EU Authorities Research Articles

Banking Union's accountability system in practice: A health check‐up to Europe's financial heart

AbstractThe Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) and Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM) form the Banking Union, which comprises EU authorities (ECB and SRB) and national authorities (NCAs and NRAs) with vast powers. Although crucial for its legitimacy, the Banking Union’s accountability is flawed, and not for the (stereo)typical reasons: accountability is a visible concept in SSM and SRM regulations, and political, administrative and judicial bodies are knowledgeable, engaged and thorough. Rather, this article posits that the SSM and SRM work very well because the legislature focused on practical details such as information flows, planning and continuity and coordination, while there has been no comparable effort to ensure the functioning of accountability tools. The result is a “system” characterised by limited access to crucial information, lack of continuity, and uncoordinated functioning. Changing this should not be hard but requires replacing blanket criticism and stereotypical views with greater attention to detail.

United Kingdom: Financial Sector Assessment Program-Financial Stability and Managing Institutional, Technology, and Market Transitions

There has been a very smooth post-Brexit transition, with no material disruption nor any crystalized financial stability risks. This was the result of the U.K. authorities’ (and in some cases the EU authorities) and firms’ extensive preparations. The U.K. authorities have been proactively engaging with the industry, monitored risks, and consistently provided necessary legal certainty in a timely manner. This approach should continue, to the extent that any risks and uncertainties from Brexit remain.

European gas price crisis: Is Gazprom responsible?

Many commentators have blamed Gazprom, Europe’s largest gas supplier, for contributing to the 2021–2 European natural gas price crisis through market manipulation and withholding the necessary gas supply volumes from the European market. Is there any substance to such claims? Is Gazprom really involved in manipulating the European gas market and prompting the record-breaking surge in European natural gas prices? The current article analyses the official figures on Gazprom’s production capabilities, and supply and demand, and offers some insights as to why exactly claims of market manipulation by Gazprom should be taken seriously. It argues that Gazprom did indeed have the ability to ease the pressure on the European gas market in 2021, but did not use it as one would expect of a company acting in good faith. Figures shown in the article lay out a detailed case that the EU authorities should open an investigation into Gazprom’s market manipulation.

Development of an LC-DAD-MS-Based Method for the Analysis of Hydroxyanthracene Derivatives in Food Supplements and Plant Materials.

Products based on plants containing hydroxyanthracene derivatives (HADs)—such as Rheum, Cassia, and Aloe species—are widely used in food supplements or nutraceuticals due to their laxative effects. A more restricted control of HAD contents in food supplements has been implemented by EU Regulation 2021/468, in order to increase the safety of these preparations. Due to their toxicity, aloin A, aloin B, aloe emodin, emodin, and the synthetic derivative danthron have been listed as prohibited substances in food supplements, being tolerated in amounts < 1 mg kg−1 in marketed products. In this work, we report the development of a sensitive and fast LC–DAD–MS-based procedure for the determination of these five compounds in food supplements and plant materials or extracts. The entire procedure includes a simple sample preparation step, where target analytes are concentrated by means of solvent extraction and evaporative concentration (solid samples), or by lyophilisation (liquid samples). The average LOQ of 0.10 mg/L, LOD of 0.03 mg/L, accuracy, and precision with CVs below 12.72 were obtained for the studied analytes. This method is suitable for assessing the compliance of commercial products and raw materials with EU Regulation 2021/468. Furthermore, the proposed method can represent a starting point for the development of a unique and standardised analytical approach for the determination of other HADs under the attention of EU authorities.

Promoting Judicious Antimicrobial Use in Beef Production: The Role of Quarantine.

