important role in Serbia’s economic development and convergence with the European Union. Its resources have been mainly focused on spurring economic growth and promoting the policies that stimulate foreign direct investment and create employment, restructuring and ownership change in the enterprise sector.