Improving family’s work-life balance in the EU: supplementing social agenda

Views: 43This August, new work-life balance rights are starting to apply in the EU member states; they are supplementing existing maternity leave rights. The new set of rights will make it easier to share responsibilities between parents (as well as for every parent) and care-takers to balance family’s employment activity with leisure and life-enjoinment. 

Digital economy and society: perspective directions in EU integration

Views: 42Modern technological revolution has fundamentally altered traditional ways the national economy and society have been functioning. The European Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) is monitoring the states digital progress in four key areas: human capital, connectivity, digital technology’s integration and digital public services. DESI shows that several EU states still struggle to close […]

European energy security: political-economy’s issues

Views: 49Recent extraordinary energy Council’s meeting finished with a right and urgently needed conclusion on the European energy system showing solidarity among the EU states. However, achieving regional energy security European states need to adapt their policies and take additional measures. The Council meeting’s decisions preserve main ideas of the Commission proposal, which include two-stage […]

Logistics in political economy: old notion in new applications

Views: 166After several decades of successful use in transportation and business management, logistics is slowly entering political economy’s spheres, and most recently in the energy sector. Thus, political economy has acquired a specific “logistics sphere” as part of a general instrumental arsenal in a national development, with long- and short-term tasks in modern sustainable growth […]

Perspective European gas supply: managing policy’s challenges

Views: 52Sufficient energy resources (like numerous fossil fuels, gas and/or oil, etc.) have always been vital for national political economy. As soon as energy serves certain interests in national, regional and political dimensions, the best way in energy policy is energy security. Recent EU’s politico-economic decision to avoid crises connected to logistics’ disruptions in energy […]

Housing taxes in Europe and the world: facing fundamental reforms

Views: 49Taxation issues concerning residential property are among most vital for citizens: housing is the main asset for most households, it plays an important role for the middle class, with owner-occupied housing representing on average 60% of middle-class wealth. Unprecedented growth in house prices over the last three decades has made access to the housing […]

European projects in innovative energy and clean technology

Views: 50Under the third round of awards under the Innovation Fund, the EU invests over €1.8 billion in 17 large-scale innovative clean-tech projects. Grants will help bringing breakthrough technologies to the market in energy-intensive industries, hydrogen, renewable energy, carbon capture and storage infrastructure, as well as in manufacturing key components for energy storage and renewables. […]

Hydrogen energy through innovative technologies: new Commission’s plan

Views: 54For the first time ever, the EU made public a European hydrogen initiative (called IPCEI Hy2Tech) along the Union’s projects of “common European interest”. It is aimed at developing innovative technologies for the hydrogen value chain to decarbonise industrial processes and mobility. In the project’s development and first industrial deployment of breakthrough hydrogen technologies […]

Modernising the EU-wide higher education (part II)

Views: 45The second part deals with the EU-wide cooperative efforts in higher education. Present national education policy is critically vital for perspective national development and sustainable growth. But education sector is almost fully in the hands of national governance, according to the division of competence between the states and the EU institutions. The latter can […]

Modernising European higher education (part I)

Views: 57The EU provides states with both advice and support for high quality and inclusive education. These efforts are aimed at giving students urgently needed knowledge and skills for adequate response to new challenges affected by globalisation and technological change. These challenges are to be incorporated into national education policies in order to tackle the […]