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The purpose of this paper is to assert the link between the process of EU accession, the consolidation of democratic processes and the improvement of economic and tourism infrastructure to incoming tourism flows.

The methodology of this paper involves explanation of an analysis exploring links between governmental systems and the order necessary for economic development and tourism. The argument is supported by the recent history of tourism development in three countries, two within the EU and one outside.

Accession to the EU (especially in the case of Eastern European countries) constitutes a way to emulate the democratic freedoms and greater economic prosperity of existing EU member states. Tourism is one of the areas of economy that benefits from the stability and growth EU membership can bring. Accession to the EU has had beneficial effects for acceding in terms of political stability and tourism growth.

The opportunities that EU membership can bring to tourism development for example (also strategies to exploit these opportunities) depend to a large degree on the international relations between the EU and its rivals. The extent to which tourism demands ebb and flow is governed by a range of factors, but the issues of conflict and security are game breakers. Understanding the factors and trends involved in the peaceful resolution of conflict (democratic model) or use of force to resolve conflict (military model) is key in the analysis of future tourism opportunities.

World Trade Organization (WTO) accession marked a new beginning for China's economic, legal and institutional reforms and rapid integration with the rest of the world. The purpose of this paper is to review China's post‐WTO transition experience, synthesize and update studies on China's pattern of trade and structural transformation, and provide both positive and negative lessons for other developing countries.

The paper has broadly reviewed the latest policy changes after China's WTO accession, and literatures on China's trade and economic development issues in order to understand the Chinese success and its speciality, and draw some useful lessons for both China's decision‐makers and other developing countries.

There are two main findings: first, market liberalization alone is not sufficient, and economic system reform and the liberalization are closely related and complement and promote each other. Second, experimentations via special economic zones (SEZs) and opening to foreign direct investment (FDI), which facilitated and supported cluster development and learning‐by‐doing, are needed for industrial upgrading and export competitiveness.

The paper demonstrates the wisdom of China's simultaneous pursuit of domestic economic system reform, and opening to the international market. However, China has also paid a high social and environmental cost for its rapid growth. It is important for developing countries to have an exclusive, balanced and sustainable strategy in the future development.

This paper aims to provide a detailed overview of the structure of professional valuation practice in the three countries that acceded to the European Union in May 2004 – the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. Specifically, it examines the relationship between the bases of valuation and their relationship to external changes in the regulatory systems.

Based on a critical review of the existing literature, empirical information was obtained through structured interviews with practitioners in the three countries.

The paper highlights the potential problems that investors can face when commissioning valuations that may not accord with internationally recognised definitions of “market value”. There is a recognised need for consistency and universality in the application of adopted valuation practices.

The research is the first phase of a longer programme.

The paper presents recent evidence of market practice and could inform potential investors or their advisors.

This study aims to reveal the impact of the “Conference on the Future of Europe” (which was officially launched on May 9, 2021 and lasted for one year) on the European Union (EU) integration. The ultimate goal of the integration movement in Western Europe was defined in the founding agreements as political integration through the strengthening of economic cooperation among member states. It is a fact that very important steps have been taken toward this goal until today. The first of the two main trends that dominate European integration is deepening, which refers to diversifying the areas of cooperation, and the second is enlargement, which means increasing the number of member states by the participation of new ones. Theoretically, there are almost a dozen scenarios for the future of the EU. However, taking into account the EU's internal problems and developments in the current international political system, the strongest scenario emerges as intertwined flexible integration. Indeed, developments in today's world call for a revision of the EU's geopolitical perspective. In addition to the internal factors shaping the future of the EU, the roles of the United States, which is its strategic partner, and China, which has risen to become its largest trading partner, are also important in the international political system. Likewise, there is no doubt that the developments in the Maghreb and Mashriq countries as well as Russia and Turkey will affect European integration.

