Climate action is gaining momentum. Since the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries have intensified climate action and many have committed to reach net zero emissions by 2050, meaning that any additional carbon emissions will be offset completely by carbon emissions withdrawn from the atmosphere. However, the carbon budget, or maximum amount of emissions allowable, to limit global warming to well below 2°C is running out quickly. More frequent and intense disasters, a decline in agricultural productivity, and rising sea levels will...

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Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, Luis de Guindos, Vice-President of the ECB | Frankfurt am Main, 22 July 2021 | Good afternoon, the Vice-President and I welcome you to our press conference. At today’s meeting, the Governing Council focused on two main topics: first, the implications of our strategy review for our forward guidance on the key ECB interest rates; and, second, our assessment of the economy and our pandemic measures. In our recent strategy review, we agreed a symmetric inflation...

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Read the letter from Mr Panetta to the European Data Protection Board on the privacy and data protection aspects of a possible digital euro here ! Compliments of the European Central Bank.

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The European Commission has today presented an ambitious package of legislative proposals to strengthen the EU's anti-money laundering and countering terrorism financing (AML/CFT) rules. The package also includes the proposal for the creation of a new EU authority to fight money laundering. This package is part of the Commission's commitment to protect EU citizens and the EU's financial system from money laundering and terrorist financing. The aim of this package is to improve the detection of suspicious transactions and...

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The European Commission kick-starts today two new Industrial Alliances: the Alliance for Processors and Semiconductor technologies, and the European Alliance for Industrial Data, Edge and Cloud. The two new alliances will advance the next generation of microchips and industrial cloud/edge computing technologies and provide the EU with the capabilities needed to strengthen its critical digital infrastructures, products and services. The alliances will bring together businesses, Member State representatives, academia, users, as well as research and technology organisations. Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President for...

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One of the positive surprises about last year’s recession is how little damage it inflicted on average household and corporate balance sheets in Europe. In the past, deep recessions were followed by protracted weakness as they left households and businesses with significantly higher debt and lower income and capital. So far this has not been the case with the COVID-19 crisis, largely thanks to the extraordinary policy response by governments and central banks. As the recovery takes hold, however, policy makers...

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The COVID-19 pandemic presents a real-life test that may hold important lessons for financial policy, including the functioning of G20 reforms. The COVID-19 pandemic is the first major test of the global financial system since the G20 reforms were put in place following the financial crisis of 2008. While significantly different in nature from the 2008 crisis, this real-life test may hold important lessons for financial policy, including the functioning of the G20 reforms. The report identifies preliminary lessons for financial...

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The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s securities markets regulator, today launches a consultation on draft ESMA guidelines on certain aspects of the MiFID II remuneration requirements. The remuneration of staff involved in the provision of investment and ancillary services and activities, or in selling or advising on structured deposits to clients is a crucial investor protection issue. Therefore, ESMA has developed draft guidelines that aim to clarify and foster convergence in the implementation of certain aspects of the new...

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Speech by Isabel Schnabel, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at a virtual event series hosted by the Peterson Institute for International Economics | Last week the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) published its new monetary policy strategy. It was the ECB’s first review of its strategy since 2003, with most features of the framework still dating back to its founding years. Since those times, the world economy has changed in fundamental ways. About half of today’s ten...

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Interview with Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, conducted by Martin Arnold on 11 July 2021 | It is only a few days since you announced a new strategy. How will this change the ECB? I think what has changed is how we define price stability and while in the past, we had this vaguely ambiguous and a little bit complex “below, but close to, two per cent”, we now have what I would call a simple, solid, symmetric two per...

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