Chances Of Voivodina In Globalising World And Enlarging Europe

Lakner Zoltán, Ph.D., assoc. prof.

> Summary

Globalisation, privatisation and European integration offer new possibilities for regional development in Voivodina. Use of these chances and avoidance of pitfalls highlights the importance of strategic planning. On example of the European regional development it is obvious, that there aren't omnipotent, general solutions in regional development, that's why each region has to work out its own way of utilisation of its resources. In this process it is a factor of crucial importance to determine the goals, serving a long-range, sustainable socio-economic development as well as the formation of a wide -range consensus between the key actors. The article shows the possibilities of application of a multi-actor model for determination of basic strategic objectives and coalitions between key players on example of Northern Voivodina. The results prove the importance of application of sophisticated decision support systems, based on collective wisdom; highlight the importance of system-based approach in rural development; and prove the role of info-communication sector in upgrading of attractiveness of capital -involvement in rural areas.

> Introduction

Privatisation, social and political transition as well as European integration offer new horizons for Serbian regional development (Serbian European Integration Office, 2005, EC 2006). At the same time it is obvious, that the rural development strategy and practice of European Union is a rather opaque and rather confuse (EU Committee of the Regions, 2005; Bachtler and Michie, 1995; Getinis, 2003; Nemes, 2005) Under the current conditions of Serbia, the preparation of regional or local development plans gains in importance. This fact highlights the role of wide-range application of sophisticated methods of decision support.

The aims of current paper are:

1. analysis of some problems of regional development policy of the EU;
2. on example of an actual region demonstrate the interplay of different socio-economic forces, their dialectic relationships;
3. identification and analyse the different socio-economic goals of actors, relevant in regional development;
4. determination of possibilities of forging coalitions between actors with purpose of promotion of regional development;
5. estimation of the applicability of sophisticated decision support systems in regional development
6. give summary of Hungarian experiences of regional devel opment.

> Regional development in the EU: a starway to heaven?

The regional development has considerable traditions in history (but first of all: rhetoric) of the EU. In 1957, the countries signing the Treaty of Rome referred in its preamble to the need's to strengthen the unity of their economies and to ensure their harmonious development by reducing the divergences existing among the various regions and the backwardness of the less-favoured regions', but the Creation of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) had taken place only 18 years later, in 1975 to redistribute part of the Member States' budget contributions to the poorest regions.

The accession of Ireland as well as Mediterranean states to the EU highlighted the importance of regional aspects of development. After eleven years of establishment the ERDF, the Single European Act laid the basis for a genuine cohesion policy designed to offset the burden of the single market for the southern countries and other less-favoured regions.

The Treaty of the European Union, which came into force in 1993, designated cohesion as one of the main objectives of the Union, alongside economic and monetary union and the single market. It also established the creation of the Cohesion Fund to support projects in the fields of the environment and transport in the least prosperous Member States.

The Edinburgh European Council (December 1993) allocated one third of the Community budget, to cohesion policy. The Berlin European Council (March 1999) reforms the Structural Funds and adjusts the operation of the Cohesion Fund. These funds received over EUR 30 billion per year between 2000 and 2006, i.e. EUR 213 billion over seven years.

The Instrument for Structural Policies for Pre-accession (ISPA) and the Special Accession Programme for Agriculture and Rural Development (Sapard) complements the Phare programme that has been in existence for seven years to promote economic and social development and environmental protection in the applicant countries in central and eastern Europe. In 2004 the European Commission presents its proposals for the reform of cohesion policy for the period 2007-13: 'A new partnership for cohesion: convergence, competitiveness, cooperation'.

Despite of the efforts, there are still wide regional disparities in level of development of different European regions, even between the EU(15) member states. In 2000, approximately 55 million people were at risk of poverty.

The most obvious developments have taken place in development of infrastructure, especially in case of physical one. The transport networks have developed in a rather dynamic way, but there are wide disparities across the Union from point of view of high-speed internet access.

The 100 Convergence regions (regions where GDP per capita is less than 75% of the EU average, 2000-2002) are characterised by low levels of GDP and employment, as well as high unemployment. Their total share in EU-27 GDP in 2002 was only 12.5%, although they account for 35% of the population.

