This thesis aims at studying the European Union?s actions against applicant states. In this case Turkey has been chosen as a variable, because of its unique applying Accession.Turkey is a country which has been applying for a membership of the European Union since 1989 and Turkey is the only state which has been searching for membership for more than twenty years. Turkey has been given a lot of critic of not fulfilling the political criteria of the Copenhagen criteria?s.

In May 2004 the European Union enlarged from 15 to 25 member states and it was the biggest enlargement since the foundation. Two years earlier Poland, as one of the new member states, finished four years of Accession negotiations with the EU.This study focus on the case of Poland and how the Accession negotiations with EU were conducted. According to the theoretical framework of asymmetric negotiations Poland was said to be a weak party and the EU was considered a strong party in the enlargement negotiations.The aim of the thesis is to examine Poland's negotiation performance and determine what Polish failure and success in the Accession negotiations depends on. The research contains a illustration of the motives for enlargement, the negotiation process and structure, attitudes and behaviour and finally results of negotiations in specific areas.The study concludes that Poland's negotiation performance was influenced by the Polish negotiation team's unpleasant attitude, confused organizational structure, lack of coalition partners and the strong will to become a member state, in both positive and negative ways. Finally, Poland was most successful in negotiations that concerned specific issues which were of great importance for Poland but less prioritized by the EU..

The prospect of Turkish Accession to the EU has sparked controversy in many of the member countries. It has highlighted the different ways in which European as well as Turkish identity is being defined in the debate, with some politicians seemingly trying to draw on old prejudices in order to make the case against membership. By utilising discourse analysis as advocated by Thomas Diez, this thesis seeks to explore the debates regarding the Turkish Accession bid in the British House of Commons. Its purpose is to analyse how ?EU? and ?Turkey?, understood as contested concepts, gets described in different ways.

The focus of the thesis is: how conditions for agriculture in the Republic of Macedonia today may form the basis for development of the agricultural sector towards conditions needed for future Accession into the European Union. The method for investigating this question has been to look at newly available farm monitoring system (FMS) data from Macedonia. Also to look at the latest government policies created in the country for the agricultural sector and rural areas in relation to the requirements for EU Accession. Articles and empirical studies published by other authors related to the questions which arise in this study have been reviewed and presented herein. Trade relations, trade patterns and national economic and agricultural trends are displayed to provide a background overview for the study of the agricultural sector.

By the same time as the recent enlargement of the European Union, where Poland became a member, it was officially stated that the gender mainstreaming-policy was to be integrated into every area of EU. NGO:s working as entrepreneurs for the gender mainstreaming norm in Poland supported the Accession largely because they believed it would help spreading the norm also on a national level. Qualitatively analyzing the Polish case and the difficulties gender mainstreaming as a norm candidate meets with I contrast expectations with what could actually be EU:s role in this matter.Arguing that EU is a context with room for spreading norms by both bargaining and socialization, this paper takes a social constructivist approach. Gender mainstreaming as a norm is difficult for EU to apply on their members, and thus was not widely discussed during Accession negotiations. In the same time.

Since the 1st of May 2004 Cyprus is part of the European Union. The Republic of Cyprus as a whole is part of the Union, but all of the advantages of the Union membership cannot be enjoyed in all parts of the country. Since December 1963 the Cypriot administration has been separated into two, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, and since 1974 the country is also territorially divided. The Greek Cypriot political administration is considered to be the legitimate representative of the Republic of Cyprus, the Turkish Cypriot administration is only recognised by Turkey. Since the disruption of the country in 1963 the UN has been trying to get the Cypriot parties to agree upon a peace solution in order to reunite the country.

The Turkish Accession to the European Union has been the most extended one that the Unionhas been dealing with so far. Turkey is now accepted as a candidate country but it is still in aproblematic situation. Most of the EU?s member states do not share the Union?s belief thatTurkey should become a full member of the Union, if they should even become a member atall. Europeanization constitutes a ground in this essay, and the ?top-down? perspective withinthis process can give an explanation to why most EU member states have such a hesitanceagainst Turkey..

