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THE THREAT OF TERRORISM ACTING INSIDE EU BORDERS

Author(s): POPESCU Lara-Teodora / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Until recently, terrorism was one of the most significant issues Europe had to face. Although terrorist acts do not represent an imminent threat to Europeans anymore, they are still a very important international problem that must be eradicated until it escalates again. This paper aims to present, through qualitative analysis, the measures and strategies taken at the European level to combat terrorism, as well as to explain why the eradication of terrorism should still be a priority for international security, despite the recognizable decrease of terrorist activity in Europe in the last few years. Towards the end of the paper, further possible actions for battling this critical threat are suggested, considering and examining the various forms that terrorism has taken over the years.

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THE CREATION OF AN INTEGRATED STRUCTURE OF RAPID REACTION AT EUROPEAN LEVEL AGAINST TERRORISM

Author(s): Ciprian Chițac / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Having as a starting point the end of the Cold War and the proliferation of terrorism at an unprecedented scale, the threats aimed at national security have become ambiguous, and the potential enemies are either classical structures, units and large units from within military structures, or structures of terrorist or paramilitary organizations which have capabilities that cover a large range of doctrines, forms of organization, equipment, instruction and ideological motivations. For these reasons, the structures must be capable of executing operations during times of peace, crisis, and war and in post-conflict periods, in a collaborative context, multinational, in between departments, on national and international grounds, depending of the situation. The international structured terrorism and also the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction are the most dangerous threats that could affect the security of the democratic nations of the world, and of human civilization on the whole. No country in the world could be considered safe taking into account these threats and no democratic state could ignore the responsibilities it has as a member of international community. The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the need for adaptability to the challenges posed by the security environment which is continuously changing, and to create operational structures which ought to be trained and equipped so as to face this mode of action called terrorism, and to benefit from the necessary legislative framework, adapted to given conditions.

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Taxonomy of EU Member States from the View of VAT Imposed on Immovable Property (year 2017)

Author(s): Dagmar Halabrinová,Karel Brychta / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The aim of the paper is to identify and systematize selected rules contained in the Council Directive 2006/112/ES on the common system of value added tax relating to taxation of immovable property and subsequently, while using cluster analysis, to divide EU Member States into groups according to VAT tax rates applicable. To identify the relevant legal norms contained in the Council Directive 2006/112/ES the legal regulation as valid and effective as to 01 January 2017 was taken into account. To carry out a classification of the EU Member States, the data published by the European Commission was utilized. For the reasons of cluster analysis, five possible VAT objects were taken into consideration (social housing, renovation and repairing, building land, supplies of new buildings and construction work on new buildings). On the basis of results reached one can observe that there is a relatively high variability in the rules established in legal regulations covering issues connected with immovable property. A presumption as to the utilization of exceptions and discretion given to the Member States can be considered as valid. At the same time the results reached prove that Member States can be divided into several groups that demonstrate high similarity in VAT taxation of immovable property.

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Correlation analysis between macroeconomic indicators and level of ratings in EU countries

Author(s): Tomasz Kopyściański,Tomasz Rólczyński,Marzena Franków / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Credit rating agencies have a significant impact on the securities market, facilitating investment decisions on the basis of ready-made benchmarks. In this way they contribute to reducing the asymmetries and costs of obtaining information necessary to make decisions regarding buying or selling financial instruments, taking into account the debtor’s estimated risk of default. For many years now credit rating agencies have been an integral part of the financial market, impacting to an even greater degree the functioning conditions of countries, as their dependency on being able to finance their borrowing needs from external sources is continuously growing. Permanent budget deficits and public debt are inherent elements of contemporary public finances. The increased significance of the assessments made by the rating agencies refers closely to the dynamic development of the debt security market and thus emerging demand on the part of the buyers of those securities for an independent analysis, which would determine the issuer’s financial standing. The assessments which are published using special symbols reflect country’s ability to raise capital and its cost. The results of the analysis published in the previous article (Rólczyński, T., Kopyściański, T. (2016). Economic Condition of the European Union Countries and Level of Rating. European Financial Systems 2016, p. 654.), indicate that the ratings provided by the rating agencies are linked to the countries’ economic condition.

