The Latvian building company Laval un Partneri Ltd (Laval) posted Latvian construction workers at the rebuilding of a school in Vaxholm in autumn 2004. Because the company refused to sign a collective agreement with Svenska Byggnadsarbetareförbundet (Byggnads), which is the Swedish trade union for constructions workers, Byggnads put the construction site under a boycott. Next Laval sued Byggnads for damages in the Swedish Labour Court (AD) because Laval considers the boycott as well as Byggnad´s demand that Laval signs a collective agreement incompatible with EC Law. AD has now demanded a preliminary ruling from the European Court of Justice (ECJ). While waiting for the preliminary ruling from the ECJ, several important questions of principle stand unanswered.

The aim of this study was to compare educational systems in Sweden, Czech Republic, Italy and Scotland. In the light of the Bologna Declaration signed in 1999, I was particularly interested in comparing social work educations in these four countries. Especially to clarify how far they have come to fulfill the goals of the common European educational policy.Central questions asked were: How do the educational systems look like in each of the four countries? How are the social work educations organized in each of them? In what ways do the social work educations differ? How can we explain such differences?Each country in this study represents a different welfare regime, and therefore I was challenged to find out if this has an impact on the implementation of the incentives of the Bologna Declaration. By studying various documents from the European Union, documents from each country and presentations of various social work programmes, I have come to the conclusion that the differences found mainly depends on the historical and socioeconomic traditions in the countries.

This study aims at examine what kind of interest the European Union (EU) have in promoting a democracy process in Eastern Europe. The study is a descriptive case study where the case Ukraine is used to draw general conclusions. The questions asked to pursue the aim are: why does the EU want to promote a democracy process in Ukraine, what kind of methods does the EU use  and why is Russia trying to prevent the EU-Ukraine development and instead supporting a Russia-Ukraine development. In this study an analytical model is created and used to analyze EU:s way in promoting democracy in Ukraine. The analyze model consists of six steps used to describe the general promotion of a democracy process and it?s applied in the empirical analysis.

This study examines how the Swedish newspaper G?teborgs-Posten presented Swedish identity in relation to the country?s referendum and EU-membership. By investigating the usage of the Swedish identity, related to EU-membership, the ambition is to conclude whether the newspaper was positive towards EU-membership. The empirical base consists of articles produced by G?teborgs-Posten from the first of October 1994 to the last day of January 1995.

The xenophobic attitudes in Europe are stronger than even. Never before have the member states had as many right-wing parties in action. The aim with this report is therefore to consider whether the Schengen cooperation has had an influence on the development of xenophobia in the member states of EU. The Schengen cooperation became a part of the European Union in 1997, with the aim to abolish the internal border controls for citizens and strengthen the external boarders towards non-members. The intention is furthermore to investigate whether the distance to Schengen ?s external boarder has an impact on the xenophobic attitudes.Three countries are compared: Italy, Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

Along with the development of technology, the cross-border trade is increasing and therefore there is a need for greater consumer protection. A good consumer protection creates a feeling of safety for the consumer and that by itself may help to increase cross-border trade. This is one of the reasons for why the EU has established regulatory framework for electronic commerce, for example the Directive2000/31/EC. The direc-tive strives to create a similar law for electronic commerce within the European Union. This paper?s main purpose is to ensure that the directive is implemented properly in Swedish law, and if there are other possible ways to achieve the objective, other than the ones that the Swedish legislator has chosen.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to analyse the construction of European identity in three ofcontemporary EU initiated projects for the digitisation of collections from museums, archives, andlibraries. The source material consists of the web pages of the projects Minerva, MICHAEL, andEuropeana, as well as some other policy documents on digitisation and access from EU authorities.Theories on nationalism and construction of heritage are used as an overall context to the problem.After a brief description of the mentioned projects, the author undertakes an analysis of theways that the concept of ?European heritage? is depicted in the source material. The result is thefollowing: normally, the true European heritage is considered being united even though it isdiveded culturally, historically and linguistically.

This bachelor thesis focuses on the ethics concerning the possession of nuclear weapons seen from a deontological and utilitarian perspective. I have also considered the aspects of International law, the Just-war Theory, and Michael Walzer's Legalist Paradigm. The research question that guides my essay is: Is it possible to ethically justify a country's possession of nuclear arms, which results in direct and indirect threats against other countries?I have chosen to focus my essay on the period of 1945 to 1990, also referred to as the Cold War. I find the bipolar system that existed between the USA and the Soviet Union as a good empirical example, during which the nuclear arms debate constantly took place.The result that my thesis brings is rather ambiguous.

