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The advent of the 4th Industrial Revolution has made it inevitable for firms worldwide to modify their business models to integrate ICTs into their operations. The lockdown measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic appear to have accelerated this process as many businesses, particularly in the hospitality industry, had to shut down their operations. Others also had to resort to conducting their businesses solely online. Thus, it has been argued that e-commerce has thrived during the lockdown period. Concentrating on the current 27 European Union (EU) member countries, this paper seeks to answer the following question: To what extent the COVID-19 impacted e-commerce has? Trend analyses and a paired samples t-test are used to compare the mean percentage of enterprises with e-commerce sales before the pandemic and the first year. The study finds a significant increase in the percentage of enterprises that made e-commerce sales during the first year of the pandemic compared to the previous year (t=-2.06; df=25). Except for the western EU member countries, all other regions increased the percentage of enterprises that made e-commerce sales, with the southern EU countries witnessing the highest increase.

The advent of the 4th Industrial Revolution has made it inevitable for firms worldwide to modify their business models to integrate ICTs into their operations. The lockdown measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic appear to have accelerated this process as many businesses, particularly in the hospitality industry, had to shut down their operations. Others also had to resort to conducting their businesses solely online. Thus, it has been argued that e-commerce has thrived during the lockdown period. Concentrating on the current 27 European Union (EU) member countries, this paper seeks to answer the following question: To what extent the COVID-19 impacted e-commerce has? Trend analyses and a paired samples t-test are used to compare the mean percentage of enterprises with e-commerce sales before the pandemic and the first year. The study finds a significant increase in the percentage of enterprises that made e-commerce sales during the first year of the pandemic compared to the previous year (t=-2.06; df=25). Except for the western EU member countries, all other regions increased the percentage of enterprises that made e-commerce sales, with the southern EU countries witnessing the highest increase.

Although European scholars have called U.S. punitive damages an ?(undesired) peculiarity of American law? and the ?Trojan horse of the Americanisation of continental law?, the European Union cannot close its eyes to this important feature of U.S. law. Despite being under constant scrutiny, punitive damages have a strong foothold on the other side of the ocean. Moreover, due to increased globalisation, transnational litigation is arguably on the rise. In cross-border law suits, it is inevitable that a jurisdiction will encounter legal institutions that are alien to the substantive law of the forum. 00This book examines the private international law treatment of American punitive damages in the European Union. It poses the crucial question whether U.S. punitive damages (should) penetrate the borders of the European Union through the backdoor of private international law. More specifically, three areas of private international law are analysed: service of process, applicable law and enforcement of judgments. 00In addition to describing the current positions in case law and scholarship, the book takes a normative perspective and attempts to formulate concrete guiding principles that can be used when the European legal order faces U.S. punitive damages. It, therefore, provides an invaluable resource for practitioners, judges and authorities confronted with this controversial remedy. Furthermore, as a nation?s private international law attitude indicates the country?s level of tolerance towards a foreign concept unknown in its own legal system, the book can form an essential building block for discussions amongst legislators surrounding the introduction of the remedy of punitive damages in substantive law

What explains the European Union's successes and failures in producing a grand strategy? Conceptualizing grand strategy as a composite commonplace linking together understandings of scene, agent, purpose and means (tetrad), I contend that the European Union has a grand strategy. In the early 1990s, advocates succeeded in institutionalizing the diffusion strategy. A decade later, however, the advocates of the European Security Strategy failed to do so. My explanation of this descriptive finding focuses on the constellation of prior agreements on the components of the tetrad. In both cases, widely taken-for-granted agreements on a recently shifted scene (security environment) provided openings for the advocates. But only the advocates of diffusion had the opportunity to work with equally widely taken-for-granted agreements on agent (identity), purpose (interest) and means (power). The advocates for the European Security Strategy, by contrast, were lacking such a favourable social context. Borrowing from rhetorical studies, this study makes a threefold contribution to the study of grand strategy. It moves beyond the literature's statism; shows that grand strategy is constituted by interpretations not just of power and interest, but also of the security environment and identity; and clarifies that explanations of the making of grand strategy need to inquire into the making of agreements rather than merely the interplay of material forces. My findings that the European Union has a grand strategy and came to adopt it by building a new agreement upon already-existing ones also have implications for the study of European Union foreign policy and International Relations Theory.

