This report sheds light on the fundamental questions and underlying tensions between current policy objectives, compliance strategies and global trends in online personal data processing, assessing the existing and future framework in terms of effective regulation and public policy. Based on the discussions among the members of the CEPS Digital Forum and independent research carried out by the rapporteurs, policy conclusions are derived with the aim of making EU data protection policy more fit for purpose in today’s online technological context.

Drawing on discussions within a CEPS Task Force on the revised EU emissions trading system, this report provides a comprehensive assessment of the pros and cons of the various measures put forward by different stakeholders to address the level and stability of the price of carbon in the EU. It argues that the European Commission, the member states, the European Parliament and other stakeholders need to give serious consideration to introducing some kind of ‘dynamic’ adjustment provision to address the relatively inelastic supply.

Taking stock of the experience of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, this CEPS Task Force report analyses its purposes and potential for improving the cost-effectiveness of mitigation actions by expanding its scope to new sectors, linking with future flexible mechanisms and enhancing the long-term price signal. The performance of the ETS sector in mitigation is important for the EU’s ability to meet its current target of 20% GHG emissions reductions by 2020 compared with a 1990 baseline and will be instrumental in meeting any increased level of reductions.

Achieving the EU’s dual objectives of combating climate change by 2020 and beyond and implementing its ambitious Europe 2020 economic growth agenda will require the development, demonstration and in particular the deployment of new low-carbon technologies at a faster rate than is currently taking place. EU policies to make this happen have been or are being put in place.

Critical infrastructures such as energy, communications, banking, transportation, public government services, information technology etc., are more vital to industrialized economies and now than ever before. At the same time, these infrastructures are becoming increasingly dependent on each other, such that failure of one of them can often propagate and result in domino effects.

This CEPS Task Force report analyses, from different perspectives, the huge amounts of aid that were given to the financial sector in the EU in response to the financial crisis. It finds that that there are vast differences in the way member states have offered and implemented aid to the financial sector, calling into question the coherence of the single market. It also discusses the approach followed by the European Commission on the basis of the competences foreseen in the EU Treaty and poses some alternative options.

The revised EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) grants partial, temporary free allocation of emission allowances to industry, based on benchmarks to address competitiveness concerns. The EU, led by the European Commission, has developed some 50 to 60 benchmarks covering around 85% of total EU ETS industrial emissions.

Investors have a longer memory than the sell-side of the market, and the financial crisis knocked the confidence of investors at all levels. Restoring Investor Confidence in European Capital Markets is a report of the the European Investors’ Working Group, an independent non-political investor group composed of members from the retail and institutional investment industry community.

This report is based on discussions in the CEPS Task Force on the Clean Development Mechanism and Future Flexible Mechanisms post-2012, chaired by Ulrika Raab, Senior Advisor at the Swedish Energy Agency. It was assumed that flexible mechanisms will play a crucial role in facilitating a positive outcome in the UN climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in December 2009, and that they will inspire a wide range of actions by participating countries on their own and directing attention to business investment opportunities.

The financial crisis exposed dangerous weaknesses in the regulatory and oversight structure that need to be urgently corrected to restore confidence in the financial system and to keep the single market alive. Towards this end, this CEPS Task Force report puts forward three main policy recommendations to the EU:
1) The European Council should formally mandate the High-Level Expert Group on EU financial supervision to analyse the optimal structure of financial oversight and propose concrete steps leading to a European System of Financial Supervisors;

Over the past two years, the debate on the review of the EU regulatory framework for electronic communications has become hectic. After the European Commission adopted its proposed set of measures in November 2007, the European Parliament has shown an unprecedented interest in topics such as spectrum policy, functional separation of the incumbents’ networks, the creation of a new European authority on telecoms, etc.

The structure of some industrial sectors is so highly concentrated that just a handful of companies are responsible for producing a significant share of that sector’s total greenhouse gases emissions worldwide. These sectors are thus a ‘natural’ focus of policy-makers concerned with climate change and have attracted keen interest from the EU.

The European Union has entered a new and crucial stage in energy policy. After the adoption of legally binding targets to address climate change, energy security and competitiveness, the 27 member states are now turning their attention to the implementation of these targets. However, with an unfinished internal market for gas and electricity and with member states continuing to focus on bilateral energy relationships with supplier countries, the EU is still at the very beginning of a common EU energy policy.

Successful global sectoral industry approaches could become an effective means of broadening the range of contributions by all parties to greenhouse gas reductions, and of addressing competitiveness concerns in trade-exposed industries. This report puts these two hypotheses to the test and identifies the key requirements for global sectoral industry approaches to work.