Europe Articles   

Short guide about Szczecin (Poland)

Paris is a fascinating place to visit and the multitude of landmarks and attractions may become confusing. Here is a selection of the things you should place first on your “to see” list while you are in France’s capital

The holiday and hotel market in Malta has seen a persistent decline in visitor numbers in recent years.

But where the Tourist Authority has failed, new low cost flights could succeed in the year ahead.

There are so many things to see in Paris and so little time to do it that your journey in the French capital can wind up taking the colors of a marathon run. I offer you a different take on it: stop, review your options, and decide to kill a couple of hours doing just nothing but reading a good book in a spot where you can be left to yourself. Here are three spots where you can do just that.

In Woody Allen's judgement, "As long as you haven't been kissed during any of those rainy Parisian afternoons, you haven't been kissed at all." A long-time dweller of the French capital, I'd have a hard time not to agree with the most Parisian New Yorker. Paris is a place as perfect as they come to live a glorious romance, rekindle your marriage, or meet your lifetime someone. The question is: where do you start?

Already on par with real estate prices in New York and London, Monaco property prices could be set to go even higher in 2007.

Recent surveys are all showing positive signs for Europe's favourite tax haven.

Regional Policy of the European Union
European Union is becoming more integrated and many key economic vari¬ables are moving closer together, there are still discrepancies in the economic performance of Member States. This will increasingly be an issue which will have to be tackled as the area becomes more and more integrated.
Whilst macroeconomic policy is controlled domestically it is inevitable that differences will exist as some countries' economic policies will be more successful than others. But even if we see fully integrated macroeconomic poli¬cies some time in the future there will still be differences, much as there are regional differences in particular countries: whatever the path of development of the EU the central importance of regional policy will therefore continue (Barro, 1991).
Differences are bound to exist, due simply to the physical characteristics of the country, such as size, population and natural resources as well as cultural diversity. But during the 1980s disparities actually grew, particularly with the entry of the less developed countries of Spain, Portugal and Greece into the European Community. In 1995, when Finland, Austria and Sweden joined, their relative wealth also changed the balance between Member States. The central issue when considering these discrepancies is that some peo¬ple fear that unless discrepancies can be reduced, Europe will end up having a core of economic activity and a periphery which is continually less developed.
It is important for businesses to be aware of the environments in which they do business and in particular to have information on economies in which they are based, or with which they have trading links. The establishment of a business in an economy where there are unsuitable productive resources, or where there is little market for the product or service would be unwise. Even within the EU the significant differences between the economies of the Member States makes the location decision vital to the success of a firm (Ceccini, 1989).
The EU's response to regional disparities was the establishment of a new set of Structural Funds in 1994. Approximately 80 per cent of the Structural Funds are allocated to the Objective areas such as Economic adjustment of regions whose development is lagging
Most regional policies have operated on the principle of subsidies and grants. Although, in the EU, direct subsidies to labour are prohibited, indirect labour subsidies via training and capital subsidies via grants are operated widely. There is also considerable interest in devel¬oping infrastructures which will be of direct benefit to firms operating in the more depressed areas of the EU, and since subsidies for infrastructure do not offer direct differential assis¬tance to individual industries, they do not conflict with the aims of EU Competition Policy.
The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) operates on the basis of the principle of additionality. This means that funds are meant to add to, rather than replace, national assistance which is already in place. Problem regions which typically suffer regional With a total population of over 368 million, a single EU economy far outstrips the USA, with a population of 255 million, and Japan with a population of 124 million. It is for this reason that the EU is seen as a huge potential market for sellers outside the EU and indeed we have witnessed significant inward investment, particularly from the USA and Japan lead¬ing up to the creation of the Single European Market. In common with many industrialised economies, birth rates in the EU are falling, but people are living longer. Estimates of the population in the year 2020 suggest that there will be around 390 million inhabitants (Brenton, 2002).
With a purchasing power standard measurement of GDP per head significantly lower than the average, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain demonstrate their relative under-development. As expected, the less developed countries of the EU have more people still working on the land - over one-fifth in the case of Greece, for example. It is clear that Spain, Portugal and Ireland all have significant agricultural sectors as well. Italy has the largest agricultural sector in terms of people employed, the figure stands at slightly over two million.
Unemployment in an economy represents a significant waste of resources which could be used to produce goods and services. It also represents a drain on a government's funds through the payment of unemployment and social benefits. If there is unemployment in an economy there is, consequently, a lower aggregate disposable income with which to purchase goods and services and markets will be consequently smaller (El-Agraa, 1990).
As well as finding significant differences between countries in the EU, we can also identify regional differences within those countries. Because of that, we find that regional dispar¬ity is even greater than national statistics can reveal. This shows significant differences not only between countries but also within countries. Particular regions, even within the wealthiest countries, have local GDPs well below the EU average.
It has been argued by some economists that regional dis¬parities in Europe have widened throughout the 1990s. This is due to two main reasons: first, the beginning of the 2000s saw a worldwide recession, but the recession hit hardest in the less developed regions of the Community where growth rates fell substantially and unemployment reached its highest post-war levels. The recession at the end of the 1990s also hit different regions to differing degrees with the economies already experiencing significant unemployment faring the worst. It is a trend that the less resilient economies will be hard¬est hit during times of downturn and firms have to bear this in mind in their strategic planning. Second, the entry of Spain, Portugal and Greece into the European Community, each with a per capita national income lower than the average and a wider internal spread of economic activity, lowered the average Community income and led to a widening of the disparities (Helpman, 2004).
