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We examine whether COVID-19 has changed e-commerce habits in Spain based on card payments by CaixaBank's 13.5 million customers, which have been anonymised and analysed using big data techniques.

The protectionist agenda and the withdrawal of multilateralism by the new US administration could benefit foreign investment in the euro area, thanks to its stable regulatory framework, confidence in the independence of the ECB and plans to boost spending on defence and infrastructure. 

We are now almost half way through the year and it is time to take stock in order to update a set of economic scenarios in which the divergence in the pattern of inflation between the United States and Europe has been key to explaining the adjustment of interest rate forecasts.

The resilience shown by the international economy at the aggregate level, which is quite remarkable given the significant geopolitical uncertainty and restrictive financial conditions dominating the scenario, reflects disparate dynamics among the various international economies, with each one seeking to make an orderly landing amidst their own challenges. The US is experiencing strong growth and is seeking to normalise towards more sustainable rates, while the euro area is showing signs of less apathetic growth and China maintains mixed dynamics between industry and domestic demand.

Despite the reduction of the public deficit to around 2.8% of GDP, the Treasury’s funding needs remain high, with a projected net issuance of 60 billion euros. It will also have to deal with the end of reinvestments by the ECB and the impact of interest rates on public debt.

The COVID-19 outbreak has brought about a paradigm shift in many aspects of the economy, including consumer habits and, specifically, e-commerce in the retail sector. How have businesses that were already selling online pre-pandemic and the new entrants to this sales channel contributed to the growth in e-commerce?

In these liquid times we are living in – in which a moderately stable economic and political environment has given way to a changing, unpredictable reality subject to continuous transformation – from time to time it is necessary to pause and reflect on the key trends for the near future. That is what we try to do every November in our Dossier on the annual outlook.

We examine NATO’s reasons and objectives of increasing defence spending to 5% of GDP by 2035, and to what extent it is reasonable to expect the European Union to increase it. 

The global economy continues to grow at different speeds in Q2. In the US, the labour market is beginning to show signs of moderation while inflation continues its slow downward trickle; Germany’s weakness conditions the euro area as a whole, and China’s economy faces a modest outlook for Q3.

The latest available economic indicators suggest that the trends observed for much of 2024 remain in place as the year draws to a close: buoyancy and resilience in the US, weakness in the euro area due to the delicate situation in Germany and France, and a lack of momentum in the Chinese economy in the absence of decisive economic stimuli.

After analysing the extent of the fiscal boost in Germany, Spain, France and Italy to counteract the COVID-19 crisis, we examine the following question: which countries have taken more efficient and better fiscal measures?

The ECB has completed a monetary cycle, leaving the negative rates and unconventional measures of the last decade behind and significantly tightening monetary policy. During this cycle, the ECB has also adjusted the structure it uses to guide and implement monetary policy

We are therefore heading towards a context with higher tariffs and in which, most likely, there will be some reconfiguration of global value chains in an attempt to compensate, insofar as possible, for the loss of attractiveness of the US market. Consequently, we are moving towards a world with greater fragmentation, lower economic growth and the risk of higher inflation.