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After over a decade of crisis, the ECB's functions have expanded considerably, which in turn altered its relationship with other institutions. In particular, when the ECB assumed the role of Banking Supervisor under the Single Supervisory Mechanisms, it was generally accepted that this role would require more accountability than its traditional role in monetary policy. Yet, accountability requires transparency. However, there is a dearth of studies on the transparency of European banking supervision, and the few that exist are usually single case studies. This leaves us without a point of comparison that would help us understand what constitutes a 'transparent banking supervisor'. Therefore, the aim of this article is to situate the transparency of the ECB within the wider literature on the transparency of banking supervisors. This allows us to pinpoint more precisely its strengths and shortcomings and the potential for reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the theoretical foundations of fiscal sustainability and the policy prescription that when the trajectory of public debt is above a certain threshold, priority should be given to fiscal consolidation. The author contends that the assumption that the government sector is subject to an intertemporal budget constraint can be validated only within a real-exchange economy where money is neutral and public debt entails the absorption of private savings. Conversely, when the economy is viewed as a system of interlocking balance sheets under a paper standard, public debt may prompt higher prices but not an inflation overhang forcing monetization or default. Another justification regards the quality of spending when policymakers' incentives create a deficit bias, but this must be balanced against the need to flexibly provide safe financial assets to offer fiscal support when needed. In conclusion, limiting fiscal action within an intertemporal budget constraint is unwarranted under a paper standard and generates deflationary effects, underlining the urgent need that Europe move decisively toward the creation of a coordinated fiscal policy joined to a permanent capacity to issue EU debt. This is today's most urgently needed reform for the economic, social, and political sustainability of the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The SAMOSAFER project, funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 program, is focused on advancing molten salt reactor (MSR) technology. As part of the project, a Young MSR (YMSR) conference was held in Italy in June 2022, where doctoral students, postdocs, and early-career researchers presented and discussed their research on various MSR-related topics. Keynote speakers and oral presentations covered technical areas such as neutronics, thermal hydraulics, chemistry and materials, and safety studies. The conference aimed to provide a platform for knowledge exchange and collaboration among researchers in the field. A special issue of papers from the conference will be published in Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE) to enhance the visibility of the event. [Extracted from the article]

This article analyses the evolution of the European Union's development policy in relation to civil society. Based on a review of overall policy trends, strategies and practices in Central Asia, it demonstrates how the EU's development policy has gradually moved from a focus on European NGOs towards civil society organisations, broadly defined and increasingly associated with the private sector and local authorities. While the EU's policy recognises the intrinsic value of civil society in all its diversity and promotes partnership, its operational practices show a pragmatic preference for working with professionalised organisations in service delivery roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to investigate the nexus between European and emerging markets in terms of multiple-timescale conditional analysis of the carbon-energy relationship. The findings identified the price movements of fossil fuels, Granger-caused movements in the carbon price, and movements in the carbon price Granger-caused movements in the electricity price. Furthermore, it was determined that in the long term, the crude oil and gas markets may increase and the coal market may decrease their causal influence on the carbon market. Finally, the role of the carbon market in the conditional Granger-causal network was observed to weaken during Phase III of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme. These findings imply asymmetric information spillover between the European and emerging markets, particularly in the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The trading market of carbon emission permits is not only an effective tool for tackling climate change, but it also reinforces the connection between carbon and energy markets by risk transmission. This paper investigates the volatility spillover effects and dynamic correlation between fossil energy, clean energy and the European Union carbon markets by applying the asymmetric BEKK- and DCC-GARCH models in a time-frequency framework and designs the portfolio strategies. Empirical results display that fossil energy market has a significantly positive impact on the clean energy market at most scales, but the feedback transmission is relatively weak. Two indirect volatility spillover effects exist between the three markets, which are 'fossil energy→carbon→clean energy' and 'clean energy→carbon→fossil energy', suggesting that the carbon market plays a vital role in bridging the clean and fossil energy markets. Significant time-varying asymmetric effects are identified between the three markets, and the carbon market is confirmed to offer the least expensive hedge to an investment in oil. Our findings can provide meaningful implications for policymakers to design market mechanism and investors to adjust hedging strategies and diversify their portfolios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cost minimization theory suggests national demand equations for paper and paperboard in which demand is a negative function of the price of paper and paperboard, and a positive function of gross national product. A dynamic version of this model was estimated with data from European Union countries, for newsprint, printing and writing paper, and other paper and paperboard. Country-by-country equations proved unstable. Pooling the data across countries, with dummy variables to account for fixed country effects, led to well defined short-term and long-term elasticities with respect to price and gross national product. The