146 research outputs found
The single market remains the decisive power of the EU. CEPS Policy Priorities for 2019-2024, 18 October 2019
The EUâs single market should not just be one among several priorities for the new
Commission and Parliament. The single market was and is the core business of the EU.
Much of what goes on or is proposed under elaborate titles is actually part and parcel of
the single market. The striking revelation of Brexit for many EU citizens and all businesses is
precisely the centrality of the single market (including the customs union) to EU membership.
Its value is first of all economic, of course, as it yields higher prosperity. However, it is critical in
other arenas where âEU cloutâ derived from the single market matters, such as multilateral and
bilateral trade negotiations, global climate deals, standard setting, rule-making for international
financial stability and even foreign policy
Economic Implications of Enlargement. Bruges European Economic Policy (BEEP) Briefing 1/2002
The Eastern enlargement is about to be decided by the European Council.
As expected, the âend game â of the negotiations and assessments is heavily
biased by a narrow perspective on net transfers, on income compensations to
Central European farmers and on the psychological politics of a single âbig bang
â. None of these three so-called key items of the end game are of much
relevance to appreciate the significance of enlargement. Net transfers have little
to do with the costs and benefits of club membership for countries which pay,
and can lead to addiction and lethargy rather than extra growth if market
integration, macro-economic stability and domestic reforms are not taken
serious (as the case of Greece before 1997 has demonstrated). Income
compensations for Eastern farmers are crucial for this pressure group, and
symbolically of some importance in domestic politics because of the perversity
that rich farmers get more, but their absence is likely to serve the public interest
in candidate countries far better. And being part of the big bang, as against
getting in one or three years later, has assumed a dramatic meaning during this
end game, far beyond its true proportions. This hectic European theatre tends to
obscure what enlargement is mainly about, now that the stability and values
have been secured for the peoples from Central Europe. In a guaranteed setting
of peace, freedom and security, enlargement is about greater prosperity
Mutual Recognition: economic and regulatory logic in goods and services. Bruges European Economic Research (BEER) Papers 24/June 2012
Mutual recognition is one of the most appreciated innovations of the EU. The idea is that one can pursue market integration, indeed "deep' market integration, while respecting 'diversity' amongst the participating countries. Put differently, in pursuing 'free movement' for goods, mutual recognition facilitates free movement by disciplining the nature and scope of 'regulatory barriers', whilst allowing some degree of regulatory discretion for EU Member States.
This BEER paper attempts to explain the rationale and logic of mutual recognition in the EU internal goods market, its working in actual practice for about three decades now, culminating in a qualitative cost/benefit analysis and its recent improvement in terms of 'governance' in the so-called New Legislative Framework (first denoted as the 2008 Goods package) thereby ameliorating the benefits/costs ratio. For new (in contrast to existing) national regulation, the intrusive EU procedure to impose mutual recognition is presented as well, with basic data so as to show its critical importance to keep the internal goods market free. All this is complemented by a short summary of the scant economic literature on mutual recognition. Subsequently, the analysis is extended to the internal market for services. This is done in two steps, first by reminding the debate on the origin principle (which goes further than mutual recognition EU-style) and how mutual recognition works under the horizontal services directive. This is followed by a short section on how mutual recognition works in vertical (i.e. sectoral) services markets
How Social is European Integration? Bruges European Economic Policy (BEEP) Briefing 18/2007
The social dimension of the internal market or of the EU more generally has recently been under quite fundamental attack. Calls for 'Europe' to be 'more social' have been heard repeatedly. Witness the polarized debates about the services directive, the anxieties concerning several ECJ cases about what limitations of the free movement of workers (posted or not) are justified or the assertion of a 'neo-liberal agenda' in Brussels disregarding or eroding the social dimension.
