In my keynote address to the conference I shall be discussing how the EU value system with respect to international relations developed in a radical way in the second half of the twentieth century, leading to a divergence in attitudes to world affairs with the U.S., the full implications of which became evident only when the Iraq crisis took place. In this context I shall also be explaining how within this overall context of a new value system, divergences exist within the EU on the way in which the Europe-US relationship should be managed.

Garret FitzGerald has had careers in air transport, economic consultancy, university lecturing, journalism, politics and business. After graduating with a degree in history and modern languages and being called to the Irish Bar, the first twelve years of his working life were spent within the Irish national airline, Aer Lingus. At the age of 26 he became responsible for its economic planning, scheduling, and rates and fares.

In 1958 he left Aer Lingus to undertake a career directed initially towards preparing the highly-protected Irish industrial sector for free trade as an eventual member of the European Community, which had been founded a year earlier by six Continental European countries.

Within a couple of years he became Economic Consultant to the Federation of Irish Industries and secured agreement between the Federation, the Government and the Trades Union Congress to the establishment of a Committee on Industrial Organisation, of which he himself was an active member. Between 1961 and 1965 this Committee surveyed the whole Irish industrial sector and initiated a rationalisation of industry in preparation for EC membership.

Between 1963 and 1969 Dr. FitzGerald also participated in the process of Irish economic planning, which became the subject of his Ph.D thesis.

In 1961 Dr. FitzGerald established, in conjunction with the Economist-owned EIU of London, an Irish economic consultancy firm, which served the needs of both the private and public sectors until the early 1970's. In particular, he assisted many firms with advice and assistance in relation to EC membership, based on frequent contact in Brussels with the many Directorates-General of the European Commission. For most of this time Dr. FitzGerald's EIU was the sole company in Ireland offering this service.

Dr. FitzGerald had also become a Lecturer in Economics in the National University of Ireland's Dublin College in 1959, specialising in the Economics of Transport and EC Affairs. In 1961 he lectured to industrialists throughout Ireland on the Treaty of Rome. In 1962 Dr. FitzGerald organised the first visit to Brussels by Economics lecturers from the universities of both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

From 1954 onwards, Dr. FitzGerald became a columnist for the Irish Times, writing on a weekly basis on economic and social affairs. At various times during the 1960s and early 1970s, Dr. FitzGerald was also the Irish correspondent for the BBC, Financial Times and The Economist.

To these three careers in consultancy, academic life and journalism he added, in 1965, a fourth - politics - beign selected to the Senate and becoming a front bench member of the main Opposition party, Fine Gael.

In March 1973, within weeks of Irish accession to the Community, Dr. FitzGerald abandoned these multiple careers on his appointment as Minister for Foreign Affairs in a new Coalition Government. In that capacity he formulated for Ireland an integrationist European policy, which contrasted sharply with the much more reticent British approach to membership.

In 1975 Dr. FitzGerald led what was seen as a highly successful first Irish Presidency of the EC Council of Ministers. During this Presidency he led the final negotiations for the first Lome Convention between the EC and 46 African, Asian, Indian Ocean and Pacific countries and signed this Convention on behalf of the EC. He also initiated the first contacts on behalf of the EC Council of Ministers with the revolutionary Portuguese Government. Later, in 1976, he negotiated an agreement with the European Commission that accorded Ireland a unique right to expand its fish catch at a time when other countries were required to cut back on their catches.

Dr. FitzGerald, who had been a member of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement before he was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs, opposed a visit by the Irish rugby team to South Africa. He also opposed U.S. policy in Central America and supported an E.U. statement opposing militarization of this area.

As Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dr. FitzGerald also pursued a policy of conciliation vis-à-vis the Unionists in Northern Ireland, backing the firmly anti-IRA stance of Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave and, in domestic politics, he actively supported social democratic policies.

In 1977, after the defeat of the Coalition Government, he was unanimously elected Leader of the Fine Gael Party and, in opposition for the following four years, pursued liberal policies. In 1981 he formed a Coalition Government whose vigorous attack on a huge fiscal deficit left by the preceding administration led after nine months to a temporary return to Opposition. However, following a third election within eighteen months, he secured a four-and-a-half year term in Government during which his Government halved the fiscal deficit, eliminated a very large external payments deficit, and reduced inflation from over 20% to 3%.

During this period in Government Dr. FitzGerald also negotiated an Anglo-Irish Agreement with Margaret Thatcher, under which the Irish State secured a role in relation to the protection of the interests of the nationalist community in Northern Ireland.

Within the EC, he secured a supplemental quota for milk, Ireland's key agricultural product and, at the Dublin European Council in December 1984, he cleared the way for Spanish and Portuguese membership of the Community by resolving French and Italian differences in relation to wine policy.

On the defeat of his Government in a March 1987 Election, Dr. FitzGerald resigned from the leadership of his party and, five years later, stood down from membership of Parliament.

Since 1987 he has lectured widely in the United States, Japan, China, Hong, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Zimbabwe, Germany, France, Spain, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Estonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Kosova, Macedonia, Croatia, Russia and Kazakhstan, as well as in Britain and Northern Ireland.