hypothesis that income and price elasticities were the same across the European Union countries could not be rejected at the 1% significance level, for the three product groups. From 1969 to 1995, most of the growth in demand had been due to the growth in national product, while price increases had only a small negative effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advent of digital companies has brought benefits to society. Nevertheless, the digital era poses significant risks to consumers' privacy. The combination, through mergers, of enormous datasets could raise further privacy concerns. It has been much discussed whether and how consumer privacy concerns should be introduced within merger assessment. This paper approaches this issue from another perspective and reflects upon the circumstances under which the EU Merger Control Regulation (EUMR) has a role to address privacy issues. Accordingly, this paper clarifies the conditions that must be satisfied in order for privacy issues to fall within the EUMR's ambit. First, privacy should be a parameter of competition on the market and second, there must be a causal link between the merger and privacy deterioration. Following this, the paper turns to critically analyse the Commission's treatment of privacy issues in objectively selected mergers involving some of the most powerful digital companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An European Union (EU)-funded project QLK1-CT-2001-00930 (BIOSAFEPAPER) involves the development, validation and intercalibration of a short-term battery of toxicological tests for the safety assessment of food-contact paper and board. Dissemination of the results to industry, legislators (e.g. DG Consumer Protection, DG Enterprises, DG Research), standardization bodies such as CEN, and consumers will create an agreed risk evaluation procedure. The project involves pre-normative research in order to establish a set of in-vitro cytotoxicity and genotoxicity tests that will be easily adaptable to food-contact fibre-based materials and have endpoints relevant to consumer safety, including sub-lethal cellular events. These tests will be performed on samples representing actual migration conditions from food-contact paper and board with respect to different foodstuffs, and should form an experimental basis for scientifically sound recommendations for a harmonized system of risk evaluation and product testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Chinese authorities have installed visa restrictions and strict quarantine rules to prevent foreigners from spreading new infections to the country. This has disrupted a trend of increasing European Union (EU)-China travel and socio-economic exchanges. EU citizens living in or travelling to China have had to deal with the consequences of Beijing's so-called Zero-Covid strategy. In view of quasi-closed borders, many Europeans have given up on living in or travelling to China. Those who have stayed have come up with strategies of adaptation, while European-owned firms have reacted by adopting initiatives such as doing business online or localising staff. Overall, the Chinese visa restrictions have added a new dimension to the debate on asymmetries in EU-China relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article links the discussions which are currently centring on the future design of the European Union legislative process to modern constitutional political theory as exemplified in the Federalist Papers . It argues that, to better understand the European Union policy–making process, analysts are well advised to consult the Federalist ’s objectives as well as its method of reasoning. Considering institutional design in general and legislative decision–making in particular, Jean Monnet, one of the principal architects of modern–day Europe, perceived the early developments which led to the Treaty that established the European Coal and Steel Community of 1952 as an unprecedented process. However, although the European Union is indeed novel, and not a state in the traditional sense, the dialogue in Europe would benefit from a more constitutionally oriented assessment of the potential effects of the Union’s institutional arrangements on legislative outcomes. Modern constitutional theory can provide the basis for this assessment. Without assuming the Constitution of the United States for itself, the European debate on legislative design would be enriched by looking back at the Federalist ’s reasoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial intelligence (AI) policy, innovation, and practice are moving ahead in rapid fashion. There is a growing mismatch between technological innovations in AI, which are advancing at a rapid rate, and normative and regulatory frameworks, which are lagging, particularly when it comes to protecting democratic values and human rights principles. National governments and multilateral institutions are attempting to catch up. At least 175 countries, firms and other organizations have produced documents listing ethical principles for AI. These efforts have proceeded in a somewhat fragmented manner, yet there are emerging signs of consolidation as the United States, Europe, and other countries begin to coalesce around shared principles. Europe, in particular, has raced ahead to draft comprehensive legislation, the Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA), to oversee these technologies and systems. What has motivated the European Union to pursue this approach? And how will this effort influence AI norms globally? This paper describes how Europe's AI norm-building process represents an effort to ensure EU priorities are reflected in the AI governance landscape. Europe's approach faces uncertainty. While it is likely that the AIA will meaningfully influence global AI norms, several factors may hinder its global diffusion and adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the proposal of the European Union-wide binding effect rule and its scope of application in the White Paper presentation, the argument of the anticipated issues that will rise, and the national legislators' adoption following the presentation of the European Commission (EC) Draft Directive for Antitrust Damages provision. The EC published the White Paper that announces the achievement of the Green Paper in relation to the awareness of the right to compensate the victims and competition law infringements. The White Paper suggests to the Member States the approval of concrete measures including the issues relating to significant claims. The author analyzed that the rule about the binding effect of National Competition Authority (NCA) decision is not yet settled.

