The European Restructuring Directive


Book Description

This comprehensive book provides a clear analysis of the European Restructuring Directive, which aims to improve national frameworks governing business restructuring and insolvency as well as to provide debt relief for individuals. Gerard McCormack explores the key aspects of the Directive including the moratorium on litigation and enforcement claims against the financially-troubled business, the provision for new financing, the division of creditors into classes, the introduction of a restructuring plan and the rules for approval of the plan by a court or administrative authority.




Restructuring Europe


Book Description

This book focuses on the historical configuration of the territorial borders and functional boundaries of the European nation state. It presents integration as a process of boundary transcendence, redefinition, shift, and change that fundamentally alters the nature of the European states. Its core concern lies in the relationship between the specific institutional design of the new Brussels centre, the boundary redefinitions that result from its political production, and, finally,the consequences of these two elements on established and developing national European political structures. Integration is examined as a new historical phase in the development of Europe, characterized by a powerful trend toward legal, economic, and cultural de-differentiation after the five-centuryprocess of differentiation that led to the European system of nation states.Considering the EU as the formation of an enlarged territorial system, this work recovers some of the classic issues of political modernization theory: Is the EU an attempt at state formation? Is it an attempt at centre formation without nation building? Is it a process of centre formation without democratization?This work also seeks to sharpen the conceptual tools currently available to deal with processes of territorial enlargement and unification. It develops a theoretical framework for political structuring beyond the nation state, capable of linking all aspects of EU integration (inter-governmentalism, definition of rights, the 'constitutionalization' of treaties, the tensions between the new territorial hierarchy and the nation states, etc.). The book adopts an 'holistic' approach to integration,in the form of a theory from which hypotheses can be generated (even if it is not possible to test all of its components). This theoretical framework has three principal aims: to overcome a rigid distinction between domestic politics and international relations; to link actors' orientations,interests, and motivations with macro outcomes; and to relate structural profiles with dynamic processes of change.




The Volatility Machine


Book Description

This book presents a radically different argument for what has caused, and likely will continue to cause, the collapse of emerging market economies. Pettis combines the insights of economic history, economic theory, and finance theory into a comprehensive model for understanding sovereign liability management and the causes of financial crises. He examines recent financial crises in emerging market countries along with the history of international lending since the 1820s to argue that the process of international lending is driven primarily by external events and not by local politics and/or economic policies. He draws out the corporate finance implications of this approach to argue that most of the current analyses of the recent financial crises suffered by Latin America, Asia, and Russia have largely missed the point. He then develops a sovereign finance model, analogous to corporate finance, to understand the capital structure needs of emerging market countries. Using this model, he finally puts into perspective the recent crises, a new sovereign liability management theory, the implications of the model for sovereign debt restructurings, and the new financial architecture. Bridging the gap between finance specialists and traders, on the one hand, and economists and policy-makers on the other, The Volatility Machine is critical reading for anyone interested in where the international economy is going over the next several years.




Spatial Planning and Urban Development in the New EU Member States


Book Description

Accession to the EU in May 2004 was a historic milestone for the spatial and urban development of the new member states. Meanwhile, the social and economic transition during the pre-accession phase already brought about radical changes in national urban systems and new challenges for regional development. In this edited volume, a carefully selected and specially commissioned set of articles, written by experts from both the new and the old EU member states, presents a comprehensive assessment of emerging political and planning solutions at local, regional, national and EU levels. Topics include brownfield redevelopment in the Czech Republic, urban sprawl in Hungary, the upgrading and integration of marginalized Roma settlements in Eastern Slovakia and sustainable coastal management in Cyprus.




The Transformation of Citizenship in the European Union


Book Description

This book examines the electoral rights granted to those who do not have the nationality of the state in which they reside, within the European Union and its Member States. It looks at the rights of EU citizens to vote and stand in European Parliament elections and local elections wherever they live in the EU, and at cases where Member States of the Union also choose to grant electoral rights to other non-nationals from countries outside the EU. The EU's electoral rights are among the most important rights first granted to EU citizens by the EU Treaties in the 1990s. Putting these rights into their broader context, the book provides important insights into the development of the EU now that the Constitutional Treaty has been rejected in the referendums in France and the Netherlands, and into issues which are still sensitive for national sovereignty such as immigration, nationality and naturalization.




