Latest news with #MarioDraghi
Reuters
19 hours ago
- Business
- Reuters
Euronext beats estimates with double digit growth
July 31 (Reuters) - Euronext ( opens new tab on Thursday reported quarterly results that beat consensus as continued market volatility spurred trading volumes and investors flocked to Europe seeing the bloc's relative stability as a safe haven. Revenues hit a fresh record of 465.8 million euros ($531.7 million) with the group's net profit clocking in at 183.8 million euros ($210.3 million), an almost 30% increase year-on-year and above the figure of 172.7 million euros analysts had expected in a company provided consensus. Euronext CEO Stéphane Boujnah said he did not see market volatility subsiding any time soon. "It sounds like we have to accept that the volatility of decision-making is the new normal," he said in an interview. He did not expect the EU-Trump tariff deal to subdue volatility, pointing to asymmetries in sectors profiting from the scheme, the services deficit of the EU with the USA, and the fact member states still have to ratify the deal. Whilst market volatility aided trading volumes, it hampered IPO listings which fell from 14 to 6 year-on-year in another setback for the pan-European stock exchange which continues to struggle to attract new European listings. "When markets are too volatile, boats don't leave the harbour," Boujnah said. Euronext, which manages exchanges in Amsterdam, Brussels, Dublin, Lisbon, Milan, Oslo, and Paris, has been making overtures to other European operators in an effort to consolidate what former ECB frontman Mario Draghi, amongst others, has branded an overly fragmented market. This morning, the company announced it had launched a voluntary share offerfor the Athenian stock exchange worth 412.8 million euros. Boujnah reiterated his long term commitment towards a single integrated market. "Together, we can build market infrastructure much stronger than what we could ever do at the local level. Liquidity and scale is the name of the game." ($1 = 0.8760 euros)
Irish Times
2 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
The good, the bad and the ugly of the EU's budget draft
Earlier this month, the European Commission fired the starting gun on a 30-month marathon negotiation on the EU 's next seven-year budget. Brussels has proposed a nearly €2 trillion common spending pot that it claims faces up to Europe's 'new and emerging challenges'. Does it? First, the good. Brussels has taken some steps towards reallocating funds to today's priorities: infrastructure, defence, security, research and energy and industrial resilience. The exact numbers are already the subject of fights, even inside the commission itself. But just as important is the lack of controversy around the methodological changes to the budget. The commission rolls agricultural subsidie s and transfers to poorer regions into new national plans, to be proposed by governments, approved by the EU and checked against delivery to release funding. This marks a big shift, modelled on the post-pandemic recovery fund. Grumbles can be heard about insufficient funding and a power grab by national governments from local officials. But not about the basic principle of cash in return for demonstrable, mutually agreed reforms. READ MORE That is a quiet revolution from the habit of simply sending cheques to farmers and local governments; the most remarkable thing about the budget draft was the least remarked upon. Another change seemingly received without objection is the streamlining of the budget into fewer funding streams. This simplification should speed up disbursement and ease planning and co-ordination. Next, the bad. The commission has reprioritised its budget with a view to the changing geopolitical landscape. The commission's new spending priorities show it has listened to warnings in the Enrico Letta and Mario Draghi reports. But it has missed the opportunity to integrate budget politics more closely with strategic calls to unify the single market and boost productivity. A case in point is the ill-judged idea of lump-sum taxes on EU companies with large turnover. Brussels is right to seek new revenue sources. But any business levy should be designed within its planned pan-EU corporate code. Getting a share of the corporate tax base from companies choosing this regime is better than slapping a new tax on top of existing ones. The budget also fails to address the need for more equity funding for companies in key strategic sectors, set out convincingly in a report by the European Policy Centre (EPC) that proposes an off-budget instrument resembling an EU sovereign wealth fund making equity investments in the bloc. This is a good idea. So is the EPC's call to securitise EU-funded common European industrial and infrastructure projects. Both would boost the growth of badly needed pan-EU capital markets. A third weakness is the commission's lack of attention to providing investors with pan-EU safe benchmark securities. The budget draft does nothing to promote this. More common debt is a politically explosive