This thesis aims to study obstacles which Turkey faces regarding EU Accession. The main focus will be at the historical context and background information to clarify Turkey-EU relationship and institutional aspects such as; the Copenhagen criteria will be analyzed. Interaction between identity politics and Turkeys Europeanization project will be examined by analyzing arguments regarding this issue. The historical context is important for realizing in how Turkey's negotiation process is affected and how the process is evolved. By examining this, a more transparent understanding is going to develop in the issue of why Turkey never will be able to identify itself with the EU.Analysis regarding why Turkey as a secular state develops into an increasingly Islamized state is highlighted.

The aim of this thesis is to study the situation of minorities in Slovakia before and after the EU-membership and if EU has played a role in the situation. Also the criteria for becoming a member and other treaties regarding protection of minorities between European institutions and the Accession/member states are studied. With the help of i.e. literature, relevant internet pages and yearly studies of EU, the conclusion has been made that Slovakia has made an immense change in the state?s legislation when it comes to minorities and their fundamental rights, but that changes need to be made in attitudes as well.

?How does the Turkish debate appear concerning the EU-discourse in relation to political conditionality? Is Turkey accepting the demands that are being made?? These questions are answered in this thesis through a qualitative document analysis of the debate concerning EU as it is in Turkish newspapers and statements made by Turkish political representatives. The debate is used to describe the association?s process in a candidate country through investigating how the process and the relationship between EU and Turkey are discussed within the country. The national debate is then used to compare with the Accession process for the Central and Eastern European countries based on conditionality to discover if Turkey is different from other candidate countries and if so explain why.

This thesis aims to analyze the similarities and differences in how identity is constructed by the European Commission, the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament regarding the Polish membership and the potential Turkish membership of the European Union. The construction of identity is analyzed through a social constructivist perspective where identity is constructed by distinguishing ?us? from ?them?. The research metod used is a qualitative text analysis. The arguments of identity are taken from the Commission?s and the Council?s documents, as well as from the debates of the European Parliament.

The focus of this essay is Swedish bilateral development aid. With the help of organization theory I analyse the development aid strategies and policies of the 1990s, in order to examine how and why they were introduced. I investigate three different types of aid organization, namely structural adjustment programmes, political conditionality tied to aid co-operation, and equality policy as part of development co-operation. I analyze the introduction and subsequent use of these three co-operation forms to see whether they were applied and adopted into Swedish development aid because more efficient measures were required or because they were the most recent and modern ways of dealing with development co-operation.Organization theory presents these two ways of analyzing organization. They are occasionally competing and sometimes complementing each other in explaining organization.

Pregnant workers are considered at risk in the labor market and therefore need extra protection from employment discrimination . The purpose of this essay is to investigate what protection of pregnant workers against discrimination in employment situations and  if  there  is  no  corresponding  protection  for  female  workers  claim  the  right  to parental leave.The essay describes the national and EU rules on applications and practice, showing how pregnant women and workers on parental leave are treated in the labor market. Through Sweden's Accession to the EU , we must apply the requirements nationally EU imposes on its member countries.The essay shows that pregnant employees have a strong legal protection from discrimination in employment , from both DL and by EU directives . Employers who deny workers employment because of pregnancy is guilty of direct discrimination on grounds of sex, because it is only women who may become pregnant. It is not important whether it is a temporary or permanent position .

Turkey?s nearly fifty-year-old aspiration for admittance to the European Union took a crucial step forward with the signing of the Ankara agreement in 1996. The aim of this thesis is to examine the trade effects that evolve from the creation of a customs union. Our objective is to study how Turkey?s trade patterns adapted to the liberalized trade by examining the effects on resource allocation, specialization and welfare.

Cultural relict plant species from the Nordic countries have been collected by the Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen) for the purpose of conservation. To ensure high seed vitality in store, regular germination tests need to be conducted. It is important to get a correct viability status, but the knowledge of seed dormancy in the cultural relict plants is often poor. The objective of this study was to investigate how seed dormancy is affected by cold stratification. The study includes 31 Accessions from 28 species with the purpose of establishing germination protocols.