European Union

This paper summarizes the content of the EC’s internal market programme and progress made in its implementation. It analyses the mechanisms which should lead to welfare gains, and reviews a wide variety of micro- and macroeconomic indicators in order to ascertain whether integration has proceeded since the mid-1980s. Policy issues, which are more or less closely linked to the success of the internal market, are also addressed here ...

Service contracts which involve the movement of workers can result in a certain number of social problems. For example, it is generally difficult to measure labour flows stemming from such contracts and to know their impact on the labour market. In addition, legislation on social matters, in particular that relating to labour and to social security, differs from one country to another. In this context, international labour mobility can give rise to a fraudulent use of service contracts and lead to forms of "social dumping".

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 ...

This paper reviews fiscal relations within the European Union in the context of the theory of fiscal federalism and of the principle of subsidiarity. It analyses the fiscal policy implications of the introduction of the single currency, tax harmonisation and competition issues and spending at the EU level. It also speculates as to whether there are economic gains from centralising more expenditure functions at the EU level ...

Over the past decade, the European Commission, as the institution responsible for implementing the Community Budget, has taken an increasingly active interest in the effectiveness of the control measures applied by Member States to Community funds. Indeed, it is in the common interest of the Member States to exercise proper supervision of Community funds. The responses of EU Member States’ Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) to the Commission’s external audit procedures and requirements are divergent for various reasons, including legislative ones. This issue overview paper draws on the separate country papers which describe in more detail the different experiences of selected national SAIs in their co-operation with the Commission’s services and the European Court of Auditors (ECA). The present publication complements SIGMA Paper No. 19 Effects of European Union Accession — Part 1, Budgeting and Financial Control on the impact of accession on budgeting and financial control. In both cases, the approach adopted has been analysis of selected issues for reflection and debate.

For a long time European Economic and Monetary Union was mainly considered an internal European issue and external consequences were largely ignored. In contrast to most previous analyses, this paper looks at a number of international implications of monetary union. It is argued that several factors could contribute to the euro becoming an international currency in the future and a competitor to the US dollar in this respect. The degree of uncertainty attached to this outcome, however, remains considerable and in any event the emergence of the euro as a major international currency is likely to take some time. Given the expected size of the euro-zone and the likelihood of the euro becoming an international currency, fiscal and monetary policies in the area are likely to have a significant impact on the macroeconomic environment in the rest of the world. An important issue is how will monetary union affect major bilateral exchange rate developments and their volatility. A number of ...

Depuis 10 ans, la Commission européenne s’est préoccupée de plus en plus activement, dans le cadre de sa responsabilité dans l’exécution du budget communautaire, de l’efficacité du contrôle des fonds communautaire dans les États Membres. Une surveillance adéquate des fonds communautaires par les États Membres est d’ailleurs dans l’intérêt de l’ensemble d’entre eux. Plusieurs raisons, notamment législatives expliquent que les Institutions supérieures de contrôle (ISC) des États Membres réagissent différemment aux exigences et aux procédures de la Commission en matière de contrôle externe. Dans cette présentation générale, ou se référera aux études par pays qui décrivent de manière plus détaillée les différentes expériences des ISC nationales concernées dans leur coopération avec les services de la Commission et la Cour des Comptes européenne. La présente publication complète le document SIGMA N° 19 intitulé Incidences de l’adhésion à l’Union européenne : Partie 1 : Contrôles budgétaire et financier. Dans les deux cas, l’objectif poursuivi est de nourrir la réflexion et la discussion par l’analyse d’un certain nombre de problèmes.

Le respect des exigences communautaires en matière de contrôle budgétaire et financier qui constitue l’une des obligations fondamentales liées à l’adhésion à l’UE peut exiger, de la part des États Membres, une modification en profondeur de leurs procédures budgétaires nationales. La présente note de synthèse s’inspire de différents articles qui décrivent, de manière plus détaillée, l’expérience d’un échantillon d’États Membres.

