CEPS Commentaries


181 - 210 of 315
13 April 2010

The social dimension of the internal market has been a theme for debate ever since 1987, when Jacques Delors introduced it as a counterbalance to the emerging ‘Europhoria’ of European business about the EC-1992 single market programme.

01 April 2010

In his latest CEPS Commentary, Michael Emerson speculates that circumstances are propitious for a new and positive turn to Russia’s relations with Europe and the transatlantic community. As evidence, he cites Russia’s belated ratification of Protocol 14 of the Convention on the European Court of Human Rights and the suggestion from influential German personalities that the question of NATO membership for Russia should be put back on the agenda.

24 March 2010

The stand-off among the members of the eurozone over whether to come to the aid of fellow member Greece has prompted a lot of speculation that Greece might turn to the IMF for support, an approach that now seems to be favoured by the German government. This Commentary by CEPS Director Daniel Gros finds, however, that while the IMF may have fewer political constraints in giving cheap money, it is unable to provide enough to make a lasting difference to Greece.

17 March 2010

Suddenly, after several years of diminished importance, the single market seems to have climbed back up the EU political agenda. Its rediscovery by the political leadership in Europe may well be due to the perceived role of the single market in the financial crisis or it may have been prompted indirectly by the blatant failure of the FSAP to deliver crisis-preventing or crisis-proof regulation and supervision.

09 March 2010

Senior Associate Research Fellow Paul De Grauwe argues in this CEPS Commentary that the Greek debt crisis has exposed a structural problem of the eurozone as a whole created by the fact that the monetary union is not embedded in a political union. This imbalance leads to a dynamics of creeping divergencies between member states and there is no mechanism to correct or alleviate it. These divergencies in turn are at the core of budgetary divergencies and crises.

26 February 2010

Despite all the changes introduced in the EU over the last year – including the appointment of President Van Rompuy, the formation of the EU’s external action service with Baroness Ashton as ‘Minister’ of foreign affairs, the increased powers (both formal and informal) of the Parliament and the multiplication of EU agencies – and contrary to expectations, 2009 will not be remembered as the year in which ‘Brussels’ fell apart.

01 February 2010

This Commentary by Daniel Gros looks at the acronym recently coined by financial markets to sum up troubled eurozone states – ‘Pigs’, for Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain – and finds it misleading, given its preoccupation with fiscal policy. In determining the sustainability of public debt, he argues that one should not look only, perhaps not even mainly, at today’s fiscal accounts, but at the resource balance for the entire country.

29 January 2010

Did allowing financial institutions to become ‘too big’ play a role in the financial crisis? This Commentary by CEPS Director Daniel Gros argues that being ‘too interconnected’ is also a factor, and that US accounting standards should recognise exposure of gross derivatives on the balance sheet to make this interconnectedness, and the resulting exposure, clear.

21 January 2010

Present-day central banks did not repeat the mistakes of the 1930s by tightening money in the face of a banking crisis, or by desperately trying to balance their books when the economy crashed. Yet there is one area of policy-making where authorities may not have learned the lessons of history, and are in the process of repeating the same mistakes, argues Paul De Grauwe, Senior Research Fellow at CEPS. Ultimately a central bank has to make choices.

15 January 2010

Noriko Fujiwara performs a quick post-mortem on the outcome and performance of the EU at Copenhagen in this new CEPS Commentary and then swiftly moves on to draw lessons for how the EU can effectively and forcefully project itself into the forthcoming series of meetings leading to the next annual conference (COP16) in Mexico City before the end of the year.

12 January 2010

The EU is left wondering what its future role will be in the next round of talks on climate change, after having played a marginal role in Copenhagen, particularly at the close of negotiations. What happens now will condition much of the EU’s position and leverage in the future. Among the more pressing tasks is the need to develop a strategy for co-operation with the US.

08 January 2010

One of the institutional innovations provided for in the Lisbon Treaty is the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), which aims to engage European citizens with the European project, help mobilise civil society and strengthen pan-European debate on European policies. But what happens if a citizens’ proposal is deemed inadmissible by the European Commission? CEPS Researcher Piotr Kaczyński considers this question in a new Commentary and makes suggestions for an appropriate response by the European Commission and other institutions.

25 December 2009

Days after the meeting ended, people are still asking themselves whether the outcome of the Copenhagen summit was positive or not. What is striking is that the outcome is generally seen in a more favourable light in the US than in Europe. The difference can probably be explained by different expectations and perspectives. In this new CEPS commentary, CEPS Fellows Christian Egenhofer and Anton Georgiev make a first attempt at deciphering the implications of the accord for the EU.

18 December 2009

Negotiations for a new Association Agreement between the European Union and Moldova are scheduled to begin on 12 January 2010, but, according to CEPS researcher George Dura, moves towards further visa liberalisation and a deep and comprehensive free trade area with the EU will largely depend on the sustainability and operability of the new government.

17 December 2009

On 10 October in Zurich, the Armenian and Turkish foreign ministers signed an agreement to establish diplomatic relations and open their common border (closed by the Turks in 1993 out of solidarity with Azerbaijan, with which Armenia was then at war). Four days later Armenian President Serge Sargsyan made good his pledge to visit Turkey for the second leg of a World Cup qualifier between the Turkish and Armenian national teams.

