Stablecoins – digital tokens pegged to fiat currencies – have emerged as a major innovation in crypto finance, with broad implications for payments and international finance. The IMF, the Financial Stability Board, and the European Systemic Risk Board are focusing on the regulatory issues, while the US has just passed the GENIUS Act, a comprehensive […]
EU leniency on Germany’s fiscal plan highlights rule rigidity and the need for reform to support investment. Germany’s July 2025 medium-term fiscal-structural plan exposes the tension between raising public investment in a low-risk country and the requirement in European Union fiscal rules for member state debt to comply with the 60 percent of GDP public […]
In July, the European Commission fired the starting gun on the negotiations of the next Multiannual Financial Framework – the EU’s budget. Against a tough geopolitical and economic backdrop, the call to bolster Brussels’ public finances clashes with the reluctance of some member states to spend more centrally. This column outlines a possible way forward […]
There is a growing push from certain quarters for the European Commission to weaken merger control in order to spur greater investment and innovation, higher productivity and growth, or the creation of European champions. This column argues that there are empirical and theoretical grounds to strengthen, rather than weaken, merger control, and offers suggestions to […]
Chinese EV investment aids EU decarbonisation but brings risks, needing a united EU strategy to align it with climate, industrial and security aims. The European Union’s push to decarbonise road transport relies critically on a rapid shift to electric vehicles (EVs). However, European carmakers face high production costs and limited battery capacity, leaving them unable […]
The European Commission is set to clarify that the European Union’s crypto rules allow stablecoins issued by a company with an EU licence to be treated as interchangeable with those issued by a company’s non-EU entities, a source close to the matter said on Wednesday. The Commission will provide the clarification in the near future, […]
At a workshop in Marimauta Village, Zimbabwe, business is booming. Local entrepreneurs drop by to commission bespoke machinery. A solar-powered maize processing machine serves farmers across the region. Young apprentices learn new technical and digital skills. The scene contrasts sharply with 2019 when Cyclone Idai ripped through the area, tearing down power lines and shuttering […]
The European Union is nearly on track to reach its main climate target for this decade, with countries’ existing CO2-cutting plans set to bring the bloc within one percentage point of the goal, the European Commission said on Wednesday. The EU is on course to reduce its net greenhouse gas emissions by 54% by 2030, […]
The EU will propose to G7 finance ministers this week to lower the current $60 per barrel price cap on Russian seaborne oil as part of the new sanctions package against Moscow, European Economic Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said on Monday. Dombrovskis did not mention the level to which the European Union would want the price […]