The innovation is one of the key concept for regional development, but from this points of view the diversity between the regions remained considerable. Eight of the 213 European regions account for a quarter of total research and development expenditures.

The density function of labour productivity highlights the differences between the regions in Europe (Fig. 1).

The most important problems of regional development in EU are as follows:

1. over-centralisation of each and every of decisions: practically all decisions are taken in high-level: above the local govern ments. That's why the mindedness of decisions are rather weak.
2. lack of system-based approach;
3. considerably high level of bureaucratic control;

Under these conditions the additional resources serve rather the access to the local markets, than the improvement of regional economy. That's why there should be increased efforts to improve the importance of local heuristic systems, as it is demonstrated in Figure 2., original idea of which is the essay of Nemes (2005).

> Theoretical foundations and methodology of research

The basic theoretical foundation of research is the organisational theory (Amin, 2004) and the principle-agent theory (Eisen-hardt, 1989), as well as the system-theory (Somogyi et al., 2002)

According to the basic paradigm of so-called "French school of strategy" the different social systems can be considered as an arena, in which different groups of participants (the so-called actors) take part with purpose of enforcement of their specific interests (Godet, 2003). If one can relative adequately simplify the actors and the most characteristic features of their systems of interests, then there is a possibility of analysis the chances of different actors to realise their goals.

The possibilities of actors to influence other actors are determined by the power to influence of another actors directly or indirectly, by using their influence on other actors in order to affect their behaviour. That's why the influence of an actor (A) on an another actor (C), is the sum of the direct influence is has on C and of all indirect influences it gains through all the other third actors.

Fig. 1.

The distribution of regions of European Union according to the productivity of living labour

value of density function

Source: EU: Third report on economic and social cohesion, 2004, Brussel

Fig. 2.

The current system of regional development and the possible improvement of the system, based on local resources, powers and heuristics

Source: own edition, based on original idea of Nemes (2005)

The quantification of mutual influences can be characterised by a rectangular matrix, its name is matrix of direct influences (MID). Cells of matrix -per definition-reflect the intensity of influence of actor in row on actor in column (Bendahan et al., 2004). The intensity of direct influence on an actor to another was measured on a 0-4 scale, from no influence to absolute influence, determining the existence of the respective actor.

Matrix of direct and indirect influences (MIDI [1]), can be quantified for each par of actors as a sum of direct and indirect influences.

In this way of each and every actor can be determined the vector in influences (I) and dependences (D ) by equations [2] and [3].

Based on these indicators a normalised value can be determined for each of actors. [4].

Using the ra vector one can define the matrix of influence-possibilities of each of actors for different issues [5].

The importance of different goals from point of view of each actor has been expressed by Matrix of Actor-Object (MAO). In this matrix the importance and attitudes of different goals from point of view of different actors were quantified on a -4 ...+4 scale, where the -4 denoted the high importance and total negation of the given goal, and the +4 denotes the high importance and total support.

The 3MAO matrix is the basis of most of the analyses proposed by MACTOR. Indeed, a number of important values are directly drawn from the 3MAO matrix. This is the case of the mobilization coefficient [6], showing how much the different actors are involved in the situation, but also of the agreement [7] and disagreement [8] coefficients, which indicate how controversial are the different issues.

Furthermore, the 3MA0 matrix is used to obtain the convergence matrix (3CAA [9]) and divergence matrix (3DAA [10]). For each couple of actors, these matrixes show how much they agree (respectively disagree) on salient and controlled issues.

Finally, the ambivalence coefficient [11] can be calculated for each actor, giving an indication of their expected stability in their potential alliances.

In operative phase of investigations our first step was the determination of region concerned. This was the northern part of Voivodina. This sub-region of Voivodina has numerous specific features. The most important from point of view of regional development are as follows:

(1) relatively high level of economic development. The Voivodina Autonomic Region has given 32,1% , of GDP of

Serbia in an average of 2000-2004 [Statisticki godisnjak Srbije, 2000-2004];

1. favourable conditions of agricultural production [agriculture of Voivodina give 34% of total agricultural production of Serbia];
2. ethnic heterogenity [On data of Petrov et al. (2002) in Voivo dina the share of minorities is 35%, the largest of these is the Hungarian one: 14;4%],
3. intensive socio-economic relations with Hungary, the government of which tries by its own means and by support of the European Union to promote the cross-border relations. Of course, this region can be characterised by general fea tures of another regions of Serbia, e.g. the relatively high level of unemployment, and the adverse economic conse quences of civil war and NATO bombings.