This chapter focuses on the case of migrant Filipina live-in domestic workers in Greece and how the frame of their work and employment in precarious, low-status/low-wage jobs and race discrimination at work, that is, the employers’ residences, affect their participation in secondary groups of solidarity and workers and their representation in them, that is, community, migrant labour associations and trade unions, during the economic crisis in Greece. According to the results of in-depth interviews Filipina migrants are entrapped in a frame of isolative and exploitative working conditions and racial discrimination at work, that is, personal services, care and domestic work. In this working context, most of the interviewed migrant Filipina live-in domestic workers appear to have developed individualistic perceptions, they act in an atomistic manner, form materialistic beliefs, are indifferent to collectivity and solidarity and are isolated from their compatriots and other workers. They have low self-perceptions and expectations for social advancement and deal with their social and labour-related problems individually, or completely resign from claiming them.

The purpose of this paper is to present an exploratory study whose aim was to investigate the role of public libraries in the provision of European Union (EU) information in an EU acceding country (Croatia).

Study was conducted via online questionnaire in public libraries across country.

The findings revealed that majority of respondents (83.7 percent) think it is an important task of public libraries to provide citizens with materials about the EU, and that almost all responding libraries (98 percent) have EU materials. In general, respondents think that provision of EU materials in their library does not compromise its role of politically neutral institution. The results also indicate that libraries quite rarely (10 percent) maintain links to relevant EU online sources on their websites. EU collections in responding libraries are promoted actively most frequently in the library itself and on its website, and very rarely in the local media.

Findings are expected to be of interest to European administration in charge of the development of effective communication policies, national authorities in EU candidate and acceding countries, and information professionals in general.

This is the first study to investigate the role of public libraries in EU information provision in an EU acceding country.

The purpose of this paper is to present the exploratory study whose aim was to investigate the information needs and information-seeking behavior of post-secondary students related to the European Union (EU) in Croatia.

A total of 504 students enrolled in post-secondary education across country took part in this study. Data were collected through an online survey during a 60-day period preceding the Croatia’s full membership in the EU.

The findings revealed the high need for information about the EU among the student population. The respondents required European information in a wide range of thematic areas and the majority of them did not feel well informed about the EU in general. Students responding required the European information both for personal reasons and for educational purposes. The majority of respondents required the EU information in order to better understand the EU in general and they faced a number of challenges when accessing it.

Limitations inherent to the method used and the limited number of respondents. Future research should include a wider array of respondents (older citizens, professionals, etc.) so as to obtain a broad a picture as possible of information needs and seeking behavior related to EU.

The study offers valuable insight into the types of EU information needed by citizens (post-secondary students) in an acceding country. The survey results are expected to be of interest to European administration charged with the development of effective communication policies, national authorities in EU candidate and acceding countries, and information professionals in general.

This is the first study of EU information needs and seeking behavior in an acceding country.

An aspect of globalization is the creation of macro-regions through integration. A macro-region is a territorial unit created through the process of cooperation, cohesion, and integration. Areas of integration can be political, economic, and social. An example of a macro-region is the European Union (EU). For EU member states and for acceding countries economic integration means accepting EU rules and regulations. The rationale behind these laws and rules is to increase economic, financial, and trade cooperation among partner countries. To increase the viability of this macro-region, the EU, has emphasized the need for social integration, which is the expansion of self-identification by individuals from viewing themselves as citizens of a country to a broader European identity, a citizen of Europe. This paper evaluates the impact of joining the European Union on the labor markets of Central and Eastern Europe countries, an economic integration; and the parallel expansion of the citizens’ identity expanding to include a European self-image, a social integration.

Since the adoption in 1976 of the Integrated Programme for Commodities, only four international commodity agreements have been concluded, of which only one, the International Natural Rubber Agreement (1979), was new. The others are the International Sugar Agreement (1978), the International Cocoa Agreement (1980) and the International Tin Agreement (1981). In view of the broad political support for international commodity agreements, the progress towards concluding such agreements is slow. Moreover, in some of them universality is lacking. Several countries which account for a substantial proportion of world production and consumption of, and trade in, the commodity subject to an international agreement, have not ratified or acceded to the relevant agreements. The duration of the negotiations has been exceedingly long in comparison with experience on negotiations of the previous agreements. This outcome, several years after the adoption of the Integrated Programme for Commodities, is disappointing and unexpected, especially since the basic purpose of that Programme and the setting up of the Common Fund in accordance with it was “to act as a catalyst for international commodity agreements”. The purpose of this article is to examine the reasons for this outcome.