Climate Change: Balancing economic and environmental concerns. CEPS Commentary, 3 October 2014

In surveying the portfolio for climate change assigned to Commissioner-designate Arias Cañete, Andrei Marcu finds in this CEPS Commentary that the approach proposed in the European Commission’s January 2014 package offers a sound basis on which to proceed overall, but he specifies that it needs to be put in a context where the causes and symptoms are correctly identified. He singles out timing and governance as other important elements and discusses their practical implications.

An Investigation of Career Tenure in the European Parliament: Electoral, Party and Individual Considerations. ACES Working Papers, 2012

What explains the length of a Member of the European Parliament’s career? Little evidence of careerism has been uncovered in the European Parliament, particularly when compared to studies of legislator tenure in the U.S. Congress. Due to the different historical contexts in which these two legislatures developed, it seems reasonable to rule out many of the explanations used to account for increasing careerism in Congress in searching for the influences on legislator tenure in the European Parliament. This paper therefore proposes three potential models of careerism in the European Parliament: an electoral systems model, a party model, and an individual model. While the data necessary to test these models has not been fully compiled, this paper outlines the major hypotheses of each model and details plans for the operationalization of all independent and control variables. These models are not intended to be mutually exclusive alternatives, but rather each explanation is expected to influence each MEP in varying degrees.

Germany's stance on the TTIP. Background, interests and concerns. OSW Studies 52, March 2015

Co-operation between the United States and Germany has for many years been a subject of disputes. In addition to the differences over the US engagement in the resolution of international conflicts, bilateral relations have been strained as a consequence of the so-called Snowden scandal and the unproved allegations that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s telephone was wiretapped. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership offers a chance for improving relations between Germany and the USA for the first time in many years. Companies from the two countries may benefit from the lifting of some barriers to transatlantic economic co-operation. Furthermore, the emergence of in fact an internal EU and US market, with reduced customs tariffs and harmonised legal and economic rules, will pressure the emerging economies to make their markets more open. The TTIP may create conditions for exporting US raw materials from unconventional sources to the European Union; and this will be a benefit of geopolitical significance for Germany. The German government is aware of the fact that diversification of supplies of fossil fuels will make Europe less dependent on pressure from Moscow.