The turning points of EU cohesion policy, Working Paper Report to Barca Report

In more recent discussions on the future of Cohesion policy, however, both critics and supporters have tended to agree on the need for a “modernisation” of the policy, in recognition of existing weakness in the current approach and of the emerging challenges faced by the European economy, society and broader integration process. In this context of reform, this paper will take a step back in time to examine the origins and evolution of Cohesion policy, with a view to shedding some light on its core dynamics and revealing some of the lessons of history. In doing so, the main objectives of this paper are to identify the main historical turning points in Cohesion policy, the trends and nature of changes witnessed, and the key underlying factors facilitating or obstructing policy reform over time

Demand Response Strategy Based on Reinforcement Learning and Fuzzy Reasoning for Home Energy Management

As energy demand continues to increase, demand response (DR) programs in the electricity distribution grid are gaining momentum and their adoption is set to grow gradually over the years ahead. Demand response schemes seek to incentivise consumers to use green energy and reduce their electricity usage during peak periods which helps support grid balancing of supply-demand and generate revenue by selling surplus of energy back to the grid. This paper proposes an effective energy management system for residential demand response using Reinforcement Learning (RL) and Fuzzy Reasoning (FR). RL is considered as a model-free control strategy which learns from the interaction with its environment by performing actions and evaluating the results. The proposed algorithm considers human preference by directly integrating user feedback into its control logic using fuzzy reasoning as reward functions. Q-learning, a RL strategy based on a reward mechanism, is used to make optimal decisions to schedule the operation of smart home appliances by shifting controllable appliances from peak periods, when electricity prices are high, to off-peak hours, when electricity prices are lower without affecting the customer’s preferences. The proposed approach works with a single agent to control 14 household appliances and uses a reduced number of state-action pairs and fuzzy logic for rewards functions to evaluate an action taken for a certain state. The simulation results show that the proposed appliances scheduling approach can smooth the power consumption profile and minimise the electricity cost while considering user’s preferences, user’s feedbacks on each action taken and his/her preference settings. A user-interface is developed in MATLAB/Simulink for the Home Energy Management System (HEMS) to demonstrate the proposed DR scheme. The simulation tool includes features such as smart appliances, electricity pricing signals, smart meters, solar photovoltaic generation, battery energy storage, electric vehicle and grid supply.Peer reviewe

Policy-Making in the EU: Achievements, Challenges and Proposals for Reform. CEPS Paperbacks. June 2009

This report is the product of a joint project initiated by the Centre for European Policy Studies and the Swedish Confederation of Enterprise. Three expert groups of academics, policy-makers, business representatives and other stakeholders were formed to analyse the major issues and challenges facing the European Union today and to put forward recommendations for reform that can realistically be implemented in the short and medium term. The expert groups focused on EU Decision-Making, Better Regulation and Implementation & Subsidiarity

The 2007-13 operational programmes: a preliminary assessment: Spring – Autumn 2005

A preliminary assessment of the 2007-13 operational programmes on EU cohesion policy

ADMINISTRATIVE CONVERGENCE AND REFORMS IN SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPEAN STATES - Analyses, models and comparative studies

The fundamental idea of the current publication emphasizes the characteristics of the processes related to administrative convergence and reform in the South-Eastern European states. Of course the area under review is quite wide and complex and therefore our approach aims to comprise only a few characteristics. Encompassing various geo-political aspects, political heritages enhancing that diversity as well as endemic socio-cultural traditions, the public administrations in the South-Eastern European states have faced a definite option for restoring democracy and accomplishing reforms according to the principles and values of the European Administrative Space, in the past two decades. For the time being other questions emerge and others remain still open. Which is the most adequate model for the administrative reform, which are the most efficient mechanisms and tools triggering its accomplishment and implementation? Lacking a formalized acquis communautaire on the processes related to administrative reform, their diversity has enhanced and the conditions for so called administrative convergence have multiplied. The research reports achieved and presented in the current publication emphasise the progress in implementing the democratic processes of central and local governance which do not lead however to convergence, being definitely relevant for the processes related to administrative dynamics. Various political experiences undergone by the states under review in the second half of the 20th century have induced attitudes and behaviours mainly of subordination and loss of identity of the organizations in national public administrations. That situation persisting in the South-Eastern European space creates difficulties and unbalances in the dialogue and cooperation with the public administrations of Western European states. The state itself is weak, determining a lack of finality for the administrative reforms. The processes of administrative convergence have become more complex and complicate as the EU administration is searching a model and it is attempting to define an identity. The traditional models of administration, based on a hierarchic bureaucracy are overcome and the model of EU administration could not be found by a transfer or enlargement of an administrative model belonging to one or several states. Therefore, we should acknowledge that the processes related to administrative convergence and reform are profoundly integrated in a complex context, with globalizing valences, benefiting of profound mechanisms, enhancing the interdependence and systemic character of the developments of national public administrations. The current volume incorporates contributions of South-Eastern European universities (National School of Political Studies and Public Administration – Romania, New Bulgarian University – Bulgaria, University of the Aegean - Greece or University of Rijeka – Croatia, as well as of international organizations – European Public Law Organization – Greece. In the above briefly described context, the studies reveal both comparative aspects, strategies of administrative reform or significant developments of administrative convergence and conceptual models aimed to contribute to the debates on EU administrative and organizational future or contemporary developments of EU administrative law. The reports were achieved in the framework of Jean Monnet project “South-Eastern European developments on the administrative convergence and enlargement of the European Administrative Space in Balkan states“ and provide an overview close to the realities on specificity of administrative processes in South-Eastern European states.administrative convergence, balkans, public administration reforms, european administrative studies, South-Eastern European States

