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The paper discusses the costs and benefits to be expected by least-developed and low-income ('vulnerable') economies if they accede to the WTO, the impact of current debates about WTO reform on vulnerable economies, and measures to make it easier for vulnerable economies to accede to and actively participate in the WTO. The main conclusion is that the benefits from WTO membership in terms of improved market access for traditional exports are likely to be limited. However, by submitting a wide range of trade-related policies to international scrutiny and by entering into binding commitments on the conduct of these policies, reform-oriented governments in vulnerable economies can make it more likely that their reforms will be successful.

The paper discusses the costs and benefits to be expected by least-developed and low-income ('vulnerable') economies if they accede to the WTO, the impact of current debates about WTO reform on vulnerable economies, and measures to make it easier for vulnerable economies to accede to and actively participate in the WTO. The main conclusion is that the benefits from WTO membership in terms of improved market access for traditional exports are likely to be limited. However, by submitting a wide range of trade-related policies to international scrutiny and by entering into binding commitments on the conduct of these policies, reform-oriented governments in vulnerable economies can make it more likely that their reforms will be successful.

Vor dem Reformprozeß hatte sich die Sowjetunion weitgehend vom Weltmarkt abgekoppelt. Gleichzeitig gab es ein eng geknüpftes Netz interregionaler Lieferverflechtungen über die Grenzen der Republiken hinweg. Die regionalen Unterschiede in der wirtschaftlichen Leistungsfähigkeit wurden durch umfangreiche direkte und indirekte Transfers ausgeglichen, vor allem durch den Export unterbewerteter Rohstoffe aus Rußland in die meisten übrigen Republiken. Mit der politischen Desintegration traten Eigeninteressen der ehemaligen Sowjetrepubliken in den Vordergrund. Die direkten Transfers entfielen sofort. Die Nettoimporte der meisten Nachfolgestaaten aus Rußland wurden in begrenztem Maße noch durch Kredite, nicht aber durch unentgeltliche Übertragungen finanziert. Gleichzeitig wurden die Preise im zwischenstaatlichen Handel dem Weltmarktniveau angepaßt. Die dramatisch verschärften Zahlungsprobleme führten zu einem Einbruch im Handel zwischen den Nachfolgestaaten und zur Auflösung der Rubelzone. Dieser Zusammenbruch beeinflußte auch das Volumen und die Struktur des Handels der Nachfolgestaaten mit Drittländern. Die Risse im hoch arbeitsteiligen Bezugs- und Liefernetz der Nachfolgestaaten untereinander schränkten die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit auf Drittmärkten ein. Exportiert werden mittlerweile meist nur noch Rohstoffe und rohstoffnahe Güter, bei deren Produktion man weitgehend ohne Vorleistungen aus den anderen Nachfolgestaaten auskommt. Drei Jahre nach der Auflösung der Sowjetunion ist der regionalen Desintegration noch keine weltwirtschaftliche Integration gefolgt. Die Gründe hierfür liegen vornehmlich bei den Nachfolgestaaten selbst, die eine vielfach inkonsistente Transformationspolitik betreiben. Aber auch die OECD-Staaten erschweren die weltwirtschaftliche Integration, indem sie den Exporten der Nachfolgestaaten handelspolitische Barrieren — vor allem in Form von Antidumpingverfahren und Importquoten — in den Weg stellen. Vieles spricht dafür, daß in der nahen Zukunft weiterhin Rohstoffexporte das Angebot der Nachfolgestaaten prägen werden, auch wenn im Hochtechnologiebereich und bei arbeitsintensiven Konsumgütern, wie Textilien, vereinzelt Marktchancen genutzt werden dürften. Zentraler Engpaß für eine Diversifizierung der Exporte wird weiterhin für alle Nachfolgestaaten die Finanzierung eines neuen Sachkapitalstocks sein. Erzeugnisse, die mit Hilfe der alten rohstoff- und energieintensiven Produktionsanlagen erstellt werden, dürften nur noch auf wenigen Märkten (beispielsweise China) und auch dort nur noch für kurze Zeit wettbewerbsfähig sein.

The new European Commission will inherit an impasse in efforts to reform the European asylum system as well as concerns about practices in the management of the EU's external border that contradict humanitarian standards and may even be illegal. While the number of asylum seekers who manage to reach EU territory is now lower than in previous years, it may be low precisely because of those problematic practices, including abuse of irregular migrants along the Western Balkan route, limited search and rescue capacity in the Central Mediterranean, and EU cooperation with the Libyan coast guard even though migrants returned by it to Libya have been abused. In this 2019 MEDAM Assessment Report, we present insights from MEDAM research and policy dialogue since 2016 to explain how closer cooperation among EU member states and with countries of origin and transit can improve outcomes for all stakeholders.

