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 […]
Trade and other tensions between the European Union and China should not be allowed to derail joint work to cut emissions. The COP30 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Belém, Brazil, in November 2025 , will convene at a moment when the Paris Agreement’s architecture is firmly in place but the politics to deliver it are […]
According to the World Bank, one-third of the global population, roughly 2.6 billion people, live in “digital darkness,” meaning they lack access to the internet. Even European Union countries are facing a stark reality, as nearly half of all adults struggle to navigate the digital landscape. At the same time, job markets are evolving at breakneck speed—demanding advanced skills in […]
Tweaks to EU copyright requirements in the AI Act Code of Practice will maintain the AI growth momentum, for now – but will also create new challenges. As part of the implementation of the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689), the European Commission has published several implementation guidelines, including the final Code of […]
In January 2026, the European Union will require importers of certain carbon-intensive goods to pay for their products’ embodied carbon emissions. The policy, known as the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), could raise the cost of exporting these goods to the EU market, potentially affecting the competitiveness of exporters. To help developing countries assess the potential […]
How can the euro area’s return to fiscal sustainability be organised in view of soaring debt levels and the sovereign debt crisis? How can debts be financed efficiently, not least to prevent debt crises in weaker countries where high debt levels compounded by a hike in risk premiums on government bonds can create a debt […]
China’s growth model has continued to rely on expanding industrial capacity and exporting to the world, rather than on domestic consumption. This has lead to a significant increase in China’s global share of manufactured exports and has raised concerns about overcapacity (Figure 1; Xu, 2025). The imbalance arises because China’s expanding production capacity is outpacing […]
The ‘green growth’ debate is taking place in an oversimplified setting, largely disregarding the innovation factor. Technologies to mitigate climate change are being treated as given, or as emerging spontaneously, ignoring the fact that the portfolio of technologies available tomorrow depends on what is done today. This can easily lead to misguided preferences, either for […]
Combining product and capital market reforms at EU level with labour market and social policies at national level would be desirable, particularly within the euro area. The Lisbon Agenda has failed to deliver this coordination. The best policy strategy would be for the EU to go back to basics and focus all efforts on completing […]
Green hydrogen developers are cancelling projects and trimming investments around the world, raising the prospect of longer than targeted reliance on fossil fuels. The challenges facing the sector have exposed its initial ambitions as unrealistic. Hard-to-electrify industries that were seen as ideal candidates for green hydrogen, such as steelmaking and long-distance transportation, have found that transition to […]