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Corporate Tax Revenues of Selected EU Countries Using Spatial Autocorrelation Approach

Author(s): Slavomíra Martinková,Jakub Danko / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The reason of state interventions in economic processes of countries is in the economic literature supported by the hypothesis of the failure of the market mechanism with the efficient allocation of economic resources in the context of social optimum. In terms of fiscal policy affecting the rate of growth of corporate income tax revenues, there are numbers of views expressed by experts in economic theory. During the process of increasing internationalization, it is important to monitor the economic, and spatial contexts that are influencing changes in corporate tax revenues in countries. The main goal of this study is to model spatial autocorrelation of corporate income tax revenues in the EU member countries of selected time periods. Authors analyse the spatial structure of corporate income tax revenues of selected EU member countries by using the Local Indicators of Spatial Association Method. The used method identifies the range of the relevant spatial clusters of selected indicator, while the partial aim of the contribution is to identify areas with negative spatial autocorrelation of selected EU member countries’ corporate income tax revenues. The results of the analysis are compared by observing fiscal indicators in terms of the tax policies of individual countries.

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Determination of Revenue Potential of Financial Transaction Tax and its consideration as own resource of the EU budget

Author(s): Veronika Solilova,Danuše Nerudova / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Although the responsibility for realizing the Europe 2020 strategy is shared between the EU and its 28 member states, the main criticism of the current EU budget relates to the lack of a link between the budget and Europe 2020 strategy. Therefore a new budget design as well as alternative revenue sources is currently explored within a mid-term review. One of the possible candidates is a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT). To research FTT revenue potential, a model based on a remittance system was designed. We analyze full or partial replacement of VAT- and GNI-based own resources by the transfer of the tax revenues from a FTT raised on a national level to the EU budget. Our research revealed that the introduction of a FTT would be able to fully replace VAT-based own resources (except of variant B and E). In the case of GNI-based own resources, the full replacement of GNI-based own resources in the amount of USD 89,255 mil would only be reached by variant D. In the remainder of the cases, partial replacement would be achieved.

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The future of value added tax in European Union in accordance with size criteria of business entities

Author(s): Radka Šumanová,Anton Marci / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

In current value added tax system applicable in the single market of European Union is cross border value added tax fraud expected to be responsible for fraud worth around 50 billion of euros and it bears significant administrative burdens with current fragmented rules (Ondrušová, 2015). The aim of the paper is to explore possible approaches to tackle current problems in the area of ongoing value added tax reform in European Union with focus on solutions comparable to already existing mini-one-stopshop solution for certain e-commerce services and the impact of similar system used for goods delivered to consumers in the single market from one member state to other member state of European Union. Combination of mini-one-stop-shop approach with upholding of thresholds for intra-community value added tax registration in different member state for businesses established for purposes of delivery of goods on current levels would be a path worth of exploring further as minimizing of administrative burdens is vital part of aims stated in the documentation of VAT Expert Group assisting European Commission in the value added tax administration.

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The Tale of Twin Deficits: Which Comes First?

Author(s): Menbere Workie Tiruneh / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

This paper is aimed at contributing to the ongoing debate on the possible bi-directional relationship between government budget deficit and current account deficit in the European Union. While there is a bulk of empirical papers addressing the underlined question this paper takes the most recent time series covering longer time paper (2004Q1-2014Q4) and fairly large number of countries and shows that twin deficits still poised a problem with no clear evidence whether the causality goes from budget deficit to current account or vice versa. This study based on a Pairwise Granger test for all EU countries and indicates that the direction of the causality goes from current account deficit to budget deficit and not vice versa. Splitting the sample into “new EU” and “old EU” members, however, the results seem to suggest that the relationship turns bidirectional. The estimates based the VAR model and corresponding response functions seem to suggest fairly week relationship between budget and current account deficits.

