The geopolitical rationale for doing so overlaps with the imperative to tackle climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest report on mitigation underscores the urgency of that task. Total greenhouse-gas emissions must peak by 2025 if we are to avoid a catastrophic increase in global temperatures. Moreover, the economy-wide shift to clean energy must be […]
The Russian invasion of Ukraine confronts the European Union in a brutal, naked way with the question it has always successfully evaded under the guise of trade relations: How does it deal with authoritarian states that do not hesitate to challenge the values it preaches? What “lessons learned” can it draw from this? The EU-China […]
The European Union economy is gradually exiting its biggest recession since the Second World War. After a drop in GDP of 6 percent in 2020, the growth rate is forecast to be 4.8 percent in 2021 and another 4.5 percent in 2022.As the economy recovers, the fiscal exit strategy from this substantial support will be […]
Four years ago, we argued that the rise of electric vehicles (EVs) would upend both the auto industry and the oil market. As with the rapid displacement of horses by motor vehicles in the United States a century ago, the exponential increase in EVs would result in their takeover of the global auto market by […]
The MDR is a watershed. The requirements for market access of medical devices, for the life cycle of the product, and for notified bodies are increasing significantly. The new regulatory framework affects not only new medical devices, but also all proven and safe existing products, as well as specialty products, such as those for small […]
In 2021, Alphabet (Google’s parent), Amazon, Apple, Meta (Facebook’s new alias), and Microsoft were among the world’s largest companies in terms of revenue and profit. These five companies alone increased their market capitalization by an amount greater than Italy’s GDP ($2.5 trillion vs. $2.1 trillion). Big Tech now accounts for nearly a quarter of the S&P 500’s index and […]
The EU agricultural reform should have been a game changer, helping to achieve the Green Deal targets. But the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which was adopted by the EU last year, has not earned this name. What we see here is the exact opposite of an improvement. The promised system change is […]
Our world is interconnected. Whether telecommunications, navigation, environmental protection or logistics, whether education, health, disaster prevention, or the financial markets: Not a single one of our complex systems, with which we regulate our economy, society, climate protection, transport, and our international security, can do without high-speed digital networks. And none of them can function without […]
In 2008, as the global financial crisis was ravaging economies everywhere, Queen Elizabeth II, visiting the London School of Economics, famously asked, “Why did nobody see it coming?” The high inflation of 2021 – especially in the United States, where the year-on-year increase in consumer prices reached a four-decade high of 7% in December – […]
The global race for computer chips has accelerated, and not just because of the current supply bottlenecks. It also has to do with the intensification of the US-China conflict, in which China is seeking to rid itself of its dependence on imports of chips while the US sees technological advantage as a military and economic […]