Simple SummaryThe development of cost-effective strategies that can be easily implemented on-farms is pivotal to promote a more judicious use of antimicrobials and its reduction in livestock industry. Indeed, inappropriate use of antimicrobials is linked to the phenomenon of antimicrobial resistance, a global health concern for both humans and animals. Studies on other food-producing species have confirmed the effectiveness of biosecurity measures on the reduction of antimicrobials, of while little is still known in beef production. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the effect of quarantine as a strategy to reduce medications in beef production. This measure resulted to be a viable strategy to reduce antimicrobials in beef cattle without compromising animal health and performance. The reduction was evident especially with regards to treatments administered for respiratory diseases, indeed the bovine respiratory disease is one of the most detrimental health issues affecting beef cattle. Penicillins was the most used class of antimicrobials, highlighting the need for an urgent decrease of such broad-spectrum medications, known for their contribution to the development of resistance. Although implementing new strategies on-farm can be costly for farmers, the reduction of antimicrobials on the long term and the support from EU authority may help to overcome some initial disadvantage.Judicious antimicrobial stewardship in livestock industry is needed to reduce the use of antimicrobials (AMU) and the associated risk of antimicrobial resistance. Biosecurity measures are acknowledged for their role against the spread of diseases and the importance in reducing AMU in different species. However, their effectiveness in beef production has been scarcely considered. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the quarantine strategy on AMU in beef cattle. A total of 1206 Charolaise animals in five farms were included in the trial. Roughly half of the animals followed the standard procedure of the fattening cycle (no-quarantine; NO-QUA group) and half followed a 30-day period of quarantine (QUA group) since their arrival. Performance and antimicrobial data were recorded and a treatment incidence 100 (TI100it) per animal was calculated. Penicillins was the most used class of antimicrobials. Differences between groups were significant for males only, with NO-QUA group having greater TI100it (3.76 vs. 3.24; p < 0.05) and lower body weight at slaughter (713.4 vs. 723.7 kg; p < 0.05) than QUA group. Results suggest that quarantine strategy can reduce AMU in males without compromising their performance, whereas further investigation is needed for females.

New Forms of Sustainability in the Context of Agricultural Development

The aim of the paper is to present challenges and general trends of agricultural development, as well as new concepts and forms of sustainable development linked with agriculture. As part of the concept of sustainable development, which has been widely recognized as a development paradigm, in recent years we have seen the emergence of more than a dozen new proposals which modify or complement mainstream of sustainable development. These concepts also apply to agriculture and rural areas. Based on an analysis of the literature, this paper presents selected concepts: the green economy, smart specializations, smart villages, the circular economy, responsible consumption and production, and the participatory economy. The role of international integration and EU authorities in disseminating these concepts as forms of innovation in the economic systems of the Member States of the European Union has been identified. The discussion is done from the point of agricultural development in Poland.

Tax Compliance in the Era of Cryptocurrencies and CBDCs: The End of the Right to Privacy or No Reason for Concern?

The new European regulatory framework for crypto-assets contains strict reporting requirements for EU-based crypto service providers, which will give tax authorities and law enforcement agencies better insights into a significant segment of the cryptoasset space. The article first outlines how this will inevitably lead to the creation of a parallel crypto-asset market focused on offline wallets and peer-to-peer services outside the supervision of EU and national tax authorities. The article then highlights the important role that the so-called Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) will play in this environment. The differences between CBDCs and crypto-assets are examined from a tax assessment perspective in order to show that true anonymity is considerably less of an issue with (price stable) CBDCs than with (volatile) crypto-assets. The authors argue that a truly anonymous digital euro wallet for small transactions on the consumer side could not only allow the effective monitoring of businesses, but would actually increase tax compliance. If consumers have access to an anonymous cash-equivalent digital means of payment, they will be less likely to use cash or virtual currency. This in turn will cause a significant increase in available transaction data, while simultaneously granting a much better protection of taxpayers’ rights to privacy in the EU. cryptocurrency, crypto-asset, AML, taxation, CBDC, digital euro, privacy, taxpayer rights, tax assessment, wallet, reporting standards

Особливості застосування нормативної сили ЄС для утвердження кліматичних цінностей в Україні

Intensifying EU authorities’ efforts to overcome the climate crisis, as well as the desire of EU member states to mobilize its neighbours and partners to join them on a green transformation path, once again reaffirms the intention of EU to realize itself as a global promoter of environmental values. Of particular interest is the question of whether the EU could achieve climate neutrality in both Europe and other parts of the world through intensifying its normative power. Taking into account all of the above considerations, the main aim of this article was to determine the peculiarities of the EU’s normative power use in order to establish climate-oriented values in Ukraine by examining three core elements of the normative power concept developed by I. Manners, Professor at Lund University: principles, actions and impact. To achieve this goal, it was essential to consider the key principles of EU environmental policy in the field of climate change, to describe the mechanisms through which the EU promotes them in Ukraine, as well as to determine whether the desired result has been achieved in Ukraine due to EU’s green normative power.