In 1989, and again in 1994, Dr. FitzGerald undertook consultancy work in Zimbabwe, relating to the EU Single Market and other EU issues. And, on behalf of the EU/TACIS-financed European Expertise Service, he undertook a mission related to economic policy formulation in Russia in 1993-'94. Moreover, between 1993 and 1995 he undertook three missions to Kazakhstan, related to issues such as a Free Trade Area linking Kazakhstan, Kirghizia and Uzbekistan, and preparations by these countries for WTO membership. In 1998, Dr. FitzGerald also undertook consultancy in Zambia on the subject of the organisation of government.

Dr. FitzGerald is a long-serving member (and from 1990-1995 was Deputy European Chairman) of the Trilateral Commission, which was established in 1993 by David Rockefeller to intensify contacts between the United States, Europe and Japan.

In 1991 he published his autobiography "All in a Life", and since then has contributed a weekly column on economic, social and political affairs to "The Irish Times". In 2002 Dr. FitzGerald published his most recent book "Reflections on the Irish State".

Dr. FitzGerald is now a member of the Irish Council of State and is Chancellor of the federal National University of Ireland, which comprises four of the Irish State's seven universities, presiding over its Senate and Committee meetings. Dr. FitzGerald is also Chairman of the Future of Europe Committee of the Institute of European Affairs and is a member of the International Affairs Committee of the Royal Irish Academy.

He is also a director of Age Action Ireland, and is a director DCI, a private company engaged in export marketing consultancy. He is also a director of the Greater Europe Fund, and is an advisor to a U.S. company, Integrity Interactive, which is extending to Europe its activities in relation to compliance by large companies with legal and ethical requirements.

Dr. FitzGerald has also published the following books, papers and lectures:

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The power of media has been described as "undeniable" (van Dijk, 2001) in its ability to influence the public agenda, and this is particularly the case for the power of television. Television viewing is the most popular leisure activity in the world, and television news bulletins are among networks' most highly rated programmes. For many people, television news provides their only source of information about the outside world, and the accessibility of television allows it to play a key role in educating the public about foreign issues, and it thus is able to influence the public policy debate. This influence is assumed to be greater in the case of foreign news as the majority of the public have little or no personal involvement in foreign events, and are thus reliant on the news for their information (Gavin, 2000). It is against the background of the assumed power of television news that this study examines the images of the EU that appear in the Asia-Pacific television news bulletins.

The presented paper draws on the findings from the first six months of the television news analysis of 2004, from the countries involved in the Asia-Pacific Project being undertaken by four EU studies associations in New Zealand, Australia, Thailand and Korea: EUSANZ, CESAA, EUSA Thai and EUSA Korea. The primetime news bulletins on the following outlets are monitored: ABC and Channel 9 in Australia; KBS and MBC in Korea; TV1 and TV3 in New Zealand; and ITV and Channel 7 in Thailand.

The paper focuses on both formal and content characteristics of the daily coverage of EU images on television news. The formal characteristics coded are the volume of news, source of the news information, the focus of domesticity, the degree of EU representation, the length and placement of the item. The content characteristics coded are the topic, EU and domestic actors involved and their actions, the information input, the character of news, the attitude of journalists, and the evaluation. The findings thus far indicate that there are parallels between the four countries in the overall coverage trends, as well as in the leading EU images created by the primetime television bulletins.

This May, the EU realized its another enlargement. Compared with the previous ones, this one is of much larger scale: accepting at once 10 new member states to increase the total number to 25, to expand the area by some 23%, to increase the population by near 20%, and to add to the GDP by some 4.6% (2001 figure). This enlargement makes the EU to look truly like a "Europe".

This enlargement is, however, is more a political than an economic process, and must be looked at, beyond these figures and first of all, for its political implications. In this context, its impacts are to be felt at three layers: the EU itself, Europe as a whole and the world at large. To the EU, the enlargement brings the European integration process to new turning point; To Europe, it stabilizes the political order of the post cold war period; and to the world, it might purport a more pronounced role of the EU as a political entity.

A Critical Juncture in the European Integration Process

The greatest impact of the enlargement lies in its challenges to the EU itself, which will come mainly from three directions.

In the first place, it will bring about a period of difficult adjustments between the old and new member states. An apparent cause is the glaring development gaps between the old and new member states. Such gaps mean different national interests and different policy objectives, and purport, therefore, mutual accommodation and adaptation. Happenings since last year show that the merger between the old and new member states will be much more difficult than expected. It will be so in their economic adjustment, and more so in their socio-political grinding-in and psychological adaptation.

Secondly, there will be the practical difficulties in connection to the financial transfers among the member states through the budget. Here, what the EU faces is dilemma. To satisfy all by keeping the present schemes unchanged would need to double or even triple the budget-that is something impossible, especially at the moment when most of the richer member states are in economic and fiscal difficulties themselves. On the other side, any change of the schemes would mean a change in the budget position of the member states, and will be fought against desperately by the losers in particular. It seems that in the enlarged EU, the budget problem that had haunted the EU for many years is very likely to reemerge, made more complicated with the interweaving of the "north-south" and "east-west" conflicts.

Thirdly, gaping differences and interests would also mean a change of the foundation underlying the European integration-the convergence among the member states. In an EU of 25, it will be much more difficult for the member states to go at the same pace as in the EU of 15. It seems that the limited practices of the so-called "multi-speed Europe" might become a way of life. The paradox is whether it would mean the institutionalization of the "core-periphery" structure?

