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The article focuses on the political aspects of the Action Plan for Capital Markets Union (CMU) as well as legislative proposal related to securitization proposed by the European Commission. Topics discussed include the goal of the proposed CMU which include reduction of fragmentation in the financial market, strengthening crossborder capital, and improvement on the access to finance, the significant of the CMU in the single market considering financial market integration, and the financial market integration in the European Union (EU).

Abstract: Among the factors highlighted by the literature as crucial for the success of cohesion policies in generating satisfaction among citizens, and therefore in acting positively on the constitution of an European identity, this paper emphasizes a particular one, territorial identity. Elaborating on the definition of territorial identity as a local condition in which private interests coincide with public ones, the paper claims that territorial identity plays an important role in a European identity‐building process. In fact, by increasing the probability that local public expenditures match private interests, territorial identity generates a favourable context where the critical factors that hamper the successful programming, design and implementation of cohesion policies can be overcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper studying the 1995 EU-Turkey Customs Union (CU) delivers a quantitative assessment of trade and GDP per capita effects of the CU on the Turkish economy. Our Synthetic Control Method based analysis reveals, contrary to the results of most studies in the literature, that the CU's effects have been substantial by any standards. In particular, the paper shows that in the absence of the EU-Turkey CU, Turkish exports to the EU and GDP per capita would have been 38 per cent and 13 per cent less, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2014 European elections led to a sharp rise in the electoral consensus of parties and independent parliament members perceived as eurosceptic. This paper analyzes the interconnections between distressed economies and the electoral success of hard-line eurosceptic parties. On a panel of 108 elections between 2008 and 2015, the random-effects model shows the relative effect of long- and short-term political trust, economic performance indicators, and institutional variables in determining the rise of hard-line eurosceptic parties. In contrast with previous studies, which have tended to de-emphasize the effect of economic performance in determining the success of eurosceptic forces, the results of this paper detect both a direct and a mediated effect of the economic crisis on the electoral success of hard-line eurosceptic parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europe has a long history of cartels, but the changes in the scale and geography of collusion in the European market from the post-war decades until the present have not been systematically investigated. Using network analysis methods and an original dataset based on decisions in EU cartel cases, this paper maps the developments in detected collusion in the European market from 1958 to 2008 and tentatively explains these developments. It appears that collusive activities increased during the 1960s and after the mid-1980s and that a long decline in the scale of collusion began in the mid-1990s. Moreover, the geographical spread of collusive activities in Europe increased considerably from 1969 to 1993. To facilitate an explanation of these and other findings, the paper presents a three-dimensional analytical framework that emphasises the importance of anti-cartel regulation, major changes in the business environment and the size of national economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: First embodied by the European Supervisory Authorities in 2010, agency governance in the financial sector has gained momentum with the creation of the Single Resolution Board (SRB) – an EU agency with considerable competencies in banking prudential policy. Within a short period, backed by the ‘ESMA‐Short Selling case’ judgment, agencies have progressed from supporting the European Commission with their quasi‐rule making, to a more prominent role in the decision‐making process, potentially influencing policy‐makers' agenda. By engaging in a qualitative analysis of legal documents, official texts and relevant scholarship, this research note examines the formal framework and practical aspects of SRB's governance, in order to substantiate whether its establishment presents a ‘qualitative increase’ in financial sector agencification. At the same time, the research note highlights problematic issues arising because of the limitations set by the Meroni doctrine arguing that the Board's wide powers ‘on paper’ may prove challenging to implement in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The article explores if EU independent fiscal institutions (IFIs) are in a position to exercise effective scrutiny of national fiscal policies. It identifies substantial heterogeneity across IFIs in resources which is not matched by a similar diversity in mandates. In addition to financial and human resources, better access to information, effective comply‐or‐explain mechanisms and closer links with legislatures could enhance fiscal surveillance and accountability in the EU. The paper provides rankings of individual IFIs constructed based on measures that aggregate these pre‐conditions for effective fiscal scrutiny. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Differences in Member States' economic development and national social protection systems can translate into significant differences in the substantive social rights of EU migrant citizens. The substantive rights of economically inactive EU migrant citizens are dependent on the 'export' of social rights from their country of origin to the Member State of destination, in particular during the initial phase of their residence in a new Member State as a jobseeker or a pensioner. This paper demonstrates that EU citizens' social rights are substantively stratified, not only by economic status, but also according to the Member State of origin and destination. Stratified social rights, it is argued, generate unequal opportunities to free movement and eo ipso challenge the very concept of EU citizenship. The paper concludes with a proposal for a European Minimum Income Scheme to at least partially overcome the shortcomings of existing EU citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the prospect of productive specialization, the degree of potential success of the euro since its inception was seen as closely linked to the development of effective risk-sharing mechanisms across EU members. Without shared fiscal resources, financial integration was expected to play a leading role in this respect. This paper documents the failure in fulfilling this expectation: Along with an analysis of the evolution of specialization and risk-sharing, we present evidence supporting the claim that progress in financial integration has not been conducive to income risk-sharing across euro area members, while it might have favoured a specialization split between countries with low-medium and high technology productive structures. As a result, monetary union members face higher income fluctuation risk without enhanced insurance protection. Additionally, evidence suggests a differential impact of the specialization split on sector productivity, contributing to making the monetary union a club of non equals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the impact of wage growth divergence on business cycle co-movement in the context of currency unions. While the theoretical literature on optimum currency areas highlights the equilibrating effect of divergent wage growth after asymmetric exogenous demand shocks via the external demand channel, recent literature on euro area imbalances emphasizes its dis-equilibrating effect as a source of asymmetric domestic demand shocks, and therefore suggests a negative link to business cycle co-movement. Our empirical results reveal that the latter effect has been clearly dominating in the euro area: Wage growth differentials across countries - while of minor importance for non-euro area EU countries with sovereign currencies - significantly reduce business cycle co-movement within the monetary union and thus increase the cost of the common monetary policy. The large magnitude of the effect calls for enhanced co-ordination efforts of wage policies in the euro area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union has acquired enforcement competences in areas where it previously only had regulatory authority. This expansion of competences from one step in the policy cycle to another is a blind spot in the works on functional spillover. While the increasing enforcement powers of the EU are mentioned, it is in the context of more competences, not what type. This paper investigates the nature of this 'policy cycle type of functional spillover', argues that this is a new type of functional spillover and discusses the significance of this finding. The paper offers original data concerning the expansion of EU's competences in direct enforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the motives behind the EU-level activism of CEE trade unions, which are commonly regarded as weak actors. To this end, it studies lobbying and protest actions staged by Polish labour organizations in relation to proposals for the EU Emission Trading Scheme Directive and the EU Services Directive. The analysis confirms the salience of interest-based accounts of supranational union action, but it also shows that labour interests are context-specific, influenced by economic conditions and regulatory changes in particular market segments. In this regard, priority given by the unions to job preservation or the improvement of social standards has important implications for their positions; it also determines the selection of their allies at national and transnational levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigrant investor programmes (IIPs) - aimed at attracting investment in return for residency or citizenship for wealthy foreigners - have proliferated in EU Member States in recent years. Such schemes constitute part of a much broader commercialization of citizenship, which has intensified during the crisis. They have been particularly controversial in the EU because they rely for their attractiveness in part on the reality of EU citizenship and the rights of mobility and residence that it entails. The European Commission, among others, has presented them as threat to national citizenship and yet the EU at once champions a 'post-national' citizenship and is arguably culpable in the very commercialization of citizenship of which investor schemes are a stark manifestation. This paper unpacks the tensions in the theory and politics of investor migration in the recent EU context, arguing that they reveal what is termed a 'quadrilemma' at the heart of a multi-level citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes how the apparently merely technical introduction of reversed qualified majority voting for the excessive deficit procedure included in the Six Pack and the Fiscal Compact shifts not only the institutional balance between the European Commission and the Member States but also the relationship between liberalization and social regulation in the EU. In bringing together institutional analysis and a political economy perspective, the paper shows how the strengthening of the Commission's discretionary decision-making authority in a context of intergovernmental power imbalances between debtor and creditor states extends the asymmetry between market-making and market-correction to the area of political decision-making. In consequence, economic and social policies are subordinated to the primacy of austerity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores the case of media ownership relations to address the politics of agenda-setting in the European Union (EU) policy process. Argument that infra-organizational conflict can be an advantage; Presentation of an overview of legal instruments for governing EU media concentration; In-depth look at the initiative of the European Parliament; Examination of the process for specific ownership legislation; Discussion on the conclusion reached.

