How will our economy evolve over the next few years? The ECB and Eurosystem staff produce quarterly macroeconomic projections. These aim to assess how the economy in the euro area will develop. Today we again published a baseline scenario as well as two alternative scenarios, taking into consideration the high uncertainty surrounding the impact of the coronavirus on the eurozone economic outlook Overview Following a drop of 15.0% in the first half of 2020, euro area real GDP rebounded by 12.5% in...

Today, the Commission and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy are presenting a new EU Cybersecurity Strategy. As a key component of Shaping Europe's Digital Future, the Recovery Plan for Europe  and the EU Security Union Strategy, the Strategy will bolster Europe's collective resilience against cyber threats and help to ensure that all citizens and businesses can fully benefit from trustworthy and reliable services and digital tools. Whether it is the connected devices, the electricity grid, or the...

New international standards on the automatic exchange of information for tax purposes have so far been satisfactorily implemented by countries worldwide, marking an important milestone in the global fight against tax evasion, according to a new report published today by the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes (the Global Forum). The first Peer Review of the Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information shows that 88% of jurisdictions engaged in automatic exchange since 2017-18 were deemed to...

Speech by Fabio Panetta, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at the Rome Investment Forum 2020 | Rome, 14 December 2020 | 2020 has been a year like no other. We have faced an economic contraction without precedent in peacetime: in the first half of this year output in the euro area declined by more than 15%. But we have also seen a collective response that has no precedent in the history of our monetary union. That response has...

Speech by President von der Leyen on 12 December 2020, Brussels | "Check against delivery" Dear guests of the Climate Ambition Summit! 55% – That is now indeed Europe's calling card. I am glad that the 27 European Leaders have signed up to the European Commission's proposal for taking climate action to a new level of ambition. Together with the agreement on our next 7-year-budget, the 55% agreement is the go-ahead for scaling up climate action across our economy and society. We have...

Central banks have played a pivotal role in easing financial conditions in response to the COVID-19 shock, and helped avert a catastrophic downturn. However, their work is far from done. Yet more monetary stimulus will be needed to support economic recovery, and central banks are implementing innovative new strategies to provide it. Policymakers must weigh the pros of more stimulus today against the cons of higher financial stability risks in the future. While the new approaches are both necessary and welcome, it...