Italy and Europe

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, host Rebecca Christie talks about the economy and politics of Italy with Bruegel’s Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol and Francesco Papadia. Why does Italy always feel on the brink of a crisis, even as it has been one of the European Union’s strongest and most important countries since the bloc’s founding? With public finances that are outperforming France but growth persistently elusive, the country has a two-sided performance that will require – and may not get – significant structural reforms to stabilise. What will be the consequences for Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni from the upcoming referendum on the legal system? Her far-right origins have morphed into a complex mix of centrist and right-wing positions, an experience that could offer a window into the coming French elections. From 1941’s Ventotene manifesto to today’s war in Ukraine, Rome has been one of Europe’s most complex and important political centres.

On 12 March 2026, China approved its 15th Five-Year Plan, setting the country's economic and strategic direction through 2030.  In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Yuyun Zhan and Alicia García-Herrero sit down with Bert Hofman for a first assessment of the plan. They discuss its key priorities — from industrial policy and export-led technology growth to social policy and redistribution — and examine what Beijing's new blueprint means for the European economy. This episode is part of the ZhōngHuá Mundus series of The Sound of Economics. ZhōngHuá Mundus is a newsletter by Bruegel, bringing you monthly analysis of China in the world, as seen from Europe. Sign up now to receive it in your mailbox!

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, host Rebecca Christie speaks with Klaas Knot, former governor of the Dutch central bank, and Bruegel Director Jeromin Zettelmeyer about the big issues facing the European Union economy. Will euro-area inflation rise in response to energy price shocks from the US and Israeli attacks on Iran? How quickly can monetary policy respond when trouble emerges? How is the Dutch economy doing compared to the rest of Europe? Meanwhile, the European Commission has proposed an Industrial Accelerator Act to protect EU manufacturing from the onslaught of Chinese exports – how does it stack up against the status quo? This episode features insights from two of Europe’s top economists on the major challenges of 2026 and the role of the European Central Bank in keeping the euro-area economy together. Relavant research: Mathieu Segers Lecture 2026 with Klaas Knot (in Dutch) García Bercero , I, B. McWilliams, N. Poitiers and S. Tagliapietra (2026) '‘Made with Europe’ not ‘Made in Europe’ should guide EU industrial policy' First Glance, Bruegel, 10 February. McWilliams, B., S. Tagliapietra and J. Zettelmeyer (2025) ‘Reconciling the European Union’s clean industrialisation goals with those of the Global South’, Policy Brief 18/2025, Bruegel Steinbach, A, G Wolff and J Zettelmeyer (2025), ‘Rethinking the governance and funding of European rearmament‘, in Gensler, G, S Johnson, U Panizza and B Weder di Mauro (eds), The Economic Consequences of The Second Trump Administration: A Preliminary Assessment, CEPR Press, Paris & London. 

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, host Rebecca Christie is joined by Bruegel’s Elina Ribakova, Simone Tagliapietra and Guntram Wolff to talk about the US and Israeli strikes on Iran. What happens to energy prices as military action intensifies and the Strait of Hormuz is disrupted? If this conflict is a net positive for Russia, what does it mean for the ongoing fighting in Ukraine? How can Europe rally its defence industrial base? How does this complicate trade and political relations with China? Even if oil and gas prices rise only temporarily, this conflict will cause lasting shocks and force a new reckoning with the European Union’s energy dependence.Relevant research: Tagliapietra, S. (2026) 'How will the Iran conflict hit European energy markets?' First Glance, Bruegel, 2 March. Ribakova, E. (2025) 'Ukraine, Europe and the new economics of war' Opinion, Financial Times Mejino-Lopez, Juan, and Guntram B. Wolff. "Boosting the European Defence Industry in a Hostile World." Intereconomics, vol. 60, no. 1, ZBW – Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft, 2025, pp. 34-39 Hilgenstock, B. and E. Ribakova (2025) 'Why Russia’s economic model no longer delivers', Analysis, Bruegel, 16 July Dabrowski, M. (2025) 'How resilient is Russia’s economy after four years of war?' Working Paper 32/2025, Bruegel

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, host Rebecca Christie speaks to former EU Competition Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager -- now chair of the board at Danish Technical University -- and Ditte Brasso Sørensen, who leads Think Tank EUROPA’s Stocktaking EU project, about how Europe can reduce its dependencies without grasping for the impossible goal of full economic independence. How can the European Union make its state aid framework fit for purpose? Can Europe anchor its own AI companies, and how will the big US firms manage their European business? What is the role of clean technology and critical raw materials in securing the EU’s future? Denmark’s experience of European integration, particularly on key topics such as Greenland and the euro, shows how countries can balance sovereignty with shared purpose.Related research: Brasso Sørensen, D. (2026) 'STOCKTAKING EU - Taking stock of the Commission's first year', EUROPA, available at: https://thinkeuropa.dk/en/node/4391 Grabbe, H. and J. Zettelmeyer (2024) ‘Not yet Trump-proof: an evaluation of the European Commission’s emerging policy platform’, Policy Brief 03/2025, Bruegel, available at: https://www.bruegel.org/policy-brief/not-yet-trump-proof-evaluation-european-commissions-emerging-policy-platform 

China’s banking sector has expanded from a fragile, state-dominated system in the 1990s into the largest in the world. But this increased scale has not brought with it a shift toward market-driven finance, with the core logic of state-directed control over credit remaining a central feature of Chinese banking. In this episode of The Sound of Economics, Yuyun Zhan sits down with Alicia García-Herrero and Fraser Howie to examine how banks continue to serve state priorities, funnelling household savings into politically favoured sectors while sustaining local governments and state-owned firms.This episode is part of the ZhōngHuá Mundus series of The Sound of Economics. ZhōngHuá Mundus is a newsletter by Bruegel, bringing you monthly analysis of China in the world, as seen from Europe. Sign up now to receive it in your mailbox!

