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The article discusses collateral security and the proposed establishment of a Capital Market Union for all 28 Member States of the European Union (EU) as of 2015, and it mentions the content of the European Commission's Green Paper entitled "Building a Capital Markets Union." EU law and collateralisation are mentioned, as well as the harmonisation of legislation and rules. Conflicts of laws, financing for Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Europe, and change are examined.

Adopted guidelines reflect a harmonised European approach to a specific scientific issue and should reflect the most recent scientific knowledge. However, whilst EU regulations are mandatory for all member states and EU directives must be followed by national laws in line with the directive, EMA guidelines do not have legal force and alternative approaches may be taken, but these obviously require more justification. This new series of the BJCP, developed in collaboration with the EMA, aims to address this issue by providing an annotated version of some relevant EMA guidelines and regulatory documents by experts. Hopefully, this will help in promoting their diffusion and in opening a forum for discussion with our readers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) marks a striking shift towards a more restrictive interpretation of EU citizens’ rights. The Court's turnaround is not only highly relevant for practical debates about ‘Social Europe’ or ‘welfare migration’, but also enlightening from a more general, theoretical viewpoint. Several recent studies on the ECJ have argued that the Court is largely constrained by member state governments’ threats of legislative override and non-compliance. We show that an additional mechanism is necessary to explain the Court's turnaround on citizenship. While the ECJ extended EU citizens’ rights even against strong opposition by member state governments, its recent shift reflects changes in the broader political context, i.e., the politicization of free movement in the European Union (EU). The article theorises Court responsiveness to politicization and demonstrates empirically, how the Court's jurisprudence corresponds with changing public debates about EU citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This policy paper summarizes four corridor studies on bilateral social security agreements (BSSAs) between four European Union (EU) member and two nonmember states, draws conclusions on their results, and offers recommendations. BSSAs between migrant-sending and migrant-receiving countries are seen as the most important instrument to establish portability of social security benefits for internationally mobile workers. Yet, only about 23 % of international migrants profit from BSSAs and their functioning has been little analyzed and even less assessed. The four corridors studied (Austria-Turkey, Germany-Turkey, Belgium-Morocco, and France-Morocco) were selected to allow for comparison of both similarities and differences in experiences. The evaluation of these corridors' BSSAs was undertaken against a methodological framework and three selected criteria: fairness for individuals, fiscal fairness for countries, and bureaucratic effectiveness for countries and migrant workers. The results suggest that the investigated BSSAs work and overall deliver reasonably well on individual fairness. The results on fiscal fairness are clouded by conceptual and empirical gaps. Bureaucratic effectiveness would profit from information and communication technology-based exchanges on both corridors once available. JEL Classification: D69, H55, I19, J62 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the New Skills for New Jobs initiative, the European Commission wants to (1) promote better anticipation of future skills needs, (2) develop better matching between skills and labour market needs and (3) bridge the gap between the worlds of education and work. With relatively little effort, the use of lingua receptiva can contribute significantly towards achieving these goals. Including it in the Skills Agenda as a "transversal skill" could: - enhance the key competence "Communicating in and learning a foreign language"; - refine the European Qualification Framework (EQF); and, - strengthen the Europass. This position paper1 elaborates on the arguments for including Lingua Receptiva in these policy papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The realization of national climate change commitments, as agreed through international negotiations, requires local action. However, data is still insufficient to make accurate statements about the scale of urban emissions (UNHABITAT, 2011). The need of comparable emission inventories at city level, including smaller cities, is widely recognized to develop evidence-based policies accounting for the relation between emissions and institutional, socio-economic and demographic characteristics at city level. This paper presents a collection of harmonized greenhouse gases (GHG) emission inventories (the "CoM sample 2013") at municipal level directly computed by the cities and towns that participate in the EU Covenant of Mayors initiative. This is the mainstream European movement of local and regional authorities who voluntarily commit to reduce GHG emissions by 20% or more by 2020. The "CoM sample 2013" (http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/com/data/index.php? SECURE=123, doi:10.2904/EDGARcom2013) has been carefully checked to ensure its internal consistency and its congruity with respect to internationally accepted guide values for emission factors. Overall, it provides valuable data for the analysis of the heterogeneity of final energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions of cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article addressing some of the legal and practical issues raised by the movement of people across the Mediterranean in search of protection. Topics discussed include European Union's (EU) laudable goal of a Common European Asylum Policy; EU member States' international obligations; and the European Convention on Human Rights.

