Why the regulatory witch-hunt for ‘closet trackers’ is a dead-end. CEPS Commentary, 9 December 2014

ESMA, the European watchdog of securities markets, has announced its intention to take a closer look at so-called ‘closet trackers’, with a view to identify whether there is a potential need for a coordinated pan-European policy response to these particular funds, which are supposedly actively managed but in reality closely track their benchmarks. In this commentary, Jean Pierre Casey suggests that more work needs to be done to demonstrate that a market failure exists. He also cautions on some of the difficulties associated with a potential regulatory intervention. In his view, the perceived problem is best tackled through transparency and competition.

Populism in the EU: new threats to the open society? CHALLENGE EUROPE Issue 22 - Challenges and new beginnings: Priorities for the EU's new leadership, September 2014.

In May 2014, around one in four Europeans voted for protest parties and anti-establishment candidates in the first pan-European poll since the euro crisis began. The rise of populism across Europe has brought more extremism of various kinds into the European Parliament. It could change the balance of power between the institutions, and be detrimental to EU policies, legislation and funding that nurture open societies. This chapter will consider the impact of xenophobic populist parties, who have also become increasingly anti-EU, not considering here the extreme left Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who entered the Parliament.

The EU-Turkey Customs Union: A model for Future Euro-Med Integration. MEDPRO Technical Report No. 9/March 2012

This paper studying the 1995 EU-Turkey Customs Union (CU) reveals that the CU has been a major instrument of integration of the Turkish economy into the EU and global markets, offering powerful tools to reform the Turkish economy. Turkish producers of industrial goods are protected by tariffs from external competition to exactly the same extent as EU producers, and they face competition from duty-free imports of industrial goods from world-class pan-European firms. In return, Turkish industrial producers have duty-free market access to the European Economic Area, which was recently extended to certain Mediterranean countries. Trade liberalisation achieved through the CU has thus successfully moved the Turkish economy from a government-controlled regime to a market-based one, and Turkish producers of industrial goods have performed remarkably well. The paper further shows that market access conditions for Turkish producers are determined, in addition to tariffs, by standards, conformity assessment procedures, competition policy, industrial property rights and contingent protectionism measures. The CU also offered Turkey the opportunity to establish new institutions, and modernise and upgrade rules and disciplines required for the elimination of technical barriers to trade, and for the implementation of the EU’s competition, industrial property rights, and contingent protectionism policies.

The Rocky Road to an EU-Armenia Agreement: From U-turn to detour. CEPS Commentary, 3 February 2015

The EU was taken by surprise when the President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, stood by his Russian counterpart and announced Armenia’s plans to join the Russian-led Customs Union in September 2013. After all, before this announcement Armenia and the EU had successfully concluded negotiations on their Association Agreement. Armenia is still suffering the consequences of the Kremlin’s coercion to reject this Association Agreement. Indeed, as Armenians around the world commemorate the centenary of the Armenian Genocide by Ottoman Turkey, the Republic of Armenia is facing mounting challenges. The country remains subject to an economic blockade by Turkey and is in conflict with Azerbaijan. Ever since President’s Sargsyan’s astonishing volte-face, the EU and Armenia are still in the process of trying to rework the failed agreement. The author of this commentary argues that because the future of any new agreement is uncertain, negotiations should be accompanied by a pragmatic EU-Armenia roadmap. This roadmap, alongside the start of the visa liberalisation process and Armenia’s signing up to the European Common Aviation Agreement and Horizon 2020, could become a deliverable at the Riga Summit on 26-27 April 2015.

2016 already puts its mark on the economic map of Europe. CEPS Essay No. 22/8 January 2016

The start of 2016 brought highly symbolic changes to the trade policy map of Europe between the EU- and Russian-led blocs, as the EU’s Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) with Ukraine entered into force provisionally, while Russia moved in precisely the opposite direction by scrapping its free trade agreement with Ukraine. However the ongoing changes go far wider and deeper. The energy sector and major industries see disengagement between Ukraine and Russia, and Russia’s share in Ukrainian trade is falling substantially. New transport corridors with China may offer synergies with trade opportunities for all three DCFTA states, with Georgia first in line. Visa liberalisation for the entire DCFTA space is now firmly in prospect. Divergent macroeconomic trends between a recovering eurozone and recession in Russia will accentuate the changes in trade structures. A better organisation of the pan-European economic space is surely desirable, but prospects for links between the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union remain problematic.