The Sound of Economics

Two years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the European Union has held together rather than let the conflict divide it. Rebecca Christie discusses the EU’s shifts on trade, energy security and economic cooperation with André Sapir and Ben McWilliams . They discuss how the bloc weaned itself off Russian fossil fuels in record time, adjusted its relationship with China, and managed rel...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Rebecca Christie is joined by Bertin Martens , Bruegel Senior fellow and Werner Stengg , expert of EVP Margrethe Vestager’s cabinet. They explore the complexities of artificial intelligence (AI) regulation, focusing on the European Union's AI Act. They discuss the goals and potential effectiveness of the new artificial intelligence rules, including in are...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Yuyun Zhan sits down with Alicia García-Herrero and June Park to talk about South Korea’s semiconductor industry, specifically how geopolitical tensions like China’s localisation needs and US export controls could impact the sector. They also discuss South Korea’s economic relations with both of those countries and how they are affected by the semiconduct...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Rebecca Christie invites MEP Johan Van Overtveldt and Bruegel Senior fellow Nicolas Véron to talk about the impact of the sanctions on Russian assets in the global financial system and what that means in terms of systemic risk for Belgium, for Europe and for the world. They discuss possible avenues where the EU could utilise 200 billion frozen Russian ass...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Rebecca Christie sits down with Oya Celasun , Deputy Director of the International Monetary Fund’s European Department, and Jeromin Zettelmeyer , Director of Bruegel, to talk about EU competitiveness. They define what the term means; discuss whether the EU has a competitiveness problem; and if so, how it can be fixed.

In the final episode of The Skills podcast series, Rebecca Christie discusses with Duygu Güner and Francesca Rosso on skills anticipation. They talk about the new skills that are emerging and the impact of skills anticipation on education and training. They also talk about providing the required skills needed for the green transition and about creating a smooth process for all workers, regardless...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Rebecca Christie sits down with Nicolas Véron and Harald Waiglein to look at the status of Europe’s banking union. They discuss how the project started, how it is going and the political climate that has brought us to this stage of the project. They also point out the unfinished business including insurance, the crisis management framework and more.

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Rebecca Christie invites Chiara Criscuolo and Reinhilde Veugelers . The speakers argue that the current pace of innovation is too slow to face the challenge of climate change and that a range of barriers and market failures remain at the root of the problem. To resolve these, a mission-oriented industrial strategy for the green transition is needed. Relev...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Yuyun Zhan invites Alessia Amighini and Alicia García-Herrero to discuss China’s latest push to internationalise its currency, the Renminbi. They talk about China’s previous two attempts, its approach to internationalise the RMB this time around and the wider implications of a strengthened RMB. This might prompt other countries to try and strengthen their...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Rebecca Christie sits down with Isabelle Mejean and Niclas Poitiers to discuss EU economic security. They start with the various definitions of the term, how their research fits into the current knowledge gap and they give policy recommendations on how to strengthen economic security in the bloc in areas like diversification, industrial policy, anti-coerc...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Rebecca Christie invites Heather Grabbe , Jean Pisani-Ferry , Fiona M. Scott Morton and Jeromin Zettelmeyer to do a yearly round-up of significant economic policy developments from Europe and the world. They discuss the implication of wars and recent European elections, interest rate hikes, green investment, industrial policy, EU fiscal rules reform and d...

On 7 December 2023, the 24th EU-China Summit took place in Beijing, where President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen and President of the European Council, Charles Michel, met with China’s President, Xi Jinping and Premier, Li Qiang. Although both sides had various topics they wanted to address, there appeared to be minimal results. In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Yuyun...

Ukraine is an official EU candidate since June 2022. In mid-December 2023, the leaders of EU countries are meeting to discuss whether to start official accession talks. In this episode of the Sound of Economics, recorded on December 8 2023,  Rebecca Christie invites Zsolt Darvas and Heather Grabbe to look at the timeframe for the talks, the procedures and the criteria needed for Ukraine’s accessio...

