Archiv der Kategorie: Zukunft der EU

Vorträge zu Europa

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Anfragen per Email:  ulrich.brasche@online.de

Globale Finanzkrise / Global Financial Crisis

  • Germany’s macroeconomic interests & EU economic policies (pdf)
  • EU-crisis: Lessons for a changing EU? (pdf)
  • Schulden in Europa – wen kümmert´s? (pdf) 
  • The Great Financial Crisis – Ways out of debt (pdf)
  • Finanzkrise und (k)ein Ende – Grexit, Geldschwemme und andere seltsame Vorgänge (pdf)
  • Der Euro und die Krise – Raus aus den Schulden – und aus dem Euro?!? (pdf)
  • Wirtschaft, Wachstum und Beschäftigung in Europa – Der Euro, die Krise und Griechenland (pdf)
  • Morphing Monetary Policy in the € – Zone
  • Hat der Euro strukturelle Probleme (pdf)

Binnenmarkt / Single Market

  • EU Single Market – expectations, achievements (pdf)
  • Freizügigkeit im Europäischen Binnenmarkt – und wo bleibt mein Job? (pdf)
  • Europa 2020 – Ausbildung und Bildung (pdf)
  • Working in the EU – opportunities and challenges for young people (pdf)
  • Bau- und Stolpersteine für ein mobiles Europa – Eine Bahn ohne Grenzen (pdf)

Europäische Integration / European Integration

  • Perspektiven der EU – wie weiter? (pdf)
  • Die soziale Komponente der EU – Gedanken vor der Europawahl 2019 (pdf)
  • Europawahl 2019 – eine Schicksalswahl? (pdf)
  • Europawahl 2019 – lohnt es sich teilzunehmen? (pdf) 
  • EU – quo vadis? (pdf)
  • Spielverderber oder Partner? Die Rolle der Europäischen Kommission in der deutschen Wirtschaftspolitik (pdf)
  • Voran mit der EU – aber wohin? (pdf)
  • Wettbewerbsfähige und soziale EU – Erwartung und Wirklichkeit (pdf)
  • Wann werden wir Europäer? (pdf)
  • Osterweiterung der EU Was haben die Transformationsländer daraus gemacht? (pdf)
  • (Mehr) Macht für die EU (?) (deutsch)(englisch)
  • The EU after Brexit: Back to the Nation or “Ever Closer Union”€? (YOUTUBE, PART 1) (PART 2) (Part 3) (PART 4)

 

The future of euro-area governance

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Draft Dec. 2018 – comments welcome (brasche@th-brandenburg.de)

The future of euro-area governance_03Herunterladen

Diverging visions of the EU

The process of European integration never reached a consensus on finality. Two opposing visions still prevail: An “ever closer Union” leading to United States of Europe versus an inter-governmental alliance of sovereign nation states à la de Gaulle. Treaty by treaty a mixture of those two evolved. Furthermore, the peoples of the EU are divided over sharing risk and resources versus relying on national responsibility and efforts. Burden sharing seems to be acceptable for the latter group if and only if they gain control over political conduct and performance of the first group – this ´conditionality´, however, infringes on national sovereignty and is thus rejected.

Those differences materialise especially, when it comes to money. Re-distribution even at a very low scale, as provided by the EU budget or as foreseen in the Banking Union, is contested by potential donor countries and defended by potential receiving countries. Any new ideas about Euro-area governance are assessed for a change of control over money and re-distributive side effects.

Fiscal governance and Maastricht 1.0

When adopting the common currency, the Euro, the member states forego two powerful tools for influencing the pace of their economies: Monetary policy and exchange rate. Slow growth or even recessions, asymmetric economic shocks and systemic risks in the banking industry no longer can be tamed by a lower prime interest rate, by devaluing the currency or by using the Central Bank as ´Lender of last Resort´. Instead, two other tools are expected to support the economy: Migration of unemployed workers and fiscal policy, i.e. deficit-based spending of the public budget à la Keynes. Since migration was and is low in and between the “old” member states, this option does not exist in reality. National fiscal policy is the only tool at the disposal of each member state.

