Documents

In its evaluation of the reform of Investment Law No 3299/2004, the Economic and Social Committee (ESC) makes general observations regarding the law in question. It also puts forward a number of positions in relation to eligible activities, special investments, the regional dimension, eligible bodies and procedures for approval and the payment of support. Lastly, the ESC offers a number of ideas and suggestions regarding the questionnaire on the reform.

Three eminent economists from Princeton University have recently argued thatglobalisation has entered a new phase that requires a new paradigmunderstand. This paper examines what is new in the new paradigm andconsiders the policy implications for Europe. Roughly speaking new-paradigmglobalisation differs from the old in that it is occurring at a much finer level ofdisaggregation. Due to radical reductions in international communication andcoordination costs, EU firms can offshore many tasks that were previouslyconsidered non-traded. This means that international competition ? which usedto be primarily between firms and sectors in different nations ? now occursbetween individual workers performing similar tasks in different nations. Thereally new feature is that deeper new-paradigm globalisation will seem quiteunpredictable from the perspective of firms and sectors. Since individual taskscan be offshored, globalisation may help some workers in a given firm whileharming others. Moreover, old-globalisation?s correlation between skill groupsand winners and losers breaks down. Certain highly skilled tasks may turn out tobe offshore-able, while other highly skilled tasks are not. Increased offshoringwill therefore not systematically help or hurt skilled workers in the EU. Inparticular, many ?Information Society? jobs are prone to offshoring so EUpolicies aimed at moving workers into Information Society jobs may be wastedsince those jobs are only ?good jobs? because they do not yet face directinternational competition. The paper argues that this has important implicationsfor the EU?s competitiveness strategy, education strategy, welfare states, andindustrial policy. The underlying theme is that the increased unpredictabilityshould make EU leaders more cautious about moving workers or skills in aparticular direction. Flexibility is, as always, the key to allowing Europe to seizethe opportunities of globalisation while minimizing the adjustment costs.

Concerns over the effects of globalisation are mainly related to the labourmarket effects. How will jobs and wages be affected? Will there be enoughjobs? What should we live on?While globalisation creates aggregate gains, it is also a process which entailsadjustment. Therefore, there will be both losers and winners. The maindeterminant of the relative net-gain is not necessarily closely related to the levelof education, but rather to the extent to which economic activities can berelocated over borders. Increasing globalisation effectively creates increased jobmobility, and the direction of job movements depends on comparativeadvantages relative to the scope for relocating production and jobs. Empiricalevidence shows that export opportunities tend to improve labour marketprospects, while the import threat does the opposite.A key policy challenge is to support structural change and adjustment withoutleaving a disproportional amount of risk on individuals. This can be done in theshort run in the form of income insurance, and in the medium to long run interms of re-education and training. Increased investments in education is apopular remedy. While the return ? private and social ? in general is high, thereis a danger for over-investment in education if it is perceived that all labourmarket problems can be solved by adopting an education policy based on theview ?the longer, the better?.

The system of multilateral rules and institutions that constitutes the globaleconomic governance regime trails the rapid transformation of the worldeconomy and the rise of pressing global issues. It faces significant challengessuch as the resurgence of economic nationalism. It needs to adapt to changes inthe geopolitical background and to a growing number and diversity ofparticipants in global economic integration. It must learn to coexist withregionalism and the market-led governance.It is possible for globalisation to proceed with weak global governance, but notwithout significant risks to its sustainability. The EU, which has a stake in themultilateral system and most likely a comparative advantage in institutionaldesign, should be a key player in its reform agenda. The difficulty of the task isno excuse for avoiding it and for hiding behind US leadership. To equip itselfwith the ability to take initiatives towards reform, the EU requires changes in itsown internal governance and its external representation. Contrary toconventional wisdom, these changes need not imply a federalisation of externalrelations.

Europe?s market for services is fragmented by many regulatory barriers. TheServices directive proposed by the European Commission aims to integratenational services markets by reducing these barriers. Several studies indicatethat bilateral trade and foreign direct investment in services could boostsubstantially. GDP and consumption could increase by 0.5% to about 1% onaverage in Europe. The effects for the Member States vary depending on thesize of the barriers in their services markets and specialization. These resultstake account of scale effects, and forward and backward linkages in theeconomy, but ignore the effects of more competition on productivity andinnovation in the long term. This paper assesses the channels though which anintegrated European services market may generate these dynamic gains.Improved market access will stimulate competitive selection and productivitygrowth. Through trade and investment, knowledge spillovers will increase andinnovation will be fostered. These channels are illustrated with scarcequantitative evidence.

Average EU growth performance has been disappointing over recent decades.This picture is not uniform across countries, however, some having done betterthan others. We argue that EU policy debate, rather than focusing oncompetitiveness, ought to address the reasons for disappointing aggregategrowth outcomes as well as intra-EU heterogeneity. On the whole, weaknessesin growth performance can to a large extent be ascribed to inadequacies in thestructural policy framework. The policy shortcomings that we identify based on asubstantial body of OECD evidence are not really surprising. Rather, they havebeen around for a considerable period of time, which raises the question whyreform has been insufficient. Based on the emerging empirical literatureconcerning the political economy of structural reform, we suggest a number ofactions governments can take to facilitate the reform process. For example,structural reform may be helped by having scope for macroeconomicaccommodation of any negative short-term impacts, which is an addedargument for establishing more sound fiscal positions. As well, the tendency forstructural reforms to have ripple effects across different markets suggests thattrade liberalisation, which is desirable in itself, could help reform in other areas.Finally, we also emphasise the role that analysis by institutions seen asindependent and credible can have in terms of unblocking the reform process.

This draft law regulates issues relating to the various branches of the Engineers' Pension Fund. It also provides for adjustments regarding compulsory contributions, writes off the fines imposed by the Social Security Institute on SMEs and extends the option of granting a reduced old-age pension to unemployed workers, without them having to pay 100 days of insurance per year throughout the five years previous to their request.

The National Report on the Strategy for Social Protection and Social Integration includes the outlines for the National Action Plan on Social Integration 2006-2008, the National Report on the Strategy for Pensions 2006-2008 and the National Report on Health and Long-Term Care 2006-2008.

The state of the population health, the public health protection and healthcare system in Bulgaria shows that in the middle of the acting period of the operating National Healthcare Strategy “Better health for better future of Bulgaria 2001-2010” most of its goals have not been accomplished due to different reasons. This fact can be partly accepted as a reason for creating a new document of management in the form of a National Healthcare Strategy. Other reason can be the adoption of a new health-political doctrine of the Government. At present, there is no such doctrine and in the Project there are not clearly declared changes hence a necessity of reengineering public health protection and healthcare system.<br>These ascertainments give a reason for a conclusion that the creation of a new healthcare strategy for a short-term (2007-2012) without any significant changes in values, principles, priorities and objectives is not enough well-grounded.