European Union-28 Research Articles

Changes in Co-Publication Patterns among China, the European Union (28) and the United States of America, 2016-2021

The COVID-19 global pandemic starting in January 2020 disrupted international collaborations in scholarly exchange, reducing mobility and connections across the globe. An examination of Web of Science-indexed publications from China, the European Union-28 and the United States of America shows a drop in publications numbers coming from the EU-28 and the United States in 2021. Importantly, cooperation between China and the United States drops without a corresponding drop between China and the EU-28. Moreover, the drop in China-USA cooperation can be seen beginning in 2019, before the pandemic, at a time when political tensions around science, technology, and innovation arose, with the United States claiming that China was violating intellectual property norms. The patterns suggest that political tensions, more than the pandemic, influenced the drop in China-USA cooperation.

Measuring environmental performance in the treatment of municipal solid waste: The case of the European Union-28

This paper proposes a measure of environmental performance in the treatment of municipal solid waste, which is defined as a ratio between a composite indicator of waste treated through environmentally desirable operations –recycling and recovery in our case study– and a composite indicator of waste treated through undesirable operations –landfill and incineration. Moreover, it contributes both overall and treatment-specific indicators of performance. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) techniques are used to compute the environmental performance indicators and they are illustrated with an empirical assessment of the environmental performance of the European Union-28 (EU-28) members in their treatment of municipal waste, with data for the year 2017. Our results point to a worryingly low average level of performance, with the best performers being mainly Nordic and Central European countries such as Sweden, Germany, Belgium, Finland and Denmark; at the opposite end of the spectrum, environmental performance in the treatment of waste is particularly low in most of the Eastern European countries that joined the EU-28 from the 2000s, and some Southern member states. The determinants of performance are also investigated, the main finding being a positive and statistically significant association between environmental performance in municipal waste treatment and the level of economic development.

Organic livestock in the Republic of Croatia and Europe

The aim of the present study was to analyze the situation in organic livestock farming in Croatia and Europe. In the European countries in the year 2017, around 4.5 million cattle, 5.2 million sheep, 1 million pigs and 50 million poultry were registered in organic farming. The highest share of organically registered domestic animals compared to the total population in Europe and the European Union-28 was in cattle (3.5% and 5.2%) and sheep (3.4% and 5.0%), and the lowest in pigs (0.6% and 0.7%). In Croatia the highest share is in sheep (8.57%) and the lowest in poultry (0.02%) number. The largest increase in recent ten years in the EU has been in the number of poultry (by 103%) and the smallest in the number of pigs (by 47.6%), while the increase was the number of cattle and sheep was around 76% and 74%, respectively. In Croatia organic sheep production increased the most (by 65.0%), while the number of cattle and poultry increased by 62 and 64%, and the smallest increase is in the number of pigs (by 24%). The majority of organic meat of all species of domestic animals is produced in France and in United Kingdom, while organic milk is produced mostly in Germany and France. During the year 2018, most organic beef was produced in the UK and France, organic pork in France and Finland, organic sheep meat in Spain and the UK, organic goat meat in Spain, while most of organic poultry was produced in France and in the UK. A significant increase in the number of livestock in organic farming in Europe and in Croatia indicates an increasing interest in organic livestock farming, not only increase of farmers and processors but also increase of consumers of organic products in European countries.

An assessment of environmental sustainability corridor: The role of economic expansion and research and development in EU countries

