The financial crisis has shattered the confidence of economic agents in the banking system. In order to prevent future crises, the reasons for banks’ excessive risk taking have to be understood.

After several years of increase, we now witness a significant drop in Swedish public support for the EU. In the 2011 survey from the SOM Institute, only 46 percent declare themselves in favour of Sweden´s EU membership.

In light of volatile and highly uneven distribution of asylum applications across the European Union, the European Commission issued a communication in December 2011 “on enhanced intra-EU solidarity in the field of asylum” that seeks to create “an EU agenda for better responsibility sharing and more mutual trust” between Member States. In this European Policy Analysis the authors argue that even though many of the recommendations made by the Commission should be encouraged, they fail to address the structural, institutional features of the system ‒ namely the distribution key for financial responsibility sharing and the responsibility allocation principle underlying physical responsibility sharing ‒ which are perpetuating existing inequalities.

Despite the fierce opposition against introducing so-called Eurobonds, the proposal as such has resurfaced in light of demands from G20 and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that the euro area member states further increase the lending volume of their rescue funds. Given the lack of political response, the European Central Bank (ECB) has come to the rescue by buying government bonds and stimulated the financial markets with low-interest loans in order to reduce the systemic risk.

How is consumer interest representation, at both national and EU level, affected by European integration? How can the consumers´ influence in Europe be strengthened, and to what extent is it facilitated by the EU consumer policy? Finally, do the developments at national level affect the consumers’ political participation at the EU level? In this analysis, Paolo Graziano examines the EU consumers’ strategy with regard to its capacity to increase the role of consumers in the domestic and EU decision making. He illustrates the evolution of consumer interest groups both in the EU and nationally, looking specifically at the case of Italy.

Announced in 2011, the proposal for reforming the European Unions’ Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) marks an important shift of emphasis of the policy objectives, towards environmental sustainability. It describes the conservation of marine biological resources as a fundamental pillar of the CFP and, for the first time, sets forth a quantifiable target — the maximum sustainable yield (MSY) — to be achieved within a set time perspective.

Sovereignty over the Economic and Monetary Union, EMU, is divided. Monetary policy is unified at the European level while economic policy is in essence national.

Welfare services in Sweden are to a large extent the responsibility of municipalities, county councils and regions. This includes the provision of housing, health care, waste management and education.

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, a vast amount of economic analysis and a sizeable number of reforms in the financial markets have followed. In this report, Professor Henry Montgomery takes the analysis one step further by examining the psychological explanations behind the crisis.

Even though the Member States are ambitious in setting the agenda for the EU, they are less keen to provide the funding necessary to meet these ambitions. Indeed, if the EU seriously sought to attain all goals and ambitions of the Member States, it would easily swallow large parts if not all of the EU’s combined GNI.