Jean Pisani-Ferry and André Sapir believe that the euro has proved attractive as a fair-weather currency for countries and investors well beyond its borders. But it still remains to be seen if its governance is strong enough for it to succeed as a stormy-weather currency. The authors already...

Through Bruegel's role on the Monetary Experts Panel for the European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, Bruegel scholars contributed to the Committee's Monetary Dialogue with the European Central Bank meeting on 28 September. In this briefing paper for the Panel, Director...

In response to the financial and economic crisis, central banks, unlike in the 1930s, have created enormous amounts of money. There are fears that this will lead to inflation, but it is base money (the central bank's liabilities) that has expanded; total monetary aggregates have not. By contrast,...

Senior Non-Resident Fellow Jürgen von Hagen offers his recommendations for the proper monetary policy to lead the eurozone out of the crisis. He argues that the tentative recovery in the euro area indicates that both monetary and fiscal policy can be normalised soon. However, because delaying...

Resident Fellow Zsolt Darvas takes a look at the issue of the Baltic states - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - and the challenges facing those three countries in the aftermath of the financial crisis. He argues that because it is in the broader European interest to prevent a collapse in the...

Jean-Claude Trichet deserves praise for fighting inflation and his handling of the financial crisis of 2007-2009. But his legacy is unfinished and we still have to see whether he will be the one who saved the euro. Important challenges remain for the incoming president. First, trust of citizens...

The search for solutions to the euro crisis is based on a partial diagnosis that overemphasises the lack of enforcement of existing fiscal rules. Europe's leaders should rather address the euro area's inherent weaknesses revealed by the crisis. At the core of euro-area vulnerability is an...

The Bank of England, the Federal Reserve (Fed) and the European Central Bank (ECB) have responded to the crisis with exceptional initiatives resulting in a major increase in their balance sheets. After the ECB's end-2011 launch of three-year bank refinancing (LTRO), there has been speculation...

The European Central Bank's monetary policy addresses the euro-area average inflation rate. By setting conditions for the area as a whole it should ensure symmetric price adjustment. Indeed, consumer price inflation rates provide little evidence of asymmetric adjustment during 2009-11. Only...

During the crisis the European Central Bank's roles have been greatly extended beyond its price stability mandate. In addition to the primary objective of price stability and the secondary objective of supporting EU economic policies, we identify ten new tasks related to monetary policy and...