F60 - Economic Impacts of Globalization: GeneralReturn

In 2000 the European Council adopted to the European Union for a period of 10 years the aim to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more jobs and better working place, including social cohesion and respect for the environment. The Lisbon strategy was than followed up by the Europe 2020 strategy, which incorporated the revised goals of the Lisbon Strategy in order to become the most competitive economy in the world. Howerver the concept of the competitive state remains unclear. This article aims to show the major currents of thought and definitions, respectively, the concept of competitiveness of countries. The article is based on literary research, and summarizes the main concepts and definitions of competitiveness of nations, the concept of "external competitiveness", the concept of "aggregate competitiveness", the concept of "multi-criteria competitiveness" and finally, the concept of "systemic competitiveness". The main contribution of the article is the clear description of the conceptual and theoretical concept of the competitiveness of the countries and the identification of decisive factors and determinants of the competitiveness of the nations.

The first objective of this paper is to briefly describe and compare the methodology of the two best known international rankings of competitiveness (World Competitiveness Yearbook and The Global Competitiveness Report). The method of construction of these scoreboards (proportion of hard and soft data, form of their aggregation, choice of respondents, etc.) does not make it possible to find a satisfactory answer to the question whether national competitiveness is objectively measurable. The second goal of this paper is to analyse the V4 results in these rankings. According to the GCR all the V4 are most successful in indicators called Efficiency enhancers. The low trust in the political representation and its activities is typical for the V4 countries. This negative attitude is projected into negative evaluation of the quality of public institutions and public administration.

The aim of this study is to present the contemporary research of the Schengen area and to prove theoretically as well as empirically that the notion of Fortress Europe is only a misleading conception that the media may find attractive, but which does not depict the reality fully. The reason is, that he concept of a fortress evokes a contrast between the inside and the outside. Nevertheless, the empirical data show that the binary oppositions like 'inside - outside', 'security - free movement' or 'EU citizens - third country citizens' are simplified. Firstly, the paper focuses on the Schengen area itself. Secondly, the contemporary research in the field of the Schengen co-operation is presented. Thirdly, the study aims at the analysis of the current situation and links it to the context of the contemporary research. It presents quantitative as well as qualitative data. This is the main contribution of the paper since the current development is not very well explored.