Jean Pisani-Ferry

How to make the EU Energy Platform an effective emergency tool

The platform could become an effective emergency tool to safeguard Europe’s gas supply, but policymakers need to address challenges to make it work.

Fiscal support and monetary vigilance: economic policy implications of the Russia-Ukraine war for the European Union

Policymakers must think coherently about the joint implications of their actions and avoid taking measures that contradict each other.

The economic policy consequences of the war

The Ukraine war will have significant economic policy consequences for the European Union and its members, arising from the adverse supply shock trigg

Greening Europe’s post-COVID-19 recovery

This Blueprint includes some of the Group’s most prominent voices on the different aspects of the multidimensional issue of green recovery.

The failure of global public health governance: a forensic analysis

The emergence of the Omicron variant in November 2021 was a stark reminder of the high overall cost of the persistence globally of extremely unequal a

The Euro at 20

The euro’s advocates hoped that the single currency would deliver economic and financial integration, policy convergence, political amalgamation, and

The geopolitical conquest of economics

Although economics and geopolitics have never been completely separate domains, international economic relations were shaped for 70 years by their own

Global asymmetries strike back

This essay addresses an old question that international relations scholars view as fundamental, but which economists regard as secondary: that of asym

The end of globalisation as we know it

The tension between the unprecedented need for global collective action and a growing aspiration to rebuild political communities behind national bord

Is Bidenomics more than catch-up?

The Biden administration's promises to 'think big' and rebuild the country seem like a major historical departure from decades of policy orthodoxy.

Persistent COVID-19: Exploring potential economic implications

We see three main economic implications of a scenario of recurrent outbreaks: lasting border restrictions, repeated lockdowns and enduring effects on

The EU can’t separate climate policy from foreign policy

How to make the European Green Deal succeed.

Central banking’s brave new world

Ever since the 2008 financial crisis, central bankers have been busy developing new policy instruments to fight fires and ward off emerging threats. N

La dette : une obsession prématurée

Ce qui est malsain, avec la proposition d’annuler la dette, c’est le déni de réalité consistant à affirmer que l’Etat peut effacer une partie de ses e

The EU can’t separate climate policy from foreign policy

How to make the European Green Deal succeed.

The geopolitics of the European Green Deal

The Green Deal will redefine Europe’s global policy priorities; as such, it is a foreign policy development with profound geopolitical consequences

A Global Pandemic Alarm Bell

The appearance of new strains of the coronavirus in the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Brazil has given the world no choice but to design and imple

Résilience : la nouvelle boussole

Pour surmonter le choc de la pandémie de Covid-19, l’économiste écarte, dans sa chronique, l’idée d’un repli protectionniste, mais suggère de passer d

Grading the big pandemic test

COVID-19 almost one year on, it is time to assess who passed the test, and who failed.

Globalisation needs rebuilding, not just repair

An attempt merely to restore the pre-Trump status quo would fail to address major challenges; the task ahead is one of rebuilding, rather than repair.

European Union recovery funds: strings attached, but not tied up in knots

Ensuring effective recovery spending is a high-stakes challenge for the European Union, with the potential for derailment because of fuzzy objectives

Trump’s International Economic Legacy

If Donald Trump loses the United States presidential election in November, he will ultimately be seen to have left little mark in many areas. But in t

Europe’s recovery gamble

Next Generation EU, was rightly hailed as a major breakthrough: never before had the EU borrowed to finance expenditures, let alone transfers to membe

Financing the European Union: New Context, New Responses

With the European Union for the first time taking on debt to help finance the economic recovery from the coronavirus, new resources are needed to fund

The Challenges of the Post-Pandemic Agenda

There is a growing possibility that the COVID-19 crisis will mark the end of the growth model born four decades ago with the Reagan-Thatcher revolutio

A new policy toolkit is needed as countries exit COVID-19 lockdowns

Most governments have taken measures to protect vulnerable workers and firms from the worst effects of the sudden drop in activity related to COVID-19

The message in the ruling

The German Constitutional Court's ruling on the ECB's asset purchase programme is open to much criticism but it can hardly be blamed for raising an im

Building a Post-Pandemic World Will Not Be Easy

Both the COVID-19 crisis and the climate crisis highlight the limits of humanity’s power over nature. But while both remind us that the Anthropocene e

Facts, not words: the EU role in the de-confinement phase

The EU should be modest, but not shy. As far as public health is concerned, it is not in the driving seat and there is no reason to pretend it should

Monetisation: do not panic

The extraordinary operations that are under way in most countries in response to the COVID-19 shock have raised fears that large-scale monetisation wi

Will the economic strategy work?

Because even thriving companies can be killed in a matter of weeks by a recession of the magnitude now confronting the world, advanced-economy governm

A Radical Way Out of the EU Budget Maze

It can be tempting to treat European budgetary discussions as a fairly inconsequential distributional game. But with the EU's role increasingly focuse

Britain faces a triple contradiction

If Boris Johnson can negotiate agreements that are better than the EU system, it would be a serious challenge for the 27

Explaining the triumph of Trump’s economic recklessness

The Trump administration’s economic policy is a strange cocktail: one part populist trade protectionism and industrial interventionism; one part class

The Green Deal is not just one of many EU projects, it is the new defining mission

The EU has already invested so much of its political capital into the green transition that a failure to deliver would severely damage its legitimacy.