Finally, this enlargement will induce a change in the EU's power balance and functioning mode. After several rounds of widening and deepening, the institutional structure developed in the 1950's fits no longer the needs of the European integration of present and future, especially in terms of its functional capabilities and decision-making efficiency. During the last two years, the EU threw in great efforts to push forward the Convention in order to take chance of the enlargement to smooth up the power structure and to upgrade the institutional efficiency. The Rome summit of last December indicates that as the reforms might affect the vital interests of the member states, the making of the constitution will not be that easy.

Stabilization of the Political Order in the Post Cold-War Europe

The enlargement also implies the stabilization of the new European political order in the post cold-war period, featuring a leading role of the EU, a phasing-out by the US, and a losing of weight by Russia. The ending of the cold war has given the EU the opportunity to realize its dream of the Grand Europe. For its fulfillment, the EU is enfolding a strategy of 3 steps: first to expand its territory with a stable political structure; second to form around it a "ring of friends", and third to build up its own security and defense capability.

The motivation behind this enlargement is apparently more political than economic, namely to bring into the EU the intermediate zone neutralized by the ending of the cold war. In the enlargement, which stabilizes Europe's political order in accordance with the EU's expectation, rests its huge political interests, as well as long-term economic interests. And this eastward enlargement is not to stop here, and has the prospect of taking in another half a dozen countries to push the EU's frontier further to the CIS' or even Russia's western border. When an EU of such a scale emerges, will there be any doubt of its leading role in Europe's political order?

There is yet another part of the EU's "new frontier". In a speech in 2002, Mr. Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission, said: "I want to see a 'ring of friends' surrounding the Union and its closest European neighbours, from Morocco to Russia and the Black Sea." By this "ring of friends", the EU is to acquire, as well, a vast political buffer zone and economic space embracing the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea.

In the new political order, Europe can no longer rely on the US' nuclear forces to preserve its security. What we are sure to expect from the EU, in the not-too-long future, will be the development of its own security strategy and defense capabilities, within or without the NATO.

Another Super Power?

Looking back the history of the postwar European integration, we could discern a return from the political process to the economic and back to the political one.

From the initial waves of European unification in the late 1940's, to the establishment of the first European Community-the ECSC in the early 1950's, and till the aborted efforts of the EDC and the Fouchet Plan in the early 1960's, European integration enfolded around a definitely political target-to avoid another war in Europe.

In the following 30 or so years, it took, however, to a mainly economic course instead. Three factors might be behind this shift: First, the rebound of the European nationalism blocked the path of supranational political integration; second, the settlement of the German problem and the US-USSR nuclear equilibrium in Europe relieved the Western European countries of the pressure for its own defense ; and third, Jean Monnet's ingenious creation-the Common Market-fit well with needs of the postwar European economic development.

In face of the challenges in the post cold war period, and with the economic integration process reaching its final stage, European integration seems to take along the political course again, earmarked by three great developments: the launch of the single currency--Euro , the establishment of the EU on the "three pillars", and the eastward enlargement.

Whether the political return of the European integration process would mean the eventual birth of another super power? Having witnessed its unexpectedly rapid paces both in deepening and widening, we should learn to be a bit cautious as to predict what is possible or impossible. Although all sings show the path of political integration will be much more difficult, the EU's drive for political construction will not reverse, and we could expect it to assume more and more the role as a political entity.

To address a striking absence of data on perceptions towards the EU in third countries, recently launched research project Public, Elite and Media Perceptions of the EU in Asia Pacific Region aims to identify, measure and raise public awareness and extend knowledge of the European Union within four countries of the Asia-Pacific region - Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Thailand. Based on a wide-range of multidisciplinary research and monitoring methods, this two year project aims to meet several objectives in the four respective countries: monitoring the EU images in the most popular national newspapers and prime time TV news bulletins (daily coverage of the EU in 2004); surveying public opinion on the EU; and detecting national political, business, and media elite's opinion.

The presented paper introduces the findings of the first stage of the comparative trans-national research project - analysis of the EU representations created and supported by the national media in four countries listed. It is broadly concerned with the visibility of the EU images in the daily coverage of the 20 most influential newspapers in four Asia-Pacific countries during 6 month period - January - June 2004. The newspapers monitored during the project are Herald-Sun, Sydney Morning Herald, West Australian, The Australian, and The Australian Financial Review from Australia; The New Zealand Herald, The Waikato Times, The Dominion Post, The Press, and The Otago Daily Times from New Zealand, Cho-sun, Dong-A, Joong-Ang, Metro, and Korea Times from South Korea; and Thai Rath, Matichon, Manager, Bangkok Post, and The Nation from Thailand.

More specifically, this paper intends to trace and compare the visibility and degree of contextualization of the EU images within the four national media discourses. This is examined via the application of a comparable set of variables which includes the categories of the "surface" coding, or the formal characteristics of the amount of coverage, i.e., volume, dynamics, length, placement, and sources of news stories. Attention is also paid to the categories of the "in-depth" coding -- the characteristics of the degree of centrality and the focus of domesticity. It would appear that there are important cross-nation differences in the visibility and contextualization of the EU in print news in the four Asia-Pacific countries.

The leading assumption of this research is that subtle but nevertheless powerful effects of mass media may lie in their selection and presentation of certain issues (and nonpresentation of the other issues) (Roessler 1999). Media visibility of an issue does not guarantee the incorporation of that issue either into daily agenda of the general public or into the decision making process by the elites. Nevertheless, the analysis of the EU visibility in print media of the four countries explicates the educational and informational roles of media. Media visibility influences the perceived salience of the issues and conditions citizens' valid participation in the domestic debate on foreign policy.