The article focuses on the White Paper on damage actions for breach of Articles 81 and 82 EC published by the European Commission in Europe on April 2, 2008. The published White Paper features a comprehensive recommendation to help victims of competition law infringements abuses in claiming full compensation for the damages that they suffered. The White Paper aspires to strengthen and improve the private implementation of Articles 81 and 82 of the EC Treaty. It also tries to simplify the primary goals of antitrust enforcement framework and facilitate whether the antitrust enforcement framework in the European Union (EU) obtain those goals, if not, it offers an optimal and effective substitute.

This editorial summarizes the papers published in issue 16(3) (2021) in order to raise the bar in applied spatial economic research and highlight new trends and knowledge. The first paper analyses the economic consequences of the rise and spread of the Covid-19 virus in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. The second paper presents a multi-regional generalized RAS technique to update input–output tables. The third paper investigates which European Union regions are most likely to be exposed to external shocks and which are more resilient. The fourth paper proposes a new neighbourhood inequality index for cities. The fifth paper analyses productivity and profitability using a sophisticated hierarchical model applied to a huge data set of individual firms. The sixth paper contains an empirical analysis on the choice of the national capital city location among 80 potential candidates in China over a period of 2240 years. The seventh paper explains political ideology at the municipality level in Switzerland based on 312 federal referendums between 1981 and 2017. The eighth paper examines the driving forces of business cycle synchronization among the 49 US states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents the proposal on education and training systems in Europe, White Paper of the European Commission presented to an European Union council on education. Impact of the proposal on education in European Union; Types of proposals given in the White Paper; Criticism of the proposals presented in the White Paper.

In 2004 ten Eastern and Southern European countries will join the EU. Agriculture and agricultural policy is an important issue in this EU enlargement process, for several reasons. This paper assesses the implications of the enlargement process for agriculture and agricultural policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corruption is a phenomenon that is not just restricted to less developed nations, but also touches developed countries like those in the European Union, often seen as one of the least corrupt economic areas in the world. Corruption practices and perceptions can seriously hinder economic growth and innovation, This can be due to lower access to corporate funding, greater cost of capital, its effects on competition, misallocation of resources, and distortions in the composition of public spending and the effectiveness of government policies. This paper first provides a short discussion and an overview of some academic literature on the link between corruption, financing decisions and economic growth. It then summarizes the findings of the five papers in this special issue on the topic of Corruption in a European context, discusses some insights from their results and finally points out at some avenues for future research in related topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assesses the European Union's (EU) Green Paper on its relations with the 71 Lome Convention countries after the millennium. Comparison of the proposals in the Green Paper and the Lome system; Views on the European Commission's thinking about EU-African, Caribbean and Pacific relations; Changes in the political environment; Importance of a gradualist or incremental approach in trying to create a relationship.

The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), despite being regarded as the most developed integration project in the post-Soviet area, has faced different hurdles in acquiring international recognition. Especially, the EU, the EAEU's Significant Other, has been reluctant to formally recognize it, in spite of close ties with EAEU member states as well as of its own self-image as a supporter of regional integrations. This paper focuses on this puzzle and examines how the EU has been discursively explaining its non-recognition of the EAEU at the institutional level. Based on the analysis of EU-articulated narratives since 2010, the paper reveals three dominant representations of the EAEU in the EU discourse: (1) Russia's geopolitical project; (2) a protectionist union; and (3) a dysfunctional union. These narratives have been used by Brussels to create the EAEU's image as a threatening Other, thus justifying why the EU cannot formally recognize the EAEU and officially engage with it. The paper also identifies five different stages of the EU's discursive representation of the EAEU since 2010, when its tone and content varied. The paper concludes that such non-recognition from the Significant Other still limits the EAEU's international agency despite its increasing interest in cooperation with non-Western actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Platform power poses a number of challenges for competition authorities. One concern is that big tech companies may harm competition through the acquisition of emerging companies with a high competitive potential. Such acquisitions may escape ex ante merger control if they do not reach the turnover threshold for mandatory notification. The Commission sought to bridge this enforcement gap with its Article 22 guidance and the Digital Markets Act. This paper evaluates the steps taken by the Commission to increase scrutiny of such mergers. Building on this discussion, the paper examines the AG opinion in Towercast and analyses the residual gap-closing function of Article 102 TFEU. The aim of this paper is to bring the new developments surrounding digital merger control together and assess whether they represent an adequate response to the challenges posed by the digital economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attempts to modernise the working practices of the Foreign Office within the last half century have largely been successful. Technological advances have rendered the work of today's Foreign Secretaries and Diplomatic Service totally different from their immediate post-war predecessors. This has not only speeded up the pace of diplomacy but resulted in a more 'intimate' approach to diplomatic contact through the use of video and satellite links, for example. These changes have taken place against the backdrop of a decline of Britain as a world power and a realignment of the British relationship with Europe through the European Union. At the same time, however, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was anxious to preserve its architectural and historical heritage, and the author praises the Thatcher government's commitment to restoring Gilbert Scott's building in Whitehall to its original splendour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the Copenhagen, Denmark summit on European Union (EU) enlargement held on December 12-13, 2002, which declined to give Turkey a firm date for accession negotiations. EU's agreement on a document setting out terms in which Turkey could begin negotiating its membership of the EU; Cautious welcome given by the EU to Turkey's program of social and economic reforms.