Deficit spending, however, can be used only if the state is credit worthy in international financial markets – if the debt burden is too high already, the cost of credit will rise to unsustainable levels and the state may become illiquid and in the end bankrupt. One member´s fiscal trouble will spill over into other member states, which might feel obliged to bail out the state in trouble. The expected ´help from friends´ could undermine fiscal discipline and lead to ´moral hazard´.

The Maastricht Treaty (1992) introduced the Euro as a common currency, while fiscal policy remained national. All members promised to limit public deficit and debt and a bail-out by other members was excluded. A supervision of public budgets by the European Commission with fines as last resort was agreed upon. The simple rules of deficit and debt limits (3% resp. 60% of GDP) morphed into an overly complex setting with many layers of EU-supervision over national budgets. Since enforcement of the rules was and is technically and politically not feasible, the concept of Maastricht 1992 failed. Many countries of the Euro-zone would need an economic boost by deficit spending and at the same time cannot spend more credit based, because they are too deep in red already.

Does the Euro-zone really need new economic governance?

Insufficient growth and high unemployment in many member states after the financial crisis broke in 2008 triggered the debate on ´completion of the euro-zone´. But what would make this currency union complete? The ideas are manifold and rarely made clear and explicit enough. A radical answer is ´Maastricht 2.0´. Proponents suggest that the original Maastricht setting – some flexibility added – would work for the Euro-area, if the rules would be respected. In this view the missing elements are the enforcement of already existing deficit and debt rules as well as credible procedure for sovereign bankruptcy. The assumption is that rational financial markets would discipline spendthrift governments. The financial crisis demonstrated, however, that financial markets do not play this role reliably.

Could centralisation of fiscal policy work?

Some Euro-members suggest the instalment of a Euro-zone finance minister endowed with a substantial budget. This budget shall smoothen the business cycle and invest in projects of European public goods with European value added. There are two justifications for doing this on a common instead on a national base:

  1. Market failure in case of public goods and
  2. Insurance in case of adverse asymmetric shocks, hitting just some countries.

The first rational is convincing, however, those projects cannot be timed along business cycle swings. The second rational is less convincing, since the risk is not evenly distributed; e.g. Greece is more likely to need help than Denmark. In the end a Transfer Union in disguise might be created.

The most serious objection is that most problems are not cyclical but structural. Those can be tackled at the national level only, addressing political sensitive areas like redistribution, competitiveness and innovation. An EU-budget might be (mis-) used for postponing politically painful decisions at the national level.

Even in case of allocating a budget for fiscal policy to the EU-level, the disappointing outcomes of fiscal policy at national levels might just be replicated on a European scale.

EU-wide unemployment insurance and ´moral hazard´

Unemployment insurance and compensation payments still are fully national. How generous and how pro-active this policy should be is one of the hottest topics and has the potential of toppling governments. An EU-wide scheme could insure governments against unforeseen large payment obligations. This, however, could spare them the risk of annoying the electorate by placing a higher burden on recipients or tax payers (´moral hazard´). Again the likelihood of receiving insurance payments seems to be unevenly distributed between member states – resulting in a Transfer Union in disguise.

Banking Union – risk sharing under conditionality?

One of the EU´s brilliant achievements is the Banking Union, which was created quickly as a response to the financial crisis. The elements still missing and still contested are common deposit insurance and fiscal backstop for resolution of banks. Countries with troubled banks prefer a common pool for insuring deposits before removing non-performing loans from the banks´ balance sheets. They hope for more trust in financial markets via insurance. Quite the opposite position is taken by those countries with rather healthy banks and well-endowed insurance funds: ´Risk reduction first – risk sharing second´.

A bank in resolution needs fresh capital during this process. This demand for fresh capital could surmount the funds foreseen for this purpose so that the ESM (European Stability Mechanism) must step in. It could borrow in international capital markets and pass the money on as credit to the respective bank.  Liability for the credit stays with the European taxpayer. Therefore some governments want the ESM to step in only after approval by their national parliaments and under the condition, that the receiving country accepts surveillance of her financial conduct. This procedure might be much to slow for providing financial resources in due time.

