Professor : Philip Abreham. This course has a web site.

Description

From http://www.vlerick.be/education/mba/introductory.htm#integration:

To do business in Europe students should have an insight into the functioning of the European Union, in particular into the competencies of the various institutions (Commission, Council, Parliament, Court of Justice) and their roles in the decision-making process.

In addition they should be aware of the existing challenges as a result of successive treaties (Rome, Single Act, Maastricht) and enlargements. Finally, participants should have an insight into various lobbying strategies based on the Community decision-making process.

It is the purpose of this course to provide the students with these insights.

Topics covered by the course :

(fuzzy structure)

• Opening Markets in Europe
  • The role of the EU Institutions (the commission, the parliament, the european council, the council of ministers, the european court of justice) in the de-regulation processes
  • Europe cohesion and the challenge of Europe expansion
  • Differences with the US and Asia
  • Levels of Market segmentation and integration in Europe
• Business Economics
  • Impact of Market segmentation
  • Impact of Market Integration
  • Impact of Globalization
• The De-Regulation Cycle
• Establishing Competition
  • ?DeRegulation strategy
  • The De-Regulation cycle
  • Competition policy : Mergers
  • Competition policy : Subsidies
• Globalization strategies
  • Multilateralism
  • Minilateralism
  • Bilateral approach
  • Protection

Case1 : European Electricity Market

Deadline : October 4, 2002

For this case, the following questions had to be answered:

1. Which are the advantages/disadvantages of deregulation in the European Electricity Sector ?
2. What elements are crucial in a good European deregulation policy for the electricity sector ? Make a comparison with the American energy problems (California)
3. Wich are the differences/similarities between deregulation (and deregulation policy) in the European electricity and other European sectors ?
4. Is not only deregulation, but also privatisation a good solution for the future ?

Main lecture : "Issues in Electricty Market Integration and Liberalisation" : AnEuropeanElectricityMarket (structure only)

Our work summary : DeregulationEuropeanElectricityExecutiveSummary

Some links I used for my part

• European Commssion DG Energy and Transport : http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/energy/index_en.html
• ELIA - The network regulator in Belgium : http://www.elia.be
• CREG - The Electricity and Gaz regulation commission in Belgium : http://www.creg.be

My Group: Antony Depoorter (1st yr IMBA), Bert Devos (2nd yr IMBA), Thierry Cornette (1st yr IMBA), Jean-Fran?ois Declercq (1st yr IMBA), Peter Degroof (2nd yr IMBA)

Case 2 : The GE/Honeywell Merger Case

Increasingly competition policy and international trade policy are affecting the global environment in which companies are operating. Gradually, those policies are becoming intertwined with competition cases spilling over to trade policiy and the other way around. The General Electric (GE) - Honeywell merger, wich was blocked by the European Commission, provides an interesting example of EU competition policy towards mergers. At the same time, it became a source of dispute between the US and the EU and therefore raises the issue of a transatlantic or multilateral approach towards merger cases.

The following questions had to be answered in the paper :

1. The European Commission blocked the merger between GE and Honeywell. What were the arguments for doing so ? Are they consistent with the procedures followed and the view taken by the Commission in other merger cases ? Do you agree with the decision ?

2. Cases like this one and several others transcend the borders of one country or trading block. In doing so, they deal with market access to a trading block and hence become international trade and investment cases. Should they be dealt with (i) unilaterally by each country or trade block even if this implies occasional trade frictions (ii) as part of strategic bilateral trade relations between trading blocks (iii) on a multilateral basis by the WTO ?

Executive Summary of our work : GeHonewellMergerCaseExecutiveSummary

Some other stuff here :

• TheSingleEuropeanAct