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This Policy Brief takes stock of the global and European trade and carbon-emission effects from CBAM. It argues that the current design of the CBAM is not good enough and, ultimately, that there are risks that it will dent the positive effects on global carbon emissions that come from a lower cap on carbon emissions in Europe. These effects will happen through trade and the reallocation of production - and from retaliatory responses from countries that will be negatively affected by the CBAM.

This Policy Brief takes stock of the EU Trade Policy Review - the Commission's proposed strategy for trade. Despite appearances, the Review doesn't come close to its billing as a strategy for the new geopolitics of trade. In fact, the Review is weak on key geopolitical developments and rather gives the impression that the EU doesn't have an ambition to shape outcomes. Obviously, the Review is anchored in Europe's general economic climate: defensiveness on globalization, competition and digitalization. It follows that Europe is getting increasingly detached from world developments.

While innovation is central for the quality of healthcare and improving health outcomes, it is also a source of increasing costs for governments. Confronted by fiscal pressures, governments have made efforts to restrict access to innovative treatments. While such policies are understandable, they are not necessarily supportive of the ambition to control the cost burden of a disease. This paper reviews economic analyses of the cost burden of cancer, and blood cancers in particular, and the effects that innovative treatments have on other sources of costs in the healthcare system or the economy as a whole. While there is a need for more research on the relations between costs in healthcare systems, and significant variations between countries, several studies have found that access to innovative treatments have reduced inpatient care costs because, among other things, better treatments reduce the need for long hospital stay. Furthermore, research also shows that a significant part of the total cost burden of cancer and blood cancer is the productivity loss to the economy when patients are out of work. Reducing the productivity loss is central for improving the economic rationality of healthcare systems. This Policy Brief charts some areas for work - at national and the EU level.

At the WTO summit in Bali late last year, trade ministers managed to clear the way for a new trade agreement. This is positive news - and it proves that the WTO system is not dysfunctional. The Bali agreement brings new trading opportunities for developing countries and establishes a new standard for transparency in trade administration. But the Bali deal is not a Doha Round deal - it is not even a "Doha light" deal. Taking the cue from Coca Cola, it is closer to being a "Doha Zero" agreement. The idea that the Bali accord could build momentum for rejuvenating the entire Round, and get it to completion, is a bold one. The risks of failure are far greater than the chances of success. The post-Bali agenda should rather build on pragmatic approaches to negotiations while carving out new roles for the WTO as most trade negotiations for the rest of this decade will be non-multilateral. This paper surveys the structural problems that prevented Doha Round success and outlines some ideas for a new post-Bali agenda for the WTO. Some of the structural problems relate to broad changes in the structure of the world economy, others to the absence of political leadership or mercantilist workhorses to help push the Round to the finishing line. Furthermore, as the climate of ideas has been souring on economic liberalism for more than a decade any attempt to create more markets and less government in cross-border commerce would be challenging.

This paper examines the role of policy for creating an attractive atmosphere for venture capital investments in online start-ups and entrepreneurship. It is based on in-depth interviews with venture capitalists in the United States.The main takeaway points are: The policy atmosphere is important for Internet start-ups and online entrepreneurs. It is also important for investors and is likely to play an even more important role as regulations with a direct impact on online business grow and expand their scope. There is a difference between investors in how important they consider policy to be for investments in online entrepreneurship - how the policy atmosphere relates to other factors that are critical to success (e.g. access to capital, labour, et cetera). Most venture capitalists are critical of labour policy in Europe, and consider it to be one of the reasons why they are hesitant about investing money in European start-ups. The argument is that venture capitalists invest in companies with uncertain futures, and that the money they invest cannot be locked up in managing a work force that may not be the right one when a company need to change its course. (.)

This paper takes stock of the proposals by the European Commission and members of the European Parliament to amend the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) and how the proposed revisions integrate with the obligations of the European Union in the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The European Commission claims that neither RED nor its new proposal violates WTO rules as the sustainability standards and the new reporting requirement apply equally to domestic and foreign biofuels and feedstock. This paper argues that the proposals are not so innocent and that they will err on the wrong side of core WTO rules. In order to understand why the proposals are likely to run into opposition from these rules - and why other countries will argue that their trading rights have been violated - the paper goes through the WTO inconsistency of RED and why so many scholars and lawyers have concluded that RED would not stand the test in a WTO proceeding. Indeed, the European Union has already been subject to WTO complaints. The first case was resolved when the targeted Member States changed its implementation of RED. The second case has recently been filed in Geneva. (.)

The Eurozone crisis has been reinforced and prolonged by leaders' inability to agree on robust and credible crisis responses. Individual governments are experiencing sovereign deficit and debt crises, but not the Eurozone at large. Its fiscal position is manageable. The Eurozone is rather going through a crisis of the sovereign - or a crisis of government. Too many of the crisis solutions offered by Eurozone leaders have commanded neither authority nor electoral legitimacy. (.)

