Blog Post
Hong Kong’s current situation is important for the world in as far as its role as major offshore financial centre is key for China’s inbound and outbound investment and financing. Capital outflows from Hong Kong are especially risky given Hong Kong's so far useful but rigid monetary regime, namely a peg to the USD under a currency board
Upcoming Event
Bruegel's 2019 Annual Meetings will be held on 4-5 September and feature the launch of Bruegel's Memos to the New European Commission.
Upcoming Event
This is a closed-door workshop jointly organised by MERICS and Bruegel looking at China-EU investment relations.
Upcoming Event
What connections exist between central banks and climate change, and what are the resulting implications?
Opinion
A series of global summits mean the months between now and November 2020 will be crucial to the future of climate change.
Opinion
The new leaders of the European Union, who have relentlessly championed open markets, will, ironically, likely trigger a conflict between climate preservation and free trade. But this clash is unavoidable, and how Europe and the world manage it will help to determine the fate of globalisation, if not that of the climate.
External Publication
This external publication delves into the new responsibility given to the European Central Bank: supervision on banks in the euro-area. It tells its history and illustrates its functions, structure and responsibilities and the exceptional answers to respond to the "perfect storm" of the crisis.
Opinion
The EU accepts the deal because it is worried about the catastrophic scenario of a world without the WTO.
Blog Post
Due to a spat between the European Commission and the government of Switzerland over the negotiation of an institutional framework agreement, equity securities that are listed on Swiss exchanges are banned from being traded on stock exchanges in the European Union. This blog post reviews the background of this incident and assesses the consequences for companies listed in Switzerland as well as EU investors investing in Swiss equity securities.
Opinion
In 2011, the EU introduced stricter rules to monitor the implementation of country-specific policy recommendations. Using a new dataset, this column investigates whether these new laws have increased national compliance. There is no evidence that these stricter processes matter for implementation rates, whereas macroeconomic fundamentals and market pressure are important determinants of implementation progress. These results suggest ways to improve the effectiveness of European policy coordination that go beyond stronger legal processes.
Blog Post
China has clearly signalled to Europe that it does not shy away from involvement in Africa, historically Europe’s area of influence. But the nature of China’s direct investment flows to the continent will have to change if they are to prove sustainable.
Blog Post
Croatia seems a suitable candidate for euro area accession: there is a tight peg to the euro, high public debt is coming down, and the banking sector is already dominated by euro area banks. But the Eurogroup has rightly targeted reforms of the state’s role in the economy as a precondition for participation in ERM II and the banking union. None of the announced reform plans are new or easily concluded within the timeframe that has now been agreed.