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The article is describing the views of Olgerd Bochkovsky (1885–1939), a distinguished Ukrainian social scientist, specialising on national rebirth, and a theorist of a new sociological discipline — natiology, on the national renaissance period among the non-state nations of Europe.

This note introduces eight studies presented at the second International Workshop on Financial Markets and Nonlinear Dynamics (FMND), organized in Paris on June 4–5, 2015 (www.fmnd.fr). These studies focus, first, on the main effects of the recent financial crisis of 2008–2009. Second, they discuss consequences of the global economic downturn of 2008–09. To do this, the authors focus on the main effects on real economies and financial systems of the financial crisis and then sum up the key reforms, recommendations and new rules and challenges that emerged from the crisis. For each paper under consideration, the economic theory and/or hypothesis suggested is illustrated through an empirical investigation.

European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, European Papers is conceived of as a cultural project: a tool for reflecting on European integration as a means to create a new political community. European Papers intends thus to be part and parcel of the debate on the process of European legal integration, on its causes and its functioning, on its most remote interconnections with other social events. Its mission is to draw attention to the manifold forms of integrating Europe and to the far-reaching implications of this process. Moreover, such a reflection requires a wider dialogue between the legal experience and other forms of integration, economic, social and cultural. To forge a law journal as an instrument for a cultural mission entails a number of inescapable steps. This conception implies passing over the traditional hurdles of language, nationality and traditions. European Papers could be an ideal opportunity to match this demand, through its multinational governing bodies, whose members share its ideal and cultural philosophy. It further entails the capacity to reconcile antithetical needs. On the one hand, we intend to promote a scholarly debate on the theoretical foundations of the process of European integration in its manifold expressions. On the other hand, the tumultuous development of this process, which takes place on a daily basis, requires an on-going debate on events that incessantly unfold under one’s eyes. To reconcile these apparently antithetical needs, we have thought of European Papers as composed of two parts: a four-monthly e-Journal – i.e. an electronic and open access journal, that emphasises our belief in the open and free character of scientific research – and a “militant” European Forum, designed to be a hotbed of intellectual discussion, a breeding place for ideas, and an indispensable tool for updating and keeping in touch with the latest developments. Finally, the inescapable issue of language. The aspiration of European Papers to be an interlocutor for an open set of recipients entails a multilingual option. Par contre, uniformity reasons, and the need of reaching a wider, potentially universal, readership would plead for a sole common language. The compromising solution, for an uncompromising project, has been the adoption of a dual-track: English, French, Italian and Spanish for the European Forum; English for the four-monthly e-Journal. European Papers is not inspired by preconceived ideas or ideologies. It has been conceived of as an area where every hypothesis about the process of integration in Europe can be freely verified and discussed. It intends to be a living laboratory for the analysis of a social phenomenon whose uniqueness vis-à-vis the contemporary legal and political categories has been widely recognised. Yet, European Papers has the ambition to go beyond this recognition and appreciate, day after day, its technical as well as its conceptual features, in the belief that this is the path through which the scientific knowledge can advance., European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration. European Forum: The Constitutional Dimension of the European Union; Internal Market - Freedoms of Movement and Competition Law; EU Policies and the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice; The European Integration Through Human Rights; The International Dimension of European Integration.

This case study examines the European Transport White Paper of 2011 as an example of a planning domain application. The European Union is an economic and political union of some 28 states in Europe. Some of the key premises of the European Union have been to open up markets to free trade within the region and to seek to harmonise technical standards, laws, and processes to facilitate the free movement of people and goods. It is interesting that sustainability is also emphasized as an overarching goal for all areas of European policy making. The European Union employs a wide range of assessment and monitoring mechanisms to track progress on the implementation and performance of policies in the transport area, which is seen as a keystone for the so-called Single European Market. These mechanisms clearly reflect tensions between the different goals and pose challenges for the interpretation of indicators on transportation trends. Also the sheer size and complexity of the Union raises challenges for the effective application of indicator based evidence. The chapter will place the indicator- and application rich example of the ex ante assessment of the European Transport Policy White Paper in the wider context European Union policy making.

This paper introduces the European Commission's 2007 White Paper on Sport. It examines the themes of the White Paper on the societal role of sport, the economic dimension of sport, and the organisation of sport, and provides an overview of the follow-up actions planned by the Commission. This analysis takes into account both the opportunities presented in the event that the Lisbon Reform Treaty is ratified, and actions that will be pursued regardless of the state of constitutional reform in the European Union.

Bratu offers a much-needed analysis of the consultants’ roles, trainings and motivations in the area of EU funding. Engaging with topics like clientelism, informality in economic transactions, brokerage and its role, she argues that EU funding is commodified by consultants through the exploitation of its symbolic, technical and economic space as a terrain on which to (re)construct market relations. Consultants are chameleonic actors that become agents of change due to their double quality of by-products and exponents of European integration. The chapter concludes with an exploration of the porous boundaries between corruption and informality in the creation of the new market of consultancy.

The British paper and board industry opposed plans to establish the Western European free trade area and the more modest EFTA, arguing that British producers would be unable to compete successfully against their Nordic rivals. The paper industry did support British entry to the EEC, but only because this was considered to be a less bad option than continued membership of EFTA. It is argued that while the British government could not fundamentally change its European policy solely because it harmed the interests of one particular industry, pressure from business and fears that increased competition would lead to increased unemployment gradually persuaded it to find ways to reduce competition. However, this policy probably encouraged many companies to delay efforts to modernise production.

In 1998 the European Commission introduced into the political arena the concept of a ‘European model of sport’ in the build up to the Helsinki Report on Sport, the Commission's first attempt to formulate a comprehensive approach towards sport in the ‘post-Bosman era’. In the recently adopted White Paper on Sport (July 2007), the Commission however considers it ‘unrealistic’ to define a single model of sport for Europe. This article argues that the Commission's departure from its previous position deserves attention because it is an explicit acknowledgement of the transformations in the governing structures of European sport over the last two decades. The article suggests two possible motives for the Commission's new understanding of European sport. First, the Commission is responding to the politicisation and redefinition of the concept of the ‘European Model’ by sport governing bodies, who are attempting to forestall legal intervention by the European courts and the Commission. Second, the Commission is ...

E. Rost, J. Sonnenburg, R. Hanatschek, K. Heinz, P. Barre, R. Fuchs, A. Gjonaj, F. Gruber, S. Koprivica, S. Krusic, P. Mayr, I. Mihail, H. Panjeta, N. Sidiropoulos, V. Stefov, A. Stoklaska, S. Szigeti, J.-L. Teffo, I. Videnovic, A. Vutsova, D. Simon, H. Matthies White Paper on Gaps, Overlaps, and Opportunities in View of the Extension of Bilateral RTD Programmes and Initiatives towards Multilateral Approaches 3

This paper analyzes sovereign risk contagion across financial markets in the eurozone during and after the European debt crisis. A particular focus is made on the causal impact of pre-Brexit and Covid-19 pandemic on the dependence between European markets. We use data set from 28 February 2008 to 11 March 2021 and combine copulas and MRS-ARMA techniques to measure dependence across financial markets and assessing asymmetric dependence structure and regime switching process. We develop a dynamic Kendall’s tau correlation and provide evidence of time-varying dependence structure between several pairwise markets. The dependence structure shows a sharp rise on 23 June 2016, day of the referendum on Brexit. Results indicates that Covid-19 pandemic has intensified dependence and sovereign risk spillovers between sovereign CDS European markets. Significant time-varying characteristics of dynamic dependence structures suggests that fund managers and investors should consider in their investment strategies to manage systemic risk and high-risk investment. The identification of dependence structure regime between global financial markets would enhance response to major crises by investors and policy makers.

