The paper discusses the relevance of past concerns about trade and foreign direct investment diversion to the detriment of Asian suppliers and hosts as a result of EU integration deepening and widening in the nineties. Based on recent empirical evidence, these concerns are rejected. As concerns...

The paper discusses the pros and cons of a Transatlantic free trade area (TAFTA) against the concept of an informal trade-facilitating marketplace between Europe and the US. It finds considerably more cons expecially since TAFTA would be expected to have ever more discriminatory effects to the...

The paper discusses similarities and differences between past EU binding internal liberalization "across the board" in the industrial sector and present so-called voluntary sectoral liberalization of member states of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). While both approaches are...

With twelve new members the decision making in the European Union via intergovernmental cooperation will become ineffective. In order to avoid a Stagno-Europe the EU has a choice: Either it looks for the very essentials in the common institutional frame or the member states agree in ceding...

As consumers’ demand for organic products and especially organic food grows, organic certification for tropical fruit is increasingly promoted in many developing countries. Certified organic pineapple exports only started taking off after 2005 and are rapidly increasing. The organic and...

Europe’s labor is not competitiveness taking unemployment as the relevant indicator. The paper looks at other indicators such as job creation, productivity and unit labor costs and skills. It analyzes the reasons for the lack of competitiveness including a low degree of wage differentiation,...