19 Jan
Smarter Europe
From our think tank partners
10 Sep
Who’s Afraid of China’s High-Tech Challenge?
5 Jun
EU Policies on Online Entrepreneurship: Conversations with U.S. Venture Capitalists
- Smarter Europe
Rise of the machines isn’t the end for manual labour
The rapid pace of digitalisation will have a dramatic impact on the world of work. A popular view is that the advance of digitalisation, automation and “Industry 4.0” doesn’t augur well for low-skilled workers in European industry, with some reports forecasting a massive contraction in the job market for low-skilled workers. According to an extremely popular 2013 study by Carl Frey… Read article ›
- Smarter Europe
Mind the gap: Bertie’s Babies generation have their work cut for them
Most first-year college students came into the world during Bertie Ahern’s first year as taoiseach. They were born with The Spice Girls and Oasis playing in the background and Titanic and The Full Monty on the big screen. The Good Friday Agreement was signed and Ireland was moving into the era of the Celtic Tiger.… Read article ›
- Smarter Europe
Enough stalling on tax justice!
Last month’s ‘Panama Papers’ leaks are just the latest evidence of the legal or illegal, but always immoral, tax practices of multinationals, banks and the rich. Tax campaigners and trade unions across the globe, including the European Public Service Union (EPSU), have for years been pushing for reforms that would bring offenders and their tax… Read article ›
- Smarter Europe
The EU must begin Europe’s tax evasion clampdown
Europeans were shocked when, in November 2014, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists stared to release the LuxLeaks files. It was not just that this type of state-sponsored tax avoidance was happening, but its size and formal entrenchment within the system. The European Union is, after all, supposed to be about cooperation, not undercutting one… Read article ›
- Smarter Europe
Time to bring competition policy back to basics
EU policymakers often talk about encouraging entrepreneurship, so isn’t it time competition law reflected this? The European Commission ought to update its competition policy to better protect start-ups against their more established rivals. For competition to work, companies must act independently of each other and be subject to the competitive pressures exerted by others on the… Read article ›
- Smarter Europe
The Digital Single Market is still a step behind on telecoms
The EU’s fixed telephone market is diverging. The number of fixed telephone subscriptions is rapidly declining in some EU countries, including in my country, Finland, where there were less than 600,000 fixed telephone lines at the end of last June. That number means an 80% fall in 15 years, leaving less than 1% of modern… Read article ›
- Smarter Europe
New markets, new rules: What direction for Europe’s digital regulation
The Single Market is seen as a major European Union success. Twenty percent of the world’s trade flows among EU member states, taking advantage of the free movement of goods under the single market. This success was achieved by tearing down regulatory walls, standardising rules, and creating a transparent business environment for both supply and… Read article ›
- Smarter Europe
Uber debate highlights need to tackle collaborative economy challenges
Tackling challenges related to the collaborative economy appears to be a priority for the European Commission as it seeks to strengthen the EU’s Internal Market. A section on “enabling the balanced development of the collaborative economy” features prominently in the Commission’s Internal Market Strategy published October 28. In it, the Commission quotes a recent study… Read article ›
- Smarter Europe
To bridge the digital divide, promote internet connectivity like it’s washing powder
Efforts to bridge the digital divide often focus on reducing the cost of an internet connection. But new research suggests that a more effective approach may be to lay the technical foundations that drive demand and improve user experience, before worrying about cost. As our world becomes increasingly digitized, the social stratification resulting from unequal… Read article ›
- Smarter Europe
Europe’s high-tech malaise: We’re inventors but not innovators
Despite having contributed its fair share of breakthroughs, Europe seems unable to take a leading role in the digital economy. Alan Turing in the UK and Hungarian-born John von Neumann contributed to the theoretical foundations of computing, and Germany’s Konrad Zuse built the first modern computer. The World Wide Web was invented by another Briton,… Read article ›