Given that the European Union-28 countries proposed a target of 3% of the Gross Domestic Product on research and development (R&D) expenditure by 2020, the current study attempts to examine the role of R&D on environmental sustainability. In addition, the study further investigates the long-run and causal interaction between, renewable energy consumption, nonrenewable energy consumption, and economic growth in an ecological footprint-income function. Notably, the study incorporates research and development (R&D) expenditure to the model as an additional variable, and measures impact of each variable on ecological footprint. Empirical evidence is based on a balanced panel data between annual periods of 1997–2014 for selected EU-16 countries. The Pedroni, Johansen Multivariate and Kao tests all reveal a cointegration between ecological footprint, economic growth, research and development expenditure, renewable, and nonrenewable energy consumption. The Fully Modified and Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares models (FMOLS and DOLS) both suggest a negative significant relationship between the countries' research and development expenditure and ecological footprint in the long-run. This implies that spending on R&D significantly impacts on environmental sustainability of the panel countries. Our study affirms that nonrenewable energy consumption and economic growth increase carbon emission flaring while renewable energy consumption declines ecological footprint. The panel causality analysis reveals a feedback mechanism between ecological footprint, R&D expenditure, renewable, and nonrenewable energy consumption. We further observed a one-way causality between ecological footprint and economic growth. The current further validates that the Environmental Kuznet Curve Hypothesis (EKC) holds for this panel of EU countries examined. Effective policy implications could be drawn toward modern and environmentally friendly energy sources, especially in attaining the Sustainable Development Goals via spending on R&D.

Environmental productivity in the European Union: A global Luenberger-metafrontier approach.

This paper studies environmental productivity in the European Union-28 (EU-28) by extending the methodology proposed by Oh (2010) to an additive Luenberger-metafrontier framework. The main advantage of this approach is that it allows the analyst to account for cross-country heterogeneity. Using data on GDP, environmental pressures and inputs, the change in environmental productivity and its determinants between the years 2001 and 2016 is assessed in several scenarios; heterogeneity is accounted for by differentiating between the members of the former European Union-15 (EU-15) and the new members that joined the EU-28 from the 2000s onwards. Our results show an improvement in environmental productivity over the period, fuelled by both local and global innovation effects, with some EU-15 members advancing the global environmental technology. Conversely, efficiency change has almost always been negative, pointing to a worrying failure to catch up to the best environmental technologies. Accordingly, policy measures aimed at boosting the use of green technologies are urgently needed in the EU-28.

Analysis of the Competitiveness of the Turkish Textile and Clothing Sector in the European Union Market

The Turkish textile and clothing sector maintains its significance and place in the national economy and exports despite the increasing international competition. The European Union-28 (EU-28) countries are some of the most significant markets in which the sector possesses a net foreign trade surplus. In this context, this study aims to analyse the competitiveness of the Turkish textile and clothing sector in the EU market. Therefore Turkey’s textile and clothing trade with the EU-28 countries is analysed in detail within the scope of the research. Besides this, the decadal unit export prices of Turkey and its rivals in the EU-28 market are calculated and evaluated. Finally the competitiveness of Turkey and its rivals in the EU market is analysed with Balassa and Vollrath indices. According to the results obtained, the Turkish textile and clothing sector maintains its importance and competitiveness in the EU market with regard to average unit export prices per kilogram and average Balassa and Vollrath index values.

Addition of WEEE Glass to Metakaolin-Based Geopolymeric Binder: A Cytotoxicity Study

Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) types of glass, including Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) glass, are now separately collected in European Union 28 (EU28) zone. Due to the high level of Pb and Ba in their compositions, this type of waste finds its way to the disposal. In the present research, a geopolymer matrix based on metakaolin is used to blend in fine powder panel and funnel glass from personal computer (PC) and television (TV) monitors. Such waste glass, which cannot be directed to glass melting furnaces, is safely incorporated into a geopolymer matrix. The consolidation of the geopolymeric matrix containing the waste glass was followed by pH and conductibility up to 28 days of curing. Scanning electron microscope equipped with energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM/EDS) was used to obtain information on the microstructure of the consolidated products. Cytotoxicity tests helped the environmental evaluation of these materials.

Assessment of collection schemes for packaging and other recyclable waste in European Union-28 Member States and capital cities

