Zoekresultaten

SARS-COV-2 vaccination and employment

The paper explores whether and under what conditions, vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 may become a mandatory requirement for employees. It includes a discussion on EU action on SARS-CoV-2 vaccination and its relevance for national level policy with emphasis on the legal basis and instruments used by the Union to persuade national authorities into action to increase vaccination uptake. The analysis then moves to the national level by focusing on the case of Hungary. Following an overview of the legal and regulatory framework for SARS-CoV-2 vaccines deployment, the analysis zooms into the sphere of employment and explores whether and how the SARS-CoV-2 vaccination may be turned into a mandatory workplace safety requirement. The paper highlights the decision of the Hungarian government to introduce compulsory vaccination for employees in the healthcare sector, and concludes with a discussion of the relevant rules and their potential, broader implications.

Finding the way to direct EU funding for cities

This report is the result of a research interest stemming from the case presented by the City of Budapest on the misalignment between EU funding opportunities and the interdependence of the national government. The main research question was “Which channels exist for a local or regional government to access EU funding directly, without the need for interference of the national government?”. Recent political developments in Hungary have led to an increasing amount of budgetary challenges for the City of Budapest. Besides domestic factors, the European Commission’s decision to suggest to withhold cohesion and RRF funds to Hungary raises the question of what different avenues of direct EU funding instruments might be at the city’s disposal. Therefore, the aim of this research is to provide recommendations on what avenues the City of Budapest might want to invest in in terms of advocacy activities on the EU level. We first conducted a desk research, mapping the current landscape of EU funding instruments under the direct management of the EU (the overview can be found in the appendix). Secondly, ten interviews were conducted in October and November 2022 with several multi-level stakeholders from the European Parliament, the European Commission, the umbrella organisation of cities in the European Union ‘Eurocities’, a Hungarian journalist and a regional representation in Central-Eastern Europe. Based on these conversations, we identified five main findings with corresponding recommendations for action.

The Netherlands

This study was commissioned by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs of the European Parliament. It analyses the political and legal dynamics behind referendums on EU-related matters. It argues that we have entered a period of increasing political uncertainty with regard to the European project and that this new political configuration will both affect and be affected by the politics of EU-related referendums. Such referendums have long been a risky endeavour and this has been accentuated in the wake of the Great Recession with its negative ramifications for public opinion in the European Union. It is clear that referendums on EU matters are here to stay and will continue to be central to the EU’s future as they are deployed to determine the number of Member States within the EU, its geographical reach, its constitutional evolution and adherence to EU policies. Only now they have become an even riskier endeavour.

OT-EU Expert Group

Eliminating national borders as labour market barriers in the EU

This paper addresses one important mechanism through which the EU tries to improve the operation of its labour markets: the opening up of national borders for free worker movement within the EU. Free worker movement is a fundamental EU right; but EU enlargement begged the question of how and when to allow complete free movement to workers from those new Member States. The EU agreed upon a transitional period of up to 7 years after accession of eight new Middle and Eastern European States (EU-8) on May 1st, 2004. Duringthis transitional period Member States may apply certain restrictions on the free movement of workers from, to and between these new Member States. By 2012, all such restrictions will have been abolished. A similar procedure applies regarding the accession of two additional new Member States on January 1st, 2007. Only three of the fifteen incumbent EU Member States at the time (EU-15) chose to immediately allow free movement from workers from the EU-8. The other twelve maintained their work permit systems, albeit with some modifications. Since, some (e.g. Germany) have already decided to keep such barriers in place until 2012. The Netherlands has kept a work permit system in place up to May 1st, 2007. At that time it abolished that system and effectively extended free worker movement to include workers from the EU-8. This makes the Dutch case, at this point in time, an interesting case for which to analyse the process and effects of increased free labour movement into a national labourmarket. This paper discusses the evolution of (temporary) work migration from EU-8 countries into the Netherlands. It first addresses the flexicurity nature of EU policies towards labour market integration and towards the inclusion of new EU countries in that process. It subsequentely reviews the three socio-legal regimes that can currently apply to work performed for Dutch firms Netherlands by workers from the EU-8 (which, now, is that same as that applies for workers from the EU-15): wage employment; employment through temporary employment agencies; and self-employment. It then discusses the development of the volume of work performed by citizens from the EU-8 in the Netherlands, and socio-economic effects for both the migrant workers and Dutch society and economy. It concludes with a discussion of challenges (or the lack thereof) that this increased free movement of foreign labour caused and causes for Dutch institutions.

Intellectual capital of the European Union 2008

In 2004 the report Intellectual capital of the European Union was published (Andriessen and Stam, 2004). This report provided insight in the value of the intellectual capital of the 15 countries of the European Union, in relationship to the goals set by the European Council in March 2000. Since this report, the EU grew from 15 to 27 countries and the Lisbon goals were reformulated in 2005. The aim of this paper is to repeat the measurement of the intellectual capital (IC) of the enlarged European Union (EU) in relationship to the new Lisbon goals. In order to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy, the EU decided to focus on “delivering stronger, lasting growth and creating more and better jobs” (CEC, 2005d, p.7). In this paper we translate this overall goal in 38 indicators. As the data was not available for all the new member states, we decided to limit our paper to the so-called EU-19. Based on our measurements we conclude that the EU-19 is still behind Japan and far behind the USA, however the EU is catching up as both Japan and the USA have considerably lower growth figures than the EU-19. From an IC perspective, the EU is geographically divided. The Nordic countries are still the best performing countries. The southern European countries and the new member states stay behind. However, as the new member states invest more in their IC, it might be expected that their positions will improve in the future. The aim of our paper was to measure the progress of the Lisbon Agenda for growth and jobs. Based on our measurements we conclude that the EU-19 is successful in terms of creating more and better jobs, but not successful in terms of delivering stronger, lasting growth.