The first European Parliament elections in the new Member States in East-Central Europe demonstrated a profound paradox in terms of being a feedback process of European integration. At the elite level, the accession to the EU has offered political parties and their leaders both new opportunities as well as a new set of issues with the emergence of a significant divide over the meanings of European integration. At the mass level, however, the first European Parliament elections were ignored by a vast majority of voters. This paper serves as an introduction to the subject. Our objective is three-fold: to explain a lack of interest in the polls, to examine the domestic political dynamics leading to the elections and to consider the implications of the elections for the workings of the enlarged European Union. As for the prospects for European integration, it is important to note that one may no longer assume a supportive cross-party consensus in the new Member States on the European Union. Rather, the rhetoric of "Euroscepticism" is expected to rise within the European Union.

In this paper we use a new classification of exchange rate arrangements developed by Reinhart and Rogoff (2004) to test whether reserve holdings decrease with increasing exchange-rate flexibility. Using pooled data for 137 countries over the period 1980-2000, we find several new results. First, the degree of exchange rate flexibility has an inverted-U relationship with the country's reserve holdings. Exchange rate regimes with intermediate flexibility need more reserves than polar regimes (hard pegs and freely floating). Second, reserve holdings are smaller under hard pegs than under freely floating, implying that current large stockpiles of reserves in East Asian countries can be significantly reduced if they adopt a single currency. Finally, per capita GDP and reserve holdings have an inverted-U relationship, too, reflecting that their correlation would be negative for industrial countries, but positive for developing countries.

On 1 May 2004, 10 countries (including eight Eastern European states) acceded officially to the European Union. The enlargement from 15 to 25 member states carries significant implications for the decision-making and the institutional architecture of the European Union. It also represents a profound economic, political and social transformation for the candidate countries themselves. At the same time, it affects existing EU members and third countries. The paper will look at the impact of the enlargement on the EU and its institutions, reassess the role and influence of current member states on EU policies and address the economic and political effects of enlargement on relations with third countries.

In 1999 the EC launched its Sustainability Impact Assessment Programme which had as its goal the integration of sustainability concerns into the development of trade policy. It was to include the development of a methodological framework for assessing the sustainability impact of trade agreements, while the subsequent studies were to inform the negotiations and the dialogue with civil society. The first application of this new approach was to be the negotiations being undertaken under the 'Millennium Round' of the WTO. As part of this process the Institute for Development Policy Management at the University of Manchester was contracted by the Commission to develop a methodology for a preliminary SIA for the negotiations. Subsequently PricewaterhouseCoopers have been contracted to undertake an SIA of the current regional EPA negotiations and have recently published their own general Inception Report.

This paper will draw upon the IDPM methodology and compare it with that being adopted by PricewaterhouseCoopers. It will also attempt to address those crucial methodological issues which are relevant to the Pacific EPA negotiations, drawing upon the economic impact assessment which has already been prepared by Scollay for the ACP Secretariat. It is hoped to provide a critical framework for assessing the study currently being undertaken by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The EU-15 countries have been New Zealand's biggest trading partners in recent years, with New Zealand exports to these countries increasing in real terms since the early 1990s. In contrast, trade with the ten new EU members is very small. This paper charts New Zealand's trade with the EU-25 countries since the late 1950s. Trade figures have been converted to current day values. The statistics show how New Zealand has increased its exports to most established EU members (with the important exception of Britain) as they have become richer. This provides insights into how trade with the new EU members may develop in the future as income levels in these countries increase.

One of the arguments for European Union enlargement is that it brings peace between states with a history of conflict, and promotes democratic norms for dealing with ethnic relations within multi-ethnic states. This is particularly important in Central/Eastern Europe, where minority rights were not protected effectively both during the inter-war period and during the communist era, where national identity is often ethnically defined, and where there are still tensions between states over borders and diasporas. Nor is it only with the former communist states that such problems arise: one of the most intractable conflicts in Europe is in the new EU member state of Cyprus. It was hoped that the prospect of membership of the EU would help to resolve the conflict there and promote reconciliation between the Greek and Turkish communities as well as further rapprochement between Greece and Turkey. These hopes were not fulfilled, and Cyprus remains divided even after acceding to the European Union.

Issues of ethnic relations and minority rights within newly independent or post-colonial states illustrated by Cyprus are present also in former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union. In the newly-acceded Baltic republics of Estonia and Latvia, for example, the large Russian minorities accuse the authorities of widespread discrimination against them. As well as the internal dimension, the cases of Cyprus and the Baltic republics highlight potential complications between an enlarged EU and its neighbours where minority populations of EU countries share ethnicity with non-EU members (Russia and Turkey). Conversely, as the EU develops a common foreign and defence policy, matters of minority rights will figure increasingly in its policy towards other states: shown in these cases by concern over Russia's and Turkey's campaigns against Chechen and Kurdish separatism respectively. And the European Union also exerts an influence on the former Yugoslav republics which so recently suffered from ethnic conflict, and which aspire to join the EU.

This paper will investigate the effects of EU enlargement and EU policy on ethnic relations within new members states, prospective future members in Central/Eastern Europe, and neighbours of the enlarged EU, focusing on Cyprus, the Baltic republics, and former Yugoslavia. It will discuss the effect of EU membership or prospective membership on ethnic relations and consider whether the EU is promoting a consistent set of norms for dealing with ethnic diversity in the region.

