Single Market Strategy Research Articles

Regional Integration as a Factor of Boosting Social and Economic Development: EU Case Study

The paper analyzes the management experience of regional integration within the EU to ensure its social and economic development as well as transition to the digital economy. The subject of research is to assess the possibilities of regional integration as a tool for solving problems that cannot be resolved by the efforts of individual countries. The purpose of research was to analyze the EU economic policy measures aiming at enhanced social and economic development of the region and the transition to the digital economy in the period after the adoption of Junker’s plan and the single market strategy and, based on the above, determine the system principles of these policies and evaluate the effectiveness of the carried out activities in terms of whether the results obtained can be used for members of other regional spaces. It is concluded that the principles used in the EU for designing tools ensuring social and economic development and the transition to the digital economy in another region proved to be effective and the means of integration based on similar principles can be used to improve the efficiency of managing the socio-economic development of national economies of non-EU countries and promote their digitization.

Sharing killed the AVMSD star: the impossibility of European audiovisual media regulation in the era of the sharing economy

The paper focuses on the challenges that the ‘sharing economy’ presents to the updating of the European Union’s (EU) Audiovisual Media Service Directive (AVMSD), part of the broader Digital Single Market (DSM) strategy of the EU. It suggests that the convergence of media markets and the emergence of video-sharing platforms may make the existing regulative tradition obsolete. It demonstrates an emergent need for regulatory convergence – AVMSD to create equal terms for all technical forms of content distribution. It then shows how the operational logic of video-sharing platforms undermines the AVMSD logic aimed at creating demand for professionally produced European content – leading potentially to the liberalisation of the EU audiovisual services market. Lastly, it argues that the DSM strategy combined with sharing-related network effects may facilitate the evolution of the oligopolistic structure in the EU audiovisual market, potentially harmful for cultural diversity.

Are EU policy-makers fighting the right copyright battles?

Debate is currently being undertaken at the level of EU institutions as to whether the existing legislative framework in the area of copyright should be updated. In May 2015 the EU Commission issued its Digital Single Market (DSM) Strategy. As far as copyright is concerned, despite earlier statements by Commissioners Ansip (from @Ansip: “We are reforming & modernising #copyright rules to get rid of pointless barriers on transfer & access to digital content” (23 February 2015); “#copyright rules fit for digital age? I don’t think so” (19 March 2015)) and Oettinger (from @GOettingerEU: “Modern #copyright rules . . . are the key goals for 2015” (6 January 2015)), the DSM Strategy does not contain much. Policy action is in fact only likely to occur in relation to three issues: (1) (lack of) cross-border access to content and its portability; (2) text and data mining for non-commercial and commercial purposes alike; and (3) discussion around civil enforcement and the role of ISPs. In addition to the very narrow focus of proposed interventions, the DSM Strategy does not clarify what legal instruments (if any) would be adopted to undertake reform in the proposed areas. In parallel to initiatives on the side of the Commission, the European Parliament has also engaged in the copyright reform debate. Pirate Party member and MEP Julia Reda was tasked with drafting a Report on the implementation of Directive 2001/29 (‘the InfoSoc Directive’). The original version contained a number of ambitious proposals to reform EU copyright. Following its publication in early 2015, numerous amendments were however presented, so that the text approved by the Legal Committee of the European Parliament in mid-2015 represents a significantly watered-down version of the original Report. Among the things that have generated a heated debate is the so-called freedom of panorama. Article 5(3)(h) of the InfoSoc Directive allows Member States to introduce into their own national copyright laws an exception or limitation to copyright exclusive rights to allow “use of works, such as works of architecture or sculpture, made to be located permanently in public places”. Due to the optional (with the sole exclusion of the temporary copies exemption) nature of exceptions and limitations in Article 5 of the Directive, there is a number of Member States, eg France and Italy, that have decided not to transpose Article 5(3)(h) into their own copyright laws. In the Report as originally enacted, among other things Ms Reda recommended that freedom of panorama be made mandatory (rather than merely optional) for Member States to implement into their own legal regimes. The amended version of the Report (as approved by the Legal Committee) includes a recommendation that “the commercial use of photographs, video footage or other images of works which are permanently located in physical public places should always be subject to prior authorisation from the authors or any proxy acting for them”. To translate the latter proposal to reality it would be necessary to amend the InfoSoc Directive. However, at the moment re-opening the InfoSoc Directive does not seem to feature high in the agenda of the Commission (although it is unclear how text and data mining for commercial and noncommercial purposes alike would be achieved). In any case, besides legal technicalities the current approach to (a lack of) freedom of panorama has generated (outraged) headlines. These have ranged from ‘How the absurd EU copyright law threatens to censor holiday snaps’ of The Times (24 June 2015) to ‘Why the EU wants to stop you posting your vacation photos online’ of Forbes (25 June 2015), and ‘Freedom of panorama: EU proposal could mean holiday snaps breach copyright’ of The Telegraph (25 June 2015). Such reactions suggest a complete lack of support on the side of public opinion. Thus the question that arises is whether relevant EU policy-makers have chosen the right battle to fight: is it so vital to restrict freedom of panorama at the EU level? Paucity of case law even in those Member States that do not acknowledge freedom of panorama may suggest that this is not really an issue about which relevant rightholders are so passionate that they cannot stand the idea of not suing alleged infringers. All in all, the main message that is being conveyed and perceived by the general public is that copyright imposes unreasonable restrictions and is, ultimately, a ridiculous set of norms. Is this good for creators, copyright owners, and users of copyright-protected works alike? Not really.

Recovery Targets and Taxation/Subsidy Policies to Promote Product Reuse

This paper seeks to identify the optimal policies for promoting product recovery and remanufacturing. Using a stylized equilibrium model, we analyze the problem as a Stackelberg game between a regulator and a monopolistic firm. We compare three types of policies that legislated regulation could effect: (i) A recovery target policy that requires firms to recover no less than a specified fraction of their production for proper disposal or possible remanufacturing; (ii) a taxation policy that both taxes manufacturing and subsidizes remanufacturing; and (iii) a newly introduced mixed approach that incorporates a recovery target as well as taxes and subsidies. We study a firm's behavior under the three policy types, including pricing decisions for new and remanufactured products as well as the strategic decision of whether to create a secondary channel for remanufactured products. We find that legislative intervention makes it more likely that firms will maintain a single-market strategy. We further demonstrate the mixed approach's superiority as measured by a comprehensive set of economic and environmental criteria, and show that this finding is robust under two different objective functions for the policy maker, one that does and one that does not entail a budget neutrality constraint.

Neoliberalism in the European Union

Christoph Hermann’s article “Neoliberalism in the European Union” seeks to dispel the view held by many on the Left in North America and the European Union itself that Europe harbours a socially more progressive state. Whether it is the Single Market Strategy, European competition policy, or European Economic and Monetary Integration and the European Employment Strategy, policy changes in the EU follow the neoliberal blueprint closely. As is the case in other areas where the neoliberal agenda has been adopted, the consequences are mass unemployment and the redistribution of income and wealth away from labour.