Strasbourg, 28 April 2015 -- Today the European Commission set out a European Agenda on Security for the period 2015-2020 to support Member States' cooperation in tackling security threats and step up our common efforts in the fight against terrorism, organised crime and cybercrime. The Agenda sets out the concrete tools and measures which will be used in this joint work to ensure security and tackle these three most pressing threats more effectively. The recent terrorist attacks on Europe's people...

Speech by Vítor Constâncio, Vice-President of the ECB, at the joint conference organised by the European Commission and the European Central Bank “European Financial Integration and Stability”, 27 April 2015 Ladies and Gentlemen, The financial and sovereign crises have markedly changed our understanding of financial interactions in the Economic and Monetary Union. We have experienced how quickly apparent integration among Member States can unravel and how it can pose a threat to economic activity, job creation and price stability. The degree of...

Financial integration in the euro area has improved steadily and has reached a level close to that before the sovereign debt crisis Establishment of Banking Union and unconventional monetary policy actions taken by the ECB are major drivers of the improvement Financial integration is crucial for restoring efficient credit flows to the real economy Overall, financial integration in Europe has returned to a level close to that recorded before the sovereign debt crisis, the European Central Bank (ECB) said today in a...

Brussels, 24 April 2015 -- The Neighbourhood Investment Facility brings additional investments in transport, energy and environment infrastructure, including climate change mitigation and adaptation, and to the development of social and private sectors in Eastern and Southern Partner Countries. The European Commission decided to contribute an additional EUR 295.04 million to the Facility in 2015 to enable more than EUR 3 billion in investments. The Neighbourhood Investment Facility (NIF) is an instrument which combines EU grants with other public and...

In the fourth quarter of 2014, the seasonally adjusted general government deficit to GDP ratio stood at 2.4% in the euro area (EA19), an increase compared with 2.2% in the third quarter of 2014. In the EU28, the deficit to GDP ratio stood at 2.6%, a decrease compared with 2.8% in the previous quarter. Full text available on EUROSTAT website or here: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-press-releases/-/2-23042015-AP

Amid concerns over a “new mediocre” in the global economy, trade should be seen as an integral part of the plan for increasing global growth over the medium term, a new IMF report says.  In its regular five-year review of trade, the IMF takes stock of the changes in the trade landscape and discusses key issues for the institution’s future work agenda.  A revival of trade growth, which has been slowing in recent years, has the potential to significantly impact growth...

Ms Lautenschläger, you have a unique role in the European Central Bank: not only do you have a say in the key ECB interest rates but, as Vice-Chair of the new banking supervision, you also monitor the institutions. Do you manage to avoid conflicts of interest between monetary policy and supervision? I am a purist in this regard, so I strictly separate both of my tasks in order to avoid conflicts of interest. Before contributing to a discussion, I...