Healthcare is one of the core policy areas of the welfare state which for a long time has been regarded as unaffected by the process of European integration. However, healthcare has increasingly been subjected to the principles of the internal market during the last ten years.

The old age dependency ratio in the EU is projected to increase and the fertility rates are low. The strain this will put on public finances through increased pension payments and increased health care costs is one of Europe’s main economic challenges.

This report aims at providing systematic knowledge about a central, yet underresearched, political body within the European Union, namely the European Council. The closed nature of the meetings and summits of the heads of state and governments makes empirical research on the functioning of the European Council very difficult.

SIEPS’ annual conference 2006 was held on the theme Why Europe? Possibilities and limits of European integration. The focus of the conference was the consequences of the failure to ratify the Constitutional Treaty from different scholarly perspectives.

This Report gives a detailed insight into the organisational structures of the German Presidency. It starts with a general part describing German motivation for European integration, the developments since the German unification, public opinion on European integration and the positions of important political players in Germany.

Issue 4 of the European Policy Analysis deals with the mandate to the reform treaty agreed at the European Council meeting on 23 June 2007. The new treaty represents a new attempt to give the EU new tools to address future challenges.

The analysis deals with the constitutional developments in the Court of Justice, particularly in the development of the EC's competence in criminal matters.   The analysis is part of the research project The constitutional development of the European Union and was presented at the seminar Who Shapes the Future of Criminal Law? 2007:2epa Spillover or activist leapfrogging? Criminal Competence and the Sensitiveness of the ECJ (166.

Flexicurity has become a popular concept and is associated with a modern labour market policy. The author discusses the dangers of using such a vague concept as flexicurity and identifies four potential problems.

The first issue of SIEPS European Policy Analysis deals with regulatory issues within telecommunications The analysis is part of the research project The EU's Internal Market: Effects on Central Areas.  2007:1epa Better regulation of mobile telecommunications (114.

The EU budget should be reviewed 2008 / 09. The author proposes a "Zero Base" approach in which no expenses or income is considered sacred, but are tested as if they were suggested for the first time.