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Acknowledge: The University of Malta would like to acknowledge its gratitude to the European Commission, Directorate-General for the Budget for their permission to upload this work on OAR@UoM. Further reuse of this document can be made, provided the source is acknowledged. This work was made available with the help of the Publications Office of the European Union, Copyright and Legal Issues Section. ; The EU budget is an important tool that puts EU policies into practice. It finances actions that Member States cannot fund on their own or which they can fund more economically by pooling their resources. The EU budget is adopted through a democratic procedure: it is prepared by the European Commission (the EU's executive body) and is then discussed and agreed by the Council of the EU (representing EU Member States, including Malta) and by the European Parliament (where the democratically elected Maltese representatives sit). Once adopted, the budget is then managed either jointly by the EU Member States and the Commission, or directly by the Commission. In practice, 80 % of the EU budget is managed by national or regional governments. Through grants, loans and other forms of financing, the EU budget provides financial support to hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries such as students, scientists, NGOs, SMEs, towns and regions ; N/A

This study provides an analysis of comparative gender differences in the EU. It addresses a range of issues from employment and households to culture, sexuality, male violence, the state, migration and women's movements.

Intro -- Preface -- Summary -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- Focus and approach in this study -- Method -- 1. Framework and background for reflection periods -- 1.1 The international framework for reflection periods -- 1.2 Recommendations and opinions of the Group of Experts on Trafficking in Human Beings of the European Commission -- 1.3 The situation and needs of victims -- 2. Reflection periods and related TRPs in the Nordic countries, Belgium and Italy -- 2.1 Denmark -- 2.2 Finland -- 2.3 Iceland -- 2.4 Norway -- 2.5 Sweden -- 2.6 Belgium -- 2.7 Italy -- 3. Discussion -- 3.1 The factors that vary -- 3.2 Length and nature of the reflection period -- 3.3 Implementation of the permit -- 3.4 When protection is contingent on cooperation -- 3.5 Return of victims to countries of origin/residence -- 3.6 The main pros and cons of different types of reflection periods -- 3.7 Reflection periods and prosecution -- 4. Conclusion and recommendations -- 4.1 Striking the balance between protection and prosecution -- 4.2 The totality of victim assistance -- 4.3 Implementation of reflection periods -- 4.4 The importance of knowledge of policy consequences -- References -- Sammendrag.

Cover -- Half Title -- Series Information -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations and Acronyms -- Dedication -- Introduction: "Social Europe" -- irrelevant, catching up or dangerous? -- 1 What is the European social question? -- Grasping the social question from different conceptual angles -- Inequality, justice and solidarity -- Social rights and social citizenship -- Welfare states and the European social model -- EU socio-economic governance and Social Europe -- Cohesion and convergence -- Explanations for the EU's social deficit

"Emergencies are ubiquitous in 21st-century societal discourses. From the rise of emergency pronouncements since 9/11 accompanied by the associated violations of fundamental rights, through talks of 'crises' in the EU in relation to the economy, Putin's occupation of Crimea-recently amplified by the full-scale invasion of Ukraine-or refugees, to the long-neglected climate emergency, emergency discourses have been catapulted to the center of attention by the critical juncture of the COVID-19 pandemic. This volume presents and compares the existing regulations and practices of emergencies and human rights protection in the Visegrad (V4) countries. As such, the analysis covers Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Although these European countries share a common historical experience and are now members of the EU and NATO, they differ in some of their constitutional traditions and, also, in the dynamics of their political regimes. Divided into three parts, the first two comprehensively discuss the constitutional models of emergency and human rights protection in each of the V4 countries, while the third part illustrates how these models and the general framework of rights protection materialised in the limitations of the selected human rights during the COVID-19 pandemic. The volume provides a compass for more in-depth, comparative, and interdisciplinary inquiries into the forms and practices of emergencies in one of the EU regions that face illiberalisation and the consequences of the ongoing invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation on its eastern borders. It will be a valuable resource for academics, researchers, and policy-makers working in the areas of Constitutional Law and Politics"--

This paper empirically examines how fiscal rules and tax autonomy influence deficits of sub-national sectors across European countries. I use a new panel-data set to measure tax autonomy and the stringency of fiscal rules for EU15 regional and local government sectors over the period 1995 to 2008. I apply an instrumental variables approach to obtain an unbiased estimate of the impact of fiscal rules on deficits. I use political variables describing the central governments characteristics as instruments for fiscal rules at the sub-national level. The results show that the effectiveness of fiscal rules and tax autonomy depends on the constitutional structure. Fiscal rules decrease deficits only in unitary countries. Deficits of sub-national sectors in federations can be avoided through tax autonomy.

