Van den Abeele, E. (2014) “The EU’s REFIT strategy: a new bureaucracy in the service of competitiveness?“, European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), Working Paper 2014.05, October.   This Working Paper provides a clear but critical assessment of the EU’s process of simplification and qualitative improvement of the ‘acquis’, a process originally known as ‘Better Law-making’, subsequently as ‘Smart regulation’ and, in its latest incarnation, as ‘Regulatory Fitness and Performance (REFIT)’. …Read More

Eckefeldt, P., Schwierz, C., Giamboni, L., Aarnout, M. & Carone, G. (2014) “Identifying fiscal sustainability challenges in the areas of pension, health care and long-term care policies“, European Economy – Occasional Papers, No. 201, European Commission: Economic and Financial Affairs, October.   This paper presents a horizontal assessment framework used by the Commission services to identify structural-fiscal reforms that are deemed necessary to address fiscal sustainability challenges in the Member …Read More

Legrain, P. (2014) “How to Finish the Euro House“, Centre for European Reform (CER), June.   The euro is a half-built house whose foundations have been weakened by successive policy mistakes. Battered by a financial hurricane, it has been patched up, altered and extended repeatedly in recent years. Even so, it became so dangerously unstable that it came to the brink of collapse. Finally, in the summer of 2012 the …Read More

Whyman, P. B. (2014) “Keynes and the International Clearing Union: A Possible Model for Eurozone Reform?“, JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies. doi: 10.1111/jcms.12180, 07 August.   Economic and monetary union in Europe, as currently constituted, has a number of structural weaknesses. Large, persistent international payments imbalances necessitate deficit nations to deflate their economies or squeeze social wages in order to restore competitiveness. Surplus nations accrue reserves, with little pressure to …Read More