This paper addresses the underlying meaning of Chinese political ideas as represented in the Belt and Road discourse. It aims to contribute to overcoming the bias towards democratic systems in security studies. It challenges the argument that China's peaceful words can be taken at face value and compared with the ideas of democratic regimes. It delivers insights on new perspectives in the 'political threat versus desecuritization' discussion. This paper applies a qualitative discourse analysis with primary data collection of Chinese governmental and state institutional documents, Chinese think tank papers, and joint statements of EU-Chinese governmental officials. The data was analysed with NVivo Software. The empirical analysis shows that Chinese actors have built up a threat narrative idea which is hidden behind words such as 'trust, harmony, pluralism, community of a shared destiny'. Theoretically, this paper shows that the organizing principle, to apply Buzan's words, needs to be acknowledged when interpreting the way Chinese actors frame ideas in the BRI discourse. It challenges the argument of China as a desecuritization actor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While much attention has been paid to European policy arrangements in individual policy fields, European intersectoral policy coordination has been mostly an overlooked phenomenon, especially within the sectors of education and employment. Thus, in the introductory paper for this Special Issue, we offer a contemporary discussion of European intersectoral policy coordination. We firstly review the literature on intersectoral policy coordination, and secondly look at the application of concepts related to intersectoral policy coordination to supranational arrangements, especially the European Union. We then employ the concept of boundary-spanning policy regime and the related 'I' framework (issues, ideas, interests, and institutions) to discuss the individual pieces' contributions. This serves to explore the strength of the intersectoral perspective when analysing European policy coordination in education and employment. We conclude with a discussion of the strengths and limitations of this approach and offer a research agenda to study supranational intersectoral policy coordination (in education and employment). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic landscape of the UK has been significantly shaped by the intertwined issues of Brexit, COVID, and their interconnected impacts. The disruptions caused by Brexit and the COVID pandemic have created uncertainty and upheaval for both businesses and individuals. Whilst the effects of COVID are now receding, Brexit is still dominating headlines seven years after the referendum and is likely to do so for the foreseeable future. In this introduction, we provide an overview of the literature on Brexit. We review the reasons for leaving the European Union, as well examine the consequences of Brexit, with a focus on investment, economic growth, trade, unemployment, and financial markets. We then introduce the seven papers selected from the 'Post Brexit: Uncertainty, Risk Measurement and Coronavirus Challenges Conference' held at Birmingham Business School in June 2021, that advance the current literature on the effects of Brexit and COVID on the UK economy. Evidence in these papers suggests that Brexit and COVID are still clearly posing a severe strain on the UK's economy. However, some papers suggest that not everything about Brexit has been detrimental, or at least certain sectors of the UK economy are displaying a marked resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In France the activities and knowledge concerning the hemp economic sector are historically regulated by an organization dedicated to the paper industry. However, the current context (saturation of the principal outlet and uncertainty regarding the maintenance of the European Union subsidies), makes it necessary to enhance the added value of the hemp crop by diversifying its outlets and by using the whole plant. Also, since the middle of the 1990's the stakeholders of the hemp milieu have important and varied expectations regarding possible new hemp markets, particularly in the fields of plastics processing and the building construction industry. On the basis of data collected during talks with the main stakeholders of the French hemp system, and based on various articles, publications, books, and the Internet, we will describe the organized French hemp system starting from the representation that the stakeholders of the hemp milieu themselves have given. We will begin our analysis with the organized character of this system. Then we will present the data which give information about its dynamics: first the surfaces used for the production and the levels of production, then the forms of organization of the transformation industry, and finally the structuring of research through the publications of patents and the commitment of research groups. doi:10.1300/J237v12n02_05 [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 1998 the European Commission introduced into the political arena the concept of a 'European model of sport' in the build up to the Helsinki Report on Sport, the Commission's first attempt to formulate a comprehensive approach towards sport in the 'post-Bosman era'. In the recently adopted White Paper on Sport (July 2007), the Commission however considers it 'unrealistic' to define a single model of sport for Europe. This article argues that the Commission's departure from its previous position deserves attention because it is an explicit acknowledgement of the transformations in the governing structures of European sport over the last two decades. The article suggests two possible motives for the Commission's new understanding of European sport. First, the Commission is responding to the politicisation and redefinition of the concept of the 'European Model' by sport governing bodies, who are attempting to forestall legal intervention by the European courts and the Commission. Second, the Commission is just acknowledging the reality of the new governance of sport. In this respect, the article focuses on professional football to argue that the governance of the sport in Europe is transforming from the old pyramidal and vertical structure to more horizontal configurations of stakeholder networks. The White Paper is just another step in this process, and the Commission has used it to position itself within the network structure. The Commission, it is argued, has