In the lead-up to the creation of a Eurasian Economic Union in 2015, the Customs Union and the Common Economic Space between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan represent two elements of the most ambitious regional integration project launched in the post-Soviet era since 1991.  

This CEPS Special Report gives an overview of China’s perceptions of the EU and the protection of Chinese investments in Europe since the outbreak of the European sovereign debt crisis, especially since the more concrete talks in late 2011 on possible financial support from China. Although the top leadership of the communist party of China (CPC) changed in its recent handover, the perceptions described in this paper are likely to remain the same, just as the main tenets of China’s foreign policy are unlikely to change in the near future.

In July 2012, the European Commission issued an invitation for public consultation to review the ‘auctioning time profile’ for the EU Emissions Trading Scheme” in order to collect views from stakeholders and experts in the field of the EU carbon market on a draft for a future amendment of the Commission Regulation on the timing, administration and other aspects of auctioning of greenhouse gas emission allowances. In this submission, the CEPS Carbon Market Forum addresses the following questions and offers its views on the Commission’s proposed amendments:

In recognition that the world is moving towards a new climate change regime that in many ways will be very different from the world in which the Kyoto Protocol has been operating, climate negotiators and other specialists have begun to focus their attention on developing a “framework for variable approaches” (FVA). It is hoped that this new framework will prove more adaptable to national circumstances and more capable of catalysing new ideas, at the regional, national or sub-national level.

This report explores the untapped growth that could result from the better functioning of services markets in the EU and aims to bridge the gap between the policy debate and the latest empirical economic analysis in this field. The authors find ample scope for further economic growth in the EU, both from the reform of domestic services and from the deepening of the ‘single services market’. Domestic and EU-level services reforms are so intertwined economically that indeed we may speak of a ‘double dividend’ and, for the eurozone, a ‘triple dividend’.

This paper explores the extent to which that elusive phenomenon called “workplace innovation” has pervaded workplaces in Europe and whether it could be one of the answers to Europe’s long-term social and economic challenges that stem from an ageing workforce and the need for more flexibility to stay competitive.

This special report analyses legislative activity in the European Union and coalition formation in the European Parliament (EP) during the first half of the 7th legislative term, 2009-14. Co-decision is now the ordinary legislative procedure, not by name only: it was deployed on 90% of new proposals in 2010 and 86% in 2011, which suggests that the EP is now more influential than ever.

The financial crisis has deeply affected European defence budgets and, as a consequence, the EU’s capability to act as a provider of global security. This paper assesses the extent to which pooling & sharing (P&S) of military capabilities is a viable plan to boost collective capacity-building and offset the heavy budget cut-backs, drawing impetus from the NATO ‘smart defence’ agenda.

This CEPS Special Report analyses the benefits that would result from more electricity trading in northern Europe – including the Nordic and Baltic states, Germany, the UK, Poland, the Netherlands and Belgium. It argues that trading electricity across national borders can bring down the cost of the EU’s transition to a competitive low-carbon economy, in particular by facilitating the integration of electricity generated from variable renewable sources, such as wind and solar energy.

Following an examination of the present procedures of the European Commission in competition cases under Regulation 1/2003, this paper finds that the existing safeguards for due process are not sufficient and explains why reform is urgently needed. Three possible radical solutions are outlined: 1) setting up a decision-making body within the Commission, 2) setting up a separate European competition authority and 3) making the Commission a “prosecutor” bringing competition cases before the General Court, which would adopt the first legally binding decisions.

The European Union is strongly committed to fulfilling the Aid Effectiveness goals of the Paris Declaration and the Accra Agenda for Action, as well as the European Code of Conduct on Division of Labour in Development Policy. Towards this end, the European Commission, with the participation of many EU member states and European development financiers, has launched new financing instruments aimed at translating these commitments into real action.

There remains a degree of uncertainty about the role of national parliaments in the European system of governance under the rules of the Treaty of Lisbon. The legion of 10,000 national parliamentarians should guard the principle of subsidiarity in EU legislation, which now constitutes about one quarter of all laws adopted in member states. Confusion arises over how many of the new post-Lisbon prerogatives belong to individual national chambers, and how many require a collective response.

This report considers four short-term, alternative scenarios for the eurozone and analyses their possible implications for global economic trends and the gold market. Overall, the main findings suggest that in the near future, motives other than inflation hedging will be the main drivers of gold market dynamics. Growth in emerging economies, which are among the largest sources of gold demand, and financial market uncertainty, will be the most important ones.

This study explores ways to integrate industry in the process of designing and operationalising sectoral approaches to climate change according to a guideline that could be agreed in Cancún in December 2010 or later. One possible effective form of industry’s contribution could be their participation in a consultative body based on a public-private partnership and tasked to steer this process.