ECB should become Lender of last Resort

Least controversial is the need of a ´Lender of last Resort´ function provided by the ECB. Beyond written law this is in place already due to Draghi’s promise ´… whatever it takes …´. Rules and conditions for this function should be made primary EU law – despite the hurdle of unanimity.

Can common fiscal governance be democratic?

The prominent right of parliaments in democracies is budgetary sovereignty – ´no taxation without representation´ still rules. Therefore any transfer of power over todays or future taxpayer´s money needs approval by all national parliaments. For example, the German Constitutional Court established this ruling. Since the European Parliament is no substitute for national parliament, unconditional transfer of fiscal policy instruments to the EU-level would not be legitimate – unless the foundations are agreed upon by all peoples of the EU´s member states.

The road ahead

Discussions on Euro-area governance are dominated by diverging visions. France and Germany are expected to bring about reforms, but are divided on the strategy. A gulf is growing as well between the ´Hanseatic states´ and the ´Southern Periphery´ on sharing of risks and resources.

Recent political steps in two of the largest member states lowered trust between diverging countries further: The French president gave up his promise of a balanced budget under pressure of public unrest and the Italian government openly and proudly announced the violation of the EU´s budget rules.

The Dec. 2018 council meeting resulted in minor – rather symbolic – steps towards deposit insurance and a small fiscal budget within the framework of the EU-budget. Major steps towards a new concept of fiscal governance could be taken under the roof of a new Treaty only. Agreement on this is not to be expected soon.

Zukunft der EU – Kommission veröffentlicht Weißbuch

Wie soll es mit der EU weitergehen?

Diese Frage war und ist umstritten.

  • Soll die EU ein Bundesstaat der „Vereinigten Staaten von Europa“ werden, wie z.B. die Bundesrepublik Deutschland oder die USA?
  • Soll die EU stattdessen besser die Kooperation starker und unabhängiger Nationalstaaten organisieren („Europa der Vaterländer“)?
  • Um welche Themen und Aufgaben soll sich die EU kümmern – welche sollen den Mitgliedsstaaten vorbehalten bleiben?

Nachdem zu diesen Fragen keine Einigkeit unter den 28 Mitgliedern besteht – und nachdem eines davon sogar (auch deshalb) die Union verlassen wird (BREXIT), hat die EU-Kommission ein Weißbuch vorgelegt, in dem sie verschiedene Szenarien bis zum Jahr 2025 vorstellt (Zukunft der EU – 5 Szenarien).

Materialien

 

 

BREXIT – Material

Vorbereitungen: Chaotischer, harter BREXIT

Im Dezember 2018 zeichnet sich ab: Die britische Premier-Ministerin T. May wird „zuhause“ wahrscheinlich keine Mehrheit für die Modalitäten des Ausstiegs am 29.3.2019 bekommen – ein „harter“ BREXIT, d.h. ein Ausstieg ohne Übergangsbestimmungen ist dann unvermeidbar.

Dies wird Auswirkungen auf alle beteiligten (EU-Institutionen, Regierungen, Verwaltungen, Wirtschaft, Bürger) haben. Um das Chaos zu gut wie möglich zu bewältigen, hat die EU-Kommission detaillierte Informationen ins Netz gestellt.

Communication of 19 December 2018 : “Preparing for the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union on 30 March 2019: Implementing the Commission’s Contingency Action Plan” (link)

Brexit preparedness Legislative initiatives and other legal acts

No Deal BREXIT: Informationen für Unternehmen (link)

Artikel zum BREXIT (link)

Die britische Regierung rechnet seit August 2018 mit der Möglichkeit, dass UK aus der EU ausscheidet, ohne dass eine Übergangsregelung getroffen werden konnte oder die Beziehungen zur EU für die Zeit nach dem Austritt geregelt wurden (Hard BREXIT). Für diesen Fall werden verschiedene „Anleitungen“ veröffentlicht (link)

Die Europäische Kommission hat einen Website für ihr BREXIT-Team eingerichtet (BREXIT-Team der EU)

Quellen und Materialien zum BREXIT

Verhältnis von Großbritannien zur EU – vorher

Clemens, G. 2017. Vergebliches werben um den „Brentrance“ – Grossbritannien und Europa 1967. APuZ, (5-7), 21–26 (link)

Geddes, A. 2013. Britain and the European Union. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Minford u.a.: Economists for Free Trade (ehemals: Economists for BREXIT), [https://www.economistsforfreetrade.com/]

Minford, P.; Gupta, S., et al. 2015. Should Britain leave the EU? An economic analysis of a troubled relationship. Cheltenham, Northampton: Elgar.

