How effective and legitimate is the European semester? Increasing role of the European parliament

The European Semester is a new institutional process that provides EU member states with ex-ante guidance on fiscal and structural objectives. The Semesterâ??s goals are ambitious and it is still uncertain how it will fit into the new EU economic governance framework. We find that member states are only slowly internalising the new procedure. Furthermore, the Semester has so far lacked legitimacy due to the minor role assigned to the European Parliament, the marginal involvement of national parliaments and the lack of transparency of the process at some stages. Finally, there remains room to clarify the implications from a unified legal text. In fact, diluting the legal separation of recommendations on National Reform Programmes and Council opinions on Stability and Convergence Programmes may compromise effective surveillance and governance. The European Parliament has an important role to play. It needs hold the Commission and the Council accountable. This and the overall objective of enhancing the new procedureâ??s effectiveness and legitimacy can be done by means of a regular Economic Dialogue on the Semester.

The Design of a Best Execution Market

The notion of best execution on securities markets is manifold. Best execution has different meanings to different market participants, therefore, it is difficult to find a unique market structure that meets this requirements for all the participants. Traditional market structures are either static or flexible, meaning that an individual market participant has no influence regarding the concrete market structure’s characteristics, like e. g. the price discovery mechanism, trading frequency or the market transparency. Traditional market structures are either static or flexible, meaning that an individual market participant has no influence regarding the Focussing on customer orientation, we propose a new type of market structure: the dynamic market model, where participants individually choose the characteristics of the market structure for each transaction they perform. Furthermore, this paper offers an approach to design dynamic market models from scratch. We briefly sketch the necessary steps towards a dynamic market model. Traditional market structures are either static or flexible, meaning that an individual market participant has no influence regarding the Finally, we present AMTRAS; the prototype of an electronic trading system that was conceived and implemented following the aforementioned approach. AMTRAS is an software-agent based bond trading system designed for the need of institutional investors. It implements a dynamic market model, a sophisticated product- and partner matching scheme as well as an innovative price discovery approach

Data protection in relation to transborder information sharing for network security and criminal justice purposes

Between November 2012 and September 2013, Joseph A. Cannataci responded to a brief commissioned by the Directorate General of Human Rights and Rule of Law of the Council of Europe. The initial work carried out to end December 2012 was subsequently revised and up-dated over the period Jan-Sep 2013 to reflect the impact of the developments over the European Commission’s Data Protection Reform Package (DPRP) and increasingly that of the revelations of the US whistle-blower Edward Snowden. The concept paper finds that the urgency for and the onus upon the CoE to take immediate action to produce a new binding instrument is compounded by the Snowden revelations and the possible chronic inadequacy of EU responses in the sphere of national security on account of exclusions of competence by Art 4 Section 2 of the EU Treaty.peer-reviewe

The Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States as a Constitutional Court

Eine der wichtigsten Innovationen der Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft Westafrikanischer Staaten (ECOWAS) ist die eindeutige Gewährung einer supranationalen Rolle an den Gerichtshof der Organisation. Sein Menschenrechtsmandat hat jedoch zu realen und potenziellen Spannungen innerhalb der ECOWAS-Rechtsordnung geführt. Die Spannungen ergeben sich aus der Rechtskraft von Urteilen von Verfassungsgerichten der Mitgliedstaaten und der Zulässigkeit von Individualbeschwerden vor dem Gerichtshof. Diese Arbeit zeigt einige Mängel in der derzeitigen Regelung des Menschenrechtsmandats des Gerichtshofs auf. Lücken bestehen sowohl auf der Ebene der verfassungsmäßigen Ordnung der Mitgliedstaaten als auch auf der Ebene der Gemeinschaft. Die supranationale Menschenrechtsgerichtsbarkeit muss durch die Möglichkeit umgesetzt werden, konkrete Abhilfemaßnahmen zur Behebung von Menschenrechtsverletzungen an die betroffenen Mitgliedsstaaten anzuordnen. In dieser Arbeit werden innovative Lösungen vorgeschlagen, um prozessuale und substantielle Lücken im etablierten Menschenrechtsschutzsystem in Westafrika zu schließen

The contribution of urban domestic waste management to the circular economy: the perspective of six european countries

