Marco Fantini

European Commission | ec

We assess a country's influence on decision-making in the Council not merely on the basis of the number of its votes, but based on a novel measure that also takes into account the voting behaviour of other countries. A country that is likely to receive support from other countries will be more influential than a country with more votes, but which t...

The European Union started its life with the Treaty of Paris as a rather specialized Coal and Steel Community with only narrow authority over only these two key sectors. In subsequent Treaties, the European Union has expanded the range of activities dramatically, and nowadays its policies do not only cover economic activities. For some issue areas,...

Russia's Communist experience resulted not only in political, but also in economic isolation from the West. Trade and financial transactions with the non-Communist world were not ruled out per se - indeed the Soviet authorities carefully nurtured a reputation for being reliable debtors and were not averse to tapping foreign financial markets when n...

The article discusses the incentives, economic effects and risks of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). The ENP should support growth provided that integration with the EU internal market is concrete and wide-ranging. It should not endanger macro stability but involves two specific risks: over-regulation and fragmentation of the internal marke...

On 18 November 2002, the Russian cabinet approved a plan to introduce deposit insurance. the introduction of deposit insurance is an essential condition for the modernisation of Russia's banking sector and, in particular, for ending the near-monopoly of Sberbank, the State Savings Bank, in the retail segment. in this note, we compare the main featu...