This paper examines the economic and foreign policy implications of the fifth enlargement of the European Union for India. Continued economic growth and the gradual convergence in levels of prosperity between the accession countries and the EU will imply a larger and more affluent market with increased export and investment opportunities for Indian companies. Enlargement will increase the size of the EU single market in which Indian exporters will encounter a single set of tariffs, trade rules and administrative procedures which would provide a simplified and enhanced access to the markets of the new member states. Enlargement could have some trade diversion effects, especially in textiles/clothing and BPO operations from India. Foreign direct investment by the new accession states in India remains very modest at present but flows could go up after enlargement. Enlargement is not likely to lead to any tangible impact on EU's development aid policy. The paper concludes that as EU decision-making processes would become even more complex after enlargement, it would be potentially more difficult for Indian policymakers to influence EU policies. It would be necessary for India to devote greater political attention and energy on developing linkages with some of the new entrants, especially Poland. The enlarged European Union requires a reprofiling of Indian mindsets about a changing European Union in a changing Europe, which will in many respects be no longer be what it used to be.

The paper to be submitted would be focused on two main parts. The first would be on whether EU and Eastern Europe has more deep economic dependence than one between EU and China.

The eastward enlargement of EU is considered by the most Chinese people as the European inside matter and is not high related with the Chinese economy, which is based on three points below:

1. The mutual economic dependence between Western and Eastern Europe has been strengthenedsince the collapse of former Soviet Union. That is say that the more closed economic relationship among two parts of Europe has been well established compared with the one between EU and China;
2. There has been same historic background that contributes direction preferences of economic factor movement. The same background would contain such as similar culture history, same religion, close distance or even same borderline, more racial affinity;
3. The Asia and China, based on both knowledge and information, have been so far taken as the unfamiliar or even strangeness region with long distance. The businessmen, in particular from medium and small enterprises, prefer to do their business with similar environment.

The second part, if we accept the more and more economic relationship between EU and China, what would be impacted mostly by the eastward enlargement of EU. As the scholar on European and Chinese economies, I think the impacts of EU enlargement on China's economy are surly existed in the fields below.

1. The expected FDI inflows from EU, including new outsourcing manufacture from some EU member states, which was relative lower share compared with bilateral trade volume between EU and China, would be distributed partly though China has focused recently on encouraging more European FDI inflow;
2. The economic relation between new ten member states of EU and China will be changed as the new rule adopted by new member states. For example, would the entry barriers at the new member states be increased?
3. The MES (Market Economy Status) has being become the new conflict between EU and China after China entered WTO. China is more interested of real MES assessment of new EU member states by EU and if there is any dual standard on MES;
4. China is preparing to reform its foreign exchange regime from the quasi-pegged system to limited floating basket-pegged regime. But as Euro valuation would be weaken and shaken by new member of EMU from the east Europe after 2006, the weighted share of Euro in the basket would be influenced and further the Euro in Chinese external economy, would be placed at lower position.
5. The increasing anti-dumping cases to Chinese export in EU, the uncertainty of new member states' market access is concerned by Chinese enterprises, in particular the emerging private companies of China.

Unavailable on publication.

The EU is an important economic and political partner for many countries and regions in the world. Observers note that the presence and influence of the EU in the Asia-Pacific has grown substantially in the last 20 year. Despite of the growing significance of the EU to the region, there are certain overlooked areas in the scholarship of EU -- Asia-Pacific relations. One of them is the study of the EU in terms of its perceptions, images and attitudes in this part of the world.

This paper aims to address this deficit in the scholarship via analyzing the latent intensive mechanisms employed by print news media of the four Asia-Pacific countries -- Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Thailand -- to form the images of the EU. More specifically, this study looks at the content of EU images created via representing the EU social policy. This aspect of the EU imagery occupies a visible place in the international media representations, although this place is not as prominent as the portrayals of the EU as an economic and political counterpart to the region. The leading assumption of this paper is that the representations of a foreign partner in media contributes to the increase of knowledge and understanding of other peoples, of their cultures and traditions.

Overcoming the shortage of models that make sense of the imagery, this study employs an interpretive instrument revealing the content of image-formation. Operating within the political cognition perspective (Neuman et al. 1992), this research uses its central concept - the notion of schema or simplifying maps of how political facts and figures can be organized in a meaningful whole (Graber 1984).

The findings reflect the varying levels of inclusion and the differing prevailing representations of the EU social policy issues in the four national news media in the Asia-Pacific region. The results provide a baseline from which to identify the extent to which EU social affairs images are viewed as related and significant to the readership in the region.

This paper discusses the preliminary results from a research project we are currently conducting into the EU's relationship with the Pacific Islands. The primary focus was on the Economic Partnership Agreements, and specifically, on legitimacy, institutional capacity and regional integration. The idea was to examine - through political lenses - and from a practical dimension, EU-Pacific relations in addition to the general assumptions underlying the engagement. Our findings so far are mixed: there are grounds for optimism and there are reasons to be cautious.

