Mercado en la Unión Europea

Looking back on the long decade of the Great Recession and the COVID-19 health shock, it is undeniable that far from crowding out scarce resources, well-funded and active welfare states are a sine qua non to the resilience of liberal democracies, knowledge economies and aging societies. This policy brief intends to provide some useful insights for the important question of the future of the welfare state in the European Union from the perspective of my research at EUI. At the risk of being accused by my colleagues of engaging in a Whig history of our poly-crisis epoch, I will challenge the conjectures of a ‘big trade-off’ between equity and efficiency and the equally popular ‘trilemma’ between equality, employment, and fiscal balance, with ample empirical evidence. Drawing on four temporally ordered lessons from the recent past, I raise two supportive cheers for the welfare state, followed by praise for the European Central Bank, and then, last but not least, a compliment for the European Commission. I conclude by making a timely social investment fiscal policy proposal for the EU polity at large.

In 2022, we experienced an unprecedented energy crisis. At the start of the year, gas prices were already higher than in previous years mainly due to the post-Covid economic recovery, and they increased further after the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Prices peaked in the summer of 2022 when countries were filling their gas storage facilities to prepare for winter. Electricity prices also increased dramatically because we still use a lot of natural gas to generate electricity; and the electricity system was also tight due to issues with the nuclear fleet in France, and with hydro power due to the drought.

LUCAS survey provides harmonised statistics on Land Use and Land Cover across the European Union. The LUCAS survey is used to monitor the land cover, the social and economic use of land, the biodiversity and other environmental parameters. The 2018 survey is based on a sample of 336000 points selected from the LUCAS 2×2 km2 grid which is the list of geo-referenced of about one million points in the EU. The paper describes the calibration technique, the way it has been applied in LUCAS 2018 and the impact of calibration on the estimates.

The number of staff and the budgets of the EU’s 34 decentralised agencies are growing quickly, as their tasks and responsibilities are expanding. The Agencies’ Budget in 2023 included 13 764 posts for various personnel types, making up almost a fifth of all EU civil servants across all institutions, bodies and agencies. The implemented budgets at the end of the 2021 financial year amounted to EUR 1 960.4 million and the approved budgets for 2023 total EUR 2 429.3 million. Personnel growth of the agencies increasingly relies on Contract Agents, which are considered external staff and have limited career prospects in their organisations as well as lower levels of remuneration compared to Temporary Agents that take on similar responsibilities. This trend is particularly strong for fast-growing agencies. The increasing use of Contract Agents, especially in higher grades, could be a risk in the sense of losing organisational knowledge and the ability to attract suitable personnel. Recruiting can be a challenge for Agenciesfor a number of reasons, including the hosting Member State and the associated correction coefficient in that Member State. Agencies hosted by Member States in Central-Eastern and Southern Europe struggle to attract geographically diverse staff due to lower levels of remuneration compared to Member States in Northern and Western Europe.

Do global crises accelerate the push for the green transition? What impact does this have on public opinions of the transition? The EIB Climate Survey 2022-2023 reveals that a majority of people around the world feel that the war in Ukraine and increased energy prices should speed up the shift to greener solutions. Over half of Chinese citizens (55%) view climate change as the country’s most significant challenge, compared to lower percentages in Europe (41%), the US (28%), and the UK (32%). A high majority of Chinese (88%), Europeans (84%) and Britons (83%) predict a global catastrophe unless we drastically cut goods and energy consumption. Fewer Americans (72%) share this view. 66% of Europeans, 62% of Britons, 60% of Chinese and 52% of Americans believe that the conflict in Ukraine should expedite the green transition. A majority of Europeans and Britons (65% and 67%) support heavy taxes on highly polluting energy consumption. About half of Americans (52%) agree, while a large majority of Chinese (84%) back this measure. 63% of Europeans support adjusting energy prices based on household consumption, a view shared by Britons and Americans (63% and 57%), while a staggering 87% of Chinese are in favor of this method. Explore the survey results to understand global perspectives on the best ways to tackle the energy and climate crises, and to review the impact that can be made from government policies.

The EIB supports access to finance and business development through intermediated lending, in particular Multiple Beneficiary Intermediated Loans. Under this scheme, the EIB provides loans to financial intermediaries under more favourable conditions compared to the market, either directly or indirectly (through public promotional institutions). This impact assessment addresses the following question: what is the impact of EIB intermediated lending on recipient firms’ performance relative to similar firms that did not receive an EIB intermediated loan (but may still receive other forms of finance)? To assess the impact of the EIB intermediated lending on firms in the EU, this report presents a statistical analysis that measures the performance of supported firms relative to similar firms that did not access an EIB loan. The impact assessment encompasses loans provided to 96,830 businesses between 2008 and 2017, the largest sample of EIB beneficiaries analysed to date. This counterfactual analysis estimates the impact of EIB intermediated lending using data for the treated EIB loan beneficiaries and the control group before and after receiving an intermediated loan.