Today, the Commission is proposing to fully suspend the EU's Visa Facilitation Agreement with Russia. A country like Russia, waging a war of aggression, should not qualify for visa facilitations as long as it continues conducting its destructive foreign policy and military aggression towards Ukraine, demonstrating a complete disregard to the international rules-based order. The suspension is in response to increased risks and threats to the Union's security interests and the national security of the Member States as result...

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'High debt and rising interest rates put a premium on improved governance to anchor fiscal policy in EU member states.' Given the central role of fiscal policy in addressing both recent crises and future challenges, the call to reform fiscal governance in Europe resonates like never before. Fiscal policy provides essential support when households and firms are hit by large shocks, such as the pandemic, or when monetary policy is constrained. However, that requires healthy public finances. High debt and rising...

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Today, the European Union opens its new office in San Francisco, California, a global centre for digital technology and innovation. The office will reinforce the EU’s cooperation with the United States on digital diplomacy and strengthen the EU’s capacity to reach out to key public and private stakeholders, including policy makers, the business community, and civil society in the digital technology sector. The EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the European Commission, Josep Borrell, said: “The...

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The recent plunge in crypto assets has left investors numbed by losses and surely in doubt. But the future of money is undoubtedly digital. The question is, what will it look like? In our latest issue of Finance & Development, some of the world’s leading experts try to answer this complex and politically charged question. Of course, digital money has been developing for some time already. New technologies hope to democratize finance and broaden access to financial products and...

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The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s securities markets regulator, today publishes the second Trends, Risks and Vulnerabilities (TRV) Report of 2022. The Russian war on Ukraine against a backdrop of already-increasing inflation has profoundly impacted the risk environment of EU financial markets, with overall risks to ESMA’s remit remaining at its highest level. In the first half of 2022 financial markets saw faltering recoveries, increasing volatility and likelihood of market corrections. Separately, crypto-markets saw large falls in...

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Major economies sharply increased support for the production and consumption of coal, oil and natural gas, with many countries struggling to balance longstanding pledges to phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies with efforts to protect households from surging energy prices, according to analysis released today by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the International Energy Agency. New OECD and IEA data show that overall government support for fossil fuels in 51 countries worldwide almost doubled to 697.2 USD...

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Speech by Isabel Schnabel, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium organised by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Jackson Hole, Wyoming | 27 August 2022 | The Great Moderation was a period of prosperity and broad macroeconomic stability. The volatility of both inflation and output declined, the length of economic expansions increased, and people in most economies experienced sustained improvements in their standards of living. There is broad agreement that better...

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When people seek medical care or visit other sensitive locations, they may think their presence is confidential. Little do most consumers know that if they have their phones with them, their location – for example, at a women’s health clinic, a therapist’s office, an addiction treatment center, or a place of worship – may be collected by tech companies. From there, that uniquely personal data becomes yet another commodity bought and sold in the shadowy information marketplace. An FTC...

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In parallel with the adoption of EU instruments in the area of civil and commercial law, the EU’s exclusive external competence to negotiate and conclude international conventions has also increased. As a result, the EU (represented by the Commission) has gradually replaced Member States internationally. Where the EU cannot be formally a Contracting Party to an international Convention (because the participation of regional/international organisations is not foreseen in the convention), the EU exercises its competence through its Member States. The...

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