IMF Blog post | Integrating and deepening banking and venture capital markets would boost output by at least 3 percent, and make business dynamism reforms more powerful French startup Mistral AI’s recent financing round was led by ASML, a Dutch maker of semiconductor manufacturing equipment. Such cross-border investments—even when small relative to US deals—are not the norm in Europe. Far more often, good projects fail to scale. Among the reasons: Europe’s considerable savings are compartmentalized within national borders, and hard...

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The European Commission's first review of the Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) has found that the regulation is fit for purpose to address distortions in the internal market caused by foreign subsidies. Its objective of maintaining a level playing field in the internal market is widely acknowledged and remains relevant. The review of the first three years of FSR enforcement shows the instrument is working well in practice. The procedures for reviewing concentrations and foreign financial contributions in public procurement procedures...

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IMF F&D MAGAZINE article | Geopolitical rivalry does not end the need for trade cooperation, but the multilateral system must adapt For decades, the global economy rested on the premise that international trade was beneficial despite geopolitical differences. The rules of the multilateral trading system, established with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1947 and embedded in the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, were crafted for a world where governments rarely used trade to achieve geopolitical...

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The European Banking Authority (EBA), the European Central Bank (ECB), national central banks and national supervisory authorities across the European Economic Area have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen cooperation and information sharing in support of non-bank payment service providers’ (PSPs) access to central bank-operated payment systems. This multilateral agreement sets out clear principles for collaboration and harmonises the processes and procedures for the exchange of information between national supervisory authorities and national central banks in relation to non-bank PSPs’ participation in payment systems operated by central...

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