he small war between Georgia and Russia from 8 to 22 August 2008 has shattered any remaining illusions over the frontiers of the normative map of Europe. All the primary parties have to be criticised: Russia for setting a trap for Saakashvili to fall into, the Georgian leadership for its...

The time is not only ripe but pressing for the EU and the states of the Western Balkans to recalibrate and reinforce the current pre-accession strategy. Trade policy should be moved beyond existing free trade commitments for all the Western Balkans to enter the customs union of the EU and...

The January 2009 interruptions of gas supplies from Russia to the EU via Ukraine, following the earlier 2006 crisis, has confirmed the absolutely intolerable situation in which a commodity of strategic importance for European industry and households has become uncertain and erratic, in breach of...

This paper proposes a two-step, market-based approach to debt reduction: Step 1. The European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) would offer holders of debt of the countries with an EFSF programme (probably Greece, Ireland and Portugal = GIP) an exchange into EFSF paper at the market price...

Europe's policy-makers are engaged in protracted discussion on whether and how to increase the size of the euro rescue funds (the EFSF and the ESM). In this Policy Brief, Daniel Gros and Thomas Mayer argue that this attention on the headline size of the EMS and EFSF is misplaced. They propose...

Following the June 2012 European Council decision to place the ‘Single Supervisory Mechanism' (SSM) within the European Central Bank, the general presumption in the policy discussions has been that there should be ‘Chinese walls' between the supervisory and monetary policy arms of the ECB....

Even though the financial crisis might have started in the US, CEPS Director Daniel Gros finds in a new CEPS Policy Brief that even more combustible material had accumulated in Europe, and that therefore that it likely that the cost will be higher here and the recovery slower than on the other...

Iceland has developed an oversized banking system - with assets valued at 8 times its GDP - which has effectively transformed the country into a hedge fund. Domestic banks have borrowed heavily abroad to buy foreign banking assets, leveraging their capital base several times over. As a bust is...

In the wake of the Irish no-vote on the Treaty of Lisbon, numerous scenarios are currently being debated. This paper critically assesses the legality and political feasibility of the principal proposals and then puts forward an alternative 'Plan B', which the authors believe would amply satisfy...