Сепаратизм как угроза безопасности ЕС (На примере Каталонии)

The Catalan crisis raises deep concerns about the very nature of European democracy. This is no longer an internal affair of Spain – rather a European and global crisis. Brussels, having declared that the Catalan problem is an internal affair of Spain, cannot completely abstract from it, both for economic and political reasons. It is quite obvious that the Spanish political elite failed to come up with an attractive alternative for Catalonia, or even a basis for a positive dialogue. By decisively taking the side of Madrid after the unilateral declaration of independence, the European Union has caused great disappointment among the Catalan nationalists. The EU is “tired” of crises and seeks to avoid involvement where possible, and it also lacks political or legal tools to resolve separatist-related problems. The European Union turned out to be unprepared for the Catalan crisis politically and intellectually. An extensive network of the EU authorities in the field of crisis management has shown its ineffectiveness. The example of Catalonia clearly demonstrates that the issue of separatism in general poses a serious threat to the European Union and the future of European integration. This threat is twofold. The rise of separatism in Catalonia led to a deep constitutional and political crisis in Spain itself, superimposed on economic problems, especially aggravated during the pandemic. The fourth EU economy is faced with an acute problem of maintaining territorial integrity. The Catalan crisis demonstrated the inability of Brussels to resolve this kind of conflict with mechanisms at its disposal. New mechanisms are needed that can ensure an optimal balance between supranational, state and local government institutions. The events in Catalonia have clearly demonstrated that separatist movements can pose no less a threat to integration as such recognized challenges as terrorism, migration, climate change and cybersecurity. Crises emerging within the European Union have become a serious obstacle to further integration; consequently, the focus of the EU’s anti-crisis policy is gradually shifting from external problems to internal ones.

Ban on Distributing Certain Unit Linked Life Insurance Contracts as the Supervisory Product Intervention of the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (PFSA)

The article aims at discussing practical aspects of a legal regulation providing the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) and national supervisory authorities with the power to apply supervisory product intervention measures, particularly for insurance investment products. In addition to presenting the essence of product decisions, the author outlines the legal basis for product intervention powers of both the EU and national supervisory authorities related to unit linked life insurance contracts. Moreover, the article analyses the reasons and contents of the product decision issued by the Polish Financial Supervision Authority regarding the ban on distributing certain unit linked life insurance contracts, with the ban being effective from January 1, 2022.

Blockchain jako niestandardowa odpowiedź na ograniczenia prawa stanowionego w środowisku social mediów

Nowadays, most people use the Internet and social media. However, the Internet is a space in which there are various types of violations that are difficult to counteract with the use of legal institutions and tools, which are often not compatible with the fast-developing environment. The COVID-19 pandemic, which forced people to rearrange their lives in all fields and often move a significant part of their activities to the network, intensified negative phenomena including spreading false and socially harmful information. This article is an original reflection on the effectiveness of Polish legislation against the backdrop of the current activities of European Union bodies aimed at increasing the security of Internet users on the example of counteracting the dissemination of misinformation. In the author’s opinion, both national and EU authorities do not seem to be interested in searching for alternatives based on technological solutions that could foster prevention of such infringements on the Internet, but rather focus on improving conventional protection models, whose effectiveness seems to be questionable. The article aims to start an interdisciplinary debate on the possibility to reduce the number of negative phenomena in the social media environment using blockchain technology, including the discussion on the possibility of developing appropriate regulations in this regard.

