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This paper compares the economic integration processes of the European Union and the East Asian nations and comments on the possible reciprocal lessons, if any, that can be drawn to smooth the future paths of the two groups. The most relevant lessons on the EU side rely on strong institutionalization, structural policies, and the monetary union. Lessons from East Asia can be found in regional production networks, trade patterns, and the recent developments in financial cooperation. Both entities are presently facing difficult challenges to progress and growth.

India's Basmati Exports to EU May Drop.

Disease and Treatment as Ultimate Goals in Genome Research.

Taiwan Hospitals Conduct Clinical Trials for New Bone Marrow Transplant Treatment.

Study on Polluted Oysters Cause Upheaval in Taiwan.

Pre-Germinated Brown Rice May Possibly Benefit Alzheimer’s Patients.

Genetically Engineered Plants for Preventing Diabetes.

Gene Therapy — A Novel Treatment for Alzheimer’s.

Potential New Treatment for Stroke and Neurodegenerative Diseases.

EU Relaxes Regulations for GM Food.

XELJANZ™ (Tofacitinib Citrate), A new class of treatment for Rheumatoid Arthritis Approved in Singapore

A new statement from World-Class Position in Eye Care: Allergen Successfully completes Oculeve Acquisition

VIASPACE Giant King^® Grass Converted to Polymeric Carbon Solid Biofuel as Drop-In Replacement for Coal

ContourGlobal and the Republic of Armenia Announce Purchase of the Vorotan Hydroelectric Facility – IFC of the World Bank Group to Invest alongside CountourGlobal

Sigma-Aldrich and Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, Obtain Antitrust Approval in Brazil for Planned Acquisition

Omidria^® Approved for Commercialization throughout the European Union and Additional Countries

iBio to Receive US patent for Influenza Therapeutic

AstraZeneca broadens the Shoulders and to pay Inovio up to $700 Million for Cancer Drug

Genmab Enters Commercial License Agreement with Novo Nordisk for DuoBody Technology

The Indo-Pacific region and its politics are now in obscurity, and the power dynamics of US-China competition have become well settled within a new concept of geopolitics. As an economic giant and a distinct power in IR, the EU’s position and strategy in the region are garnering attention. This paper starts by discussing the EU’s perceived systemic rivalry with China and its falling out with the United States, its Atlantic ally since the two World Wars. It then introduces the concept of Europe as a normative power in order to better understand the EU’s policies. It points out how “Normative Power Europe” (NPE) has adapted to its surroundings by introducing the concept of principled pragmatism concept in 2016. The paper then lays out the EU’s security strategies in Asia and highlights its narrative of strategic autonomy, referred to as the Sinatra doctrine. From there, it employs the notion of NPE and principled pragmatism to delineate the EU’s unique stance in the Indo-Pacific region and how it puts this principled pragmatism into practice. Finally, it analyzes how the EU has strategically applied these concepts to succeed in its own way amidst US-China competition in the Indo-Pacific.

Directive 97/11/EC, amending the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive (85/337/EEC), introduced a number of key changes to the procedures of EIA in the European Union (EU). One significant amendment was the introduction of a requirement for EIAs to be completed for "changes or extensions to Annex I or II projects that have already been authorised executed or are in the process of being executed and which are likely to have significant adverse effects on the environment (CEC, 1997). That requirement imposes a duty on competent authorities to screen all changes and extensions of Annex I and Annex II projects for the need for EIA. Applying legal and policy principles established in the European Union, the scope of what constitute relevant changes and extensions is very wide. Given this wide scope, it would be reasonable to assume that screening changes or extensions would have been a major growth area of EIA activity in the UK. However, evidence presented here indicates just the opposite and suggests that many local planning authorities are not fully aware of the full implications of this clause in the EIA Directive. Furthermore, for the full implications of the "changes and extensions" clause to be implemented in the UK may require further amendments to the EIA legislation.

In common with the governments of the United States and Canada the European Commission subjects its trade policy to a publicly conducted impact assessment process. The EC approach differs from the others in assessing economic and social impacts as well as environmental ones, in other countries as well as domestically. In principle this can contribute to stengthening international governance. In practice difficulties are encountered in integrating the studies into the decision-making process. This paper examines the experience that has been accumulated in the EC programmme, with particular reference to studies at the global level for World Trade Organisation negotiations and regionally for the Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Area. These two examples offer pointers for how the impact assessment process might be adapted or extended to make a stronger contribution to international governance at both regional and global level.

Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) has often been identified as a key tool to contribute to sustainable development. This special issue of the Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management focuses on European SEA practice between 2003 and 2010 to critically evaluate SEA links to sustainable development and similar, difficult to define, high-level policy objectives: democratisation, good governance, agri-environmental objectives, and environmental justice. The papers centre upon the three main topics covered by the different research: SEA outcomes being directly related to policy goals; an analysis of the absence of SEA applied to "positive" policy objectives; and the realism of associating SEA with high-level policy objectives. In particular, this paper calls for greater critical engagement with this latter topic, identifying a need to examine why associations are made between SEA and policy goals.

Regional attempts to reduce pollution levels emerging from the European Union (EU) relative to 2010 are contrasted with unique policies of individual member countries’ aims to achieve a 10% reduction per country. Given this scenario, this research expands on the topic by developing a novel framework that links macroeconomic policies, total national expenditure per person, traditional energy use, renewable energy use, and CO₂ emissions levels in EU countries from 1990 to 2016. The study utilizes the second generation cross-sectional-autoregressive-distributed lag (CS-ARDL) panel data method. According to the study’s findings, the monetary instruments of growth exacerbated the adverse effects of CO₂ emissions, and by tightening monetary policy, the harmful effects of CO₂ emissions levels have been reduced. Further, the Granger causality test indicates a bidirectional causality between monetary policy and CO₂ emissions levels, and unidirectional causality from the policy assessment for energy use. The finding confirms that the assessment policy recommendations on energy consumption have future effects on ecological value.

The European Union (EU) has certainly reduced its influence in the global economic affairs. Despite the fact that it unites 28 nations, including the former great powers such as the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Italy, the political and economic power of the community has considerably decreased starting with the second half of 2000s. The present research is undertaken with the aim of increasing the readers’ awareness regarding the necessity of enforcing the EU economic security through consolidating the authority of the supranational bodies in relation with national representatives. The objectives to be reached in this regard include assessing how much the governance efficiency alternations among the EU member countries influence the efficiency of the single market in a globalised society. It was found that several processes determined the decline of Europe’s strength including raising globalisation and increasing competition, economic weaknesses of the EU which worsened during the crisis, stagnation of the integration process, feeble leadership and lack of resoluteness, especially in the most developed EU nations, declining adherence to “core” values, migration crisis, little political commitment to protecting EU’s citizens’ interests, and countries’ individualism in promoting key initiatives.

The second decade of the 21st century has been marked by rising tensions between the United States and China, with the European Union caught between the two powers in an era of strategic competition. The “$17+1$” mechanism, which focuses on economic cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, is not spared from the U.S.-China economic confrontation. The United States has launched a political and public campaign against China’s telecommunication giant Huawei in the CEE region, where most countries are U.S. allies. Since its establishment as “$16+1$” in 2012, the mechanism has made slow progress in generating expected benefits to CEE countries, as many of China’s investments are under negotiation, delayed, or even canceled. The case of Romania indicates that CEE countries’ engagement in “$17+1$” depends heavily on the changing priorities of their political leadership, which adds much uncertainty to the future development of the mechanism. Besides, there is lingering EU concern that the mechanism may divide the Union. To enhance its status as a strong and responsible partner with CEE countries and the EU, China needs to reform “$17+1$” into a more transparent, effective and inclusive regional mechanism that engages all interested countries.

Europe’s GDP growth is gathering pace as a consequence of both sound policies and external factors. Forecasts are being revised upwards even though they keep potential growth estimates low. This article argues that there are good reasons to expect a scenario with higher medium term growth, where reforms are accelerated, and increases in investment, productivity, and labor participation offset the decline in population and temporary legacies from the crisis. Several studies show the big growth gains from this scenario. Moreover, experience in various European countries confirms that it is feasible. Reforms are underpinned by the current accommodative monetary policy and by a responsible, but more flexible, fiscal policy stance that smoothens adjustment, improves fairness, and supports demand in countries with fiscal space. Successes in growth-enhancing reforms, better awareness of their potential net benefits, and more attention to prevent or reduce negative distributional effects, may restore trust and garner citizens’ support for this growth model. They may also help overcome the obstacles to further integration that should make this model more robust.

One major objective of the new EU neighborhood policy is to move towards more trade integration between the enlarged EU and its new Eastern and Southern neighbors, i.e., Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, as well as Southern Mediterranean and Caucasus countries. Using recent theoretical developments in gravity models, this paper derives an estimable equation, which particularly focuses on trade costs. This equation is then used to investigate the new neighbors' export potential towards the EU market. For this purpose, several Hausman and Taylor's models are implemented in order to consider the correlation between certain independent variables and the residuals which are used to calculate trade potentials. Results outline that the NNCs' export potential is generally significant, especially for the new Eastern neighbors. However, it seems that this potential is limited for Mediterranean countries, as they have already enjoyed preferential market access with regards to the EU. Finally, an extension of the analysis to Middle-East and Gulf countries also highlights significant trade potentials with the EU.

