Cities: The Juncker Commission should not miss this key to growth, jobs and the environment. CEPS Commentary, 3 October 2014

Cities, more particularly ‘smart’ cities, could become a catalyst for economic and social development. For this to happen, Europe will need a new type of integrated infrastructure, a new urban governance and policy structure, as well as new finance and business models. Successful smart projects will eventually develop into new business models and companies. While the European Commission cannot mandate or regulate this top down, it has a role to play in nurturing new initiatives to allow Europe the possibility of developing its own Google and Apple.

The Energy Performance of Buildings: Promises Still Unfulfilled. Egmont Paper No. 78, May 2015

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY All observers agree that energy efficiency must be the cornerstone of any serious EU energy strategy. In this general context, the EU building sector is critical. It represents about 40% of EU final energy consumption (residential houses, public/private offices, commercial buildings, etc.) and approximately 36% of EU CO2 emissions. This is massive. The EU has certainly not been inactive in this field. The Energy Performance in Buildings Directive 2002/91/EC (EPBD) was the first and the main instrument to address the problem of the energy performance of buildings. It has established numerous principles: a reliable methodology which enables the calculation and rating of the energy performance of buildings; minimum energy performance standards for new buildings and existing buildings under major renovation; energy performance certificates; regular inspection of heating and air-conditioning systems; and, finally, quality standards for inspections and energy performance certificates. They were strengthened in 2010 by the recast Directive 2010/31/EU. This directive also introduces a decisive concept for the development of the building sector: ‘nearly zeroenergy buildings’. In 2012, the new Energy Efficiency Directive 2012/27/EU dealt with other aspects. In the building sector, three of them are particularly important. They concern: (1) the establishment of long-term strategies for mobilizing investment in the renovation of the national building stocks; (2) the introduction of energy saving schemes for ‘designated’ energy companies with a view to reducing consumption among ‘final consumers’ by 1.5% annually; and (3), as an option, the setting up of an Energy Efficiency National Fund to support energy efficiency initiatives. This paper also briefly examines the different instruments put in place to disseminate information and consultation, and the EU funding for energy efficiency in buildings. Results, however, have remained limited until now. The improvement of the energy performance of buildings and the rhythm of renovation remain extremely weak. Member States’ unwillingness to timely and properly transpose and implement the Directives continues despite the high degree of flexibility permitted. The decentralized approach chosen for some specific aspects and the differentiation in the application of EPBD standards between Member States do not appear optimal either. Adequate financial schemes remain rare. The permanent deficit of qualified and trained personnel and the inertia of public authorities to make the public understand the stakes in this domain remain problematic. Hence the need to take new initiatives to reap the benefits that the building sector is meant to bring.

Towards a new design of South American integration? Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series, Special Issue January 2013

The design of South American integration is becoming different. This has been quite common in the trajectory of over six decades of initiatives aimed at generating institutional frameworks to facilitate regional integration. However, even when it has become apparent that the previous design is undergoing a new process of change, it would be difficult to predict for how long the one that is beginning to take shape will remain in effect. The experience of recent decades suggests great caution in forecasts that are optimistic about any eventual longevity. Several factors are contributing to this redesign. Some are external to the region while others are endogenous. The combination of these factors will influence the future design of South American integration. If past lessons are correctly capitalized and certain advantage is derived from the leeway provided by a decentralized international system with multiple options, we can anticipate that what will predominate in the region will be multidimensional integration agreements (with political and economic objectives at the same time) and with cross-memberships and commitments. If this were the case, the actual impact on regional governance, social and productive integration and the competitive insertion at a global scale will depend largely on the following factors: the quality and sustainability of the strategy for development and global and regional insertion of each country; the combination of a reasonable degree of flexibility and predictability in the commitments made and their corresponding ground rule, and the density of the network of cross-interests that can be achieved as a result of the respective regional integration agreements, reflected in multiple transnational social and production networks.

