Podcast
The euro is, by definition an international currency. However, since being established in the late 90s the single currency has always been somewhat less than the sum of it's parts and has yet to challenge the US dollar for global dominance. Its international status declined with the euro crisis of 2008.
External Publication
Proposals to reform the euro area are on the agenda again. An overhaul of the complex set of European fiscal rules should be top priority on this agenda because the fiscal framework in place suffers from clearly identified problems: rules are complex (therefore difficult to internalise for policymakers), pro-cyclical (therefore potentially destabilising), and noncompliance is the norm (therefore not credible).
Policy Contribution
This Policy Contribution assesses the performance of the G20 since its first summit held in November 2008 to understand what could lie ahead for the institution.
Podcast
Bruegel director Guntram Wolff is joined by Tharman Shanmugaratnam, deputy prime minister of Singapore and chair of the G20 Eminent Persons Group, and Jean Pisani-Ferry, mercator senior fellow at Bruegel, for a conversation about the growth and stability challenges facing the global financial system, and how the system can be better equipped to deal with the significant and novel problems of the future.
Opinion
It is hard to judge whether China will indeed carry out a substantial opening of its financial sector, despite the significant external pressure it faces from countries such as the United States to liberalise its economy.
Blog Post
A first report on a key plank of the European Union’s banking union reflects on shortcomings thus far, but also suggests that recent improvements might ultimately lead the SRB to be successful in its critical missions.
Opinion
China's recent announcement of reforming its financial market has received little enthusiasm from the U.S. despite its potential benefits. The lack of a clear agenda regarding its economic rival has pushed the Trump administration to minor any significant progress of China's reform, and to maintain focus on strategic issues.
Policy Contribution
The depiction of the euro area/European Union (EU) as a ‘fourfold union’ emerged in the first half of 2012 at the height of the euro-area crisis. In the past half-decade, Europe’s financial union has been significantly strengthened but remains incomplete and is challenged by Brexit. No consensus has been found on fiscal union and economic union has not made material progress, but political union might have advanced further than many observers realize.
Policy Contribution
As regulators rush to strengthen banking supervision and implement bank resolution regimes, a macro approach to resolution is needed that considers both the contagion effects of bail-in and the continuing need for a fiscal backstop to the financial system. This can be facilitated through the completion of a banking union in which the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) becomes the fiscal backstop to the euro-area banking system.
Past Event
This workshop aims to investigate the trade-offs involved in the next steps of decision-making for the future EU27 policy regarding central counterparties (CCPs / clearing houses).
Policy Contribution
The current fairly peripheral role of China in the global financial regulatory system is increasingly problematic. The system needs a guiding vision in which China becomes much more central – a ‘Chinese dream.’ This paper outlines three clusters of initiatives to achieve a global financial regulatory system in which China holds a major position.
Blog Post
Financial supervisors must provide the public with more information about the European banking sector in order to ensure financial stability. The level of transparency in national supervision of banks has dropped since 2013.