Syllabus
1. Basic Notions and Concepts: stages and methods of integration, dimensions and forms of integration, economic arguments of subsidiarity, legal foundations of the EU and its constitutional treaties, main European institutions.
2. Free Movement of Goods: theories of foreign trade liberalisation, theories of protection, tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade, free trade area versus customs union, discriminatory liberalisation, trade creation versus trade diversion, objectives of Rome Treaty, formation of customs union, technical barriers to trade, objectives of SEA, Lisbon Strategy.
3. Free Movement of Capital and Services: benefits of capital liberalisation, typology of capital restrictions, pressures to deregulate, consequences of single currency, features of service sector, benefits of liberalisation of services, integration methods, liberalisation of banking industry.
4. Monetary Integration and the Euro: theory of optimum currency areas, exchange rate as a shock absorber, competitive devaluation, equilibrium devaluation, monetarist critique of Phillips curve, Barro-Gordon model, exchange rate and capital mobility, impossible trinity, endogeneity of monetary union, Bretton-Woods system, European Payment Union, Werner Report, snake in the tunnel, European Monetary System, ECU, parity grid, collective realignments, 1992-93 crisis, Delors Report, Maastricht Treaty, convergence criteria, perceived inflation, Eurozone enlargement.
5. Integration of Fiscal Policies: basic features of European budget, sources of budget, first reforms, multi-year financial perspectives, pros and cons of tax harmonisation, origin versus destination principle of taxation, degree of tax harmonisation, Stability and Growth Pact, motivation and basic features of SGP, excessive deficit procedure, SGP reform.
6. Labour Markets and Social Policy: benefits of LM liberalisation, changing patterns of European migration, Schengen Agreement, links to JHA and CFSP, LM concepts, European social models, evolution of EU social policies, social dumping, links to monetary integration.
7. Common Agricultural Policy: rationale for state assistance, cobweb theorem, formation of CAP, main price and non-price intervention instruments, green currencies, key problems of CAP, reforms of CAP, challenges of Eastern enlargement.
8. Regional Policy: regional differences in EU, centrifugal and centripetal agglomeration effects, model of spatial equilibrium, evolution of RP, principles of operation, structural and cohesion funds, objectives of RP, organisation of RP, challenges of RP.
9. Trade and Aid Policy: world trade flows, EU trade partners, World Trade Organisation, WTO negotiation rounds, rationale for common trade policy, preferential pyramid of EU trade relations, EFTA, EEA, ACP countries, association treaties, hub-and-spoke integration, GSP.
10. Competition and Industrial Policy: protection of competition, monopolistic and oligopolistic equilibrium, reasons for supranational CP, five components of CP, organisation and coordination of CP, reforms of CP, approaches to IP, evolution of EU IP.
11. Taxation Policy: Corporate taxation and profit shifting, international tax avoidance and evasion, tax havens, tax competition, transfer pricing, country-by-country reporting, common consolidated tax based, and other potential remedies.
Annotation
The course covers all relevant aspects of European economic integration and is composed of ten topics:
1. Integration of goods markets,
2. Integration of capital flows and services,
3. Monetary integration and the euro,
4. Macroprudential policies and the euro,
5. Fiscal integration and the euro,
6. Regional policy,
7. Trade and aid policy,
8. Competition and industrial Policy,
9. Social and employment policies,
10. Common agricultural policy.