Trade was assigned as a Community responsibility at the founding of the European Community in 1957. It was then recognized that Europe would achieve a greater international influence if it were to negotiate trade deals with one voice. Since then, the basic rule has been that the European Commission negotiates agreements on behalf of the EC, and presents the agreements negotiated for approval in the European Council. Today, the 25-member European Union is the largest trading power in the world, and most member states have decades of experience of coordinating their national trade interests into a common position. However, partly as a result of the complex nature of the trade decision-making processes it is sometimes problematic to identify who or what really influences EU trade policy.

During the 20th century Sweden faced an increased proportion of workers registered as part-time unemployed, especially in the care sector. However, due to many valuable efforts, aimed at solving the problem of part time unemployment and political decisions, the number of people who are part-time unemployed has declined since the late 20th century. We have investigated part-time workers preferential right to extending their working hours. According to Section 25 a of the Employment Protection Act, part-time employees who have submitted an interest in increasing their working hours has a preferential right to increased working hours, with the assumptions that full-time employment with the employer will meet a labor need that the employee has sufficient qualifications for.Qualitative interviews have given us information about how Karlstad Community and a private care company deal with part-time unemployment and their workers preferential right to extending their working hours. We have found that people who work for Karlstad Community have an opportunity to choose their number of workings hours, thanks to a political decision made in Karlstad Community, aimed at solving the part time unemployment in the care sector.

Abstract The IT- business is a fast growing business trade. This expansive line of business continuously demands flexibility both economically and legally. It is, today, of great importance to have knowledge about your own trade especially when it comes to new agreements. Laws and regulations are seldom flexible and adaptable tools, this is due to the fact it takes time to create new laws and, above all, it takes time to create laws with the right effect. This is where standard agreements enter the scene.

The EU has had a special agreement with their former colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific Islands, the ACP-countries, for almost 30 years. This has granted the ACPs with preferences on the Europen market, which have been excluded from other countries. The agreement is now beeing re-negotiated to make it more in terms with the rule of the WTO?s most favoured nation-principle. The new agreement will differ from the present one as it will be a mutual free trade agreement where the ACP countries will open their markets to the EU as much as the EU opens up it?s market to them.

The purpose with this thesis is to investigate how a number of municipalities in Stockholm County proceed when they allocate land and establish land allocation agreements for exploitation, and to investigate how a number of municipalities define land allocations and land allocation agreements on the occasion of public land sales. The aim of this thesis is to describe the allocation methods a municipally uses when they offer land for sale and to give an insight regarding which correlation different land allocation agreements have in different municipalities.Methods used are: (1) a literature review where the underlying theory for land allocations and land allocation agreements have been studied; (2) a questionnaire have been done to complement the literature review and to provide a picture of how a number of different municipalities in Stockholm County use and apply land allocations; (3) an agreement audit have been done to see the extent to which different agreement terms exists.Responses from the questionnaire, together with the definitions form different municipality?s land allocation policies and the literature review, resulted in a definition of a land allocation and a land allocation agreement. The agreement audit shows that agreement terms regarding: price or price indication, location, cost-sharing and planning costs are the most common agreement terms within the municipalities we have investigated.The study suggests that there is some confusion regarding land allocation agreements and the meaning of these, that became apparent when agreements where gathered, despite a careful explanation that it was land allocation agreements we requested, we still got exploitation agreements and purchase agreements. Therefore, we consider it necessary with an official definition of a land allocation agreement well anchored in the Planning and Building Act together with the rules of development agreements or other legislation.That there is a lack of research within the subject becomes evident when reports, essays, and other literature generally refers so the same sources.Keywords: land allocation, land allocation agreement and public land sales.

The aim of this thesis is to analyse the most common economic effects of countries pursuing trade facilitation. Trade flows are constrained by non-tariff barriers and through trade facilitation these barriers can be decreased. We will study the effects of trade facilitation from a theoretical perspective and evaluate a number of empirical studies. Several different trade barriers will be identified as well as those regions and countries that will gain the most from trade facilitation. We draw the conclusion thatlarge gains would prevail for all countries and that the consumers, businesses and the state all benefit from trade facilitation.

