Life after Bali: renewing the world trade negotiating agenda. Bruegel Policy Contribution 2013/17, December 2013

The crisis has contributed to a slowdown in global trade volumes, with trade virtually stagnant in the twelve months to July 2013. In this context, fruitful negotiations in the World Trade Organisation’s 9th Ministerial Conference in Bali are crucial to sustain the institution’s credibility and prove that multilateral negotiations can still deliver success. WTO trade talks are the only ongoing trade liberalisation process that has development at its core. The Doha mini-package under consideration at Bali is a collection of watered-down but deliverable elements of a deal comprising agriculture, trade facilitation and special and differential treatment/less developed country concessions. Post-Bali, the WTO should aim to reverse the current disenchantment with multilateral trade negotiations. This means formulating a relevant trade negotiating agenda with an understanding of global value chains at its core. However, the transition to the new agenda requires a closure of the ongoing Round. The easiest way to conclude the Doha Round would be to select another discrete set of deliverables that fulfills the development commitment of the Doha Development Agenda, thus paving the way for a new Round.

Time for the ECB to bite the bullet. CEPS Commentary, 19 January 2015

This Commentary summarises the main reasons why the ECB can no longer delay launching a massive bond-buying programme, also including sovereigns of eurozone member countries, and why such interventions will indeed be effective in raising inflation, thus restoring the ECB’s credibility and spurring economic activity. A credible programme must continue either until an explicit inflation target has been achieved or the ECB balance sheet has reached the €2 trillion target already announced by the ECB’s Governing Council. Regardless of how such interventions will be undertaken, they will reduce interest-rate spreads between eurozone markets, but it is nevertheless important that the ECB designs its operations so as to avoid any implication of direct support or deficit financing facilitation for the eurozone’s most indebted countries. Finally, some kind of guarantee against first losses by the ECB on its sovereign bonds may be appropriate, while entrusting open market operations to each national central bank for their own sovereigns could threaten the very survival of monetary union.