Strengthening the beating heart of the European economy. EPC Commentary, 29 September 2015

In an atmosphere of crisis, distrust and fragmentation, policy-makers in Brussels are mostly focused on fighting fire without having an ambitious vision for the future – in effect, muddling through, as has been the characteristic response in recent years. However, by remaining in crisis response mode, the European Union (EU) is failing to provide the basis for the compromise politics that can get the European system out of the current impasse: the EU needs to be engaged in a positive sum game to ensure that countries see an incentive for making deals.

The Treaty of Lisbon or intergovernmental temptation?

From the Introduction. This question goes to the very heart of the European project: it is fundamental for the future of the European Union and its role in the world. The Treaty of Lisbon emerged from the ashes of the European Constitution. Driven forward by Angela Merkel, as President of the European Council, Nicolas Sarkozy and José Manuel Barroso, the main advances made in the Constitution were preserved at the expense of a few concessions and symbolic sacrifices in order to make the Union more effective and more democratic.

The Political Logic of Disintegration: Seven Lessons from the Soviet Collapse. CEPS Essay (No. 1), September 2012

In short, the European Union, as we know it, no longer exists. The very foundations on which it was built are eroding. Shared memories of the Second World War have faded away – half the 15- and 16-year-olds in German high schools do not know that Hitler was a dictator, while a third believe that he protected human rights. The collapse of the Soviet Union has stripped away the geopolitical rationale for European unity. The democratic welfare state that was at the heart of the post-war political consensus is under siege by, among other things, sheer demographics. And the prosperity that bolstered the European project’s political legitimacy is vanishing. More than six out of ten Europeans believe that the lives of today’s children will be more difficult than those of people from their own generation. Against this background, how unthinkable is the EU’s disintegration? Should Europeans make the mistake of taking the Union for granted? Should they assume that the Union would not collapse because it should not collapse? Here, Europe’s capacity to learn from the Soviet precedent could play a crucial part. For the very survival of the EU may depend on its leaders’ ability to manage a similar mix of political, economic and psychological factors that were in play in the process of the Soviet collapse. The game of disintegration is primarily a political one driven much more by the perceptions and misperceptions of the political actors than simply by the constellation of the structural factors – institutional and economic.

The Israeli lobby for Research and Innovation in the European Union. An example of efficient cooperation in the European Neighbourhood? Bruges Political Research Papers 49/2015.

Israel figures among the world-leaders in R&D expenditure and has a high-performing scientific community. Since the 1990s it has been associated with the Scientific Policy of the European Union via the European Research Framework Programmes (FP). The cooperation between Israel and the EU in this domain has gradually increased and benefits the scientific communities on both sides. In 2014 the association of Israel to the latest and biggest European FP ever adopted (Horizon 2020) was renewed for the fourth time. Based on all the scientific evidence provided, the elaboration of a European Research Policy can be identified as a highly regulated domain, offering relevant ‘channels of influence’. These channels offer Israel the opportunity to act within the Research Policy system. Being a member of several formal EU bodies in charge of implementing EU Research Policy, Israel is able to introduce its positions effectively. This is accompanied by an outstanding level of activity by Israel in linking concrete EU Research Policy measures to the Israeli Scientific Community at the national level. To carry out this task, Israel relies on an effective organization, which remodels the provided EU structures: European ‘National Contact Points’ (NCPs) are concentrated within the ‘Europe Israel R&D Directorate’ (ISERD). ISERD connects efficiently all the relevant actors, forums and phases of EU-Israeli Research Policy. ISERD can be recognized as being at the heart of Israel's research cooperation with the EU, and its structure may be a source of in

International financial regulation: A role for the Eurozone? EU Diplomacy Paper 08/2012, October 2012

The deepest financial crisis to strike the global economy since the Great Depression has unceremoniously called into question the very foundations of the Western economic model. The liberalisation of capital flows and the growing internationalisation of financial markets outpaced global regulatory and supervisory efforts. The repercussions of the financial crisis have given new dynamism to the reform of financial regulation both globally and within the European Union (EU). The Eurozone, by way of its own failings, has emerged as a stronger conceptual and legitimate entity since the onset of the crisis, but to what extent does this equate to a greater external role, in particular in the reform of international financial regulation? This paper argues that the Eurozone is currently not in a position to play an important role in the reform of international financial regulation, as it is a weak actor in the context of the EU financial architecture, which is still largely characterised by differing national regimes, a prevailing influence from the UK and fragmented external representation. The key finding from this study is that internal tensions in the EU are at the very heart of the Eurozone’s difficulties in playing a role in the reform of international financial regulation. Surmounting these tensions is a pre-requisite for the Eurozone if it is to overcome its structural weakness in international financial politics. However, the implications of such evolutions to the Eurozone, as an entity, and to European integration are far-reaching.

Can the eurozone survive? Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series Vol. 12, No. 4, May 2012

From the Introduction. As financial and economic turmoil continues to rock the Eurozone nations and even threatens to undermine the political stability in the region, it may be helpful to recall the circumstances that helped bring about the formation of the European Union and the common currency of the Eurozone. While issues of trade, finance, and economics were at the heart of many of the agreements upon which the European Union was founded, there were larger issues about a shared future for Europeans that went beyond fiscal concerns. As the economic conditions in Europe and the rest of the world appear to have brought the Eurozone to the brink of collapse, the question at hand is whether the strength of the euro and the economies of the Eurozone nations will be able to withstand the forces that threaten not just the economic ties among the nations of the Eurozone and the EU, but that also strain the historical, cultural, and political foundations on which those economic ties were forged.

