The Sound of Economics

Nicolas Véron and Harald Waiglein discuss the origins and challenges of Europe's banking union in this episode. They cover the integration of supervision, resolution, and deposit insurance, the importance of international cooperation, and the unfinished business in the framework. They also explore the regulatory treatment of sovereign exposures, maintaining confidence in the banking sector, and adopting a best practice model.

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Rebecca Christie invites Chiara Criscuolo and Reinhilde Veugelers. The speakers argue that the current pace of innovation is too slow to face the challenge of climate change and that a range of barriers and market failures remain at the root of the problem. To resolve these, a mission-oriented industrial strategy for the green transition is needed. Relevant publication: Industrial strategies for Europe’s green transition, Chapter by Chiara Criscuolo, Antoine Dechezlepretre and Guy Lalanne, Bruegel Blueprint (Sparking Europe’s new industrial revolution: A policy for net zero, growth and resilience), July 2023  Did COVID-19 accelerate the green transition? OECD paper, June 2023 Industrial policy and strategies, OECD project Quantifying industrial strategies, OECD project

The podcast discusses China's latest attempt to internationalize its currency, the RMB. They explore China's previous attempts, its current approach, and the potential implications. The experts also discuss the impact on the euro compared to the dollar and the potential fragmentation of the global financial system. Strategies to strengthen the euro and the rise of the RMB are also explored.

The podcast explores the concept of EU economic security, trade disruptions, and policy recommendations. Topics covered include securitization of economic policy, protecting economic interests, diversification, industrial policies, and the lack of incentives for companies to tackle risks in certain countries.

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Rebecca Christie invites Heather Grabbe, Jean Pisani-Ferry, Fiona M. Scott Morton and Jeromin Zettelmeyer to do a yearly round-up of significant economic policy developments from Europe and the world. They discuss the implication of wars and recent European elections, interest rate hikes, green investment, industrial policy, EU fiscal rules reform and digital regulations.

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