Research

«La réforme devrait directement aider à réduire la volatilité ayant caractérisé les prix de l’électricité, ce qui encouragera les investissements, tant dans les capacités industrielles que dans l’électricité bas-carbone, estime Elisabetta Cornago, chercheuse senior du Centre for European Reform.

There’s a big and troubling issue here though, as well described in this recent Centre for European Reform paper on IMF lending by Sander Tordoir and Tobias Krahnke. Normally, high demand for IMF resources comes at a time of low or at least falling official interest rates, such as the 2008 global financial crisis. (Makes sense: low growth leads to both debt problems and central banks loosening.)

El debate sobre la política europea de inmigración y asilo ha cobrado un cariz “tóxico”, afirma la analista Camino Mortera-Martínez, jefa de la oficina europea del Centre for European Reform (CER), un think tank con sedes en Londres, Bruselas y Berlín. 

Sander Tordoir, from the Centre for European Reform, calculates that surging global interest rates mean that the IMF’s lending to debtor countries could be charged at rates as high as 8 per cent.“In some cases the burden of paying high interest rates to the IMF is worsening rather than alleviating countries’ budgetary woes and hampering their prospects of economic recovery,” Tordoir said. He thinks that the fund should introduce a temporary cap on its lending rates to avoid imposing punishing costs on the world’s poorest countries.

“To me, it is not only a question of what to do about the people that want to come in,” said Camino Mortera Martinez, who leads the Brussels office of the Centre for European Reform. “It is also what to do about the people who are in and not necessarily complying with rules.”