In the aftermath of the Great Recession, long-run issues about planetary boundaries, progressing environmental degradation, emerging inequality and poverty have been partly displaced by short-run issues as, for example, income losses, unemployment and social problems. From a European policy perspective these issues need to be considered simultaneously. This was the main topic of the conference ‘‘Modelling Growth and Socio-Ecological transition’’ organised within the 7th Framework Programme project ‘‘WWWforEurope’’. So far, the majority of current growth models focus on traditional growth drivers (e.g. total factor productivity), incorporating environmental boundaries only on an aggregate level in a simple specification. They do not take into account that the (growing) economic system cannot be considered separately, but is embedded in a social system that is part of an environmental system itself. In order to tackle the challenges mentioned above and to move towards a more economically dynamic, socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable European society/economy a socio-ecological transition is needed. The availability of models incorporating social and environmental dimensions is an important prerequisite to objectively and realistically evaluate potential consequences of such a transition. Particularly, the intended but also non-intended economic, social and environmental effects of different economic instruments and policy options related to a socio-ecological transition need to be identified. On March 12th and 13th, 2013, the Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO) addressed this important topic at a Conference on ‘‘Modelling Growth and Socio-ecological transition’’ in Vienna, where the participants presented, compared and discussed existing and yet to be developed economic models that also consider

The KU-KIEP-SBS EU Centre, an education & research consortium sponsored by the European Commission, was established on May 2014 by three partners: Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP), Korea University, and Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS), The KU-KIEP-SBS EU Centre is dedicated to make contribution to enhancing interest in Europe and to expanding research base in EU area studies. Therefore, the KU-KIEP-SBS EU Centre hosted "The 2nd KU-KIEP-SBS EU Centre Research Paper Competition on EU Studies" and this book includes two best papers from the competitions. The KU-KIEP-SBS EU Centre will contribute to analyzing issues on European integration, the economic and political dynamics in EU and promoting cooperation between Korea and EU through this research competition.

This paper studies the impact of foreclosures on house prices in Italy using a large dataset of online listings provided by Immobiliare.it, the most popular online portal for real estate services in Italy. We estimate that the foreclosure discount is considerable, and this would suggest a high degree of market segmentation and limited spillovers from foreclosures to the market for non-foreclosed homes. However, by exploiting the exogeneity of the market entry of foreclosures, we find that new foreclosures increase home sellers’ propensity to adjust their list price. Moreover, following the methodology in Campbell et al. (Am Econ Rev 101(5):2108–2131, 2011), we show that foreclosure listings have a significant negative impact on the prices of non-foreclosed nearby homes. Our evidence is quantitatively consistent with the recent literature on the impact of foreclosures on the US housing market.

Blanchard and Leigh (Am Econ Rev 103(3):117–120, 2013; IMF Econ Rev 62(2):179–212, 2014) find fiscal multipliers to be underestimated in the EU in the deep recession of the early 2010s. Using two 2013–2018 datasets for 26 EU member states, assembled from Stability and Convergence Programmes and the European Commission’s Spring Forecasts, this paper shows that multiplier estimates in the EU have been overestimated in the post-crisis period. Forecasters then are still not capturing accurately the impact that fiscal policy has on output growth rates and are misestimating in a manner opposite to that reported by Blanchard and Leigh.

This policy paper summarizes four corridor studies on bilateral social security agreements (BSSAs) between four European Union (EU) member and two non-member states, draws conclusions on their results, and offers recommendations. BSSAs between migrant-sending and migrant-receiving countries are seen as the most important instrument to establish portability of social security benefits for internationally mobile workers. Yet, only about 23 percent of international migrants profit from BSSAs and their functioning has been little analyzed and even less assessed. The four corridors studied (Austria-Turkey, Germany-Turkey, Belgium-Morocco, and France-Morocco) were selected to allow for comparison of both similarities and differences in experiences. The evaluation of these corridors’ BSSAs was undertaken against a methodological framework and three selected criteria: fairness for individuals, fiscal fairness for countries, and bureaucratic effectiveness for countries and migrant workers. The results suggest that the investigated BSSAs work and overall deliver reasonably well on individual fairness. The results on fiscal fairness are clouded by conceptual and empirical gaps. Bureaucratic effectiveness would profit from information and communication technology-based exchanges on both corridors once available.

China has experienced profound economic and social changes in recent decades. During this period, China’s fiscal policy framework has been substantially reformed. The objective of this paper is to better understand the key features of the Chinese fiscal system and their impact on China’s economic growth. The study performs empirical analysis to identify the relationship between fiscal policy variables and economic growth. Its evidence suggests that local expenditures growth has a larger impact on output growth than central expenditures growth. The results also reveal that the response of output growth to anticipated changes in taxation was impeded by liquidity constraints. During the initial stages of market-oriented reform, growth of public investment in manufacturing sector contributed the most to output growth. During more recent periods, public investment in R&D made a substantial contribution. In addition, evidence indicates that long-term debt has a significant influence on China’s fiscal system, especially on government revenues.