The figure of the influencer has generated an increase in their presence on social networks. Their ability to create content, their credibility and their identification with the consumer represent an added value in commercial communication. However, their disclosures are controversial due to the lack of transparency and differentiation between their commercial and opinion content. The absence of a clear definition of an influencer, the need to regulate their actions and the difficulty of identifying the commercial content of their publications are evidence of the concern to regulate their activity. The aim of this paper is to analyze, in the European context, the specific regulations on commercial disclosures by influencers, as well as to ascertain the point of view of the agents involved. To this end, a content analysis of the guidelines, regulations and/or laws of 24 European Union countries is carried out, complemented by an ad hoc questionnaire that brings together different aspects that can be defined and delimited. The results show a lack of unanimity in the rules and regulations governing influencers, as well as a manifest concern on the part of professionals in the sector to determine their communications. Only two countries, France and Spain, have specific legislation on the subject, limiting commercial disclosure to the existence of consideration and/or number of followers. It is clear that the existing guidelines are, in most cases, more comprehensive in terms of transparency guidelines for identifying advertising than the regulatory texts. The findings question whether the path of legislation is the right one, or whether efforts should instead focus on media and advertising literacy for both influencers and consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking into account recent literature on economic growth, we focus on analyzing the extent to which metropolitan regions (NUTS3 urban predominant regions), as growth poles, especially from Romania and from EU member states and regions with similar levels of development, contribute to economic growth, from the perspective of employment-related issues. We place our analysis in the context of Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth and of the urban dimension of the EU regional policies. The variables included refer to labor market indicators, in conjunction with demographic data, from Eurostat, providing a more comprehensive understanding of the contribution of growth poles to the overall development of country, in comparison with the capital region, the national average and EU27 average. The selection of growth poles from countries with similar levels of development as Romania is based on previous research results of cluster analysis for year 2010, conducted using headline indicators of Europe 2020 strategy and GDP per head, for country level, and cohesion policy indicators, for NUTS2 regional level, looking for possible overlaps of the country and regional clustering that include Romanian regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors reflect on a report "Transparency and trust in the European pharmaceutical sector" published within issue of the periodical. Topics discussed include relation between transparency and trust in pharmaceutical regulators; need of integrating transparency in effective, evidenced- and science based benefit/risk communication; and need of different regulatory domains to obtain a understanding of the role of the institutional and situational context.

In this paper, we introduce the special issue on Financial and Institutional Reforms for an Entrepreneurial Society in Europe. There are many reasons for Europe to want to make the transition to a more Entrepreneurial Society. And for decades now, policy makers are trying to bring that transition about with variations on the Beducate, deregulate and finance^ approach to entrepreneurship. We argue that more fundamental reforms are required to improve the entrepreneurial ecosystem and bring about this transition. We then discuss the 12 contributions that pertain to five different facets of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. The first two papers address the most fundamental institutional foundations of the ecosystem. The next three papers discuss the (lack of) access to knowledge and incentives to start innovative entrepreneurial ventures. That is followed by three papers that focus on the institutions that (fail to) channel financial resources to such ventures and two papers that analyze the relevance of labor market institutions. The special issue concludes with two papers investigating how the interplay of institutions and productive entrepreneurship results in economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on Article 17(1) of the 1999 Montreal Convention (MC99) regarding the liability of international air carriers for death or bodily injury to passengers. The interpretational principles and methods applied by the CJEU are examined, accounting also for the particularities of the EU legal order. Furthermore, the results reached by the CJEU are compared with the case law of other jurisdictions, mainly the US, and doctrinal writings. Nonetheless, this paper does not explore the pertinent issues from a de lege ferenda perspective. The paper concludes that the judgments of the CJEU on Art. 17(1) MC99 have interpreted the notions of “passenger,” “accident,” and “bodily injury” broadly, in a passenger-friendly way. Although the interpretation of ‘passenger’ does not differ from the established case law in other jurisdictions, some aspects of the interpretation of “accident” and the interpretation of “bodily injury” significantly depart from the view currently prevailing among courts internationally. The CJEU has yet to rule on the scope of the exclusivity of the MC99, under