idea. But it need not be raised for subsidising poorer members; a stronger justification is to fund an EU sovereign wealth fund. [ Every Irish person contributes €53.20 a month to the EU. We should be prepared to pay more Opens in new window ] Finally, the ugly. Brussels commits the statistical sin of using nominal numbers, which mainly reflect inflation, to claim a large increase in the budget. The relevant measure of resources is the share of gross national income (GNI) the budget allocates to common priorities. The last budget came to a little over 1 per cent of EU GNI. Adding in the special post-pandemic debt-financed fund, the total came to 1.7 per cent. The new draft budget is for 1.26 per cent of GNI, but after deducting the money needed to pay down common debts, it's a mere 1.15 per cent – an amount that will be further whittled down in talks. A proposal to spend a third less of an already tiny share of resources makes a mockery of all the strategic evangelising. This is a budget that ensures continued geopolitical marginalisation. As the great American philosophers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Omar Little have argued, if you 'come at the king, you best not miss'. If the EU wants to hold its own in world affairs, it must give itself the resources for it. Getting more now will be much harder after its initial lowballing. Success is more likely for off-budget ideas such as the EPC's, common borrowing for a sovereign wealth fund and a delay to paying down existing debt to free up funds. Both EU and national leaders accept they face unprecedented, perhaps existential, risks. They must now admit those cannot be addressed on the cheap. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
Irish Times
4 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
Every Irish person contributes €53.20 a month to the EU. We should be prepared to pay more
The European Commission's publication of its draft of the union's €2 trillion 2028-2034 budget, the Multiannual Financial Framework ( MFF ), once again opens up a tortuous two years of likely acrimonious budget negotiations. Twenty seven states and the European Parliament must unanimously agree – in talks as complicated as four-dimensional chess – a new package of political imperatives, from defence, immigration, climate change, industrial innovation and inflation to safeguarding historic programmes such as CAP and cohesion. By all appearances, this will be an utterly impossible reconciliation. Helping to steer a path towards it will be the onerous central challenge of next year's Irish presidency . And complicating that challenge for cash-strapped Dublin negotiators will be a plethora of threats to programmes that are particularly important to us to us – CAP; changes to delivery mechanisms; new demands such as defence; and arguments about the scale of increasing burdens on budget net contributors. In truth, according to Zsolt Darvas from think tank Bruegel , MFF spending needs to double to finance the climate transition and pay off its Covid-19 debts. His views echo those in an important report last year from former Italian prime minister Mario Draghi, calling for an additional €800 billion a year of private- and public-sector investment to revive Europe's economic competitiveness. READ MORE The commission's budget is more modest, some €1.816 trillion (plus €165 billion in pandemic recovery debt repayments), up from the current 1.1 per cent of union gross national income to 1.15 per cent. And all at a time when member states are all adamant they will not pay a penny more, although commission president Ursula von der Leyen insists unconvincingly their contributions do not need to go up. [ The Irish Times view on the EU budget: major barriers to getting an agreement Opens in new window ] Irish farmers should be pleased to see direct income payments to farmers ring-fenced. However, agricultural economists here worry that rural development and environmental support payments are to be hived off into a broader regional fund pot and are likely to be squeezed – similar to the cohesion fund for poorer regions, which was once an important Irish staple. MEPs from the regions are also already screaming blue murder at the 'renationalisation' or centralisation of regional funding – 27 national plans would replace more than 500 current programmes. They are alarmed it would substantially reduce regional autonomy and funding which makes up more than one-third of the current budget. Von der Leyen's juggling trick also involves fancy footwork in respect of expanding the union's 'own resources' – or funding from non-member state sources. Such taxation needs to be targeted so that it does not impinge on the domestic tax base and revenues of governments. Most controversially this time is the suggestion of levying a tax on companies with a net annual turnover of at least €100 million. This is expected to generate only €6.8 billion but is already facing determined opposition. Speaking like an Irish finance minister, Germany's chancellor Friedrich Merz has warned that 'there is no