The Contents and Timing of a European Banking Union: Reflections on the Differing Views
Although views differ on the precise contents and timing of a genuine banking union, there is wide political agreement in principle on the need for three basic and vital elements: European bank supervision, a European deposit guarantee scheme (DGS) and a European bank resolution mechanism. In this CEPS Essay, H. Onno Ruding offers his personal views on the progress achieved to date, the outstanding issues that will prove the most difficult to resolve and recommendations on the way forward.
Europe in hard times: driving institutional change during the Eurozone crisis
The goal of this research is to provide a mid-range rationalist explanation of the 
dynamics of institutional change occurred in the European Union during the 
sovereign debt crisis. My starting hypothesis is that the crisis may represent a 
driving force for the emergence of major institutional changes. Moreover, I claim 
that the policy outcomes adopted are not a pure reflection of actors’ bargaining 
powers, but they are decidedly mediated by the existent institutional rules, and 
the decision making process behind their adoption, i.e. intergovernmental or 
supranational, can be determinant for their successfulness. Taking stock of the 
institutional changes occurred between 2010 and 2014, the research aims at 
understanding whether the Eurozone crisis triggered a deepening of the 
European integration, reflected by any eventual upload of authority from the 
national to the supranational level. In order to assess these issues, I analyze three 
different economic policies, namely the progressive strengthening of the rules of 
fiscal discipline, the creation of the financial instruments to support member 
States in need and the progressive setup of a banking union in the EU. For each 
issue area, I search empirical validation of my starting hypotheses and I apply an 
original index to measure the “rate of supranationalism” of different aspects of 
the policy. By comparing the institutional setup before and after the crisis, I am 
able to provide an assessment of the eventual supranationalization of each single 
policy, then of the EU as a whole. 
My findings offer a substantive empirical validation of the leading hypotheses. 
Namely, I demonstrate that the timing of adoption of major policy outcomes is 
strongly related to the most acute phases of the crisis in terms of financial 
markets’ pressure. Moreover, I show that intergovernmental policy making tends 
to create only incremental outcomes and even institutional deadlocks, while 
supranational decision making produces more effective outcomes. Finally, the 
application of the original index suggests that over the last years the European 
integration undertook a deepening process, resulting in a widening of the scope 
of supranational policies, an intensification of EU institutions’ powers as well as 
different forms of authority delegation to supranational bodies. These patterns of 
supranationalization were mainly driven by the pressure of financial markets 
and by the necessity of overcoming the institutional deadlocks engendered by 
intergovernmental negotiations, demonstrating that the Eurozone crisis has 
represented a political momentum for transformative institutional changes in the 
EU.
Research requirements to reduce maintenance costs of civil helicopters
The maintenance problems faced by the operators of civil helicopters that result in high costs are documented. Existing technology that can be applied to reduce maintenance costs and research that should be carried out were identified. Good design practice and application of existing technology were described as having a significant impact on reducing maintenance costs immediately. The research and development that have potential for long range reduction of maintenance costs are presented.