Across the EU, services are the cornerstone of the modern economy, accounting for over 70% of national GDPs and over 90% of new jobs created. Fostering trade in services has, accordingly, become central to the EU's vision for developing the internal market. Yet regulating services and their international trade is notoriously complex, and controversial. For years the EU's efforts were limited to sector-specific regulation in key areas, until the adoption of the general Services Directive in 2006. Since then, confronted by the limited success of traditional legal intervention, the EU's attentions have shifted to alternative forms of regulation. This book looks back on the historical development of services law, discusses the nature of impediments to trade in services in the EU, and explains the basic rules and principles applicable to such trade. It also examines the recent development of alternative regulatory methods, such as networking, the use of common standards, private regulation, self-regulation, open methods of coordination, and administrative cooperation. Taking a broad perspective and placing services regulation within its economic context, the author offers a thorough evaluation of current regulatory methods alongside the alternative methods which could be deployed. The book is the first to provide an overview of the regulation of services in the EU.

"The new book Mapping Ecosystem Services provides a comprehensive collection of theories, methods and practical applications of ecosystem services (ES) mapping, for the first time bringing together valuable knowledge and techniques from leading international experts in the field." (www.eurekalert.org).

This volume assesses the viability of various theories of economic integration that take into account the legal, economic, political and social challenges of incorporating free trade with retaining the plurality of social welfare standards and consumer protection. Chapters cover the governance of trade in services at the European and global level; studies on the recent Services Directive and how this interacts with the principle of managed mutual recognition and harmonization in different sectors of trade in services (social services, financial services); the recent case law of the European Courts on the enforcement of the principle of free movement of services and how this accommodates various national public interest concerns; and the interaction of the freedom to provide services with fundamental rights, including social rights. The operation of the principle of managed mutual recognition in other economic integration regimes, in particular in the context of the WTO, is also discussed.

This book critically assesses how the rise of the collaborative economy in the European Union Digital Single Market is disrupting consolidated legal acquisitions, such as classical internal market categories, as well as the applicability of consumer protection, data protection, and labour and competition law. It argues that the collaborative economy will, sooner or later, require some sort of regulatory intervention from the European Union. This regulatory intervention, far from stifling innovation, will benefit online platforms, service providers and users by providing them with a clearer and more predictable environment in which to conduct their business. Although primarily intended for academics, this book also appeals to a wider readership, including, but not limited to, national and international regulators, private firms and lobbies as well as online platforms, consumer associations and trade unions.

Laws and regulations affect the daily lives of businesses and citizens. High-quality laws promote national welfare and growth, while badly designed laws hinder growth, harm the environment and put the health of citizens at risk. This report analyses practices to improve the quality of laws ...

Regulating Europe explains why economic and social regulation is rapidly becoming the new frontier of public policy and public administration in Europe, both at the national and EU levels. Statutory regulation, implemented by independent regulatory bodies, is replacing not only older forms of state intervention but also, to some extent, the redistributive policies of the welfare state. Thus Regulating Europe is an examiniation of the emergence of the regulatory state as the successor of the Keynesian welfare state of the past. Contributions emphasize the parallelism of policy developments at the national and European levels. Part one provides the necessary theoretical background, including a new model of demand and supply of Community regulation. The second part presents a series of case studies of particular regulatory policies and institutions in the UK, Germany, France, Spain and the EU. Part three evaluates current policy and institutional developments, pointing out how the lack of a tradition of statutory regulation in Europe affects the design of the new institutions. Special attention is devoted to the issue of the democratic accountability of expert, politically independent agencies - a problem which, contrary to widespread opinion, is as severe at the national level as it is in Brussels. It is suggested that the requirements of democratic accountability, and of subsidiarity, cannot be met by re-nationalizing European policies, much less by increasing the current level of centralization. A more promising solution is the development of regulatory networks closely integrating national and supranational regulators.