Brexit is not only a historical chapter of the British — EU relationship, but it also carries immense challenges for fi nancial market stability in the short and medium run for the 28 member states of the European Union. The scale of these challenges depends heavily on the outcome of EU-UK...

During a financial crisis, pressure on Central banks to act as a lender of last resort (LLR) and to offer emergency liquidity assistance to troubled banks increases. The European Central Bank, however, has announced that it does not regard it as its principal task to provide emergency liquidity...

In the last issue of Intereconomics, a first article by the present authors looked into the measures that central banks have taken in support of the financial sector in an effort to mitigate the effects of the financial crisis. This second article describes the measures taken by governments to...

Despite the experience of the ongoing sovereign debt crisis, European banks continue to hold large amounts of bonds from their home governments. This ties the fates of the sovereign and the banks together, leading to the disruptive self-reinforcing feedback loops that brought the euro area to...

The first step towards the establishment of a banking sector geared to the market economy, the introduction of a two-tier banking system, has long since been taken by the countries of East Central Europe. A large number of shortcomings are still to be found in their banking systems, however, and...