Today’s European wine policy is centered on a system of appellations, implemented as geographical indications (GIs), that entail significant technological regulations—restricting the varieties that may be grown, while imposing maximum yields per hectare and other rules regarding grape production and winemaking practice. This paper outlines the historical development of European wine policy under the CAP, and presents a more detailed analysis of the economic consequences of the rules and regulations under the appellation system. The introduction of these rules and regulations was probably beneficial initially, both for their didactive effect on wine producers and consumers and as a way of overcoming a significant “lemons” problem in the market. However, those same rules and regulations are much less valuable today, given (1) the potential for alternative sources of information to solve the lemons problem, and (2) evidence that the appellation system per se might not be effectively serving that purpose as well as it once did, while some of the regulations impose significant social costs. Yield restrictions, in particular, are economically inefficient as a way of enhancing and signaling quality (their ostensible purpose) and as a way of restricting total supply to support market prices and thus producer incomes (a significant motivation). The inherent weaknesses of the policy design are compounded by failures of governance. A less heavy-handed approach to policy would allow more scope for the market mechanism to match supply and demand for this signature product from European agriculture.

Students of European integration have produced an enormous amount of literature on the intergovernmental negotiations that led to the establishment of such organizations as the OEEC, the EEC and EFTA. However, only a few have devoted substantial attention to the international contacts between companies that attempted to undermine the integration process by building private trade barriers that would replace those that governments had agreed to remove. The paper producers began to build such barriers soon after EFTA and the EEC had been set up. Although these attempts were not always successful, the industrialists did manage to create arrangements that were substantially more extensive in their geographical and product scope than those that had existed before. The British government and the EEC were reluctant to challenge these arrangements, and in some cases even actively promoted them. The interwar decades are widely considered to be the ‘golden era’ for international cartels; but for the paper cartels, the ‘golden era’ began in the 1960s, when previous bilateral links were replaced with multilateral ones.

Over the past several centuries, the West has emerged as a global leader economically, militarily, scientifically and technologically. This article explores why it has been so successful in the past in order to determine where its strengths lie at a time when the West's advantage is melting away. This article will argue that the West was the only civilisation that took advantage of the communications revolution involving cheap paper and the printing press in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and could do so because of its values and ethics. Compared to other parts of the world, the West offered more freedom to its peoples, and its societies were the most vertically mobile. This is an important lesson for today when we are in the midst of the digital and Internet communications revolution and another wave of globalisation, and when the whole world seems to be adopting Western values. It is important not to forget where these values originated.

This article aims at analysing the role of international tourism attractiveness as a potential factor for the outbreak and the early spread of the recent COVID-19 disease across the world (also called the first wave) with a special focus on small Island economies. Econometric testing is implemented over a cross-country sample including 205 countries/territories (with 59 small islands) after controlling for several usual suspects. The results state a positive and significant relationship between COVID-19 prevalence and inbound tourism arrivals per capita. Thus in the early stages of the spread (before travel restrictions), international tourism could be seen as one of the main responsible factors for the recent pandemic, validating the “tourism-led vulnerability hypothesis”. Accordingly, considering that such health shocks should be more frequent in the near future, this finding suggests that the tourism specialization model in the context of small islands is too vulnerable to be considered as sustainable in the medium and long-run. Policymakers must opt for economic diversification when possible. Otherwise, building up a strong public-health system alongside a specialized tourism sector is required.

