The EU’s Paradoxical Efforts at Tracking the Financing of Terrorism: From criticism to imitation of dataveillance. CEPS Paper in Liberty and Security No. 56, August 2013

In July 2011, the European Commission published a Communication aimed at setting out different options for establishing a European terrorist finance tracking system (TFTS). The Communication followed the adoption of the EU-US agreement on the US Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP) in 2010. The agreement concluded various series of national, European and transatlantic negotiations after the disclosure through public media of the US TFTP in 2006. This paper takes stock of the wide range of controversies surrounding this security-focused programme with dataveillance capabilities. After stressing the impact of the US TFTP on international relations, the paper argues that the EU-US agreement primarily has the effect of shifting information-sharing practices from the justice/judicial/penal/criminal investigation framework into the security/intelligence/administrative/prevention context as the main rationale. The paper then questions the TFTP-related conception of mass intelligence through large-scale databases and transnational communication of bulk data in the name of targeted surveillance. Following an examination of the project creating an EU system equivalent to the TFTP, the paper emphasises the fundamental paradox of transatlantic security matters, in which European criticism of American programmes tends to be ultimately translated into EU imitation of US dataveillance practices.

The Impact of the SFP System on Italian Farmland Prices and Tenure Contracts. Factor Markets Working Document No. 65, August 2013

EDITED VERSION TO BE PUBLISHED SOON. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the estimation of the potential effects of the CAP reform on propensity to transaction, particularly comparing the effect of different new instruments/policy settings with the current policy (CAP health check) used as a baseline. The work is focused on three of new policy instruments within the post 2013 CAP reform proposal: regionalization, greening and capping. The first and second are analysed in more detail. The analysis will be based on a survey of farmers in the Province of Bologna, Emilia Romagna, Italy. The questionnaire focuses on mechanism of access to land and related incentives towards different land use/economic behaviour. The survey includes information about respondent characteristics (farm, farmer, household and payments received) and stated intention about potential changes in land operated under alternative agricultural policy scenarios (particularly the post-2013 reform proposals).