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This paper represents the argument that in the Ukrainian crisis, the EU, not only has fallen short to rise up to the seriousness of the situation (after all, as in past turmoil’s on European soil), but for the first time in its history, has found itself in the role of a serious instigator of an international conflict. Faced with the disastrous consequences of its aggressive and hasty \"Europeanization\" of the \"new\" East of Europe (emphasizing the rights to the normative hegemony guided by dominant geopolitical motives), once the conflict flared up, threatening to cause immense consequences for the stability of the post-Cold War security order, it did not have many options but to conform to the policy of the United States. By these actions another opportunity was neglected in the field of foreign policy to formulate a specific European approach that would truly be concerned about the values that are embedded into its Founding Act (Peacemaking and unifying project). The paper concludes that if it wants to regain its damaged international credibility, the EU needs to make a qualitative shift from the current policies predominantly shaped by geopolitical interests, toward political values that many believe are specific to the EU. Partly, this is about the values that are related to its soft power and partly to those that represent the legacy of the political system of the EU, such as the single market without barriers.

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European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker stated that there is a need to establish a European army that would be able to respond to the threats to peace in a Member State or in the neighboring countries of the Union. This army is necessary in order to demonstrate seriousness in defending European interests in relationships, for example with Russia. The European Union has developed interstate cooperation in the field of defense. However, the question of the establishment of a European army goes into substantial commitment to the development of European integration. European military forces need unified command and democratic political power to manage them. In this context, the dilemma was , whether the European Union should be a technocratic creation which deals with maintenance of the wide European market and policies to protect the interests of financial lobbies which in the past led to the impoverishment of its people, or is the solution in the creation of a federal state with a democratically elected government that would have the legitimacy to lead a unique economic, foreign and defense policy?

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Diplomacy in the 21st century is marked by changes, in the content and in the way of its implementation. Several features that should be mentioned are the participation of new (non-state) actors, expanding of the diplomatic agenda, new diplomatic techniques and in relation to this, the emergence of new forms of diplomacy as is the celebrity diplomacy. These changes are associated with certain changes in the international community after the end of the Cold War and with the changes of the international relation theories and diplomatic studies, showing that countries are no longer the only place for the performance of political power and the only actors who work in diplomacy. In the processes of diplomacy are also included different actors, from governments to international organizations, NGOs and individuals.

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The concept of energy security reaches the top of political and security agenda of the EU in 2005, when the first disruption of natural gas supply began. The greatest concern of EU officials, in that sense, is related to the possibility of (ab)use of energy as a political weapon in terms of dependence on Russian energy supplies. The topic of this paper is related to the securitisation of natural gas that Russia exports to the EU member states. The paper analyzes the documents and official statements of the highest EU officials in which the dependence on Russian gas was designated as an essential security threat to the energy security of the EU. The paper also presents the dynamics of the process of securitisation, the main actors of the process, outlined possible causes, and presents the consequences that have encouraged or accelerated the special measures by the EU.

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The renewal of party pluralism in Romania occurred in 1989. In addition to the parties supported by the majority of the nation, in that period national minority parties were established as well. As the largest minority in Romania, the Hungarian community has sought to protect their rights and realize interests through ensuring the formation of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR), as an umbrella organization that united many political positions and gained a monopoly on the votes of the Hungarian minority. This paper examines only the first phase of the political organization and activity of the Hungarian minority in Romania, i.e. the period from 1989 to 1996. During this period the UDMR has acted as an opposition political party, but after the 1996 elections it entered the coalition government.

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Credit rating has an important role as an economic instrument in investment decision-making. Nowadays, credit rating agencies play an important role in terms of global investment. These agencies did play a major part over the past century, but their role in the economic crisis has led to a great discussion regarding their business and their susceptibility to various influences. All this has led to controversy and to a general attitude about opening the markets, both in the EU and in the rest of the world. Therefore, on account of credit rating in the global investment ranking, this process should not be neglected and left to a handful of people to manage, thus indirectly enabling them to control the world. Hence, the results of the research presented in the paper accomplished its primary objective: to affirm both credit rating as an economic instrument and impartiality of credit rating agencies. The paper elaborated the most important determinants of both credit rating itself and the concept of credit rating agencies. Particular attention was paid to various impacts affecting credit rating agencies indirectly affecting the global economic crisis. The paper elaborated several thematic units with respect both to the credit rating and credit rating agencies, likewise including a representative example of the impact of rating agencies in the creation of economic crisis. Finally, the paper proposed measures on how to properly establish a credit rating via the European Credit Rating Agency.

