Eurozone
Risk discrimination 'essential', argues Bank of Spain deputy
Fernando Restoy rebuffs 'excessively simplistic approaches that prevent capital requirements being adapted to each bank's business model'
IMF warns recapitalisation of Slovenian banks is a 'stop-gap solution'
Report urges deeper reforms of under-capitalised corporate and banking sectors; says ECB comprehensive risk assessment expected later this year could expose additional capital shortfalls
IMF paper models sovereign restructuring in monetary union
Paper prepared by economists in IMF's fiscal affairs department shows the restructuring country's economy would suffer more if its residents hold most of its sovereign debt
ECB working paper says sovereign spreads driven by fundamentals
Paper finds that before the crisis, eurozone sovereign spreads were somewhat decoupled from fundamentals, but since then, country-specific factors have played a bigger role than regional contagion
ECB's Cœuré says euro members 'not strong enough to survive on their own'
Executive board member urges return to 'original vision'; says banking union 'not achieved by mutualising risks' and calls for increased German consumption
Constâncio predicts ‘gradual decline’ in size of eurozone banking sector
European Central Bank vice-president says companies will increasingly turn to capital markets instead of banks for their financing needs
Maltese governor says ECB’s policy will ‘take a while’ to hit periphery
Josef Bonnici attributes the drop in loans to the private sector in the eurozone’s stressed countries to the ‘weak and uneven’ monetary policy transmission mechanism
Eurozone household debt varies based on institutions, paper finds
Repossession periods are the strongest single determinant of the distribution of secured debt in different member states of the eurozone, with fewer borrowers where repossession periods are longer
Lithuania on track to join euro at second time of asking
The Bank of Lithuania has started publishing regular forecasts that keep track of the country’s progress towards meeting the convergence criteria necessary for accession to the eurozone
Bundesbank’s Dombret defends Germany’s current account surplus
Andreas Dombret says the strength of German households, businesses and public sector is a stabilising factor for the eurozone as a whole; calls for acceptance of the structural differences between economies
Greek paper finds Turkish economy bucks EU trends
Academics use a GVAR model to examine interlinkages between southeast European economies and how they react to eurozone macroeconomic policy; Turkey bucks trends followed by EU members
Bundesbank warns on ‘moral hazard' from low interest rate environment
Bundesbank's latest annual financial stability report fears insurance companies and banks are losing out in the low interest rate environment; deputy says ‘primary law' must change for SRM to work
Latvia central bank brings rates and rules in line with eurozone
Bank of Latvia slashes rates to match ECB's ultra-low 0.25%; economists say the move, along with new regulations, was designed purely to ready the country to join the eurozone in January
Mersch tells Greece not to forget future generations
Executive board member praises country for its ‘extraordinary efforts to refute the naysayers’, but warns hesitation now will force future generations to bear the burden of past mistakes
Fall in OECD inflation highlights advanced economy monetary policy dilemmas
New OECD figures show lower annual inflation rates despite Japanese CPI turning positive; pressure mounts on ECB and Fed to counteract trend, but analysts unsure with what tools
Poland's business cycle largely a function of EU developments
According to IMF paper, eurozone developments explain 50% of Poland's output and interest rate business cycle variance, but only 25% of changes in headline inflation
IMF's Lipton says Germany faces grave risks from global 'mismanagement'
Fund's first deputy managing director pleads with European powerhouse to 'lift its sights to the global horizon as well' as it carries on the work of the European project
ECB's Cœuré urges eurozone to take lessons from Asia
Executive board member says governments' response to the Asian financial crisis, including overhaul of domestic financial sectors, made for painful adjustment but swift recovery
ECB’s Asmussen backs ‘allocative’ fiscal union
Board member ‘sees a role’ for a European fiscal union in ensuring resources are allocated efficiently; suggests other forms of centralised budgeting are less useful
Netherlands Bank says macro-prudential tools have ‘added value’ in currency union
Dutch central bank points to national and regional benefits of macro-prudential policy; says the ECB’s ability to intervene in an individual country’s policy will help counter the ‘inaction bias’ of policy-makers
Structural reforms could soften austerity blow in eurozone core, paper finds
IMF researchers use integrated monetary and fiscal model to find core eurozone countries could offset the pain of austerity through structural reforms; the periphery, however, is another matter
IMF paper finds macro-prudential policy can offset loss of monetary autonomy
Researchers build DSGE model of the eurozone to find optimal monetary and macro-prudential mix; find macro-prudential policy boosts welfare and ‘lends a hand’ to monetary policy
Commodity price shocks may unhinge eurozone inflation, ECB article says
Higher and more volatile commodity prices risk rendering conventional forecasts based on futures prices obsolete, with knock-on effects for inflation
Bank of Albania governor highlights impact of euro crisis on non-EU members
Eastern European countries that are home to branches and subsidiaries of eurozone banks fell victim to lenders' lower risk tolerance and insufficient regulatory coordination, says Ardian Fullani