Kurt Deketelaere

How to increase cross border transmission capacity? A case study: Belgium

Cross border capacity allows electric energy to be traded internationally. The electricity sector used to be vertically integrated and often state-owned. High voltage grids were generally developed within the borders of a country. Connecting different national high voltage grids was done to improve the security of the system and to accomodate for a few historical long term contracts. By doing so, the different systems could share their reserve generation capacity. Since the liberalization of the electricity sector, cross border capacity has gained a renewed interest as this can increase the competition in the market. This paper aims to give an overview of recent and planned investments which increase the cross border capacity of Belgium. Also we give an insight into the different technologies which can be used and their advantages and drawbacks are discussed.

The Use of Fiscal Instruments in European Environmental Policy: Review Essay

INTRODUCTION Once a government has defined its environmental goals, it can execute them by means of different policy instruments. The following environmental policy instruments can be distinguished (Dente, 1995; Golub, 1998; OECD,1989): (i) instruments of social regulation, such as transfer of information (environmental education, environmental labels, environmental impact reports, etc.), self-regulation (environmental policy agreements, self-control), and environmental care systems; (ii) instruments of financial aid, such as subsidies, soft loans, and fiscal incentives (investment deduction, tax reduction and tax exemption); (iii) instruments of planning (Deketelaere, 1997, I), such as macro-planning and micro-planning, binding planning and non-binding planning, sectoral planning and non-sectoral planning; (iv) instruments of direct regulation, such as permits, prohibitions and restrictions, and different sorts of requirements (quality-demands, product-demands, emission-demands, design demands, construction demands and production demands); (v) instruments of market regulation (Baumol, 1988; Helm, 1991; Guppes, 1992; Jenkins, 1992, II; OECD, 1989), such as liability rules, marketable emission rights, deposit and refund system, enforcement incentives and environmental levies. In this contribution, each of these environmental policy instruments will be analyzed in general. After that, the instruments which have already been used in European environmental policy will be examined. Finally, attention will be paid to the use of fiscal instruments in European environmental policy.

The THEMIS school for continuing legal education: A ‘service agreement’ for lawyers in Flanders∗

The universities of Leuven, Brussels and Diepenbeek created in 2000 the inter‐university THEMIS School for Continuing Legal Education. The THEMIS School provides a well balanced, high quality, systematic and affordable course of continuing legal education. It aims at ‘actualisation’ or ‘updating’ (not specialisation!) of all lawyers in Flanders, and realises in this way a ‘service agreement’: it keeps the lawyers up to date and secures the value of their diploma. In this way, it not only meets the needs of practising lawyers, but also functions as a recruitment tool for new law students. The THEMIS School also illustrates that successful co‐operation between different institutions is possible.

European Environmental Tax Law and Policy: Greenspeak !

This article examines the use of fiscal and non-fiscal policy instruments in European environmental policy. Although a shift in the choice of environmental policy instruments has been noted for a number of years, the use of market-based instruments in general and fiscal instruments in particular remains problematic. Notwithstanding a large number of policy declarations and proposals, the development of a European environmental tax policy and legislation remains, until now, greenspeak!