The bulk of the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF) money is spent on intervention and export subsidies in the agricultural sector. Guidance section cash is designed to help rural communities to diversify away from traditional forms of pro¬duction to new areas of agricultural activity such as forestry, whilst, at the same time preserving the fabric of rural society (Lucas, 1988).
Although most regional aid is provided through these three funds, there are some other programmes which deal with specific industries which are identified as having problems, for example, RECHAR, RESIDER, RETEX and RENAVAL are funds aimed at promoting new technologies and training in the coal, steel, textile and shipbuilding industries respectively (Foss, 1997).
The coastal areas are among the most important but most environmentally fragile parts of the EU. In many regions, particularly the less developed peripheral ones, they represent a great development potential. Although new residential, commercial and tourist develop¬ments have been bringing inward investment to these areas, the environmental impact of these developments and the seasonal nature of tourism creates other problems.
In the west Mediterranean region, these problems can be seen in terms of heavy con¬gestion. In Provence more than 60 per cent of the coastline has been urbanised, for example. In Spain, over half of the Mediterranean coastline is taken up with intensive housing and industrial and tourist development. In addition, rates of population growth are usually considerably higher than in interior regions.
Almost 30 per cent of the EU's territory consists of upland and mountainous areas, but only around 7.5 per cent of the population live there. The average population density (42 people per square kilometre) is only one third of the average for the six upland countries and in certain peripheral upland areas the figure can be as low as two or three people per square kilometre. Although these regions are diverse there are some common elements: poor soils, more extreme climatic conditions, limited natural resources, but considerable
natural attractiveness a poor level of economic integration; a narrow economic base often dependent on agriculture and/or tourism, remoteness and higher investment costs for infrastructure; ecological richness and vulnerability.
Upland areas can be broadly split into three categories: extreme peripheral uplands, inter¬mediate uplands and developed uplands. The most extreme areas include the northern Highlands of Scotland, the Greek uplands, southern Italian uplands, north-eastern Portugal and the Sierra de Credos and the western Corillera of Spain. These are peripheral areas, far from economic centres and suffer inadequate communications. In the absence of eco¬nomic opportunities, their populations have been in long-term decline (Lucas, 1988).
National governments also continue to provide aid for their own regions, both as part of the additionality requirement alongside EU funds and independently. The EU does, how¬ever, have the power to control the amount of funds being allocated as assistance to industry on competition grounds. Certain measures, such as the creation of Enterprise Zones, therefore require clearance by the Commission before their introduction.
It has often been argued that one of the consequences of European integration could be the creation of a core of economic activity in the centre of Europe. This core would stretch between northern France, Southern Germany and northern Italy, exacerbating the prob¬lems of peripheral regions. The scenario is similar to that which has created a core of activity in the south-east of England and relatively depressed areas in the north. Firms see advantages of being near to other firms and close to the more affluent consumer markets created by higher levels of employment and higher wage rates.
The consequence of a core of activity in Europe and the relocation of companies into that core is to leave some areas in Europe in a state of decline. Countries which may be worst affected include the UK and Ireland which, apart from being on the geographical edge of the Community, have the physical obstacle of the English Channel, North Sea and Irish Sea to contend with. The additional transport costs which this creates can act as a competitive disadvantage.
Free market theory would suggest that in time the core will become an expensive area in which to locate and that there will be profitable opportunities associated with locating in peripheral areas where land prices will be cheaper and wage rates lower. A free func¬tioning market would therefore cause factors of production to move out of high cost regions into low cost regions until cost differences are minimised and profits roughly equalised. Even if one accepts the free market argument, there may still be a role for inter¬vention by governments for three reasons:
The relocation response may be very slow and there may be a role for speeding up the process via additional relocation incentives. The movement of capital and labour to new locations will be based on private cost assessments and not on social cost. Thus costs associated with congestion, pollution and personal utility will not be taken into account. There may therefore be a role for gov¬ernment in discouraging movement towards a core and promoting peripheral development. This is likely to be achieved with appropriate taxes, subsidies and grants.
Trends in technology and communications have made the dispersal of economic activity technologically easier. Because of the existence of electronic communications links, remote monitoring processes, computerised stock control and the speed and reliability of such elec¬tronic systems, it is possible for the management function to be physically separate from the manufacturing function (Mathews, 2002).
Whatever the future size and direction of the EU, regional policy will have to be a key policy instrument if integration and harmonisation are to be achieved. The success of tha: regional policy will be based on the European Commission's ability to use its structural funds in an effective and targeted way and on the commitment of all Member States to putting in place measures which are in the interest of the EU as a whole. However, we must always be aware of the close links between economic policy and regional policy. The next chapter demonstrates that they may not be as consistent as we might imagine.
Produced by ProfEssays ( www.professays.com ) - professional custom essay writing service: custom essays, custom term papers, custom academic papers, custom research papers, compositions, book reports, case study. No plagiarism, high quality, prompt delivery.

Touch down of a new low cost airline often means an increase in property prices within driving distance of a regional airport.

Investors are looking at the Malta property market to see if they should invest on the Mediterranean island.

Oh mon Dieu! Not all of us visiting Paris have the wherewithal to spend $1000 on this irresistible couture blouse, or the all-time favorite little black dress. Let us be realistic: going on a shopping spree in Paris can be hard on our finance. Fashionistas of the world, let's sin no more, and shop smartly from now on!

Yet another interesting stop in our culinary adventures in Paris, the Le Gourmet restaurant offers great French cuisine for prices I hadn’t seen in Paris in 15 years.