Managerial Aspects of European and Global Integration

Degree of economic integration from high to low:

1. Political Union
2. Monetary Union
3. Economic Union
4. Common Market
5. Customs Union
6. Free Trade Area
7. Starting point: Separate countries with trade barriers in between

• FTA
  • EFTA
  • NAFTA
  • ASEAN-FTA
• customs unions
  • Andean Community
  • MERCOSUR
  • Southern African Customs Union
• common markets
  • EU
  • EEA
  • Gulf Cooperation Council
  • ASEAN Economic Community

EFTA FTAs...

• ... establish a free trade area between the partner countries
• ... liberalise trade in services, investments and/or public procurement
• ... provide for the protection of intellectual property rights
• ... include rules on competition
• ... contain provisions for the avoidance and the settlement of disputes
• ... are regularly reviewed & upgraded

1. to propose legislation to the Parliament and the Council
2. to manage and implement EU policies and the budget
3. to enforce EU law (jointly with the Court of Justice)
4. to represent the EU on the international stage, for example by negotiating agreements between the EU & other countries
5. to set objectives and priorities for action (outlined in the Commission Work Programme)

1. to pass EU laws - jointly with the EP in many policy areas
2. to coordinate the broad economic and social policies of the member states
3. to conclude international agreements between the EU and other countries or international organisations
4. to approve the EU's budget, jointly with the EP
5. to define & implement the EU's common foreign and security policy (CFSP) based on guidelines set by the European Council
6. to coordinate cooperation between the national courts and police forces in criminal matters

1. to pass EU laws - jointly with the Council in many policy areas (the direct election of Parliament members by the EU citizens guarantees the democratic legitimacy of EU law)
2. EP exercises democratic supervision over the other EU institutions, in particular the European Commission.
   The EP can approve or reject the nomination of commissioners and has the right to require the Commission as a whole to step down.
3. The power of the purse. EP shares with the Council authority over the EU budget and can therefore influence EU spending. It adopts or rejects the budget in its entirety.

Negotiations started 1994, signed 1999, entered into force in June 2002

• free movement of people
• trade in agricultural products
• public procurement
• conformity assessments
• air transport
• transport by road & rail
• Swiss participation in the Framework Programme for Research
• agreements linked with a termination clause ("guillotine clause"): they come into force together and will also come to an end together if any one of them is terminated by any one side

2004

• association of CH to Schengen aquis
• Dublin Convention
• European Environment Agency
• Media Programme
• statistical cooperation
• Swiss contribution to combat tax fraud
• taxation of savings
• measures to avoid doouble taxation of EU civil servants

country-level = political / company-level = e.g. bankruptcy of customer

1. market risk ("non-financial")
2. transport risk
3. credit risk
4. risk of delivery/acceptance
5. price risk
6. currency exchange risk

• market risk -->                        information (Chamber of Commerce)
• transport risk -->                    transport insurance / incoterms
• credit risk -->                          terms of payment, factoring, export risk insurance
• price risk -->                           price adjustment clauses
• currency exchange risk --> currency risk management