Only strong economic growth will help Europe emerge from its crisis. The reforms implemented to date at national and European level have failed to impact the economy positively; this is due to excessive national, corporate, and private debts, the flawed banking system, the lack of structural...

The crisis in the European currency area is not over yet. Although the situation in the financial markets is currently relatively calm, the economic crisis appears to be bottoming out in most countries. Nevertheless, fundamental design flaws in the Monetary Union continue to exist. If these are...

Target 2 - the payment system of the Eurosystem - caused a controversial debate in Germany during the recent past. This report reaches the conclusion, that any fear expressed with respect to potentially too large risks for Germany is to a large extent unfounded. Rather, Germany should be...

Inflation in the euro area has been below the European Central Bank's target for almost a year now and it is also expected to remain at a very low level in the near future. On the one hand, such a low level of inflation is not in line with the ECB's objective. On the other hand, there is the...

The mobility of the labor force within the European Union--measured as the proportion of EU foreigners in EU-15 countries to the total EU labor force -- increased by approximately one-quarter to almost 3.1 percent from 2007 to 2012. This is primarily due to increased migration of persons from...

Greece finds itself at the crossroads. There is the imminent question if Greece should apply for a third public support programme. Government officials are confronting European partners with new calls for a de facto haircut on its outstanding debt. Another option would be to swap existing loans...

Since the beginning of the crisis, large Target 2 positions developed on the balance sheets of the national central banks in the euro area. At the height of this development in the middle of 2012, the German Bundesbank disclosed Target-claims vis-à-vis the ECB amounting to around 750 billion...