Economics & Trade

By Francesco Duina (Bates College, USA) For decades, the EU has projected its internal legal frameworks onto the world. It has done so indirectly through the Brussels Effect, whereby countries and trading blocs in other parts of the world pre-emptively adopt EU internal standards in order to facilitate trade with the EU. And it has […]

By Sebastian Heidebrecht (Centre for European Integration Research, Department of Political Science, University of Vienna) On 30 October 2025, the European Central Bank (ECB) announced the next preparatory phase and its readiness to introduce a digital euro in 2029. Unlike private forms of electronic money created by private banks, the digital euro will be a […]

By Marylou Hamm (Science Po, France / European University Institute, Italy) From the Greek debt crisis and the 2015 migration crisis to the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, the European Union has faced overlapping emergencies over the past fifteen years. These crises have tested not only financial actors and member states, but also […]

Towards the 2025 EU–CELAC Summit: Academics and diplomats debate the future of the bi-regional partnership[1] On 9–10 November 2025, the 4th European Union (EU)–Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) Summit is taking place in Santa Marta, Colombia, bringing together European, Latin American and Caribbean Heads of State and Goverment to  strengthen bi-regional relations. […]

By Mari Carlson (University of Helsinki) The European Green Deal marked a bold attempt to confront the environmental crisis – not merely through environmental policy, but across the full spectrum of internal and external governance. Trade policy, in particular, underwent an unprecedented wave of greening. Yet before the ink had dried, the Covid-19 pandemic and […]

by Manuela Moschella (Professor of Political Science, University of Bologna) and Lucia Quaglia (Professor of Political Science, University of Bologna) The European Union (EU) stands at a critical juncture. Global competition, technological disruption, and geopolitical fragmentation challenge the economic framework that has defined the EU for over three decades. Two landmark reports — Much More […]

by Nicolás Pose-Ferraro (Assistant Professor of International Studies at the Universidad de la República, Uruguay) Since 2023, there have been renewed efforts to conclude the long-awaited European Union (EU)–Mercosur preferential trade agreement (PTA), including a 2024 successful renegotiation of the 2019 ‘agreement in principle’ between both parties. However, the agreement’s completion remains uncertain. What is […]

by Dr Caroline Emberson (Nottingham University Business School and the University of Nottingham’s Rights Lab) New research, recently published in JCMS, examines the detection of labour exploitation within domestic care services. In the article, I identify a range of municipal activities including whistleblowing procedures; care-worker professionalisation; the expansion of employee’s roles and inter-agency data analysis. […]

by Max Koch (Lund University) The European Union is close to my heart. Without European integration I could not have worked and lived in three member states – Germany, Northern Ireland (at the time a member) and Sweden – which turned out to be an irreplaceable part of my development as a scholar and human […]

by Bogdan Căpraru (Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași; National Institute for Economic Research, Romanian Academy), Anastasios Pappas (Hellenic Fiscal Council; Kapodistrian University of Athens), and Nicu Sprincean (Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași; National Institute for Economic Research, Romanian Academy) To kick off 2025, the JCMS blog is highlighting some of the great work […]