In this 2019 MEDAM Assessment Report, we present insights from MEDAM research and policy dialogue since 2016 to explain how closer cooperation among EU member states and with countries of origin and transit can improve outcomes for all stakeholders. Crucially, short of establishing a new Iron Curtain on the EU's external border or continuing to tolerate abuses, there is no way that either individual member states or the EU as a whole can insulate themselves from irregular migrants and asylum seekers. Yet, if crossing the EU border enabled all irregular migrants to remain in the EU for good, the integrity of EU visa and asylum policies would be undermined. Thus, close cooperation with countries of origin for the return and readmission of their citizens who have no right to remain in the EU is crucial. Still, it is typically not in the interest of countries of origin to limit the mobility of their citizens. Cooperation between the EU and countries of origin must therefore cover a wide enough range of policies to ensure that all parties consistently benefit from the policy package and have a strong incentive to meet their commitments. We emphasize more EU support for refugees hosted by low- and middle-income countries and more legal employment opportunities for non-EU citizens in the EU. Rethinking EU asylum and migration policies along these lines requires extensive consultations and negotiations among stakeholders in Europe and in countries of origin and transit. Our 'insights' are meant to inform and stimulate such conversations. However, sustainable reforms will come only as the result of stakeholders working out the details and developing a sense of ownership of the necessary reforms. Our first set of insights relates to popular attitudes toward immigration and the structure of public preferences for asylum and refugee protection policies (section 2 of this report). Next, we explain how the EU and countries of origin and transit can all benefit from cooperating on border management, refugee protection, and expanding legal labor migration to the EU (section 3). Finally, we consider the implications for cooperation among EU member states and the long-standing plans for reform of the European asylum system (section 4). ; MEDAM is funded by Stiftung Mercator. ; Chapter 1: Introduction – Chapter 2: Public attitudes to immigration and asylum policy preferences in the EU – Chapter 3: Cooperation with non-EU countries to manage migration to the EU – Chapter 4: Implementing flexible solidarity – Chapter 5: Conclusions

This study is part of the project entitled Costs and Benefits of Labour Mobility between the EU and the Eastern Partnership Countries for the European Commission1. The study was written by Luca Barbone (CASE) Mikhail Bonch- Osmolovskiy (CASE) and Matthias Luecke (Kiel). It is based on the six country studies for the Eastern Partnership countries commissioned under this project and prepared by Mihran Galstyan and Gagik Makaryan (Armenia), Azer Allahveranov and Emin Huseynov (Azerbaijan), Aleksander Chubrik and Aliaksei Kazlou (Belarus), Lasha Labadze and Mirjan Tukhashvili (Georgia), Vasile Cantarji and Georgeta Mincu (Moldova), Tom Coupé and Hanna Vakhitova (Ukraine). The authors would like to thank for their comments and suggestions Kathryn Anderson, Martin Kahanec, Costanza Biavaschi, Lucia Kurekova, Monica Bucurenciu, Borbala Szegeli, Giovanni Cremonini and Ummuhan Bardak, as well as the dbaretailed review provided by IOM. The views in this study are those of the authors' only, and should not be interpreted as representing the official position of the European Commission and its institutions.

We take stock of the Schengen Agreement that celebrated its 30th birthday on June 14th, 2015. We argue that the abolition of internal border controls in most European Union member states is rightly considered a blessing to EU citizens. Internally, the Agreement facilitates social and economic interactions without impeding the security of EU citizens. Externally, the Schengen Agreement has also helped to spread liberal norms and promote EU policies across EU borders, whenever Schengen borders prove permeable enough to allow for legal migration or if the relaxation of Schengen visa requirements is used as a carrot to trigger reforms in EU candidate and neighboring countries. The recent humanitarian crisis at the EU borders reveals that the Schengen system still lacks an appropriate joint asylum policy to counterbalance the loss of internal border controls. This weakness may undermine one of the main achievements of European integration. This Policy Brief revisits the accomplishments of 30 years of Schengen. We first ask how Schengen has affected member states and their citizens and which effects it has exerted on non-Schengen states outside of the EU's borders. We subsequently elaborate on appropriate reforms of a communitarized asylum policy that is needed to safeguard the accomplishments of the Schengen Agreement in the future.

