No result found
2019-06-01
Open Society Foundations;
The need for the European Union's involvement in the Western Balkans, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine has never been more acute. The European Commission's structures are not up to the job. A new approach is needed to respond to the realities on the ground and in member states.
The European Union needs to boost the tools of the European Commission to move the process on from enlargement and move decisively towards the unification of Europe. This means creating a directorate general that would have the resources to drive forward the accession process with the Western Balkans countries and the ambitious trade and reform agenda in Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova. A new directorate general Europe could play this role.
2019-05-27
European Chronic Disease Alliance (ECDA);
A joint paper by the European Chronic Disease Alliance (ECDA), the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA) and the NCD Alliance calls for the creation of an EU Strategic Framework for the Prevention of NCDs towards 2030.Indeed, with epidemic levels of NCDs undermining people's well-being, healthcare systems, and Europe's economic and social prosperity, they consider that preventing chronic diseases should be a main priority for the European Commission.Therefore, the paper proposes principles, priorities and actions for such an EU strategic framework, setting out a roadmap for policy-makers to make change happen.
More information and the summary: https://epha.org/joint-paper-i-towards-an-eu-strategic-framework-for-the-prevention-of-ncds/
2019-03-01
European Foundation Centre (EFC);
This report is the most comprehensive study to date into support for environmental initiatives provided by European philanthropic foundations. It builds on the three earlier editions, increasing the number of foundations and grants being analysed, along with the total value of these grants.
This 4th edition features a detailed analysis of the environmental grants of 87 European public-benefit foundations, as compared to 75 in the previous edition. These 87 foundations include many of Europe's largest providers of philanthropic grants for environmental initiatives.
2019-02-25
European Foundation Centre (EFC);
The field of arts and culture is at the core of philanthropy, and is among the most important areas of funding for philanthropic organisations in Europe. This mapping, produced by the EFC's Arts and Culture Thematic Network, sheds light on how activities carried out by the organisations engaged in this field are diverse in both themes and approaches, covering different sub-areas and with a clear interest in multidisciplinary arts and crosscutting areas and issues.
2019-02-25
European Foundation Centre (EFC);
The field of arts and culture is at the core of philanthropy, and is among the most important areas of funding for philanthropic organisations in Europe. This mapping, produced by the EFC's Arts and Culture Thematic Network, sheds light on how activities carried out by the organisations engaged in this field are diverse in both themes and approaches, covering different sub-areas and with a clear interest in multidisciplinary arts and crosscutting areas and issues.
2019-01-01
Aalborg University, EDGE (Centre for Equality, Diversity and Gender);
The objective of this research memorandum is to identify and describe what constitutes the significant barriers against achieving a better gender balance at Danish universities, in particular within natural sciences and technology.
The memorandum also addresses the question of the possible role of research funding institutions in relation to gender imbalances in academia, and in particular which actions and measures have been put in place in order to prevent women from remaining disproportionately underrepresented.
Based on desk research, this research memorandum presents in total six promising practices and short summaries of existing experiences regarding what works in addressing the gender gap in research funding. While the identified gender balancing initiatives and measures stem from numerous national contexts, each of them are characterised by focusing mainly on one specific part of the grant allocation process – whether it be early in the process, where measures such as certification of applicants and/or earmarked funds are a possibility, or while applicants and projects are being assessed, or in the post-award phase, where measures to ensure public accountability for funding schemes and counteracting the motherhood penalty are distinct possibilities. Following the presentation of the promising practices below is a number of clear and concise recommendations on possible actions to be taken.
2018-12-01
Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF);
As highlighted in WWF's Living Planet Report (2018), our ocean remains in crisis and the situation desperately needs change in order to reverse the trend of global biodiversity decline. The European Union's (EU) fisheries footprint spans our planet. With active fishing in every ocean and with the highest number of seafood imports, it is the world's largest seafood market. Recognising that a healthy ocean increases resilience and creates more stable conditions for the viability of the fisheries sector, Europe has a long-established Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) which governs all European fisheries in the waters of EU Member States (MS), in international waters and through fishing agreements in non-European waters around the world.
Following the most recent reform in 2013, the CFP now aims to make fisheries environmentally, economically and socially sustainable. The CFP defines the sustainable management of marine ecosystems and fish stocks. It is based on scientific evidence for a concrete biological understanding of the state of stocks, and refers to socio-economic data before establishing fisheries catch quotas. Successive to this, an accountable, transparent and fair set of rules for fishers must be enforced by promoting a culture of compliance and by applying deterring sanctions for wrongdoers.