Exploitative Abuses: Which Competition Policy, Which Public Policy? Research Papers in Law, 2/2007

As the final session of the day, my aim in this paper is to briefly outline the nature of exploitative abuses before turning to the question of the relationship between competition law and intellectual property law in the context of what Teubner calls the regulatory trilemma and from that draw a two-fold conclusion. First, the demands on law from the social phenomenon of markets are more acute when those demands raise issues across the different law domains of IP and competition. Second, where IP law and competition meet, the aim should be for both domains to internalise the values of the other. This however can only happen to the extent but only to the extent that there can be what Collins1 calls productive disintegration. Finally, in the specific context of exploitative abuses the overlap between IP law and competition law arises primarily in relation to claims of excessive pricing in licensing arrangements. Such claims could form the basis of a private action2 or can be made in the context of compulsory dealing decisions such as Microsoft.3 The involvement of competition agencies in pricing decisions goes to the heart of concerns about the nature of competition law and the role of competition agencies and highlights the need for the law to indirectly control rather than inappropriately attempt to directly control markets.

The EU’s Enlargement Agenda – Credibility at stake? CEPS Policy Brief No. 324, 31 October 2014

Despite the proven success of the EU’s enlargement policy over the past few years, criticism within the EU member countries has grown. While the European Commission’s enlargement strategy for 2014-15 reaffirms the importance of placing fundamental reforms relating to rule of law, economic governance and public administration reform at the heart of the negotiation process, the latest Progress Reports present a rather bleak picture on the state of reforms in the candidate countries. Major efforts are required to maintain the credibility of the enlargement policy and demonstrate to an increasingly sceptical public that the transformative power of the EU continues to work. To achieve this, the EU needs to reinvigorate its strategy by adopting a more consistent and determined approach.

Afghan Opium and the EU: Fighting the War Economy through Development Cooperation. EU Diplomacy Paper No. 4, 2014

Opium is at the heart of the war economy in Afghanistan, involving a broad range of actors. It generates a sustainable violence cycle and, while international troops withdraw from the country, threatens the Afghan government’s reconstruction efforts. The European Union (EU) plays an important part in the debate on how to deal with this issue. Several counter-narcotics policies have been implemented since 2001 and have mostly failed. This paper looks at these failures and questions the European Union’s ability to help tackle the problem of opium in Afghanistan. It argues that a comprehensive development response, backed by counter-narcotics incentives, could unfasten the spiral of the war economy. It also argues that the EU has developed relevant policies based on poverty alleviation and a structural approach to the opium issue but still lacks the means for action and for donor coordination in order to significantly influence the situation.

Rule-Makers or Rule-Takers? Exploring the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is an effort by the United States and the European Union to reposition themselves for a world of diffuse economic power and intensified global competition. It is a next-generation economic negotiation that breaks the mould of traditional trade agreements. At the heart of the ongoing talks is the question whether and in which areas the two major democratic actors in the global economy can address costly frictions generated by their deep commercial integration by aligning rules and other instruments. The aim is to reduce duplication in various ways in areas where levels of regulatory protection are equivalent as well as to foster wide-ranging regulatory cooperation and set a benchmark for high-quality global norms. In this volume, European and American experts explain the economic context of TTIP and its geopolitical implications, and then explore the challenges and consequences of US-EU negotiations across numerous sensitive areas, ranging from food safety and public procurement to economic and regulatory assessments of technical barriers to trade, automotive, chemicals, energy, services, investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms and regulatory cooperation. Their insights cut through the confusion and tremendous public controversies now swirling around TTIP, and help decision-makers understand how the United States and the European Union can remain rule-makers rather than rule-takers in a globalising world in which their relative influence is waning.

State Transformation and the European Integration Project. Lessons from the financial crisis and the Greek paradigm. CEPS Special Report No. 130/February 2016

The financial crisis that erupted in the eurozone not only affected the EU’s financial governance mechanisms, but also the very nature of state sovereignty and balances in the relations of member states; thus, the actual inequalities between the member states hidden behind their institutional equality have deteriorated. This transformation is recorded in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the member states’ constitutional courts, particularly in those at the heart of the crisis, with Greece as the most prominent example. It is the issue of public debt (sovereign debt) of the EU member states that particularly reflects the influence of the crisis on state sovereignty as well as the intensely transnational (intergovernmental) character of European integration, which under these circumstances takes the form of a continuous, tough negotiation. The historical connection between public debt (sovereign debt) and state sovereignty has re-emerged because of the financial crisis. This development has affected not only the European institutions, but also, at the member state level, the actual institutional content of the rule of law (especially judicial review) and the welfare state in its essence, as the great social and political acquis of 20th century Europe. From this perspective, the way that the Greek courts have dealt with the gradual waves of fiscal austerity measures and structural reforms from 2010 to 2015 is characteristic. The effect of the financial crisis on the sovereignty of the member states and on the pace of European integration also has an impact on European foreign and security policy, and the correlations between the political forces at both the national and European level, thus producing even more intense pressures on European social democracy. In light of the experience of the financial crisis, the final question is whether the nation state (given the large real inequalities among the EU member states) currently functions as a brake or as an engine for future European integration.