At present, European contract law constitutes one of the most controversial debates in the European Union, particularly as far as the extent of the Union’s competence to take farreaching action in the field of contract law is concerned. Since the Commission’s seminal 2001 Communication, there has been a steady stream of documents issued at the European level which continue to refine the Union’s role in European contract law, including most recently the Commission’s 2010 Green Paper ‘on policy options for progress towards a European Contract Law for consumers and businesses’ (hereinafter Green Paper). Yet, as the various activities envisaged for European contract law progress, detailed assessment of its constitutional dimensions continues to lag behind. This is illustrated by the Green Paper in which the analysis of potential legal bases to support the various options for Union action presented therein is not explicitly dealt with. Certainly, to some extent, the Commission’s reticence to discuss constitutionality in the Green Paper can be explained by the fact that this subject is linked to issues which have yet to be decided relating to, inter alia, the legal form and the scope of the instrument concerned, as already acknowledged in a previous Communication with respect to the optional instrument. Still, the Green Paper advances important issues bearing on the limits and the exercise of Union competence in connection with the proposed options for the adoption of a European contract law instrument.

While Helmut Schmidt has often been depicted as a ‘reluctant European’ who only came to embrace European integration because of US policy under Carter, this article shows that Schmidt's conceptions of Europe have remained largely consistent since the late 1940s. Using rare materials from his private archive, it analyses how Schmidt utilised the EC in dealing with the multiple crises of the 1970s, regarding European and transatlantic cooperation not as antagonistic but as complementary processes. With the reheating of the Cold War from the late 1970s onwards, however, the international and domestic preconditions of Schmidt's two-pillar foreign policy gradually began to erode.

This article links the discussions which are currently centring on the future design of the European Union legislative process to modern constitutional political theory as exemplified in the Federalist Papers. It argues that, to better understand the European Union policy–making process, analysts are well advised to consult the Federalist’s objectives as well as its method of reasoning. Considering institutional design in general and legislative decision–making in particular, Jean Monnet, one of the principal architects of modern–day Europe, perceived the early developments which led to the Treaty that established the European Coal and Steel Community of 1952 as an unprecedented process. However, although the European Union is indeed novel, and not a state in the traditional sense, the dialogue in Europe would benefit from a more constitutionally oriented assessment of the potential effects of the Union’s institutional arrangements on legislative outcomes. Modern constitutional theory can provide...

The Lisbon Treaty has substantially extended the co-legislative rights of the European Parliament (EP). This raises the general question of how the EP organizes itself internally in order to be able to maximize its input into the legislative process. In the quest of information processing, it is likely that officials inside the EP gain in importance. The article thus aims to clarify the conditions under which these EP officials impact on the EU policy process and as such can influence policy outcomes. The analysis is based on case studies from five different policy domains. The observations reflect that under certain conditions EP officials play a steering role in the EU decision-making process. As such they can have a significant impact on the policymaking process, defying the dualistic Weberian approach according to which politicians take decisions and officials merely implement.

From the perspective of the European Union (EU), the justification for the support it lends to CSR lies in the fact that it regards it as the contribution of business to sustainable development. As a business strategy, CSR is directly linked to the achievement of the strategic objective established in the Final Declaration of the Lisbon European Council (March 2000): by 2010, ‘to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion’. Each sector of society can contribute to this strategic objective from its own activity, characteristics and capacities. In this context, CSR expresses the engagement of the business sector in the construction of a Europe characterised by sustainable economic development and social cohesion. The EC considers that companies can, by incorporating CSR into their business values, practices and policies, at least help to minimise the negative social and environmental consequences of their activity, thus contributing to the objective mentioned above.

The Commission will present four proposals with a view to eliminate the remaining barriers to the free circulation of medicinal products throughout the European Community. Certain of the problems faced are very delicate. Therefore, the results that should be achieved are described in the proposals and it is up to the Member-States to decide how these results will be achieved

This short literature review on wine economics introduces the Special Issue on wine of the Italian Economic Journal. Its goal is to provide non wine experts with an overall picture of recent trends of the wine sector and of major developments of the economic literature devoted to wine markets. As the wine market deeply changed through the last decades, the first section quickly outlines these changes. The second section revise literature on wine demand while the third section is on supply and the fourth is focused on policies.

