In March, 2007, the Treaty of Rome celebrates its 50th anniversary. The chief lesson from this remarkable period of European cooperation is the contribution to growth and prosperity from economic integration. The common commercial policy that emerged from this treaty has had a significant impact...

Online platforms create "more perfect" markets. Online platforms are a market-driven cure to the imperfections of the EU's incomplete Single Market. Platforms provide well-functioning technical infrastructures that allow users to easily deal with country-specific legislation in the EU, e.g. VAT...

What if the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is not a doomed initiative - and what if it will actually make inroads into modern trade problems? The Asia-Pacific region is now the world's centre of economic gravity holding an increasing share of world production and promising a rapid turn into the...

The forces of the Wealth of nations are not at work for the Health of nations. Economic and trade integration have progressed over the last fifty years and yet one sector remains conspicuously un-globalized: health care. Interest groups and international organizations, like the World Health...

Trade agreements are powerful drivers of global economic integration, leading to increased trade flows between countries. Usually, trade agreements are extensive documents with hundreds of provisions and different levels of enforceability. Are all these provisions useful, even those that are...

The European Union has set out a new strategy for growth and competitiveness. A successor to the Lisbon agenda, the 2020 strategy aims to usher Europe into an era of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. It is of tremendous importance that Europe speeds up growth. Fiscal stabilization can...

The crisis-struck EU finds it increasingly difficult to engage in trade negotiations with large-sized economies that would have a meaningful impact on growth. Some parts of the European car industry are opposing a FTA with Japan due to defensive interests following the crisis in EU car...

Despite major advancements in the Japan-EU FTA (JEUFTA) negotiations, the talks remain difficult in the railway sector. These difficulties flow largely from the fact that the Japanese railways are organized on a radically different legal and economic basis than the railway systems in the EU....

This policy brief outlines the chronology of the developments since Edward Snowden leaked the documents on large-scale electronic surveillance, including PRISM and Tempora programmes, the policy implications and the public's response. It concludes that the nature of the debate has shifted from a...

International reference pricing (IRP) has become a popular policy instrument in Europe as government seeks to curb healthcare costs and notably reduce expenditure on medicines. IRP builds on systematic price comparisons with other countries and aims at fixing low reimbursement levels for drugs...