Art. 29 thereof, regarding personal injury of passengers. However, the expansive interpretations of “accident” and “bodily injury” by the CJEU limit the practical effect of Article 29 compared to other jurisdictions. Given the regulatory influence that the EU exercises worldwide, the CJEU judgments might guide courts also outside the EU. Although this would bolster passenger protection, it would exacerbate the already fragmented application of the MC99 internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the specifics of the current development of the world economy and discusses implications for new member states of the European Union, the EU NMS, with a small case study on the Czech Republic. The paper is divided into four parts: the trends, the EU NMS and the effects of the trends in the EU NMS and in the Czech Republic. The paper is based on a general economic analysis of data provided by the World Bank (WB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Eurostat, the European Central Bank (ECB) and by the Czech Statistical Office (CZSO). Being familiar with recent macroeconomic trends is nowadays important for Central and Eastern European managers in order to efficiently adapt their strategies to the constantly changing business environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2009 the European Commission published the art. 102 guidance regarding abusive exclusionary conduct by dominant undertakings. The guidance is based on the more economic approach to competition policy. This paper investigates the welfare implications of the more economic approach to loyalty rebates. First, the paper presents an economic framework linking weights attached to probabilities of false positives and negatives and the legal norm. After that, the paper discusses cases before the guidance paper (i.a. Hoffmann-La Roche), the guidance paper itself, and cases after the guidance paper (i.a. Intel). In the period after the guidance paper, we observe a non-linear increase in the weight attached to preventing false positives. The paper concludes that to further limit welfare losses due to false positives, the category of rebates that is assumed to be abusive should be defined in a restrictive way. Furthermore, in law enforcement priority should be given to cases that, considering all the circumstances, can be expected to be most harmful to consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there have been numerous academic and policy debates on the delivery mechanisms of European Union (EU) funds in member states. Studies focused on issues arising, for instance, during the management and implementation of EU aid at the local level but devoted less attention to the economic and institutional impact of EU funds. To what extent do EU funds act as drivers of socio-economic development and institutional change? Theoretically, this paper contributes to debates about economic convergence and the institutional spillover effects generated by EU aid across national and local settings. Empirically, the paper evaluates the impact of EU aid in Bulgaria and Romania after a decade of EU membership. Firstly, the paper examines a mix of quantitative indicators and secondary sources on the socio-economic impact of EU funds in the two countries. Secondly, using original qualitative evidence, the paper assesses the spillover effects of EU aid on domestic institutions and stakeholders, policies and practices. Finally, the paper provides an analysis of the unintended domestic consequences triggered by EU funds. It contributes to growing debates on the impact of European aid and suggests potential avenues for policy development and for further academic research in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

EU citizens migrating between EU member states are expected to be self-sufficient movers, with little access to social or integration support for the economically inactive. This generates challenges for both migrant EU citizens and local governments in places of destination. The latter are confronted with new social challenges resulting from migration that balances between mobility and settlement. How local governments respond to this crucially shapes EU citizenship and the evolving EU migration system. This paper looks at local responses to migrant EU citizens' integration needs and how we might understand these. The paper is exploratory and builds on in-depth research in Berlin, Hamburg, Gothenburg and Stockholm conducted in 2015–2016. It demonstrates that responses varied between short-term approaches addressing basic needs and long-term strategies focusing on integration. It argues that the integration strategy identified in Berlin is the result of a national context of bottom-up immigrant policy-making, certain historical experiences of immigration, and, crucially, the work of local policy entrepreneurs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The common energy policy of the European Union is a current topic on the agenda of European institutions, reflected in package "Clean Energy for All Europeans", proposed by the European Commission. Despite several harmonization attempts, the consensus needed for a common policy and for an Energy Union has not been reached yet. One possible element why we still do not have a common energy market is the lack of competition in the energy sector. In this context, the present research paper analyzes to what extent competition can be a key-factor in ensuring the modernization of the energy sector. Aspects of competition law which are relevant for building a common energy market are highlighted in the present research paper. Furthermore, the present article raises the question how important cooperation is, searching the proper balance between competition and cooperation. The present article uses an interdisciplinary