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?     

European Transport Policy in a Broader Perspective

On 12 July 2007 the European Parliament passed, with an overwhelming majority, a resolution on the Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament of 22 June 2006 entitled “Keep Europe moving – Sustainable mobility for our continent – Mid-term review of the European Commission's 2001 Transport White Paper”.1 This article outlines the main positions of the European Parliament in relation to the focal points of the Commission's position concerning present and future European transport policy.     

The Liberalisation of Rail Transport in the EU

On 1 January 2007 the European rail freight market, which has long suffered from fragmentation and a declining share of total transport services, will be fully opened to competition. What will be the consequences for the transport sector and the economy as whole? What further measures are needed to stabilise or increase the railways' share in the freight market? * Member and speaker of the EPP-ED Group (Christian Democrats) in the Committee on Transport and Tourism; rapporteur of the European Parliament responsible for railway issues. ** Views expressed here are not those of NDU or Minnesota.     

Passengers,consumers, and travellers: The rise of passenger rights in EC transport law and its repercussions for Community consumer law and policy

EC transport law is set to be complemented by a series of Regulations giving rights to passengers for almost every mode of transport. These Regulations not only give transport law a distinct consumer dimension but also add new elements to European private law. This paper attempts to provide a horizontal, or intermodal, survey of these Regulations, adopted and proposed. It is argued that passenger law, although originating separately and remaining a sector distinct from other fields of law, has become part of a wider, three-stranded notion of European consumer policy deserving due attention as the force most dynamically expanding the area of Community law of contracts and of torts. The paper will point to the elements of consumer contract law and the law on travel and tourism related to passenger transport and elaborate on the basics for finding a common notion of the key terms like “passenger” and “damage” for Community law. It concludes with some points for further reflection.

EU enlargement and labour markets in the CEECs

The implications for labour markets are central to any political and economic evaluation of EU Eastern enlargement. The resulting new levels of unemployment and of wages will have direct effects on social welfare in the acceding countries as well as in the present member states of the EU. Furthermore, employment and wages are substantial factors of political stability in the central and eastern European countries (CEECs). The following paper analyses the present situation on the labour markets in the CEECs and discusses the effects of their reintegration into the Western European system and the resulting implications for labour market and wage policy institutions. Helpful comments by participants of the 2nd convention of the CEEISA “Globalisation of International Relations—Implications for Central and Eastern European Countries”, Warsaw, 15–17 June 2000, and of the 4th International IMAD Conference “Institutions in Transition”, Portoroz (Slovenia), 23–24 June 2000, are gratefully acknowledged.     

“Effective competition” in telecommunications,rail and energy markets

Forum

“Effective competition” in telecommunications, rail and energy markets     

Corporate Taxes in the European Union

The enlargement of the European Union in 2004 and 2007 by a number of countries with comparatively low corporate tax rates – seen by some as representing an unfair competitive advantage – has refuelled the debate on corporate taxation in Europe. The present Forum highlights a number of pertinent issues and discusses the challenges implied for European corporate tax policy. *The authors are indebted to Andreas Reutter for helpful comments. **The findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the author. They should not be attributed to the European Commission. The author wishes to thank Anton Jevcav for valuable comments. ? European Communities, 2007.     

Agriculture in the EU’s Eastern enlargement

After almost a decade of preparations, with many delays caused by disagreement about the specific conditions under which CEECs will adopt the Common Agricultural Policy, the schedule for the European Union’s “Eastern” enlargement has finally been set. This article deals with the current status of the enlargement and the outstanding agricultural issues for CEECs following the Copenhagen European Council.     

Telecommunications in the European internal market

The completion of the European internal market by 1992 is one of the EC Commission’s key objectives. European integration is to be given fresh impetus by removing remaining frontier controls and trade barriers, liberalising public procurement and limiting the number of sectors protected from competition, such as finance, transport and communications. The following article analyses the possible effects of the proposals concerning telecommunications equipment and services outlined in a Green Paper from the Commission.     

