u/innosflew

A country’s fiscal policy plays a central role in stabilizing its economy. Its effectiveness depends on the choice of measures and how monetary policy responds. This report compares four fiscal policy measures for a typical euro area country: increase in public investment and government consumption, reductions in consumption taxes and income taxes. Both the theoretical model and the empirical results for the euro area show that government spending has a stronger effect than tax cuts. Empirically, each additional euro of public investment or government consumption increases GDP by up to 1.30 euros in the first year, compared with about 0.30 to 0.40 euros per euro of lost tax revenue. Since the European Central Bank (ECB) generally does not respond to national fiscal shocks with adjustments to its key interest rates, monetary policy does not dampen the fiscal stimulus. To stabilize the economy in the short term, governments should give preference to well-designed spending measures. However, they should also take the risks into account, as higher government spending can jeopardize debt sustainability and weaken the economy in the long term through larger public sectors and higher tax burdens.

EU leaders have thrown their support behind the Hague-based International Criminal Court after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced new sanctions on senior figures investigating alleged Israeli war crimes.

Germany and France on Wednesday, August 19, condemned remarks by Israel's far-right national security minister, who declared that Israel should kill "30 or 40" people every night in the Palestinian territory of Gaza.

Russian citizens are withdrawing billions of roubles from the country’s banks over fears that the Kremlin could seize deposits to fund the war in Ukraine.

Global warming is the main driver of this year’s marine heat waves, with knock-on effects for ecosystems and extreme weather.

The European Court of Human Rights will begin welcoming visitors to its Strasbourg building on the first Friday of every month from September, as part of a new public open-days programme.

Ukraine launched 637 drones at Moscow and the surrounding region between Wednesday night and Tuesday morning, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said, marking one of the largest air assaults on the Russian capital since the start of the war.

If the concerts ‌scheduled for 10 and 11 October go ahead, the controversial US rapper would become the first major Western music star to perform in Russia since the country launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

A Russian court sentenced an opposition politician to 11 years and one month in a penal colony for speaking against President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the latest anti-war figure to be jailed in a broader crackdown on dissent.

Lev Shlosberg, a deputy chairman of the liberal Yabloko party, received the sentence on Monday after being convicted under Russia’s laws against disseminating false information and discrediting the military. He had posted on social media a Daily Mirror front page in February 2022 and a video in which he argued for ending the fighting in Ukraine, according to a statement on his party’s Telegram channel.

Yabloko, which holds no seats in parliament, has called for a halt of Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine that’s now in its fifth year. Another deputy head of the party, Maxim Kruglov, was recently sentenced to seven years in prison after expressing sympathy over the deaths of civilians in Ukraine.

Earlier this month, Russia’s Supreme Court barred Yabloko candidates from appearing on the ballot in September’s elections to the lower house of parliament. The Court rejected Yabloko’s appeal and upheld the decision on Monday, the Interfax news service reported.

Ukraine’s strike on the Samara rocket plant and creeping gains in the Oleksandrivka sector signal a new phase of the war, where control of space internet, long‑range missiles and logistics hubs could matter more than another few kilometres of trench.

The head of Norway's sovereign wealth fund has warned that soaring AI-driven stock valuations could trigger a sharp correction. How exposed is the world's largest sovereign wealth fund to a market downturn?

The AI surge has driven US stock valuations to peaks last seen in the dot-com era, and research on past technological revolutions suggests a correction is likely whether today's prices reflect rational expectations or plain overexuberance. As a new technology spreads, sector-specific uncertainty turns into economy-wide risk that cannot be diversified away, so investors demand a higher premium and prices fall, though the timing is impossible to call in advance. The euro area's own market looks calmer, with lower valuations, an old-economy tilt and an AI transformation advancing at a steady pace. That offers little reassurance. Households, insurers and pension funds hold large indirect exposure to the Magnificent Seven through funds and ETFs, a correction can force redemption-driven selling that pushes valuations down further, and the two markets have historically moved closely together. With little room left to cut rates or spend, a US AI fallout would not stay a US problem.

“Flamingo missiles were used. A good achievement.”

“We stand with you,” Ursula von der Leyen says.

The U.S. on Friday threatened action against the EU unless Brussels reins in its environmental and human rights rules, which Washington says unfairly burden American companies.

Emboldened by support from the US, Morocco could be exploiting its border crisis with Spain to push for new concessions on the status of two Spanish enclaves in North Africa.

His comments, made during an interview for Israel’s army radio, played into a common far-right Islamophobic trope about Britain’s small Muslim population.

Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar on Thursday cast doubt on a deal struck by his predecessor that would see Russia’s state nuclear company Rosatom expand Hungary’s nuclear power capacity.

Ukrainian drone pilots teach the US military and NATO hard battlefield lessons.

Poles are building up wealth at the fastest pace in years, with the combined value of household financial assets surpassing 4 trillion zloty (€930 billion) for the first time, according to new data from the Polish Development Fund (PFR), a state entity.