The European Community and the third world

For quite some time, and with Increasing commitment, people in the member states of the European Community have been discussing the question which role the Community should play in future as regards the developing countries in Africa, Asla and Latin America. From numerous quarters, the view is being voiced with mounting urgency that Europe should contribute more intensively towards solving the manifoid problems of the Third World.     

Where is the EC drifting?

The squabbles in the European Community have made the headlines in the last few months. Wide-spread is the impression that the EC is laboriously threading its way from compromise to compromise without evolving proper longer-lasting solutions for its problems. The community is adrift. Where will the drift take it? Prof. Möller advances a medium-term projection. Prof. Hrbek follows it up with a presentation of this thesis that to view the EC as an artefact drifting erratically without purpose, direction or orientation gives a wrong picture of the Community.     

Protectionism—A necessary price for achieving the European internal market?

Trade policy will have to be unifled if the member states of the European Community are to achieve their declared objective of creating a homogeneous internal European market by the year 1992. On what principles should such a Community trade policy be based?     

Recent patterns of European merger activity

In this paper, Paul Geroski and Anastassios Vlassopoulos review recent European merger activity in the light of 1992, and draw two major conclusions. First, cross-border European mergers have increased over the last five years, adding up to nearly 30 per cent of the total number of mergers by European Community firms in 1988. Second, although the big British acquisitions are still taking place in America, UK firms have changed their behaviour in 1989, acquiring more European Community firms than American ones.     

How does the Community wish to revitalise its railways?

In recent years the European Community (EC) has increased its rail transport activities. Current European policy is aimed at revitalising the railway sector, the intermodal market shares of which have strongly declined within the last decades, especially in the area of freight services. What measures has the Community taken to achieve its goal? How can its policy be characterised? Are EC actions really suited to improving the performance of European railways? Finally, by engaging in rail transport, do supranational actors take general regulatory reform principles into consideration?     

The middle east and the EEC: An analysis of trade flows

The Middle East has become the largest external supplier of imports to the European Community, and is also the EC's largest export market. Rising oll prices have not only affected the value of EC imports from the Middle East, but have also ultimately determined the ability of the Middle Eastern states to pay for Community exports. What are the prospects for the continuing growth of trade between the Community and the Middle East? What would be the effect of a fall in oil prices or of a decline in the EC's dependence on Middle Eastern oil?     

EC Law, the Environment and Consumers: Addressing the Challenge of Incorporating an Environmental Dimension to Consumer Protection at Community Level

The principal objective of this paper is to stimulate debate about the current state of the relationship and tensions between consumer and environmental protection policies at Community level. By virtue of the constitutional changes to Community Law introduced by the Single European Act 1986 (SEA) and the Treaty on European Union 1992 (TEU), the European Community (EC) has committed itself to re-evaluating its core, fundamental aim of attaining completion of market integration. The EC is now compelled to address whether the development of open and free market conditions ultimately serves the best interests and priorities of its inhabitants and whether its original goals adequately internalise their environmental concerns and demands. This paper aims to assess critically to what extent EC policy and law have responded to these new challenges and requirements by focusing, firstly, on the caselaw of the European Court of Justice and, secondly, on policy innovations introduced by and constraints facing the EC legislative institutions. Ten years on from the SEA, it appears that the Community has barely started to confront the issue of the consumer-environment interrelationship, with the result that political and legal developments have been unclear and often contradictory. The Community must begin to match its rhetoric with definitive action.     

Multinational subsidiaries and green innovation

We address the questions of whether multinational (MNC) subsidiaries are more likely to introduce green innovation (GI) than domestic firms and how intra-MNC resources are likely contribute to this effort. Using the Community Innovation Survey for 14 European countries and adopting a knowledge-based view of the MNC, our results suggest that subsidiaries have an advantage of foreignness in GI as respect to domestic firms, especially when they have an innovation mandate (i.e., competence-creating subsidiaries). Our findings also support that intra-MNC and extra-MNC cooperation for innovation increases subsidiary probability to introduce GIs, the two being substitutes.     

The first stage of European Economic and Monetary Union

After two false starts, the first stage of European Economic and Monetary Union began on 1st July 1990. The following two articles discuss the consequences that the inauguration of EMU will have for economic policy co-ordination in the European Community. The views stated here are only those of the author and can on no account be attributed to the Commission of the European Communities.     

