The long-term EU budget: size or flexibility? Bruegel Policy Contribution 2012/20, November 2012

The EU is in the process of negotiating its 2014-20 financial framework. Failure to reach an agreement would imply a delay in the preparation of the strategic plans each member state puts together to explain how it will use Structural and Cohesion Funds. Even if solutions are found – for example annual renewals of the budget based on the previous year's figures – there will be political and institutional costs. EU leaders have too often and too forcefully advocated the use of the EU budget for growth to be able to drop the idea without consequences. • The overwhelming attention paid to the size of the budget is misplaced. EU leaders should instead aim to make the EU budget more flexible, safeguard it from future political power struggles, and reinforce assessment of the impact of EU funded growth policies. • To improve flexibility a commitment device should be created that places the EU budget above continuous political disagreement. We suggest the creation of a European Growth Fund, on the basis of which the European Commission should be allowed to borrow on capital markets to anticipate pre-allocated EU expenditure, such as Structural and Cohesion Funds. Markets would thus be a factor in EU budget policymaking, with a potentially disciplining effect. Attaching conditionality to this type of disbursement appears legitimate, as capital delivered in this way is a form of assistance.

La justification des atteintes aux libertés de circulation : cadre méthodologique et spécificités matérielles = Justification of attacks on freedom of movement: methodological framework and specific hardware. Research Paper in Law 01/2013

No abstract.

Fundamental Rights of workers in the Digital Age: A methodological approach from a case study. WP C.S.D.L.E. "Massimo D'Antona" .INT - 89/2011

The relationship between employer and worker is not only obligatory but above all, as Sinzheimer said, a ‘relationship of power’. In the Digital Age this statement is confirmed by the massive introduction of ICT in most of the companies that increase, in practice, employer’s supervisory powers. This is a worrying issue for two reasons: on one hand, ICT emerge as a new way to weaken the effectiveness of fundamental rights and the right to dignity of workers; and, on the other hand, Spanish legal system does not offer appropriate solutions to ensure that efficacy. Moreover, in a scenario characterized by a hybridization of legal systems models –in which traditional hard law methods are combined with soft law and self regulation instruments–, the role of our case law has become very important in this issue. Nevertheless, despite the increase of judicialization undergone, solutions offered by Courts are so different that do not give enough legal certainty. Facing this situation, I suggest a methodological approach –using Alchourron and Bulygin’s normative systems theory and Alexy’s fundamental rights theory– which can open new spaces of decision to legal operators in order to solve properly these problems. This proposal can allow setting a policy that guarantees fundamental rights of workers, deepening their human freedom in companies from the Esping-Andersen’s de-commodification perspective. With this purpose, I examine electronic communications in the company as a case study.

Flexibility clauses in the Stability and Growth Pact: No need for revision. CEPS Policy Brief No. 319, 24 July 2014

This Policy Brief offers an in-depth review of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) and looks at whether the margins of flexibility within existing rules are sufficient in the current climate of low growth, or whether there is a need to broaden them. The issue is especially relevant as the changing economic environment is raising fresh questions about whether the EU’s current common economic policies are able to manage dismal growth and low inflation. The fragile state of confidence in financial markets and the unresolved but inevitable questions of moral hazard linked to lax fiscal policies mean that no large-scale fiscal expansion to support the recovery of economic activity is feasible. The discussion may therefore only concern the scope within the SGP to accommodate an unexpected drop in economic activity and to provide room for the implementation of structural reforms. Here, we analyse the flexibility clauses of the Stability and Growth Pact under three headings; namely “exceptional circumstances”, “structural reforms and other relevant factors”, and the “investment clause”. Recommendation: Our main conclusion is that the SGP contains sufficient flexibility to accommodate an unexpected drop in economic activity and has the margins needed to finance structural reforms during the transition to the new regime. We therefore see no need to change the existing rules of the SGP. We believe that the ongoing debate about a fresh growth strategy for the eurozone and the European Union would greatly benefit from removing from the Council table ill-formulated and unnecessary demands for greater flexibility in the SGP.