research method, combining the analysis of primary and secondary European law, of legal instruments and provisions, considering the teleological method, with the assessment from a business and economics point of view. Case law and case studies from Member States of the European Union provide best practice models for the energy sector and present an international comparative perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses two main questions: (1) how far do the activities of fiscal councils in the EU countries help promote transparency and accountability in the management of public finances and (2) how could fiscal councils enhance the impact of those activities? The analysis is based on a questionnaire collected in 2016 from fiscal councils in 18 EU countries. The questionnaire looked at how the councils themselves assessed their impact on the management of public finances, and how they communicated their findings to the wider public. The councils see some benefits of their work; and their monitoring of adherence to fiscal rules and legislative regulation, as well as their warnings about excessive government spending, seem to get noticed in the media. This activity informs the public, and may in turn influence politicians' ratings, thereby helping to contribute to greater accountability in the management of public finances. The paper consequently argues that fiscal councils may promote fiscal transparency and accountability and proposes several ways to enhance the effectiveness of their influence on media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fiscal decentralization brings certain economic benefits, but also meets certain inconveniences. If the process of decentralization is realized in the mode, that the decentralization of expenditure and decentralization of revenue are divided, the success of its implementation is endangered. Excessive expenditure decentralization without adequate decentralization of revenues creates a gap, which is under the soft-budget constraints conditions completed by intergovernmental transfers. Intergovernmental transfers present a move of public financial resources from central level of government to local levels of government creating vertical fiscal imbalance. The theory is not clear about the eligibility of soft-budget constraints and vertical fiscal imbalance. The economic reality supports their existence and considers them as an integral part of local resources. In this paper vertical fiscal imbalances in the EU countries are analyzed. Using the panel regression with time effects for a sample of new and old EU member states, determinants of vertical fiscal imbalance are identified. Significant negative effect of public deficit and revenue decentralization is observed in all two samples. The impact of time effects differs according to the sample. This paper is published within the project VEGA no.1/0559/16. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bosnian War witnessed horrifying humanitarian crimes, particularly systematic rapes perpetrated by Serbs against Bosnian women. More than 35,000 women and children were subjected to such atrocities in Serb-run "rape/death camps". Additionally, the fall of Srebrenica resulted in the loss of thousands of civilian lives. International intervention to halt the Bosnian War faced challenges and complexities. Various countries involved in the matter held differing interpretations of the conflict, leading to diverse views on potential solutions. The lack of consensus and political will hindered the effectiveness of the European Union's intervention efforts. This paper critically examines the international intervention in the Bosnian War, focusing on the approaches of key EU countries: France, Germany, and the UK. These countries' divergent policies and objectives impacted the EU's ability to adopt a coherent stance towards the conflict. The study employs Nuttall and Duke's theoretical approach to consistency in decision-making within the EU to explain why a consistent approach was not achieved during the intervention. By analysing the complexities of the EU's intervention in the Bosnian War, this study seeks to answer the question of what went wrong and provides insights into the challenges of decision-making and consensus-building within the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, unfair pricing cases were considered a "taboo" in EU competition policy. During the recent years, however, the European Commission and a number of National Competition Authorities have investigated unfair pricing cases. Therefore, national and EU courts had the opportunity to rule on unfair pricing cases, by thus clarifying the legal test. The paper shows that United Brands is not the "only" legal test to assess unfair pricing cases; the CJEU has endorsed alternative "benchmarking" methods. Recent jurisprudence has also introduced some "safeguard tools" to minimize the risk of false negative errors, such as the requirement for the competition agency to verify its findings under "multiple" tests and the possibility for the dominant firm to put forward "objective justifications". The paper argues that the legal test of unfair pricing cases is becoming "clearer", by thus contributing to a further shift from the traditional non-enforcement paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air transport is an essential component of the tourism industry, and the number, frequency, and capacity of flight connections may influence the level of tourism demand, especially for island destinations. This paper evaluates the influence of air transport on tourism arrivals to selected islands in seven southern European Union countries to determine the nature of the relationship between tourist arrivals and air transport, specifically, whether air transport services generate