The Waste Framework Directive obliged European Union Member States to set up separate collection systems to promote high quality recycling for at least paper, metal, plastic and glass by 2015. As implementation of the requirement varies across European Union Member States, the European Commission contracted BiPRO GmbH/Copenhagen Resource Institute to assess the separate collection schemes in the 28 European Union Member States, focusing on capital cities and on metal, plastic, glass (with packaging as the main source), paper/cardboard and bio-waste. The study includes an assessment of the legal framework for, and the practical implementation of, collection systems in the European Union-28 Member States and an in depth-analysis of systems applied in all capital cities. It covers collection systems that collect one or more of the five waste streams separately from residual waste/mixed municipal waste at source (including strict separation, co-mingled systems, door-to-door, bring-point collection and civic amenity sites). A scoreboard including 13 indicators is elaborated in order to measure the performance of the systems with the capture rates as key indicators to identify best performers. Best performance are by the cities of Ljubljana, Helsinki and Tallinn, leading to the key conclusion that door-to-door collection, at least for paper and bio-waste, and the implementation of pay-as-you-throw schemes results in high capture and thus high recycling rates of packaging and other municipal waste.

European Union-28: An annualised cost-of-illness model for venous thromboembolism.

Annual costs for venous thromboembolism (VTE) have been defined within the United States (US) demonstrating a large opportunity for cost savings. Costs for the European Union-28 (EU-28) have never been defined. A literature search was conducted to evaluate EU-28 cost sources. Median costs were defined for each cost input and costs were inflated to 2014 Euros (€) in the study country and adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity between EU countries. Adjusted costs were used to populate previously published cost-models based on adult incidence-based events. In the base model, annual expenditures for total, hospital-associated, preventable, and indirect costs were €1.5-2.2 billion, €1.0-1.5 billion, €0.5-1.1 billion and €0.2-0.3 billion, respectively (indirect costs: 12 % of expenditures). In the long-term attack rate model, total, hospital-associated, preventable, and indirect costs were €1.8-3.3 billion, €1.2-2.4 billion, €0.6-1.8 billion and €0.2-0.7 billion (indirect costs: 13 % of expenditures). In the multiway sensitivity analysis, annual expenditures for total, hospital-associated, preventable, and indirect costs were €3.0-8.5 billion, €2.2-6.2 billion, €1.1-4.6 billion and €0.5-1.4 billion (indirect costs: 22 % of expenditures). When the value of a premature life-lost increased slightly, aggregate costs rose considerably since these costs are higher than the direct medical costs. When evaluating the models aggregately for costs, the results suggests total, hospital-associated, preventable, and indirect costs ranging from €1.5-13.2 billion, €1.0-9.7 billion, €0.5-7.3 billion and €0.2-6.1 billion, respectively. Our study demonstrates that VTE costs have a large financial impact upon the EU-28's healthcare systems and that significant savings could be realised if better preventive measures are applied.

TESTING SIGMA CONVERGENCE ACROSS EU-28

ABSTRACT. The main goal of this research is to assess the degree of convergence in European Union- 28 (EU-28) during 2000-2012. After a spatial analysis of macroeconomic indicators using maps and graphs that were built in GeoDa, the sigma convergence was tested. For this purpose, variation indicators in the simple and weighted variant for GDP per capita in PPS were utilized, the weights being given by the population weights in each country of the EU-28. The results indicated a decrease in divergence process in 2012 compared to 2000, but there is still not enough evidence for the closeness of an acceptable degree of convergence. However, there is a low degree of divergence in EU-28 compared to EU-27 in 2012 with respect to 2000. In 2012, the EU-28 populations explained better the GDP compared to the number of employed persons.JEL Classification: C18, C88, F2, F15Keywords: convergence, sigma convergence, GDP per capita, standard deviation, variance, coefficient of variation.(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.)IntroductionFor measuring the degree of realization for the convergence process one should assess the levels of different indicators that refer to: variability/homogeneity, polarization, concentration, complementarity, entropy. These indicators might confirm or not different aspects of the convergence process. The most known and applied is the sigma convergence measured by variation indicators.This paper is structured in several parts. After this brief introduction, a short literature review is made, underlying the latest results regarding the convergence assessment. The methodological part consists in the presentation of the statistical indicators used in measuring the variation in GDP/capita. The empirical application supposes the calculation of variation measures for European Union-28. The results put into evidence that during 2000-2012 the convergence criterion was not fulfilled, even if the degree of variability decreased in time. A section dedicated to main conclusions was presented in the end.1. LiteratureAccording to Sala-i-Martin (1996), band s indicators are new tools for measuring the degree of convergence and the speed for getting convergence. s indicator shows the convergence and divergence tendency depending on the value of sample variance. b parameter shows the speed for accomplish the convergence when it has a negative sign. Mankiw, Romer and Weil (1992) and Islam (1995) introduced in the model control variables like saving rate and population growth, showing that the economies with a low initial income tend to grow faster than the economies with higher income. On the other hand, alternative econometric models were developed by Quah (1996) and Durlauf (1996) to show that the transversal growth model is consistent with the multiple mechanisms of endogenous growth and inconsistent with the convergence. The behavior and evolution of convergence-clubs were deeply analyzed. The conventional theory of convergence and the empirical researches hide the convergence-clubs and the polarization of countries in rich in poor. Some economists like Friendman (1992) and Quah (1996) considered the beta indicator as irrelevant for the real convergence process of the economic growth. There are several forms for this tool utilized in econometric analysis: absolute beta convergence, club convergence and conditional beta convergence. The beta and sigma indicators are related and reciprocal checked. The assumption of diminishing yield of the neo-classical theory states that poor economies tend to grow faster than rich ones. This conclusion has the following implications: the coefficient of variation for GDP/capita slowly decreases and there is an inverse relationship between the rate of economic growth for GDP/capita and the initial level of GDP/capita. However, the Sala-i-Martin (1996) suggested that different relationships may occur between these two types of convergence. …