Abstract: Europe is currently embroiled in three ongoing and interacting crises concerning the eurozone, refugees and Brexit. After briefly describing each crisis, I turn to the ways in which they intersect and the role of institutions in solving the crises. There are two central themes in the paper. The first is that the three crises intersect and feed on one another. The second is that, while institutions can often help, they are not panaceas. Existing scholarship on the EU often implies that the EU operates far from its institutional frontier and that substantial improvements in welfare are just around the corner if only we ‘get our institutions right’. But institutional fixes do not exist for all problems. I argue that there is a large space for institutional improvement in the eurozone crisis, less regarding refugees, and still less for Brexit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper explores how career paths leading to the European Parliament (EP) are influenced by the strategic goals of national political parties. Considering both individual career factors and the national electoral fate of political parties, it determines what conditions increase the likelihood that experienced or inexperienced politicians serve in the EP. Experienced politicians are more likely to reach the EP when they serve vote‐seeking and policy‐seeking parties while inexperienced politicians are more likely to enter the EP when their parties are opportunity seeking. Overall, I find the role of individual ambition is conditioned by party strategy to determine the institutional composition of the EP, contributing to a growing literature on the strategic use of European elections by national political parties. It suggests that the electoral goals of parties should be examined in order to understand the nature of democratic representation in the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The rise of regional governments in Europe has been often espoused on democratic grounds. Yet the democratic promise of political decentralization should be evaluated in light of its potential undermining effects upon the essential mechanism to make accountability work: citizens’ capacity to assign responsibility for policy outcomes. People may get it wrong when assigning responsibility because they are not sure who is responsible for policy outcomes when powers are vertically fragmented between different levels of government and/or simply because their responsibility judgements are biased by political beliefs, which act as lenses through which attribution is filtered. How can we then make electoral accountability work in decentralized systems? This paper will explore this question by delving into the most important theoretical and empirical challenges in the study of attribution of responsibility and electoral accountability in decentralized contexts. At the theoretical level, there is still need of a better understanding of the relationship between federal institutional conditions and individuals’ use of cognitive bias to cope with institutional complexity when assigning responsibility. The empirical challenge is to overcome the lack of comparable individual‐level data on responsibility attribution for a broad range of country cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, differences in states' refugee protection contributions have been attributed to the variation in countries' structural pull-factors such as their geographic location. However, policy choices, such as Germany's decision to open its borders for Syrian refugees in 2015, can also have a significant impact on the number of arrivals and constitute a puzzle that traditional approaches struggle to explain. This paper demonstrates that viewing refugee burden-sharing through the lens of public goods theory can provide significant insights about refugee protection dynamics in the EU, in particular in the context of a sudden mass influx of migrants that threatens internal security. By highlighting how free-riding and burden-shifting dynamics can undermine the provision of collective goods during a refugee crisis, a public goods approach can advance our understanding of why countries sometimes accept disproportionate responsibilities for forced migrants and how the effectiveness of EU refugee burden-sharing instruments can, and should, be strengthened. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how the refugee crisis has affected attitudes towards the EU, as well as attitudes towards national institutions. By combining different waves of individual survey data, official records of asylum applications and a content analysis of the media, we examine the effect of the numbers of asylum applications and the amount of media coverage thereof on citizens' attitudes towards the EU and national politics. Our findings demonstrate that the number of asylum applications in the EU and the media attention this generates primarily affect euroscepticism, while the number of asylum applications into each individual Member State first and foremost affects attitudes towards national institutions. Our results contribute to the literature on democratic accountability, by demonstrating that, even in a complex multi-level governance structure, citizens differentiate between levels of