Friday

29th Mar 2024

Ticker

EU's Iran trade chief forced to quit

EU plans to trade with Iran despite US sanctions suffered a blow on Thursday with the resignation of Bernd Erbel, a German diplomat who was to run the EU's so-called Instex Iran trade entity, in an anti-semitism fiasco. Erbel bowed out when German newspaper Bild noted he had twice appeared on radio with a Holocaust-denier. The US ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, and Israel, welcomed Erbel's resignation.

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Opinion

EU Modernisation Fund: an open door for fossil gas in Romania

Among the largest sources of financing for energy transition of central and eastern European countries, the €60bn Modernisation Fund remains far from the public eye. And perhaps that's one reason it is often used for financing fossil gas projects.

'Swiftly dial back' interest rates, ECB told

Italian central banker Piero Cipollone in his first monetary policy speech since joining the ECB's board in November, said that the bank should be ready to "swiftly dial back our restrictive monetary policy stance."

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