The European Sovereign Debt Crisis has dominated the EU Member States’ agenda since May 2010. One of the main issues that EU policy makers need to address is the structure of a future fiscal framework.
Can organised interests be of help in bringing the EU closer to its citizens? In this SIEPS report the issue is examined by studying the process that produced the new regulatory system for chemicals (REACH). The conclusion is that participation of interest organisations contributed to better and more well-balanced decisions.
The Swedish wolf-hunting policy is today an issue high on the EU agenda. The European Commission has questioned the Swedish management plan for wolves and the Swedish government has replied by replacing the 2012 licensed hunting with extended protective hunting.
In this analysis, the authors scrutinizes the method of the Court of Justice of the European Union when balancing diverging or even opposing interests protected by EU law. The starting point is two joined cases, where the two authors are critical of the Court’s reasoning and argues that the Court sacrifices the fundamental interest of transparency in order to protect other interests, especially the protection of personal data.
The Hungarian presidency has faced a series of truly challenging economic and political problems. These include the responses to the economic and financial crises and the uprisings in the Arab world.
Europe's population live longer live and the workforce's share of the population is shrinking. This constitutes a big challenge for the EU´s Member States and within the EU there is now a debate on future European pension systems.
In response to the financial crisis that erupted in Greece, the European Council decided to amend the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to allow the establishment of a stability mechanism to safeguard the stability of the euro area. This is the first use made of one of the two ‘simplified’ Treaty revision procedures introduced by the Lisbon Treaty.
The quality of government shows considerable variation within and between EU member states. The authors of this report presents new and unique data of regional differences in the quality of government and a number of conclusions regarding what distinguish regions with high quality of government and low levels of corruption.
The EU’s R&D policy has recently come under the spotlight. It is a central element both in the review of the EU budget and in the so called Europe 2020 strategy, where the goal of increasing the level of investment in R&D in the EU to three percent of GDP is emphasized.
The aim of reducing regional disparities in the European Union is enshrined in the EU Treaty. An important aspect that takes centre stage in discussions on the EU’s so-called cohesion policy is the ranking of the Union’s many regions in terms of their levels of prosperity.