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Business Intelligence European Union Technology

Business Intelligence: Making sense of the EC’s New Digital Regulations

As part of the European Digital Strategy, the European Commission proposed two legislative initiatives to end the regulatory fragmentation in the EU and to upgrade the rules governing the supply of digital services and the competition in digital markets in the EU: the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA). More precisely, according […]

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Business Intelligence European Union

Business Intelligence: EU Antitrust Case against Amazon

Case number AT. 40462 On 17/07/2019, the Commission decided to initiate antitrust proceedings in case AT.40462 Amazon Marketplace. The proceedings were initiated with a view to adopting a decision in application of Chapter III of Council Regulation No 1/2003 and concern the use by Amazon of commercially sensitive information available to Amazon’s marketplace operations, regarding […]

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Business Intelligence China ENG European Union Premium

Business & Geopolitics: Europe’s New FDI screening regulations

On June 17 2020, ahead of a tense EU-China summit, the European Commission published a white paper on levelling the playing field as regards foreign subsidies. The white paper is the result of a yearlong inflexion in EU’s foreign policy and economic doctrine in order to adapt the European Union to the realities of a Multipolar World by promoting a model of open strategic autonomy and by acknowledging China as a “strategic competitor” and as a “strategic rival”.

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Bonds Economy ENG European Union Eurozone Macro Analysis Sovereign Bonds

Macro Focus: ECB macro projections and the PEPP extension: shooting in the dark

Following the meeting of its Governing Council on June 4, the ECB announced an extension of its Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP) with an additional enveloppe of €600 billion. The total asset purchases made by the Eurosystem (ECB+ National Central Banks) to counter the coronavirus crisis including PEPP and additional APP purchases is now expected to reach almost €1.5 trillion. The bleak outlook for inflation shows the profound deflationary forces at work in the Euro area. Judging from the experience of the last few years, we believe the ECB’s assessment of an uptick in core inflation by 2022 to be too optimistic.

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Bonds Economy ENG European Union Eurozone Macro Analysis Sovereign Bonds

Macro Focus: An analysis of the European Commission’s Next Generation €750 billion recovery plan

the European Commission unveiled a €750 billion “Next Generation” recovery programme (€440 billion grants, €60 billion guarantees and €250 billion loans) over the 2021-2024 period. The Next Generation programme would preallocate funds to the Member States prioritising the green and digital transitions mainly through the Recovery and Resilience Facility (€560 billion). It includes additional cohesion funding for €45 billion. As we show in our analysis, Italy, Spain, Poland, Greece, Romania and Portugal would be the main beneficiaries of this proposal which is likely to meet resistance from the “Frugal four” (Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Denmark).
For the first time in EU history, fiscal expenditure would be financed through debt issued by the European Commission and backed by all the Member states, along the line of a French-German proposal. However, while this proposal is a welcome step toward fiscal integration, it is still short of a Hamiltonian moment for Europe”. The countercyclical policies needed to close the output gap left by the coronavirus crisis will still have to be conducted at the Member State level.

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Bonds Central Bank Watch Economy ENG European Union Eurozone Macro Analysis Sovereign Bonds

Macro Focus: “Karlsruhe vs. Frankfurt”: An analysis of the May 5 ruling by the German Constitutional Court and its potential impact on the ECB and economic policymaking at the EU level.

There are at least two ways to read the decision rendered by the German Constitutional Court – BundesVerfassungsGericht or BVerfG – on May 5, 2020 (BVerfG, Urteil des Zweiten Senats vom 5. Mai 2020), in the case opposing the ECB to a group of complainants claiming that the Frankfurt-based monetary institution went beyond its legal mandate, when it decided in March 2015 to launch a large scale asset purchase programme (APP) targeting first and foremost government bonds. We can read it through the lenses of an Economic Policy or through the lenses of a Constitutional law and Politics. From both perspectives, the ruling contains useful insights that clarify some complicated institutional questions and shed light on economic policy options available to the ECB and to EU/Eurozone Member States. The fact that this ruling comes in the midst of an unprecedented global economic crisis, stemming from the radical measures enacted all over the world to combat the coronavirus pandemic, makes it even more critical for investors to understand its rationale and contending claims.

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Africa Business Intelligence ENG European Union

Towards a renewed partnership between the European Union and Africa

Over the past few years, the African continent has relaunched its efforts of integration, through the reform of the African Union and the launch of the AfCFTA. By 2050 the population of Africa will have doubled. By relying on its increasingly well-educated youth, it could release its extraordinary economic potential. This transformation represents an historic opportunity for binding the African and European continents to each other, something that Robert Schuman wished for several decades ago. To achieve this, it is fundamental to articulate the North-South and South-South cooperation logics in order to encourage the emergence of an economic ecosystem that is both integrated and modular. Morocco’s experience is edifying in this respect. The new European executive, after the May 2019 elections, should make integration with Africa a strategic priority. This is not only a stake for the future. It is an existential imperative for Europe, at a time when security and migration threats are intensifying. It is particularly true if Europe want to continue to have an impact in the world, when faced with giants such as China and the United States.

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Africa Business Intelligence ENG European Union

The two shores of the Mediterranean have better to share than the management of the migration crisis

North and South must develop a bold common policy that relies more on the dynamism of the private sector and civil societies, plead Karim Amellal and Alexander Kateb

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Bonds Economy ENG European Union Eurozone Macro Analysis Sovereign Bonds

Macro focus: The Italian conundrum and the way forward

Habemus Governum. It took months to reach an agreement between the competing “anti-system” parties that have emerged from the last Italian general elections, the M5S and the Lega, and to get the approval stamp of the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, on the proposed Cabinet members, which was effectively achieved after a reshuffle of the […]

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Economy ENG European Union

Europe : the enduringly nonexistent power

It is one of the most interesting paradoxes of our world. The European Union has a population of almost half a billion inhabitants, spanned across more than two dozens of distinct political constituencies, and it boasts the largest economy and consumption market in the world. Yet it is entirely devoid of any true state-like sovereignty. […]