EU Cohesion policy 2007-13 and the implications for Spain : who gets what, when and how?

The recent negotiation of the EU budget and the associated reform of EU Cohesion policy have had major policy implications for Spain, the country in receipt of most Cohesion policy support in the current programming period (2000-06). EU enlargement, combined with relatively rapid growth in Spain, impacted on the eligibility of Spanish regions for Cohesion support while also taking the country as a whole beyond the eligibility threshold for the Cohesion Fund. As a result, based on the original Commission budget proposals of February 2004, Spain was facing a reduced Cohesion policy budget of at least a half (to below €30 billion). This paper first reviews the budget negotiations from a Spanish (Cohesion policy) perspective, identifying the key negotiating goals and the extent to which they were achieved. It then looks at the outcome of the negotiations for Spain, initially at the national level and then in the regions. It highlights the significant differential impacts of the cutbacks in Cohesion policy allocations at the regional level and the pressures on the Spanish government to modulate the regional impact of the budgetary changes. Having considered the direct funding implications of the new Cohesion policy, the second half of the paper is concerned with the regulatory, institutional and economic impacts of the new policy regime. Many of the reform proposals fit with Spanish priorities, not least the new rationale for Cohesion policy (with its stress on the Lisbon and Gothenburg agendas) and the new policy architecture (with all regions eligible for some form of support and with a related shift from a geographic to more of a thematic focus). The retention of the key Structural Funds principles has also been welcomed in Spain, unsurprising given the wealth of experience and expertise built up over three (high-spending) programming cycles. As in most Member States, the main regulatory concern relates to the extent to which a more simplified and devolved approach to Funds' implementation will be achieved in practice. As regards policy and institutional impacts, the paper brings together regional views on the new budgetary and regulatory frameworks and reviews how the new regulations are being implemented in practice. A discussion of the developing National Strategic Reference Framework and the related Operational Programmes makes clear that the strong emphasis on the Lisbon agenda is not viewed as a constraint in Spain; rather, it is felt to fit well with recent Spanish developments and goals. Finally, the paper considers the economic implications of the reductions in Cohesion policy support. On the basis of evaluation studies, it highlights the positive impact the Funds have had in the past and the potentially quite varied regional impacts the reductions in funding may have in the future

Reinforcement Learning: A Survey

This paper surveys the field of reinforcement learning from a computer-science perspective. It is written to be accessible to researchers familiar with machine learning. Both the historical basis of the field and a broad selection of current work are summarized. Reinforcement learning is the problem faced by an agent that learns behavior through trial-and-error interactions with a dynamic environment. The work described here has a resemblance to work in psychology, but differs considerably in the details and in the use of the word ``reinforcement.'' The paper discusses central issues of reinforcement learning, including trading off exploration and exploitation, establishing the foundations of the field via Markov decision theory, learning from delayed reinforcement, constructing empirical models to accelerate learning, making use of generalization and hierarchy, and coping with hidden state. It concludes with a survey of some implemented systems and an assessment of the practical utility of current methods for reinforcement learning.Comment: See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying file

Decentralization of territorial policy in Italy - the coherence with the model of multi-level governance and the effects on responsibilities of public spending

The past twenty years have seen the communitarian system of multi level governance (MLG) being established as a model of territorial policies governance. In the MLG, several levels of jurisdiction participate to decision making and Regions assume a relevant role in managing policies of development. This article highlights how such a system, mostly led by Public Institutions, cuts transaction costs being based on principles aimed at increasing the number of decision makers, as well as at making all governing levels and the processes of institutional coordination more effective. The article investigates two issues: a) to what extent the reorganization of the Italian system is compatible with the main characteristics of Communitarian MLG system in the governance of territorial policies; b) to what extent the decentralization in programming policies of development has gone with a transfer of capital expenses from a central (Central Administration) to local (Regional and Local Bodies) jurisdictions. The hypotheses to be tested refer to the decentralization process so far recorded in Italy: the first hypothesis is that such a process would not be fully shareable, neither with regard to the characteristics of the Communitarian MLG model, nor to the general considerations deriving by the theory of fiscal federalism; secondly, the process wouldn’t seem suitably supported by a symmetrical transfer of the expenses from the Central Government’s jurisdiction to local bodies’.Territorial policy, Multi Level Governance, institutional decentralization, OLS panel fixed-effects models