On 24 April 2004 the Greek Cypriots voted 'no' and the Turkish Cypriots voted 'yes' in the referendum on the Annan Plan for the re-unification of Cyprus. By voting 'no' to the Annan Plan the Greek Cypriots ensured that Cyprus acceded to the European Union as a divided island. By voting 'yes' the Turkish Cypriots clearly demonstrated a desire to end their years of international isolation and to reap the benefits of EU membership. Both the EU and the two Cypriot communities are now faced with a unique situation: the entire island has formally acceded to the EU, but membership shall only take effect in the Greek Cypriot southern zone leaving the Turkish Cypriots to remain 'outside looking in'. Yet one fundamental question arises: where to from here? This paper seeks to place Cyprus' recent accession in context and examines the current situation now facing the island and the EU. It analyses the role the EU has played in the 'Cyprus issue', how it has attempted to bring about conflict resolution, and why such attempts have been unsuccessful. It further explores the implications of a divided island acceding to the EU and what the future may hold, particularly for the Turkish Cypriots. The recent referendum results indicate that the Turkish Cypriot community is not simply 'outside looking in': rather, they are clearly knocking on the door to Europe. The EU is now under pressure to reassess both this new situation on the island and its own approach to the conflict, however, it may yet contribute to a resolution of the 'Cyprus issue'.

How institutions address technically complex matters is a challenge for modern democratic processes. Democratically elected representatives are typically drawn from the wider community and can be expected to have only a lay-understanding of technical matters. At the same time, they are being called on to make legislation to address a range of technically complex issues. This creates a dialectic between citizen participation and system effectiveness - the ability for pluralist values to be recognised within the policy formulation process, while also ensuring interventions adequately address technical issues.

This has particular relevance to the European Union which is seen to face increasingly this dilemma between democracy and technocracy. Historically it has been seen to lack democratic legitimacy, in favour of a technocratic bureaucracy. The European Parliament, as the EU's only directly legitimated body, is considered to play an increasingly important role in bridging this gap. However many public policy issues are becoming more technical and complex, making decision-makers reliant on technical knowledge of specialist experts. The Parliament has several internal sources of information. However evidence has suggested an information deficit resulting from historical under-funding of information supply, has lead to reliance on lobbyists to fulfil this role instead. Thus politicians can be seen to be held hostage to technocrats with their own agendas, feeding the democratic deficit and also public cynicism that casts the EU as a forum for big business.

Research was undertaken in early 2004 to substantiate earlier research in this field and to investigate further access and availability of information to European Parliament actors on technical issues. The Fluorinated Gas Directive was used as a case-study, primarily because of its highly technical nature which meant that it had little to lend it to any particular political philosophy. Interviews with key politicians, including the dossier's Rapporteur, and administrators responsible for the dossier were undertaken to identify the information bases upon which they based their decisions and advice. Also committee meetings were observed and voting lists analysed to establish the basis for the decision-making and the changes to the Directive as originally proposed by the Commission.

The European Parliament completed the First Reading of a proposed Fluorinated Gas Directive in April 2004. This Directive is intended to address dual global environmental issue of global atmospheric ozone depletion and greenhouse gas warming, primarily through regulating particular automobile mobile air-conditioning system (MACs) coolants. Importantly, the Parliament adopted a very different control mechanism for the MACs than that proposed by the Commission. This was seen to be a direct result of lobbying by the automotive industry. This was despite the Commission having received clear support for its market-driven quota system from the automobile industry at a MAC Summit held by the Commission a year earlier.

Interviews with politicians and administrators clearly confirmed earlier research that existing formal parliamentary information sources, Directorate General II and STOA, were considered inadequate. Many of those interviewed assumed other actors were receiving independent information, for example from their national or subnational governments, but this was not necessary the case. Rather, there was heavy reliance by both politicians and administrators on lobbyists for information which was sometimes actively sought. These findings confirm and expand on previous generalised research in the field.

At the same time, the level of interest and understanding of the technical issues concerned was very small, with only a small number of the 628 MEPs to attend or contribute to debate or discussion in either Committee or Plenary sessions. This must call into question the value of placing technical matters within the political environment.

The European Parliament's technocratisation is to some extent because of its regulatory dimension as opposed to redistributive. Regulatory policy is largely about efficiency and so is more rational. In this regard it is not unlike New Zealand regional councils, which face similar challenges - of technocratic policy-making, low public awareness and support as measured by election turn-out, and constrained policy arenas. Lessons learnt from Europe therefore may have relevance elsewhere, including New Zealand.

The recent successful EU enlargement is evidence indicating that the European Union has advanced further down the road of regionalism and economic integration. Critics, however, are very quick to point out that the crucial socio-economic aftermath of the most recent enlargement is yet to begin. Many assume that the economic strength of the EU may be diluted to some extent as the enlargement process makes economic disparity unmanageable. Political scientists also caution that the last enlargement may create some form of political difficulty, especially in the areas of security, power distribution and representation.

This writer argues that these warnings are overstated, as the EU integration process itself is truly exceptional. It is not only because some key characteristics and innovations developed by the Europeans in their regionalist experiment-such as institutionalisation, diversity of leadership, economic challenges, and lack of popular support-can be overcome through politico-economical solutions, but EU regionalism also relies heavily on a special legal instrument of the kind not known before, which will be effective in helping other institutions withstand potential trouble in the Europe of the future.

While the outcomes of the largest Enlargement in the history of the EU will be visible in the months and years to come, future EU Enlargements are already being planned and predicted. In addition to its decision to conclude accession negotiations with the ten countries which became new EU members on 1 May 2004, the Copenhagen European Council meeting of December 2002 strengthened its commitment to Bulgarian and Romanian accession in 2007 and encouraged Turkey to meet necessary political criteria and open negotiations. Since then Croatia has also become an official candidate for EU membership, while the other Balkan states have been strongly encouraged to meet necessary pre-conditions to do the same.