opted for a supervisory role, offering governing bodies a degree of 'supervised autonomy' where the specific role of federations is recognised in exchange for greater stakeholder representation within governing structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peer attention is a significant feature in the horizontal cross-loading of EU countries when there are many uncertainties in the decision-making. Taking the case of the 28-EU countries' interactive media attention during China's second Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) forum in April 2019, this paper explores the two questions of who pays attention to whose action to the BRI, and what are the determinants of the peer attentions? The measurements from the network analysis identify the positions and roles of EU countries in the attention network. The gravity model further examines the determinants on different levels of peer attention flows. The findings suggest that the peer attention network the EU countries formulate is a core-periphery structure where big powers and forerunners construct the core and connect other big power and peripheral countries from the nearby to the far-reaching. Substantively, this paper contributes to the literature on the horizontal interaction of countries in response to China's engagement. Methodologically, the network analysis is an innovative method to study how a country receives the influence imposed by a single country, by a cluster of countries and the peer attention network as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a working paper which aims to suggest a possible framework to develop a meaningful relationship between the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) and European Union (EU) institutions. It is stated that the interaction between BSEC and the EU is meant to be cost-effective and mutually advantageous. It is added that better coordination of activities, policies, resources and financial instruments is of crucial importance for meaningful progress.

In recent years, scholarship on postfunctionalism in European integration has drawn attention to how processes of Europeanisation are not restricted to policymakers, but exist equally (if not more significantly) in the quotidian. The 2016–2020 Brexit process and debates on the relationship between national identity and 'Europeanness' urge a new consideration of how Europeanisation is narrated in everyday discourses. This paper analyses British fictional portrayals of the EEC and EU and posits a new theoretical framework of 'Imperial Gothic 2.0'. Pre-2016 representations of the EU were entirely dystopian. But post-2016, Brex-Lit fiction has reversed this trend and the EU now appears as a flawless utopia. Early twentieth-century 'Imperial Gothic' saw popular fiction defined by themes of British decline and oppression by foreign powers; a century later, Brex-Lit has resurrected these themes by narrating Britain in terminal decline, reflecting cultural anxieties, a reversal of Self and Other, and a loss of identities. This 'Imperial Gothic 2.0' reveals anxieties which reflect and influence political action, and reveals the extent to which imaginations and narratives of the EU have transformed from depictions of a distant, technocratic entity used for comedy or conspiracy, into a site of intense emotional affiliation, nostalgia, anticipation, and regret. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses attitudes around the projection of the EU among Latin American elites, namely the determinants of support for a Free Trade Agreement between the two regions and the trustworthiness of the EU government. We take as data elite surveys conducted in 15 Latin American countries (2014–2019) and consider sociodemographics, ideology, support for democracy, views of foreign powers, exports to the EU, and electoral democracy. Results show that ideology and support for democracy are key determinants of support for an interregional FTA, and that the trustworthiness of governments in the US, China, and Spain covary with attitudes toward the EU. The latter (trust in the government in Spain) proves to be the main driver and, furthermore, its impact is conditional on the economic strength (observed as exports) of the EU: wherever the EU is not a strong economic actor in Latin America, trust in the Spanish government does nothing but improve the image of the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Which factors influence bilateral counterterrorism (CT) cooperation between EU Member States? Although scholars have studied European CT, the question still needs to be answered. This paper addresses the issue by introducing a new theoretical framework that combines CT and Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) literature. As citizens' threat perception increases, governments are pressed to act. Overall, centrist cabinets tend to rely more on cooperation agreements; likewise, pushed by threat perception, left-wing executives also recourse to international cooperation. I tested this framework on a newly collected dataset, which comprehends bilateral CT agreements signed among EU Members from 2002 to 2017. As such, this paper fosters studies on EU CT, focusing on a less debated issue: bilateral cooperation between EU Member States. The results support the initial hypotheses, disclosing a robust influence of threat perception and cabinet ideology on the number of bilateral CT agreements signed. Furthermore, they show that the perception of the threat is more influential on cooperation than the actual impact of terrorism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The lack of explainability of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the first obstacles that the industry and regulators must overcome to mitigate the risks associated with the technology. The need for 'eXplainable AI' (XAI) is evident in fields where accountability, ethics and fairness are critical, such as healthcare, credit scoring, policing and the criminal justice system. At the EU level, the notion of explainability is one of the fundamental principles that underpin the AI Act, though the exact XAI techniques and requirements are still to be determined and tested in practice. This paper explores various approaches and techniques that promise to advance XAI, as well as the challenges of implementing the principle of explainability in AI governance and policies. Finally, the paper examines the integration of XAI into EU law, emphasising the issues of standard setting, oversight, and enforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses a Polanyian frame to place the plight of Roma in Europe in the context of an age of crisis, as evidenced by faltering neoliberal economies and a corresponding rise in xenophobia and extreme manifestations of nationalism. The situation of the Roma remains precarious, a situation exacerbated by the 2008 economic crises and the COVID-pandemic. Despite a number of social inclusion measures in recent decades, at the national and European level which target the Roma, Roma exclusion remains a serious challenge. The paper assesses why previous policy regimes failed but also reflects on what is the way forward in terms of inclusive policy frameworks. The article seeks to provide some answers to these questions with a vision of a Polanyian countermovement in the form of a New Social Europe predicated on redistribution, recognition and community action but also a re-envisioning of integration and transformative change in structural and cultural terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks how lawmakers and other stakeholders envision the potential benefits and challenges arising from Artificial Intelligence (AI). A close reading of the European Union's draft AI Act, a bill proposed by the European Commission in April 2021, and of 302 response papers submitted by NGOs, businesses and business associations, trade unions, academics, public authorities, and citizens, shows that pluralistic sociotechnical imaginaries contest: (1) the essential characteristics of technology as they relate to society, politics, and law; (2) whether, how and how much law can enable, direct or constrain scientific & technological developments; and (3) the degree to which law does and should intervene into scientific & technological controversies. The feedback from stakeholders reveals major disagreements with the lawmakers in terms of how the relevant characteristics of AI should influence legal regulation, what the desired law should look like, and whether and how the law should intervene into expert debates in AI. What is more, different types of stakeholders diverge considerably in what they problematise and how they do so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses how so-called Brexit, that is the United Kingdom's departure from the European Union (EU), has modified the regional geography of Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs). The latter are therapies deriving from cell manipulation, gene editing, tissue engineering, or a combination of these techniques. Their development and delivery have been realised through research collaborations and commercial relations of international scope. In the EU, this has happened by means of a complex distribution of commercial activities and legal responsibilities. With Brexit, three main kinds of reconfigurations have occurred: the relocation of research and manufacturing activities; the reorganisation of quality control tests aimed to manage clinical risks; and the redistribution of legal responsibilities and representatives. This technical and legal reconfiguration is captured here by means of theoretical insights from the emerging domain of legal geography. Drawing on interviews conducted with both EU and UK professionals involved in ATMP development, this paper reveals the main challenges brought by Brexit to the current and future configuration of the ATMP landscape in the EU and the UK. Furthermore, it demonstrates how shifts in legal arrangements impact on science-intensive domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The enlargement policy of the European Union from 2013 to 2022 was not only ineffective, but also lacked an active enlargement drive. Russia's war in Ukraine changed the equation of costs and benefits in favour of new members and gave the EU a geopolitical incentive to restart enlargement. Enlargement is not only a geopolitical strategy, however: it also requires successful state-building efforts in the neighbourhood. Moreover, it is closely interlinked with the EU's internal development. This article analyses the current evolution of the EU enlargement policy as it emerges from the interplay of geopolitics, state-building challenges, and the EU's internal dynamics. Drawing on original interviews with officials, the paper also presents three scenarios for the coming decade. The paper concludes that to achieve its foreign policy objectives in the neighbourhood, the EU cannot continue 'business as usual' with enlargement. On the contrary, the policy of 2013–2022 needs to be replaced by a more effective model that encourages candidate countries to undertake genuine efforts towards democratic development. At the same time, reforms and compromises are required at the EU's end. Finally, the EU needs to better address the security needs of the applicant countries already during the accession process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines whether certain macrofinancial indicators can be used for early detection of recessions. Analysing a sample of small open economies from Central and Eastern European Union, we first identify the most important indicators used for early detection of recessions, and then test the validity of the selection by using the signal method and multivariate probit regressions. Our results imply that the most effective predictors of upcoming recessions are the slope of the yield curve, current account balance to GDP ratio, real estate price index, self-financing ratio of commercial banks, nominal effective exchange rate, global exports and LIBOR rate. Using the Mann-Whitney U Test, we also find that foreign indicators emit earlier signals of incoming recessions in analysed countries than domestic ones. This type of research is important because of the various stakeholders that base their decisions on the signals provided by these indicators. Primarily, these are various government agencies that participate in monetary and fiscal policy making. Early warning of an impending recession allows economic policy makers to take corrective action to avoid a recession or to significantly mitigate its effects, while unreliable indicators may lead to adoption of unnecessary measures with adverse effects on the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes development work undertaken to expand the capabilities of an existing two-dimensional probabilistic modelling approach for assessing dietary exposure to chemicals migrating out of food contact materials. A new three-level hub-coding system has been devised for coding