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Healthcare benefits: luxury or necessity goods? EU countries case revisited

Author(s): Paulina Ucieklak-Jeż,Agnieszka Bem,Paweł Prędkiewicz,Rafal Siedlecki / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The aim of presented research is to analyse, whether healthcare services are luxury or necessity goods, taking into account several differences (income, healthcare’s financing system) between European countries. We have posed the following hypotheses: (H1): the character of healthcare services is affected by the level of national income; (H2): the character of healthcare services is affected by the model of healthcare financing. We have employed data coming from 28 European countries, covering the years 2004-2014. Data were obtained from Eurostat Database and OECD Health Data. Using the LS and WLS methods, we can conclude that: (1) in richer Europeans countries healthcare services are luxury goods; (2) in poorer European countries healthcare services are necessity goods; (3) in countries, where healthcare services are finance based on Beveridge system, healthcare benefits are necessity goods, while (4) in countries, where Bismarck system is employed – healthcare services are luxury goods. We have also found, that both in “poor countries” and “Beveridge countries” subgroup, the reduction of income inequalities, as well as the lowering of the ratio of people at risk of poverty, decrease the level of healthcare spending, while in the subgroup of “rich countries”, as well as in “Bismarck countries” this influence is entirely opposite.

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META-ANALYSES OF COMPOSITE INDICES IN THE EVALUATION OF EUROPEAN UNION TERRITORY

Author(s): Lukáš Melecký / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Measurement of territorial progress with regards to achieving the developmental potential plays a crucial role in improving the prosperity and quality of life in any territories. This process has proved difficult as contemporary views on measurement of territorial development are multidimensional concepts. Several methods of evaluating the level of development exist, most of methods have their own limitations, especially in selection of relevant indicators and weighting scheme. Despite the limitations, several approaches in the form of composite indices has been proposed by the European Union (EU) and subsequent institutions for the EU evaluation in the field of cohesion, competitiveness, entrepreneurship, inclusive society, innovation, regional development and potential, resilience, social progress, etc. The aim of the paper is to review the relevant approaches to evaluation of territorial development (especially the EU case) based on composite indices and give an overview of notion and main empirical results. Meta-analyses is based on comprehensive analysis of scientific literature and research studies of constructing the territorial composite indices. Results of meta-analysis will be utilised as a tool for future analysis in measuring regional efforts and progress as well as to compare territories regarding the level of regional development potential based on construction of own index.

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REGIONÁLNÍ DIFERENCIACE EKONOMICKÉ ÚROVNĚ EVROPSKÉ UNIE

Author(s): Josef Abrhám,Petr BURDA,Blanka HAVLÍČKOVÁ / Language(s): Czech Publication Year: 0

Despite the long-term functioning of the economic and social cohesion, there are still significant regional disparities which remain within the area of the European Union. The aim of this article is to evaluate development and main features of the regional differentiation of the economic level. Emphasis is put on assessing the impact of the financial and economic crisis and the changing conditions of development in an environment of the EU enlargement. Methodology is based on empirical statistical data analysis. Eurostat database was used as the main data source. NUTS 2 level units are examined. The indicator of the variation coefficient was used for statistical quantification of the regional disparities, which is calculated by dividing the standard deviation of all regions to the national average per capita GDP. The theoretical study is an overview of the concepts of the regional development and growth.

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Relations between IFRS Adoption and Financial and Non-financial Measures of Economic Entities, Empirical Results from the Selected Countries of Western Europe

Author(s): Marcin Kędzior,Dorota Kędzior / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The aim of the article was to analyze the relationship between the application of IFRS by economic entities and financial and non-financial measures of enterprises in the selected countries of Western Europe. 461 companies from Western European countries were analyzed. The article discusses the issues of preparing financial statements according to IFRS. The subject of the detailed analysis were correlations between the IFRS application and profitability, liquidity ratio, assets turnover, investment intensity, total debt ratio, company size, company growth, international activity, market share and industry concentration. The higher level of risk, lower liquidity, lower turnover of assets, higher capital intensity, higher company size, age of the business unit, broader international operations and higher market shares in companies applying IFRS in selected countries of Western Europe were verified empirically.