The different actors, and the two starting matrixes were compiled in a team work, involving eleven specialists from the region using interactive methods of decision making.

The key actors and their abbreviations, as well as goals and abbreviations are summarised in Table 1.

Table 1.

Set of actors and set of goals

Analysing the list of actors, it is obvious, that the relatively high number of actors embraces a wide range of economic and social forces, shaping the environment of development of northern part

of Vojvodina. The accession to the European Union is a central part of policy of Serbia, that's why it seemed to be reasonable to represent the EU as an actor.

It is a strategic goal of Hungarian government to strengthen the relations with Northem-Voivodina, because in this sub-region the Hungarian minority could play a "bridge-role" between Hungary (an in general: south -western part of the EU) as well as Serbian and another Balkan-states (Nagy, 2007).

To promote this goal, the Hungarian government has allocated and mobilised financial resources.

At first sight it may be rather curious to see the multinational companies between the key -players in an area, which can be characterised mainly by agricultural production, but it is extremely important to emphasise, that the creation of new workplaces, establishment of a long term development can't expected only from agricultural production.

Analysing the different goals it is obvious, that -as a consequence of multitude of goal we see a rather complex picture. Some of them reflect general goals, some the specific, complex situation in Northern Voivodina. Among these, rather specific ones the most interesting the goal: "Acceptance from side of Hungarian population". This reflects the fact, that the most important participants of discussion groups had a Hungarian nationality.

The mutual influence - dependence has been described by matrix, shown in Table 2.

Based on matrix of influences, the influence-dependence chart can be constructed with purpose of better visualisation of results (Fig. 3). This cart is a bi-dimensional graph in which all actors are placed according to their global influence [2] (ordinate) and dependence [3] (abscissa). This graph gives a preliminary idea of the relative importance of the different actors, distinguishing between dominant actors (high influence) and dominated actors (high dependence), while also identifying isolated stakeholders (low influence and dependence) and relay actors (high influence and dependence).

Table 2.

Matrix of mutual influence (explication in the text)

Fig. 3.

The influence-dependence relations of actors

DEPENDENCE

An analysis of influence-dependence relations of different actors reflects the contradictory situation in Serbia. This fact is well characterised by relatively high level of influence of Serbian government on one hand, and the marginal position of non-governmental (civil) organisations on the another hand.

Multinational enterprises could and should play a decisive role in development of the region, but it is an open-ended question, how could be formed such a system of circumstances, which make the region to an attractive place of business.

The highly important role of info-communication sphere is a natural consequence of economic development and formation of a service -based society. At the same time, this fact expresses the importance of improvement of competition-regulation of this sphere.

Low level of influence and at the same time high level of dependence of municipalities, small-and middle -scale enterprises, as well as the citizens themselves highlights the deep-rooted consequences of former political and economic system, as well as

the problems and obstacles of formation of a more decentralised, civilian society.

The strategic goals of different actors are summarised in so-called actor-objective matrix (Table 3). Pieces of information of this matrix can be further investigated by network-analysis.

The starting point of the network analysis is the fact, that the number of appropriately chosen interactions between different actors is proportional with the tightness between them. The same approach can be further generalised: the frequency of common acceptance or support of some goals is a measurement of common goals, and the possible coalitions.

Analysing the most important concordances between the actors (Fig 4), it is obvious, that these municipalities, service providers as well as government of Voivodina have numerous "common denominators" in development.

If we analyse the matrix of accordances, weighting the intensity of accordance by the influence of actors, than it becomes obvious that the possible coalitions could be formed by more different way (Fig. 5).

An analysis of relations highlights the decisive role of infocom-munication sector in regional development.

Analysing the weighted intensity of agreement-disagreement with different strategic aims it is obvious, that the achievement of a wide level of consensus is one of the most important strategic aim (Fig. 6).

