Shorter, topical publications for those professionally concerned with policy issues
Choose at least one filter and type in a search term
The digital transformation in Germany's economy and society is in full swing. Not all of the indicators of Germany's technological performance show a pioneering role in digitization. The technological trends will therefore not remain without effects on the business models of companies operating in Germany.
The good news is that Europe will not be dominated by populist parties. For big tent parties, i.e. the conservative EPP and the social democratic PES, however, results still aren’t rosy – they are looking at heavy losses, including the loss of their joint majority.
The debate concerning the future of the EU has been in full swing ever since Emmanuel Macron’s (2017) Sorbonne speech. New threats to internal and external security in Europe require a stronger EU. In addition, Brexit is ripping a hole in the EU finances.
The European Commission aims to push forward the concepts of ‘recycle, repair and re-use’ as well as waste avoidance. Two years after adopting the Circular Economy Package, EU institutions finally agreed on new EU waste rules.
The freedom of movement for workers is one of the core principles of the European Union and most Europeans have positive attitude towards it. 75 percent regard it as a good and only 9 percent as a bad thing. Nevertheless, the number of persons moving from one EU member country to another is still small.
The EU Commission proposes establishing Sovereign-Backed Securities (SBSs) as a class of safe assets for the euro area. SBSs are generated by an issuing agency that would purchase a large diversified portfolio of national sovereign bonds, and finance the purchases by issuing (at least) two types of structured bonds: a risk-free senior SBSs tranche and a risky junior SBSs tranche.
As a result of the European debt crisis, start-ups and established small and medium-sized companies have returned into focus for policy-makers in Brussels. They hope that SMEs create more jobs and growth. Despite this, the concerns of SMEs are still not at the heart of economic policy and regulation.
After the UK referendum of last summer, the new institutional relationship between the UK and the EU has to be shaped. The question arises as to how relations should be conducted going forward.
Since the outbreak of the European financial and economic crisis in 2008, the monetary policy of the European Central Bank (ECB) has been in crisis mode. Ensuring that the growth in the money supply transmutes into higher inflation or inflation expectations has been difficult.