question of the EU taxing companies, as the EU has no legal basis for this'. Other proposed new 'own resources' include taxes targeting electric waste (around €15 billion annually), tobacco products/companies (€11.2 billion), a carbon border tax (€1.4 billion), and a tax on revenues generated by emissions trading (€9.6 billion). EU capitals will also worry how the new budget would affect the politically sensitive difference between national contributions and receipts. [ Proposed €2tn EU budget would increase funding for defence Opens in new window ] From 1973 to 2018 Ireland was a net recipient, in nominal terms, of more than €40 billion in EU funds. By 2023, 10 countries, including Ireland, were net contributors, and 17 were net beneficiaries. Top of the net contributors were Germany (€19.8 billion), France (€9.3 billion), with Ireland in eighth place (€1.3 billion). Poland was the top net beneficiary, receiving €7.1 billion. Ireland was second in net contribution per head, at €240 per person. Courtesy of our growing relative wealth (measured dubiously by 'GDP per cap') we displaced Luxembourg in 2024 in paying the most to the EU budget on a gross per capita basis – with every Irish person contributing some €53.20 a month to the union's coffers compared to the EU average of €25.20 and Germans' €29.70. Bulgarians contributed €10.70 a month. Net cash contributions have been seized on by many national politicians and the press as evidence that the countries of the supposedly indolent south are unfairly milking the system at the expense of fiscally responsible northerners. But the real benefits of membership to the countries of the north amount to far more than can be measured by such direct transfer figures. Apart from the progressive aims of redressing EU-wide economic imbalances, helping poorer neighbours and levelling the playing field, the EU provides huge indirect and non-cash benefits disproportionately to net contributing members such as Ireland. These include financial rewards from the European Central Bank in maintaining financial stability and financial returns, valuable access to the single market and research grants through the Horizon programme. Making the political case for increasing our contribution yet again will not be easy but it must be done.
Forbes
23-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
EU-Wide Plan AimsTo Nudge Researchers Towards Startup Life
Fderico Menna, CEO of EIT Digital says Europe's ecosystems are fragmented Europe has a commercialisation problem. The continent is home to a great many world-class universities, but their record on converting laboratory research into successful startup and scaleup businesses is relatively poor when compared to their counterparts in the United States. It's not an easy problem to solve, but a new initiative by EIT Digital is hoping to encourage more academic researchers to explore commercial pathways for the IP they create. Established in 2010 and part funded by the E.U., EIT Digital's mission is to drive digital innovation while also supporting entrepreneurship in Europe. Its latest initiative - dubbed SPIN: RISE - aims to address what it describes as the 'research-to-market' gap. It's a bold statement of intent given the deep-seated issues that are preventing Europe from matching the levels of innovation seen in the U.S.. So what can reasonably be achieved? To find out more, I spoke to EIT Digital's CEO, Federico Menna. Under Exploited Research There is certainly a problem to be addressed. Towards the end of last year, former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi published a report on European competitiveness. One of the observations in a generally downbeat document was that much of the research generated by Europe's researchers remained unexploited. Indeed, only about a third of the patents granted by Europe's issuing body found their way to the marketplace. In other words, there are a lot of wasted opportunities. So why is Europe underperforming? According to Menna, there are a number of reasons, not least an outflow of talent. As he sees it, the US, China and Europe are fairly evenly balanced when it comes to nurturing technology talent. However, around 60% of Europe's technologists and entrepreneurs have opted to live and work in the U.S.. 'These talents are the ones who are pushing the technology forward, bringing the technology to the market and creating global players,' he says. Regulation can have a dampening effect. The European Union - often for very good reasons - is rather fond of regulating, but Menna says this can be counterproductive when it comes to the development and rollout of new technologies. Capital is also a problem, with European VCs tending to be relatively risk-averse. Then there is the reality of fragmentation. There is a European Single Market, but within that, there are 27 ecosystems, each with its own regulations and IP protection mechanisms. 