This study focuses on the economic impact of the brewing sector in 27 European union Member States plus 4 countries (Croatia, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey) in the year 2008. The report is the second edition; the first was published in January 2006. To represent the economic impact of the brewing sector, we distinguished three different effects: (1) direct impact, (2) indirect impact, and (3) induced impactAlthough the brewing sector is international in scope and many brewing companies are organisations operating as multinationals, the analyses were carried out at country level. In this manner, the impact on individual national economies could be measured.The methodology used for estimating this economic impact is developed by Regioplan. It is a model that can be used in other sectors also. The study is commissioned by The Brewers of Europe and conducted by Regioplan Policy Research and Ernst & Young Tax Advisors.

Depending on the method of measurement, undeclared labour accounts for between 3 and 15 per cent of European GDP. In most of the seven countries in this study, the fight against undeclared work is part of a general package of policy measures to promote employment and combat fraud.

This report contains a description and an analysis of the policies to combat undeclared work in seven Member States of the European Union: France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. After the analysis successful policy mixes are identified.

The transformation of undeclared labour into regular labour is an important issue of the employment policy of the European Commission. For the development of adequate policy measures which can be implemented in all member states, it is necessary to have sufficient and comparable information on the extent and the nature of undeclared work in the various countries of the European Union. The feasibility study on a direct survey about undeclared work was designed to establish how and under which circumstances a direct survey can help to improve the knowledge base on undeclared work in Europe.

The Brewers of Europe commissioned a study on the economic impact of the brewing sector. The economic impact of the brewing sector has been analysed and described at both the level of Europe as a whole and at the level of individual countries. The study has focused on the 25 member states of the enlarged European Union (EU-25) and also on Norway, Switzerland, Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey.

The economic impact of the brewing sector has been described in terms of employment due to the production and sale of beer, the contribution to the European economy in terms of value added and in terms of tax revenues collected by national governments. In the study we have distinguished between the direct and indirect impacts of the brewing sector, with the latter describing both the impact on supply sectors to the brewing sector and the impact of the sale of
beer on the retail and hospitality sectors. The report therefore gives some measure of the contribution that the brewing sector is making to the EU’s aims, within the Lisbon Strategy, of ensuring a more dynamic and stronger EU economy in the future.

In July 2004, the European Commission issued a new report on the extent of undeclared work around the EU. It looks at the incidence in each Member State, including the 10 new Member States that joined in May 2004, and examines the reasons behind the growth in undeclared work.

The issue of ‘undeclared work’ has been receiving increasing attention as part of the European employment strategy, and since 2003 the EU employment guidelines have included a specific guideline entitled ’transform undeclared work into regular employment’. This provides that Member States should develop and implement broad actions and measures to eliminate undeclared work, which combine simplification of the business environment, removing disincentives and providing appropriate incentives in the tax and benefits system, improved law enforcement and the application of sanctions. They should undertake the necessary efforts at national and EU level to measure the extent of the problem and progress achieved at national level.

In order to inform the debate and help Member States tackle the problem, on 2 July 2004, the European Commission published a report it had commissioned on Undeclared work in an enlarged Union. The report looks at the extent of the phenomenon around the EU, including in the 10 new Member States.

This overview report provides a typology of the potential approaches to and measures for tackling undeclared work. Such a resource could be used to provide a baseline against which the current approaches and measures used in the current 27 Member States of the European Union (EU27) can be assessed. The report looks specifically at the effectiveness of the policy measures used in five countries – Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom. The central finding is that EU countries currently remain heavily embedded in a ‘deterrence approach’, which seeks to increase the actual or perceived likelihood of detection and penalties.

One of the objectives of the Lisbon programme of the European Commission is to promote active citizenship. In order to enable the monitoring of this objective, Regioplan performed a study for the European Commission. The study focused on the selection of indicators for citizenship and citizenship education, on quality and availability of data, and on future possibilities for monitoring.

In opdracht van de Europese Commissie heeft Regioplan een uitgebreide inventarisatie gemaakt van beleidsmaatregelen die door diverse EU-lidstaten worden ingezet om zwartwerk te bestrijden. Het rapport bevat naast genoemde inventarisatie een analyse van oorzaken van zwartwerk en beleidsaanbevelingen voor de lidstaten.