Today, the Council gave the final green light to a regulation establishing the first EU-level certification framework for permanent carbon removals, carbon farming and carbon storage in products. This voluntary framework will facilitate and encourage high-quality carbon removal and soil emission reduction activities in the EU, as a complement to sustained emission reductions.   Carbon removals and soil emission reductions The regulation will be the first step in introducing a comprehensive certification framework for carbon removals and soil emission reductions into EU legislation. It will help the EU to achieve its...

Combined measure allows for a deeper understanding of how wealth distribution affects the overall health of economies Blog post by Henning Ahnert, Francien Berry, Darja Milic, Jorrit Zwijnenburg | Economists monitor income disparities because they can harden into more structural wealth inequalities that concern policymakers. Wider wealth gaps may also impact monetary policy transmission and financial stability. Accordingly, the European System of Central Banks developed new experimental Distributional Wealth Accounts for the euro area and most European Union countries. Combining wealth information drawn from...

Reduced energy excise tax rates in many countries in response to the recent energy crisis led to lower implicit carbon prices in 2023, but the development of new emissions trading schemes should lead to a greater share of emissions being priced in the next five years, according to a new OECD report.  Pricing Greenhouse Gas Emissions 2024: Gearing Up to Bring Emissions Down tracks how emissions trading systems, carbon taxes, fuel and electricity excise taxes, and subsidies that lower pre-tax prices...

Honourable Member of the European Parliament, dear Mr Zijlstra, Thank you for your letter regarding the potential costs of the digital euro project, which was passed on to me by Ms Aurore Lalucq, Chair of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, accompanied by a cover letter dated 9 October 2024. In your letter, you raise the question of how the digital euro could be cheaper for merchants than private alternatives. I would like to highlight that international card schemes currently account...

Contribution by Piero Cipollone, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, to the Centre for European Reform’s annual economics conference on “A European path to higher economic growth” Thank you for inviting me to discuss whether a “hot” economy can drive productivity growth. A lot has been said recently about the structural reasons for the productivity gap between Europe and the United States, notably in Mario Draghi’s recent report. But this gap has worsened in the post-pandemic period, as productivity growth...

(Translated from Spanish) Opening remarks Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Allow me to use Spanish to address you in this session that is as important as what will happen in our relations with the United States after the election of President Trump. An election that is not fortuitous, but rather demonstrates a profound political and cultural transformation in American society. a new relationship with politics, even a new relationship with the truth, because the truth seems to be excessively malleable. What...

The rapid adoption of AI in finance means that authorities should address information gaps for monitoring, assess the adequacy of current policy frameworks and enhance supervisory and regulatory capabilities. This report revisits the 2017 FSB report on AI and machine learning in financial services by taking stock of recent advancements, exploring use cases in the financial sector and drivers of adoption, as well as new potential benefits and AI-related financial sector vulnerabilities. In the past few years, technological advancements and increased computational power...

A significant gap in policy ambition exists between globally agreed temperature goals and the emissions reductions of national climate targets, according to a new report on countries covered by the OECD’s International Programme for Action on Climate (IPAC). According to the 4th edition of the Climate Action Monitor, Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) currently commit to a collective reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of only 14% by 2030, compared to 2022 levels, in countries covered by IPAC which produce over 80% of...