The Role of the Euro-Mediterranean Relations Facing the Economic Crisis

The global financial crisis is affecting the Mediterranean Countries in seveal ways: a slowdown in global economic growth, a decline in foreign direct investment inflows, a decline of worker remittances. However, their economies continued to show more sustainable growth in the face of rapidly changing external macroeconomic conditions. In this context, the Union for the Mediterranean set up four priorities for the Southern partners: SMEs, high unemployment, increasing environmental strains and inefficient transport infrastructures. This is a high profile initiative, but based on voluntary contributions. For this reason it is hardly difficult to identify the amount of financial resources that will be mobilised and their economic and social impact.Union for the Mediterranean, Financial resources, FTA

FDI in the Mediterranean Region: a Comparison with CEE Experience

The research paper was designed to identify the factors that would explain the patterns and the determinants of FDI in the Mediterranean region during 1990-1997. The most important fact characterising this period has been the extension of the Association Agreements to most of the countries belonging to the region. It was thought that these agreements would have given a new boost to foreign direct investments into the region, penalised by the emerging of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe as preferential partners of the EU. According to the empirical analyses, natural resource endowment still represents an important factor of attraction of FDI, relative to Central and Eastern Europe. Moreover, foreign investors have been attracted in the MED region by market considerations, concerning not only the single national markets, but also the regional one. This effect is stronger than in Central and Eastern Europe, suggesting that a deeper regional integration may sound attractive to foreign enterprises, mainly if the parent firm is located in the United States. Trade with major investors countries also matters, even though the derived effect appears somewhat smaller than found in Central Europe. This implies that an improvement in trade relationships with the EU – as envisaged by the Association Agreements – would have a positive impact on FDI patterns.Foreign Direct Investments, Association Agreements, Mediterranean, Central and Eastern Europe

Euro-Mediterranean Commercial Integration: Unequal Distribution among the Countries

Regional integration has a major role to play in expanding trading capacities and facilitating competition and innovation. With the elimination of market access barriers, the driving force is the increase in trade within regions rather than across them. The concern, in particular in relation to the European region (or bloc), is asymmetry in comparative advantages and disparity in the economic and social size of the two regions and within each region. With the enlargement of the EU in 2004, the logic and scope of the original institutional framework became unsustainable. The original design has shifted since 2004 to a more ‘shallow’ integration, due to the complexity of the problems confronting the EU and its partners and the new conflicts within the region that have hampered political and administrative reforms

Investimenti Diretti Esteri verso il Medio Oriente e il Nord Africa: Sviluppi di medio e lungo periodo

L'attuale fase di transizione nel Medio Oriente e Nord Africa va di pari passo con importanti trasformazioni economiche e sociali. Quali saranno le immediate ripercussioni sugli investimenti diretti esteri provenienti dai più importanti paesi atlantici? Ci sono già importanti variazioni? Stiamo andando incontro a una stagione di caos o, al contrario, gli attori principali stanno già preparando il terreno per nuovi accordi economici che cambieranno in modo sostanziale la bilancia esistente? Quale sarà il ruolo di Brasile, Russia, India e Cina nel prossimo futuro

General Overview of FDI in South-East Europe and Potential for Sub-Regional Cooperation

Since the transition, flows of foreign direct investment ( FDI ) to Central and Eastern European Countries ( CEECs) have increased significantly. As far as the destination is concerned, there are three groups of recipients: the Central European - Visegrad countries ( i.e. Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic ) which attracted more than 70% of the initiatives; the second cluster of countries, including Slovenia and Romania, which are approached with caution by foreign investors; and the third cluster of countries, including Bulgaria, Croatia and Albania, which are behind in the transition process and represent a high risk to foreign investors, thus attracting only a limited number of initiatives

Rethinking the EuromedPartnership: Fine‐Tuning or Reinvention?

Multiple domestic and external crisis have changed the nvironment in which the EU and the 16 neigbouring partners operate and a reaction was needed, not only to demonstrate that the European institutions exist and are  concerned on external stabilit

On doubling inequalities for elliptic systems

We prove doubling inequalities for solutions of elliptic systems with an iterated Laplacian as diagonal principal part and for solutions of the Lame' system of isotropic linearized elasticity. These inequalities depend on global properties of the solutions.Comment: 13 pages, submitted for publicatio

Chapitre 5: Le commerce extérieur

In this favourable external conjuncture, Algeria should evaluate this trade-off: it can either speed up the path of completing the reforms and thus become a market economy or it can edistribute the unprecedented amount of international reserves to soften the cost of the painful restructuring of the last decade without seizing the distorted fundamentals. This conjuncture of high oil price of oil will not last for years, but the more open, competitive and efficient scenario that has been offered by the Association Agreement is the anchor. Moving away from the “rent system” through diversifying the economy and liberalising trade is a long-term challenge that can be favoured by the current improvement, if Algeria can seize the opportunity. For thisreason the role of the EU will be decisive

No second-in-command: human fatigue and the crash of the airship Italia revisited

The dirigible Italia crashed onto the Arctic sea ice north-east of the Svalbard archipelago on 25 May 1928 at 10:33 GMT while travelling back to her base from the North Pole. Only eight of the 16 crew members survived: one was killed upon impact, one did not survive the post-crash ordeal and six were trapped in the airship envelope (i.e., the balloon), which floated away and disappeared. No definite conclusions have ever been reached about the causes of the crash. The judgements of the Commission of Inquiry instituted by the Italian government and published in 1929 are carefully examined. Recent analysis has presented evidence that the mishap may have been fatigue-related. In this paper, the pivotal question of why General Nobile was so sleep-deprived at the time of the accident is addressed, specifically with reference to the lack of a second-in-command (i.e., a deputy commander) during the flight. Such a position was a standard practice for airships at the time, and General Nobile himself described this position as one necessary for an airship. Nevertheless, for a variety of reasons he proceeded on the Italia expedition without an official crew member responsible for this role. The lack of a second-in-command is proposed as a possible major contributing factor in the overall sequence of events leading to the crash of the Italia, although other possible causes and contributing factors for the crash are also considered, including structural failures, crew selection and political obstacles