Suchergebnisse

The Preliminary Opinion of the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) calls for data protection rights to be integrated in the enforcement of competition law in the EU. The EDPS proposes that the Commission should use its discretion to broaden the notion of consumer welfare to include those rights and apply competition rules based on consumer harm. Nevertheless, even though the Commission can prioritise consumer welfare, it cannot re-interpret this notion nor rely on consumer harm beyond limited situations. The EDPS nonetheless also proposes to safeguard competition on privacy (or data conditions) which, although not completely overlapping with data protection rights, allows the Commission to use its discretion to address many of the EDPS' concerns. Notably, the Commission can prioritise exploitation in digital markets and shape them through competition remedies. It is still unclear whether the Commission will do so, but the German Bundeskartellamt has recently announced an investigation along these lines.

AbstractThis article analyses the determinants of citizens' trust in the European Commission. We examined four predictors of citizens' trust in political institutions: political participation, value congruence, performance outcomes and attributability of performance outcomes. We argue that these factors impact trust in the European Commission, which is a necessary precondition for making a risky investment and willingness to pay taxes, which can be understood as behavioural consequences of trust. To examine our hypotheses we have implemented a vignette study. Our analyses show that value congruence, the European Commission's perceived performance and attributability impact risky investments via trust, as expected. Political participation exerts a direct significant influence on risky investments.

The Dutch parliamentary dossier on the topic of socially responsible business conduct (maatschappelijk verantwoord ondernemen or MVO), which literally translates as 'corporate social responsibility' or 'CSR') dates back to 1999. Over time, the dossier has become increasingly focused on the international dimension of the topic, i.e. on human rights violations and environmental harm related to business activities in the global supply chains of Netherlands-based internationally operating business enterprises. The term that has in recent years become associated with this international dimension is that of international responsible business conduct (IRBC) (internationaal maatschappelijk verantwoord ondernemen or IMVO). In November 2014, the Dutch government presented the results of a Sector Risk Analysis in which thirteen sectors of Dutch industry were identified as involving relatively high risks of adverse impacts on human rights and the environment. The government indicated that it expected companies in these sectors to both take steps aimed at preventing and mitigating the CSR-related risks in their value chains, and engage with other companies and stakeholders to come to concrete agreements on the ways in which these risks could be dealt with in a structural manner. Those agreements were to be laid down, preferably, in so-called covenants: agreements between the Dutch government and one or more societal parties aimed at realizing certain policy aims, which typically take the form of a written document setting out the actions that each of the parties is expected to take in furtherance of those aims. These covenants on International Responsible Business Conduct (IRBC-covenants) were to be drafted along the lines set out in a 2014 report by the Dutch Social and Economic Council (SER) on the same topic.

This paper discusses macroeconomic and monetary policy-making at the European Commission, covering the period from the Rome Treaties to the Hague Summit. It is based on an analysis of public documents, archival research and interviews with former policy-makers. The paper starts with an overview of the economic philosophy of the Rome Treaties and senior macroeconomic policy-makers at the Commission, followed by an analysis of economic developments in the 1960s. Thereafter, the focus is on three crucial macroeconomic policy documents of the period: the European Reserve Fund project in 1958, the Commission's Action Programme for the Second Stage of the EEC of October 1962 and the Barre Memorandum of October 1969. The Commission's objectives tended to be both defensive, preserving the "acquis communautaire", especially avoiding recourse to the safeguard clauses, and pro-active, stimulating the process of European integration. From an analytical point of view, the Commission focussed on the compatibility of policies between the Member States. Gradually, a typical Commission analysis developed, based on a blending of German convergence ideas with the French medium-term approach. The paper further illustrates the ascent of the Commission as an actor in the monetary area, notwithstanding the relatively limited provisions of the EEC Treaty.