Blog post by Diana Gomes and Anamaria Piloiu | The Eurosystem has accepted Scope as a new rating agency alongside Fitch, Moody's, S&P and DBRS. This has a number of implications, including a wider range of credit opinions and expertise being considered for monetary policy purposes. Credit rating agencies are private companies which assess the creditworthiness of issuers of financial instruments – be they governments, commercial banks or corporates. Many investors in the financial markets rely on rating agencies because...

Leaders from the Departments of Commerce, Defense, and Energy; and the National Science Foundation; and the Chief Executive Officer of the National Center for the Advancement of Semiconductor Technology (Natcast) gathered at the White House to announce over $5 billion in expected investment in the CHIPS R&D program, including the National Semiconductor Technology Center (NSTC), and formally establish a public-private consortium for the NSTC. The announcement included hundreds of millions of dollars of expected investment in the semiconductor workforce;...

Today, the European Union and the United States held the fifth meeting of the EU-US Trade and Technology Council (TTC) in Washington, D.C. The meeting allowed ministers to take stock of the progress of the TTC's work and to provide political steer on key priorities for the next TTC Ministerial meeting, which will take place in Belgium in spring. The TTC is the main forum for close cooperation on transatlantic trade and technology issues. It was co-chaired by European Commission Executive Vice-President...

On Tuesday, Parliament and Council negotiators reached a provisional deal on the Net-Zero industry Act to bolster EU production in technologies needed for decarbonisation. The "Net-Zero industry Act" sets a target for Europe to produce 40% of its annual deployment needs in net-zero technologies by 2030, based on National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) and to capture 15% of the global market value for these technologies. During negotiations, MEPs secured an approach based on a single list of technologies to be...

The Commission has today published a detailed impact assessment on possible pathways to reach the agreed goal of making the European Union climate neutral by 2050. Based on this impact assessment, the Commission recommends a 90% net greenhouse gas emissions reduction by 2040 compared to 1990 levels, launching a discussion with all stakeholders; a legislative proposal will be made by the next Commission, after the European elections, and agreed with the European Parliament and Member States as required under...

Special European Council, 1 February 2024 EU leaders greenlit additional funding for the multiannual financial framework 2021-2027 and discussed support for Ukraine. They also discussed the situation in the Middle East and agriculture, and paid tribute to former European Commission President Jacques Delors, who passed away on 27 December 2023. European Council conclusions, 1 February 2024 Remarks by President Charles Michel at the press conference of the special meeting of the European Council Main results Mid-term revision of EU long-term budget 2021-2027 As a follow-up to their meeting in December, EU...

Global growth is holding up, while the pace of growth remains uneven across countries and regions, and inflation is still above targets, according to the OECD’s latest Interim Economic Outlook. The Outlook projects global GDP growth of 2.9% in 2024 and a slight improvement to 3.0% in 2025, broadly in line with the previous OECD projections from November 2023. Asia is expected to continue to account for the bulk of global growth in 2024-25, as it did in 2023. Inflation is expected...

The Council and the European Parliament today reached a provisional agreement on the directive on multiple-vote share structures for companies seeking admission to trading of their shares on an SME growth market. The directive aims at encouraging company owners, especially owners of SMEs, to list the shares of their company for the first time on an SME growth market using multiple-vote share structures, so that they can retain sufficient control of their company after listing; moreover, the Directive protects...