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, host Rebecca Christie talks about nature and markets with Bruegel’s Heather Grabbe and Estelle Cantillon, FRNS research director at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. They explore policy efforts to make protecting natural resources more of a financial priority, such as nature credits and nature shares, as well as the difficulty of setting up these kinds of systems. How can public money and private investors cooperate? How does a program like this avoid cheating, moral hazard and failure to deliver? Both government resources and investor buy-in will be necessary for habitats and biodiversity to find their way onto the world’s balance sheets.Relevant research: Cantillon, E., E. Lambin and B. Weder di Mauro (2025) 'Policy Insight 145: Designing and scaling up nature-based markets', CEPR Policy Insight, 145, CEPR Press, available at https://cepr.org/publications/policy-insight-145-designing-and-scaling-nature-based-markets Fiore, A. and H. Grabbe (2025) ‘Nature markets: how can credits and shares provide durable, additional finance?’ Policy Brief 20/2025, Bruegel Pisani-Ferry, J., B. Weder di Mauro and J. Zettelmeyer (eds) (2025) 'Paris Report 3: Global Action Without Global Governance: Building coalitions for climate transition and nature restoration', Report, CEPR Press, available at https://cepr.org/publications/books-and-reports/paris-report-3-global-action-without-global-governance-building

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, host Rebecca Christie sits down with Bruegel’s Pascal Saint-Amans and Roel Dom to talk taxes. What happened to the OECD global minimum tax and the digital services levy debate in the wake of Washington’s turn against international agreements? How is the European Union gathering resources for its next budget? What is the difference between a tax and a levy – and why does it matter? Tax policy is social policy, and Bruegel’s new EU Tax Observatory project will shine a light on what’s going on.Relevant Research: Christie, R. (2021) ‘Do robots dream of paying taxes?’, Policy Brief, 05 October, Bruegel, available at: https://www.bruegel.org/policy-brief/do-robots-dream-paying-taxes Darvas, Z., R. Dom and M. Lappe (2025) 'CORE concerns: why a turnover based levy is wrong for the EU budget’, First Glance, 22 July, Bruegel, available at: https://www.bruegel.org/first-glance/core-concerns-why-turnover-based-levy-wrong-eu-budget Dom, R. (2026) 'How the global minimum tax amendments could reshape Europe’s tax incentives', Analysis, 14 January, Bruegel, available at: https://doi.org/10.64153/WEHR5625 Dom, R., C. Greppi-Maturana and P. Saint-Amans (2025) ‘Shifting priorities, slow progress: an analysis of EU tax recommendations,’ Working Paper 29/2025, Bruegel, available at: https://doi.org/10.64153/SIZA8089 Saint-Amans, P. (2026) ‘With Trump, what is left of the global minimum tax?’, Newsletter, 19 January, Bruegel, available at: https://www.bruegel.org/newsletter/trump-what-left-global-minimum-tax Saint-Amans, P. (2026) 'Has the global minimum tax survived Trump?' Analysis, 13 January, Bruegel, available at: https://doi.org/10.64153/HIUN6608

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, host Rebecca Christie sits down with Bruegel’s Ignacio García Bercero and Ben McWilliams to talk about the evolution of the European Union’s carbon border adjustment mechanism, known as CBAM. When will companies start paying? Which countries and sectors will be hit the hardest? And how will cross-border carbon levies work for electricity markets, given how hard it is to trace emissions to electrons? We discuss what it means to crack down on carbon leakage and how the EU can make the most of its new tools going forward.Relevant Research: CBAM and carbon pricing: forging fair paths to climate stability, Bruegel Event, 22 May 2024 McWilliams, B. R. Stubbe and G. Zachmann (2025) 'The case for delaying the application of the EU’s carbon border levy to electricity', Analysis, 19 November, Bruegel, available at https://doi.org/10.64153/ZFMB9781 Zachmann, G. and McWilliams, B. (2020) 'A European carbon border tax: much pain, little gain', Policy Contribution 05/2020, Bruegel, available at https://www.bruegel.org/policy-brief/european-carbon-border-tax-much-pain-little-gain

In this episode of The Sound of Economics, host Yuyun Zhan is joined by Bruegel Senior Fellow Alicia García-Herrero and Jürgen Matthes of the German Economic Institute to discuss a growing concern for Europe’s economy: the undervaluation of Yuan, the Chinese currency and its impact on European competitiveness.Is China’s price advantage the result of productivity and innovation, or of deeper structural distortions such as subsidies, overcapacity, and currency management? And what policy options does Europe realistically have when existing trade defence instruments seem ill-suited to address economy-wide price and exchange-rate effects?Relevant research: Matthes, Jürgen, 2025, Yuan Undervaluation against the Euro: Unfair Cost Advantages for China?!, IW-Report, Nr. 36, Köln García-Herrero, A., T. Storella and J. Xu (2025) ‘European companies operating in China: from digging in to rethinking their presence’, Working Paper 14/2025, Bruegel This episode is part of the ZhōngHuá Mundus series of The Sound of Economics. ZhōngHuá Mundus is a newsletter by Bruegel, bringing you monthly analysis of China in the world, as seen from Europe. Sign up now to receive it in your mailbox!