In recent years, there has been a lack of empirical work devoted to the explanation of migration patterns into the European Union with the exception of country specific studies. At the same time, migration theories have undergone a considerable renewal, which has led to the development of new variables for explaining migration decisions. Three of them are of particular interest in the EU case, namely welfare magnets, border effects and policy regulations. This paper aims at explaining recent migration trends into the EU. A first contribution is to provide an original eclectic theoretical model from the new developments in migration theories. Second, an empirical panel data model is developed in order to explain the emigration rate into 18 EU countries, from 67 source countries over the past 10 years. Finally, this model simultaneously tests the impact of the traditional and the new variables on migration flows into the EU. From both static and dynamic panel data estimators, the results show that the new variables are of particular significance, compared to traditional ones.

Business environment is one of the location factors taken into account by investors while investing abroad. This paper focuses on the relationship between changes in business environments in the new Member States of the European Union (EU) and foreign direct investors' behavior. The analysis concentrates on Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, with special reference to Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. The EU policies and the national incentive-based FDI policies are two driving forces influencing business environment in the new Member States. All the adjustments to the EU requirements reshape conditions for doing business in the new Member States and lead to the improvement of so called economies' 'fundamentals'. The national FDI policies could be treated as a factor disturbing these long term processes and changing economic choices of the established and potential investors. The statistical data on FDI inward stock and annual FDI flows confirm the positive reaction of foreign investors to the changes taking place throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Some data, however, confirm also that there is intense incentive-based competition and a kind of bidding war between them in order to attract foreign investors.

One of the most prominent features in the evolution of the European Union (EU) has been its geographical expansion. Using a dynamic general equilibrium approach, this paper predicts the effects of future eastward expansions of the EU on both inter- and intra-national flows of trade and labor. Underlying the simulations is a spatial model of the EU incorporating heterogeneous firms, intra-industry trade, iceberg trade costs, and many possible locations. Locations are populated by a large number of potential firms, and these firms employ labor that varies across countries in its relative skill. The dynamics of the model are such that unprofitable firms are forced to exit in the long run, and workers have the opportunity to migrate in response to steep gradients in real compensation. Novel features of the data used here are that locations are defined in a very precise way and that the simulations take as their starting point a proxy for the actual distribution of economic activity across the European landmass. The model is calibrated to match aggregate trade and migration data from the 2004 enlargement as well as data on exporter characteristics. Simulations of enlargement predict an increase in aggregate exports of potential new members to the previous EU-15 of 4.7 percent of GDP in the five-year period following adoption of the acquis communautaire and net migration flows from potential new members to the previous EU-15 of 1.3 percent of aggregate acceding country population over the same period. Moreover, the simulations deliver many of the stylized facts of economic geography.

This article will discuss the political and economic background behind Poland's decision to join the Euro-Zone, perhaps as early as 2012. The article describes important political events and summarizes key economic data presented at the end of 2008, as well as providing important “pro and con" arguments surrounding this controversial move. In addition, the article provides a context to Poland's “march to Europe," as it has moved to full membership in the European Union, including its single currency.

This paper integrates two growing strains of literature. The first strain looks at the effect of economic and political unions on outcomes such as bond ratings and economic convergence. The second strain looks at the determinants of economic freedom across countries. Building from these two literatures, we investigate the impact of joining the European Union on a country’s economic freedom. Using a panel of countries from 1970 to 2007, we find evidence that joining the European Union increases a country’s economic freedom. Empirically, however, the impact of joining the union on economic freedom is small.

This paper analyses forced labour and human trafficking laws from the UK and the Saudi Arabian perspective. It begins with a discussion of the characteristics of human trafficking and the legal frameworks adopted by transnational and trans-regional bodies to restrict human trafficking. Next, the paper analyses the legal instruments in the UK and Saudi Arabia for the protection of victims of trafficking, and finally it provides a critical commentary on forced labour and the international and national legal instruments for preventing this. This examination of both states' efforts to identify the weaknesses and strengths of each, and in particular to address the weaknesses in the Saudi system as compared to the UK system, is the main purpose of this paper. Saudi Arabia can improve its ranking from Tier 3 to Tier 2 (United States Department of State, 2002) if reforms are introduced in the legislation and enforcement domains. (Tier 1 means ‘countries whose governments fully comply with the TVPA's [Trafficking Victims Protection Act 2000] minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking’; Tier 2 means ‘countries whose governments do not fully comply with the TVPA's minimum standards but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards’; and Tier 3 means ‘countries whose governments do not fully comply with the TVPA's minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so’.) The anti-trafficking laws are also improving in Saudi Arabia, with an emphasis on the role of the law enforcement agencies in preventing the occurrence of trafficking across Saudi borders.