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This year, the ECB will not only continue to raise interest rates, but it will also reduce the size of its balance sheet. How will this reduction work and what consequences could it have for sovereign debt?

Russia’s importance as a global exporter of oil, natural gas and other commodities is the main channel through which the economic impact of the war in Ukraine will be felt, together with uncertainty and a new open front for global value chains that are already under stress.

The outbreak of the pandemic in 2020, and more recently the war in Ukraine, has accelerated the trend of decoupling between the US and China, and Europe also appears to have joined in, albeit somewhat timidly for now. We analyse the EU’s dependence on China in order to understand whether European strategic autonomy is possible, or even desirable.

One of the big questions of the moment is whether the current rise in prices will spread to wages. To answer it, we analyse current wage dynamics in the euro area and what path they might follow in the future.

The health crisis brought about by COVID-19 has forced large parts of society to quickly and unexpectedly adapt to remote working, a relatively minority practice in Spain prior to the outbreak of the pandemic. Does Spain simply lack the potential to telework or, on the contrary, does it has the potential but fails to exploit it?

The upturn in debt yields on a global scale has put the fiscal situation back in the spotlight. The case of Europe is of particular interest, since in 2024 the fiscal rules will be reinstated after having been suspended since 2019 due to the pandemic and the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. What the new fiscal framework proposes? Is the proposed plan more or less strict than the current one?

This year’s return to fiscal rules – as safeguards of the sustainability of public debt – and the persistent shortfall in investment needed to address the EU’s priorities in the current geopolitical context create a scenario marked by frictions that requires a coordinated fiscal strategy that far exceeds the horizon of national and EU political mandates, both in duration and ambition. Therefore, it is essential that the differences that exist, as well as some taboos that have characterised the EU’s economic history on other occasions, are overcome.

The energy crisis has served as an incentive within the EU to accelerate the transition to energy sources that are more environmentally friendly and less dependent on fossil fuels, but this is seen as more of a medium-term goal.

With the third year of disbursements of European NGEU funds now behind us. Have expectations been met? Are the investments and reforms being implemented as planned?