Liberalising trade in services: creating new migration opportunities? Research Paper in Law, 1/2010

Introduction. It is quite uncommon to associate migration with the rules on services trade. Indeed, all economic definitions of services insist on their immaterial nature and on the increased possibility of trading them ‘virtually’ over networks or else, without any physical movement of the parties involved. Somehow this ‘immaterial’ nature of services reflects on their providers/recipients which seem to be ‘invisible’. Even though most services still require the physical contact of the provider with the recipient1 and, when provided over national borders, do entail migration, service providers and/or recipients are rarely thought of as ‘immigrants’. This may be due to the fact that they enter the foreign territory with a specific aim and, once this aim accomplished, move back to their state of origin; technically they only qualify as short term non-cyclical migrants and are of little interest to policy-makers. A second reason may be that both service providers and recipients are economically desirable: the former are typically highly skilled and trained professionals and the latter are well-off ‘visitors’, increasing consumption in the host state. The legal definition of services in Article 57 TFEU (ex Art. 50 EC) further nourishes this idea about service providers/recipients not being migrants: the relevant Treaty rules only apply when the provisions on free movement of workers and freedom of establishment – themselves clearly linked to migration – do not apply. This distinction has been fleshed up by the ECJ which has consistently held that the distinction between the rules on establishment, on the one hand, and the rules on services, on the other, lies on duration.2 Indeed, all EC manuals state four types of service provision falling under the EC Treaty: a) where the service provider moves to the recipient’s state, for a short period of time (longer stay would amount to establishment), b) where the service recipients themselves move to the state where the service is offered (eg for medical care, education, tourism etc), c) where both service providers and recipients move together in another member state (eg a tourist guide accompanying a group travelling abroad) and d) where the service itself is provided across the borders (typically through the use of ICTs). None of these situations would typically qualify as migration. The above ‘dissociation’ between services and migration has been gradually weakened in the recent years. Indeed, migration is increasingly connected to the transnational provision of services. This is the result of three kinds of factors: developments in the European Court of Justice’s (ECJ) case law; legislative initiatives in the EU; and the GATS. Each one of these is considered in some detail below. The aim of the analysis which follows is to show the extent to which (legislative and judicial) policies aimed at the free provision of services actively affect migration conditions within the EU. The EC rules on the provision of services primarily affect the movement of EU nationals. As it will be shown below, however, third country nationals (TCNs) may also claim the benefits of the rules on services, either as recipients thereof or as employees of some EC undertaking which is providing services in another member state (posted workers).

Proportionality needed in the subsidiarity debate in the EU – Appraisal of the British and Dutch initiatives. CEPS Essay No. 11, 8 April 2014

In a new CEPS Essay, Michael Emerson assesses the initiatives taken by the UK and Dutch governments to cut out excessive EU regulatory intrusion, namely in the form of the ongoing British Balance of Competences Review and the Dutch list of 54 items of EU regulation that they would like to see repealed or reformed. He concludes that while one can approve of a campaign for better EU regulation and for cutting out unnecessary micro-regulation, it would require impressive commitment by all member states and the EU institutions to follow the best features of the British and Dutch leads for this to have a real effect in the fight against populist euroscepticism. In his view, that battle will have to be won primarily with bigger weapons – some combination of better macroeconomic results, bigger foreign policy achievements and the emergence of a European-level political leadership to which the people can relate. In short, there has to be due proportionality in the diagnosis of the responsibility of inadequate subsidiarity for the EU’s ills.

Designing a New EU-Turkey Strategic Gas Partnership. Bruegel Policy Contribution Issue 2015/10 July 2015

Highlights. • The European Commission’s February 2015 Energy Union Communication calls for intensified work on the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) and the establishment of a new strategic energy partnership with Turkey. The presence of the European Union and Turkey in the region is complementary in a number of ways. Building on this could unlock the region’s gas export potential and make gas supplies to the EU and Turkey more secure. • The EU should establish dedicated energy diplomacy taskforces with Turkey and each potential supplier in the region (Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Kurdistan Region of Iraq). This would allow the EU and Turkey to make use of their complementary diplomatic leverages to overcome barriers to regional gas trade. • In parallel, the EU should establish with Turkey a dedicated financing mechanism to facilitate gas infrastructure investments, with a primary focus on the upgrade of the Turkish gas grid. The European Investment Bank might play a role in attracting private and institutional investors through its financing tools. • The four ‘EU-Turkey Energy Diplomacy Taskforces’ and the ‘EU-Turkey Gas Infrastructure Financing Initiative’ would be initiatives of the recently started EU-Turkey Strategic High Level Energy Dialogue. Simone Tagliapietra (simone.tagliapietra@bruegel.org) is Visiting Fellow at Bruegel. Georg Zachmann (georg.zachmann@bruegel.org) is Research Fellow at Bruegel. The authors thank Agata Łoskot-Strachota for comments that helped to improve the paper significantly,