The European Union budget has a number of specific characteristics which make it different from the budgets of the Member States : in principle, it must never be in deficit, and there is a special decision-making procedure. The structure and maximum expenditure are specified for a 7-year period...

More than fifty years after the Schuman Declaration, Europe is still far from a real Political Union. Europe faces an important imbalance between the two sides of the integration process, appearing as an important actor in the international economic scenario, but as a minor actor in the...

Drawing on recent work on the creation and breakup of countries, this paper examines the impact of economic and political integration on the vertical government structure. It argues that by increasing the market size and the benefits from the decentralized provision of public goods, integration...

Centralisation at the level of the European Union takes the form, not so much of increased staff or budget, but of enlarged responsibilities and an increased share in regulation. The paper first reviews possible explanations of that trend that are based on a view of bureaucracy inspired by, or...

This paper analyzes the Romanian absorption capacity of the funds allocated through the REGIO programme, which is part of ERDF programme. Within the paper are presented the concept of absorption capacity and several opinions regarding its main composing elements. Also the Regio programme, its...

The case of Switzerland appears to be unique with regard to the European Economic and Monetary Integration Process which began in 1957: even though the country has cultivated close ties and growing links with the European Union (EU) over time, it does not desire full membership. If this...

This Paper contributes ideas and analysis to the ongoing EU reform debate. It consists of three distinct parts: voting in the Council of Ministers, restructuring the ECB's Governing Council, and the setting of enlargement “examination” dates. The IGC currently focuses on Council voting,...

Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa was a distinguished central banker and economist, a key player in the creation of Europe's single currency, a well-respected figure in international monetary policy-making and a former economy and finance minister of Italy.

The European Union’s center-piece of economic policy making is the Lisbon process, which tries to make Europe the most competitive economic region in the world economy by 2010. EU Commission President Jose Manuel Durao Barroso recently presented a Centre for European Reform (CER) study that...