Rescue of Business in Europe


Book Description

This edited volume is based on the European Law Institute's (ELI) project 'Rescue of Business in Insolvency Law'. The project ran from 2013 to 2017 under the auspices of the ELI and was conducted by Bob Wessels and Stephan Madaus, who were assisted by Gert-Jan Boon. The study sought to design (elements of) a legal framework that will enable the further development of coherent and functional rules for business rescue in Europe. This includes certain statutory procedures that could better enable parties to negotiate solutions where a business becomes financially distressed. Such a framework also includes rules to determine in which procedures and under which conditions an enforceable solution can be imposed upon creditors and other stakeholders despite their lack of consent. The project had a broad scope, and extended to consider frameworks that can be used by (non-financial) businesses out of court, and in a pre-insolvency context. Part I of this book, the ELI Instrument as approved by the ELI Council and General Assembly, features 115 recommendations on a wide variety of themes affected by the rescue of financially distressed businesses, such as the legal rules for professions and courts, treatment and ranking of creditors' claims, contract, corporate and labour law as well as laws relating to transaction avoidance. Part II consists of national reports that sketch the legal landscape in 13 States and of an 'Inventory Report on International Recommendations from Standard-Setting Organisations', both of which provided insight for the drafting of the Instrument. This volume is designed to assist those involved in a process of law reform and those setting standards for soft law in the business rescue context.




Working and Employment Conditions in New EU Member States


Book Description

This study presents information on trends in working and employment conditions in the 10 new EU member states within a year of their accession. By comparing them with the other EU member states it provides insights into general trends that we may expect - between convergence and diversity - in an enlarged EU. The volume, produced by a working group of leading experts in this field, provides information on practices at enterprise level through a series of case studies in new member states; and identifies how the different elements of the world of work, employment contracts, working time, wages, social dialogue and workers' participation, reconciliation of work and family, are combined.




Enlargement of the European Union


Book Description

The development of EU enlargement has raised many thorny issues unanticipated by the framers of the EC Treaty. A significant upshot of these issues is that the concept of European identity – defined in terms of such factors as culture, history and economics – has supplanted the long-dominant theme of ‘widening and deepening,’ particularly since the Union’s expansion has become primarily eastward. The major contribution of this important book lies in its analysis of the conceptualization and perception of enlargement from various points of view, focusing on the concerns of stakeholders and the ‘identity’ conflicts and uncertainties incurred by enlargement initiatives. In the course of its presentation, it details the actual pre-accession Europeanization process and its complex history. Among the key elements discussed are the following: the conflict between ‘widening’ and ‘deepening’ and the effect on EU institutional reform; institutional requirements on candidate countries; pre-accession criteria and negotiations; administrative capacity, judicial capacity, and legal approximation in accession states; capacity of the EU to absorb new Member States; and EC law as part of European identity. Also covered are specific historical details of particular pre-accession negotiations (e.g., Greece, Spain, Portugal, Malta, and Cyprus), the still inconclusive negotiations with Turkey and the Western Balkan states, and political factors involved in the non-accession of Norway, Iceland and Switzerland. Assembling powerful evidence and applying incisive analysis, the author’s conclusion shows that, absent further (and major) EU institutional reform, it will be difficult for an enlarging Union to continue to ‘deliver the goods.’ A watershed in the continuing great debate on the fulfilment of the EC Treaty’s determination to foster and promote ‘an ever closer union of the peoples of Europe,’ this book will prove invaluable to anybody interested in the European integration project, particularly lawyers, academics, officials and policymakers in the EU Member States.




Tax Systems and Tax Reforms in New EU Member States


Book Description

Building on the work carried out in the 2004 Routledge book, Tax Systems and Tax Reforms in Europe, an international team of contributors now turn their attention to the new EU member states. The book compares conditions in the new and potential EU Member states to those in the long-standing EU countries. Topics covered include: * A Comparative View of Taxation in the EU and in New Members * Tax Policy in EU New Members * Tax Policy in New Members under the Stability Pact * Tax Administration and the Black Economy. As well as investigating countries such as the Czech Republic, Estonia and the Baltics, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia, this outstanding book contains a foreword by Vito Tanzi and will be a valuable resource for postgraduates and professionals in the fields of economics, politics, finance and European studies.




Upgrading the EU's Role as Global Actor


Book Description

This book is the first systemic analysis of the changing position of the European Union since it acquired a legal personality through the Treaty of Lisbon and decided to establish the European External Action Service. The issue is whether these useful institutional developments will lead to an upgrading of the EU's presence in the multilateral system of organizations and conventions of international law. Generally the EU's status in international diplomacy lags way behind the authority delegated to it by EU treaties and law, with resistance to any upgrade coming from both the EU's own member states and, increasingly, the new great powers who seek to enhance their own rankings. Reconciliation of these conflicting pressures can only come through quid pro quos between the EU and its member states and between the EU and the new emerging powers. This study provides a unique source explaining what these tradeoffs would mean in operational terms.