Examines the environmental implication of economic deregulation through case studies of the energy, transport and water sectors. The book deals with options for deregulation, looking at self-regulation, negotiated agreements and environmental management systems. Presenting evidence from a number of EU member states and Hungary, a likely contender f
Laws and regulations affect the daily lives of businesses and citizens. High-quality laws promote national welfare and growth, while badly designed laws hinder growth, harm the environment and put the health of citizens at risk. This report analyses practices to improve the quality of laws ...
"This volume has its roots in a workshop on Deregulation and the Environment, organised by the Working Group on Environmental Studies (WGES) of the European University Institute in Florence in May 1996"--P. x.
People have always travelled within Europe for work and leisure, although never before with the current intensity. Now, however, they are travelling for many other reasons, including the quest for key services such as health care. Whatever the reason for travelling, one question they ask is "If I fall ill, will the health care I receive be of a high standard?" This book examines, for the first time, the systems that have been put in place in all of the European Union's 27 Member States. The picture it paints is mixed. Some have well developed systems, setting standards based on the best available evidence, monitoring the care provided, and taking action where it falls short. Others need to overcome significant obstacles.
Across the EU, services are the cornerstone of the modern economy, accounting for over 70% of national GDPs and over 90% of new jobs created. Fostering trade in services has, accordingly, become central to the EU's vision for developing the internal market. Yet regulating services and their international trade is notoriously complex, and controversial. For years the EU's efforts were limited to sector-specific regulation in key areas, until the adoption of the general Services Directive in 2006. Since then, confronted by the limited success of traditional legal intervention, the EU's attentions have shifted to alternative forms of regulation. This book looks back on the historical development of services law, discusses the nature of impediments to trade in services in the EU, and explains the basic rules and principles applicable to such trade. It also examines the recent development of alternative regulatory methods, such as networking, the use of common standards, private regulation, self-regulation, open methods of coordination, and administrative cooperation. Taking a broad perspective and placing services regulation within its economic context, the author offers a thorough evaluation of current regulatory methods alongside the alternative methods which could be deployed. The book is the first to provide an overview of the regulation of services in the EU.
How the objective of a resource-efficient low carbon economy is to be reached and how the transition is managed are the key issues addressed by this publication. The two main focuses are industrial policy and employment prospects on the road to a green economy that retains its industrial base. Any lasting recovery of the real economy will necessarily take the shape of a more resource-efficient production model. While we argue that only a more ambitious and comprehensive European climate policy framework would have a chance of delivering the broader 2050 climate targets, this does not mean that Europe has to give up its industrial base and its related competences. Several chapters of this book argue that the option of attaining a low-carbon economy through ‘deindustrialisation’ would prevent Europe from preserving its competitiveness and knowledge base, which are also essential for exploiting the potential of the emerging eco-industry. While decoupling economic growth from resource use is also possible with an industrial base that is more energy-and resource-efficient, this does require a fundamental shift in terms of how the economy is managed and how business decisions are made. Sustainable industrial and structural policies are needed also in order to ensure that this revolutionary process takes place in a socially balanced manner.
Focuses on the conflicting calls for deregulation and re-regulation of important industries and to inform the global, policy debate over the line between regulation and general competition policy. This book helps to understand the debate and its policy implications, focusing on the sectors of telecommunications and energy.
Since its formation the European Union has expanded beyond all expectations, and this expansion seems set to continue as more countries seek accession and the scope of EU law expands, touching more and more aspects of its citizens' lives. The EU has never been stronger and yet it now appears to be reaching a crisis point, beset on all sides by conflict and challenges to its legitimacy. Nationalist sentiment is on the rise and the Eurozone crisis has had a deep and lasting impact. EU law, always controversial, continues to perplex, not least because it remains difficult to analyse. What is the EU? An international organization, or a federation? Should its legal concepts be measured against national standards, or another norm? The Oxford Handbook of European Union Law illuminates the richness and complexity of the debates surrounding the law and policies of the EU. Comprising eight sections, it examines how we are to conceptualize EU law; the architecture of EU law; making and administering EU law; the economic constitution and the citizen; regulation of the market place; economic, monetary, and fiscal union; the Area of Freedom, Security, and Justice; and what lies beyond the regulatory state. Each chapter summarizes, analyses, and reflects on the state of play in a given area, and suggests how it is likely to develop in the foreseeable future. Written by an international team of leading commentators, this Oxford Handbook creates a vivid and provocative tapestry of the key issues shaping the laws of the European Union.
John Pinder and Simon Usherwood explain the EU in plain readable English. They show how and why it has developed, how the institutions work, and what it does - from the single market to the euro, and from agriculture to the environment.
Addresses a critical analysis of major media policies in the European Union and Council of Europe at the period of profound changes affecting both media environments and use, as well as the logic of media policy-making and reconfiguration of traditional regulatory models. The analytical problem-related approach seems to better reflect a media policy process as an interrelated part of European integration, formation of European citizenship, and exercise of communication rights within the European communicative space. The question of normative expectations is to be compared in this case with media policy rationales, mechanisms of implementation (transposing rules from EU to national levels), and outcomes.