Success Stories, the Use of the EU Solidarity Fund

Success Stories, the Use of the EU Solidarity Fund
Author: David Meier
Publisher:
Total Pages: 18
Release: 2014
Genre:
ISBN: 9789282363065

This in-depth analysis looks at the results obtained from EU budget resources dedicated to the EU Solidarity Fund (EUSF), and the role of the European Parliament in making such resources available. So far, in 56 cases, 23 member states have benefited from EUSF grants amounting to EUR 3,7 billion. The Solidarity Fund provides assistance to member states or accession countries whose regions are affected by major natural disasters e.g. floods, fires, storms, drought, earthquakes, etc., with serious effects on the living conditions of the citizens of the affected regions.

Success Stories, the Use of the EU Solidarity Fund

Success Stories, the Use of the EU Solidarity Fund
Author: David Meier
Publisher:
Total Pages: 18
Release: 2014
Genre: Disaster relief
ISBN: 9789282363072

This in-depth analysis looks at the results obtained from EU budget resources dedicated to the EU Solidarity Fund (EUSF), and the role of the European Parliament in making such resources available. So far, in 56 cases, 23 member states have benefited from EUSF grants amounting to EUR 3,7 billion. The Solidarity Fund provides assistance to member states or accession countries whose regions are affected by major natural disasters e.g. floods, fires, storms, drought, earthquakes, etc., with serious effects on the living conditions of the citizens of the affected regions.

Investigation of the European Union Solidarity Fund

Investigation of the European Union Solidarity Fund
Author: Ron Böhler
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
Total Pages: 28
Release: 2017-09-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 366853781X

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject Politics - Topic: European Union, grade: 1.3, Humboldt-University of Berlin, language: English, abstract: The aim of this essay is it to move beyond pure evaluations of the EUSF’s efficiency and viability and to target its social dimension. The argument elaborated here is that natural hazard insurance mechanisms on the European level effectively complement national ones and that this cannot be fully explained with rational behaviour. The EUSF might be a test case for inter-European solidarity transfer payments irrespective of rational cost-benefit calculations, though it seems to share most attributes with the EU Cohesion and Regional Policy. For decades, European unification has been illustrated ordinarily as a mere economic integration process that lacks a complementary political dimension, let alone a social one. Even more in times of the current sovereign debt crisis that continuingly bears the potential to threaten both the stability and competitiveness of a series of market economies, the European Union (EU) is expected to succeed or fail with its common Eurozone currency, the Euro. It’s the economy, stupid!, one might say. Yet, while national governments and European policy-makers incessantly discuss about adequate ways of political steering of shattered European financial regulations, the EU has over the years installed institutions and mechanisms that shall strengthen and deepen the European project, but have only reluctantly gained academic and public attention. Much has been already written about the EU regional policy and structural funding through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the European Social Fund (ESF) as attempts to improve social cohesion within Europe. Another institutionalised form of intra-European solidarity, in contrast, remains overall a blind spot in academic literature although its name is a clear avowal to European solidarity: the European Union Solidarity Fund (EUSF). It will be addressed here and tested a long a variety of variables to evaluate whether we can speak of a Europeanisation of solidarity mechanisms within the Community. The following subquestions will be raised: Which calculus does the European Union Solidarity Fund follow? Is it purely rationally or rather normatively motivated? Can the EUSF be considered an institution of inter-European solidarity? And if yes, who demonstrates solidarity with whom?

Socio-Economic Human Rights in Essential Public Services Provision

Socio-Economic Human Rights in Essential Public Services Provision
Author: Marlies Hesselman
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2016-11-10
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1317209893

There is a clear overlap between securing socio-economic human rights for all persons and arranging adequate access to essential public services across society. Both are necessary to realise thriving, inclusive societies, with adequate living standards for all, based on human dignity. This edited volume brings together the two topics for the first time. In particular, it identifies the common challenges for essential public services provision and socio-economic human rights realisation, and it explores how socio-economic rights law can be harnessed to reinforce better access to services. An important aim of this book is to understand how international socio-economic human rights law and guideposts can be used and strengthened to improve access to services, and assess socio-economic legal and policy decisions. The volume includes contributions from different continents, on a range of different services, and engages with the realities of different regulatory settings. After an introduction that sets out the most important challenges for universal access to services – including sufficient resources mobilisation, private actor involvement and regulation, or the need for improved checks and balances – the book goes on to discuss current issues in services provision and socio-economic rights, as well as explores the place and role of private business actors in the provision of services. In particular, it assesses how the responsibility and accountability of such actors for human rights can be improved . The final part of the book narrows in on the under-explored human rights concepts of ‘participation’ and ‘accountability’, as essential prerequisites for better ‘checks and balances’. Overall, this volume presents a unique and powerful illustration of how socio-economic human rights law supports improved access to essential public services for all.

