The Bank of England, the Federal Reserve (Fed) and the European Central Bank (ECB) have responded to the crisis with exceptional initiatives resulting in a major increase in their balance sheets. After the ECB's end-2011 launch of three-year bank refinancing (LTRO), there has been speculation...

The response in 2008-09 to the global financial crisis was in many ways a high water mark for transatlantic policy coordination. The major economies of the EU and the US rapidly agreed on a series of measures to limit the crisis. However, the common approach has since unraveled. This paper...

Jean Pisani-Ferry and André Sapir believe that the euro has proved attractive as a fair-weather currency for countries and investors well beyond its borders. But it still remains to be seen if its governance is strong enough for it to succeed as a stormy-weather currency. The authors already...

Through Bruegel's role on the Monetary Experts Panel for the European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, Bruegel scholars contributed to the Committee's Monetary Dialogue with the European Central Bank meeting on 28 September. In this briefing paper for the Panel, Director...

The reform of euro area governance has been chosen by the heads of state and government in the EU as a topic for immediate discussion and swift decisions. The European Council in Spring 2010 asked president Van Rompuy to chair a task force on euro area governance. The task force is due to...

The single currency was expected to make balance of payments irrelevant between the euro-area member states. This benign view has been challenged by recent developments, especially as imbalances between euro-area central banks have widened within the TARGET2 settlement system. Current-account...

The crisis has underlined the strong interdependence between the euro-area banking and sovereign crises. To understand the role domestic banks have played in holding sovereign debt, a breakdown of government debt by holding sectors is required. The data shows that at the start of the crisis,...

The search for solutions to the euro crisis is based on a partial diagnosis that overemphasises the lack of enforcement of existing fiscal rules. Europe's leaders should rather address the euro area's inherent weaknesses revealed by the crisis. At the core of euro-area vulnerability is an...

[Introduction ...] The goal of this contribution is to take stock of the academic and policy discussions on the fiscal institutions of EMU, to confront the framework in place with what is known of the desirable properties of fiscal policy in a monetary union, and to discuss possible...

The euro area today consists of a competitive, moderately leveraged North and an uncompetitive, over-indebted South. Its main macroeconomic challenge is to carry out the adjustment required to restore the competitiveness of its southern part and eliminate its excessive public and private debt...