Press releases

Three months ahead of the European elections, ifo President Clemens Fuest has expressed his concern about the state of the European Union. "The EU resembles more and more the Habsburg Empire towards its end, when internal and external forces were striving towards disintegration. The EU, its member states and parliament must take countermeasures. First, the EU must do everything it can to avoid a hard Brexit at the end of March," Fuest said on Tuesday in Brussels at the presentation of the European Report 2019 of the EEAG Research Group.

If no agreement in the Sino-American trade dispute is reached by 1 March – the end of the 90-day ‘ceasefire’ agreed by both country’s presidents - China could lose up to €171.3 billion in US exports, with US exports to China contracting by €51 billion.

The budget plans of the new Italian government have the potential to trigger a new financial crisis, according to EconPol Europe researcher Timo Wollmershäuser.

EconPol Europe, the European network for economic and fiscal policy research, has welcomed five new associate partners to expand its reach into Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland. The new associates join founding partners in Germany, France, the UK, Finland, Austria, Italy and Belgium to take the total number of university and non-university institutions in the network to 14.

The authors of a report released by EconPol Europe have urged the UK and EU to drop the backstop solution for Northern Ireland and instead lift the time limit on the provisional agreement while working on an ambitioned customs union.