Law and New Governance in the EU and the US

Law and New Governance in the EU and the US
Author: Gráinne de Búrca
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 444
Release: 2006-04-26
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1847310400

New approaches to governance have attracted significant scholarly attention in recent years. Commentators on both sides of the Atlantic have identified, charted and evaluated the rise and spread of forms of governance, forms which seem to differ from previous regulatory and legal paradigms. In Europe, the emergence of the Open Method of Coordination has provided a focal point for new governance studies. In the US, scholarship on issues such as collaborative problem-solving, democratic experimentalism, and problem-solving courts exemplify the interest in similar developments. This book covers diverse policy sectors and subjects, including the environment, education, anti-discrimination, food safety and many others. While some chapters concentrate on the operation of new governance mechanisms in a federal and multilevel context and others look at the relationship between public and private mechanisms and settings, what all the contributors share in common is the pursuit of effective mechanisms for addressing complex social problems, and the challenges they raise for our understanding of law and constitutionalism, and of legal and constitutional values.

The new European Budgetary Order

The new European Budgetary Order
Author: Robin Degron
Publisher: Bruylant
Total Pages: 163
Release: 2018-09-28
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 2802762990

The Sovereign debt crisis pushed the EU to take a new step to the common financial rules. After some years of ‘soft budgetary carefreeness’, the European Budgetary Treaty boosted the movement of budgetary convergence in the EU. The ‘Six Pack’ and the ‘Two Pack’ consolidated the effectiveness of a new European budgetary order founded by the Maastricht Treaty and the Stability and Growth Pact. Even if mechanisms adopted by the Member States are formally different in law, conditions of European budgetary orthodoxy have been definitively hardened. This new rigor has a great impact on all the public administrations, as defined by the European Accounts System and Eurostat. The EU is a key-player of the budgetary game. This great power makes the EU accountable to the general economic situation within Europe and amongst all Member States. Budgetary regulation must be conciliated with preservation of some investment means to develop potential growth on the continent. ‘Giant in law’, the EU has to be responsible from an economic point of view. The problem is that, from a budgetary standpoint, the EU remains a ‘dwarf’. The European general budget is about 1% of the EU gross national income. The budgetary power of the EU is less than one twentieth of the USA federal financial power. Balance between ‘budgetary dwarf ’ and ‘giant in law’ is characteristic of ‘adolescence’ of the EU finances. Natural consequence of this situation, the EU capacities for redistributing and stabilization are still relatively limited. To overtake this powerlessness, the EU has used no budgetary tools by appealing to the European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund. However, the ability of the EU to support public investment is not sufficient today to promote an authentic economic relaunching policy and to support the global competition, especially with the USA and China. With a ‘powerful brake’ and a ‘poor accelerator’, the risk is the European public investments continue to stand by. This is the investment paradox of the European budgetary order. Will the next negotiation on the multiyear financial framework post 2020 be able to change the point ? It is not sure, especially in the Brexit context. Negotiating an European financial agenda is always long and difficult. But, the exit of the United Kingdom could makes the game more disputed than ever. A thing is clear : beyond the technical and financial sizes of the new roadmap proposals established by the Commission, the democratic control of the European Parliament is still limited. The EU budgetary framework and timetable are too inert, not enough reactive, far from European citizens actually. In the historical moments we live, it is certainly a strategic mistake to not involve much more citizens and their representatives in the crucial negotiation on the long-term finances of the EU. This is the technocratic risk of the new European budgetary order.

The European Social Fund 1994-1999

The European Social Fund 1994-1999
Author: European Commission. Directorate-General for Employment and Social Affairs. Employment & European Social Fund
Publisher:
Total Pages: 60
Release: 2000
Genre:
ISBN: