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5731. Consumer Credit Rates in the Eurozone: Evidence on the Emergence of a Single Retail Banking Market

Author:
Stefanie Kleimeier and Harald Sander
Publication Date:
01-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
This study provides new evidence on the emergence of a single eurozone retail banking market with particular reference to consumer credit. Given the heterogeneous nature of consumer credit products in the eurozone, the authors reject the earlier proposition of the Cecchini study, which equates banking market integration with identical interest rates throughout the eurozone. The present study advocates the use of the co-integration methodology, which allows us to investigate integration in the presence of country-specific credit rates. The empirical results indicate only very limited evidence of an integrated retail banking market prior to 1 January 1999, pointing to the limited effectiveness of the single market cum Second Banking Directive in particular in integrating consumer credit markets.
Topic:
Economics and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe

5732. Enhancing the Effectiveness of the EU's Foreign and Defence Policies

Author:
Anand Menon
Publication Date:
12-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
The following report discusses ways of enhancing the EU's effectiveness and impact as an international actor in the light of debates currently taking place within the Convention. Its central recommendations can be briefly summarised: Clarify and discard the more extreme variants of arguments pressing for a significant EU military capability. . Create a Commissioner for External Affairs to whom other Commissioners responsible for discreet aspects of this portfolio would report. . Recreate the Political Committee, composed of Political Directors. Create a Council of Defence Ministers. Reinforce the role of the High Representative in several ways: increase the financial resources at his/her disposal; allow him/her to chair the COPS. Create an EU Security Council comprising the HR, the Secretary General of t the Council, the Commissioner for External Relations, the Presidency (in order to ensure coherence with EU internal action), the chief of the EU military staff and senior representatives from the troika.
Topic:
Government, Human Rights, and International Organization
Political Geography:
Europe

5733. The Kyoto Protocol and the WTO: Institutional Evolution and Adaptation

Author:
Thomas L. Brewer
Publication Date:
12-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
Questions about the interface between the multilateral climate regime embodied in the Kyoto Protocol and the multilateral trade regime embodied in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) have become especially timely since the fall of 2001. At that time, ministerial-level meetings in Marrakech and Doha agreed to advance the agendas, respectively, for the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol and for negotiations on further agreements at the WTO. There have been concerns that each of these multilateral arrangements could constrain the effectiveness of the other, and these concerns will become more salient with the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol. There are questions about whether and how the rights and obligations of the members of the WTO and the parties to the Protocol may conflict. Of particular concern is members of the WTO and the parties to the Protocol may conflict. Of particular concern is whether provisions in the Protocol, as well as government policies and business activities undertaken in keeping with those provisions, may conflict with the WTO non-discrimination principles of national treatment and most-favoured nation treatment.
Topic:
Government, Human Rights, and International Organization
Political Geography:
Europe

5734. The Wider Europe as the European Union's friendly Monroe Doctrine

Author:
Michael Emerson
Publication Date:
10-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
The 'Wider Europe' may, and certainly should, become one of the big next issues on the policy agenda of the European Union following the enlargement decisions to be taken in Copenhagen in December. Indeed the practical concerns raised by the forthcoming enlargement for the EU's periphery to the North, East and South are already crowding in. A new vocabulary is sprouting up in Brussels, call it as you wish: 'Wider Europe', or 'Proximity Policy', or 'Neighbourhood Policy'. What is certain is that the Wider Europe will not go away.
Topic:
Government, Human Rights, and International Organization
Political Geography:
Europe

5735. Changing Conceptions of Security and their Implications for EU Justice and Home Affairs Cooperation

Author:
Joanna Apap and Malcolm Anderson
Publication Date:
09-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
From the initiation of the debate about Europol in the late 1980s, some law enforcement agencies and political thinkers developed a concept of security that links together broad categories of activities: terrorism, drug trafficking, organised crime, transborder crime, illegal immigration, asylum seekers, and minority ethnic groups. This conception represents a variety of very different problems as elements of one general security threat. In addition, there has been a blurring of the distinction between internal and external security, as the threat of a conventional military attack on Western Europe has declined. This idea has been sharply criticised, by those such as Didier Bigo, (who has labelled this concept a security continuum,)1 for linking very different activities, profiling of groups and criminalising illegal immigrants. It is also objectionable on grounds that it categorises difficult problems as security threats too quickly and too emphatically. A crucial element in the merging of internal and external security has been the re-classification of undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers as problems of security. But the linkage between security fields lies at the core of the redefinition of the West European security following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Integration of the tasks and functions of police services, immigration services, customs and intelligence services, is sustained by the gradual re-shaping of the security continuum under the pressure of events, such as, most dramatically, the terrorist attacks of September 2001.
Topic:
Government, Human Rights, and International Organization
Political Geography:
Europe

