Prospects for greater competition amongst European Community airlines

The deregulation of civil aviation in the United States has led to customers being offered a wider choice of flights at lower fares, whereas deregulation within the european Community is still a distant prospect. Chris Redston examines the proposals of the European Commission for liberalization and assesses their chances of success.     

Medium-term financial planning: An answer to community budget crises?

In June 1988 the Council, the European Parliament and the Commission concluded an “Interinstitutional Agreement on Budgetary Discipline and Improvement of the Budgetary Procedure”. A key element of the agreement is a commitment to medium-term financial planning for the Community for the period up to 1992. Can this agreement put the Community budgetary procedure on a new footing and ensure that the decisions taken at the Brussels summit on agricultural reform and budgetary discipline can be implemented?     

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.     

EC trade policy beyond 1992

The initiative to set up the single European market has aroused fears abroad, and indeed even within Europe itself, that the intention is to turn the Community into a “Fortress Europe”. Attempts to allay these fears by the Council of Ministers, the EC Commission or individuals representing them have achieved little success, and on occasion have actually tended to be counter-productive. Is “Fortress Europe” an illusion or a real danger?     

Europe’s agricultural policy facing new alternatives

“If the right decisions are not now taken, the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Community may collapse. The hour of truth has struck for agriculture.” So the Commissioner for Agriculture, Gundelach, in the spring of 1980 when appealing to the Members of the European Parliament “to support the Commission’s moderate proposals for price increases and the proposed measures for reducing the agricultural surpluses”¹. This scenario gives great topical value to findings set out in a publication, “Europe’s Agricultural Policy Facing New Alternatives”², of which we present here a summary. Its wellknown authors have tried to map out routes to a less contentious agricultural policy for the future.     

Economic recovery in developing countries

Plans and proposals for stimulating the world economy and thus aiding economic recovery in the developing countries have been many and varied, ranging from massive transfer of resources, whether automatic or discretionary, through the immediate programme of the Brandt Commission to a concentration first of all on recovery in the industrial countries. This article takes a critical look at the most important proposals to date.     

The Regulation of Retail Investment Services in the EU: Towards the Improvement of Investor Rights?

Despite the fact that a substantial body of European Community (EC) law already exists to protect retail investors, the markets in retail investment services and products in the EU remain fragmented. Moreover, the recent financial crisis has undermined investor confidence in financial markets more generally, and “packaged” retail investment products (PRIP), such as investment funds or life insurance policies, in particular. To rebuild retail investor confidence in PRIP by empowering retail investors to make active use of their rights, in 2009 the European Commission proposed to extend the provisions of the 2004 Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) to PRIP. Is the MiFID, however, fit for the purpose which the Commission has in mind? This contribution explores to what extent the MiFID actually confers rights on retail investors and empowers them to make use of these rights. The author concludes that investor rights and remedies should be taken more seriously when making European financial services law. The current overhaul of the EC legal framework for the provision of investment services provides a good opportunity to do so.     

The EU Commission's proposals for reform of the CAP

Reform of the Common Agricultural Policy continues to be one of the major challenges facing the EU. In its mid-term review of the Agenda 2000 the European Commission has presented a number of proposals which are discussed by the contributors to this Forum.     

The FTC's Public Interest Requirement: An Anomoly in Consumer Protection*

Proposals for consumer class actions and individual law suits have been considered by Congress during its last two sessions. Both bills sponsored by the administration condition recovery by the consumer upon successful completion of action by the FTC. FTC action, under these proposals, would be an absolute prerequisite to private recovery. Since private recovery is made to depend upon FTC action, the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission becomes critical in determining whether or not a consumer will be entitled to relief. The “Public Interest Requirement” has long been viewed by the courts as a limitation upon Commission Jurisdiction. Thus, if the administration proposals are adopted, that requirement will have to be satisfied before individual consumer recovery will be available. This article seeks to identify the elements of the public interest requirement. Both judicial opinions and the Commission's criteria are considered and evaluated.     

Harmonization of company taxation systems

The author of the following article gives a survey of the different corporation tax systems and rates in the individual EC-member countries, explains the need for a harmonization of direct company taxation within the Community, and discusses the Commission’s recent proposal as compared with other possible approaches.     