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Free movement of capital is one of the fundamental freedoms affirmed in the EU Treaties ensuring business continuity and foreign investments. It does not only mean simple liberalisation of commodity and capital flows, but it involves much broader freedoms and rights, including trade in capital services, securities trading, but also free trade in real estate in the areas of different European Union member countries. During the process of accession of the Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia to this organisation the elimination of all internal legislative and administrative barriers to real estate buying and selling was provided for in the transitional period. A special emphasis in the accession documents was put on free trade in agricultural and forest lands that for the most part had been owned by the state in the transition period. The specification of the conditions in the accession documents mentioned above enables the harmonisation of legislations of states with the EU acquis communautaire, thus contributing to the further development of connections among them and thus, their more rapid integration in the Union internal market.

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The integration process of the Western Balkans into the EU is going slower in the second decade of the twenty-first century, especially considering the way it made the last expansion. The researches of correlates of the national identity are plentiful both in Serbian and foreign literature, but in the past decade or so, new social identity starts to make its way into the researches of the European identity or the sense of belonging to Europe and the Europeans. This paper deals with the relations between the national and European identity, as well with the correlates of both of these, or one of them. From the standpoint of analyzing the quality of human resource studies were performed on selected samples.

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The centenary of the First World War is the occasion for the mass propaganda that will have its political goals in the contemporary Europe. It may be another occasion to portray Serbia as guilty of causing a major European havoc and destruction. Western authors, most notably English speaking ones, are using non-scientific methods in order to fulfil political aims of their respective governments tending to put blame on Serbia and Russia. Serbia should act immediately in order to prevent what may be an additional argument for further disintegration of Serbia, this time to the north part and possible the Raska oblast.

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The article analyses the path of the Republic of Serbia to the European Union, this including the concrete results it has achieved on this path as sell as the difficulties which follows this process. They primarily concern the normalisation of relations with Kosovo and Metohia as well as the political and economic reforms which have not been completely carried out that is actually, the fulfilment of the political and economic criteria – the so-called Copenhagen criteria. Further constructive dialogue between Belgrade and Prishtina is a necessary condition for Serbia to start its accession negotiations with the EU and its possible integration in the Union. In spite of this, the EU is of the opinion that Serbia has achieved significant results and that it is in a good way to attain the level which is necessary for a country to achieve for the accession to the EU. The paper consists of the following six parts: the first, introductory part generally considers the conditions for the accession to the EU, the second discusses the beginning of Serbia’s European integration, the third part is focused on the Stabilisation and Association Agreement that is practically an integral part of the process of accession, the fourth speaks of the hitherto progress Serbia has made on its path toward the EU, this including the opinion of the European Commission, the fifth part regards the Kosovo and Metohija issue, and in the final part the author makes conclusions.

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In his TV address to the public on 23 January 2013, British Prime Minister David Cameron said that if his Conservative Party won the 2015 elections it would schedule a referendum whether Great Britain should remain or leave the European Union. Cameron’s positions coincide with the prominent British politics of Euroscepticism in the last decades. However, concerning what has been said above, there is a dilemma how much the possibility of Great Britain to leave the European Union is legally, politically and economically lawful, genuine and realistic. Apart from this, there is a question to what degree Britain’s European institutional concepts are reconcilable with the increasing tendency of Germany and France towards the federalisation of the European Union institutional system. Actually, Britain accepted the European integration as participation in the common market, but rejected the supranational conception of Jean Monnet on the federal Union being a federal state and having its own Constitution. Today, Great Britain wishes to lead the member states out of the Eurozone in the fight against the Commission’s initiative on the change of the Treaty Establishing the European Community towards the transformation of the Union into a “federation of nation states“. For this reason, the differences in conceptions between Great Britain, on one hand, and France and Germany, on the other, are prominent and threaten to polarise the European Union even more to those member states at the higher and those at the lower level of integration. This is opposite to the original principle of a uniform legal order of the European Union. Although leaving the European Union by Great Britain is legally possible, it is not realistic, because it is economically and politically risky and does not pay.

