Economy
ECB vice-president argues deeper European integration can cushion geopolitical shocks
ECB vice-president Boris Vujčić argues that Europe should respond to geopolitical and energy shocks by completing its Single Market rather than retreating from openness. He says fragmented rules act like large internal tariffs, weaken cross-border investment and leave the euro area with less risk-sharing than the United States. His proposed remedies include deeper energy and capital-market integration, European deposit insurance and resilient payment infrastructure. The speech is an ECB policy argument, not a neutral forecast or adopted program, and its estimates are largely institutionally sourced.
Editorial summary · Publisher article
What matters
- ECB estimates put internal barriers at tariff equivalents of about 67% for goods and 95% for services, though these are upper-bound estimates.
- Around 70% of US state-level output shocks are absorbed through markets and fiscal transfers, versus about 30% in the euro area.
- Vujčić says reducing internal barriers by 2% could offset the projected GDP effect of higher US tariffs.
The proposed policy direction
The speech calls for completing banking and capital-markets union, adding European deposit insurance, harmonizing selected rules and building European retail and wholesale payment infrastructure.
The central argument
Vujčić presents openness and resilience as mutually reinforcing: deeper integration would spread shocks across countries, support investment and reduce dependence on concentrated external suppliers.
Context & caveats
- The evidence and recommendations come from an ECB official’s speech and cited ECB research; the proposal is not itself a policy decision.
Why this made the edition
A substantial first-party ECB speech presents a coherent economic argument supported by numerous cited ECB estimates, including concrete measures of European market fragmentation and proposed resilience reforms.
Source material