Shaping sustainable economies-holistic strategies and principles. Policy Brief #2012/03

A society acts sustainably if it ensures the long-term stability and productivity of ecological, sociopolitical and economic systems. In the past, issues of sustainability were typically handled separately, neglecting individual measures’ effects on other elements implied by a comprehensive conception of sustainability. The challenge ahead is to develop a holistic strategy for sustainable economic activity that takes into ac-count interdependencies between the various aspects of sustainability, and does not seek to solve problems of sustainability at other aspects’ expense.

Online Personal Data Processing and EU Data Protection Reform. CEPS Task Force Report, April 2013

This report sheds light on the fundamental questions and underlying tensions between current policy objectives, compliance strategies and global trends in online personal data processing, assessing the existing and future framework in terms of effective regulation and public policy. Based on the discussions among the members of the CEPS Digital Forum and independent research carried out by the rapporteurs, policy conclusions are derived with the aim of making EU data protection policy more fit for purpose in today’s online technological context. This report constructively engages with the EU data protection framework, but does not provide a textual analysis of the EU data protection reform proposal as such.

Macroeconomic and Financial Crisis Management in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean: Diagnosis and Prospects. CEPS Paperbacks. December 2013

The global financial crisis, which started in the summer of 2007 and deepened in the aftermath of the Lehman failure in September 2008, has led to a virtual collapse in economic activity and increased financial volatility worldwide. For the developing countries, the main channel of transmission has been a drop in external transactions, such as trade, financial and capital flows, and remittances. The emerging economies in the southern and eastern Mediterranean have also faced declining economic activity, although there seems to be considerable variation in the relative magnitude and timing. Most of these economies have shown a delayed but more lasting response to the crisis, driven mostly by their close trade and investment ties with the EU and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. This book explores the fiscal, monetary and financial effects of the crisis in the region and provides an in-depth analysis of the fiscal, monetary and banking policies in the post-crisis era, the viability of their exit strategies and the future of reforms in the region. These analyses not only provide a comprehensive comparison between the countries but also provide a solid basis for assessing future economic and financial developments and reforms in the region.

Integrating Europeans: The Political Economy and Social Aspects of Europeanization. ACES Working Papers (Curriculum Development), 2012

This course, then, investigates the effects of integration on European citizens as well as the duality of the EU as a competitive and social model. It is sensitive to the involvement of social groups, protest, and domestic politics in the study of market integration. Some of the questions we explore are: What are the effects of regulatory policy-making on social actors, how do such actors’ strategies and behaviors change as a consequence, and how to they overcome their collective action problems? Why is it that the logic of integration has at times followed a logic of “permissive consensus” while at other times it has been described as a “constraining dissensus”? What is the importance of discourse in domestic politics in order to articulate and legitimate Europeanization? How do European identities change as a consequence of policymaking as well as of protest? To what extent do ordinary Europeans matter in terms of accepting and opposing the project of European integration, how do European citizens in core and peripheral EU states experience Europeanization, and how is their involvement in the integration project to be conceptualized?