Events

China’s leaders have acknowledged the need to move away from an investment-led model of economic growth that looks increasingly exhausted. But to get China’s economy to grow by greater contributions from innovation and domestic consumption will not happen without significant economic reforms. What is the state of the reform agenda – and have leaders of the party, currently meeting in Beijing for the Third Plenum, now raised expectations for economic reforms? And as China’s strategy to build a high-technology and innovation-based economy continues to be a source of awe in many parts of the world, is not the real story that the strong role of state-owned enterprises and industrial policy in the Chinese economy are making it difficult for China to climb the value-added chain?

The European Union is in the process of revising its trade defence policy. A proposal from the European Commission is now working its way through the European Parliament while several Member States have expressed dissatisfaction with the proposal. The package of reforms suggest a couple of discreet reforms in technical aspects of trade defence policy, but they may have a strong impact on policy and business that are – in one way or the other – affected by trade defence actions. Will these reforms improve Europe’s trade defence policy?

The European Union is about to reform its biofuels policy. A proposal from the Commission is now addressed in the European Parliament, which will have its first plenary vote in September. What direction should the EU take when it is reforming its biofuels policy: should conventional biofuels be encouraged or discouraged? Could a concept like ILUC be established without creating perpetual problems of accuracy and fairness in the way ILUC emissions are estimated and used? And will the new proposals make EU policy more consistent with rules of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) – or will policy have to be changed after dispute(s) in the WTO?

A little more than a year ago, the Argentinean government introduced the bill to expropriate the controlling stake in energy firm YPF, which was owned by European firm Repsol. This expropriation is now subject to an investment-dispute settlement – plus a dispute with a U.S. company that has acquired parts of the expropriated assets – and it raises some general concerns about the political development of Argentina as well as EU’s trade and investment relations with Argentina. The legal structure for addressing investor-state dispute settlements leaves much to be desired. While the EU is about to establish a new policy for Bilateral Investment Treaties – and effectively negotiate such treaties in some current trade negotiations – the institutional arrangements for legal procedures and for collecting rewards are weak, especially if the loosing defendant is a government with little interest in complying with rulings against it.

The Centre and ECIPE, Europe's leading think-tank on international economy, are organising a roundtable entitled “Promoting broadband investment and sustaining competition – can both go hand in hand?” on forthcoming 5 June.

Will China, as some observers claim, rule the world in the 21st century? Is it inevitable that China will become a global economic leader? And will China carve out a corresponding role in security and military policy – even be on par with the United States?

Few companies have been able to exercise such an influence in foreign countries like Gazprom’s, Russia’s state-owned energy firm. But Gazprom’s standing in the European energy market is about to change profoundly. It can no longer control prices as it did in the past. The shale gas revolution and antitrust cases against Gazprom will force it to not only to reduce its prices but also change its coveted structure of long-term contracts. Gazprom has recently abandoned some its larger projects and new energy market competition will continue to erode its revenues.

The public healthcare sectors around Europe are under pressure to cut expenditures. At the same time, there has been an increase in the prevalence of overweight and obesity in the last decades. As one of the main risk factor behind chronic and non-communicable diseases such as type-2 diabetes and cardio-vascular diseases, the scenario of an ageing population affected by obesity is likely to increase the cost pressure on the healthcare systems.

A busy trade agenda lies ahead for the United States. After years of relative inactivity in the trade field, the U.S. is now seeking to anticipate events while engaging on several fronts. The on-going negotiations on a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with South-east Asian and Latin American countries illustrate the so-called Asian pivot in current U.S. trade politics. At the same time, President Obama is also reaching out to Europe. Together, the U.S. and the EU are embarking on a major trade policy initiative as the launch of negotiations on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Agreement is likely to be imminent.

Is the entire world of central banks (but the European Central Bank) going off the rails – or are they deliberately moving in the direction of market monetarism: central banks that use other instruments than the interest rate to support demand and economic recovery by targeting the nominal gross domestic product?