What are the drivers of the large Target2 (T2) balances that have emerged in the European Monetary Union since the start of the financial crisis in 2007? This paper examines the extent to which the evolution of national T2 balances can be statistically associated with cross-border private...

The purpose of this paper is to examine the economic aspects of EU policy towards its Eastern neighbors in the former Soviet Union. For a long period of time, this region was considered as less important for the EU, as compared to Central and Eastern Europe, which was the subject of a...

With the Eastern Enlargement successfully completed, the EU is searching for a proper balance between internal security and external stabilisation that is acceptable to all sides. This paper focuses on an EU foreign policy instrument that is a case in point for this struggle: EC visa...

The CIS countries' EU-related interests are very heterogeneous. The countries themselves differ not only in terms of their geopolitical and geo-economic situations, and how those affect their relations with the EU, but also in their levels of ambition in relation to the Union, as well as their...

This paper provides the quantitative estimate of the potential growth bonus for CIS countries, and in particular EU's Easter Neighbours, that can be a result of deeper institutional harmonisation with the EU. Econometric investigation involving instrumental variable, simultaneous equation and...

Institutional harmonization is an important part of European integration, and its effects are more far reaching than the effects of trade liberalization. In its policy towards neighbors (the European Neighborhood Policy, ENP), the EU puts a lot of stress on the desirability of institutional...

Past episodes of energy insecurity have been fleeting and the fears have been assuaged by market forces or technical change. This paper analyses the nature of the EU's current energy security problems, emphasising the increased importance of natural gas and high level of dependence on Russian...

The financial crisis of 2007-2009 led to a renewed increase in government deficits and debts in many EU countries, causing a full-fledged fiscal crisis in Greece and severe fiscal pressures in other euro-area countries. This has prompted a series of proposals for improving the fiscal framework...