One money with several cycles? Evaluation of European business cycles using cluster analysis. ACES Cases No. 2009.3

Optimal currency area theory suggests that business cycle comovement is a sufficient condition for monetary union, particularly if there are low levels of labour mobility between potential members of the monetary union. Previous studies of co-movement of business cycle variables (mainly authored by Artis and Zhang in the late 1990s) found that there was a core of member states in the EU that could be grouped together as having similar business cycle comovements, but these studies always used Germany as the country against which to compare. In this study, the analysis of Artis and Zhang is extended and updated but correlating against both German and euro area macroeconomic aggregates and using more recent techniques in cluster analysis, namely model-based clustering techniques.

Citizenship Deprivation: A Normative Analysis. Liberty and Security in Europe No. 82, 19 March 2015

Most critical analyses assess citizenship-deprivation policies against international human rights and domestic rule of law standards, such as prevention of statelessness, non-arbitrariness with regard to justifications and judicial remedies, or non-discrimination between different categories of citizens. This report considers instead from a political theory perspective how deprivation policies reflect specific conceptions of political community. We distinguish four normative conceptions of the grounds of membership in a political community that apply to decisions on acquisition and loss of citizenship status: i) a ‘State discretion’ view, according to which governments should be as free as possible in pursuing State interests when determining citizenship status; ii) an ‘individual choice’ view, according to which individuals should be as free as possible in choosing their citizenship status; iii) an ‘ascriptive community’ view, according to which both State and individual choices should be minimised through automatic determination of membership based on objective criteria such as the circumstances of birth; and iv) a ‘genuine link’ view, according to which the ties of individuals to particular States determine their claims to inclusion and against deprivation while providing at the same time objections against including individuals without genuine links. We argue that most citizenship laws combine these four normative views in different ways, but that from a democratic perspective the ‘genuine link’ view is normatively preferable to the others. The report subsequently examines five general grounds for citizenship withdrawal – threats to public security, non-compliance with citizenship duties, flawed acquisition, derivative loss and loss of genuine links – and considers how the four normative views apply to withdrawal provision motivated by these concerns. The final section of the report examines whether EU citizenship provides additional reasons for protection against Member States’ powers of citizenship deprivation. We suggest that, in addition to fundamental rights protection through EU law and protection of free movement rights, three further arguments could be invoked: toleration of dual citizenship in a political union, prevention of unequal conditions for loss among EU citizens, and the salience of genuine links to the EU itself rather than merely to one of its Member States.

Europe’s reactive and protective muddling through: the results of a summit in fire fighting mode. EPC Post-Summit Analysis, 19 October 2015

The EU’s October summit was dominated by one issue; the migration and refugee crisis, with EU leaders intent on putting on a public display of unity after weeks of bitter arguments, and concentrating on fire-fighting and immediate measures to tackle the most pressing reasons for, and impacts of, the crisis. Longer-term measures to address some of the root causes of increased migratory flows, support for the integration of newly arrived refugees or the introduction of new channels of legal migration, were not discussed. The Summit also spent little time on two issues that had originally been expected to be a key part of the agenda: the forthcoming British referendum on EU membership, where irritation with the slow pace of talks and British vagueness about its demands were in evidence; and the governance of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), where EU leaders missed another opportunity for a thorough debate about future perspectives on the basis of the ‘Five Presidents’ Report’.

Analysis of developments in EU capital flows in the global context. Bruegel Final study Bruegel N° 2015.2574, November 2015

Free movement of capital, which is one of the four fundamental economic freedoms of the European Union, can enhance welfare if it leads to better allocation of financial and productive resources. However, it can also be a source of vulnerability, with far-reaching spillovers. Monitoring and assessing capital flows is therefore crucial for policymakers, market participants and analysts.

Elements of a complex but still incomplete puzzle: an assessment of the EU(-Turkey) summit. CEPS Post-Summit Analysis, 21 March 2016

The March 2016 EU Summit was yet another attempt to make progress on managing the EU’s migration/refugee crisis. In this post-summit analysis, Janis A. Emmanouilidis argues that the EU-Turkey deal, which foresees a return of migrants from Greece to Turkey and a direct resettlement of Syrians from Turkey to the EU on the grounds of a ‘1-for-1’ scheme, is a key and necessary element in a very complex puzzle trying to stop ‘irregular routes’ of migration. The ultimate success of this agreement is by no means certain, but it has the chance to reduce the number of people arriving at the shores of Europe. However, this would neither settle the crisis nor will it provide an adequate response to those in need of international protection. The ‘humanitarian imperative’ requires that the EU-Turkey deal is complemented by a much more ambitious direct resettlement scheme and other long-term measures as part of a comprehensive plan aiming to balance ‘solidarity and security’ in an effort to sustainably overcome the crisis.