ECIPE & World Bank Seminar: Who stands to gain from services regulations in the EU?

The free movement of services is an important factor in the European economy. In the EU, services account for three quarters of GDP and two third of employment. Moreover, most EU member states that experienced above-average economic growth in recent years relied significantly on services.

Yet, even though services are an important engine for growth, there are still many barriers to exchange of services in the EU that call for further regulatory reform.

The World Bank’s latest EU Regular Economic Report (RER) focuses on the role of services in the EU and concludes that services can come to the rescue: regulatory reform in services can increase the EU growth to a significantly extent. However, what kind of regulatory barriers need to be tackled to reach this growth? And which countries are stand to gain most from regulatory reform in services?

The European Center for International Political Economy (ECIPE) together with the World Bank cordially invites you to a seminar to discuss these questions. During the seminar, a panel will present and discuss the results of the World Bank’s EU RER and will also debate about these regulatory services reforms in a wider political economy context.