New rules to revive the EU's securitisation market will lead to more investment opportunities and increased lending to households and businesses. The new harmonised securitisation rules, which will apply as of 1 January, are an important building block of the Capital Markets Union. They will help provide additional funding sources for companies, strengthen banks' ability to support the economy and spread risks across market participants, while avoiding the excesses that led to the financial crisis. Drawing heavily on the work of the...

The euro, Europe's common currency, turned 20 on 1 January 2019. Exactly 20 years ago, on 1 January 1999, 11 EU countries launched a common currency, the euro, and introduced a shared monetary policy under the European Central Bank. The historic moment was a milestone on a journey driven by the ambition of ensuring stability and prosperity in Europe. Today, still young, the euro is already the currency of 340 million Europeans in 19 Member States. It has brought tangible...

The European Council was updated on the state of play on the Clean energy package files. I am very happy that yesterday we successfully concluded negotiations with the European Parliament on the two electricity market design files. This means that - provided EU ambassadors confirm this result - we now have a political agreement on the entire clean energy package. This will bring benefits to consumers in the form of lower energy prices and more possibilities to become active in the electricity...

     

By Gijsbert Bulk Global trade was transformed in 2016 as the British electorate voted to leave the EU and Donald Trump became the 45th president of the US. The political and economic uncertainty these two events have generated is greater than that seen during the global financial crash of 2008-09, according to the Global Economic Policy Index, which tracks news and policy sites to measure certainty. Countries are competing against one another in a series of increasingly unpleasant trade wars. According...