Four years after the start of the Arab Spring uprisings, the macroeconomic situation in the EU’s Southern Neighbourhood remains weak and vulnerable and the recent intensification of civil strife and military conflicts is exacerbating this economic malaise. Macroeconomic performance may not...

The global crisis has taken its toll on the EU’s prime position in international trade. While the EU still has the largest relative market shares, its position has deteriorated since the crisis, much more so than the US, and its comparative advantage in knowledge-intensive goods has been...

Tropical Typhoon Haiyan may serve as a stress case for the global disaster preparedness system.

This Final Report presents the outcome of the “Thematic global evaluation of the Commission support to decentralisation processes”. The Evaluation was commissioned by the DG DEVCO Evaluation Unit and was implemented between January 2010 and February 2012. The purpose of the evaluation is to...

This final report presents the outcome of the “Thematic evaluation of EC support to the health sector”. It was commissioned by the Evaluation Unit of DG DEVCO and implemented between January 2011 and May 2012. The evaluation provides an independent assessment of the European Commission’s...

The present report is an evaluation of the projects aiming at the abolition of the death penalty (ADP), financed under the European Initiative on Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR). The evaluation, undertaken between November 2006 and February 2007, covers a portfolio of 28 projects, some dating...

The first official data releases of quarterly real GDP for the euro area are published about eight weeks after the end of the reference quarters. Meanwhile, ongoing economic developments must be assessed from various, more readily available, monthly indicators. We examine in the context of...

The volatility of general government tax revenues has increased in Poland in recent years. The correlation between GDP growth and revenue growth appears to be lower in Poland than in many other EU Member States, which suggests that the instability of its revenues has a different. This Country...

National fiscal frameworks can complement the EU budgetary surveillance procedure. Poland has traditionally had a debt rule, but it did not discourage governments from running high deficits. High expenditure (mainly on social benefits) has been identified as one of the main sources of large...