Compliance with the European Union’s budgetary, financial control and audit requirements is one of the basic obligations of EU membership. SIGMA examines this in two publications that chronicle the experiences of seven EU Member States, including its three newest adherents, in integrating EU budgetary, financial control and audit procedures and requirements with national ones. The publications also describe central regulations and procedures used by the European Commission and the European Court of Audit. The present publication complements SIGMA Paper No. 20 Effects of European Union Accession—Part 2, External Audit, on the impact of accession on external audit. The purpose of these publications is to assist central and eastern European countries that have applied for membership of the European Union in discerning the ideas at stake, to give comparative information on the various approaches and solutions used by Member States and to sum up the experiences gained and lessons learned. The approach is to provide an overview of the topic and analyse key issues for reflection and debate. The focus is on practical experiences gained and conclusions drawn by those who have been involved in the daily work of adaptation and development of the government administration in the seven countries. The two publications also provide insight into the implementation policies adopted and an overview of the regulations and procedures used. Appendices include lists of abbreviations and useful terms and a selection of EU

This publication contains an overview of the seminar, background papers — including an inventory of how candidate countries plan to manage European integration — as well as ten points which emerged during the panel discussions of senior negotiators. Chapters have been grouped around the three main topics which the seminar addressed: (1) managing EU affairs; (2) membership negotiations and preparation for accession; and (3) preparing to join the emerging “European Administrative Space”. Ensuring the smooth running of a multi-country seminar away from the SIGMA Secretariat required intense organisational and logistical work. The conference facilities provided by the Greek hosts, together with their sharing of information on what is involved in becoming an EU Member State, and on their efforts in administrative reform, contributed to the seminar’s success. SIGMA wishes to thank Nelli Sakellariadou from the Greek Ministry of the Interior, Public Administration and Decentralisation for co-ordinating the event. SIGMA staff Linda Duboscq, Winnie Marshall and Joanne Stoddart provided logistical support, and Michal Ben-Gera, Jacques Fournier and Tony Verheijen developed the programme, wrote background papers and co-chaired the sessions with the Greek hosts. Other background papers and presentations were provided by experts in the field.

Cette publication rassemble un sommaire du colloque, des contributions techniques — parmi lesquelles un inventaire des manières suivant lesquelles envisagent de gérer l’adhésion européenne — ainsi que dix points qui sont apparus lors des débats en commission avec les négociateurs responsables. Les chapitres sont regroupés autour des trois principaux sujets abordés au cours du colloque : (1) la gestion des affaires de l’UE ; (2) les négociations d’adhésion et la préparation à l’entrée dans l’UE ; et (3) la préparation à l’adhésion au nouvel “Espace administratif européen” qui se dessine. Le fonctionnement sans heurt d’un colloque multi-national en dehors du siège du secrétariat de SIGMA a requis un important travail d’organisation et de logistique. Les installations fournies par les hôtes grecs, ainsi que leur communication relative à ce qu’implique le fait de devenir un État Membre de l’UE, et sur leurs efforts réalisés pour mener à bien leur réforme de l’administration, ont contribué au succès du colloque.

Countries that are candidates for European Union (EU) accession face the complex and urgent task of building administrative institutions so that they can fulfil the “Copenhagen criteria”. Such institutions must be able to implement the acquis communautaire within tight budget constraints and ensure favourable conditions for a competitive private sector. They must also provide candidate countries with the institutional capacity to participate effectively in future policy-making within the European Union upon accession. This paper lays out basic principles, tools and issues for building institutions. The target audience includes all those involved in Institution Building within candidate countries, EU Member States, the European Commission and the aid community. The paper highlights the issues associated with building effective institutions while providing concrete examples of how Member States and candidate countries have responded to such challenges. The definition of a number of key terms (in bold type) are provided in the Annex together with links to additional sources of information (SIGMA and PUMA publications as well as relevant web sites).

Les pays candidats à l’adhésion à l’Union européenne (UE) sont confrontées à la tâche urgente et complexe de se doter d’institutions administratives qui leur permettront de se conformer aux "critères de Copenhague". Ces institutions doivent être en mesure de mettre en oeuvre l’acquis communautaire dans le contexte de contraintes budgétaires rigoureuses et d’assurer des conditions qui soient favorables à l’épanouissement d’un secteur privé concurrentiel. Ces institutions doivent également doter les pays candidats de la capacité institutionnelle de participer de manière efficace, le moment venu, à l’élaboration des politiques de l’UE. Ce document inventorie les grands principes, les outils et les questions qui se posent dans le contexte de la mise en place des institutions. Son groupe-cible inclut tous ceux que concerne la mise en place des institutions dans les pays candidats, les pays Membres de l’UE, la Commission européenne et les institutions de l’aide internationale. Ce document met l’accent sur les questions que soulève la mise en place d’institutions efficaces et il propose des exemples concrets sur la manière qu’ont choisi les États Membres et les pays candidats pour répondre à ces exigences. La définition d’un certain nombre de termes importants (imprimés en caractères gras) est donnée en annexe, avec des indications sur des sources d’information complémentaires (Publications SIGMA et PUMA ou sites Internet pertinents).