different food groups with regards to their consumption by individuals. The hub codes can be used at three different levels representing a high, medium and low level of aggregation of individual food items. The hub codes were developed because they have a greater relevance to packaging migration than coding used (largely and historically) for nutritional purposes. Also, the hub codes will assist pan-europeanization of the exposure model in the future, when up to 27 or more different food coding systems from 27 European Union Member States will have to be assimilated into the modelling approach. The applicability of the model with the new coding system has been tested by incorporating newly released 2001 UK consumption data. The example used was exposure to a hypothetical migrant from coated metal packaging for foodstuffs. When working at the three hierarchical levels, it was found that the tiered approach gave conservative estimates at the cruder level of refinement and a more realistic assessment was obtained as the refinement progressed. The work overall revealed that changes in eating habits over time had a relatively small impact on estimates of exposure. More important impacts are changes over time in packaging usage, packaging composition and migration levels. For countries like the UK, which has sophisticated food consumption data, it is uncertainties in these other areas that need to be addressed by new data collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need for a flexible and versatile workforce that is constantly learning and upgrading its skills has led to a continual demand for courses in which employees are re-trained and updated on a lifelong basis. Students and workers now have to be prepared for a labour market in which they can be expected to change jobs many times, and they need to acquire appropriate skills that are transferable and portable across sectors, countries and cultures. This paper presents a new approach to unifying a European curriculum for production engineering. The paper discusses the background, developments, module structure, testing and ongoing work that is carried out in the European Production Engineering Certification project - a two year pilot project granted by the European Union Programme Leonardo da Vinci. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments, companies and citizens around the world consider necessary to adopt a new circular economy (CE) model that allows solving the planet's environmental challenges and guaranteeing sustainable economic growth. Europe advocates this philosophy, but there is no widely accepted index to measure CE implementation at a macro level. This paper proposes a new index based on principal component analysis for European Union countries that use all information available without losing any information by the dimensionality reduction and consider objective weights based on the percentage of variance that each one retains. Moreover, we develop a disaggregated analysis considering the CE dimensions set out in the 'CE monitoring framework', allowing a more comprehensive analysis than when using a single indicator of CE implementation. This method is also used to build an index of the degree of achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) to see how they relate to the CE; the relationships between CE dimensions; and between SDGs. The results by geographical areas reveal a higher level of CE implementation in western European and EU-15 countries, with Luxembourg, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium alternately holding the top positions depending on the CE dimension considered. Therefore, the new European countries and the countries in the east must encourage measures to improve the implementation of the economy. In addition, there is a positive, strong and significant relationship with SDGs 8, 9 and 11, with both the overall CE implementation index and the disaggregated indices, and a negative one with 7 and 15. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both UEFA and the EU institutions favour the local training of young sports players, to guarantee a healthy development of European sports and their players. Recent empirical research supports the idea that professional football players need initial experience in a domestic first team to realise successful careers, a requirement that is threatened by increasing international youth player mobility. Existing measures are scarce, mainly focus on a legal perspective and do not realise the envisaged objectives. This study has the objective to develop new measures to more easily retain young talents in their European domestic league, without limiting the free movement of professional players. This paper's main contribution is the proposition of flexible, quantitative measures, based on microeconomic models, to (1) create a level playing field for player wages to increase the domestic league's attractiveness for domestic players, (2) curtail player loans and (3) better reward clubs' youth training efforts, while at the same time discouraging adverse international youth transfers. The impact on the overall competitive balance between leagues is assessed as well. Existing measures to realise UEFA's and the EU's objective of limiting international youth transfers have been demonstrated to be insufficient. In this paper, economic measures are developed, in order to retain youth players sufficiently long, while safeguarding professional player mobility and the international competitive balance, to guarantee the further development of talents and the sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In times of crisis, interpersonal and group solidarity often emerge as people face critical challenges that threaten their survival. However, it remains unclear whether spontaneous solidarity practices are enough to effectively face such crisis situations. In this paper, we argue that to be fully effective, solidarity must be deployed through all its political tiers, from interpersonal and group relationships to institutional and legal normativity. We contend that solidarity relations can only reach an enduring goal if they solidify into stable principles that can be acknowledged and enacted at the institutional level. Through an examination of recent literature and concrete case studies, the paper investigates the linkages and mutual dependencies between the various levels of solidarity developed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. This analysis may allow us to answer the question of whether