The new EU leadership â?? the president of the European Commission and his team of commissioners, and the presidents of the European Council and of the European Parliament â?? will have to address pressing challenges. Go to eu2do.bruegel.org to read all the Memos, download the individual Memos...

The European financial system is plagued at present by two major sources of uncertainty. First, there is still mistrust over the quality of banks’ balance sheets. Second, major uncertainty remains about the rules that will apply to bank recapitalisation, bank restructuring and bank resolution...

Estimates of the recapitalisation needs of the euro-area banking system vary between â?¬50 and â?¬600 billion. The range shows the considerable uncertainty about the quality of banksâ?? balance sheets and about the parameters of the forthcoming European Central Bank stress tests, including...

See comments by the authors 'Addressing weak inflation: The ECBâ??s Shopping List' and comment 'Negative ECB deposit rate: But what next?' 1. Introduction There are clear benefits to price stability. High inflation can distort corporate investment decisions and the consumption behaviour of...

The euro area today consists of a competitive, moderately leveraged North and an uncompetitive, over-indebted South. Its main macroeconomic challenge is to carry out the adjustment required to restore the competitiveness of its southern part and eliminate its excessive public and private debt...

During the crisis the European Central Bankâ??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...

The single currency was expected to make balance of payments irrelevant between the euro-area member states. This benign view has been challenged by recent developments, especially as imbalances between euro-area central banks have widened within the TARGET2 settlement system. Current-account...

The single currency was expected to make national balance of payments irrelevant for euro-area members. From 2010 onwards, however, governments, but also banks and non-financial companies in several euro-area countries have had difficulty getting access to non-resident financing. Assessing...

â?¢ Capital Markets Union (CMU) is a welcome initiative. It could augment economic risk sharing, set the right conditions for more dynamic development of risk capital for high-growth firms and improve choices and returns for savers. This offers major potential for benefits in terms of jobs,...

Using national account data, we define corporate balance sheet adjustment episodes as periods during which major increases in non-financial corporations’ net lending/borrowing are experienced. An analysis of such episodes in Germany and Japan, and a more systematic exploration of a sample of...