Dead in the water? Sustainability and direct seafood sales in Sweden

Swedish and EU authorities, scholars, and activists have articulated sustainability visions and goals related to direct sales of fish and seafood, small-scale fisheries, and coastal communities. Research that investigates whether and how direct seafood sales by European or Swedish coastal fishers achieve such sustainable futures is however only beginning to emerge. In this study we use the theoretical framework of sustainable materialism to analyse qualitative data from eight Swedish operations that market fish and seafood directly to consumers. Our findings reveal that fishers who sell directly confront social and economic challenges and operate at a small scale, which calls into question claims made in policy documents, reports, and the media about the relationship between direct sales and sustainable development. At the same time, the operations realise sustainability visions promoted by the global alternative food movement: they strengthen non-fishers' support for small-scale producers, transmit knowledge and concern about fish and marine environments, and facilitate some consumption outside the corporate-industrial food system. For the practice to contribute meaningfully to supporting small-scale fisheries, coastal communities and sustainable consumption, we argue, direct seafood sales must be repositioned in thicker social and institutional arrangements that can spread laterally and be networked.

On the Legal Consequences of Brexit (on the example of personal data protection)

The article explores the legal consequences of the UK's withdrawal from the European Union. The scope of personal data protection was taken as an example. The purpose of the article is to study and analyze the legal aspects of the termination of the UK's membership in the European Union, its impact on the cross-border transfer of personal data between the parties, as well as the development of legal regulation in this area. The article shows that, despite the signing of the Withdrawal Agreement, as well as the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, there is a complication of legal regulation, as well as the emergence of potential contradictions and threats to the interests of interested parties. The sphere of personal data protection clearly demonstrates that despite the desire for the sovereignization of legal regulation on the part of the UK, its legal system remains dependent on the legal order of the European Union. The UK's national regulation on personal data will be under constant monitoring by the competent EU authorities, which indirectly confirms the failure to achieve the goals of the full return of the UK's delegated sovereign powers. It is concluded that the EU Court of Justice still retains its jurisdiction over the United Kingdom, in particular, in connection with possibility to challenge decisions on adequacy, as well as through the adoption of its own practice on issues related to personal data protection.

Certification of Unmanned Aircraft Systems – from product safety to type certificate – a review about the operation of the EU safeguard processes

Significant changes are emerging in the market of unmanned aircraft systems since 2019 through the publication of two specific regulations that regulate all steps of the use of unmanned aerial vehicles in detail. With the implementation of the new EU drone regulations, the role of the notified bodies and the certification agencies will be more important from the viewpoint of product safety and the official certification required by the EU and national aviation authorities. The product safety chain consists of two major parts. One part belongs to the production phase, where the manufacturer has to prove the functionality (it is called the conformity assessment) and another part belongs to the distribution market, where the authorities assess the fulfilment of the conditions of the distribution (it is called the market surveillance). The first pillar concern to the design and manufacturing and the second to the distribution. Each segment is presented in this article and the authors introduce the different control approaches of these segments. It has to be taken into consideration that the drones are representing a special market with notable safety risks that have to be handled during the whole lifepath of the products from the design through the distribution until the aerial operations.

Failing forward? Crises and patterns of European integration

However, the concern that a recurrent pattern of integration through crisis may be self-undermining in the long term remains, and has been brought to the fore once again by the public reaction to the EU's initial stumbles in mounting a coordinated response to the coronavirus crisis and a widespread decline in trust in the European Court of Justice in the aftermath of elevated migration and expansive rulings on EU citizenship. She demonstrates that the incompleteness of EU citizenship rights generated policy failures, which in turn triggered litigation and provided European courts the opportunity to push the meaning of EU citizenship forward - all in keeping with the failing forward framework. At the other end of the continuum, in areas where the EU has very little or no competence such as defense and security or neighborhood policy, while supranational actors may seek to leverage the crisis to press for a greater EU role, they may not be in the position to exercise much leverage over national decision-makers. Apart from areas like trade and competition, where EU authority is very extensive, and areas like defense and foreign policy, where it is minimal, most other policy domains the EU is engaged with - from Economic and Monetary Union, to most regulatory policies - fall into the middle of the spectrum where policy competences are shared between the EU and the Member States. [Extracted from the article] Copyright of Journal of European Public Policy is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The European Union landing obligation: The compliance problems derived from its multilevel approach

Unwanted catches and discards have contributed to undermining the sustainability of fish stocks. The European Union’s most important step to reduce discards was the implementation of a landing obligation for all its commercial fisheries. However, evaluations by EU authorities and scientists alert of general lack of compliance with this landing obligation. This article inquiries on the factors of institutional nature that could have contributed to this outcome. We identify three important institutional factors related to the EU multilevel governance approach that, through diverse mechanisms, contribute to the landing obligation’s generalized non-compliance: (a) the centralized, top-down governance approach, (b) the influence of special interests and (c) the decentralized enforcement.