Old structures versus new logic in the electronics industry

Electronics is a branch of industry in which the competitive position of European firms is relatively weak, compared to the chemical, motor vehicle and mechanical engineering industries. This fact appears to some observers—in view of the electronic industry’s high rates of growth and its technologically “strategic” importance—to represent a threat to Europe’s future industrial development. This has led to intensive political discussions in recent years and to a multitude of initiatives for the revitalisation of the European electronics industry. This paper analyses the extent to which the discussions and initiatives have in fact dealt with the problems in hand.     

Speculative attack against the Hungarian forint

In mid-January 2003 a severe speculative attack was launched against the exchange rate of the Hungarian forint. The attack was very unusual in the history of foreign exchange speculations, since it was aimed at enforcing the appreciation — and not the depreciation — of the currency targeted. The specific nature of this kind of speculation is closely related to Hungary’s accession to the European Union in general and to EMU in particular. Since the other Central and Eastern European acceding countries face similar problems and challenges, the Hungarian experience may involve some instructive lessons on monetary and economic policy for them too.     

Regional and institutional heterogeneity matters! Revisiting trade effects of the euro

The creation of a single currency is deemed to produce further heterogeneity in regional trade, as regions differ in their exposure to trade with other European countries. It is possible to disentangle two separate effects on bilateral trade, namely the “exchange rate volatility effect” (from exchange rate fixing in 1999) and the pure “common currency effect” (resulting from the issuing of a new currency in 2002). This paper presents an empirical analysis that shows evidence of a regional concentration of currency union effects in a few Spanish regions.     

Has Germany Been Europeanised or Has Europe Become (too) Germanic?

It has often been argued that European monetary unification must basically be seen as a device to Europeanise re-unified Germany. For the Germans it seemed to be the best possible way to prevent a German “Sonderweg” and end any German ambition for hegemony. For the rest of Europe, and particularly France, it seemed to be the best way to curb German monetary dominance and to secure a French imprint on EU policy-making. In this article, however, it is argued that the German impact on the economic governance regime of EMU and its fencing off the French proposal of a “gouvernement economique” is so substantial that the term “Germanic Europe” seems in fact to be appropriate. More importantly, the economic governance system of “Germanic Europe” has locked the European Union into a politics of disinflation which makes it difficult for the EU to prosper and reap the potential fruits of European integration.

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* This paper was written while the author was a guest researcher at the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), Brussels, from March to April 2005. He is most grateful to Andrew Watt for his help and the ETUI for its support.     

Europeanisation of Product Liability in the Asia-Pacific Region: A Preliminary Empirical Benchmark

This report draws primarily on a survey offering a tentative but empirical benchmark of the impact of strict-liability product liability law reforms in the Asia-Pacific Region. There has been a two-fold Europeanisation of product liability in this region. First, the reforms implemented in many jurisdictions during the last 15 years have usually been based on the 1985 EC Product Liability Directive. Secondly, moving beyond the “law in books,” the survey confirms other indications of considerable convergence in the “law in action.” This largely mirrors trends from Lovells’ baseline survey of European jurisdictions completed in 2002 for the European Commission. Similar effects associated with similar reforms include small but significant increases in claims, settlements, and reactions from companies. However, these tendencies are also affected by broader (arguably inter-related) factors such as shifts in consumer consciousness and media attention. Rather than the reforms directly, increased awareness of consumer rights and the media have been identified as being more influential to the increase in claims. These factors are also very important in generating more settlements. Conventional causes of action also continue to be invoked, and there is not much call for further reform. Thus, high levels of product liability litigation remain unique to the United States. However, growing case law in certain Asia-Pacific and European jurisdictions might be synthesised into “Strict Liability Product Liability Principles.” It also seems likely that the Asia-Pacific region will continue to follow more the EU in related areas such as consumer access to justice and product safety regulation, and such harmonization may accompany the proliferating Free Trade Agreements in the region.