While the potential EU Enlargement into former Soviet republics is still for many in Western Europe quite a controversial question, and certainly not a pressing matter for the immediate future, the five countries of South-Eastern Europe (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia and Montenegro) have already got the status of 'prospective candidate countries' for EU membership. However, apart from Croatia, the extended presence of a relatively low level of political stability in the region, accompanied with the very slow process of establishing the necessary institutions for a functioning market economy in most of the five "Western Balkan states" provides little convincing evidence of their abilities to meet the necessary criteria for EU accession anytime soon.

After a brief introduction, where the current approaches of leading Western diplomats and EU institutions to future EU enlargement to the East will be presented, this paper will focus on examining the key obstacles and prospects for the five Western Balkan states to meet EU political and economic requirements for the opening of accession negotiations. In this regard, the present state of play will be mutually compared to and contrasted with the achieved levels of political stability and economic reforms in the other potential accessory states, particularly Bulgaria and Romania.

The collapse of communism in central south-east Europe in 1989, followed by the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, and disbanding of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) destroyed the rationale on which the trade relation between communist states had been constructed. This required the former communist states to seek new trade partners. The EU became an obvious target for the re-direction of trade. The countries which now constitute the EU had been the major trade partners for each of the economies in the inter-war period and their geographic proximity and their relatively large per-capita incomes -market with high purchasing power- made them an attractive proposition for exporters seeking new markets.

In the first part of the 1990s because of different structures of trade and political system between ex-communist states and the EU-15, the former had to carry a program of economic, political and social reform. With the support of the European Union (EU), International Monetary Funds (IMF), World Bank (WB)and other international institutions, the accession countries of Central and Eastern Europe have been returning their laws, upgrading their bureaucracies, selling off state property and generally aligning their economies as closely as possible to EU norms. In that short time, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe have transformed themselves from Soviet command economies to democracies and free market economies fit for the exacting standards of EU membership.

During the 1990s, "economic transformation" has been touted as the means by which Central Eastern European Countries (CEECs) can elevate themselves into the EU's rankings for living standards. Finding a clear definition of economic transformation is not easy, but it probably involves the CEECs moving away from basic primary production, and focusing more on high value-added processing and high-tech manufactures. This paper examines whether or not economic transformation has occurred since the 1990s reforms. Three countries from Central and Eastern Europe have been selected for this purpose: Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. The aims of this study are:

1. To determine in which sectors the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland have revealed comparative advantage with respect to EU-15.
2. To examine how Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland's comparative advantage patterns have changed over time -has there been any noticeable signs of economic transformation?
3. To identify fast growing sub-sectors that may contribute strongly to Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland export -and thus GDP- growth in the future.

To examine the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland's export structure, we use highly disaggregated data, SITC 4-digit level of aggregation. The reason being for not working with high level of aggregation is to avoid the risk that it may have overlooked fast-growing sub-sectors. Such sub-sectors may be in more technologically advantage, higher value-added areas, and could boost export growth in the future. We focused on the period between 1993/94, 1997/98 and 2000/01, looking at 'snapshots' of Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland's export structures in each year, and how this structure has change over the 8-year period covered. The reduction in export subsidization and import protection in this period has increasingly exposed the tradeable sector to European market conditions -revealing the characteristic of Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland's comparative advantage more clearly.

Keywords: EU, revealed comparative advantage, Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland

The Commission of the European Union recommended to the Council of Ministers (ECOFIN) that France and Germany be sanctioned for their continual excessive deficits in excess of the agreed 3% cap imposed by the Stability and Growth Pact. The Council refused to follow the Commission's recommendation despite clear contravention of the SGP. As a result, the Commission took the matter to the Court of Justice. The Court in its July opinion upheld the Commission's position but avoided a definitive determination of the Commission-Council impasse. This paper explores the deep political implications resonating from the Commission-Council confrontation and the Court's decision. This crisis has even wider significance than the unquestionably profound impact it has for EMU and fiscal discipline. It affects the institutional relationships of the EU as well as relations between MS's, particularly between those perceived to have greater political clout than those that don't. This all comes at an already crucial and difficult juncture in EU development.

Although its primary motivation was to establish lasting peace in Europe, the European integration project has been largely driven by economic factors. Moreover, it has been driven at a striking pace; in just over 50 years, the fledgling European Coal and Steel Community has evolved into a Union comprising 25 nation-states and some 450 million citizens. The European Union today constitutes the largest single market in the world and, with the greatest combined GDP and a significant trade surplus, is the world's wealthiest region.

This paper draws on the ongoing research undertaken as part of a project being coordinated by the University of Canterbury entitled Public, Elite and Media Perceptions of the EU in the Asia Pacific Region: A Comparative Study. This research coincides with an exciting time of growth and expansion for the EU. As the EU swells in size, its power and position as a global economic actor is also enhanced, with significant ramifications for third countries and regions, and their economies. Yet, preliminary observations suggest that the growing profile of the EU as a powerful global economic agent is not adequately reflected in the local media of the Asia Pacific that feed both public and elite perceptions of the EU - despite its role as a major economic partner for the region.

This paper contrasts and analyses the frames of reference and types of representations of the European Union as an economic actor in the national media of Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Thailand. The paper explores points of convergence and divergence across the four countries, and considers ways to account for them. As well, the implications of such representations for the relationship with the EU are discussed.