This BEEP Briefing paper takes an analytical approach to these issues and to the possible 'framing' involved. Such an analysis reveals a very different picture than the negative framing in such debates has it: there is nothing particular 'a-social' about the internal market or the EU at large. This overall conclusion is reached following five steps. First, several 'preliminaries' of the social dimension have to be kept in mind (including the two-tier regulatory & expenditure structure of what is too loosely called 'social Europe' ) and this is only too rarely done or at best in partial, hence misleading, ways. Second, the social acquis at EU and Member States' levels is spelled out, broken down into four aspects (social spending; labour market regulation; industrial relations; free movements & establishment). Assessing the EU acquis in the light of the two levels of powers shows clearly that it is the combination of the two levels which matters. Member States and e.g. labour unions do not want the EU level to become deeply involved ( with some exceptions) and the actual impact of free movement and establishment is throttled by far-reaching host-country control and the requirement of a 'high level of social protection' in the treaty. Third, six anxieties about the social dimension of the internal market are discussed and few arguments are found which are attributable to the EU or its weakening social dimension. Fourth, another six anxieties are discussed emerging from the socio-economic context of the social dimension of the EU at large. The analysis demonstrates that, even if these anxieties ought to be taken serious, the EU is hardly or not the culprit. Fifth, all this is complemented by a number of other facts or arguments strengthening the case that the EU social dimension is fine
Just a little Brexit?: âAlternative (customs) arrangementsâ and the Withdrawal Agreement. CEPS Policy Insights No 2019-13/ September 2019
With the five-week closure of the UK Parliament, the highly entertaining sessions of
the House of Commons have been adjourned. Could this artificial breathing space
provide a realistic opportunity to deliver the now infamous âalternative customs
arrangementsâ, making the backstop unnecessary? And without the backstop, could the
Withdrawal Agreement be ratified soon, opening at long last the way to genuine negotiations
about the treaty on the future relations between the UK and the EU-27 (based on the Political
Declaration, a kind of MoU on these negotiations)
Shattered Illusions: The new Brexit proposals on customs. CEPS Commentary, 17 July 2018
With just five months to go, allowing three for ratification, what will the post-Brexit EU/UK relationship look like? On the colossal matter of post-Brexit arrangements, almost nothing has been agreed except the avoidance mechanism of 21 months of status-quo during the âtransition periodâ beginning late March 2019. And we are no closer to an answer to the most unnerving question: without any workable âdealâ on customs, will ports grind to a halt, generating gigantic queues of lorries? As recently as one month ago, a House of Lords report[1] still discussed the delusional UK customs proposals of August 2017 that had already been rejected by EU negotiators. The cliff-edge looms large over the UK government, the EU and business on both sides
Pre-empting technical barriers in the Single Market. CEPS Policy Brief No. 277, 11 July 2012
Effective enforcement and compliance with EU law is not just a legal necessity, it is also of economic interest since the potential of the Single Market will be fully exploited. Enforcement barriers generate unjustified costs and hindrances or uncertainty for cross-border business and might deprive consumers from receiving the full benefit of greater choice and/or cheaper offers.
The EU has developed several types of enforcement efforts (preventive initiatives, pre-infringement initiatives and formal infringement procedures). More recently, the emphasis has been placed on effective prevention.
This CEPS Policy Brief analyses the functioning of one preventive mechanism (the 98/34 Directive) and assesses its potential to detect and prevent technical or other barriers in the course of the last 25 years. Based on an empirical approach, it shows that this amazing mechanism has successfully prevented thousands of new technical barriers from arising in the internal goods market
European Industrial Policy. Bruges European Economic Policy (BEEP) Briefing 15/2006
This survey of European industrial policy aims to set out and explain the great significance of European integration in determining (changes in) structure and performance of industry in the EU. This influence is explored from the policy side by analysing the transformation of the framework within which both EU and Member States' industrial policy can be pursued. Empirical economic analysis is not included because this BEEP Briefing was originally written for a handbook3 in which other authors were assigned a range of industrial economics subjects. In the last 25 years or so, the transformation is such that the nature and scope of industrial policy at both levels of government has profoundly changed as well. Indeed, the toolkit of measures has shrunk considerably, disciplines have been tightened and the economic policy views behind industrial policy have altered everywhere. The pro-competitive logic of deeper market integration itself is rarely questioned nowadays and industrial policy at the two levels takes on different forms.