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Household Deposits’ Availability for Credit Institutions during Tensions on Funding Markets – A Case of the Euro Area Countries

Author(s): Katarzyna Kochaniak / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The EU regulations indicate household deposits as stable funding for credit institutions under stress and in the long run. However, the recent financial crisis revealed runs in the euro area, including ones that threatened financial stability. They encouraged to analyse the changes in the levels of deposits placed by households with credit institutions in individual member countries in the period of distress in funding markets. The study aims to analyse the fluctuations in the levels of household deposits and, in particular, to recognise regularities and irregularities in this respect. It applies regression models with time series data on household deposit totals for individual countries in the euro area. The results display considerable cross-country differences in the formation of deposit levels in the period analysed. For several member states, the trend could be recognised only in specified sub-periods. Only for some of the countries, the linear trend described a general long-term direction of changes in household deposit totals, confirming its stability in the entire period. In most member states, seasonal fluctuations in deposit totals occurred, but they related to various months. The study allowed identification of unexpected deposit outflows as well, which resulted, among other reasons, from financial problems of credit institutions. On the other hand, the adjustments in deposit guarantee schemes fostered households’ confidence in these entities and led to the unexpected increases of the deposits in selected countries.

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Taxation of Consumption in Poland. Redistribution and Fiscal Effects

Author(s): Anna Krajewska,Katarzyna Osiecka / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Consumption taxes constitute important source of budgetery revenues. In time of crisis the role of those taxes had raised – the rates of VAT and excise rose. The aim of this paper is to present those tendencies, and next to show their redistribution and fiscal results, mainly on Polish case. Redistribution tax effects are verified by 1) presentation of empirical research findings concerning VAT and excise burdens on households in Poland, in cross-section decyl groups and distinct social-economic groups. 2) comparison Gini’s coefficient before and after taxation and transfers in Poland and in secected EU countries. Analysis of fiscal effects of consumption taxation is based on 1) demonstration of correlation between contribution of indirect taxed in GDP and shadow economy in EU countries, 2) showing dependency between level of taxes and shadow economy by the example of tobacco market in Poland. Last chapter of the article shows actions taken in Poland aimed on insulating tax system.

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Environmental Risk Insurability Issues – the EU Perspective

Author(s): Malwina Lemkowska / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The aim of this paper is to evaluate insurability of environmental risk. Juxtaposition of the attributes of both environmental risk and insurance market against risk insurability factors will be the evaluation criterion. Two groups of insurability criteria have been identified: endogenous and exogenous ones. Exogenous criteria of insurability refer to the attributes of the risk itself. Exogenous ones are connected with the features of the insurance market and its participants, especially the ability of the insurance companies to deal with the specific risk. The level of environmental risk insurability is relatively low. It is because of the problem with fulfilment of both endogenous and exogenous criteria. The occurrence, which results in environmental damage is very often not sudden, random and extraordinary. The probability of accident and probable maximum loss are difficult to estimate. Additionally, environmental risk results often in catastrophic loss. Although insurance companies provide relatively high capacity, they have problem to create sufficiently large insurance portfolio.

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The Current Problems of the Eurozone and the Future Transformation of the European Union

Author(s): Oldřich Rejnuš / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The paper deals with the problems of contemporary management of the European Union, with focus on economic development of countries, associated in the European Economic and Monetary Union, using common currency. Its goal is to evaluate the ways of fiscal management of the European Union and monetary regulation, carried out by the European Central Bank, with focus on their efficiency and achievements. As there are, apart from economic problems, a number of other problem zones, directly or indirectly connected with analyzed economic problems, they are briefly specified in the paper, too. In conclusion, the influence of current way of management of the European Union on the development of individual states, with special focus on European Economic and Monetary Union states, so called “Eurozone” is evaluated. We are not going to evaluate only economic situation of individual countries; we want to assess a number of other factors, interconnected with economic development and significantly influencing compactness of European Union countries.