Something unforeseeable happened? Natural rate theory and economic crisis

“Natural rate theory” — the application of the efficient market hypothesis to labour markets — has guided economic policy since the 1970s and laid the foundations for the design of major European institutions in the 1990s. Unfettered markets were declared to be stable, and consequently public policies and regulations were regarded as distortions. This led to a division of labour in which central banks were responsible only for price stability, governments for labour market reforms and unions for low wages. The European discussion focused almost exclusively on labour market reforms to reduce unemployment. Against the background of the recent dramatic drop in economic activity, this paper confronts natural rate theory with actual economic trends and argues that the predictions of the theory hardly fit the facts.     

高铁对我国中部航空运输业的影响分析

我国中部航空运输的发展是＂中部崛起＂和＂十二五建设规划＂的重要战略内容,该行业因其特殊性而受到各种因素的影响和制约,高铁运输就是其中之一。高铁的发展将会给中部航空运输业带来众多机遇与挑战。通过对高铁运输的特点分析,指出其给中部航空运输业带来的有利和不利影响,总结出我国中部航空运输发展的一些思路。     

What Type of Regional Policy for Europe?

In promoting European regional development, policymakers tend to pursue either an offensive, future-oriented or a defensive, tradition-preserving type of policy. Backed by theoretical notions and case evidence from an “ordinary” region, i. e. the Italian island of Sardinia, the following paper argues that European regions could benefit more from a “connective” type of policy that aims to connect lobal trends with local traditions.

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This paper was prepared during Paul Benneworth’s visiting fellowship at the University of Twente. The authors wish to thank Henk Donkers, the Regione Sardegna and I&O-Research for input and comments and gratefully acknowledge BBT and IPP for their support.     

The taxation of foreign profits — The old view,the new view and a pragmatic view

The increasing importance of multinational firms raises the question as to whether and how governments should tax repatriated profits, i.e. affiliate profits returned to the headquarters. The answer to this question is especially relevant for profit repatriations within the European Union where multinational firm investment is substantial and tax competition is supposed to be of rising intensity. This paper reviews the criticism of the standard view (the “old view”) of foreign profit taxation, which goes back to Peggy Musgrave. The “new view” of international taxation is based on recent empirical studies and favours a system in which foreign profits are exempt from tax. The debate between old view and new view proponents is critically discussed and, finally, the two are confronted with a “pragmatic view” on foreign profit taxation which crucially incorporates compliance and tax administration costs.     

As a Chinese saying goes, ‘To get rich,first pave the way’: The opening of high-speed rail and automobile consumption in China

The impact of high-speed rail (HSR) opening on residents' automobile consumption behavior is an economic issue that deserves attention. Based on monthly data on the opening of high-speed rail and the registration of automobiles in China's prefecture-level cities from 2008 to 2015, this paper uses the quasinatural experiment of high-speed rail opening, and the time-varying difference-differences (DID) method is used to analyze the impact and mechanism of the opening of China's high-speed rail on the automobile consumption behavior of consumers in prefecture-level cities. These research results show that the opening of high-speed rails significantly promotes consumers' purchase of automobiles. Specifically, it has a significant impact on the vehicle's brand (prefer joint venture brands) and color (prefer hue automobiles) as well as the payment method (prefer full payment). Furthermore, the expected increase in residents' income due to the opening of high-speed rail stimulates the sense of financial well-being (mediating mechanism), which in turn has an impact on the abovementioned automobile consumption behavior. These novel findings have a positive impact and significance on the national high-speed rail strategy, consumers' well-being, and the production and marketing strategies of automobile companies.     

Baltic monetary regimes in the XXIst century

The accession of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to the European Union would mean that they would join the Economic and Monetary Union in the status of “countries with a derogation”. They would remain committed to adopting the euro eventually and to this end to joining ERM II. The following article examines the present monetary regimes of the three countries and the progress made so far in their preparation for EMU.