Think Tank

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for a resilient healthcare system but also for quick access to inventions and technologies in challenging situations. To address this need, in April 2023 the Commission submitted a proposal for a regulation on compulsory licensing for crisis management. The aim is to secure the rapid deployment of patent-protected inventions in times of crisis or emergency, without eroding patent protection as an incentive to innovate. The proposal lays down rules and procedures ...

Hate speech and hate crime can destroy lives, harm people and property, threaten individual rights, terrify communities, reduce trust between members of society, create and amplify tensions between social groups, disturb public peace and order, and endanger peaceful coexistence. Hate speech distorts public debate and, at its worst, leads to an abuse of rights that endangers the rule of law. Hate speech and hate crime are incompatible with the EU's common values and fundamental rights, as enshrined ...

Competitiveness is a multifaceted concept connected with the need to foster the EU's productivity, the most important driver of long-term growth. While competitiveness has always been an important focus of attention for EU leaders, the past years of multiple crises and an increasingly complex geopolitical situation have brought the topic to the forefront of the political agenda. Turning the EU into a strong and independent global actor supported by a robust economic base, as well as competitive products ...

The European Union (EU) is committed to ensuring its budget delivers maximum value for citizens by focusing on results and performance. In 2018, as part of the shift towards performance-based budgeting, the EU revised the rules applicable to the general budget and introduced the possibility of financing that is not linked to cost (FNLC) in addition to the traditional ways of financing based on incurred costs (Article 125 of EU Regulation 2018/1046). Under this method, payments are based on results ...

Credible ECB monetary policy requires that the revised EU economic governance framework be tightly enforced from its start. Net primary expenditures as key control variable allow predictable monetary policy focused on stabilisation. However, widespread debt reduction pushing spending growth below potential GDP growth may prompt more accommodative ECB policy. Moreover, potentially cumulating changes in public spending-to-GDP ratios need close monitoring. Finally, the criteria for TPI may increase ...