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EU Local Imprint : The case of South Central Europe

This volume is a result of fruitful discussions on the ideas of integration. Given increasing needs for political, economic, monetary, and other types of integrations – the question this volume focuses on is: how these „traditional integrations“ influence integrating mechanisms in more subtle areas of: culture, education, communication and tourism. In the case of EU, EU membership presents an aspiration for a country in the process of accession. As such, it implies conflicts from, at least, two perspectives. First, on the part of country that is being accepted to membership, there is discrepancy between how things are expected to be done and local customs which maintain old „undesirable“ patterns. While, on one side there are such conflicts, at the same time clashes hapen in pursuit of business interests of EM members: who seek to benefit from greater growth rates of accessing countries. Therefore, some positive practices, although sought by accessing country, are supported only in theory therefore requiring country's resourcefulness in solving these conflicting situations. Papers in this volume can be read individually, but jointly create a story of EU interaction with accession state: both thorugh positive and negative impacts. Papers provide perspectives on the impact of EU accession on culture, primarily in terms of risk perception which was long viewed as highly undesirable in non-western countries, on education systems as important carriers of knowledge and culture, on communication and media which serve as a basis for creating public opinion and therefore generating potential for positive changes, and tourism as an important industry that has strongly transformed as a result of EU enlargements. The first set of contributions focuses on managing cultural changes at diffetrent levels to adjust the values and norms of interacting parties. One such important aspect is the risk tolerance of a nation (but also at other levels), as conseptualized by Hofsteade (1980). In an accession process, numerous risks are arising, such as unknown impacts of accession. However, risk exhibits important impact on adjusting the culture to market and entrepreneurial economy of the EU. As Alfirević et al. indicate, for such changes „some individuals, organizations, or even societies seem to have better starting positions ‘to feign control over the uncontrollable’ (Beck, 2002), i.e. to project and act upon the future-oriented insights”. In their contribution they provide management approaches that provide insights primarily at corporate levels: how to manage the future in the face of uncertainties that accessions bring. In Wittine’s contribution, discussion focuses on external perceptions of risk, i.e. on the perceptions of EU investors on political risks in Croatia. Although author discusses great potential benefits from accession in terms of reducing political risks, he stresses that “in the end, it is important to point out that mere EU accession is not the panacea that would heal the problems the Croatian economy faces today. Structural economic, legal and social reforms behind the accession are the ones issues that matter and the ones that would bring the biggest benefit.”Although investments can have great positive impacts on local economiy, there are numerous potential risk associated with different goals of partnets from EU and accession country. In his contribution, Subic discusses the benefits and shortfalls of vigorous privatization and internationalization of banking sector. While having direct benefits from capital inflows, but also knowledge inflows, the risks that Croatian banking system incurred as a result of great control of international banks (primarily Italian and Austrian) required adjustment of Croatian National Bank to control their activities through college of supervisors. Moreover, control has to transcend borders as many of the strategic decisions regarding Croatian banks are made in EU countries. Strong integration of Croatian banking system into EU banking system created a great infrastructure for easier movement of capital to where the investment opportunities arise. Besides the tolerance for risk and managing risk, culture changed in several other aspects. Draskovic and Gnjidic discuss consumer attitudes toward environmental issues and adjustment of Croatian environmental management policies to EU directives. This issue grows in importance with elimination of borders which will enhance movement of tourists. As EU directives provide more guidelines and minimum requirements, touristis by changing locations make choices: whether to maintain environmental consciousness and inform themselves about the local regulations, or to ignore such practices while not in their home country. One of the issues that authors discuss is: who should be responsible for development / maintainance of environmentally friendly behaviours: individuals or institutionalized efforts? The last contribution in this section provides a more broad perspective on changes in attitudes of Croatian students between 1995 (when Croatians were expressing relatively strong national identity cherishing the independence) and 2008 when general aim of Croatia is to enter a new union: EU. Comparing the indicators from 2008 with those from the 1995 study, the author concludes that “present-day students, on the average express less initiative and effort, they have a lower general knowledge level, and mostly seek 'cheap and on the spot forms of entertainment'.” Second chapter deals with an important