One of the ongoing discussions about the establishment of a digital euro – a central bank digital currency currently being scoped by the European Central Bank – is about the holding limit. This limit, which would determine the maximum value of digital euros a consumer would be allowed to have, is currently proposed to be between €3000 and €4000. The ECB also proposes to link holdings of digital euros automatically…
Many digital laws were enacted in the past, mostly under the EU’s Digital Agenda and Digital Single Market (DSM) programmes. In the current legislative term, which is coming to an end, important new measures relevant to digitalisation such as the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the Digital Services Act (DSA), the Data Act, the Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act), the Data Governance Act (DGA), the European Health Data Space (EHDS), an…
After months of bickering over whether and how to confiscate Russian sovereign assets, G7 members on 14 June agreed to use future profits from frozen funds held by Euroclear in Belgium to prop up a loan for Ukraine of up to €50 billion. That makes sense, as a full-blown confiscation policy would be plagued with legal pitfalls. Yet, the challenge still remains of crafting a syndicated loan backed by G7…
In 2019, ahead of that year’s European elections, my colleague Guntram Wolff, at the time Bruegel’s director, and I edited a collection of essays written by our Fellows for the incoming European Union leadership. We urged the leadership to be bolder in their actions, to aim for greener policies and to safeguard EU cohesion. Now, in the run up to June’s European elections, it is clear is that the last…
On 14 May, United States President Joe Biden announced new tariffs on China under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 (unfair trade) . The additional tariffs – on top of earlier tariffs, including those imposed by President Trump – cover imports from China in several sectors, including semiconductors (tariff rises from 25 percent to 50 percent), solar cells (from 25 percent to 50 percent), electric vehicle batteries (from 7.5…
There is however a solution that would avoid the risk of an early degeneration of the reform. It would require a clarification that, even if a country has been placed in an EDP only for breach of the deficit criterion, it should also satisfy the debt criterion of the EDP for the procedure to be abrogated. At first sight this specification would seem to contradict the provisions quoted above, which seem…
Over a period of just 15 years, Europe has been confronted with a financial shock that originated in the United States, a pandemic shock that originated in China but could have come from anywhere, and an energy shock provoked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. These events have prompted a re-examination of efficiency/security trade-offs that arise as a result of international integration, and particularly as a result of specialisation in international…
On security issues, the European Union does not speak collectively with one voice and member states are very far from having the same objectives on defence. Yet, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the prospect of a second Trump term, more needs to happen at the EU level. What that entails depends on which country one is in. The result is a debate that is confused and pulls in…
Whether and when Ukraine accedes to the European Union will depend greatly on how and when its war with Russia ends and post-war reconstruction starts, and how the EU handles issues of governance, security, migration, trade, investment, the energy transition, decarbonisation and the EU budget. The enlargement process is likely to overlap with post-war reconstruction, increasing the EU's influence in fostering Ukraine’s institutional development. Ukrainian leaders will have strong incentives…