On 7 December 2023, the 24th EU-China Summit took place in Beijing, where President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen and President of the European Council, Charles Michel, met with China’s President, Xi Jinping and Premier, Li Qiang. Although both sides had various topics they wanted to address, there appeared to be minimal results. In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Yuyun Zhan and Alicia García-Herrero invite Liwei Wang to take a deep dive into the expectations and outcomes of the Summit. They talk about the EU’s anti-subsidy investigation into Chinese electric vehicles, the EU’s trade deficit with China and China’s market access among various other topics. They also look at the road forward on EU-China dialogues and discuss the areas on which the two powers can work together more such as climate transition and artificial intelligence regulation. This episode is part of the ZhōngHuá Mundus series of The Sound of Economics. ZhōngHuá Mundus is a newsletter by Bruegel, bringing you monthly analysis of China in the world, as seen from Europe. Sign up now to receive it in your mailbox!

Ukraine is an official EU candidate since June 2022. In mid-December 2023, the leaders of EU countries are meeting to discuss whether to start official accession talks. In this episode of the Sound of Economics, recorded on December 8 2023, Rebecca Christie invites Zsolt Darvas and Heather Grabbe to look at the timeframe for the talks, the procedures and the criteria needed for Ukraine’s accession into the EU. They also discuss the costs of enlargement and what it might mean for the EU. Finally, they acknowledge the necessity for the union to show its solidarity with Ukraine, by opening official accession talks, helping the country to improve and reconstruct itself; and welcoming it to the EU when it has met the accession requirements.

About 140 nations have come together to agree on a 15% global minimum corporate tax rate and a way to make sure tech companies and other multinational giants pay their fair share. Putting these hard-won agreements into practice brings new difficulties and delays may mean a flurry of new digital services taxes. Furthermore, developing nations have pushed to put tax talks on the United Nations' agenda. In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Rebecca Christie is joined by Benjamin Angel and Pascal Saint-Amans to talk about the state of play in OECD’s global tax deal. They discuss the role that different stakeholders play in the developments, including the OECD, the EU, the US and the Global South. 

Civil society plays an important role in skills development. In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Rebecca Christie and Duygu Güner are joined by two stakeholders from the civil society sector: Deputy Secretary General and Head of Policy of the European Association for the Education of Adults, Raffaela Kihrer and Sertaç Yerlikaya, the country manager of 42 İstanbul, a coding school in Türkiye, Director of Türkiye Open Source Platform and Country Coordinator for the World Economic Forum's "Closing the Skills Gap Accelerator" programme. They discuss the need for cooperation and partnership among different stakeholders (industry, academia, government and civil society) in skills development, the role of civil society in building this partnership, and the importance of advocating for more involvement of civil society to help close the skills gap. This is part of a special Skills series of The Sound of Economics, where we discuss how we can utilise upskilling and reskilling initiatives to protect vulnerable groups of the workforce, how to build a resilient workforce and how to create a better functioning EU labour market. Relevant publications: Life skills and participation in adult learning, EAEA policy paper Partnerships and cooperations in adult education, EAEA background paper This podcast was produced within the project “Future of Work and Inclusive Growth in Europe“, with the financial support of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth.

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Rebecca Christie is joined by Ester Barendregt, Zsolt Darvas and Jeromin Zettelmeyer to discuss how to finish the new fiscal rules for the European Union before next year's European elections. They speak about whether the emerging fiscal rules might help or hurt efforts to fund the green transition. Also on the agenda is the latest developments towards fiscal rules reform, with the speakers giving their feedback on the current proposals. They also debate how to balance debt and environmental sustainability and whether there is enough political will to achieve fiscal rules reform. Relevant publications:  Zettelmeyer, J. (2023) ‘Assessing the Ecofin compromise on fiscal rules reform’, Bruegel First Glance, 21 December, available at https://www.bruegel.org/first-glance/assessing-ecofin-compromise-fiscal-rules-reform Darvas, Z., J. Pisani-Ferry and J. Zettelmeyer (2023) ‘Bringing the reform of European Union fiscal rules to a successful close’, Bruegel First Glance, 12 December, available at https://www.bruegel.org/first-glance/bringing-reform-european-union-fiscal-rules-successful-close Zettelmeyer, J. (2023) ‘Are the emerging EU fiscal rules green enough?’, Bruegel First Glance, 16 November, available at https://www.bruegel.org/first-glance/are-emerging-eu-fiscal-rules-green-enough Darvas, Z., L. Welslau and J. Zettelmeyer (2023) ‘A quantitative evaluation of the European Commission´s fiscal governance proposal’, Working Paper 16/2023, Bruegel

Alicia García-Herrero and Giuseppe Porcaro reflect on their podcast journey, discussing China's economic dynamics and Europe's transformation. They emphasize Europe's need for a proactive approach in industrial policy and strategic foresight. They explore the evolution of conversations around China and highlight the importance of objective information. The changing dynamics of EU-China relations and the importance of policymaking are also discussed.

The future of work has become a prominent topic for research and policy debate. However, the debate has focused entirely on paid work, even though people in industrialised countries spend on average comparable amounts of time on unpaid work. This ranges from simple daily chores like sweeping the floor and cooking, to more complicated and controversial issues like robots looking after kids or the elderly.   In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Giuseppe Porcaro sits down with Ekaterina Hertog and Fabian Stephany to investigate the road less travelled, Ekaterina’s research on the potential and the willingness of people to automatise unpaid domestic work. Around this topic, they discuss the aspect of work/life balance, the gender aspect, the question of services oriented towards the domestic work market and more. This was produced within the project "Future of Work and Inclusive Growth in Europe" with the financial support of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth.

Exploring the implications of geopolitical conflicts like the Israel-Hamas war on global energy and financial markets. Discussing the impact on energy markets, EU's response to military conflicts, and managing financial stability amidst geopolitical tensions.

The 15 October Polish elections showed that the opposition leader Donald Tusk, former European Council president and a former Polish prime minister, has a decent chance of forming a new coalition government to take over from the right-wing Law and Justice Party that has been in power since 2015.  In this episode of The Sound of Economics, recorded 20 Oct., our podcast host Rebecca Christie sits down with Non-resident fellow Marek Dabrowski, a former deputy finance minister during Poland’s transition away from communism, and visiting fellow Paweł Karbownik, who has been an adviser to Tusk in Brussels and during the campaign.  Together they unpack how the elections turned out and what might happen next: what political and economic challenges the new government will be facing, the progress it might have in the standoff over the EU budget. They also discuss how Poland will play a more important role in policymaking as the EU looks toward new rounds of enlargement in coming years.

China's growth model, marked by excessive investment and a high savings rate, has led to the accumulation of local government debt and a skewed balance between consumption and investment. In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Giuseppe Porcaro and Alicia García-Herrero explore this debt burden with Michael Pettis, exposing the structural problem in China’s growth model which over-relies on investment. This episode is part of the ZhōngHuá Mundus series of The Sound of Economics. ZhōngHuá Mundus is a newsletter by Bruegel, bringing you monthly analysis of China in the world, as seen from Europe. Sign up now to receive it in your mailbox!