The survey discusses at some length the division of powers between, and the complementarity of, the Member States' and EU levels of government when it comes to industrial policy, based on a fairly detailed classification of industrial policy instruments. The three building blocks of the wide concept of industrial policy as defined in this BEEP Briefing consist of the EU framework of market integration, EU horizontal industrial policy and its EU sectoral or specific counterpart. Each one is surveyed at the EU level. Preceding these three sections is a discussion of three cross-cutting issues, namely, the indiscriminate use of the 'competitiveness' label in the EU circuit of business and policy makers, the relation between services and EU industrial policy and, finally, that of European infrastructure. One major conclusion is that, today, the incentive structure for industry and industrial markets is dominated by the stringency of the overall EU framework and to some moderate degree by the horizontal approach
Designing a Genuine EMU: Which "Unions" for EU and Eurozone? Bruges European Economic Policy (BEEP) Briefing 34/2014
The initial âframingâ (in the summer of 2012) of the âgenuine EMUâ for the wider public suggested to design an entire series of âunionsâ. So many âunionsâ are neither necessary nor desirable â only some are and their design matters. The paper critically discusses first the negative fall-out of the crisis for EMU, and subsequently assesses the fiscal and the banking unions as accomplished so far, without going into highly specific technical details. The assessment is moderately positive, although there is ample scope for further improvement and a risk for short-term turbulence once the ECB has finished its tests and reviews.
What about the parade of other âunionsâ such as economic union, social union and political union? The macro-economic imbalances procedure (MIP) and possibly the ESRB have overcome the pre-crisis disregard of macro competitiveness. The three components of âeconomic unionâ (single market, economic policy coordination and budgetary disciplines) have all been strengthened. The last two âunionsâ, on the other hand, would imply a fundamental change in the conferral of powers to the EU/ Eurozone, with drastic and possibly very serious long-run implications, including a break-up of the Union, if such proposals would be pushed through. The cure is worse than the disease. Whereas social union is perhaps easier to dismiss as a âmisfitâ in the EU, the recent popularity of suggesting a âpolitical unionâ is seen as worrisome. Probably, nobody knows what a âpolitical unionâ is, or, at best, it is a highly elastic notion: it might be thought necessary for reasons of domestic economic reforms in EU countries, for a larger common budget, for some EU tax power, for (greater) risk pooling, for âsymmetricâ macro-economic adjustment and for some ultimate control of the ECB in times of crisis. Taking each one of these arguments separately, a range of more typical EU solutions might be found without suggesting a âpolitical unionâ. Just as âfiscal capacityâ was long an all-or-nothing taboo for shifting bank resolution to the EU level, now solved with a modest common Fund and carefully confined but centralised powers, the author suggests that other carefully targeted responses can be designed for the various aspects where seen as indispensable, including the political say of a lender-of-last-resort function of the ECB. Hence, neither a social nor a political union worthy of the name ought to be pursued. Yet, political legitimacy matters, both with national parliaments and the grassroots. National parliaments will have to play a larger role
Economic Approaches of the Internal Market. Bruges European Economic Research (BEER) Papers 13/April 2008
What is âtheâ EU internal market, as economists see it? The present BEER paper
attempts to survey and help readers understand various âeconomicâ approaches to the
internal market idea.
The paper starts with a conceptual discussion of what âtheâ internal market is (in an
economic perspective). Six different economic meanings of the internal market are
presented, with the sixth one being the economic benchmark in an ideal setting.
Subsequently, the question is asked what the internal market (i.e. its proper functioning)
is good for. Put differently, the internal market in the EU Treaty is a means, but a means
to what? Beyond the typical economic growth objectives of the Rome Treaty (still valid
today, with some qualifications), other Treaty objectives have emerged. Economists
typically think in means-end relationships and the instrumental role of the internal
market for Treaty objectives is far from clear. The ânewâ Commission internal market
strategy of 2007 proposes a more goal-oriented internal market policy. Such a vision is
more selective in picking intermediate objectives to which âtheâ internal market should
be instrumental, but it risks to ignore the major deficits in todayâs internal market:
services and labour! The means-end relationships get even more problematic once one
begins to scrutinise all the socio-economic objectives of the current (Amsterdam/Nice)
Treaty or still other intermediate objectives. The internal market (explicitly including
the relevant common regulation) then becomes a âjack of all tradesâ for the environment,
a high level of social protection, innovation or âSocial Europeâ. These means/ends
relationships often are ill-specified.
The final section considers the future of the internal market, by distinguishing three
strategies: incremental strategies (including the new internal market strategy of
November 2007); the internal market as the core of the Economic Union serving the
âproper functioning of the monetary unionâ; and deepening and widening of the internal
market as justified by the functional subsidiarity test. Even though the latter two would
seem to be preferable from an economic point of view, they currently lack political
legitimacy and are therefore unlikely to be pursued in the near future
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