The European Commission is currently finalizing its proposed New Pact on Migration and Asylum to re-start the debate on how to reform the common European asylum system and manage immigration from non-EU countries. One prominent concern is the 'external dimension': jointly managing migration to Europe with countries of origin and transit. By cooperating with countries of origin and transit across a wide range of policy areas, the EU and its member states may reduce irregular migration to Europe without undermining their humanitarian principles and impairing bilateral relations, which the present emphasis on securitizing the external EU border risks doing. In this 2020 MEDAM Assessment Report, we explore how European and African governments can reach common ground on jointly managing migration from Africa to Europe. ; Die Europäische Kommission finalisiert derzeit ihren Vorschlag für einen neuen Pakt zu Migration und Asyl, um die Debatte über die Reform des gemeinsamen europäischen Asylsystems und die Steuerung der Einwanderung aus Nicht-EU-Ländern wieder in Gang zu bringen. Ein wichtiges Anliegen ist dabei die "externe Dimension": die gemeinsame Steuerung der Migration nach Europa mit den Herkunfts- und Transitländern. Durch die Zusammenarbeit mit den Herkunfts- und Transitländern in einer Vielzahl von Politikbereichen können die EU und ihre Mitgliedstaaten die irreguläre Migration nach Europa verringern, ohne ihre humanitären Grundsätze zu untergraben und die bilateralen Beziehungen zu beeinträchtigen, was durch die gegenwärtige Betonung der Sicherung der EU-Außengrenze gefährdet wird. In diesem 2020 MEDAM Assessment Report untersuchen die MEDAM-Forscher, wie europäische und afrikanische Regierungen eine gemeinsame Grundlage für die gemeinsame Steuerung der Migration von Afrika nach Europa finden können.

This report, by the co-chairs of the T20 process during Germany's G20 Presidency, presents 20 key policy recommendations for G20 policy-makers and stakeholders. The policy recommendations are formulated concisely to be easily accessible to those seeking a short summary of the main conclusions. Readers who are interested in the detailed recommendations are referred to the Policy Briefs in the G20 Insights Platform (www.g20-insights.org). This report includes only a selection of policy recommendations that have been chosen for their novelty, ease of implementation and relevance to the G20 during the German Presidency. The G20 Insights Platform contains the full range of T20 policy recommendations. ; Dieser Bericht, der von den Co-Chairs des T20-Prozesses (Think 20) während der deutschen G20-Präsidentschaft 2017 vorgelegt wurde, enthält 20 wichtige politische Empfehlungen für politische Entscheidungsträger und Interessengruppen rund um die G20. Die Politikvorschläge sind in Kurzform formuliert, um für diejenigen leicht zugänglich zu sein, die eine Zusammenfassung der wichtigsten Schlussfolgerungen suchen. Leser, die an den detaillierten Empfehlungen interessiert sind, werden auf die Policy Briefs auf der G20 Insights Plattform (www.g20-insights.org) verwiesen. Dieser Bericht enthält nur eine Auswahl von Politikempfehlungen, die aufgrund ihrer Neuartigkeit, ihrer einfachen Umsetzbarkeit und ihrer Relevanz für die G20 während der deutschen Präsidentschaft ausgewählt wurden. Die G20 Insights Plattform enthält die gesamte Bandbreite der T20-Politikempfehlungen.

Risk evaluation is crucial for practitioners as it allows them to make better investment decisions. However, the recently witnessed financial turmoil has demonstrated the inadequacy of many models for preventive risk evaluation. In particular, it is now evident that new methods are needed to anticipate and manage risk in asset markets more accurately. In this article we discuss some of the "blind spots" in risk management uncovered by the financial crisis and suggest alternative models for the evaluation and prevention of risk that can be useful for the new "toolkit" of financial practitioners and regulators.

