European Union
This study identifies key factors influencing the timing of high-level waste (HLW) disposal and examines how social acceptability, technical soundness, environmental responsibility and economic feasibility impact on national strategies for HLW management and disposal. Based on case study analyses, it also presents the strategic approaches adopted in a number of national policies to address public concerns and civil society requirements regarding long-term stewardship of high-level radioactive waste. The findings and conclusions of the study confirm the importance of informing all stakeholders and involving them in the decision-making process in order to implement HLW disposal strategies successfully.
An increasing proportion of national regulations originate at EU level. Whilst EU regulations have direct application in member states and do not have to be transposed into national regulations, EU directives need to be transposed, raising the issue of how to ensure that the regulations implementing EU legislation are fully coherent with the underlying policy objectives, do not create new barriers to the smooth functioning of the EU Single Market and avoid “gold plating” and the placing of unnecessary burdens on business and citizens. Transposition also needs to be timely, to minimise the risk of uncertainty as regards the state of the law, especially for business.
An assessment of the effect of the regionalized single payment system on farm behaviour and farm economic performances is proposed for understanding the potential consequences for European Union farms. The methodology adopted for this purpose is based on positive mathematical programming (PMP) integrated with a cluster analysis technique. The PMP model is used for assessing farm responses towards changes in policy and market scenarios, while cluster analysis is implemented for mapping the characteristics of the farms before and after the regionalization introduction, thus observing the dynamics in production composition and economic results. The simulations demonstrate a differential capability of farms in reacting to new policy and market scenarios, and how regionalization contributes to reducing differences in the production and economic characteristics of the investigated farms.
The sugar sector was reformed in 2006 along the lines of the 2003 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform, with reductions in administered prices partially compensated by decoupled payments. The public intervention system was also gradually replaced by private storage, the quota system simplified and payments were made to producers and companies who renounced their quotas. This resulted in major reductions in the area under beet production, with five countries completely abandoning sugar beet production. The number of growers decreased sharply but yields increased. The restructuring programme became successful after incentives were raised: it resulted in about 5.5 million tonnes of production quotas being renounced and a decrease in the number of sugar factories between 2005 and 2009. This has led to greater efficiency in the sector. Domestic market development had significant impacts on trade and the world market: The European Union became the world's leading net importer, EU exports declined and world market prices increased. As a result, the cost of export refunds decreased.
This chapter presents the main findings from the IDEMA project on the impact of the single payment scheme on production, prices, trade flows, farm income and structural change at the European Union and regional levels. Three complementary evaluation approaches were used: surveys of farmers’ intentions, sector modelling and agent-based models of regional structural change. The findings provide no strong evidence that farmers intend to change their strategic decision to exit agriculture. Instead, structural change is shown to slow down when payments are more decoupled because minimal land management becomes an additional source of income. The reform has increased the market orientation of EU farmers and has reduced trade distortions. The single payment scheme is shown to increase farm incomes, but also land rental prices in most regions. Capitalization of payments into land values over time will, however, erode the ability of the reform to support incomes in the long run as incumbent farmers retire or otherwise leave the sector. The impact of the reform would have been very different if there had been no link between the decoupled payment and land.
The United Kingdom was one of only three EU member states to allow citizens of those Eastern European countries acceding in May 2004 freedom of entry into the labour market. Although this arrangement was not extended to the citizens of Bulgaria and Romania they continue to be employed under the work permits scheme, the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme and the Sectors Based Scheme. This chapter looks at the post-enlargement worker inflows from the new EU member countries and their impact on employment and wages of domestic workers by level of education in the United Kingdom.
Council Directive 2011/70/Euratom of 19 July 2011 establishing a Community framework for the responsible and safe management of spent fuel and radioactive waste1 (Waste Directive) was adopted with the support of all member states of the European Union. Following the adoption of the Council Directive establishing a Community framework for the nuclear safety of nuclear installations in 2009 (Safety Directive), the Waste Directive represents another important step towards building and strengthening the most advanced possible legal framework for nuclear energy in Europe.
In her report, the author defines service contracts in the context of Community law and specifies the conditions under which contracted services can be freely supplied in the European Communities. This right has been extended to other non-Community countries and was considered in the GATT negotiations on trade in services. The author then identifies restrictions on the free supply of services and examines their impact on movements of non-EC workers and on fraudulent ...
Until the mid-20th century, there was perceived to be relatively little conflict between agricultural and environmental objectives in Europe other than the large scale soil erosion which has occurred, particularly in parts of the Mediterranean (Baldock and Lowe, 2000). This changed with the advent of technological transformations, which included the large scale use of inorganic fertilisers, pesticides, and the emergence of intensive livestock farms.