This paper surveys and discusses the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) in the European Union and its compatibility with EU obligations in the World Trade Organisation (WTO). More particularly, it intends to shed light on the evolvement of policies in Europe to protect biofuels producers from foreign competition. While the effectiveness of traditional protective tools of trade policy - tariffs and subsidies - are diminishing, local producers have embraced the introduction of specific sustainability criteria that would have the effect of protecting incumbent market actors while increasing the cost for new foreign market entrants. (.)

This policy brief takes stock of the agreement by Eurozone countries in late June at the European summit. If this agreement survives (which is by no means certain) and is utilised, Eurozone governments will have opened the door to a flexible use of its bailout funds. In contrast to previous packages, such flexible use could involve direct recapitalisation of banks (bypassing sovereigns) or purchasing of government bonds in order to assist governments teetering on the edge of sovereign default. The primary concern of this paper, however, is that such use would be likely to close the door to cooperation between the Eurozone and the IMF in new rescue packages. (.)

EU-China relations look set to grow increasingly charged in the next few years. Both sides will go through political transitions. We are on the doorstep of an era of political navel gazing that will limit their capacity to fashion a new and much needed cooperative approach towards each other. While China will go through a leadership transition, the EU increasingly moves toward new models of deeper policy integration that will require new treaty changes. Undoubtedly, these processes will take time and foster an introspective political atmosphere. Both the EU and China suffer from mercantilist misconception that guide how they look at trade and commercial policy. Even if there is a growing understanding in China that greater weight will have to given to other factors than investment and export in its growth model, its foreign economic policy remains under the spell of mercantilism. The crisis in Europe has promoted mercantilist notions and there is an increasing tendency in the European Union to use confrontational approaches to expand foreign sales. This is especially true of the EU's approach to China. Now is not a good time to reset EU-China trade and economic policy relations. What is needed now is rather a damage limitation strategy - a mechanism to contain a growing number of trade spats, some of which that could escalate into tit-for-tat protectionism.

The role of intellectual property rights for the world economy has increased over the past decades. Industrial countries have climbed the value-added chain by sourcing labourintensive production from emerging countries and investing substantially more human and capital resources into research and innovation. A significant, yet increasing, share of output, value-added and trade builds on innovation. Innovative sectors take up a larger share of the world economy. The amount of resources spent on research and development (R&D) have multiplied over the past decades. Competition has grown tougher as many regulations that previously protected markets and incumbents have been swept away. Technological development has speeded up the pace of imitation in the economy and shortened the life cycle of a product. (.)

In March 2010, the Europe 2020 strategy was released as the follow-up to the very ambitious Lisbon Strategy. Like its predecessor, the strategy aims to increase Europe's competitiveness in the world economy. Also like its predecessor, Europe 2020 is likely to be ineffectual. The strategy focuses too much on areas that are outside the EU's legal competence, it lacks recourse for non-compliance and it contains goals that have very little to do with increasing competitiveness. The probable failure of Europe 2020 could have been avoided had the European Commission focused on policy areas over which the EU has competence, and had been given the tools to accomplish the goals that were outside its competence.

The European Union has set out a new strategy for growth and competitiveness. A successor to the Lisbon agenda, the 2020 strategy aims to usher Europe into an era of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. It is of tremendous importance that Europe speeds up growth. Fiscal stabilization can never be achieved without growth, and many countries in Europe are facing great future challenges to its fiscal policy. However, the 2020 strategy is not going to deliver neither growth nor pro-growth reforms. Like its predecessor, it is a confused strategy with conflicting ambitions. Core areas for policy reforms at the European level are missing in the strategy. In its current form, it will soon be forgotten, if not gone. At the heart of the strategy is a erroneous notion that Europe is such a unified economy that a central strategy works for all countries. Furthermore, it lives and breathes the sort of pop internationalism that presents economic success in other parts of the world as a threat. The current 2020 strategy should be put in the bin. There is no point toying with marginal changes. It is the fundamentals that must change.

This Policy Brief aims at examining Ukraine's economic woes and what it needs to do to improve economic performance. At the centre of the Brief are the effects on Ukraine of the economic crisis and the policy programme devised to improve economic performance. The crisis hit Ukraine hard and Gross Domestic Product fell by 15 percent in 2009. The economy is now recovering, but economic growth will not return to pre-crisis levels anytime soon. Ukraine went through a classic emerging-market crisis - it was too dependent on export of steel and metals, and it was too exposed to adverse development on international credit markets. The reform agenda set out by the new Ukrainian government is ambitious. If the government delivers on its promises - and obligations to the International Monetary Fund - economic policy will move in a liberal direction and economic growth is likely to pick up. There are hesitations about the ability to push through all reforms, but the Ukrainian government has been forced to tie itself to the IMF mast and should make full use of this opportunity to liberalize economic policy and modernize the economy. There are also hesitations based on President Yanukovych and his political orientation towards Russia. Sceptics may or may not be proven right - it is too soon to tell. What seems clear, however, is that Ukraine favours a much more pragmatic approach to its neighbors in the east and the west. It is not difficult to understand why. Ukraine's relations to Russia had to improve and as long as the EU does not wish to start the process for full accession, Ukraine needs to find its own way and build a reform and future agenda on other foundations.