Enhancing the Effectiveness of Social Dialogue Articulation in Europe (EESDA) Project No. VS/2017/0434 Comparative policy recommendations on improving social dialogue articulation and effectiveness in Europe

The history of European social dialogue dates back to the mid-1980s with the Val Duchesse social dialogue initiative by the European Commission. The aim then was to involve social partners in the internal market process. This initiative was followed by the Single European Act of 1986, which served as the legal basis of the community-wide social dialogue and established a steering committee, which then became the main bipartite body, known as the European Social Dialogue Committee. Following the Act of 1986, another turning point in the history of social dialogue was the Treaty of Maastricht in 1991, which paved the way for agreements negotiated by social partners to become legally binding by means of a Council decision. Later, the Amsterdam Treaty of 1997 included an Agreement on Social Policy representing the single common framework for social dialogue across all Member States, resulting in the implementation of a cross-industry Framework Agreement on Parental Leave (1996)3, Part-time Work (1997)4 and Fixed-term Work (1999)5 as Council directives. The Lisbon Treaty of 2009 further emphasised the need for autonomy and diversity within the social partnership in Europe

Presence and expression of hydrogenase specific C-terminal endopeptidases in cyanobacteria

BACKGROUND: Hydrogenases catalyze the simplest of all chemical reactions: the reduction of protons to molecular hydrogen or vice versa. Cyanobacteria can express an uptake, a bidirectional or both NiFe-hydrogenases. Maturation of those depends on accessory proteins encoded by hyp-genes. The last maturation step involves the cleavage of a ca. 30 amino acid long peptide from the large subunit by a C-terminal endopeptidase. Until know, nothing is known about the maturation of cyanobacterial NiFe-hydrogenases. The availability of three complete cyanobacterial genome sequences from strains with either only the uptake (Nostoc punctiforme ATCC 29133/PCC 73102), only the bidirectional (Synechocystis PCC 6803) or both NiFe-hydrogenases (Anabaena PCC 7120) prompted us to mine these genomes for hydrogenase maturation related genes. In this communication we focus on the presence and the expression of the NiFe-hydrogenases and the corresponding C-terminal endopeptidases, in the three strains mentioned above. RESULTS: We identified genes encoding putative cyanobacterial hydrogenase specific C-terminal endopeptidases in all analyzed cyanobacterial genomes. The genes are not part of any known hydrogenase related gene cluster. The derived amino acid sequences show only low similarity (28–41%) to the well-analyzed hydrogenase specific C-terminal endopeptidase HybD from Escherichia coli, the crystal structure of which is known. However, computational secondary and tertiary structure modeling revealed the presence of conserved structural patterns around the highly conserved active site. Gene expression analysis shows that the endopeptidase encoding genes are expressed under both nitrogen-fixing and non-nitrogen-fixing conditions. CONCLUSION: Anabaena PCC 7120 possesses two NiFe-hydrogenases and two hydrogenase specific C-terminal endopeptidases but only one set of hyp-genes. Thus, in contrast to the Hyp-proteins, the C-terminal endopeptidases are the only known hydrogenase maturation factors that are specific. Therefore, in accordance with previous nomenclature, we propose the gene names hoxW and hupW for the bidirectional and uptake hydrogenase processing endopeptidases, respectively. Due to their constitutive expression we expect that, at least in cyanobacteria, the endopeptidases take over multiple functions

On the stability of network structures with public goods

This paper explores the formation of stable network structures in a model with public goods. The multiplicity of equilibria in the non-cooperative formulation of network formation games brings out further difficulties in analyzing stability of network structures. This contrasts with the cooperative game approach where payoffs for agents are predetermined and thereby the multiplicity of equilibrium issues are sidestepped. We took issue with the multiplicity of equilibrium effort levels exerted on a given network structure, and we suggested different stability definitions for such network structures under multiplicity of equilibria. We demonstrated how these stability notions work for the network structures with four agents where breaking and forming links is costless, and the cost of exerting effort level is linear.

