The High-Level Expert Group (HLEG) on scaling up sustainable finance in low and middle-income countries meets in Brussels today for the first time kick-starting their reflection on the challenges and opportunities of sustainable finance in partner countries with a view to providing recommendations to the Commission on how to scale up funding from the private […]
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SURE’s success in protecting jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic
The Commission has published its fourth bi-annual report on the implementation and impact of SURE, the €100 billion instrument designed to protect jobs and incomes affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The report confirms and extends the findings of the three previous bi-annual reports, namely that SURE was successful in cushioning the impact of the pandemic and […]
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Bread more expensive than ever
Bread, vegetables, meat – food has become more expensive. Prices for cooking oils and fats have risen particularly sharply, but important staple foods such as bread have also become significantly more costly. This is particularly due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has significantly disturbed global markets since Russia and Ukraine have been major exporters of […]
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EU announces historic €715 million for the Global Fund
The European Commission announced a new record €715 million from the EU budget to the Global Fund for the period 2023-2025 at the Fund’s Seventh Replenishment Conference, hosted by US President Biden in New York. Together with the pledges from EU Member States, Team Europe confirms its strong commitment to the Global Fund with a total contribution of […]
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EU’s trade defence measures protect over 460,000 European jobs
The European Commission published its Annual Report on the EU’s trade defence activities of 2021. The Report concludes that 462,000 EU jobs were directly protected by the EU’s trade measures in 2021 in key EU manufacturing sectors such as aluminium, steel, ceramics and green technology. This shows that EU measures are effective in defending EU […]
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Team Europe has delivered €47.7 billion to help the pandemic
Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020, the EU, EU Member States and European financial institutions, as Team Europe, have disbursed €47.7 billion in support of partner countries in addressing the pandemic and its consequences, delivering on its promises with concrete results. This figure exceeds by far the initial €20 billion Team Europe support […]
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EU ministers agree statement in support of additional €5 billion assistance for Ukraine
EU finance ministers and Central Bank governors met with representatives of the European Commission and the ECB at the informal Ecofin Council meeting in Prague today. The finance ministers discussed the impact of the Russian aggression in Ukraine on the European economies and supported the swift adoption of additional financial assistance to Ukraine amounting to […]
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ECB raises rates by 0.75 basis point
The Governing Council decided on 8 september to raise the three key ECB interest rates by 75 basis points. This major step frontloads the transition from the prevailing highly accommodative level of policy rates towards levels that will ensure the timely return of inflation to the ECB’s 2% medium-term target. Based on its current assessment, […]
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Interview with Luis de Guindos, Vice-President of the ECB
Last Thursday 28th July, the Governing Council of the ECB decided to increase the key interest rates by 0.5 percent, which differed from the initial plan to increase rates by 0.25 percent. But has it not come too late? Other major central banks reacted to inflation much earlier. We started the normalisation of our monetary […]
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