An intertemporal approach to measuring environmental performance with directional distance functions: Greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union

The impact of economic activity on the environment is a matter of growing concern for firm managers, policymakers, researchers and society as a whole. Building on previous work by Kortelainen (2008) [Dynamic environmental performance analysis: A Malmquist index approach. Ecological Economics 64, 701–715], we contribute an approach to assessing intertemporal environmental performance at the level of the management of specific pollutants, as the result of change in eco-efficiency and environmental technical change, which identify catching-up with best available environmental practices and eco-innovation, respectively. In doing so, we use Data Envelopment Analysis techniques, directional distance functions and Luenberger productivity indicators. Our approach is employed to assess environmental performance in the emission of greenhouse gases in the European Union-28 over the period 1990–2011. The main result is that environmental performance has been boosted by environmental technical change rather than by increases in eco-efficiency, although with certain differences among air pollutants. Accordingly, policy measures aimed at enhancing eco-efficiency are recommended to improve environmental performance in European countries regarding greenhouse gas emissions.

Embryo Stem Cells from Parthenotes and Embryos Produced by Nuclear Transfer: The Distinction Between Them and Their Potential Value in Cell Therapy

Cloning and Stem CellsVol. 9, No. 3 EditorialEmbryo Stem Cells from Parthenotes and Embryos Produced by Nuclear Transfer: The Distinction Between Them and Their Potential Value in Cell TherapyIan WilmutIan WilmutSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:1 Oct 2007https://doi.org/10.1089/clo.2007.00E1AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsPermissionsDownload CitationsTrack CitationsAdd to favorites Back To Publication ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail "Embryo Stem Cells from Parthenotes and Embryos Produced by Nuclear Transfer: The Distinction Between Them and Their Potential Value in Cell Therapy." , 9(3), pp. 291–292FiguresReferencesRelatedDetailsCited byRegenerative medicine: could Parkinson's be the first neurodegenerative disease to be cured?Future Science OA, Vol. 5, No. 9Embryonic Stem Cell Patents and Personalized Medicine in the European Union28 October 2016Expression of major histocompatibility complex class I proteins and their antigen processing chaperones in mouse embryonic stem cells from fertilized and parthenogenetic embryosTissue Antigens, Vol. 72, No. 5 Volume 9Issue 3Sep 2007 InformationMary Ann Liebert, Inc.To cite this article:Ian Wilmut.Embryo Stem Cells from Parthenotes and Embryos Produced by Nuclear Transfer: The Distinction Between Them and Their Potential Value in Cell Therapy.Cloning and Stem Cells.Sep 2007.291-292.http://doi.org/10.1089/clo.2007.00E1Published in Volume: 9 Issue 3: October 1, 2007PDF download