1 August 2008
New Policy Brief published  Project 18a: Distributive Politics: Experimentation, Learning and Reform: National Social Pacts

The new policy brief deals with the role of Social Pacts in European Socio-Economic Governance. Written by Martin Rhodes, the brief provides answers to the key questions of relevance for policy-makers, i.e. (1) why did some countries achieve pacts but not others, and what were the conditions for their emergence; (2) what were the advantages of such pacts for policy making, and what determined their persistence or failure; and (3) given new demands for economic adjustment 10 years after EMU began, does social pacting still offer a viable strategy for socio-economic governance?
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31 July 2008
Two new Policy Briefs published  Project 9: Choice and Combination of Policy Instruments

Two new policy briefs on public policy instruments have been published by project no. 09. Issue no. 32, written by Charlotte Halpern and Patrick Le Galès, deals with "Public Policy Instrumentation in the EU" in general, whereas issue no. 33, written by Charlotte Halpern, Sophie Jacquot, and Patrick Le Galès, focusses on mainstreaming as a policy instrument
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23 July 2008
Analytical Report 4: Synthesis: A Fuzzy Set Analysis of the Resurgence of Tripartite Concertation in the 1990s  Project 18a: Distributive Politics: Experimentation, Learning and Reform: National Social Pacts

European economies underwent major economic adjustment during the 1990s, combining reforms related to the preparation for EMU with welfare state recalibration and labour market deregulation. This paper, written by Sabina Avdagic, seeks to understand national variation in the strategies of adjustment during that decade, and in particular in the varied reliance on social pacts as facilitators of reforms. Why were such concerted agreements struck in some countries, but not in others? Using a fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fs/QCA) of fourteen European countries, this paper assess the explanatory power of leading hypotheses about the emergence of social pacts.
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Working Paper: When efficiency results in redistribution: the conflict over the single services market  Project 13: The Domestic Impact of European Law

The discussion of the Services Directive from 2004 onwards showed an unprecedented extent of politicization of a single-market issue. Coinciding with the 2004 Eastern enlargement round, the easing of the services freedom through the directive raised significant redistributive issues, given the differences in labour costs. The article, written by Susanne K. Schmidt, analyzes why mutual recognition is so controversial in services, arguing that the relationship among Member states, between governments and their citizens, and among differently regulated EU-citizens matters. Partly, the directive lessens the risk of redistribution through the institutionalization of administrative cooperation between the home and the host Member state. Partly, the directive fails as Member states may be forced to discriminate against their population in the name of the internal market.
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Workshop Report: The Evolution of European Networks and Regulatory Agencies  NEWGOV Practitioner Forum

In the last ten years, EU regulation has been transformed. However, in order for regulation to be implemented, appropriate institutions also have to be established. This workshop looks at such institutions, notably for the regulation of markets in network industries. The implementation of public policies always raises questions of discretion and diversity. But, in the case of the EU these questions are particularly difficult because there is a strong tension between the creation of a single European market through centralised EU-level legislation and its decentralised implementation by often diverse and recently-reformed national -level authorities. In addition, there are strong national traditions of protecting domestic firms and economic interests. Thus the institutions for implementing EU legislation are particularly important and the topic of much current debate in Brussels. This policy workshop began by setting out different possible regulatory network models, before analysing the development of European Networks of Regulators in Telecommunications and Energy from the perspective of business, national regulators and the European Networks central administration. It concluded by looking at current debates and the potential for EU Agency and network plus solutions.
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22 July 2008
Release of two new EUROGOV papers  (EUROGOV No. C-08-02 and C-08-03)

The two new EUROGOV papers are ‘Nothing but consultation: The place of organised civil society in EU policy-making across policies’ written by Sandra Kröger, and 'Lay people’s Europe: A Critical Assessment of the First EU Citizens’ Conferences' written by Laurie Boussaguet and Renaud Dehousse. For abstracts and download, go to the EUROGOV website.
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3 July 2008
Paper on Bank Loan Announcements and Borrower Stock Returns  Project 21: Towards New Corporate Governance Regimes in Europe