Understanding populism

Political identity is a group stereotype. As no camp corresponds exactly to our expectations, we choose the one to which we are closest and which is a

Europe can take a bigger role in providing public goods

The EU should invest where it can deliver more value than member states acting alone.

A Primer on Developing European Public Goods: A report to Ministers Bruno Le Maire and Olaf Scholz

This report was prepared for the French and German Ministers of Finance.

Europe: en finir avec la politique en silos

Projetée dans un monde de rapport de force dont les principaux protagonistes ne séparent pas géopolitique et économie, l’UE va devoir conduire un chan

Thomas Piketty's New Book: Impressive Research, Problematic Solutions

Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century blended history, statistics, and theory. Capital and Ideology his new magnum opus, is long enough

How to ward off the next recession

Despite confident official pronouncements, the deteriorating state of the global economy is now high on the international policy agenda. The OECD rece

Questions to the High Representative and Vice-President-designate Josep Borrell

Josep Borrell, the incoming High Representative and Vice-President-designate must explain how von der Leyen’s ‘geopolitical Commission’ intends to ada

Competing Globally: Europe’s Debate Over Trade and Sovereignty

This blog is part of a series following the 2019 Bruegel annual meetings, which brought together nearly 1,000 participants for two days of policy deba

Collective action in a fragmented world

International collective action is in search of a new paradigm. It cannot rely anymore on global binding rules supported by universal institutions. Ne

Dousing the Sovereignty Wildfire

In time, the current spat between French President Emmanuel Macron and his Brazilian counterpart Jair Bolsonaro regarding the Amazon rainforest may be

Retraites : pour la clarté

L’économiste regrette, dans sa chronique au "Monde", que les tensions internes au gouvernement aient conduit à s’écarter de la stricte logique d’un sy

How long is the head table?

An empirical assessment of concentration in global collective action

The Coming Clash Between Climate and Trade

The new leaders of the European Union, who have relentlessly championed open markets, will, ironically, likely trigger a conflict between climate pres

The threats to the European Union’s economic sovereignty

Memo to the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. The authors describe the current context and the increasing inte

Farewell, flat world

In the last 50 years, the most important economic development has been the diminishing income gap between the richer and poorer countries. Now, there

Faut-il s’endetter pour le climat?

Jean Pisani-Ferry, soutient qu’il ne faut pas s’interdire de financer une partie du coût de la transition écologique par l’endettement.

Redefining Europe’s economic sovereignty

This Policy Contribution delves into the position of the EU in the current global order. China and the United States increasingly trying to gain geopo

Europe’s citizens say they want a more political EU

The recent European Parliament election suggests that a growing share of European voters sees things differently from national governments. Whereas ci

L’euro sans l’Europe : un projet incohérent

Jean Pisani-Ferry constate que tous les grands partis ne remettent plus en cause l’euro. Il souligne néanmoins que trois vulnérabilités – économique,

When facts change, change the pact

“When facts change, I change my mind,” John Maynard Keynes famously said. With long-term interest rates currently near zero, the European Union should

Europe and the new imperialism

For decades, Europe has served as a steward of the post-war liberal order, ensuring that economic rules are enforced and that national ambitions are s

The case for green realism

The transition to a carbon-neutral economy is bound to make us worse off before it makes us better off, and the most vulnerable segments of society wi

The EU needs a Brexit endgame

Britain and the EU must try to preserve the longstanding economic, political, and security links and, despite the last 31 months spent arguing over Br

Fifty shades of yellow

Who are the Yellow Vests? What are the true roots of their uprising? And what do they want? Six weeks after they started rocking French politics and a

The great macro divergence

Global growth is expected to continue in 2019 and 2020, albeit at a slower pace. Forecasters are notoriously bad, however, at spotting macroeconomic t

Macroéconomie et gilets jaunes

Les analyses de la fronde des gilets jaunes ont surtout mis l’accent sur la répartition des revenus et des prélèvements entre catégories sociales et s

Euro area reform: An anatomy of the debate

A year ago, a group of 14 French and German economists joined forces with the aim of forging common proposals for euro area reforms. Their report gave

The global economy’s three games

In this column, Jean Pisani-Ferry portrays the current international economic and geopolitical order as increasingly reminiscent of chess. Three key p

Should we give up on global governance?

The pervasive gridlock affecting the traditional global governance approach calls into question the idea of broadening its scope beyond its core remit

One club does not fit all in Europe

In this column, Jean Pisani-Ferry argues how the EU can become a more effective global player, following the Policy Brief "One size does not fit all:

One size does not fit all: European integration by differentiation

The need for reform of the EU is increasingly urgent. The authors of this policy brief suggest a new governance model, combining a bare-bones EU with

Is Europe America’s Friend or Foe?