government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Initial literature on the 'European refugee crisis' discerned intergovernmental tendencies in its management. This paper examines whether neofunctionalism may be able to explain a major case of 'European refugee crisis' policy-making, the negotiations on the European Border and Coast Guard regulation. We argue, somewhat counterintuitively, that the theory considerably furthers our respective understanding. The crisis acted as a catalyst exposing the weaknesses of a system that pitted a supranational Schengen against a largely intergovernmental external border regime, notwithstanding a developing Frontex. These dysfunctionalities have been widely fostered by both national and supranational decision-makers shrinking from the significant economic, political and sunk costs of Schengen disintegration, thus ruling out the possibility for spillback. Additionally, further integration was substantially nurtured by supranational agency, 'socialized' national civil servants, transnational NGOs and European business associations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses trends in the documentation of information on the European Union (EU) in 2001. Background on the policy of the European Commission regarding the documentation of information and communication; Information on the EUR-Lex legal information Web site of the EU; Details on key documentation of governance and institutional developments.

Positioned within the multidisciplinary scholarly fields of political psychology, our analysis follows an interdisciplinary approach, linking the study of EU images (from international relations (IR), political science and EU Studies) to the notion of conceptual metaphors (cognitive linguistics). Our research uses a novel empirical tool - a four-tiered model of conceptual metaphors (Zhabotynska, 2011) to assess how meanings are formed in the construction of EU images in third countries. Using a case-study of Australian and New Zealand elites, the paper contributes to EU foreign policy scholarship through the description of a systematic algorithm for tracing the 'mapping of emotions' towards the EU from beyond its borders. Metaphors are understood as a cognitive device for translating emotions, but empirical analysis of emotions is nascent in IR studies. Assessing EU external images over time in an empirically-informed and systematic way is a further novel contribution from this body of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trade policy is among the EU's most significant capabilities in promoting values including human rights. Yet trade policy and the EU's values-based foreign policy are often in tension. Scholarship on the social dimension of trade policy has emphasized the tension between values and the EU's commercial interests. Human rights and conditionality clauses have not been the focus of analysis, yet conditionality is one of the EU's most visible links between the trade agenda and its values-based foreign policy. Analyzing the EU's decision-making in negotiating human rights conditionality, this paper employs the EU-Singapore free trade agreement and its negotiation as an in-depth single case study. The tension between commercial interests and values results in decision-makers promoting incoherent interests. We argue that organizationally defined preferences and issue salience circumscribed the Parliament's impact on decision-making, resulting in concessions on human rights conditionality with Singapore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Who is held publicly responsible for the policies of international institutions? Are member states or supranational bodies held responsible or are public responsibility attributions (PRA) untargeted? We argue that in complex policy-making systems responsibility tends to be attributed to implementing actors. When, however, a policy does not require active implementation, we expect responsibility attributions to be untargeted. To test these expectations, we analyze PRA in the European public for three EU migration policies: (1) border control policies, (2) the distribution of refugees according to the 'Dublin'-system, and (3) so-called welfare migration facilitated by the 'freedom of movement' principle. Our analysis corroborates that PRA reflect the structure of policy implementation: (1) PRA for EU border controls target the EU; (2) PRA for the distribution of refugees target member states; (3) PRA for welfare migration are untargeted. The paper thus highlights an accountability gap for policies that do not require implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the draft treaty on European Union (hereinafter EUT) and concentrates on the institutional and legislative proposals advanced for transforming the EC into "a genuine political and economic Union … with the authority and institutions which would enable it to respond effectively through democratic procedures to [common] serious and growing problems." The emphasis on institutional matters is deliberate since the policy recommendations cannot be implemented unless the EC's decision-making processes are reformed. In a sense, then, the EUT has a constitutive element and it may be that the policy sections do not belong (in their present form) in such a document at all. The paper divides into sections on the EUT's origins; its underlying political assumptions and ideals; its institutional prescriptions; policy recommendations; and the problematic prospects for its ratification following its adoption by an absolute majority of MEPs on 14 February 1984 at the Plenary session of the EP by 237 votes to 31 votes with 43 abstentions and 99 absences. (The accompanying Resolution was adopted by 226 votes to 32 with 34 abstentions). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following popular protests at home and the fall of the government, Ukraine reversed course and joined Georgia and Moldova in signing Association Agreements in June 2014. This article has two main aims. First, using a gravity model of trade, it estimates the effects of deep and shallow free trade agreements for the EaP (Eastern Partnership) states with Russia and the EU respectively. Second, by relating the outcomes of the first estimation to the quality of institutions, proxied with the level of democracy and the level of corruption in the selected countries, the paper estimates the effect on exports of changes in the quality of institutions. The main results show that the EaP countries gain significantly from free trade agreements with the EU but little if anything from free trade agreements with Russia, and that improvements in the quality of institutions in EaP countries have played an important role in fostering exports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transport is one of the most polluting sectors and needs to adopt environmental protection, yet the constant struggle between the environment and the economy is often won by economic priorities. This struggle makes environmental policy integration difficult, especially in the legislative process. This article analyzes the co-decision process which led to the adoption of the 2011 Eurovignette Directive, and examines how intra-organizational conflicts in the European Parliament and the Council shaped inter-organizational negotiations and thus the level of environmental policy integration in the adopted policy. The European Parliament's rapporteur is identified as central for resolving differences between the actors. Overall, the paper argues that the economic crisis has strengthened existing national economic preferences over environmental protection, leading to environmental policy integration that is symbolic rather than substantial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The political dynamics of European Union ( EU) governance has arguably strengthened the role of civil servants at the expense of democratically elected office-holders. However, whether this applies to intra-cabinet EU decision-making is more difficult to analyze. Drawing on the agendas (1995-2012) of the Finnish ministerial EU Committee and on interviews with key civil servants, this article examines whether the interests of governing parties or bureaucratic procedures are more important in determining which EU policies are debated by the government and which in turn are decentralized to individual ministries. The analysis confirms the strong influence of both established administrative procedures and of a small elite of civil servants in setting the agenda of governmental EU policy formulation. The paper also shows that intra-cabinet co-ordination focuses on high politics issues, with individual EU laws seldom discussed by the government - a finding that raises important questions about the accountability of domestic EU co-ordination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article shows that while European identity tends to be weak among Europeans, a significant transmission of European identity occurs between parents and their children. Belgian adolescents' conversations with their mothers about the European Union strengthen this transmission process. This indicates that European identity is not a superficial phenomenon, but that it is integrated into the social identity of families. Various authors have already stated that the project of European integration requires development of a stronger sense of European identity among citizens of the European Union Member States. Using insights from social identity theory, it is demonstrated in the paper that salient social identities are being transmitted within families. Analyses of the Parent-Child Socialization Study, conducted among 2,085 Belgian father-mother-child triads, back this conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses what concretely does a European Security and Defence Union mean and what hurdles must be overcome to ensure that 2017 will not be remembered as another false dawn for European security and defence. Topics include three structural trends coupled with three enabling factors explain the notable activism on European security which include the U.S. security umbrella provided through North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) cannot be indefinitely taken for granted, the sharp increase in real and perceived insecurity across the Union and beyond and all European Union (EU) member states, including the largest ones, are small and medium sized countries and the enabling factors include a Political Commission, Brexit and the Franco German Engine.

