Contenu du sommaire : La nouvelle Europe médiane

Abstract. - The Baltic area played a great part in the European development, but was then shut in when the two great ideological blocks were fighting against each other for the domination of the earth after the second World war. It is however, again, opening itself to its vocation of being a link between the North, the West, the Middle and the East of Europ. Even the big timelags brought about in its eastern part by the consequences of the collapse of collectivism are both defering and hastening the revival. The recomposition in course shows the numerous geopolitical assets this area has at its disposal, in spite of its increasing international multipolarisation.

Abstract. - The promotion of Indo-European Baltic languages, such as Latvian and Lithuanian as well as Estonian, an Uralic language, all banned for a long time and mostly looked down upon as peasant dialects, has helped those who spoke them build their self-image. The national identity feeling deriving from language as well as from the dominant religion (like Lutherian Protestantism in Estonia and Roman Catholicism in Lithuania) has become, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the incentive of the creation of new states as the political expression of a national feeling based on the use of common languages.

Abstract. - The opening of the Baltic States to market economy has brought about the reactivation of their maritime system, which over the years never stopped being a major element in the production of their national wealth. Nowadays, the coming up of new directions of specialization, of new decision makers in ports, in today's forward-looking regional context, allows positive expectations, for both the Baltic States and their western partners.

Abstract. - The link between the states around the Baltic is the sea. In spite of the constraints of the nature, the shipping industry is growing. But the situation is different from one state to another.

Abstract. - The new Russia, as the antiqual Moscovie, is reduced to a small baltical "window". Post-soviet baltical interests are to replace in a new international context.

Abstract. - The collapsus of communism makes the old affinities and traditional gravitations to emerge again within the Baltic world. Up to now, Estonia was suffering from a fragmented historical context. Since 1991, the Soviet legacy's management makes up its chief inner geopolitical challenge. The relationships with Russia are tainted with a border and ethno-minority litigation. The Estonia's return to Mare Balticum involves it towards new paths to be broken and towards some neighbouring cooperations. The Balto-Skandia concept improved by De Geer and Kant could be used as a basis for Estonia's further insertion into European Union. Such an opportunity will award it a more complete play within Baltic world.

Abstract. - Lituania's return to independence endowed decollectivization process with a strong symbolic significance, relying on the will to revive the family agricultural model which prevailed during the two world wars. The agrarian reform policy intend to gain conflicting aims : return land to their former owners, dividing collective assets between members of the collective farms and converting them in new partnerships, allocating plots to workers without land. New social forms of production had appeared and their extend is dependent on regional structural legacies.

Abstract. - Difficulties of transition in Median Europe towards democracy and free market are dependent, for a great part, on technological backwardness and on infrastructural maladjustment as regards material and immaterial communications. These insufficiencies make sometimes illusive and generally difficult investments meant for firms promotion and for human ressources. It is, thus, important to endow with an essential part the territory planning insofar at it is the only one able to condition a coordinated evolution of economy and society.

Abstract. - The reforms of city government applied to capitals are a central issue of post communism reforms in public administration. Three problems are underlined : many new actors, overlapping juridictions between districts governments and the central municipality, poor budgets unequally distributed. The paper is focused on the tensions between local municipalities, central municipality and the state government. After a first period of high fragmentation of powers between them, which would be for the future, according to the wish to enter in European Community ?

Abstract. - In Romania, the recent changes in the settlement system are various. One trend concerning a part of the population is a "return to the village". It seems to be the most original change, but also the most complexe one. Since 1990, the rural depopulation, yet massive and rapide, has been strongly reduced and partially replace by the movements from the town to the countryside : the migratory flows between urban and rural areas are henceforward balanced. The regional importance of this return of the population to the village seems to be directly related to the extent of the earlier departures. Thus, the rural Moldavia is the region where this process is the most significant. This process is certainly a result of the recent general crisis, but it is also a consequence of older demographic, politic and cultural changes.

Abstract. - The subdivision of Europe has come to an end, Austria and the countries of Eastern Europe are aware of their vicinity again. The "new" immigration from East-Central-Europe is in an early stage. The discrepancy between migration and the economic situation in Austria leads to a general break with the ideals of Western Europe that has demanded the freedom of moving for years.

Abstract. - Migrations point out the modifications in attraction and role of the East German urban poles since 1990 : a periurbanisation movement, breaking with the dense socialist town ; a new place to Berlin in the new Länder.