Loth, W. 2014. Europas Einigung. Eine unvollendete Geschichte. Frankfurt (M), New York: Campus-Verlag; zum Beitritt Großbritanniens bes. S. 100-106, 150-156.

Wer hat für den BREXIT gestimmt?

  • ALABRESE, E., S. O. BECKER, T. FETZER and D. NOVY (2018). „Who Voted for Brexit? Individual and Regional Data Combined.“ CEPR Discussion Paper (DP13110).
  • „Who Voted for Brexit? A Comprehensive District-Level Analysis“, CESifo Working Paper Series No. 6438; Sascha O. Becker; Thiemo Fetzer; Dennis Novy (download)

„On 23 June 2016, the British electorate voted to leave the European Union. We analyze vote and turnout shares across 380 local authority areas in the United Kingdom. We find that exposure to the EU in terms of immigration and trade provides relatively little explanatory power for the referendum vote. Instead, we find that fundamental characteristics of the voting population were key drivers of the Vote Leave share, in particular their education profiles, their historical dependence on manufacturing employment as well as low income and high unemployment. At the much finer level of wards within cities, we find that areas with deprivation in terms of education, income and employment were more likely to vote Leave. Our results indicate that a higher turnout of younger voters, who were more likely to vote Remain, would not have overturned the referendum result.“

    • “Britain and EUexit – The People Versus the EU,” CESifo, Munich 2017, pp. 67–81 (download)
  • Why we lost the Brexit vote, POLITICO (download)
  • Local voting figures shed new light on EU referendum, BBC (download)

(EU-) Ausländer arbeiten in Großbritannien

Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). 2015. The growth of EU labour: Assessing the impact on the UK labour market, London (link)

Rienzo, C. 2016. Characteristics and Outcomes of Migrants in the UK Labour Market, Oxford: The Migration Observatory – Univ. Oxford (link)

Rienzo, C. 2016. Migrants in the UK Labour Market: An Overview, Oxford: The Migration Observatory – Univ. Oxford (link)

BREXIT – wirtschaftliche Auswirkungen

Lawlessa, M. and Morgenroth, E.L.W. 2016. The Product and Sector Level Impact of a Hard Brexit across the EU. ESRI Working Paper, (550) (link)

The UK exit from the European Union (Brexit) is likely to have a range of impacts, with trade flows likely to be most affected. One possible outcome of Brexit is a situation where WTO tariffs apply to merchandise trade between the UK and the EU. By examining detailed trade flows between the UK and all other EU members, matching over 5200 products to the WTO tariff applicable to external EU trade this paper shows that such an outcome would result in significantly different impacts across countries. Our estimates of exposure at the country level show an extremely wide range with reductions in trade to the UK falling by 5% (Finland) to 43% (Bulgaria) taking into account the new tariffs and the elasticity of the trade response to this price increase. Food and textiles trade are the hardest hit, with trade in these sectors reducing by up to 90%.

Brexit: The Economics of International Disintegration. CESifo working paper series, (6668). (link)

This paper reviews the literature on the likely economic consequences of Brexit and considers the lessons of the Brexit vote for the future of European and global integration. Brexit will make the United Kingdom poorer because it will lead to new barriers to trade and migration between the United Kingdom and the European Union. Plausible estimates put the costs to the United Kingdom at between 1 and 10 percent of income per capita. Other European Union countries will also suffer economically, but their estimated losses are much smaller. Support for Brexit came from a coalition of less-educated, older, less economically successful and more socially conservative voters. Why these voters rejected the European Union is poorly understood, but will play an important role in determining whether Brexit proves to be merely a diversion on the path to greater international integration or a sign that globalization has reached its limits.

