State Transformation and the European Integration Project. Lessons from the financial crisis and the Greek paradigm. CEPS Special Report No. 130/February 2016

The financial crisis that erupted in the eurozone not only affected the EU’s financial governance mechanisms, but also the very nature of state sovereignty and balances in the relations of member states; thus, the actual inequalities between the member states hidden behind their institutional equality have deteriorated. This transformation is recorded in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the member states’ constitutional courts, particularly in those at the heart of the crisis, with Greece as the most prominent example. It is the issue of public debt (sovereign debt) of the EU member states that particularly reflects the influence of the crisis on state sovereignty as well as the intensely transnational (intergovernmental) character of European integration, which under these circumstances takes the form of a continuous, tough negotiation. The historical connection between public debt (sovereign debt) and state sovereignty has re-emerged because of the financial crisis. This development has affected not only the European institutions, but also, at the member state level, the actual institutional content of the rule of law (especially judicial review) and the welfare state in its essence, as the great social and political acquis of 20th century Europe. From this perspective, the way that the Greek courts have dealt with the gradual waves of fiscal austerity measures and structural reforms from 2010 to 2015 is characteristic. The effect of the financial crisis on the sovereignty of the member states and on the pace of European integration also has an impact on European foreign and security policy, and the correlations between the political forces at both the national and European level, thus producing even more intense pressures on European social democracy. In light of the experience of the financial crisis, the final question is whether the nation state (given the large real inequalities among the EU member states) currently functions as a brake or as an engine for future European integration.

The Criminalisation of Migration in Europe: A State-of-the-Art of the Academic Literature and Research. CEPS Liberty and Security in Europe No. 61, October 2013

In the last 30 years, a clear trend has come to define modern immigration law and policy. A set of seemingly disparate developments concerning the constant reinforcement of border controls, tightening of conditions of entry, expanding capacities for detention and deportation and the proliferation of criminal sanctions for migration offences, accompanied by an anxiety on the part of the press, public and political establishment regarding migrant criminality can now be seen to form a definitive shift in the European Union towards the so-called ‘criminalisation of migration’. This paper aims to provide an overview of the ‘state-of-the-art’ in the academic literature and EU research on criminalisation of migration in Europe. It analyses three key manifestations of the so-called ‘crimmigration’ trend: discursive criminalisation; the use of criminal law for migration management; and immigrant detention, focusing both on developments in domestic legislation of EU member states but also the increasing conflation of mobility, crime and security which has accompanied EU integration. By identifying the trends, synergies and gaps in the scholarly approaches dealing with the criminalisation of migration, the paper seeks to provide a framework for on-going research under Work Package 8 of the FIDUCIA project.

State of the Union and key challenges for Europe's future. CHALLENGE EUROPE Issue 22 - Challenges and new beginnings: Priorities for the EU's new leadership, September 2014.

In the last five years deep cracks have appeared in the European project. The 'euro-area crisis' triggered by a severe global financial and economic crisis has put European integration to a major test, more profound than ever before. The experience of recent years has revealed and exacerbated significant deficiencies in the European Union's (EU) economic and political construction. At time it has cast doubt on fundamentals of the European project and raised questions about whether Europe will be able to deal effectively not only with the immediate crisis, but also with the many other serious socio-economic, politico-institutional, societal and global challenges that Europe is and will be confronted with. At the start of a new institutional-political cycle (2014-2019) and while the crisis situation has for a number of reasons improved significantly since the summer of 2012, at least in systemic terms, the Union's new leadership and Member States will now have to take strategic decisions about the future of European integration.

State (un)Sustainability in the Southern Mediterranean and Scenarios to 2030: The EU’s Response. MEDPRO Policy Paper No. 1/August 2011(updated April 2012)

This research project is the product of a conviction, corroborated by the events that have overwhelmed the Arab world since December 2010, that sustainability is essential to any understanding of Mediterranean politics. Sustainability has too often been confused with stability in policy debates in the region and in the West. Not only are these two concepts distinct, with sustainability being broader and deeper than stability, but stability, as interpreted with regard to the regimes in the region, has often run counter to the very conditions that underpin state sustainability. Believing and thus pursuing regime stability has ultimately acted to the detriment of a more organic understanding of state sustainability.

Factor Markets in Applied Equilibrium Models: The current state and planned extensions towards an improved presentation of factor markets in agriculture. Factor Markets Working Paper No. 23, February 2012

This paper describes how factor markets are presented in applied equilibrium models and how we plan to improve and to extend the presentation of factor markets in two specific models: MAGNET and ESIM. We do not argue that partial equilibrium models should become more ‘general’ in the sense of integrating all factor markets, but that the shift of agricultural income policies to decoupled payments linked to land in the EU necessitates the inclusion of land markets in policy-relevant modelling tools. To this end, this paper outlines options to integrate land markets in partial equilibrium models. A special feature of general equilibrium models is the inclusion of fully integrated factor markets in the system of equations to describe the functionality of a single country or a group of countries. Thus, this paper focuses on the implementation and improved representation of agricultural factor markets (land, labour and capital) in computable general equilibrium (CGE) models. This paper outlines the presentation of factor markets with an overview of currently applied CGE models and describes selected options to improve and extend the current factor market modelling in the MAGNET model, which also uses the results and empirical findings of our partners in this FP project.

Ending the State-Building Impasse: What Can Be Learned from Previous EU Enlargements that Might Offer Solutions for Bosnia and Herzegovina. ACES Working Paper No. 10, 2007

On the basis of the success of the two previous waves of European Union enlargement to post-communist states, EU accession is the international community's solution for ending the state-building impasse in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Through a literature review of analysis of the recent EU enlargements, this paper compares those countries' experiences with the current situation in Bosnia, and raises questions about the ability of the EU to address state-building issues through the accession process. The paper concludes that the previous enlargements do not provide a model for state-building in Bosnia. Because the EU's attempts to help along the process of state building in Bosnia is a new type of policy project, the paper proposes how the enlargement process might be adapted to address the specific problems in Bosnia, particularly in terms using human rights norms to compel Bosnian leaders to adopt necessary reforms.

Public Procurement in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Negotiations. Paper No. 2 in the CEPS-CTR project "TTIP in the Balance" and CEPS Special Report No. 100/February 2015

For more than 20 years, the United States and the European Union have engaged in often-contentious negotiations over access to government procurement. The EU is dissatisfied with the level of procurement that the US has opened under the WTO Government Procurement Agreement and, as a consequence, it does not give the US its most comprehensive coverage. The US has been constrained in responding to the EU’s requests for greater access, especially to state procurement, by both its federal structure of government and by domestic purchasing requirements. At the current time, neither party has proposed a way to break the impasse. This paper reviews the current state of affairs between the US and the EU on government procurement, examining the procurement that they open to one another and the procurement that they withhold. It then proposes a strategy for the two sides to use the TTIP negotiations to move forward. This strategy includes both steps to expand their current commitments in the TTIP, as well as to develop a longer-term approach by making the TTIP a ‘living agreement’. This strategy suggests that the EU and the US could find a way to expand their access to government procurement contracts and at least partially defuse the issue.