5736. Conflict Resolution for Moldova and Transdniestria through Federalisation?

Author:
Michael Emerson and Bruno Coppieters
Publication Date:
08-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
At a meeting in Kiev on 1-3 July 2002, the mediators for the Moldovan- Transdniestria conflict proposed, at the initiative of the OSCE, a draft agreement on the constitutional system that would regulate the distribution of competencies between Chisinau and Tiraspol. This draft agreement defines the Republic of Moldova as a “federal state”. The implementation of the agreement would be monitored and ultimately guaranteed by the Russian Federation, Ukraine and the OSCE.
Topic:
Government, Human Rights, and International Organization
Political Geography:
Europe

5737. The World Trading System: In Dire Need of Reform

Author:
Sylvia Ostry
Publication Date:
08-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
Over the decade of the 1990s, the deepening integration of the global economy accelerated as trade, financial flows, and foreign direct investment were liberalised. This deepening integration is, in part, a "natural" phenomenon, fed and now led by technological changes in information, communication and transport and is driving in the direction of a single global market. But, of course, governments have played an important role and international economic policy has facilitated - or perhaps even catalysed - the momentum. And the "natural" and "policy" forces are interrelated in a complex fashion that reflects the nature of the policy process . This process differs in different policy domains - for example trade versus financial or development policy. Yet it's important to underline that trade policy has indeed played a major catalytic role in fostering global integration.
Topic:
Government, Human Rights, and International Organization
Political Geography:
Europe

5738. Georgia's Pankisi Gorge: Russian, US and European Connections

Author:
Jaba Devdariani and Blanka Hancilova
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
The Georgian government fails to exercise effective control over parts of its territory. In the last decade, Georgian statehood has been threatened by a civil war and secessionist conflicts. Its government has failed to reform its armed forces and has lost control over the Pankisi Gorge, a sparsely populated patch of the Caucasus Mountains on the border to Chechnya. Some hundreds Chechen fighters including several dozen Islamic extremists connected to the al-Qaeda network are believed to be hiding in that area. After the attacks on the United States on 11 September, the risks posed by failing states in the propagation of international terrorist networks are being taken more seriously into consideration. 2 The US decision to send up to 200 special operation forces to Georgia in March 2002, in order to train Georgian forces to regain control over the Pankisi Gorge, proceeds from this logic.
Topic:
Government, Human Rights, and International Organization
Political Geography:
Europe

5739. Budgetary Implications of Enlargement: Agriculture

Author:
Johan F.M. Swinnen
Publication Date:
05-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) accounts for 45% of the total EU budget. Will its extension to Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) break the EU budget? The 10 CEECs currently negotiating for membership would increase the number of farmers by 120% and would increase the area under cultivation by 42%. It is thus widely expected that enlargement will dramatically increase the cost of the CAP.
Topic:
Government, Human Rights, and International Organization
Political Geography:
Europe

5740. Supervising the European Financial System

Author:
Karel Lannoo
Publication Date:
05-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
The EU's financial sector has been undergoing an almost continuous wave of de- or reregulation since the late 1980s. The Single Market programme with minimal harmonisation and home country control was implemented in successive periods for banking, insurance and the securities markets. By the end of the 1990s, however, under the impact of EMU, it was clear that this was not sufficient, and a Financial Services Action Programme set a schedule for the adoption of 42 directives to create a truly integrated financial market by 2005. Moreover, a Committee of Wise Men under the chairmanship of Alexandre Lamfalussy made proposals to ease the adaptation of EU financial regulations to market developments.
Topic:
Government, Human Rights, and International Organization
Political Geography:
Europe