tourism demand or merely enable touristic flows. The paper uses panel data and applies an econometric model with justifications for endogeneity and dynamic issues. Results show a moderate impact of transport infrastructures on generating additional tourist arrivals; however, the model shows that air transport is a prerequisite to developing tourism demand and is not the only determinant in increasing tourist arrivals. Tourist arrivals appear more a determinant than a consequence of changes in‐flight connections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the age of globalisation, implementation and commercialisation of new technologies are perceived as key elements determining competitiveness of particular countries, therefore, the growth of innovativeness is seen as the predominant direction of European Union society’s transformation into information society. The aim of the paper is to propose a procedure of measurement of innovativeness growth over time, with the Summary Innovation Index (SII) methodology as a starting point. The considered issue can be expressed by the following main question: how to measure the innovation performance dynamics for a selected group of countries (such as the EU- 28, EU-15 or EU-13 countries) and for time intervals (not only for two moments of observations). This is an important inquiry since well-known innovativeness indices (SII, GII, or IOI) concentrate mainly on the provision of information about countries’ innovation performance for a specific year of observations. Due to this fact, changes occurring over longer time periods are rather neglected. The main result of the paper is a proposition of average innovativeness growth index. The index uses weights describing the employment share of a selected group of specialists (e.g.: scientists and engineers, research and development personnel) in relation to the economically active population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with tertiary education efficiency and effectiveness across 24 European Union countries in four sub-periods between 2004 and 2015. The efficiency scores are computed using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). We try to raise awareness of the quality, and not of the quantity, of educational outputs and inputs by introducing quality-based correction of the DEA efficiency score, which we regard as effectiveness. Our results show that quality considerations affect the relative positions of countries regarding their efficiency scores. In other words, some less developed countries, which are efficient in the quantity-based model, fail to reach the defined efficiency border when considering some quality indicators of outputs. On the other hand, some inefficient developed countries increase their DEA-based ranking and achieve effectiveness (quality-based efficiency). The same is true for input quality considerations. Since tertiary education cannot be expected to provide the same quality of outcomes with different input qualities, efficiency improves (deteriorates) in the input-output quality-based model in many countries with low (high) quality student bases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The Capital Markets Union (CMU) is one of the flagship policy initiatives of the Juncker Commission. The Commission's strategy for realizing a CMU is set out in its White Paper on building a CMU. Besides describing the Commission's vision of a CMU, the white paper includes an action plan which details the measures that are needed to build a CMU. The aim of this article is to consider the Commission's measures in one particular area of the action plan. Specifically, this article examines the Commission's strategy for overcoming information barriers to SME investment. By acting in this area, the Commission's objective is to facilitate access to finance, but also to diversify sources of funding for SMEs, which are traditionally heavily dependent on bank-based finance. This article evaluates the Commission's strategy and its prospects of success. After assessing the relevant policy measures, it will argue for a paradigm shift which is based on three pillars: a greater emphasis on market building measures; a greater emphasis on information sharing duties as one mechanism that can help to address information barriers; and a market correcting strategy to dovetail greater market building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature concerned in fiscal federalism and fiscal decentralization promotes the sub-national responsibility for sub-national resources and spending. In this paper sub-national tax revenues are compared to total tax revenues expressing the tax decentralization for the sample of EU 28 countries. Beside it, the main part of sub-national taxes, the immovable property tax -- tax on land building or other structure, is compared to total sub-national tax revenues. Using the GMM system estimation determinants of sub-national tax revenues, real estate tax revenues and tax decentralization are investigated on the sample of EU countries. Results show the significant negative relation between GDP per capita growth, population density and inflation rate and all variables in question. In the case of sub-national government real estate tax revenues the positive relation with public debt is observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses how both the White Paper and the Rome Declaration speak of the European Union's (EU) efforts to maintain unity among it's member nations. The author suggests that the EU should not emphasize too much on unity, instead it should focus on overcoming the different interests of the parties. However, for this process to work the EU should take lessons from other unions like the U.S. and use anchors like executive effectiveness and its legitimacy as well as symbolism.