This paper surveys measures of economic openness, the latter being understood as the degree to which non-domestic actors can or do participate in a domestic economy. Based on the existing literature, the authors introduce a typology of openness indicators, which distinguishes between ‘real’ and ‘financial’ openness as well as ‘de-facto’ and ‘de-jure’ measures of openness. They use data collected on these indicators to analyze trends in openness over time and to conduct a correlation analysis across indicators. Finally, they illustrate the potential consequences of employing different openness measures in a growth regression framework. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s10290-020-00391-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The effects of regionalism on trade have been extensively evaluated within a gravity model framework. With the expected exit of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU), the prospect of regional disintegration has brought about a new impetus to studying trade policy effects. Using actual and forecast data for a panel of bilateral imports between the EU15 and the rest of the world, this paper examines the trade effects of EU economic integration agreements (EIAs), their evolution over time and the related counterfactual Brexit trade policy scenarios. Distinct trade effects are obtained for the EU trade related agreements; positive, significant and of similar magnitude for the EU and free trade agreement (FTA) coefficients, but negative and significant (and smaller in magnitude) for the regional economic partnership agreements (EPAs). The subperiod results suggest the positive coefficients of EU and FTA membership tend to diminish over time, implying earlier membership of EIAs came with greater trade benefits. Finally, in generating the predicted values for the trade effects of three alternative counterfactual Brexit scenarios (hard Brexit, hard Brexit plus, global Britain), the findings suggest an asymmetric effect depending on the perspective of the UK versus the EU. Whereas the UK’s trade would decline substantially with all three country groups (the EU, the FTAs and regional EPAs) and rise substantially with the rest of the world, only minor percentage changes are predicted for EU bilateral trade.

Government debt development is a timeless issue in economics that has gained even more attention in light of the global financial crisis and the Covid 19 pandemic crisis. The following paper uses several specifications of a logistic probability model to examine the key determinants underlying substantial public debt reductions in Central and Eastern European EU Member States for the period 1996–2020. The results suggest that fiscal adjustments are more likely to be successful in reducing public debt if they are based on expenditure cuts rather than revenue increases. In this context, cuts in social benefits and government employee compensation prove to be particularly effective. In addition, favourable economic growth rates increase the probability of a substantial reduction in government debt.

Early studies of European integration presumed either the erosion and gradual disappearance of the nation-state (neofunctionalism) or its persistence and continued capacity to shape the integration process (intergovernmentalism). In both cases, the focus was on the supranational (European) level. For neofunctionalists, institutions and processes at the European level would eventually supplant those at the national level in importance, while for intergovernmentalists, the supranational level was the arena of bargaining and deal making between relatively coherent and self-interested states. The directional flow of activity and influence was from the national to the supranational, with national bureaucratic and nongovernmental actors shifting their interests and loyalties to the European level, or domestic actors seeking to shape national bargaining goals and strategies in the European arena.

This paper shows that the co-movement of public revenues in the European Monetary Union (EMU) is driven by an unobserved common factor. Our empirical analysis uses yearly data covering the period 1970–2014 for 12 selected EMU member countries. We have found that this common component has a significant impact on public revenues in the majority of the countries. We highlight this common pattern in a dynamic factor model (DFM). Since this factor is unobservable, it is difficult to agree on what it represents. We argue that the latent factor that emerges from the two different empirical approaches used might have a composite nature, being the result of both the more general convergence of the economic cycles of the countries in the area and the increasingly better tuned tax structure. However, the original aspect of our paper is the use of a back-propagation neural networks (BPNN)-DF model to test the results of the time-series. At the level of computer programming, the results obtained represent the first empirical demonstration of the latent factor’s presence., https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40797-021-00155-2

As with the common European project to which these book speak they are united in their diversity. In their diversity they each tackle distinct aspects of the ongoing process of European integration: democracy, enlargement and citizenship. However, in spite of their diverse points of departure, these books are united in their endeavour to comprehend the contested nature of the emerging European Union polity and in bringing the distinctly political dimension of the integration process to the fore.

The future of the European Union is a topic which frequently generates multiple heated debates amongst politicians, lawyers and political scientists. This issue is even more burning and contentious after the Brexit referendum, which is a turning point in the history of European integration. As an answer to the first withdrawal of a member state from the European Union the European Commission published the “White Paper on the future of Europe. Reflections and scenarios for the EU27 by 2025” which immediately came under fire from critics. In this publication five possible scenarios for the future development of the European Union were presented with a view to “launch a process in which Europe determines its own path”. In September 2017 the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, in his “State of the Union Address 2017” outlined his own unique and alternative sixth scenario for Europe’s future, which concentrates principally on freedom, equality and the rule of law. The main aim of this article is to compile and provide an analysis of the effect of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal on the European Union’s future development in the context of European integration. This paper consists of five parts which include the history of European integration, an analysis of the Brexit referendum and its impact, as well as a presentation of the 6 possible future development scenarios. The research methodology of this study combines both qualitative and quantitative methods.

