A number of tools have been suggested for solving the European sovereign debt crisis, in particular the options of leveraging the EFSF/ESM, introducing Eurobonds and a European Troubled Asset Relief Programme (Euro-TARP). However, it is unclear how these instruments will work, given jittery...

Direct payments were originally justified as a mechanism to compensate farmers for the income loss incurred due to reduced intervention prices. However, this rationale is not valid any more, and a new justification for basic income support by granting basic decoupled direct payments has been...

Experience after the establishment of EMU shows that the behaviour of private consumers differs considerably among member countries and that average and marginal propensities to consume are fairly heterogeneous. In particular, there are clear differences between Germany and the rest of the euro...

This study analyses institutional features national authorities should have in order to apply common policies effectively. It shows that the effective implementation of EU law and policy can be achieved without increased control. The article suggests that benchmarking of the results of the...

In May 2014, EU citizens will vote in the most important European Parliament elections to date. With the new powers allocated to it by the Lisbon Treaty, the new European Parliament will shape EU policies in many important areas and will elect the President of the Commission. However, public...

In the context of recent commodity price hikes, a political consensus has emerged on regulatory measures to reduce excessive speculation in commodity derivative markets. This paper gives an overview of current reform proposals of commodity derivate market regulation at the international (G20),...

The European Union (EU) recently presented a new development policy agenda that centers on the subject of change. We first assess the approach of the EU policy by discussing change in the sense of how it is used within the EU agenda. Second, we relate it to two recently published political...

This paper discusses integral implementation problems of the aid harmonization process within the European Union (EU) which has pretty much failed to show up with convincing results yet. Therefore this paper looks on the origins of the problems EU donors struggle with. It has turned out that in...

Mit Inkrafttreten des Vertrags von Lissabon im Dezember 2009 ist die Zuständigkeit für Investitionsverträge mit Drittstaaten auf die Europäische Union (EU) übergegangen und wurde somit Teil der Gemeinsamen Handelspolitik. Das vorliegende Working Paper beschreibt mögliche Auswirkungen...