On February 28, 2023, the European Union (EU) reached a political agreement on a future regulation of green bonds, the European Green Bond Standard (EU GBS). Last Friday, the European Parliament officially adopted this new regulation. The regulation aims to improve the effectiveness,...

Encouraging private investment in the EU is currently a primary goal of the European Commission. However, the effectiveness of public policies to stimulate private investment - such as a European Fund for Strategic Investments, which was recently proposed by the president of the European...

Public intervention in the automotive industry has a long, global history. In Europe, both, individual member states and the European Union (EU), often allocate public resources to automobile manufacturers through a wide variety of instruments and institutions. This willingness to offer support...

Increasing investment in innovation has been a major goal of research and innovation policy in Europe over the past decade. Yet to secure competitive advantage and achieve growth, R&D investment has to be translated into successful innovations, and this is first and foremost the task of firms....

The aggravating turbulences in the market for euro government bonds have so far precluded any recovery from the debt crisis. The key problem is that structural reforms and consolidation measures have long impact lags and are not able to stop an acute self-fulfilling crisis of confidence. In the...

Customised products and services, flexible working arrangements, productivity growth, and increasing prosperity - these are just some of the advantages promised by a digitised and connected economy. Business managers and politicians are keen to reap the potential benefits of the digital...

In 2016, the Eurozone is still coping with the consequences of two financial crises that revealed the shortcomings of an incomplete monetary union. The European economy suffered two severe recessions and a sustainable growth path is still elusive. Risks in the banking system and a severe banking...

The experiences of the ongoing refugee crisis in Europe highlight the failures of the current model of having the EU and its members states share responsibility for asylum policies. Based on standard criteria of fiscal federalism, this paper analyses the shortcomings of the status quo. We show...

In this paper we propose a reform of the EU financing system. The two most important elements of our proposal are i) to make the contribution of taxpayers to the EU budget more visible by showing an EU VAT share on receipts and ii) to increase the power of the European Parliament in the...

Fighting cartels is a major priority of EU competition policy. Acting in concert with national competition authorities in the EU, the European Commission (EC) has made considerable efforts to promote competitiveness by detecting and punishing cartels. These efforts are visible not only in the...