Sven Giegold

Month: March 2020

Failed European Council: Fatal sign for Europe’s cohesion!

Yesterday the European heads of state and government held a video conference until late in the evening to discuss joint responses to the Corona crisis. In the absence of agreement among EU Member States, they instructed the Eurogroup to prepare a fiscal policy response within two weeks. However, the Eurogroup had been unable to reach […]

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European Council: Green MEPs call on EU leaders to create Eurobond as response to corona crisis

Today, European heads of government are holding a video conference to discuss a European response to the crisis caused by the coronavirus. Leaders are expected to present a fiscal policy response to the severe economic shock, most likely through ESM precautionary credit lines. Yesterday, nine EU member states including France, Italy and Spain, but also […]

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Corona crisis: Prudential supervisors must restrict banks’ dividends and bonuses

On 12 March, the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), ECB’s supervisory arm, and the European Banking Authority (EBA) announced measures to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on the EU banking sector. The two bodies linked their capital relief for banks with expectations “to use the positive effects coming from these measures to support the economy and […]

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Corona crisis: KfW loans for Italian SMEs would show European solidarity

A solidarity loan of the German promotional bank KfW to the Italian promotional bank is intended to support liquidity aid for small and medium-sized enterprises in Italy which has been particularly hard hit by the Corona crisis. A volume of 1 billion euros would be a first step. This is the gist of a joint […]

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ECON-Coordinators and Chair call for new ESM instrument for euro countries hit by corona crisis

Today a pro-European majority of the coordinators of the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, together with the committee chairwoman, issued a press release on the European response to the economic crisis triggered by the coronavirus. MEPs call for stronger measures at European level than those agreed by euro finance ministers on Monday. In […]

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Eurogroup on corona crisis: Ministers missed the opportunity to give a European response

Yesterday the finance ministers of the euro countries met in a video conference. On the agenda was the reaction of the euro countries to the economic impact of Covid-19 and the ministers did not reach any agreement on new collective or coordinated measures, only accepting the initiatives by the Commission, the EBA and the ECB, […]

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