Results of analysis highlight the fact, that there is not any possibility to realise a policy without the consent of the majority of citizens, living in the area, independently of their nationality. This fact emphasises the community of fate, historic, social and economic interdependence of population, living in northern Voivodina. It was an unanimous acceptance of importance of factors of increasing of competitively as well as increasing of attractiveness for capital insolvent. The most important driver of development - in opinion of participants of team-is the human resource development.

Fig. 4. The most important joint support of goals of development between actors	Fig. 5. Graph of most important accordances, weighted by normalised value of influences of actors. (The size of circles, representing the actors is proportional with its influence)

> Some lessons of Hungarian socio-economic development from regional perspective

Like the former Yugoslavia, Hungary has been a "pattern"-state of socialist system, as it was often cited in Western-European press: "the most cheerful barrack of the lager". Before the system transition a rapid and dynamic socio-economic development has been predicted.

Over the last 18 years Hungary has made remarkable progress in transition and it is one of the most advanced countries among the new EU member states with about 80 per cent of economic activity in private hands, a large degree of price liberalisation, an open foreign trade regime and liberal foreign investment conditions. At the same time, the problems of rural development remained important strategic questions for socio-economic development.

Fig. 6.

The intensity of agreement/disagreement, weighted by the influence of different actors

weighted intensity of agreement/disagreement

According to the classification system of OECD (Organisation of Economic Developed States) more than 96% of Hungarian territory can be considered as rural territory. Here lives approximately 75 % of the total population.

During the last decades the differences among the rural areas have increased rather rapidly, because the foreign direct investments have been concentrated on developed regions. At the same time, the lesser favoured areas could not involve additional resources.

Before the EL) accession there were great expectations on effect of EL) on regional, and especially a rural development. Three years after the accession it is obvious, that the deep rooted problems of rural development won't be solved only by Brussel. The additional resources from EU will offer only an additional possibility for rural modernisation.

Based on the results of analysis and the experiences of the last eighteen years, the most important lessons to be drown are as follows:

1. At the beginning of system -transition numerous social sci
   entist considered, that the land-privatisation is a means for creation an entrepreneur out of cooperative-members. We have to see that this is an over-simplification. The social and economic influence of agricultural entrepreneurs without cooperatives is rather limited. Without strong, diversified agri cultural enterprises there is not any possibility of rural devel opment (Kajári, 1997).
2. The "channel-captains" in the food chain are in an increasing way the multinational commercial enterprises. The main problem is the regulation of these economic entities. Without a strong regulation, these organisations will abuse their eco nomic superiority above the another members of food chain, forcing often extremely low producer-prices.
3. Paradoxically, the main lobbists of multinational enterprises were the municipalities. They got from these firms additional resources (e.g. for road construction), but the real payers were the suppliers of these firms.
4. The importance of bio-energy production has been over-es timated. Under current economic conditions there seems to be rather limited possibilities of establishment of a Hungar ian bio-ethanol project, based on corn and wheat.
5. The changing agro-ecologic conditions enhance the importance of sophisticated water-management systems.
6. In role of tourism has been over-estimated in regional de velopment. Different forms of tourism are important parts of regional development, but the tourism sector in itself is not enough for a sustainable economic regional development.
7. The importance of human resource development has been under-estimated. Numerous universities and college facul ties have been established practically in each region, but this often lead to a fragmentation of human resources. The secondary professional education system is in ruins. That's why there is a considerable lack of skilled workers (Kajari et al., 2003).
8. The low-developed material and human infrastructure as well as service sector is an important hindrance of foreign capital involvement.
9. The development of multimodal logistic centres has begun only in last five years in practice. On theoretical level, the

planning of these centres has of course much more longer traditions. These centres could play an important role in orientation of foreign investors, but in lack of these the investors preferred the places with more developed infrastructure. This fact further enhanced the differences between the regions. 10. The Hungarian regional planning focuses its attention to the processes within the state, and does not considers the possibilities of international cooperation with another states in Carpathian bassin.