2018-11-20
Open Society Foundations;
In this report, whistleblowers from eight European countries describe what they experienced after they took a stand. Additionally, civil society experts weigh in on how the EU can craft policies to better protect whistleblowers. The question of how to define whistleblowing—does it apply to sexual harassment, can NGOs be considered whistleblowers, and so on—is also explored.
The report ultimately recommends an EU-wide directive on whistleblowing, which it argues would give whistleblowers the protection they need to step forward. The report also argues that a multi-level, multi-stakeholder approach would emphasize the value of whistleblowers and the crucial role they play in a healthy open society.
2018-09-11
Radboud University Nijmegen;
This working paper is based on the analysis of 28 national replies to a questionnaire addressing the implementation of the provisions on social assistance and economically inactive EU citizens in the context of Directive 2004/38 over the time frame 2014-2016.1 It presents main findings and is concerned with how the EU28 are implementing the provisions on social assistance and economically inactive EU citizens and what issues are relevant for the effective exercise of EU citizenship rights in this specific area of law. This monitoring effort is part of the 2015-2018 work programme of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence implemented by the Centre for Migration Law (Radboud University Nijmegen). The questionnaire was sent out to 28 national experts and focused on 3 main themes: social rights, family reunification and permanent residence. The other two themes are addressed in separate working papers (available here https://www.ru.nl/law/cmr/research/working-papers/overview/).
2018-09-11
General Association of Economists from Romania;
In this study, the sustainability of social security policies in EU countries was analyzed by panel data method with multiple structural breaks under cross-sectional dependence for the 1990-2013 periods. The existence of cointegration was tested by Basher and Westerlund (2009) method and series were found to be cointegrated. Cointegration coefficients were estimated by AMG method and it was determined that social security policies are sustainable in a weak form in these countries; when the social security systems' expenditure is increased by 1%, revenues are increased by 0.86% and revenues of the system cannot compensate the expenses. Austria has the highest rate of sustainability of the social security system while Ireland and Finland have the lowest rates.
2018-09-11
European Policy Centre (EPC);
Labour mobility within the European Union continues to be a limited phenomenon. This concerns both long-term intra-EU mobility and more temporary forms of mobility such as posting of workers, i.e. workers posted to another member state in the framework of cross-border service provision. Yet, despite the limited nature of posting, this topic is far from being absent from the public and political debates. Several factors contribute to this. Firstly, a surge in the number of posted workers has been noticed over the recent years and increased attention has therefore been paid to this issue. Quite a few economic sectors, including construction, manufacturing, and social work, are very concerned by this trend. Secondly, several types of abuses have been recorded such as letter-box companies, bogus self-employment and exploitation of the posted workers' vulnerable situation. Thirdly, questions have been raised as to whether the balance struck by the EU legislator in 1996 (when adopting the Posted Workers Directive) between the freedom to provide crossborder services and the workers' social rights is still valid today. These elements highlight the need for a policy adjustment in order to preserve the legitimacy of the citizens' and workers' freedom to move and, to a certain extent, of the social dimension of the European project. In this context, the European Commission published a proposal to revise the 1996 Directive in order to strike a better balance between economic and social rights. But is this proposal sufficient to ensure a level playing field between economic actors and equal treatment between workers? How will this proposal affect the implementation of other EU initiatives aiming to tackle fraud and abuse? What else is needed to address the tensions between the Single Market principles and the EU's social objectives? This discussion paper, published in the context of the Dutch Presidency and the ongoing negotiations of a revised Directive on posted workers, focuses on these questions while proposing some concrete solutions for a fairer policy framework.
2018-09-03
CEPS;
The focus of this Policy Brief is the Swiss referendum of 2014 against 'mass immigration' in Switzerland. It identifies the challenges that a quota on EU citizens' free movement rights to Switzerland would pose to EU-Swiss relations, considering: i) the value of freedom of movement in the EU and its indivisibility from the internal market and other economic freedoms; ii) the specificity of the EU legal system following the Lisbon Treaty that has established specific democratic and judicial accountability mechanisms; iii) the lack of supranational judicial oversight of the EU-Switzerland agreements framework; and iv) the existence of the so-called guillotine mechanism, according to whichthe termination of the Free Movement Agreement would entail the automatic termination of the other agreements with the EU.
