Opinion
The ECB should refine its collateral framework in order to continue protecting its balance sheet without putting at risk the safe-asset status of sovereign bonds of the euro area.
Blog Post
Strengthening the ESM can help to prevent crises and enhance deeper financial integration in the euro area. Yet, mislabelling the ESM as “European Monetary Fund” will not do the trick. Instead, a revamp of its precautionary credit line could create a meaningful instrument, built on the existing policy framework, by incentivising strong economic policies and guarding against financial market turbulence. However, the devil is in the details. The design of such a facility has to be well thought through, to navigate difficult trade-offs.
Opinion
In their recent Policy Insight, the team of French and German authors suggest introducing sovereign bond-backed securities to play the role of safe asset in the euro area. This column, part of the VoxEU debate on euro-area reform, argues that an improved euro-area architecture would, in the long run, make all euro-area sovereign bonds safer, and thus make the provision of safe assets through untested and potentially disruptive sovereign bond-backed securities unnecessary.
Blog Post
The European Commission’s proposal for a new stabilisation instrument inside the EU budget for the countries of the economic and monetary union is disappointing. This analysis highlights the proposed instrument’s main limitations, as well as the restrictive factors that will persist without a deeper EU budget reform.
Opinion
Deposit insurance, like any insurance scheme, raises moral hazard concerns. Such concerns arising from European deposit insurance can be alleviated through a country-specific component in the risk-based premium for deposit insurance and limits on sovereign bond exposures on bank balance sheets. This column argues, however, that proposals to maintain national compartments in a new European Deposit Insurance Scheme are self-defeating, as such compartments can be destabilising in times of crisis.
Opinion
Europe needs to have its Italian voice. A stable government is required not only to pursue domestic policies and remain fiscally prudent but also to negotiate on euro-area reform, priorities in the EU budget and intensifying competition in global trade.
Blog Post
Our scholars Grégory Claeys, André Sapir, Dirk Schoenmaker, Nicolas Veron and Guntram B. Wolff, explore the next steps needed to create a more functional and coherent economic governance framework.
Policy Brief
Two diametrically opposed visions of the euro-area architecture have been put forward. Departing from both Juncker’s and Schäuble’s proposals, the author identifies new ideas to develop the euro-area governance
Blog Post
8 of the EU27 have not yet joined the Euro, and progress in euro-area enlargement seems to have stalled. Commission President Juncker wants to give new momentum to the process, but the path is full of political and technical hurdles. The Euro is unlikely to have any new members soon.
Policy Brief
Two of the banking union’s pillars – common European supervision by the European Central Bank and common European resolution by the Single Resolution Fund – are up and running. But the third, common European deposit insurance, is still missing. The authors propose to design the EMF as part of a broader risk-sharing and market-discipline agenda.
Policy Contribution
What are the remaining fragilities of the Euro architecture? This policy contribution assesses the institutional reforms put in place during and after the crisis and make some proposals for a coherent economic governance framework to make Europe’s monetary union more resilient.
Policy Contribution
While precautionary recapitalisation is a legitimate instrument for bank crisis management, the conditions set for it by BRRD (Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive) are restrictive and have so far been effective to prevent its inappropriate use on insolvent banks. Nevertheless, the European Stability Mechanism should be empowered to participate in future precautionary recapitalisations.