Enhancing the Effectiveness of Social Dialogue Articulation in Europe (EESDA) Project No. VS/2017/0434 Stakeholders’ views on and experiences with the articulation of social dialogue and its effectiveness

This report studies the articulation and effectiveness of social dialogue at the European and national levels. It provides an overview of the existing social dialogue structures describing the main actors involved. The overall approach of the study is actor-centred in the sense that the interactions and perception of actors are in the core of this research. The analysis also takes into account the multilevel governance structure in Europe by considering the interaction and vertical/horizontal articulation of social dialogue between the EU and national levels. The study also benefits from original data collection comprised of several layers including both the EU and national levels and through at least two methods. First, semi-structured interviews were conducted with European social partners as well as with national social stakeholders in a selection of six Member States. Second, an EU-wide online survey collected responses from national social partners in 27 Member States. The remainder of the analysis is complemented with desk research

Industrial Relations and Social Dialogue in the Age of Collaborative Economy (IRSDACE). National Report France. 21 December 2018

The IRSDACE project - Industrial Relations and Social Dialogue in the Age of Collaborative Economy -, funded by DG EMPL of the European Commission, aims to identify how traditional players in the labour market, e.g. trade unions, employers' associations, member states and the EU, experience and respond to the collaborative economy. IRSDACE had five main tasks: i) conceptualisation of platform work, its place in the labour market, employment policy and industrial relations; ii) analysis of discourse on platform economy among established industrial relations actors; iii) assessment of the implications of workers’ experience with the platform economy for industrial relations and social dialogue; iv) comparative analysis of national experiences; and v) analysis of how EU-level employment policy and the industrial relations agenda should respond to the emergence of work in the platforms economy. One of the project’s initial difficulties and findings relates directly to the name collaborative. It has become clear to the research partners that this new reality encompasses many situations where no collaboration (nor sharing) takes place. Hence, the partners have opted for the use of the neutral term platform economy. Nevertheless, when contacting platform workers or national stakeholders, the researchers were faced with the need to use the corresponding local language terms of collaborative or sharing economy as these are the names known to the general public. We therefore recommend that these terms are treated as synonyms in the context of the IRSDACE results. Seven country case studies have been produced in this project covering Belgium, France, Germany, Slovakia, Hungary, Spain and Denmark. The country case studies were prepared based on literature reviews, interviews and country focus groups. The methods used as well as the results for each country are described in each individual report. The reports show both the perspectives of industrial relations actors at the national level and the experiences of platform workers. A final project output brings the national case study results together in a comparative study. The project started in January 2017, finishing in December 2018. CEPS is the project coordinator in a partnership with IZA (DE), FAOS at the University of Copenhagen (DK), Fundación Alternativas (ES) and CELSI (SK)

THE ROLE OF DEVELOPMENT BANKING IN PROMOTING INDUSTRIALIZATION IN TURKEY

Development banks are influential institutions in financing development. Since their establishment back in the 19th century, development banks have played a leading role in supporting development in many countries. Despite the liberalization process of the 1980s and 1990s, development banks have continued to play an active role in financing development in the case of many countries. In the Turkish case, the performance of development banking in supporting development has varied over time. However, one feature has remained constant: development and investment credits did not contribute to the alleviation of regional imbalances even during the period of import substituting industrialization from the 1960s to 1979. Moreover, total fixed capital investments, which are the raison d’être for development banking in Turkey, have been mainly financed by commercial banks. Given the severe recession in the global economy, the development banks in Turkey may play a leading role in financing industrial and social projects. Résumé - Les Banques de développement ont joué un rôle majeur dans le finan-cement du développement dans certains pays depuis leur création au 19ème siècle. Dans le cas de la Turquie, cet appui au développement a varié dans le temps. Cependant, une caractéristique n’a pas changé : les crédits à l’inves-tissement ne contribuent pas à l’atténuation des déséquilibres régionaux, même pendant la période d’industrialisation par substitution aux importations entre les années 1960 et 1979. En outre, les investissements en capital fixe, qui sont pourtant la raison d’être des banques de développement en Turquie, ont été principalement financés par les banques commerciales. Avec la grave récession de l’économie mondiale en 2009, les banques de développement en Turquie pourraient jouer un rôle important dans le financement du secteur industriel et des projets sociaux.INSTITUTIONS AND GROWTH, DEVELOPMENT BANK, TURKEY, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT