The long-term budget has been stable over time, hovering around 1 percent of GNI. Its core may remain in that neighbourhood, but the galaxy of satellites around it seems much more expansive. With an emerging mix of grants and loans following the COVID-19 crisis, we may soon see a long-term budget in the vicinity of 2 percent, argues Daniel Tarschys, senior advisor at Sieps and a former Secretary General of the Council of Europe.
Recently, EU leaders have repeated the message that the Union needs to be more “geopolitical”. What does this mean? Richard Youngs, professor of International Relations, analyses this ambition by questioning its underlying assumptions. Without a modern and innovative form of geopolitics, he writes, the EU’s international identity risks becoming more uncertain and ambiguous – a risk that the Covid-19 pandemic is likely to reinforce.
The European Commission has proposed a possibility to suspend financial transfers to Member States with deficiencies as regards the rule of law. In an analysis of the proposal, professors Armin von Bogdandy and Justyna Łacny conclude that it has merits but raises legal doubts. Suspending EU funds could also harm the people they are meant to protect.
The present pandemic crisis brings uncertainty to the European Green Deal – the ambitious plan for environmental and climate progress. What can policymakers do if they wish to keep the green momentum? Mats Engström, senior advisor at SIEPS, offers six courses of action.
As the EU aims at strengthening the competitivity of European companies, the functioning of the Single Market comes to the fore. Is a more assertive industrial policy compatible with free and fair competition? This question is studied in a volume focusing on the legal instruments that govern the EU’s internal market.
Following the deep euro crisis, the EU governments agreed on eurozone reforms that constituted a substantial deepening of European integration. In this report, political scientists Lisa Dellmuth, Magnus Lundgren and Jonas Tallberg analyse the dynamics behind the eurozone reform and discuss implications for future policy.
The EU’s budget package adopted in July strengthens the Union’s financial capacity but contains concessions that imply cuts in investments for collective action. As long as each country has a veto right in the budgetary process, it will be hard to obtain resources for expenditures with a high European value added, argues Daniel Tarschys, senior advisor at SIEPS.
The respect for the rule of law is declining both in EU member states and in countries aspiring to membership. The EU therefore needs to step up its efforts and adopt a more inclusive, coherent, and transparent approach. This argument is developed by Marko Kmezić and Florian Bieber at the University of Graz.
On 1 December 2009, the Lisbon Treaty entered into force, aiming at making the EU more democratic, more transparent and more efficient. In this volume, four scholars discuss whether the Treaty has strengthened the EU during the past decade, a period marked by several crises for the European Union. With contributions from Luuk van Middelaar, R. Daniel Kelemen, Anne Thies and Eleanor Spaventa.
The outgoing European Commission has been defined by the idea of a more “political” institution. While the ambition proved difficult to implement, a return to the role as a neutral arbiter is no longer an alternative.