In 1995, the World Trade Organization WTO was established. Today WTO has nearly 150 member countries, accounting for over 97 percent of the world trade. WTO has a number of agreements and one of them is the General Agreement on Trade in Services GATS. GATS control the service sector, and the public library is a small part of this sector. The purpose of this study is to examine the Swedish debate about GATSs possibility to affect the public library.

In this study we examine trade patterns between Turkey and 13 member states of the European Union and how these have developed over the time period of 1983 ? 2006. To represent the industrial and agricultural goods included in the study we look at the United Nations Standard International Trade Classification (SITC). Following, we investigate internal differences in the EU by selecting four countries each to represent the Northern and Southern countries of the EU. Internal differences were studied in relation to the amount of trade occurring between Turkey and the Northern and Southern countries.

The purpose of this thesis is to get a better understanding of consumers? perception and knowledge of Fair Trade and Fair Trade products in Sweden. Literature was reviewed before the empirical research was conducted. A quantitative method, in form of a questionnaire survey, has been used. We have entered different areas related to our topic.

In this study we examine trade patterns between Turkey and 13 member states of the European Union and how these have developed over the time period of 1983 ? 2006. To represent the industrial and agricultural goods included in the study we look at the United Nations Standard International Trade Classification (SITC). Following, we investigate internal differences in the EU by selecting four countries each to represent the Northern and Southern countries of the EU. Internal differences were studied in relation to the amount of trade occurring between Turkey and the Northern and Southern countries.

In May 2004 eight former communist countries (EU-8) with close historical trade ties to Russia joined the European Union. According to integration theory, we expect that Russia ? a so called third country ? in some cases may suffer from trade diversion due to this. This thesis focuses on the possible effects on Russian trade resulting from the 2004 eastern enlargement of the European Union. It aims to find out whether any evidence of trade diversion can be found.

This thesis concerns agreements for the exchange of information relating to tax matters between Sweden and the previous tax havens Monaco and Liechtenstein. Monaco does not apply any tax on income or capital for individuals and Liechtenstein has strict bank secrecy, both aspects are supposed to be counteracted by similar agreements. The purpose is to investigate whether the entered agreements increases transparency and effective exchange of information in accordance with the OECD´s objectives in the area. Furthermore, is there any regulation in the agreements that can be seen as potentially loopholes to avoid the exchange of information and if so; may these loopholes be justified in any way?OECD believe that the tax havens favorable tax regulation is resulting in harmful tax competition and they identify lack of transparency and lack of effective exchange of information as the main reasons.

Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to study how the hotel chain Radisson SAS works with prolonged customer relations with their business clients, with other words the clients that have business agreements with them.Methods: This study will contain an inductive approach and qualitative methods. The qualitative research method is in the shape of a deep interview with the sales manager of Radisson SAS and qualitative interviews of chosen business clients to the hotel.Results: The results of this investigation show that business clients are controlled by what kind of agreements their company has.The companies sign agreements with hotels and hotel chains that are able to satisfy big parts of their needs, if not all of them.With the help of flexible solutions, a well known brand, and good relations, Radisson SAS has made sure that their business clients have prolonged their agreements.They are a global hotel chain near transports, and business clients feel secure with Radisson SAS..

This essay in economic geography describes what intra-firm trade as a concept is and different ways to determine in which cases trade is to be labeled as intra-firm trade (IFT) or not. The method used by the author is most easily described as descriptive. This method was chosen in order to test if existing theories; classic and neoclassic economics, new trade theory and international business studies, are capable to explain the phenomena of IFT. The theories are tested trough primary and secondary literature but also trough reasoning by the author.The conclusion is that the most reasonable way to determine whether trade occurs intra-firm or not, is to decide upon a 5-% rule where it when one part owns 5-% of the voting strength in the other company is to be considered intra-firm trade. This is a conclusion based on several reasons; the strongest one being that a common view on IFT could boost comparative studies as the U.S already collects data based on the 5-% rule.Classic and neoclassic economics are incapable of explaining IFT as aprerequisite for these theories is that markets are perfect.

This paper is an attempt to distinguish the specifics of the conflict resolution process and the negotiations during trade conflicts. First of all, this kind of conflict almost always contains some kind of protectionism which doesn?t make sense economically. Imposing trade-barriers decrease the overall welfare of your own nation and the only winner is the protected sector. These policies can be introduced since the political pressure from threatened industries is usually much stronger than the pressure from the consumers who will bear the burden of protectionism.