Financing social and cohesion policy in an enlarged EU: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose?

The development of the Open Method of Coordination, agreement on the Lisbon Agenda and EU enlargement offered the prospect of a new and substantial EU social policy agenda. This article considers EU social and cohesion policies in the context of the recent negotiation of the EU budget for 2007—13. We find the Commission's wish to redistribute EU spending in favour of these policy areas and new member states was thwarted by key political features of EU budget making: CAP spending levels which are downwardly sticky; institutional arrangements which provide for budget making as, at best, a zero-sum game; and the preferences of contributor member states in the EU-15 to contain overall spending while preserving their net budget positions. Questions are thus raised as to the ability of the EU to make any progress, from a budgetary perspective, on the social and cohesion policy agenda in an enlarged EU

Employment in Europe 2003: Statistical Annex

Statistical annex to accompany Employment in Europe 2007, including macro economic indicators, key employment indicators, and data sources and definitions

Employment in Europe 2006: Statistical Annex

Statistical annex to accompany Employment in Europe 2006, including macro economic indicators, key employment indicators, and data sources and definitions

Employment in Europe 2005: Statistical Annex

Statistical annex to accompany Employment in Europe 2005, including macro economic indicators, key employment indicators, and data sources and definitions

Employment in Europe 2007: Statistical Annex

Statistical annex to accompany Employment in Europe 2007, including macro economic indicators, key employment indicators, and data sources and definitions

Innovative Financing at a Global Level

The European Commission services published a staff working document assessing the main sources of innovative financing under discussion. The analysis shows that for some of the instruments a "double dividend" of both raising revenues and improving market efficiency and stability could be reaped, in particular by putting a price on risk-taking in the financial sector and on carbon emissions.European Union, taxation, financial transaction tax, bank levy, bonus tax, carbon tax, financial institutions

Overcoming barriers to the implementation of alternative fuels for road transport in Europe.

The success of implementing alternative fuels for road transport depends on their cost, performance and reliability. This paper focuses on the use of natural gas and LPG, hydrogen and biofuels in Europe. A brief presentation is given of their technical development status, their market potential, and barriers to their implementation in various market segments. Some market barriers are common to many new technologies, and can be overcome through adequate policy measures at European level. Generally, a combination of policies is required, and a number of supporting measures increase their effectiveness. The following policies affecting energy use in transport are discussed: market incentives, policies targeting technology and vehicle efficiency, and overall system improvement

Equal Rights in Practice: Key Voices 2004

[Excerpt] We have thus chosen to focus this year on the critical factors and actors in the enforcement of the anti-discrimination Directives emanating from Article 13 of the Amsterdam Treaty on “Race” and “Equal treatment in the workplace” This collection of independent opinions, bringing together views from stakeholders ranging from National Authorities, NGOs, specialised bodies and experts in the field, provides a vivid testimony to the processes which are leading law and policy makers from paper to practice; from the written legislation, through to the day-today realities of changing attitudes and practices throughout European societies

Perspektiven des Emissionshandels aus deutscher Sicht

Obwohl der Emissionshandel theoretisch ein ideales umwelt- und klimapolitisches Instrument darstellt, stößt seine praktische Gestaltung und Umsetzung auf zahlreiche Schwierigkeiten. So waren bei der Einführung des europäischen Emissionshandelssystems und der Erstellung der Nationalen Allokationspläne für die erste Handelsperiode (NAP I) große Widerstände in Wirtschaft und Politik zu überwinden. Notwendige Kompromisse, ungünstige Startbedingungen und die weltweit nur wenigen Erfahrungen haben dazu geführt, dass das gegenwärtige System alles andere als perfekt ist. So war der erste deutsche Allokationsplan zu großzügig, zu kompliziert und zu wenig berechenbar. Außerdem hat der Emissionshandel zu beträchtlichen Verteilungseffekten z.B. in Form von Windfall-Profits geführt. Unter Berücksichtigung dieser Erfahrungen ist in Deutschland der NAP II für die Periode 2008-2012 erstellt worden, der Verbesserungen enthält, die in die richtige Richtung weisen. Für die künftige Weiterentwicklung besteht allerdings noch ein wesentlicher Handlungsbedarf, sowohl auf nationaler als auch auf europäischer Ebene. Trotz aller Anfangsprobleme spielt der europäische Emissionshandel aber schon jetzt eine zentrale Rolle im notwendigen Instrumentenmix der Klimaschutzpolitik. Aus Sicht der Umweltökonomie stellt seine Einführung an sich schon einen Erfolg dar.Theoretically, emissions trading is an ideal energy and climate policy instrument. In practice, however, its design and realization give rise to numerous questions and pose problems. For the European Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) to be introduced, major opposition from both industry and politics had to be overcome. The compromise necessarys, together with unfavorable starting conditions and little experience with emissions trading so far led to a system far from being perfect. For example, the German national allocation plan was far too generous, too complex and not very calculable. Also, the EU ETS led to unintended distribution effects, for example windfall profits. The second National Allocation Plan (NAP II) for 2008-2012 was developed under consideration of this experience and includes a number of improvements into the right direction, although the ETS would benefit from further improvements on both national and EU levels. All in all, the EU ETS is already playing a core role in the mix of policy instruments for climate protection. From an environmental economics perspective, its introduction as such can be considered a success

Feelings of dual-insecurity among European workers: A multi-level analysis

This article analyses European Social Survey data for 22 countries. We assess the relationship between feelings of employment and income insecurity (dual-insecurity) among workers and national flexicurity policies in the areas of lifelong learning, active labour market policy, modern social security systems and flexible and reliable contractual arrangements. We find that dual-insecurity feelings are lower in countries that score better on most flexicurity polices, but these effects are in all cases outweighed by levels of GDP per capita. Thus feelings of insecurity are reduced more by the affluence of a country than by its social policies. However, affluence is strongly correlated with the policy efforts designed to reduce insecurity, especially active labour market policies and life-long learning, two policy areas that are threatened with cuts as a result of austerity