a "Multilevel European Solidarity" is a realistic goal, and what is required to achieve it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new form of volunteer-based intervention is mushrooming across Europe: social mentoring. Such programmes turn 'ordinary' citizens into mentors for individuals from disadvantaged groups. Related initiatives are becoming more institutionalised and social mentoring has gained popularity as a social policy measure, especially in the face of crises. However, the social work discussion has taken little notice of this burgeoning phenomenon adjoining our professional field. There is a lack of concepts and data that could fuel a debate at the intersection of mentoring for social inclusion, human services, and welfare policies. This paper presents a first attempt to outline what social mentoring means, why social work should engage with it and how we can research into it. It offers theoretical reflection on ongoing developments in the EU, based on observation of the literature and field. To expand the available knowledge, it is suggested that research should pay equal attention to all three constituent elements of the topic: personal relationships, programmes, and policies. In line with critical traditions, this paper suggests a holistic, multi-scalar perspective that is sensitive to social inequalities and power imbalances, while also embracing innovative and transformative aspects of social mentoring as a 'popular' form of social problems work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of the pervasive digitalisation of industry, the disruption of global supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic, and a geopolitical race for the development of artificial intelligence models, the European Union has pivoted towards promoting 'digital sovereignty' across the technological stack. The paper looks more specifically at the cloud layer and analyses the draft European Union Cloud Services Scheme (EUCS) launched by the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity in December 2020. While EUCS is a highly technical scheme, the attempt to include digital sovereignty provisions in it provoked unexpected controversies around who pushes for 'digital sovereignty', why, and how feasible it is. The paper argues, first, that distributive conflicts between member states have led to strong objections towards including digital sovereignty provisions in EUCS. Second, diverging national preferences have also played out in horizontal inter-institutional conflicts around competences between the European Commission and the European Parliament. All in all, the paper makes a novel empirical contribution by studying the overlooked case of EUCS. Theoretically, it bridges the growing literature on digital sovereignty with classic theories of EU integration to identify key factors hindering the translation of digital sovereignty discourses into policy within a broader context of limited technological capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the allure of 'European digital sovereignty' as an official European Union (EU) strategic objective, it remains unclear whether this discourse has driven concrete changes to EU external action policies, particularly those leveraging cyber instruments. This question is explored vis-à-vis three policies which have enabled the EU to pursue its digital sovereignty objectives in practice: the Cyber Diplomacy Toolbox, external capacity building (CCB) assistance initiatives, and the 5G Toolbox. Drawing upon extensive archival research and elite interviews, the paper finds that, while European digital sovereignty discourse influenced comprehensive changes for the 5G Toolbox process, it failed to drive policy changes to the Cyber Diplomacy Toolbox and external CCB assistance initiatives. To explore this variation, the paper considers institutional and ideational factors particular to EU external action over the 2017–2022 period. Overall, the study contributes both to contemporary debates about European digital sovereignty and its relationship to EU cyber instruments and longstanding work on EU foreign policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Before COVID-19, visitors from China, were a prime target for the European tourism industries. Yet, their mobility was constrained by the Schengen visa requirement for any trip to a European Union (EU)’s Member States. While the literature on Schengen visa policy has highlighted the repressive practices of street-level bureaucrats processing visa applications abroad, this article seeks to understand how Schengen visa policy is implemented when the objective is to attract potential visitors rather than drive them away. The paper argues that the economic imperative to attract Chinese tourists to Europe is turning local consular cooperation from Schengen into local consular competition. To support this claim and using ethnographic methods as well as a relational approach to implementation, the paper develops the concept of visa marketing to analyse the race to attractiveness between French and Italian consulates based in Beijing, the capital of China. Visa marketing refers to the use of visa procedures (receipt conditions, reliability, processing speed, etc.) by consulates as sales arguments to advertise the destination they represent. In essence, the article presents a case of domestic actors appropriating common visa regimes, engaging in competition to entice foreign consumers to their territories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the long-term trajectory and the recent acceleration of the conflict over the rule of law in the EU. It focusses on the motivation of the two governments in Hungary and Poland to challenge European core values increasingly aggressively even directly at EU level despite the threat of significant material costs to both countries. Putting forward a Gramscian understanding, we argue that this radicalization is the result of a counter-hegemonic strategy that aims at replacing the liberal order with a new, nationalist, ultraconservative, Christian order on domestic and European levels. The paper traces core elements of this strategy which are either disputed or underestimated in existing literature, most importantly the pursuit of a core ideology and the massive and long-term investment into winning moral and cultural leadership through the penetration of civil society which precedes and complements electoral strategies and autocratic institution building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]