WASHINGTON — On the 29th of April, the Office of the United States Trade Representative, together with the United States Department of the Treasury, hosted representatives of the European Commission in Washington for the seventh meeting of the Joint Committee established under the 2017 U.S.-EU Agreement on Prudential Measures Regarding Insurance and Reinsurance (“the Agreement”). The Agreement is a “covered agreement” under the Dodd-Frank Act for the United States and is an agreement under Articles 114 and 218 of the...

Read more

Horizon Europe, the EU's flagship research and innovation programme for 2021-2027, is proving to be a major driver of economic and societal benefits. For every euro of costs to EU society, the programme is expected to generate up to six euros in benefits for EU citizens by 2045. In terms of economic growth, every euro of EU contribution is estimated to generate up to €11 in GDP gains by 2045, according to an evaluation of the Commission released today. With a...

Read more

The Commission is investing €910 million under the 2024 edition of the European Defence Fund (EDF) to create a strong and innovative defence industry in Europe. These investments aim to close key capability gaps—like force mobility and drone defence—through innovation and collaboration across European science and industry. Moreover, and for the first time, Ukrainian defence industries can be associated to EDF projects. The strengthened cooperation between the Ukrainian and European defence industries, builds on outreach efforts by the EU Defence Innovation Office in...

Read more

Money market rates efficiently reflected changes in the ECB’s deposit facility rate, used by Governing Council to steer monetary policy stance Increased daily money market activity, dominated by secured and foreign exchange swap segments High concentration in short-term tenors, with non-banks being most active counterparties The European Central Bank (ECB) today published its Euro money market study 2024. The study shows that daily turnover in the euro money market grew by 38% to €1.8 trillion in the two years to...

Read more

Post-tax incomes increased in almost three-quarters of OECD countries in 2024, as real wages recovered and labour taxes increased slightly, according to a new OECD report. With inflation rates falling across the OECD, Taxing Wages 2025 reveals that the post-tax income of a single worker earning the average wage increased in real terms in 28 of the 38 OECD countries in 2024, having declined in 21 countries in 2023 and 33 countries in 2022. The new OECD analysis provides cross-country comparison of the...

Read more

Speech by Piero Cipollone, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at the conference on “Policy challenges in a fragmenting world: Global trade, exchange rates, and capital flow” organised by the Bank for International Settlements, the Bank of England, the ECB and the International Monetary Fund Frankfurt am Main, 29 April 2025 I’m honoured to welcome you to this conference, jointly organised by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the Bank of England, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the...

Read more

By Benjamin Hartung, Tobias Linzert, Imène Rahmouni-Rousseau, Yannik Schneider and Marta Skrzypińska One year after its announcement, the new operational framework is working as intended. Euro area banks have adapted to declining central bank reserves as the Eurosystem's balance sheet is normalising. The ECB Blog assesses how banks and money markets cope with the new environment. The normalisation of monetary policy over recent years has also meant declining amounts of central bank reserves in the hands of commercial banks. In March...

Read more

Amid heightened uncertainty, policymakers will need to deal with complex trade-offs between debt, slower growth, and new spending pressures Major policy shifts underway have heightened global uncertainty. The series of recent tariff announcements by the United States, and countermeasures by other countries have increased financial market volatility, weakened growth prospects, and increased risks. They come in the context of rising debt levels in many countries and already strained public finances, which in many cases will also need to accommodate new...

Read more

The global risk outlook has become more challenging amid increased trade and economic policy uncertainty. This letter was submitted to G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (FMCBG) ahead of the G20’s meeting on 23-24 April. As his term as FSB Chair nears its conclusion on 1 July 2025, Klaas Knot reflects on the progress made in addressing global challenges to financial stability and outlines priorities for the future. The letter notes the challenging global risk outlook, with increased trade and...

Read more