An analysis of competing IMF reform proposals

In the wake of several major crises, in which it played a highly controversial role, the IMF has recently come under heavy fire from various quarters. A number of proposals for reform have been put forward, of which the report of the Meltzer Commission has attracted particularly widespread attention. The authors analyze this and some competing reform proposals using the “trilemma of economic integration”, which the US Treasury Secretary, Lawrence Summers, suggested as a common framework for investigation.     

EURATOM—Community in a crisis

The founders of the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) acted “In the conviction that only a concerted action … offers the chance to achieve a performance which corresponds to the creative forces of its members”. This sentence is still anchored in the treaty of the Community, but it seems to disapper from its activities. National egoism has oppressed stronger and much earlier than in the EEC the work of EURATOM. The dispute about the research programmes is followed by the quarrel over the finances. Lack of determination to make decisions and adherence to national competences are endangering the existence of the Community. We discussed with Dr Hellwig, who is competent in the EEC Commission for the sectors of energy, research and technology, the destiny of EURATOM.     

The meaning of the tindemans report

In INTERECONOMICS No. 3, 1976, we published an Interview with Professor Dr Walter Hallstein, former President of the EEC Commission, on the Belgian Prime Minister’s, Leo Tindemans’, “Report on the European Union”. Meanwhile the Report has been discussed on occasion of the last European Council meeting in Luxembourg whose unfortunate outcome pointed out in a dramatic way the weakness of the political will of the Community. In the following article the President of the Council, Gaston Thorn, explains his views of the significance of the so-called “Tindemans Report”.     

The Common Agricultural Policy after 2013

In October 2011 the European Commission presented a set of legal proposals designed to make the Common Agricultural Policy more effective. Pending a debate in the European Parliament and the Council, approval is expected by the end of 2013. This Forum aims to identify the proposals?? shortcomings and to offer suggestions for improvement which the Parliament and Council can work to implement. The authors pay particular attention to the future of direct payments, CAP greening and rural development, as well as to the change in the decision-making rules which grants the Parliament more authority over the process.     

Making sure of survival

Early in 1980—well before the Special Session of the UN General Assembly in New York—the Independent Commission for International Development Issues chaired by Willy Brandt presented its Report: “North-South: A Programme for Survival”. The findings of the Commission which is better known as “North-South Commission” or “Brandt Commission” have met with agreement and approval but also with criticism. Which recommendations has the Commission made? Which points of the Report are being criticised?     

An economic analysis of EC guidelines on state aid for the rescue and restructuring of companies in difficulty

The present Community guidelines on state aid for rescuing and restructuring firms in difficulty, a type of aid that is widely regarded as particularly distortive to the single market, will expire on 9 October 2004. The Commission has already identified a number of issues which it regards as problematic. This article draws attention to a number of further issues which also require clarification.     

右脑型领导力

传统的商业世界中,决策者的思维方式偏于理性,习惯且擅长逻辑推理、数据分析,但是,在创新日益成为组织竞争力来源的背景下,右脑型领导力愈发显示出其重要性。     

Europe’s energy policy and the task ahead

The oil shock of 1973 and the subsequent world recession have drastically demonstrated the weakness of countries dependent on external energy supplies. In the following, Guido Brunner, the competent Member of the Commission of the European Communities, describes the changes we are facing in the energy field and what the Community is doing to face up to them.     

Economic planning in theory and practice

This contribution summarises some of the most significant results of a detailed investigation made by the author. It deals with planning attempts made since the end of World War II in France, Belgium, Britain, Italy, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands, the concept and policy of a social market economy in the Federal Republic of Germany, the long-term programmes conceived under the Marshall Plan, the “General Aims” of the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community, the Five Year Plan of the Euratom Commission and the programming of economic policy within the Common Market envisaged by the EEC Commission. The author has laid particular stress upon the quantitative and qualitative efficiency of such planning experiments.     

EU Food Safety Regulation in the Aftermath of the BSE Crisis

Until the outbreak of the BSE crisis, many of the Community's rules relating to food safety regulation were mainly created on an ad hoc basis and/or developed in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice. The BSE crisis, however, clearly demonstrated that where important political interests are at stake, this ad hoc approach is not sufficient to guarantee an effective and legitimate food safety policy and decision-making free from manipulation and capture. Therefore, the Commission has drastically revised its food safety policy. This article discusses the main elements of the new policy followed by the Commission. It analyses the new principles developed by both the Commission and the European Court of Justice. In conclusion it discusses the remaining challenges and gives some suggestions to further develop the emerging concept of Community food safety regulation.