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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Commission helps resume trade in European pork and poultry to the Republic of Korea
As a result of intense high-level engagement between the European Commission and the Republic of Korea, EU countries can, as of today, export pork and poultry to the Republic of Korea more easily. The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs of the Republic of Korea (MAFRA) has decided to remove a longstanding trade barrier […]
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EU investment screening and export control rules effectively safeguard EU security
Foreign investment screening and export controls play a critical role in safeguarding European security and public order. This is the result of two reports adopted yesterday by the European Commission: the report on the screening of Foreign Direct Investments (FDI), and the report on the Export Controls Regulation. In 2021, the Commission analysed more than […]
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Commission publishes market study on hotels’ distribution practices
The European Commission has published the results of an external market study on the distribution practices of hotels in the EU. The market study was conducted in 2021 and covers the period between 2017 and 2021. It focused on a representative sample of six Member States (Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Poland, Spain and Sweden). The study […]
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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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Commission makes second 12 billion payment to Spain under the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism
On Friday 29 July, the Commission has paid Spain the second instalment of €12 billion of non-refundable financial assistance (excluding pre-financing) under the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism (RRM). The payments made by the Commission under the RRM are performance-based and depend on Spain’s implementation of the investments and reforms outlined in Spain‘s recovery and resilience […]
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Where does your ice cream come from?
In 2020, the EU produced over 2.9 billion litres of ice cream, representing a 9% decline from the previous year. Over the same period, EU Member States exported 232 million kilograms of ice cream to non-EU countries, worth a total of €752 million. In addition, imports of ice cream from countries outside the EU amounted to 79 […]
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