The outstanding world market success of East and Southeast Asian countries (ESAEs) provides lessons for Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) striving to penetrate Western markets, even though starting conditions were strikingly different between these country groups. While ESAEs enjoyed the reputation of stable domestic policies, CEECs had to deal with institution building, macroeconomic stabilization and privatization at the same time. First of all, sound macroeconomic policies and an unrestricted access to domestic and imported inputs are absolutely vital for exporters. These factors cannot be substituted for by specific export incentives. Furthermore, Asian experience suggests that such incentives should be granted on a temporary basis in order to discourage rent-seeking and minimize the budgetary burden. Export processing zones are ineffective if they do not exert competitive pressure on the rest of the economy via input and output linkages. Stimulating exports through direct export subsidies has become less important in ESAEs over time because of inconsistency with the GATT and the retaliatory actions of trading partners. Using such subsidies is further constrained in the case of CEECs: Subsidies would conflict with the Europe Agreements, which require that state aid and competition rules harmonize with EU regulations. Foreign direct investment can play an important role in enhancing export growth and diversification, especially if such investment is attracted by favourable market prospects rather than tax holidays. Export promotion by governments should preferably concentrate on institutional support aimed at reducing the information costs faced by local suppliers and foreign importers. Asia's world market success was accompanied by increasing diversification and technological sophistication of exports. Intra-regional networking in terms of trade and investment helped this process considerably. For CEECs, it is thus essential to enhance local technological capabilities in order to enable exporters to apply new technologies. Furthermore, the prospects for a market-driven integration between CEECs can be improved to the extent that mobility of goods and factors of production is allowed for. Economic transformation in CEECs involves policy challenges which clearly go beyond export promotion as in Asia. Moreover, CEECs are facing an uphill struggle against established suppliers on Western markets. Under such conditions, CEECs are well advised not to follow the Asian way of maintaining national sovereignty in trade-related policies. Rather, they had to commit themselves to internationally binding trade liberalization in order to enhance the credibility of their transformation policies. Such commitments were made on a regional basis within the EU framework of Eastern enlargement as well as on a multilateral basis within the GATT/WTO. The contribution of this approach of tying one's own hands to stabilizing expectations should be enhanced by the EU by offering CEECs stable conditions for market access.

When the von der Leyen European Commission took office on December 1, 2019, it committed to delivering a "fresh start on migration" through a New Pact on Migration and Asylum. It aimed to forge a new consensus on the future of EU migration and asylum policies, after years of deadlock caused by stark divisions among states and across EU institutions. After several postponements due to the sudden priorities resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Commission presented the New Pact on September 23, 2020. The 2021 MEDAM Assessment Report on Asylum and Migration Policies in Europe "The EU and Turkey: Toward sustainable cooperation in migration management and refugee protection" analyses the major changes proposed by the New Pact, as well as the progress achieved thus far in negotiations. The report also provides new data and research to inform ongoing policy debates about whether and how to reform EU-Turkey cooperation on irregular migration and refugee protection. Building on the analysis of past trends and experiences, the report discusses current challenges and opportunities for future cooperation-focusing on the EU-Turkey Statement, which was agreed between the EU and Turkey in 2016 and remains the basis for policy cooperation on migration. ; Als die Kommission von der Leyen am 1. Dezember 2019 ihr Amt antrat, verpflichtete sie sich, durch ein neues Migrations- und Asylpaket einen "Neuanfang in der europäischen Migrationspolitik" zu ermöglichen. Ziel ist es, einen Konsens in der EU-Migrations- und Asylpolitik zu erreichen. Nach mehreren Verspätungen - verursacht durch die Corona-Pandemie - stellte die Europäische Kommission das neue Migrations- und Asyl-Paket am 23. September 2020 vor. Der 2021 MEDAM Assessment Report on Asylum and Migration Policies in Europe " The EU and Turkey: Toward sustainable cooperation in migration management and refugee protection" analysiert die wichtigsten Reformvorschläge des Pakets und ihre Umsetzbarkeit. Der Bericht präsentiert zudem neue Daten und Forschungsergebnisse zur Zusammenarbeit zwischen der EU und der Türkei im Bereich der irregulären Migration und des Flüchtlingsschutzes. Die Autoren diskutieren aktuelle Herausforderungen und Möglichkeiten für die zukünftige Zusammenarbeit - mit Fokus auf dem EU-Türkei-Abkommen, das 2016 zwischen der EU und der Türkei vereinbart wurde und Grundlage für die politische Zusammenarbeit im Bereich Migration bleibt.

When the von der Leyen European Commission took office on December 1, 2019, it committed to delivering a "fresh start on migration" through a New Pact on Migration and Asylum. It aimed to forge a new consensus on the future of EU migration and asylum policies, after years of deadlock caused by stark divisions among states and across EU institutions. After several postponements due to the sudden priorities resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Commission presented the New Pact on September 23, 2020. The 2021 MEDAM Assessment Report on Asylum and Migration Policies in Europe "The EU and Turkey: Toward sustainable cooperation in migration management and refugee protection" analyses the major changes proposed by the New Pact, as well as the progress achieved thus far in negotiations. The report also provides new data and research to inform ongoing policy debates about whether and how to reform EU-Turkey cooperation on irregular migration and refugee protection. Building on the analysis of past trends and experiences, the report discusses current challenges and opportunities for future cooperation—focusing on the EU-Turkey Statement, which was agreed between the EU and Turkey in 2016 and remains the basis for policy cooperation on migration. ; With the support of the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. The research for this paper is part of the Mercator Dialogue on Asylum and Migration (MEDAM), an international research and policy initiative funded by Stiftung Mercator.