A long-lasting difficulty in dealing with the subject of poverty, both in the scientific and political realms, has been the lack of analytical and methodological instruments that facilitate defining, observing and measuring accurately the social dimensions of the phenomenon. Henceforth, it is crucial to develop further indicators in order to design and implement a consistent statistical policy. After examining these issues, this paper analyses the European Union policy on poverty and, especially, the efforts done in the field of statistical policy. ; Uma dificuldade de longa data nos estudos sobre a pobreza, quer a nível académico quer a nível político, reside na escasez de instrumentos analíticos e metodológicos para definir, observar e medir as dimensões sociais da pobreza. Portanto, é importante desenvolver ferramentas e indicadores que permitam formular e implementar uma política de estatísticas consistente. Após examinar estas questões, este artigo analisa a política da União Europeia relativamente à pobreza, com destaque para a área das políticas de estatísticas.

The current system for the financing of the EU needs to be reformed. This paper puts forth a reform proposal with two important elements: first, the addition of an EU VAT share on receipts; and second, a shift in power from the European Council to the European Parliament with regard to the determination of the structure of EU expenditures. The first element will make taxpayers' contributions to the EU more visible, thereby increasing their interest in the EU budget and fostering democratic accountability. The second element will shift spending priorities away from projects that generate visible advantages to individual member states and towards policies that benefit the EU as a whole.

This qualitative multi-method studymaps the politics of brain drain at the level of the European Union and follows the evolution of the issue over the last four parliamentary periods. By utilizing a novel combination of interviews with a content and network analysis of parliamentary questions, the article demonstrates how the politics of brain drain travel from the domestic level to the European through frames that connect the issue to problems and solutions at the Union-level. After presenting a statistical overview of intra-EU mobility flows, I conclude that the politics of brain drain are not adequately captured or addressed in the official numbers. Instead, I turn to discourse in order to analyze the prevailing interpretations of brain drain, why it occurs, and what to do about it. The analysis reveals that the uncertainty, controversy, and open-endedness of brain drain as an intra-European phenomenon lends itself well to multiple framings by actors in pursuit of preconceived political ends. This creates a space of opportunities within the Commission between laissez-faire and interventionist responses that vary in terms of the economic assumptions and political preferences brought to bear on the issue. Although the current balance is weighted in favor of a supply-side, employability logic towards brain drain, there is evidence of a schism within the Commission that presents an opportunity to productively engage with other understandings of the issue in pursuit of best practices.

We provide a comparative overview of the process of implementation, harmonization and stabilization of public oversight systems for statutory auditors across the European Union (EU) after Directive 2006/43/EC. We build on institutional change theory to identify potential determinants as to why some countries still lag in this harmonization process. Oversight systems are a key institutional factor to guarantee the quality of financial information, essential to maintain investors' confidence and deep and stable capital markets. Thus, the harmonization of these systems has long been an objective of the EU. Our analyses serve to identify, analyse and compare how EU countries have incorporated European-wide requirements into their national legal systems. Particularly, we study: (1) basic characteristics of the system and bodies for public oversight, (2) organizational structure, (3) financing (4) transparency, (5) supervisory, and (6) disciplinary mechanisms. We show that significant diversity still exists across systems and that both the incentives for institutional change and the distance between pre-existing systems and the Directive are important explanatory factors of the achieved level of harmonization. ; We acknowledge financial contribution from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (ECO2010-19314 and ECO2013-48328), the ICAC (Instituto de Contabilidad y Auditoría de Cuentas) and ASEPUC, through the XVIII Fernandez Pirla Research Funding.