The European Union has increasingly become an important political force in the international arena. The combination of political weights of member states makes internal politics of the European integration inevitably have global impact. The EU is also forming a complex network of relations with countries, regions and international organisations in order to meet its aspiration of becoming one of the prominent world actors.

This abstract is for the presentation 'Images of the EU as a Political Partner for Asia-Pacific: Emerging Frames in National Media.' The preliminary assumption is that although there is a certain degree of visibility of the political representation of the EU in local media in the Asia-Pacific, the current level of presentation is not adequate to fully capture the dynamism of the EU's political affairs. Also, evaluations of the EU may not be often made but when they happen, they tend to have negative connotation to the EU.

The presentation compares and contrasts propositions, the frames of references and types of representation of the EU as a political actor in the national media of Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and Thailand. The presentation aims to find similarities and differences in the finding of the four countries and their implications on the relationship between the EU and Asia-Pacific countries.

Regional integration has been placed squarely on the agenda again of the Pacific island countries. The European Union, through the negotiation of regional Economic Partnership Agreements, is actively engaged in fostering sub regional integration processes. The release of the Eminent Persons' Group review of the Pacific Islands Forum in April 2004 has also placed regional solutions to the problems of development in the Pacific at the forefront of reform. These processes raise a number of questions about integration in the context of the Pacific. This paper will explore the potential for the EU's EPA framework to be applied to the Pacific. The core questions it seeks to deal with are to what extent the Pacific, as the EU defines it, constitutes a region, and likewise whether the Pacific can be said to be an economic region. Consequently, who the Pacific region exists for is a fundamental principle for understanding how integration has and will be shaped in the region, by the EU and others.

Concerns about security, perceived threats to internal security and border politics are high on the policy agendas of many societies today. The implications of these perceived security threats impact on many different aspects of our lives. How we understand security and security threats has changed in recent times requiring a broader definition of security beyond state centred and military approaches to an increased focus on the human centred dimension of security. This paper will focus on transnational security issues as they relate to matters of internal security, in particular in relation to forced migration, and the trafficking of human beings and asylum policy, within the framework of the European Union.

Border security issues for states have been raised to a new level presenting a growing difficulty in reconciling this with the rights of freedom of movement and broader human security concerns. Leading to the question, is an ever increasing concern with security and national interest (or European interest) at all reconcilable with the notion of humanity and a respect for a universal standard in human rights? This also leads to another question about the role of institutions and policy making in the criminalisation of transnational identities. Issues which transcend national borders are becoming of increasing importance and the ways in which states, citizens and international institutions develop strategies to deal with, and manage these issues form a framework for analysis which provides an opportunity for developing a deeper understanding of these issues. Focussing in particular on the European Union in the area of 'Justice and Home Affairs' provides a mechanism for looking closely at integration and policy making in the areas of asylum and trafficking in human beings. The notions of open borders and enlargement raise numerous challenges, particularly in the context of human rights and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

The emphasis in this paper will be on 'illegal immigration' in the European Union and related attempts at integrating security and human rights. Now with the enlargement of the European Union to 25 states the question will be asked what has been the impact on countries in the former 'buffer zone' in central Europe of policy changes under the auspices of Justice and Home Affairs and what impact the Charter of Fundamental Rights has had in the area of 'Freedom, Security and Justice'. Thus, developing an understanding of the human rights dimensions associated with forced migration. Perceived global challenges and new threats to security related to the impact of opening borders and the criminalisation of causes of insecurity are especially evident in relation to forced migration. Borders exist to reinforce the state centred perspective, to maintain existing power relationships and to provide a barrier to challenges of understanding security. When looking at borders in a European Union context they are no longer static entities. However, as responsibilities shift for controlling the invisible borders the human rights dimension linked to borders and associated with free movement must not be neglected.

The enlargement of the European Union brings with it a number of unresolved issues from the former communist countries that have now been accepted as members. A frequently mentioned issue is the clear disparity between the economies of the established members of the European Union and the newly admitted countries, but this is not the only issue that merits consideration. The issues of corruption, relations with and the influence of Russia to the east, the appeal of populism to disenchanted and impoverished voters, and the stability of the new democracies of the east are all highlighted in the recent impeachment of President Rolandas Paksas in Lithuania.

This situation provides a useful basis for a case study of these issues, which are also apparent in a number of the other countries joining the European Union, notably, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. While this paper will focus primarily on the recent Lithuanian experience, it should be made clear that the issues discussed in it are not unique to Lithuania. The paper will provide a background on Lithuania, discussing its history, geography and economy before moving to explain the rise of Rolandas Paksas and outline the accusations levelled against him and his office by his critics. The balance of the paper will discuss the process leading to the impeachment of Paksas and the implications that this will have for Lithuania's domestic politics and foreign relationships.

This paper will argue that it is clear that the recent events in Lithuania provide a useful insight into the ways one of the newly admitted members of the European Union has confronted the problems of corruption and the abuse of power by its head of state. While the impeachment of President Rolandas Paksas, following the revelations of scandals relating to his conduct and that of his office, has been a troublesome period for Lithuania, it can draw credit for the manner in which it has addressed the constitutional crisis that has arisen. While no one can dispute the fact that the country has suffered some degree of embarrassment abroad, it has also been seen to have squarely addressed the problem in a manner consistent with its democratic and constitutional processes that must be encouraging to Lithuanians and outside observers alike.