About 140 nations have come together to agree on a 15% global minimum corporate tax rate and a way to make sure tech companies and other multinational giants pay their fair share. Putting these hard-won agreements into practice brings new difficulties and delays may mean a flurry of new digital services taxes. Furthermore, developing nations have pushed to put tax talks on the United Nations' agen...

Civil society plays an important role in skills development. In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Rebecca Christie and Duygu Güner are joined by two stakeholders from the civil society sector: Deputy Secretary General and Head of Policy of the European Association for the Education of Adults, Raffaela Kihrer and Sertaç Yerlikaya , the country manager of 42 İstanbul , a coding school in Türki...

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Rebecca Christie is joined by Ester Barendregt , Zsolt Darvas and Jeromin Zettelmeyer to discuss how to finish the new fiscal rules for the European Union before next year's European elections. They speak about whether the emerging fiscal rules might help or hurt efforts to fund the green transition. Also on the agenda is the latest developments towards f...

In this episode of ZhōngHuá Mundus, Yuyun Zhan sits down with Alicia García-Herrero and Giuseppe Porcaro , founders of the podcast and newsletter series, to reflect on their journey exploring China's economic dynamics and its implications for Europe. The hosts candidly discuss their motivations behind launching the podcast, explaining their original aims of providing a global audience with a nuanc...

The future of work has become a prominent topic for research and policy debate. However, the debate has focused entirely on paid work, even though people in industrialised countries spend on average comparable amounts of time on unpaid work. This ranges from simple daily chores like sweeping the floor and cooking, to more complicated and controversial issues like robots looking after kids or the e...

Geopolitical conflicts like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the recent Israel-Hamas war have added uncertainties to the global energy and financial markets. In this episode of The Sound of Economics, our podcast host Rebecca Christie sits down with Senior fellows Simone Tagliapietra and Nicolas Veron to talk about the intersections of war and markets. Together they discuss the energy and financia...

The 15 October Polish elections showed that the opposition leader Donald Tusk, former European Council president and a former Polish prime minister, has a decent chance of forming a new coalition government to take over from the right-wing Law and Justice Party that has been in power since 2015.  In this episode of The Sound of Economics, recorded 20 Oct., our podcast host Rebecca Christie sits do...

China's growth model, marked by excessive investment and a high savings rate, has led to the accumulation of local government debt and a skewed balance between consumption and investment. In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Giuseppe Porcaro and Alicia García-Herrero explore this debt burden with Michael Pettis , exposing the structural problem in China’s growth model which over-relies on in...

There is a huge skill mismatch and skills shortages in the EU labour market. In 2022, despite the all-time high employment rate (74.6%), we are still seeing the highest job vacancy rate of 2.9%, which more than doubled compared to 2012 (1.3%). In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Giuseppe Porcaro discusses the importance of skills-based hiring with Duygu Güner and Mona Mourshed . How can thi...

What can we learn from other forms of intelligence and personhood, and how can we change our societies to live more equitably with one another and the non-human world? In this episode of Read with Bruegel series, Giuseppe Porcaro welcomes James Bridle to discuss his latest book ‘ Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence .’ They discuss the effects of Artifi...

The EU has been using trade policy to export its standards on competition policy, environmental protection and human rights among other policy areas, which has famously become known as ‘The Brussels Effect’. But this could eventually get in the way of trade deal negotiations. For example, the EU-Mercosur Trade Agreement is bogged down by Amazon deforestation concerns since 2019.  But can the EU af...

At the start of the Covid-19 crisis, the European Commission suspended the fiscal rules that applied to member states to allow countries to use fiscal policy domestically to deal with health emergency. This suspension was further extended when Russia invaded Ukraine and cause a great energy crisis in the European Union. The suspension is now meant to be lifted in 2024 when the rules will come back...