The Council and the European Parliament have agreed on the EU’s annual budget for 2026. Next year’s budget will focus on delivering Union priorities and dealing with ongoing challenges. It will boost competitiveness, strengthen Europe’s defence readiness and preparedness, provide support for humanitarian assistance and address migratory pressures. At the same time, the budget safeguards the flexibility to react swiftly and effectively to unforeseen needs and crises. The 2026 budget amounts to €192.8 billion in total commitments and €190.1 billion in total payments. €715.7 million has been kept available this...

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The European Commission's Autumn 2025 Economic Forecast shows that growth in the first three quarters of 2025 outperformed expectations. While the strong performance was initially driven by a surge in exports in anticipation of tariff increases, the EU economy continued to grow in the third quarter. Looking ahead, economic activity is expected to continue expanding at a moderate pace over the forecast horizon, despite a challenging external environment. This year's Autumn Forecast projects real GDP to grow by 1.4% in the EU in 2025 and...

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Today the Council adopted new rules to improve cooperation between national data protection bodies when they enforce the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in order to speed up the process of handling cross-border data protection complaints. The measures adopted will streamline administrative procedures relating to, for instance, the rights of complainants or the admissibility of cases, and thus make enforcement of the GDPR in cross-border cases more efficient. Main elements of the new EU regulations • Admissibility: The requirements for the admissibility...

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Keynote speech by Frank Elderson, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB and Vice-Chair of the Supervisory Board of the ECB, at the ECB Forum on Banking Supervision 2025 It is a pleasure to deliver the last keynote speech of this year’s banking supervision forum. Over the past two days, we have discussed what resilience means in times of challenge, complexity and disruption – and why resilience should be broad based. As the Chair mentioned yesterday morning, broad-based resilience is...

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As carbon pricing continues to expand across countries and sectors as part of broader carbon mitigation efforts, design choices are increasingly diverse and flexible to reflect a variety of policy objectives including reducing emissions, raising public revenue, and strengthening energy affordability, energy security, and competitiveness, according to a new OECD report. Effective Carbon Rates 2025: Recent trends in taxes on energy use and carbon pricing presents information on how countries are using carbon taxes, emissions trading systems (ETS) and fuel excise...

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Speech by Governor Michael S. Barr Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.1 It is an honor and a pleasure to be here with you in Singapore, a crossroads for global trade and finance, to discuss the transformational nature of artificial intelligence (AI). Like other central banks around the world, including the Monetary Authority of Singapore, we at the Federal Reserve have been exploring the use of AI in our operations for quite some time as well as...

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The Council and the European Parliament reached a provisional deal on a regulation concerning new rules aimed at combating cross-border unfair trading practices in the agricultural and food supply chain. This regulation aims to improve cooperation between EU authorities responsible for enforcing rules on unfair trading practices in the agricultural and food supply chain. It is part of the EU’s efforts to support farmers’ position in the supply chain. "I am happy that we have reached a compromise with the European Parliament on...

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Blog post by Hites Ahir, Nicholas Bloom, Davide Furceri Amid rising geopolitical rifts and trade tensions, global economic uncertainty has surged, yet sentiment about economic prospects remains positive Major policy shifts this year have been adding to unknowns about the future and policy decisions, according to our World Uncertainty Index, which has doubled since January. Uncertainty has surged to an exceptionally high level globally, and it’s likely here to stay, as the IMF noted during the recent Annual Meetings. To better understand what causes this...

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At the COP30 UN Climate Change Conference in Belém, Brazil, from 10-21 November, the European Union will reaffirm its strong commitment to climate action. The EU is dedicated to paving the way toward a global transition that is clean, fair, and resilient. This transition aims to provide clean and affordable energy, create business opportunities, stimulate growth, enhance industrial competitiveness, and leave no one behind. The conference is a pivotal moment to step up action to meet the Paris Agreement goals set ten years ago....

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By Petra Köhler-Ulbrich, Yuma Schuster and Nikoleta Tushteva Banks consider the climate performance of firms and buildings in their lending policies. The euro area bank lending survey shows that lower climate risks tend to improve credit conditions. Meanwhile, green investments increase loan demand from firms and households. Reducing a firm’s carbon emissions or improving the energy efficiency of a building can help businesses and households to get a loan from the bank at more favourable conditions, the euro area bank lending survey (BLS)...

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