This paper retraces the Communities external liberalisation efforts, and discusses, where relevant, the repercussions of internal liberalisation on foreign competitors. The aim of the paper is to clarify, and when feasible, to quantify the economic effects of the EU’s trade policies. To this end, it provides an overview of past liberalisation efforts, reviews trade indicators in international comparison and lays out the future trade agenda of the Community. The empirical evidence provided in the paper points to little evidence for trade diversion due to integration in Europe, while trade is likely to have boosted area-wide income significantly. It is openness in general, rather than regional integration, that has favoured growth in Europe ...

In the context of the partnership agreement signed between Tunisia and the European Union in 1995, talks will begin in the year 2000 on the liberalisation of their agricultural trade. Tunisia’s political attachment to Europe will give the country the opportunity to diversify agricultural policy. Hitherto based on achieving self sufficiency in food, this policy has resulted in poor resource allocation. The goal now is to find the least costly means of reforming Tunisian agricultural policy, particularly for rural households, while seeking the extent to which Europe could help in the transition towards a more dynamic agricultural sector.

With the assistance of a dynamic general equilibrium model, this technical paper examines a number of scenarios for Tunisian agriculture towards 2010. It finds that in the absence of EU concessions, which could take the form of the removal of tariff quotas, it would not be in Tunisia’s interest to reduce support for agriculture and lower its own ...

The tax-to-GDP ratio rose steadily in most EU countries up to the late 1990s, largely reflecting a sustained expansion of public sector commitments to welfare provision. Since the late 1990s, many EU countries have cut tax rates. However, the tax burden in the EU area remains much higher than in most other economies. The tax mix is also different, with high tax wedges on labour and a stronger reliance on consumption and environmentally-related taxes. Recent measures targeted at lowering the tax burden on labour, in particular at the lower end of the income scale, have had promising results in terms of employment growth, showing how tax design is an important influence on countries’ performances. While there is not much room for cutting taxes significantly without downsizing public spending, further rebalancing the tax burden away from labour could contribute to better employment performance. Greater reliance on property taxes, which are low by international standards, could be ...

This working paper has been presented and discussed at the October 2002 OECD National Accounts Experts Meeting. The objective of the paper is two fold: (1) present comparable results for household financial and non financial assets and liabilities for Europe, the USA and Japan, (2) analyse the change in the composition of household gross and net wealth of these countries and zones between 1995 and 2000. Data is based on official financial accounts sources. However the paper proposes (and estimate the corresponding data) an original classification, better adapted to analysis: pension funds assets are broken down between defined-benefit and defined contribution, life insurance between unit-linked and guaranteed-rate, mutual-funds between equity, bond and mixed. The paper discusses the reliability of the data, including non listed shares and non financial assets. The paper then discusses global and detailed compared trends of household wealth between countries ...

Evaluating the importance of non-tariff measures (NTMs) affecting imports remains a major challenge. This study reports evidence on the prevalence of NTMs based on an inventory of business complaints. This data source has the advantage of drawing on experiences of economic agents that are directly involved in trading activities, of containing information on "behind the border measures", and of covering procedural aspects of NTMs. The results suggest that natural resource based industries, such as agriculture and food, mining, and textiles, are most strongly affected by NTMs relative to their export volumes. Certification procedures, quantity control measures, and technical regulations are the types of NTM most frequently complained about. Complaints about domestic governance practices, such as impediments related to government procurement, investment restrictions, or insufficient intellectual property rights protection account for almost a third of all NTM observations and are in ...

After the launch of the single currency the euro exchange rate fell and interest rates had converged towards the (low) German level. These shocks have worked out differently for the small and large countries. Housing markets have acted as an important vehicle of transmission of these shocks onto economic activity and inflation. Simulations with a stylised econometric model for the euro area economy, making a distinction between the small and large countries in terms of the estimated parameters, illustrate this mechanism ...

1. Macro-based effective tax rate (ETR) measures do not provide information on the level or distribution of marginal effective tax rates thought to influence household behaviour. They also do not capture differences in average ETRs facing different population sub-groups. I use EUROMOD, an EUwide tax-benefit model, to derive distributions of average and marginal ETR measures for fourteen countries. Results for each country show how many and which types of individuals face different ETR levels. I consider effective tax burdens on labour income as well as the marginal tax rates faced by working men and women. Results are broken down to isolate the influence of income taxes, social contributions and various types of social benefits ...