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In most countries in the European Union (EU) and in the rest of the world, debt is treated more favourably from a tax perspective than equity, with interest payments on loans generally being tax deductible. In contrast, costs relating to equity financing, such as dividends, are mostly non-tax deductible. This unequal treatment of debt and equity leads to a bias towards debt in businesses' investment decisions and can lead to high levels of indebtedness in the EU corporate sector. On 11 May 2022, ...

The interest rate cost of EU borrowing for non-repayable support, which lies with the EU budget, could be twice as high as what was initially estimated at the start of the EU’s 2021-2027 budget cycle. This Bruegel paper finds that the European Commission’s issuance strategy can still be improved to reduce EU borrowing costs at the margin. It should also continue to work on building market infrastructures for EU bonds. Moreover if EU countries want to reap the full benefits of EU borrowing, some political ...

This note provides an overview of the surveillance of the three Member States that have been assessed as experiencing excessive macroeconomic imbalances in the context of the 2019 European Semester cycle and according to the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure (MIP). Separate notes describe the state of play of the MIP implementation and the MIP procedure.

Existing proposals for reform in the euro area, including the introduction of an orderly sovereign debt restructuring mechanism and of forms of debt mutualisation, rely on similar implicit or explicit assumptions: The “diabolic loop” between sovereign debt and domestic banks is to be mitigated or avoided; market discipline has to be maintained; and moral hazard has to be avoided. This paper discusses the stated goals of existing proposals, together with their likely anticipated and unanticipated ...

The complexity of the SGP, which may have contributed to its limited effectiveness, reflects largely the conflict between the need to make the original SGP rules more stringent and the desire to allow flexibility with respect to various country circumstances. Now that the effects of the largest economic shock since the 1930s are fading away, a major simplification of the system could be achieved by removing some margins of flexibility, while possibly relaxing some of the SGP long-term parameters. ...

This briefing gives an overview of recent European Commission (COM) assessments of the budgetary situation of seven Member States (Portugal, Italy, Belgium, Cyprus, Lithuania, Slovenia and Finland) whose 2017 Draft Budgetary Plans (DBPs) were considered to be “at risk of non-compliance” with their obligations under the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP). This briefing may be updated pending new COM and Council decisions.

Interest rates are at historically low levels, both in the European Union and worldwide. For the euro area, a reason for low market interest rate levels is the accommodative monetary policy of the European Central Bank (ECB), which endeavours to increase inflation levels. Most of the time, central banks have to fight inflationary tendencies, but recently inflation was almost non-existent in the euro area, even leading to occasional dips into deflation. For some time, inflation was very far from the ...

This briefing provides an overview of the main issues relating to the restructuring of sovereign debt, and outlines the factors which impact the decision as to whether or not to proceed with debt restructuring. Restructuring is a complex issue – it involves positive and negative aspects, which need to be analysed in order to be able to determine whether it can deliver any added value. ‘A sovereign debt restructuring can be defined as an exchange of outstanding sovereign debt instruments, such as ...

Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem and Managing Director of the ESM Klaus Regling have been invited for an ad hoc Exchange of views relating to the macro-economic adjustment programme for Greece. Jeroen Dijsselbloem has been Eurogroup President since 21 January 2013. He was re-appointed for a second term on 13 July 2015. As the President of the Eurogroup, he is also chairing the Board of Governors of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM). Klaus Regling has been Managing Director of the ESM ...

Austerity or growth?

Briefing 04-07-2012

Government debt has reached unsustainable levels in a number of Member States (MS). This is because economic recession since 2008 has led to increased government budget deficits through rising spending (e.g. unemployment benefits) whilst tax revenues have decreased. Also private debt has been transferred to governments through forced nationalisations of, for example, under-capitalised banks. These deficits have added to public debt, which has been increasing since the 1970s.