Competitiveness of the European Union: Pre-crisis Trends and Impact of the Financial Crisis
Main Article Content
Abstract
This paper has the aim to point out the risks of reducing the EU competitiveness by analyzing the indicators of price and cost competitiveness, as well as the structural and technological aspects of competitiveness. The influence of the world crisis on the competitiveness and export performances of the EU is in the focus in order to show at what extent the global downturn may have aggravated previously existing needs for readjustment of the functioning of the Union. Not only that the crisis showed that the problems in the Union were not created recently, but also it demanded urgent needs of new improved policy in order to regain the competitiveness strength and performances.
The reformulated strategy needs to be based on openness and innovation, with investment in research and development. Long-term expectations are to be made comprehensive structural changes in order to overcome structural differences between individual Member States and to increase the overall competitiveness. Additionally, trade barriers are needed between individual Member States to be removed and higher individual and aggregate rates of economic growth are to be achieved. It is clear that the effects of deep integration of the EU has not yet been achieved, and expected benefits may not be realized, if internal and external balance of the Union is not maintained.
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Once the manuscript is accepted for publication, authors shall transfer the copyright to the publisher. If the submitted manuscript is not accepted for printing by the journal, the authors shall retain all their rights. The following rights on the manuscript are transferred to the publisher, including any supplementary materials and any parts, extracts or elements of the manuscript:
- the right to reproduce and distribute the manuscript in printed form, including print-on-demand;
- the right to print prepublications, reprints and special editions of the manuscript;
- the right to translate the manuscript into other languages;
- the right to reproduce the manuscript using photomechanical or similar means including, but not limited to photocopy, and the right to distribute these copies;
- the right to reproduce and distribute the manuscript electronically or optically using and all data carriers or storage media, and especially in machine readable/digitalized form on data carriers such as hard drive, CD-ROM, DVD, Blu-ray Disc (BD), Mini Disc, data tapes, and the right to reproduce and distribute the article via these data carriers;
- the right to store the manuscript in databases, including online databases, as well as the right to transmit the manuscript in all technical systems and modes;
- the right to make the manuscript available to the public or to closed user groups on individual demand, for use on monitors or other readers (including e-books), and in printable form for the user, either via the Internet, online service, or via internal or external networks.
Authors reserve the copyright to published articles and have the right to use the article in the same manner like third parties in accordance with the licence Attribution-Non-Commercial-Non-Derivate 4.0 International (CC BY). Thereby they must quote the basic bibliographic data of the source article published in the journal (authors, article title, journal title, volume, pagination).
References
Aiginger, K. 2004. Copying the US or developing a new European model – policy strategies of successful European countries in the nineties. Geneva: UN.
Artis, M. and Nixson, F. 2007. The Economic of the EU - policy and analysis. Fourth edition. UK: Oxford University Press.
Van Ark, B., O'Mahoney, M. and Timmer, M.P. 2008. "The Productivity Gap between Europe and the United States: Trends and Causes." Journal of Economic Perspectives, 22(1): 25-44.
Barro, J. B. and Sala, M. X. 2004. Economic Growth. Second edition. London: McGraw-Hill: 420-450.
Bernhard, K. M.. 2004. "Trends in export market shares between 1991 and 2001", Belgium, available at: http://www.etsg.org/ETSG2005/papers/michel.pdf (accessed May 10, 2014)
Blanchard, O. 2004. "The Economic Future of Europe", Journal of Economic Perspective, 18: 3-26.
Dyker, A. D.. 1999. The European Economy. Second edition. New York: Longman.
ECFIN Economic Briefs, June 2013. Brussels. http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/publications/economic_briefs/2013/eb25_en.htm (accessed April 12, 2014)
Еurostat. 2011. "External and intra-EU trade: A statistical yearbook, data 1958 – 2010". Luxemburg: European Commision.
Eurostat, Comext Database; National statistics; Global Trade Atlas; IMF, International Financial Statistics, http://www.wto.org/english/res_e/statis_e/quarterly_world_exp_e.htm (accessed April 9, 2014)
European Commission. 2013. "European Competitiveness Report 2013:Toward knowledge driven reindustrialization". Luxemburg: European Commission, Commission Staff Working Document SWD(2013)347.
European Commission. 2010. "EU-Communication from the Commission Europe 2020, A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth". Brussels: European Commission.
European Commission. 2010a. "Europe 2020 – A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth", Commission Staff Working Document, Brussels, 3rd of March, Ref: COM(2010)2020
European Commission official web site, http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/db_indicators/competitiveness/data_section_en.htm (accessed March 25, 2014)
Haijman, W. and Altena, P. 2007. In search of clusters. Netherland: Mansholt graduate School of social science.
Krugman, P. R. 1996. "Making Sense of the Competitiveness Debate: International Competitiveness", Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 12 (3): 17-25
Mankiew, Gregory. 2010. Macroeconomics. 7th edition. USA: Worth Publishers.
Mauro, F. , Forster, K. and Lima, A. (2010). The Global Downturn and its Impact on Euro Area Exports and Competitiveness. Frankfurt: European Central Bank.
Mrak, Mojmir. 2010. “Eurozone crisis: what went wrong and where do we stand now?”. Working material. Slovenia: University of Ljubljana: 4-8
Gianmarco I.P., Ottaviano, Taglioni, D. and Di Mauro, F. 2009. "The euro and the competitiveness of European firms". Economic Policy, 24 (57): 5-53.
Trading economics, http://www.tradingeconomics.com/spain/balance-of-trade (accessed April 2, 2014) Treaty of the functioning of the European Union, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2008:115:0047:0199:en:PDF (accessed March 14, 2014)
UN comtrade database, http://comtrade.un.org/ (accessed March 12, 2014)
World Economic Forum. 2014. "The Global Competitiveness Report 2013-2014", http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GlobalCompetitivenessReport_2013-14.pdf (accessed April 20, 2014)
Wyplosz, Charles. 2010. "The failure of the Lisbon Strategy", http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/4478 (accessed March 7, 2014)