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In this paper, the author analyses trilateral cooperation among Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Turkey in the past four years as a special contemporary form of multilateral cooperation of the Balkan countries. As this process has brought many results and has had its own institutional mechanisms, the paper is divided in five parts. The foreign policy context of cooperation among these three countries is shown in the first part of this paper, while the second one is dedicated to the presentation of institutional mechanisms of cooperation. Results of this process are shown in the third part of the paper, reactions to the trilateral in the fourth, and future perspectives of this cooperation are presented in the last part.

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In this paper, the authors try to diagnose the fundamental aspects, scopes and the extent of the international community’s commitment in building of the modern Afghan state and society in line with the objectives of the major subjects of international relations. The focus is on the activities of the United Nations (UN) and the NATO, but in a broader context also on China, Russia and the EU. In this sense, the central point of the analysis are the objectives related to development and establishment of a stable system of political institutions and the effective implementation of public policies as well as military, police and other institutional capacities with security responsibilities in order to create the preconditions for possible gradual economic development of Afghanistan and normal life conditions. The authors conclude that the international military and civilian missions have failed in the achievement of political objectives, while the security objectives have been attained to a lesser extent.

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This text is analyzing the use of theoretical approaches to the process of Europeanization, especially the rational choice institutionalism and normative institutionalism, on example of Serbia. The whole process of Europeanization is set in the context of wider process of European integration of the Western Balkans region, and the text is reveiling the deepest interests, which guide the European Union and Serbia in this very process. This approach to the process of Europeanization shows the characteristics of the Serbian path towards EU, and a special attention is paid to the political conditionality, which the European Union is using against Serbia, as a country that wishes to join it. The text is especially dealing with the clarity and the speed of rewarding, as well as centrifugal forces of the process itself.

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The Danube is one of the most important traffic corridors within Europe. That is the reason why the struggle between the great powers-geopolitical players for the control of the Danube is permanent in last two centuries. With the Rhine – Danube canal the European geopolitical horizontal has been made. This has provided Germany, which is the leading central European country, more independent role. German position towards atlantism on one hand and eurasianism on the other has an important influence on the geopolitical position of Serbia.

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Global climate change will have its impact on international relations. The biggest consequences will certainly be in the regions of the North and South Pole. When it comes to the Arctic, these changes will take place in several dimensions. The first one is of course, security. The borders of the Arctic states have almost been impassable that for low temperatures, snow and ice might in the near future become standard borders by their characteristics. Another dimension is resources. In the Arctic, there are large amounts of energy substances and minerals, which have not yet been exploited. Finally, another dimension that will bring climate change to the Arctic will be the traffic component. Warmer climate and currents of the land and the sea in this part of the world will open new trade and travel routes.

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International criminal law as a system of legal rules contained in the documents of international community and in the documents of national (internal) criminal law provides for criminal liability and punishment for a great number of international crimes, among which the crime of aggression is prominent. This crime is an act of breaking war laws and rules of warfare (international humanitarian law) and also it is an act of harming or imperilling the peace among nations and security of mankind. In certain cases, for perpetrators of this crime the primary jurisdiction is the one of international criminal courts (supranational). In this paper, the author has analysed the notion and characteristics of the crime of aggression from the theoretical and practical aspects in international criminal law and in the criminal law of Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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In the paper, the author discusses the proceedings before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. The main criticism refers to the authority of the Tribunal to adopt the Rules of Procedure and Evidence on its own and to change them when necessary, as well as to too broad authorities of certain parties in the process, especially those of the prosecutor. In addition to the introductory and concluding considerations, the paper is divided into eight parts in which the author indicates the disadvantages of every phase of the proceedings. Criminal proceedings last too long, what can be justified neither by the complexity of the cases nor by poor cooperation of countries. Every accused person has the right to a fair, swift and efficient trial, which is the principle that is not wholly respected by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.