'The war in Ukraine and resulting increase in commodity prices are expected to contribute to a further widening this year.' The lingering pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are dealing a setback to the global economy. This is affecting trade, commodity prices, and financial flows, all of which are changing current account deficits and surpluses. Global current account balances—the overall size of deficits and surpluses across countries—are widening for a second straight year, according to our latest External Sector Report. After...

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"With fossil fuels likely to remain expensive for some time, governments should let retail prices rise to promote energy conservation while protecting poorer households." Soaring energy prices have sharply increased living costs for Europeans. Since early last year, global oil prices doubled, coal prices nearly quadrupled and European natural gas prices increased almost seven-fold. With energy prices likely to remain above pre-crisis levels for some time, Europe must adapt to higher import bills for fossil fuels. Governments cannot prevent the loss...

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Today the European Commission published the results of the 2022 Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), which tracks the progress made in EU Member States in digital. During the Covid pandemic, Member States have been advancing in their digitalisation efforts but still struggle to close the gaps in digital skills, the digital transformation of SMEs, and the roll-out of advanced 5G networks. The Recovery and Resilience Facility, with about €127 billion dedicated to reforms and investments in the area of digital,...

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The European Commission, on behalf of the EU, has today disbursed the first half (€500 million) of a new €1 billion macro-financial assistance (MFA) operation for Ukraine. The second tranche (another €500 million) will be disbursed tomorrow, 2 August. The decision about this new exceptional MFA was adopted by the European Parliament and the Council on 12 July 2022. This additional MFA of €1 billion is part of the extraordinary effort by the EU, alongside the international community, to help...

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Upside risks to the inflation outlook remain large, and more aggressive tightening may be needed if these risks materialize. Central banks in major economies expected as recently as a few months ago that they could tighten monetary policy very gradually. Inflation seemed to be driven by an unusual mix of supply shocks associated with the pandemic and later Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and it was expected to decline rapidly once these pressures eased. Now, with inflation climbing to multi-decade highs and...

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In an effort to increase EU security of energy supply, member states today reached a political agreement on a voluntary reduction of natural gas demand by 15% this winter. The Council regulation also foresees the possibility to trigger a ‘Union alert’ on security of supply, in which case the gas demand reduction would become mandatory. The purpose of the gas demand reduction is to make savings ahead of winter in order to prepare for possible disruptions of gas supplies from...

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"Check against delivery" Thank you Jozef. Dear Ministers We saw during the pandemic, the COVID crisis, that if the EU comes together and we act together we are collectively so much stronger than the sum of 27 Member States. We also saw during that crisis that also here, Putin tried to divide and rule. And prove that we were not capable to do that, that he had a better vaccine and all of that. And it has turned out very differently. He...

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NIST is posting two draft Special Publications (SP) on the Enterprise Impact of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Risk, with a public comment period open through September 6, 2022. The increasing dependency on ICT means that all enterprises must ensure ICT risks receive the appropriate attention along with other risk disciplines –legal, financial, etc. – within their enterprise risk management (ERM) programs. These documents and resources are intended to help ICT risk practitioners at all levels of the enterprise, in...

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Today, the EU has taken a decisive step to face down the threat of a full gas disruption by Putin. I strongly welcome the endorsement by Council of the Council Regulation on coordinated demand reduction measures for gas. The political agreement reached by Council in record time, based on the Commission's proposal “Save gas for a safe winter” tabled last week, will ensure an orderly and coordinated reduction of gas consumption across the EU to prepare for the coming winter....

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