Opinion
The ruling of the German Federal Constitutional Court (GFCC) of May 5 on the ECB’s monetary policy affects not only the relation of Germany to the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) but also the constitutional foundations of monetary policy.
External Publication
A year ago, a group of 14 French and German economists joined forces with the aim of forging common proposals for euro area reforms. Their report gave rise to a lively discussion among officials and academics. This Policy Insight summarises the group's proposals and also addresses some of the points raised in a subsequent VoxEU.org debate on the topic.
Policy Contribution
This Policy Contribution looks at the evolution of public debt in Belgium and Italy since 1990 and uses the debt dynamics equation to explain the contrasting evolution in the two countries in the run-up to the introduction of the euro, during the early years of the euro and since the beginning of the crisis, arguing that the euro could have been used also by Italy to undertake sufficiently large fiscal adjustment.
Opinion
In the eyes of the critics, the quantitative easing programs have been of little help to growth and inflation and have instead been an attack on savers, undermining the profitability of banks and insurances. Do these arguments stand scrutiny?
Policy Contribution
Following the financial crisis, the question of how to handle a big bank’s collapse has come to the fore. This Policy Contribution evaluates the obstacles to resolvability that the legal and operational structures of the large euro-area banks could pose to the European Union’s new resolution regime.
Policy Contribution
This Policy Contribution shows that the effect of the ECB’s QE programme on bank profitability has not yet had a dramatically negative effect on bank operations.
Working Paper
This paper shows that economic convergence continued during the crisis for the EU as a whole, although at a slower pace, but for regions in the EU14, and especially in the euro area, convergence appears to have stopped during the crisis, or even switched to a divergence path.
Policy Contribution
In this Policy Contribution, Maria Demertzsis and Guntram B. Wolff discuss three progressive steps for strengthening the fiscal framework at the euro-area level. These lead to less interference in national fiscal policymaking thanks to a more credible no-bailout clause, increased risk sharing and different degrees of provision of euro-area-wide public goods and fiscal stabilisation.
Blog Post
The recently published in-depth evaluation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s role in the euro area crisis highlights important contrasts in the area of financial services. The IMF provided highly valuable analysis and recommendations to the EU on its banking sector and related policies. In individual countries (leaving aside Cyprus and the second Greek programme, not covered by this evaluation), the financial-sector aspects of the IMF’s interventions were highly successful in Ireland and Spain, ambiguous in Greece, and a missed opportunity in Portugal.
Policy Contribution
Nicolas Véron reviews in-depth the role played by the IMF in understanding the financial-sector dynamics of the euro-area crisis. The IMF was the first public authority to acknowledge the role of the bank-sovereign vicious circle and to articulate a clear vision of banking union as an essential policy response. At national level, the IMF’s approach to the financial sector was appropriate and successful in Ireland and Spain, more limited in the Greek Stand-By Arrangement, and less compelling in Portugal.
Blog Post
The new European banking supervision system is broadly effective and, in line with the claim often made by its leading officials, tough and fair, but there are significant areas for future improvement.
Blueprint
The Blueprint provides a review of the first 18 months of European banking supervision. It reviews the overall situation and the situation in a number of euro-area countries. It provides important insights into the start of a new policy regime that involves profound change for the European banking landscape