The key challenge for medium- and long-term policy in European Union countries is to use the potential of knowledge-based economy (KBE), which is a condition for maintaining high total factor productivity in Europe. For this reason, the relationship between quality of institutional system and total factor productivity in the EU countries has been examined. The quality of institutional system is defined here from the perspective of incentives that influence the use of the potential of KBE. In order to determine the level of effectiveness of the institutional system in the analyzed countries the method for linear ordering of objects was applied based on data from Fraser Institute. The main hypothesis of the article was formed as follow: the quality of institutional system in the context of KBE has significant influence on the level of total factor productivity in the EU. In order to verify the hypothesis, the parameters of the Cobb-Douglas production function were estimated, which allowed to evaluate TFP for EU countries. The calculation made in the article was based on Eurostat data. Then, the identification of the relationship between the quality of institutional system and the level of TFP was made with the application of panel model. The research made for the years 2000-2010 allowed to verify the hypothesis.

Defence date: 12 February 2016 ; Examining Board: Professor Adrienne Héritier, EUI (Supervisor); Professor Alexander H. Trechsel, EUI; Professor Dorte Sindbjerg Martinsen, Copenhagen University; Professor Michael Shackleton, Maastricht University. ; The project explores, maps and analyzes the coordination that takes place between national governments of the EU member states and Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) in parallel with the legislative processes of the EU. Starting from a descriptive section depicting coordination in a broad selection of member states, France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Denmark, Slovakia, and Poland, and their MEPs, the questions are posed: 1) Why do EU member states' governments coordinate with their MEPs in the EU legislative process? 2) Why does coordination vary between the member state governments? 3) How do MEPs perceive and receive the coordination efforts by the governments? The project assesses the extent to which the efforts by the national governments to coordinate with the MEPs are a direct function of the institutional changes to the EU legislative process that have shifted the balance of power between the Council and the European Parliament. The project then proceeds to seek out the main factors influencing the extent and mode of coordination between the actors, and the reasons member states differ in their approach to coordination. The analysis focuses, in particular, on the sizes and political systems of the member states, as well as on the duration of their EU membership. Finally, MEPs' receptiveness to coordination is investigated, and the effect of national and political affiliation on MEPs' openness to the input they receive from the national governments is analyzed. Through a qualitative analysis of empirical data gathered from semi-structured interviews with government officials, MEPs and MEP assistants from the selected countries, the project finds that while governments have reacted to the increased relative influence of the European Parliament by seeking to influence legislative negotiations via the MEPs, the development, in several countries, has been less than linear. The duration of states' EU membership and the overall amount of resources the governments allocate to influencing EU negotiations are among the main factors found to affect the governments' level of coordination. The political system of the member states is fund to have little influence on the extent or manner of coordination efforts by the governments. In general, MEPs have a positive view of engaging with, and receiving, input of both a political and technical nature from the governments. This positive view largely cuts across the domestic party political divide and, albeit to a lesser extent, across national lines. It is even found that, among some MEPs, an increased effort by the national governments to engage bilaterally with the MEPs, simultaneously with the formal legislative negotiations between the Council and the European Parliament, would be welcomed.

The role of the European judiciary in the process of European integration cannot be overestimated. The achievements of European integration after the second world war are usually analyzed from the perspective of political decisions that were made, initially, by the Founding Fathers and, subsequently, by the political leaders of the European countries. However, in the public debate we very often forget how much we owe to the two supreme jurisdictions of Europe, that is the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights. The continuing extension of the competences of the European Union, especially in the field of economic and monetary policy, calls for a new assessment of the nature of the decision-making process at the European level

The 'Europeanisation' of the fight against crime is a broad and much-contested notion. This in-depth analysis of the role of the EU in fighting crime within the area of freedom, security and justice explores the impact of EU policies in the Member States, the progressive convergence of Member States' criminal law systems, the emergence of mutual recognition as an alternative to harmonization, and the incremental development of the ECJ's jurisdiction. The essays also explore the limitations inherent in EU counter-crime policies and the changes brought about by the introduction of the Treaty of Lisbon. These changes are discussed both collectively and within individual substantive areas in which the EU has taken an active role in fighting crime, such as corruption, money laundering, terrorism, organised crime and extradition.

The aim of the article is to compare the results of research on problems related to the commercialisation of innovations in enterprises operating in the European Union (EU) member countries. The analysis was based on the results of research conducted in February 2015 and 2016 by Kantar TNS Political & Social, which identified 10 major problems hindering the commercialisation of innovative goods and services, with their prevalence varying in frequency and scope.
The research revealed the commonness of specific obstacles that were identified as the major problems in the commercialisation of innovations. These hindrances included, i.a., a lack of financial resources.