Euro & Finance Archives

Spain’s left-wing government has signed an agreement with the Commission detailing all operational instruments of the country’s national recovery plan, a formal step which will allow Madrid to request, shortly, the first half-yearly “tranche” of €10 billion from EU resources.

The European Union gave the City of London a reprieve on Wednesday (10 November), saying it will allow clearing houses in Britain to continue serving customers in the bloc beyond next June, when market access was set to expire.

Member states with a significant presence of foreign banks fear that the EU Commission’s proposal to implement the Basel III agreement sacrifices their national financial stability to integrate the EU’s banking sector.

EU finance ministers on Tuesday (9 November) relaunched the discussion on reforming the fiscal rule, which has been on hold since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Slovenian EU presidency said.

Monday’s meeting of the eurozone finance ministers was the first opportunity to discuss the review of the EU’s economic governance framework. While Commissioner Gentiloni hoped for a fresh start in the debate, the Austrian finance minister Gernot Blümel insisted on keeping the current rules.

Prime Minister António Costa on Monday (9 November) called for a review of economic governance rules in Europe that takes into account lessons learned from the different responses to the most recent crises, warning against "abrupt debt and deficit reductions". Speaking …

Only a quarter of senior positions in economics at universities and business schools are held by women, according to a recent study. Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank (ECB), pushes for more women in economics, saying “diversity is key to creating knowledge”.

The European Commission expressed commitment to stronger and more deeply integrated financial markets with its action plan on capital markets union (CMU) published one year ago. This objective cannot be achieved without a strong commitment from the EU Member States, even more crucial now, as Europe recovers from the COVID-19 crisis. 

In an interview with EURACTIV, a prominent economic historian and chronicler of economic crises argued for a different relationship between politics and finance and a new understanding of inflation. According to Adam Tooze, the European Union should focus on growth and not get bogged down in an argument about fiscal rules.

According to a new study, the public sector could take the lead in transitioning to a green economy and help grow the economy at the same time, but only if there is a change in the fiscal rules that are currently debated in the EU.

Through a newly proposed banking package the EU commission is trying to find a balance between increasing financial stability, protecting bank profits and sustainability concerns.

In a new discussion paper, economists of the European stability mechanism (ESM) suggest a simplification of the EU’s fiscal rules and their adaptation to changed economic circumstances.

A group of European countries agreed with the United States on Thursday to withdraw their digital taxes. The move by Austria, France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom follows an international tax deal agreed earlier this month that aims to allocate parts of the profits from highly profitable, big corporations to countries in which revenue is generated.

Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann, who on Wednesday (20 October) announced his decision to stand down more than five years early, led a decade-long fight inside the European Central Bank against the easy-money policies espoused by successive ECB presidents.

Days before the Commission is expected to publish its proposal to change capital requirements rules, billionaire hedge fund manager Chris Hohn called for a stricter treatment of fossil fuel investments in banks’ balance sheets. His call is supported by activists and experts who fear the effects of climate change on financial stability

The European Commission on Tuesday (19 October) took another step towards reforming the EU’s much-discussed fiscal rules, including the bloc's strict debt and deficit limits enshrined in the Stability and Growth Pact.

So often the source of rows between its members, the European Union starts reviewing its rules for national budgets to fit a post-pandemic reality of higher public debt and the huge costs of transitioning to a zero-emissions economy.

The EU's economic governance must drive climate action for a just transition, not austerity, writes Isabelle Brachet.

Ahead of a new push by the European Commission to reform the EU's fiscal rules, the chief of the bloc's bailout fund, Klaus Regling pointed out the danger of sticking to rules that have become “economically nonsensical”.

Days after 136 countries agreed on an international tax deal, a European Commission official announced that a directive to implement the corporate minimum tax rate might be forthcoming before the end of the year.

More than 100 countries agreed on Friday (8 October) a reform of the international tax regime intended to make it fit for the digital age and respond to longstanding concerns about corporate tax evasion.

EU lawmakers criticised the bloc's finance ministers on Wednesday afternoon (6 October) for their inaction against tax avoidance, in a debate devoted to the Pandora Papers, the latest leak of financial documents exposing malpractice and tax avoidance by the rich and powerful across the globe.

Following a new massive leak of financial documents, the so-called Pandora Papers, EU lawmakers called for more action against money laundering and tax evasion and urged the bloc's finance ministers to review the blacklist of global offenders. However, the ministers chose to remove three countries from the list on Tuesday (5 October).

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi unveiled an ambitious Italian budget for 2022-2024 last week, with deficits above the limits set by the Stability and Growth Pact, in what appears to be a bet on a change in the EU’s fiscal rulebook.