Across The EUniverse – Number Two

What do Italians think about Europe? Or more precisely, do Italians think sufficiently about how the EU works and how it can be part of their daily business. What approach do Italian managers, private and public, entrepreneurs, stakeholders have to the European Union, the different  and complex legislative processes, how decisions are made, how group-decision support systems (GDSSs) work, how the EU rules are transposed into national laws and how or why they should be involved in these scene setting processes?

Take, for example, the EU Better Regulation Exercise. What does business know about this? And what impact will it have? The programme is knows as “REFIT” (European Commission Regulatory Fitness and performance Programme).  In the next Across the EUniverse we will try to show how the Commission, the European Parliament and the Member States approach the problem of reducing the overall amount of EU legislation and what it will mean to Italy.

Across the EUniverse is designed to show why the EU is important: each month it follows and monitors different issues, chosen on the basis of our long experience in Brussels, which are likely to have an impact on our daily business lives. This month we look at the Patent Box (see contribution page 4), on which the Italian Government recently announced the adoption of a specific implementing Decree. As the Patent Box includes tax measures to encourage the development and use of IP rights, the issue is backed up by a look at whether the Patent Box tax incentives are compatible with EU State Aid Rules (see contribution page 6).

This issue of Across the EUniverse also looks at the Horizon 2020 programme, the biggest EU Research and Innovation financing programme ever (see contribution page 9). An interesting contribution on the on-going debate on the protection of Geographical Indications in the TTIP negotiations is also included (see contribution page 11).

The ambition of Across the EUniverse is to underline, once again, that the right way to be in Europe is to know how the EU works, to know the procedures, their scope, the actors and what Italy wants to, and can, through long term and consistent engagement, achieve.