The article addresses recent trends in the financing costs of various public and private sectors in the euro area and Belgium. It pays particular attention to the monetary policy transmission process via the interest rate channel during the crisis and notably examines the extent to which the...

Over the past three years, it has gradually become clear that consumer gas and electricity prices in Belgium are much more volatile than elsewhere in the euro area or in the three main neighbouring countries. The article first of all examines whether recent methodological changes to the...

The liberalisation of the gas and electricity markets entailed the establishment of new pricing mechanisms, including those concerning consumers in the residential sector. The purpose of the article is to analyse how Belgian gas suppliers have adopted those mechanisms. After a brief description...

The article looks at the energy markets from a macroeconomic perspective. It first describes the main trends in the production and consumption of energy. Belgium is characterised by a high degree of energy dependency, since it no longer has any fossil fuel resources and renewable energy is not...