14 December 2009

Despite its complexity and verbosity, Stefano Micossi pronounces the Treaty of Lisbon as a good Treaty and one that has created new institutions and procedures that will considerably enhance the Union’s ability to act. He warns, however, that the crux of the matter remains political will: stronger institutions and more effective decision-making procedures are instruments that must be infused with visions and goals and common actions, or else they will become irrelevant. In this context, he outlines three main challenges ahead.

14 December 2009

This Commentary by Jacques Pelkmans advises the new Barroso Commission to maintain the ‘Better EU Regulation’ strategy that was initiated in 2005 and has proven especially effective in narrowing the scope and options for ideological approaches, or the discretion to allow or exploit regulatory ‘capture’ within the Commission.

11 December 2009

The costs and benefits of carbon tariffs have been extensively discussed in terms of competitiveness and carbon leakage. This Commentary argues that global welfare should be the focus. EU tariffs against developing country exports would increase global welfare and the proceeds from the tariffs could help poorer exporting countries reduce the carbon intensity of their economies.

11 December 2009

The purpose of a cap-and-trade system is to help in the fight against global climate change. This paper warns that a unilateral approach could increase global emissions by shifting production to more carbon-intensive methods abroad. Acting alone, the EU’s Emission Trading Scheme may be doing more harm than good.

10 December 2009

Following the bankruptcy of the oil giant Yukos by the Russian Federation in 2004 on grounds of alleged tax evasion, the majority shareholders of GML, together with the Yukos pension fund, filed an arbitration suit against the Russian Federation. The suit was filed under the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), the world’s only multilateral investment treaty. GML relied on the investor protection provisions of the ECT to argue that it had been expropriated and sought recovery for all losses, which may well top $100 billion.

30 November 2009

This commentary details the woes facing the natural gas market in Europe of reduced consumption and oversupply and the consequent low prices on the spot market. Gazprom faces excess capacity and the loss in exports, which are significantly affecting its balance sheet. In the first half of 2009, its profit was 48% lower compared to the same timeframe in 2008, while its debt grew by 31%.

26 November 2009

Even more spectacular than the recent decline of the dollar against major world currencies has been the long-run decline of the US currency: since 1960 the dollar has lost two-thirds of its value against the Japanese yen, the Swiss franc and the German mark (since 1999, the euro). At the same time, however, at least since the early 1990s, the US has been seen to produce superior economic results, i.e. a higher productivity growth than most of Europe and Japan with more or less the same rates of inflation.

13 November 2009

Turkish foreign policy today is far more proactive and multi-dimensional than at any time in the history of the republic. Turkey presents itself as a mediating power in the European neighbourhood, intent on developing relations with all actors in order to promote peace and regional integration. This foreign policy line could be considered as an asset for Turkey’s prospects of EU membership. The current EU discourse of constructing Europe as a ‘global actor’ necessitates a strong EU presence in the wider neighbourhood.

13 November 2009

To mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, CEPS Director Daniel Gros offers his views on the economic consequences of German unification for Europe’s economy. He argues that the way in which unification was handled led not only a boom in Germany, but also to upheaval in the European Monetary System, which essentially fell apart between 1992 and 1995.

05 November 2009

In signing the Lisbon Treaty on November 3rd, Czech President Václav Klaus brought to an anti-climatic close years of protracted and often acrimonious negotiations to overhaul the European Union’s institutional infrastructure. The EU's reform treaty is now fully ratified and is expected to enter into force on 1 December 2009.

05 November 2009

A recent field trip to the five countries of Central Asia has given CEPS Senior Fellow Michael Emerson cause to reconsider the wisdom of the regional dimension to the EU’s strategy in the area. While acknowledging that a number of wider regional or trans-continental issues that involve Central Asia are also of concern to the EU, he argues in this CEPS Commentary that they should be seen in a much wider context. In his view, these are essentially EurAsian issues, with important long-term implications for the EU’s relations with Russia, China and India.

08 October 2009

On September 9th, the United States announced that it was planning a multi-billion dollar sale of 13 Patriot fire units, 72 PAC-3 missiles and a range of related hardware for ground-based air defence to Turkey. The decision, some commentators reasoned, was evidence that the US was turning to Turkey as an alternative base for the missile defence system (MDS) originally planned in Central Europe. Such assessments proved somewhat off the mark, however.

08 October 2009

This Commentary examines the motivations behind President Obama’s controversial decision to abandon plans for a missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic and assesses its consequences for US-EU relations as well as for relations between Western and Eastern Europe. Roderick Kefferpütz is Programme Coordinator at the European Union Office of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, a think-tank and policy network affiliated with the German Green Party.

07 October 2009

President Obama’s recent announcement to scrap plans for a radar installation in the Czech Republic linked to missile defence installations in Poland may herald a tipping point in US and EU relations with Russia. But which way? Michael Emerson explores in this commentary whether it usher in a new era of genuine cooperation with Russia on strategic matters, or whether Russia’s geo-political hawks will feel emboldened to proceed with their quest for hegemonic power in the former Soviet space.

07 October 2009

A key question confronting the G20 leaders is the desirability of coordinating exit strategies. Empirical research suggests that demand spillovers from fiscal policy are sufficiently small that uncoordinated exits from fiscal stimulus programmes are unlikely to threaten global demand. This Commentary by Paul De Grauwe argues that that research is flawed as it was based on data and theory for economies near full employment – not today’s situation. He concludes that G20 leaders need to address fiscal and monetary stimulus coordination exit strategies.