Analytics, Direct Speech, Education and Science, EU – Baltic States, Integration, Latvia

General introduction to the series

The publication is inspired by the active European Commission’s integration plan that was adopted in mid-2014. Although “the plan” was shaped as a political guidance, it has held an overwhelming “agenda for jobs, growth, fairness and democratic change”.

The new Commission college is clearly on the way to create both social and political unions, coped with some other integration prospects for the banking, energy union and digital agenda, to name a few. Not all the EU member states are excited about such deep integration aspirations being afraid of serious reduction of national sovereignty.

Present series of publications is aimed at revealing practical steps that the EU institutions (mainly, the Commission) have undertaken for practical implementation of the new Commission’s political guidance for the member states.

The series will follow those EU policies’ developments that have been, in fact, during the last couple of years. The main sources of information for the series are recent Commission’s press releases, EU documents, speeches of the EU officials and various media resources, mainly during 2014-15.

Materials in the publication are a reflection on recent EU actions in certain socio-economic sectors rather than critical analyses, i.e. these are so-called “news & facts’ collection”, not comments; the judgments are that of readers.

Out of ten vital spheres of activities for the next five years elaborated by the Commission, present series of publication will follow recent EU’s development efforts in the most active ones.

The publication is envisaged as the quickest way of delivering most recent EU’s efforts in social-economic integration development to the wide public, including researchers and students in European studies.

The first volume in the series is devoted to the present structure of the EU’s “planning” integration, or – in other words – to the modern European political economy process within the framework of the federal-type EU-member states’ relationship.