Supranational Assessment of the Quality of Probiotics: Collaborative Initiative between Independent Accredited Testing Laboratories.

Recent acquisitions about the role of the microbiota in the functioning of the human body make it possible to envisage an increasing use of beneficial microbes, and more particularly of probiotics as well as their metabolites, as nutritional supplements. National and EU authorities are engaged in assuring the safety and quality of food supplements and in defining rules to assess and communicate their efficacy on human health. The quality of probiotics, intended as strains’ identification, viability, and stability over time, is a crucial factor of credibility with consumers and health professionals. Analytical technologies for the quality control of probiotics must also be adapted to new preparations, such as those including new multistrains complex combinations. Accredited laboratories face this relevant challenge on a daily basis. Through its close collaboration with the laboratory commissioned to produce the specifications for its ESLP quality label (identification and quantitative analyses) together with its scientific committee, the ESLP has been focusing on this issue for 10 years. Recently, as part of the internationalization of the ESLP quality label, a new and unique initiative in Europe for the evaluation of the quality of probiotic preparations has been carried out. The collaboration between two accredited laboratories in Belgium and in Italy represented a concrete example of supranational collaboration in the assessment of the quality of probiotic preparations. Results show that both laboratories are in line as expected in terms of performance. Common approaches to the qualitative assessment of probiotic preparations, especially for complex and composite recipes, in terms of number of strains and included substances, should be encouraged and promoted all over the EU.

Multilevel cooperation in the EU resolution of cross-border bank groups: lessons from the non-euro area Member States joining the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM)

Cross-border banking presents a unique set of challenges in the EU from the perspective of arranging administrative oversight structures. Structuring cooperation between different EU and national authorities in a way which is conducive to trust-building and mutual engagement is an essential condition for overcoming disintegrative tendencies in the internal market. To assess how the existing EU arrangements fare in this regard in the context of EU resolution law, this article comparatively analyses the different models of multilevel administrative cooperation in the post-crisis EU framework. These are specifically the centralised model of the European Banking Union (Single Resolution Mechanism) and the relatively looser networked model of the resolution colleges. The multilevel cooperation under both models is nuanced given the distinct roles of the national resolution authorities, EU agencies and the differentiated status of non-euro area Member States in the EBU (Croatia, Bulgaria). The article’s findings allow to identify specific problems of constitutional nature pertaining to the accountability of administrative cooperation, equality of Member States and the implications of Meroni doctrine’s distortive effects.

Quantum technologies in space

Recently, the European Commission supported by many European countries has announced large investments towards the commercialization of quantum technology (QT) to address and mitigate some of the biggest challenges facing today’s digital era – e.g. secure communication and computing power. For more than two decades the QT community has been working on the development of QTs, which promise landmark breakthroughs leading to commercialization in various areas. The ambitious goals of the QT community and expectations of EU authorities cannot be met solely by individual initiatives of single countries, and therefore, require a combined European effort of large and unprecedented dimensions comparable only to the Galileo or Copernicus programs. Strong international competition calls for a coordinated European effort towards the development of QT in and for space, including research and development of technology in the areas of communication and sensing. Here, we aim at summarizing the state of the art in the development of quantum technologies which have an impact in the field of space applications. Our goal is to outline a complete framework for the design, development, implementation, and exploitation of quantum technology in space.

The role of secondary use of building materials in the circular economy

The article considers the role of secondary use of building materials in the circular economy. The paper considers the method of cascading use of wood, used in the practice of European specialists, which allows to increase the period of use of building materials. The author concludes that nowadays the problems of resource shortage and rapid climate change are encouraging society to move towards more sustainable solutions for the construction sector. Wood, as a widely available and naturally grown material, is of particular importance for achieving the environmental goals set by the EU and national authorities. The use of wood in construction has increased in recent decades. However, the use of a secondary method of wood processing in the circular economy is rarely used in practice, although the economic effect of this process is quite high.