The Impact of Council’s Internal Decision-Making Rules on the Future EU

This paper deals with the voting rules in the EU Council. Both internal and external impact of the voting rules are evaluated. Internal impact affects the distribution of power among the member states and external impact affects power relations between the main decision-making bodies in the EU. One of the main lessons of the analysis is clearly to explain why the design of Council voting rules has required so much bargaining and cumbersome marathon negotiations.European integration, Council of Ministers, power

Bargaining and Distribution of Power in the EU's Conciliation Committee

The European Union (EU) has moved towards bicameralism, making the codecision procedure its most important mechanism for decision making. To gauge if European Parliament (EP) and Council of Ministers (CM) are equally powerful ‘codecision makers’, understanding of the final stage of the procedure – bargaining in the Conciliation Committee – is crucial. Here, EP and CM are assumed to have spatial preferences determined by their respective internal decision mechanisms. Applying bargaining theory to predict inter-institutional agreements in the Conciliation Committee, it turns out that although institutionally the Council and the Parliament are seemingly in a symmetric position, CM has significantly greater influence on EU legislation.European Union codecision procedure, Conciliation Committee, bargaining, spatial voting, decision procedures

The Excess Power Puzzle of the EU Budget

It is a constant topic of debate how the European Union (EU) spends the money it collects from its member states. This paper supports the idea that the EU budget battle involves one-shot games that have persistent impacts on the budget allocations. In one way or the other, the member states are able to establish rules or contracts that restrict the budget allocation in advance. In the current status quo, France and Spain are the clearest winners of these restrictions, while Austria, Finland and Sweden, not to mention the new member states, suffer largest losses.EU budget, voting power

The impact of council's internal decision-making rules on the future EU

This paper deals with the voting rules in the EU Council. Both internal and external impact of the voting rules are evaluated. Internal impact affects the distribution of power among the member states and external impact affects power relations between the main decision-making bodies in the EU. One of the main lessons of the analysis is clearly to explain why the design of Council voting rules has required so much bargaining and cumbersome marathon negotiations

Trade potential, intra-industry trade and factor content of revealed comparative advantage in the Baltic Sea region

This paper investigates trade potential, intra-industry trade and comparative advantage in the Baltic Sea Region. The evaluation of region’s comparative advantage and intra-industry trade are based on the Balassa index of revealed comparative advantage and the Grubel-Lloyd index respectively. The analysis is carried out at HS 4-digit level. Trade potential is assessed using applying earlier versions of the gravity model of international trade. The actual trade flows analysis suggest that the BSR has reached its potential importance in intra-EU25+ (EU25, Norway and Russia) trade. In this respect the countries within BSR differ, however, considerably. BSR’s share falls considerably below its potential share in Russia’s, Latvia’s and Norway’s European exports. The overall conclusion in trade potential analysis is that the centre of gravity within BSR is likely to move gradually from Stockholm-Hamburg –axis somewhat to the east. The major part of the analysis concentrates on the factor intensities of the Baltic Sea Region’s comparative advantage and its overlap with a sample of other countries. The analysis demonstrates surprisingly big changes in some Baltic Sea Region’s countries specialisation patterns. The paper shows that in nearly all countries in the Baltic Sea Region the factor contents of revealed comparative advantage has shifted towards less physical capital intensive and more human capital intensive direction. Especially, Finland, Estonia and Poland are best examples in this respect. In 1996, the picture of the factor contents of the region’s comparative advantage was clearly polarised but there has been some convergence after that. In terms of intra-industry trace the region can be divided to the northern and southern triangles. The former consists of Finland, Sweden and Estonia and the latter of Germany, Denmark and Poland. These two are linked via Sweden

The Inter-Institutional Distribution of Power in EU Codecision

This paper analyzes the a priori influence of the European Parliament (EP) and the Council of Ministers (CM) on legislation of the European Union adopted under its codecision procedure. In contrast to studies which use conventional power indices, both institutions are assumed to act strategically. Predicted bargaining outcomes of the crucial Conciliation stage of codecision are shown to be strongly biased towards the legislative status quo. Making symmetric preference assumptions for members of CM and EP, CM is on average much more conservative because of its internal qualified majority rule. This makes CM by an order of magnitude more influential than EP, in contrast to a seeming formal parity between the two ‘co-legislators’.power measurement, European Union codecision procedure, bargaining, spatial voting, decision procedures

Suomen, Aasian ja uusien EU-maiden suhteellinen etu ja kilpailuasetelmien muutos

Tässä tutkimuksessa analysoidaan Suomen, Aasian ja uusien EU-maiden ulkomaankaupan suhteellista etua. Tarkastelu perustuu paljastetun suhteellisen edun käsitteeseen. Tulosten mukaan suomalaisten yritysten paljastettu suhteellinen etu poikkesi vielä 1990-luvun puolivälissä selvästi tarkastelun kohteena olevien Aasian ja EU:n uusien jäsenmaiden paljastetusta suhteellisesta edusta. Vuosikymmenen jälkipuolisko muutti kuitenkin tilannetta ja samankaltaisti tarkastelun kohteena olevien maiden suhteellista etua Suomeen verrattuna. Ero suhteessa Koreaan on jo käytännössä hävinnyt ja muutossuunta näyttää olevan uusissa EU-maissa ja Aasiassa sama kuin Suomessa. Tällä perusteella Aasian maat ja uudet EU-maat voidaan nähdä erittäin potentiaalisina kilpailijoina Suomen viennille. Tämä saattaa muovata myös Suomen viennin ja tuonnin rakennetta tarkasteltavien maiden kanssa käytävässä kaupassa

Revealed comparative advantage in the internal market

This paper investigates comparative advantage and its development across selected Asian, American and European countries between 1996 and 2002. In doing so, we calculate the Balassa index of revealed comparative advantage using industry data at the HS 4-digit level. The major part of the analysis concentrates on the factor intensities of the sample countries’ comparative advantage and the overlap between them in the Internal Market. The paper shows that there is clearly some convergence in terms of the factor content of comparative advantage between Asian countries, the new member states and the EU15. The EU’s comparative advantage has recently moved towards intensive use of both human and physical capital

Turkish EU Membership: A Simulation Study of Economic Effects

This paper evaluates the economic effects of Turkish EU membership. The evaluation is based on a widely utilized computable general equilibrium model called GTAP (Global Trade Analysis Project). Imperfect competition is modelled via assumption of scale economies on non agricultural sectors. The latest GTAP database version (base year 2001) is aggregated into seven regions: Turkey, Germany-Austria, North EU, South EU, Balkan countries, NAFTA, ASIA and Rest of World. We analyse economic effects of abolishing trade barriers between the EU25 and Turkey and applying common external tax on Turkey. Major sectoral effects are bound to originate from the agriculture which accounts 11.4 % of TurkeyÕs GDP.GTAP, Turkey, EU enlargement

The European Commission – Appointment, Preferences, and Institutional Relations

The paper analyzes the appointment of the European Commission as a strategic game between members of the European Parliament and the Council. The focal equilibrium results in Commissioners that duplicate the policy preferences of national Council representatives. Different internal decision rules still prevent the Commission from being a Council clone in aggregate. Rather, it is predicted a priori that Commission policies are on average more in accord with the aggregate position of the Parliament than that of the Council. This prediction is confirmed for a data set covering 66 dossiers with 162 controversial EU legislative proposals passed between 1999 and 2002.European Commission, investiture procedure, voting rules, Council of Ministers, European Parliament