Extending Working Lives: A comparative analysis of how governments influence lifelong learning, CEPS Special Report No. 111, July 2015

This report offers a comparative policy study on adult learning within the scope of complementary research conducted by Beblavý et al. (2013) on how people upgrade their skills during their adult lifetimes. To achieve our objectives, we identified regulatory policies and financial support in 11 countries for two main categories of learning: formal higher education and employer-based training. Drawing upon the results of the country reports carried out by our partners in the MoPAct project, we found that in none of the countries examined is there an ‘older student’ policy. In most cases grants and financial support are awarded only up until a certain age. In all of the countries studied, standard undergraduate and post-graduate studies are available for part-time students. The distribution of full-time students and part-time students in tertiary education varies from one country to another as well as from one age group to another. The participation in full-time tertiary education programmes decreases with the age of students. In Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and the UK, there are no mandatory policies to ensure employer-based training. However, in Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain, employer-based training is more clearly regulated and the employers might have obligations to provide training for their staff. Taking into consideration Beblavý et al. (2013), we observe that comparative differences across countries can be related to policy differences only in some cases. The policy framework seems to impact more the employer-based training than the educational attainment (upgrade of ISCED level). In Denmark, the Netherlands, Latvia, Lithuania, Czech Republic and Poland, we find a perfect match between policy outcomes and the results of Beblavý et al. (2013) related to employer-based training. This is not the case in the United Kingdom, where the two aspects observed are not correlated.

The post-Lisbon role of the European Parliament in the EU's Common Commercial Policy: Implications for bilateral trade negotiations. EU Diplomacy Paper 05/2012, July 2012

This paper sets out to conduct an empirical analysis of the post-Lisbon role of the European Parliament (EP) in the EU’s Common Commercial Policy through an examination of the ‘deep and comprehensive’ bilateral Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) currently negotiated as part of the EU’s Global Europe strategy. The EU-Korea and EU-India FTAs are used as case studies in order to determine the implications of the EP’s enhanced trade powers on the processes, actors and outcomes of EU bilateral trade policy. The EP is now endowed with the ‘hard power’ of consent in the ratification phase of FTAs, acting as a threat to strengthen its ‘soft power’ to influence negotiations. The EP is developing strategies to influence the mandate and now plays an important role in the implementation of FTAs. The entry of this new player on the Brussels trade policy field has brought about a shift in the institutional balance of power and opened up the EP as a new point of access for trade policy lobbyists. Finally, increased EP involvement in EU trade policy has brought about a politicisation of EU trade policy and greater normative outcomes of FTAs.