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General Data Protection Regulation in the Context of Municipalities

Author(s): Pavel Sedláček,Miroslav Svoboda / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The aim of this paper is to analyse the impact of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and implementation costs concerning municipalities. This regulation enforceable on 25th May 2018 aims primarily to provide control to EU citizens over their personal data, unifying the regulation within all EU members. This regulation aggregates new costs and duties for all subjects gathering personal data. This paper depicts the duties and changes newly commencing and possibilities of their implementation. Changes are demonstrated on an example of one municipality, particular needs of change and total costs of implementation are estimated for this subject. Comparing this subject to others, we can make an assumption of total costs of GDPR implementation in Czech Republic in the field of municipalities.

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Statistical Arbitrage Portfolio Selection in the Old and New EU Member States

Author(s): Bálint Botos,László Nagy,Mihály Ormos / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

In this study we analyze the return gained by cointegration-based pairs trading arbitrage strategy in Western and Eastern European capital markets. To achieve that, we showcase the contrarian evidence to the weak form of market efficiency found. The aim of the paper is to explore the mean reversion nature of the highly cointegrated stock pairs and to create a trading strategy with predefined entry and exit points. The portfolios used are created over 250-day long testing periods based on the cointegration selection of the pairs and then traded for 125 days. The realized return between 2012 and 2017 were 16.98% and 20.74% annually in the Western end Eastern European markets respectively. We also evaluate the standard deviations of returns achieved by the strategy and the portfolios’ correlations to the MSCI Europe, S&P 500 and the riskfree rate. As the strategy result in low correlation to the market, we confirm its market neutrality. The Sharpe-ratios of the portfolios for the full sample period are 0.57 (western) and 0.92 (eastern) but come up to 1.89 and 1.39 in the last 10 years.

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Determinant Factors of Fiscal Revenues, under Current Economic Conditions

Author(s): Loredana Andreea Cristea,Alina Daniela VODĂ,Dragoș Mihai Ungureanu / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Most of the state's financial resources are covered by compulsory deductions, namely taxes, fees and social security contributions, translated into fiscal revenues. In recent years, financial and economic research has focused heavily on the interdependence between taxes and economic growth. The main purpose of this research is to analyze the factors that lead to the increase or decrease of fiscal revenues collected by the state. Taking into account the current economic situation, the research will focus on a comparative study of Romania with an emerging state and a developed country, from the European Union, for a period of 10 years. The following variables are taken into account: fiscal revenues, inflation, unemployment rate, number of emigrants, imports and exports, factors with a significant impact on economic growth. In order to achieve the proposed objective, we will use the statistical analysis, through the SPSS software, to see the relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variable. The Pearson correlation coefficient will be used to measure the relationship between model variables. The study’s data is taken from the Eurostat and World Bank databases. After analyzing the results, there are outlined proposals for the optimization of the fiscal policy of the state, depending on the determinants of fiscal revenues, in order to ensure a balanced economy.

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Excise Tax Harmonization in the EU

Author(s): Taťána Hajdíková,Karel Janák,Olga Oberreiterová / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Excise taxes are a constant part of state budget revenue. They represent a stable income that governments can influence by raising the tax rate. Despite the fact that excise duties are mainly burdened with products that negatively affect our health and the environment, governments must increase their tax burden with caution. For most of these products it is not possible to find suitable substitutes and therefore the elasticity of demand is very small. The application of a change in the rate of excise duties can significantly affect the overall impact of taxes on taxpayers and the distribution of income in a company of a particular state. In trade between states, different procedures can be used to include or exclude excise duties on the prices of taxed products and tax competition between states can occur. The paper comments on its findings from the unfulfilled partial objective of excise tax harmonization, which consists in unifying the rate for individual selected products. The main reason for this failure is the collection of excise duty in the state where the selected product is put into circulation. Thus, the choice of excise duty remains the responsibility of national governments. States are also influenced by the historical development of the country in the rate setting, where certain types of alcoholic and tobacco products may be preferred. Yet harmonization in this tax area is successful in unifying the structure of selective taxes. A comparison of the taxation of individual groups of alcoholic beverages in selected European Union countries shows that these countries comply with the prescribed minimum rates for these selected products.

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