Abstract: Using quarterly data from 1995 until 2014, we investigate whether Euro Area (EA) membership influences the probability of a European Union Member State going through an episode of sudden stop or through an episode of bonanza, after controlling for a number of push and pull factors. Overall, our results do not support the claim that EA membership constituted a weakness during the recent financial crisis. On the contrary, we find that EA membership decreases the probability of a sudden stop, all else equal. We find no evidence that being part of the EA has a direct effect on the probability of bonanza. When allowing for interaction effects, our results suggest that EA membership might have mitigated the risk perception arising from higher government debt in the case of bonanzas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is secular stagnation - a period of persistently lower growth such as that seen following the financial crisis of 2008-09 - a valid concern for euro-area countries? We tackle this question using the well-established Laubach-Williams model to estimate the unobservable equilibrium real interest rate and compare it to the actual real rate. In light of the considerable increase in heterogeneity among EU member countries since the beginning of the financial crisis, we apply our approach to 12 euro-area countries to provide country-level answers to the question of secular stagnation. The presence of secular stagnation in a number of euro-area countries has important implications for ECB decision-making (such as, voting power in the Governing Council) and EU governance. Our results indicate that secular stagnation is not a significant threat to most euro-area countries, with one possible exception: Greece. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses books about monetary and exchange rate arrangements between the countries of the European Community. Inclusion of 'A European Central Bank? Perspectives on Monetary Unification After Ten Years of the EMS,' edited by Marcello de Cecco and Alberto Giovanni; 'Limiting Exchange Rate Flexibility: The European Money System,' by Francesco Giavazzi and Alberto Giovannini.

On paper at least, the European Community is meant to play a dynamic role in the promotion of "improved working conditions and an improved standard of living" for the working people of Western Europe (Treaty of Rome, 1957, Article 117). Indeed, it has been able to do so in the past, for example, with regard to the rights of migrant workers travelling between Member Countries. Past experience, however, has also demonstrated that the odds run against success for social policy-makers in international organizations such as the EC. In the first place, they are constantly being buffeted about by the changeable economic and political tides of national governments. Thus, the ambitious "Social Action Programme" was enthusiastically approved by the Council of Ministers in 1974, but when it became apparent in the following years that serious economic difficulties were settling down to stay, many of the Programme's most important objectives were set aside, as deflation became the new priority. A second, complex problem emerges in a body of ten nations with ten distinct sets of historical traditions, cultural characteristics, and social problems. A proposal with progressive implications for the Irish Republic might well seem out of touch with the needs of the people in France. Thirdly, there is the nagging problem of treaty competence. Article 118 of the Treaty of Rome specifically entitles the Commission to promote cooperation between members in the social field in matters relating to employment, labour law and working conditions, vocational training, social security, occupational health and safety regulations, and industrial relations. But because social policy is by nature concerned with human beings whose lives cannot always be divided into such tidy compartments, it is no simple matter to maintain a strict distinction between those issues proper for the Commission to handle, and those which should remain under the jurisdiction of national governments. Finally, and... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic and financial crisis opened a window of opportunity to place the Single Market back on top of the European agenda as part of a two-tiered crisis response, which also included reinforced financial supervision and economic co-ordination. We argue that the Commission acted as a 'purposeful opportunist' in both tiers; but whereas in economic governance issues there was breakthrough change in the Commission's achievements and competences, in the Single Market realm policy change was fairly modest. Using process tracing analysis our goal is to explain why the Commission did not succeed in furthering a genuine Single Market reform. Our findings suggest that the Commission's entrepreneurship was constrained by the limited salience of Single Market issues in the crisis context and by the lack of actual political commitment from the other relevant stakeholders. Thus, our research highlights the limits of the Commission's opportunistic behaviour in less advantageous circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of EU (European Union) Structural Funds (from the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund, the Cohesion Fund, etc.) channelled to Greece and other countries over the last 35 years has been thoroughly evaluated by EU-commissioned impact reports and relevant academic studies. However, several political consequences of development transfers have been largely neglected. Concepts, methods and conclusions reached by studies of North-South development aid can help greatly to understand the medium- and long-term political impact of EU funds. This article is based on interviews with EU and Greek politicians, officials, beneficiaries and various stakeholders. The conclusion is a less positive - but familiar in other parts of the world - story. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on theoretical insights, this article identifies the broad characteristics that a shock absorber based on unemployment should have in order to be incentive-compatible and politically feasible. It then empirically derives the combination of activation thresholds, experience rating, eligibility criteria and benefit generosity which define the systems offering the highest stabilization for given levels of redistribution. The analysis suggests that the shock absorber should: (1) give rise to macro cross-national transfers, mimicking those that would be generated by a notional euro-wide unemployment benefit scheme of minimal coverage and generosity, (2) be activated by a trigger and (3) feature partial experience rating. The simulation results, confirmed by robustness checks, show that even systems that do not redistribute resources between countries can have a non-negligible stabilization impact in the medium run. Low benefit take-up rates in southern Europe reduce the stabilization properties and the size of the scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Euro Plus Pact was approved by the European Union countries in March 2011. The pact stipulates various measures to strengthen competitiveness with the ultimate aim of preventing accumulation of unsustainable external imbalances. This article uses Granger causality tests to assess the short-term linkages between changes in relative unit labour costs and changes in the current account balance for the period 1995-2011. The main finding is that changes in the current account balance precede changes in relative unit labour costs, while there is no discernible effect in the opposite direction. This suggests that capital flows from the European core to the periphery contributed to the divergence in unit labour costs across Europe prior to the global financial crisis. The results also suggest that the measures to restrain unit labour costs may have only limited effect on the current account balance in the short term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article takes issue with the 'no demos' thesis about the European Union. Empirically speaking, a 'demos' requires a sense of community among the citizens, on the one hand, and a lively public spheres in which political issues are debated, on the other. It is argued in this article, first, that a majority of European citizens has developed dual identities - to their nation-state and to Europe - and this Europeanization of national identities is sufficient to sustain carefully crafted (re-)distributive policies on the European level. Second, the euro crisis has strongly increased the politicization of national public spheres and has also led to their growing Europeanization with regard to issue salience and to the actors represented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of the financial crisis, negotiating free trade agreements ( FTAs) with Southeast Asia has become a priority for the European Union ( EU). Paradoxically, all the indications are that the EU will demand that Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand liberalize financial services trade with the EU. This article asks whether the EU's policy undermines coherence between EU trade and development policies. It argues that the EU and Association of Southeast Asian Nations ( ASEAN) agree that financial services are crucial for development, but that they differ on the approach to liberalization: the EU advocates broad-ranging liberalization, whereas ASEAN countries favour a cautious approach, conditioned by their experience of the Asian financial crisis. In view of this divergence, the EU will have to rethink its approach to financial services trade liberalization in negotiations with ASEAN countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reassesses the impact of inflation on long-term growth for a panel of 14 European Union countries in the years prior to monetary unification. While previous research mostly focuses on a linear nexus or allows for a piecewise linear relationship with a single threshold, this study takes account of a more complex relationship. The empirical estimates for the full EU sample confirm the hypothesis that the relationship between inflation and growth is positive for very low inflation rates (that is, below an estimate of 1.6 per cent), insignificant thereafter and negative for high, two-digit inflation levels. The estimate of the inflation level that divides the insignificant from the negative effect is found to be higher in the group of traditional cohesion countries than for the rest of the sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the European Commission's contribution to the configuration of internal European Union borders. The focus is on several policy areas related to free movement of people. It engages with the literature examining the tools used by the Commission in influencing the EU decision-making process. It also looks into the studies summarizing the developments in EU migration that show the restrained manoeuvring space the Commission has in the policy areas. Building on these, the discursive techniques that are likely to be used in Commission articulations are conceptualized. The analysis of Commission documents shows that in the common visa policy and the common European asylum system ( CEAS), the Commission has configured borders indirectly. In distinction, in the fields of intra- Community border controls and movement for work purposes of highly skilled third country nationals ( TCNs), the Commission has managed to play a leadership role and to significantly and directly challenge the underlying logic upon which these policies are based. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the two decades since the emergence of the European Union at Maastricht there has been a concerted attempt to build a European political space, typified by the debates on constitutionalization and democratization. Much less noticed, but no less important, has been the mobilization of publics, interest groups and political parties against the integration process. In the light of the failure to realize the Laeken objectives, the stabilization of an anti-integration bloc in the European Parliament, recurrent 'no' votes in national referendums and the emergence of an increasingly co-ordinated movement of critical interest groups, it is argued in this article that this opposition has become embedded and persistent, at both European and national levels. This will have considerable consequences for the Union itself and the way it has chosen to largely ignore sceptical voices to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents evidence that a significant part of the surge in the spreads of the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) countries in the eurozone during 2010-11 was disconnected from underlying increases in the debt-to-GDP (gross domestic product) ratios, and was the result of negative market sentiments that became very strong since the end of 2010. It is argued that the systematic mispricing of sovereign risk in the eurozone intensifies macroeconomic instability, leading to bubbles in good years and excessive austerity in bad years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article does not question whether the EU has a strategic culture, but rather asks how one can investigate its nature. It creates and utilizes an analytical framework to demonstrate that the European Union's strategic culture is based on an extended concept of security and on a comprehensive, multilateral and internationally legitimated approach to threats, implying the use of military and civilian instruments in an integrated manner on over 20 common security and defence policy (CSDP) operations. It suggests that the analytical framework can also act as a stable reference point to compare and contrast the strategic cultures of a range of actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The completion of the internal market was the EU structural response to the so-called 'Euro-sclerosis' of the early 1980s. By eliminating the existing non-tariff barriers to the free circulation of goods, services, workers and capital by the end of 1992, the EU aimed to deliver substantial welfare gains in terms of higher productivity and lower costs, prices and mark-ups. While there exists some evidence that the measures undertaken have increased competition across the EU, the impact of such policies on productivity has received less attention and still remains an open issue. Using a difference-in-difference approach, this article shows that the completion of the internal market significantly increased the productivity of the EU sectors which were more likely to be affected by these policies, already during the implementation phase of the different measures (1992 and 1993). These results point to the fact that the firms that were mostly exposed to the reforms seem to have reacted promptly to the structural changes deriving from them. The estimated gains appear quantitatively important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europeanization is not only top-down and one-dimensional. National governments play two-level games, encountering non-state actors that seek to shape the national interest positions. Examining migration and asylum policy, a domain not yet subject to extensive scholarly attention, the role of non-state interest groups and their influence, where coalition-building is successful, is highlighted. Empirically, the article explores the genesis of the EU's family reunion, asylum qualification and the labour migration directives. In theoretical terms, the article contributes to the burgeoning literature on Europeanization, while seeking to refine it further and apply it to a somewhat neglected policy domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enlargement of the European Union in May 2004 was followed by an increase in migration from the poorest of the central and eastern European New Member States (NMS) to other Member States. We consider the macroeconomic impacts of these migration flows across Europe, highlighting impacts in receiving and sending countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the progress of the open method of co-ordination in research policy, and examines one of its strands, the Mobility Strategy, as a ‘best practice’ OMC. Despite the critical analyses it has received to date, we argue that the OMC has shown the potential to impact on national systems and achieve convergence, albeit not necessarily of a quantitative kind. Under the Ljubljana Process, the OMC has been confirmed as the central method of governance to further develop the European research area and here we put forward several recommendations for its future application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]