area of education and how it works across borderless societies. Hönig provides a perspective on the Sorbonne, Bologna and Lisbon impacts on European higher education. Study provides a cross-time and cross-country comparison of impacts. While Sorbonne Declaration’s goal was “to create an European area of higher education, where national identities and interests can interact and strengthen each other for the benefit of Europe of its students, and more generally of its citizens” (Sorbonne 1998), Bologna Reform Process (Bologna 1999) focused more on applicability of knowledge thus linking it closely to business practice. Comparing “old-European” studies of sociology to “new-European” studies in Slovenia, author concludes that in both contexts there are “observed continuing trends towards an enforced economization and standardization of higher education”. A positive trend is toward mobility of students, teachers, and administrative staff. However, “the regional specialization of departments in topics and approaches still prevails in its importance” therefore limiting mobility to an extent while ensuring diversity. Author stresses an important step to internationalization of European education: development of joint study programs. Zekanović Korona and Fučko discuss opportunities of e-learning, distance learning, mobile learning and nano learning as types of constructive and collaborative learning. Perfecting these forms for educational purposes provides great opportunities for further elimination of borders and greater knowledge sharing, and thus greater knowledge development. Authors indicate these developments as trends in EU and therefore important to follow and implement in accessing countries through motivation of professors to incorporate such learning methods. However, these ideas need to be strongly marketed. Along these lines, in Mihanovic et al. contribution, authors stress the importance of lifelong learning and integration of learning practices across borders. However, they argue that an important missing element in popularizing these is marketing of educational institutions and programs. Marketing activities, not only help the educational system to be more market oriented but at the same time can get market (both employers and current/potential employees) to recognize new competences that are likely to be important for success in the future integrated system of countries. These marketing efforts require strong and well integrated media. The question is whether there are media houses or we are faced with content development agencies. Perišin discusses promises and perils of multi-platform media companies and the necessity for significant infrastructural investments into achieving cohesion. However, on this platforms it is not only media companies that compete but everyone can be the source of interesting content that seeks viewership. Following European directives, Croatian TV market is turning completely digital to be able to offer greater benefits to its users. Radio, as a relatively old medium, is also facing important changes and turning digital. Zgrabljić Rotar and Šop indicate that, besides multi-platform media, radio must become multi-format media, being able to provide content in formats accessible from different devices, also allowing for non-linear broadcast. If the media (in terms of content distribution) is converging and content becoming the key, Malović puts forth a discussion on his perspective on content specificities and pursuit for profits in Croatian media as it internationalizes. With changes in media and different critiques that can be proposed, it is inevitable that social media is increasingly important where content is created and shared depending on one’s on-line network structure. Facebook in July 2011 had more than 750 million active members worldwide. Google recognized the importance of such medium and in June 2010 launched Google+ which gained popularity in a short period of time (10 million users in 2 weeks, i.e. even before the official launch). Fudurić and Mandelli provide insights into how to measure success in these new media formats in which the content is not directly controlled by media or by companies, but rather provide a platform for democratic exchange of ideas. The last chapter deals with tourism as an important industry which, by its very nature, is likely to benefit from political and economic integrations. Krce Miočić and Žnidar provide a perspective on the importance of nautical tourism, especially high end nautical tourism. Šimurina et al. provide overview of airline industry, as a supporting industry to tourism development in face of integration: from development of national carriers to low cost carriers connecting EU to Croatia – the EU candidate country. These developments require investments into infrastructure, service, etc. However, as Mijić claims, investments, even when supported by EU, are often not well directed and executed as local beneficiaries aim at short term returns. On the other hand, these differences create (and maintain) potential for cultural tourism where, as Pavelin claims, the differences are what makes the difference. All contributions together serve as an overview of what is and what might become as a result of EU enlargements, from a perspective of accession country. There are many more perspectives that can be taken on this topic – however, we have focused on some aspects that seem the most relevant for a country which was nearing its accession path in 2010’s: Croatia.

European union; culture; education; communication; tourism

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