> Rezime

Globalizacija, privatizacija i Evropska integracija pruza nove mogucnosti u regionalnom razvoju Vojvodine. Koriscenje ove sanse i mimoilazenje klopki ukazuje na znacaj strateskog plani-ranja. Na osnovu primera regionalnog razvoja u Evropi je jasno da ne postoji svemoguce resenje, nego svaki region treba da pre-dje svoj put boljeg koriscenja svojih resursa. U torn procesu je od sustinskog znacaja determinirati ciljeve, koji sluze dugorocnom, odrzivom drustveno - ekonomskom razvoju i formiranju sirokog konsenzusa medju akterima - ucesnicima tih procesa. Ovaj re-ferat ukazuje na mogucu upotrebu modela sa vise aktera-ucesni-ka za determiniranje strateskih ciljeva, mogucih koalicija medju kljucnim ucesnicima Severne Vojvodine. Rezultati pokazuju znacaj koriscenja sofisticiranih sistema za donosenje odiuka koje se zasnivaju na kolektivnoj volji, osvetljava znacaj sistemskog pristu-pa u ruralnom razvoju i dokazuje znacaj info - komunikacijskog sektora u vrednovanju atraktivnosti kapitalnih ulaganja u ruralnim podrucjima.

Resources

Amin, A. (2004): An institutionalist perspective on regional economic development, p.48-57. in: Barnes, T.J.; Peck, J.; Sheppard, E.; Tickel, A.(eds):Reading economic geography, Blackwell Publishing, London, p.450.

Bachtler, J.; Michie R. (1995): A New Era in EU Regional Policy Evaluation? The Appraisal of the Structural Funds, Regional Studies, 29(8); p. 475-451.

Bendahan, S. Camponovo, J., Pigneur, J. (2004): Multi-issue actor analysis: tools and models for assessing technology environments. Journal on Decision Systems 12(4), pp. 384-397.

Eisenhardt, K. (1989) Agency theory: An assessment and review, Academy of Management Review, 14 (1): 57-74.

European Commission, 2006: Council Decision 2006/56/EC of 30 January 2006 on the principles, priorities and conditions contained in the European Partnership with Serbia and Montenegro including Kosovo as defined by the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 of 10 June 1999 and repealing Decision 2004/520/EC

European Union Committee of the Regions, 2005: Opinion of 16 November 2005 on the Communication from the Commission Cohesion Policy in Support of Growth and Jobs: Community Strategic Guidelines, 2007-2013 COM(2005) 299 final

Getimis, P.(2003): Improving European Union Regional Policy by Learning from the Past in View of Enlargement, European Planning Studies, 11(1) p. 77-87.

Godet, M. (2003): Manuel de prospective stratégique: L'art et la méthode, 2e edition, Dunond, Paris p. 1-405.

Kajári, K. (1997): Kutatók és szaktanácsadók véleménye a magyar mezőgazdaság európai integárciójáról, Kovács T: (ed.): A fenntartható mezőgazdaságtól a vidékfejlesztésig, MTA Regionális Kutatások Központja, Pécs p. 127-132.

Kajári K.; Borbély B.; Somogyi S.; Hajdu-né (2003) Élelmiszeripari vállalatok szervezettségének komplex vizsgálata, AVA Konferencia, Debreceni Egyetem,

Nagy, I.: (2007): Vajdaság, Dialóg Kampus Kiadó, Pécs-Budapest, p. 580.

Nemes, G. (2005). The politics of rural development in Hungary, Discussion papers, MT-DP. 2005/5 Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Economic Sciences p. 58.

Petrov, Bosko (2002) Dokumenato Vojvodini od 1989 do 2000,Novi Sad: Forum

Serbian European Integration Office (2005): National strategy of Serbia for the Serbia and Montenegro's accession to the European Union government of the republic of Serbia, June 2005

Somogyi S.-Nebojsa, N.-Kajári K. (2002): A tudomány módszertana. Veszprémi. Egyetem. Georgikon Mezőgazdaságtudományi Kar. p. 230

Statisticki godisnjak Srbije, 2000, 2004, Beograd, Republicki Za-vod za Informatiku í Statistiku

Ph.D. Lakner Zoltán, egyetemi docens Corvinus Egyetem Élelmiszertudományi kar Élelmiszeripari -gazdaságtan tanszék Telefon:+36 1 482 6177 zoltan.lakner@uni-corvinus.hu