'The support structures are there, but they don't connect with each other,' adds Menna. There is perhaps even more diversity around technology transfer, with rules, attitudes and enthusiasm varying significantly between universities. Collectively, all these factors act as a deterrent to entrepreneurship. Encouraging Entrepreneurship EIT Digital's approach to solving the problem is to work with university Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) to identify research with commercial potential while providing entrepreneurial education for researchers. Menna says the idea is to create a template for all of the EU. 'The value of SPIN: RISE is that it brings the activities of TTOs and of entrepreneurial training to a higher level. We are trying to unify the approach across Europe without entering into the fragmentation of each individual member state.' How does this play out in practice? Menna describes SPIN:RISE as a pre-incubation program. 'The outcome of this is not a startup yet. The outcome is an entrepreneur or a researcher who is not quite an entrepreneur yet, but who is ready to take the next step. From there, we connect to our other programs, like Venture Incubation. That moves on to creating the company and getting the first investment.' The initiative is divided into two parts. The first is online and is to some extent focused on awareness raising - for instance, helping researchers to identify possible commercial opportunities. Then there is an on-site component. 'We allow them to have hands-on experience - refining their innovation, discussing the value proposition, meeting industry partners. This is where they begin to get their hands dirty and start moving away from research and into business.' The aim this year is to have around people 150 taking part in the online component and similar number going on to the advanced stage. The programs are delivered in tandem with delivery partners such as Bocconi University in Milan and SIBB in Berlin. Menna stresses that the program is focused on market verticals, namely smart manufacturing, digital health and wellbeing, cyber resilient societies and trustworthy AI, and dual use technologies for civil and security applications. It is, he says, a question of priorities. 'The innovation gap is across the board, and we will not solve it across the board. There are technologies where Europe will not catch up. There are others where Europe can catch up. And in the case of some technologies, Europe is in the lead and we shouldn't allow others to take the lead. For example, Quantum.' The success of the program will be measured by conversion rates. In the longer-term, how do these conversion rates translate into companies created and MVPs? Later on, EIT digital will track first customers and first investors. There are different perspectives on this. Earlier this month, the European Commission announced that the trading bloc was doing well on innovation, particularly when viewed through the prism of progress made by member states. This reflects the fact that the countries making up the EU have their own programs, ambitions and priorities. In that respect, EIT Digital's initiative potentially represents another piece of the jigsaw with a program designed to encourage technology transfer across the continent.
South China Morning Post
22-07-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Trump's tariffs have a silver lining as nations move to free up their economies
Most people hate and ridicule Donald Trump 's universal tariffs . But if there is a silver lining, it's that they expose the hypocrisy and self-defeating internal trade barriers that countries or trading blocs have built up over a long time, resulting in a huge drag on their own economies. That loss in potential earnings could equal or even exceed the tariffs Trump has imposed on them. Advertisement This has been the case, for example, in Canada China and the European Union . The tariff crisis has brought significant movement in removing barriers to commerce in Canada and China. As for the EU, it's harder to say. Mario Draghi's report on EU competitiveness made a big splash when it was released last September. It makes valuable suggestions on breaking down trade barriers – including differences in standards and regulations, and recognition of accredited qualifications – between member states. But in the intervening months, Brussels seems to have moved on to 'harmonising' the economies of its member states on a common war footing, based on unrealistically high defence spending of 5 per cent of GDP. Nato and the war economy may be taking precedence over commerce and trade. 09:42 Trump promises to bring US manufacturing back from China, but will his tariffs work? Trump promises to bring US manufacturing back from China, but will his tariffs work? China's 'unified domestic market' In the mid-2010s, Maanshan was a fast-growing prefecture-level city in Anhui province, in central China. According to a World Bank report, private firms wanting to bid for mining rights there had to obtain approval from seven different local departments. Only local firms were successful, perhaps because officials favoured those with local connections, or because they were unfamiliar with outside companies.