The topic of financial inclusion has gained increased attention, on the background of international frameworks and policies devoted to inclusive societies, inclusive financial systems, sustainable and inclusive growth. However, existing literature and practice lack a generally accepted, reliable and easy to interpret quantitative measure of financial inclusion. The novelty of our paper relies on developing a financial inclusion index, comprising an updated set of indicators which account for current developments of the financial industry and the continuous diversification and complementarity of financial products people have access to. It is the first study comprising all the 28 EU countries and covering a large, recent time horizon (2008-2013). The index has been computed for each year considered and a ranking has been provided to comparatively assess the evolution of a given country on the financial inclusion scale. Our findings revealed that one-third of EU countries show moderate financial inclusion, while the remaining ones depict low financial inclusion, with different degrees of severity. A constant presence at the bottom limit of financial inclusion, in each of the six years, has been Romania. This result reflects a reality, namely the lack of official concern from authorities and financial institutions in respect of monitoring, measuring and stimulating financial inclusion. We believe that the index proposed in this paper could act not only for assessing the degree of inclusion at a given moment of time, but also as a tool for monitoring and signaling the imperative involvement of regulators, financial institutions and civil society in designing and implementing policies and programs for enhancing inclusive financial products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proliferation of data-driven markets continues to raise questions about their implications for the right to data protection. A recent suggestion is that EU competition law can and should be used to address data protection concerns in the age of big data. However, the European Commission is reluctant to consider data protection issues in EU competition law, maintaining instead that competition law is not the right tool to promote the right to data protection. Yet, following the Treaty of Lisbon, data protection is a fundamental right under Article 16 of the TFEU as well as Article 8 of the Charter. Therefore, considering that the EU is under a duty to promote fundamental rights by virtue of Article 51 of the Charter, this paper argues that data protection should be among the objectives of EU competition law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines institutional change in father‐specific leave ‐ a centre‐piece of the EU's work‐life balance directive (WLBD) ‐ from the perspective of gradual institutional change. The WLBD, a highly contentious directive, represents a litmus test for the possible impact of the European pillar of social rights (EPSR), on welfare state institutions, which are responsible for the organisation, financing and delivery of social rights in member states. The analysis comprises in‐depth case studies in Denmark, Germany, France and Poland, with different combinations of family and parental leave policies prior to the WLBD. The findings reveal that the EU's directive is leading to convergence in paternity leave, but to divergence in parental leave. Our study is important because it shows that even if EU directives in social policy in principle can lead to upwards social convergence across the EU, when they are relatively weak in terms of precise constraint, for instance, for the level of remuneration for leave, this leads to differentiated integration. This could undermine the very purpose of the EPSR, which seeks to improve social rights for all citizens across the EU. Similar dynamics are likely to be present in other areas at the welfare state‐labor market nexus, such as minimum wages or platform work, where the EU is also developing regulation under the auspices of the EPSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By providing financial resources, conditional to the implementation of the (social) recommendations in the Semester and the principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights, the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) has opened new political and institutional opportunity windows for the multi‐level co‐production of social policies. The article first dives into how the RRF has been translated into national social policies choices, by assessing the alignment of reforms and investments with the Semester social recommendations and their capacity to address the social vulnerabilities identified in the Pillar's Social Scoreboard. Second, it sheds light on the interaction between the European Commission, in charge of assessing and monitoring the RRF, and the national governments, the key actors in setting‐up and implementing the plans. Comparing six case studies (Italy, Germany, Spain, Croatia, Belgium and Austria), the article shows that the RRF has only partially contributed to reinforcing member states' compliance with social Country Specific Recommendations and the role of the Social Pillar in the drafting of National Recovery and Resilience Plans has been very limited. This notwithstanding, the RRF has contributed to fasten‐forward the implementation of welfare reforms and initiatives which would have been remained on the paper, especially for whose countries with limited fiscal capacity. Furthermore, it provides empirical evidence of the collaborative approach between the Commission and the national government, substantiating the claim of the emergence of a new mode of coordinative Europeanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the EU legislative process should be used for taking all decisions at European level that matter, banning the various backroads of European decision‐making (competence creep) that are currently legal but not legitimate. This is a silver bullet, resolving at once a range of seemingly disparate but intimately connected legitimacy problems across all areas of EU activity, that ultimately result from an incorrectly calibrated state of transnational constitutional democracy at EU level, where certain aspects are over‐constitutionalised while others remain fundamentally under‐constitutionalised. This is therefore the key transversal issue that the Conference on the Future of Europe and its ensuing changes should address. The paper makes various concrete proposals to this effect, including for a general legislative competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to show the increased relevance of soft skills in a continuously changing environment. A research was carried out to examine and compare students' and employers' perceptions regarding the importance of soft skills in different European countries. Results show that 86% of respondents indicate an increased emphasis on soft skills over the last 5–10 years and that companies consider soft skills more important than students/graduates. Furthermore, major differences have also been identified in the ranking of the 20 soft skills listed in this paper, indicating different levels of priorities. This paper suggests that companies and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) need to work together not only to increase students' awareness of the importance of soft skills but also to guide them in taking individual responsibility to acquire and develop these essential skills in order to continuously adapt to the changing labour market and improve their employability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]