This Policy Brief proposes the establishment of an agreement on conformity assessment between the EU and the US that covers machinery and electrical equipment. The initiative aims to increase the number of European and US conformity assessment bodies authorized to test and certify EU and US...

The Brussels Effect, once emblematic of the EU's alleged influence in shaping global regulations, has now become a factor contributing to global regulatory fragmentation. The EU must recalibrate its trajectory towards a liberal and rules-based trading order, prioritizing widespread regulatory...

This Policy Brief offers a comprehensive evaluation and comparison of the regulatory frameworks governing platform work in four European countries. The comparative analysis draws upon research conducted by the OECD and the World Economic Forum (WEF) on the principles of good regulation. Adapting...

This paper discusses findings from a review of recent literature on support for securing compliance and better practice in occupational safety and health (OSH) in the changing world of work in advanced market economies. It explores innovative responses of regulators and private actors to the...

The economic and social crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic in Europe and around the world is without precedent since World War II if not before. With more than 40 million known cases in Europe in one year, and over 900 000 deaths (March 2020 to March 2021), governments have stepped up their...

The lockdown and other restrictive measures introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing economic recession have had a strong impact on labour markets worldwide. As far as the European Union (EU) is concerned, the accelerated fall in total employment was the 'sharpest decline ever...

Since 2002 and the publication of the Mandelkern report,1 the question of reducing burdens and costs, both regulatory and administrative, has emerged as a recurrent topic that regularly comes up at the European Council. It is, moreover, revealing that one of the points of rupture that led the...

This paper examines two questions. First, whether and if so, to what extent real compensation growth has been systematically associated with labour productivity growth in the past five decades, once other factors determining real compensation growth have been taken into account. And secondly,...

This Working Paper analyses the development of the interpretation that the European Commission has given to the TFEU provision concerning mechanisms for extensions of collective agreements. The paper examines how the Commission has reinterpreted these provision and the challenges this poses for...

The aim of this research paper is to review the recent emergence on the European scene of the concept of open strategic autonomy and the consequences it may have for EU action. Originally stemming from the language of the common foreign and security policy (CFSP) and the common security and...