The aim of this paper is to show the impact of European Union programs on the activities of the Third Polish Republic’s Parliament in the field of sport in the years 2004-2007. The Republic of Poland joined the European Union (EU) on 1 May 2004. Since then, it has been co-creating the image of sport in Europe. All activities undertaken by the Polish Parliament in the development of sport after this event were related to programs in the European Union. During the period covered in this paper, the institutions involved in sport in the European Union included the Council of the European Union, the European Parliament, the European Commission and the European Court of Justice. One year after Poland’s accession to the European Union, elections were held for the fifth term of the Polish Sejm (2005-2007). The representatives of the Polish Parliament, during meetings of the Physical Culture and Sport Committee, repeatedly pointed to the possibility of adapting EU programs and their use in the development of sport in Poland. The material presented by the Ministry of Sport and the Office of the European Integration Committee in Warsaw informed about the following programs (mainly investment ones): Sport in the structures of the European Union and European Union Programs for the development of sport, implemented between 2004 and 2006. The most important issues raised by the Committee were those contained in the two most important documents: White Paper on Sport and Independent European Sport Review. As a result of the work of the Parliament of the Republic of Poland during the fifth term of office (2005-2007) in cooperation with the Ministry of Sport and the Parliamentary Physical Culture and Sport Committee, a plan for co-financing projects for the construction, extension or modernization of sports infrastructure under the EU structural programs and the INTERREG III A and EQUAL Community Initiatives was developed. The effect of Poland’s membership in the EU in that period was a gradual elimination of infrastructural negligence and undertaking activities related to the activation of local communities in the area of education and sport. Poland’s membership in the EU so far has brought positive results: increased accessibility of sport thanks to the development of regional infrastructure co-financed by the EU funds and the enrichment of the program offer by supporting projects related to the organization of extracurricular sports activities for children and young people. The positive effects of membership in the field of sport are still being perceived by selected groups and society as a whole.

The rise of youth unemployment has been one of the most serious problems which policymakers have had to deal with over the last two decades. Neoclassical economic theory suggests that the deregulation (i.e. higher flexibility) of the labour market stimulates firms to hire young people and—therefore—reduces youth unemployment. The aim of this study is to empirically test the validity of this hypothesis, analysing data on youth unemployment and labour market regulation index (LMRI) for 28 European countries in the period between 2000 and 2018. The empirical results—using two different econometric techniques (time and fixed effects that allows to take into account the presence of heterogeneity of countries in the model and pooling mean group (PMG) estimator providing results about the short and long run relationship between LMRI and youth unemployment)—do not provide evidence in support of the neoclassical hypothesis. In particular, the effect of higher flexibility of the labour market is negative and statistically significant (at 1%) only when a dummy variable for the Eastern country group is included in the model. Vice-versa, the paper shows that higher economic growth and higher investment in active labour market policy represent the key variables to reduce the youth unemployment. In conclusion, the paper raises many doubts that the introduction of flexibility measures in itself can represent a useful tool to counteract the increase of youth unemployment in Europe.

This paper sheds light on the global migration patterns of the past 40 years, and produces migration projections for the 21st century. To do this, we build a simple model of the world economy, and we parameterize it to match the economic and socio-demographic characteristics of the world in the year 2010. We conduct backcasting and nowcasting exercises, which demonstrate that our model fits very well the past and ongoing trends in international migration, and that historical trends were mostly governed by demographic changes. Then, we describe a set of migration projections for the 21st century. In line with the backcasts, our world migration prospects are mainly governed by socio-demographic changes. Using immigration restrictions or development policies to curb these pressures requires sealing borders or triggering unprecedented economic takeoffs in migrants’ countries of origin. Increasing migration is thus a likely phenomenon for the 21st century. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s10290-020-00402-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.