European integration as a financial adjustment problem

The European summit in Dublin has shown that any further European integration will be determined in great measure by agreement on the financing of future Community budgets and by the EC’s expenditure policy. This article shows how the political controversy about the Community’s budget expenditure and receipts can be raised to a more rational level by the adoption of an economic approach.     

Structural changes in EC trade intensities

The European Economic Community has now been in existence for about 20 years. Five years have elapsed since it was enlarged. What progress have the member countries made in the integration of their foreign trade? What would be the repercussions of a southward extension of the EC to take in Greece, Portugal and Spain?     

Editorial

American multinationals have $177 billion of direct investment in Europe. As the 1992 European unification draws near, companies are adjusting their strategic sights to treat the European Community as a single marketing entity. But how unique is Europe? This 28 MNE‐228 subsidiary study shows US European product mixes to be similar to those used in other parts of the world. Also, within Europe variations in product mixes are mainly industry‐determined.     

Southern Europe facing the single market’s completion

The European Community is now starting the final run-up towards the completion of the single internal market by the end of 1992 and member countries are currently involved in consultations at inter-governmental conferences on the creation of economic and monetary union, and on political union. This provides an appropriate opportunity of looking at what belonging to the Community has meant so far to its new members of Greece, Portugal and Spain, and at what their chances are for the future in the light of these developments. What have their entry into the EC and the Single European Act meant to Greece, Portugal and Spain, and what lessons ought to be learned from that?     

The New EC Merger Control Regulation: Guaranteeing the Effectiveness of the Architecture of Separate Jurisdictional Zones?

Merger control in the European Union is shaped by an architecture of separate jurisdictional zones: the European Commission vets all mergers where the competition concern is of Community interest whereas mergers lacking a Community interest come under the jurisdiction of the relevant member state. For this architecture to be successful an effective case allocating test is essential. Since the original 1989 Merger Control Regulation (MCR) the allocating test – the Community Dimension test(s) – and the corrective structures supporting it have not fully conformed to the architecture of jurisdictional zones in practice. Why has this been the case? Does the new 2004 MCR solve the underlying problems?

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*Hull University Business School, UK.     

Will continuing liberalisation in the EC lead to instability in the EMS?

The liberalisation of capital movements and the creation of a market without internal frontiers within the European Community have far-reaching consequences for the European Monetary System. Sr. Wolfgang Schröder analyses the opportunities and risks associated with these developments.     

Some thoughts on the European Communities’ Budget

The Budget of the European Communities has recently moved from the political periphery to the centre of the stage. The European Parliament and the Council of Ministers could not agree on the 1980 Budget, the main issue being its domination by the expenditures on agriculture. Moreover, a financial crisis is to be expected for 1981 or 1982 as the Community’s financial “own Resources” will no longer be sufficient. Finally there is the still unsolved problem of the unequal way in which the costs and benefits of the Community Budget are distributed among the Member States. Christopher Tugendhat, Budget Commissioner of the European Communities, comments on these questions.     

Structural changes in EC trade intensities

The European Economic Community has now been in existence for about 20 years. Five years have elapsed since it was enlarged. What progress have the member countries made in the integration of their foreign trade? What would be the repercussions of a southward extension of the EC to take in Greece, Portugal and Spain?

     

Unilateral action by the EC against unfair trade practices

The European Community has a variety of instruments at its disposal to counter unfair trade practices, but there has long been considerable disagreement within the Community as to when and where they should be applied. To what extent would such measures endanger the benefits of international trade? Can any positive effects be expected?     

Consequences of southward enlargement for EC-Latin American relations

Over the past two decades Latin America, due to both political and economic considerations, has been endeavouring to establish intensive cooperative relations with the European Community. For a variety of reasons this objective has so far only been achieved in part. The Falklands/Malvinas conflict subjected these relations to a serious strain, the results of which cannot as yet be estimated. Another factor, in the longer term, is the European Community's southward enlargement. Latin American assessments of the effects of this diverge: a fear of serious disadvantages to trade on the one hand is matched on the other by the hope that Spain and Portugal will become champions of Latin American interests in the European Community.