Since its inception, the European Union, as one of the most comprehensive and elaborate models of regional economic integration, has been striving to achieve a high degree of internal cohesion and natural convergence in the level of performance of individual national economies in its Member States as well as to maintain and improve its position as a major player the complex geoeconomics space of a globalized world economy. In order to achieve these key objectives, the European Union has been working since 2000 to implement large EU-wide strategies, one of which is the Europe 2020 strategy currently in place. The present article concentrates on the evaluation of the level of implementation of the Europe 2020 strategy in the conditions of the Slovak Republic in the context of analysis and evaluation of the level of fulfilment of individual objectives in the monitored time series.
With regard to its territorial size, economy and political power; Germany represents one of the most sustainable, competitive and economically developed Member States of the European Union. However, development of the knowledge-based economy on one hand and negative demographic trends on the other hand will force Germany to cover the growing demand for high-skilled labour force from non-EU countries in the coming years to keep this position. The paper analyses competitiveness within the framework of security and sustainability of the Federal Republic of Germany concerning labour migration from the third countries. Main research question of this article is formulated as follows: How can migration from the third countries influence economic development and competitiveness of Germany in terms of state’s demographic problems? With regard to the above, we try to verify our hypothesis claiming that compensation of the domestic workforce through regulated migration flows – necessary because of declining and aging population and skill disharmony in Germany – is only a short-time solution of the current situation on the German labour market, but it is not sustainable in the long run.