From the mid 1980s onwards, successive deepening and widening of European integration has led to the emergence of a new European economy. Its mode of operation is increasingly subjected to the dynamics of global and European financial markets. This article addresses the question inasmuch...

Over the last decades, competitiveness has become the major driving force of European integration. The EU polity has gained significant influence in reshaping domestic policies and institutions towards a more market oriented path. The supranational constraints on nation states are reinforced by...

The paper argues that both the deepening of the EU, and the concrete form of its eastward expansion is motivated by an overarching project of neoliberal restructuring at the EU level, initiated by the forces of an emerging transnational capitalist class. Whereas the deepening project could be...

While the arrival of the Euro is one of the most eminent events in Western Europe's post-war history, most social science theories take a rather narrow view on technical procedures of introducing a common currency. The literature on 'optimum currency areas', functionalist integration theories...

The paper starts with an overview of competing theoretical approaches to understanding Europeanization of Central and East European applicant states. It is suggested that instead of seeing the process as strictly "top-down," we must investigate the ways in which the common pressures and...

Although Switzerland is not a typical tax haven, Switzerlands legal system has some distinctive features that allows foreign individuals and companies to evade taxes. The most important is the distinction between tax evasion and tax fraud, with only the latter being a criminal offense. Therefore...

One of the main questions in recent debates on the future of welfare states has been whether globalization or structural economic change will lead to convergence. To answer that question, the liberal welfare state of the United States and the conservative continental European welfare states are...

The terror-attack hit the western world in a situation of a sharp cyclical downturn in the USA, Europe and Japan. Mainly because of increased uncertainty the downturn will be intensified by the attack. Immediately after the attack US monetary and fiscal policy became even more expansive. In...