Banks play a special role as providers of informative signals about the quality and value of their borrowers. Such signals, however, have a quality of their own as the banks’ selection and monitoring abilities differ. Using an event study methodology, the paper – written by Steven Ongena and Viorel Roscovan – studies the importance of the geographical origin and organization of the banks for the investors’ assessments of firm’s credit quality and economic worth during loan announcements. The sample comprises 986 U.S. firms over a period of 1980-2003.
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Note on the use of NEWGOV Data Sets  Legal Task Force: Litigating EU law

The NEWGOV Legal Task Force has compiled and made available, for free and open use, three data bases on litigating EU law under the Treaty of Rome. The data sets, and their re-spective codebooks, are on-line at this website. This note provides a summary of these data, and briefly discuss various purposes for which they might be used.
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2 July 2008
Follow-up Workshop "Civil Society, New Modes of Governance and Enlargement"  3 - 5 July, 2008, Zeuthen near Berlin, Germany

The NEWGOV Follow-up Workshop “Civil Society, New Modes of Governance and Enlargement”, organised by Cluster 3 coordinator Tanja Börzel, is a continuation of the workshop that took place in early May, 2008. The workshop will prepare the submission of a manuscript for a special journal issue. This special issue, a cross-cluster activity of NEWGOV, will explore the relationship between NMG and civil society in the context of Eastern enlargement. On the one hand, the EU induced emergence of NMG may provide civil society actors with a new opportunity structure that empowers them in domestic policy-making. On the other hand, civil society actors are crucial to make NMG work. One set of papers adopt a top-down perspective, while the others approach NMG and civil society from the bottom-up. They also cover different policy areas: environment, regional policy, and social policy. Participation is restricted.
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Two New "Living Review in European Governance (LREG)"  (lreg-2008-2 and lreg-2008-3)

We are pleased to announce the publication of two new articles in the Living Reviews in European Governance (LREG): Klaus H. Goetz and Jan-Hinrik Meyer-Sahling: The Europeanisation of national political systems: Parliaments and executives (lreg-2008-2); and Arthur Benz and Christina Zimmer: The EU’s competences: The ‘vertical’ perspective on the multilevel system (lreg-2008-3). At the journal website you have access to the abstracts and full texts (HMTL and PDF). LREG is an innovative E-journal, publishing solicited state-of-the-art articles in the field of European governance research that are fully refereed according to highest international standards, and will always be kept up-to-date by their authors. It is jointly published by CONNEX and NEWGOV.
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1 July 2008
Paper on Banks and Bonds: The Impact of Bank Loan Announcements on Bond and Equity Prices  Project 21: Towards New Corporate Governance Regimes in Europe

The study, written by Steven Ongena, Viorel Roscovan, Wei-Ling Song, and Bas J. M. Werker, is concerned with the effect of bank loan announcements on the borrowing firms’ bond and equity prices. The sample consists of 896 loan deals signed between 1997 to 2003 involving 364 different U.S. firms. It reports the first comprehensive evidence that also firm bond prices react to bank loan announcements. The analysis provides an estimate of the net impact on firm value of bank loan announcements, between minus 5 bps for riskier and smaller firms and plus 18 bps for safer and larger companies.
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Case study – Czech Environmental NGOs in EU governance – Challenges of accountability  Project 24: Accountability/Participation of Civil Society in New Modes of Governance

The following case study, written by Heiko Pleines, examines how Czech environmental NGOs cope with these eligibility criteria of the European Commission and namely the challenge of accountability. With that the focus is on legal accountability of civil society organisations. Legal accountability pertains to the forms of participation in policy making and implementation. It concerns the legality of the means employed to influence decisions. It is opposed to political accountability which concerns responsibility for the contents of political decisions and refers to participants in the formal political decision-making process.
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