In line with the European community's goal, each EU Member State should recycle at least 60% of municipal waste or prepare them for reuse. In this chapter, the authors intend to show the waste management strategies implemented in six European countries, namely, Austria, Belgium, Hungary, Latvia, Portugal, and Romania. The methodology used was to analyse reports and publications on the management of urban waste and dialogue with some technicians of the municipalities. This knowledge of what is done in each country allows others to learn from the best and most innovative solutions and reflect on the various waste management forms implemented, according to environmental, economic, and social perspectives. The analysis identifies several challenges to bring up in further research and projects, with the contribution of the different countries and the synergies that might be obtained. The authors intend to promote a decrease in consumption and an increase in reuse, separately collected waste and recycling, contributing to circular economic growth and the sustainability of the planet.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Searching for the optimal EMU fiscal rule:an ex-post analysis of the SGP reform proposals

Over last decades the study of fiscal policy rules has attracted a growing attention from researchers and policy-makers. The case of European Monetary Union is a clear example. However, even before its inception, the Stability and Growth Pact has been a source of inspiration for a large number of policy recommendations. The heated political and academic debate intervened after the Ecofin Council's decision on November 2003 and mostly concluded in March 2005 with the Spring European Council's conclusions has revealed the institutional and theoretical weaknesses of EMU rule-based system. This paper provides an ex-post analysis of the Pact by indicating a different qualitative and pragmatic approach to judge the most relevant and known SGP reforms; furthermore, it highlights the direction along which any modification of the Pact would have been successfully implemented and offers useful insights also to test the robustness of the new SGP. After revisiting the main characteristics of a fully effective rule-based framework and taking into account the specificity of EMU economic policy set up, we evaluate in a systematic way, through a multivariate statistical analysis, about 100 proposals for reforming the SGP presented by professional academic and non-academic economists prior to April 2005. Despite these large number of proposals, however, principal component analysis outcomes show that only few reforms could have been effectively considered a real improvement of the previous version of SGP, the others reflecting the traditional dilemma between credibility and effectiveness aspects of budgetary rules.Fiscal rules, Fiscal policy, Stability and Growth Pact, European Union Monetary, Principal Component Analysis

Study for the implementation in Belgium of the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit‐sharing to the Convention on Biological Diversity Final report

Study commissioned by Federal Public Service for Health, Food Chain Safety and the Environment, Directorate‐General for the Environment, Service for multilateral and strategic matters (SPSCAE) Bruxelles Environnement/Leefmilieu Brussel (IBGE‐BIM) Vlaamse overheid, Departement Leefmilieu, Natuur en Energie (LNE) Service public de Wallonie, Direction générale opérationnelle Agriculture, Ressources naturelles et Environnement (DGARNE

An Empirical Analysis of Transparency-Related Characteristics of European and US Sovereign Bond Markets

We examine transparency-related characteristics of European and US sovereign bond markets and relate these to differences in primary issuance approaches and the design of the different trading platforms. We highlight the existence of a winner’s curse problem in the interaction between B2C and B2B segments of the market, and we provide evidence to analyze its prevalence. We examine the problems that can arise as the result of increasing the transparency of the B2B segment of the market and use the experience of the eSpeed platform in the US to obtain insights into these effects. Our analysis is directly relevant to the policy debate about whether to apply MiFID transparency requirements to the EU sovereign bond markets: our results suggest great caution in creating an extremely homogenous and transparent trading environment for sovereign bonds.

Smart Order Routing and Best Execution

In the past decade traditional market structures have been drastically revolutionized, creating new potential for electronic trading. The driving forces are changes in trading behavior, advances in technology and new regulation. Traditional exchanges are challenged by new electronic trading platforms competing on the basis of price, cost, speed and efficiency. As trading has become more fragmented occurring in multiple venues the complexity for intelligent order routing decisions (smart order routing) will increase and extend the demand for sophisticated trading tools and efficient technology. Market fragmentation and dispersion of liquidity impose new challenges for investment firms to achieve best execution for their client orders. Against this background we examine two order execution strategies where one approach applies a pre-defined rule framework (static best execution); the alternative considers smart order routing decisions using real-time market data (dynamic best execution). We elaborate the benefits of smart order routing and outline our research approach for the validation of these findings