In Italy, regions are at the centre of the system providing long-term care services, which typically include residential services, formal home care and monetary benefits. The regions define their own policies for the provision of care, ranging from needs assessment and monitoring tools to the accreditation of service providers. Quality assurance policies are primarily directed at residential services and formal home care, but as this research report highlights, there are many differences across regions.

Georgia Casanova is with the LUISS Business School in Rome.

The provision of informal care is an important source of long-term care for older people in Europe. According to the latest available data, between 21% and 43% of the population living in Europe aged 65 and older receive informal care. Given fiscal constraints on public budgets in most of the EU countries and the ageing of the population, it is likely that in the very near future informal care providers will represent the most important source of care for disabled and older people in Europe.

Launch of the European Commission's Competitiveness Report 2011

Participation in CEPS Lunchtime Meetings is a benefit of membership. Non-members may be admitted for €50, paid in cash at registration. A sandwich lunch (€6) will be served before the event, from 12.30 onwards.

This meeting is organised within the framework of NEUJOBS, a major research project financed by the European Commission and in collaboration with OSE (Observatoire social européen) and TCBE (The Conference Board Europe). Participants will discuss the early findings of NEMESIS, an economic model that seeks to link long-term economic development and employment with structural policies, such as RTD, environment and energy regulation and general fiscal reforms.

Ms Potjagailo finished her Bachelor in International Economic at the Eberhard-Karls University Tübingen in 2010. During her Bachelor she already gathered working experience during internships at the Wirtschaftsforschungsinstitut Halle (IWH) and the Institut für Angewandte Wirtschaftsforschung Tübingen (IAW). She also spent a year of Erasmus studies at Universidad del País Vasco (Bilbao, Spain). Ms Potjagailo came to Brussels in September 2010 for her master in Economics at ULB.

This Commentary explores what will happen if Italy is not able to implement structural reforms and if international institutions, such as the EFSF and the IMF, do not intervene with sufficient resources to prevent Europe’s second-largest economy from defaulting on its debt. It warns that the Italian economic system would certainly embark on a perverse path that would follow three phases: liquidity crisis and insolvency; deflationary pressures; and finally inflationary pressures and economic and political instability.

This latest contribution by Stefano Micossi, Director General Assonime, Visiting Professor at the College of Europe and member of the CEPS Board of Directors, assesses the new decisions on economic governance taken at the European Council on December 8-9 and questions whether they are truly feasible, either technically or politically.

Even if the best possible agreement is struck by the European Council meeting in Brussels December 7th-8th, the crisis will not suddenly be over. But this Commentary suggests a formula whereby it could at least be contained, thus giving countries such as Italy or Spain the time they need to show that they can get their deficits under control and turn their economies around.

Daniel Gros is Director of the Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels.

Launch of 2 related CEPS Working Documents, prepared with the financial support of the Mercator Foundation. Participation in this meeting is free of charge.

Joint CEPS-European Parliament pre-Council Economic Dialogue. To register, please send an email to Daniele Cardella daniele.cardella@europarl.europa.eu

Simon Toubeau works on higher education policy in the NEUJOBS research programme. He obtained a PhD in Social and Political Sciences from the EUI and has worked as teaching fellow at the London School of Economics (LSE), ESRC Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Edinburgh and research fellow at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). His research interests focus on comparative federalism, parties and party systems, nationalism, political institutions and decision-making making processes, electoral systems and representation, and public policy.

CEPS Senior Fellow Paul De Grauwe expresses astonishment in this new Commentary at the continued insistence in both Brussels and Frankfurt on budgetary austerity as the necessary and sufficient response to stop the government debt crisis in the eurozone. In his view, the austerity programmes should be softened and spread over a longer period of time, allowing the automatic stabilisers in the national budgets to prevent the economies from spiralling downwards.

Contrary to the high hopes being attached to the proffer of Chinese assistance at the G20 in Cannes this week, CEPS Director Daniel Gros warns in this Commentary that a large inflow of funds from China and other 'investors' could in fact do more harm than good. In his view, the incoming capital would strengthen the euro and thus make a recovery in the periphery even more difficult.

Less than a week after the meeting of the Heads of State or Government of the twenty more industrialised economies of the world which marked the conclusion of the French Presidency of the G20, one of the top officials involved in the preparations and negotiations at the summit will share his insights on the role of the EU at this momentous gathering, present his assessment of the outcome, and point to the future challenges for global governance. The speech by Mr Masset will be in French, the questions and answers session will be in French and English.