Since Donald Trump took office as US president, a new cottage industry in rational theories of his seemingly irrational behavior has developed. On one

Europe should avoid a no-deal Brexit

The UK government finally tabled a serious proposal for the country’s future relationship with the European Union (EU). The White Paper puts the ball

Ubu ou Machiavel?

L'administration Trump veut imposer une approche transactionnelle des relations économiques gouvernée par le rapport de force bilatéral en lieu et pla

Can Multilateralism Adapt?

Global governance requires rules, because flexibility and goodwill alone cannot tackle the hardest shared problems. With multilateralism under attack,

« Mieux vaudrait laisser les gouvernements libres de tenter les politiques de leur choix »

Les peuples ont le droit de faire des erreurs: Selon l’économiste Jean Pisani-Ferry, l’Union européenne doit accepter les aspirations légitimes à des

Mattarella’s line in the sand

The vital task confronting Europe is to reconcile citizens’ right to make radical choices with the need to ensure that decisions leading to constituti

La PAC n’est pas taboue

Dans cette chronique, l'auteur estime qu’une renationalisation graduelle de certaines politiques pourrait utilement contribuer à la nécessaire redéfin

The upheaval Italy needs

While Italy remains without a new government, it would be foolish to believe that a country where anti-system parties won 55% of the popular vote will

The Lesser Evil for the Eurozone

For three decades, the consensus within the European Commission and the European Central Bank on the need for market reforms and sound public finances

The EU’s Seven-Year Budget Itch

On February 23, EU members began negotiations on the bloc's multiannual financial framework for 2021-2027. But, with all countries focusing on net bal

The International Economic Consequences of Mr. Trump

What has fundamentally changed with the Trump administration is not that it behaves more selfishly than its predecessors, but that it seems unconvince

Reconciling risk sharing with market discipline: A constructive approach to euro area reform

This publication, written by a group of independent French and German economists, proposes six reforms which, if delivered as a package, would improv

A resilient Euro needs Franco-German compromise

In a piece signed by 15 leading French and German economists, Nicolas Véron lays out a path to a more sustainable Euro. Germany will need to accept so

Europe after Brexit: A proposal for a continental partnership

This paper leaves aside the issue of EU reform and focuses on the desirable EU-UK relationship after Brexit. The authors argue that none of the existi

Bruegel: an unlikely start-up

Bruegel was born out of an unusual openness to new ideas and an extraordinary coincidence of minds in the French and German Treasuries. The story of i

Bruegel year in review - 2013

EU-IMF assistance to euro area countries: an early assessment

This study provides an early evaluation of the assistance programmes implemented by the Troika in Greece, Ireland and Portugal. The study assesses the

Europe’s Troika should grow up

In early 2010, a group of men (and a few women) in dark suits landed in Athens. They belonged to a global institution, the International Monetary Fund

Deleveraging and global growth

Paper based on the Asia Europe Economic Forum conference of 21-22 January 2013.

La voie étroite de l’intelligence budgétaire

Le débat sur l’austérité budgétaire a repris en Europe. Ce n’est pas étonnant. 

EU-Korea Economic Exchange

Articles published during the Bruegel/Korea Institute of Finance project on ‘EU-Korea policy responses to the global financial and economic crisis and

An evaluation of the Troika's programmes in the euro area

Is the Euro Crisis Over?

Financial crises tend to start abruptly and end by surprise. Three years ago, the euro crisis began when Greece became a cause for concern among polic

Europe’s banks need to be recapitalised – now

Europe’s growth performance was disappointing before the financial crisis. It has been dismal since. Five years into the “great recession”, the r

Europe's growth problem (and what to do about it)

The issue: The European Union's pre-crisis growth performance was disappointingenough, but the performance has been even more dismal since theonset of

The Politics of Moral Hazard

It is an old and a never-ending contest. On one side are the moral-hazard scolds, claiming that one of the major responsibilities confronting policyma

Chypre : calculs, cafouillages et émotions

Une bonne intrigue combine classiquement le froid calcul des acteurs rationnels, la dose de cafouillage nécessaire au réalisme, et ce qu’il faut d’émo

A dialogue on Abenomics

The austerity debate: what Europe got right and wrong

Is struggling Europe on the right track?

The latest European Commission outlook forecasts 2014 unemployment rates above 25 per cent in Greece and Spain, in the vicinity of 15 per cent in Irel

What Mr Rehn should tell France.

When he presents the forecasts on Friday, should Olli Rehn, the commission’s vice-president, coerce governments in France and other countries int

L’Europe en morceaux

Avec un David Cameron acharné à préserver son rabais et à dégraisser la bureaucratie bruxelloise et un François Hollande soucieux de sauvegarder

L’euro fort : fausses frayeurs et vrais dangers

Les dirigeants français, François Hollande en tête, s’alarment de la remontée de l’euro. Leurs homologues allemands rétorquent qu’il n’est pas suréval

The eurozone will muddle through (again)

At the last European Council summit of 2012, politicians decided to go ahead with the banking union while ending their reflections on fiscal union the