Extending working life in Belgium. CEPS Working Document No. 386, 22 November 2013

This report aims at understanding how persons aged 50 years and older are and can be integrated into the working society in Belgium. We are interested in how people in this age group can be induced to engage in various forms of employment and lifelong learning. Based on secondary literature, descriptive databases as well as interviews with experts and focus groups, we find that the discussion on active ageing in Belgium is well advanced with numerous contributions by academics, stakeholders, social partners, the public administration and interest groups. The wish to retire at 60 is widely shared, but at the same time the majority of Belgium’s elderly are able and would be willing to work under specific conditions. Therefore, we recommend that Belgium should invest in more flexible systems including a revision of the tax scheme, such as the part-time retirement system proposed by the insurance company Delta Lloyd. An equally relevant recommendation would be to ensure that public employment agencies, employers and agencies that provide training encourage all workers to work and learn regardless of their age.

Extending working life in Finland. CEPS Working Document No. 387, 22 November 2013

This report reviews national and private initiatives to allow the elderly to continue their participation in the Finnish labour market and provides an analysis of the labour market and living conditions of seniors. We are interested in how those over 50 can be engaged in various forms of employment and lifelong learning. We find strong evidence that Finland generally provides good institutional conditions for active ageing. The quick and early ageing process was tackled by the fundamental pension reform that already prolonged retirement substantially and will probably facilitate later retirement as the attitudes concerning retirement change. On the other hand, Finland still seems to lag behind the other Nordic welfare states, has considerable problems in providing the same health conditions to low educated people in physically demanding occupations and could - – with respect to family pension in particular – invest further efforts in reforming the pension system. While many of the reforms Finland has conducted seem to be favourable and transferable to other European countries that still face the steepest phases of ageing in their societies, a reluctance towards changing attitudes that we observe in Finland, shows that organizing active ageing is a long-term project.

Russian gas industry - current condition and prospects; New regional 'in-security' system in Central Asia; Caspian oil and gas: the facts at the end of the year 2000. OSW Study 1/2001

Russian gas industry: The current condition of the gas industry is one of the most crucial factors influencing the Russian state·s functioning, internal situation and international position. Not only is gas the principal energy resource in Russia, it also subsidises other sectors of the economy. Status of the main European gas exporter strengthens also Russia's importance in the international arena. New regional in-security: Ten years have passed since the Central Asian states declared their independence, but their relationship with Russia still remains close, and the latter treats them as its exclusive zone of influence. A crucial reason for keeping Central Asia within the orbit of Moscow·s influence is the fact that Russia exercises control over the most important transport routes out of the region of raw materials for the power industry, on which the economic development of Asia depends on. But this is the only manifestation of Central Asia·s economic dependence on Russia. Moscow lacks solid economic instruments (i.e. investment input or power industry dependence) to shape the situation in the region. Caspian oil and gas: Caspian stocks of energy resources are not, and most probably will not be, of any great significance on the world scale. Nevertheless it is the Caspian region which will have the opportunity to become an oil exporter which will reduce the dependence of the European countries on Arabian oil, and which will guarantee Russia the quantities of gas which are indispensable both for meeting its internal demands and for maintaining its current level of export. For Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, the confirmation of the existence of successive oil strata is not only an opportunity to increase income, but also an additional bargaining chip in the game for the future of the whole region. The stake in this game is the opportunity to limit the economic, and by extension the political influences of Russia in the region.

System Costs of Variable Renewable Energy in the European Union. Bruges European Economic Policy (BEEP) Briefings 37/2015

To shift to a low-carbon economy, the EU has been encouraging the deployment of variable renewable energy sources (VRE). However, VRE lack of competitiveness and their technical specificities have substantially raised the cost of the transition. Economic evaluations show that VRE life-cycle costs of electricity generation are still today higher than those of conventional thermal power plants. Member States have consequently adopted dedicated policies to support them. In addition, Ueckerdt et al. (2013) show that when integrated to the power system, VRE induce supplementary not-accounted-for costs. This paper first exposes the rationale of EU renewables goals, the EU targets and current deployment. It then explains why the LCOE metric is not appropriate to compute VRE costs by describing integration costs, their magnitude and their implications. Finally, it analyses the consequences for the power system and policy options. The paper shows that the EU has greatly underestimated VRE direct and indirect costs and that policymakers have failed to take into account the burden caused by renewable energy and the return of State support policies. Indeed, induced market distortions have been shattering the whole power system and have undermined competition in the Internal Energy Market. EU policymakers can nonetheless take full account of this negative trend and reverse it by relying on competition rules, setting-up a framework to collect robust EU-wide data, redesigning the architecture of the electricity system and relying on EU regulators.