As part of the European Union’s commitment to deliver greater access to finance for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), EU policy-makers will have to deal with a fragmented market landscape and responses by individual member states to address failures. On the basis of some early...

This paper maps the initiatives to support access to finance for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that were available at national level in 2012 in the five biggest European economies (Germany, France, the UK, Italy and Spain). This mapping distinguishes initiatives promoted and...

This report reviews the various ways in which the Member States of the European Union handle the collection of revenues for the EU budget, as well as the classification and treatment of EU expenditures. The study finds a substantial diversity in these practices among the Member States and calls...

In May 2013, the European Commission received a mandate from the European Council to “to present an analysis of the composition and drivers of energy prices and costs in Member States, with a particular focus on the impact on households, SMEs and energy intensive industries, and looking more...

The targeted increase of renewable energy sources in the European energy mix to 20% by 2020, and the goal of an 80-95% CO2 emissions reduction by 2050, will require changes to and extensions of the electricity grid. The integration of increasing shares of fluctuating renewable electricity,...

The background to this study is the establishment of the Single Payment Scheme (SPS), providing decoupled support to farmers, which was the central element of the 2003 CAP reform. The Member States of the EU-15 had to implement the SPS at the latest by 2007. The Member States had some...