2022 has shown how important it is to live in homes that can protect us from the reckless actions of petrostates, and from skyrocketing fossil energy prices. For many families, it will be hard, if not impossible, to enjoy the Christmas period in healthy and comfortable homes. EU institutions, including the European Central Bank (ECB), can make sure that this will be the last Christmas of this kind.
The ECB is expected to pay around €40 billion in net interest income to banks on the overnight deposits that they keep with the central bank. This estimated figure will jump to €53.7 billion if the ECB decides to increase the interest rate on its deposit facility (DF) from the current 1.5% to 2% on December 15. France and Germany expected to profit the most in absolute terms. We provide the implications of these purely accounting-induced profits for the wider banking system and the real economy.
As bills rise, the planet gets hotter, and the energy crisis rages, fuelled by foreign fossil fuel exports, it’s clear that we cannot continue to burn fossil fuels as we do now. In the European Union (EU), buildings are currently responsible for 36% of carbon emissions – we need to take urgent measures to reduce energy use in our homes. Our people-powered “Unlock” campaign is based on three key demands to make this happen.
A new study traces how climate change became a topic in Europe’s monetary policy. Utilising a novel and extensive dataset, it shows how the European Parliament, early on, called for a greener monetary policy and eventually allied with members of the ECB to forge a consensus on monetary policy and climate change. The study was financially supported by Positive Money Europe and authored by Dr. Elsa Massoc, a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for the Advanced Studies of Law and Finance.
In 2021, the ECB embraced a major shift in thinking by adopting a roadmap on climate change. However, given the urgency of the environmental breakdown and the current energy costs crisis, progress remains too slow. Together with 16 partner NGOs, we offer the ECB recommendations on how to best implement the ECB’s climate strategy.
New research by Positive Money Europe and WWF proposes expanding the role of Eurosystem’s own internal credit assessment systems, the so-called ICASs, to integrate climate and environmental risks. We see the increasing role and potential of C&E risk integration into ICASs as a concrete, workable and impactful way to green the collateral framework.
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