The European Commission today adopted a Communication on the competitiveness of the EU banking sector, setting out measures to strengthen the Single Market for banking.  President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said: "Getting capital flowing is how we will get Europe growing. Our Savings and Investments Union needs a strong, competitive banking sector at its heart. And today's Communication takes a clear step in this direction, recalibrating our approach to risk, and enabling growth and innovation while...

IMF Blog post | Less demand, more production, and inventory drawdowns prevented a larger price spike. A quick supply recovery is essential to avoid further damage to the global economy   The largest disruption to the global oil market in decades should have sent prices soaring. But after spiking at the start of the war in the Middle East, crude prices soon settled in a range of $90 to $100 per barrel, much lower than many had feared. Why didn’t prices...

Blog post | Changes in global trade policies and heightened trade tensions pose a challenge for euro area firms, particularly those operating internationally. For banks, these developments increase credit risk: the firms affected can face volatile demand, supply disruptions and squeezed margins, and may find it harder to service their debts. This post looks at how euro area banks have responded to rising trade tensions since 2025, drawing on granular analyses of loan portfolios from AnaCredit and survey data from the euro...

IMF Blog post | Integrating and deepening banking and venture capital markets would boost output by at least 3 percent, and make business dynamism reforms more powerful French startup Mistral AI’s recent financing round was led by ASML, a Dutch maker of semiconductor manufacturing equipment. Such cross-border investments—even when small relative to US deals—are not the norm in Europe. Far more often, good projects fail to scale. Among the reasons: Europe’s considerable savings are compartmentalized within national borders, and hard...

The European Commission's first review of the Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) has found that the regulation is fit for purpose to address distortions in the internal market caused by foreign subsidies. Its objective of maintaining a level playing field in the internal market is widely acknowledged and remains relevant. The review of the first three years of FSR enforcement shows the instrument is working well in practice. The procedures for reviewing concentrations and foreign financial contributions in public procurement procedures...

IMF F&D MAGAZINE article | Geopolitical rivalry does not end the need for trade cooperation, but the multilateral system must adapt For decades, the global economy rested on the premise that international trade was beneficial despite geopolitical differences. The rules of the multilateral trading system, established with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1947 and embedded in the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, were crafted for a world where governments rarely used trade to achieve geopolitical...