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  • Think tank review
  • 30. januar 2018

Think Tank Review - Issue 53/2018

Welcome to issue 53 of the Think Tank Review compiled by the EU Council Library* (click to share on Twitter). It references papers published in December 2017. As usual, we provide the link to the full text and a short abstract. 

Following the adoption of the Council's decision establishing Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) on 11 December 2017, the selection featured in our special focus could only centre on topics related to European defence issues.

Another significant section of this month's review is Brexit. This can be attributed to the considerable attention leading up to December's European Council discussions. Articles featured in this month's Brexit selection cover re-making British foreign policy, trade, immigration, climate and energy, and budgetary issues. We would also like to direct you to an interesting briefing from the House of Commons Library: Legislating for Brexit, a report that investigates how, in the future, the UK will navigate the various types of EU decisions 

Although PESCO and Brexit have garnered a great deal of attention, this issue also features substantial sections on EU policies and foreign affairs.

  • The first section, EU Politics and Institutions, covers a broad variety of topics, such as Europe's political tribes and the relationship between national parliaments and EU trade policy.
  • In section 2, Economic and Financial Affairs, many articles look into the European Monetary Fund and the European Stability Mechanism.
  • In section 3, EU Member States, articles in this section range from stabilisation policies in Poland to skills utilisation in the Irish labour market. We would also like to underline a robust subsection on Spain, in which we are delighted to include an article by a former Council trainee, Joel Díaz Rodríguez.
  • In section 4, EU Policies, we have several articles focusing on climate and energy. We also have an interesting curation of articles pertaining to employment issues.
  • Section 5, Foreign Affairs, articles cover areas such as defence industries in Russia and China, EU consistency in accession and withdrawal negotiations, and relations between Africa and Europe.

The next Review will be out in February 2018, with papers published in January 2018.

The Library is open to all staff of the Council of the European Union and European Council, trainees, permanent representations of Member States, staff of other EU institutions and bodies, and to researchers and students. Access to some library holdings may be restricted to on-site consultation.