The member states of the European Union have given up sovereignty in quite a number of policy areas and subjected themselves to joint decisionmaking at the European level. Policy instruments are no longer available nationally in many policy areas, including monetary policy, trade policy, the...

In Germany, hard coal has been subsidized for almost half a century. Despite the declining significance of hard coal production for the domestic labor market, the magnitude of subsidies increased until the middle of the last decade. In 1996, they peaked at Þ 6.7 bill.While German hard coal...