BREXIT und Irland

Barrett, A.; Bergin, A., et al. 2015. Scoping the Possible Economic Implications of Brexit on Ireland. ESRI RESEARCH SERIES, 48 (link)

With the election success of the Conservative Party in the UK in the recent general election, the new UK government is committed to holding a referendum on EU membership following negotiations between the UK and the EU on key issues of concern to the UK government. While the outcome of these negotiations and the possible referendum are uncertain, a number of scenarios for the future relationship between the UK and the EU can be identified. These include situations in which the UK remains in a reformed EU and situations where it leaves. In the latter case, further sets of possibilities exist which differ in terms of the extent to which current arrangements with respect to free trade, for example, are maintained or dismantled.
A changed relationship between the UK and the EU could potentially have far-reaching consequences for Ireland especially if there were changes in areas such as trade and migration. Given this, the goals of this study are as follows:
• to describe and quantify the key economic linkages which have developed over time between Ireland and the UK in the context of EU membership, and
• arising from the above, to make an initial assessment of the risks and opportunities to these economic linkages in the context of potential future developments at EU-level, in particular a UK exit from the EU.

The following areas are covered in the analysis: trade, foreign direct investment, energy and migration. While the focus of the analysis in the report is within those four areas, a broader macroeconomic view is included. As most analyses suggest that a Brexit will have negative implications for the UK economy, a simulation is included which shows how reduced GDP in the UK leads to reduced demand for Irish exports and hence reduced GDP in Ireland.
The main findings are as follows:

Trade
• Estimates from the literature suggest that a Brexit is likely to significantly reduce bilateral trade flows between Ireland and the UK. The impact could be 20 per cent or more.
• While the 20 per cent estimate is an average figure, the impact would differ significantly across sectors and products. For merchandise trade in particular, trade is very concentrated in a few product types, which implies that increased trade barriers for the most important products would have a particularly significant impact on total trade volumes.
• Some sectors such as Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals account for a large share of exports to the UK; however sectors such as Agriculture, Food and Beverages and Basic Metals are relatively more dependent on exports to the UK and so the impacts on them would be more severe.
• Trade between Ireland and Northern Ireland has been declining as a share and the overall volume is below the level expected for two trading partners located on an island. Overall Ireland is more important to Northern Irish exporters than Northern Ireland is for Irish exporters so, again, there would be differing impacts of a Brexit.

Foreign Direct Investment
• The UK outside the EU would be less attractive to FDI because of uncertainty and reduced access to the EU Single Market. Less FDI in the UK would be likely to translate into a lower potential growth in the UK with negative consequences on Ireland’s economic growth.
• It might be thought that this negative effect could be counterbalanced by a positive boost for Ireland through additional FDI projects relocating from the UK. However, on the basis of patterns of the location choice of new FDI projects in Europe over the past ten years, the expected additional attractiveness of Ireland to new FDI projects is likely to be small.
• Corporate tax reforms in the UK are likely to increase the attractiveness of the UK to FDI while the magnitude of their negative impact on Ireland’s attractiveness is expected to be small.
• These effects arise in part from the fact that Ireland’s attractiveness to FDI is already high, relative to its size and geographical position in Europe. Relative to Ireland, the UK has a number of attractiveness advantages due to its larger market size and better performance with respect to financial market development, technological and innovation capacity, macroeconomic environment, and labour market efficiency. These advantages are likely to continue to attract FDI to the UK even outside the EU. Ireland’s advantage relative to the UK’s attractiveness to FDI is its more competitive corporate taxation.

Energy
• The first point that needs to be noted is the fact that an all-island electricity market has existed since 2007. Interconnection between Ireland and Northern Ireland is particularly important for Northern Ireland which relies on electricity imports from Ireland to make up for insufficient local electricity generation capacity.
• If the electricity market in Britain remains independent of the rest of the EU, enhanced interconnection with Britain would leave Ireland vulnerable to any problems in the British market. Under these circumstances enhanced interconnection by Ireland with the rest of the EU, most probably to France, could provide useful diversification, reducing risk for Irish consumers. However, this would require a large infrastructural investment.
• If the UK left the EU, it would no longer be subject to EU rules on climate change policy and renewables. Outside the EU, there would be a lower chance that they would reopen discussions on trade in renewables.
• If the UK left the EU it would no longer be subject to EU regulatory measures to deal with a possible crisis situation in the case of a gas or oil shortage. Ireland would then have to consider how best to provide protection from very unlikely, but potentially catastrophic outcomes.

