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The European Union-China relationship, based on an optimistic joint strategic agenda agreed in 2013, has shifted direction, with the EU in March 2019 describing China as a "systemic rival" in some areas. The EU has struggled to find a common approach to China, but this change was agreed at record speed and occurred against the background of growing United States pressure on its European allies to support the Donald Trump administration's hard-line approach to China. As the new EU leadership team takes over, it will have to navigate a difficult path in relations with China and the US.
The main reason for the shift in the EU's approach was business frustration at China's failure over many years to implement promises to open up its economy and accept a level playing field. Chinese foot-dragging in the negotiations for a bilateral investment agreement, now running for over six years, was another factor in the changed EU approach.
A number of key players, including commissioners dealing with China, members of the European Parliament, and EU ambassadors who had served in Beijing, played a key role in securing this changed approach, which was agreed very quickly despite some long-standing divisions between member states on how to deal with China.
Pressure from the Trump administration - which, unlike the EU, views China as a "strategic rival" - also played a part. It is likely that the new EU leadership under Ursula von der Leyen will maintain the tougher line, and place greater emphasis on reciprocity and strategic autonomy as guidelines for dealing with China.
Meanwhile there is continuing useful cooperation between the EU and China on the foreign policy front, notably on Iran, and on global issues such as climate change and support for the multilateral trading system.
The EU has to invest more in understanding China, which is a growing and formidable rival. EU leaders need to spend more time discussing China and agreeing a comprehensive approach covering all sectors. It should work with like-minded partners where there are shared interests concerning China.

When developing anti-poverty policies, policymakers need accurate data on the prevalence of poverty. In this paper, we focus on subjective poverty, a concept which has been largely neglected in the literature, though it remains a conceptually appealing way to define poverty. The primary goal of this study is to re-examine the concept of subjective poverty measurement and to estimate trends in subjective income poverty rates in the European Union. Our estimations are based on a Minimum Income Question using data from a representative survey, EU-SILC. We find robust empirical evidence of decreasing trends in subjective poverty in 16 of 28 EU countries. We conjecture that trends in subjective poverty may reflect changes in societies which are not captured by official poverty indicators, and our results thus enrich the existing data on general poverty trends in the EU.

■ This article explores the origins and development of the European Company Statute, with particular reference to its provisions for employee involvement, both through a `representative body' and through board-level participation. European companies can be seen as `hybrid' organizations in which common European-level elements are combined with supplementary features deriving from the legislation of the country in which they are registered. The article outlines the types of company that have opted so far to become European companies and analyses a variety of the issues raised, including the range of options that now confront management in setting up such a company, the position of the unions and the `Europeanization' of company boards. The principal conclusions are that the Statute represents a further step in the development of `multi-level governance' of the EU, and that it will increase regulatory competition among the member states.

This article aims to analyse the impact of transitional periods on researchers' mobility decisions in the enlarging Europe. A compilation of policy and law analyses, together with social research, is the adopted method for this study. Countries under research are Poland and Bulgaria, as sending countries, and Germany and the UK, representing the EU member states that opted for and against transitional periods, respectively. The political environment in Europe, in which researcher's mobility is taking place, is presented along with the characteristics of scientific mobility as part of the international migratory flows. The question asked is, how the perception of enlargement influences mobility decisions of scientists. The results of qualitative research proved only to a certain extent the hypothesis, that countries with no transitional periods introduced were more attractive for scientists from new member states than the countries with such periods introduced. The analysis showed that although various administrative and legal barriers do represent impediments to scientific mobility, yet they were not usually decisive factors for mobility.

The paper aims to analyse how information warfare can be conducted in cyberspace and to look at this issue from the perspective of Central and Eastern European Countries. It argues that this form of hostile actions will be increasingly utilized in the region. The main assumption, following Alvin Toffler's theory, is that "information" – as an increasingly important element of modern societies and as their strategic resource – also serves as a significant tool of modern conflicts. Since information is nowadays strongly related to new technologies, mainly the aspects connected to cybersecurity are analysed. The article looks closer at different aspects of cyberthreats and explains their possible consequences. It may serve as good material for further research and recommendations on countermeasures that may increase security in Europe.

OBJECTIVES: To characterize the peculiar economic nature of the pharmaceutical market in the EU, to study potential groupings of countries based on several pharmaceutical variables, to analyze some recent regulations designed to create the single market, and to present some thoughts on the decision making process in public health from the perspective of current public health budgets. METHOD: We performed an economic analysis of health and pharmaceutical macrovariables, cluster analysis, review of EU pharmaceutical and industrial regulations and review of pharmaceutical budgeting legislation in the member states. RESULTS: The pharmaceutical market of the EU was characterized and EU countries were classified into two principal groups according to 5 selected variables. EU regulations tend to promote R + D and drug production and thus the EU industrial sector is backed up. National regulations differ in terms of pricing and drugs reimbursement. CONCLUSIONS: The creation of a single market for drugs in the EU should take this regulatory diversity into account and seek equilibrium between economic factors and public health. This single market may be a dangerous strategy if it becomes a general dogma and even more so if deadlines are fixed and short.

In this paper we assess the determinants of revenue forecast errors for the EU-15 between 1999 and 2012, based on the forecasts published bi-annually by the European Commission. Our results show that personal income rate changes increase the revenue forecast errors: for forecasts made in t for t, increases in the corporate tax rate implies a decrease in the revenue forecast errors, in t+1 and t+2. Moreover, an increase in GDP forecast errors decreases revenue errors, whereas an increase in the inflation error will increase revenue errors. GDP errors, minority governments, election year and corporate tax rate changes can be associated with optimistic revenue forecasts. On the other hand, yield, inflation errors and VAT tax rate changes are associated with more prudent forecast behaviour.

Mestrado em Economia Monetária e Financeira ; The recent years had brought significant uncertainty to macroeconomic forecasts made not only by specialized international institutions but also by central governments. This dissertation assesses the determinants of revenue forecast errors for the EU-15 between 1999 and 2012, based on the forecasts published bi-annually by the European Commission. A particular important result obtained was that tax rate changes do affect revenue errors and that different tax changes affect differently revenue errors. Also, GDP errors, minority governments, election year and corporate rate changes can be associated to overly optimistic revenue forecasts. On the other hand, 10-year bond yields, inflation errors and VAT changes are associated with a more prudent behaviour.

The study of European integration has traditionally focused on organizational growth: the deepening and widening of the European Union (EU). By contrast, this article analyzes organizational differentiation, a process in which states refuse, or are being refused, full integration but find value in establishing in-between grades of membership. It describes how the EU's system of graded membership has developed, and it explains the positioning of states in this system. The core countries of the EU set a standard of good governance. The closer European countries are to this standard, the closer their membership grade is to the core. Some countries fall short of this standard and are refused further integration by the core: their membership grade increases with better governance. Other countries refuse further integration because they outperform the standards of the core countries: their membership grade decreases as governance improves. These conjectures are corroborated in a panel analysis of European countries.