The title of this thesis is ?Accessible Landscape - boardwalks in nature areas?. The main purpose of this thesis is to show how you can increase the accessibility for disabled people by constructing boardwalks in nature areas. The platform for the thesis is a study of litterature on boardwalks, accessibility and disabilities. After defining these terms I made three excursions to three different locations in the south of Sweden. During the excursions I evaluated the boardwalks situated in each of the areas through preferences such as the construction of the boardwalk, its design and the accessibility. After the excursions I interviewed managers of the areas I visited, and people working with disability questions in the municipalities where the excursions took place. To know how to make a boardwalk accessible you need to have knowledge about certain concepts, rules and recommendations. My thesis deals with aspects such as: *Accessibility *Disability *Rules and recommendations when building boardwalks *Real life - evaluation from the excursions and interviews with the managers The result shows that accessibility is a hot topic in Sweden and a lot of improvement is being done with fi nancial support from the European Union.

This study aims at examine what kind of interest the European Union (EU) have in promoting a democracy process in Eastern Europe. The study is a descriptive case study where the case Ukraine is used to draw general conclusions. The questions asked to pursue the aim are: why does the EU want to promote a democracy process in Ukraine, what kind of methods does the EU use  and why is Russia trying to prevent the EU-Ukraine development and instead supporting a Russia-Ukraine development. In this study an analytical model is created and used to analyze EU:s way in promoting democracy in Ukraine. The analyze model consists of six steps used to describe the general promotion of a democracy process and it?s applied in the empirical analysis.

Since Sweden became a member of the European Union (EU) several constitutional reforms has been taking place. During this time, Sweden has also changed its view on democracy,from a collective to an individual perspective of democracy in the politics. A reasonable hypothesis and the purpose of this essay is to investigate if the Swedish government has beendeveloped towards an Europeanization.The Swedish state audit changed in a pioneering way after the EU- entry, with the formation of Riksrevisionen. Another constitutional change is that the Swedish EU- membership is being instituted in the Swedish constitution. The role of Swedish courts has also changed since the EU- entry.

Compared to all existing ethnic groups in Sweden, the integration of Somali women has failed the most within the aspect of employment. This bachelor?s thesis investigates the obstacles in the integration of Somali women by focusing on one case, a project named ?Kvinnokraft?, partly financed by the European Socialfund.By interviewing eight key actors, opinions about obstacles in the project have been identified. A theoretical framework that incorporates integration, project research, multi-level governance and intersectionality contributes to explaining difficulties in integrating Somali women.The empirical findings show that there are individual, social and institutional holdbacks. Stereotypical perceptions were common amongst officials, which contributes to a creation of an inferior position in the structures of the society for Somali women.

This paper aims at describing and explaining the bi-and multilateral negotiations that are, and have been, taking place between Sweden's chief negotiator Allan Larsson and European countries, and within the EU institutions in Brussels, in order to seek support for the Swedish offer to host the European Spallation Source, ESS. It applies a case study method using political science theories ? governance and government ? and to a large extent information from the involved actors in the policy process. The paper also presents a constructive position, in showing how the negotiations on ESS can turn into a process leading to a decision on the construction of this research facility. ESS is negotiated in networks on bi- and multilateral levels consisting of European research representatives and financiers.

Competence is a complex concept that encompasses many facets. This study aims fora better understanding of the concept. Many branches of business administration science would benefit from a better understanding of competence and, through that understanding, find solutions where competence is one of many variables. By combining a positivistic and phenomenological approach, this study has created a broader understanding of the concept of competence.The study combines systematic study of the relevant literature with in-depth interviewswith people representing both the employer and the union within the staffing company world.The results show that quantifying competence is a complex and next to impossible task, as it would involve including the whole concept of competence in the calculations. When this is done, the phenomenon itself becomes so complex that it loses its validity.This is why theorists who want to perform this type of calculations put most of the competence complexity in ?the black box?.

The purpose of this study is to ? through a discourse analysis ? examine how the parliamentary committee ? Ansvarskommittén ? legitimizes the need for merging administrative regions. The committee?s investigation is what underlies the present debate on regionalisation and the merging of regions in Sweden. To carry out this discourse analysis, I have used ?What?s the problem represented to be??, by Carol Lee Bacchi as an analytical framework.