Migration
• A UK exit from the EU opens up the possibility of restrictions on the free movement of people between Ireland and the UK for the purposes of work. As the UK remains an important destination for Irish emigrants especially at times of high unemployment, such restrictions could have implications for the Irish labour market.
• More broadly, the imposition of passport controls at the border with Northern Ireland would be at best inconvenient and at worst a worryingly regressive step in terms of facilitating cooperation between both parts of the island. This is possibly the strongest reason which can be advanced when arguing in favour of the maintenance of the CTA.
• Finally, almost 400,000 people who were born in the Republic of Ireland were resident in the UK in 2011. Similarly almost 230,000 British-born people were resident in Ireland in 2011. While many of these people in both jurisdictions will have passports which relate to their current residencies as opposed to their places of birth, many others could find themselves post-Brexit being resident in a country where their right to residency has come into question.

 

Zypern – ein neuer Hoffnungsschimmer: Enttäuscht

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Ein neuer Versuch zur Vereinigung Zyperns …

Zypern ist geteilt, die Grenze von den UN bewacht und bisherige Versuche zur Wieder-Vereinigung sind gescheitert. Dies ist nicht nur für die dort  lebenden Menschen ein Problem, sondern stellt auch ein wesentliches Hindernis für die Türkei auf ihrem Weg zur Mitgliedschaft in der EU dar. Seit dem Beitritt der Republik Zypern (2004) zur EU ist der Druck auf die griechisch-zypriotischen politischen Klasse zur Einigung verschwunden.

Im November 2015 zeichnet sich erneut die Chance auf eine Verständigung ab – dies wird in den Medien kaum aufgegriffen, da andere Themen dominieren (Flüchtlinge, Terror in Frankreich). Auch für die Weiterentwicklung der EU ist die Lösung des Zypern-Problems wichtig.

Bemerkenswert ist die Weihnachtsansprache Ende 2015, die beide Präsidenten gemeinsam hielten und mit dem Versprechen auf Bemühungen zur baldigen Einigung verbanden.

Quellen

… scheitert (diesmal) am Machtanspruch der Türkei

Nach langen Verhandlungen erklärt die UN deren Scheitern im Juli 2017 (POLITICO). Es wird vermutet  (Ankara zementiert die Teilung Zyperns, Gerd Höhler, Handelsblatt, 07.07.2017), dass die Türkei als de-facto Machthaber im nicht anerkannten „Nord-Zypern“ das Recht verlangt habe, in seiner Rolle als „Schutzmacht“ militärisch in ganz Zypern intervenieren zu dürfen. Diese Forderung wurde als völlig unakzeptabel zurückgewiesen, da ein Nicht-EU-Mitglied nicht das recht zugestanden bekommen kann, in einem EU-Land militärisch enzugreifen. Der Hintergrund ist wohl auch die gespannte Lage zwischen der EU und der Türkei eit dem gescheiterten Militärputsch und der Entwicklung der Türkei zu einem autoritären, nicht-demokratischen Staat.

 

Der Mehrwert Europas

Was soll der Mehrwert sein, den die Mitglieder aus Europa gewinnen können, m.a.W. was haben wir von Europa?

Mit dieser Frage beschäftigen sich zwei Studien:

  • Bassford, M., S.-C. Brune, J. Gilbert, F. Heinemann, F. Misch, M.-D. Moessinger, S. Osterloh and S. Weiss (2013), The European Added Value of EU Spending: Can the EU Help its Member States to Save Money? Exploratory Study. Gütersloh, Bertelsmann Stiftung (download)
  • Regout, B., P. Goudin, et al. (2011). “ European value added key ways in which Europe adds value to European citizens and member states.“ BEPA working paper.